Text/GameForce
For players who experienced the era of the original PS console, that period was undoubtedly the golden age of JRPGs, and many top boutique IPs were born at this stage. In this issue, we want to talk about the original exclusive masterpiece of the PS console - "The Legend of the Dragon Knight", which was placed on high hopes by Sony more than 20 years ago, with excellent production level, but full of controversy when it was born at an opportune time, and has not been ported or remade to this day.
The Sony PS console, launched on December 3, 1994, has a very important position in the entire history of games, 3D polygon processing power and large-capacity discs, bringing new development space to many developers, and manufacturers are exploring a new generation of game experience. Square, who had achieved great success in the field of traditional Japanese RPGs, became a firm partner of Sony.
On January 31, 1997, Final Fantasy 7 was officially released, and the content of the 3CD brought players an unprecedented cinematic story experience, and the global sales of 9.72 million units gave the PS console a decisive advantage over the competitor Sega Saturn. Since then, story-based games have begun to replace traditional arcade gameplay and become the focus of attention of home console users, especially those well-made animated CG, showing the charm of virtual art, and many manufacturers have followed suit, and "game promotion must be on CG broadcast" has become a tradition.
The excellent performance of "Final Fantasy 7" also allows Sony to see the value of the supermasterpiece RPG in the future in the console camp, although there are loyal and powerful partners like Square Square, but taking the root of life into your own hands is king. Many players may not know that when the PS console was just released, Square was still swinging on the thighs of Nintendo and Sony, and Sony developed its own RPG brand very early.
In June 1995, Square developed Arc the Lad (Yak Heritage) with Nintendo behind his back, which sold 1.1 million units in Japan, giving Sony a first-party high-quality RPG. Since then, first-party works such as "Wild Arms", "Alundra", "PopoloCrois" and other first-party works have also performed well, but there is still a clear gap from the real top RPG masterpieces, and Sony needs to make an ace game to gain a foothold in this field and completely grasp the initiative.
"The Legend of the Dragon Knight" debuted under the attention of everyone, Sony invested 120 people in the development team and 6 billion yen for this work, the game was first released in Japan in December 1999, and was released in North America in June 2000, at this time the PS console has entered the most mature peak, in the hardware function to the extreme environment, the game uses 4CD super large capacity, not only the process content is full of weight, the total length of more than 50 minutes of CG animation is a feast for players' eyes, He also won the 1999 CG Technology Award in Seattle.
The game world of this game is also set on a continent, mainly composed of four countries, plus the desert barren land known as the border of death, the game begins a small town called Celes is attacked by Sandoras, they are looking for a girl named Xana, at this time the protagonist Dart also came here, saw his hometown was destroyed, and learned that Xana had been sent to prison, after a battle, Dart rescued Xana, and began a journey of adventure around the world, on the way Dart found that he had the Red Dragon Crystal, As the story continues, Dart meets more and more companions and gradually becomes involved in the world's great crisis.
The story of "Legend of the Dragon Knight" is divided into four chapters, each chapter 1CD, the basic gameplay of the game follows the exploration mode of the classic Japanese RPG, players search for story clues throughout the continent, encounter a variety of partners and enemies, and up to 3 players appear in battle, this basic system is easy for new and old players to learn.
The picture of this work uses a pre-rendered background + 3D character modeling, and there are a variety of different styles of scenes in the huge world, making it easy for players to immerse themselves in the game story world, and even nothing just to see the scenery is a pleasure, although the scene is fixed and can not change the perspective freely, and the full 3D game we are familiar with is not the same, but at that time the PS console polygon effect was still relatively rough conditions, it can be said that the right balance was found, this way in "Final Fantasy 7", "Resident Evil 2" and other super-masterpieces have also been successfully verified.
Different characters in the game have their own exclusive weapon skills and magic, the battle is not simply two sides of the air slash, the biggest feature is that players can get better combat effects through manual operation, you can see the square gradually spiraling from the edge to the center on the screen, see the timing when the block and the target match when the accurate key can be pressed.
As the story progresses, the character's attack methods become more advanced, the key commands will become more complex, and many attacks need to be operated multiple times, all accurate to maximize the damage effect, otherwise it will be difficult to fight against enemies, especially bosses. This system puts forward high requirements for player operation, and many people are dissuaded to quit halfway because of the long time consumed in the late game, which affects the product reputation.
