Vortex Gaming

After the wave of subculture games swept through the domestic mobile game market in 2017, 'subculture' has now established itself as a competitive genre, no longer a minor of minors. And starting with '원신' in 2020, it has evolved to the point where you can freely control and adventure with your favorite characters in full 3D without any boundaries. Furthermore, there have been cases of differentiation by lowering the degree of freedom and adding a JRPG-style turn-based system, or adding their own actions.

Of course, successfully implementing a subculture-style open world was not easy. It is necessary to stably build a vast world, and also provide various stories and events with attractive characters to keep people coming back to that vast world. Even companies like 텐센트 and 넷이즈 have tried several times, and it is not an easy challenge to the point where they are now fully preparing new works that fit the type.

A small and medium-sized company with about 120 people has challenged such a field. Blackstorm's '리메멘토: 하얀 그림자' is the main character. Their challenge to implement an open world with JRPG sensibilities officially started on December 18th with its official release. Although the engine started unstably before showing the elements laid down as insurance, they are taking one step at a time to prevent derailment and solidify their own route.

First of all, when you first enter '리메멘토', the game starts with decent character modeling and directing that is not significantly inferior to other 3D subculture games. It's a clichéd story about the invasion of 'witches' who follow the evil god '플레이오네' from another planet and the protagonist's party struggling to stop them, but it was noticeable that this part was expressed in a restrained manner without proper nouns or excessive embellishments so that it could be easily understood. '니모닉' and '리메멘토' are not entirely without proper nouns, but it wasn't a big problem because they could be replaced with concepts we commonly know. In addition, starting with the protagonist and childhood friend 미오네 and a few key characters, the cruelty of the witches is shown without filtering, allowing you to intuitively understand the situation without much additional explanation.

Of course, except for some skill cuts, it feels relatively bland and it was difficult to immediately feel a grand story. In addition, the protagonist's party in the early stages hardly explains why they came to be together, so it feels a bit empty. To exaggerate a bit, 제레미아나 세리에 only do trolling by being controlled by witches other than the early tutorial explanation, and they don't really have a role in the main story other than adding a few words.

However, recently, Chinese subculture games often unfold a large worldview from the beginning, with several characters telling stories that only they know, but there are fewer of those, making it much easier to understand the characters and situations. Evaluations of the story vary from person to person, so you may want to skip it, but user feedback is reflected quickly, such as adding skips in later patches.

You may skip it, but personally, I think it's worth taking a look at the sections where the pickup character 이사니아나 and 베아트리스, who is scheduled to be picked up later, appear. Recently, collectible RPGs are also emphasizing the process of appealing to users by connecting with the protagonist, rather than the performance of the character, and they are faithfully following that grammar and unfolding the royal road story in a textbook manner. In addition, the basic skills are in place, with dubbing added to the affinity system where you can learn about each character's story.

Whether or not you can enjoy this section depends not only on the story but also on the proportion of gameplay. And the gameplay of '리메멘토' is, as is well known, an open-world RPG based on turn-based combat. You explore the open world, encounter enemies, and the battle proceeds in a familiar way with speed-based turn-based combat.

Here, '리메멘토' has adopted a different structure from the recently standardized general skills, combat skills, and ultimate skills. The general skill is 'enhanced' with MP to utilize 1 skill, 2 skill, and even the ultimate skill. Each consumes 1, 2, and 3 MP, respectively, but since the MP stat is shared by party members, it is rare for party members to unleash ultimate skills all at once to end the battle. In addition, ultimate skills have a cooldown once used, so you can't use them unconditionally just because you have MP. Therefore, a strategy is needed to predict the enemy's patterns and responses and allocate MP consumption skills.

In addition, 'Guard Break', which further emphasizes the compatibility of attributes, is also a key point. When hit with an opposing attribute, the guard gauge is reduced, and when it reaches 0, it becomes guard broken and stunned for one turn. In other words, if you attack a wind attribute character with a fire attribute, the guard gauge is reduced. The attribute penalty is so strong that you can't use a turn at all, rather than taking more or less damage, so it encourages you to develop and research multiple attribute decks.

Most of the subculture open-world RPGs that have recently appeared do not have PVP, but '리메멘토' has PVP, albeit asynchronous. So when I first encountered '리메멘토', I was half worried and half expectant. PVP certainly provides a completely different fun from PVE, and users themselves build up through repeated research, so it is true that it can be effectively appealed with fewer resources. However, the fatigue of competition builds up, and the moment it exceeds the affection for the character or game, the probability of leaving increases.

