You woke up “again” in the bed of your apartment.
After a brief period of confusion, a series of cruel realities such as a car accident, daughter’s death, and wife’s paralysis come rushing towards you like a mountain. After your car accident, you unexpectedly discover that you have the ability to be reborn. As you start to track down the case of the “famous female journalist missing”, you will gradually uncover the bigger conspiracy and trick behind it.
This is the prelude of the domestic action game “Life and Death Reincarnation” released on July 14th. As a 3D horizontal board Roguelite action game developed by domestic eBrain Studio, “Life and Death Reincarnation” launched a demo at the recent Steam trial festival. After the game’s excellent art style attracted the attention of many players.
In the game, players will act as a private detective named “Xiang Zixu”, uncovering even darker secrets after repeated “reincarnations”.
In my opinion, the scene art design of “Reincarnation” has indeed reached the level of “eye-catching”.
In the demo, “Longxi Town” is a Chinese-style Cyberpunk city full of Hong Kong streets and Chongqing urban feelings, and the scene of “Qunge Lie Stack” is no less shocking than the festival float parade in ” Cyberpunk 2077 “.
The very eye-catching’Qunge Liezhan ‘in Longxi Town.
During my gameplay, every scene in the game left a deep impression on me.
Just like in the Japanese company “Koga Artillery” scene in the game, the game uses Japanese elements such as pine and cypress bonsai and grilles to create a high-tech Japanese company environment.
When arriving at the “Tang Dynasty Hotel”, there are Chinese elements everywhere in the scene. Especially the “Women’s Forty-Eight Music Workshop” in the background, playing music such as “Jasmine Flower”, it feels like watching a Tang Dynasty Music Workshop performance in a game.
It is worth mentioning that in the map of “Tang Dynasty Hotel”, when facing the enemy in the scene of Chen Fang’s calligraphy and painting, the faint effect of the battle under the cover of the calligraphy and painting is also very aesthetically pleasing.
It would be even better to use a super kill effect at this time
And the game is not just limited to restoring the high-tech society of Cyberpunk. Under the glamorous appearance of Tang Dynasty hotels and Koga weapons, the scene of “Shuigou Village” is made extremely realistic and impactful.
In the setting, Shuigou Village is a “sewage plant” for large enterprises. Villagers are treated as livestock as subjects for human experimentation. This also creates a creepy and terrifying atmosphere in Shuigou Village, full of eeriness.
Strange humanoid creatures in Shuigou Village
There are a total of 7 maps with different styles in the game, each with a unique feature.
Not only is the scene excellent, but the interactive effect of the background is also done very well.
For example, in Longxi Town, there are vehicles that can shuttle through the scene, as well as countless “human flesh” hanging up in Shuigou Village and swinging with the battle. These designs not only allow players to experience 2D horizontal board clearance, but also have a 3D gaming experience.
After talking about the various scenes in the game, let’s talk about the combat experience.
Overall, the experience the game brings me is refreshing and flexible.
This is first reflected in the way of fighting in the game. As a horizontal action game, melee combat is the main attack method in the game. In terms of melee combat, the character’s move speed is very fast. Even when using heavy melee weapons such as knives, guns, and axes, it will not appear particularly sluggish when used, and the experience of fighting is very refreshing and neat.
Use a long gun to attack
In addition, the game also provides attack methods such as long-range shooting, tactical props, and chip skills for flexible response to enemies when not in close combat. Switching between various weapons only requires pressing the corresponding button, which is equivalent to “seamless connection” and has stronger mobility.
It is worth mentioning that there are many types of weapons in the game, and the differences are very strong. Each combat mode has no less than 20 types of weapons, and there are more than 100 types of weapons in the game. From swords and sticks to shotguns and submachine guns, even the skills of chips have various different skills. It is worth studying how to combine a suitable build for oneself.
At the same time, the design of the game’s enemies is very distinctive, just like in Longxi Town, there are various “gangs” such as sticks, knives, and guns. When it comes to “Koga Weapon Industry”, the enemies on the map are mostly in the style of “ninjas”. Such diverse enemy designs also make it difficult to deal with enemies who are not familiar with their moves, making the combat process challenging.
In Shuigou Village, farmers mainly use farming tools
However, compared to the complex and varied “minions” with various moves, the boss battles in the game are not as difficult as imagined (perhaps because I am used to “skipping class” with ranged weapons). When using ranged weapons, the boss will have a great stiffness, and there will be no counterattack during this period. From this situation, the difficulty of the challenge is not high.
Boss Battle – Wei Long controlling the mecha
As I mentioned at the beginning, after trying out the demo, the game’s plot left me with a lot of suspense. The game’s plot design is also very clever. As you gradually delve into the plot, one lead is linked to another. In such a plot, the car accident that the protagonist encounters at the beginning even becomes the least influential event among all events.
Perhaps to cater to the plot of “reincarnation”, this work also incorporates some mild rogue elements – similar to the restart mechanism of ” Dead Cells “. Every time you die, the game will start from scratch, returning to the place full of technology mentioned at the beginning.
Changxu Detective Agency
After each restart, there will be some changes in the level design, making it difficult to pass through the backboard, which also brings a certain level of challenge to the game. (However, in my experience, the map as a whole is still fixed, and only some small levels will change.)
At first, I was very dissatisfied with this mechanism: after you restart, all the plot of the game is reset. You must repeat all the previous plots to continue the game.
The mechanism of restarting every death also makes the plot repetitive and boring. For players who are not so hardcore and only want to watch the plot, such an experience is still somewhat torturous. Perhaps adding some save points appropriately in the story mode can bring a better gaming experience to players who value the plot.
However, perhaps for this reason, as you gradually advance the plot, some decisions that seemed correct before you may make different choices after the next choice. For example, whether to save your wife or continue to track Lisbeth’s whereabouts, under this dilemma, perhaps you will make different choices after understanding the plot.
In the end, I chose to save my wife first
And after your repeated reincarnations, you will gradually realize that only by becoming stronger can you go further.
It is worth mentioning that NVIDIA recently announced that “Reincarnation” has also recently joined the list of games that support RTX and DLSS.
From the test results, it can be seen that playing “Reincarnation of Life and Death” in 4K resolution with ray tracing and DLSS performance mode turned on can increase the frame number by more than twice, which is very amazing.
Reincarnation “Ray Tracing/DLSS Performance Test
However, the optimization of the game itself is actually well done. The game’s configuration requirements are very user-friendly. According to the PC configuration requirements previously announced by the official, the minimum configuration of the game is only i5-8250U/GeForce MX150, while the recommended configuration is i7-4770S/GTX 2060. I believe that with the help of DLSS, even low-end computers can play this game smoothly.
Overall, as a horizontal action game, the combat experience of “Life and Death Reincarnation” is average and can be called a qualified action game. However, the game has remarkable aspects in terms of scene art and plot design.
