The game developer is also behind the Sword & Fairy series. I played the translated one in this series but remember almost nothing about it.
There will inevitable be comparisons to Gujian 3, a mainland game with a much bigger budget. To me this game can stand next to it, but with some caveats.
I appreciate that unlike in Gujian 3 you no longer play as a (demi) god but as a mostly regular guy who’s just trying to look out for his sister.
I had expected/feared the little sister would be annoying but she’s a nice character. And when she does dumb stuff it makes sense as she’s literally been sheltered her entire life. You will definitely want to protect her (even though very soon she is capable enough of protecting herself, literally shooting laser beams from her hands).
She’s basically the opposite of Cie Yin from Gujian 3, who was well travelled and knowledgable but thrown into a party with two (demi) gods where she was out of her league completely.
Second gurl is (Qin) Hong(shang), the Mohist blade gurl, I really liked her design. Spunky blade gurl is probably another staple in Chink rpg.
And there’s also an entertaining parrot around.
The game setting is some kind of magical realism as it set around the historical Battle of Kunyang (21AD) but with monsters, parallel worlds, magic spells and such.
Unlike Gujian 3 you don’t teleport from one area to the next, it’s a seamless world where you can run from starting village to the endgame areas.
The game has crafting/base building and monster capturing which seems to be a staple of many Chink rpgs. In Gujian 3 the crafting was mostly a time waster as 90% of items were just for dressing up.
But here crafting is critical by improving weapons, armor and creating useful items. Not to mention, most of the character development comes from creating equippable souls that can give various boons.
Depending on how you like to play there’s a variety of methods to turn main character into a (demi) god himself.
It takes some experimenting to get new souls, it’s not a good game for autists.
Combat wise battles against regular enemies (who respawn) are mostly trivial, although there are some enemies who can inflict status effects that can be deadly early on.
I had made a soul early on that allowed main character to regain health after killing an enemy; as a consequence I barely ever needed to use a healing potion. Especially since it’s also possible to create some synergy between the two gurls: I had one gurl inflict status effects while the other gurl could heal the party by attacking enemies with status effects.
Boss battles can be challenging as they will usually be able to inflict a status effect (burn/poison/bleed) that will drain your health bar really quickly. But then there are equipabble souls that allow one to heal from burn/poison/bleed… so if you’re in trouble you can simply reload, equip a new soul and completely defang the boss.
I think the best fight in the game is the boss fight in the first dungeon because at that point you don’t really have much tricks at your disposal yet. It’s a fair fight in a small arena.
There’s also a memorable fight against a OHKO golem. Final boss in the game is absolutely terrible, a copy paste of Spiders Eurojank Bound by flame final boss but at least your gurls can deal with that crap on their own.
When you take a rest at a campfire, characters at times will spin a lore related tale or just joke around. I wish Ho Tu Lo Shu had had stuff like that.
Last but not least, the game has a really great checkers related minigame that chits all over Gujian 3’s card game.
Translation wise I noticed many spelling errors and grammar mistakes, but of course it’s still Kurt Vonnegut compared to a DeepL translation.
Storywise, I think originally (Qin) Hong(shang) was supposed to be the main character. There’s a lot of story stuff tied to her directly but never really developed... also note that originally little sister’s design was completely different. The ending slides even mention her rather than the main character. Maybe there’ll be DLC.
Overall, I think it’s a 7.5/10 game with some 9/10 moments. Kind of a slow start but gets better as the game progresses.
