"Cloud Punk" review: Experience the charm of Cyberpunk city in advance

After the "Cyberpunk 2077" no doubt announced the jump ticket, "Cloud punk Cloud Punk" as a work of the same genre, naturally soon received widespread attention from players. Although it is only a small independent game, but this does not affect the player, through it to glimpse the charm of the cyberpunk world.

Before Cloud Punk Cloud Punk, it was not uncommon for independent games to adopt a cyberpunk worldview. Among them are masterpieces like VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender in Action. However, unlike "Bartender Action", which uses the form of pure AVG text dialogue to build a cyberworld, "Cloud Punk Cloud Punk" hopes to make such a futuristic world present to the players in the most intuitive way. Therefore, in the game, the production team built a complete cyberpunk city to show players their ambitions.

However, the truth is that this ambition may be a little unrealistic for indie games. Although the production team of "Cloud Punk Cloud Punk" has brought us a huge cybercity, the city is still a certain gap from what we expect.

This feeling in the first few hours into the game, will not be obvious. Because no matter who, when they first saw this future city called "Nivaris", they could not keep down their inner curiosity and wanted to explore this reinforced concrete "forest".

It can be seen that the production team has indeed made efforts in the construction of the scene. Although the map of the entire game is not large, the elements of cyberpunk are complete. Different areas of the city have their own distinctive theme colors, in order to divide different functional areas. Angular skyscrapers, reaching into the sky. The floating flying car shuttling through it is full of the technological sense of the future city. Everywhere is covered with colorful neon signs, giving players a strong visual impact. These scenes make up the general appearance of a cybercity.

However, when the novelty of driving through it passes, the player will be greeted by boring gameplay, twisted operation feel, and a weak main story.

We can talk about the gameplay and the operation together. Because the core gameplay of the game is very simple - control the protagonist Rania, driving her flying car, to various areas of the map delivery, while triggering dialogue with various NPCS, to complete the task. The process was initially interesting, at least in terms of setup. Think about it, you drive a flying car to deliver goods, meet all kinds of NPCS living in different class environments, listen to them tell their stories, start from the individual, spy on the crisis of this society. This is the same core message that Operation Bartender is trying to convey.

But the premise is that you may have to endure the poor operation design of the car first, while comparing with the unfriendly city map, looking for the target of receiving goods, and wait until the delivery is not easy, only to find that the story may not be so worthy of expectation.

The setting of the flying car is both a highlight of the game and a major failure of the game. When I just started driving, like many new drivers on the road, I felt joy or joy in my heart. This is a flying car, which allows me to speed between skyscrapers and drive wherever I want, regardless of any terrain.

But unfortunately, the game obviously can not do this, not only the driving height of the car is limited, the direction control is also very twisty. The forced center Angle of view made it difficult for me to see both sides of the car. The inertia of flight makes it easy for the car to run out of the lane. When you're speeding down the road, crashes are inevitable. Even if, like me, you don't like to go on the road, choose to drive straight up into the air and then straight to the target point. Then you may not be greeted by a car crash, but by a building.

All the way to the target point. I started looking for the location of the target. Open the map, a dense pile of ICONS, but not a single text annotation. And the map does not actively locate the location of the protagonist, the player needs to find the arrow icon on the map to represent the protagonist, which is really troublesome. Then, is to start looking for the consignee, which is not difficult, marked very conspicuous, even how many meters are the distance. But when I arrive at my destination, time will find that there is no one there, and the target distance has not returned to zero. Open the map again to confirm, only to realize that the map of the overlooking corner can not mark the specific height of the target, although in the same place, but he may be upstairs at this time. I need to find a way upstairs again. This process, also because the map simply shows the flat content, takes me a certain amount of time.

The whole process of the game is basically repeating the above steps. Drive, deliver, talk, drive. While the game tries to make the process less boring with a lot of character dialogue, it doesn't work that well. Even if the artificial intelligence voice (dog) named Camus can laugh at me from time to time, it still can't change the boring sense of driving the delivery itself.

The simplicity of the gameplay makes it easy for players to experience aesthetic fatigue shortly after starting delivery. The only thing that can keep players going is the cyberpunk story.

The plot design of Cloud Punk Cloud Punk is reminiscent of VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Operation. The protagonist Rania, as a delivery man who just came to the city to make a living, needs to complete the work at the same time, gradually understand and contact with the various rules of urban life. In the process of contact with characters from different social classes, players will follow her perspective, exposing layers of distorted and pathological social forms hidden behind those glamorous lives.

Cyberpunk themed works are good at finding entry points between highly developed technological life and small and vulnerable individuals, creating contradictions and conflicts, thus forming a strong contrast. They have a strong dystopian and pessimistic color, by describing the contradictions and struggles of the little people at the bottom of society, to trigger readers and viewers to reflect on the trend of social development.

In the story of "Cloud Punk Cloud Punk", the main character Rania always seems to be at odds with the world around her. As a "foreigner" from the East Peninsula, a symbol of primitive civilization, she still retains the kindness and innocence of civilized society. Try to get rid of the debt dispute as soon as possible through their diligent efforts.

In Nivaris, the city of the future, her rules clearly do not apply. In the process of delivery, she will encounter clients from different social classes, and the content of the commission is also strange. But each delivery will reshape her perception of this hierarchical, high-tech city.

Give me two examples that impressed me deeply.

In one delivery order, the shipment was a talking box, and the client requested that it never talk to the box. But out of curiosity, the conversation happened anyway. In fact, the box contains parts of a bionic human brain. He nagged all the way, fantasizing that he was going to be placed in the body of some high class person. In the end, he became a cleaner, but it still made him happy, he felt that he had one foot in the door of high society. The thinking of the little people at the bottom of society is vividly expressed in him.

Another example of stark contrast comes from a wealthy couple. They entrust the protagonist to transport a painting, but because they look down on the delivery man's humble birth, and choose to accompany the painting to become the consignment object. Their conversation was filled with disdain for those at the bottom. In their eyes, the lowly people who live in the slums are no different from the rats in the sewer.

Countless similar stories help the game to shape Nivaris, such a futuristic city full of absurd meanings. It has also become the part of the game "Cloud Punk Cloud Punk" that can best show the charm of cyberpunk.

When I first encountered this story mode, I was really happy with it. It's a great idea to tell the big picture through small people. However, with the accumulation of game time, players will find that such a design also has a problem, that is, the existence of the main story, which is slightly weak in this game. After about six or seven hours of play, I was able to figure out a few things about the main story. This shouldn't be the case for a game that emphasizes narrative.

Especially in the early stage of the game, many small stories are designed just to show the cyberpunk world view, and will not have any substantial impact on the promotion of the main story. In fact, such content could have been appropriately reduced, so as to arrange more space for expansion of the main story.

In the end, "Cloud punk Cloud Punk" is still a story-driven game, although it has joined the eye-catching driving delivery gameplay, but the poor operation, too simple guidance mechanism, but to a certain extent, the level of the entire work. This work can only be said to outline the outline of a cyberpunk city. But there's still not enough detail to fill the shell. It is difficult for players to truly immerse themselves in the world of cyberpunk through a simple delivery process.

For cyberpunk fans, Cloud Punk Cloud Punk may be a temporary relief from their anxiety about not being able to play Cyberpunk 2077. And if you do not have any special feelings for this theme, then the boring and repetitive process of this work is doomed to not let you have the patience to play until the clearance.

It gives you a rough idea of what a cyberpunk city looks like, but it's just a simple way to enjoy it.