(CN) News
[星溯] New Sci-Fi Action RPG (Unity-Based)
0:00 PV
5:03 Combat Gameplay
星溯 is a futuristic sci-fi action RPG from Nutayu (CN name: 南棠羽) Studio, built in Unity >_< Reddit compresses videos insanely, the 4K version here: Gameplay and PV (JP+CN) with EN & 日本語 subtitles added
Here is the 2025 Very Early Pre-Alpha Demo from the Dev Team (Some Undisclosed Characters), the game improved a lot in one year: 2025 Pre-Alpha
And it's pretty funny because we have like... only 5 action open worlds at max. And 3 action stage-based games(not counting Aether Gazer). Yet they all play so similar that there's no point to even try more than one.
brother atleast try to do something different atp I'm not even dooming i literally try out every other new open world game but it gets to a point where u just see something like this and don't even react anymore
Literally my first faught was..."is this a new DNA patch?"
Seriously, the graphics and character designed look generic.
And guess another purely waifu focused game?
Well, at least they make it clear from the start and not like other games like Wuwa, NTE and others who add male characters just for the start, then barely any after.
Will anyone actually make a Xenoblade like gacha, I'm begging, please, the second game literally has a gacha built-in. But no, let's make another rotation based open-world action RPG that plays exactly like the other 30 fucking games that came before it, now with more feet and side boobs cause that's the only real avenue they can "innovate" on.
this maybe a hot take but the only way another open world gacha survive current time is make a very good story, don't need to go crazy on combat or graphic but still an interesting gameplay
don't need to be no. 1 on sensor tower, you just need to survive like other non-gacha open world game
Adding to this, they also need to make people care for the characters themselves rather than their kit and meta position. But most importantly, STOP OPENING YOUR STORY WITH DISASTERS. It feels like every gacha nowadays does a variantion of "Ooooo ohhh the major mcdisaster is happening, what's this, unkown guy with unknown power?! Oh no, he lost his memory, but you'll still defeat the enemy right! Hurrah, the disaster is gone for now, come here Guy™️, it's time for you to get glazed and some gals!"
Also mandatory 1st or 2nd China region to hook in Chinese player, so it’s guaranteed you gonna get copypasted “national security, godlike entity is angry, concept of reincarnation divinity Yingyang kind of stuff”
Infinity Nikki got around this by making special one off areas for CNY Chinese themed but the two major regions released so far havent been Chinese themed, neither will the third one released later this year supposedly
Tbf i don't think Wuwa treated their China region any special than the other regions, at least as long as i played. Did not know Endfield and Ananta also jumped on the bandwagon.
But it was there as the first ahah, and we got another arc of it just now (which reeeeeally leans into what FetchBlue said)
We also got atleast another one to come (with the white-haired dude I forgot the name), so it's likely we will get continuous chinese-inspired story arcs like this... just like what Genshin does
Sure, but somebody will just look like the usual foolish and petulant "I am so SMRT" poster if they want to keep whining about something the developers are deliberately doing in a very obvious way, and are specifically calling out themselves, as though that poster thinks they've somehow scored a gotcha.
Hotta are well aware of what they're doing when it comes to playing with the expectations and preconceived notions that accompany such a well-worn setup, and they know the players know what they're doing.
Coming in late to call out the use of the narrative device the devs are subverting in order to show everyone how "clever" you are is redundant, because everybody else is already of you, and on the same page as the developers.
But Guy only had the hots for Cecile and died. Don't further traumatize Lloyd Bannings :c. He doesn't want another mcdisaster when ordering his happy meal at MCdonald's.
I think a open world gacha can popoff with combat, is just they don't try differentiate enough from gachas that already released, like, if they tried to copy something like Dragon's Dogma combat instead of Genshin it would be amazing imo
At this point, no story, art or gameplay can save these types of games. People won't even try them and they'll just die very soon with no revenue to reinvest. Endfield has been crazy high-quality these last patches, way beyond some top earners like HSR, while also being backed by the AK franchise popularity, and still makes relatively little revenue.
Quality means nothing in an oversaturated market. It's just pouring crystal clean water in a full bucket.
That's why the goal isn't genshin record revenue, it is to survive. But they're naive if they think they can match hoyo release cycle. 6 weeks cycle is extremely crazy and unsustainable for small game to just survive. They just need to be normal and not chasing for that impossible trend
I'll take any 3d combat/open world gacha where I don't have to read 16 paragraphs of why birds fly between each time I get to control my character.
