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

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

Dedicate the classics to more players.

Twenty years ago, the Legend of Xianle established the 3D development direction for the Legend series, and the development team improved the picture and system in the new works. and gradually move towards a multi-platform strategy, and classic works such as "Xianle Legend", "Midnight Star Legend" and "Crazy Battle Legend" have launched official Chinese versions on multiple platforms.

This article will briefly sort out the development context and behind-the-scenes changes of the "Legend" series over the past 20 years, and recommend the works that are most suitable for players on each platform. On the other hand, the "Ocean of Stars" series from the same school is still competing with the "Legend" series. After singing in the two major series, you have launched new works and duplicates one after another. Competition is the driving force of development, and the ultimate beneficiaries will be the majority of players.

PS2's Sunset on September 22, 2004, the PS2 version of the Legend of Fairy Music was released in Japan. This version adds a large number of tricks, costumes and feeder plots that are not available in the NGC version, and the way to enter the Kratos branch route is more complicated than the NGC version, requiring players to raise Kratos's popularity to the top three. However, the Legend of Xianle was originally developed specifically for NGC, and it is hard to avoid the problem of "soil and water" in the process of transplanting PS2. For example, the picture of the NGC version can reach 60 frames, while the PS2 version has only 30 frames, and the scene map has shrunk obviously. However, sales of the 500000 version of PS2 still met the target. By this time, Namco's team is already developing a new book, the Legend of the Abyss, specifically for PS2.

The original idea of the cover of the Legend of the Abyss in the PS2 version of the Legend of Fairy Music came from producer Ji Jixin. Every time a new "Legend" series is released, Ji Jixin goes to offline retail stores to observe the reaction of customers. In Tokyo's bustling business districts such as Shibuya and Ikebukuro, Ji Jixin has seen a lot of idle young people whose clothes may be trendy, but their ideas are superficial, full of entertainment and lack of common sense. Is it really okay to hand over the future to these young people? Worried about the future, Ji Jixin set the initial direction for the Legend of the Abyss, and he hoped that the plot of the game would inspire these young people.

The main planner Takashi Hasegawa hopes that the Legend of the Abyss can get rid of the common routines of RPG in the past. He does not want to set the protagonist as a farmer who walks from the village to the city, but does the opposite, turning the protagonist into a dandy from the city to the village. Ji Jixin, on the other hand, hopes that the plot of the Legend of the Abyss will be closer to the serious and realistic style of Knights Royal 2. In accordance with the above requirements, the screenwriter Mijima coincidentally conceived the protagonist Luke, a nobleman who has been under house arrest in the palace for years.

The cover of the PS2 version of the Legend of the Abyss Fujima has accumulated 3D experience in the Legend of the Abyss, so the work of the people in the Legend of the Abyss is relatively smooth, and most of the characters are shaped without modification, on the contrary, Namco has undergone numerous changes in the process of writing the script. Luke is a dandy with open mouth and outstretched clothes. the rest of the protagonist group is more mature than Luke, so there will naturally be a lot of contradictions between the two sides. How to deal with these contradictions makes the development team argue endlessly. Different players have different views on Luke. The development team does not want players to give up the game because they hate Luke, nor do they want to give up the contradictions in the plot. How to find a balance has become the difficulty of the plot.

Ji Jixin believes that Luke is ignorant and arrogant, but he is not hopeless. When Luke fell to the bottom of his life because of arrogance, he reflected on his past and cheered up again, which is the meaning of the title "abyss legend". The themes of this work are "re-examining one's past" and "finding the value of one's own existence", while Ji Jixin defines it as "RPG who knows the meaning of birth" in his promotion.

In the face of such a grand theme, Shimi Island Qiao still accomplished the task excellently, and the plot of the Legend of the Abyss is more mature and thicker than that of the Legend of Fairy Music. "Legend of the Abyss" is also her last time as the lead writer of the game plot, which is also the reason for the decline of the plot level of the "Legend" series.

The Legend of Xianle uses the proportion of 3 head characters, while the Legend of the Abyss becomes a more realistic 5 head, allowing the character to perform more movements. In order to take care of the function of PS2, the Legend of the Abyss removes the cartoon rendering effects with black ticks and gains 60 frames of fluency. The various system defects of the Legend of Xianle, such as the inability to move freely in battle, the impact of change and upgrade points, and the inability of the two skills to coexist, are all solved in the Legend of the Abyss. The biggest problem with the PS2 version of the Legend of the Abyss is that the disk reading speed is too slow, but considering the short development cycle, the plot and the system are very perfect, the reading problem is only flawless. Ji Jixin is satisfied with the quality of this work, and he believes that the biggest regret is that the sales of PS2 Japanese version 750000 failed to meet the standard.

