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ImpAtom posted:Man, can you imagine if Metroid had implausibly colored objects in it that specifically showed you where to go or what weapon to use to open a door. Nonsense, next thing you'll be suggesting the strangely unskippable door opening animations were disguising load times.
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Feb 13, 2024 03:54
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Fedule posted:Game Design is really loving hard. By the way, as an aside, there's a charm in HK that's also purely there for exploration, and contrary to the compass one, a similar one is in many other games of the genre: the "magnet" one that pull currency towards you from further away. I hate this a lot more than the compass one because it's really just convenience, it actively gets rid of just a little bit of tedium (turning around once in a while to get stuff dropped behind you), it doesn't really do much and yet it feels bad (!) not having it because that geo/coin/flarphmoney fell down the pit argh. Picking up Stuff shouldn't cost you either time or a slot!
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Feb 13, 2024 08:46
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that's a great example of it being hard: having to press left and right a little bit to pick up all the money is something that has an effect on the game, and changes the feeling of playing it, and not entirely for the worse. What you call tedium, I call a brief interlude of purely lighthearted gameplay. Instead of the adrenaline of combat or the uncertainty of exploring a new area, it's just a moment of happiness as you forget the stress and friction of the game and just pick up some cash like a person in one of those money-blowing machines. Games spend a lot of effort putting lighter interludes to pace out heavy gameplay (think the platforming sections in modern doom), and this can do that without even feeling like a break from the normal game, because it's entirely emergent from the core systems of the game, rather than being tacked on. Were the developers thinking about this? Maybe, maybe not. I suspect they were, because the money explodes in so many directions and it'd be just as easy to have it all drop in a single spot. Is it load-bearing? No, not really; it's a pretty minor thing. But I think it's really easy to conclude something is pure tedium and should be automated by the system when it does have an actual knock-on impact that may be desirable. e: as for the charm in particular, I have no strong feelings about it. I never pick up those kinds of upgrades but they keep appearing in game after game so they presumably have an audience
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Feb 13, 2024 09:14
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EVGA Longoria posted:You could go a step farther and make the health bar a UI element that requires point investment. After all, you already have all of that information from the action on screen, so you don't NEED the health bar UI to know how much health you have, it's a convenience feature. It certainly wouldn't make it an unplayable game, but it would annoy a lot of players. HK even has distinct health dots instead of an indistinct health bar, so it's even easier numbers to track. This feels like where I talk about Nier Automata. So I will! Nier actually has this. Your health, XP, cooldowns, enemy stats, the minimap, your objective marker, the text log, save points, damage, it's all on chips you can remove from your chipset, and they all cost the same resources as the actual combat gear. The smart thing, though, is that they cost almost nothing. The most expensive chip for the HUD is 3 points. The cheapest attack chip is 4. You're unlikely to be in a position where you're actually exchanging utility for visuals. What's more, you start with most of them equipped. That means you don't go "Aw, man. I have to remove shockwave attacks to be able to see enemy health!" Instead, at most, you go "If I remove the minimap, I can fit in a better attack chip to do 4% more damage." You feel like you're being clever to figure out how to optimize your resources, not like you're being forced to sacrifice abilities to have basic UI. (It also ties into the ways the game sells its narrative and gameplay connection. You're a robot, so your abilities are chips. All your abilities. Including being alive. You can get a game over by removing your basic OS chip.) As was said, a lot about reception comes from how you sell things, not just what the things are. If we got back over to FROM, then I think Armored Core is also worth bringing up as a game where the game makes a lot of choices, for good and ill, that are based around selling a narrative, not just being mechanically "fun". Losing money for repairs and bullets isn't something most players want, per se, but it is something that further fuels the core fantasy. You are a dirtbag corpo merc. You have to pay for ammo. You'll have your clients give you bad intel. Your map might be lovely because you can't afford a head with a good mapping system. You might go into debt and need to sell your mech parts (or your own corpse) to keep in the black. One problem with a lot of these decisions in games is that they don't feel in keeping with the core fantasy. It knocks you out of the fantasy when your badass supercommando can't jump a small fence, and it doesn't directly add fun that makes up for it. It's also something that usually doesn't work with getting lost. Samus is supposed to be a super-badass elite one woman army. She isn't meant to be walking in circles. (On the other hand, it does fit fine with the dirtbag rando you start as in many From games. You're a random schlub in a terrifying nightmare realm. A little disorientation works like a treat.)
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Feb 13, 2024 10:12
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This game kicks butt. Just got it like two days ago and i've never played a metroid game before. On the subject of maps? Well, I think i'd get pissed off if I had to remember where every new path was after unlocking a ability. No way would I wanna do so much wandering and I'd end up just googling where stuff is which is lame.
