This game has an eye-catching sound and picture performance and a minimalist but extremely simple combat system. With a wealth of equipment, players can enjoy no less than ten hours of high-quality combat experience in this game. . Considered purely as an action game, Steel Tail is worth it.
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"Fresh" is their tag
The developer of "Steel Tail" (hereafter referred to as Steel Tail), "Odd Bug Studio" is an independent game studio from Manchester, England. An independent game studio I admire very much. But the author had never heard of the name of this studio before today, and the so-called appreciation was also after the author became aware of the past of this studio. Because of the unique tone of the steel tail, I really want to know what kind of people it is to have such a peculiar brain circuit, so I went to Odd Bug Studio along the network cable for a tour. It doesn't matter if you look at it, the unique temperament of Odd Bug Studio immediately made the author put them in the column of appreciation without hesitation.
Odd Studio Logo
Odd Bug Studio is a very unique independent game studio, it is composed of a group of very outstanding "artists", they define a very interesting label for themselves is "Fresh ". The official website of the studio was impressively written "A Fresh new game development studio based in Manchester UK." At that time, I found it very interesting and appropriate.
team members
On the one hand, this word represents the age and vitality of this studio.That's right, the studio hasn't been established for a long time, and the average age of its members is also very young. This is the first fresh of "Fresh". The studio was first founded by three students from Norwich University of the Arts. Its first appearance was in 2017 when the first game "The Lost Bear" was released on PS VR, which is also a very Good narrative VR game from the perspective of God.
The Lost Bear
On the other hand, this word represents the creative concept of the studio. That is, instead of taking the usual path, focus on creating a new game experience for players. Just like the word "Odd" in the studio's name, this studio is always thinking about adding some weird things to the game, just like the huge alien creatures in "Lost Bear". Like the weird-looking rats and frogs in steel tails. The simple lines and the contrasting pictures are very personal. It can be seen that there are fanatic hearts hidden under the straightforward appearance.
Odd Bug Studio official website: https://www.oddbug.co.uk/the-studio
Steel Tail
What kind of game is Steel Tail?
First, I will make a concluding remark, briefly explaining the specific gameplay and quality of the game (too long, don’t read the version).
"The End of Steel" is a task-driven linear level 2D horizontal board action adventure game. The core gameplay of the game is a hardcore battle like a ghost. On the whole, Steel Tail, as an independent game, is a niche work with both long and short boards.
It has an eye-catching game screen, especially the design lines of the NPC and monster images are clearly angular, prominent, exceptional and impressive. Although the music of the game is not outstanding enough, it also shows the flavor of the game very well. (It is said that the author did not find the exact information.) Even the voice actor of "The Witcher III" Geralt joined in in the game narration. It can be said that the steel tail has been very eye-catching and ear-catching in the sound and picture performance.And to bring players a very high-quality audio-visual experience.
Dad’s Sacrifice to Heaven
The core gameplay and the design of the combat part make the entire game experience a step up. Although the combat part of this work is not gorgeous and changeable, even the available items are only a handful, but the simple and straightforward combat method highlights the charm of this combat core system. The hard-core battle mode of partial soul-like allows the player to swing a sword or block every time in the game into a visible and intuitive benefit (or a miserable defeat), and the game feel of the battle is more real and natural. The strengthened shield is at the core of the battle in this game. Operations such as block, collision, and parry make the shield more aggressive. In the hard-core battle, the combat pleasure of suppressing the enemy's fight directly explodes. The three combinations of single-handed weapons (one-handed weapons + shields), dual-wield weapons, and long-range weapons allow players to match many available combat modules in actual battles. Combining this with a large number of various equipment, it can also be used Players feel like playing a simple 2D action game into a large-scale equipment-driven game.