The abyss Legend character uses a 5-head-scale PS2 Japanese version of the Abyss Legend on December 15, 2005, which is also the 10th anniversary of the release of the SFC version of Fantasy Legend. The American version of PS2 went on sale on October 10, 2006, with new tricks added. The Legend of the Abyss did not launch the PS2 European version, but in 2011 it launched the 3DS version in the United States, Japan and Europe, which not only improved the reading speed, but also introduced the American version to the Japanese version.

On the other hand, the development team of "Destiny Legend 2" launched a copy of "Destiny Legend" for PS2 in 2006. the greatly improved picture and Lianzhu system made up for the two shortcomings of the game, making "Destiny Legend" from a chicken rib to a real classic. From the beginning of this work, the old producer Ji Jixin retreated to the field of publicity, and the new producer Racecourse Hero was responsible for communicating with the painter and Shengyou.

The PS2 version of the Legend of Destiny has been transformed, whether in 2D or 3D. The two development teams of the Legend series completed a beautiful stage summary on PS2, and then the series moved to a new platform. Legends of Fairy Music: the Ratatusk Knight on the Wii console in 2008 is a low-cost game that uses a lot of material from the original Fairy Legends, with a fluency of 60 frames. The new protagonist has the ability to capture and cultivate monsters, the game encourages players to use monsters as helpers in combat, the original characters can not be upgraded through combat, can only be upgraded according to the plot.

The plot of "Ratatusk Knight" was set two years after the original game, and Shimi Island coincidentally wrote only an initial outline, and the detailed script was given to others to write. This attitude makes the plot almost meaningless. Even "dogtail Mark" is not even a "tail" because it does not give the original characters a real ending. Strictly speaking, the Ratatusk Knight is a low-cost gossip, not a sequel to the Legend of Fairy Music.

The hero and heroine of "Ratatusk Knight" are moving towards HD mainframe. The highlight is the 2008 Xbox 360. this is the first high-definition work in the series and the first time in the series to introduce motion capture technology. In terms of combat system, the new FS attribute provides players with the opportunity to kill enemies in seconds. Because the players of the HD mainframe are older, the protagonist Yuri has become the most mature protagonist in the series. He holds his own idea at the beginning of the game, and the focus of the plot is not the growth process of the protagonist, but how the mature protagonist leads the team to overcome difficulties. Yuri is therefore loved by players and becomes a popular character.

The Xbox version of the Legend of the Night Star sold 900000 yuan worldwide, and the PS3 version of the Legend of the Night Star, which went on sale in Japan in 2009, also sold 470000. The PS3 version adds new operable characters and costumes, corrects the balance of moves, and adds full voice to the main plot.

Night Star Legend is the first high-definition work in the series, a replica of the Legend of Destiny. The team had been developing 2D games until 2009, when it released a new 3D version of the Legend of Holy Grace for the Wii console. Although this is the first time the team has developed a 3D game, the Battle system of Legend of Holy Grace is still a great success, and the flexible side evasion brings the battle closer to the action game. But because of the rush, the Wii version of Legend of Holy Grace left a lot of Bug, and it took the team three months to fix the game after it was released, and the CD was replaced free of charge in Japan-even so, many small Bug still failed to fix. The truly complete version of the Legend of Holy Grace F went on sale on PS3 in 2010, adding new clothes and soundtracks while repairing more Bug.

The Legend of Holy grace, which emphasizes attacking the enemy from the side, is the product of the merger of two development teams in the series, which was monopolized by PS3 in 2011. Kosuke Fujima and Mushi participated in the game together, and the town map also gave up a fixed perspective, allowing players to change the angle of the picture with the right joystick. Although the number of Bug in "endless Legend" is not as much as that in "Legend of Holy Grace", the later stage of the process is still full of signs of rush to work. PS3's exclusive sequel, endless Legend 2, was released in 2012, complementing the plot and system of the previous film.