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Feb 13, 2024 10:35
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one thing I definitely won’t defend about hollow knight is the corpse run mechanic. It clashes with the way the game is designed since if you’re struggling with an area you’re supposed to leave and explore one of the other dozen paths that are open to you. But the corpse run means you need to head down the same path in order to get your cash back and well while you’re here you might as well try bashing your head against the brick wall one more time and it becomes a vicious cycle. Also the bulk of the geo you get is from one-time caches that you find while exploring and unlike souls you need to break these immediately instead of them going in your pocket for you to crack open when you’re ready to spend them, so losing geo stings way more than losing souls since it means you’ve wasted a bunch of those one-time sources
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Feb 13, 2024 12:16
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cheetah7071 posted:that's a great example of it being hard: having to press left and right a little bit to pick up all the money is something that has an effect on the game, and changes the feeling of playing it, and not entirely for the worse. What you call tedium, I call a brief interlude of purely lighthearted gameplay. Instead of the adrenaline of combat or the uncertainty of exploring a new area, it's just a moment of happiness as you forget the stress and friction of the game and just pick up some cash like a person in one of those money-blowing machines. Games spend a lot of effort putting lighter interludes to pace out heavy gameplay (think the platforming sections in modern doom), and this can do that without even feeling like a break from the normal game, because it's entirely emergent from the core systems of the game, rather than being tacked on. Were the developers thinking about this? Maybe, maybe not. I suspect they were, because the money explodes in so many directions and it'd be just as easy to have it all drop in a single spot. Is it load-bearing? No, not really; it's a pretty minor thing. But I think it's really easy to conclude something is pure tedium and should be automated by the system when it does have an actual knock-on impact that may be desirable. That is a great example of it being hard, because it mostly misses the mark. Most of the time the game gives you plenty of downtime between enemies and the extra time spent to collect loot is unnecessary and even unwelcome. In threat-rich areas where you're constantly surrounded by danger and could really use a moment of respite a lot of drops wind up falling into hazards or places you don't want to go, so instead of getting a nice interlude you get less reward than normal. Sometimes it works. It does legitimately feel great when you kill a miniboss or even a really big normal enemy and it explodes into huge piles of money to pick up, when you both want to take a breather and actually get one. Theoretically there's nothing stopping the game from having more convenient money drops on regular enemies and saving the big money shower for those victory lap moments. Does maintaining that continuity in the way money drops work enhance the satisfaction for the big payoffs more than the nuisance of having to slow down in slow areas and watch money fall off cliffs?  Personally, I would say probably not, but I also had a hard time caring one way or the other because I'm not a perfectionist about collecting stuff and the game is pretty generous with money. This is another knock-on effect of the corpse run mechanic; money is generally plentiful to keep the penalty for losing a corpse from being too punishing, which means if you're not losing money from biffing corpse runs then money isn't a particularly valuable reward (which then also generates a lot of complaints from players who are disappointed that most of the rewards for thoroughly combing the environment are more of an infinite resource they have plenty of.) But some players are always going to be irritated by having to miss out on resource drops whether or not they need them. So again, yes, game design is hard! Even a really, really good game can have a lot of little blemishes. Sometimes those wrinkles enhance the experience; one of the big goals of game design is to push players into doing things they don't want to do in order to create tension and variety, so some deliberate friction is always going to be necessary. That doesn't mean that every unpopular or frustrating feature is A Good Idea, Actually; a lot of the time it's just a Good Enough idea, and sometimes it's still a bad idea that the rest of the game is strong enough to get away with anyhow.
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Feb 13, 2024 18:20
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Mentioned earlier in the thread that the music from downed frigate Orpheon used to play in my head whenever I went scuba diving. Today I went diving for the first time in years, and there it was again 😌 https://youtu.be/KsRLxTC1dv8?si=GaYSGujDqEIzS3Pe Literally a perfect piece for the environment where it plays.
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Feb 13, 2024 18:35
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Augus posted:one thing I definitely won’t defend about hollow knight is the corpse run mechanic. It clashes with the way the game is designed since if you’re struggling with an area you’re supposed to leave and explore one of the other dozen paths that are open to you. But the corpse run means you need to head down the same path in order to get your cash back and well while you’re here you might as well try bashing your head against the brick wall one more time and it becomes a vicious cycle. Also the bulk of the geo you get is from one-time caches that you find while exploring and unlike souls you need to break these immediately instead of them going in your pocket for you to crack open when you’re ready to spend them, so losing geo stings way more than losing souls since it means you’ve wasted a bunch of those one-time sources Hey, there's always the bank!
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Feb 13, 2024 19:05
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Giving the Metroid II remake another shot after bouncing off of it at release, thank you Nintendo for making a braindead-simple (for me at least) wall jump. Kinda wish you could move with the D-pad though, it's just a little too loose with the stick for an action platformer.
