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

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

How much can Falcom change so far?

Not long ago, March 9 was the anniversary of the release of the Legend of Heroes: the track of the void SC. With the launch of the role-playing game "Hero Legend: empty track FC" in 2004, Falcom's "Hero Legend" series created a new branch of the "track" series, and the 2006 release of "Air track SC" is the second work under the "track" series.

After the release of the game has been highly praised, the national version was released in August 2007, is also very popular in China, coupled with the great impact of the previous "empty track FC", the "track" series has gradually gained great popularity in China.

Looking back on the release of the game for many years, "empty track SC" can be regarded as an excellent work, but because of the great success of "empty track SC", Falcom later used the production idea of this game many times and formed a model. "track" series gradually become conservative, word-of-mouth continues to decline, it can be said that it is an unexpected result.

On the other hand, it is puzzling that some of the advantages of "empty track SC" were gradually abandoned by the series and were not picked up until the last two years in the new "track" work. What happened and what lessons are worth summing up?

The brilliant "track of the void SC" classic review "the track of the void SC" has become a classic, mainly thanks to the efforts of several aspects.

The first is the ingenious design of the theme.

The most successful characters portrayed by the empty track SC are of course the heroine Estelle and the hero Joshua. If the theme of the previous work "the track of the void FC" is "searching for the Father", then the theme of "the track of the void SC" is the "searching for the husband".

Here we need to explain the origin of the theme of finding relatives in "track". In the 1990s, Japanese animation practitioner Hayakawa moved to the gaming industry, joined Falcom, gave full play to his expertise in the field of animation scripts, and created the third, fourth and fifth generations of the famous "Legend of Heroes" series, namely the "Kakabo Trilogy". Hayakawa is also known as the "Father of Kakabo". The theme of four generations of "Hero Legend 4: scarlet tears" is to ask the hero Evan to find his sister Emile.

The "track" series inherits the elements and spirit of the Kakab trilogy in many places, most of which come from "tears of scarlet". In addition to finding relatives, it combines the combat mode in the form of return system and chess, as well as the design of free access to specific places. Generally speaking, the "track" series can be seen as a comprehensive evolution on the basis of "tears of scarlet".

"tears of scarlet", but in 1996, the theme of finding a husband in "empty track SC" is more worrying than the previous theme of finding a father.

This is because, in the previous film, Estelle and Joshua's process of finding their father (Kensei Cassius) is not too thrilling. After all, Kensei is powerful and famous all over the continent, so players are more likely to regard "empty track FC" as a travel experience in the Kingdom of Liebel.

"empty track SC" is very different. "empty track SC" and "empty track FC" are supposed to be a game, because the production time is getting longer and longer, Falcom founder and president Masuki Kato ordered the listing of two parts, and made major changes to the original plot, the most critical change is the genius plot suspense design at the end of "empty track FC"-Joshua suddenly kissed Estelle with drugs in his mouth, making him sleepy. For some special reason, Joshua said goodbye and disappeared.

This scene shocked countless players because Joshua was the adopted son picked up by Cassius and grew up with Cassius' biological daughter Estelle. In "empty track FC", players operate Estelle and Joshua all the way, watching them help each other, and the careless Estelle gradually opened Joshua's heart with her own enthusiasm and gentle kindness. Joshua, who has experienced a lot of darkness and committed a lot of sins, is gradually influenced by Estelle, is aware of the existence of light, and no longer gives up.

The classic goodbye kiss at the end of "empty track FC" looks very good, but at the end of "empty track FC", Joshua said goodbye, and the game came to an abrupt end. "want to know what's going on, and listen to the decomposition of" empty track SC ". Many players who have walked with this couple feel melancholy.

At that time, I bought the national version of "empty track FC". After a month of customs clearance, I couldn't let it go. I was so worried about the fate of these two lovebirds that I often thought of them in the middle of the night, and I thought of the plot in my head. I believe that there are many players, like me, also have a similar mental process.

