Travel is more fun than fighting
Think carefully, there are actually many games that are played with the theme of a "block" that actually exists. From "Dragon in Man" to "Journey to Akihabara", these spaces that seem closely related to people's lives seem to have a wonderful attraction for players and game makers.
In real life, it carries the lives of countless ordinary people and is part of daily scenery. But as a narrative carrier of the game, it will have countless scalability. For most people who live on the "surface", no one can tell how many stories are hidden behind it - just like the "Ximendong" described in the game "Dusk Diver Yousancho".
"Youshan Town" is the "Ximendong" in another dimension
Ximending, which is the most important economic center in Taipei City, Taiwan Province, China. On the one hand, it witnesses a large amount of historical and cultural integration; on the other hand, it is also one of the most popular entertainment and leisure neighborhoods for contemporary Taipei people. For humans in another world, it is also the most important gathering place for the special energy called "Dragon Vein". This is the main background of the story "Dusk Diver".
"Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Lingyi" is a 3D action game developed by Internet Banking International. Its first-generation work "Dusk Diver Youshan Town" was released in 2019. After people visited overseas streets such as Shibuya, Akihabara, and Kabukicho, it brought back the vision of Chinese-speaking players to their side for the first time, which caused considerable discussion. But as the first game theme to challenge, "Dusk Diver Youshima Town" also exposed many problems at that time.
, released in 2022, is the second work in the series. Although it has made many adjustments in gameplay and visual style, its story follows the first generation, and has made a more detailed development and description of the world view of the previous work, although it looks grand but lacks further explanation.
In order to allow players who have never played the first-generation work to play without obstacles, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Agility" at the beginning of the show, it roughly described the previous plot:
female high school student Yang Yumo and his friends were playing in Ximending at Youshi, but accidentally broke into a different dimension world called "Youshan Town" and was attacked by "disaster" creatures in another world. In a critical moment, Yumo absorbed the energy of the local patron saint Li Ou, gained the ability to fight in Yousan Town, and became the so-called "military magic girl". In order to protect the human world that is in crisis and to repay his 500,000 yuan in debt, Yumo had to work in the summer vacation work between the two worlds to save the world.
The story of "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Spirituality" takes place one year after the end of the first generation of events. Yousan Town, which should have been stable, began to threaten the human world again under the influence of some unknown factors...
came out of Ximen MRT station to Hanzhong Street
To be honest, whether it is the first impression or the direction of the story, the "Dusk Diver" series will give people a strong sense of déjà--because the theme and setting sound very similar to a "modern urban theme JRPG" that was popular a few years ago, and even has the title of "Taiwan Version of Persona Record" among the player group. Of course, from the perspective of art style alone, its first generation looks more like "Akihabara Journey".
But what's interesting is that even so, the producers of "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Spirituality" have no intention of avoiding it. In this work, the streets of Ximending are described more refinedly, and the character model has more faces and clearer textures. The more important thing is that the new UI and portraits that it just replaced are so fashionable, it looks so much like "Persona 5".
is not mentioned whether it is good or bad. The innate universality of the UI style of Persona 5 is indeed extremely adaptable to a large number of modern urban story templates. In addition, the science fiction and minimalist visual styles displayed by "Yushan Town" in the early generations have all increased the fashionable value of this work.
At the same time, Ximending Street in "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Agility" has also been upgraded to the picture rendering and reality based on the previous work. It is not only more recognizable in style, but also includes more actual stores and food. More importantly, in addition to Ximending, this work also includes famous tourist destinations in Taipei City, including Dadaocheng Dihua Street, Songshan Cultural and Creative Park , 101 Building , as key places for the story to take place and unfold. Although they look far less lively than the streets in reality, they are still quite good at restoring local food and customs.