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Feb 17, 2024 16:27
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CainFortea posted:I dunno, you just seemed to really not get the point that people like different things.
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Feb 18, 2024 05:08
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I sacrificed the compass pin for the geo magnet pin almost immediately when I found it, because hoovering up some of the geo that normally falls off ledges was way more important than knowing my precise map location on an extremely well-landmarked map. I think i struggled for a couple areas and then never needed it again, hollow knight absolutely broke me of that habit. I still check the map often in other games, but I pay a lot more attention to the shape of rooms and the little set-dressing details in the rooms so it's easier to remember them. Which also makes it easier to remember where the ability gates are! I even loved the fact that the map fills in by exploring and making your way back to checkpoints! It felt like I was learning a coherent space bit-by-bit with a diegetically-created map. It felt like a nice compromise where exploration had rewards and stakes, but nice enough to give the player an actual map instead of like Dark Souls where I spend a lot of my time rotating the 3D Map/Model of everything from Sen's Fortress -> Tomb of the Giants in my brain. That being said, if you want to take the map itself away, you can pry it from my cold, buggy fingers
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Feb 19, 2024 08:07
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bawk posted:I spend a lot of my time rotating the 3D Map/Model of everything from Sen's Fortress -> Tomb of the Giants in my brain. Same, and no one can stop me.
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Feb 19, 2024 08:32
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Metroid II remake update: is there any advantage to using the Ice Beam on the Metroid minibosses?
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Feb 20, 2024 21:17
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If you hit their bellies they freeze and you can get some free hits in. It doesn't change the result of winning the fight or anything.
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Feb 20, 2024 22:10
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Just my two meaningless cents, but AM2R put that whole-rear end game to shame. gently caress, I hated it. I played with invulnerability and unlimited aeon and poo poo the last time I played it and it was still a miserable slog. HOW DO YOU RUIN BASICALLY THE ONLY MUSIC IN THE ENTIRE ORIGINAL GAME?! The SR388 theme loving slaps. I'd have hated Samus Returns if that was the only thing it got wrong.
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Feb 22, 2024 04:52
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AM2R's Metroid fights were so painfully bad they sunk the entire game imo, the official remake was at least a mid 7/10 throughout
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Feb 22, 2024 09:26
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Yeah I'm firmly in "like it, don't love it" territory, having never played original Metroid II. Wish that either the movement was a little more precise or that you took a little less damage, feels like I'm taking a fair amount of chip damage either because I misjudged a hitbox or a movement input took a hair longer than I expected it to. Will likely finish it, at least.
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Feb 22, 2024 18:13
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No Dignity posted:AM2R's Metroid fights were so painfully bad they sunk the entire game imo, the official remake was at least a mid 7/10 throughout Why can't they ever get Metroid combat right? I'll say this until I'm blue in the face, but Samus Returns' biggest problem is that Metroid games, for my money and when they're at their best, make you feel like a complete loving badass for a good while after every upgrade. All of the enemies are suddenly trivial. This lasts just long enough that you can get used to it.Then, and only then, do they stick you in a new area that reminds you of how small you are in the face of a endless alien creatures and such, and the cycle repeats. Samus Returns gave you an upgrade and immediately chumped you out, making all of them seem lackluster, and completely removing some of the most fun that can be found in virtually every other game.
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Feb 22, 2024 23:53
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The worst thing about Samus Returns is how it completely botched the atmosphere of the Metroid nest, the build up before it, and the ascent after defeating the Queen. Also the tunnel theme only plays once in the entire game and it’s not a very good remix
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Feb 23, 2024 00:01
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I love this music from Samus Returns -- very atmospheric https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tzadS9YEyo
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Feb 23, 2024 00:06
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WHY BONER NOW posted:I love this music from Samus Returns -- very atmospheric missing from video: opening the wrong door so the song gets cut off by blaring Norfair horns
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Feb 23, 2024 00:14
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Augus posted:The worst thing about Samus Returns is how it completely botched the atmosphere of the Metroid nest, the build up before it, and the ascent after defeating the Queen. quote:Also the tunnel theme only plays once in the entire game and it’s not a very good remix 
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Feb 23, 2024 01:03
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Having pickups that you could only get after getting the baby was a loving weird choice, I know it was only a couple and they were next to warp points but still. Taking the baby to the ship was a cool moment in the original that they made weird.
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Feb 23, 2024 03:41
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Any tips on Survival Mode in Dread? I feel like running out of missiles is my biggest issue but I'm not sure how to quickly defeat bosses without using them.
