Shortly after entering the New Year, the much-watched two-dimensional new work "Anchor Point" opened its own new round of testing on January 5. Since its first exposure, the popularity of this product in China is quite good, and it has received nearly 600,000 appointments and an expectation score of 8.5 on TapTap, and has also won an expectation score of up to 9.1 on the Haoyou Fast Explosion platform.
But what surprised me was that such a two-dimensional product, which was very much expected by players and the market, came from a manufacturer that had never been involved in the two-dimensional category: Thunder Flame Games. Flipping through the official website of Thunder Flame Games, it can be found that Since its establishment in 2018, Thunder Flame Games has been actively developing overseas markets, and has released several tri-national theme products in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea and Southeast Asia, and has achieved good results.
Lei Yan's excellent performance overseas has also attracted the attention of the domestic capital market: in August 2020, Mingchen Health, an A-share listed company, announced the wholly-owned acquisition of Hangzhou Lei Yan Network, the parent company of Lei Yan Games, for 129 million yuan. When it comes to Mingchen Health, many friends may have used their "TiHua Xiu" brand shampoo. As an enterprise whose main business is daily chemical products, Mingchen Health's acquisition of Leiyan is a "cross-border" investment without compromise.
Whether it is gameplay or theme, "Anchor Point" is very different from the products launched by Thunder Flame in the past, which can be said to be their attempt to "start from scratch", coupled with the fact that in recent years, the second dimension has gradually begun to move from "niche" to "public", and the competition in categories is becoming increasingly fierce, and Thunder Flame's choice this time is indeed quite surprising. As the first product handed over by Thunder Flame after being acquired, how did "Anchor Point" perform this time?
First, the thunder flame of the first two-dimensional element was "stable"
Lei Yan, who is involved in the two-dimensional category for the first time, is very cautious, and they bluntly state in the game introduction that they hope to "learn to walk first, then learn to run", start from the classic bridge section in a down-to-earth manner, ensure the lower limit of the script, put energy on character shaping, and try to make their own characteristics first.
Therefore, "Anchor Point" chose a very "kingly" doomsday science fiction worldview template: the game is set in 2085, and the future world is invaded by the alien race "Hugher". Under the wanton destruction of extraterrestrial visitors, mankind has encountered an unprecedented crisis, and civilization is on the verge of destruction. As a commander of the Lestense Security Service, a joint earth agency, players will work with modified "aimbs" fighters to rescue victims and fight against foreign invaders.
In order to fit the background of the futuristic world, the art style of "Anchor Point" is also closer to the "futuristic". Since the "aimbs" warriors in the setting are humanoid weapons that have been modified and used in combat, most of the characters are designed to deliberately dilute emotional expression (poker faces) and highlight their combat attributes through the mechanical equipment on their bodies.
The card draw link that everyone cares about the most, "Anchor Point" also designed a set of futuristic drawing animations, putting the perspective in the depths of the Security Bureau's facilities. After entering the six-digit password number at will, you can enter the "Open Cabin" interface and summon warriors with different rarity degrees.
It is worth mentioning that the thunder flame that did the second dimension for the first time showed a fairly mature level in character modeling. Whether it is the accuracy of 3D rendering, or the design of the overall image, it gives people a good look and feel.
This is even more evident in the game's combat performances. Ordinary attacks and the character's own skills, Thunder Flame added a rather "sufficient material" strike effect, so that cold weapon close combat and drone missile long-range attacks have shown excellent expressiveness, becoming one of the biggest highlights in the screen performance of "Anchor Point Arrival".
Not only that, but when each aims warrior unleashes a big move, it will enter a unique attack animation, showing a more gorgeous combo effect. While hitting multiple sections of damage, the camera will constantly switch around the position of the character, through this movie-like storyboard mode to portray the character's attack moves and the sense of blow during the battle.
In the most intuitive "skin phase" part of the two-dimensional game, Anchor Point Arrives delivers an answer sheet that is at least above the "pass line". In the context of common science fiction themes, Lei Yan has created a set of art resources that conform to the mainstream aesthetics of the current two-dimensional category through good 3D rendering and innovation in action details.
