Is it really restarted in the fifth generation?
At the Nintendo Face-to-Face Meeting on the morning of February 18, Glory unexpectedly announced the news that Sengoku 5 would be released in the summer of 2021. Seven years after the release of the last orthodox sequel of the "Warring States Peerless" series, "Warring States Peerless 4", Glory finally remembered this again, and was spit on by domestic players as the "peerless" IP of "pro-son". Think about the past few years, since the release of the "Peerless Innovation" in 2018, "True Three Kingdoms Peerless 8" after the word-of-mouth explosion, Glory rushed to use "Peerless Snake 3" to fill the crisis and loss caused by "True Three Kingdoms Peerless 8" half a year later. After that, in addition to making new versions such as the "Ultimate Edition" according to the convention, Glory did not have any movement for the "peerless" IP of the family.
This situation lasted for almost two years. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why some players will be shocked by the sudden "Sengoku 5". In addition, according to the display in the trailer, "Warring States Matchless 5", launched after seven years, takes a completely different style from the previous work in terms of painting style and character setting. The unrealistic character image combined with the cartoon ink style rendering, just one glance, caused a huge discussion among players.
In the previous glorious Honkaku "Peerless" game, due to the excessive repetition of the images of Oda Nobunaga and Cao Cao, it will always cause some players to complain. The only thing that distinguishes the two is the clothing and hairstyle, and looking at the face alone, it is like a pair of brothers.
However, in the trailer released by "Sengoku No. 5", Oda Nobunaga changed the image of a "domineering president" similar to Boss Cao and transformed into an unruly young man holding a large knife, quite a sense of "hot-blooded stupidity". This makes the player understand why Oda Nobunaga was called a "Owari Fool" when he was a teenager.
Not only Oda Nobunaga, but the Sengoku characters who appear in the trailer are very different from the historical characters of "Sengoku Unparalleled". In the trailer, as the second character, The Wise Mitsuhide, who plays against Oda Nobunaga, also changed his hairstyle, the oblique bangs that covered his eyes and the rough bun on the back of his head, and the image of a samurai with a cold face and a black belly jumped on the paper.
Oda Nobunaga's hair wife, Naohime, is finally no longer the image of a "demon woman" with heavy makeup. Wearing a butterfly hair ornament on her head, Nongji, who shows the image of a pure and lovely imperial sister, can better match her real name of "Saito Gui Butterfly".
The most unexpected thing is the official follow-up release of Tokugawa Ieyasu. In the Japanese Sengoku theme game of the glorious honkai, whether it is the "Sengoku Peerless" series or the "Nobunaga No no Nobunaga" series, Tokugawa Ieyasu is often the villain, and his image of a middle-aged black fat uncle with the "head of the moon generation" has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The title of "old turtle" is not a good word.
Tokugawa Ieyasu in Sengoku 4
Look at Tokugawa Ieyasu in "Sengoku 5", living and free is a shy and pure little Shota. After all, Nobunaga in the background of the game looks like he is in his early twenties. Wasn't Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was eight years old, a teenager at the time? As for his handsome appearance, who was not a beautiful teenager when he was young?
At present, the discussion of Tokugawa Ieyasu's new image on the Internet has become a small hot topic in the topic of "Sengoku Matchless 5". If it weren't for the "Aoi Clover" family tattoo on his left breast, most players would have thought that the character was Nobunaga's nickname, Senran Maru.
For the glorious release of the "Sengoku 5" trailer, and its subsequent new screenshots, players are shocked at first of these old characters, followed by questioning and discussion. Glorious this time is unusual, with Oda Nobunaga and Wise Mitsuhide as the protagonists of his youth, most likely to tell the story of Oda Nobunaga's early years. With the development of the story and the passage of time, some players speculate that the "age setting" that is highly acclaimed in "Sengoku Nomaru: Sanada Maru" is likely to be added to "Sengoku Nomatsu 5", and then there will be new images such as "Middle-aged Nobunaga", "Middle-aged Mitsuhide", "Middle-aged Ieyasu" and so on, when the time comes, these middle-aged images may follow the characteristics of the previous game.
