"Giant God Hunt" EA review: cold hunting giant God, a fire in winter

A game idea is always put forward before and after, and the latter is always not so lucky, even if it is slightly different, it will be criticized, unless its novelty is too much, too wide, and can plug the mouth of half the bottle. However, this kind of thing is for independent studios, tolerance is amplified to a certain extent, there is a new idea, and it will get attention and support. And "Giant God Hunt" is such a game, although in various aspects slot a lot of points, but considering the problem of EA, I said I understand. The game as a whole is decent, if you add the problems of crowdfunding and production team, it can still be expected.

Prey for the gods

The game "Giant God Hunt" received more support and attention when it landed on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in 2016, and the original goal of $300,000 exceeded 70% after the end, reaching 150% of more than $500,000. This is No Matter how encouraging it is to have only three people to support you. The scene of the whole game is set in the ruins of civilization wrapped in winter, and the ships landing in the opening CG and the dress of the protagonist prove that this is a Viking girl who is not afraid of the cold. There is no detailed animation introduction, no thick narration full of magnetic sounds, and what can be seen is only the blowing snow and the biting wind. Although it has been raining during this period of time, from CG to operational mode, through the headset and display, the entire game presents a chill is indeed enough, and the initial impression of modeling is also excellent.

Climbing has freedom, the operation is not complicated

Unlike other different games of the same type, "Giant God Hunt" shows gameplay and product details in EA, and is slightly more comprehensive. For a non-generically used unbounded role-playing system game, the freedom of the game was originally limited, so the point of judgment is still: the freedom of the operating system set by the character. The operation of the action is very simple, except for the "1, 2, 3, 4" equipment shortcut keys and mobile keys, only "Space", "shift" and "LB", "RB" these four keys. These and "Shadow of the Colossus" bounce, hanging horse, gathering light and other series of creative operations, is indeed still far away, "Zelda: Breath of the Wild" not to mention. However, in view of EA's sake, the key system this time will not do too much personal evaluation. The freedom of operation of the game, from the whole game of things, characters, gods and objects of these three points is still high. Whether it is the totem of the fire, the broken wall, the broken pillars of the city or the snow cliff, the mage of the same body, the giant god of the border, you can grasp and climb, as long as you grasp tightly, grasp it, you can support the physical strength or the cold heart to fall so far.

The environment has effects, survival is more hardcore

It is said that it is lonely at the top, and the height of "Giant God Hunt" is indeed so, and the different environment generated by the change of time also has a huge impact on the living conditions and physical abilities of the characters. In different regions, the snow thickness causes the character to walk at different speeds, although the "Shift" sprint can increase the efficiency somewhat, but the effect is not obvious. But the setting of the snow also provides a perfect solution to the "wayfinding" problem. In this game, the feet and the body will form different shades of marks after getting stuck in the snow, and the direction of the map will no longer be a problem. In addition, due to the weather caused by the temperature difference between day and night, the character's body survival system also makes the game experience more real for players, and it is more difficult to grasp the rhythm of the game in a short time, but it also pushes exploration to the forefront of the experience, so that players have a curiosity about the winter without spring, summer and autumn.

Speaking of the physical survival system, it is necessary to mention that in Giant God Hunt, the player has four life indicators that must be paid attention to at all times: hearing, energy, vitality, and endurance. We can maintain the health of these four indicators by picking fruit, collecting props and resources such as wood and hides in the ice and snow world, and the setting of life indicators is of course not only that. The above environmental factors greatly affected them, the night wind and snow, the icy sea... When the environmental restrictions appear, when the mouse cannot flexibly control the character to walk, the indicator drops rapidly, the vision is blurred, the tinnitus is gradually deaf, the breath is rapid, the body and the four corners of the screen freeze together, until finally fall down. Perhaps at this time we realize that the damage of operational combat is terrible in front of the ever-changing nature.

Objects are durable, puzzles see mediocrity

In the environment and climbing process, solving puzzles and finding and obtaining treasures should be the more interesting two points. The puzzle in "Giant God Hunt" is not very obvious, and the familiar hiding places such as cliffs, caves, corners can always make players gain some surprises. However, throughout the game, items other than equipment are refreshed when the character dies or the game resets. Due to the small map in the current version of the game, it is easier to run the map, and in the map seam of the island to island, players can easily brush the props they need, which should also be one of the inevitable problems in the EA testing process of such games. But perhaps because the developer always knows their product, the difficulty of the "puzzle" gameplay will always make some puzzles temporarily hold the player's brain. Although the winter setting has improved the overall quality of the game, this more conventional puzzle setting still needs to be broken through.

The game should be more hardcore in terms of equipment system Settings. In "Shadow of the Colossus" because of the different functions of the equipment, the durable setting no longer exists, and in "Zelda: Breath of the Wild" in order to show the reality of the virtual world, "durable" is naturally moved to the stage, but in many weapons and equipment, the special attribute of "never wear" is always a powerful equipment that players unanimously pursue. These different lengths and different characteristics of the setting in the Giant God Hunt when combined, but become more hardcore. In this work, although there are grade differences in weapons, no matter how high the weapon is, there is also the word durable, and the "permanent" attribute disappears. So when the durability Settings are combined with the survival Settings, the difficulty of the Boss battles will naturally increase, and this situation is vividly demonstrated in the final battle: there is no chance of error, either a successful recovery of the sacred Spring, or a failure to fall into obscurity. The difficulty of this type of game tends to increase exponentially in the final section, which is closely related to player flow, but that's a topic for another time.

It's easy to get hurt. Nothing hurts a dragon

The current version has a total of five bosses for the player to conquer, and during the course of the battle, the line between "no damage" and "damage" is blurred, which also has to do with the increased freedom of personal manipulation issues. The increase of freedom is always accompanied by the increase of the sense of reality, and the better sense of reality makes the character's action characteristics infinitely close to the real person, naturally, the same is true in the performance of injury. This improvement is evident in the battle against the giant God. "Trampling", "yelling", "chopping", "charging"... These exclusive Boss skills will cause damage to the terrain and buildings, and our small Viking girl in the process of approaching or avoiding a large area of contact, "no damage" becomes "damage", three health indicators instantly drop, action slows down, difficulty increases. So in this game, this blurring of boundaries is too real, the damage determination is very tough, and the movement is difficult. Therefore, the difficulty of the Boss battle stage should be easier, and after repeated attempts, as long as the grasp is on and the grasp is steady, everything is not a problem.

Sum up

In general, the results of this EA test are OK, there are details, civilization, and innovation, but coupled with the shortcomings of general optimization, blurred damage boundaries, and short plot, the results can only be normal. It seems that the cost of 500,000 dollars did not play the maximum value, of course, the number of production team is also a fatal problem, 6.5 points should be matched. Considering the EA test, I do not recommend that you start, you can look forward to the follow-up official version of the performance, hope to bring a fresh and refreshing feeling.