Second, the turn-based strategy gameplay that can "show operation"
Like the background setting, the combat part of Anchor Point Is also based on a "stable" turn-based gameplay. But interestingly, because the PV released earlier in the game did not emphasize "turn-based", but more emphasis on showing the action effect. In fact, after the hand, there is even a feeling that this is Thunder Flame's "intentional", and they seem to want to make a differentiated experience that is "not like turn-based" on the turn-based gameplay framework.
In the comments section, some players said that they felt that they had "played the fake Anchor Point", but in the end they gave a 4-star praise
The first is the adjustment of the "preparation" link before the attack. In general, traditional turn-based combat moves toward a step-by-step process of determining the first hand — choosing the action — and executing the attack. However, "Anchor Point Arrival" skips the step of designating the attack target in its own turn, and instead automatically launches a normal attack on the corresponding enemy according to the "nine palace grid" position of the formation, advancing the turn-based strategy gameplay to the matching stage of the team and formation before entering the battle.
After the character performs a normal attack, within two seconds of the end of the damage animation, the player needs to quickly select the skill to be activated in order to get the fighter to activate the skill, otherwise the turn will be directly ended. Without compromising strategy, this design speeds up the originally slow pace of turn-based gameplay and makes the rhythm of the entire battle more compact.
After accumulating enough "power" by releasing skills, the warriors can also release skills and moves in the same turn, playing a complete set of combo. To a certain extent, this design jumps out of the traditional turn-based system of thinking that only a single attack can be performed at a time, making the "cool feeling" brought by releasing combos more prominent.
In addition, Anchor Point Arrives no longer just watches its own fighters passively being beaten during the opponent's turn-based action phase. By introducing a QTE shield option similar to "Absolute Defense", when attacked by the opponent, the shield can be launched in time to completely resist one damage in a way that consumes energy. However, the launch conditions of the shield are more stringent, and can only be judged as success in the moment before entering the damage judgment, and failure will enter a skill cooldown of up to ten seconds.
This setting is somewhat similar to the blocking in FTG gameplay. Even during the battle of the Auto Brushbook, you can always try to block damage with a shield, enhancing the interactivity of the level. Theoretically, continuously launching a shield can even completely block the opponent's multiple combos, leaving room for players to "show operations".
Overall, although the gameplay of "Anchor Point" adopts a more stable turn-based framework, whether it is the change of action flow or the setting of QTE defense, it can be seen that Thunder Flame wants to jump out of the slow turn-based rhythm of the past, and by emphasizing the design idea of action interaction, the game experience is closer to the direction of more compact rhythm and bright ARPG.
Obviously, although the world view, art design and other aspects of lei flame for the first time want to be "stable", in the core gameplay part, they still want to make "Anchor Point" mark their own distinctive mark by integrating the strategy and operation elements of the two gameplay methods of "turn" and "action".
Third, the "cross-border investment" with a valuation of more than 100 million yuan has been increased again
Judging from the performance of "Anchor Point" in this test, although there are not many surprises in the choice of themes, the art part has kept up with the mainstream level of the category, and the gameplay has also made its own characteristics, and it has accumulated a certain player base and market attention through testing and offline exhibition. There is no doubt that Anchor Point Has Arrived is already a product that can be expected in the future.
What's more interesting is that on the point of "the future can be expected", Mingchen Health seems to think the same way. According to Tianyancha, in October last year, Mingchen Health planned to purchase Kashgar Arcane Network Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Xinyuan Interactive, for 219 million yuan, and Xinyuan Interactive was the developer of two two-dimensional products that had caused overheated talk in the domestic market earlier, "Baby Bee: Angel of the Abyss" and "Zhen Soul Street: Born to be King".
From the daily chemical industry to the game industry, and behind the "increase" of 200 million yuan again a year later, or the optimistic prospects for "Anchor Point" and the domestic secondary market, Mingchen Health has such confidence and boldness.
After obtaining the "cross-border investment" of mingchen health of more than 100 million, the Thunder Flame team began to expand in an orderly manner. According to the information on Tianyan, Leiyan Network newly established a guangzhou branch last year, and the size of the entire team has exceeded 200 people, which provides a basic guarantee for the improvement and update iteration of the follow-up content of "Anchor Point".
Then again, in the secondary market, we have seen a lot of early "future promising" products in the end only obscured in the torrent of time, "Anchor Point" can not eventually become a "blockbuster", but also need the market and players to test.