Although it is said that "within fifteen years is a year", the clarion call to start work has brought all the workers back to reality, but on the tenth day of the Lunar New Year, when netizens laughed at themselves and "they are going to quit the Spring Festival stalls", Kuluo Games caught the lively atmosphere that was about to dissipate.
And it's very "comfortable" to pick up.
On February 19th, a new round of testing of "Singing Tide" Sonata Test officially opened, which immediately caused a large-scale sensation in the second game circle, although many players failed to participate in this test, but there were endless discussions and memes about it on social **.
As soon as we enter 2024, the official of "Singing Tide" has started the preparatory work for starting this test, and has received considerable feedback.
For example, on January 17th, the official passed "Drifter, for the arrival of tomorrow, a new journey is about to begin." and other copywriters, and the resolute eyes of the male and female protagonists announced that "Singing Tide" will arrive soon.
A day later, on January 18th, the official released the "Sonata Test Real Machine PV |".To the New World", it has achieved nearly 4.6 million ** at station B alone. And until the beginning of the Sonata test, the official "Singing Tide" also released the "Resonator Connoisseur Show PV", and the opening animation|To the future, they have achieved more than one million ** volume at station B.
In the comment area of related** and dynamics, voices such as "urgent" and "kneeling for a code" can be seen everywhere, and many players are working at the speed of light after knowing that they have no chance with the qualifications, which can be said to be since they can't have fun with the game, then have fun with the "people". Many actions have accumulated a lot of noise for this sonata test.
Not only that, but the attitude of the players in this test is much more gentle than before.
The change in players' attitudes stems from the "painful change" of "Singing Tide", which is also the key to making countless players feel "comfortable" in the Sonata Test.
Change comes from all sides
When the player slowly opens his eyes as a drifter on the knee pillow of the beautiful girl Rice Seedling, I believe that whether you have participated in the previous test of "Singing Tide" or not, you should feel unfamiliar with the world in front of you.
This is also the most intuitive experience that the "Singing Tide" Sonata Test has brought to countless players - change.
In fact, as early as January 19th, the official account "Jiting Researcher No. 42", which recorded the development information of "Ming Tide", released an issue of "Special Dialogue Program of the Development Team", detailing the changes that have occurred in the game, and three days before the start of the Sonata test, the account reported to players in the form of text what changes have been made in "Ming Tide" in the 10 months between the two tests.
In this "Sonata Test Letter to Players", the changes to the four major parts of "plot, combat experience, artistic performance, and sound skeleton system" are described, and the official also uses "earth-shaking" to describe the extent of the change. In short, it is "what the player raises, there are adjustments".
Among them, the changes to the plot are the most intuitive, and the unsuccessful "resonance test" of "Singing Tide" in April 2023 also has a lot to do with the plot.
At that time, in the plot, it was normal for the player, as an "outsider", to arouse the vigilance of the people around him, but as the plot deepened, the NPCs did not change their attitudes because of the player's overtures, but deepened the hostility, which brought players a strong sense of isolation, making a group of anchors and players "grinning" not to mention, and also created a lot of "Ming" scenes.
The tsunami-like negative evaluation of players at home and abroad has promoted the rewriting of the plot of "Singing Tide", and revised the script, dubbing, mission line, some art assets, all performance resources and other content, and the development team has also bluntly said in the program that "the plot of the full iteration of the game has reached 90%", which is almost a tear down and redo.
So in the sonata test, NPCs are much gentler in terms of conversation, emotion, and attitude. In addition, the focus of the overall narrative of "Singing Tide" is further focused on the protagonist, coupled with the outstanding combat performance, which allows players to quickly get the recognition of the surroundings, and even has a little bit of "Dragon Aotian".
Both images show the attitude of the NPC after the player wakes up, the top is the resonance test, and the bottom is this test.
Of course, different players' preferences are also different, and whether such a change is good or bad depends on the majority of players voting with their feet in the future, but compared with before, the emotional value provided by the current plot of "Ming Tide" is relatively abundant, and players can also intuitively harvest emotional satisfaction.
It's also worth noting that the integration of the plot of "Singing Tide" with other systems is much smoother, such as the drifter accidentally discovering that he can absorb sound skeletons with his physical body, and then extending one of the characteristics of the game, the sound skeleton system. Or players can choose to click on some more straightforward options when going through certain episodes, so as to cleverly skip a certain episode, etc.
If you can do it, you don't need to look for clues, and the scene art about the game, "Singing Tide" also tries to create more "new possibilities" in the post-apocalyptic style. Instead of adding a heavy layer of gray filters to many scenes in order to amplify the game's post-apocalyptic depression as before, resulting in a single visual effect.
Therefore, in this test, it is not difficult to find that on the basis of ensuring the heaviness of the scene, "Singing Tide" has learned to turn from dark to bright, and with the help of the improvement of the light and hand-drawn sense of the scene, it can raise the positive feelings such as brightness and comfort that can be presented in the scene. But this does not mean that "Singing Tide" has given up the previously mentioned "frigid" style, but the game has chosen a more suitable atmosphere expression in its different regions, such as dangerous areas or combat areas, the overall atmosphere is amplified and heavy and tense, and safe areas such as towns, on the basis of ensuring their own characteristics, the colors are more vivid and bright, and the atmosphere is more relaxed.