teammate died in battle
What makes people feel unsatisfactory is that the story of this game is serious, it belongs to the feeling of a glass of iced Coke after being poured with a lot of water. The reversal of the kingdom's fall at the time of the crowning of the prince gave the story a heavy sense of mission and bloody color at the beginning of the story. But just when the player wanted to do a big job, the NPC asked me to save my brother looking for things, and directly defeated all the good feelings that started the plot. But just when the author felt that the plot was going to the end, the vigorous rat country counterattack was launched, and the prince who united the underground Bolshevik rat tribe began a vigorous revenge. The rhythm of the game suddenly rose, and the plot story began to become interesting and attractive. People, until the end of the story, the prince is crowned as king, full of passion. It can be said that the screenwriter of Steel Tail is really the master of writing the story strictly in accordance with the "dragon head and phoenix belly", but in the author's opinion, a large part of the boring running link in the middle of the plot can be removed or streamlined. The whole game The story will become very exciting, rather than the current passing level. At the same time, in order to cope with the protracted mid-term plot, the game rhythm and mid-term main side missions also collapsed to the end, which is really a pity.
The bloody battle under the minimalist performance
The core gameplay of Steel Tail is the hardcore battle mode of partial soul-like.Therefore, the design of combat modules and combat rules and other related functions also follow the principle of minimalism. In the battle itself, there are few methods that players can use. Except for the three combinations of single-wield weapons (one-handed weapons + shields), dual-wield weapons, and long-range weapons, players only have one poison that can’t see how effective they are. Poisoning. The monster's attack logic is also simple, just remember that the monster stands up and greets with a knife, the yellow attack shield is reversed, and the red attack rolls. A good hard-core battle is designed like a turn-based game that focuses on QTE elements. As long as the red and yellow attack is judged, the simple and straightforward smooth battle experience is directly filled with pleasure.
Therefore, it is easy for all players to get started. However, like all soul games, the combat part is always easy to learn and difficult to master. For ordinary players, swinging swords, blocking and rolling are all the elements of the battle (up to one more to drink medicine when injured), and then blood abuse by monsters is often attributed to hand mutilation. In fact, in the author's opinion, it is not so much a handicap that it is more appropriate to be careless. The same is true for Steel Tail’s combat system. The first experience seems to be very simple. It’s just a matter of encountering a monster with a knife and hacking to death, and I never want to switch weapons or block. It wasn't until I was educated by the first killer boss that I suddenly realized that I was wrong. The fault is not the handicap, but the failure to grasp the core design logic of the battle.
In the steel tail, the shield is the core design of the entire game combat system. The combat system is completely built with the shield as the core. Therefore, mastering the rules of use of the shield is the real understanding of the steel tail Combat system. The strengthened shield is at the core of the battle in this game. Operations such as block, collision, and parry make the shield more aggressive. At the same time, the ability to block, collision, and parry is very profitable in the battle. In the battle, the pleasure of suppressing the enemy's fight directly exploded. Especially in Boss battles, the role of shields between offensive and defensive transitions is particularly obvious. At the same time, combined with the three weapons in the player's hands, the seemingly simple and crude combat method can actually become fancy, practical and realistic. In battle, when to lift the shield, when to roll, when to simply move a few steps, are all worthy of in-depth study.These designs make the combat system of this game more in-depth. This is the design philosophy of Steel Tail's combat system, which is minimal but not simple.
The battle process of the steel tail is actually very bloody. Thanks to the minimalist design, this has become more intuitive and visible. The scene of "the big knife passing by the head rolling down" is really shocking. Perhaps this is also a major reason why this work must adopt a slightly abstract cartoon style to render the picture. In the battle of this work, the battle rhythm is often very fast, especially when facing more than two enemies, this feeling will be more obvious. The AI of the enemy in this game is really amazing. Those who are more clumsy are often rough and violent, while the more crispy archer is flexible like a monkey, and the bow and arrow that he shoots out rolls and can't hide. Therefore, when facing multiple enemies, the archer must be the first priority to kill the target. However, after fast-paced combat combined with excellent enemy AI, it is not easy for players to achieve the set goals, especially after the combination of long-range and short-range enemies, various enemies will also perform strange behaviors that cooperate with each other, that kind of oppression The feeling becomes stronger. However, the sense of joy and accomplishment gained after victory will also be very full.
