Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: DLS_MWZZ

It is very rational to reproduce at this time.

At the Nintendo face-to-face meeting in February, there was a surge of masterpieces, and in the process of exclamations, one work particularly caused surprise among old gamers. That is the origin of the "Alchemy Workshop" series, which is now famous for its "meat legs"-"Mary's Alchemy Workshop: the Alchemist of Salbrook". I can't believe it's going to launch a remake?!

In 1993, a then-unknown game studio was spun off from the original company Keiken System and set up a subsidiary named GUST. At a time when Japanese-style RPG was booming, GUST also launched RPG works on PC, PS and other platforms, but the response was mediocre. Until May 23, 1997, the first series of "Alchemy Workshop", "Mary's Alchemy Workshop" came out, causing a sensation. Since then, a unique series has been born.

The series of "Alchemy Workshop" and "Alchemy Workshop" that my uncle in the different world likes on the SS cover "Super meticulous" is the real "New year product". Apart from the fact that the first three years are in the exploratory stage and only two works have been launched, it has been one a year since 2001. over the past 26 years, the whole series has released a total of 23 authentic books and a number of other works. The 24th book, Lysa's Alchemy Workshop 3: the Alchemist and the Secret key of the end, will come soon in March this year, and there is no doubt about the model workers in the industry.

Shinichi Yoshiki, the founder of the series, was interested in alchemy before the company was founded, and later slowly used it to build a set of alchemy RPG games driven by props and deeply integrated with the concept of alchemy. Today, this set of design can be called the textbook about the synthesis of props in the game world. More than 20 works in the past dynasties have listed a variety of similar and different prop synthesis schemes, almost to the extreme in this direction.

GUST is only a small second-and third-line RPG factory, "Alchemy Workshop" is also a niche position, the general situation is single sales between 100000 and 500000. Before the "out-of-the-circle"Lysa's Alchemy Workshop", the series sold a maximum of 370,000 copies, which is not very dazzling in the industry. Therefore, for a long time, the series have been famous for their cost-effective production, and GUST has also made great achievements in "belief recharge" means such as peripheral products, and even started the daily factory operated by e-commerce earlier. In short, the revenue of this series is so solid that it is jokingly called "super meticulous".

Before "Lysa's Alchemy Workshop", the sales champion was the predecessor "Sophie's Alchemy Workshop: the Alchemist of the Proceedings". In the past 20 years, GUST itself has undergone many changes. It was first acquired as a subsidiary by Glory Tecumo in 2011, and then disbanded and reorganized to become the "GUST Nagano Development Department" in 2014. In 2016, it merged with the Kyoto Development Department of Glory Tecumo, renamed "GUST Brand". In 2020, the company moved from Nagano to Kanagawa Prefecture, prompting the founder of the series to leave. There are a lot of waves. But the valuable thing is that the acquisition and restructuring did not lose the soul of the series, and the founder, Shinichi Yoshike, can still be seen in the Staff of Sophie's Alchemy Workshop: the Alchemist of incredible Dreams, and the work is still popular with players. In the bloody gaming industry, this series is simply a positive example of long-term operation, and some breakthroughs are even in line with the comfortable and peaceful temperament of the "alchemy workshop" series.

Because of this, Alchemy looks super well compared with other series that have been silent for a long time, forgotten, or whose sequels continue to sell poorly. Not only the first two works of Lysa's Alchemy have sold a record series of millions of sales, but there is no problem with the prospect of the new work. "Alchemy Workshop" may be the least need for the "Renaissance" of the IP, why suddenly plan to reproduce the original generation?

This is an old picture that warmed many people at that time, and it is also a series of commonly used sections and visits by close friends.

Don't ask me why I suddenly cry when I look at Guan Xuan. GUST knows how to spoil players and lay down the elements of the whole series. Why do you plan to reproduce them in the first generation? After a more in-depth understanding of this series, the answer will be more obvious. A series that can stand for more than 20 years must have some family skills-"Alchemy Workshop" has many original minds that have not changed so far.

The first feature of the series has been established from the beginning of the first production, that is, a distinct "counter-mainstream" tone. This idea also appeared in this remade promotional film-what world to save, I want to go everywhere. In 1997, the first of the series, Japanese-style RPG is stepping into a golden age, with immortal masterpieces such as final Fantasy 7 and Granthia making their debut that year, as well as 1995's "key to Space and time", "Fantasy Legend", 1996's "Luna: star of the Milky way" and so on, with golden names casually mentioned. Basically, the tone of these works will not be separated from the hot themes at that time, and it is more or less necessary for the brave to save the world.

