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"Forestrike" BitSummit trial: supernatural plus... strategy kung fu movie?

Ito

2024-07-27

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Author: Ito

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The unorthodox combination works wonders

If we talk about the most unexpected game at this year's BitSummit Drift in Kyoto, Forestrike, brought by our old friend Devolver Digital, must be in the top ten in my mind... You said you haven't heard of this game? That's normal, because before this, this game really didn't receive much exposure. Its last appearance was at BitSummit Drift two years ago.

《Forestrike》在BitSummit Drift

But this does not affect our simple understanding of it. The creators of Forestrike once launched an action game called OLIJA in 2021. Although the game is not large in size, it has won the recognition of many independent game enthusiasts with its compact plot and qualified combat gameplay. If you only look at this information, you will definitely not guess what kind of game Forestrike is... In fact, when I first heard about this game, I really didn't react to what they were talking about.

This is how De Club introduced Forestrike to us: a strategic kung fu fighting game that combines supernatural elements.

To be honest, I knew each of these terms separately, but when put together they instantly became extremely unfamiliar. It was not until I played the game myself that I realized that this strange combination did come from a unique game mechanism.

Simply put, "Kung Fu" is the core of Forestrike. In an oriental worldview full of "stereotypes", players need to play a martial artist named "A Yu" and defeat evil enemies. In the combat system, you can easily see the experience accumulated by the author from the previous work. Forestrike has more refined, but also just the right amount of abstract pixel characters. The overall action design and fluency of the characters have been enhanced in a more stylized way based on the previous work.

Many of the designs in this game actually include tributes and references to classic "Kung Fu movies", including attack modes that are detailed to the "fists and feet", "softness overcomes hardness" movements, and fights that make use of daily props such as "bamboo poles" or "bench". Compared to pure "fist fighting", the game seems to be trying to create a Kung Fu master who can use every environment to fight against a hundred people.

But these are not surprising. As we said before, the most special thing about "Forestrike" happens to be the combination of its gameplay. While being a horizontal action game, it is also a strategy game with puzzle elements.

What do you mean?

In the game, each battle is divided into "levels". Before each battle, Ayu will use a power similar to "meditation" to rehearse the outcome of the battle in his mind - in short, the purpose of this "rehearsal" is to help players find ideas for breaking through the level. After finding the most suitable way to break through the level, players can return to reality and execute it.

It is called a "strategy game" because the protagonist and the enemy are almost equally fragile. Faced with enemies with different means of attack, the player must flexibly use environmental props and all of his own resources to escape unscathed.

For example, in the trial version, Ah Yu will get a resource similar to "focus" in each battle, which allows him to "defuse" an enemy's charge attack and move the impact to another enemy behind him. This operation can not only give players an excellent attack gap, but also fundamentally change the position of each character on the field - in the game, the position will not only affect the enemy's attack mode, but also greatly change the player's tactical route. Long-range throwing enemies will not actively cross over to attack, and some strong enemies are more threatening whether in defense or attack.

Under these conditions, considering which goals to prioritize naturally becomes the key to breaking the situation. And "rehearsal" becomes the key to testing the feasibility of strategies.

In fact, this does bring an interesting and wonderful composite experience - on one hand, there is the "operability" brought by traditional horizontal action games, and the player's intuitive operation is transformed into the fist and foot kung fu in the game; on the other hand, there is the "tactics" and "strategic thinking" that command-based role-playing games love to emphasize. The two are extremely closely linked in the game, plus some "stereotyped" kung fu movie plots, making this game full of "surprises" and "interesting" from beginning to end.

According to the information we got from the scene, the official version of this game may also add more "rogue" and "character growth" gameplay. If this trial report makes you a little interested in this "strange" game, then you might as well pay more attention to the follow-up news released by D agency in the future.