Vortex Gaming

The mobile project of The War of Genesis, 'The War of Genesis Mobile: Asura Project,' was held for two days from the 4th to the 5th. Following the sudden announcement of development news without any prior notice last October and the announcement of its release in the fourth quarter of this year, this is the third surprise in a row.

Anyway, the news that 'The War of Genesis' is about to be revived is raising expectations, but the immediate reaction feels closer to 'let's wait and see.' The reason is that the trial version of 'The War of Genesis: Remnants of Gray,' which is being revived as the original SRPG, although the developer and platform are different, was too disappointing. The trial build was a demo in February, and it is said that it will be improved and released at the time of release, but the shock has not yet subsided, so it is inevitable to be skeptical.

In such a situation, I couldn't help but wonder what the mobile version that suddenly appeared this year would feel like. Although the developer and platform are different, and even the graphic style is interpreted differently, it is one of the attempts to revive the IP based on the original form of 'The War of Genesis' as an SRPG.

To put it in a nutshell, the first impression of 'The War of Genesis Mobile' is 'classic.' SRPG itself is a classic genre, and The War of Genesis 2, which officially announced the start of the IP, was released in 1996, so it is a natural thing in a way. The character illustrations and designs were referenced from The War of Genesis 4, which was released relatively recently in 2016, but even then, some parts, such as the armor with unusually protruding shoulders, were not completely gone.

Although the evaluation of character design is an area where individual tastes differ, 'The War of Genesis Mobile' gave the impression of being not only classic but also rough. Many of the mobile collectible RPGs that have been released recently are subculture-friendly, so the lines of 'The War of Genesis Mobile,' which pursues a completely different style, may seem thicker. In fact, cartoon rendering is applied somewhat differently from the cell-painting feel that is commonly thought of, and the character design is almost the same as that of 'Remnants of Gray,' so it feels like they are trying to match the tone even if the style is somewhat different. However, the slightly jagged outlines and the somewhat exaggerated armor design made the overall character's body shape look swollen, which was a somewhat negative factor.

Anyway, considering that it is 'classic,' 'The War of Genesis Mobile' shows a pretty good composition. It's not just a mobile collectible RPG-style compatibility structure, but also the compatibility between defense and attack attributes, structure destruction and cover, additional damage depending on where you attack the enemy, and strategic elements such as co-op attacks when you place allies of a class that can perform melee attacks behind the enemy. The spear inflicts damage to the enemy directly behind it, and the dagger always attacks first when countering. In addition to character passives, various characteristics are given to each weapon to add strategic operation, which was also noticeable.

In addition, the structure of filling skill points one by one with normal attacks and using them to use skills was also an element that added strategy. The ultimate skill consumes 5 skill points and has a skill cooldown, so it was difficult to use it often, and it was necessary to look for opportunities. Should I save the skill points given at the beginning and use the ultimate skill after two turns, or should I design it to cut off threatening enemies first with skills and co-op attacks and then clean them up one by one? The more complicated it is, the easier it is to make mistakes and ruin the big picture, but the burden was reduced by allowing you to rewind the turn up to three times.

The content other than the strategic elements expected in classic SRPGs is faithful to the typical mobile collectible RPG-style routine. Various resource dungeons, PVP, and content such as the Tower of Infinity are solved in accordance with the world of The War of Genesis. In addition, it was confirmed that it followed the recent trend of collectible SRPGs by supporting automatic battles and reducing the burden lightly with 'sweep' instead of automatic repetition.

SRPG has the taste of carefully placing one move at a time, but isn't the recent trend of mobile games to minimize the fatigue of farming daily quests and resource dungeons? Or, the proportion of play routines that automatically push through well-raised allies and check only the story is increasing even in sections that are not important stories. 'The War of Genesis Mobile' showed a composition that faithfully matched that grammar. After the early tutorial, you get used to the routine by automatically turning it on until a certain point, and then you regain the fun of strategy by turning it on manually in some sections.

In fact, the Blue Seed Pirates and Goblin Subjugation among the resource dungeons are methods of eliminating as many waves as possible, and in Story Chapter 3 and Mission Difficulty stages, places appear where you have to carefully calculate various gimmicks and enemy movements. Isn't the arrangement of these stages considering the story and production the charm of SRPG? Of course, it was ambiguous to say that the quality of the production was outstandingly good. However, only the part where G.S. had a conflict with Locarno due to the battle with Caliber has been introduced so far. So, we have to wait and see what kind of composition will be shown in other major scenes, including the Thunderdoom Fortress attack that was briefly mentioned at the beginning.

As mentioned earlier, the CBT story of 'The War of Genesis Mobile' only implements the situation where Iolin aimed for the Hall of Glory, was chased by the Geishir Empire army, took refuge in Bifrost, and then a conflict arose with the Caliber tribe on the way back to Dagal. Since it follows the story of The War of Genesis as it is, old fans will be reminded of their memories, but for those who do not know the story of The War of Genesis, there is room for it to be somewhat loose. Of course, it was a good choice to speed up the main story development compared to the original, and to separate the stories that would be considered side branches as 'missions' to obtain rank-up materials to focus on selection and concentration.

Personally, the reason why I only did this CBT for one day was to verify the tempo of consuming activity to raise characters and unlocking content based on this. Although the rewards are slightly increased, the growth and progress tempo was established so that the content prepared in one day could be cleared. Of course, I would have doubts because it is a game with 'gacha,' character gacha and equipment gacha. However, Iolin, who was given as a basic character, is quite strong from the beginning, and the gap between high-grade characters and low-grade characters is not that big until they grow to a certain level and change jobs, except for some stat differences and passives, so there are currently no restrictions on pushing missions with basic characters.

