A balanced duel between humans and mechas,

Why isn't it hot?

The answer may be: not enough power.

On the 14th, "Operation Apocalypse" officially announced that it would suspend the service.

This game was in public beta on August 30 this year, and it topped the iOS free chart on the day of its launch, only 45 days after the official announcement of the outage, or the most "short-lived" product under NetEase.

In fact, this is another NetEase trial-and-error product, and NetEase has many more similar trial-and-error, such as:

NetEase's "Mobile City Alpha" is also a particularly embarrassing existence.

The concept of mecha produced by a large manufacturer is originally very attractive, but why is such a mecha game just a "dessert" in a small circle?

The word "mecha" in Chinese is derived from the Japanese word "メカ", which is called Mecha in English, which is an abbreviation of Mechanism and Mechanical.

Generally refers to large-scale combat robots such as Gundam, which appear in science fiction or surreal films, games, and fiction works, and are operated by humans.

As for the Transformers, they are not mechas.

As NetEase's first layout in the tactical competition category, its two-dimensional painting style and mecha theme, this sub-category has almost no mobile games that can be benchmarked before.

At the beginning of its launch, it was full of confidence, and then?

According to the game's setting, each player has their own mecha, and each type of mecha has different combat positioning and skills.

In the game, the mech's energy bar will continue to grow as the player's battle progresses, and when the energy bar reaches 100%, the player can summon the mech to fight.

In addition, in its tactical competitive gameplay, the "skydiving" method is different from similar games, and players can freely choose the route and destination at the beginning of the game, and can fly the mecha out of the hatch to the destination.

Time out! When you see this, you will feel a sense of déjà vu.

Isn't this the mecha version of "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds".

The only real difference is that you can switch between mech and human warrior modes.

The combat effectiveness of the mecha is relatively strong, and it takes the hard steel route of thick blood and fierce attack, but it cannot enter a small space to attack.

And when attacking the enemy as a human, he plays a light sword move and walks with Ling Bo micro steps......

At this time, the question arises, how can such an interesting switching experience, as well as a balanced duel between humans and mechas, not be hot?

The answer may be: not enough power.

Tactical competitive mobile games can be annoying if they take too long.

And many players complained: the first round in "Mobile City Alpha" is longer.

Since it is necessary to highlight the super protection ability of the mecha, it is inevitable that the resistance to blows of the entire mecha will become durable, otherwise it will be destroyed with one rocket, and it will be too crispy.

In order to truly reflect the time it takes for the pilot to switch into the mech, there is also a 10-second delay for each "transformation".

In addition, when the mech is destroyed, the character will be ejected and continue to fight in human form, and after a certain period of repair, the mech can be restarted.

In other words, as long as it can not be destroyed while in human form, it is possible to resurrect the mecha with full health repeatedly.

According to the game's premise, only after most of the players have been "eliminated" will the system make it impossible for the mecha to restart, and eventually evolve into a foot duel between pilots.

As a result, the second half turned into a "chicken game" again.

As a result, the hybrid of PUBG + mecha battles resulted in a longer time, and the map became very wide in order to adapt to mecha battles, and the time required to run the map became longer.

The lengthy experience may be no problem on the PC side or console, but the mobile game itself emphasizes fragmented entertainment, but it can't stand it.

Even if the player can stand it, the battery of the phone can't stand it.

As an innovative gameplay, "Mobile City Alpha" is a bit more brainy than practical.

But its failure can only be regarded as a trial and error failure of the game genre, can it still reflect the real pain points of mecha games?

Perhaps, it is precisely how to perfectly present mecha battles has always been the crux of the difficulty of mecha game development and success.

What's the difficulty?

The mecha is so big, it feels too small on the screen, and it has no visual impact at all.

For example, mecha shooters must include melee combat and long-range firearm shooting, which is equivalent to two styles of medium-shot fighting games and long-shot shooting games.

When fighting, the mecha occupies a third of the screen, which will be particularly refreshing, and the mecha details are also more well depicted.

But if you suddenly switch to a shooting style, it is still this perspective, and the opponent can't find it, and the character's freedom of vertical movement will be very limited, and it will be difficult to deal with problems such as the direction of the mecha's arms and the display of bullets.

All of this seems to have caught the mecha game in an unsolvable trap, is there really no way?

So, what do Japan mecha games rely on to sell?

Published in the People's Post and Telegraph on July 9, 2024, Issue 406 of the column of "Le Youji".

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