Due to the appearance of Blizzard Diablo, the second half of 1990s may be one of the most important periods of ARPG. How influential is it? Don't worry, my friend, the game of the 00' s will give you the answer. This paper still takes five years as the span and the content is subjective. Mainly talk about the games that I think are worthy of attention. If you miss the classics in your heart, please forgive my senile amnesia.
Ancient scrolls iii: morning breeze
Even as the year 2000 approaches, the genre type of ARPG is still unclear, because the number of similar games has increased significantly. For example, although The Elder Scrolls series is characterized by real-time system and action confrontation, its strong CRPG elements tend to push it to this school.
Personally, I still classify it as ARPG, which is also proved by The Elder Scrolls: Skyline, which appeared at the recent Cologne Game Show. However, due to the consideration of the type boundary, we still don't go deep into the "Elder Scroll" series here. Thanks to the popularity of Demon City X: Night under the Moon, some horizontal scrolls of ARPG can be independent and self-sufficient.
This should be a period that most players are familiar with. Action -RPG doesn't like Diablo, it keeps clicking from high altitude to get trophies. Like Yi Su, it is a third-person adventure. Of course, there is plenty of room for first-person games. As long as they can spend enough time in the dirty dungeon, everything else will only be classified as XX games with RPG elements. In the following, we will also mention some "edge" games, but only touch the surface and mention the first work. After all, there are more mainstream ARPG representatives waiting for us to discover.
diablo ii
In 2000, ARPG's "Troika" ushered in the crowing of the new century. One of the most important works is naturally the defining sequel of Blizzard, Diablo II. Compared with the achievements of the first novel, Diablo II received a greater response. The reason is also very simple. This game not only expands the gameplay in many ways, but also allows multiplayer players to play the game more conveniently and happily. "Fight. Net platform has developed by leaps and bounds from StarCraft, which was broadcasted by RTS, and has brought more fruitful results to Diablo2. In addition, countless latecomers have followed in Diablo2' s footsteps, among which perhaps only westwood's Nox is worth mentioning, but that's all.
fight/hew one's way out of a heavy encirclement
Another computer game released in the Millennium that meets the APRG standard is called deuex. The half-life of Valve published by 1998 has brought fundamental changes to FPS (first person shooting). In the past, FPS often filled the game with as many action and obstacle elements as possible, and all games began to try to succeed with different mirrors. For example, Cyber Raiders won a lot of praise, and the cult style in the works even crossed the times. But "Half-Life" tells them that "shooting" may just be a gear of FPS masterpiece. Warren spector, Harvey Smith and countless young talents who developed deus ex in Ion Storm put forward another possibility: they combined the first-person action, the role process of RPG and the adapted gameplay, making deus ex the most famous ARPG at that time.
dream star online
Let's take a look at the console game again. Great changes continue. At the end of 1999, the Sega Dreamcast console was released worldwide, and soon after, Sony's PS2 also started the road of crazy sales. No matter how hard Sega tried, the short-lived Dreamcast seemed to be cursed and failed, but Dreamcast still entertained many ARPG masterpieces: Dream Star Online, a dark multi-player online ARPG, which successfully opened up its own niche market. According to the release time and characteristics of Dream Star Online, it probably inspired the birth of Capcom Monster Hunter. Soon after, the dream star was transplanted to PC, Gamecube and even Xbox platform. Dreamcast also witnessed the birth of ARPG, the Battle of Rhode Island. Authorized by the original, of course.
dark clouds
At that time, PS2 didn't have much time to cook many APRG delicacies. After all, it was just listed in 2000. Many players have found a lot of fun in the American version of the game Summoner. More importantly, the newly established developer Level 5 released the first game "Dark Cloud" at the end of 2000. Because it was similar to some ACT games at that time, its artistic style was criticized by many players, but it turned out that it was the right game at the right time. A few years later, Level 5 released Dark Cloud 2 with higher quality but lower sales volume, and was hired by Square Enix to help develop Dragon 8, which completely changed the company's running track.
