"Oh, what's the specific thing... why is it different?" Hu Bin asked.

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

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

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

...

The game "Sekiro" can be said to be a work that Miyazaki Hidetaka continued his personal style from "Dark Souls" and "Bloodborne Curse". What is even more commendable is that it is a brand new IP created from scratch, but it can continue to fully improve the level of game design.

Whether in terms of player reputation or professional media ratings, "Sekiro" is a self-transcendent work, which is very rare.

This kind of self-transcendence is in many aspects. It can be simply classified from a design perspective and can be roughly divided 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 a consistent advantage of "Dark Souls" and "Bloodborne Curse", but these other aspects do not significantly surpass the first two works.

Compared with the epic story of the Kings of Firewood that has lasted for thousands of years in "Dark Souls", the precise interpretation of Cthulhu culture in "Blood Source Curse", the plot of "Sekiro" is based on the Warring States Period in neon history, which to some extent increases the historical heaviness 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 are unique and difficult to tell.

The reason why "Sekiro" is a comprehensive and transcendent work is precisely because the biggest highlight of Hideto Miyazaki's game is the combat system and level design, which is also the key to the fame of "Dark Souls" and "Bloodborne Curse".

Simply put, a child's strengths in exams have always been mathematics and English. Others can only get 80 points in mathematics and English, and he gets 90 points every time. In the new exam, others still get 80 points, but he actually gets 95 points. This kind of progress is very terrifying.

It is not to make up for the shortcomings, but to continue to go further in terms of strengths. This kind of breakthrough can only be described as "reminding the mountains".

In terms of combat system, the biggest improvement of "Sekiro" is to make the "abuse" and "smooth" in the game reach a very perfect balance, and in terms of game experience, it surpasses "Dark Souls" and "Bloodborn Curse".

For bigwigs, these three games have quick kill methods and can be played very well, but for the regular experience of ordinary players, "Dark Souls" is a game that encourages defense. Raise the shield and block the opponent's attack, and then go up and cut it up for a few times. Even players with poor hands can get a good gaming experience as long as they are cautious enough.

"Blood Source Curse" was an attempt by Hidetaka Miyazaki, who cut off the shield and replaced it with a musket. Players either dodge or rebel. In this way, players take greater risks when fighting, but the pace of battle accelerates, and players take greater risks.

After the successful experiment of "Bloodborne Curse", the combat system of "Sekiro" was further improved. "Shield Reversal" and "Gun Reversal" were changed to "parking". parry was divided into conventional parry, imperfect parry and perfect parry. Among them, conventional parry is equivalent to raising a shield, and perfect parry is equivalent to shield reversal. Although it is far away from the same as before, the player's feeling of playing has undergone earth-shaking changes.

The root of all this is that "Sekiro" directly changed the energy value of the previous work to the posture slot.

Originally, in the Black Soul and Blood Source, the player's energy value is a very critical attribute. Players' attacks, rolls, and blocks will consume energy, so players must consider it when their energy value is limited: if there are too many attacks, they cannot block or roll, and if there are too many rolls, they cannot attack.

Because the energy value is very limited, players can only be careful in calculations. Sometimes they will be timid and first focus on being safe, raise a shield to block the enemy's attacks. When they catch the gap in the middle, they will grab two swords when they are snatched, and then raise the shield.

In this way, players are always in a state of extreme caution during the game. Although this is the usual routine of Hideto Miyazaki's game, forcing the player to back the board, this gaming experience obviously did not meet Hideto Miyazaki's maximum expectations.

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

After removing the energy value, the player will become unlimited in attack, sprint or docking. The player can completely ignore the consumption of energy value, attack or move wildly. However, there are posture slots in the game, and the posture slot stipulate the upper limit for players to parry: imperfect parry will increase the posture slot. Once the posture slot is full of the character, it will lose balance and fall into an extremely dangerous state, and it is very likely to be taken away by the boss in an instant.

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

In "Sekiro", players don't need to pay attention to this. The best way is to deal with each other. While dodging a few dangerous skills, they can play as many perfect parry as possible, and then seize all gaps to output crazy to the boss.

Moreover, the bounce in the Black Soul and Blood Source is not a particularly common operation. This operation is only applicable to some bosses, and many people can pass the level without bounce. However, in "Sekiro", parrying has become a routine operation like attack. It is applicable to most bosses. If you can't learn to parry, you basically say goodbye to this game.

In this way, Sekiro forces players to engage in more adventures, making the rhythm of the battle more tense. At the same time, the battle with counterattacks becomes more rhythmic. Although it is still a "turn-based game", the rounds are greatly shortened. Combined with the sound of "ding Ding Dangdang", this battle with swords and shadows has increased the pleasure of "Sekiro" to the extreme.

In other words, "Sekiro" completely relaxes the constraints on players' energy values, allowing players to gain higher degrees of freedom, but this does not reduce the difficulty of the game.

In addition, although "Sekiro" does not have as many weapons as black souls and blood sources, through the combination of Ninyi hand and martial arts, players can find many different ways of playing. Different Ninyi hand can have different effects, such as a spear that can tear off the armor of large enemies, a firebomb can restrain red ghosts, a firecracker can restrain crazy animals, an umbrella has powerful defense ability, a shuriken can attack crisp enemies with fast movement speed and can also make enemies standing in the sky imbalance... As long as the player uses different props correctly, the best combat effect can be obtained.

