Name: Heros of Jing Yong (Legend) (100.00% in 5 votes)
Type: RPG
Platform: DOS
Company: SoftWorld
Release date: 1995
Reviewed by: Xser
Because of the continuing Chinese Kung Fu game fever, I decide to write a review on the best Kung Fu game ever made by Softworld. As all Chinese gamers know, Softworld has a monopoly over Kung Fu games and most will agree that most of those games sucks, both in graphics and gameplay. However, since they are the only company that produce this genre of games, all of us has played their games regardless.
The storyline of Heros of Jing Yong is based on the collective novels written by the most honored Kung Fu author, Jing Yong. I believe this game is made because Softworld has run out of ideas. Since they virtually have made a game for each individual novel, they might as well make a game that includes all the novels.
In this game, you as the player is trapped in a virtual reality game. The only way you can get out is by finding all 14 novels written by Jing Yong that's hidden somewhere in the game. Off course, getting these novels are not easy since you will almost always have to fight some power enemy to get in. From this aspect, the RPG part of the game arises where you fight enemies and get experience, money and the sort.
One good part about this game is variety. There are 53 style of Kung Fu techniques where you can choose 9 to learn and over 80 weapons/items. In addition, there are 20 plus characters where you can choose 5 to join your team at various times in the game. This type of variety creates replay value.
However, I find two aspects of the game particularly annoying. The battle scene is average in that you and the computer basically take turns hitting one another. Another ill aspect is the map is too large. Not only that, your view of vision is really small and you can easily get lost. I manage to find my way around only with a map that I downloaded somewhere off the net.
Storyline: 8/10
What makes this game the best of its kind is the storyline. This is because the storyline is heavily depended on the player's action. There are two endings and the player can have literally thousands of combination of weapon, partners, and kung fu techniques mastered.
Graphics: 3/10
The tradition of Softworld is to use and reuse the same graphic display from its previous games. Since the original graphics is cheap DOS VGA graphics, all the games following pretty much sucks too. However, the trend has changed with new games like Wind Cloud and Destiny Mirror Flower. These new games run under Win95/98 SVGA, with enhanced detail and color. However, you can still see that the basic graphic display is still a rip from the older games.
Sounds: 8/10
Although there is only two background music, one for general and one for battle scene, they are actually not that bad. They are long (around 5 minute for general and 1 minute for battle) which avoids monotony. In addition, they are really engaging.
Gameplay: 3/10
Gameplay is poor. The enemies are randomly located and vary greatly in strength. You have to save before every match since they can be 10 times stronger than you without your knowing. In addition, the battle scene is really plain.
Overall: 8/10
Despite some major drawbacks, most people (at least all the Chinese gamers I know) liked the game because of the storyline. I've heard people say this many times, "I played just for the story." Since all of us are Jing Yong freaks, it is not surprising that we care more about the storyline than anything else.
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