BB Ji | wen
I never thought that I, as a veteran player who has played Sword and Crusade for many years, would not recognize its new work.
It's a magical thing, because I'm not only familiar with Sword & Crusade, but also its massive skin-changing gameplay. I've always suspected that Sword & Crusade is one of the most reskinned domestic games. Every few steps, a promotional image will pop up that looks like Warhammer/Lonely Rock/Game of Thrones/Xiuxian, but in fact, it is still a game of "Sword and Crusade", and they often don't copy the gameplay and art, just leave there to play with the gift pack.
It's like Stephen King has sunk a ship, and in a fit of rage, he wrote a ghost wall story that is exactly the same skin-changing mobile game.
That's why, I have a serious PTSD with the Sword & Crusade class skin. And I'm often wondering: where did the money I put into the game go?
So when "Sword and Expedition: Departure" was opened, I was going to scold people, because the name sounds too skinny, no, I didn't even change the skin, so I added a word, which sounds similar to "Expedition".
However, it was not a reskin, in fact, I didn't recognize it as a sword and an expedition at first. It seems to have gone from a traditional idle game to a real game.
I saw in the TaptTap comment section that some players said that "Departure" will be in open beta during the summer vacation, but in fact, the game was already available for overseas servers last month. The results are very good, just by looking at the fan effect of the game, you can see it. In less than half a month, it has accumulated a bunch of fandoms, and many characters have had second creations. The discussion of the game is not low, and there are heroes who ask everyone if they can add a love plot to the characters.
Part of the reason is that the characters in "Departure" all have stories and lines, and they will gag with you, which is much more real than the characters in "Sword and Expedition";
It was before
It's now
The soil for the second creation has indeed become more fertile, but given that I have suffered too much for Sword and Crusade and too much for shipwrecks, I don't plan to let go of the shortcomings of this game. But we'll have to see why it has so many positive reviews: it starts with when I didn't recognize it at first.
There is reason to suspect that Lilith is secretly yin and yang those inferior skin-changing monsters, so this time they made a skin-changing difficulty flying thing - a big world RPG.
It was before
It's now
The gameplay of "Sword and Expedition" is very straightforward: the main thing is to use various heroes to team up against the enemy, if you can't beat it, hang up and collect food to improve your combat power, and then challenge stronger enemies.
Playing traditional idle games, I spend 70% of my time collecting food, but in this game, I spend 70% of my time running missions through the story. The difference can be seen from the beginner tutorial alone: "Sword and Expedition: Departure" first allows you to come into contact with the AFK mode, and the AFK system is not open at all, but first allows you to watch an animation, and then talk to the characters and take on tasks.
But at the same time, you can also leave the task and just play idle like a generation, and "Departure" gives players a lot of freedom.
"Sword & Crusade: Departure" is obviously not a sequel to "Sword & Crusade", it does not take the inheritance route in terms of design thinking and story, but more like the relationship between "Warcraft" and "World of Warcraft". And this derivative is completely in the direction of RPG, and many designs have the style of a stand-alone RPG.
Generally speaking, the game has two systems, one is the familiar AFK system, and the other is an RPG supported by missions and stories.
And in "Departure", the latter attracted me the most. I originally thought it looked a bit redundant, but after I tried it, I found that it was a bit high-quality, and the rewards given by the task were quite a lot.
First of all, the 2D background becomes a large 3D map, but this map is not an open world in the traditional sense, but more like an upgraded version of the dark like game map like Torchlight.
The game has a rich main and side quest that will take you through the map, as well as many paths along the road, which are filled with puzzles or monsters that guard special chests.
It can be said that this large map is the primary reason why I didn't liquidate them after Lilith tempted me for many years. Because it's not even "improving" the existing successful model of Sword and Crusade, but stepping out of its comfort zone, shattering the existing framework, and completely subverting the underlying logic of the design.
This map supports a plot line that runs through the game. I won't spoil the exact story, and it's too long for me to summarize, but in the story, you'll meet all sorts of old friends from Sword & Crusade, and tons of cutscenes bring them to life.
