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I move run to a shoulder button and give up on aim down. Generally dislike having face buttons that you're supposed to hold while pressing other ones
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# ? Feb 3, 2024 09:01 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 20:55 |
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I used to use a romhack called Control Freak which basically remapped the controls to be more like Fusion/Zero Mission and just made arm pumping speeds automatic, but I since that's not possible on official hardware, I just learned how to use the defaults. Except for shoot being on X. That's just weird.
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# ? Feb 3, 2024 09:11 |
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Started Super Metroid for the first time ever. I’m digging it, I just got the Varia suit after killing Kraid. I’d be playing Metroid 2 more but the lack of an in game map just cripples it for me, and having to pause the game to pick up my phone to look at a map online and decipher my position within it kind of sucks a lot of the fun out of a game I’m otherwise enjoying more than I thought I would.
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# ? Feb 3, 2024 23:49 |
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You can just navigate yourself, without using a map. The game is designed to make that reasonable
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 03:48 |
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I have a bit of a unique perspective toward Metroid 2 and its two remakes official and unofficial, in that I don't think I fully love any iteration of it when I really think about it. With the original, I have to check a map far too much for my liking because I get lost on the tiny screen frequently, but more pressingly the sound card genuinely gives me a headache and makes me more frustrated at it than I should in the moment. Ultimately it's probably the not-Other M game in the series I enjoy the least. For AM2R, while I recognize the technical craft that went in from an amateur dev, I have a lot of minor gripes that pile into making the whole product less than the sum of its parts, with some of the worst bosses in the series history period and being Just Zero Mission Again, a game I already don't rank as highly as some other games. And for Samus Returns, I like it more from a potential and ambition perspective than on the game itself, though I can manage to play through it full far easier than M2 or AM2R, but I feel safer in ranking it lower than I used to now that Dread fully realized a lot of the aspects I saw as having potential.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 04:05 |
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cheetah7071 posted:You can just navigate yourself, without using a map. ^ the whole point of this loving genre is walking around and exploring places and every other day some new person has a complaint about how much it sucks to have to do exploring in the explore game and it makes me so irritated
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 04:24 |
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I have fond memories as a kid of mapping out Metroid 2 on graph paper. Which is kinda tough when the game wasn't explicitly cut up into squares. A lot of fun though.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 04:27 |
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Bleck posted:^ If exploration is a game's entire purpose then the exploration should be fun, interesting, and rewarding, none of which describe navigating a monochromatic maze of corridors largely copy & pasted from the same repeating chunks.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 04:45 |
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There are still a couple bits of Metroid 2 that are a little bullshit to try figuring out (and would be bullshit even with a functional map system) but I think it's less bullshit than NES games tend to be. The technical limitations of the console hold it back, but the game does do its best to depict a difference in areas when it doesn't even have color.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 05:26 |
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Bleck posted:^ I like having a map to give me a sense of place and knowing where I’ve been and where I haven’t, I don’t need to wander in circles trying to remember if I need to drop down another level or go left, then climb two levels, then go right or whatever. Like, it’s the point of maps, to make exploration accessible. Actual real life historical explorers used maps, on purpose. No, really! There’s a reason why Super Metroid introduced a map and every game since then has retained one - it’s a legit honest to god unquestionably good quality-of-life improvement, and the first two entries in the series are hamstrung by not having one.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 05:36 |
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Having a map gives the designers more freedom to make worlds that are hard to navigate without one, but metroid 2 is designed to be perfectly navigable without. When I played it, I spent a bit of time lost in the first area before realizing what the game was trying to tell me, and then was able to navigate perfectly fine from then on. It's a really well designed world for maples navigation
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 05:54 |
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Wait, am I in the hallway that looks like this, or the identical hallway that looks like this next to that one, or the other identical hallway that looks like this a couple screens away? It's a good thing this game is optimized for mapless navigation or this might be irritating. EDIT: granted it only really gets bad a couple times in the game but it's still a noticeable flaw
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 06:00 |
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the way the map is set up, you don't have to remember individual rooms like that. Each area is a hub-and-spoke system surrounding the big cave with the chozo ruins in the middle. Go outward intot he caves to find metroids, or into the ruins to find upgrades. It doesn't actually matter for navigation if the hallways look a bit samey because they don't loop around on each other in a way that actually makes it confusing. You go down each path in turn, picking up the upgrades or killing the metroids. All you actually have to keep track of is the layout of the spoke you're currently in, which is just 2-5 rooms and very easy to remember. I figured this out after a bit of bumbling in area 1, when I realized it wasn't a bunch of interconnected huge caves, but that I was repeatedly entering the same big cave. Very easy to grasp from there that you're just looking for paths off of that room, checking them off in turn. Had a blast doing it. Instantly assuming it's impossible and reaching for a map is denying yourself one of the best parts of the game.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 06:07 |
