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Darth Nat posted:Super Metroid walljumping was extremely hard for me as a kid because my child brain could not grasp the concept that you have to press the opposite direction slightly before jumping. I remember literally softlocking myself in that area in Brinstar that tries to teach you to walljump because I just could not get out. As an adult, it's pretty simple now. I had this problem too, probably never would have gotten out of there if I hadn't gotten the player's guide with my NP subscription.
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Jan 11, 2024 16:26
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| # ? May 31, 2024 23:55 |
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I consider Super Metroid and Hollow Knight both essentially perfect games (I have gripes about both, but nothing that would knock them down to more than like a 9.9) but Hollow Knight definitely feels snappy and modern in a way that Super Metroid doesn't (because go figure it's a way more recent and modern game that is iterating on the great poo poo that came before). But I also think that works considering Metroid is a hulking dude in power armor and The Hollow Knight is a zippy little bug man. I personally strongly prefer HK's combat and how it interacts with its movement via pogoing or pushing yourself off of enemies but I've always felt "combat" is just something to do in Metroid in between actual boss fights while exploring. I do also like how the badge system in HK lets you express your own play style preferences and having lots of minor modules that you could tweak in a Metroid game (as opposed to my not-really-shitpost of littering cosmetics all over) to change like, various beam properties or minor movement choices could be a cool bit for them to iterate on.
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Jan 11, 2024 17:23
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Yeah Hollow Knight bosses are amazing and Super Metroid ones are barely passable. They got a lot better later - Dread's bosses are amazing! - but that's definitely where HK wins for me. I do like exploration in most Metroids generally more than in HK, but the original argument started with rewards for exploration, and the HK ones are more unique and feel individually more important than another number. Especially if exploration leads you to an entirely new area, with a boss or two as well! You rarely have full optional bosses in Metroid that give you a significant upgrade for a tough as hell fight.
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Jan 11, 2024 19:24
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Having come to both games at near the same time, Super *clunks*. The space jump alone is such a horrible upgrade that I actively think the game is significantly worse after you get it. Not to mention all the jank around Samus going into a spin or not. Contrasted to HK where you're basically Mega man X in a Metroid game. HK doesn't need more than pogo to alter movement because the movement is so smooth that you won't get bored of it during a playthrough. Now if the first hour wasn't literally the worst part of the game, it would serve itself a lot better.
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Jan 11, 2024 19:45
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Samus controls kinda weirdly but that's the point, imo. Even a simple room has something to keep your thumbs occupied because Samus just moves kinda weird. In a game where you're going to be going through the same rooms multiple times, it's nice to have even simple rooms remain interesting. And a game that controls buttery smooth from the start is necessarily going to have its movement be easier to master--or at least, the hard part of the movement has to come from the level and enemy design, not from the movement itself. Retro Metroid specifically is also designed under the assumption that dodging every hit from a boss just isn't how Samus plays. Like, if you grind the boss for hours and hours you can eventually do it, but Samus' movement just isn't designed for that kind of play. In Super, she's three tiles tall. Compressing to a morph ball requires multiple button presses. You don't have a dash to get out of the way. If the boss starts an attack and you're in a bad position, there might be legitimately nothing you can do to dodge it. Games like Hollow Knight and Metroid Dread are designed so that the bosses are fundamentally supposed to be dodged, and where, if you're sort of mediocre at dodging the boss, you 100% cannot beat it yet. If you go out in Hollow Knight and explore and find a bunch more mask shards and pale ore, you do make he boss you're stuck on easier, but realistically, not by very much. It's not that much harder to beat a boss at 3 health than at 4, or with one fewer sword upgrade. Because the fundamental limit isn't your resources, it's your ability to dodge. Having an extra point of health might turn a barely-lose into a barely-win, but your skill at finding loot in Hollow Knight or Dread aren't really the deciding factor in how hard the bosses are. Super has a very different philosophy. Getting better and better at them doesn't mean taking no damage, it means taking less damage, in a smooth progression. Having an extra E tank or two legitimately makes the boss a lot easier, because at anything below speedrunner skill levels, you're supposed to be trading hits. So if you get stuck on Ridley, you legitimately do have two options: to grind the boss until you get good enough that you don't take too much damage; or, to explore the world and find enough upgrades that it's beatable at your current skill level. It's brilliant design work, imo. None of this is really bashing on Hollow Knight or Dread, they're both great games. But I'm sort of sad to see stuff like this chalked up to it just being old and janky, and would be unhappy if this design philosophy just disappeared.