The plot of the game is not only full of dialogue texts, but also handled carefully. The main lines are dubbed, the quality is very comfortable to listen to, the key subtitles also have special effects, and the movements and demeanors of the characters are constantly changing as they speak, always reminding you that this generation has changed from 2D to 3D.
If you spend time chatting with a bunch of NPCs on the side of the road, you'll find that they all have their own lines to help you learn more about the world and the tasks you do.
In "Sword and Crusade: Departure", the characters are more than just a card face, they have complex characters, you can have a tryst with the fire girl, and the red-haired businessman Rowan who is familiar to the old player actually has a royal fiancée.
It turns out that the classic map Twilight Jungle is a separation of powers, and the three factions not only have different philosophies, but are also in conflict.
It's an amazing feeling for veteran players. Because I've been playing "Sword and Expedition" for so long, I really don't know what the game is talking about, why Sun Wukong can be involved with the army of the undead. But in "Departure", all the originally fragmented setting texts have been upgraded to a full world view, and there is a kind of moving that a small advertising card has become a masterpiece.
With the addition of the big world RPG element, "Departure" is a level higher than "Sword and Crusade", and this time at least I can understand the story more and more I play, instead of being more and more confused. I was indeed a little relieved to see that the money I spent had become a big world in "Departure", because TMD Lilith had at least worked with the money.
Why is this so important? Because it changes the focus of Sword & Crusade: Departure to keep the AFK mode while giving it a lot of other replayability for the first time, and the whole game experience is completely changed.
You'll find that this is actually shifting the player's immersion in the "values" to an immersion in the story, gameplay, and worldview. To put it bluntly, this makes Departure feel more like a "real game" than traditional idle games, including Sword and Crusade.
Sword and Crusade is often criticized for paying too much attention to values, which is actually a problem that can't be avoided in idle games, and its core is to increase the character stats to defeat enemies with higher stats - although in fact, this set of things also has its own unique fun, otherwise it wouldn't be liked by so many people, but at the same time, it is indeed a shortcoming that cannot be washed.
I'm not going to "whitewash" Sword & Crusade: Departure, the development of this game is still numerically driven, you will still get stuck, and you will not be able to beat each other if you don't cultivate. However, because the game does so much outside of the AFK system, the impact of "getting stuck" has been minimized a lot.
Nowadays, when you get stuck in the AFK challenge, you can push the main story, and if you are also stuck in the main story, then you can also do a bunch of side quests to accumulate, and if you do it, the side quest is also stuck...... Hey, after playing games for so long from morning till night, shouldn't you go to bed?!
When you wake up from sleep, you will find that you can continue to push the plot or level again.
So when I play Departure, I get stuck from time to time, but I'm never really stuck, and I always find something new to play. It's a bit like Hidetaka Miyazaki's letting players get beaten up by the Tree Guards in Elden Ring, not really trying to get people stuck there, but making you turn around and do something else.
This design is particularly friendly to zero krypton and low krypton players, the impact of the card level is weakened, and a large amount of game content is not bound to the training degree.
Not only the story missions, but also the battles themselves, increase the replayability. Although the game's battles may seem chaotic, they are actually much more strategic because the game adds a lot of auto-chess elements.
In the battles of Departure, you really need to pay attention to strategy. First of all, before attacking, you have to set up a reasonable formation, because now that you can see the offensive lines of both sides, you have to find a way to focus the reasonable damage on the tank hero, so that he can share the firepower without being embarrassed by the fire, and the same is true in the offensive strategy.
Then, there are various mechanisms on the battlefield. To put it bluntly, the battles in Sword and Crusade are basically numerical collisions, but in Departure, a single stone wall can deeply affect the outcome of the battle, and even determine victory or defeat in PvP mode.
Because these stone walls are not only frequent, but also in strange locations. You can use it to fend off attacks (Battle of Hot Springs, Brothers), or use them to play a map with strong movement such as the Punishment Rider and Tombstone, or if you don't study how the stone walls divide the battlefield, you may be stolen by the opponent because a certain road is not defended.