Precisely because "empty track FC" left enough suspense, "empty track SC" looked forward to a boom before it was released, which greatly boosted sales.

Players of the Bank of China are a little more painful. Because the national version of "empty track SC" was released a year later than the Japanese version, there are already many spoilers on the Internet, and players like me can only resist watching it until the moment they play the game themselves.

Players of the Bank of China waited a long time to see this interface because the design was so successful that Falcom used similar routines many times in the sequel: at the end of "Hero Legend: flash track", the protagonist Li en and his classmates had to be separated. The first half of "Hero Legend: flash track 2" is the process of finding partners. "Hero Legend: flash track 3" used this trick again, but this time it was Lane who was captured, and the first half of "Hero Legend: flash track 4" arranged for Ryan's students and classmates to find him back.

Of course, the search in these sequels will no longer impress players as much as the empty track SC. Estelle and Joshua's pure love story is sincere and touching, and in "the track of the Flash" 4, the protagonist Lane is the protagonist like long Aotian, and almost all the female characters will fall in love with him, and there are too many supporting roles on the stage. so whether it is to let Ryan find partners, or let partners to find him, is emotionally scattered, unable to focus on a person, it is difficult to make players touch. What's more, after the baptism of the empty track SC, players already know that they will eventually find key characters in these sequels, otherwise the game will not be able to continue.

On the other hand, the reasons designed to separate Ryan and his partners in these sequels are deliberate and far-fetched, especially at the end of "Flash track 3". In the best part of the plot, suddenly let Ryan go and be captured, and then in a loud bang directly black screen, will only be staggering. Of course, this does not bring the huge shock at the end of "the track of the void" FC.

The second reason why "empty track SC" is classic is that the characters are wonderful.

"empty track SC" expands the stories of multiple characters in "empty track FC" to make these characters more distinct and live longer in the player's memory.

Needless to say, these characters such as Estelle, Joshua and Cassius, while other supporting roles such as Olivier, Agathe, Shira, Jian Di Levy, King and so on have also been so successful and popular that in later sequels, these popular supporting roles continue to appear at critical moments, and players complain that Falcom has been eating the old roots of "empty track".

Estelle and Joshua are well-deserved popular protagonists in the series, "empty track SC" and also create a popular villain in the series, namely "white face" Wiseman, this character represents "absolute evil", can be said to be ruthless, full of intrigue.

Inexplicably, the absolute villain role did not appear in the sequel for many years. Osborne, the villain prime minister in "the track of Flash", was finally whitewashed, and the villain association, which has been in the series for many years, was gradually whitewashed later. Too much whitewashing makes players miss Wiseman, and Falcom seems to have received feedback from players, designing Meruccio as an absolute villain in the Legend of Heroes: the track of Li, which is even worse than Wiseman.

Even after many years of clearance of "empty track SC", veteran players can still remember the interesting characters of those supporting characters in the game. By contrast, there are too many supporting roles in the series, and the appearance and dialogue of each supporting role have been compressed. Even with the addition of various fetters between the protagonist and the supporting role, these supporting characters can hardly reach the height of Olivier and Jian Emperor Levy. Even the characters such as Olivier and Lecter, who are interesting and lively in the track of emptiness, later become mediocre and passerby in the track of Flash.

Wiseman committed a lot of crimes.

The third advantage of Jian Di Levi's "track of the Air SC" is the extreme performance of 2D animation.

The 2D animations of many Falcom games have stunned the world. "Kakab Trilogy" and "Tale of double Stars" have become classics because of the famous new Haicheng animations, which have been mentioned repeatedly so far, especially the opening animations of "Hero Legend 5: song of the Sea" and "Tale of double Stars" have never tired of watching.

Later, Shin Haicheng left Falcom to produce his own independent animation and became a commercial animation creator, but Falcom still has a lot of 2D animation talent.

