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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 7, 2021 23:25:51 GMT
edit 2: I actually didn't mind much about screen shake the first few games. But it's so ubiquitous and pervasive in modern 2D games I've developed an allergy to it. Like, QTE's didn't bother me that much back in the days of God of War, but with time and repeated exposure I learned to hate them. Bloom didn't bother me the first time they did it in the PS3 era, but everyone throwing it at you like there's no tomorrow made me hostile. Similar with spamming VFX and screen shake in modern 2D games. The one I hate is vignetting in games when you're at low health. It looks ugly, is annoying and obscures the screen when you need to be able to see clearly and concentrate because you're nearly dead. I can't stand it and really don't understand why it's used |
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 7, 2021 23:46:25 GMT
Congrats if you got the e-tank the first time, it's a cheeky bait for everyone who doesn't have good control over jump.
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 7, 2021 23:47:55 GMT
edit 2: I actually didn't mind much about screen shake the first few games. But it's so ubiquitous and pervasive in modern 2D games I've developed an allergy to it. Like, QTE's didn't bother me that much back in the days of God of War, but with time and repeated exposure I learned to hate them. Bloom didn't bother me the first time they did it in the PS3 era, but everyone throwing it at you like there's no tomorrow made me hostile. Similar with spamming VFX and screen shake in modern 2D games. The one I hate is vignetting in games when you're at low health. It looks ugly, is annoying and obscures the screen when you need to be able to see clearly and concentrate because you're nearly dead. I can't stand it and really don't understand why it's used The simple answer is, it's meant to piss you off and make you send angry letters to the devs |
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 8, 2021 0:00:38 GMT
Congrats if you got the e-tank the first time, it's a cheeky bait for everyone who doesn't have good control over jump. The first time I went through I just ignored it, but after I died I remembered you mentioning it and assumed a challenge had been issued. It'd be rude not to accept. I made it back as well. Not doing it again though as I want to believe it was pure skill and not luck |
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 10, 2021 9:13:31 GMT
Finally beat Wiley, the teleporting bastard. Only had half a tank of the bazooka left so had to wait for him to come down to me (and hope he's not right on top of me). Dino-wiley might be my favourite boss design. I have no idea why he's firing eggs out of his mouth or what is in the eggs. In fact, once you knock his face off, there isn't even anywhere for the eggs to come from. It's not realistic at all. Love MM
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Post by captaincrumb on Oct 10, 2021 12:55:35 GMT
Good job on Wily!
I also thought the first 2 sections of Wily were really enjoyable, but the teleporting section did my box in. I had gone through the game without using any tanks up until that point (using items in a MM game makes me feel dirty) but I had to use an etank to get past that bit.
I liked the double-devil boss in Wily Castle 3 a lot as well, I suppose I could just say that MM9 in general was really well designed.
Is MM10 worth playing? I've heard it doesn't compare favourably to 9, and that the music isn't great.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 10, 2021 13:23:44 GMT
Didn't use any tanks on my successful attempt (or anywhere else) but did use them for practice avoiding his attacks on the last stage. Seems to be a theme with Mega Man players to give themselves as hard a time of it as possible
I remember liking 10. Going to play it next. It comes with the collection anyway so no reason not to
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 10, 2021 21:03:08 GMT
First of all, congrats, especially since you essentially did a challenge run on your first playthrough. Hero mode is the game's hard mode. It adds more enemies in the stages and/or places them more inconveniently. Superhero mode steps it up another notch. What sucks about these modes is that bosses and mini-bosses aren't changed, which also means that the final stage is the same difficulty as normal mode. Still fun if you're looking for a greater challenge. MM10 did hard mode right. It also makes enemies faster and bosses/mini-bosses are more challenging too. I wish so much I had that in MM9. |
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 10, 2021 21:25:03 GMT
The stages themselves in MM usually aren't that hard to get through. It's one of the things I really like about the series (and what I didn't like about Shovel Knight). The levels are pretty short and you can learn them and start doing (near) perfect runs really quickly and just work on the bosses MM10 already wins points for Sheep Man. I was wondering why his stage was electric themed and then it clicked when I got to the boss  Easy easy boss though. And Pump Man - literally just stand under him when he jumps |
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 10, 2021 21:29:02 GMT
