The Wind Road
“The Wind Road” is an ARPG real-time combat game, constructing a martial-arts world based on the ancient Silk Road under the background of a fictional era.
The Barbarians of Grey Wolf have invaded the Silk Road for hundred years! Now they have sent troops to Shazhou with a purpose to capture the important site of Longyou, threatening the safety of tens of thousands of common people.
At this time, the Great Karma Scripture emerges and becomes the key to reverse the fate of Shazhou and even the entire Longyou trade route. The Barbarians are strictly preventing the monks (Scripture Escorts) from sending the Scripture to the Imperial Court, while all the forces in Jianghu who covet the Scripture’s secret also go into action. The character’s task is originally to help the decent sects escort the monks on their mission. However, he uncovers the secret of Scripture coincidentally after suffering a variety of trails and setbacks in ten days!
Finally, in the choice of fate, the character has to undertake the mission and becomes a real hero, taking the first step to stop the chaos of the world…
As a real-time combat martial-arts ARPG game, its core gameplay is combat. Various elements determine the Role’s combat rhythm.
————[Basic Status]————
[Health]: The character’s Health, determines the his survival time in combat. “Grows through the cultivating the Inner Qi Method and taking mediciness.”
[Qi]: Value of the character’s Qi, required to use Internal Moves (QER skills). “Grows through cultivating Inner Qi Method and taking medicine.”
[Stamina]: Value of the character’s stamina, determines the frequency of his Sprint, Roll, and Block. “Grows through cultivating the Inner Qi Method and taking medicine.”
[Rage]: Value of the character’s rage, gathers when he suffers attacks. Once the rage reaches a certain amount, he can perform a swift move that breaks the enemy’s defense. (Based on the weapons on the back.)
————[Combat Techniques]————
[Dodge]: Use the Lightness Technique “Traceless” to get out of the melee area of the enemy instantly.
[Roll]: Roll over to avoid the attacks from the enemy. The distance of a roll is longer and can be used together with dodge.
[Block]: Use up stamina to block attacks from the enemy.
[Insight]: Critical attacks in a hopeless situation. In combat, whether you are attacking or defending, once you see through the flaws of the enemy, you can easily reverse the combat situation. It greatly increases the contingency of the situation and shows the exciting and real combat in Jianghu. Perform it by blocking at the moment (Sword Riposte) the enemy attacks, or by using the special Inner Qi Method.
————[Real-time Combat Martial Arts]————
The core gameplay of this title is immersive real-time combat. When facing fierce enemies, players have to deal with them through Block, Dodge, Insight, Response, and other techniques. Players can have endless fun in real-time combat and can combine different martial-arts moves, forming their combat ideas and styles.
[Swordplay]: A sword is always the favorite weapon of every Xia. In this title, players can use various kinds of Swordplay and perform natural and smooth sword moves. (Can block and perform Sword Riposte, but cannot use Hidden Weapons.)
[Fist & Palm]: Whether in actual combat or movies and novels, Fist and Palm techniques are the essential elements of martial arts. In this title, Palm Blaster supported by Inner Qi is not the only thing to be seen, but also the Wing Chun and Drunken Boxing. The powerful Palm Blaster is the best choice for dealing with the ranged enemies. (Can use Hidden Weapons, but cannot block; Costs a lot of Stamina)
[Response]: Moves of player can also be seen through and solved by the enemy, causing the Blade Impact effect.
[Inner Qi Response]: The player’s Inner Qi can be offset by the enemy’s. Just think about the impact effect between Dragon-subduing Palms and Intangible Swords. Meanwhile, the Inner Qi can also destroy some objects in the scene.
[Inner Qi Method & Meridians]: In this title, there are 6 different kinds of Inner Qi Methods and 6 completely different ways to play, which are different for combat and healing. For example: “Arts of Violet Mist” is specially designed for hardcore players. It has super low Health and powerless blocks but provides sufficient Qi and Crit Damage. While “Sinew-changing Classic” has sufficient Health, but to Buddha’s mercy, it will not cause Crit or hit the enemy’s weakness, however, it can transfer the damage suffered and has a great effect on healing wounds and resisting Internal Injuries.
