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Augus posted:shame about the other two-thirds huh Agreed, but in the same vein, shame about all of AM2R
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Oct 15, 2017 14:27
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Shame that it has more than five enemy types?
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Oct 15, 2017 14:37
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Augus posted:shame about the other two-thirds huh I genuinely have no idea what you even mean here. When were you stopping in place constantly? Like straight up: Ice beam -> melee attack insta-kills almost every single thing for the first 2/3rd of the game that isn't a boss. I barely used the aiming function for non-puzzle/boss stuff once I got ice beam and you get it super early. Once you get the super kill-everything beam then even that isn't necessary.
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Oct 15, 2017 16:49
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Ok I can definitely say this without a shadow of a doubt after mulling it over on a fourth playthrough, AM2R's bosses suuuuuuuuuuck. The Metroids flicking away your missiles or auto dodging them with their tiny rear end hitboxes suck, the constant space jump fuckery sucks in the Torizo and Tester fights, Serris, the Temple Bot and the Prototype Tank are pretty much nothing fights, and that Genesis thing is just dumb as gently caress. The only boss I actually enjoyed in AM2R was the Queen Metroid and that's only because of the Power Bomb finisher. On top of that, the lack of mercy invincibility is such a sheer annoyance in the entire game and is even worse in boss fights. That is what drags the whole game down for me, which is a drat shame cause I do like the game still. (I am playing on 1.1 as a disclaimer so if they patched out these issues later I wouldn't know)
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Oct 15, 2017 17:19
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Augus posted:Shame that it has more than five enemy types?
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Oct 15, 2017 18:48
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The metroids in AM2r I can understand people having trouble with because they require precise and coordinated movement, but all the other bosses have fun attacks that are different but not hard to deal with where every boss fight asks for something different. They're not the best 2D metroid bosses but they are very solid and fun. edit: this was from playing 1.0 last month. I didn't know there was a newer version
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Oct 15, 2017 18:58
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My issue with the Torizo boss fight was that it lasts too long, and that it relies on a mechanic that the game introduces you to immediately before and doesn't allow you time to learn before throwing you to the wolves with it. Like, I can see how people who live and breathe Metroid, or are at least more familiar with it than the average, are able to jump into it no sweat, it's not really something I agree with from a game design perspective. You introduce a mechanic, and you use level design to get the player used to it, and then you throw them against a boss, not condense it all into one immediate scenario. That's not a matter of "getting good", it's a matter of there being no learning curve.
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Oct 15, 2017 19:19
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That's at least somewhat valid, though I don't think Torizo is anywhere near difficult enough to wear lack of introduction is a real problem. Getting used to a new mechanic within a boss fight itself is only bad design imo if the boss itself is a real challenge, which Torizo isn't. You don't need precise space jumps at all for that fight. If it was Tester that immediately followed getting space jump, I'd maybe think that's a valid critique because Tester requires more specific movement that would require you to play with Space Jump a little. But Torizo is designed to be have much more lenient jumps alongside very weak attacks so it's okay. The only weird thing to me with Torizo is that you don't use the Space jump in the first part, so it's kinda weird and the player might forget about it. But the spiked floors in the second phase clearly communicate to players that they'll need to be in the air so it's not really an issue. Ventana fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Oct 15, 2017 |
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Oct 15, 2017 19:31
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What makes it hard for me is that the consequence for not knowing how to use this new mechanic is... damage. Communicating that the Space Jump is neccessary could be accomplished by making the ability to hurt the Torizo out of your reach while on the ground. So you're not just having to contend with the boss and the hazards he throws at you, you also have to contend with the environment hurting you, and I just don't have the ability to handle that many things at once very well, especially when I just got the Space Jump.
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Oct 15, 2017 19:45
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TFRazorsaw posted:What makes it hard for me is that the consequence for not knowing how to use this new mechanic is... damage. Communicating that the Space Jump is neccessary could be accomplished by making the ability to hurt the Torizo out of your reach while on the ground. So you're not just having to contend with the boss and the hazards he throws at you, you also have to contend with the environment hurting you, and I just don't have the ability to handle that many things at once very well, especially when I just got the Space Jump. The floor get covered in spikes during the second phase, that kinda communicates the idea pretty effectively. The boss himself doesn't use attacks that are that complex or overwhelming and the spikes on the wall don't actively get in your way at all, and the space jump is easier to use than it ever has been. I really don't see what the big issue is. You don't even need to use the space jump that much, all but maybe one of his attacks can be dodged effectively by just standing on one of the platforms and jumping.
