After more than half a year of silence, "Azur Promilia" has finally launched its second online test—the "Hengxu Test."
Thanks to Manjuu for the invitation. I had the honor of trying out the new game content for this test version offline before the official start of the Hengxu Test.
During the few hours of this offline trial, my biggest impression was that "Manjuu is still holding back cards." After all, including the first offline trial, BiliBili World, and the Xingzhi Test, I already had three prior trial experiences. I never expected this offline trial to introduce so many new characters, new Chibos, and new content, including gameplay features.
In addition to adding new content, "Azur Promilia" places significant emphasis on polishing core game quality. Many issues reported by players during the previous test have been specifically optimized and improved in this trial version. Comparing several trial experiences, you can clearly see the game's growth and progress.
Here, let's start by discussing the new content.
Any veteran player of "Azur Lane" should know about Manjuu's profound foundation in art, and this holds true for "Azur Promilia" as well. Therefore, during this offline trial, I naturally focused first on the newly introduced beautiful girls.
"Gisberu" is one of my favorite new characters—a calm yet violent maid archetype who wields the power of lightning and uses a large axe as her weapon, hitting all my personal preferences. I believe beautiful girls should wield giant weapons; anyone agree?
Her outfit design also intuitively reflects Manjuu's artistic technical prowess. The texture of the clothing, translucency, and flesh indentation effects are all done in great detail, making it hard not to look a few more times.
More importantly, Gisberu's attack animation set is also excellently designed.
The heavy attack following a light attack has two animation sets: one is a stationary charged slash, useful for AoE attacks against enemies in a wide area in front; the other is a forward charge slam, suitable for repositioning or pursuing enemies. These two derivatives can be flexibly chosen based on the battle situation. The solid feel of the giant weapon makes every swing feel powerful and impactful.
Another new character that left a deep impression on me is "Ruby." She is a character focused on sustained high damage output, requiring players to reload at the right moment or use skills to reload directly, maintaining the damage cycle through ammo management. However, the game's hit detection for dodge windows is quite generous, giving players ample time to complete reloading operations. As a result, most players can easily get the hang of it and make Ruby spit out large numbers consistently.
As for the character "Anise," there's no need for much explanation—it's obvious she's big and great, capable of both fighting and healing. Her skill set balances damage output and treatment, providing stable sustainability for the team.
In terms of exploration, both "Sprout Valley" and the new area "Fris" hold many surprises. This map features some vertical design, with varied terrain elevations making traversal itself interesting. More importantly, the map is richly filled with consumable content, continuing the design density of older maps, with points of interest generously scattered throughout.
Overlooking Sprout Valley from the sky
While completing quests, I often gathered many materials while traversing the map, or got attracted by glowing chests or puzzles. Just after walking a short distance toward a chest, I encountered a racing mini-game; taking a couple more steps, another puzzle appeared. Since I didn't carry the corresponding attribute Chibo needed for the puzzle, I went to catch one; on the way to catch the Chibo, I discovered a mineral vein where I could build a mine; coincidentally, after gathering along the way, I was just short of a few materials, so I simply finished collecting them and completed the mine... After completing this series of highly rewarding small tasks, when I returned to town ready to advance the main storyline, I saw that I could engage in an intense and exciting Chibo duel with an NPC by the roadside, so I abandoned my original task and enthusiastically played a round. This interlocking setup of points of interest makes the exploration experience of the entire map very saturated. I even feel that the current design density is too high, overflowing to the point of being overwhelming.
However, after communicating with Manjuu's team, I learned that considering the limited time for the offline trial, accounts for this offline trial had all systems and features unlocked, which led to this "overflow" situation. When players normally progress through the game, these contents will be unlocked and released in stages to ensure that players have sufficient content to explore and experience in the map at different stages of the game.
The "farming" gameplay, which many players are concerned about, has become more mature compared to earlier versions. The current homestead system has not only undergone further optimizations and added more features, but the Homestead Hub panel from the first test has also become more convenient. Players can quickly assign production tasks or swap Chibos stationed in homestead production buildings and open-world mines, making management clear at a glance without needing to run around to each building individually.
This test also brings more combat gameplay, such as two co-op modes. "Crisis Subjugation" is where players team up to challenge bosses.
The boss mechanics remain the same as in single-player combat, featuring a "Toughness Bar." Players can reduce the toughness bar to a certain level and then coordinate with their "Chibos" to execute a "Combo Attack," knocking the boss into a downed state where they cannot act and take increased damage. Thus, the basic logic of boss battles takes shape: the fight essentially cycles between two phases—quickly breaking toughness to down the boss, then unleashing skills during the downed window to deal massive damage. As for maximizing output through the "resource-building" cycle, it varies depending on the character, so we won't delve into details here.
However, in multiplayer battles, this cycle is no longer controlled by a single player but requires cooperation among multiple players, while the boss will occasionally shift aggro targets—in such situations, communication and collaboration between players become particularly important.
Another mode is "Alien Pulse Nest," a co-op gameplay mode dedicated to Chibo duels. Players need to assemble Chibo decks and defeat the Boss Chibo together with teammates, requiring strong strategic thinking. Chibos can be categorized into many types such as cost recovery, damage output, healing, amplification, etc., making deck composition quite nuanced. Unfortunately, due to limited trial time, I couldn't study deck combinations in detail and could only rely on experience from other card games to pick a seemingly balanced deck to play with. It's predictable that this will be the deep content that card game experts will focus on studying in the future.
There is another feature that, while not closely related to gameplay, is absolutely essential for showcasing the beautiful scenery of the Promilia continent. Yes, it's the Photo Mode. Although I don't usually delve deeply into photo modes in other games, the Photo Mode in "Azur Promilia" is detailed to an almost terrifying degree.
Needless to say, parameters like scene time, wind strength, and character actions/expressions are adjustable. In professional mode, you can even add extra custom light sources, include more characters and Chibos, and fine-tune each parameter meticulously. If you're not satisfied with the game's scenes, you can even replace the background with a green screen and add your preferred background images in post-production. This makes it easy to either record exciting moments in the game or create creative game photography works. Ordinary players can also directly use preset templates to adjust parameters with one click and instantly generate images, which is very convenient.
In addition to the new content mentioned above, this trial version also includes optimizations for some details.
For example, the current story supports fast playback at up to triple speed. This feature is extremely practical for players like me who want to quickly skip through the story but still want to fully listen to the dialogue voiceovers.
Additionally, the simultaneous launch of the "Story Review" feature ensures that players don't have to worry about accidentally missing story content due to speeding through it too quickly.
As for the issue raised by many players regarding overly flashy combat visuals, improvements have been made. However, Manjuu didn't just cut it outright—now, players can freely adjust the size of damage numbers. Those who love seeing big numbers can max it out, while those who prefer less visual clutter can reduce it for a cleaner combat screen.
After several trial experiences, I clearly feel that "Azur Promilia" is gradually spreading its wings. From characters and Chibos to map exploration, from system optimizations to gameplay expansions, every test shows tangible progress, and the game's completeness is steadily improving. Although the game is still in the polishing stage, judging by the content presented in this offline trial, it already possesses substantial content, with its wings gradually becoming full.
Before this article was published, "Azur Promilia" just announced that the "Hengxu Test" will begin in early April. Star Visitors who obtain test access are welcome to enter the game and experience the splendor of the Promilia continent firsthand.