[Inner Qi–Psi-Sword]: When the player activates the Inner Qi Method, different Psi-Sword effects will be generated, depending on the special effect of the Inner Qi used. Once this effect is triggered, the player has to use the precious seconds to defeat the enemy. For example, the effect of “Arts of Cloud Dragon” will make all the Sword Moves available to the player, and each move will break the enemy’s defense.
[Sword Holding]: The player needs to take any possible chance to get into the Sword Holding status, speeding up the recovery rate of Qi and Stamina.
[60+ Combinations of Martial-art Moves]: A set of the martial-art system consists of 6 moves, including 3 External Moves (Combos) and 3 Inner Qi Methods (QER Skills that cost Qi). These moves have different gestures to be explored and can be combined by players, to create their martial-art style. (In combat, the player can adjust martial-art moves and Inner Qi used at any time, but it will cost additional EXP.)
[Hidden Weapons]: To make a life in Jianghu, Hidden Weapons are essential. By collecting or crafting, you can acquire various kinds of Hidden Weapons (Poisoned Dart, Leaf Blades, Throwing Knife, Darts, Date Pit). Each Hidden Weapon has its effect, so use wisely in combat.
[Weapon Refining]: In this title, players can consume materials to acquire various weapon refining effects, such as Sharpening (Weapons become sharper in a short time, causing Bleeding to the enemy), Poisoning (Weapons become poisoned, causing Poison Damage to the enemy for some time), Frosting (Weapons are dealt with low temperature, increasing Crit Damage for some time).
[Equipment Appearance]: In this title, there are various equipment appearances, including Masks, Bamboo Hat, Weapons, Back Decorations, Rings, and so on. Once the equipment is changed, there will not only be a change in the appearance, but also a bonus to some attributes.
[Mounted Archery]: In some special levels, the player can use the king of the cold era weapon: Bow & Arrows! On the rugged terrains, the player should judge calmly and give the enemy a critical attack with a fine bow, or penetrate several pursuing enemies with one shot.
[Endurance]: Some martial-arts moves have the effect of ” Endurance” so that you will not be interrupted by an injury.
[Meditation]: Meditation in real combat is also filled with accidents. It’s your sharp eyes and agile hands that keep you alive.
[Drunken System]: Players will get drunk if they drink too much. And in this status, they can perform special martial-art moves (such as Drunken Boxing, Taibai Swordplay) to increase combat strength.
————【Craft, Enhancement & Exploration】————
[Craft]: Players can use the materials collected in the game to craft various kinds of medicines and darts.
[Enhance]: Players can use the materials collected in the game to enhance and repair weapons
[Collect]: Players can collect various kinds of crafting materials through missions and explorations.
[Exploration & Puzzles]: Dubbing throughout, the world view depends on the player’s exploration, snooping, reading, letters, and collection. A lot of puzzle-solving and exploration elements are incorporated.
———— [Debuffs] ————
[Internal Injury]: Enemies with strong Inner Qi can deal Internal Injuries to the player, divided into “Ying”, “Yang” and “Severe Injury”. It is necessary to treat the injury or take medicines according to different injuries. If not, the adverse effect will be more serious.
[Poisoned]: Cause poison effect to the player, losing Vitality over time.
[Sinew-broken]: Cause “None Lightness Technique ” effect to the player, rendering them unable to perform Lightness Techniques such as Dodge, Roll, etc.
[Insight]: Tough opponents can also break down your moves.
[Break]: Continuous strikes from an opponent will make the player unable to block and suffer the Break effect.
[Reverse – Sword Riposte]: When facing your Sword Riposte, the tough opponents will also have their solutions.
————[100+ NPCs & Arena Challenge]————
There are more than one hundred NPCs in this title, as well as hundreds of combatable rangers in Jianghu. Players can acquire abundant rewards by challenging rangers and masters at the Arena or Gambling House in Lianshuo Town.