Gate of Bode: Dark Alliance
In contrast, 200 1 has no masterpiece. Nintendo GBA was officially released and named "Rockman: Online Battle". Soon after, Rockman RPG with combat action characteristics appeared on the console platform. According to the past habits of The Rockman, almost every work was published once a year, until the popularity of the last work was completely exhausted, but the rapid launch of Cyber Warfare 1 and 2 still made us feel very happy.
The enthusiasm for Diablo finally got feedback on the host platform. The Gate of Bode: Dark Alliance abandons the complicated CRPG types and poor adaptability in the past, but expresses a tribute to Diablo. This work is very interesting and sells very well. It can be seen that the host player is still very tolerant of the transplanted works of PC.
Gothic ii
The content of 200 1 is almost here. Look at the PC platform, Diablo2' s "DLC", some decent actions -RPG and actions forgotten by the times -RPG clones. Unlike the expanded version of Diablo 1, King of Destruction produced by Northern Blizzard quickly became a must-have version for every player. The nihilistic Vampire: Masquerade tries to substitute the cult style into the game world, but the result is not satisfactory. Gothic dynasty, developed by Piranha Bytes in Germany, combines CRPG elements with third-person action games. Their Gothic Dynasty 2 produced in 2002 was even more successful. These are all classic works worth revisiting.
In the name of the king: the story of the dungeon siege
In addition to the Gothic series, two other Diablo-like games appeared on the PC side in 2002. Dungeon siege made by Gas Powered game brings fast-paced adventure experience in a grand and detailed world. In the next few years, there will be many sequels and bad adaptations in this series. Larian's "Shen Yu" also incorporated the dark style into CRPG (computer RPG), and it also made many sequels, although this seems to be equivalent to not only repeating its previous works.
This year, Arkane Studio officially debuted, and their Dungeon Hero is reminiscent of Underground Genesis. This first-person game is released on both Xbox and PC platforms. Maybe it's not a cross-era classic, but it's enough to give you an occasional shock.
kingdom hearts
At the end of 2002, it ended with a home game. However, Square Enix and kingdom hearts produced by Disney combined Final Fantasy with Disney characters to create an almost unrecognizable money-making machine. There is no such game type as "kingdom hearts" before. The game mechanism has been constantly improved and developed in the series of tracks published later. This is a big game, which is basically made up of bang buttons and combined with Disney animated movies. If we judge by the definition of general games, Kingdom Heart series may be the most successful games in the history of ARPG. Another game worth mentioning is Battle of the Sky released by GBA platform. After breaking up with the former development team, Sega decided to revive the series in the form of ARPG. Yes, no one knows why they did it!
Ysvi: Napishtim's Ark
In 2003, there was no interesting progress in European and American markets, but it was a very strange year for Japanese ARPG. After many years of dormancy, Falcom's Izu series came back as "King of Izu 6: Nabistine's Ark", which was first released on the PC platform, then boarded the major hosts in the following years and spread around the world. For a little disappointed Yisu 5, Yisu 6 is a beautiful turnaround, and the game engine will be upgraded again soon. On the Gamecube platform, Final Fantasy has both gains and losses. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicle has returned to Nintendo, which is an excellent multiplayer ARPG. However, the hardcore gameplay of the game deviates from the original RPG gameplay, which makes the work unable to reach the original height.
Our sun
GBA is a paradise for 2D Sprite technology, and a large number of developers are taking advantage of this relatively healthy software market. SE released a remastered version of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man-Final Fantasy Adventure: Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man 2, just like every legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man released after the super era, it seems that this is not the game that players are looking for. Konami integrated the functions of many console games into the PDA, and made the My Sun series. The game cassette also has a sunlight sensor, which we need to put in the sunlight to charge the protagonist's weapon. Is it cloudy today? Then I hope your character is invisible. Although this is a very strange scene, Hideo Kojima's works are very interesting. Speaking of strange games, Dragon Ride is definitely a SE work that can't be ignored. The ARPG of the PS2 platform finally gave birth to this year's explosion YoRHa II B-type. The gameplay of air combat, low-altitude air combat and land warfare exceeded the imagination of players, and the basic elements of Yokoo Taro's script and game were closely linked with people's hearts from the beginning.