In addition, in view of the popularity of Koei's long-form historical drama (here specifically referring to the long-form historical drama broadcast by Japan's NHK TELEVISION), and even its "Nobunaga Nobunaga" series has been linked with Okawa drama many times, this time "Sengoku Nobunaga 5" features young Nobunaga and young Mitsuhide as the protagonists, and it is very likely that it is influenced by the 2020 hit Ōkawa drama - "Kirin Advent". After all, the protagonists in "Kirin Advent" are the young Nobunaga and the young Mitsuhide.
If you exaggerate a little more, the plot of "Sengoku 5" may even borrow from "Kirin Advent", the whole "White Learning Story" of Nobunaga, Mitsuhide, and Nonghime. This speculation is not empty, after all, Glory in the "Decisive Battle 3" more than a decade ago, so prank a wave of three people, and the three people's personality is also in youth. Some players even said that the young Nobunaga in "Sengoku 5" is full of shadows of "Decisive Battle 3".
Source: Weibo @ Palm King SP Sky
With Nobunaga, Mitsuhide, and Nohime as the protagonists of his youth, and showing Oda Nobunaga's growth and growth process, such a plot player is not unacceptable. But as mentioned before, the most controversial is the two-dimensional ink painting style of "Warring States Matchless 5". In the past "Warring States Unmatched" series, the art style was realistic. The picture of "Warring States Matchless 5" gave people the first reaction, and they thought that "Samurai Shodown" had a new character. This Oda Nobunaga, who holds the Big Tai Knife, is also too similar to the Overlord Maru.
Some players bluntly said that they were not optimistic about the change in the style of "Warring States Matchless 5" this time.
However, some players said that it is time for Sengoku 5 to make some changes, and this art style change is a good thing.
In fact, in the years of glorious "peerless" IP, it is not the first time that the character model has been changed as a way to innovate the sequel. The one who became the "lucky one" and accepted this attempt was the "True Three Kingdoms Matchless" series, the lowest rated "True Three Kingdoms Matchless 5" series. Although from the current point of view, the failure and evaluation of "True Three Kingdoms 5" have plummeted, not only because of the change in character styling. Whether it is the abolition of the free collocation of C skills, the replacement of two independent "lianwu systems" with light and heavy attacks, or the ability to maintain the incomparable bar and the lianwu bar by riding all the time, it is a design that affects the player's experience. Coupled with the large reduction in playable martial arts, the character modeling is too modern and "kill Matt", "True Three Kingdoms 5" is so difficult for players to accept. However, even though "True Three Kingdoms 5" has changed the character modeling, the style still maintains a realistic style. "Warring States Matchless 5" directly replaces the "background color" is obviously more bold.
The style of "Sengoku 5" this time is very close to the "Sengoku BASARA" series, a competitor of the same theme produced by CAPCOM.
From the perspective of the glorious plan, "Warring States Matchless 5" is not only a reboot of the "Warring States Peerless" series after a gap of seven years, but also another innovative attempt to make the IP of "Peerless". Not only will the style and characters be overhauled, but the moves and weapon systems are said to be torn down and reinvented. The IP of "Peerless" and its gameplay have a history of 20 years. The "peerless" IP has also experienced the process of falling from the unpopular to the brilliant and then falling. How to improve the gameplay of "Peerless" has always been a problem that Glory constantly considers when developing games. If it weren't for this thought, players wouldn't have seen two particularly typical innovations, True Three Kingdoms 5 and True Three Kingdoms 8.
However, the defeats of "True Three Kingdoms 5" and "True Three Kingdoms 8" have left Glory in confusion. The move system and the number of warriors in "True Three Kingdoms 5" were scolded, and Glory hurriedly restored the use of C skills in "True Three Kingdoms Matchless 6", and then added a large number of new martial artists, and even opened a new force of "Jin"; the open world of "True Three Kingdoms 8" was so badly criticized that producer Ryohiro Suzuki quickly said that the open world design would not be used in the subsequent "True Three Kingdoms 8: Empire".
As mentioned earlier, the "Warring States Peerless" series is to enrich itself as a glorious "pro-son" and enrich itself by absorbing good ones from the innovative attempts of the "True Three Kingdoms Peerless" series. However, the continuous innovation of Glory in the "True Three Kingdoms Peerless" series failed, and the final result was that the "Warring States Peerless" series had very little change. I only dare to add characters in a decent manner, and I dare not make any drastic changes in the gameplay and action system.
