To be honest, as an old man who has been playing mobile games since the Saipan era, I have been used to seeing various reskinned masterpieces over the years. When I first saw the name of "The Lord of the Eight Desolations", I rejected it in my heart - another shell game starting with "The Eight Desolations" and "The Lord". But after playing it for a few days with the attitude of giving it a try, I found that this game is really interesting in some details.
Let's first talk about its advantages over similar products. The first is the Yuan Shen system. This setting is indeed more strategic than the traditional three professions of warfare. You choose a warrior and pair it with a magic soul. You can make up for the damage when fighting BOSS, and it's much more comfortable to spawn monsters. To be honest, compared to those legendary mobile games that can only be played by oneself, this "one person with one pet" setting makes early development much easier. Moreover, Yuanshen can inherit the protagonist's attack power. Once the level is high, the percentage bonus is quite considerable, and there is hope for the later stage.
The second is its demon warrior and spirit gun clone system. Although it can only be unlocked by upgrading the Legendary Medal and Dragon Soul, unlocking it will give you an additional remote output skill, which is very practical when fighting in groups. Compared with some similar games, there are only a few skills, and in the later stages it is just mindless pressing. This avatar gives the operation a little more fun.
Let's talk about the charging model. The official said, "If you kill monsters and explode gold ingots, you can enjoy ten times the amount by recharging." My own actual testing found that you can indeed drop gold ingots by killing monsters in the early stage. Although the amount is not large, it is enough for basic expenses. Free VIP membership is also considered a good idea. At least the automatic pickup and one-click decomposition functions can be used without krypton gold. In many similar games, this requires a monthly membership fee. Compared with those games that require payment even for automatic pathfinding without charging money, this one does leave a way for civilian players to survive.
However, the shortcomings are also obvious. The first is the graphics and UI. To be honest, they are a bit behind the times. For games released in 2023, the picture quality is still that greasy Korean fantasy style, and frames will start to drop as soon as the special effects are too high. The mobile phone I use with the 8gen2 processor can sometimes freeze at 20 frames when fighting the world boss, which is not a good experience. Compared with the next-generation picture quality of some current Xianxia MMOs, this one does have to be deducted.
The second issue is the depth of gameplay. Although it is an MMOARPG, it is essentially the same as killing monsters, mining, and escorting darts. After completing the fixed tasks every day, there is nothing new. There is indeed a sense of surprise when you defeat the BOSS and explode equipment, but the explosion rate is controlled more deliberately - a lot of low-level equipment is exploded in the early stage. After reaching level 60, the explosion rate of orange equipment drops sharply, forcing you to do daily dungeons. Among similar games, some well-done ones, such as the mobile game "Dragon Nest", at least have copy mechanisms and operational requirements. This is pure combat power.
In addition, community ecology is also an issue. I played for three days. In addition to recruiting people for guilds, the world channel also sells script accounts for equipment. There are not many live people talking. Although the official said that "gathering good brothers to gather together passionately", if there are no real friends to play with, it is easy for pure passersby to enter and become a single player. Compared with the social atmosphere of mobile games like "Tianya Mingyue Dao", this gap is quite big.
Finally, let me talk about an observation in the industry - Kuaiye Technology has made several legendary games before, which were basically accumulated through purchase volume, and their life cycles generally do not exceed half a year. "Eight Desolations Lord" currently looks like this. It gives away ingots and VIPs at the beginning to attract new players quickly, and then relies on subsequent recharge activities to harvest. Not to brag, but if you are looking for an MMO that can be operated for a long time, this may not be the best choice. But if you just want to find a game to kill time and miss the feeling of killing legendary bosses in Internet cafes, then this 9 points can bring back some of your feelings.
To sum up, it is a game with obvious advantages and disadvantages. It is suitable for nostalgic players and light socialites, but it is not recommended for heavy money players. After all, our generation has played too many games. Sometimes what we play is not games, but memories. 😌