MisterStone
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2006
- Messages
- 9,422
LET'S PLAY...
金庸群俠傳
Jin Yong Qunxia Zhuan
HEROS OF JIN YONG
Aka
LEGEND
Aka
Some Chinese Game You've Never Heard Of
First orders of business...
1) What/who is Jin Yong?
Jin Yong 金庸 (Cantonese: Gām Yùhng)is the penname of Louis Cha 查良镛 (born 6 February 1924), former Hong Kong newspaper editor and martial arts novelist who is now the best selling Chinese author. He has written 14 full-length martial arts novels (which you could think of as an action-packed sub-genre of historical fiction), and the influence that they have had on popular culture (Chinese or otherwise) is inestimable. According to such venerable sources of reliable online information as Wikipedia, more than 60 films and TV series based on his works, as well as "dozens" of video games.
2) Why this game, then?
Codexer HalflingBarbarian mentioned this game in this thread:
http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=41529
He said that this is one of few Chinese CRPGS that is not a JRPG in terms of gameplay and design. Although I have been reading Chinese for several years now, I've never played a Chinese RPG before, mainly because I just don't like JRPGs, and because what I had seen of them just didn't interest me. According to HB (who played this game many years ago as a youngster) this game is still spoken of nostalgically by a select group of elite old-skool Chinese gamers in much the same way that people on the Codex fetishize Fallout or Planescape Torment (there are also Chinese fans of these games out there who tend to hate JRPGs), so it seems to me like a Let's Play on the Codex is in order. That, and I am an attention whore who wants to show off.
This game was released by a Taiwanese company called SoftWorld in 1995... Apparently they made a few other CRPGS before this, but this one seems to have been a bit of a technological and design leap over the previous ones. I haven't had a long time to learn about the company or the game's significance in RPG history, so if someone else has some info offer on this, please be my guest and post it. I've got my hands full with the game itself right now.
Here is an informative page about the game on Mobygames...
http://www.mobygames.com/game/jinyong-qunxia-zhuan
3) Are you[/i] Chinese?[/i]
No, I'm American (For more information, see the name I chose for my character below). I spent a large chunk of my adult life learning to read and speak Chinese, however, which means that compared to most Chinese people I am able to speak and read the language like an autistic 10-year-old (you don't want to know how much I suck at writing Chinese by hand). Although I don't find it difficult to understand what is going on in the game or related documents, I would say I read Chinese at about 1/4 the speed that I read English, so it could take me a while to finish this. But hey, it's an RPG written for teenagers, not Heiddeger translated to Chinese or something.
But enough about me... let's get to the game!
i) Intro Film
[Banner in the background reads "Martial Way"]
Wooooooaaaaahh....Slap! Smack! Pop! Swishswishswish...
(Don't laugh, this was state of the art 3d Animation in the early 1990s)
And the title page:
Bad ass. I'm psyched already!
ii) Let's Roll Up A Character
Main menu:
Start a new Character
Load from a save point
Quit the game
Please enter your name:
(I had a choice of typing English, or Chinese using the Taiwanese Zhuyin phonetic notation to input Chinese. Since I learned Chinese in the PRC instead of the wicked rebel province, I don't know this phonetic system. And I don't know any non-phonetic input methods. So I typed in an English name. )
Rollin rollin rolling my stats...
WHITEY: Are you satisfied with these stats? (Y/N)
COLUMN 1 (from the left)
Internal Strength (Seems to be analogous to the "mana" stat in western RPGs. The manual tells me that you spend it in order to use kungfu powers; Interestingly enough, the manual also says your internal strength can be "Yin/soft" or "Yang/rigid". Could be an interesting gameplay dynamic
...)
Life (Hit points)
"Fist and palm" (=Unarmed combat skill)
Column 2
Martial Power (= Strength; melee attack strength presumably.)
Medical skill (According to the manual, this is your ability to heal others... so I can't use it to heal myself? Since this is a game about Chinese martial arts fiction, I won't be surprised if it figures into combat some way or another...)[/b]
Sword skill (= Skill with "jian", a class of Chinese double-edged swords)
Column 3
"Light Body Skill" (Includes acrobatic ability; all the crazy stuff you see in wire-fu films, such as people running on water, balancing on spear tips, running up sheer walls, jumping 20x their own height, etc. I wonder how this will work in the game.)
Poison use (The ability to use poison and studied knowledge of poison)
Sabre skill (Skill with single-edged swords such as sabres, scimitars, and those big ass Chinese falchions called "da dao" etc.)
Column 4
Defense (The ability to defend oneself in combat... I guess this refers to dodging and parrying?)
Poison curing skill (The ability to cure others of poison... not myself? Damn it!)
Hidden/Suprise Weapons (Lit. "dark weapons"; From what I know about martial arts fiction, this refers to all kinds of "unconventional" weapons, such as throwing knives and darts, weird spring-loaded things that shoot needles at people, maybe even bombs or suchlike. The manual says that the higher this skill is, the further and more accurately they "shoot", so I assume these are all ranged weapons.)
The maximum starting life stat is 50; maximum starting inner strength stat is 40; maximum starting stat for other skills is 30. So WHITEY is maxed for HP, Medical Skill, Poison Use, Poison Curing and Defense. He's almost maxed in surprise weapons and light body skills. He does not stand out in any of his melee skills, though; hope that does not turn out to be a handicap. Anyway, the various skills can be maxed to 100 through training (and beyond with special equipment) so maybe it won't be too significant in the long run.
