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Start with a review
On the evening of January 9, after nearly 3 hours of live broadcasting, I finally completed "Heroine Anthem Zero". During the live broadcast, I once said to the audience: When I finish the game, I will take everyone to the live broadcast to give bad reviews. Then I also made good on my promise, and at the same time, on a whim before I was ready to write a review, I called on the audience who was still in the live room to use the bullet screen to express their feelings and opinions about the game and write them into the review. At that time, although the number of online users in the live broadcast room was less than a quarter of the peak period, there were still many viewers who responded positively, so there was the following review.
To be honest, after sending out this review, it did not bring me any pleasure to vent, but the tangled and sadness in my heart made me toss and turn that night, and it was difficult to sleep. The "Song of the Virgin" series is like a long-lost old friend to me, maybe the memory of that time has been diluted by time, and the anxious waiting for a sequel has become blurred in growth, but whenever I hear any news about the new work, I am excited and encouraged, and I look forward to seeing her again.
I was lucky enough to see a lot of bad reviews and get a vaccination before I got to A Song of the Virgins Zero.
I was also unfortunate to see a lot of bad reviews before I played "Anthem zero", and I was a little discouraged in advance.
In the end, I spent several hours playing the game in its entirety, and I also completed this meeting that I had been thinking about for more than ten years.
Only when I see it again, things are not, and people are not.
What has happened over the years
The last paragraph was a bit too pretentious, but that's it.
Let's talk about the production team. As early as the late 1990s, the name Wind and Thunder Group and the "Guardian Sword" that had set off a wave at that time appeared in the field of vision of Chinese players. At that time, although the domestic games had pulled away from the top foreign masterpieces, they still maintained a high annual output and the originality of not losing the average level of the industry. The Wind And Thunder team was part of the Taiwanese branch of the Japanese game company TGL at the time, and the Japanese style can be seen in the three Guardian Sword games they have produced.
Later, the Wind thunder group became independent from TGL and founded the Wind Thunder Age in 2000, which was also during this period that they launched the original novel "Song of the Virgin: The Bride of the Mermaid", which was similar to the style of the Guardian Sword series.
In the following 2003, Fenglei Times underwent a commercial reorganization and was renamed Weijing Technology. Immediately after that, they released Song of the Virgins 2: Angels of Salem, and the game production team still signed the Wind and Thunder Age.
Then there's the point. Since the launch of Virgen D'Or 2, the series has disappeared from the eyes of players and the industry, and this disappearance has been more than a decade. What are they doing during this time?
On the official website of Weijing Technology, we can see that they may have wanted to keep up with the trend of the times and devote themselves to the online game industry with unlimited prospects, and successively launched MMORPG "Tianfang Night" and "Tianguan Battle" in 2005. The official website of Weijing Technology can not view the introduction of these two online games, and I feel very unfamiliar with these two names. After inquiry, these two games should have stopped operating long ago, and it may be that even Weijing Technology itself is reluctant to mention too much. At that time, the online game industry had begun to move towards the fiercely competitive Red Sea period, and there were too many works that fell silently shortly after setting sail, and no trace could be found again.
The same is true of the later "Law of Heaven", the game's Hong Kong and Macao costumes were terminated after about half a year of service, and the mainland side has also been hidden in the snow after the emergence of agent rumors.
The official website shows that the VR game "Unveiling Plan", which should be released in early 2016, said in a recent message that it will be released in the Asian region on January 19. Keeping up with the pace of the times is the normal behavior of commercial companies, and I don't know whether Weijing Technology can gain a firm foothold in the embryonic VR field this time.
In addition to original development, Weijing Technology has also been undertaking art outsourcing business, and its outsourcing partners include many major manufacturers at home and abroad, and the projects involved in it also include the famous "Dark Blood" series.
I don't know if it is because the update is not timely, as of the time of writing, "Song of the Virgin Zero" has not been updated to this list. Some time ago, I once read an interview with Weijing Technology, in which the development team members said that in the past ten years, they wanted to continue the story of the Song of the Virgin several times, but they were stranded for various reasons. Here, I boldly guess that the reason for the several strandings of "Song of the Virgin" may include the repeated defeats of Weijing Technology when entering new areas, although there is a stable business to maintain the company's operation, but the frequent mistakes in the grand strategy are enough to affect other projects.