Boss battle is the climax of the combat system of this game. It can be said that all the shining points of the entire combat system are concentrated together. First of all, starting from the boss itself, the number of bosses and elite enemies in this game is quite large compared to the ten-hour game process. In addition to the bosses of various types of frog races as established enemies, there are also insect, reptile bosses, and even the boss challenges of the ghosts of the predecessors of the rat race. It can be said that the types are complete and the experience is rich. On the other hand, the attack methods and combat designs of various types of bosses are also varied, and the designs of each boss are also very distinctive, and there are many that can leave the author with a deep and disgusting impression after playing. From the overall performance point of view, the speed of boss moves in the battle is very fast, and the desire to attack is also relatively high, which requires players to always pay attention to the boss actions to switch offense and defense. Two-handed weapons have strong attacks but are not good at defense. One-handed weapons are flexible and shields can protect the face in time. Long-range weapons are powerful but have very few bullets.Players are required to make timely and reasonable responses at all stages of the boss battle.
For example, in addition to gas attacks, the frog shaman boss will also summon flying frog puppet fighters. The battle scene is chaotic and it is easy to be exploited by the boss. This requires the first moment the puppet appears to be remote. Kill. Another example is the double boss in the final game of the arena. They are flexible and a meat shield. They typically advance, attack and retreat, and defend. At this time, the author chooses to go hard, and the cat steals the knife behind the shield and slowly sharpens it. Another example is the final boss of the United Warchief of the Frog Clan. This guy has an ridiculously high attack and is extremely flexible. The displacement of each attack is very large. When I first started fighting, the author was directly broken. If you want to roll and hide from an attack, no one runs fast. If you want to raise a shield, the boss is almost always a red attack...
As a combat supplement equipment system
Although the combat system itself is fun enough, But after playing for a long time, it will inevitably give people a sense of monotony from the core gameplay and combat experience. Therefore, in order to reduce the monotony of the combat system and complement the gameplay of the combat system, Odd added a very sophisticated equipment collection and replacement system for this game. The level of detail in this part is beyond the author's imagination, because in terms of the game volume, it is too large and complicated, but it lacks a little bit of essence (lack of money).
The equipment system of this work can be divided into two parts: equipment and weapons from the top level. The wearable parts of the player under equipment include helmets, armors and shields; weapons include single-wield weapons, dual-wield weapons and long-range weapons. The division continues. Each component of equipment and weapons is divided into three categories: light, medium, and heavy. The equipment under each category is further divided into five grades: white, green, blue, purple, and orange. In addition, the items under each category include many types. For example, single weapons include spears, knives, swords, hammers, etc., and helmets are also divided into turbans, masks, and steel helmets. At the same time, there will be more armors. A sub-attribute entry is for players to choose. The most important thing is that players choose different equipment to wear,The appearance of the player will change accordingly, which means that the equipment system can not only assist the player in fighting, but also create a character image that is more in line with the player's own aesthetic needs. It can be said that the steel tail is a complete re-engraving of the common equipment system design rules in MMORPG games into this work, as detailed as possible.
Full equipment display
The collection of equipment is also diverse. In addition to crafting in the forging, it can also be obtained by killing monsters and dropping them, opening treasure chests and picking up corpses when exploring through the field map. On the one hand, it increases the fun of the player when running the graph and enriches the gameplay. On the one hand, it also increases the player’s desire to explore and enhances the gameplay. When faced with a vast collection of collectible equipment, I often mistake this game for a brush game instead of a hardcore battle game.
Back to the combat system, different equipment will give players different attribute advantages. For example, heavy armor tends to have high defense and it is easier to gain an advantage in battle. However, the heavy armor weight will cause the player to become awkward, and the heavy equipment will seriously affect the flexibility, and the player needs to make a choice. To a certain extent, based on the original combat system, the game experience becomes more balanced and more playable.
