To be honest, when you open the app store now, the screen is full of two-dimensional card drawing and automatic battles. It is really difficult to find a flight shooting game that relies purely on operation. Although the game Air Crisis is made by a small company, its hard-core energy really makes an old man like me feel a little emotional. There's nothing fancy about the gameplay, it's just dodging, shooting, and picking up props to upgrade. It's all smooth and fluid once it's set up. It reminds me of those nights when I was hiding in bed using a keyboard to play thunder and lightning.
Not to brag, but what impresses me most about this game is its combat rhythm. Different enemy aircraft have different protection levels. You can't just shoot mindlessly. You have to learn to observe, predict, and find opportunities. This kind of gameplay that requires both brain use and hand speed is a breath of fresh air in the current mobile game market where "automatic combat + one-click sweep" has become popular. Sometimes my 30-year-old reaction speed cannot keep up, and I am taught to doubt life by the barrage, but the more frustrated I get, the more courage I get. This is what a game should be like.
When it comes to mobile game development trends, I really have my own ideas. What can be seen with the naked eye in the past two years is that large-scale mobile games are increasingly running in the direction of "heavy krypton and heavy liver", and manufacturers are eager to break down all gameplay into payment points. However, pure games like Air Crisis that can be purchased or downloaded for free have become a rare species. This is not to say that all monetization games are bad, but when the entire market converges in one direction, players have fewer choices. Many friends around me have begun to get tired of the "office-style" gameplay of going online every day to clear their energy and do daily tasks. Instead, they are willing to spend some time playing a few rounds of such a simple and neat shooting game.
Xinmang Digital, which develops Air Crisis, may not be able to compete with those big manufacturers in terms of technology, but it deserves praise for being able to do a good job in the gameplay itself. I have been playing since the Symbian era, and I have personally witnessed the evolution of mobile games from pixel quality to 3D masterpieces, and from single-player level-playing to social competitions, but the fundamentals have not changed - a good game is always one that allows you to forget time and purely enjoy the challenge. Although Air Crisis is not a 3A-level masterpiece, this kind of return to the original attitude is exactly what is most scarce in the current mobile game market.
Of course, that doesn't mean the game is without its faults. The picture quality and sound effects are considered to be rudimentary today, and the level design has no surprises. But for the sentimental party, being able to find that simple and direct happiness is already worth the price of admission. Old players over 40 years old may miss it, and younger players may think it is old-fashioned, but so what? It's a game, just have fun.
Finally, in this era of frequent 648, it is really rare to encounter a game that relies on technology and is not overly aggressive. I hope that the developers of Xinmang Digital can persevere, and I also hope that the mobile game market will have more hard-core pure works like this. The old guys know it all, but these days, there are fewer and fewer teams that can calm down and polish the gameplay.
Without further ado, I'm going to start another round. This wave of enemies is a bit difficult to deal with 🔥🕹️