After many months of pondering how to turn the famous Mulan legend into a fitting video game formot, and recently picked up interest in the Shogun 2: Total War game...I think I can finally put down some basic ideas on how the Mulan game would function.
Now first and foremost, the game doesn't HAVE to be a full-blown RTS game, but seeing how in the legend she was known to become a "general-like" figure during the war with the Huns/Mongols it would be fitting to have some kind of "super-tactical form" that was like a "tactical view" but "strategy-like control", which probably the closest game I have played to this was Bladestorm (but not as clunky/rigid). That said the size of her "unit" it's difficult to say since all modern interpretations of her legend seem to vary how many allies she had(The Disney version was basically a "large-squad-size" unit). That said how I envision it she would have at most 100 soldiers per battle to keep that "super-tactical-form" while still feeling like you have a personal feel for the battle.
That said since she "becomes" a general figure, like most strategy and tactical games it would make sense to only allow her modest amounts of troops at first, while allowing more and more as you progress and make your way up to the "100" soldier limit. Now we all know that in the stories of Mulan that she had a group of friends along the way, so it would be in my best interest to try to mimic the "Valkyria" way of fighting that you can control her friends but once they are wounded or inured they become unavailable but still participate in the story. Also like Valkryia they can serve as you will "Hero" units that provide more power to your "unit" during the expanse of the campaign.
Going back to earning more and more larger units, of course the battles will get more and more difficult since you will also be facing more and more larger ENEMY units and eventually face Shan Yu's(for lack of an original name) henchmen and himself. Now with this in mind there will be no source gathering since well...China's citizens can take care of themselves for all I care, and the legends always just "focus" on the battles similar to Shogun 2. That said there will have to be some sort of story/campaign reward/penalty system for how well you performed in battle, but not to the point of being "forced out" of being motivated to continue on. Also it would be nice to have a sort of KOTOR/Mass Effect system for the story/campaign that can "influence" your bonds with your friends and as well as ties to the Chinese/Mongol people(Basically in the way of influencing your friendships or "close up" diplomacy options).
That's pretty much what I have for now, but thanks for reading.
Brian
Excellent assessment
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