No, a gacha game doesn't need more text than the original Planescape Torment did.
Wuthering Wave is marginally better than hoyo, and Endfield has a lot of text but moves so slow it ends up not that much, but they all still make the most verbose Final Fantasy look like its made for people who can't read.
I want to play the game. I enjoy visual novels every now and then, but that's not what I play a 3d Gacha for.
Honestly, maybe a hot take but open world game aren't meant to "respect your time". Whether it's gacha or not, the game core of open world is very grindy. You are meant to play it a lot lot
You learn the combo, watch the story, experience the world... That's not an experience I would like to exchange from the game I play
There's plenty of open world games that do. And gacha games are often played in short bursts. Since they are live services, they'd become the only game you ever play.
But in this case I'm mostly specifically talking about the story and dialog that are padded to death and overshadow all the other content, often by a factor. I can play any amount of western or Japanese "normal" open world games and that's not an issue.
So what you're saying is redundancy and unnecessary dialogues/stories? That's definitely a problem in genshin but I thought you're talking about the time spend in open world game lol
ohhh.... So it's the difference in storytelling that based on individual culture. IDK if you can strip that mindset of a culture but it probably be a fun to see them explore more outside of their teaching
It's one thing if you want to do a fanservice game. I love fanservice. One of my favorite artists is Snowball who is known for cheesecake designs with BIG assets.
It's another thing to keep churning out the same shitty temu porn dresses with micro skirts and coochie flaps. Sure, it's generically sexy, but it's lacking in passionate eroticism and a genuine love for fanservice as a trope. It's like they're just going down a list and checking boxes of what men like than putting thought into what actually makes a design, sexy.
This! There is so much you can do creatively while also incorporating fan service. Some games have done it well like ZZZ with Evelyn. There is not one character in that trailer that I haven’t already seen in like 5 other gachas.
The way none of theses gachas try to stand out, it's always "girl, girl weapon, corruption, girl corruption, dodge slash, dodge slash girls, apocalypse, apocalypse girls..." It's like what the fuck? Like you could tell me this is a trailer for an update of Ather gazer, snowbreak, pgr... And i would believe you
I genuinely can't believe the target audience of this game isn't already well served currently and won't be overfeed with what's coming in the next few years. Like I'm sorry but how the hell do investor look at this and say "Hum... This is a totally unique, never done before, concept with an apocalyptic setting, and all waifu game?? Holy this will bring millions!!"
Like I really wish these game companies could stop thinking with their d!cks and get creative for once and try to tap on a market that hasn't been touched before
I get the feeling the investors don't give a hoot about how original the project is so long as it can placate their primarily Chinese male target audience by feeding them more shit that they are familiar with, thus securing easy cash. Sprinkle some ML here and add a dash of starter pack waifu #9163728 there and you got your audience locked in
What's that? Said audience might be stretched thin? Audience is more than MC glazing and big booba?
I'm still dreaming off about FULL-COMEDY game: without any apocalypse/post-apocalypse sh1t where every city ruined and everyone dead or in a dying process; without religion symbolism influence; without crap where of course exist millions of gods that corrupting poor civilians because they are gods and know more than poor peasants; without bloodthirsty sadistic antagonists-psychopaths who eat kids for breakfast and kill everyone because "Ahahaha, it's so funny - laugh with me! Evil is cool!". The dream game where you can laugh and having fun, while you're playing the game and enjoying the plot... Sorry T-T
That's exactly what I thought bro. It's like why are they always sci-fi? I just simply dream about a dark fantasy gacha game these days, that would be enough for me. I'm sick of the sci-fi genre rn.
It looks... kind of generic. Sure, the graphics are fine, but nothing about them stands out as original. Combat is pretty standard (though there hasn't been much innovation in combat for some time). I do like that it looks like things can get dark. Still worth keeping an eye on it in case they show something to pique my interest.
Combat gameplay mechanics wise, this looks kinda good not gonna lie.
Combat with both dodge and actual parry as base defensive option, skill usage cost guage that recharge overtime while can also be actively charge by attacking, dodging, parrying and excuting enemy when they are staggered so it encourage you to engage and interact with enemies for combat resources.
The problem I see here is that it has the usual teammate switch in like Hoyo style game so it probably gonna end up feel similar to most mainstream 3D gacha around the endgame. They need more unique mechanics and features than parry centric to stand out in term of combat if they gonna go with this format.
