Gaming Lounge

[Gors]

Are you being dense? Because I think you are being dense


because those games are simply broken and badly programmed. Castlevania/Ghouls n' Ghosts, in other hand, offers a limited, BUT CONSTANT gameplay effect. The jump is stiff, yes, but you can 'predict' and use it for your good. The whole game is built to cope with the jumping, and with that, skill is involved.

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there's a difference between Action 52 and Castlevania. The difference is that the games in Action 52 were rushed, poorly coded and poorly designed, which causes the broken gameplay. Castlevania was planned to behave like this, and designed to play around this concept.

[BullockDS]

To further explain the difference between Castlevania and an Action 52 platformer, I'd like to use the A52 game "Non-Human" as an example (though many other A52 platformers share the same problems).

Castlevania's jumping is strict but simple and reasonable; you either stand still to jump straight up or walk and then press A to jump forward. Non-Human, however, makes the player jump straight up regardless of whether or not a walking start has been taken; you can only move in a direction AFTER the peak of your jump (and by pressing the goddamn B button, no less); everything about the control in this game wrestles with the average player's preconceptions of platforming and reaction/timing, which cannot be said of Castlevania.

[Koh]

Let me offer a better example then. The early Tomb Raider games on Playstation. There's no doubt these games are good, but moving Lara around was quite awkward; she controlled as if she were some sort of tank, and grabbing ledges was done in a weird way too, instead of just jumping toward them and having her grab them happen automatically. Getting used to these controls was absolutely required if you hoped to make any sort of progress in the game whatsoever. What if those games were given far better control, such as the setup featured in Angel of Darkness and above. Would that "break" the game challenge, or actually make it more approachable?

[Helmo]

Cheetahmen had amazing music though iirc

many shitty NES games did heh

[TomGuycott]

Koh, you are entitled to your opinions, but let me say that my opinion is that you know next to nothing about making a good post, comment or analogy.

Also try and change the direction of your jump in real life and tell me which game has worse physics now

[Gors]

especially games composed by Tim and Geoff Follin, those are great tunes to listen to

[Koh]

Also try and change the direction of your jump in real life and tell me which game has worse physics now

That's a terrible comparison, because in real life, you can still reduce your velocity in a given direction if you apply forces in the opposite direction (leaning, using gravity to your advantage, other methods). You learn that in the first level Physics class here at the university I attend. Also, you have other forces acting upon you while you're in midair, most importantly air resistance. So if we're going to compare to real life, bad jumping physics aren't like that either. Once you jump, you DON'T commit to a set speed until you hit the ground, unless you're in a vacuum where friction is void.

[TomGuycott]

Yes, but jumping like that is neither easy nor natural. There is a long list of good games where you can't easily (or at all) change your jump direction.

These include but are not limited to Castlevania, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda 3d games, and others.

[Koh]

Oh I know, I was just saying comparing it to real life didn't help your argument. At least on most of those games you CAN steer yourself. Not being able to steer yourself in the others, like the first 3 Castlevania games results in deaths that could have been avoided if the controls weren't so stiff, which is what I was talking about. Maybe Dracula X didn't need an all directional whip (I've 100% the remake and the original without it), but the jumping could definitely have been better. They also REALLY pushed the distance with some of those jumps....you had to stand at the absolute EDGE of the platform in order to make the jump sometimes.

[Lemonray]

Is the message to take from that a game can be as stiff as possible, with bad jumping physics to boot, as long as the challenges are based around it? If that's the case, I'd say the Action 52 games are underrated.

What am I reading...?

You really can't compare classicvania mechanics with the mechanics found in broken games like A52. Classic-style Castlevania games don't allow for fluid movement but this doesn't mean they aren't fair- Most people can overcome them provided they have decent reactions and the ability to think. The physics are solid and consistent, and certainly not bad, as you would claim.

You see, Castlevania games tend to be very easy when you take away the stiff controls without making ajustments in other areas. Ever notice how the returning enemies in SoTN retained their Rondo of Blood tactics? The biggest factor in SoTN's low difficulty was that the enemies were, for the most part, completely and utterly outclassed. With the advantage of greater numbers and terrain, they would have proven a fair challenge for a classic Belmont but even given those things, they're no match for a more nimble hero like Alucard. Even in Order of Ecclesia, Shanoa's fragility is offset by how powerful she is otherwise. She's even more agile than Alucard and equally dangerous given the right glyphs, and wouldn't you know it, the enemies in her game still have yet to properly adapt to the hero they're suppoed to kill.

I think Koh is just mad because he can't handle games that are legitimately challenging :(

Not being able to steer yourself in the others, like the first 3 Castlevania games results in deaths that could have been avoided if the controls weren't so stiff, which is what I was talking about.

The idea is that the player is supposed to calculate and execute their jumps correctly. Almost like it's some kind of, interactive game, or something. Woah!

[TomGuycott]

Uh, no, none of the games I was referring to can you steer yourself beyond a natural limit. And while it is possible to steer a jump in real life, it is impossible to steer a jump the way you do in a game, such as being able to instantly steer one way, then the other with little to no resistance.

Out of the games you have mentioned and compared to Castlevania for having stiff controls, let's see how they actually compare... I'm not even going to bother with Action 52 because that's just a poorly designed, rushed piece of crap. THAT you can call stiff and all other manner of terrible things.

Tomb Raider is definitely stiff and clunky. The old Playstation era of gaming was still bringing those kind of games into their own. The tech was young, the power of the systems limited and being learned. It has its place in gaming history, but in the end the controls are, as you said, like driving a tank.

