To be honest, when I saw the game "Key of Time", I was stunned for a while. It's not because the game itself is amazing, but the name reminds me of those sparkling pixel memories that we old players chased many years ago, when mobile phones still had resistive screens and only a few dozen megabytes of memory.
At that time, I was still using Nokia N73 and spent all day on the Symbian forum flashing ROMs. The first time I played "The Legend of Heroes" on my mobile phone, I was really shocked. Think about it, in that era when the mobile phone screen was only 2.4 inches, being able to play a complete plot RPG on a mobile phone was as addictive as discovering a good novel in the library for the first time. Later I switched to "Phantom Ranger", and followed a group of netizens to play dungeons and play together overnight. Those old friends I met in the server can still chat with each other on WeChat.
To be honest, the graphics of mobile games nowadays are getting more and more gorgeous, but they always feel like they are missing a bit of the flavor of the past. The fast-food style automatic path-finding and the numerical explosion of 999 per dollar make playing like chewing wax. So when I saw "The Key of Time", I was actually looking forward to it. At least from the introduction, this game is a bit trying to regain the sense of purity we had when we played RPGs.
Turn-based combat, mission plot, pet capture, familiar formula, familiar taste. The key is that there is also a competitive system and home cultivation, which can be used as a casual player to farm and raise children, or as a hardcore player to compete in the ring. This multi-layered gameplay design, to be honest, reminds me of the sense of surprise that the "Dragon Quest" series brought me back then - it's a monster-fighting game on the surface, but you can find your own gameplay in it.
And I like the European and American style of this game quite a bit. It's not that domestically produced ones are not good. In recent years, there have been too many fairy tales and fantasy movies. Occasionally having an orthodox European and American fantasy is like having a simple Italian meal when you are used to Sichuan food. It is quite refreshing to change the taste. From the perspective of developers, although Beijing Luoting Technology is not a big company, it is still somewhat famous in the independent game circle. It has at least produced a few buyout products with good reputations. I am relatively reassured about this.
The charging model is free downloading. To be honest, most of the free games on the market now are based on krypton gold schemes. But I think it can't be killed with one stick. The key lies in whether the operation team is sincere. If the game content and paid design are properly balanced to provide players with a value-for-money experience, the free-to-play model may not be a bad thing.
Speaking of which, I suddenly remembered a post I saw on a forum ten years ago by an old man who said, "It would be perfect if I could play a console-level RPG on a mobile phone in the future." Thinking about it now, although there is still some distance from that prophecy, "The Key of Time" gives me some hope. The core of the game should not be the gorgeous packaging, but the sense of adventure that allows players to immerse themselves in it.
Having said all this, I actually just want to recommend this game to the brothers who are still active in the forum. Whether you are an old player who played with me in the Symbian era, or a new friend who has just come into contact with mobile games, if deep down in your heart you miss the pure joy of grinding monsters, getting equipment, and exploring the plot, you might as well give "Key of Time" a chance. This game can't be said to be epoch-making, but a little bit it reminded me of the feeling I had when I stayed up late fighting monsters on a grayscale screen. 😌
Without further ado, I'm going to catch a pet. I heard that the pet development system in this game is very detailed, and I feel like I can play it for a long time. I hope this game can always maintain its original intention and don't introduce some kind of VIP15 system to dissuade us sentimentalists. When the time comes, I will come back to the forum to talk about it. 🔥