A Brief Review of "The Evil King's Throne": The Expanding Desire Under the Mist

For some players, the theme song "ニヒル" sung by the score and the well crafted OP are the main reasons they pay attention to "Sin King's Throne". After all, if the music and character design of Japanese RPG games are strong enough, it is equivalent to half the success. Before the game was released, my expectations for this game were not low. The production team was mostly composed of developers from the "Goddess Reincarnation" series, and the character modeling of the game was much more exquisite than FuRyu's recent works, with guaranteed gameplay and visuals.

The theme song of is performed by Huapu

After exploring the New Yumen Academy for nearly forty hours, I plan to temporarily put aside the game and briefly talk about my feelings during this period, to see if this game, which I call "New Yumen Academy RPG," can ignite a new wave.

A crazy world

The ultimate task of "The Evil King" is simple, which is to save the teachers and students of Shin Yumen Academy. The protagonist, by chance, signs a contract with the demon king and gains the demonic power of hypocrisy, which feeds on self and madness. Only by constantly liberating their desires can they gain stronger power. We need to challenge other powerful individuals in the New Yumen Academy who have signed contracts with the Demon King, dispel the fog that can affect people's hearts and even drive them crazy, and bring back the teachers and students on campus to the real world.

The rabbit doll on the right of is the demon king who signed a contract with us

Compared to FuRyu's recent works, the character modeling in Sin King's Throne is indeed quite exquisite, but I am not very satisfied with the final visual effect of the game. I can clearly see unnatural gaps in the shadows on the character's body, and coupled with their stiff movements, I can't help but look for those unnatural parts on the screen as the plot progresses.

Fortunately, the plot of the game is very appealing to me, allowing me to overlook the shortcomings in the visuals and performance, and to liberate the campus with the protagonist. The game originated from the casual conversation of the developers of "True Goddess Reincarnation If". They felt it was regrettable that they could not see works of this type at present, and decided to use this as inspiration to create a work with a similar worldview, atmosphere, and consciousness.

Facing desires directly can be considered the core of the story of Sin King. In addition to asking players to fill out surveys and observe your desires pouring outwards, the game also has many plots that depict the dark side of human hearts and deeply analyze character desires.

Psychological tests like this are very common in games

Every time players explore in the foggy area, they will encounter those who satisfy their desires through extreme means due to inhaling excessive fog. They will lock their partner in a cabinet until death in order to prevent them from leaving; Will easily give up one's life for the sake of liberation; Even deliberately setting deadly traps to make the protagonist feel like he is down and out. Every time I encounter such a plot, I want to curse the other person as crazy, but they have indeed gone crazy due to the influence of the fog.

is quite special, his desire is to get first place in the exam

There are also those seemingly insane "Seven Sins" powerhouses, perhaps just poor people who hope to gain mysterious power to change their own destiny. Every time I delve deeper into the hearts of the villains and understand their original desires, it makes me even more shaken. Is it true that to save this world, the only way is to trample on the hearts of others?

Perhaps all they want is recognition from others

I certainly know that in order to return to the real world, the battle between the protagonist and the powerful is inevitable. But as the plot progresses, those once detestable powerhouses peel off their mysterious shells, and they are just a group of ordinary people who, after gaining power, finally have the courage to face their desires.

Exploration session with some horror elements

The main process of the game is fixed, discovering the corresponding power holder, exploring in the foggy abnormal area, solving the puzzles in the current abnormal area, and entering the exotic battle from the singularity.

The standing mobile phones on the table are singularity points, at which point making a call can lead to entering a different world

Abnormal areas refer to areas covered by fog, where the mind gradually erodes upon entering. Although the protagonist is a powerful individual, like ordinary people, they are also affected by fog. When exploring the abnormal area, the MAD slot in the lower right corner will continue to rise. When the MAD slot reaches 100%, it will be forcibly transported to the medical room for treatment.

It sounds like the production team has restricted the exploration time of players, but being teleported to the medical room doesn't seem to have any negative effects. I specifically tried to stay in the abnormal area until the MAD slot was full, but as soon as I came out of the medical room, I was able to wander freely in the abnormal area.