The downside is that as a non-RPG game, it is difficult for players and equipment to have room for improvement, so although the system provides players with a considerable number of options Equipment, but in fact, although the number of equipment is sufficient, most of them are destined to be low-quality garbage from the moment they are obtained and will never be used. Because Steel Tail does not have equipment upgrade systems such as equipment synthesis and forging upgrades, players can only choose high-attribute equipment to replace low-attribute equipment, which leads to the lack of room for growth of the equipment system and the weakness of most equipment.
The upper limit of currency resources in the game is extremely low
The script plan has a trick in the middle game
The background story design of the steel tail is actually a standard Japanese royal RPG game with the shell of the European medieval city-state war The routine of the script,That is, the protagonist has gone through untold hardships and finally led his partner to defeat the evil and reach the throne. The author believes that as a small independent game with pure combat as the core gameplay, the plot can be described reasonably and it is acceptable to allow players to smoothly advance the main story, but the plot of this game is really disgusting. A handful of the author.
What makes people feel unsatisfactory is that the story of this work is a serious crane tail, which belongs to the feeling of a glass of iced coke being poured into a lot of water. At the time of the crowning of the prince, the reversal of the kingdom (the crimson castle) collapsed at the beginning of the story, giving the story a heavy sense of mission and blood. But when the player wanted to do a big job, the NPC asked me to keep saving my brother to find things to repair the house, and the plot was trapped in the quagmire of errands, which was a task without passion, and the pace of the game became extremely procrastinated. Even directly stuffed a lot of repetitive content in the early part of the main line of the game, let the author repeatedly do side tasks between several areas to collect gold coins, and directly defeated all the good feelings that pave the way for the beginning of the plot.
But when the author felt that the plot was going to the bottom, the game experience of the player went up after exploring the underground caves, and even after the Great Morshevik Republic, the player can explore freely in a long process. Players can choose to visit the city, see the busy figure of NPC, and choose to go to the arena to have a fair life and death duel with a few fighting warriors. Afterwards, the setting of Steam Rat Country has made the author have a refreshing look at the whole game world, and there is a kind of comfort of seeing the sun in the haze. Afterwards, the vigorous rat country counterattack was launched, and the prince who united the underground Bolshevik rat tribe began a vigorous revenge. The rhythm of the game was suddenly raised, and the plot story began to become interesting and attractive until the end of the story. The prince was crowned as The royal capital is full of passion.
It can be said that the screenwriter of Steel Tail is really the master of writing the story strictly in accordance with "the belly of the dragon head and Phoenix", but in the author's opinion, a large part of the boring part of the plot can be Remove or simplify, the story of the entire game will become very exciting, rather than the current passing level. At the same time, in order to cope with the protracted mid-term plot,The pace of the game and the main side missions in the mid-term have also collapsed to the end, which is really a pity.
Perfunctory, perfunctory
If there is any game system in Steel Tail that makes the author feel extremely disgusted, then the plot design can only be ranked second, the first The throne must give way to the mission system of this work. "Perfunctory, perfunctory things", this is the author's entire evaluation of the task system. Because this part not only failed to bring the slightest bit of positive feedback to the game experience, but also made the entire game experience procrastinate.
Steel Tail is a task-driven linear level 2D horizontal board action adventure game. It can be seen that the task system is very important. Task-driven means that all actions of the player are limited within the scope of the task frame. The level system indicates that the space for free exploration in this game is very limited, and the happiness that the player can get in the limited space is the same as the task point. Settings are closely related. Take this game as an example. In the early stage of the game, the main task has not been advanced to the position, even if the player is separated by a bridge, it is still difficult for the player to pass. Therefore, the content that the player can experience in this game must be what the production team wants to give to the player, which means that the game planner must have a strong level design ability to guide the player in order to arouse empathy for the player and make the player like it. The content of the game.