In addition, the weather system is also intuitively displayed in the Sonata test, especially the appearance of the "Ringing Tide" characteristic weather makes the game experience more layered. In terms of characters, the official has iteratively optimized its model, body type, clothing, etc., highlighting the animation of the character, of course, this also weakens the realism of the work to a certain extent.
In this test, "Singing Tide" also showed the possibility of integration with traditional culture, such as "Lingyang" is closely related to the lion dance culture, and the combat design also integrates the lion dance action with the elements of Hongquan, and the "Jianxin" based on Tai Chi culture is also a unique and charming character, perhaps with the further development of the game in the future, the work will become more and more profound and vivid in terms of cultural bearing.
In this test, "Ming Tide" also optimizes the "sustain skill-variation skill" as the core of the combat loop experience on the basis of the previous one, and reduces the difficulty of getting started, so that more and more people can feel the refreshing side of the game's combat.
Many of the designs related to it have also been optimized to a certain extent, such as the previous overly frequent battle vibration screen has been modified to a certain extent, but some parts of it are still inevitably overcorrected, such as the picture lens lock, many players have reported some places, especially when the camera is too stiff when the injury falls, and the enemy locking needs to be further optimized.
The official sound skeleton system has also been appropriately optimized, providing players with the possibility of repeated brushing, and also providing a very free way to match. Many special gameplay designs such as parkour, side-scrolling actions, meat pigeons, and limited-time events were also shown in this test, and the overall quality was remarkable.
Through the above changes, it is not difficult to find that "Singing Tide" has a very clear understanding of the problems of the resonance test, so it is also very daring to go under the knife, and believes that it can bring a subversive experience to players. Judging from the feedback on the first day of testing, although the sound came from all directions, and there were both good and bad, most people gave positive comments on the attitude and results of the changes to the Kuro game, and also believed that it finally had the qualification to challenge its predecessors in the two-dimensional open world track.
However, the opponent of "Singing Tide" is not good.
Time is running out for those who come after you
The first ** time of "Singing Tide" was on May 25, 2022, when the domestic second tour was in full swing in art, and shifted the war to the style, in order to win by surprise.
At that time, its appearance just hit the needs of players at that time, close to the cold apocalyptic style, exquisite graphics combined with enjoyable 3D action fighting, two-dimensional open world, all kinds of eye-catching labels, so that it not only won the affirmation of many players, but also made many people believe that it will become a two-dimensional open world, and even another pillar in the field of domestic second games.
It's just that the indescribable performance of the previous two tests of "Singing Tide" has greatly weakened players' confidence in it.
Prior to the Sonata Test, "Singing Tides" was released on July 4, 2022 and April 20, 2023, respectively, and was turned on by players jokingly called "05 tests" of the "technical test" and "one test" of the resonance test, "0"5 tests" confuse many players, and "one test" makes all players "stressed".
At that time, there was a high praise comment bluntly saying that "Mingchao is like an agarwood log, everyone knows its value, but what can be carved, no one has a bottom in their hearts".
The appearance of the Sonata Test, which is actually the third test, can be said to give many players a bottom line, so that they can clearly feel the value of "Singing Tide" and look forward to its future.
Of course, with the passage of time, it is not only "Singing Tide" that has undergone earth-shaking changes, but also the second-game market and players, especially in 2023, many changes are moving towards generalization and extreme, and if you don't pay attention to it, you will step into nothing, and players are also expecting "Singing Tide" to bring more eye-catching things, rather than clichés. The performance of several two-dimensional products in the second half of 2023 seems to show that whether it is "players' expectations", "everyone's money" or "the cost performance of channel publicity", they are approaching the worse end.
This is also the key to why it only took 10 months for Kuro Games to complete the major revision of "Singing Tide" and quickly come out, after all, the train of the times is indeed a bit fast.
As for the reason why the player's feedback on the Sonata Test is much more modest, on the one hand, "Ringing Tide" has indeed modified many sharp problems, making the game more fun and more in line with the needs of the public; On the other hand, many changes in "Singing Tide" make people feel its sincerity, and believe that it can shake the existing pattern of the two-dimensional open world field through "hardcore action".
However, there are also a considerable number of people who agree with the view that the sonata test of "Singing Tide" is to reshape the player's perception and build everyone's confidence by correcting previous errors. It is precisely because of this that some of the content is immature, and there are traces of overcorrection in many changes to the plot, art, and lenses.
At the same time, the battle that "Singing Tide" will face in the future will be more ferocious than in previous years.
The predecessors are making frequent moves, and the latecomers are also accelerating their entry, such as "Jeopardy Zero", "Codename: Infinity" and other heavyweights who have already filled their expectations before they are launched; Trying to achieve corner overtaking through uniqueness, "Return to the Dragon Tide", "Crescent Moon Walking", "Ring of Fire" and other products; "Persona: Phantom of the Night", which has just finished testing with the title of palace, chose to launch "Resonas" on February 29 to try to win by surprise, etc., everyone is eager to try, hoping to grab a piece of their own field in the field of domestic second tours, but the winners are only a few people after all.