The style is too unique
When it comes to classic JRPG games, there are too many products to discuss, such as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Ys and other series of games, all of which are the halls of mind of a generation of gamers. Among them, perhaps the author is particularly impressed by SQUARE ENIX's "Octopath Traveler".
Just today (April 24th), "Octopath Traveler: Overlord of the Continent" (hereinafter referred to as: Octopath Mobile Game), which has not yet finished this round of testing, officially announced that the game's national server is scheduled for May 16th, and there is only more than half a month left before meeting players.
And after 18 hours of liver blasting, the author is more and more sure that the mobile game can reproduce the glory of JRPG on the mobile terminal. For veteran players, it is enough to be moved to meet old friends such as Terrion and Silas again on their phones. For new friends, the split-path mobile game driven by the plot and focusing on immersive audio-visual is also the most scarce differentiated experience in the current mobile game market.
The one that can tell a good story is a JRPG
As a pixel-style turn-based game, the gameplay and graphics will not be the shortcomings of the Octopathy mobile game, but it is not enough to make it stand out in the summer file. What can really make it grab the cake may have to be the plot experience that Octopath Traveler is proud of.
Objectively speaking, the plot direction of the Octopathy mobile game is more conventional, and the subsequent plot can be roughly guessed in the first chapter, but this does not affect its ability to quickly pull players into the story. On the other hand, when the plot is not surprising, the mobile game can still achieve excellent appeal, which seems to show the project team's narrative skills.
After experiencing the main plot of this test, the author believes that the appeal of the mobile game mainly comes from two aspects: the narrative structure of multiple routes, and the unique visual language.
Let's take a look at the narrative structure first, the game provides players with three main plots from the beginning: wealth, authority, and fame, each with its own protagonist and town stage. Players can decide the order of advancement and follow the protagonist through these three stories as a companion. But after all three routes are completed, the story will be bound to the player himself, and lead to the royal plot of the ring-wielding boy saving the world.
Judging from the experience of the game's Japanese server, after each large-scale version update, the Octopathy mobile game will release a new plot of three routes, and they will all be collected by the player as the end. In the author's opinion, this kind of plot form that matches the more rhythmic, divergent and restrained version may be the product of the combination of the characteristics of the original mobile game and the long-term operation needs of the mobile game.
In fact, the "Octopath Traveler" series on the console side has a multi-line narrative as the most significant feature. Taking Generation as an example, the game slowly shows players a huge and realistic different world from the different perspectives of the eight protagonists. That's why in some translations, the game is called Octopath Traveler.
But it's important to point out that not everyone buys in this narrative structure. Admirers believe that Octopath Traveler has recreated the glory of JRPGs, and the contrast between this small individual against the torrent of the times has an indescribable sense of epic and romantic feelings. Opponents said that although the plot of a single character is good, the switch of protagonists after each gradual improvement has greatly destroyed the sense of substitution.
There is truth to both of these perspectives, and the experience varies from person to person. But it's undeniable that Octopath Traveler puts narrative at the forefront of the game, and this feature is also carried over in mobile games. Another key to creating an appeal is the game's unique HD-2D pixel art style.
As a concrete example, you can see the stone pillars closer to the shot, and the room farther away, with a noticeable bokeh effect. Through the bokeh of foreground and vista, as well as delicate lighting effects. In a side-scrolling scene, the Divergent Mobile Game achieves a movie-like visual effect. The UI, which automatically disappears when moving, makes it feel like you're on an immersive adventure. At present, this method has also been used as a reference by many new generation of pixel art games, such as "Sword of the Lily of the Valley", which has been launched, and "Ring of Fire", which is still under development.
It is worth mentioning that the aforementioned three routes not only divide the plot, but also run through the underlying setting of the game. All characters in the game (including NPCs) have their own route factions. Many behaviors, including character acquisition and character development, can increase the influence of the corresponding route and are presented in the form of levels.
After the influence level is raised, in addition to a one-time gacha resource reward, it can also provide various ability bonuses. Among them, there are not only battle-related physical attacks and genital attack increases, but also daily-related store discount probabilities, gold coin drop increases, etc. However, the bonuses to these abilities are quite limited, and are more of a slight improvement to the process experience.