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Jan 11, 2024 19:55
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Natural 20 posted:Having come to both games at near the same time, Super *clunks*. The space jump alone is such a horrible upgrade that I actively think the game is significantly worse after you get it. It's cool when you get new movement abilities that recontextualise how you interact with the game world. I might even say that's one of the defining traits of the genre and shouldn't be discarded No Dignity fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jan 11, 2024 |
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Jan 11, 2024 20:53
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Metroids and Hollow Knight are all fun and cool games to play.
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Jan 11, 2024 20:59
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No Dignity posted:It's cool when you get new movement abilities that recontextualise how you interact with the game world. I might even say that's one of the defining traits of the genre and shouldn't be discarded These upgrades should be fun to use. Rather than make me wish I did not have the upgrade so I could go back to just having decent movement again.
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Jan 11, 2024 21:01
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Hollow Night never grabbed me, it always seemed like a....hollow....attempt at doing metroid while not really getting it.
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Jan 11, 2024 21:10
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Hollow Knight will always be a rung below where it should be for me by having the worst map system. loving lol at spending a charm slot to know where you are on the giant sprawling map.
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Jan 11, 2024 21:11
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Natural 20 posted:These upgrades should be fun to use. Space Jump is kinda finicky in Super, all the rest rule. And like, the movement in Dread is sublime even if they nerfed wall jump
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Jan 11, 2024 21:13
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I haven't played Hollow Knight since it came out, and I enjoyed it, but I remember thinking that the fast travel points were placed to be as intentionally inconvenient as possible. That and some level full of buzzsaws that made me want to gouge out my eyes and join a monastery.
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Jan 11, 2024 21:37
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Honestly I've always hated the Grapple in Super and I was glad it wasn't in the GBA games. It's great in Dread, however, the quick select and free aim really helped.
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Jan 11, 2024 23:13
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I liked that they made doors/blocks they could only be opened with the grapple beam in Dread. Normally that upgrade becomes dead weight as soon as you get the space jump.
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Jan 11, 2024 23:28
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Metroid ahotuld either kill or completely rework space jump imo, in the 2D games it basically just ends platforming outside of shinespark puzzles which is just a net negative
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Jan 11, 2024 23:50
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I'd probably be okay with it just being a double jump like in the Prime games.
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Jan 11, 2024 23:55
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No Dignity posted:Metroid ahotuld either kill or completely rework space jump imo, in the 2D games it basically just ends platforming outside of shinespark puzzles which is just a net negative I think Space Jump is fine as long as it's one of the final upgrades you acquire. By that point you would be finished most of the game anyway and you just want something to speed up backtracking for final item pickups.
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Jan 11, 2024 23:56
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The Space Jump invalidating platforms is a feature, not a bug, because it's usually the signal you're getting into the endgame, with the Screw Attack being the "you are so powerful now that you literally buzzsaw through everything in your path, time to go murder Mother Brian."
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Jan 11, 2024 23:59
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Nikumatic posted:Metroid is a hulking dude in power armor and The Hollow Knight is a zippy little bug man. I hate this
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Jan 12, 2024 00:16
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Samus, very famously a dude
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Jan 12, 2024 00:18
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Metroid is a pretty cool guy
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Jan 12, 2024 00:27
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I've been informed that Samus is Metroid's girlfriend, is this not the case?
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Jan 12, 2024 00:35
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Samus is actually a famous football, which is referenced by the Morph Ball and Speed Booster abilities.
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Jan 12, 2024 01:41
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Darth Nat posted:Metroid is a pretty cool guy who doesn't afraid of anything
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Jan 12, 2024 02:00
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I think Fusion was the end of “tank Samus” because they played up her vulnerability relative to the unstoppable SA-X. Even at the end of the game when you finally throw down, you never feel like you can go toe-to-toe. Dread felt like an extension of this. Even at your most powerful (barring Metroid Samus), the literally invincible robots and most of the bosses could completely overpower you. I like tank Samus, though. Dread’s smooth controls make me miss that less but sometimes you just want to crush some skulls. I grew up with Samus being a 6’2” linebacker in a power suit so I kind of expect some physicality.