Is MM10 worth playing? I've heard it doesn't compare favourably to 9, and that the music isn't great. Personally I don't like it a lot, but keep in mind that I gave Hollow Knight a 6/10, so the trustworthiness of my judgement may be up for debate. In the MM discord many loved it and I believe the majority preferred it to 9, so do check it out. As for soundtrack, Sheep Man stage's one has a great lot of fans. The thing I found is, that in contrast to many other game series (e.g. Dead Space) where there seems to be a more or less widespread consensus about which one's good and which one's bad, among MM fans there doesn't seem to be such a thing. Almost all of the games have their fans, and what some consider the worst are considered the best by others (most divisive being 8 and &Bass). So it is pretty unpredictable which ones you'll like or not. The only things where there was relatively widespread consensus about were A) 1-3 are among the weaker entries (especially 3 which many consider the worst), and B) 11 is great. I can't recall anyone ever saying they didn't like 11. |
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 10, 2021 21:31:22 GMT
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 10, 2021 21:34:40 GMT
I thought 2 was the most popular for some reason. I've always seen it as 'the main one', whether I like it best or not. Maybe because 1 feels very much like a rough first attempt and then 2 basically perfected what is now Mega Man
Meant to say I really like the Yellow Devil, etc fights. They feel really good to pull off once you've worked out the pattern. I remember really struggling with the fight in MM1 way back and using the pause cheat to beat him (and possibly Wiley)
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 10, 2021 21:44:55 GMT
Very good! It really amused me seeing you do some of the same stuff I did to beat him (not sure I've ever seen anyone else play MM). You were much more efficient than I was though
I fired loads more shots at the eggs and on the second phase, when he flies up close, I'd jump just before he attacks and his flame goes above your head (but obviously you can't get a shot in then)
Last phase was lovely. I finished with only enough health for one more hit and didn't get anywhere near as many shots in as you
I am impressed!
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 10, 2021 21:54:57 GMT
I thought 2 was the most popular for some reason. I've always seen it as 'the main one', whether I like it best or not. Maybe because 1 feels very much like a rough first attempt and then 2 basically perfected what is now Mega Man Meant to say I really like the Yellow Devil, etc fights. They feel really good to pull off once you've worked out the pattern. I remember really struggling with the fight in MM1 way back and using the pause cheat to beat him (and possibly Wiley) 2 is clearly the most popular in "mainstream" (non-enthusiast) opinion. That has a lot to do with what a great game it was at the time (it was definitely one of the best games out there back then), the resulting nostalgia, and I think it's still the best-selling entry to this day. What may also have helped is that the western release added an easy mode that was cleverly named "normal". And ripping things apart left and right and up and down with Metal Blade was fun for everyone, not just MM fans. Among fans, it is widely considered very unbalanced, Metal Blade being super OP while many other weapons are trash. There's a lot of BS enemy placement and bosses can be pretty chaotic, not as refined as in most other entries. The reason for this is that there wasn't really any playtesting since this was basically a fan project made by the devs in their spare time. MM1 is rough around the edges but despite the improvements of 2 I think 1 is the better balanced, more refined game. The thing is, in popular opinion it is just unquestioned fact that 2 is the best one (the few who disagree say it's 3). If you look up any shallow ranking of best MM games on the internet, almost all of them conclude that 2 is of course the best, because everyone knows that amirite? Most of those "articles" seem to cite just some random details about later games, giving the impression that the author never played them. Or they straight up say "it's general consensus that 2 is the best". I recall Happy Video Game Nerd reviewing 9 and saying it's great but "they knew they couldn't beat 2 and 3 so they didn't try" and I'm like wtf are you talking about. I watched several MM-a-thons by younger people new to the series, giving their honest nostalgia-free opinions, and almost all of them considered 4-6 better than 1-3. 2 is actually kind of hated by many enthusiasts for being so overhyped, not that that's a problem in itself, but if so many "mainstream" "articles" crap on the later games as inferior to 2 and 3 without apparently even having played them, it is a (to some extent understandable, I believe) kneejerk reaction to point out how bad 2 is compared to the later games. Trying to suppress any such prejudice, still if you asked me what I think is the worst NES MM ("worst" not meaning bad, just not as good as the others), personally I'd say 2. |
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 10, 2021 22:02:50 GMT
Aunt Alison
I did play this game a lot. I also have the "beat the game without taking damage" achievement but that can be cheesed in LC2 with checkpoint saves, the main challenge basically boiling down to "beat Wily without taking damage". In the original release, you had to do the entire fortress in a single run without taking damage which is bloody insane, but some people did that.