In any case, after Weijing Technology broke the news of "Song of the Virgin 3" a few years ago, it also made the old fans happy to run, even after changing the project to "Song of the Virgin Zero", it has been attracting attention from all walks of life.
In 2015, Heluo's heavy product "Legend of the Hero" still achieved excellent results by relying on quality and sincerity without making too many innovations. Today's domestic games may be far from foreign countries in terms of quality, but the requirements of players for classic works are actually not so harsh. As long as the overall level is not lost in the year, according to the development of the industry to do a good job of relevant changes and optimization, it may be difficult to pull new people, but at least you can pat your chest and say that you are worthy of those old fans who are waiting. From my selfish personal point of view, that's really enough.
In the end, "Song of the Virgin Zero" was released as scheduled, but it brought a nightmare that was difficult to dissipate for everyone.
It's called the love of the car
Yes, from the early publicity, everyone can see that the production team wants to give all players a refreshing feeling. New stories, new systems, new characters are acceptable to veteran players. You can also understand that after so many years, a 3rd generation may be too unfriendly to new players. Coupled with the fact that two voice remakes of the previous game are said to be in development, it also feels like everything makes sense.
The ideal situation is this: the player first experiences "Zero" that has no direct connection with the previous game, but can be used as a prequel, and then comes into contact with the remake of the old work full of feelings, and finally Weijing Technology can officially launch "Song of the Virgin 3" to tell the story of the last two chapters, just like "Guardian Sword" to draw a satisfactory end to the series.
It looks beautiful, right, not only allowing old players to fill the regrets of the year, but also not making the newcomers who have just entered the pit confused.
But what about the facts? Don't worry, listen to me slowly.
Start with the least bad part of the music
There may not be many new songs in this work, but the music maintains the previous style, inviting the god Zhou Zhihua to sit in the lineup, and also cooperating with some independent musicians who match the tone. At least after entering the main menu, listening to the familiar melody can make people feel like they are dreaming back to that year. I don't know any music, there is not much nonsense here, and the whole can give a good evaluation.
Stories that can't be evaluated
The first two games of "Song of the Virgin" are relatively pure RPGs, and the story plot is also a top priority. In fact, the plot of "Song of the Virgin Zero" belongs to the kind that people can't evaluate, because it is short, too TM short. How short is it? If the game is played slowly, it will take about 4 to 6 hours, which is equivalent to the original generation. But the span of this story is actually only a pitiful two days, you are not wrong, watched so many plots and settings, the result of the span of the story is even shorter than the interval between the two live broadcast days between our live broadcasts. So how do you make people complain, you can only wait for the next chapter to be completed before making a complete review.
To tell you the bad news, the rest of the game is basically just.
rhythm?!
Continue with the paragraph above. The story of this work can not be evaluated first, but for the plot and even the rhythm of the overall game, I have a sentence that my mother must tell. In recent years, many domestic games seem to have no idea what the game narrative is, including the Three Swords series. To be honest, who plays RPG before more or less ready to watch a lot of plots, most people do not ask you how otherworldly the story is, as long as you can tell the story smoothly can be called serious.
As mentioned above, the real plot story of the so-called first chapter is extremely short, and it should be known that the background setting of "Song of the Virgin" is supported by a script of hundreds of thousands of words, and these contents should also be integrated into the story so that new and old players can understand it. As a result, in the process of playing "Hyacinth Zero", you will find that the production team will give the player a variety of background settings every time they seize any opportunity. The opening description background is normal, but after that, these contents are still inserted from time to time, and it is a large paragraph.
Seeing the protagonist's sister to come to a paragraph, seeing Ji You to come to a paragraph, after entering the tavern is even more exaggerated, from the "Guardian Sword" crossing the Catwoman Zhenzhen not only to tell the story, but also to divide the first and second half of the scene Are you afraid? It's as if the production team wants players to memorize various related legends and myths in this short first chapter to show how good the overall story structure of the game is.
Frequent cutscenes are another problem. See this you don't rush to scold me for being a fast food player, these cutscenes I don't want the segments to be wonderful, as long as the pace is fast and orderly and allows the player to feel the atmosphere and advance the story. However, these cutscenes not only disrupt the rhythm of your game all the time, but also have problems with their copywriting.