After the MAD value of increases to 100%, it will be directly transmitted to the medical room of the Bishop's School Building

The tricky part is the death call, and if you don't prepare for it in advance, it will really scare you. Death calls will randomly come during exploration. When the bell rings, nearby NPCs will gather towards you like zombies. As long as you are influenced by the roar of NPCs, the MAD slot will directly increase to 100%. Combined with the vibration of the controller, I really feel like I am being pushed to the brink.

The phone icon in the bottom left corner of is a dead call. The students who attacked like zombies, combined with the vibration of the controller, had a really exciting actual experience

Exploration is actually a relatively boring part of the game. If you want to freely explore the campus in Sin King's Throne, you are likely to be disappointed because there are only one classroom after another for you to explore, and the layout of tables and chairs in the classroom is compact, making it quite inconvenient to move around inside. Fortunately, NPCs basically stay in place and won't run around, only when they turn back, their teammates are more likely to block the way. This is just a small issue, the most annoying thing is actually waiting for the game to load. Every time I explore in the abnormal area, I have the same question. Even though there are only a few places on each floor, why does the game load on the black screen every time I enter and exit the classroom, which greatly affects my mood during exploration.

looks quite spacious, but in fact, it's very inconvenient to move around

After finishing the exploration section, let's talk about the puzzle solving part of the game. Some friends may find it strange that there is nothing to say about solving puzzles. Is it because decryption is too difficult and cannot be completed? That's right, not only will it get stuck, but it's also likely to get stuck several times. In my actual experience, the puzzle of "The Evil King" itself is not difficult. Sometimes, just thinking about the prompts in the game or being prompted by others can deduce the answer. The difficulty lies in the fact that the puzzle solving process is too convoluted.

There are over 100 characters appearing in "The Evil King", each with a name and surname, and the production team has also made very detailed settings for them. Unlike the "Caligula" series produced by FuRyu, these settings are not intended for side quests, but rather hide a lot of key puzzle solving information inside. Every time I think about which student the puzzle is related to, it gives me a headache.

By the way, the puzzle of "The Evil King" cannot be solved by exhaustive method. The headache inducing puzzle answers in this game are mainly divided into two types: one is a 4-digit safe password, and the other requires players to write their own answers to avoid using brute force to solve puzzles. If you really get stuck on a puzzle for a long time, my suggestion is to give up thinking and quickly search for answers online, otherwise it will waste a lot of valuable gaming time.

If the idea of is not aligned, many puzzles will get stuck

Group fights and back attacks are both justice

After exploring and solving puzzles, we are finally able to embark on a killing spree in a different world. The combat part of "The Evil King" is what I believe has the highest level of completion and is also the most worthy of in-depth research. As long as it is not a crushing situation (whether it is our crushing or the opponent's crushing), the ever-changing battlefield will definitely bring you joy.

The combat mode selected in the game is the battle chess mode, where you need to determine the character's order of action, distance of movement, and what operations to perform. However, the "allocation command" system greatly increases the flexibility of our character. The "allocation command" can pass the action opportunities of the current character to another nearby character, but the character that moves again will slightly increase its MAD value. With this system, we can attack distant enemies through relay attacks, or have the main character output multiple times within a turn to quickly clear the field.

allocation instructions can help characters go further

There is also a risk that those fast pioneers can easily fall into an abnormal state. In Evil King's Throne, enemy attacks often have abnormal effects. If there are no teammates nearby who can use healing drugs in a timely manner, the entire team will be in great crisis. I am too lazy to count the number of times the vanguard character has been enchanted and turned around to go home and kill all directions.

