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Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series, since the birth of the first work of the FC console, has a history of more than thirty years, and after several generations of development, it can now be said to be the benchmark product of action RPGs. Due to Nintendo's long-term conservative strategy, this ace IP can only be experienced on its own console platform, and other users can only watch with hunger, but many manufacturers have followed suit and launched many "Zelda-like games", many of which have become parallel goods in the eyes of players, but there are also some good quality boutiques, this issue we want to review, is in the mobile terminal, known as the "mobile version of Zelda" "Oceanhorn" series (Oceanhorn).
Time goes back to ten years ago, when smartphones represented by Apple's iPhone were widely popularized, hardware performance was greatly improved, and mobile games had a huge space for development. At that time, free krypton gold gameplay was not absolutely mainstream, many manufacturers in order to show the development strength, have been computer and console classic games, in a high-fidelity form to restore to the mobile terminal, such as Gameloft has launched a number of "spirit transplantation" series, although there is a suspicion of imitating cottage, but excellent picture gameplay performance still attracts a large number of players, Apple App Store for this kind of masterpiece also gave enough recommended positions.
In November 2013, "Sea Horn" was officially launched on Apple's App Store, developed by Finnish team Cornfox & Bros, whether it is a 45-degree view of 3D polygonal graphics, or smooth character movements, it is impressive, especially the protagonist holding a sword and shield, making players immediately think of Nintendo's Zelda series.
The story of the game is simple and clear, the boy who is the protagonist wakes up to find his father leave, leaving only an old notepad and a necklace, in order to find out the truth about his father's departure, you have to use the various skills you learned since childhood, using hiking and boating, etc., to travel between islands and oceans, encounter a variety of enemies and traps during the adventure, and puzzling puzzles, and keep growing while fighting and exploring, and finally defeat the sea monster that rules the sea.
The basic gameplay of this work continues the classic action RPG, players only need to control the movement of the character, with a few function buttons, you can achieve a rich action experience, whether it is touch operation on the mobile end, or later transplanted to use the keyboard and gamepad, it is simple, smooth and easy to use.
"Sea Horn" adopts a full real-time game experience, the protagonist uses swords and shields and a variety of skills and enemies to fight, unlike the Glorious series of lawn mowing experience, in most cases the player only needs to face a single enemy, but the complex environment and HP with not many characters bring challenges, you need to be familiar with the action path and attack action of each enemy, so as to use the time difference to defeat without damage, rather than relying on hard work. This combat method is a great test of the player's operation accuracy, and it also inherits the tradition of the Zelda series, and it is full of achievements after mastering it.
In addition to combat, the game also has a wealth of exploration content, and many scenes require players to use their brains to solve puzzles to complete, including cracking complex switches to find keys, pushing boxes to suitable positions, etc. There are no particularly difficult puzzles in the process, such as the test of operation skills such as ignition with darts in the Zelda series, and even new players can successfully complete the level, probably considering that mobile players are not as experienced as console players at that time.
This work also meets the needs of casual users, players can complete the main story, but also freely explore the world and collect rare Bloodstone props. In addition, enjoying the scenery during the cruise is also one of the important pleasures, in addition to the unique naval battles, fishing from time to time is also a good rest choice.
It is worth mentioning that Nobuo Uematsu, known as the "father of Final Fantasy music", and Kenji Ito, the music composer of the "Legend of the Holy Sword" series, these two masters brought a top-level Japanese classic RPG-style soundtrack to "Sea Horn", which was a super luxurious configuration at the time, greatly improving the game experience.
Although the gameplay experience is similar to Zelda, "Sea Horn" is not a simple imitation, otherwise it will definitely be entangled by the "strongest legal department in the universe", and this work has also been ported to multiple platforms including Nintendo Switch. I played the Xbox One version the most, the game screen was upgraded to 1080P + 60 frames, the main line cleared for about 10 hours, 36 achievements with a total of 1000 points were designed, and the difficulty of all achievements was not high for about 20 hours, in addition to the story and some combat skills, all Bloodstone collection and all fish species fishing is more time-consuming content.
"Sea Horn" with excellent performance, quickly became a popular game on the iOS platform, buyout system no in-app purchase no ad payment method, but also attracted a large number of old players to pay attention to the mobile terminal, for a long time is the representative of Apple's excellent games, after many version updates, is still sought after by many users.