"empty track SC" release period, although there is no new Haicheng participation, with the accumulation of 2D animation over the years, animation still has an outstanding performance.

In particular, the animation of Libere's ark in the game shocked almost all the players at that time. In this one and a half minutes, Libere's ark suddenly appeared in the sky, releasing a huge force field and stopping the guiding force of the whole kingdom of Liebel. This animation is excellent in composition, mirrors, effects and music.

Libere's ark gorgeous life is still a nostalgic scene animation, especially in recent years, Falcom almost completely abandoned the premise of the animation. As far as the "track" series is concerned, there has been no 2D animation since the beginning of "track of Li", and the opening animation is also edited by 3D performances in the game.

The fourth advantage is the rate of fine music.

There are many classic songs in "the track of the void FC", especially the theme song "where the Stars are" is widely spread, and there are also many famous songs in "the track of the void" SC.

Among them, the most famous song is the opening song of the game, "the Golden Wings of Silver," which is also the song of the game ending war against Emperor Levy, which was no less famous than "where the Stars are" at that time. It can be said that the sense of fatalism and sadness of the war against Levi incisively and vividly.

In recent years, music lovers of Falcom have found out that the composer of this song was Shiqiaodu, who worked in the company at that time. Because Falcom has special regulations and does not sign the composer, the specific authors of many famous Falcom songs are unknown and can only be analyzed by players themselves through music style and data mining.

"Silver will Golden Wings" sounded during the war against Emperor Levy when Ishiqiaodu resigned from Falcom in 2005, just a year before the release of "empty track SC." after leaving office, he did not do much in the commercial music field, and then turned to independent music creation. Sadly, Ishiqiaodu died in 2014 at the age of 39. From his death to the present, many people do not know that he is the composer of the Golden Wings of Silver.

What is even more puzzling is that after learning that Shiqiaodu had died, the musician Yingichiro Liu, a former member of Falcom's music creation team Sound Team jdk, asked Falcom executives if he could mention in the obituary that Ishibashi had worked at Falcom, only to be banned by Falcom executives.

In addition to the resume on Shiqiaodu's home page, in addition to "Silver Wills and Golden Wings", there are also many famous songs that have moved players in "the track of the void SC". For example, the aforementioned background music of Libere's Ark is called "the Treasure of Liberation", which is the first time in the series to adopt the music in the form of a grand theater orchestra and orchestral chorus. Although it is an electronically simulated chorus, it is matched with the classic CG at that time. The effect is also very shocking.

In addition, the ending songs "I Swear" and "the Direction of Hope" are also famous songs in the series. The soundtrack of "track of the void" has only two CD, but almost every piece has a very high reputation. In the subsequent series of sequels, the original soundtrack of "track of Flash 3" has as many as 4 CD, and the original sound of "track of Light 4" has 3 pieces of CD, but there are more songs filled with water in the two works. The overall level of music can not be compared with the era of "empty track SC".

Happy ending, lovers finally get married, at this time "I swear" sounded tearfully increasingly conservative "empty track SC" has achieved great success, but this success is based on the great suspense set in the previous work. In addition, some of the advantages of the game itself were unique in that year, and the final chapter was wonderful enough.

In fact, "empty track SC" has many problems, such as large amount of water injection on the main line and branch line. As mentioned earlier, this is because as soon as the "track of the void" was originally intended to be finished, the outline of the plot had been written, and later it was divided into two works for sale. If the plot is not expanded, the process will be too short and can only be injected with water. Deliberately make the process of finding Joshua very long.

These problems did not attract the attention of Falcom at that time, and although gamers complained about them, they were still acceptable. But later, the "track" series will be the "empty track SC" model used repeatedly, the series of word-of-mouth continues to decline, some old players are extremely disappointed, and even abandon the pit.

In the game, it was not until the sixth chapter that Estelle found Joshua, which was later abused by Falcom many times.

