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In the minds of players, what qualities should a game with Chinese style elements have? Is it Chinese art with green mountains and green bamboo looking at the smoke? Or is it the imperial sword riding the wind, and the strong immortal chivalry in the demon heaven and earth?
I think that the two categories mentioned above can be regarded as the characteristic content of Chinese style games, but folk architecture is gradually replaced by today's steel forest in most of the capital, and the fairy spirit only exists in books, film and television works, and the real history seems to be only Chinese martial arts.
The "SiFu" I want to introduce today is such a "Chinese" game that shows the charm of martial arts.
Although this work is full of national style elements, in fact, the production of this work is not domestic. SiFu was made by Sloclap Studio, a French studio that created an "alternative" game out of their reverence and love for Chinese kung fu.
The elements of national style and foreign studio production seem to naturally have a sense of rejection, and how can outsiders play with things that Chinese people still do not understand? And such questions only exist before the player enters the game, whether it is the in-game scene arrangement or the battle soundtrack or the most important kung fu action, this work has always been at a very high level, in the eyes of the Chinese people, this "foreign" game is the most authentic Chinese style game.
Now this result is by no means a one-day achievement, as early as the beginning of the game production team Sloclap has deeply understood a truth: it is always the Chinese who understands the national style.
Therefore, in the production process, they hired a large number of domestic studios and related personnel as guides, and tried to restore an authentic Chinese style game from the point to point, and the soundtrack of the game also invited Mr. Li Huadi as the producer, and the most critical action performance aspect was to invite Benjamin (Liu Ben), the heir of Foshan Pak Mei Boxing, as the action director.
From the setting to the music and then the most critical action, Sloclap has created such a masterpiece from the beginning. In addition, if you are interested in the story of Master Liu Ben, a martial arts instructor, you can learn about it yourself.
Pick up your weapon and then lay it down
The opening story in Master is basically not related to the word amazing, and it can even be said that it is a little too mediocre, after all, there are so many revenge stories staged in the game that players can't remember. The story of the game begins on a rainy night, without any words, the player just controls a man in black towards the martial arts hall.
This man is not a stranger, he is the apprentice of the master in the martial arts hall, the final murderer of the master, and the big boss of the level in the game.
But the player has to control the character at this time to stage a big drama of murder with outsiders, this farce is not surprising that the man in black and his gang won, the past master was also brutally killed, and the protagonist as the master's child naturally could not escape the butcher knife. But the power of the mysterious copper money makes our wounds heal as before, and the protagonist is also lucky to be "reborn", from 12 to 20 years old, eight years are fleeting, we who play the protagonist have achieved martial arts, and have embarked on the road of revenge.
Few games have the main line so clear, and in today's period when most games are "still holding the pipa half-covered", such a simple to crude opening main line has become a minority.
But as I said earlier, the production team didn't spend much ink on what to tell in the prologue, and all the player could know was superficial information, such as the man in black named "Yang", and whether the master regretted it, what was the past between them, and what the grudge was, we don't know.
Although the player does not know anything about these details, the main line of the game is basically finalized and cannot be changed, and what the player has to do is to kill Yang himself and his four accomplices to complete the desire for revenge, and how the details seem to be no longer important in such a story... But can a game that takes so much effort to restore the actual situation from the scenes, music and action be able to plan such a "boiled water" plot?
Over the course of the week, the player kills everyone who passes by, and the butcher knife used to be swung at ourselves, and now we use it to kill others.
Revenge, quick revenge, there seems to be no problem with such a statement from a secular point of view, but is such a killing method really the core idea that a game with the theme of Chinese kung fu wants to convey to us?
The change of story is not in the first week, but in the second.
In a week, the player can not even predict in advance that he can "let go" the enemy, we can only kill every enemy encountered, from another point of view, the protagonist in the game witnessed the scene of his father's tragic death, and he was also stabbed by the enemy, can such hatred be easily dissolved and diluted?
The production team also knows this, so we can only kill the five enemies mercilessly when facing them in a week, so that the big enemy has been rewarded. Just as one tragedy can never be ended by another, so can hatred.