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Jan 12, 2024 02:32
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cheetah7071 posted:Super has a very different philosophy. Getting better and better at them doesn't mean taking no damage, it means taking less damage, in a smooth progression. Having an extra E tank or two legitimately makes the boss a lot easier, because at anything below speedrunner skill levels, you're supposed to be trading hits. So if you get stuck on Ridley, you legitimately do have two options: to grind the boss until you get good enough that you don't take too much damage; or, to explore the world and find enough upgrades that it's beatable at your current skill level. It's brilliant design work, imo. This is sort of related to my one big complaint about Dread, a game I otherwise love. Getting more energy tanks doesn't really make you all that much stronger, because by the time you have them even regular enemies will take off an entire tank just by bumping into you. I like the concept of, as you described, being able to trade hits with bosses. Maybe this is because I grew up with Super, maybe it's just because I'm bad at video games. But if I take the time to hunt down a bunch of tanks, I want to be able to live a lot longer as a reward. Edit: I've been playing through Dread again recently too, and goddamn the bit with all the X escaping containment in Elun just chills me every time.
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Jan 12, 2024 03:02
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I didn’t go for energy tanks during my Dread mode run for that exact reason. What good does a tank do when you’re dead in a single hit anyways? Missiles and power bombs, though? Power bombs solve problems from afar with minimal fuss, of course I went for all of those  i still died like 700 times e: lol apparently I went for 100% in Dread mode after all, according to my post history here. Also, 45 more deaths than I remembered 
Icon Of Sin fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jan 12, 2024 |
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Jan 12, 2024 03:06
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Yeah but Dread mode is specifically a special challenge for people who want that. Which is just fine, I'm glad it's there. No reason not to have it But I want to be able to survive a little longer when I play on old person Normal mode.
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Jan 12, 2024 03:17
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I finished Dread mode but Raven Beak almost gave me PTSD with his stupid shinespark that can change direction without warning if you jump over him.
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Jan 12, 2024 03:45
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The move towards mobility focused gameplay in the Metroid series and in the metroidvania genre as a whole reflects general trends for action gamers. When Metroid games were trying to be tent pole titles, parts of their game design had to make room for less dexterous or self-improvement-focused players. Nowadays the genre appeals directly to souls-adjacent technical players looking for speed runnable games where skill and expression are rewarded. Tanking hits and accumulating numbers to cushion against mistakes and survive attrition doesn't resonate with gamers in the age of challenge runs and speed running and viral twitch clips. Games need to look impressive regardless of the actual level of difficulty.
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Jan 12, 2024 04:16
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I’m pretty sure they are like that because older games were just clunkier so you had to give players a higher margin of error to compensate
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Jan 12, 2024 04:41
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DoctorWhat posted:The move towards mobility focused gameplay in the Metroid series and in the metroidvania genre as a whole reflects general trends for action gamers. When Metroid games were trying to be tent pole titles, parts of their game design had to make room for less dexterous or self-improvement-focused players. Nowadays the genre appeals directly to souls-adjacent technical players looking for speed runnable games where skill and expression are rewarded. This makes sense but speaking as the less dextrous I still hate it. 
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Jan 12, 2024 05:06
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I can't speak for the intentions of the Super Metroid developers but I don't think old (in this case NES/SNES era) games gave a poo poo about being accessible or easily beaten by most players.