After the game was a huge success, Apple also had high hopes for this IP, and in September 2019, with the launch of iOS 13, Apple Arcade game subscription service also arrived. Since Apple does not have its own first-party development team, it is crucial to attract third-party manufacturers to launch subscription exclusive masterpieces, and the most notable of the first games of Apple Arcade is the sequel to the series "Sea Horn 2".
The story of this game is set 1,000 years ago, and the protagonist will lead many powerful characters to cross the vast Gaia continent, experience various myths and legends, and fight for the fate of the world together. Players are no longer alone throughout the process, and beautiful girls and robots will become companions in your adventure, guiding allies into battle or solving puzzles through interactive commands.
A few years later, mobile device performance has evolved significantly, and Sea Horn 2 has followed the trend into a full 3D free-view action adventure, using simple two-stick operation to complete various missions in a semi-open world, explore dungeons, solve puzzles, find treasure chests, and fight a large number of enemies and bosses. As in the previous game, the number of enemies is not large, and taking advantage of enemy attacks to dodge and counterattack is still a basic skill.
In this work, players can also use a variety of magic guns with different functions, click to enter the aiming mode, swipe the screen to aim and then tap to launch, in addition to directly killing and injuring enemies, but also allow enemies to enter an abnormal state such as freezing and paralysis, it should be noted that the number of magic gun bullets is limited, although the destruction scene elements can be obtained randomly, but some decryption scenes also need to be used, if the bullets are not enough, it will be troublesome.
"Sea Horn 2" as an Apple Arcade subscription exclusive game, not independently released on mobile, in the early days of this service did attract many players, can be said to be a signboard, the overall performance of the game is still excellent, but not as amazing as the original generation, and the earlier launch of Nintendo's 20 million masterpiece "The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild" is completely incomparable.
Although the game has achieved a smooth action experience on the mobile end, it is still significantly different from the veteran manufacturers in details, such as the classic locking operation in the Zelda game, which can realize advanced skills such as back-by-back attacks, which have not been restored in this work, especially when facing shield enemies, and even boring in the later stage. In addition, the overall process is also short, it takes about 20 hours to clear the main line, and although there are side quests and collecting elements, it is still lacking compared to similar masterpieces on the host side. It is worth mentioning that in October 2020, "Sea Horn 2" was also ported to the Nintendo Switch platform, but the player's reputation is very average, and users obviously do not have much interest in this work after experiencing the shocking experience of "Breath of the Wild".
Since then, the series has continued to expand with new gameplay genres, and in January 2021, also in the Apple Arcade subscription service, a new title, Oceanhorn Chronos Dungeon, is launched, this time set 200 years after the end of Oceanhorn 2, four warriors embark on an adventure to explore the mysterious dungeon.
This gaiden work has changed a lot in terms of art style and gameplay, the game uses a top-down pixel screen, a virtual joystick to control the movement of characters, with attacks and prop buttons, easy to get started and very suitable for newcomers. The gameplay becomes a dungeon exploration with roguelike elements, the scene map is randomly designed, but there is a clear story line, divided into several large chapters and several subsections, and the player can enter the next section by finding the exit in each section map.
The player-operated character is a team of four, which can be switched at any time, if the whole army is destroyed, you can return to the place where this section began to challenge again, there is no death penalty, gold and experience points will be retained, each character has its own independent skill tree upgrade, but there is no prop collection equipment system, naturally there is no brush and brush fun.
The picture effect of this work is fine, the attack special effects and background music are good, the easy-to-use operation and system are very suitable for action game newcomers, but it lacks the sense of achievement of combat survival of roguelike games, coupled with the lack of cultivation elements, the lack of depth content in the later stage of play, the IP signboard of the Sea Horn can not make up for the lack of system gameplay, and the game has a very average response in the Apple Arcade subscription service.
The three works of the "Sea Horn" series, now looking back at the most impressive is the first game, the subsequent works feel a little rushed, empty of the idea of a supermasterpiece but lack of strength, the game performance on the mobile terminal is first-class, but when it comes to the console platform, compared with the real Nintendo Zelda series, the all-round gap is obvious. However, in today's fast-paced krypton gold mobile game popular environment, the creator of "Sea Horn" who adheres to tradition is very valuable, and I hope that in the future, this IP can return to its original intention, bring players a new game experience, and let people relive the once ace classics.
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