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"Oh, specifically...why is it different?" Hu Bin asked.

Zhong Ming thought for a while: "This game...is it a little bit difficult?"

"Oh, if it's a little bit difficult, that's okay. What else?" Hu Bin asked again.

"The combat system is somewhat different from other games, so let's just look at the design draft." Zhong Ming began to explain some design rules of this game to Hu Bin.

...

The game "Sekiro" can be said to be a continuation of Miyazaki Hidetaka's personal style from "Dark Soul" and "Bloodborne Curse". What is even more commendable is that this is a brand new game created from scratch IP, but it can continue to raise the level of game design in an all-round way.

Whether in terms of word-of-mouth from players or ratings from professional media, "Sekiro" is a work of self-transcendence, which is very rare.

This kind of self-transcendence has many aspects. From the perspective of design, it can be roughly classified into two aspects: combat system and level design.

Of course, "Sekiro" is also very good in terms of plot, boss battle settings, etc., which is also the consistent advantage inherited from "Dark Soul" and "Bloodborne", but these other aspects are not as good as the first two. It's just that it's clearly surpassed.

Compared with the epic story of "Dark Soul" that passed down the fire kings for thousands of years, and the precise interpretation of Cthulhu culture in "Blood Curse", the plot of "Sekiro" is based on the neon history of the Warring States Period , To a certain extent, it increases the sense of history and reality of the game. The combination of realistic elements and mythological elements in the plot forms a unique cultural output.

The story backgrounds of the three games have their own characteristics, and it is hard to distinguish them.

The reason why "Sekiro" is a work that transcends in an all-round way is precisely because the biggest highlight of Miyazaki Hideko's game is the combat system and level design, which is why "Dark Soul" and "Bloodborne Curse" can The key to fame.

To put it simply, a certain child's strengths in the test have always been mathematics and English, while others can only score 80 points in mathematics and English, and he takes 90 points every time. And in the new exam, other people still took 80, but he actually got 95. This kind of progress is very scary.

It is not to make up for the shortcomings, but to continue to make further progress in terms of strengths. This kind of breakthrough can only be described as "standing up from a high mountain".

In terms of combat system, the biggest progress of "Sekiro" is to make the "abuse" and "cool" in the game reach a very perfect balance. In terms of game experience, it surpasses "Dark Soul" and "Blood Curse" ".

For big players, these three games have quick kill methods, and they can all be played very well, but for the general experience of ordinary players, "Dark Soul" is a game that encourages defense. Hold up the shield to block the opponent's attack, and then go up and slash twice. Don't be greedy for knives. Even players with handicap, as long as they are careful enough, they can get a good game experience.

And "Bloodborne Curse" is an attempt by Hidetaka Miyazaki. He directly cut off the shield and replaced it with a musket. Players must either avoid it or shoot back. In this way, players have to take greater risks when fighting, but the pace of combat is therefore accelerated, and players take greater risks.

After the successful experiment of "Curse of Blood", the combat system of "Sekiro" has been further improved. Changed "shield counter" and "gun counter" to "parry". The parry is divided into regular parry, imperfect parry and perfect parry. The regular parry is equivalent to lifting the shield, and the perfect parry is equivalent to the shield counter. Although the distance is the same as before, the player's feeling of playing has undergone earth-shaking changes.

And the root of all this is that "Sekiro" directly changed the energy value of the previous game into a posture slot.

Originally, in Black Soul and Blood Origin, the player's energy value is a very critical attribute. Players attack, roll, and block will consume energy, so players must consider it when the energy value is limited: if there are too many attacks, there will be no You can't block or roll, if you roll too much, you can't attack.

Because the energy value is very limited, players can only count carefully, sometimes they will be timid, first focus on safety, raise the shield to block a set of enemy attacks, catch a gap in the middle, seize the time to touch two knives, and then raise the shield.

In this way, the player is always in a state of extreme caution during the game. Although this is the consistent routine of Hidetaka Miyazaki's games, forcing the player to back the board, this game experience obviously does not reach the level of Hidetaka Miyazaki. maximum expectation.