How about returning to the actual mission system design of this work? The task system design of this game is extremely simple. In fact, it is the task flow design scheme commonly used in early MMORPG online games. It saves people (goes to the place to defeat the captain and gets the key), finds things (goes to the place to kill the monsters and receives it), and clears the stronghold (to the place to kill the mobs ) Really achieved "subordinates branched their mouths, the king ran and broke his legs". And because of the small map, there are a lot of repetitive skin-changing tasks in repeated scenes. Now think about it, the blood pressure is still rising.
Repeated branch
The main line and most of the branch missions of this work are forcing players to do.In the early stage of the main mission, the mouse nation was about to collapse, which brought a sense of tension and oppression to the players; in the later period of the main mission, the prince and the underground steam mouse clan counterattacked the frog clan base camp. The plot was ups and downs, exciting and full of battle. Passion. The above is very good, but other than that, the rest is all obnoxious forced feeding S.
Let me talk about the remaining mid-game main line missions. This part starts with the prince saving his brother. The task flow design is that the player finds his brother from point A to point B, and finds that his brother is locked. You need to find the key at point C. By the way, hit a Boss, and after hitting the Boss, come back and take your brother home. The mission is complete. It doesn’t matter just looking at it this way, but do you dare to believe that this task will be repeated three times without a change? Finally, after saving my brother, I started looking for things and repairing the house again. This time the form was even simpler. The side task was forced directly onto the player's face for at least four times. The entire mid-game process is about four hours.
How about the branch task? Side quests are to temporarily refresh a monster stronghold in the map that has been explored, and then the player clears the stronghold in the form of, and most of the side quests do not have Boss, they are simply mobs. Moreover, the repetition of branch tasks is very high, and it is common to refresh branch tasks repeatedly near the same location. For example, the author clearly remembered that I had done at least 6 side missions at the same location in the lower left corner of the map of Changwei Village, and almost made me vomit. But if the branch line is bad, just don't do it. No, the branch mission is forced to be part of the mid-term main line. Players who want to push the main line must get gold coins by brushing the branch line to pass the level. In addition, the straight line is closely related to the full collection, and it has to be brushed.
Picture, music and other artistic details
In the picture performance part, the steel tail has an eye-catching game picture, especially the design lines of the NPC and monster images are clearly angular, prominent, out of the ordinary and impressive deep impression. The game scene rendered in comic cartoon style has a special flavor, and the picture has a rich layering sense.At the same time, the game's darker tones also portray the suppressed and gloomy atmosphere well.
In the music performance part, although the game’s music is not outstanding enough, it also shows the flavor of the game very well. (It is said that the author did not find the exact information.) There is even "The Witcher III" in the game narration. Geralt's voice actor joined in love. It can be said that the steel tail has been very eye-catching and ear-catching in the audio and video performance, and it has brought players a very high-quality audio-visual experience.
In addition, this game has also put a lot of effort into the graphic performance of the game plot advancement. In addition to the high-quality comics for the game plot cutscenes, the NPC plot performances that talk to NPCs are also They are all displayed in the form of small cartoons with bubble dialog boxes, which are very consistent with the usual style of the work, and they are very funny and cute, and there is a sense of reality that is incompatible with human language. In addition, the art of this work has also worked hard on the design of the big map. The dense and small details in the map scene are almost all made into the big map. The first sight is really amazing.
As an action game, Steel Tail is worth it
Steel Tail is a task-driven linear level 2D horizontal board action adventure game. The core gameplay is hardcore battles like souls. . Although the task guidance system of this game is messy and very perfunctory, this game has an eye-catching sound and picture performance and a minimalist but extremely simple combat system. With a large number of equipment, players can Enjoy no less than ten hours of high-quality combat experience in this game. Considered purely as an action game, Steel Tail is worth it.
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Author: Aiden
From: Game machine fan
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