In today's two-dimensional mobile game market, which is becoming more and more volatile, if you want to be famous, you have to come up with some unique skills. For example, the action mobile game "Return to the Dragon Tide", which recently opened the open beta, successfully tricked me into it with its unique art style. After about a dozen hours of experience, I felt that the game's art, music, and plot design were remarkable, but it was difficult to hide the mediocrity of its combat system.
Guochao, what is Guochao?
"National tide" is a major promotional selling point of "Return to the Dragon Tide". To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to Guochao before this, but as soon as I entered the game world of "Return to the Dragon Tide", its unique art style really made me understand the meaning of "Guochao" at once, and the last time I saw this kind of second-game picture that I felt amazing was a long time ago.
At first glance, the game scene has a bit of a cyberpunk feel, with huge billboards, shiny neon lights, crowded buildings, and the main area where we started our activities is also called the Kowloon Neighborhood, which can't help but remind people of the cyberpunk mecca - Kowloon Walled City. However, with the subsequent experience, it will be found that the game is not a Western-style or Hong Kong-style cyberpunk, but an authentic Chinese-style cyberpunk.
It is almost quickly determined that the design prototype of the Pu District in the game is the mountain city of Chongqing, with stilted buildings with Sichuan and Chongqing characteristics, rail transit passing through the walls, opera, storytelling, hot pot restaurants, teahouses and other elements, as well as various decoration designs in the rooms, all deeply marked with traditional culture.
In terms of the character's styling and costume design, this game also "integrates Chinese elements into the soul". As far as I can see, the styles of clothes include Chinese designs such as skirts, cheongsam stand-up collars, and waist ties, and the decorations have elements such as Shu embroidery patterns, horizontal buckles, and agate stones. What is commendable is that the game combines these traditional cultural elements and modern trends very well, creating a very "fashion" feeling, which makes people really want to give a thumbs up to the game art designer. For example, the little Taoist candle who entered the team very early, you can find a lot of traditional Chinese elements on his clothes, but the overall look is very trendy, it is simply a new Taoist living in modern times.
In addition, from my experience of playing games, the music and sound effects of games that generally prompt "wear headphones and enjoy better results" will not be bad, and the same is true for "Return to the Dragon Tide", and the overall soundtrack sound and scene are indeed very engaging.
Regardless of the gameplay, I think the art style and music level of the game are really a great highlight in the first place.
Decent combat and a somewhat ingenious level design
However, the excellent sound and graphics can't hide the game's shortcomings in the combat system. As a side-scrolling action mobile game, "Return to the Dragon Tide" has made a subtraction in the role positioning, which is only divided into three classes: breaking tenacity, output and support, breaking tenacity is to accumulate toughness bars faster when attacking, and after completion, the enemy can enter a weak state, and then you can switch output and support for combat.
One of the highlights of the game in the combat part is the addition of an appearance skill that matches the tenacity, which is automatically triggered by character switching whenever the enemy enters a weakened state. Using the appearance skills and waiting for the skill CD to turn into timing, coupled with the performance effect is quite good, you can play a relatively refreshing battle, and it also makes up for the decent sense of attack and operation in the game.
However, the biggest problem with the game in terms of combat is that it's too simple. In fact, in addition to the coordination of skills and characters, the game has added special effects of perfect dodge and dodge bounce, and some of the characters' skills are also designed with great ideas. But in the actual battle, not only can the mobs fight indiscriminately, but it is not difficult to fight the boss.
For example, the final boss of the first big copy has a variety of skills, and the common dodging barrage in side-scrolling action games (including eliminating the barrage), jumping, dodging, and finding opportunities to connect segments are all involved, but I feel that I can't dodge it, and it doesn't seem to matter if I don't dodge?
Anyway, a "handicap party" like me can easily fight at first sight.
Other bosses also have this feeling.,It wasn't until I didn't care much about the character leveling up and climbing the tower for the first time that I hit the value wall.,After leveling up, it felt like chopping melons and vegetables.,I found that this game is still mainly about cultivating values.。
In other words, as long as the cultivation is in place, even if there are many problems in the operation, it will not delay the clearance and push the map, which greatly reduces my enthusiasm for studying the combat mechanism and operation.
This is also the place I feel most sorry for, if this game is a single player, in terms of boss skills, character design, and some mechanics, I believe that the designers have the ability to create an excellent side-scrolling action game that tests the player's control. But now it's a "free" action mobile game, so the operation may have to give way to the value, maybe this is also a common problem of free action mobile games, after all, you have to make money.
The same problem arises with the dungeon's scene exploration. As you can see, the design team has added a lot of ingenuity to the scene design, and the coordination of various available hooks, double jumps, and sprints is very important, and some levels have different characteristics, including some puzzles and mechanisms that need to use some brains to solve. In particular, some collection elements and side quests require players to have a certain understanding of the mechanics of the Hakowa map in order to complete them well.
However, obviously the game has added enhanced sprints and the coordination of sprints and jumps, but there are not many places used in the dungeon scene, and there is no linkage with the set mechanism, so it feels a little conservative to take care of more players.
In fact, I personally sincerely hope that the development team of Longchao Pavilion can balance the relationship between operation and cultivation in the follow-up design, which can stimulate players to explore more of the relationship between combat mechanics and operations, which is a long-term solution.
As a director? Actually, it's still fighting monsters!
Finally, let's talk about the plot of the game, there will be no spoilers.
Although the main scene of the game has some cyberpunk shadows, the plot has nothing to do with "high-tech and low-life". It's quite innovative to set the protagonist as the director wants to recruit actors for filming, but it's actually still the one that breaks through the dungeon to fight monsters, but I have to say that it's quite emotional to generate a videotape with the subtitles at the end of the screening every time you complete a chapter.
As far as personal feelings are concerned,The plot of the game is remarkable,There is nothing such as "think about it a lot" and other thunderous or inconsistencies,The performance effect of most CGs is also quite good。
There are also a lot of humorous and funny episodes added to the main story, especially the protagonist often shows the style of "the first spit out", and many lines make people smile, which can't help but make me wonder if the protagonist has chosen the wrong profession as a director......
The character design is also relatively solid.,At present, the main promotion of the game is to look like a bad woman.,In fact, it should be a kinder "longevity lock". However, for me, the "Emperor of Part-time Jobs" Light, the Rin, who has a strong atmosphere, and the Yu Bing of "Distance Produces Beauty" are all quite impressive. If you want to improve the stickiness of players, character building is a very important part, and at present, "Returning to the Dragon Tide" has done a good job in this regard, but the male characters are not yet eye-catching.
Others,Like character development、Card drawing、Activities, etc. are not much different from other mobile games.,I won't go into detail here.,It's worth mentioning that the game has added a "blocking" mechanism.,You can block the characters you don't want to draw.。
Overall, I think "Return to the Dragon" is more suitable for players who don't care too much about the operation, just want to mow the grass casually, and pay more attention to art music, plot and character building. If you prefer to study and experiment with combat mechanics and actions in action games, then this mobile game may disappoint you.
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