Text / Mobile game that little thing envy fish
Last Friday (April 12), the highly watched "Persona: Phantom of the Night" (hereinafter referred to as "P5X") officially opened its public beta on all platforms.
On the first day of its launch, the game squeezed into the top 10 best-selling iOS games, and rushed to the top eight the next day. In a situation where many people thought its performance was unpredictable, "P5X" got off to a good start.
On the one hand, the competition in the second-game market is fierce and the public opinion environment is harsh, and I believe you have a deep understanding. If a new product wants to break through, in addition to the excellent content quality of the product itself, there is also not much room for error in the play outside the product.
On the other hand, "P5X" is the first mobile game in the "Persona 5" IP series developed by Black Feather Studio, a subsidiary of Perfect World Games, and supervised by ATLUS. Judging from the performance of the previous tests, both the content quality of the game and the market attention of the IP can be said to have great potential.
However, even if it is a potential stand-alone game IP, adapting a mobile game is equivalent to remaking a game, and it often faces many problems and questions such as business model, game content, and continuous updates, and there are not a few real cases of "destroying the original".
From the perspective of actual performance, "P5X" not only rushed to the top ten best-sellers, but also had a lot of praise from players after the launch of the server, which to a certain extent explains the reason why it can be recognized by the market.
(Players commented that "it's a bit of an old JRPG development")
So, how did the production team tune "P5X" and make it get such a good start?
01
Captures the essence of IP
To put it simply, the author believes that the "P5X" production team presents the IP essence of "Persona" to players in an appropriate way.
P5X takes place in an alternate Japan. People live in a world of low desires, where relationships and the desire to work hard are weak, as if they have no interest in anything. The player takes on the role of "Wonder", who will work with his partners to explore the mysteries of another world, defeat the boss, and find the truth about low desire.
(Opening Preface)
But "P5X" is different from the traditional, domestic, IP-adapted mobile games in that the production team has a kind of attachment to the original.
In the general direction of gameplay design, they restored the core selling point of the original work as much as possible, that is, they fully retained the design of personality masks, turn-based, daily + maze double lines, and at the same time, the gorgeous special effects of total attacks and mask attacks have not been forgotten.
(Takamaki Apricot's total attack animation)
It can be said that Perfect World attaches great importance to P5X, and its production level and quality far exceed that of ordinary domestic two-dimensional mobile games. It can be seen from several aspects:
First of all, P5X absorbed the essence of P5's art design.
P5's art style is full of tension, dynamism, and contrast, reflecting a deep sense of youthfulness, purity, integrity, and rebellion. And "P5X" uses a lot of the same art design as the original, and implements the design style of red and black collision to the bones.
(UI design for P5X)
The life-size characters and Japanese scenery design are also incorporated into P5X.
(Shibuya Shopping Street)
Secondly, in terms of original characters, "P5X" also maintains a high level of character design in the series.
For example, Li Yaoling, who crossed the ocean to a foreign country. When she first came to Japan to study, she didn't know the shelves of the supermarket, so she asked Wonder for help and got acquainted with Wonder.
The red and black costumes with the classic double ponytail hairstyle of the monster thief style contrasted with Li Yaoling's daily cute girl style, which made her suddenly shorten the distance with the player.
Character designs like Li Yaoling not only follow the unique style of the Persona series, but also bring a refreshing feeling to players with the addition of Chinese dubbing.
(Li Yaoling, a student from Sichuan, China)
Moreover, "P5X" does not ignore the design of the side characters.
The production team has designed interesting lines for many small characters, and these humble passerby characters greatly enhance the player's sense of immersion. For example, while soliciting customers on the street, the muscular man is talking to himself, laughing and saying, "You still want to be stronger?
(肌肉男与wonder的对话)
In general, "P5X" undoubtedly captures the essence of the IP in terms of world view, art, characters, etc., which not only makes it have better content packaging, but also shows the production team's love and familiarity with "P5".
02
It may be a new level of "IP adaptation of mobile games".
It's important to capture the essence of the IP, but porting P5 into a mobile game alone isn't enough to make it an excellent adaptation of a mobile game. There are also examples of rapid failure after the adaptation of popular IPs in the market.
So what did P5X do right?
First of all, "P5X" inherits the excellent combat system of the original game, and at the same time changes the character development to a mobile game. In terms of combat system, Perfect World adopts the same turn-based RPG battle mode as the original, and fights through attribute restraint, effect coordination between skills, etc., which has a certain degree of strategy.
(Total Attack Screen)
The overall combat logic of the game mainly revolves around the character's matching skills, action sequence, etc. On the basis of maintaining the combat characteristics of the original game, the strategy has been simplified, so that players can focus on the battle in fragmented time.
"P5X" inherits the attributes and weaknesses of the monsters in the original game. When the player hits a weak point, the enemy is knocked down and the player is given One More (extra turn) for more damage.
One More has also made some changes in P5X, adding the setting of the downfall value. The player needs to hit the weak point several times to reset the fall value to zero before the monster will fall to the ground. At the same time, players can only choose the character-specific One More skill, instead of the free movement in the original game, which makes players need to consider team building even more.
（One More专属技能）
It is worth mentioning that P5X has created a new attack method "High Light" to replace "Show Time" in "P5R", and at the same time, it has created handsome attack animations that show the characteristics of different characters.
（High Light攻击）
In terms of character development, Impression Space, as an important part of the series, as well as resource levels, is often complained of by players as boring in the original work.