Under the background of this era, GUST, which has no sales volume and word-of-mouth pressure, gives full play to the advantage of the boat to make a quick U-turn, wisely avoids the advantage area of the "immortals" and develops its own living space. GUST this tone from today's perspective is "lie flat brave", it is no wonder that "Lysa's alchemy workshop" has finally become popular now, after all, whether it is "Legend of Zelda" or "final Fantasy 15", everyone is fishing and doing work, so they do not do the main line of lying flat people.

This kind of realistic plot which insists on being oneself honestly and survives to win recognition through the changes of the great times is also quite touching.

"I just want to find someone who saved me with alchemy to say 'thank you', and by the way, I want to be as good as her," said Ellie, the heroine of the second series, which depicts the firm, generous and touching friendship between the protagonist and other characters, and the feeling of friendship between idealized gentlemen in our country since ancient times.

During the design of the series, it coincided with the awakening of female consciousness in Japan, and the concept began to have a great influence on the stage of ACG. For example, the influential animation "Girl Revolution" was released in April 1997. At the same time, the rise of girl comics and the increase of female players have made Yoshiji feel that the existence and feelings of female players cannot be ignored.

In the third work, Lily even built the alchemy academy herself. The initial trilogy had the motivational feeling of independent women, so it was almost completely different from the mainstream masterpiece. Mary's Alchemy Workshop not only chose women as the protagonist, but also dealt with the feelings between the characters in a more mature and friendly way. The number of male and female supporting roles in the game is basically the same, and Mary is the development of friendship, and deep enough. With alchemy as the link, whether it is to make a panacea to cure the stubborn illness of a close friend, or to offer the best wishes for a friend to create a unique marriage ring, each section is an extremely unique story experience, and it stands out from a large number of RPG works at that time in the plot of romantic love and life-and-death love.

This design has achieved very good results, "Mary's Alchemy Workshop" basically achieved male and female players take half, male and female players account for half, the follow-up development of the series has not deviated from this basic set.

Most of the sequels in the series are also dominated by women in the style of fresh girls. Even from the point of view of dress, Miss Mary, who was not particularly distinguished from the pretty girl game at first, is probably the most "unrestrained" actress in the series (with the exception of No. 8).

When the 20th anniversary of the protagonist assembly map, you probably wear temperament can more intuitively see that the third feature echoes the above, that is, after bidding farewell to the youth, the game focuses on depicting the charm of intellectual women. Although "Mary's Alchemy Workshop" depicts the story of poor students' counterattack, and Mary herself is a wild girl who picks up a broom, no matter how to play the game or the plot of the story, all step by step let players walk into the wonderful hall of alchemy research, fully experience the beauty of knowledge, wisdom, magic (science) these elements.

For example, even Mary, who seems to be bold and big, is based on rational thinking when she meets people's specific needs, and achieves her goals by defining problems, finding information, making solutions, testing, implementing solutions, and so on. Each of these steps, the players are also clearly facing with the heroine, naturally and intuitively experience the light of wisdom. The same is true of all the alchemists in the whole series, and the light of wisdom is of no distinction between men and women, which can be described as the "treasure book of intellectual sexual love".

The fourth feature is also defined from the early times, that is, the play has enough breadth and depth to achieve "cute and martial arts". Although the temperament is relaxed, the upper limit of the various challenges in the series has always been very high, which is, as we call it today, "hard enough". For example, the most difficult ending of "Mary's Alchemy Workshop", "legendary two", requires players to train Thea, the weakest of their friends, into full grade and win martial arts conferences, which not only requires players to provide her with a large number of attack props to gain experience from the battle, but also to study frantically to cure her terminal illness, and to take care of Mary's own workshop management problems. The person who can play this ending must be the great master of time management.

The one who was trampled on is the knight commander of the kingdom who can kill dragons. The fifth feature is the ingenuity of production cost. The original "Mary's Alchemy Workshop" was made at an almost humble cost, and now it even gives people the illusion of "peer work". The second work, "Ellie's Alchemy Workshop: the Alchemist of Salbrook 2," embodies the temperament of commercial works through a lot of exquisite exterior decoration. In addition, the series did not change from 2D to 3D until 2009, which is also one of the manifestations of cost control.

Because of this, in order to maintain the overall game experience, the series of music has always been well-made, rich in variety, different scenes and characters have their own corresponding tunes, the music is full of emotion, very durable. The background music of all previous generations of games is a perfect combination of brainwashing and beauty, and there is nothing more enjoyable than making piles of "magic props of mass destruction" in such cheerful and melodious tunes-by the way, this article was written while listening to these songs.