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Most people intuitively grasp the basic logic of the main trunk and sub-zones--that's the whole point, if it really needed explaining it would not be very useful. The main source of navigation frustrations are within the larger metroid nest areas, which are much larger than 2-5 rooms and do in fact branch and loop back on themselves. Worse, unlike Metroid 1 room connections cannot always be mapped out 1:1 in literal space even within the same zone so keeping track of your location by reckoning distances will simply fail sometimes due to impossible room connections. There are some points in the game where you will walk into a room that you've been in before that you literally have no way of knowing that you've been in before, because it is identical to other rooms, and you arrived there via an impossible warp. I beat the game the first time without ever looking at a map and I assure you it was not one of the best parts of the game.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 06:35 |
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To be clear, I'm not talking about the trunk-and-area structure. I'm talking about how the areas themselves are designed, as spokes around a central hub. It's a bit unclear if you understood that from your post. Assuming you did, and by 'metroid nest' you mean the path off of the ruins caves: I'm looking at a map now and I see maybe one metroid nest sub-area that might be a bit confusing, taken by itself (and you can take them by themselves, because if you ever find yourself back in the main cave, you can re-orient yourself, because it's a central hub for the area). It's pretty deep into the game, but if you're thinking of the bottom left part of area 3, then sure, I'll grant that one's a bit confusing--though it's not very large, at least, and you should be able to fully explore it relatively quickly even through sheer bumbling. I only see one way to really get lost in it though; it's shaped like a big loop with one side path to get back to the hub, and another to go down a fairly lengthy non-branching path to some metroids. You might do the loop a few times before realizing what's up. I think I did that actually when I played it, though it's a bit hard to remember my exact path through the map. There really just aren't very many opportunities to get lost in the game once you realize the way the paths radiate out from the ruins caves, because there aren't very many branches within the spokes. You even get 'you've been here before' hints when you come across a metroid shell but then the room after it is empty, because that means you've already killed the metroid.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 06:58 |
It's okay for people to want a map.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 07:21 |
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draw your own drat map like a real grade-schooler!
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 08:06 |
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Bleck posted:^ You're right - Super Metroid IS a terrible game for making the in-game map a standard feature in the genre.
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 15:17 |
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I more interested in the idea that you can’t explore with a map. Which is extremely not how that works
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# ? Feb 4, 2024 15:23 |
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Metroid 2 was designed for you wander in circles a little to pass time in, like, a long car trip.
Omnomnomnivore fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Feb 4, 2024 |
# ? Feb 4, 2024 15:47 |
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I made more progress in Metroid 2, I cleared Area 3 and I’ve got 16 Metroids left. I also grabbed two energy tanks, bringing me up to 4. Is it me or is the wave beam objectively better than the spazer or plasma beams?
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# ? Feb 5, 2024 16:50 |
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Shine posted:It's okay for people to want a map.
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# ? Feb 5, 2024 16:58 |
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TaurusOxford posted:You're right - Super Metroid IS a terrible game for making the in-game map a standard feature in the genre. The post is about Metroid 2, which has a world that's reasonable to navigate without a map. If you need something to tell you whether or not you came from the left or the right because your brain forgot what happened five minutes ago, that's a sad life to live and I sympathize, but it's not the game's problem. Mostly my complaint is that it's annoying to see people complain about not knowing where to go in a genre where, arguably, the main design element is the expectation that you will not know where to go. Like, that's the point, like just Xenomrph posted:having to pause the game to pick up my phone to look at a map online and decipher my position within it kind of sucks I cannot imagine a single point in Metroid 2 where the answer to the question "where do I go now" is not either "walk to the left until you can't anymore" or "walk to the right until you can't anymore." Just keep going until you get there! Bleck fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Feb 6, 2024 |
# ? Feb 6, 2024 23:44 |
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gonna be the rear end in a top hat counter-example and say this is the first I've learned that 2's world map is hub-and-spoke. I never beat the original because I would get lost eventually, without fail
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# ? Feb 6, 2024 23:57 |
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It was really easy to get lost on 1 because everything looks the god drat same. Though even if it wasnt there is zero reason not to have a map
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 00:09 |
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Bleck posted:Mostly my complaint is that it's annoying to see people complain about not knowing where to go in a genre where, arguably, the main design element is the expectation that you will not know where to go. Like, that's the point, That in modern times there's full maps of the game online makes it tempting to reach for a map, but it's really counterproductive because the world is so large that it's actually kind of hard to pinpoint your location, which leads to frustration instead of just going with it. Bleck posted:I cannot imagine a single point in Metroid 2 where the answer to the question "where do I go now" is not either "walk to the left until you can't anymore" or "walk to the right until you can't anymore." Just keep going until you get there! Metroid II is a game that's otherwise devoid of movement/mechanical puzzles ("how do I get to this door or that ledge?"), so the navigational puzzles that do exist are part of the intended game experience. Ciaphas posted:gonna be the rear end in a top hat counter-example and say this is the first I've learned that 2's world map is hub-and-spoke. I never beat the original because I would get lost eventually, without fail
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 00:16 |
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metroid 1 is a much different situation yeah I was mostly just trying to push back on same post; "The game is annoying because it sucks to do <thing that you don't have to do and makes the game worse>" is a goofy post and I was hoping to share my experience playing metroid 2 maplessly and having a lot of fun doing it. I honestly think a lot of people just sort of boot it up, get a bit lost for a bit, and then just assume it's a bullshit old game and turn to an online map without really trying. If you give it a try maplessly I think you'll have a lot more fun than you will repeatedly checking an external resource!
