bb Ji | wen
Many players will play a game for some "game wife". Of course, "wife" is just a ridiculous word, and everyone is not really going to marry NPC.
So nowadays, more and more creators no longer inject energy into the quality of the game, but are bent on creating good characters, first investigating various elements that cater to the tastes of everyone, and then kneading them into a character and stuffing them into a non-existent world and story.
But players have struggled to identify with the characters created in this way, no matter how attractive they seem.
So what exactly can be done to create a convincing "game wife"? This can be said from Persona 5, which is p5.
Many players play p5 for their sisters, after all, although this game tells a magic story of ups and downs, half of its content focuses on the campus life of the protagonist Joker. In the game, players can take classes, make friends, and date various female characters.
The daily part of Persona 5 is so immersive that it makes people suspect that they have lived in the campus of the game for a whole year, and it is even a bit difficult to distinguish in retrospect.
This daily part of the dating session has always been a topic of conversation among players. Takamaki Apricot, Shinigami Niijima, Futaba Sakura, Kasumi Yoshizawa... The personalities and backstories of the female characters are colorful, and you can interact with them in a variety of delicate ways, date after date, and gradually witness a three-dimensional and full character image being carved out.
Some people get into the pit p5 because of their girls, but that's not why they fall in love with the game. What makes a player fall in love with p5 is always p5 itself: you may initially be attracted to a single aspect, but in the end, what will impress you is the unity of all sides of the game.
The shining virtues of p5 have been exaggerated countless times: the soundtrack of rock and jazz, the cool art style and UI, and its immersive game world, fascinating plot; each single can write an article.
So that when p5 is mentioned, there will be fans shouting "p5 is the first in the world!" In fact, everyone knows that this cannot be taken seriously, after all, there are many treasures in the game world. But it seems that only by relying on this unreasonable voice can the love for it be released and passed on to the group of makers behind the game.
Atlus, who made the Persona series, is the emotional warrior in the player's heart. They have the p5 that has been exaggerated, but they have been acquired in debt for many years, and even p5 cannot reverse the loss.
But even so, they never compromise on the quality of the game. Although atlus likes to make various enhanced versions of the game, but each generation of "Persona", they have to be carefully polished, try to be innovative, and never play the routine of changing the skin into a sequel, which has spawned a high degree of completion and innovation of p5.
Atlus' ideas seem to challenge the so-called "business thinking", and they will also support their comrades: if they had not been transfusing blood for the vanilla society, which was also applauded, we might not have seen the "Thirteen Machines Defense Circle" that was praised as a god last year.
p5 raises doubts about the statement that "a character sells well depends on a successful business operation" – sometimes it may be companies that go against the commercial atmosphere that create good game characters.
Because the reason why people find the game characters attractive is because they are real and have personalities. Part of this realism comes from the game world they live in: only by creating a game world that is so detailed that the player can experience every corner of it with the characters, will the experience of the story become a "personal experience".
Their personality also needs the support of true feelings: in p5, each female character has her own obsession and regret, through them, you see not the character template, but different growth experiences, thinking styles and social dilemmas, and the soul of the character is also real because of complexity.
But these are contrary to the business model: to complete a game with "cost performance", you need to reuse more materials and reduce the details that most players can't see; but once we do this, we see boring and routine characters, and it is too difficult to fall in love with a bunch of mass-produced templates.
Another game that made me deepen this idea is Another Eden: Cat Beyond Time. Contrary to the experience of p5, I played it for the quality of the game, but unexpectedly gained a bunch of "wives".
"Another Eden" is a mobile game, and the heartbeat represents its national costume, but it is an alternative in the mobile game, and the various design logics are completely different from ordinary mobile games. When you first come into contact with this game, it's easy to mistakenly think that it's a JRPG that was ported to your phone.
When I entered the pit of "Another Eden", I was attracted by the game's "production group": the screenwriter was Masato Kato, who directed "Wheel of Time", the soundtrack was the famous Yasunori Mitsuda, and the most attractive to me was Eikusa Tenjin, who was the artist, who drew "When the Sea Cat Cries", which I like very much.
Like the atlus that created p5, the production team of "The Other Eden" also revealed a momentum to compete with the profit-seeking business model in all aspects.
For example, as a mobile game with card drawing elements, the focus of the game is not on drawing cards, which can get a bunch of five-star characters just by playing "encounter missions", and the benefits are also sent every three to five; at least for many people, it does not need krypton gold.
