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

The Internet Rhapsody of the Millennium.

Capcom launched the all-Chinese "Locke EXE Collection" on April 14, bringing the long-silent brand back to the eyes of the broad masses of players. Two weeks after its release, sales of the Rockman EXE Collection exceeded 1 million, the fastest sales record in the history of Locke Man.

Born on FC, the Yuanzu "Locke Man" is the starting point, while subsequent works such as "Locke people X / Zero / Dash" evolve on more powerful mainframes with both plot depth. "Locke people EXE" is another line of the "Locke people" series, which launched in 2001, creating an unparalleled combat system that has been praised by players so far. In terms of plot, "EXE of Locke", born in the GBA era, combines many popular elements of the millennium and reflects the ecology of the early online world. All this made players feel extremely novel at that time, but today it has become a good memory in the hearts of players.

The first article in the series: a short cartoon reveals the history of the birth of the Yuanzu "Locke people"

The second part of the series: towards Cyberpunk: the Rockman X / Zero / Dash comparable to Science Fiction

Millennium Wave as an experiment of "Locke" RPG, the sales of the "Locke Dash" series on the PS host are not up to standard, even so, producer Keiji Inagawa still adheres to the RPG route. With the approach of the turn of the century, the taste of Japanese players has changed, the popularity of action games has declined significantly, and the sales list is dominated by all kinds of RPG. Lockman must gain a foothold in the RPG field if it is to continue. Inagawa Keiji believes that one day, the RPG-like "Locke people" will be popular all over Japan.

In 1999, the second development department of Capcom came up with a new "Locke" work for Nintendo GBA. The team referred to popular works such as "Pokemon", "Game King" and "Digital Baby", and the type of game was vaguely set to ARPG with card elements. Rice Boat specially recommended to the team the film Matrix, a sci-fi blockbuster that inspired the game's worldview, and the new film EXE of Locke is slowly taking shape.

The team completed the plot outline of "EXE of Locke" in early 2000, and its story is parallel to the previous robot-themed "Locke". The earth in "EXE of the Rocks" is similar to the real world, but all regions have a different name. For example, the computer city of Akihara, where the protagonist is located, is equivalent to the real Akihabara of Tokyo. In this work, Dr. Wright of the United States became the Dr. Guangzheng of Japan. He advocated the development of network technology, which clashed with Dr. Willie, who advocated the development of robots. The protagonist is the grandson of Dr. Wright, and the Locke is the network navigator program of Light and Heat.

Light and Hot Dou and Locke people from the very beginning, "Locke EXE" conceived matching animation and toy perimeter. The team initially planned to release the game into three versions, and Hot Dou is the protagonist of the animation, so the Hot Dou version will be delayed to be released at the same time as the animation. Escorting the first GBA is the Wind Star Dance and the Wind View Hall version, which are Brotherhood. The Locks of the former are good at long-range attacks, while those of the latter are good at melee. However, the team is only 15 people, there is no time to develop three versions, Hot Dou has become the only protagonist of the game.

In terms of supporting partners, male No.2 Yijiyuan Yanshan with Bruce, heroine Sakurai Meilu with Luolu, these are the arrangements determined by the initial script. In the early days, there was a supporting role, Mike Jianyuan, who used Lolu as a navigator, but only used Lolu's image to hook up with girls, and then he got a more effective Frody and handed it over to Sakurai Meilu. The team thought again and again that Frody should have a higher status as a rival to the Locks, and eventually deleted Mike Jianyuan, and Frody became a self-disciplined navigator without a human partner.

Yanshan and Bruce, who incorporated part of Zero's design, "EXE of Locke," many of the names are related to computers or the Internet. "Netto" has a pronunciation similar to "Net", "Meiru" has a similar pronunciation to "Mail", and Enzan has the same pronunciation as "operation" in Japanese. As for the two deleted protagonists, "Senmai" has a pronunciation similar to "Save" and "Roudou" has a similar pronunciation to "Load".

The "portable communication terminal" in the game, referred to as "PET" for short, has a function similar to that of today's smartphone. Limited to the factors of the times, the PET still uses a flip and an all-physical keyboard, which is very different from today's touch-screen phones. As for the design of inserting chip to transfer data, on the one hand, it is to introduce card elements for the game, on the other hand, it is to pave the way for the periphery of physical cards.

Initially, the team planned to use the GB mobile phone adapter to play remotely over the 2G mobile network and provide a ladder ranking for the game, which was abandoned because the 2G network was too slow, which was not fully realized until this year's "Locke EXE Collection".

