Lotheneil

Lotheneil vs. The Backlog Hydra, Ep. #22

This week I sank my teeth into a certain Chinese RPG - as tends to be the case with the genre, it took quite a lot of my time. Finished it, though :)

軒轅劍外傳穹之扉(The Gate of Firmament)

軒轅劍外傳穹之扉(The Gate of Firmament)

5/10
37.3 hours
26 of 45 achievements

Chinese RPG, with strong emphasis on narrative - in fact I would call the title a mixture of visual novel and RPG, in this order, with a lot of mythology mixed in. The plot, as it is often the case, starts with a simple villager in a tiny town, and ends with saving the world from incoming apocalypse, with a lot of exploring, character development and drama in between.

Too bad the gameplay part is completely uninspiring, repetitive and boring. I had an impression that dev wanted to make a movie, throwing in some interactive elements as an afterthought, only for the sake of calling their product a game. Which wouldn't even be that much of a problem, if not for one element:

Translation. It's just horrible - full of spelling and grammar mistakes that make conversations hard to comprehend at times, and some parts are not even translated at all.

On a positive side, the title offers beautiful music with distinct Chinese feel (or even vocals) and quite nice, if not breathtaking visuals. Not a masterpiece by any means, but still offers a captivating story and some sense of novelty. Worth looking into, though I'd suggest waiting for a sale.

Status: beaten - I definitely did not feel like grinding for achievements and I've missed some sidequests.

Licena

This game has been on my wishlist for some time, will wait for a good bundle though. So sad they didn’t translate everything, it looks really good.