In particular, recent subculture collectible open-world RPGs emphasize the experience of unfolding and immersing in stories with characters, so they are designed to be used in some way if they have decent performance, but PVP is a bit different. If you configure it so loosely, it is easy to become a so-called 'prey'. So naturally, you look for strong characters, and it is important to design so that you can at least cope with the strong characters with opposing attributes. It is also necessary to adjust so that the strong characters do not bring skills that are too absurd.

In that regard, '리메멘토' is currently drawing a line to some extent. The power of general collectible open-world RPGs tends to become terrifying when using cost-effective settings such as 2-star-exclusive weapons, but '리메멘토' has not adopted that model. The terminology is set somewhat differently, so it is confusing, but 'breakthrough' in other games is used to level up active skills in '리메멘토'. So there was a perception that you had to draw a lot of the same character. In fact, if you dig into it, the breakthrough material can be obtained not only by drawing the same character, but also by exchanging it for goods obtained by performing various contents, and the balance is adjusted to the extent that the value is slightly strengthened when the skill level is raised.

Also, the gap in PVP rewards received according to rank is reduced, and the PVP reward receipt cycle is set longer than weekly to lower its importance first. It reduces stress by making it go over as a homework for acquiring breakthrough materials and proceeding with daily quests, just like other subculture collectible RPGs.

If you have been expecting the previous subculture open-world RPG, '리메멘토' would have been unfamiliar. '원신', which opened the era of subculture open-world RPGs, presented a completely different grammar from the previous general collectible RPGs, and that grammar has had a significant impact on subculture open-world RPGs. The common feature of subculture open-world RPGs is the orthodox method of not inducing payment with immediately giving rewards and efficient BM packages, but instead making users naturally spend money with the quality of the game itself and the appeal of the character.

'리메멘토' also followed some of that strategy, but it is inevitable that it will be pushed back in terms of scale. So, while differentiating by adding the grammar of the previous generation of collectible RPGs, they also scattered rewards here and there and put various rewards in the field to induce users to look around the field and hold on to the game a little more. The rewards have increased a lot due to correcting various early errors, but anyway, with such various rewards and simplified rerolling, the reaction of wondering whether to look around the world of '리메멘토' once again is gradually appearing in the community.

The world of '리메멘토' that I looked around in that way was not bad at first glance. The graphics and design of the world were well decorated, and the feeling of running around on a vehicle was also well implemented. It's a pity that there is no wall climbing, but there is a taste of jumping, and the gimmicks such as puzzles using each attribute and magic circuits are relatively well organized. The rewards are also quite generous, including gacha tickets, so it's fun to find them.

However, the convenience and details were a bit disappointing to feel the beauty of the world. Information such as warp points and dungeons is shown on the map, but since there is no wall climbing, you have to go mainly on designated routes, but it was not well expressed, so I often went back. Also, the concept of each region is relatively fixed and the tone is unified accordingly, but it was a bit disappointing that the buildings and facilities in the region looked similar because the emphasis was too much on unity.

This is actually due to the fact that most of the work is done by the 파로스 organization, and the utilization of the remaining space is reduced. After all, the village inn and various facilities are mostly spaces where only the story is progressed, so I thought there was little need to have such functional differences. Some fields gave something to do periodically based on various rewards, collection, and fishing, but other areas eventually had a significantly reduced use, so the field density was low and felt empty. In addition, there were also a lack of details in minor parts, such as the lack of a pin function to check what is on the map, or objects outside the viewing distance suddenly appearing in the field of view without any signs.

In addition, the somewhat distorted farming system is intertwined, making the routine of '리메멘토' not very pleasant, which is also a difficult problem. In open-world RPGs, even if the supply of the highest-level goods is insufficient, the lower-level goods in the early stages tend to come out abundantly if you run the dungeon a bit, but 리메멘토 was a bit different. It is the same that you can mine high-level goods as the dungeon level goes up, but 리메멘토 is an earlier collectible RPG method that only gives low-level goods or one type of high-level goods, so it was somewhat unexpected for users who thought of open-world RPGs. Although the disassembly function was introduced from the beginning, I also felt that it induced me to invest more time in obtaining and utilizing goods from the early goods. Some goods can be obtained by defeating field monsters, but there is no marker function on the map, so you have to memorize them one by one or look up strategies that users have created in advance on other screens.

In addition, the equipment farming, which is the routine that is finally carried out in this genre, is also a problem that the gears do not fit well. The stone tablet and set equipment to be used for skill upgrades come out together, but the pair is a bit strange. Attack set equipment comes with stone tablets for attack-type characters, but speed set equipment comes with defense-type stone tablets. You need to match the speed set because of PVP, but then only defense-type stone tablets are piled up, so you have to go to another place again. The weekly boss-level '사도' drops better equipment and has no limit on the number of times, but it takes some time until the deck is completed to some extent, and there is room for overturning, so it was difficult to immediately feel the effect.