It is actually great fun to watch pros play MM, what they pull off is just rad. The superhumans up the ante by going buster only/no damage/no miss. As in, you are not allowed to miss a single shot. These guys are crazy.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 10, 2021 22:12:01 GMT
I'm guilty of that too I suppose - I've played 2 way more than any of the others. I think there's an element of it feeling familiar and comfortable. I'd say 9 is easily my favourite at the moment though
I rarely use the other weapons outside of bosses and usually don't use them on the bosses at the end of stages (but do on the refights obv.) so I don't know about weapons being OP (dirty cheats)
Happy Console Gamer kind of scares me to be honest. He just seems like someone who could snap. There's a ton of inventive stuff in 9 anyway, it feels very much like they knew what they were doing and did some cool new things with it
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 10, 2021 22:21:38 GMT
Aunt Alison I did play this game a lot. I also have the "beat the game without taking damage" achievement but that can be cheesed in LC2 with checkpoint saves, the main challenge basically boiling down to "beat Wily without taking damage". In the original release, you had to do the entire fortress in a single run without taking damage which is bloody insane, but some people did that. It is actually great fun to watch pros play MM, what they pull off is just rad. The superhumans up the ante by going buster only/no damage/no miss. As in, you are not allowed to miss a single shot. These guys are crazy. Closest I've come to this is with MM Zero 1 - 3. To get the S rank you have to complete the stages without getting hit, as quickly as possible whilst also doing a certain amount of damage (so you can't just avoid enemies), as well as using no items, to get full points
It basically meant holding the L (or R, can't remember) down to always have the Z Saber charged so you can release it as you jump over an enemy to one hit kill it. I did that for all the levels and every boss (no hits). It took ages as you have to work out the best route that's fastest but allows you to kill enough enemies/deal enough damage to get the full points
My hands after a session were literally stuck in the claw position for a while after from holding the L/R button down constantly. I lost interest by the 4th game, so my masterpiece remains unfinished sadly
edit: that was without checkpointing or anything
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 10, 2021 22:26:24 GMT
9 was a revelation to me. I like all of the NES games, but none of them is perfect, they all have their shortcomings. 9 just seems to get everything right, to me it feels like the game that every NES MM tried to be. And right, it was Happy Console Gamer, not Happy Video Game Nerd. I've got nothing against him and there's nothing wrong with a positive goodwill approach, but it often comes with being very uncritical, like in this case.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 10, 2021 22:41:27 GMT
I just watched your Hornet Man video. Did you work out that pattern or see a speed runner do it? I am humbled
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 10, 2021 23:12:20 GMT
Figured it out myself, I later watched others doing it but I haven't seen anyone taking the same approach. As one of them wrote in their comments to that fight, one of the great things about this game is how you can use different strategies to reach the same goal.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 11, 2021 13:43:20 GMT
Shame there aren't more videos. You should upload some Bloodstained on hard |
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 12, 2021 17:21:33 GMT
Was thinking about it, but I also wanted to upload a MM9 playthrough but I couldn't find any video recording software where a recorded video wouldn't start stuttering somewhere around the half hour mark--or worse. 2 mbps upload also kinda sucks for long videos.
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 20, 2021 19:56:44 GMT
Shame there aren't more videos. You should upload some Bloodstained on hard Just uploaded some nightmare difficulty footage. Nightmare is the same as hard, except you don't level up so you're stuck to level 1. It's pretty rough. This boss kills you in two hits, I think I needed at least 50 attempts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovdzKtYyYmE |
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 20, 2021 21:36:44 GMT
It's a shame there aren't more good bosses in the game. Whip was actually my preferred weapon, think the only one I really tried properly was the spear. The 2 hits thing is kinda funny when you think about older games where that was pretty normal, sometimes even just one
I'm really in the mood for a good 2D action game but Metroid Dread isn't calling me. How come you haven't got a Switch by the way? I don't think I'd be able to go without Mario and Zelda
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 20, 2021 21:53:07 GMT
Yeah, Bloodstained has ok bosses (like this and the first one), it has bad bosses, and it has terrible bosses. Worst part of the game. About the 2- or 1-hit thing in the past, I did like some of those games (R-Type!) but honestly today I could do without the relentless, sadistic difficulty. That said, Bloodstained on nightmare is much harder than any Mega Man I've played.
