Qu Qu Review: A musical revolution under neon lights

A forest of tall buildings reaching into the sky, neon lights and huge billboards, lighting up the whole city, just relying on a few stars dotted the night sky, a little pale. At this moment, the world is divided into two colors.

But this noisy night has nothing to do with the ground beneath our protagonists' feet.

The record market, a city full of neon punk, requires a lot of electricity to operate, and the electricity supply is transformed by the passion of the people for music. But all the power in the city is controlled by the music company NSR, and they have the best music producers, a huge management system, and a fan base, and they will decide where the power goes.

The story begins when the two fail at an NSR music audition. The enthusiastic and publicizing guitarist Mei Die and the calm and restrained drummer Zoke, their wonderful rock and roll, ignited the emotions of the audience. The electric charger has reached an unprecedented peak, but it has been treated unfairly by the judges.

On their way home, they discover that the city's backup power is being provided only to the elite of NSR, leaving the people alone. So they decided to bring a musical revolution to the city. Let's play, let's jump, let's have a real rock 'n' roll!

"Ququ Road" is such a music action game with the background of "neon punk style future city". But it's not so much a game as it is a Japanese anime that mimics the style of American manga.

In fact, Japanese animation is not the first time to use the American manga style, the same category also has "cut dress girl", "Suspender Angel" such as the masterpiece. But why does it look like an animation?

It has a simple narrative logic, no complex world view, no too much foreshadowing. Yes, but with a clear purpose - to break the NSR's rule. Whether it is to increase the companion along the way, or the conflict and fetters between the partner, are the key elements of Japanese blood animation.

More characteristic are the BOSS battles, whether it's the exaggerated "Bunk Bed Junction vs DJ SUBATOMIC SUPER NOVA" at the beginning of the battle.

Or the end of the battle, the main two people's big move demonstration, are very in line with the aesthetic style of hot animation.

But there is a fundamental difference between a game and an animation. An animation is where the director takes you to see the world he creates, while a game is where you see the world he creates for yourself. So, is the world beautiful or not?

The game was co-produced by Wan Hazmer, designer of Final Fantasy XV, and Daim Dziauddin, concept artist for Street Fighter V. The description of the new city in the game uses very bright colors, and the bright colors will give people a dazzling feeling. Where there is light, there will be shadow, and where there is light, there is dark. The dark old town, adjacent to the new town, forms a kind of light and dark contrast. The contrast between light and dark is a theme often depicted by artists.

The city is well detailed, and there are billboards everywhere, advertising NSR's musicians on a loop.

(The musicians displayed on the billboard will change as the BOSS is defeated)

As well as some eggs in the city, always remind players that in the past here was a city that loved rock and roll.

The level design of the game is very distinctive, and the music element is perfectly integrated. Occupy points were replaced with SOLO by the guitarist or drummer, and ranged attacks were replaced with notes.

Each BOSS battle has its own theme, for example, the second level's theme is "virtual". It is a world made up of code, you can see the electronic walls in the distance, as well as the yellow and pink tones of vegetation, rocks and so on.

Enemies can have a real effect on the virtual world through the mouse. For example, adjust the brightness of the level, and attack the two protagonists.

The way to attack the enemy is to destroy the chip, and the parts on the chip will fall off with the attack.

But none of this can hide the poor gameplay experience.

The game uses a collection system, a technology tree, and a transformation system. You can improve your abilities by collecting batteries and prints all over the map.

Batteries can light up extinguished electronic products in the city, such as street lights, vending machines, advertising lampstands, etc., to increase the number of fans of the band (the number of fans can also be increased by defeating bosses, playing radio stations), and the number of fans is used to add points to the tech tree.

Prints are used to attach to weapons (guitars and drumsticks) to enhance the character's panel attributes. Different characters can rely on different combinations of prints to deal with different bosses. At the same time, after the completion of the BOSS kill, you can unlock the single character's ability "module", and the two-person collaboration skill "Ultimate Duet".

If any of this is decent, then the combat part is a real disappointment. In the game when the free exploration in the city, you can still use the right joystick to adjust the perspective, then why to the combat area, it becomes a complete lock perspective?

When it comes to locking perspective during 3D game combat, there are a few bad aspects of the experience. The first is easy to lose characters, the second level of the BOSS battle scene is particularly obvious. Secondly, it is easy to misjudge the landing point when jumping or dodging, and mistakenly touch the trap in some scenes. Finally, in some shots, it is difficult to judge the distance between the BOSS and the BOSS, causing the weapon to swing in the air, or not avoiding in time, being attacked by the boss and other problems.

(In order to show both the character and the BOSS in the distance, the camera is pulled away and the character is shrunk)

In addition to locking the perspective, action games often have a "forced fall after taking a high damage attack" mechanic. And the process from falling to standing up is invincible.

This mechanic is generally used to maintain balance and prevent the player from being "taken away" and ruining the game experience, and The Journey lacks this feature. I believe that as an action game with a certain degree of difficulty, these are what players do not want to see.

In addition, the technology in the game is difficult to catch up with the progress of the current BOSS. Past levels, can be repeated to get the number of fans, and added a hard mode. So can it be reasonably inferred that the producers want to guide the players through unbalanced combat, and improve the play time by repeatedly "brushing"?

If you are a fan of music action games, I do not recommend you to try it. But if you are interested in music and Japanese anime, you can try this work. Get a feel for this young man and woman, their passion for rock and roll, their commitment to change.

You gotta play, you gotta dance, and you gotta be great, and you gotta dance to everybody's heart's content, as long as the music doesn't stop.