food stores on Dihua Street also have their own corresponding prototypes in reality. The food stores on Dihua Street also have their own corresponding prototypes in reality
When I get tired of other games, those shop signs full of foreign languages, familiar Chinese words such as "noodle thread", "big chicken chop", "lu meat rice", " large intestine wrapped in small intestine " can indeed give people a strong sense of intimacy and freshness. From the cafe open in the Red Building of Ximen to the Songshan Tobacco Warehouse where the art exhibition is being held, you can see a corner of the changes in the cultural life of Taipei people from the past to today. There are many tasks in the game
, which revolve around these local cultures. For players who like different regional styles but are unable to visit on the spot, Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Agility does provide a simple opportunity to get a brief look at the popular attractions in Taipei. Maybe it’s because of this that just wandering around the streets has caused me to spend a lot of time in the game.
But on the other hand, although the game restores the real Taiwan street structure as much as possible, the game adopts an animation rendering style dominated by large surfaces, which also makes pursuing more picture details a luxury.
At the same time, as a simple sandbox serving the game world view, Ximending will not provide players with too many interactive projects except for the restored street scenes and the street food shops. Most of the time, players just operate the protagonists to eat, drink and drink on the street, fight monsters and upgrade, and take on side missions from local citizens. In these aspects, it is indeed easy to recall the Heart Monster Thieves who traveled around Japan in Persona 5: The Phantom Attack.
However, it should be mentioned in particular that compared with the previous work, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Agility" has changed the way the collections are performed in the game. Because there is no "glass", most collection items can be picked up by players just by wandering around the street, which saves a lot of unnecessary trouble when collecting props in the previous work.
collection of "food illustrations" is also a key part of the game. Unfortunately, due to the problem of the game structure, these foods are not well integrated into the gameplay
must be admitted that even though it is full of the déjà vu of other games, the restoration of Taipei streets and commercial culture has made me feel full of favor for "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Spirituality" from the beginning. The modification of the previous action system also makes it look more mature. But shortly after players really go deep into Yousan Town, this impression will gradually peel off, and the "bottleneck period" of the game experience comes much faster than expected.
is not about how poor Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Lingyi is doing, but after comparing with existing similar games, you will find that its performance and situation are somewhat awkward.
First of all, it is worthy of recognition that compared with the "single-player mowing" combat part that was criticized in the previous work, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Lingyi" did not make any compromises.After changing the style of the "Erosion" of the first generation of Chinese Miscellaneous Soldiers, this game becomes more like a traditional action game. Players need to use the combination of light and heavy attacks and release skills to conduct uninterrupted combos on the enemy. The characters that can be actually operated in the game have also been added to four people based on the heroine Yu Mo alone. Because of the four people's different fighting styles, the diversity of battles in the game has been greatly increased.
In terms of operation feel, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Agility" has basically maintained a level comparable to the previous work. Although it cannot be compared with those first-line action games, it can also be considered a fair-looking one. Even players who are not good at action games will not have too much pressure to play. On the plus side, the characters in the game are quite flexible in their actions, and they can make timely and smooth feedback for each key input by the player. Depending on the type of character, when an attack is on an enemy, the game will give feedback on different types of attacks. For example, Ba Hei, who uses a sickle to conduct a large-scale rapid attack, is quite different from Li Ou, who has a strong but slow speed.
Unfortunately, the freshness brought by this differentiation cannot last too long. Although this set of operations is simple and easy to use, its disadvantages are also obvious.
On the one hand, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Lingyi" adopts a more traditional action mechanism. Players need to rely on the support of the chain, skills and other characters to accumulate combos and a special energy slot called "D Armed Forces". When the energy slot is full, the character can launch the "D Armed Forces" state, so that the character's various abilities can be greatly improved in a short period of time. But when the player shares his energy on each character, he will find that each of them is actually a bit single. Even if the "D armed" state is activated during the battle, it will not affect the character's combat style. This also directly leads to players having to repeat the exact same action to fight most of the time, and it is also one of the culprits that quickly arouse players' fatigue and homework in the early stages of the game.