Anyway, time to get started...
金庸群俠傳
Jin Yong Qunxia Zhuan
HEROS OF JIN YONG
Aka
LEGEND
Aka
Some Chinese Game You've Never Heard Of
First orders of business...
1) What/who is Jin Yong?
Jin Yong 金庸 (Cantonese: Gām Yùhng)is the penname of Louis Cha 查良镛 (born 6 February 1924), former Hong Kong newspaper editor and martial arts novelist who is now the best selling Chinese author. He has written 14 full-length martial arts novels (which you could think of as an action-packed sub-genre of historical fiction), and the influence that they have had on popular culture (Chinese or otherwise) is inestimable. According to such venerable sources of reliable online information as Wikipedia, more than 60 films and TV series based on his works, as well as "dozens" of video games.
2) Why this game, then?
Codexer HalflingBarbarian mentioned this game in this thread:
http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=41529
He said that this is one of few Chinese CRPGS that is not a JRPG in terms of gameplay and design. Although I have been reading Chinese for several years now, I've never played a Chinese RPG before, mainly because I just don't like JRPGs, and because what I had seen of them just didn't interest me. According to HB (who played this game many years ago as a youngster) this game is still spoken of nostalgically by a select group of elite old-skool Chinese gamers in much the same way that people on the Codex fetishize Fallout or Planescape Torment (there are also Chinese fans of these games out there who tend to hate JRPGs), so it seems to me like a Let's Play on the Codex is in order. That, and I am an attention whore who wants to show off.
This game was released by a Taiwanese company called SoftWorld in 1995... Apparently they made a few other CRPGS before this, but this one seems to have been a bit of a technological and design leap over the previous ones. I haven't had a long time to learn about the company or the game's significance in RPG history, so if someone else has some info offer on this, please be my guest and post it. I've got my hands full with the game itself right now.
Here is an informative page about the game on Mobygames...
http://www.mobygames.com/game/jinyong-qunxia-zhuan
3) Are you[/i] Chinese?[/i]
No, I'm American (For more information, see the name I chose for my character below). I spent a large chunk of my adult life learning to read and speak Chinese, however, which means that compared to most Chinese people I am able to speak and read the language like an autistic 10-year-old (you don't want to know how much I suck at writing Chinese by hand). Although I don't find it difficult to understand what is going on in the game or related documents, I would say I read Chinese at about 1/4 the speed that I read English, so it could take me a while to finish this. But hey, it's an RPG written for teenagers, not Heiddeger translated to Chinese or something.
But enough about me... let's get to the game!
i) Intro Film
[Banner in the background reads "Martial Way"]
Wooooooaaaaahh....Slap! Smack! Pop! Swishswishswish...
(Don't laugh, this was state of the art 3d Animation in the early 1990s)
And the title page:
Bad ass. I'm psyched already!
ii) Let's Roll Up A Character
Main menu:
Start a new Character
Load from a save point
Quit the game
Please enter your name:
(I had a choice of typing English, or Chinese using the Taiwanese Zhuyin phonetic notation to input Chinese. Since I learned Chinese in the PRC instead of the wicked rebel province, I don't know this phonetic system. And I don't know any non-phonetic input methods. So I typed in an English name. )
Rollin rollin rolling my stats...
WHITEY: Are you satisfied with these stats? (Y/N)
COLUMN 1 (from the left)
Internal Strength (Seems to be analogous to the "mana" stat in western RPGs. The manual tells me that you spend it in order to use kungfu powers; Interestingly enough, the manual also says your internal strength can be "Yin/soft" or "Yang/rigid". Could be an interesting gameplay dynamic
...)
Life (Hit points)
"Fist and palm" (=Unarmed combat skill)
Column 2
Martial Power (= Strength; melee attack strength presumably.)
Medical skill (According to the manual, this is your ability to heal others... so I can't use it to heal myself? Since this is a game about Chinese martial arts fiction, I won't be surprised if it figures into combat some way or another...)[/b]
Sword skill (= Skill with "jian", a class of Chinese double-edged swords)
Column 3
"Light Body Skill" (Includes acrobatic ability; all the crazy stuff you see in wire-fu films, such as people running on water, balancing on spear tips, running up sheer walls, jumping 20x their own height, etc. I wonder how this will work in the game.)
Poison use (The ability to use poison and studied knowledge of poison)
Sabre skill (Skill with single-edged swords such as sabres, scimitars, and those big ass Chinese falchions called "da dao" etc.)
Column 4
Defense (The ability to defend oneself in combat... I guess this refers to dodging and parrying?)
Poison curing skill (The ability to cure others of poison... not myself? Damn it!)
Hidden/Suprise Weapons (Lit. "dark weapons"; From what I know about martial arts fiction, this refers to all kinds of "unconventional" weapons, such as throwing knives and darts, weird spring-loaded things that shoot needles at people, maybe even bombs or suchlike. The manual says that the higher this skill is, the further and more accurately they "shoot", so I assume these are all ranged weapons.)
The maximum starting life stat is 50; maximum starting inner strength stat is 40; maximum starting stat for other skills is 30. So WHITEY is maxed for HP, Medical Skill, Poison Use, Poison Curing and Defense. He's almost maxed in surprise weapons and light body skills. He does not stand out in any of his melee skills, though; hope that does not turn out to be a handicap. Anyway, the various skills can be maxed to 100 through training (and beyond with special equipment) so maybe it won't be too significant in the long run.
Anyway, time to get started...