And "Sekiro" changed the energy value to the posture slot, which made a huge change in this system.

After the energy value is removed, the player has no restrictions on attacking, sprinting or dodging, and the player can completely ignore the energy consumption, attack or move wildly. However, there is a stance slot in the game, and the stance slot defines the upper limit of the player's parry: imperfect parry will increase the stance slot, once the stance slot is full, the character will lose balance, fall into an extremely dangerous state, and is very likely to be taken away by the boss instantly Walk.

Therefore, in Black Soul and Blood Origin, players must learn to manage their energy. When the boss moves are fixed, they must first use the energy to defend or dodge, and then use the energy to touch the boss twice.

In "Sekiro", players don't need to care about this, the best way is to see the tricks. While dodging a few dangerous skills, perform as many perfect parries as possible, and then seize all gaps to deal crazy damage to the boss.

Moreover, the bounce in Black Soul and Blood Origin is not a particularly commonly used operation. This operation is only applicable to some bosses, and many people can pass the level without bounce; but in "Sekiro", parry becomes The same routine operation as attacking, it is suitable for most bosses, if you can't learn to parry, you basically say goodbye to this game.

In this way, "Sekiro" forces players to take more risky behaviors, making the battle rhythm more tense. At the same time, the battle of tricks and tricks becomes more rhythmic. Although it is still a "turn-based game", But the round was greatly shortened, and with the sound of "Ding Ding Dang Dang", this kind of sword, light, sword and shadow battle made "Sekiro" feel refreshing to the extreme.

In other words, "Sekiro" completely released the shackles of the energy value on the player, allowing the player to obtain a higher degree of freedom, but this did not reduce the difficulty of the game.

In addition, although "Sekiro" does not have as many weapons as Black Soul and Blood Origin, through the combination of ninja hands and martial arts, players can explore many different styles of play. Different ninja hands can have Different effects, such as spears can tear off the armor of large enemies, flamethrowers can restrain red ghosts, firecrackers can restrain crazy animals, umbrellas have strong defense capabilities, shurikens can attack fast-moving crispy enemies and can also make The enemies standing in the sky are unbalanced... As long as the player uses different props correctly, the best combat effect can be obtained.

All these make the combat system of "Sekiro" brain-burning and exciting. After mastering the whole system, the coolness of "Sekiro" is higher than that of Black Soul and Blood Origin.

On the other hand, it is the level design of the game.

Dark Souls and Bloodborne have always been known for their top level design. This kind of level design is not only the maliciousness of the enemies in the level, but also a kind of control over the player's action planning and rhythm.

For example: reuse of a certain map, layout of bonfires and shortcuts, organs in the scene, distribution of monsters...

A good level design can make players feel fresh and unknown when they first see it, and after groping, they will feel "that's how it is". There are many breathtaking designs in Black Soul and Bloodborne. Different maps are connected to each other through various paths. The player's exploration path is firmly in the hands of Hidetaka Miyazaki, and the emotions of the game are naturally controlled. .

The breakthrough in level design of "Sekiro" is to turn the flat level into a three-dimensional level, that is, "let the undead have knees".

Originally, the level design of Black Soul and Bloodborne was very strict, and the undead could not even walk up to knee-high steps. This is because the level design of the game is based on a flat surface. If the undead could climb walls casually like Link, then more than half of the enemies would be able to go around and not fight at will, and the game experience would be completely different.

But "Sekiro" has made a great breakthrough on this point. The protagonist can double jump, jump off the wall, and can quickly reach a specific point on the eaves with his ninja hand. While giving the protagonist stronger mobility, it also means that the original "Black Soul" style level design is no longer applicable.

The level design of "Sekiro" has also made a new breakthrough while following the classic approach of soul games.

The game capacity of "Sekiro" is very small, only 12G, but the content of the game is not lacking at all. This is the typical feature of the soul game level design: through the superb level design level, the existing scene is reused, and the player can explore it happily.

In "Sekiro", Ashina Castle is used repeatedly as a very core area, and it can bring people a completely different experience every time.