Interestingly, since NPCs also have routes, the way players interact with them is different. For NPCs in the Abundance Route, the player needs to buy items he holds with money (which can be bargained), or hire him to support the battle. However, when it comes to prestige NPCs, they need to ask for and persuade them, which is in line with the premise concept of coercing the will of others with reputation. As for the authority NPC, it needs to be achieved through combat by force, which is also the route trait that the game wants to express.
Although these are only peripheral gameplay derived from the basic setting, they do effectively increase the fun and freshness of the game. Combined with the two killer features of multi-route narrative and HD-2D art style, as well as quite outstanding game music, the author believes that the Octopathic mobile game can provide players with an authentic JRPG experience.
Story-driven, but not content-driven
Mobile game products, focusing on plot interpretation, and using gacha as a means of commercialization...... Can the divergent mobile games with these labels be classified as popular content-based games? In this regard, the author believes that the two should not be confused. Although they are all based on storytelling, the core drivers of the game experience are actually quite different.
In regular mobile games, the project team often uses various ways to guide players to the development link, such as level combat power recommendations, improvement suggestions after defeat, etc., and the plot is the icing on the cake beyond the numerical value. In content-based games, the proportion of plot or animation performances has increased dramatically. However, after experiencing the plot, the cultivation line composed of brushing materials, brushing equipment, and climbing towers in the abyss is still the main driving force for players to play and recharge.
On the other hand, in the case of Octopathy mobile games, there are almost no challenges that can be used to consume the player's time, such as various meat pigeon mazes or PVP arenas. The only "Tower of Trials" is a fairly long-term development goal that restores the number of challenges in days and provides unlocking and leveling up the character's ultimate.
As for character development, it is an important part of the process of pushing the plot, but it is not the main content of filling the player's game experience. Therefore, to a certain extent, the Octopaths mobile game can be seen as a design with the idea of a stand-alone game, and purely driven by the story experience.
It can be found that there is no common material book in the wrong mobile game. Because of the battles and map exploration in the main story, it can basically ensure that the player's team training level is equal to the difficulty of the current progress. When players feel numerical resistance, they can also overcome difficulties through lineup adjustments and field leveling.
In the push plot line shown in the red box, the elements we often talk about such as the development cycle, verification gameplay, and content unlocking are actually included in this main story loop.
Of the four ways to increase your character's stats, level is arguably the most central. First of all, each time a character levels up, their attributes will increase, and the specific assignment varies depending on the class and star rating. Also, each upgrade provides a little skill point, and the skill tree is the main way for the character to acquire attributes and skills. Some powerful skills will also set a minimum requirement for the character level. In addition to this, the character level is also tied to the equipment level, and players cannot equip equipment that exceeds the character level.
It should be pointed out that apart from the numerical difficulty of the enemies, there are no restrictions on the player's progress, such as the standard stamina of the mobile game, and a variety of complex materials. This also means that the big R players who have gained a numerical advantage through krypton gold can theoretically far surpass ordinary players in their main progress. And zero krypton and micro krypton players, as long as they have enough liver, they can also accelerate the plot advancement through field leveling.
If you don't take into account player fatigue, the game's content consumption rate will be quite terrifying. This may be why the game doesn't offer an auto-battle option, and it's quite restrained in giving experience fruits.
Therefore, on the whole, Octopath Mobile is a game that requires patience to play slowly. The three main lines in the test took about 14-15 hours. Combined with other side stories and traveler stories, it is expected to provide 20 hours of plot content. In addition, the project team also said that the open beta can guarantee at least 60 hours of single-player immersive story. However, the plot and battles that cannot be skipped have become the speed limiter for game progress instead of stamina. Those who can stay in the process and be moved by the plot may be the core users that Octopath Mobile Games is looking for.
Compared with the simplification of the development part and the brilliance of the narrative part, the core gameplay of the Octopathy mobile game is a bit ordinary. To put it simply, it's a skill cycle around weak clicks.
As you can see in the image, the enemies in the game all have weaknesses and shields. Breaking the shield will render the enemy immobile for the next turn and take more damage. The way to break the shield is to choose the corresponding weapon basic attack and elemental skills according to the weakness. It should be noted that the number in the middle of the shield represents the number of times it takes to break the shield, not the amount of damage.
In addition, there is a certain "compulsion" in the shield breaking mechanism. When facing elite and boss enemies, if you fail to break the shield, even if the character has an advantage in rank, the battle will be quite difficult. This also forces players to follow a hidden cycle of breaking the shield first and then out, resulting in a more repetitive combat experience after the novice period.