All of these make the combat system of "Sekiro" brain-burning and exciting. After proficient in the entire system, the pleasure of "Sekiro" is higher than that of the dark soul and blood source.

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

Black Soul and Blood Source have always been famous for their top level designs. This level design is not only the malice of the enemy in the level, but also a control over the player's action planning and rhythm.

For example: the reuse of a map, the arrangement of bonfires and shortcuts, the mechanisms in the scene, the distribution of monsters...

A good level design can make players feel fresh and unknown when they first meet, and after exploring, they will sigh "So that's the case." There are many amazing designs in the Black Soul and Blood Source. Different maps are connected to each other through various paths. The player's exploration path is firmly grasped in the hands of Hidetaka Miyazaki, and the mood of playing is naturally controlled.

The breakthrough of "Sekiro" in level design is to turn a flat level into a three-dimensional level, which is to "let the immortal have a knee."

Originally, the level design of Black Soul and Blood Source was very strict, and the undead could not even take the steps as high as the knee. This is because the level design of the game was built on the plane. If the undead could climb the wall like Link, then more than half of the enemies could go around and not fight, and the game experience would be completely different.

But "Sekiro" made a great breakthrough in this regard. The protagonist has two-section jumps, some jumps on the wall, and can also use the Non-Yi hand to quickly reach specific points on the eaves. While giving the protagonist stronger movement ability, it means that the original "Black Souls"-style level design is no longer applicable.

The level design of "Sekiro" follows the classic practices of soul-based games, but also makes new breakthroughs.

The game capacity of "Sekiro" is very small, only 12g, but the content of the game is quite large at all. This is the typical feature of the level design of the soul game: through the superb level design level, the existing scenes are reused, and players can enjoy exploring.

In "Sekiro", Ashina Castle is reused as a very core area, and each time it can bring a completely different experience.

In the prologue, the wolf climbed out of the valley bottom and sneaked into the water storage city to see Oko. It was a dark scene at this time; the second time was to officially come to Ashina Castle to explore, and it was daytime, and the monsters became completely different. The original location of Oko became Ashina Seven Guns; the third time was after experiencing the plot of Ashina Village, he returned to Ashina City to find the invasion of the inner palace, and the two forces fought in Ashina City; the fourth time was that after the sword saint Yixin died, the inner palace invaded completely, and the entire Ashina City fell into a sea of ​​fire...

Every time you enter Ashina City, the routes players take are different, and the scenes and enemies they encounter are also different. But in the final analysis, Ashina City is still the same Ashina City, which immediately condenses the resources of the four scenes into one scene.

While saving resources, players have four different experiences, and they have a deeper understanding of the layout of the entire Ashina City, thus expressing the feeling of "This level design is really awesome."

On the basis of inheritance, "Sekiro" also made a breakthrough, which is to design the levels not only for frontal combat, but also for assassination.

In Black Soul and Blood Source, the process of the protagonist exploring the level is: Exploring the way, cleaning up the monsters, cleaning up the elites, and cleaning up the boss. Because in these two games, players can only fight when they see monsters and have no other choice. Although some big shots can pass the level by parkour after being proficient enough, that is not the designer's intention after all.

But it's completely different in "Sekiro".

In "Sekiro", players have higher degrees of freedom. For most players, it is best to run away and open the ghost Buddha first, so they can move quickly at a high place, so players do not need to clear all the monsters.

At the same time, players have many ways to deal with monsters, which can be head-on, but the risks will be very high, because most of the monsters in the Black Soul and Blood Source are low in intelligence and can be brought to kill one by one. The monsters in "Sekiro" will shout loudly to their companions and will be beaten up if they are accidentally beaten. Players can sneak into assassination, and after clearing all the monsters, they can secretly assassinate the elite monster with blood, which reduces the difficulty of the battle on the surface.

With the high degree of freedom of the level, players' exploration will no longer need to be so rigid. They can first explore the way, kill elites, improve their physical strength and then kill bosses, and finally explore slowly. Players of different styles can have different game methods.

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

...

Listening to Zhong Ming’s story, Hu Bin felt a little confused.

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

Strictly speaking, the combat system of "Ink Clouds and Smoke 2" is the current mainstream combat system. In addition to calligraphy and painting skills, "Ink Clouds and Smoke 2" basically has all the combat contents of the current mainstream games, such as: different attack methods of swords, swords, long weapons, charging attacks, jumping and slashing, shield defense, blocking, etc.

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

There are so many RPG games in the world and such a rich combat system, but no game can break out of the framework of this combat system.

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

In short, the posture slot can be said to be a state in which the character maintains physical balance. The higher the posture slot, the more it means the character is on the verge of imbalance. The enemy's "imbalance" means "exposed flaws". At this time, you can grasp the flaws and kill the enemy with one blow.

In other words, in the battle of "Sekiro", the showdown between the two characters is no longer about you slashing me and I slashing you. Whoever we fight has a high defense and a long blood bar, but most of the time it takes a knife to fight, and when the sword light is really red, the winner is already decided.

This setting reminded Hu Bin a little of the internal and external trauma settings in "Taiwu Painting Scroll". There are two internal and external trauma strips, and you can kill the enemy if you hit any one of them.
Chapter completed!