In the prologue, the wolf climbed out from the bottom of the valley and sneaked into the water storage city to see Yuzi. This time it was a night scene; the second time was when he officially came to Weiming City to start exploring. It was daytime, and the cloth monsters became completely different. The location changed to Weiming’s seven guns; the third time was after going through the story of Shuishing Village, returning to Weiming City to find that the inner government had invaded, and the two forces were fighting fiercely in Weiming City; the fourth time was that the sword master was determined to die Afterwards, the Inner Palace invaded in an all-round way, and the entire Weiming City was engulfed in a sea of ​​flames...

Every time players enter Weiming City, the routes the players take are different, and the scenes and enemies they encounter are also different, but in the final analysis, Weiming City is still the same Weiming City, which condenses the resources of the four scenes into a scene.

While saving resources, it also allows players to have four different experiences, and allows players to have a deeper understanding of the layout of the entire Weiming City, thus expressing the emotion of "this level design is really awesome".

On the basis of inheritance, "Sekiro" also has a breakthrough, that is, the level is designed not only for frontal combat, but also for assassination.

In Black Soul and Bloodborne, the protagonist’s process of exploring levels is: explore the path, clear mobs, clear elites, and clear bosses, because in these two games, players can only fight monsters when they see them, and have no other choice. Although some bosses can parkour and pass the level after they are proficient enough, that is not the original intention of the designer after all.

But in Sekiro it's completely different.

In "Sekiro", players have a higher degree of freedom. For most players, it is best to run away and open the ghost Buddha first, so that they can move quickly at high places, so players don't need to keep all mobs Give clear light.

At the same time, there are many ways for players to deal with mobs. They can be tough, but the risk will be great, because most of the mobs in Black Soul and Blood Origin have low intelligence and can be lured to kill them one by one. "Sekiro" The mobs in the game will call out to their companions loudly, and if they are not careful, they will be surrounded and beaten. Players can stealthily assassinate, and after clearing all mobs, they can also secretly assassinate elite monsters with a blood, which makes the difficulty of the battle seem to be reduced.

The degree of freedom of the level is high, and the player's exploration does not need to be so rigid. You can explore the road first, kill the elite, increase your physical strength and then kill the boss, and finally explore slowly. Players with different styles can have different game methods .

The unique combat system and level design make "Sekiro" a game completely different from Miyazaki Hidetaka's previous works, with a very unique charm.

...

Listening to Zhong Ming's narration, Hu Bin felt a little confused.

This combat system is so different from the combat system of "Ink and Cloud 2"?

Strictly speaking, the combat system of "Ink Cloud 2" is the current mainstream combat system. Except for calligraphy and painting skills, "Ink Cloud 2" basically has all the combat content of current mainstream games, such as: knives, swords, spears, etc. Different attack methods of weapons, charge attack, jump cut, shield defense, block and so on.

And this is also the upper limit of the combat system that Hu Bin can imagine.

There are so many RPG games in the world with such a rich combat system, but none of them can jump out of the framework of this combat system.

However, the combat system of "Sekiro" has undergone earth-shaking changes after adding the concept of "stance slot".

In short, the stance gauge can be said to be a state in which the character maintains body balance. The higher the stance gauge, the more the character is on the verge of being out of balance. And the enemy's "imbalance" means "exposed flaws". At this time, you can seize the flaws and kill the enemy with one blow.

In other words, in the battle of "Sekiro", the confrontation between two characters is no longer that you cut me and I cut you. We fight who has the highest defense and whose health bar is long, but most of the time. It's all about the clash of swords, and when the real sword shines red, the winner has already been decided.

This kind of setting made Hu Bin think of the internal and external injury setting of "Taiwu Painting Scroll". There are two internal and external injuries, and any one of them can kill the enemy.

It’s just that the setting of the Stance Gauge is more special. The Stance Gauge can disappear quickly. Maybe you spent a lot of effort to fill up the opponent’s Stance Gauge, but you didn’t have time to kill it. The opponent’s Stance Gauge quickly fell back. It's all in vain; it's also possible that the opponent is still full of health, but your set of attacks and rebounds fills the stance gauge, and the full health is instantly lost.