Touch music night talk: not bad new domestic "soul" like

Touching the night talk, every day nonsense and game-related farts, ghost things, new things.

Photo/Xiao Luo

This week, Extreme Edge Studios' soul-like game Thymesia: Memory Frontier silently launched a free demo version on Steam. I was surprised when I stumbled upon this news, because it was so low-key, and I hadn't heard much of it before. If I had heard of it, it was impossible not to pay extra attention. The reason is simple, as a brainless blower of Bloodborne Curse, I will not let go of any game with a similar style...

And Thymesia: Frontier of Memory is just right for all of my "generations" of Bloodborne Curses. Class "soul", plague, dark Victorian wind, and even bird's beak mask... Incidentally, while the worldview is a bit more "bloody," the main color palette is more like the design tone of the Plague Doctor in Dark Dungeon. It's pretty good, and I like both.

It is that the shape of the protagonist is a little less neat, especially compared with the two predecessors of the "Bird Sister"... Small problems, small problems, I hope to give some new clothes to wear in the later stage.

The game's save point is a chair, and coincidentally, the save point of the Alpha version of Bloodborne Curse is also a chair, which was later changed to a lantern

After quickly downloading Demo and playing, there are both satisfying parts and less comfortable parts, and overall it is far beyond expectations. After all, judging from the first impression of the staff table and the game screen, this work is definitely from a small workshop, and there is no way to ask for more.

Part of the satisfaction is that the game does try to do its own thing on the combat mechanics. Domestic and even broad "soul" games are difficult to get rid of a variety of visual senses, so my requirements for this aspect are more relaxed, as long as they are not copied too obviously (such as action, sound effects are exactly the same), the final effect fits their own world view, play it fun.

The mechanics of Thymesia: Memory Frontier are strictly more "anti-reaction" than the "Wolf Only" style of bullet knives, but a variant of the posture bar is introduced. All enemies have two health points, white bars and green bars, under normal circumstances, both the general attack and the bullet knife can only damage the white bars (similar to a protective shell attached to the green bars), if you do not add an attack, it will slowly recover, and you need to use the "claw strike" (similar to heavy attacks) to completely prevent the enemy from healing for a short period of time when the green bars are exposed, and achieve the effect of reducing HP. Therefore, the most efficient combination of operations in theory is "L1-R2-L1-R2", and so on. The traditional dodge flat A play is also suitable for most enemies, but if it is not aggressive enough, it is easy to fight for half a day, and the opposite health bar is not rare at all.

Personally, I like this combat mechanic that encourages offense. Charge Claw can also steal enemy weapons and abilities, albeit once (not as good as Kirby!). ), and the timing is a bit difficult to grasp, but the effect is very handsome. There are also operations such as gunshots throwing feathers to interrupt the enemy's deadly attacks, etc., if you play well, the ornamental and your own operation fun should be good.

However, the above is all theoretical... Or maybe the game is polished enough to have a situation. After I finished playing two elite knights and a boss in the demo, I felt that the actual effect of the battle was still a bit unheated. In other words, the difficulty of the current game is almost entirely based on the imbalance between risk and return, and the enemy itself is very disciplined, simple and simple, a board and a glance, which is a very typical "soul" opponent.

This new Guda teacher, or priest teacher, taught a good lesson, and it would be better if he could be handsome

The protagonist usually uses the saber in his right hand to flat A, and the small dagger in his left hand to project a knife. However, the small dagger cannot be held up on the chest like a shield or a wedge pill, and the usual defense ability is 0, so the two-person turn and reed shaking knife technique are no longer applicable. And the risk and difficulty of using it to play the knife, the sense of somato is equivalent to using the middle shield in "Dark Souls 3" to counter... In the case that you only need one and a half knives to hack to death on the boss, and elite slash you with up to 3 knives, and you only have 3 bottles of medicine in your pocket, the learning cost of the bullet knife is very large in the early stage. Recall that the difficulty curve is also a roller coaster ride "Blood Source Curse", at least 20 bottles of medicine were given at the beginning. It can only be said that this is by no means a game suitable for the "soul" system to enter the pit, and the old Ass is normal.

And the risk is so huge, the benefits are not significant. If you don't add a claw, you don't have a bullet. It was difficult to play three times and then add a claw, but the damage caused was not enough to see, and the visual and psychological positive feedback was not as good as the execution.

Its practical bullet knife to hit the boss experience is good, I have used a combination of general attack and bullet knife. The new teacher's blood thick attack is indeed low, but the feel and rhythm are more comfortable, and even the moves are enough to shake back. Truly outrageous are the elite knights. In this game, even the lowest-ranking creeps have a hegemonic body, which is difficult to suppress, and the elite knights are not only fast in action, but also hard and straight when they are bounced or hit, and even not enough for the protagonist to add claws. This is a bit contrary to the game's mechanics of encouraging offense and slinging knives, anyway, I just swung the rotten roll A...

There are some other small problems, such as the feel and judgment is a little weird, sliding sometimes inexplicably rubbed, but this kind of detail polishing is probably really difficult for small factories, in addition to adapting there is no good way, mainly depends on the overall design and world atmosphere is not attractive enough. The initial feel of "Pascal's Contract" was also very discouraged, and I was addicted to it for a long time.

At the moment, Thymesia: Frontiers of Memory still interests me. There are still 3 months to go before the release, and I don't know if there will be more trials after that. Things like worldview, map design, etc., were not shown too much in this demo version, and if the feel can be polished better and the story is dark enough, it should be worth trying. Let's wait for now.