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 00:16 |
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I’m not having fun without a map and would like a map to enhance my fun. The series understood this and introduced a map in the next game, and kept it for all subsequent games because it’s an objectively good quality of life improvement. If you don’t like maps you can just…. not use it. But making a game deliberately less accessible by not offering a map and then saying “you don’t need a map, just git good, your memory blows and I pity you ( get the gently caress outta here with that poo poo ), you’re bad for wanting a map” is a Bad Take. I am having more fun with the game now that I have access to a map online. This is okay. As stated, it’s okay to want a map, and to lament the lack of one. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Feb 7, 2024 |
# ? Feb 7, 2024 00:25 |
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ExcessBLarg! posted:To the extent it's not intuitive, it is something that's communicated in the game's instruction manual. Which, admittedly, you may not have access to.
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 00:27 |
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Xenomrph posted:But making a game deliberately less accessible by not offering a map and then saying “you don’t need a map, just git good, your memory blows and I pity you ( get the gently caress outta here with that poo poo ), you’re bad for wanting a map” is a Bad Take. Xenomrph posted:The series understood this and introduced a map in the next game, and kept it for all subsequent games because it’s an objectively good quality of life improvement. I wouldn't be opposed to someone coming out with a Metroid II in-game map ROM hack. I'm just not sure that with the specific design of the game that it would help as much as people might think it would help. Xenomrph posted:As stated, it’s okay to want a map, and to lament the lack of one.
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 01:19 |
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I mean the first two games didn’t have maps because of design limitations rather than a stylistic choice. If they cared they would backport a map no question Hell they did that for the remake of 1 and 2
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 01:22 |
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I'd argue if they really wanted a map for 1 and 2 when they were making them, they could've put them on the pause menus. It's not like games didn't have maps back then. Zelda 1 and Link's Awakening had them after all.
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 01:32 |
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CharlestheHammer posted:I mean the first two games didn’t have maps because of design limitations rather than a stylistic choice.
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 01:42 |
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did someone post metroid 2's design docs from nintendo while i wasn't watching, or
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 01:43 |
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as far as I can tell, OG metroid just wants you to suffer. The entire design seems to point to this
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 01:45 |
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cheetah7071 posted:as far as I can tell, OG metroid just wants you to suffer. The entire design seems to point to this There’s one point where you can only get through Norfair by bombing a specific block in the lower-right corner of a room and there’s no indication that it’s there or the correct way to progress and if you don’t know about it already, you will likely just wander around confused.
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 01:49 |
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I've heard at least one person say they figured that one out on their own because apparently the breakable blocks are in the same place in rooms that are clones of each other, and there's a general pattern of which tiles are ever breakable. Can't imagine many people got it though
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 01:57 |
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As a kid (my parents used that Kool-Aid point redemption to get it for me!), I didn't even really think hard about the way the game was laid out (though I had the manual and I know I looked at it more than once), I mostly made progress by music and the earthquakes/acid levels. Generally if I ran out of a room and heard the main theme, and came across the acid again, I'd figure (after some initial trial and error) that I got turned around and that generally worked to keep me in the proper zone. I think the layout's made more intimidating than it really is by how close the camera is to keep the sprites large.
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 02:04 |
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:There’s one point where you can only get through Norfair by bombing a specific block in the lower-right corner of a room and there’s no indication that it’s there or the correct way to progress and if you don’t know about it already, you will likely just wander around confused. Or you've reached Norfair by bombing blocks in rooms at least a few times and are aware that sometimes that's the solution to where to go or where a secret is, so you try bombing different places to see if any of them will break?
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 02:14 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 20:55 |
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i just rolled around dropping bombs on every title. did you have anything better to do as a kid
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# ? Feb 7, 2024 02:16 |