The spin-off of Sengoku 4, Sengoku No.4, has some new things, such as a new plot performance method and the age system mentioned above, but the feedback among players is only mid-level. In addition, although the "Sengoku Peerless" series is very famous, the sales of the series are not as good as the "True Three Kingdoms Peerless" series and the "Peerless Great Snake" series. The global sales of "True Three Kingdoms Peerless 8" are still over 800,000; in order to wipe the ass of "True Three Kingdoms Peerless 8", the hastily released "Peerless Snake 3", counting a series of "fraudulent money" versions such as the "Ultimate Edition", has sold more than one million; on the contrary, "Warring States Matchless 4", the sales of the whole platform are only 400,000.
Even if it is for profit, Glory should also give the too conservative "Warring States Matchless" series a big restart.
Glory is also determined to overthrow most of the player's cognition of the "Warring States Matchless" series from the first sight of the player's character image.
It is perfectly normal for players to question new styles and characters. It is also common for players to influence the evaluation of the game itself because of the new character image. For example, in "Three Kingdoms Heroes 8", many players have lost interest in this game because of the overly European and American character standing painting.
The evaluation of "Sengoku 5" will change due to changes in character styling, which is completely predictable.
Then again, although Glory has not done the "Peerless" IP of this family for two consecutive years, it does not mean that Glory has been wasted on the "Peerless" piece for two years. As an alternative, in the past two years, we have seen a lot of glorious OEM IP "matchless" works. For example, One Piece 4, licensed by Bandai, The Peerless game "Persona 5: Phantom Raiders", a spin-off of ATLUS's Persona 5, and Zelda Peerless: Apocalypse Apocalypse, a re-opened series of games with Nintendo.
Surprisingly, the reviews of these "matchless" games are very good. "One Piece 4" wins in a large number of original plot restorations; "Persona 5 Chaos: Phantom Attacker" is a wonderful fusion of the original gameplay of "Persona 5" and the "Peerless" gameplay; the sales of Zelda Peerless: Apocalypse of Doom directly exceeded 3.5 million, becoming the first in the entire "Peerless" series.
To do a "peerless" game for other IP, Glory is also absorbing new knowledge and learning new ideas. Glory is likely to be inspired by the production of other "Matchless" games to join Sengoku 5. Therefore, if there is no major change in "Sengoku 5", it is not normal.
So far, the discussion of "Sengoku 5" on the Internet has been based on the one-minute trailer released by glory, as well as some real-time screenshots after that. Whether the game is good or bad will have to be found out from the official demo on February 25th.
With a series of information released by Glory on February 25, some netizens' speculations have been verified. Sengoku 5 will focus on the history of the Oda Nobunaga period, and the game will focus on portraying the Warring States warriors of that period. Symbolizing the end of the Oda Nobunaga era, Honnoji Temple became the boundary, and the warriors after the change of Honnoji Temple will not appear in the original biography of Sengoku Nobunaga 5.
For example, Ishida Sansei, a warrior during the Toyotomi Hideyoshi period, will not appear in Sengoku 5, even if the character has a high popularity among players. This was personally confirmed by game producer Hisashi Ushinuma. As for Sanada Yukimura, another popular character in the Sengoku series, it has not yet been determined whether to appear.
This design was naturally accompanied by a massive reduction in the number of warriors. At present, "Warring States Matchless 5" has determined that there are only 27 military generals, which is similar to the original "True Three Kingdoms 5", and it is very worried that it will repeat the mistakes of "True Three Kingdoms 5".
However, there is no doubt that with the release of more characters and the demonstration of move skills, the new ink style of Sengoku 5 has once again been pushed to the cusp of player discussion. Some players even feel that the character design this time is too beautiful and "otome oriented".
Regardless of the player's discussion, the publicity and momentum effect of "Sengoku 5" has been achieved. As for Whether Oda Nobunaga, who has a two-dimensional ink style, can bring changes to the "Sengoku Peerless" series like the historical Oda Nobunaga, like the historical Oda Nobunaga, breaks the pattern of the Japanese Warring States, it is still unknown.