In some scenes, the reinforcements of "one wave after another" will only increase this sense of repetitive homework. Sometimes even the protagonists will sigh when it will be finished.
. Another major culprit that makes people feel negative is the "misfortune" itself. In the game, almost all enemies have a concept called "armor value", and the player's attack itself is divided into ordinary "attack power" and "armor-breaking power". Before breaking the enemy's armor, the damage the player can cause is very limited. On the contrary, if the enemy's armor value is cut, the player can launch a powerful "disintegration attack". Whether it can be launched smoothly also determines the player's playing rhythm to some extent.
Unfortunately, the existence of blood bars and armor at the same time makes all enemies more resistant to attacks than they seem. Even if you can launch a disintegration attack quickly, you cannot directly kill the enemy in seconds. In many cases, you can only reuse a few of the same skills to get rid of the enemy's physical strength little by little. What is even more depressing is that the "armor bar" is unseen in the game. With endless reinforcements, players will inevitably fall into an indescribable torture.
Only some large bosses have clear armor slots to display
In addition, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Agility" also has a complete dodge and rebound mechanism. Players can use these two to accelerate the occurrence of the "disintegration attack" usage opportunity in battle. This is not a rare thing in the usual action game, but because the characters in "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Agility" are too flexible and the combat area is too spacious, making perfect dodge and perfect blocking opportunities extremely difficult to catch. With multiple companions on the field, you can't tell who the enemy's attack is for. Once you make a mistake in judging the timing, it is very easy to affect the attack rhythm, which is actually quite fatal for a game with combo counting.
Although powerful, as long as the character or enemy is slightly misaligned, it will be difficult for you to launch a perfect block
Fortunately, this long and painful experience is not constant. As the game progresses, players can consume experience value and currency in the game, improve the character's basic abilities and unlock more skills and link moves. This is the best way to alleviate the above-mentioned repetitive homework to a certain extent. The reason why
only relieves this pain "to a certain extent" is because in the game, the character's moves and skills unlocking must depend on the storyline progress. This limitation may be due to the consideration of play time and game rhythm, but for a game that attracts players with real-world maps, its existence is somewhat redundant. After all, in the early stages of the game, most players will unconsciously focus most of their energy on exploration, and more battles are naturally inevitable. In the end, the best experience should have been used to capture the early part of the player's interest, but instead becomes a burden to all experiences, which inevitably makes people feel sorry for it.
As for the story, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Lingyi" performed quite well. Not only are the characters and images of the protagonists and their group portrayed quite well, making it easy for people to fall in love with them. The number of characters and the story pattern that was criticized by players in the previous work have also been well expanded here. Although some of the developments and the appearance of characters are still full of déjà vu from other games, they also have clear structure and themes, and many side missions also fully utilize the unique local characteristics of Taipei.
, like the previous work, the game provides players with two dubbing options in Chinese and Japanese. Among them, Chinese dubbing has a strong flavor of early Hong Kong and Taiwan translation cartoons, which is also a unique flavor. The only thing that makes people feel dissatisfied is that the protagonists in the game only have some of the plots, which makes many plots that could have been more interesting can only end with thin texts.
Actually, looking back, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Lingyi" is undoubtedly a game that "follows fashion" and knows how to "chasing hot spots". The game's producers seem to have never thought about denying this from the beginning. All the déjà vu you feel in the game is not an illusion. In terms of gameplay,
cannot be considered excellent, and it even lacks complete testing and polishing. However, "Dusk Diver 2 Kunlun Agility" still gives all players around the world an opportunity to look at Taipei from a different perspective. Even if you don’t want to save the world, there are street scenes full of historical and cultural atmosphere, local snack stalls and food shops everywhere. This is particularly attractive today when you can’t go out at will. However, if all players like "Ximendong" because of this, it seems that it is still a little bit short of it.
—I mean, it still lacks nothing else, it only belongs to "Ximendong".