And because the skill goods are not very efficient due to the aforementioned reasons, there is some leakage of action power, so there is some stress in matching the settings. In other games where it is important to match PVP equipment to reduce such stress, convenience functions such as making new equipment with accessories from farming dungeons are provided, but '리메멘토' is still very inconvenient in such areas.

Since there are some unpleasant parts in the process of digesting the routine, the process of walking around is not very welcome, and the advantages of 'open world' are not highlighted because there are not enough points to enjoy the characteristics of each region, so the experience of walking around the field feels shallow, which is the current problem of '리메멘토'. It is common for open-world RPGs to fill this part with events, but the situation where even this had to go wrong was fatal.

In fact, the reason why '리메멘토' was sluggish in the early stages was largely due to the fact that the game was not running properly at all, or it was crashing and various bugs were occurring, which was very unstable. Anyway, I went in to enjoy it once because it was a new Korean subculture work, but after watching a somewhat long early story cutscene, when I tried to play the game, a fatal error appeared or I got stuck somewhere and the game did not proceed properly. Or, on smartphones, the gray screen with the texture map not applied could not be solved no matter what, so I had to reinstall it every time. As much as manpower and time were invested in solving these problems, it was another disappointing point of '리메멘토' that it could not put momentum into additional in-game events to appeal to each region or character mentioned earlier.

Considering that the early stages of mobile-based cross-platform games are very important, the current situation of '리메멘토' is quite painful. However, such errors have been steadily hotfixed, including the weekend after release, and the version patch was applied on the 23rd, so it is now in a somewhat stable state. The phenomenon of getting stuck is still a bit left, but they have added an emergency escape function to be able to cope with it somehow. And the immediate problem is that they are quickly responding with various rewards or hot time mail.

In fact, even at the beginning of the release, users who could not draw dark attributes could not even think of the dark attribute gimmick. All attributes except dark attributes were paid, but there were only two dark attributes, 5-star 페란시 or 4-star 리리아. 페란시 has an ultimate that fills the core MP in this game, so it is a must-have pick for rerolling, but light/dark 5-stars are relatively difficult to acquire because the probability is much lower like 월광 or 필그림. In addition, there was no ceiling for 4-stars at all, so there was a chance that you would not see them at all if you were unlucky. This part was partially resolved by giving 리리아 as a reward for 1st place in the Google popularity ranking on the 23rd.

In addition, they are showing their own response to parts that felt unreasonable, such as adjusting the phenomenon that the story suddenly becomes difficult when raising the world map level, here the 칼레이도 level. However, on the other hand, another problem facing '리메멘토' is that there are currently few elements that make users do something next. This is because the established routine for open-world RPGs is to enjoy the events after clearing the story, and then enjoy the daily quests while waiting for the events or new characters to be added in the next update after finishing all the events.

In particular, events are also an important part because they are a point to appeal to the worldview and characters, as mentioned earlier, as well as rewards. The connection with the characters has been somewhat supplemented with the affinity quests for each character, but the scale is that the SNS or cafes and accommodations of the collectible RPG are unfolded in the open world, so it still feels a bit insufficient to fully enjoy the feeling of being together in that world.

Fortunately, '리메멘토' is in a state where it already knows the answer to some extent as a latecomer, and it has the basic framework to implement it. The basic grammar of drawing the process of the protagonist, who is the user's alter ego, and other characters continuing to empathize and playing an active role together in this world is faithful, and the basic skills such as decent character modeling and morphing are well equipped. In addition, the basic composition of going around the field thoroughly, solving gimmicks, and finding rewards was not bad. In addition, they have entered the basic work to gain momentum, such as declaring a 6-week update keynote through developer notes and announcements on the 24th and 25th, while advancing some updates and announcing the payment of a permanent 5-star selection ticket. And they are making various improvements, such as reorganizing the repetitive farming that users were most uncomfortable with by consuming several times the action power at once to receive rewards at once.

However, in order to survive in 2025 and beyond, when major updates from competitors and promising new works are expected, '리메멘토' will need to take another step forward. Even if there is a difference in size, there are often cases of reverse running while making a side battle by constructing a reasonable BM that will make you open your wallet a little more or building your own individuality in a style that other competitors cannot try. There were some disappointing points, but it remains to be seen whether '리메멘토', which somehow showed the royal road composition well, can sharpen its own weapons, withstand this year's big wave, and write a success story.

웹진 인벤윤서호 기자
2025-01-02