I’ve played plenty of Western RPGs but never any Chinese or even Japanese ones so I took notice when this title appeared on Steam. Reading up, it seems that this is one of the newer entries in what is supposedly the longest running Chinese RPG series with the first games appearing in the 1990s and the first one that has been completely translated into English and made available on Steam. Jumping straight to this one meant I would have no idea what went on before but that’s okay as I’m mostly interested in seeing what they are like.
The story revolves around Sikong Yu, a young man from a small village which is forced to move every so often due to the threat of invasion. While rescuing his sister from one such group of enemies, he encounters two other women who have been captured: Zi Qiao, a noble who is betrothed of the prince of Shang, and Muyue, a mysterious and taciturn girl from the legendary kingdom of Huaxu. Later they also encounter a nobleman named Feng Yu who is trying to find a way to settle the trouble afflicting the kingdom of Shang. He is convinced that in order to do so, he must somehow ascend to heaven to obtain the blessing of the Emperor of Heaven. Muyue simply wants to return home and it some becomes clear that Huaxu is no ordinary place on Earth. Zi Qiao ostensibly wishes to get to her betrothed but her friendly nature causes her to insist on helping her newfound friends first. Sikong Yu has promised Muyue to help her get home after she saves his village from their enemies.
The story is relayed through many, many cutscenes that are very lengthy and rather boring to sit through even if they are all voice-acted in Mandarin. The plot hits all of the usual tropes and no one with half a brain can miss the fact that Feng Yu is obviously Zi Qiao’s betrothed or that Sikong Yu and Muyue are meant to be together. If you are familiar with Chinese drama, the character archetypes and relationship dynamics, such as how Feng Yu keeps teasing Zi Qiao, will all be old friends. It’s been a while since I watched one of these so I found it amusing but it could easily be annoying if I see too much of it. Still the story goes places and does things that Western RPGs usually avoid. For example, the game will split the party up quite often and even set the characters up against one another as needed which raises the dramatic tension and makes the story much more interesting.
The graphics are mediocre by modern standards, being reminiscent of old MMO games with animations to match. It’s pretty silly how the characters don’t have animations for turning around, so they can be facing one direction and then instantly flip to face the opposite direction. I was especially frustrated by the fact that equipping different armor sets doesn’t change the way your in-game model looks. Models for weapons do change according to what you have equipped, but not anything else. The combat system was a bit hard for me to understand as it has the illusion of seeming like an action game. In reality, it’s a simple turn-based system in which the only decisions you can make is to choose a target and an action each turn. There are talent points to allocate and an interesting battlefield system in which you choose what is effectively a group stance and a guardian spirit which can confer different bonuses. Overall the system is simple. It’s just that it’s not explained very well.
You’ll have plenty of opportunity to practise the system too as gameplay consists of lots and lots of fighting against trash mobs. As the gameplay is so simple, this means repeating the same sequence of keystrokes over and over again. At first I tried avoiding unnecessary fights whenever possible but it turns out that the boss fights are tuned around having sufficiently levelled characters which makes grinding against mobs obligatory. Combined with the need to stock up lots and lots of consumables and the levels which in the late game force you to confront lots of trash mobs, this make for pretty mind-numbing gameplay. There are a few puzzles scattered here and there but these are trivial to solve.
As awful as this experience sounds, the game does have some merits. The soundtrack is excellent and I really like the original Chinese songs composed for it. Despite the overlong cutscenes, the epic story is decent enough and it was hard to be unfeeling in the face of what happens to Sikong Yu’s village. There’s some unexpectedly clever writing and humor in the side quests as well. Still it’s obvious this is nowhere near making up for what is in every other respect a very mediocre game. I found this to be an interesting experience as I wanted to have some first-hand experience with a Chinese RPG but, yeah, there’s no way I’m going back for more any time soon.