Complete the Encounter Mission and send the character
In addition, the game has no physical limitations, and although the character has skills and equipment growth, it will not force you to vomit blood. To say that the downside of the game is that you can't "play it as a mobile game": to have fun with the game, you have to sit back and savor the plot, and all the music and cg that comes with it.
Its plot is indeed worth quietly experiencing, the main line of the game and some side plots, the level can let you understand why Mitsuda Yasunori is famous in the industry. It tells a very grand script in which three eras intertwine and sing, composing an epic poem that reverberates for tens of thousands of years.
Moreover, this seemingly "hardcore" game is full of "wives". The female characters in the game are vividly shaped, and the vertical paintings are more exquisite than one, neither conservative nor rigid. This "hardcore JRPG" is often particularly new.
Like the likable characters in p5, the characters in the game have a lot of content to support: if you're a character who gets on encounter missions, the encounter missions themselves have a lot of plot. In addition, the characters have multiple individual missions, giving the player the feeling of getting acquainted with them day by day.
There are too many channels in the game that allow you to gain an in-depth understanding of the character, and with high-level voiceover and standing drawing, the presence of the character can be further enhanced.
Many of the characters are dori-e
The characters in The Other Eden are also like p5: they experience private or relaxed daily life with you, and participate in your grand and long adventures. Over time, the characters become more and more realistic, and unlike some game characters, their lives burn out ten minutes after shipment, leaving only a standing painting and a few clichéd lines.
"The Other Eden" also linked with p5r (which is a strengthened version of p5) once, turning p5's joker and mona into controllable characters, and the characters were free to send, and the linkage was permanent.
To say that the linkage has any regrets for some people, that is, the lack of "wife".
Then, the second linkage between the two games is now coming: and this time, Violet, known as the schoolgirl in p5r, and Joker's good friend Skull, have also become linkage characters. This time, the linkage between "Another Eden" and p5r is the same as last time, the activity is permanently opened, and the linkage character can start as long as the activity is finished.
For the legs, I put a standing picture of the whole picture
skull
Although Violet and Skull are both sent, the intensity is not low, and there is no traditional concept of giving away characters. Old players can integrate them into the powerful system, and new players can treat them as thighs, which doesn't look like a free thing. With the addition of the last joker and mona, you can form a super p5 team without kryptonite.
Violet's popularity in p5r is quite high: after all, she is in good shape (after all, a gymnast), cute, and has a surprising backstory. Unfortunately, she did not appear again in The Goddess 5 Showdown: Ghost Vanguard, which barely counted as a p5 sequel; it has always been a pity for those who like her.
You can imagine how surprising this linkage is for her fans. Moreover, even if Violet (and Skulll) did not poke your cute point, this linkage will also follow the benefits of the first anniversary of the game, and the things sent are enough for you to draw the next card pool, such as the very poking as Lianli in the new version.
The linkage itself is also worth playing, the event plot integrates the characteristics of p5 and "The Other Eden", you can see the familiar concept of impression space in p5, as well as the representative elements of "time and space travel to change the world" in Eden.
Strange bandits will appear
Play this careful and money-free linkage, and you may also understand why game companies that are retrograde with commercial routines can create the best "game wives".
The linked soundtrack, maze background and enemies all restore the style of p5
Because quite simply, only by injecting love into a character can he bring love to the player in turn; this is true of all game NPCs. And a concept like "love", even if it comes from a virtual character, can't be integrated with the naked money routine, right?
In today's game industry, we at least have no shortage of beautiful standing drawings and sexy voices, but on top of them, we long for someone who can inject soul into the characters - not relying on mellow commercial operations, but writing the character stories with painstaking efforts, and the world they exist in with sincerity.
It's like every year the game beauty comes and goes, but everyone still remembers the 2b of Neil: Mechanical Age. Because Yokoo infused her with a soul-stirring story, a world of breathlessness, through her, we see more than a model of speech.
The same is true of Persona 5 and The Other Eden: in p5, the player and the Mind Monster Gang infiltrate the human mind to steal malicious obsessions and save all of humanity; in The Other Eden, the player and their companions travel through time and space to resurrect the child's dead father with the necromancer Dova, and discover the truth of the saint with the holy horse Annabelle...
We know that these experiences are virtual, but because we can feel the sincerity and effort in them, they still seem real. So when people call a character "wife", they never love more than just the character, but everything behind them.
Thanks to a group of creators who are reluctant to use commercial schemes to turn these game worlds and stories into hypocrisy, the space in which they are born and exist is not empty. It is also thanks to them that we can dedicate a love that is not superficial to these not superficial games and "wives".