In fact, in the early years, Falcom forcibly divided a game into two parts, that is, the start of the famous "ISU" series, also because of problems in the development, and finally became "ISU" and "ISU 2", both of which are the continuity of the story, and the two-in-one is the complete form.

Although split in two was a success, Falcom did not do it again until "empty track FC" and "empty track SC" were highly praised by players for their chapters, and Falcom seemed to have found the magic weapon, and then kept on going through the chapters.

For example, the story about the city of Clothbell was intended to end as soon as it was finished, but it was also divided into two works, namely, "Hero Legend: the track of Zero" and "Hero Legend: the track of Bea", just as "empty track SC" allows players to operate Estelle to run the scenes of "empty track FC" again (the sequel has only added a few new scenes compared to the previous one) "the track of Bibi" also allows players to revisit the same place.

"the track of Bea" is also full of traces of split in two. the biggest damage to the series is in the "track of Flash" series, where the story of the Empire of Erebonia is supposed to be the end of two works, but it turns out to be four. Among these four works, "Flash track 2" and "Flash track 3" have the highest degree of water injection, which takes the practice of massive water injection on the main and branch lines in "empty track SC" to the extreme, so that there are too many riddlers in these two works, the battle between the good and the villain is similar to passing every family, and there are too many salvages.

Because the recent "track of Li" is to tell the story of the Republic of Calward, the new chapter can no longer use the previous scenes to give people a fresh feeling. As a result, "track of Li 2" has once again staged the revisit mode of "track of the void" SC. And it is said that because of the difficulties encountered in the development of "ISU 10", Falcom urgently modified the plot of "Li Zhi track 2", so that the development time of this work is only 10 months, with almost no progress in the main plot and almost no new scenes.

The behavior of sub-chapters and excessive water injection also made Falcom shareholders dissatisfied. At a financial report meeting of Falcom not long ago, a shareholder directly asked the president, Jiyang Kondo, why there was no progress in the main plot of "Li's track 2". For the first time for many years, President Kondo, who was good at playing Tai Chi, did not evade this question, saying that there would be a major plot advance in "Li's track 3".

"Li Zhi track 2" is essentially a previous large-scale DLC feeder task water injection is also the focus of complaints. Some trivial branch lines such as repairing street lights in "empty track SC" have quite a chicken rib feeling, and in the subsequent sequel, many branch lines are not very nutritious tasks such as finding cats and relatives. There are occasional emotional points in these tasks that can touch players, but most customs clearance is forgotten, not an aftertaste of superb design.

Of course, it may also be that you have seen too many players' complaints. Some of the feeder quests in "Li's track" seem to have the meaning of learning from "Wizards 3: hunting". Each task requires players to make different choices, different choices, and the end result is often very different.

As for the future, the history of the "track" series will be 20 years old. The first series, "empty track FC", was released in 2004, and next year will be exactly 20 years.

In these 20 years, there have been too many vicissitudes and changes in the world. Now I can still recall every bit of playing games in the hot summer when listening to the famous songs in the track of emptiness SC. It can be said that the beautiful youth of many post-80s and post-90s players has now become a distant but immortal memory.

The fond memories of youth compare the chaos of the "track" series in recent years, so that the sharp decline in sales of "Li Zhi track" seems to form a strange paradox: the practice of water injection and abuse of chapters in the "Flash track" series has greatly hurt the series of word-of-mouth, and the origin of all this is that "empty track SC" is too successful.

"empty track SC" itself is not perfect, as a game alone, it should not be responsible for the future behavior of Falcom, but if you go back to the source, everything today is indeed caused by Falcom ignoring the problem of "empty track SC". Constantly applying the same model and giving up development and innovation is the key to today's dilemma.

Maybe it's time for the "track" series to come to an end, as some players complain, they played "empty track SC" when they were students, now their own children can play soy sauce, the series has not come to an end, I do not know if they will see it in their lifetime. Even if it is a joke, you can see how much grievances the players have. How much can Falcom change so far?

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