Insert chips into PET the source of inspiration in the millennium at the turn of the century, computers and the Internet developed rapidly, but long before they were fully popularized. The world view of "Locke EXE" is similar to that of the Matrix, comparing computer and network technology to magical existence, giving players a more intuitive sense of cyberspace.

In addition to Matrix, the plot of the game also refers to a lot of older works. Fujimoto Hiroshi (pseudonym Fujiko F Buxiong)'s comic book Qitianlie Daike, which was serialized from 1974 to 1977, is also the reference material for the game. The Encyclopedia of Qi Tian lie and the Dream of do An are the same author, but the protagonist Yingichi Mushou uses the encyclopedia left by his ancestors to build all kinds of machines himself, which is diametrically opposed to Nobita Nobi, who resorts to do A Dream. Yingichi Mushou also has a harmonious relationship with various supporting roles, and these characteristics are inherited by the "EXE of the Locke people".

The plot of the more unpopular but still classic Encyclopedia and EXE can be summed up as "Young but not primary-age", which is the same as Fujimoto Hiroshi's cartoons. If adults write plays with respect for children, children will not feel that the works they came into contact with when they were young are childish, but will miss them especially after they become adults. The development team was gratified by the feedback that countless players had told Capcom that they had become interested in computers and the Internet because of "EXE of Locke" and eventually chose a career related to the Internet.

The 1993 live-action TV series "Electric Superman Gullit" is the film and television work that has the greatest influence on "EXE of the Locke people". This TV series reflects the opportunities and challenges of the city in the Internet era. On the one hand, the popularity of the Internet has provided convenience for people. On the other hand, what will people do if urban systems such as network-controlled traffic and water supply are attacked? The plot of "EXE of Locke" inherits the realistic color of the TV series.

The cyberspace-themed "Electro Superman Gullit" is even more interesting, "Electro Superman Gullit" in 2018 with the animation "SSSS." The resurrection in the form of Gullit. Guichi Hasegawa, the screenwriter of the animation, has never seen a live-action TV series, but he has worked as a screenwriter for the animated version of "EXE of the Rocks". With past experience in adapting screenplays for Capcom, Hasegawa completed "SSSS." Gullit "" SSSS. The screenplay of the three animations, "Gullit Universe", which spans time and space and the spiritual inheritance of the works, is very sad.

In the era of GBA, social networking was not yet popular, and the communication between netizens was centered on chat rooms, forums and simple personal homepages. The network structure of "EXE of the Rocks" reflected that simple era. Handheld phones and mainframes were widely used among Japanese children at that time, but they had little access to computers and the Internet. Capcom wants young players to have basic knowledge before coming into contact with the real Internet: to communicate amicably in chat rooms and to be vigilant when confronted with malicious users.

As for the "Li network" hidden in the depths of the game, it is also the most curious part of the reality for small and medium-sized players. If your brother is on a mysterious website and doesn't show it to you, you will certainly be more curious. The "Li Network" in the game warns players with complex structures and powerful enemies that this is a dangerous area.

The plot of "EXE of the Locke people" is set in the Internet age of the 21st century. With the popularity of smart home appliances, appliances such as ovens and refrigerators have Internet access. If players let Locke people into the cyberspace of these appliances, they can see the internal programs responsible for the functions. These regional dialogues are the responsibility of the new screenwriter Masahe Eguchi.

Mr. Eguchi, who later became the face of EXE of the Locke, said the conversations were inspired not by science fiction, but by Fu mourning in Japanese mythology. The so-called animism does not specifically refer to organic matter, but also includes inorganic objects as daily necessities. If human beings throw away things they do not use at will, after absorbing the essence of heaven and earth, they will have their own soul and become bereaved. The birth of smart home appliances has made these myths come true to a certain extent. Eguchi will not easily discard his supplies, and he hopes that players can also develop such a consciousness.

The difficult exploration of the character and plot of "EXE of the Locke" has developed smoothly, while the combat system has undergone more changes. The director of this film, an Jung-bo, has previously worked as the planner of "Locke Dash". For "Locke EXE", he hopes to come up with a "card game that no other company can make except Capcom."

Capcom, the director of "EXE of Locke", is praised by players as "the god of action". "EXE of Locke" must add action elements, which is the core that other companies cannot imitate. As a card ARPG, this work needs to achieve a balance between movements and RPG elements. The master can use skilled operation to make a series of lightning-like moves, and new players can also beat Boss steadily with numerical values through cards.

