I still remember that when I was in junior high school, I saved my breakfast money and secretly saved up for half a year before buying a second-hand GBA, and then plugged in the Three Kingdoms-themed cassette as if I had found a treasure. After school, I hid under the quilt and played with my flashlight until midnight, and my mother caught me several times. At that time, the little pixel figures moved one by one, but in my eyes they were the whole world. Now when I open "The Chronicles of Fairyland" on my mobile phone, that feeling comes back all of a sudden. Really, I almost couldn't hold back my tears.
Although the mobile phone is a mobile game, the experience it gives me is completely the same as the handheld game back then. The familiar beginning of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Lu Bu in front of Hulao Pass, Dong Zhuo burning Luoyang... the plot line has not been reduced at all, and hundreds of heroes of the Three Kingdoms have been added. What's even better is that each general has his own position and personality, and is not the kind of tool that just changes the portrait and takes up the post. The selection of generals and lineups requires restraint and bonding. When fighting Lu Bu's camp, you must find ways to use strategies to bypass the enemy. In water battles, you must use generals who are good at picking up water. This depth of strategy is really in line with the classic Three Kingdoms I played on the GBA back then, or even more detailed.
The level design can be seen to have been carefully thought out. Many maps are not a straight line to the end, but are full of forks, hidden rooms and treasure chests. Some mechanisms require a large circle to open. Every time I post a picture, it's like reliving the obsession of “what is hidden in this secret room?” I understand that feeling of scratching my head and head when I go the wrong way in a maze, but I can't bear to quit and start over again. 🕹️
Let me talk about what impresses me most: the painting style. It's not the dazzling fairy tales that are popular on the streets now, nor is it the 3D special effects that fill the screen with light pollution, but the classic ink style that is thick and gentle. The textures of the generals' portraits and battle scenes are quite reminiscent of the Glorious Three Kingdoms, but they look much clearer on the mobile screen. To be honest, although this style of painting is a mobile game, it is the closest I have ever played to the state of mind I had when sitting in front of the screen and playing Three Kingdoms on a handheld device. I still remember that the GBA screen back then was so pitifully small that I had to tilt my neck to see it clearly. Now that I have the phone screen in my hand, the screen is bigger and brighter, but the soul has not been lost at all🎮
In fact, speaking of it, I have also played many so-called "officially transplanted" handheld replicas of the Three Kingdoms. The graphics are indeed exquisite, but I always feel that something is missing. Later I realized that the "rhythm" had changed. Those remakes are too loyal to the originals. Old players will be familiar with the plot as soon as they get started, and can even recite the strategy steps, and they will get tired of playing them. "Xianguo Zhi" is different. It has made many subtractions on the basis of the classics - you can play a game in a fragmented time, and you don't have to find a memory battery to save files like in the past. While waiting for the bus or taking a lunch break, I can relive my childhood dream of the Three Kingdoms. This is probably the tenderness that the mobile game era has given us.
By the way, its charging model is 0 yuan, and there is no big hurdle that you can't get through without spending money. It's really friendly to nostalgic people like us. I think it cost thirty or forty yuan to buy a cassette tape back then. I couldn't afford to buy a few cassettes with my pocket money at that time. Now it's quite fun to play for free.
In short, if you are like me and have played the classic Three Kingdoms on GBA or PSP more than ten times, then this "Xianguo Zhi" is really worth keeping on your mobile phone for a while. It is not the kind of replica that simply encapsulates feelings, but uses its own way to bring the touch of the old time to today, allowing me, an old gamer, to think of the boy who was holding a flashlight under the covers in the dead of night. That is the most precious memory of my youth. 🔥