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Jan 12, 2024 05:08
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TaurusOxford posted:I think Space Jump is fine as long as it's one of the final upgrades you acquire. By that point you would be finished most of the game anyway and you just want something to speed up backtracking for final item pickups. AM2R goes hard in the other direction by having you get space jump like 40% of the way through the game and it weirdly works; having never played Metroid 2 or Samus Returns I have always wondered when Space Jump pops up in those DoctorWhat posted:The move towards mobility focused gameplay in the Metroid series and in the metroidvania genre as a whole reflects general trends for action gamers. When Metroid games were trying to be tent pole titles, parts of their game design had to make room for less dexterous or self-improvement-focused players. Nowadays the genre appeals directly to souls-adjacent technical players looking for speed runnable games where skill and expression are rewarded. Eh, I don't think this has much to do with speed running at all for the average gamer. I think a big distinction in modern games is that, outside of certain hardcore games (usually Soulslikes), the concept of a "runback" after dying is generally gone. In Super Metroid, dying generally set you back a loving ways (the two major issues I have with it are that the movement sucks and it needed more save points). If anything, that experience is much closer to what I associate with Soulslike games - the limited checkpoints that demand you learn to master an area before you can easily progress. In Metroid Dread, you are expected to master, say, a specific EMMI section, but those are much shorter than the distances you'd traverse between save points in Super Metroid. And there are no boss runbacks at all, IIRC. So the developers have a lot more freedom to crank up the difficulty of individual encounters with the expectation that players will have a much tighter feedback cycle in which to improve. I think this design is what sometimes leads to games having overtuned encounters - if getting defeated by a boss required a 7 minute journey back to it, players would react much more negatively than if they got to just try a boss over and over again until they finally nailed it. I am not at all saying that we should return to games having more limited save points, but I do sometimes think developers get a little too excited to make boss fights take 3+ tries to try to make them feel like an accomplishment of their own, rather than a slightly-harder fight at the end of a whole area a player has to traverse in one go.
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Jan 12, 2024 05:22
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Metroid Fusion had hard bosses that did a lot of damage too and that was way before Souls games caught on
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Jan 12, 2024 05:27
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Augus posted:Metroid Fusion had hard bosses that did a lot of damage too and that was way before Souls games caught on Counterpoint, you can grind E-tanks where it became a war of attrition.
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Jan 12, 2024 06:03
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Corn Burst posted:Counterpoint, you can grind E-tanks where it became a war of attrition.
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Jan 12, 2024 06:53
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The whole early era of videogames was fraught with difficulty, but Nintendo's first party games being more coherent and understandable with a lot better game design technically would've made them easier than most. Especially better than the games that descended directly from quarter-munchers. I don't really remember loving or hating Super Metroid's bosses much, but then I'm not much of a boss fights kinda guy. There are times when I'm really not in the mood for the white-knuckled tension of having to do lots of perfect dodges to get through a boss fight, even if it is satisfying when you figure it out. Mother Brain (and the baby mother brains in Dread) is basically a slow and clunky bullet hell. You have to try managing and dodging all these projectiles from the turrets and the hula hoops and the acid, and it's nearly impossible to never be hit, you just gotta manage your best. Hollow Knight gives you much less of a health cushion, and is much harder as a result, and it's generally a lot more demanding of player skill. Metroid does channel a lot of horror movie stuff, but even in Dread with all the forced stealth, you periodically get big moments off badass rear end-kicking (which sometimes feels like it might undermine some of the spirit of the earlier games in its own way; the self-defense mechanic from Samus Returns kinda ruined the vibe of Metroid 2). abraham linksys posted:AM2R goes hard in the other direction by having you get space jump like 40% of the way through the game and it weirdly works; having never played Metroid 2 or Samus Returns I have always wondered when Space Jump pops up in those In Metroid 2 it's at about that point. Maybe a bit earlier. I guess aside from the jankiness limiting it, you're also going mostly downward for much of the game. Corn Burst posted:Counterpoint, you can grind E-tanks where it became a war of attrition. You're definitely not shinesparking if you have dexterity issues.
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Jan 12, 2024 06:54
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Yeah, Super Metroid came out relatively late in the SNES era and most big titles had pivoted away from bullshit difficulty, Nintendo even more than most. SMB3 and SMW were vastly easier than SMB1 (let alone the original "Lost Levels" SMB2.) Nintendo can and did design games to be accessible and beatable (if not necessarily easily) for casual players. Super Metroid's design demonstrates very clear and deliberate difficulty tuning, probably best illustrated by the major boss battles. Every major boss is noticeably harder than the last one despite your growing powerup collection, until you get to Mother Brain, who is primarily a cinematic battle and is much easier than most of the rest. There's enough going on that you can't just sleepwalk through the fight and it feels much more fraught than it actually is, but the game is very obviously designed so that having made it this far it's not really going to try to stop you from seeing the end.
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Jan 12, 2024 07:20
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I really wonder which corner of the exploration/mobility/combat triangle Prime will most lean towards - those games being so pretty and huge and technically impressive really carried them back in the day but they're not going to be able to do that anymore.
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Jan 12, 2024 10:39
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