The teaching at the beginning is already a collapse, and the general game will simplify the teaching process so that the player can quickly integrate into the game atmosphere. At the beginning of the game, there was a not short preface and OP, and after patiently watching it, Mao Mao's several industrial and commercial service hours directly made me have a bad first impression of the game. These teachings are not only not simplified, but also mixed with a lot of meaningless words, turning simple questions into long-winded, and a strong sense of drama also comes to the face.
Although the later cutscenes have played a more or less role in advancing the story, almost every dialogue is full of repetitive or meaningless dialogue. Here again, mao mao is mentioned, and the positioning of this character may be similar to the lobster beetine in the previous two games, trying to add a light and funny atmosphere to the story. From the actual effect, the funny dialogue in the game is very deliberately and bluntly designed, especially the old-fashioned bridge section that inappropriately spits on the screenwriting drama and the women's costumes and men's clothing is not seen, which makes me feel that the thinking of the production team is suspected to be still stuck in the era of the previous work.
The times are progressing, when Yang Liwei just went to heaven, and now the Chinese space station has been built Ah brother. At that time, when I had just graduated from elementary school, I might find similar dialogue fresh and funny, but now people probably can only feel a sense of embarrassment that is rotten to the point of juice.
I remember that when I played the old-fashioned RPG, I was more afraid of stepping on the landmine, and when I played "A Song of the Virgin Zero", the sense of fear was reawakened, and I was afraid of suddenly stepping on a long and tedious plot every moment.
The overall rhythm of the game is a complete disaster. In the first half, players have to be brainwashed by endless plot content, and in the second half, the plot in the LongHorn Forest is less, but it is accompanied by repetitive and boring level design. The production team was unable to keep the game paced smoothly during these few short hours of gameplay, which made me seriously skeptical and worried about their performance in later chapters.
The system is up
The combat system in the old Song of the Virgins used a semi-instantaneous system of stepping on the thunderbolt, and each character can learn unique stunt moves as they level up, while magic skills are obtained by crafting runes. At that time, the picture of "Song of the Virgin" had reached an amazing point, and what was more unexpected was that the dazzling and richness of its various skills exceeded the player's cognition and expectations of domestic games.
Speaking of which, I was a little excited when I saw "Anthem Zero" changed to a 2D horizontal version of the action combat, and fantasized in my mind what would be the anti-heaven effect if the previous game's combat was used in this new mode. I thought that if this is done well, the game will not be on fire again or something.
As a result, the combat system is also a piece of, and you really can't say anything, after all, people have also said that they are not suitable for action game lovers, right?
What makes me wonder is that you make a core combat system that is always for the player to play, and if you want to play, let the player play it cool, right? The game's mobile feel is still OK, and as a result, I was forced to fight for the first time, and this feeling of force continued until the final level.
What's up? Strike at these three axes, no other moves?
Does this blow feel dare to float any more? There is no judgment box at all, is it?
Skill on a name of a giant embarrassing hair shining in the air?
Heaven for half a day to play the game before the first weapon skill? What are all skills that charge?
Drill a broken tent for Mao Laozi to sleep and collect money, 50 yuan is not a means of consumption at all, what is the significance? Why is it more expensive than visiting the kiln in The Witcher 3?
The store is just that, the weapons are changed back and forth, and the new clothes are changed to a different color?
The repetition rate of the level design is so high, how much do you want to deal with errands? If you don't want to do it, it will all become a plot.
The above is a mental blow, and the perspective of this work has also caused me real physical damage. Every time you turn the protagonist around, the entire shot pans dramatically, and this perspective shift becomes the best emetic whenever you need to do it frequently. It's no exaggeration to say that this is the first time in my life that I have played a 2D side-scrolling game and played a dizzy and disgusting feeling. Not only me, but even the audience in the live broadcast room often mentioned this problem. Accompanied by a strong sense of discomfort throughout the whole process, my interest in the game's plot and other content also plummeted, and I just wanted to pass the level quickly. At that time, the process of "Song of the Virgin 1" was criticized by many people, but the short process of "Song of the Virgin Zero" became the greatest relief for me at this time.
Speechless picture
You must have doubts, it is said that the picture of this work should definitely not be spray point, why is it arranged here?