This work also retains the common magic system in RPG games, including water, fire, wind, earth, dark, light, thunder and other attributes, there is a mutual restraint relationship between each other, and the use of attributes that are compatible with the enemy will cause the most damage, compared to the highly skilled manual button battle, this system is simple. The game is also designed with a rich prop system, a wide variety of weapons including swords, spears, bows and arrows, axes, hammers, etc., armor is also a variety of armor, helmets, boots, bracelets, amulet, etc., these props can be found in different scenes to find treasure chests, and some merchants in the city also sell some.
The most intuitive impression of the game is that there are a lot of gods similar to the PS console's "Final Fantasy", especially several main characters, the male number one Dart has lost his parents since childhood, only the mysterious red gems left by his father remain, the hair and back sword shape is simply the reincarnation of FF7 Claude, and the rest of the characters are also familiar, this somewhat clever approach has also been criticized by many players.
"The Legend of the Dragon Knight" has achieved 1.86 million copies of sales after its release, but only 390,000 units in Japan, which alone can be called an excellent masterpiece, but it is still far from Sony's original expectations, especially compared with major manufacturers such as Square Square. Final Fantasy 8, released earlier in the same year, took the cinematic game to a higher level than its predecessor, and with the theme song sung by Faye Wong, the value of its work has exceeded the game itself.
The picture performance of this work can be said to be the top level of the PS console, and it is not an exaggeration to even rate it as the best picture game, whether it is characters, scenes, animations can be called works of art, but for a real masterpiece, these are far from enough. The plot of the game is too bland and lengthy, lacking twists and turns and fascinating content, and there are almost no impressive clips like Alice's death in FF7, and players will have a clear sense of boredom when entering the late game, hoping to clear the level early to end the experience.
The game's biggest feature system manual combat operation, this setting can be said to be a double-edged sword, but also become the most controversial point of players, this music game-like mode, does enhance the player's sense of substitution, will feel very interesting when first contacted, but play for a long time feel very tired, especially those difficult bosses, really maddening.
Compared with the Legend of Namco series, which is also a manual battle, the action requirements of "Legend of the Dragon Knight" are too hardcore, not only have high requirements for the accuracy of the keys, sometimes the enemy will counterattack, need to press other keys to respond, this combination of keys is not like the real music game, you can use the rhythm of music to find the rule, so that the mind and body form a natural continuous key, but need to continue to look at the screen, each button is relying on pure reaction operation, the error tolerance rate is very low. In contrast, the legendary series is very friendly, arcade-style horizontal action battle rules, so that players have a lot of free play space, do not have to stick to a specific way of making moves, in the face of most ordinary enemies, even if there is no method to press chaotically can win, fight the boss only to raise the spirit to face the battle seriously, which makes players most of the time relaxed and casual, the game rhythm is relaxed, plus a variety of continuous skill combination design, players in order to experience more powerful and refreshing skills, Naturally motivated to advance the plot until the level is cleared.
This work can be said to be born at an opportune time, when it was released, players had already experienced the baptism of FF7 and FF8 two supermasterpieces on the PS console, and at this time there was another "Sony version of Final Fantasy", which obviously lacked sufficient appeal. If this work can be released earlier in mid-1998, seize the gap between FF7 and FF8, I believe it will have a greater appeal to players, and by 1999, all kinds of excellent works exploded, in addition to FF8, in December 1999 alone in the same schedule there are "Valkyrie Profile" and "Chrono Cross" two top masterpieces, Of course, for a game that costs a huge cost, it is not so easy to make in advance, and it can only be our hindsight.
"The Legend of Dragon Knight" is Sony's ultimate attempt to seek its own first-party RPG masterpiece, because the performance is not satisfactory, and then on the PS2 platform did not engage in such a large-scale attempt, not only the sequel has no news, but there is no remake to this day, but now you can use the latest PS5 console to play in the form of an emulator, and you can also get a platinum trophy, which is also a good experience. Japan's "FAMI Pass" magazine once selected the "most anticipated sequel" game, this game is among them, in 2012 there were rumors that Sony will release a sequel, but in the end there are no plans to announce, or hope that one day Sony can remember this top masterpiece, let this game continue to glow.
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