"Yellow Spring Road" nomadic review 7.3 points Black and white sword blade killing experience

In the half-ruined town, a soaring fire was lit, but the two samurai ignored the danger on the side, and drew their swords out of their sheaths one after another, vowing to kill each other.

This rather Japanese sword-and-sword scene comes from a horizontal action game "Yellow Spring Road", which imitates the black and white film style of the 1950s and 1960s, and is committed to restoring the cold weapon combat of sword fighting. In terms of gameplay, this game is relatively simple, and the only thing players need to do is to kill all the enemies in front of them in front of them in the clearance-style map.

It is worth mentioning that this game has the participation of Flying Wild Hog Studio, which has developed the "Shadow Samurai" series, but unlike the style of playing treasure hip hop in "Shadow Samurai", "Yellow Spring Road" is much more serious and realistic. The protagonist turns the village that witnessed the plunder into a purgatory on earth, and carries the blood sea of deep vengeance on his back and embarks on a trial journey to Huangquan.

Black and white style sword blade piece

The most eye-catching part of "The Yellow Spring Road" is undoubtedly its very retro black and white picture. Occasional on-screen noise, flickering light and dark screens, and a 2.35:1 widescreen ratio give the game a strong old movie vibe.

Generally, black and white pictures contain fewer colors, and in too dark environments, if there is no good lighting, it is likely to cause the details in the picture to be pasted together, so as to affect the viewing experience. But the black-and-white graphics of The Yellow Springs Road effectively avoid this, not simply applying black-and-white filters to the color screen, but in many places there are light and shadow effects tailored to the game.

The horizontal scenes in this work are separated from near to far by means of differences in light and shade and light and shadow, making the lens full of depth. In order to distinguish between characters and scenes, games also often use very exaggerated chiaroscuro relationships. For example, in the fiery streets, the images of the characters are all made up of black silhouettes, unaffected by the surrounding flame light. Although this is not real, it not only highlights the sword fight each other as the focus of the picture, but also makes the scene look cool.

In addition, there is a class of features that often appear in "Kurosawa Akira"-style sword films - that is, weather changes, which add a lot of dynamic details to the picture. The wind that often passes through the scene will roll up a puff of smoke and dust, giving the picture more grainy. The heavy rain that falls sharply, or the fire in the village, all reflect the different emotions of the protagonist, or the sadness of fighting the mountain thief alone, or the fire of revenge ignited in anger.

In order to make the scene more picturesque, this work also pays great attention to the composition of the scene in the lens. Even during the battle, you rarely see close-up shots of the characters, and most of the time the game takes a more balanced approach to composition. For example, in a scene across a bridge, the game uses a more exaggerated vista to let the river take up most of the picture, and when the player carefully observes the river, he will inadvertently find the bodies of villagers who have been killed floating in it.

Interpret martial arts with a sword

The combat part of this game can be described as very pure, the protagonist does not have the popular "special ability", nor does he have special abilities such as hook claws and two-stage jumps, and even cannot jump, except for a limited number of throwing props, he can only rely on a tai knife in his hand to kill the enemy.

However, this work does not emphasize the "one-hit kill" of kendo as in the confrontation link in "Soul of Tsushima", nor does it emphasize the skill of using swords with three attacks like "Renwang". This game pays more attention to "combo moves", that is, relying on the combination of light and heavy attacks to play a new derived sword skill. In addition to differences in movement and damage, some of these sword skills will also trigger special stun effects, allowing players to connect execution techniques to kill stuned enemies in one hit.

In terms of action design, this work seems to pay too much attention to the "swiftness" of the combo, and ignores the sense of impact of the action. When the enemy and my sword swing action hits the target, almost all of them lack the effective feedback after hitting the enemy, so that each slash is like an empty swing, and there is no still frame that can cause "stuck meat". The sword moves in the game have thus become cleaner, but they have also lost a lot of their realism.

If the combo is the protagonist's "strongest spear", then the "strongest shield" is the "bounce counter" mechanism.

Many enemies are faster than the protagonist, and if the player blindly attacks, he will always be eaten by the enemy's first hand. At this time, the most effective solution is to use the bullet to let the enemy enter the big hard straight, and use this gap to shoot. At the same time as the bounce is reversed, the crisp sound of gold and iron sounds, and the game will also enter a brief slow-motion state, allowing players to clearly see the sparks that splash when the swords collide, which is the most fun part of the entire combat system.