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Oct 15, 2017 20:15
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I know it was the second phase that the floor changes. That's not the point. You shouldn't have to put mastery of a new mechanic on top of a boss AND punishing them with damage for failure. It being "easier to do" doesn't really matter much if you're not familiar with it, because having to jump over a pit of spikes on top of figuring out what do with an ability I [i]just got[i], especially when putting it after a pretty long initial phase where the boss hits pretty hard if, again, you're not really initiated much to this sort of game at that point. It's not that they're "actively" working against you, it's that they're introducing a new mechanic with stark punishments for failure and not immediately recognizing and breaking open the boss's pattern, and that's going to create unneeded anxiety and impede players in ways that run counter to what are pretty essential rules of game design.
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Oct 15, 2017 20:31
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it doesn't require "mastery", anyone who's used space jump in a metroid game before shouldn't have too much trouble with it
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Oct 15, 2017 22:14
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yes, it being easy is predicated on how used you are to it. That is, again, the problem.
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Oct 15, 2017 22:27
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IronicDongz posted:it doesn't require "mastery", anyone who's used space jump in a metroid game before shouldn't have too much trouble with it There I highlighted it for you. There will be a quiz later.
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Oct 15, 2017 22:40
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TFRazorsaw posted:yes, it being easy is predicated on how used you are to it. That is, again, the problem. "I understand how to use this fairly simple ability"=/="mastery", you basically just bounce around and shoot at him every now and then in that fight
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Oct 15, 2017 22:49
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IronicDongz posted:it's a loving metroid fangame no one on planet earth is playing it without playing other metroid games beforehand. It is not a "problem" that a fanmade metroid game which is a remake of another metroid game expects you to have at least a little bit of metroid experience going in. That is why fangames are lovely. They are more nostalgia grabs then products
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Oct 15, 2017 22:58
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IronicDongz posted:it's a loving metroid fangame no one on planet earth is playing it without playing other metroid games beforehand. It is not a "problem" that a fanmade metroid game which is a remake of another metroid game expects you to have at least a little bit of metroid experience going in. I had played a Metroid game all of three times before I tried AM2R due to hype, and I didn't go back to the other titles and get into them until after I tried it. In all my previous playthroughs, which were spaced out across several years, I'd never gotten to the Space Jump. I wouldn't say I wasn't I was a fan, but beforehand I engaged with the franchise from outside of a gameplay perspective, watching videos and reading about it and the like, so you could say that going into it I was practically a new player. And considering all the hype around it, I wouldn't doubt that I was the only one with limited history with the franchise trying it, or that some people were trying it for the first time. I mean, it was getting a lot of press. And yeah, maybe I used "mastery" wrong, but there's not much opportunity to steadily learn and become competent at it before you get thrown to the wolves. AM2R at least attempts to approach its level of design in a manner similar to the professional titles, so holding it to a similar standard and expecting level design that's friendly to allowing players to naturally acclimate to it doesn't feel like an unfair expectation.
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Oct 15, 2017 23:22
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TFRazorsaw posted:I know it was the second phase that the floor changes. That's not the point. You shouldn't have to put mastery of a new mechanic on top of a boss AND punishing them with damage for failure. It being "easier to do" doesn't really matter much if you're not familiar with it, because having to jump over a pit of spikes on top of figuring out what do with an ability I just got, especially when putting it after a pretty long initial phase where the boss hits pretty hard if, again, you're not really initiated much to this sort of game at that point. It's not that they're "actively" working against you, it's that they're introducing a new mechanic with stark punishments for failure and not immediately