Fable, fable of ghosts and gods
For ARPG fans, 2004 was definitely an exciting year. Bode's Gate: Dark Alliance 2, Norah Warrior, Legend of Ice City, Radiation: Brotherhood of Steel and Legend of X-Men all contributed to Diablo's action game. PC players can also enjoy excellent "shelters". If you are no longer interested in Diablo clones, you may be interested in Vampires: Blood Clan. It should take a longer time to become a playable game product, but as a masterpiece of Troika, it should be kept in mind. This is a first-person game interwoven with CRPG colors, but it was released in an unfinished form. The worst time, together with developers, was silent in the long river of history.
The host RPG also entered 2004, and perhaps the only masterpiece is the Fable of Ghosts and Ghosts by Lionhead Studio, which was released on the Xbox platform in September of that year. Due to the hype of producer Peter Mohino, Fable of Ghosts and Ghosts has been criticized a lot, but the quality of the game itself is very good. At that time, a high-quality RPG game that was not made in Japan was extremely rare, and Fable of Ghosts was perhaps the most representative exception on the ARPG platform.
Tears of light
Sega is still going further and further on the road of making mediocre ARPG. It seems that they have an indescribable insistence on making "Power of Light Series", so Tears of Light was born on PS2. Most wisely, they hired a famous industrial painter to design characters and artistic styles. Of course, the sales of this work are bleak, but its surroundings are extremely hot.
Speaking of which, in 2004, I witnessed the sequel of kingdom hearts series, Heart of the Kingdom: Chain of Memory, on GBA. After all, this work is ok on the platform. This may be a water test, and then SE produced high-quality works on its framework.
kingdom hearts
In 2005, we can call it "the year of sequel". On the host platform, Heart of the Kingdom 2 was put on the shelves together with Chuang and Pirates of the Caribbean, while another work, Power of Light Neo, was born by the power of light, which is not TRPG. Falcom produced Izu: Fergana's Vow and Izu 6' s Engine: The Next Part of the Lost Country, both of which are outstanding representatives in sequels.
Dungeon Siege 2, Legend of X-Men 2 and Champion: Return to Arms still achieved different degrees of success with their own dark styles.
Two developers committed to RPG production seized the opportunity to publish their final works on their long-term host platform. Level 5 takes "Grand Theft Auto Galaxy" as the cloud of PS2, which is a sci-fi ARPG, reflecting the style characteristics of Level 5 from many aspects. With the success of Star Wars: Soldiers of the Old Republic on Xbox, Canadian developer Bioware tried a novel with a different style-jade empire. Although there are original defects, Bioware sprays ARPG water everywhere, which is also instructive for the company's future development.
Jade empire Special Edition
Skipping these years, the first five years of the Millennium are very important for mainframes, PCs and even handhelds. At the host level, more and more European and American developers have entered the market and achieved good returns; It is no exaggeration to say that the sales record of PS2 may be unprecedented. Although Xbox doesn't sell that much, it also makes a lot of money. Comparatively speaking, the PC game market is slightly bleak. Several oligarchs have absorbed all the nutrients in the game market, and the software retail industry is also declining. Even Microsoft has shifted its new interest from Windows games to newly discovered game consoles.
Vampire: a reclusive blood clan
Of course, a revolution is quietly going on, and we will not only witness the recovery of the PC market, but they are even more attractive to publishers around the world than before. Valve, which published the popular movie half-life 2, even started an alternative project of retail distribution. When The Hourglass came to an end in 2005, Valve signed the first agreement with an external publisher. Yes, the rescue of PC games has come, but the host and console will be hit hard and learn a valuable lesson-the truth that countless ARPG developers have long understood: simple sales.
Source: toucharcade.com.
Author: Sean musgrave
ARPG chronicle (end):
1 and 1980s: the origin of ARPG
In the 1990s, the stars shone.
3.90s: Classics, Imitation and Heritage.
4. 1990s: Innovation and Diablo's Cloning
500 years, the third time equals a lifetime?
6, 10 years, flying to a broad future.
What are 100,000 "what"?
1. What is the SLG game we often talk about?
Words from game developers:
1 Game Analysis with MOBA: Similarities and Differences among Dota, LOL and Pesticide