The world is vast. Just as some lands seem so remote and unexplored despite the modernity of the current means of communication and transport. This is how, even in the world of video games, a whole section of video game production is unknown to us, poor French people, whether by censorship policy (or simply politics, even), by cultural differences , by very targeted markets, or simply by lack of means on the part of the developer to offer his product on other geographical markets.
Today, we therefore have the right for the first time to officially discover a relatively popular Chinese series there and which is even in its 7th opus!
The opportunity for us to arouse our curiosity and find out what kind of action RPG we are dealing with...
But before starting this test, it is worth making a few points. Before starting the game, go to the options, then in the Gameplay tab set the sensitivity of the X axis and the Y axis to full. The basic camera is so slow (it's better, but still not that even at full speed, you might say...), and you'll see that it's a recurring theme. You will thank me later.
Second point: the game has only Chinese voices, but offers subtitles in French (or in the language in which your console is set). So do not try to change them, it would be a waste of time because there is no possibility of doing so.
You are warned.
We are in a mystical version of China, around the beginning of the era of the war of reunification of the kingdoms. So don't be surprised if you see some familiar names present in the various Dynasty Warriors. Except that here, they do not fight against armies of twelve thousand soldiers. What changes in this parallel version is the mystical, mechanical aspect, as well as the presence of monsters. To put it simply, we could qualify the atmosphere of Chinese Heroic Fantasy.
In this world, you child and your then baby sister had to flee after a mysterious attack to overthrow the government, an attack that ended in the ashes of an entire city. About ten years later, you live remotely in a mountain and live your life as a monster hunter in order to obtain the ingredients for the daily remedy of your now young teenage sister suffering from an unknown disease.
That's when, following a job as a guide for the "official" army, your adventure begins, since this mission has gone wrong and you find yourself in the mystical kingdom trying to find a way to save the life of your sister seriously injured and on the verge of death.
We find ourselves in front of an adventure game with real-time combat. No, I'm going to refuse to call it an Action-RPG because even if the menus have the color and the smell of it, even if the real-time fights strongly suggest a mixture of Tales of Arise with certain aspects of western role-playing game, it is not so because, in addition to having an ultra linear game that takes place in long relatively narrow corridors, the choice dialogues have no bearing on anything, the "quests are ultra lazy" and the progression is done at too fast a speed, just like the story which goes down completely at high speed.
For a beginner of the genre, why not, but the regulars of the RPG will greatly remain unsatisfied.
And that's when we start to detect the cultural differences, since the game has a big lack of depth on almost all points, as well as staging and gameplay mechanics well behind the productions of this decade. However, the modeling of the main characters is neat and some landscapes are even sumptuous and detailed. It's a bit of a smokescreen effect since, on closer inspection, yes the main characters are fine (apart from the hair), but the secondary ones suffer from this lack of care. Yes, the main character's animations are top notch, but the others are average with fairly glaring emotional gaps for a 2021 game. Not to mention the very frequent and sometimes violent framerate drops outside of combat...
The most obvious is the difference between the game and the cinematics. And not in the way you imagine, since the cutscenes are clearly of lower visual quality than the game itself.
The soundtrack is very soothing, typically Chinese, but also knows how to give rhythm to the fights. Good point.
The voices, I can't afford to pass judgment because I'm totally unfamiliar with Chinese, so being able to tell you if the voice actors are right or not like I can in a number of languages is beyond my language skills. They seem so, but I won't commit to that voice for sure.
And although I'm a fervent supporter of the VO, even if I don't know the language, this time around, I tell myself that having an alternative dubbing in French, or even English, would not have been refused because it may be difficult for many people to immerse themselves in the title with just the subtitles and the auditory hallucinations that you will perceive that change your trip. I thought I detected a conversation about the sausage at a time when, according to the subtitles, reference was made to a character and his unsympathetic behavior.
Honestly, the feelings in front of this game are frustrating because for every positive aspect, there is an aspect that comes from another time to spoil things. The fights, for example, are really very well done, but spoiled by a slow, entirely manual camera which is the antithesis of dynamism (despite the setting specified at the start of the test).
The whole game has this frustration on all aspects, whether artistic, technical, as well as on the gameplay. But the most frustrating remains the story that can be difficult to follow, curiously not because of the language because the French subtitles, although with a certain amount of typos (missing words and chord errors, mainly) , remain understandable. No. The concern is that the game on the one hand apparently makes references to previous games, but on the other hand and above all, it seems that the game has been cut at times, causing a feeling of script holes.
Honestly, I enjoyed satisfying my curiosity, but I remain unsatisfied in front of a really frustrating game for its genre. Don't tell me you haven't been warned.
- Xbox One (tested version)
- PlayStation 4 (French store page not currently available)
- PC (Steam)
