Yakety SA-X: Let's play Metroid Fusion Blind

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Yakety SA-X: Let's play Metroid Fusion Blind

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Fusion is a phenomenal game and I'm happy for you because you get to experience it fresh. I still love to replay it but the first time is by far the best for this one, because with a heavier focus on story, environment changes and the resulting linearity, a lot of the appeal is gone of course. That first time is absolutely magical though.

Some Goon posted:

Zero mission is as guilty of linearity as this one. And linearity might not be the exact right word, but the GBA metroids tell you explicitly where to go, whereas all the previous games, even if there is only one place you can go without sequence breaking, leave it up to you to find. The exploration aspect that defines original and super, (and 2 but iirc that one's a pretty straight path) is gone.

That is true in one way, but also missing part of the picture. Zero Mission has sequence breaks built into it, both deliberate (destroyable hidden blocks that let you skip an upgrade, upgrade that seem necessary but are not...) and assumed (the easiest infinite bomb jumps and wall jumps in the entire series, optional grip upgrade...). There is an "intended" path for fresh/inexperienced/casual players, but if you really want to, you can do some insane things to the game. Fusion will not ever let you do that, so it IS more linear.

That's not an indictment - I think there's way too much "this one's not a real [x] game!!!" talk. Fusion has a lot of moments where it doesn't tell you poo poo, anyway. You can get very lost in this one, and I expect it to happen in the LP. You're just not getting lost in an entire game's worth of space (like in Super), and that can be a good thing as well.

P.S.: Other M is never fun for even a second at any point in the entire trash fire of a game

# ¿ Oct 3, 2020 22:48

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 07:29

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Those random-rear end floor pillars are dumb, imho. I never think of bombing unmarked floor as a solution, and I did in fact get quite stuck there my first time playing. It's just such a non-puzzle to me, I tried a lot of other stuff but "just bomb" never occurred to me.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 22:23

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

It was my first Metroid, I didn't know bombs did that!

# ¿ Oct 7, 2020 08:08

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Gnoman posted:

Coukd you have gottem that boss with bombs? That's certainly whatnit seemed to be telegraphing to me.

No, he did it the one correct way.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2020 16:42

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

God I was stuck so long on the route to the security room where you have to jump with a speed charge, and he just does it by accident

Bifauxnen posted:

Man, that water section looked pretty. At the start of this LP, I wasn't expecting to actually like the graphics style. Compared to Super Metroid (and the original NES Metroid!) this seemed a bit too cartoonishly colourful and bright at first, but it's grown on me fast.

One thing helping me warm up to this game is that it feels really tight in its controls. Even though I'm not the one playing and pushing the buttons, little things like being able to grab onto the ledges and stuff make it at least look like moving around is really smooth. That and the nice colourful look make this game just feel really nicely packaged and fun to play. I'm definitely more engaged watching this one than Super Metroid so far.

1) I think GBA games in general just had to look like that in order to be visible on a handheld without (at first) a backlight. It took the Castlevania GBA games three attempts to figure that out. There's a post I made on another forum to illustrate what I mean:

quote:

One thing to keep in mind too is that while some developers definitely were aware of the GBA's color and lighting problems, others weren't or didn't care, so it's impossible to say how much of popping, saturated colors is overdone to eliminate some hardware issues, or done exactly like that because the artists wanted these colors. One stunning example imo is the evolution of the GBA Castlevania graphics.

Circle of the Moon

This game was an early GBA game, and widely criticized for being way too dark, the play character blends in too much with the background and it's super hard to make out what's going on. It's not an issue anymore due to most GBA games being played on an emulator, or an Advance SP, but you can clearly see how it was a definite issue, which the developers might simply have not noticed.

Harmony of Dissonance

In a very clear reaction to the critique of CotM's graphics, its successor HoD is positively eye-searing: the player character has a blue outline and leaves after-images wherever he goes, everything is very very bright and you could argue that yes, emulating this perfectly and calling it ugly misses the point, it was intended to pop at a typical GBA screen and even on an SP it would probably be too bright and contrast-y.

Aria of Sorrow

The final CV on GBA shows that they have finally found the best of both worlds: clear, bright colors, definite contrast of player character with background (it's probably no coincidence that Soma wears white), without resorting to "shortcuts" like the outline of HoD. It probably helps that as a later GBA game, the SP was probably out (too lazy to check sorry) and they could be a little more lenient than with HoD. I don't know about the latter's critical reception beyond "it's not really good" (because that's my opinion lol), but it probably got some words as being over-corrected in the wrong direction regardless of hardware, too.

2) Fusion genuinely feels incredible to play. Zero Mission is even more fluid, but both engines fit their level design incredibly well (ZM being built with sequence breaks in minds goes hand in hand with it allowing infinite bomb jumps and single-wall wall jumps, for instance).

# ¿ Oct 13, 2020 11:23

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

We can get into more detail with this. The Zero Mission sequence is layered.

On the surface, you have the route the statues tell you. That's the main path or the "intended" sequence.

Then you have shortcuts and secrets the developers put in. Hidden shootable blocks, shinespark only back routes etc. - that's a side path, or an intentional break of the "intended" sequence.

And finally you have routes that are opened up because the game allows you to do crazy movement. Those paths were surely not all planned for, so it's unplanned sequence breaks, but they are intentional in the sense that the developers intended for players to gently caress around and find breaks they didn't account for.

Maybe if you really wanna be technical you can call the lower layers "deviations" from the "canon" path or whatever.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2020 08:11

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Yakuza is a right motherfucker, even 3 full tries would have been impressive on a first playthrough imo

The walkback is infuriatingly long too for what I consider the second-hardest boss in the game.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2020 12:00

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

I too do not like the Space Jump in any Metroid. An "ultimate" powerup should not require that much execution, imo. Yes, the timing is consistent and learnable, I'm just bad at being consistent with timing. So I fully get Nat's frustration.

I also hate this boss. It is very much not intuitive how to get out of the flowers. When I first played the game, I would just reset when I fell in. For the first phase, find a steady rhythm of using power bombs to clear out the pollen, shoot a few missiles, power bomb again, rinse repeat. Then try and dodge the plasma shots perfectly so they wouldn't knock me in. I'm not counting it as a "hard" boss per se, I just really hate its design personally.

Natural 20 posted:

I never played demon's souls but my experience of the first dark souls was running into the basement of a tower over and over again to fight a dude with a mace that oneshot you until I got bored and quit the game.

Despite me defending you above, it is striking how stubborn you can be in games. That guy also killed me a lot but then I just decided to go somewhere else (and there's tons of "somewhere else"s in DS1) and come back later to cream 'em. I think not being able to gently caress around in a big world, get power-ups and just practice is what's tripping people up in Fusion, conversely, and it might be why you enjoy the game so much - for most of these bosses, you just gotta.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 14:00

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Omobono posted:

during the downward phase of a spin jump

This timing. I keep pressing too early because I want to optimize the height gain.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 14:46

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 07:29

Simply Simon: Nov 6, 2010; 📡scanning🛰️ for good game 🎮design🦔🦔🦔

Light suit transportation in Prime 2?

# ¿ Nov 9, 2020 20:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Yakety SA-X: Let's play Metroid Fusion Blind