"Tribe and Machete" first review: The dawn of domestic "non-martial arts" stand-alone

After the classic work "Jin Yong's Chivalrade X" in 2013 and the acclaimed mobile game "Han Jia Jianghu" in 2017, the Han Jia Squirrel finally handed over a new answer paper in the national tourism market, and the answer paper named "Tribe and Machete" is still in the process of answering.

If anyone follows their news, surely will not be unfamiliar with the name of the Tribe and the Machete. At the end of September 2019, Hanjia Squirrel issued a game promotional video on the official blog, with the accompanying text "the open world PC stand-alone game of desert fantasy theme is open for testing", indicating that "I feel that I finally found the direction and saw the dawn".

Recalling the domestic "Wuxia" genre of games in recent years, the once "open Wuxia world" element has not set off a wave after the "Jin Yong Group of chivalrages", and the traditional RPG based on linear flow has occupied more than half of the country's single market.

Among the past works of Hanjia Squirrel, the name "Jin Yong Heroes X" has the most far-reaching influence, and there are still a large number of self-made mods or magic versions circulating on the Internet. This is not unrelated to the producer's attitude of encouraging players to create their own, the Mod editor and manager of Jin Yong's Heroes X is easy for players to make mods, and this attitude is also retained to the new Tribe and Machete.

Horde and Machete, while still in beta, already has a detailed Mod manager and even crafting instruction. Hanjia Squirrel said that the future will be mobile game synchronous Mod management, mobile game and PC synchronous Mod is indeed a new experience, but because the current game open test is only the PC side, Android and IOS have not opened, so the evaluation of the PC side test version prevail.

The genre of "Horde and Machete" is rare in domestic games, he is not a traditional linear martial arts RPG, but a kind of "ride and slash" gameplay and "dark" combat and other mechanics of the hybrid product, but the background is set in the mysterious aerial Western region.

Players play as a traveler in the vast Western region. The initial options after entering the game are different from the large number of questions and answers after the opening of Jin Yong Heroes X, and the results are not similar to the increase or decrease of the attribute points of "root bone and blessing source", but the skill tree corresponding to different classes, which directly determines the fighting style of different characters.

The new recommended character "Mind Wizard" has a lot of AOE and "kite flying" skills, the rest of the characters are different in the initial unit and combat characteristics, in the case of "sword Master" and "Unknown Sword Master" unlocked by the one-week game, they have lower opening reputation, so they are more likely to be wanted by the major forces, other characters do not need to worry about this.

The gameplay of the game is both "ride and slash" and somewhat "dark", and these two very different experiences use combat as a dividing line.

Players can recruit NPCS and troops, and the number of NPCS is a big advantage, from a female mage from the peach blossom land of the Far East to a cyborg sword-fighter in the style of cyberpunk, there are dozens of protagonists to recruit. But while the quantity is sufficient, the quality is uneven, with a large number of characters drawn with no character character (mostly male), no side story to introduce the character's background, no actual feeling of favorability improvement, and even a single combat skill.

However, in terms of combat play, the single effect of skills on intensity is not large, after all, the main force of the battle is still a large number of troops. The troops recruited by the player are different because of the region, gender and weapons, each class has its own transfer route, and the depth is somewhat the same as the war chess game.

Watching their troops step by step from "farmers" to "God of war", is enough to become a major driving force to continue to play, and because of the fantasy world view, there are also powerful special forces such as "dragon" and "demon", how to bring them under the command is worth looking forward to.

Although the "farmer" will eventually become a "God of war"

The battle takes place on the "Battlefield map", where the player goes into battle with their NPCS and their troops. Although only the player character can be operated, it can command other characters by issuing simple commands, but at present these instructions are very simple, and most of the time choose automatic attack.

The battle frequency of the game is not high, unless the player deliberately and the bandits on the map "touch", otherwise only need to detour to avoid these "Ming Lei", the situation must fight usually occurs in the mission process.

The simplicity of the mission system is deeply affecting. In addition to the main quest, a large number of side quests are limited to the running of deliveries and mailings, and do little to expand the world view and deepen the character's image. Similar "mission quality" issues arise after playing the game, and Horde & Machete does have a lot of compelling design features before playing -- like the many forces in the vast Western realm.

Scorpion, Snow Wolf, bull, eagle and wild horse are the five forces in the game. These forces have their own special arms and background stories, and each other has a good impression of the forces of war and peace, and the hostile forces will meet in a corner of the map at any time after a fight, or directly say "I like you" after declaring war.

The player may also have support from the same camp during map battles

The freedom of open-world design is reflected in the power struggle. Players can choose to join a force, work for the Lord and look forward to "promotion and pay", or they can develop their own troops "with a gun is the king of grass." The battle around the city has the points of attack and defense, in the face of the invasion of hostile forces, the garrison and support gameplay required for "guarding the world" is indeed more thought than "fighting the world" to win.

Horde and Machete also offers some "life" gameplay for players who are not so keen on war. Producers from the beginning of the "express" task to the player from the side to point out the "second road traders" high returns. Each region of the game has different specialties, commodity prices will fluctuate over time, and buying unsalable products at low prices to sell them far away is the only way to make money.

But if you want to make money, tired will always be tired. In the early days of the test, there was a BUG that items could not be stacked, requiring players to click hundreds of times to complete the transaction operation, and the recent game update has removed this BUG, paving the "silk Road" for every player.

Once items could not be stacked only by hand

Although there are commercial elements and caravans in the residence, these designs are currently too rudimentary. Although players can operate facilities to obtain resources, but the management of the gameplay is still not fully developed, can only be said to be better than nothing.

The benefits of open mods are obvious -- just a few days into the open beta, the game has already featured various homemade mods. Some mods directly add new classes to the game, others are more fun than others, and as time goes by, the mods that will be displayed in the official Mod store in the future will inevitably be more enriched.

The team's openness in encouraging players to make their own mods is commendable. They even provide a 64-page Mod development manual in the game itself, and the official Mod editor, manager, and store are just as handy - just open the game.

Since the game itself is related to the war between forces, and there may be large-scale mods similar to "Game of Thrones" in the future, Chinese players always have a lot of creativity, which we can confirm in the large number of versions of "Jin Yong Heroes X" circulating on the network.

"Tribe and Machete" is a very special domestic game, he did not follow the mold of linear narrative to create a traditional "martial arts" work that strives to make no mistakes. Instead, it takes the Western region as the background of the aerial fantasy, depicting the story between humans and various fantasy races, and there are not only a large number of maps to explore in the play, but also can give the player a flat "ride and slash" feeling and similar "dark" combat experience.

Do you want to fight without intelligence?

The advantages are obvious, but so are the disadvantages. The depth of the character is insufficient, the task design is too little, the map guide is simple and the business role is not obvious, etc., and I even failed to return to the file because I was obsessed with exploring and forgot the main line, wasting a few hours without saying, and the enthusiasm to continue to play is greatly reduced.

The design issues here were fixed on the day of completion

It is true that "Tribe and Machete" does have the charm to immerse players, but when players are attracted by the Western region and experience the game for ten hours, what becomes the motivation for players to continue to play is the problem that producers must consider.

But they still have a lot of blank space to fill in before that happens, as evidenced by the 79% "mostly positive" rating of 2,339 reviews on the Steam Store.

Since its completion, 2339 has increased to 2423