Anjian put the battle of the game on 3 × 6 a total of 18 chessboards, this number after careful consideration, too small chessboard lack of mobile space, too large chessboard is equal to random movement, losing the meaning of the chessboard. The protagonist moves on the chessboard for about half a second and pauses the combat extraction chip at the end of the turn. This design perfectly combines the advantages of real-time system and turn system, making the battle of "EXE of Locke" unparalleled fun.

Today's similar games are mostly imitations of "EXE of the Rocks". In the GBA era, this kind of combat system is unique. An Jian said that he didn't have any similar works to refer to at that time, so the process of conception was particularly difficult and took a lot of detours. An Jian once turned the outcome of the battle into a process similar to a tug-of-war. When the player attacks the enemy, the victorious Tianyu will move to the right; if the player is attacked by the enemy, the Tianji will fall back to the left. If the time is over and the sky still does not reach the end of the side, the outcome will be determined according to the position at the end.

Using early screenshots of tug-of-war, Masahiro Yasumi hopes that this work will become a completely innovative ARPG, everything should be different, but this strange tug-of-war system was criticized during the trial stage of the exhibition, and Inaga asked the game to change back to the traditional physical value of the game, deducting the enemy's physical strength to win, and only then did the game's combat system take shape.

Reviewing the development process of "Locke EXE", Yasumi Zhengbo believes that this is a "loose and urgent" journey. The reason for the looseness is that Keiji Inaga gave them a year to explore the system, so the combat system of "EXE of the Rocks" is very solid, and there is no essential change after many sequels. It is urgent because the filling process takes a short time, and the unreasonable map leaves a lot of regrets. Even so, "EXE of Locke" is still the most completed new work in GBA's starting line-up.

The development team hoped that the "Locke EXE" would become the "treasure dream" of Capcom, so they studied the relevant history. The initial sales of "Bao Ke Meng: red and Green" were not high, and sales of the game increased significantly after the comic magazine "Corocoro" launched a dream raffle. On the other hand, Corocoro has serialized a number of Pokemon cartoons, and the previous "Doa A Dream" and "Qitianlie Encyclopedia" have also been serialized in this magazine. Since "Corocoro" has a strong foundation among Japanese children's readers, Capcom must catch the boat, even if it competes with Pokemon.

With this in mind, Capcom chose "Corocoro" as the cooperative magazine of "Locke EXE" and gave priority to the promotional materials to this magazine. Plenty of trust paid off. "Corocoro" began to promote the work six months before the game was released, and the adapted cartoons, which were responsible for by Eagle Point, began to serialize two months before the game was released. For "Corocoro", this is comparable to the "Bao Ke Meng" publicity efforts.

"Corocoro" has serialized the cartoons of "King of Boxing" before the game is released, and is good at action scenes, which is why he was chosen. Before the release of the game, Eagle Point could only rely on the publicity in the magazine to imagine the plot of the book. after the game was released, he immediately bought a cassette and cleared customs. The Capcom developer responsible for docking with Eagle Point is Zhengwa Eguchi. Eguchi knew that copying the game plot from the cartoon would become boring, so he encouraged Eagle Cape to create freely.

From Eguchi's point of view, the advantage of comics is precisely to supplement the plot that the game cannot reflect. Eguchi believes that the navigator is not an ordinary assistant program, but a living digital life. After a navigator is deleted, humans can restore it through a backup, but the backup is not the same navigator as the original, and this idea is reflected in the cartoon.

The navigator is not flesh and blood, and the cartoon can show a fierce battle, even if the navigator becomes fragmented, barely within the limits of the magazine. However, Cape Eagle said that he had been asked to revise by the magazine because the battle picture was too intense.

When it comes to his favorite navigator, Eagle Point chose Frody, the rival of the Locke, so he greatly increased the plot of Frody in the cartoon. In the player vote, Frody also won the ranking second only to the Locke people, and even some players said, "I am also a lonely person, let me and Frudie share their loneliness with each other."

Frudie's "EXE of Locke" was first launched with the Japanese version of GBA in March 2001, and then "Corocoro" held various events in Japan. The first activity was in May Day Golden week in the same year. Capcom needed to find an employee to host the event, and Inaga Jingji went to the development team to find someone. There were still four people in the team at that time, and the first three people all refused. Eguchi was the most junior newcomer among them. He knew that he had no qualification to refuse, so he took over this event, and Eguchi was also responsible for similar activities.