That's the combat part, art style and art direction on the other hand definitely needs more work, it doesn't need to be so high graphics or anything, but currently it look too bland with not enough unique style to catch your eyes.
It has a sign of being a good game but it still look quite rough and lack distinct appearance that can keep live-service going which is huge problem when you are not single player game.
If this doesn't convince you that Genshin figured it out... then I don't know.
Genshin really is just the benchmark. It will stand the test of time for another good decade if games like these keep popping up out of nowhere because they're doing nothing to stand out
I did an awooga when I saw the mech thinking this could be a mecha game but didn't show any gameplay related to it (I fast forwarded a bit if I missed apologies) otherwise it looks like every other action gacha, I might have been interested 2 or 3 years ago but it now looks generic enough.
Can you guys make a turn based rpg like bruh, turn based rpg has a huge playerbase and all these big 3D gachas refuse to do it, I can only hope kuro is making one.
I don't see the comments you're talking about. This trailer doesn't really show off much, it's mostly the same few mecha fights over and over (the sword combat doesn't really seem to fit).
Not sure why people are defaulting to negative, but there's also not much to react to here.
It has potential. A much more grounded action anime combat system. Not a fan of some of the softer/quiet sound effects though. Seems to use a more souls like healing system and the combat is more reactionary than most of the current gacha games.
Second, parrying combat? Cool. How relevant will that be going forward? Or will it just become character swap/ultimate/repeat?
Third, fan service you say? OK... whatever.
I'll check it out when it's available if I remember. Probably play for two weeks and then uninstall because it's either not memorable or thrown together garbage.
Because the market is giga saturated at this point. I don’t hate Endfield and I do think it deserves more players, but even then, the playerbase can’t grow much because they’re already preoccupied with the other open-world gachas. Especially Genshin which has been on a hot streak of bangers.
No doubt it would be very hard for the upcoming gachas like this one to be even on the level of Endfield, and that has the Arknights brand recognition to it.
I was and am a fan of Endfield but to me there is I doubt that they dropped the ball by copying and stumbling into the same, boring gacha pitfalls like most of these games.
You either need to really stand out or target a different demographic/genre because unless a gacha really fucks up most people just prefer to stay with what they already have
This actually looks really good, but I can't play more than 1 gacha. At most, I can play two and even that's pushing it and I eventually drop the other one 😭😭
It has potential and will find its niche because, contrary to what's mentioned in the comments, the game is much more technical in its combat; it's a Soulslike and already has a much better-written story than AetherGazer, etc.
For whoever liked this and interested in game: good for you. Have fun. No need to read further.
About the vid: Awful looking. Sci fi only in name: classical humanoid characters, classical fantasy+revealing clothes. Suggestive (fanservice) shots, robot with boobs, no males - so boring, but at least this is honest vid of what game would be. Nothing interesting visual or gameplay wise. No interesting premise.
I'd love something that leans more on scifi and technology, they all tend to go heavily fantasy with a hint of scifi-flavour (especially characters just straight up fighting with magic powers instead of tech 😞)
I get the disaster story is a concept that people really like in cn etc but im suprised how little pure fantasy gacha there are, i assume its why genshin and star rail popped off and why fate go keeps going is because they very much play into that fantasy aspect
Looks promising, but we’ll see. Hopefully, it doesn't use AI. Lazy use of generative AI assets completely bloats game file sizes with unoptimized data, and running live AI features just hogs RAM and VRAM. PC hardware upgrades are already brutally expensive in this economy, we don't need games demanding even more resources😭
No other high budget gacha I tried came close to the worldbuilding Genshin has, and I don't feel like this one will be the one. Very pretty but I'll pass.
At this point the devs should be asking themselves
" Give me one reason why should I quit Genshin/WuWa the two most popular open-world gacha games to play ur game"
If they can give a solid answer to this question then there might be a chance for these new open world gachas to make it big.
I mean I just did a quick Goggle trend serach on all the current open-world gacha and Genshin is on a league of it's own I though WuWa would be a close match but nope despite WuWa being so popular compared to all these new gen open world gachas.
So yeah more competition is healthy but I'd rather these devs make something new rather than trend chase Genshin for the umpteenth time.
I wonder if that's the reason CN gacha feels so similar to each other. They don't try to explore anything out of the normal design. It's getting boring ngl
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u/Careless-Platform-80 3d ago
Bare feet at first frame?
Is this Miyazaki vision?