Match 3 + RPG! DQ’s new game “Dragon Quest” tops the free list

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[GameLook special manuscript, no reprint without authorization]

GameLook report/A few days ago (December 1st), Square Enix and NHN PlayArt jointly developed the mobile match-3 game “Dragon Quest: Fighting Dragon Fighting (ドラゴンクエストけしケシ!)” officially launched daily service.

In view of the fact that “Dragon Quest (DQ)” itself is a Japanese national-level game IP, and its own gameplay design is relatively good, the game reached the top of the Japanese service iOS free list on the first day it was launched, and has dominated the list ever since. In terms of the bestseller list, the game has remained stable around the top 20.

In fact, this game was unveiled at the DQ 35th Anniversary Conference in the middle of this year, and it was also the first match-3 mobile game adapted from IP. For some old fans, the theme of match three may appear a bit abrupt. After all, “a heavyweight RPG IP for match three” would seem a bit wasteful.

However, after the actual experience, I found that, unlike the match-3 game players think, “Dragon Quest Match 3” combines the match-3 gameplay and unexpectedly retains the classic DQ by adding RPG elements. smell.

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These three matches have a DQ internal taste

From the official promotional images or background settings, it may be difficult to see how many IP or RPG shadows the game has.

Indeed, it does not continue the theme of “the brave save the world” that the past IP has always been, but set the background in an old bookstore in the DQ world. The bookstore administrator played by the player suddenly encountered a weird phenomenon one day — —The history recorded in the DQ’s true history book displayed on the bookshelf is completely erased. Instead, monsters occupy the entire writing in the form of graffiti, and the player’s task is to use the role and props of the incarnation eraser to erase the monster graffiti and Restore history books.

Compared with the previous DQ story background setting, although this work is not grand enough in the story frame, from the content point of view, at least the basis of RPG breakthrough is retained, which provides the possibility for the subsequent addition of RPG gameplay and expansion of gameplay space.

In terms of art, the game focuses on the cute style route, which is different from the unique painting style of Akira Toriyama in the previous DQ series, and adopts the style of combining 2D level board + 3D action performance, and the overall picture tends to be bright and gorgeous. The DQ traditional Japanese RPG style is also retained in the settings of the UI and skill interface.

It is worth mentioning that the various monsters and characters that appear in the game are also classic settings in DQ, such as the slime that appeared in DQ1, the vampire bat in DQ2, etc., which is obvious to players familiar with DQ. It’s more cordial.

In addition, although there are not many built-in BGM tracks in the game, each capital retains the familiar melody in the past QD, including the music that the player heard when the player just entered the game, which is the BGM of the book of adventure in the DQ series.

Therefore, on the whole, although the game is out of touch with the past DQ at the world view level, it can be seen from the art or music level that SE has fully studied the details of IP elements, and it has taken care of the old IP. The feelings of fans, and using the lovely style of painting, are compatible with more target groups and bring new experiences.

The monsters of DQ are so cute!

Match 3 + RPG, still hardcore dragon slaying

After completing the detailed packaging of the content, SE and NHN increased the proportion of Japanese RPG in the gameplay, which is also the place where the game is quite brilliant.

From the point of view of gameplay, “Dragon Quest Match 3” uses the conventional match-3 gameplay as the base, combined with the characteristics of IP, and adds the micro-innovative fusion of character development and RPG rounds of battle.

Let’s talk about the combat part first. During the battle, players usually face one or more monsters. Monsters occupies random positions on the board. Players need to eliminate blocks around the monsters to cause damage to the monsters, otherwise it will result in ineffective elimination.

At the same time, the character itself will have a blood tank setting, and it can be strengthened in the follow-up. The monster will also display a number in the upper right corner, and the number will be -1 every time the player takes action. When it is 0, it will attack the character. Once the character’s HP is 0, the game fails.

From the perspective of elimination rules, the game basically follows the previous three match category settings, that is, three blocks of the same type are eliminated, and four blocks of the same type are eliminated while leaving a box that can eliminate the horizontal/vertical axis.

On this basis, the development team also introduced the concept of role skills. Every time the player eliminates, it will accumulate energy for the upper skill slot. When the energy is full, the player will automatically give the player a large area of ​​elimination block. This means that in the face of a situation where many monsters are on the court, how to accumulate skills has become the key to winning, and it also improves the strategy of the game in disguise.

It is not difficult to find that many RPG elements have been added to the game in the combat link, including settings such as health bars, skills, and number of rounds actions, which has achieved product differentiation to a certain extent, and has also created a more distinctive IP characteristic for itself. .

But what’s interesting is that the setting of these combat gameplay is actually closely related to the development system. The player’s blood volume, skill damage, elimination damage, etc. in the battle all depend on the rarity, level, and attack of the elimination character selected at the beginning. In order to cause high damage in battle, players need to cultivate in depth for the elimination of characters.

It is this deep binding between the battle and the development system that makes the actual experience of the game more inclined to the traditional RPG, and the match-3 gameplay has become a “tool” to realize this process.

In addition, taking into account the mechanism framework of the match-3 gameplay itself, “Dragon Quest: Matching Fun” also solves the problem of numerical value rolling in RPG. For example, the location of monsters and map obstacles (ice walls, vines, etc.), if you can’t find a good solution to the problem, no matter how high the level of the character is trained, no matter how strong the attack is, you will not be able to pass the level. Looking further, this can be considered as returning to the core of DQ “hardcore” Japanese RPG.

Japanese national IP is still strong

As a classic of Japanese-style RPG, the “Dragon Quest” series has derived many works in the past few years, and the entire IP layout has become increasingly larger.

Just on the 35th anniversary live broadcast in the middle of this year, the official announcement of 6 new works, including “Dragon Quest 3” 2D remake, “Dragon Quest X stand-alone version”, “Dragon Quest 12”, etc. . From the content point of view, except for DQ12, most of the other products are fried cold rice series, but fans who can’t bear it are willing to pay.

For example, in July after the press conference, SE’s new mobile game “Dragon Quest Tact” was launched, and it won the second highest score on both the free list and the best-selling list. In August, SE launched another IP-based mobile game “Dragon Quest: Dayi’s Great Adventure Burning Soul Bonds”, which currently has a high score of 9.1 on tapap.

Looking back on the past two years, DQ’s performance should not be underestimated. At the end of 2019, the NS version of “Dragon Quest 11” was released in the early stage, and sales reached 5.5 million sets. In addition, “Dragon Quest Walk”, which was previously based on AR collection gameplay, exceeded 5 million downloads in the first week, showing the strength of the national IP.

This time, the main match 3 puzzle “Dragon Quest: Fighting the Fight” has also reproduced the performance of the previous IP titles, and has ranked first in the free list so far. In addition to the blessing of national IP, Japan’s match 3 market in recent years The ever-increasing number of downloads and new games are also crucial.

Under such a market environment, the future performance of the game is also more worthy of expectations.

This Article is curated from Source and we only provide the English version of the Story.

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