However, I was a little uneasy that the attribute structure was a bit unusual, and that the point at which the growth materials themselves became drastically insufficient to raise multiple characters came quite quickly. Such a design may be inevitable due to the nature of SRPG, which has the pleasure of defeating a large number of strong enemies with a small number of units through strategic operation, placement, and combination. I have often experienced these problems when playing other mobile SRPGs, so I should call it convergent evolution.

It seems that the original job change system was adopted and implemented in this dimension. It wasn't about learning all the skills if you had the resources, but wasn't it a classic SRPG that had the fun of carefully selecting and strategizing your job change according to your character or play style? Of course, at the time, there were many cases where well-raised characters suddenly disappeared or became half-baked, or the build later became trash due to the story development, so I ended up following the strategy, but wasn't that the case until I knew it? There are resources available to change the skill tree so that you don't repeat such nightmares, but the method of obtaining them was not disclosed separately in the CBT. Depending on how this part is implemented at the time of the official release, the scale of evaluation for BM may tilt to one side, so it is necessary to keep an eye on it.

In particular, BM was a problem that I had no choice but to think about in various ways, reviewing similar cases and the ecosystem of mobile games, although it has not been revealed yet. Isn't it an important point in mobile games these days? Also, it is a live service game, not a package game, and it is a game with PVP, so there was more room for concern about that part. To maximize the performance of the character, it is necessary to break through the limit, so you have no choice but to draw, and some characters have special effects attached to their exclusive equipment, so the efficiency was different from other equipment.

Of course, in the original work, there were various restrictions, such as not being able to use the ultimate skill if the character did not have his own weapon, so it may be seen as a gentle solution to the elements of the original work. However, this composition seemed quite risky at the current CBT stage. PVP was the only end content that was revealed, and in similar types of games, the content prepared for character limit break or high-grade equipment farming was not visible in 'The War of Genesis Mobile.' Of course, it is difficult to see that the entire amount has been shown, as only enough to shine for half a day has been shown. Raids were not mentioned even in the introduction video. As such, it may be necessary to watch it a little more.

Currently, expectations for The War of Genesis IP have decreased. To put it a bit exaggeratedly, Sirano Bernstein's famous line has been digitally weathered and transformed, leaving only 'poison' in 'wine with poison.' The fandom's opinion is not very good to that extent, but despite that, 'The War of Genesis Mobile' is said to be not bad.

However, the problem is that in order to support the expectations placed on 'The War of Genesis' and the weight of the IP, it cannot simply end with 'not bad.' To compare it to Steam reviews, I hope you can bring it to positive, or at least mostly positive. In the meantime, all the IP games related to 'The War of Genesis' have had many shortcomings in satisfying that thirst, so I think it's more appropriate to hope that it will be 'wine' at least.

Although only a very early part has been shown as a taste, 'The War of Genesis Mobile' seems to have some potential. The basic composition itself is well-organized, and the story is already a guaranteed check called 'The War of Genesis,' so if you develop it well with updates, there is not much to worry about.

However, the design that wraps it is very rough. Character style and details that have not been refined are the first things that catch my eye. Of course, the characters in the original work cannot deviate from that framework, but I wondered if it was necessary to do that even for characters that had to be newly drawn because they were not described in detail in the original work. However, it seemed like a good choice in terms of pushing the main characters of the original work to lead the flow of the original work. However, the UI/UX convenience was a little different. The main routine is to farm equipment, look at the options that are randomly added each time you set the effect and rank up, and then repeat the process of grinding and matching, but if you want to do that for each character, you have to come out one by one and do it again, and it is difficult to see the necessary information such as how many set items there are. In particular, there is a lack of convenience features that are expected in recent games, such as having to check the type of various growth materials or enhancement material item boxes and then go to the warehouse to find the necessary amount one by one.

In addition, because only the very early content was released in this CBT, I had no choice but to wonder what kind of updates and tempo the story and content would be released with. If it was a console game demo, I wouldn't have to apply these complicated grammars, so just looking at the current stage, I could easily say that it was a signal flare for the revival of classic SRPG. However, since 'mobile' is the platform chosen, 'The War of Genesis Mobile' still has a lot to prove. The basics of the game itself were somewhat rough, but it showed a way of solving traditional grammar in its own style, but since only enough to analyze the routine in one day was shown, I can't help but worry about content depletion and long-term operation.

It would have been different if 'The War of Genesis Mobile' was said to be released next year instead of the fourth quarter of this year, but I can't help but feel uneasy because it looks like this when this year is about to end. Of course, the CBT build will not be the same as the official build, so the problems mentioned here may be improved and released at the time of the official release. However, looking at the entire 'The War of Genesis' IP, it is another repetition of a similar type of mistake, so it is not unreasonable that users who have been waiting for The War of Genesis do not see it favorably. In particular, after waiting for the console game for a long time, the mobile project was suddenly announced and released this year, so it is difficult to look at it positively.

Some people say to just stay in my memories, but isn't it human psychology to want to try a masterpiece in my memories again? In fact, the steps of The War of Genesis IP after The War of Genesis 3 Part 2 were, to put it bluntly, trusting only in that psychology and doing something clumsy or grandiose, and then failing to manage it and self-destructing. So, the expectations of the fans were also eroded over time, but unexpectedly, 'The War of Genesis Mobile' was the closest to the model answer for the revival of The War of Genesis that I had been expecting so far. I was only able to experience the CBT build for two days, but potential and expectations came to mind before various complex emotions. So, I hope that it will lay the foundation for continuing to appeal in the long term so that it will not shine brightly at the beginning and then fade away with the name of 'The War of Genesis'.

웹진 인벤윤서호 기자
2023-12-06