Objectively speaking, weaknesses and shield breakers are fairly common designs, but they have a wonderful chemistry with the two mechanics of "Alternate Guard" and "Bonus", which achieve a positive feedback upgrade in the combat experience.
In the game, players can form teams of 8 characters and divide them into front and back guards, i.e. front row and back row. The difference is that in a battle only the front row can attack, and the back row is on standby. By switching, the character in the back row can rotate to the front row output, and the character in the front row can also be rotated to the back row to avoid damage and recover (the guard position can restore HP and blue per turn).
The so-called bonus is that energy points can be consumed to increase the effect of skills. For damage skills, it is a multiplier increase, for buff skills, it is an increase in the number of rounds lasted, and for basic attacks, it is to increase the number of basic attacks. And the reason why we want to emphasize basic attacks is because these increased times can be counted in the shield breaking count.
In actual combat, players can break the shield through a basic attack with a bonus, and then switch between the front and rear guards and bonuses in the next turn to deal full damage. The significant change in the damage figure before and after the shield break can give the player stronger positive feedback on the operation. Overall, the combat experience of the Octopathy mobile game is not bad.
The challenge may be long-term
Of course, as a mobile game product, Octopath mobile game naturally has pressure on commercial performance, and character gacha is its main means of commercialization. In view of the fact that the game content of this test is basically the same as that of the Japanese server, the author believes that the operation mode and rhythm of the Japanese server may have a certain reference value.
In terms of the cost and guarantee that players are most concerned about, the gacha of the Divergent Mobile Game adopts the "50 times guarantee + stage charge", the first two ten consecutive times only need the cost of 7 single draws each time, and the last three ten consecutive games will return to the original price, a total of 44 single draws. Regardless of the recharge gift, the cost of a single draw is 15 yuan. In this way, the cost of a single role in the Octopathy mobile game seems to be slightly lower than that of the domestic first-line second game.
Judging from the feedback from Japanese players, the gacha of the Octopathy mobile game needs to be optimized. On the one hand, guaranteed 5-star characters may be crooked, but there is no protection mechanism that will be UP after a crooked card. In addition, the number of times of different card pools is not inherited, so there is no such thing as pad times.
The most important thing is that there are many types of card pools in Octopathy Mobile Game, in addition to the ordinary card pool, there will be a Shengyan card pool, a memory card pool, an overlord card pool and a linkage card pool in the future. Coupled with various festivals and anniversary events, new characters are almost never out of gear.
Up to now, the total number of characters in the game's daily server has reached an astonishing more than 200, which is more than the MOBA type of "Honor of Kings". This also means that characters will be able to retire from the environment faster. Except for a few supermodels or characters with strong versatility, such as "Primrojie EX" and "Light", most of the characters' gacha cost performance needs to be improved.
It can be said that the commercialization ceiling of the wrong mobile game is high. For Japanese players with high IP loyalty, this method can work. However, for domestic players who do not have a deep IP foundation, how to enhance the attractiveness of the characters is very important.
In this regard, the national service of the divergent mobile game is also prepared. According to the game announcement, the starting character of the open beta of the Octopathy mobile game has been determined to be the scholar "Silas". This character is proficient in all three types of magic, and can reveal enemy weaknesses, and has good skill practicality and scenario adaptability. According to the clairvoyant of the Japanese service, he was stronger in the early version, and he also had a good playing rate in the later version, which is a more "value-preserving" role. The inclusion of Silas as a starting 5 star may also reflect the game's desire to provide a more stable foundation for the long-term experience of players.
In addition, the author also saw some areas that could continue to improve in this test, and the more prominent ones were the types of wild monsters. In addition, in terms of game localization, it is commendable that the translation of the plot text is relatively good. The follow-up to be improved is the translation of the functional interface, similar to the "out rate" of the card pool interface and the "value" of the character interface. While they don't affect the meaning of the player's understanding, more straightforward terms may lower the threshold for acceptance.
The above points to be optimized do not affect the fact that Octopy Mobile is a good product, and it is worth trying for players who like and want to experience JRPGs. The author believes that it can achieve outstanding performance in the early stage of launch with a differentiated game experience. In order to achieve long-term operation, Octopathy Mobile also needs to think a lot about how to effectively use new plots and new characters.
Just like the name of the game, if you want to become a hegemon, you must first go "astray".