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Have you ever seen a game that can reverse its reputation with just one character? Among all the two-dimensional mobile games I have played, Changli in "Mingchao" is definitely the most successful example.

On July 22, the second half of version 1.1 of Ming Chao was launched. After only six hours, it ranked sixth in China, fifth in Japan, and first in South Korea on the iOS best-selling list. It also topped the list in Hong Kong and Taiwan, breaking the highest best-selling record of Ming Chao since its launch.

The key reason why version 1.1 was able to take off in the second half was the new limited character Changli and his companion story "Lihuo Yi Changsheng". If the main storyline of 1.1 is a simple and refreshing story in the style of Long Aotian, then the story of Changli's companion mission is a long-lasting martial arts short story with the flavor of Gu Long and Jin Yong.

Design

Chang Li was first seen in the main storyline of 1.0. In version 1.1, he appeared as the "Guide of Chengxiao Mountain" and officially met the player at the ferry crossing of Longshan Ferry. We all know that the first impression of a character is very important, and the first impression of Chang Li on the player can be described as "explosive".

Changli's clothing seems trivial but harmonious and unified. It is mainly composed of a plain white dress and a black base, interspersed with a scarlet shawl. The dress and the black cloak are lined with brown leather to coordinate the unity of the whole outfit.

In terms of small accessories and decorations, the upper body is designed in the style of a tank top, wrapping around the character's peaks and valleys, charming but not vulgar, colorful but not revealing. The hair ring and golden petal-shaped hair accessories on the head highlight the character's nobility, and the ribbons under the clothes further highlight the character's elegance.

In addition to the impressive figure and the perfect clothing, the character's head details and facial expressions are also portrayed in great detail. Pink hair is not a common hair color among Oriental people, and the designer uses a long ponytail hairstyle and a headscarf often used by ancient Chinese scholars to deepen the player's first impression of Chang Li as "well-educated and well-mannered." And the character's round eyes: the tail of the eyes is slightly upturned, the pupils are bright and charming, the smile is as beautiful as a flower, the eyebrows are expressive, and the eyes are as charming as silk.

It can be said that with the help of the performance and expression advantages of Unreal Engine 4, Kuro completely brought the character of Changli to life from the perspective of portrait and modeling, or in other words, all the limited five-star characters of "Naruto" so far have their own design ideas and concepts in appearance, which is also the core advantage of "Naruto" compared to other open worlds.

Plot Analysis

As the saying goes, "a good horse deserves a good saddle." Excellent character modeling must be accompanied by a high-quality plot to make the character more attractive. In this regard, Changli's companion mission "Lihuo Yi Changsheng" has made an indelible contribution.

1.1 The main storyline of Jin Xi's decision to give it a try for the future of the people of Jinzhou City is an excellent performance but a little stiff in the plot. The plot about Chang Li can be said to fully reflect the strength of the new copywriter of "Ming Chao" after the replacement of the copywriting team.

The plot of the companion star mission continues the main plot of 1.1. It uses the "Lan Ke chess fate" as a guide and attempts to solve the mystery of Changli's life experience. It uses the reverse order method to tell the origin of the wanderer, little Changli and his teacher. In the end, the plot successfully helps Changli to untie his "heart knot" and help him control the power of Lihuo.

Whether it is the plot, text or the performance of the characters, they all pay attention to the implicit beauty and theory of cause and effect in Chinese traditional culture. For example, Changli and her teacher both met the protagonist, and the protagonist became an important part of their fate. The person who tied the bell must untie it. The wanderer must witness the "result" produced by the "cause" he planted because of the encounter. These are typical Chinese philosophical elements in Chinese novels.

Behind this theory of cause and effect is Chang Li’s grand ideal of “peace on earth” which serves as the backdrop. It can be said that the entire plot is closely linked, until the finale with Zhang Zai’s four lines, which push the entire plot to a climax and at the same time elevate the theme of the work.

After finishing the companion star mission plot, most players have a sense of melancholy that they are just a drop in the ocean, as if they are in a different world, and that they are also in this chess game of heaven and earth. This is an experience that the plots of domestic second-tier games in recent years cannot bring to players. Perhaps in the story of "Lihuo Yi Changsheng", "skipping the plot is equivalent to skipping life" is not a joke.

I have always believed that the superficial cultural output is the first step of a work, and the artistic conception expressed by the Changli Companion Star Mission is the real cultural output method with the core of Chinese culture.

Character Combat

Finally, let’s talk about the strength and mechanism of the characters themselves. Changli is a limited character in the second half of version 1.1. In addition to the excellent character design and top-notch plot mentioned above, the strength of the character itself is also very online. This is completely different from Yinlin in the second half of 1.0.

The character has very smooth attack action modules and action details. For example, the retracting of the umbrella in the fourth normal attack fully demonstrates the character's elegance. The character's appearance under four different levels of Lihuo will also change.

When there is one layer of Li Fire, a flame appears between the eyebrows; when there are two layers of Li Fire, flames begin to burst out from the cuffs, the ends of ribbons and other extremities; when there is three layers of Li Fire, the flames burn the sleeves to ashes, and the black coat disappears in the fire; when there is a full layer of Li Fire, Changli covers his eyes with a black hood, and fights with only the other four senses.

This form design, which changes constantly with the number of Lihuo layers, adds a dazzling visual impact to the moves, demonstrating the improvement of Changli's realm and the changes in his state of mind at each stage.

In terms of strength, this character is currently a powerful main C at the T1 level. While having excellent combat feel, the damage is very decent. The two Lihuo heavy attacks and the ultimate move at full level can deal up to 2000% damage, making him the number one C after Jin Xi and Ji Yan.

At the same time, most of Changli's skills are "hands-off skills", that is, you can switch characters immediately after releasing them but the damage will not be lost, so you can also use "axis combination" to perform various cool skill combos, and learning how to combine axes is also a necessary task for Changli operators.

If the first half of version 1.1 sounded the clarion call for Ming Chao's counterattack in the open world second-game circle, then the launch of Chang Li and its companion mission truly established Ming Chao's position in the open world second-game circle.

In fact, as early as version 1.0, I predicted that Naruto would be great today. Even though Naruto had a very bad reputation at the time and there were rumors that the Japanese server would be shut down as soon as it was launched, I still believed that this game would be reborn in the near future. Because as the core of a game, the gameplay and character modeling of Naruto have no problems, and can even be said to be excellent. The gameplay and character modeling are the driving force for a game to survive.

The plot is bad, it can be changed.

The copywriting is terrible and can be deleted.

The optimization is bad, it can be upgraded.

There are few benefits, so you can give them away.

The only thing that cannot be changed is the way of playing.

Today, the game "Mingchao", which almost died due to version 1.0, has successfully been reborn like Changli's phoenix power, and is now approaching players with a brand new attitude.

I hope that one day, "Ming Chao" can truly tell Chinese stories using Chinese rhetoric, allowing the world to understand the Chinese core, rather than following the trend and using European, American or Japanese narrative methods to describe Chinese culture in the game. I believe this day is not far away.

But the wanderers’ mailboxes seem a bit empty lately. Kuro, isn’t it time for you to pay the friendship fee?

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