» [PC] Flying swords are the mark of a true master in the Xian Jian world.
» [PC] Little details like these birds really bring the game to life.
» ABOUT CHINESE GAMES
lie. And love. And get hit over the head with a frying pan. Xian Jian excels at creating people, characters with names and feelings that don’t always agree with each other and don’t go off killing monsters just because that’s what RPG heroes are supposed to do. Battles are turn based, Xin Xian Jian’s unique mark on this typical RPG requirement being a set of combination attacks that the party can team up to perform. For once older equipment is no longer something to be sold as soon as the next town shop shows up either, as pretty much any item in the game can be lobbed at unsuspecting enemies in battle, injuring them and sometimes inflicting useful
status effects too. Thanks to some thoughtful UI design all battle commands can be selected very quickly, meaning that encountering the enemy rarely results in a long battle or feels like a chore. Fast battles are definitely a plus when you’re faced with dungeons that make Phantasy Star 2 look like a casual stroll in the park – if Xian Jian has one negative it’s winding multi-level dungeons filled with so many switches and locked doors that you can only assume the creators had some sort of bulk-buy discount on the damned things. In spite of this flaw Xin Xian Jian is a true classic and an influential game even today.
» XUAN YUAN FU MO LU ■ DEVELOPER: DOMO ■ YEAR: 2001
■ It makes sense that the stepping-stone between the pure pixels of Xuan Yuan Jian 3 and the full 3D Xuan Yuan Jian 4 would use a mix of 2D sprites overlaid onto a polygonal map. A complete departure from anything in the series before or since, this SRPG did receive criticism at the time for its simple plot in comparison to its exceptional stable mates but that doesn’t stop Xuan Yuan Fu Mo Lu from being a good game in its own right. The small party size means battles always move at a fair clip, and while it’ll likely never be accused of being a deep game, there’s plenty of fun to be had here regardless.
■ Chinese games are almost always released on PC; consoles don’t usually receive official releases there. ■ Technically speaking, games tended to be ‘behind’ compared to what the rest of the world was creating, but Chinese developers have long since caught up. ■ The combination of a large and profitable market at home with the tendency to create wordy RPGs means there’s little interest or money in making worldwide releases.
» [PC] It’s not as bad as it looks – that’s his future wife!
» THE SEVENTH SEAL ■ DEVELOPER: SOFT WORLD ■ YEAR: 2002
■ The Seventh Seal is a great example of what happens on those rare occasions when East-meetsEast; an excellent RPG blending the fantasy world of Taiwanese author Nalan Zhen’s books of the same name with a soundtrack partly composed by Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mitsuda. Battles use a high/medium/low attack system – much like a good fighting game a high kick will always miss an enemy low to the ground, and a sweep’s no use against an adversary that isn’t touching the floor. The pace of these fights is such that blows are always being exchanged, so players need to keep their wits about them if they want to survive.
» TIAN DI JIE: SHEN MO ZHI ZUN ZHUAN ■ DEVELOPER: DYNASTY INTERNATIONAL ■ YEAR: 1991
■ The Tian Di Jie trilogy got off to a poor start – when Shen Mo Zhi Zun Zhuan released as a budget title with overly difficult battles and prone to crashing it really didn’t make the best first impression. Lucky for us then that instead of giving up Dynasty went back to the drawing board, cleaned up the bugs, tweaked the gameplay and were even gracious enough to give gamers a new ending too! This SRPG may be the first in the trilogy but it’s actually the last game in the story – the other two Tian Di Jie games released after this one are both prequels. RETRO GAMER | 59