Another consideration is the game's "aid attack" system. If the enemy is within the attack range of multiple characters on our side, once one of the characters takes an attack action, the teammates will also launch an attack together. That is to say, as long as the character is properly positioned, real group fights can be achieved. So an important positioning idea of "The Evil King" is to form a encirclement and use "aid attacks" to cause multiple injuries to the enemy. However, the "aid attack" system is effective against both sides of the enemy, and the encirclement can sometimes be a double-edged sword. If the situation is judged incorrectly, it may seem like you have surrounded the other party, but in reality, you are standing in a circle, waiting for the enemy to fight. And many enemies have AOE attack skills, perhaps your encirclement is just a gathering target in the enemy's eyes.

The character labeled "ASSIST" on the head of is capable of conducting aid attacks

In addition to considering the positioning between characters in the "aid attack" system, attacking from behind the enemy will also have additional damage bonuses. We need to surround the enemy more and surprise them.

The entire combat system of the game can be summarized into two words: "backtrack" and "group fight". As long as you can understand the essence of these two ideas, you can feel the joy of the battle in Evil Throne. As for the game's "madness" and "awakening" systems, I think the effort and rewards of these two are not quite proportional.

"Crazy" is the state in which a character enters when their MAD value reaches 100%. At this point, the character's attack power increases significantly, but they will attack on the field regardless of whether they are enemies or enemies. The character is already prone to debuffs, so why add more uncertainty to the battle? If you're not lucky when using "berserk", then you're really going against the wind. "Awakening" is a state entered after the AWAKE value reaches 100%. The character not only has a significant increase in ability points, but also can use regular skills without expending necessary skills. It usually takes several rounds of preparation for the character to enter the awakening state, unless it is a particularly useful kill skill, it is better to play a few more rounds.

Want to level up? Let's make a phone call first

To be honest, I was eliminated by the team five or six times as the first boss in this game. It's not that I played the game poorly or the combat difficulty was too high, but rather that I didn't know how to level up at the time. If you want to level up in other JRPG games, you will definitely go crazy doing side quests or repeatedly leveling efficient dungeons. But Sin King does not have side quests, and it's difficult to understand where the game's dungeons are when you first get started.

This needs to talk about the phone system of the game. The phone number of this game is actually the number of the dungeon, and calling different numbers is to enter different dungeons. Some dungeons will drop items, some dungeons will drop equipment, and some dungeons will drop a large amount of Spirit (game experience and currency). Phone numbers can be obtained by advancing the main line or collecting secret code notes. You can also try to dial out unknown phone numbers at will, but what awaits you is usually an extremely difficult dungeon.

phone number corresponds to copy number

Although I really like the combat system of Sin King's Throne, I have to admit that the game's dungeons are a bit dull to play. One reason is that these dungeons are just small rooms with corresponding themes for the "Seven Sins". Although they have random elements, they can become boring when used too much; Secondly, teammates do not chat with you or tell small stories during battles, making the entire battle process quite dull.

Fortunately, the time spent scrolling through replicas is not long. After understanding the phone system, you can happily upgrade. The Spirit obtained by brushing dungeons will not be directly added to the participating characters, but will be allocated by the players themselves. That is to say, you can prioritize upgrading to battle characters, upgrade to non battle characters, or leave Spirit to buy items.

Happy Brush Up

I recommend everyone to prioritize upgrading the protagonist and the enchanter. Don't be fooled by the fact that the enchanters are all skeletons. If they look no different from minions, you don't want to practice them. The enchanter has three more equipment than the human character, and with the bonus of the equipment, it will be much stronger than the human character. You can also adjust the body shape, hairstyle, and even voice of the demon. Although you cannot become a handsome or beautiful person, it can at least make them look more domineering.

Replacing the enchanter will also change the appearance of the enchanter

Conclusion: It's not easy to say I love you

Perhaps it was because I had raised my expectations too high that Sin King did not give me a bright feeling. I originally thought it would bring tension and fun, making it unbearable to let go of the novel campus life. In actual experience, I find it difficult to feel where the "new" performance in the "New Campus RPG" lies, and even the "Campus RPG" part cannot be considered excellent.

It can be said that "Sin King's Throne" is destined to only be suitable for a small group of people. The game's wild story is shocking, but the poorly designed parts in the game can easily erode players' enthusiasm for the game and ultimately erode the unique temperament of the game.