Endless Legend can turn its perspective in town starting with endless Legend, the company responsible for 2D animation of the series of games has changed from Production I.G to Ufotable. In fact, Ufotable's first bond with the Legend of Fairy Music was adapted from the animation of the Legend of Fairy Music in 2007. However, at that time, Ufotable took the theatrical version of the realm of Hollow as its focus, and the OVA of Legend of Fairy Music was delayed again and again, and it was only officially completed from 2007 to 2012.

Legends of Fairy Music has been serialized by OVA for five years. The end of the OVA animation has aroused the interest of many viewers who have not played "Fairy Legends". 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the release of the NGC version of "Fairy Legends." the collection of Fairy Music legends was released on PS3 in 2013. The collection is transplanted from the PS2 version of the Legend of Fairy Music and the Wii version of the Rattatsk Knight. The resolution is increased to 720p, but the number of frames remains the same. The Legend of Xianle still has only 30 frames. In 2016, the PS3 version of "Xianle Legend" was separately transplanted to the PC platform, or only 30 frames, some players tried to modify the game to 60 frames, resulting in a large number of action errors and had to give up. For European and American players, the PS3 and PC version of "Xianle Legend" allows them to experience the new content exclusive to the Japanese version of PS2 in the English environment, but the fluency of 30 frames leaves a regret for the HD version of "Xianle Legend".

At this time, the "Legend" series is faced with the embarrassment of not picking up the staff. Veteran producer Shinichiro Okamoto and director Eiji Kikuchi, who have been involved in the series since Fantasy Legend, left the team after the release of endless Legend 2. As a result, the Legend of enthusiasm, released in 2015, became the most controversial work in the series. The perspective of "Legend of enthusiasm" has seriously affected the combat experience, the plot is full of loopholes, the design of the heroine leaving the team permanently shocked the players, and the propaganda of the producer's racecourse heroes before the sale is seriously misleading. The botched cover-up of the racecourse after the sale is like adding fuel to the fire, making players even more unhappy. The Legend of enthusiasm eventually sold 1 million on three platforms (PS3, PS4 and PC) and nine official languages (including Chinese), but that figure was lower than Bandai Namco had expected.

After the release of the permanent departure of the heroine in the Legend of enthusiasm, the ever-gaffe racecourse hero was erected by the team, and the game development got back on track. The Legend of Battle, the prequel to Legend of enthusiasm, debuted on PS3 and PS4 in 2016, while the PC version was released in 2017. The plot of "Legend of Crazy War" was set 1000 years ago in "Legend of enthusiasm". Because the timeline is long apart and the plot of "Legend of mad War" is relatively complete, newcomers can skip the front and choose the work directly, which is not a big deal for understanding the plot. Official Chinese has also solved the language problem. In terms of system, the Legend of Crazy Battle corrects the various defects of the Legend of enthusiasm and becomes the most mature work in the series of combat systems.

In word-of-mouth, the Legend of Crazy War fought a turnaround, and its sales of 2 million were significantly higher than those of the Legend of enthusiasm. However, the obsolete 3D engine used in the series from the Legend of Xianle has become so obsolete that the planned sequel to Legend of Battle has been cancelled. On the other hand, the Legend team is facing more serious wastage. Following the retirement of Shinichiro Okamoto and Jung Eryin Kikuchi, Shinzuki Hasegawa, the creator of Fairy Legend, Abyss Legend and Night Star Legend, also left the Legend team to create a new IP scarlet knot. The racecourse hero resigned from Bandai Namco in 2017. Who can take over the "legend" this hot potato, has become a topic of concern to players.

The picture of "the Legend of Crazy War" has long been outdated and bumpy, the new era Fuzawa used to be in charge of the "God Devourer" series, the "legend" he first came into contact with is the "legend of the night star", although he is not an old player, he still hopes that the "legend" series can continue, and therefore took over the important task. Fuzawa launched two projects simultaneously in 2016: the outsourced transplant "the Legend of the Twilight Star: the decisive version" and the new work "the Legend of Breaking Dawn" developed internally by Bandai Namco.

Fuzawa Legend: the decisive version, currently in charge of the Legend series, was released on PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One in 2019. The work was outsourced to the Polish company QLOC, with improved resolution and sticker size based on the PS3 version. Because the hardware architecture of PS3 is quite different from that of subsequent hosts, it took QLOC 3 years to complete the migration. For European and American players, this work allows them to experience the exclusive content of the Japanese version of PS3 at that time. For domestic players, the official Chinese version of the game is also recommended. "the Legend of the Night Star: the decisive Edition" sold 1.5 million yuan, successfully achieving its goal. After the sale of this work, the older generation of producer Ji Jixin announced his retirement, entered the Baiqingge department for retirement, and handed over the future to Fuzawa Sukeuke.

