As an old player who has played from server opening to server closing, today I will talk about this game that once filled me with high expectations, but ended up quietly exiting. It may be a bit absolute to say that it is cold, but the trajectory of the popularity from peak to trough is indeed worthy of review. After all, there are not many of the same type that can survive.
Let's start with the screen. Zulong's engine skills are still there, and its scene modeling and lighting and shadow are considered superior among similar mobile games. Especially when overlooking Kyushu from a free flight perspective, the texture of clouds, mountains, rivers, and water can indeed bring a brief shock. But the problem is that this kind of "good-looking" is mostly static, and dynamic optimization is seriously hindered. Model adaptation is poor. It is common for mid-to-low-end mobile phones to drop frames and freeze. It suddenly freezes in PPT while flying. No matter how beautiful the scenery is, it wears off your patience.
In terms of gameplay, it tries to pile up many popular elements: space decoration, fashion dyeing, cute pet development, adventure treasure hunting, free flight... Each one is quite attractive individually, but when combined, it looks like a hodgepodge. The freedom of space decoration is actually very high. Unfortunately, the utilization rate of social scenes is low. Players spend most of their time completing tasks and hanging up. No one will come to your home to see the decoration. The flying system feels good, but the world map is empty. After flying for a long time, I found that there is nothing to interact with except screenshots. The adventure system originally emphasized "romantic encounters", but in reality it is a mechanical check-in and clock-in process, making the treasure hunting experience repetitive and boring. The depth of the demon spirit cultivation line is not enough, the numerical growth is linear, and the fun of strategic matching is lacking. On the whole, I want to catch everything, but each system is not perfect, making it easy for players to get bored quickly.
The krypton gold model is "free + in-app purchase". Frankly speaking, it is not forced to pay for krypton, and it can be played with zero krypton, but the payment point is not very smartly designed. Fashion dyeing is done very carefully, but you have to buy good-looking dyeing materials, which can cost dozens of dollars at a time, and there are very few ways to obtain them in the game. The probability of monsters drawing cards is quite satisfactory, but the guarantee mechanism is unclear, and the experience gap between European emperors and Africans is huge. This kind of indifferent krypton gold design neither gives the krypton guy a sense of superiority nor makes the prostitute feel conscience. It is a disservice to both ends.
Social interaction is the biggest downfall of this game. In the early stage, it promoted "real social interaction" and "destined destiny". However, after actual experience, the game's relationship, guild, and team play methods are very superficial. The bonding system relies on random matching, and after a few chats, you will find that they are all robots or idle accounts; the guild has no interaction except for daily donations and BOSS, and the chat channel is lifeless. The so-called "romance" is just a forced relationship system, but it lacks a gameplay carrier that allows players to create an emotional connection. Compared with the social MMOs on the market that have truly survived, such as "Light Encounter" using piano playing, holding hands, and map interaction to create a sense of immersion, or "Backwater Cold" relying on manors and gang battles to strengthen the sense of belonging, "Sky Era" just writes the word "social" in the slogan.
Summarize the advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages: The picture is bright, the flight experience is smooth, the fashion dyeing system is rich, and the early freshness is strong.
Disadvantages: Poor optimization, lack of depth in gameplay, mediocre gold-paying experience, empty social interaction, and high content duplication in the later period.
Final score: 6/10.
It had a chance to break through with its excellent art and free flight differentiation, but ultimately failed due to the thinness of the core gameplay and the falseness of the social ecology. Today's players are very smart. No matter how good the packaging is, there is nothing that can really retain people. No matter how beautiful the scenery outside the air wall is, it is just a passerby. I hope that latecomers can focus more on "what to play" rather than "what it looks like". After all, a game that becomes popular never relies on a piece of skin.