However, the premise of the bounce is to carefully observe and accurately capture the enemy's shot action, and many scenes in this game in order to have a beautiful composition, pull the camera too far, it will cause the player to easily see the enemy's shot action, adding some unnecessary difficulty to the bullet rebound that originally needs to be accurate at the time point.

In contrast, the blocking mechanism that can enter the "defensive posture" in advance does not need to be so precisely operated. When the protagonist is facing the enemy, the defensive posture can achieve full automatic blocking, preventing almost all the enemy attacks. On the other hand, the block will also constantly deplete the player's stamina, and once the player's stamina is exhausted, it will fall into a state of fatigue for a long time, during which it is almost impossible to move, and the damage will be doubled, and it will soon be killed by the murderous enemies around it. This requires the player to alternate the two defensive means of blocking and bouncing, and while saving endurance, it is also necessary to shoot and kill the enemy as soon as possible.

However, no matter whether it is blocked or rebounded, it cannot be defended to the back, and when the player is besieged by the enemy, the slightest carelessness will be backstabbed and double damage. What's even more fatal is that once in combat, players can't use the arrow keys to turn around, and can only use the interaction keys, or specific "turn combos" to adjust the character's orientation. However, the turn judgment of the interactive key is very insensitive, and the "turn combo" is too slow to keep up with the speed of the enemy's shot, which ultimately leads to the player's inability to effectively respond to the attack from behind.

However, what can most destroy the player's combat experience is the monotonous behavior mode of the enemy.

In this game, humanoid enemies account for the vast majority of the proportion. Although they have morphological differences such as humans, evil ghosts, and unjust spirits, the behavior patterns and moves are so similar that when the game reaches the middle of the game, it will feel a strong sense of repetition.

Therefore, as long as the player remembers the attack mode of a certain type of enemy, the battle will become very monotonous, and even become a "turn-based" of standing piles - first blocking the enemy's fixed number of attacks, and then cutting two knives, so as to cycle.

In the later part of the game, in order to make the level more challenging, the game chose to "pile monsters" in the scene, but the enemies with monotonous attack mode did not bring more fun to the player with the increase in number, but made the level appear more tasteless. In addition, the ability design of new enemies in the late game also makes the negative feedback brought by the heap monster more serious. For example, some enemies will summon mobs indefinitely before killing, while others will flash to the far end of the map when they are bloody, and then come back to fight again after returning to the blood. When these new enemies appear behind the mobs, they create a "1+1>2" mob effect, which annoys me a lot while playing.

I returned from Yellow Springs

The name of "The Road to the Yellow Springs" is also the protagonist's story experience - the protagonist who lost in the vicious battle with the mountain thief fell into a near-death, blurred consciousness, and the illusion in front of him led him to the road to the Yellow Springs. On the Yellow Spring Road, the protagonist will meet the evil person who has been killed by himself, or the good person who has not been saved, and constantly suffers from the heart. At the end of The Yellow Spring, the protagonist needs to choose between love, righteousness, or revenge to let the story lead to three different endings.

The story is not the focus of this game, it just provides a reason for the player to keep killing, but stick to the right path. The whole story seems a bit old-fashioned and fails to create any impressive characters, and the game tries to increase the depth of the story, but also has some conceptual misinterpretations — such as the misuse of "harmony". The game gives harmony too many meanings it doesn't otherwise have, and even describes it as a concept similar to "martial arts." Similar to "people who have achieved true harmony can see through the future" and "without harmony, you are nothing" These interpretations of Oriental culture with great "Western characteristics" are not uncommon in this work.

The embodiment of this Yellow Spring Road in the level is the "one road" style clearance design. Players don't need to think too much, just need to go all the way forward, kill all the enemies in the way, and they can successfully pass the level. In a few forks in the road, in addition to the props and collections that increase health and endurance, there are also a small number of traps that can cause "terrain killing", allowing players to use the mechanism "borrow a knife to kill" to clear out the enemies on the avenue, adding some limited fun to the more single level.

Overall

"The Road to Yellow Springs" uses black and white graphic style and pure cold weapon combat to create a unique experience of sword and blade type. The rich sense of layering, dynamic weather effects and unique composition methods in the game scenes all make the picture look cinematic. But the overly monotonous pattern of enemy behavior, and the increasingly serious phenomenon of monsters in later levels, all make the fun of the battle session decline rapidly. The bland story and some overly far-fetched understanding of oriental culture make the plot quality of this work less than ideal.