For players who often come into contact with domestic stand-alone machines, they will find that there are many similar routines in the games, and sometimes they even wonder if these games are made by the same company.
In this issue, I will take stock of the settings of those rotten streets in today's domestic stand-alone machines.
Pet flooding
Regarding the setting of the domestic stand-alone protagonist with pets, the impression began as early as the rush of "Xuanyuan Sword Maple Dance".
These pets are either birds and beasts or mountain spirits, and the common feature is that they are used to enliven the atmosphere of the story, and some even join directly as teammates to help players in battle.
For example, Honey in "Fantasy Three Kingdoms 2", Jacaranda in "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3", and the black cat Anka in "The Other Side of the Clouds and Mountains" are all very popular characters.
In recent years, such settings have begun to become more frequent, especially the domestic three swords.
Take the "Ancient Sword and Strange Tan" series, each generation of the male protagonist has a pet around him, the first generation of A Xiang, the second generation of hungry chickens, and the third generation of original persimmons, with a lot of scenes.
Other archie similar to "Xuanyuan Sword Dome", the imperial spirit beast of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy Tale VII", and Xi Yu (barely a pet) in "Divine Dance Fantasy" are also pet characters that can be immediately thought of.
Most of them have one thing in common, which is to activate a certain feature of the game. For example, the role of the hungry chicken is to open the large map system, Archie brought the Xuanyuan Sword Refining Demon Pot system, and the field mouse of the original Tianqi is specially born for the home system.
The advantage of this is to make the emergence of the new system less abrupt, of course, as a rotten street setting, every time let a group of cute pets play the role of "tool man", it is inevitable that there will be a feeling of uniformity and shoehorned pets.
The male protagonist has social difficulties
I don't know if you have noticed that the male protagonist of today's domestic stand-alone machine gives people a sense of convergence.
Their common characteristics are that they cherish words like gold, often no more than ten words in a sentence, always have a wooden face, and look unreasonable, as if there is a social barrier.
Such characters appear more often in the "Gujian Qitan" series, Baili Tusu, Shen Ye, Beiluo, Xuange, Wuzhao, Jinyun and other characters, all have many similarities.
Other characters such as Xiu Wu of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy Tale VII", Zhuge Yu of "Heavenly Destiny 2", and Yun Qing of "Divine Dance Fantasy" are all taking the route of high and cold male gods.
The reason for this situation is nothing more than that players have had enough of talking to the Madonna type of protagonist, preferring the kind of character who kills decisively and does not talk much.
It's just that this kind of character is far less easy to shape than imagined. If you accidentally play cool and overdo it, it will inevitably give people a sense of déjà vu of "Riddler".
You must know that everyone hates the "Riddler" to no less than a nagging word.
The interior scene design is perfunctory
Domestic stand-alone machines have been developed for more than 30 years, but the grasp of details is not even as good as the old games more than 20 years ago, and the most intuitive point is that the design of indoor scenes is not paid enough attention, and some can even be described as perfunctory.
The most representative of these is the "Xuanyuan Sword" series, its town scenes have always been minimalist, and the houses are mostly empty, except for the beds, there is basically nothing, let alone the layout. As a private house, sometimes there is not even the most basic stove and bed.
Some players have explained that most of the era background of the Xuanyuan Sword series works took place before the Tang Dynasty, and it is understandable that the houses are simple, I don't know if everyone agrees with such a statement.
However, you can take the four works of "The Legend of the Wulin Group", "Ghost City Fantasy Sword Record", "Maple Dance" and "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3" more than 20 years ago to compare with "Xuanyuan Sword Six", "The Legend of Sword and Fairy Tale VI", "The Legend of the Heroes" and other works in the past ten years, to see whether the design of indoor scenes has improved or regressed.
In general, except for a very small number of games, it is difficult to see the craftsman spirit of the past in today's domestic stand-alone machines.
The game maze is smelly and long
In domestic stand-alone games, mazes are really a common composition, I believe that many players have learned the power of domestic RPG mazes in the fairy sword series and the heaven and earth robbery series, and the author can still clearly imagine the appearance of maze scenes such as the Lock Demon Tower, the sacred tree, and Longju Island in my mind.
In recent years, the maze structure of domestic stand-alone machines has been greatly simplified, and a main road has no more than two forks in the road, which is much more difficult than before.
However, this does not mean that the current mazes are better to walk than before, on the contrary, many mazes are designed to stink and long, except for the use of drag game time, it is really impossible to see any gameplay.
After all, although the maze was difficult back then, it still has some challenges, and the current maze is not only unchallenging, but even the artistic value is not visible.
The most typical representatives are the Danfeng Valley of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy V" and the nameless place of "Ancient Sword and Strange Tan 3", which is really smelly and long, testing the player's patience.
Forcefully shoehorned QTE, sneaking
I believe that most players hate the QTE and stealth settings in the game, and when they first played "Resident Evil 4", they died in QTE even more times than at the hands of the enemy.
In the past, domestic RPGs basically did not see any QTE system, but in recent years, there have been more and more, showing a kind of rotten street setting.
I don't know why domestic manufacturers have a soft spot for the setting of QTE, they often catch you off guard and prompt you to operate the keyboard and mouse, even if the moment is more abrupt.
As for stealth, it is also very ruinous to the game experience, affecting the rhythm of the entire plot.
This kind of forced QTE stuffing regardless of the occasion is really confusing. You're not an action-adventure game like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, and you're a Rausch QTE.
Novice villages often suffer
The setting of the novice village in the domestic stand-alone machine is a more common part, and the purpose is nothing more than two, one is to familiarize players with the basic operation of the game, and the other is to create an image of the protagonist leaving the house clean and bitter.
Since you want to leave the house cleanly and suffer deeply, it is also very common for the novice village to suffer.
The most typical representatives are Zhaode Village in "Fantasy Three Kingdoms 2", Fengming Village in "Divine Dance Fantasy" (congratulations on being on the list again), and Bear Village in "Vault", where the protagonist goes with an aura of destruction, he suffers.
epilogue
The above are some of the same settings that often appear in domestic stand-alone machines, and there are mixed reviews and criticisms for this, I don't know how everyone thinks.
My personal opinion is that for domestic stand-alone machines, plot and gameplay are often indispensable, and if you can get excellent scores in both points, even if there are occasional bad street settings, it can be within the acceptable range.
At the end of the day, everything still has to be said according to the overall quality of the game.