Chapter 769: If You Can Imagine It, You Can Find It

Indeed, quite a few players on the internet nostalgically longed for the era when traditional RPGs were prevalent.

With limited graphics and technical capabilities, the focus was more on turn-based strategy gameplay, as well as on character design and development, and story presentation.

It wasn't that modern ARPG-oriented games weren't fun; it was purely a matter of nostalgia, especially for veteran players who grew up in that period. However, in recent years, many traditional RPGs have emerged on VR platforms, quenching some players' thirst, but also drawing considerable criticism.

These traditional RPGs, it seemed, offered little in the way of interest beyond better graphics due to VR integration and just being clad in a VR skin. Whether in gameplay systems or map design, they showed little change from traditional RPGs of many years ago.

Many players even felt that these new traditional RPGs were less engaging than the classics they remembered. Of course, this was partly due to a nostalgia filter, but the main reason also lay in the gameplay, which hadn't evolved much in terms of novelty.

The primary points of innovation in many games were heavily focused on graphics, with other areas lacking significant distinction. This led many players to complain.

"These traditional RPGs are getting worse and worse!"

"+1, the system is cumbersome, but it needs to be fun! But this damn thing is like a foot-binding cloth. If it were a beautiful, busty girl's foot-binding cloth, maybe; but this is an 80-year-old granny's foot-binding cloth!"

"Honestly, newer RPGs are more interesting. While open-world gameplay can feel a bit 'canned', it's still playable on a first playthrough, provided the game system isn't subpar and the plot isn't too bad. At least it can be considered excellent. In comparison, traditional RPGs can only really focus on numerical design and presentation."

Many players discussed this online, and it was clear that veteran players who had played many games understood what made a traditional RPG fun. But understanding is one thing; whether a designer can actually create it is another matter entirely.

It's like braised pig trotters; everyone knows what kind of chewiness makes them taste the best, but mastering the heat control during braising isn't something just anyone can do.

For players who loved traditional RPGs, watching new traditional RPGs release, only to find they merely sported a new skin, was incredibly disappointing. If a perfect traditional RPG were released, they'd definitely buy it instantly!

………………

"Mr. Chen, this character's art style..." In the conference room, Ruan Ningxue hesitated to speak, looking at the two characters on the large screen.

Projected onto the large screen were two anime-style girls.

One had brilliant, fiery red shoulder-length hair and a pair of red eyes, dressed in a tight red-and-black battle suit and red ultra-short hot pants. Golden curved armor adorned her shoulders, connected to two slender black-green cloaks. Her wrists and ankles were equipped with red armguards, and her legs wore fiery red over-the-knee stockings.

The other had dazzling golden-yellow long hair and a pair of golden eyes, wearing a white-based ultra-short dress with black-and-green patterned embellishments. Two rhomboid fabric pieces were tied behind her waistband. Her shoulders and wrists featured golden-edged, green-backed spiked armor, and a green gem ornament was tied to the right thigh of her fair legs. Pyra and Mythra, the two heroines of the upcoming game.

Of course, what concerned Ruan Ningxue wasn't how beautiful these two characters were. Her focus was that these two beautiful girl characters were indeed a bit too large.

"Doujinshi aesthetic? Isn't this just never forgetting our original aspiration?" Chen Xu couldn't help but chuckle, completing Ruan Ningxue's unspoken thought.

Listening to Chen Xu's unabashed words, Ruan Ningxue was speechless.

What did he mean, "never forgetting our original aspiration"?!

Back then, she was the one who first tricked him and tried to pull him into drawing doujinshi, but she ended up being tricked herself into making games. However, after all these years, she had long abandoned the idea of doujinshi, even considering it a dark past. Especially as Nebula Games grew larger in scale, all the doujinshi she had drawn in previous years were dug up by all-powerful netizens. Fortunately, as an artist daring enough to draw doujinshi, she was thick-skinned enough.

"For traditional RPGs, experiencing their charm requires time to settle in." Chen Xu changed the subject, looking at Ruan Ningxue's flushed face.

The biggest characteristic of traditional RPGs is that they are time sinks. How do you make them time sinks? With complex gameplay systems. But for players, a vast and intricate system might not immediately reveal its charm; instead, it might even be a deterrent.

It's like Changsha stinky tofu; you say it's incredibly delicious to eat, but it smells incredibly stinky. Many people are put off by the smell alone, let alone trying to eat it.

Unlike FPS or ARPG games, which can directly attract players with cool gameplay, how do traditional RPGs attract players? The answer is simple: art style and character design. First, use a unique art style and character design to draw players in, then slowly guide them to the game's core gameplay system.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was such a game, and Ruan Ningxue wasn't wrong about one thing: the art style of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was indeed a bit adult-oriented, though only slightly, as Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a very proper, classic shonen-style hot-blooded game.

As for why such a situation arose, it was due to a series of coincidences. In his previous life, Tetsuya Takahashi, a mech fanatic, wandered from Square to Namco, finally finding his true master and returning to Nintendo. The Xeno series he created during this period could only be described as Lukewarm. Then came his first work under Nintendo, Xenoblade Chronicles, which, while bringing a revolution to traditional RPGs, had very limited reach due to its platform. Later, in Xenoblade Chronicles X, his vast ambition prevented him from managing the game's planning.

None of the excellent aspects of the previous work were carried over: chaotic music, a massive map of over 400 square kilometers that felt incredibly empty. Even the story presentation suffered because too much emphasis was placed on map construction, making the plot and presentation unsatisfying, even worse than the first Xenoblade. At the same time, many players also criticized the characters in the game for being ugly.

The game's mechanics couldn't achieve his ideal state, excellent music became terrible because it couldn't integrate with the vast map, and the story's presentation also failed to satisfy. These were unavoidable problems for Tetsuya Takahashi, but seeing players' comments questioning why the characters in the game could be so ugly, Tetsuya Takahashi decided to embark on his own willful rebellion. He did one thing: he completely unleashed himself.

Under his and Old Nintendo's resource invitations, a series of artists joined the project: Saitom, who famously declared 'Ero makes people happy'; CHOCO, who could openly sell girls' underwear at comic conventions; Takahiro Kimura, who served as character designer and animation director for Lelouch (creating character designs and concept art for multiple adult games); Risa Ebata, who started her career creating character designs and concept art for adult anime and games; and the industry-renowned Akina Mountain veteran driver, Yasuomi Umetsu… and many, many more artists.

You'd be hard-pressed to imagine how many people's excitement points the characters in this game would trigger, with this group of uniquely talented individuals coming together. Soft and cute shota, mature big sisters, girl-next-door big sisters, tomboys, socially anxious little sisters, young mistresses, tsundere, Yamato Nadeshiko, chuunibyou, mech girls, maids, Otaku... almost anything you can imagine, you can find. (End of Chapter) <>