"P5X" adds a lot of small gameplay to the impression space, while greatly shortening the process, and at the end of the first chapter, you can get instant kills, players can directly kill low-level monsters through the owl car, no longer need to enter the battle, thus minimizing the boredom of players.
(陆菲尔COOP的RANK3技能瞬杀)
In mobile games, how to seize the limited energy of players and play for a long time is an important problem that major manufacturers need to face.
The P5X production team has reduced the overall strategic difficulty of the game through a series of combat systems and level simplifications, while the monster downing mechanic ensures that players can fully enjoy the fun of fighting and developing characters. At the same time, the simplification of combat also makes the operation logic simpler, paving the way for players to play for a long time in the future.
(Daily activities in the city)
Secondly, P5X reduces the relevance of daily life to combat, allowing players to freely choose whether to engage in daily activities or combat experiences. In the original game, I often struggled with raising the community level or leveling up the battle, but in P5X, this problem is not present.
The reason for this is that the production team chose to separate the daily exploration from the combat system to a certain extent. Daily activities and adventures in another world are designed with different stamina points, and players can freely choose to experience high school life or become a monster thief in another world. At the same time, the division of physical strength is also more in line with the player's habit of fragmented play.
(Otherworldly Challenge Dungeon)
Daily activities are an important part of the series, and P5X also has plenty of content.
For example, players can play a cyber CityWalk, visit many famous Japanese cityscapes, play a variety of mini-games including but not limited to baseball, fishing, gachapon machines, etc., and fully relax after the battle, and enjoy the happiness of an "ordinary" Japanese high school student.
(Wonder's daily life)
In addition, P5X has a rich and interesting side quest, where players follow the perspective of wonder, interact with other characters, and experience one "little thing" after another in the eyes of others.
Whether it is Merope's strict defense, or the tenderness of the iron man in front of Yoshiyo Toyama, not only to help workers with low self-esteem to get out of the predicament, Brother Da Cong teaches workplace philosophy, but also to help muscular men solve love problems. One side quest after another brings this flat world into three-dimensional, allowing players to move away from the story, but to the characters, imagining them as their key companions.
(Merope's invitation)
In addition, P5X also introduces a rich costume system, which allows you to change the costume of Wonder when she goes to school and explores the palace. By changing costumes to show the different styles and personalities of the characters, it increases the fun and playability of the game, and also increases the content selection of other excellent IPs.
(Wonder's wardrobe)
Third, the production team of "P5X" strives to maintain word-of-mouth and user ecology, and pays attention to the construction of player community.
On major social platforms, the production team actively responded to the demands of players, and quickly optimized the cultivation system based on the feedback from the previous tests. For example, the advanced materials for character development have been unified, the upgrade rules of weapons have also been adjusted simultaneously, and the same level can be upgraded with different names, the game optimization plan can be openly and honestly announced, and many production team interview videos have been produced.
At the same time, they are also solving problems quickly and compensating. For example, apologize and compensate for your publicity mistakes after the server is launched. This series of operations shows their determination to make a long-term high-quality product.
Fourth, the production team of "P5X" used marketing methods to expand the popularity of IP. Since the beginning of this year, the production team has been using advertisements, videos, offline comic exhibitions, online lucky draws, and releasing a PV every once in a while to maintain the heat.
("P5X" promotional poster at the station)
During the open beta period, the linkage card pool activity with the original "P5" was directly determined to further expand the influence of the IP.
In fact, for an IP like "P5", which has a total sales of 10 million original works + derivatives, its actual influence may not be as good as "No. 1 in the world" in the mouth of players. The IP re-creation strategy adopted by Perfect World, coupled with the core content that can attract old fans of the series, and the marketing strategy to reach new players, make the IP of "Persona" break through the original audience boundaries.
When we look back, we will find that with "Tower of Fantasy" opening up the link to the second-game market, and then "P5X" and other strong new products, Perfect World has now gotten rid of the label of "old era" and has the ability to create a new generation of game products - that is, to produce high-quality game content, maintain long-term stable operations, and maintain a good community atmosphere.
Overall, "P5X" may be a new level of current IP adaptation of mobile games, which uses high-quality game content, positive operation attitude and appropriate publicity to drop a bombshell for this year's second-game market.
03
epilogue
Yesterday afternoon, Perfect World released its 2023 annual report.
According to the report, Perfect World's game business will have a revenue of RMB6.67 billion in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 7.91%, a net profit attributable to the parent company of RMB490 million, a year-on-year decrease of 69.21%, and a non-net profit attributable to the parent company of RMB456 million, a year-on-year decrease of 57.74%.
As for the reasons for the decline in revenue and profit, Perfect World said that it was affected by the development cycle of game products, and the company launched fewer new games. Several games in operation continue to achieve long-term operation through content updates and refined marketing, but due to the impact of the natural life cycle, the turnover has decreased compared with 2022.
It can be said that in the past year, Perfect World has encountered some difficulties.
And now the successful launch of "P5X" is a shot in the arm for this old manufacturer on the road of change. At least in the field of IP adaptation of mobile games, Perfect World has already run through a new set of methods to a certain extent, and it is expected to be extended to other products and IPs in the future.
At the same time, "P5X" also relied on its own content quality to open a new battle for this year's second-game market. As the "No. 1 mobile game in the world", I am very much looking forward to its subsequent market performance.