recognizing and breaking open the boss's pattern, and that's going to create unneeded anxiety and impede players in ways that run counter to what are pretty essential rules of game design. "Stark punishments for failure" and "not recognizing the mechanic". This is complete nonsense because you are drastically overstating an easy boss. You take 15 damage total from a hit from the spikes on Normal mode. From an average of ~400-500 health for normal play as far as YT playthroughs show. The ground spikes don't show up for a while, appear very slowly and don't completely cover the floor till 30 seconds into the second phase. An actual player I could find who didn't know about the space jump still managed to figure out this new technique within the first 30 seconds of the fight Second phase doesn't even attack the player until they've already done some hits from missiles (at least, that's the pattern I see from the footage, either that or he waits an extremely long time if you haven't already damaged him). The boss clearly is designed to wean in players into using the space jump, with very minor penalties upon messing it up. Considering that Torizo's main attack is also an extremely easy health/ammo refill you can shoot away, this boss is far from "being thrown to the wolves". I'm not gonna say he's a complete pushover. Of course there is a basic sense of coordination players need in terms of shooting and dodging. But in order to get to Torizo, players would've already had to have dealt with other Alpha Metroids, Arachnus, and the first part of Torizo, so anyone who's gotten that far is probably decent at the run 'n gun thing by then. This is why this is not a real issue. Ventana fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Oct 15, 2017 |
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Oct 15, 2017 23:40
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Ventana posted:I'm not gonna say he's a complete pushover. Of course there is a basic sense of coordination players need in terms of shooting and dodging. But in order to get to Torizo, players would've already had to have dealt with other Alpha Metroids, Arachnus, and the first part of Torizo, so anyone who's gotten that far is probably decent at the run 'n gun thing by then. This is why this is not a real issue. That's the thing, I wasn't. I'd survived to this point because of perseverance, and I quit because I was frustrated because I wasn't having much fun up to and including that point. An earlier poster touched on the reasons for this. bladeworksmaster posted:Ok I can definitely say this without a shadow of a doubt after mulling it over on a fourth playthrough, AM2R's bosses suuuuuuuuuuck. The Metroids flicking away your missiles or auto dodging them with their tiny rear end hitboxes suck, the constant space jump fuckery sucks in the Torizo and Tester fights, Serris, the Temple Bot and the Prototype Tank are pretty much nothing fights, and that Genesis thing is just dumb as gently caress. The only boss I actually enjoyed in AM2R was the Queen Metroid and that's only because of the Power Bomb finisher. On top of that, the lack of mercy invincibility is such a sheer annoyance in the entire game and is even worse in boss fights. That is what drags the whole game down for me, which is a drat shame cause I do like the game still. I don't feel the bosses were just that tightly or well designed at all, and before I got thrown into the Torizo fight, I don't feel like the rest of the bosses did a good job of making me, the player better. Arachnus, I won because of dumb luck because nothing beforehand introduces the idea of bombing enemies for momentum-based challenges. I didn't get that same feeling about difficulty scaling when going into Super Metroid in a more dedicated fashion, or when I did a play-through of Zero Mission either.
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Oct 15, 2017 23:55
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CharlestheHammer posted:That is why fangames are lovely. Samus Returns relies more on nostalgia grabs then AM2R does, and does it worse at that...
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Oct 16, 2017 00:32
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TaurusOxford posted:Samus Returns relies more on nostalgia grabs then AM2R does, and does it worse at that... Nah, it has good new content
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Oct 16, 2017 00:54
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The worst thing about fangames is how quick people are to proclaim them better than any commercial product from the same IP just for releasing a halfway decent game but them immediately shove off any criticism as "well it's not a commercial product, you can't hold it to those standards". Basic game design is not something you need commercial backing for. A game should not introduce a new mechanic (regardless of its existence in the series prior) and not expect you to use it until halfway into a boss fight. "Well the boss is easy" is not a valid argument, it's just what makes it not AS big an issue.