Classic Castlevania I would not describe as stiff, I would describe it as sharp. You have to make very deliberate decisions with jump and attack timing, or else you're gonna get hurt. The skill involved is understanding the physics and making them work to your advantage, or just preventing yourself from being utterly destroyed by the enemy.

But if it still irritates you that he can't sway the direction of his jump in mid air, then play Ninja Gaiden, which did it REALLY well by making it POSSIBLE to sway the direction of a jump, but at the cost of the jump being short and resistive. I don't remember how often or easy it is to jump like that to be honest, just that its doable.

[Koh]

Just remember it's not me saying that stiff controls automatically makes the games as a whole bad, just that the controls themselves could've been done better. As I said, I've cleared Dracula X's remake and the original 100%, but that doesn't mean the controls shouldn't be less stiff, I just put up with its bullshit. Many of the deaths I got going through was BECAUSE of the fact that you can't even slightly steer your jump, and of course gravitating to the nearest hole upon knockback. If the jumping controls were more like Super Mario Bros, where you can steer the jump slowly, it'd have been perfect. Other than that, the level designs were amazing, as were the boss challenge fights. The most obnoxious, of course, being the boss rush + Shaft combo. You mess up once you have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN. Not sure why many game developers clung onto that idea back in the day, but it's highly annoying.

[TomGuycott]

The game doesn't need to be changed. You just don't enjoy not being able to change the direction of your jump. That doesn't make it a bad game or make you a bad gamer, its just a matter of personal preference.

However, I reiterate, the game has no reason to be changed, and frankly nobody WILL change it for you.

[Kriven]

"Hard is good" is the same logical fallacy high school English teachers have been trying to beat into students' brains since the dawn of time.

Sometimes they're right, sometimes not. Often times I find that what people praise about the "hard" games are the very aspects I find to be total shut-off bullshit. With a lot of these games (such as the early Legend of Zelda titles), I very rarely feel as if the death had anything to do with a fault in my own abilities or planning. There's almost nothing more infuriating than struggling tooth and nail only to inevitably perish, time after time, until you finally manage to luck out because the AI fucked up or the enemies spawned in just the right spot. This kind of challenge simply is not fun for me, and it's a flaw that I see in a lot of old school games.

But, well, whether something is good or bad isn't something I can decide for anybody else, and it isn't something anybody else can decide for me. And it isn't really right that others respond in such abrasive tones and matter-of-fact lines of thought. Why do so many discussions fall away from "I think X and Y about this game" and become "I think X and Y about this game, and I have an A and B comment about you"?

and frankly nobody WILL change it for you.

How is this (and Tom, I'm not trying to pick on you in particular. You were just the nearest post) at all relevant or constructive? These kinds of comments simply come off as bullying most of the time. I'm sure there's more than a few hints and nudges about maybe people (Koh, in this case) needing to think beyond their interests or maybe that their tone or remarks are a little pushy. And it's true, some of (Koh)'s remarks (though honestly, nothing in this thread in particular) can be a little high-and-mighty or specifically tailored, but when you're discussing unique interests and how you reacted to a certain piece of media, you really are just going with your gut and what you thought about this aspect and that aspect based entirely on a concept which is specifically tailored for you.

Really, the bullying gets very old. Many responses (on both sides, but particularly on the side of the majority opinion) aren't phrased tactfully enough to not come off as anything but rude and demeaning. When what is being said boils down to: "I like this and you're wrong, so nut up and shut up, cupcake", at least in tone, it's not going to create any conversation. None. That generates as much conversation as "I like this because it's cool and you can't change my mind", but a whole lot more negative sway.

Generally what I'm trying to say is not to stop discussing the merits of restricted physics or the particular direction a game is headed in design or aesthetic or play, but to seriously cut back on the level of personal snark being thrown about. It would be nice (and I know this whole post is hypocritical) if we could keep the discussions on the games, naturally our opinions, and not on the conversationalists. I'd just like to see and participate in a discussion about the games and the opinions of the games and not the opinions of the opinions or the opinions of the opinionaters. Just my two cents.

(Oh, and I've never played Castlevania beyond some XBLA thing. I think it was a version of Symphony of the Night? It was really zoomed out and not very fun, but I only gave it a few minutes to leave an impression. I just have a little bit of fatigue on all this "Nintendohard" bidness, and I honestly believe "Nintendohard" titles are rarely hard by design [but am totally aware that a number of vintage titles were intentionally made difficult, to keep the quarters poppin']. I just don't think find them [often] to be rewarding enough to invest the time in, and the division of the gaming community often created by the concept of "Nintendohard" is really fucking terrifying for me. It's not fun to be looked down on for not enjoying difficult things, particularly when gaming is the recreation used to escape the already difficult reality [which wasn't happening too much here {but definitely was a little bit} and is mainly spill from other experiences].)

[Koopaul]

I always thought Castlevania's "ingenious" controls were accidental. I don't think the actual developers thought as deeply in the controls as we are doing today. After all, gaming was still pretty new and people were still experimenting with the very motions of gaming. In the end everything worked out for Castlevania. The stiff controls actually worked in the game's favor for many... but I sometimes wonder if that was the developers intention. If people were to go back in time and tell them "the controls are stiff" the developers might agree.

Am I saying the controls in Castlevania are bad. Absolutely not. I'm just questioning whether or not that was the developers intention.

Remember Space Invaders? The reason the ships move slow in the beginning and get faster as kill more ships... was not intentional. It was a happy accident that had to do with the technology's limits.