In the week of the game, the player did not feel the happiness it deserved after the revenge, but fell into a sense of confusion at a loss, it is clear that the game is also dark when our story has a follow-up, in the second week (the timeline goes back to before entering the slum) we say that these enemies beat to the state of pending execution and give up the execution will enter the end of forgiveness, that is, do not kill these enemies, so that the cycle in this week The player will also enter a completely different ending. And our protagonist will also have a completely different mental journey.
The word martial virtue practices martial arts, respects the master and respects the opponent, does not deceive others with martial arts, does not be arrogant, does not domineering, and etiquette begins and ends, which is the highest concept that "Master" wants to convey to players.
Fist inside and out, both rigid and soft, and powerful at the same time
Perhaps because of our preconceptions, we didn't realize how difficult it was to introduce traditional Chinese Kung Fu into a game.
The problem of motion capture will not be discussed here, the real difficulty is how to make it smooth and coordinated into a game after adding this "novelty" action mode, and the answer given by the production team is the introduction of shelf bars.
Whether it is the enemy or the player himself has a basic posture bar (yellow bar), the player's posture bar will increase when the player hits the enemy to cause damage or after parrying any melee attack of the enemy, and the player can execute after any enemy's posture bar is full to consume the enemy's current realistic health, and if it is a boss unit, it will enter the second stage; Similarly, players will accumulate their own stance bars after taking enemy damage and dodging or parrying failures, and we will also fall into a larger hard phase after reaching full value.
Therefore, the primary goal in the game is not to make the enemy HP 0 from the amount of health, but to fill the enemy's posture bar through moves, directly execute and end the battle, we can also any enemy in the game will be in the battle to seek a move, he is not in other games players play a few moves after the enemy has not counterattacked, this work is stronger to a "you come and go" type of battle mode.
If you don't pay attention to the fact that the player can encounter a set of storm combos from the enemy, and directly reopen it a year older, but if the player can parry the enemy's attack in this case, will it avoid damage and accumulate the opponent's posture bar?
The production team also guided the player as much as possible at the beginning to break the enemy's posture bar instead of directly killing people, on the other hand, our battle mode also corresponds to the martial arts problem mentioned above, learning martial arts is more for self-protection rather than killing enemies with martial criminals, and after defeating the enemy through the posture bar, we can also observe that each enemy who falls to the ground seems to fall into a state of fainting rather than death.
Regarding the game "Master", we may have heard the joke that 20 years old enters a nightclub and 70 years old and comes out.
This seemingly witty and humorous sentence actually reflects the unique death mechanism built into this work; In the previous article, it was also introduced that the player was honed and went out from the age of 20, and in this process, the player will inevitably see blood, don't get me wrong, I'm talking about being knocked down by the enemy and dying.
Although the game gives the player the ability to revive, resurrection comes at a cost, the player's age will increase after each resurrection, and if they die multiple times in the same map, they will increase the age group of "current age + number of deaths".
To put it simply, if the player dies once in a map, the next resurrection age increases by one year, that is, 21 years old, and the next death is 21+2 years old, that is, 23 years old, in this process, the player's various values will also change, from the initial "less blood high attack and weak defense" gradually overturned to "more blood low attack and strong defense", so I hope that players cherish the high output power when they are young, although the error tolerance rate is higher when they are old, but why not face another dilemma?
There is also a game that limits the player to die up to the age of 75, and once the player dies again after the age of 75, the game is over. After the end of the game, the player needs to start the current map level from the beginning, and it is very intimate that the player is reborn at the age group when entering the map after the punch starts, which can only be said to be the last mercy of the production team.
epilogue
A good game can bring players not only a profound game experience, but also the truth and perception that jumps out of the game, and "Master" is such an excellent game.
Wu De's way not only allows the protagonist in the game to achieve redemption, he also tells us how to behave in the world, how to face enemies, and how to face extreme emotions outside the game. The kung fu battle mode displayed in the game has attracted the attention of every Chinese player to traditional martial arts, and from the inside out is not only the way and truth in the game, but also the philosophy in our lives.
The mod experience is better