It is also important that the gameplay system has only been properly explored and iterated, and has not been unduly bound by business indicators, so the cost control of the series has been stable. The whole "Alchemy Workshop" series feels about the same way-especially sense of security.

Throughout the series, mascot-like Pamela, her solo song is particularly touching. It is worthy of the ghost girl series "pain Point" that can walk through the wall. There is a joke spread among the players in the series, called "No one knows about ten years of alchemy." once the flesh knows the world. What this complains is the sudden explosion of "Lysa's alchemy workshop" and something that makes old players feel uncomfortable. And "Lysa's alchemy workshop" can come out so many things, but also reflects that there are some "pain points" accumulated over the years.

The first is that the cycle of play iteration is gradually unable to adapt to the times.

In the earliest days, the "year change" idea of "Alchemy Workshop" was based on the one-off buyout system of traditional mainframe games. Many works with larger tonnage took too long to produce, and it was common to wait four or five years between generations. In the era when the network is still underdeveloped, Nian has the advantage of more flexible adjustment of the direction of the game, can more quickly improve the existing design, and reduce operational risk. "Alchemy Workshop" series in the PS2 era has also done a lot of exploration, and even once very close to the traditional RPG, but from the beginning of the 11th generation or try to return to the original position, no major changes have been made since then. Without the rapid groping of several works in the PS2 era with the direction of testing, it would be difficult to draw today's conclusions about the development of the series.

All aspects can easily be mistaken for the 10th work of the Legend series, but in this era of service games where DLC and size updates are available at any time, these advantages not only become weaker, but also seem to be at a disadvantage. According to the logic of today's service-oriented games, the stable "big update" cycle of the "Alchemy Workshop" series is one year, but because the core style of play does not change much, it is more about the change of adventure stage, role and plot. this is too similar to the popular "activity update". Many mobile games and online games can update activities in six months or even a quarter. The performance and price of the production investment has more advantages than the "alchemy workshop", and the income ceiling is also higher.

Of course, the series has also opened up the mobile game market, and even set foot in the Japanese factory early. One of them was launched in 2014 and closed in 2020, and the other was launched in 2018 and 2022, which is generally regarded as "not alive".

The series has always had the courage to try a variety of ways, but the second problem is that any old game series is bound to exist, which is so stable that it becomes a barrier to play, which is especially obvious in this series. Alchemy is a feature, but after more than 20 iterations of addition and subtraction, its freshness has almost come to an end, and even if the old players like it, they will be dragged out a little bit. In addition, since the method of play originated in the last century, some designs that were not heavy or even casual at that time are still troublesome and difficult for many light players today. there are many new players in Lysa's alchemy workshop who have expressed varying degrees of discomfort with the alchemy system-as the core of the series, the alchemy system must not be missing.

From the perspective of play, in recent years, the emergence of "Pharmaceutical Technology: alchemy Simulator" magnifies the process of specific operation of alchemy as the main method of play. There are also many places that are very much like the "alchemy workshop", which can be called the "Potionomics" of the "spiritual sequel", showing the process of sale and counter-offer in the form of card battles as the core. These are the new solutions given by future generations of games, and they have been highly appraised by the public and minority groups respectively, but players who have come into contact with the "alchemy workshop" all know that these elements are not easy to absorb for the series, and they have to be "changed" if they are not careful.

"Potionomics" does make people imagine a different kind of "alchemy workshop", including whether "posting" the third pain point is not a foregone conclusion, but from a business point of view, it is bound to hurt. "Alchemy Workshop" series of stories are very independent, there is no strong connection between each work. Even if you continue to write the story of the protagonist under the same worldview, it is usually the end of the trilogy, and the latest "Lysa's Alchemy 3" also embodies the meaning of "last" in publicity, indicating that the next protagonist is about to be changed. It doesn't always point to "meat legs".

This design itself is very conscientious, making almost every work of the Alchemy series unique and attractive, and players can enter the hole from anywhere, like the "final Fantasy" series, ideal. However, there are some niche barriers to the plot core and play of the series, which are not popular specifications like "final Fantasy." in fact, it is difficult to welcome new students-we all know that Ms. Moira, who is represented by intellectual sexuality in "Watch Vanguard," is not as popular as D.Va or Angela wherever she is.

The series debuted from the 17th, including the PC version, and the Twilight World trilogy directly hit Steam in one day. In addition, over the past 20 years, it is hard to avoid the fault of players' succession. It is not surprising that the weak correlation of the series makes players "graduate" from any work. To be honest, I have not eaten every work, and there are always times when I do not miss it, and because of the weak correlation. If you miss a piece, it's not really very painful.