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Feb 28, 2024 00:30
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Metroid Samus Returns update: Just realized that I have not had to backtrack for any suit upgrades, which I'm guessing is a holdover from the original game but which still feels weird (just tagged the E: also the suit upgrades are wildly distributed in this game- feels like all I got in Area 3 was the Grapple Beam, and so far in Area 4 I've gotten the Spazer Beam, Space Jump, and Super Missiles. C-Euro fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Mar 4, 2024 |
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Mar 3, 2024 05:59
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You can 100% Metroid II without having to backtrack (except for one spot where you have to backtrack for forward progress regardless of your item percentage), but you can backtrack all the way to the beginning at essentially any point, if you want. Samus Returns does shake this up a bit by requiring you to backtrack for items, but as I recall you're correct that you don't need to for suit upgrades.
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Mar 3, 2024 06:52
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Boy this fight in Samus Returns for (I assume) Power Bombs sucks. Guess I better backtrack for Energy and Super Missile Tanks.
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Mar 23, 2024 05:46
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The Dark Soulsivication of every boss in every genre is getting really loving tiresome and that right there is a great example.
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Mar 23, 2024 05:47
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I think the boss fights in the new metroid games are more Megaman than anything else, and also own. But otherwise agreed about the genre as a whole, even aesthetically it's getting tiresome
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Mar 23, 2024 11:28
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LividLiquid posted:The Dark Soulsivication of every boss in every genre is getting really loving tiresome and that right there is a great example. I mean the boss feels very Metroid Prime to me - dodge, shoot face until glowing weak points emerge, bomb those weak points, and I love that game. It's just a great example of my overarching problem with Samus Returns, in that everything deals just a little too much damage for how loose the controls and some hitboxes feel. The part of the fight where you have to drop bombs into its vacuum attack was particularly bad, because if you get too close you take 300 damage (out of the 8/900 that I had, and no pickups in that part of the fight either!). See also the fights against the third Metroid evolution that crawls on the walls and ceiling. You can grapple them at certain points to disrupt their attacks, but unless you're right below them it's extremely tough to hit the grapple point. So you grapple them from directly below and they hit you on the way down for a tank of energy. Whatever, Power Bombs acquired and we're in the home stretch. I actually like how much time they give you with a fully (or almost fully) powered suit relative to other games in the series.
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Mar 23, 2024 20:57
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Just FYI, since you mentioned the vaccum attack, you can spiderball that attack and make it completely safe. The game does a poo poo job of giving you any indication that works.
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Mar 23, 2024 21:08
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I more mean that before this phenomenon of which I speak, boss battles done properly used to be the test of whether or not you'd learned all the skills whatever game you were playing had taught you up to that point. If you had, you might die a few times, but it would always feel like it was your fault. But now, far too often, the boss battles are meant to be lost. You're meant to beat your head against them repeatedly until you triumph, which can feel amazing and there's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's being applied to far too many genres and franchises because it's the cool thing right now and I don't think Metroid is a good fit for it.
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Mar 23, 2024 21:41
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It also has a knockon consequence of making exploration and finding powerups less meaningful. In something like Metroid Dread, beating a boss with every E tank available to you up to that point isn't that much easier than beating it with just the easy-to-find ones. The bosses just wreck you if you don't know how to dodge them, and once you understand a boss well enough to barely win, you're probably only a few attempts away from getting a clean victory.
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Mar 23, 2024 21:55
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Yeah it’s nice bosses are better designed then when they were originally released as nothing but dudes that soaked up e tanks
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Mar 23, 2024 22:43
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LividLiquid posted:I more mean that before this phenomenon of which I speak, boss battles done properly used to be the test of whether or not you'd learned all the skills whatever game you were playing had taught you up to that point. If you had, you might die a few times, but it would always feel like it was your fault. I don't mean this to sound like a humblebrag thing but like... I beat most bosses in Metroid Dread on my first go, because almost all of them depend on things the game already taught you or the game literally gives you an example of things beforehand, usually in a cutscene showing the things Samus can do. In Samus Returns I think I only died to the weird drill robot thing. They're not 'meant to be failed', every one requires the same basic tactics you know beforehand and no luck is required.
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Mar 23, 2024 22:54
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CharlestheHammer posted:Yeah it’s nice bosses are better designed then when they were originally released as nothing but dudes that soaked up e tanks Personally I think that if finding powerups is going to be a huge chunk of the game, it ought to matter
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Mar 23, 2024 23:22
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cheetah7071 posted:Personally I think that if finding powerups is going to be a huge chunk of the game, it ought to matter It does matter, if you gently caress up you can recover. Honestly Dreads E tanks are more forgiving than Super Metroid where getting hit could really hurt
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Mar 23, 2024 23:29
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cheetah7071 posted:Personally I think that if finding powerups is going to be a huge chunk of the game, it ought to matter They do? Being able to tank double the hits is a tremendous boost to your survivability, it just isn't invincibility.
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Mar 23, 2024 23:30
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Though the only dread boss that is hard is the last boss so that might not be the best example
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Mar 23, 2024 23:31
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