It is true that the CG level of Hyacinth Zero is very high and the number is very conscientious, but that's about it. The maximum screen resolution of the game is only supported to 720P, and even if you are aggrieved to stay in window mode for the game, you will also see serious jaggedness caused by low-resolution textures in the various mirrors of the game's story. I feel that the production team has also given up on this point, knowing that the resolution of the material is not good and has to forcibly close the camera, as if it is afraid that others will not see those sharp serrations. The most amazing thing is that this problem actually appears on the well-painted CG, and various close-ups are also vividly expressed in a blur. In this regard, I can only choose to believe that the rumors that the main platform of this game is mobile are not empty.
The characters' movements in the plot are also very stiff, and there are very few types of actions. Although the resolution and frame rate of the first two works of "Song of the Virgin" are pitifully low due to chronological reasons, at least there are many well-drawn character animations interspersed in them, rather than using dry emoji bubbles to try to save the weak expressiveness.
In summary, the picture really can't be a positive factor in my mind.
Voice over in my eyes
This paragraph please ignore is purely my subjective opinion. I'm not very receptive to the Chinese dubbing of this game, especially if the Japanese dubbing level is much higher than Chinese, I will definitely choose to listen to it more smoothly. Of course, there are also many viewers who think that the taiwan is completely acceptable during the live broadcast, in fact, if you listen to the dubbing alone, you can hear that the voice actors are performing with heart, but the strong Taiwanese accent will make me have a strong sense of violation.
In addition, when I was a child, I also grew up watching "Conan", "Slam Dunk Master", "Cherry Pills" and "Chinese Little Boss". It's still subjective, but I still feel that the dubbing of "Anthem zero" is far from the level of those cartoons of the time.
Mysterious pricing
The best is coming. Regardless of other platforms, the Steam version of "Song of the Virgin Zero" does not contain harmony, including Chinese and Japanese bilingual dubbing and multi-language text support, which should be the most complete version of the content on the market, so I will only discuss it according to the steam version pricing.
The steam price of this game is 98 yuan, well, you heard it right.
Mainland players know that after the opening of the Steam national area, it has promoted the improvement of the domestic sense of authenticity, and at the same time, in addition to some old stubbornness of eating jujube pills, the pricing of various game works from independent to AAA is directly approaching the Russian region, and it is close to the people's road of selling low prices and making money. And "Song of the Virgin Zero" is obviously to crack down on this kind of self-degrading evil atmosphere, so that its national price is among the best in the world to correct the audio-visual.
And it needs to be remembered that this is the first chapter, and every chapter after "Song of the Virgin Zero" will be charged, and may even be more expensive than a chapter. At this time, capcom next door is estimated to be already sighing to himself, patting his thigh and saying that our Resident Evil Apocalypse 2 sold too cheaply.
It is said that there are five chapters in this game, so after conservative calculations, it will take about 500RMB for players to experience the complete game.
What game can I buy for 500 bucks? Let's take a look at the original price of other games.
Can buy 2 Fallout 4;
Or buy 3 Of Witcher 3 Annual Editions;
Or buy 2 valves V society big package;
Or buy a bunch of indie games to play until you vomit blood according to our site's recommended list;
Or find EA Dad to pre-order a Mass Effect Andromeda and prepare a bunch of snacks by the way;
Or launch a rocket into the indienova live room;
Wait a minute.
However, the pricing is ultimately the freedom of the game manufacturer, and I will only show some facts here, without any evaluation.
At last
I remember that after the last live log was written too long, I was determined to shorten the length, just when I didn't say that, this article is already more than 5,000 words.
In short, "Song of the Virgin Zero" actually meets the content needs of our live broadcast room, after all, people have also labeled "independent" on the store page, so we should still buy it when she launches the next chapter. As I said in the live room, I don't recommend this game to anyone, especially fans. So let's continue to let us be the wronged head and show everyone the reasons for not recommending it. However, the long review of this game is estimated that it will not be written again, and it is too easy to gather negative emotions. I also hope that the production team can see the problems raised by the players, actively improve, and the word of mouth can also be supported.
In the bad review I wrote with the audience, there was a friend's question that has always impressed me: Have you played the previous game in the production team?
My opinion is this: of course they have played the previous game, but they just find it difficult for them to make that kind of game again.
The relevant video of the game has been uploaded to station B, the video address:
1. http://www.bilibili.com/video/av7959274/
2. http://www.bilibili.com/video/av7959148/
steam link
http://store.steampowered.com/app/537990/
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