The battle mode is also diversified, some levels have to be challenged online, some can only be challenged by one hero alone, and some battles are to protect something from being destroyed by the enemy, or can only use various mechanisms to decrypt the idea of the game to attack.
But among all the innovations, I think the most noteworthy is the new mode in "Departure": Glory Showdown.
As the name suggests, this is a PvP full of glory and duels, which is independent of the game's development and kryptonite system. Players on both sides have to choose different heroes and equipment to engage in a battle of wits on the formation: the formation is divided into two steps, first the three heroes are placed and revealed to each other, and then the remaining two heroes are released.
Don't look at this model, it sounds simple, but in fact the strategy is very deep. Because first of all, there is a restraint relationship between heroes, and the position is very important, you have to protect the back row from becoming the target of the opposite assassin, otherwise there will be a Silvina on the opposite side, and we will not be able to protect it.
I once used the first three heroes to trick the opponent into concentrating the lineup in the narrow passage separated by two stone walls, and then added two straight line AOE output heroes to restrain the opponent in the back, so that my attack covered the entire opposite side, and I quickly reaped the thrill of crushing - but unfortunately it was only a low-end game.
Then, you can use the resources you get after each battle to buy heroes and exclusive equipment in this mode, and raise your own set of card pools to deal with various enemies. Therefore, in addition to the strategy in the formation, the cultivation also needs to have a clear idea.
This mode alone can be played for a long time, and it has no ability to cheat Krypton.
Speaking of which, you should have noticed a feature of "Departure": although its idle mode is still so easy to snag your wallet, the focus of the game, whether it is PvE or PvP, is two modules that have little to do with krypton: big world RPG and glory showdown.
It can be seen from this that Lilith's operational route in "Departure" has changed. The guidance of the whole game has changed from "making players stronger" to "allowing players to experience/explore more". So the game not only adds to the gameplay, but also attracts some players who are not interested in numerical idle games.
Finally, the game's art and music are excellent.
The art style of "Sword and Crusade" has always been highly acclaimed, and its art combination of Western fantasy, picture books, and tarot cards is unique. In Sword & Crusade: Departure, the art style is inherited and then expanded into a more immersive alternate magical world, like a storybook to a story itself.
It was before
It's now
After the character is upgraded to 3D, the charm becomes more obvious. From a 2D perspective, I never noticed that the dancer Satena danced so beautifully, and the fire girl Mirel was even more Kanban girl-level charm.
The world is also dynamic, with windmills spinning, plants swaying, butterflies fluttering in flowers, and hanging bunting fluttering in the wind.
As for the game music, in fact, its success can be seen from one side: under the video of the game's overseas promotion, a bunch of comments said that they were attracted by its soundtrack after seeing the advertisement.
While the business model of Sword and Crusade has been successful, its spin-off, Departure, has been obsessed with developing content that is seen as its weakness, guiding you to think about tactics, pondering the plot, and making the characters appear fuller...... There is a sense of courage in this kind of attempt.
I think "Departure" proves one thing: don't look at Lilith always being sent blades by veteran players, they really want to make games in a down-to-earth way.
I think it certainly has some faults, such as the plot is full of characters and Western fantasy, but it lacks attractive suspense and powerful twists.
And at least for me, the story and exploration part, it's blind to play on a phone, and it's uncomfortable to be in full-screen mode without a computer. There's also a quantum physics beauty to the characters' AI, and sometimes they're very intelligent, like when Atalanta zooms in, shooting as many people as she can, but I've actually seen heroes get stuck in place, thinking about life (and leading to the end of life).
Sword & Crusade: Departure is certainly far from perfect, and it needs to be updated and polished. But to be honest, when I played it without knowing anything, I was still amazed, and I felt that the gold of Krypton was not white Krypton (it lasted for three seconds).
The English name of "Sword and Expedition" is AFK, which also means hang-up
So Lilith, you're going to make good use of this opening, and everyone's kryptonite (which is the point), to make sure that you're going to have a follow-up update, right?
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