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Oct 16, 2017 00:54
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CharlestheHammer posted:That is why fangames are lovely. second, why is it lovely that a game uses the same mechanics as a previous game that's doesn't even mean it's a game that relies on nostalgia, it just means someone liked those mechanics and wanted to play around with them more TFRazorsaw posted:And considering all the hype around it, I wouldn't doubt that I was the only one with limited history with the franchise trying it, or that some people were trying it for the first time. I mean, it was getting a lot of press. I'd also forward the idea that just because part of a game(or the game in general) is too hard for some people does not mean that the game is bad. tbh I don't even really think it's a slight at all, all games aim for a specific kind of player in terms of skill and expectations, but a game's playerbase will never be only the people who fit into the category of "around the degree of skill that it will be hard but not too hard". there will always be people who end up playing X game who are either too skilled or too unskilled to get as good of an experience as the 'ideal' player the dev makes the game for. is it AM2R's fault that it got hyped up enough that you, someone without much of any metroid experience, ended up playing it? that's hardly a design flaw of the game, that's purely external factors(and a hefty dose of random chance). LazyMaybe fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Oct 16, 2017 |
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Oct 16, 2017 01:06
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Ometeotl posted:The worst thing about fangames is how quick people are to proclaim them better than any commercial product from the same IP just for releasing a halfway decent game but them immediately shove off any criticism as "well it's not a commercial product, you can't hold it to those standards". Basic game design is not something you need commercial backing for. A game should not introduce a new mechanic (regardless of its existence in the series prior) and not expect you to use it until halfway into a boss fight. "Well the boss is easy" is not a valid argument, it's just what makes it not AS big an issue. I never said that AM2R is the ultimate Metroid game, but i'm not gonna start making GBS threads on it just because Nintendo made their own Metroid II remake. I also never held AM2R to a lower standard because it was fan-made - I genuinely think it's the better Metroid II remake.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:08
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The melee counter is a bad mechanic. So is free-aiming
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Oct 16, 2017 01:09
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TaurusOxford posted:Samus Returns relies more on nostalgia grabs then AM2R does, and does it worse at that... How? Samus Returns plays nothing like its original counterparts. It is probably the most unique entry in the franchise. No one is nostalgiac for a metriod game on the GB.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:10
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It's also got the most repetitive level design of the 2D series.CharlestheHammer posted:No one is nostalgiac for a metriod game on the GB. you know these two games are both remakes of the same game right Augus fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Oct 16, 2017 |
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Oct 16, 2017 01:11
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Ironically that is one thing Am2R beats it in, it has much more repetitive locals. So congrats.Augus posted:
What is your point
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Oct 16, 2017 01:13
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I mean that's kinda a huge deal for a Metroidvania? Having more interesting levels makes the game a lot more fun to explore.CharlestheHammer posted:What is your point you can't just pretend one remake is a nostalgia cash-in and the other isn't
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Oct 16, 2017 01:15
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CharlestheHammer posted:What is your point You said nobody is nostalgic for Metroid II. If that was true then why did both DoctorM64 and Nintendo do remakes of it?
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Oct 16, 2017 01:16
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The locales are more varied, yes, that's a point in favor for AM2R. But I don't know if the industrial levels particularly gel with my vision of the Chozo though. Yeah, like, they're sci fi, but they're more, I don't know... "used future" than the science fantasy stuff I feel suits them better.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:17
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Since it's the current topic I figured I'd add my own take; I loved every moment of AM2R and... I can't even make myself continue playing SR. It's boring, it feels like a chore to play, and I realized I was only doing it cause it was a birthday present from my GF. All the enemies are tedious and despite getting both the plasma beam (I imagine the strongest beam like usual) and screw attack, there are STILL enemies that take multiple screw attack bumps, tonnes of beam spam, or are outright invulnerable to both somehow. There's this weird "hey walljump and bomb jump are still in!" dissonance with doing everything the game possibly can with a million locks to which powerups are merely keys for so my attempts to try and do even mild useless sequence breaks just end in walls. There's also a million basic powerups scattered everywhere that all require backtracking and don't even have puzzles just "hey you got a new key come back here for a bunch of missile packs!" which I swear the games used to be better about. At worst it was stuff like power bombs in weird spots but at least they had puzzles associated with them. The new aeon mechanic is annoying too; they could have done something with missiles like prime and maybe they fuled the offensive ones or I dunno. The pads you have to stand and wait on added to the tedium a lot too. Basically, I beat up mining robot and then tried to continue but then I made said realization and I have yet to go back. I'm glad others exist that share my feelings; this didn't really feel much like metroid, or even like a metroidvania. I don't even have to compare it to just AM2R, but to the rest of the series or the plethora of metroidvanias that exist nowadays. I recently enjoyed Hollow Knight, so it's not a fading enjoyment for the genre either that I can blame it on. So yeah, those are the things that made me give up. Especially the turning every powerup into a key. They even did it to the grapple beam! There were what, 3 points where you ever had to grapple over obstacles; it was almost entirely just a zipline or breaking/pushing those horrible brown blocks. It felt like nothing was used creatively and I was just going through the motions. Get key, open door, kill a few of the same simple boss fight over and over. I know AM2R doesn't have the greatest boss fights but it tried to do some silly things and I had fun with the metroids feeling tough but also not just quicktime events.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:19