In a less rigorous comparison, Falcom, which is also regarded as a second-tier RPG manufacturer with GUST, is a "lifelong binding" professional customer. "track" series generations not only use a world view, but also always have a variety of connections with all the previous massive figures. Therefore, if the "track" series wants to experience complete fun, it should be best to enter the pit from "Hero Legend 6: the track of the void" and play as much as possible. In this way, after a long time, are there any new players who say that the reverse barrier for old players to get out of the pit must be getting higher and higher? after all, "they have all come" and have already nibbled on so many pre-works, is it not good to suddenly "graduate"? Of course, the sales of the series have a bit of a guaranteed effect-this is something that the "alchemy workshop" series cannot have.

For me, it belongs to "I didn't see you for a while, but I suddenly found that I had several more classmates I didn't know." to sum up, the series of "Alchemy Workshop" is very rational at this time.

From the point of view of the work itself, the popularity of "Lysa's Alchemy Workshop" really makes the choice of the next step very critical, which may be an advanced opportunity that has been waiting for 20 years. Habitually speaking, "Lysa's Alchemy Workshop" is not suitable for 4, so the remaking of "Mary's Alchemy Workshop" which will not offend the old players who can attract new players may be a good choice.

In particular, the promotional video released on February 20th can also confirm this intention. The remaking plate contains a "leisure mode" that removes the five-year time limit of the original, which is very much in line with the adjustment of today's new players' habits, and will not affect the old nostalgia of old gamers.

Series for the first time to cancel the time limit of the fourth series is indeed very popular with light players in addition, the trial intention of remaking is also obvious. If you take a closer look at the GUST catalogue, you will find that "Mary's Alchemy Workshop" is a real series of eldest sisters, and almost any new platform or new customer base has let Mary go to Lei. She not only tried the PC platform as early as 2000, but even went to the mobile Android platform in 2018.

Another piece of evidence is that Mary is not without real-scale 3D modeling. There are full-scale models like those of Lysa and other descendants in the series of protagonists, which can be applied according to the habits of the series. However, the overall style of remaking plate has chosen the Q version, which is cuter and cheaper, which also reflects the consistent strict cost control-- if this work sells well enough, other old works may also have a chance. By the way, it would be nice to have a product line that doesn't lose money.

From the perspective of the environment outside the work, 3D Mary in the rumor "Nerk and the legendary Alchemists: the Alchemy Workshop of the New Land" also has some indirect driving force for plate making. For example, in recent years, on the whole, "the wind of the world is declining." the ACG of Japanese factories are not separated, and it is not uncommon for Japanese factories to carry out the "Renaissance" in three days. with Japan's unique "gregarious" logical reasoning, this trend should not be absent in any case, enough to promote the emergence of remaking plates.

In addition, GUST tentatively released the first two generations on PC as early as 2000, but the results were not satisfactory, and then firmly moved to the mainframe platform. In addition to rational sales figures, for GUST at that time, the PC platform also had a demon-like existence-Gongjiatang.

As one of the few full-age PC game software vendors in Japan, in 2000, Gongjiatang had a rich product line and deep seniority, and the track was very close to GUST, and it was a beautiful girl style that integrated all kinds of games, such as "Secret Service team A", "Angel Concert", and the "Invention Workshop", which was often put together with "Mary's Alchemy Workshop" on the shelves in China in 2002. anyone could see that it was competitive, but GUST at that time In terms of tonnage, seniority and products, it is not even a "competitor" of the industrial painting hall.

Although strictly speaking, Miss Nanoka's side is regarded as a simulation operation rather than a RPG. What is interesting is that at the beginning of this year, the first remake of the "invention workshop", the invention workshop Legacy, arrived almost all of a sudden, from the announcement in December last year to the launch in January. In this context, the remaking of "Mary's Alchemy Workshop" is followed by a more inspirational sense of reality-more than 20 years later, it is time for Don't overextend to compete with once-irresistible opponents with the blessing of next-generation technology.

On the whole, the history of GUST seems dull, and its works are harmonious and warm, but it has also experienced a lot of wind and rain, and it is still strong so far. it is simply a textbook for honest management, which is much more reliable than a big factory with a great change in taste and spare time for people such as Blizzard. Although its historical and cultural background cannot be copied, for other manufacturers, it still has a lot to learn from, whether it is "follow the right path, survival is the hard truth", or "be kind to the soul of the series", GUST and the "alchemy workshop" series are one of the best examples.

Although trying to cover the pictures of the protagonists of the series as much as possible, it is still not complete.

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