To be honest, I didn't have high expectations for this game called "Selet Continent". After all, from the Saipan era to now, I have seen too many small studio works under the banner of "open world" and finally shrunk to a line. But after actually getting started, I have to admit that I was blind this time.
Let's talk about maps and exploration first. The game provides a huge map, not the kind that uses stickers to fool you - you start from the main city and walk north along the mountain road. When you pass an abandoned mine, a hidden branch line is suddenly triggered: a miner NPC says "there are strange noises underground", and then you jump down the mine and find a nest of mutated bats. After defeating it, you actually drop a rare staff. This kind of easter egg is not just stuffed in to make up the numbers, but really echoes the main plot and hidden plot. And there are surprises in almost every corner of the map: treasure chests on the cliff, phantom monsters in tree holes, diaries of shipwrecks at the bottom of the river... To be honest, by the 15th hour of playing, the map exploration rate was just over 60%, and there was no water at all.
The combat system is also worth talking about. It does not follow the old path of "mindlessly brushing values", but emphasizes strategy and combination. Each character has active skills and passive talents, but you have to adjust your position and skill order according to the monster's weaknesses. For example, if you fight a stone giant with a shield all over its body, you can use purely physical slashing to scrape it, but first use ice skills to freeze its armor slot, and then use fire skills to detonate it, and then you can hit it hard. This kind of "attribute restraint + environment interaction" design reminds me of the pleasure of using my brain when I played "Chaos Ring" on Symbian.
PVE content is very large. In addition to the main plot chapters, there are also cross-server dungeons, world BOSS, secret mazes and daily challenges. What surprises me most is that these contents are not in the form of "fight once and then stand on the street". There is a linkage between them: the fragments you obtain in the secret realm can be used to synthesize and unlock hidden heroes; the materials dropped by the world BOSS can also strengthen the ending branch of your main line. The developers are clearly encouraging you to play through all modes, rather than just grinding for a certain drop rate point.
Let's talk about some observations within the industry. I have never heard of this company, Shanghai Chisen, before, but judging from the game pricing model and update pace, they have taken a relatively old-school route: 0 yuan download, no krypton fee, and the core payment points are only appearance and acceleration packages. Moreover, almost all the props in the mall can be accumulated slowly using in-game tokens. In this day and age, it is indeed rare to see such a developer who is willing to take the bait.
Of course, it's not without its shortcomings. The plot text is relatively obscure in some places, the character design style is dark, and the response of some UI buttons is delayed - these are areas that can be polished. But overall, the completion and sincerity of "Selet Continent" are in the first echelon among domestic mobile games.
Finally, I still want to say one more thing: If you are tired of the assembly line products of automatic path finding, one-click sweep, and krypton gold card drawing, you might as well come and take a walk on this continent. It may not be perfect, but it's real enough. 😌