At first, Capcom gave Eguchi the identity of "Dr. Eguchi" to show his erudition. Later, Capcom felt that "the doctor's combat effectiveness was not strong enough," so he imitated Hudson's "Takahashi celebrity" and packaged a "Jiangkou celebrity." In Corocoro magazine, Eguchi's self-introduction reads "winning 69 games in a row", which is a true record of Eguchi's early activities.

From today's point of view, the early events held by Capcom were very crude: small venues, few places and few prizes. Once there were only 30 participants in a regional competition, but 60 players arrived at the scene and could only sift out half of the contestants by guessing fists. These humble activities provide experience for Capcom and lay the foundation for a more mature competition.

There are some problems in the first generation of "Locke EXE": the map is too similar and complicated, the escape needs a special chip, the enemy's attack power is too high, and the protagonist's attack power is weak. In fact, in the late development of the test phase, the team is already aware of these issues, but in order to escort the GBA launch, the team has no time to continue to adjust, can only be left for continuous improvement.

The original "Locke EXE" has achieved 200000 sales in Japan and 400000 worldwide, and Capcom hopes to release the sequel "Locke EXE 2" in December 2001. The development time of the sequel is only 9 months, which surprised the team with such a short cycle. In hindsight, the team said that "EXE 2 of Locke" was the most smoothly developed work in the series. Although there was not enough time, the team had a clear goal for the details and had no trouble developing it.

"Locke EXE 2" introduces a form conversion system, in which players can obtain different forms in the process, special abilities are determined by the player's fighting habits, and attributes are randomly selected. Anjian Zhengbo designed this system, not only to strengthen the combat effectiveness of the protagonist, but also to provide material for the surrounding areas such as the model.

Eguchi, a Locke who has been transformed into a fire character, is getting better from this work. In the previous work, he is only responsible for the regional dialogue and a bad map. In this work, he is responsible for half of the main plot, and the design level of the map has also been significantly improved. From the beginning of this work, Eguchi Zhenghe as a "Eguchi celebrity" in the game as a regional Boss debut, to the players to launch a challenge.

In terms of plot, "EXE 2 of Locke" is the most realistic and life-conscious film in the series. The game's worldview has been expanded in this work, as countries have been subjected to cyber attacks and the protagonists leave Japan for the first time to fly to other countries. The process of this work is more substantial, and the hidden elements are also richer. "Locke EXE 2" marks the maturity of the series, with sales of 450000 in Japan and 800000 worldwide, double that of the previous series, and then the sales of the series have remained at this level.

"Locke EXE 2" extended the stage to foreign countries in March 2002. The TV animation of "Locke EXE" began to air in Japan and did not end until 2006. Animation has a greater influence than comics and plays a stronger role in promoting the game. The audience's feedback on the plot of the animation has also changed the plot trend of the game. Players' expectations for "Rockman EXE 3" soared, and eventually the quality of the game was worthy of that expectation.

The Locke EXE 3, released in December 2002, makes a more reasonable classification of the chips, and the jigsaw puzzle-like navigator personalization device allows each player to match a different Locke. The game also adds a counterattack system like "Ghost Warrior" and "one Flash". When the enemy strikes back, you can get Bug fragments to exchange precious props.

If the player spells out the Bug in the personalized device and keeps fighting, he can get a special Bug form. This form will randomly trigger enhancement and weakening effects in combat, and the upgraded personalized program can eliminate Bug, and even use some powerful chips without a black hole. Overall, the overly random Bug form is unstable, but it provides inspiration for the Dark Rocks in the sequel.

The mysterious Bug form of Masahe Eguchi indicates that the wild foal tiger Jiji and the king man in "EXE 3" are his favorite pair. Capcom is headquartered in Osaka, but there is no Kansai accent role in the first two works, and Araku fills this gap. The shape of the foal is careless, but he is a hidden chess master. The King Man comes from readers' contributions collected by the magazine, and although the 18-grid battlefield of the game is similar to a chessboard, Capcom never wants to turn the pieces into navigators.

Known as the "King of the Internet", Serenade (serenade) only appeared in this work. As a hidden Boss, its strength is comparable to that of Frody. Players may mistakenly think that this is a self-disciplined navigator who does not need humans, but Eguchi admits that his human partner is hidden in the game, and some players who are good at reasoning have come to the right answer.

The Horse Tiger Ji and the King Man

"King of the Internet" Serenard as the original conclusion, "Locke EXE 3" plot recovered all the foreshadowing of the first two works, forming a complete trilogy. Eguchi said that he had written all the words entrusted to the next generation into the game that year, leaving no regrets. This is the best game in his mind.