————[Multiloop Inheritance] ————
This title features a multi-loop inheritance system. In multi-loop games, crafting materials, Funds, Equipment, Martial Arts, Internal Force, Martial-arts Basis, and game clearance rewards will be inherited in a new game. Meanwhile, to avoid boring multi-loop games, players can explore the unexplored content in the previous playthrough, such as some branches in the main story.
Steam User 1
Great game in my honest opinion! Love the story and graphics, waiting for the rest of the story!
Steam User 3
This game is basically a Chinese martial arts story inspired by Wuxia novels and movies, featuring spectacular swordplay, atmospheric locations and an interesting world to dive into.
It's an action rpg, though the rpg elements aren’t that pronounced. Your character levels up with martial arts guides and consumable items, and I liked that the guides often give you actual new moves and abilities, expanding your combat repertoire as you progress through the game. The main focus is the combat, but there are some parts where you’re doing other usual rpg activities, like talking to npcs, doing side quests or puzzles. These can be quite cryptic though, as some puzzles just don’t have any ingame hints, and there’s no gui for the side quests either. Each location has a list of them, but it doesn’t tell you who to talk to, and you have to figure out what you have to do and where you have to go just from the dialogue. They are not complicated though, I could do most of them, but there were some that I just couldn’t find. However, I liked that many of them had some story consequences.
During combat, you can choose from a variety of fighting styles both for the sword and for fists, each having multiple moves with their own properties and strengths. These can be combined in almost any order, and that's basically the meat of the combat, to keep comboing and not let your enemies hit back. If you do need to defend, you have the usual dodge/block/parry trio at your disposal. Even though our enemies are almost all human, they fight in different ways, and they can't all be beaten with the same technique. Overall, the combat is perhaps not as polished as in bigger budget games, but the mechanics are fine, it has variety and depth, and the animations are really cool. Fights can be very spectacular, at least when you’re not being pounded to the ground.
Visually, the game is good, as long as you don't look too close. Our protagonist and the main characters are detailed enough, but the npcs aren’t really. They often don't even have facial animations. The locations look nice though, although since we are on the Silk Road we don't get the grandiose Chinese architecture you probably imagine, but it still has the oriental atmosphere. The devs were clearly inspired by specific Wuxia films too (the opening chapter, for example, very reminiscent of the 1992 film New Dragon Gate Inn), but we also visit real locations, like the Mogao Caves, very nicely recreated for the game.
Our protagonist, Meng Jing, arrives at the aforementioned inn, to meet a monk whom he must escort to the Mogao caves and then to the city. However, he quickly gets involved in a murder case, clashes with the local criminal underworld and gets a glimpse of the so-called Insanity Sutra, which can be a source of strength but, as its name suggests, can drive the reader mad. Our hero may need this power during his adventure, as he will have to face not only the various factions trying to get their hands on the sacred text, but also his own conscience. I liked the story, it had a bit of a road movie feel, as our team got into bigger and bigger trouble at each location. By the end, I grew to like the characters and the intricate world the devs created. The ending was a bit abrupt though, it felt more like the end of an episode, with a lot of loose ends.
Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out every little detail of the game world, even though I wanted to, as the translation is incomplete. Not much is missing, mostly some lore texts, but it's annoying. The detailed combat tutorial and puzzle explaining videos also don’t have subtitles in English, so I had to figure out a lot of things by trial and error. Some of the item descriptions were also left in Chinese, and there are also instances of English text not fitting into boxes as the UI was obviously designed for Chinese texts, and similar errors. The game is fully playable, and the story is enjoyable, but this is still a big issue.
The devs are working on the game however, and since its release they added a free DLC, in which they spiced up the gameplay by making it a first person brawler, and showing us the events from one of the antagonist’s point of view. I thought it was pretty cool. The menu also shows two other DLCs with 'coming soon' tags, and the developers also said that the game will get a new UI this year (it needs it) and new story chapters, so it looks like they're planning for the long term.
Overall, it seems to me that the developers maybe bit off a bit more than they can chew, as the game has some technical and design issues, and the translation could have been better, but I feel that they put their heart and soul into it, it has a great atmosphere, good combat, interesting world and characters, and it just really feels like stepping into a Wuxia movie.
Steam User 1
good when no bug