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TFRazorsaw posted:The locales are more varied, yes, that's a point in favor for AM2R. But I don't know if the industrial levels particularly gel with my vision of the Chozo though. Yeah, like, they're sci fi, but they're more, I don't know... "used future" than the science fantasy stuff I feel suits them better. I don't even mean the aesthetics I mean the actual level design is better, it has variety and stuff to interact with beyond the same lock-and-key puzzles repeated dozens of times, it's less cluttered with copy/pasted enemies and filler. It has coherent pacing and design.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:20
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Ah. That's a very different thing and a completely different discussion. I misunderstood you. I apologize.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:22
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Augus posted:I mean that's kinda a huge deal for a Metroidvania? Having more interesting levels makes the game a lot more fun to explore. Neither game is a nostalgic cash grab for Metroid 2 The fan game obviously pulls more from Super and the GBA games while using Metriod 2 as a framework. This isn't complicated.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:37
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Ledgem posted:So yeah, those are the things that made me give up. Especially the turning every powerup into a key. They even did it to the grapple beam! There were what, 3 points where you ever had to grapple over obstacles; it was almost entirely just a zipline or breaking/pushing those horrible brown blocks. It felt like nothing was used creatively and I was just going through the motions. Get key, open door, kill a few of the same simple boss fight over and over. I know AM2R doesn't have the greatest boss fights but it tried to do some silly things and I had fun with the metroids feeling tough but also not just quicktime events. lets not kid ourselves, the only game where the grapple beam hasn't been anything but a key has probably been prime 3
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Oct 16, 2017 01:38
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CharlestheHammer posted:Neither game is a nostalgic cash grab for Metroid 2 CharlestheHammer posted:That is why fangames are lovely. I didn't think it was complicated either but you seem to be confused
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Oct 16, 2017 01:46
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I felt it got used as a decent platforming challenge in Super Metroid as well as being the secret weapon in Maridia and a component for an alt boss kill. Other metroids have at least tried to incorporate it into your mobility tools too. This one just sort of gives up on any of those.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:47
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Ledgem posted:I felt it got used as a decent platforming challenge in Super Metroid as well as being the secret weapon in Maridia and a component for an alt boss kill. Other metroids have at least tried to incorporate it into your mobility tools too. This one just sort of gives up on any of those. you can use the grapple beam to quickly kill zeta metroids and as part of the queen's fast alt boss kill if you're clever enough  (when zetas crawl to the ceiling, they expose a grapple point when they shoot the green orbs. if you target it, you can yank them down and immediately stun them and unload for big damage. it's easier and faster than trying to goad them into doing a mele counterso no, they didn't ignore making it into another combat ability super metroid has exactly one challenging grapple beam room and its on the way to draygon which means that you get the space jump after its over. all the others are literally really easy things that gate your progress unless you have the grapple beam or space jump or are good enough with alternate movement abilities that you can get by it doesn't show up in zero mission or fusion, probably because it turns out the grapple beam is functionally useless in 2D after you get space jump soi they didn't even bother the only other metroids that try to use it are the 3 prime games and Other M and of them, aside from Prime 3 making it a key combat ability its mostly used just to gate progress and powerups
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Oct 16, 2017 02:08
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TFRazorsaw posted:That's the thing, I wasn't. I'd survived to this point because of perseverance, and I quit because I was frustrated because I wasn't having much fun up to and including that point. Fun is basically just a subjective matter so there's no real argument there. If you didn't like AM2R because [insert reasons], then whatever that's on you. That doesn't justify any of your points about Torizo's 2nd phase being overbearing for players, which is what I was addressing. It is very clearly designed to wean in players into using the Space jump. Even if you don't like the "trial by fire" approach to game design, ignoring these facts about what it actually does is disingenuous. TFRazorsaw posted:I didn't get that same feeling about difficulty scaling when going into Super Metroid in a more dedicated fashion, or when I did a play-through of Zero Mission either. Zero Mission bosses are good, but SM bosses really aren't great. Ridley and Draygon don't really have good design and I find it pretty silly that you'd put them over several of the very interesting and well-thoughtout scenarios AM2R had for it's bosses (evem if, apparently, you didn't see all of them). Ometeotl posted:A game should not introduce a new mechanic (regardless of its existence in the series prior) and not expect you to use it until halfway into a boss fight. "Well the boss is easy" is not a valid argument, it's just what makes it not AS big an issue. I already stated this before, but no I would not agree with either of these views. Introducing new mechanics with boss fights and/or generally intimidating scenarios isn't uncommon in video games, and can be used for very memorable scenarios and effects. And on the contrary, making said scenario easy or difficult IS a big factor and core issue in attempting to do this tastefully.
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Oct 16, 2017 02:31
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