Quote: “Let go and create freely.”
The youngest daughter of the Mihayou family, “Zero”, which practitioners unanimously believe will soon become the “depth bomb” in the industry, has finally started its second beta(Noise reduction test). After Mr. Gyro obtained the test qualification for the first time, he returned to New Elido after an absence of more than a year.
In fact, there has been quite a bit of news about “Zero” in the past year, and most people already have a certain understanding of what this game looks like.(Otherwise it wouldn’t make practitioners feel so stressed).Therefore, we hope to find out what is going on at this stage.In what ways has “Zero” evolved? Let it be considered “explosive” enough.
Based on the conceptual framework, we constantly enrich the connotation of the game.
If“Zero” in the first beta stageThe first is to put forward a concept and idea, then the second test is to fill in and improve the details on this basis.
For example, in the most core aspect of combat, during the first test, players accumulate energy through light and heavy attacks. After the energy is fully accumulated, they can trigger the linking skills between characters to reduce the enemy’s toughness. After the opponent breaks through their defenses, they can release their ultimate move to complete the kill. . At the same time, the character’s attacks are also automatically locked to enemies, making it easier for players who are not good at action games to have a good experience.
But the development team seems to think that the operating threshold is not low enough and the combat experience for players is not exciting enough.So in this test, we found that the game has added“Substitution block”, “Support under attack”Mechanism: The moment you switch characters in battle, you can block enemy attacks; when the character operated by the player is attacked by a dangerous attack, the support of other characters in the team will also be triggered.
In this way, players will have more diversified choices in dealing with enemy moves. If they cannot dodge at the extreme moment, they can also use the new mechanism to complete the kill. After actual experience, the new mechanism is not only more friendly to new/handicapped players, but also makes the entire combat process smoother and more refreshing.
In addition, what surprises me even more is the new battle settlement screen in “Zero Zero”:Slow motion + character action freeze + glitch art special effects,It is like the curtain call of a gorgeous performance, which not only seamlessly connects with the subsequent cutscenes, but also invisibly prolongs and enhances the player’s sense of satisfaction and accomplishment at the moment they complete the task.
In the “grid walking” stage between battle level scenes, the second test added many details to enrich the experience. Or use hidden levels, puzzle tasks, etc. to enhance the experience of “exploring the unknown”, or add grids such as slide rails to reduce the boredom that players may have:
For example, this company hires huskies(Maybe it’s the boss?)It is a salesman’s newsstand. Players can read newspapers here to learn about what is happening in the world, ranging from major political news to minor tidbits. By the way, they can also play scratch-off games to get additional small rewards.
For another example, according to the game settings, the protagonist(player)He is a “rope craftsman” who secretly helps people solve troublesome incidents. Then browse the commission content on the professional forum(accept task)It is natural and reasonable behavior. In this forum, the development team is also doing the work of outputting the world view and creating the overall atmosphere:
Obviously, from a game design perspective, whether it is newspapers from street newsstands or gossip in forums, these arePassively output information to the player——Through some interesting rewards and clues, players can spontaneously explore and understand the world, and then have a deeper impression of it.
To be less objective, I think this method of expression is more advanced than long plot performances, character dialogues and other forms.Passive outputThe narrative method is also reflected in many excellent masterpieces: hiding massive information fragments in every corner of the game, giving the initiative back to the players.This can also give full play togamethis interactionMedia characteristicsway of expression.
Due to the pressure of writing the manuscript, Gyro Jun has not had time to experience all the chapters of the second test more deeply.(Please editor-in-chief, please let me go home and play games now.jpg)but judging from the existing experience, the development quality of “Zero Zero” is reassuring enough, and it just needs to be polished.
Where do trends and romance come from?Creation guided by retrofuturism
Compared with the extremely exciting game experience, “Zero” gives me a stronger feeling that it, or the team behind it, has a strong sense ofDesire for expressionthey are working hard to explore and practice towards the destination of the “Ninth Art”.
What is it like to enter the world of “Zero”?
There are video halls full of the style of the last century, arcade games, TVs with often snowy screens, advertisements for sneakers and energy drinks, neta Kamen Rider movies, and even the entire game screen is cast in a nostalgic filter. Mirror; there are also high technologies that do not exist in people’s memory: the mechanical prosthetic limbs of the ramen shop owner, the combat intelligence robot with human emotions (Billy Kidd)…
It is impossible to distinguish whether this place is in the past or the future. The contradictory feelings of familiarity and unfamiliarity continue to stimulate the nerves.——This is the imaginative “retro-futurism”(Retro-futurism)The excellent performance in the game is also the main source of the sense of trend, design and romance.
Perhaps a simple breakdown of the concept of “retro-futurism” can help us better understand the art style of “Zero” and understand why it is so addictive.
Adding “Retro” before “futurism” means that this concept is relative to futurism. The most popular form of futurism was the optimism that lasted from the “golden age” of the early twentieth century to the “space age” of the 1960s. In the details of “Zero Zero” we can also clearly see the cultural symbols of that era:
“Knight of the Star”(Corresponding to the popular special effects film in reality)“Untouchable 1966”(Corresponding to people’s fantasies about extraterrestrial civilizations in the 1960s)“Porter Mountain”(A thriller movie corresponding to the ghost story theme of the last century)Movie trailers and various nostalgic-style advertisements have been incorporated into the TV broadcasts on the loading interface by the development team, and their shadows can also be seen in the in-game store.
Even the old TV set with the antenna itself is a nostalgic tribute to that period.
In that era, people were full of optimistic thoughts about the future, andRecalling people’s expectations for the future at that time,It’s retrofuturism. What it shows is another branch of world development: standing in the current time and space, looking back at the past, and imagining another possibility.
Therefore, it can be said that the development team of “Zero Zero” took the last century as the starting point and completely moved their imagined parallel world that extended from the starting point to the future into the game. There are actually many similar excellent game works, such as “Atomic Heart”, which imagines a parallel future world where the Soviet Union still exists. It also brings a different kind of fresh experience to players and also enhances its own artistic attributes.
“Zero Zero” allows us to see retro-futuristic works of art in the two-dimensional art style.(please allow me to call it that)What it can look like.
Under the guidance of such an artistic thought, “Zero Zero” also incorporates manysubculture tagssuch as the characters that made Furui ecstatic, the image of a maid inspired by elements of housekeeping and horror movies (chainsaw), etc.:
It also pays homage to many classic movie techniques, such as Billy’s recently released personal PV “The Walking Horse”, which uses the slow time of a bullet to launch a long psychological monologue of the character:
Ingenious ideas such as foreshadowing recycling and clue echoing are also used. For example, the thriller movie mentioned in the conversation between Ambi and Billy in the main plot is exactly the “Porter Mountain” in the loading interface (the author speculates); Billy has been imitating it. Knights of the Star Emblem also released a trailer for the movie in the loading interface.
After just one day of experience, I feel that everything in the current game is invisibly making the world of “Zero” real, complete, vivid and romantic. The creative ability of the development team is evident.
Let’s write so much this time, “Zero Zero”, start!
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