Path of Eden review: When Mega Man EXE meets the bullet screen game

It's hard to categorize Path of Eden into the card strategy category, although it has the same combat system as the Mega Man EXE series and the iconic "Roguelike+ tower climbing" elements of the Spire of Killing, but because of the mechanical design of the high-speed combat, It makes the Way of Eden more like a barrage game - you won't cry "wrong number" when you fail, only "too hard".

The Way of Eden is really hard. So much so that in the comments section, there are even strange performances of players who refund because of the difficulty of the game, but feel proud and give praise.

Of course, the difficulty of the game should not be a decisive factor affecting whether the game is fun or good quality, just like you can't deny its excellence as a STG game because you can't play Turtledove, which can only show that you may not be suitable for this kind of game. The smooth difficulty curve and challenging difficulty level can sometimes add a lot of color to the game, in recent years, the "soul Like" type of game is just like this, when you face the death of Gu Da again and again, but more and more brave, until he trampled on the foot of the time, There must be an unprecedented rush of pleasure - that's as much positive feedback as reasonably difficult can give you.

So, does the difficulty of the Way of Eden make it more fun? Or is it reasonably difficult? It's hard to say -- or rather, we need to deconstruct it from a more diverse perspective.

First of all, we need to be clear, is The Way of Eden fun? My answer is: fun.

When you have a certain understanding and accumulation of the overall mechanism of the game, and the discerning, rapid response, muscle memory to maintain a certain level above, then the "Road of Eden" game flow, will definitely let you get the pleasure of operation. Whether it's attacking, dodging, or releasing card skills, each extreme operation will give you enough dopamine, not to mention if you are lucky enough to combine a reasonable spell card construction with an artifact item through a reward mechanism during the game, then the game experience will be more comfortable - as we often say, In this type of Roguelike, the strange chemistry of item combinations is an important part of the fun.

In this way, The Way of Eden is interesting and playful. But the problem is that there is a certain threshold for fun and playfulness.

- Wait! Didn't you just say that a game's difficulty level shouldn't be the criterion for how fun it is?

Of course. But again, I said that for difficulty to be fun, it has to be reasonable enough.

The "difficulty" of The Road of Eden exposes certain defects in rationality. And this defect is probably composed of the problems in the design ideas and production concepts of the game.

Let's talk about the design idea first. If you have played the "Lockman EXE" series, then you will certainly find that although the "Road of Eden" looks very familiar, but often after getting started, a flurry of confusion, you are likely to feel that the game is not so "Lockman EXE".

So, what is the reason why the "Road of Eden" and the "Mega Man EXE" series have the same combat system, but a completely different game experience?

The answer is, rhythm.

"Lockman EXE" series although the same use of "construction + instant combat" this concept, the late BOSS battle is often fairy fights, full of screen laser flying, but interestingly, "Lockman EXE" series will not have the "Road of Eden" late that kind of scrambling feeling.

And all of this is thanks to the design of "round".

In the Mega Man EXE series, each action follows "Build the battle chip", "Enter live battle", "operate within the turn limit time", "manually enter the next turn after the turn limit time is over", "Build the battle chip again", and then start the cycle. This design ensures that the player has enough time to think in each battle, thinking about whether the strategy is correct this time, whether I want to change the strategy next time, whether there will be a better solution, and help the nervous themselves to catch their breath.

So, what does each battle look like in The Way of Eden? "Build spell cards" and then "go into real-time combat" when you are already fighting faster, win and get rewards to build, and then go back into the next battle. While you can clearly see that the Way of Eden has diluted the density and repetitiveness of the battles by adopting the room structure of the Killing Spire, trying to make the battles in each room as close as possible to a turn in the Mega Man EXE series, the problem is that the lengthy BOSS battles still exist.

It can be said that every BOSS battle in the Road of Eden will push this game further into the category of bullet screen games - the BOSS's position and a variety of complex attack tracks will let you lose most of your rational thinking, let alone the completion of the spell card connection effect.

This is why I say that the Way of Eden exposes the rationality flaw in the design idea. The combination of high combat pace and Roguelike card strategy, at least for now, is not as effective as it could be.

Of course, this should be a double-edged sword. In the case of some players who are not adapted to it, there will certainly be some players who love this extreme operation of pleasure, although the "Road of Eden" in the difficulty design is not reasonable, but think about it, even "Angry leader Bee" some people will be addicted, this is not a problem.

So why do I emphasize this point? Because this double-edged sword, under the influence of the production concept of the Road to Eden, turned the blade towards itself.

The Path of Eden's combination of high-velocity combat pacing and Roguelike card strategy is not an easy definition of good or bad -- there are a thousand Hamlets out of a thousand, after all. But from the production level of The Way of Eden, it's hard to say that this double-edged sword won't hurt itself.

Poor beginner guidance, steep difficulty curves, weak correlation between spell cards and artifacts, unclear entry descriptions, and the field destruction effects of late battles that limited the action pace, all contributed to production issues that further weakened the combination of Path of Eden's high-speed combat pace and Roguelike card strategy.

This is why I say that the difficulty of the Road of Eden is not reasonable enough, and its interesting and fun game experience has a certain threshold.

But again, although this double-edged sword is slightly skewed, if you can get through the early learning process and cross the threshold, then the fun of The Road to Eden is still full.

Nine characters, 18 forms, hundreds of spell cards and hundreds of artifacts, supported by Roguelike elements, both unlock process and composite Build, the gameplay is extremely rich. Once you get used to the faster pace of the game and the chemistry starts to build, the fun is obvious.

In addition, The Way of Eden has a great deal of pleasure in detail. For example, in every big level of the game, you can choose whether to kill the BOSS, the kill will be rewarded, and the failure will get the help of the BOSS when the life is on the line. This kind of design, which is not uncommon in games, is an interesting and surprising highlight of the game flow.

So, back to the original question: Does the difficulty of the Way of Eden make it more fun?

I do. I can answer you this way. But the threshold is still there, the separation between design ideas and production concepts is still obvious, although fun, but not necessarily suitable for all players.

Behind this fun and interesting, the game still needs to be optimized and improved in the future.