Overview
金庸群俠傳(JinYong QunXia Zhuan) or Heroes of Jin Yong was released by Soft-World, A Taiwanese software developer in 1995. The game revolves around the protagonist who was sucked into a virtual-reality program based around the Martial arts novels of the celebrated Jin Yong (Louis Cha查良鏞).
Story
The game starts off the main character waking up in an unknown house with strange clothing on. Thinking that he fell asleep while playing a computer game known as 金庸群俠傳, he was shocked to find out via the Soft-World mascot that he had been the lucky person to test their virtual reality unit for the game. Finding out that the only way out of the program and back into the real world, the protagonist sets out to complete this task even if he had no idea what it was.
Going to the first visible location from his house, he arrives at an roadside inn (all other locations are locked until players finish this sequence) known as 河洛客棧 (HeLuo Inn) and was at first ridiculed as a wayside idiot. After a bit a cash to loosen lips, the protagonist is directed to speak with two characters: 南賢 (Nan Xian) and 北丑 (Northern Clown). Learning this, the protagonist sets off and finds Nan Xian as he lives fairly near to the Inn.
Arriving at Nan Xian's house, the protagonist finds the aged man waiting for him to arrive and explains the premise of the world and "game" that the protagonist has found himself in.
About thirty years ago, a strange youth (suggested to be Jin Yong himself) suddenly appeared in Jianghu who told everyone that he was from another era. At first, this youth had only a basic grasp of martial arts techniques but soon came about to learning nearly all forms of pugilistic skills in Jianghu becoming a well-known legend in the world. Through his journeys, he wrote a set of 14 books about the world and they were entrusted to the various Shifu's of the martial sects that operate within Jianghu. However, they were stolen at one point of time and now have been lost to the world. The protagonist then learns that he must gather the 14 books together and then win a martial arts competition held once a year where the winners learn of the location of the sacred shrine in which the 14 books should be kept. Only when this is completed can the protagonist finally wake from his "dream".
With knowledge in hand, he acquires a compass from Nan Xian's house and sets out into Jianghu to find the 14 books and become a legend himself.
Novels
A basic knowledge of what goes on in the actual novels helps with the progression of various plots in the game.
Gameplay
Controls
- The arrow keys are used to navigate menus and directional movement in the open world or field of combat.
- The Esc key brings up the menu.
- The action/talk key is the spacebar.
- During choice selection screens, Y means yes while any other key would reject the challenge.
Character Creation
Before the game introduces the world of Jianghu, players are first faced with the character creation screen. Players can type out their name in either traditional Chinese or English. After that, players will be faced with a random character generation screen where players can keep re-rolling the character until they are satisfied.
Skills (listed by columns from left)
- Internal strength: A energy meter similar to mana in most other games that is spent on techniques in combat.
- Life: Health points.
- Unarmed combat skill.
- Martial Power: Similar to strength, a higher rating gives more damage.
- Medical skill: A higher rating allows players to heal more.
- Sword skill.
- Light body skill: A higher ability in this allows the character to move further while in combat.
- Poison use: The ability to poison enemies. A higher rating indicates a higher poison "damage" inflicted.
- Sabre skill.
- Defense: A higher rating lets players take reduced damage from enemy attacks.
- Poison curing: A higher rating allows players to cure a larger amount of poison damage per action.
- Hidden weapons: A higher rating gives players greater range to attack and also inflict more damage from hidden weapons.
There are a number of hidden variables that are randomly generated that players are not privy to during the creation process. One of them is the type of energy that the player character has, weather or not it is Yin, Yang, or neutral. This affects various kinds of skills that players can learn depending on their energy alignment.
Another hidden stat is Intelligence. A higher rating allows players to master all skills at a faster rate and also open up some skills that lesser minds are not able to comprehend. However, the reverse is true as well, a lower intelligence rating forces players to learn slower, but opens up certain skill sets that intelligent characters are not able to learn (most notable of which is the "Technique of Ambidexterity" which allows a character to attack twice in a turn).
Combat
Combat is similar to traditional tactical RPGs where the protagonist and their party are placed inside an arena in which players move and attack via a system of grids. The battlefield consists of multiple environments throughout the game and are all on a single flat gird plane.
A player can perform various actions during combat:
- Move
- Attack: Opens up a menu of the various moves that can be performed.
- Use Poison
- Cure Poison
- Heal
- Use Items
- Wait
- Show Stats
- Pass
- Automate: The computer controls the characters during the fight.
Note that not all characters can perform all moves, as such some commands will be missing.
On the right side of the combat screen, players are given character-related information:
- Character Portrait.
- Name.
- Stamina: A standardized 100 stat for all characters depicting the amount of actions players can take until the character is tired out.
- Life.
- Internal Strength.
Attack Types
The game consists of 55 learnable martial arts manuals. Some of which only relate to stats and skills, while others contain an offensive ability that players can learn. In general, all attacks can be categorized into these four types:
- Single-point attacks: Attacks that hit only a single target. Poison attacks, cures, healing and item usage fall under this category.
- Area-of-Effect attacks: Attacks that can hit multiple targets.
- Single-line attacks: Attacks that strike out in a line depending on the direction from the user.
- Cross-type attacks: Attacks that strike out in all four directions from the location of the user.
Overworld
The overworld map.Players must first complete the introduction stage before they will be able to enter most locations. Other locations can be unlocked via completing certain parts of the story.
There are various locations (most notably caves) that are hidden from the player's view. They are only made known to the player during conversations with NPCs. However, it is still possible to discover all of them by trial and error.
After the introduction, players will be given a compass which points to the location of a boat. With the boat, players will be able to traverse across water tiles, granting access to various islands outside the main continent or places that require crossing bodies of water.
Alignment Index
Various actions in the world of Jianghu can positively or negatively affect the protagonist's ethical index. In turn, this will affect how the world will respond to the protagonist. Some denizens of some locations will become hostile based on this alignment. As well as this, various recruitable characters will be willing to join the player's party (or not) depending on the level of the player's ethical index.
Many things can affect the ethical index; this includes taking objects from people's houses without permission, recruiting certain characters, or sneaking past guards and entering locations without being invited.
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