"Breaking Dawn Legend" has only the code name "Breaking Dawn" in the early days of development. Fuze hopes that the team will put aside the historical burden and try to develop new works according to the original IP ideas, giving priority to the tastes of players in the new era. If this work gives up too many features of the "legends" series, it can be sold as the original IP. But after evaluation, the team decided to retain most of the features of the series and modify only the details, such as the cartoon-style short-story theater (Skit) from 2D to 3D, so as to retain the image of the character after the change. This author is in charge of Minoru Iwamoto, who is within the development team, and did not invite external painters such as Kosuke Fujima or Higgu Muji.

Fuze, a 3D short theater in Breaking Dawn Legend, believes that although the battle of the Legend of Breaking Dawn is good, the system is too complex for newcomers, and the Legend of Breaking Dawn needs to simplify the combat system. Cartoon rendering is still the future development direction of the Legend series, but the new mainframe needs more picture details. Using the "Unreal 4" engine, the team changed the style of this work from simple cartoon rendering to more complex watercolor rendering, improving the texture of the picture.

Legends of Breaking Dawn went on sale in 2021 and sales reached 2 million in six months, while Legend of Battle took five years to achieve the same goal. A large number of players who came into contact with the Legend series for the first time praised this work for its beautiful pictures and distinctive professions. On the other hand, veteran players complain about the plot of the Legend of Breaking Dawn and the rush of the map, and the rigid Boss with its own rigid body affects the combat experience, and the smoothness of recruitment is not rising but falling compared to the Legend of Crazy War.

Although the Legend of Breaking Dawn is also a controversial work, its overall reputation is still significantly higher than that of the Legend of enthusiasm, and Fuze does not have the same problems as the racecourse in its publicity work. As a result, Fuzawa achieved its goal of attracting new people, but ignored the opinions of old players to some extent. Whether Fuze can fix the defect of "Breaking Dawn Legend" in the next work has become the biggest variable of the series in the future. In any case, the Breaking Dawn Legend saved the series from silence with sales.

The watercolor rendering of the Legend of Breaking Dawn, the Legend of Breaking Dawn, has not been released in Switch, and Fuze believes that more old works can be transplanted to the Switch platform to meet the needs of handheld players. However, he also admitted that the previous generation of mainframe is quite different from the contemporary mainframe at the program level, and the code migration is not easy.

Legends of Xianle launched Switch, PS4 and Xbox One versions on February 17 this year, and the migration work was handed over to Bandai Namco Romania, which had only developed several mobile games before, and lacked experience with the mainframe, which affected the effect of the migration. The three versions increase the resolution to 1080p (Switch handset mode is 720p), but it still has only 30 frames, and the Switch version even has the problem of missing special effects and dropping frames.

However, the transplanted version of "Xianle Legend" is not useless, the map is clearer after being enlarged by AI, and the brightness of the light has also been improved. At the same time, this is the first time that the Legend of Xianle supports official Chinese. The only drawback is that the PC version of the Legend of Xianle does not have these updates, which makes players quite unhappy. So far, the Switch version has pushed two patches to make up for the missing special effects, but the frame drop problem has not been completely solved.

This year's transplant version of the Legend of Fairy Music is not perfect. It is worth mentioning that the "Ocean of Stars" series, which learned from the same family, is still competing with the "Legend" series. Tri-Ace launched "Ocean of the Stars 6" last year, and five anti-Tian Yoshiji is still the programmer. The development cost of "Ocean of Stars 6" is far less than that of "Breaking Dawn Legend," but Tri-Ace has tried its best to keep working on the combat system with a limited budget, winning the support of some players when the picture is not dominant.

On the other hand, a replica of Star Ocean 2, outsourced by Gemdrops, will be available on PS5, PS4, Steam and Switch platforms on November 2 this year. After 25 years, a generation of classic "Ocean of Stars 2" has finally ushered in a new life. It seems that the competition between "Ocean of Stars" and "Legend" will continue. After your singing and my debut in the two major series, we have launched new works and duplicates one after another. Competition is the driving force of development, and the ultimate beneficiaries will be the majority of players.

The exquisite picture author of the duplicate edition of "Ocean of the Stars 2" (NemoTheCaptain)

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