Yao Zhuangxian is the father of one of the most famous Chinese game series, 仙剑奇侠传 Xianjian Qixia Zhuan / Legend of Sword and Fairy (also known as Chinese Paladin). In a sense, he created the trend of Chinese games in the 1990s.
Legend of Sword and Fairy became both a commercial and critical success, and multiple sequels have been spawned due to its popularity. It has been regarded as one of the most iconic Chinese RPG series ever made. However, the series was available only in Chinese-speaking parts of the world until Legend of Sword and Fairy 6.
In his youth, Yao Zhuangxian had a wide range of hobbies. Chess, Go, games, martial arts novels, comics, military and historical stories were all his favorites. Yao attached great importance to the accumulation of his own knowledge. He was also good at writing Chinese works of literature when he was a senior in science and engineering.
Taking into account his family’s limited savings, Yao Zhuangxian gave up the opportunity to go to university and entered an engineering college in Taipei City with an excellent grade. Starting from the first grade, Yao learned to make simple games.
Yao studied mining and metallurgy, but he actively participated in the school’s computer hobby group. He used his spare time to teach himself programs. In the third grade, with the encouragement of the senior students in his school, he participated in the Taiwanese computer programming competition for the first time. He did not succeed because of a lack of experience. In the fourth grade, he took part in the competition again and won fourth place; in the fifth grade, he made persistent efforts and finally won the championship. Almost all of Yao’s five-year engineering career was spent on computer programs. During the five years, he wrote countless small games in the computer room in his school.
Most of the other students use computers to do homework or play games, but Yao Zhuangxian constantly wrote out games for other classmates to play and he rarely had time to play games.
When he was about to graduate, Yao brought two of his own shooting games and embarked on the job search for a game company. In the Taiwanese game industry in the late 1980s, everything was still in its infancy. It was not easy to find a company willing to develop Chinese games on its own. Most game companies were selling Japanese and English games. Yao sent his work to Softstar Entertainment. Unfortunately, he collided with Softstar’s products, but both sides left a good impression.
In 1989, when he was 20, Yao Zhuangxian gave Softstar Entertainment the first “surprise”— Richman. The game was sold for NT$100,000 and sold over 30,000 sets in Taiwan. This was a remarkable achievement at the time. Immediately afterward, Yao produced Richman II in 1992, and the strong market response further strengthened his position in Softstar Entertainment.
Around 1991, influenced by the Final Fantasy series, Yao Zhuangxian had an idea: to make a large-scale game. In the overall style of the game, Yao combines the traditional oriental culture with the philosophy of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The world view of Legend of Sword and Fairy is in ancient China and the dialogue design of the characters is also biased towards classical literature. Yao added many beautiful poems in the game.
In terms of plot, Yao did something completely different from the mainstream game plot of Japanese RPG at the time. In traditional RPG stories, the male protagonist will generally save the world, defeat the enemy, become the lord of the powerful party, and win the love of the heroine. Yao broke this tradition. The game story he created is a complete tragedy. When Yao was creating the script of Legend of Sword and Fairy, he communicated with other members of the team and said that the heroine would die at her most glorious moment. As soon as this view was put forward, it was fiercely opposed by other members. But in the end, Yao still insisted on his own ideas and gave this fantasy Chinese classical story a strong tragic color.
In 1995, the first Legend of Sword and Fairy was finally released. It swept the entire Chinese market with completely self-made stories, entangled and touching plots, and beautiful music. Players don’t just complete tasks but integrate more emotions and touches into the game. After the launch of the game, the game received constant reviews and continued for a long time, becoming a classic.
The tragic ending created by Yao had a huge impact on the Chinese game market. In Legend of Sword and Fairy sequels, every game has a touching story. In the following two decades, the first game of this series was adapted into TV series, novels, comics, movies, and many other media. Therefore, not only in the Chinese game market but also in the field of Chinese culture, Legend of Sword and Fairy has become a classic. Unfortunately, due to the cultural differences a lack of English translation, this series is not well-known in Europe and the United States. Fans in Chinese-speaking parts of the world are also not familiar with its English title.
Citations
- “仙劍奇俠20年，仙劍之父姚壯憲怎麼評價這段過去？” “Legend of Sword and Fairy for 20 years, how does Yao Zhuangxian, the father of the series, comment on this past?”. TechBang (in Chinese). 2015-06-24. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
- 仙劍二十週年紀錄片《緣起》 採訪版 Legend of Sword and Fairy‘s 20th Anniversary Documentary “The Origin” Interview Version Softstar Entertainment(in Chinese). 2015-5-11. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
This is so fascinating, I haven’t seen so many Asian designers in my past readings, but this definitely helped me to gain a good knowledge!