- Appealing art style with cute aesthetic.
- Enjoyable farming and trading system.
- Addictive and replayable gameplay loop.
- Wuxia-Diablo blend with RPG elements.
- Buggy, unpolished, and heavily monetized.
- Unfair difficulty and punishing PvP.
Verdict
Mostly negative
Summary
Positive 29% · Negative 71%. Score: 71 / 100
Positives:
- The game's art style is consistently praised for being appealing and cute. This, combined with engaging gameplay, often forms a strong initial draw for players. The pixel art style is specifically mentioned as a positive aspect.
- Players enjoy the game's focus on farming items and trading. The free trading system allows players to buy and sell almost all items, enhancing the experience of loot grinding and resource management.
- Reviewers appreciate the developers' responsiveness to player feedback and frequent updates. The game has been significantly rebuilt based on player input, showing a commitment to addressing issues and improving the game.
- The single-player PvE mode is enjoyable, especially the feeling of gathering resources. The single-player mode is now officially a game branch and no longer requires a verification code to enter.
- Many reviewers describe the game as addictive and highly replayable. The card-flipping gameplay is specifically mentioned as a contributing factor to its addictive nature, making it hard to stop playing.
Negatives:
- The game is plagued with numerous bugs, performance issues like lag and stuttering, and an overall lack of polish, making it feel unfinished. Many reviewers also highlight aggressive monetization, pay-to-win mechanics, and a general lack of guidance for new players, creating a frustrating and unenjoyable experience. Some players feel the game is designed primarily to generate revenue rather than provide a quality gaming experience.
- The game is considered too difficult, especially for new players, with a steep learning curve and unforgiving mechanics like harsh death penalties. The forced PvP elements and resource scarcity in PvE zones further exacerbate the issue, creating an unbalanced and frustrating experience where experienced players dominate newcomers. Some reviewers express concern that the game is pushing players towards PvP content against their preference.
- Several reviews mention poor numerical balance, uninspired special effects, and unresponsive controls that detract from the overall gameplay experience. Boss fights are criticized for having excessive damage, unavoidable attacks, and obscuring visual effects, leading to frustrating and often unavoidable deaths. Additionally, some skills have zero frame startup, resulting in instant kills.
- The game's equipment system is criticized for its costly and inefficient stat rerolling, the presence of many useless affixes, and low drop rates for desirable items. This makes character progression feel grindy and unrewarding, as players struggle to obtain meaningful upgrades. The lack of a pity system for rerolling stats further exacerbates the frustration.
- Reviewers feel the game relies on tired, generic formulas common in mobile games, lacking originality and depth. The game's structure and quest system are described as repetitive and uninspired, resembling those found in typical online games and WeChat mini-games. Some reviewers also criticize the game's focus on a 'survival of the fittest' mentality, which they find unappealing.
Gameplay:
- The game blends Wuxia themes with Diablo-like gameplay, set during the Qing Dynasty invasion. It features goods, buildings, crafting, trading, and PvP, creating a martial arts world with RPG elements. Players can become martial artists and challenge enemies.
- The game features three maps with safe (Xia) and PvP (Ba) modes. Xia mode is for beginners, preventing PvP but offering fewer resources, while Ba mode allows PvP, contains more resources, but carries a severe death penalty of losing all equipped items upon death.
- Core gameplay involves running, skill usage, and potion consumption in a 2.5D perspective with a sprint mechanic. Players must manage food and water, which deplete in dungeons, leading to health loss if they run out.
- The game offers both single-player and multiplayer experiences with short session lengths. It features a multiplayer seasonal server and a single-player server.
- Experience is gained by killing NPCs, gathering resources, and surviving longer in dungeons, with bonus multipliers for escaping near the timer's end. Escape from dungeons by reaching designated points marked by burning bonfires and staying nearby for 10 seconds.
Performance:
- The game has low requirements for PC configuration and small size. This makes the game accessible to a wider audience with entry-level PCs.
- Players have reported encountering bugs within the game. While these bugs can be disruptive, they are generally resolved by simply restarting the game, minimizing their long-term impact.
- The game's sound effects are considered to be of average quality. This suggests that while they are not particularly impressive, they are also not significantly detracting from the overall experience.
Recommendations:
- Many reviewers advise against playing the game in its current state, citing issues such as excessive monetization, lag, poor guidance, and a lack of polish. Some believe the game is fundamentally flawed or even 'dead' due to specific updates, while others express disappointment and a sense of unfulfilled potential. A few positive reviews exist, but the overwhelming sentiment is negative.
- Many reviewers express hope for future improvements and content updates. They are optimistic that the developers will continue to refine the game and add more engaging features, potentially elevating it to a higher status among similar titles.
- Reviewers feel the game lacks a clear identity, blending elements of grinding, roguelike, and soulslike genres without excelling in any. They suggest the developers should focus on refining the core gameplay loop and draw inspiration from successful games in similar genres to create a more cohesive experience.
- Some reviewers suggest implementing guild or sect systems with large-scale PvP maps to enhance the multiplayer experience. They also desire a system that promotes fair competition among players of similar skill levels, rather than allowing stronger players to dominate weaker ones.
- Reviewers suggest that free-to-play players should focus on the single-player mode. They also suggest removing gold tickets from the single-player mode.
Miscellaneous:
- The game features well-developed characters with distinct personalities, revealed through interactions in the tavern. As the tavern grows, more heroes join, enriching the player experience and making the Jianghu world feel more alive.
- The game's dark style and martial arts world combination feels natural, and the game aims to create a realistic Jianghu (martial arts world). This contributes to the game's immersive atmosphere.
- The game is a pixel-art martial arts battle royale, drawing comparisons to 'Tarkov' with an emphasis on escaping rather than direct combat. This unique combination of genres and gameplay mechanics sets it apart.
- Merchants offer diverse items and services, with upgraded stores providing better goods. Upgrading stores requires reputation, transaction volume, and inn level, creating a progression system tied to player activity and investment.
- Equipment slots include head, clothing, bracers, and shoes, each providing different stat boosts and resistances. This allows for character customization and strategic gear choices.