This is a game with the most touching plot and the most hidden elements in the series. In the vote within the team, "EXE 3 of Locke" was regarded by the developers as the highest masterpiece in the series. In the player's vote, "Locke EXE 3" also achieved the good results of the first plot, the second system and the second music in the series. Eguchi was gratified by the fact that "EXE 3 of Locke" tied for first place with Nintendo's monumental masterpiece "Mother 2" in a magazine's vote for the most touching Game Story.

Eguchi believes that if the series ends in "EXE 3 of the Rocks", it will be regarded as a successful full stop. From the player's point of view, in addition to the form transformation is not flexible enough, the single-player experience of this work has been quite perfect, only the combat system still has a lot of room for improvement.

Head-to-head confrontation with "Rockman EXE 3" won unanimous acclaim after its release, but what surprised players was that data mining found a lot of hidden elements that could not be unlocked in a normal way. The mystery was soon solved by Capcom. This is actually a dual version of the game. "Rockman EXE 3: black version" was released in advance at the World Hobby Fair exhibition in January 2003. Players can also subscribe to the game from "Corocoro" by mail order. The mail will be shipped in February of the same year, while the ordinary retail version will have to wait until March. This distribution strategy also learns from Pokemon, which was exclusively released by Corocoro in 1996 and did not release a regular retail version until three years later, while Capcom shortened the interval from three years to one month.

The promotion of the World Hobby Fair exhibition Eguchi said that it was not until the end of the development of "EXE 3" that the Capcom marketing department temporarily put forward a request for a double version, which the team did not prepare in advance, resulting in the difference between the two versions is similar to that of "Bao Kemeng". Eguchi himself hopes to make greater differences in the sequel. As for balance, Eguchi hopes that the two versions have their own strengths, which will take time to adjust. The "black version" is stronger in terms of chips, which is the result of a lack of time to adjust.

In the Black version, the navigator of the Estuary operation is the famous "Locke killer" punk. The character is derived from the 1992 black-and-white GB game Locke World 3, designed by Keiji Inagawa. At that time, Rice Boat was responsible for redrawing readers' contributions for a long time, and Punk was one of his few original designs. Punk in the Black version was redesigned by the rice boat himself, a process that he misses.

The dual version of the redesigned punk "Locke EXE 3" sold 660000 in Japan and 1 million worldwide. During the same period, "Bao Ke Meng: Ruby Sapphire" achieved 5 million in Japan and 16 million in the world. The sales of "EXE3 of Locke people" are still not comparable to that of "Bao Ke Meng", but it still goes up against the trend in the face of its strongest rival, and this work shows the general demeanor of "Mount Tai collapses in front of you but does not change its color". The sales of the double version of "Locke EXE 3" in Japan also surpassed "the Warriors against Dragons and Monsters: the Heart of the Tour" and became the top seller of third-party games in GBA in Japan. After years of hard work, Inaga Keiji finally realized his long-cherished wish, and this work has become a popular work all over Japan.

The competition of "Locke EXE 3" in Japan is gradually heating up, and Eguchi is busy all over Japan in order to host the event. The exchange of information in Kanto is the fastest, players often use the same moves, while Kansai players' chips are more changeable. Because of the significant increase in the number of contestants, Capcom grouped the contestants according to their age from the beginning of this work.

2003 was a busy year for the development team. The rumor of the "Locke EXE" action game on NGC and WSC platforms was not developed by Capcom himself, but the team still needed to review the plot and characters. In addition, Capcom also requires team developers to continue to be "Locke EXE 4".

The orthodox sequel to NGC's action game "Locke EXE: transport" and "Locke EXE" has maintained a development frequency of at least once a year. Although the sales of "Locke EXE" are not as good as those of PS2 masterpieces such as "Ghost Warrior" or "Ghost crying", the development team of "Locke EXE" is only 15 people, and the development cost of GBA games is significantly lower than that of PS2. Because of this, "Locke EXE" became the profit pillar of Capcom that year.

Putting aside the requirements of Capcom, Eguchi and I also agree that there are many child players in "EXE of the Rocks". After they go to school, they will face greater examination pressure, and their time to play games will be significantly reduced. Launching new books as soon as possible will enable children to play more games before going to school, bringing more good memories to their childhood.

The original series ended in EXE 3, but Capcom asked for a sequel, and the team had to come up with a new system and a new plot. Starting from "EXE 4 of the Rocks", a new trilogy has gradually taken shape, bringing the most brilliant sunset to the later GBA.

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