I actually hated whips first because I didn't understand how to use them properly, similar to greatswords. Until I learned how to use them in one-weapon-type-only challenge runs where I was forced to learn how to use them. That was a great experience for me. Experimented a lot with different weapons for this boss fight but the thorn whip turned out best.
As for no Switch, money. It's just too expensive just for Mario and Zelda, especially while I'm doubtful I'd even like the new ones. Seeing how recently I've come to ditching 3D games in favour of 2D games.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 20, 2021 23:47:02 GMT
Nintendo are really expensive. Fortunately. Nintendo seem to have decided that all their games need to be as long as possible so at least they last a while. Can totally understand the move to only playing 2D. I get that way sometimes and 2D games always feel more immediate and easier to play
I think I used to whip partly out of nostalgia but I also liked its damage area. It's good for jump attacks and I'm a jumper. I jump at any given opportunity in MM, even if it's just a flat platform. Every screen must be jumped out of so he hangs in the air during the transition, and boss doors. He looks happiest jumping
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 21, 2021 0:40:56 GMT
You need to jump through boss doors in MM. That's very important.
I still have no idea how MM11 managed to screw that up (if you try, MM falls down to the floor and walks through the door). Like... how could this happen? What were they thinking?
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 21, 2021 12:42:31 GMT
You need to jump through boss doors in MM. That's very important. I still have no idea how MM11 managed to screw that up (if you try, MM falls down to the floor and walks through the door). Like... how could this happen? What were they thinking? Oh no. Have they not patched it? Typical push it out the door and fix it later mentality of modern game development |
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Post by RadicalRex on Oct 23, 2021 23:46:33 GMT
After playing Bloodstained almost exclusively over the last few weeks or even months, I'm trying some other games. Looked for metroidvanias again because I do think it's a fun genre. So first was Phoenotopia: Awakening, which thankfully has a demo on Steam (and it's got very positive reviews, so I recommend to check it out). It's a pixel art game with light-hearted JRPG style and story. I'm not really into that, but I don't really mind either. What put me off was that combat was pretty unsatisfying and most of the levels were about puzzles involving putting crates/blocks somewhere to reach places. It was so heavy on that that I quickly lost interest and abandoned. The next one was Ender Lilies. You're this little ghostly anime girl and whatever I don't really care. It's a mix between Hollow Knight and Igavanias (meaning SotN and its derivatives), which sounds very good. It uses an absurd amount of screen shake (screen shake on every hit on an enemy), which I hate, but I give it great credit for having an option to disable that. Sadly I found its combat really lacklustre, striking with your sword immobilises you for a moment no matter if you're on ground or in air. If you keep striking during jump, you stay immobilisied until after your strikes have finished and I hate that. I also didn't like how enemies telegraph their attacks with reddish lights but your sword also throws reddish lights on every strike, so I had a hard time predicting enemy attacks while I was striking them. But again, the inability to move around while attacking pretty much killed this game for me. Requested a refund after 30 minutes. If you're interested: Phoenotopia reviewEnder Lilies reviewAnd as a sidenote, I believe hundreds of hours of playing Mega Man and Bloodstained have spoilt me in terms of movement/jump mechanics that I find it difficult to settle for any that are not as close to perfection as those. It's hard to get used to less. Did I mention I'm so anal about this, I learned some NES programming only to fix Gargoyle's Quest 2's jump physics with a ROM hack |
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LTK
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Post by LTK on Oct 24, 2021 1:25:43 GMT
RadicalRex When you mention Bloodstained I assume you mean Curse of the Moon rather than Ritual of the Night? It's interesting that you consider the classic 2D platformer jumping closer to perfection than the more modern stuff. I've played both Phoenotopia and Ender Lilies and while I could find plenty to criticize about the combat, there's nothing wrong with the movement. In fact, I think they're pretty typical for how characters jump and move in modern platformers as opposed to your Mega Mans and such. Being able to hover in mid-air while attacking is something I appreciated in Ender Lilies because, in the absence of an up-slash, it makes flying enemies much easier to attack, and there's little that I hate more than getting divebombed by something I can't hit because my character is incapable of attacking in any direction that's not horizontal. And besides that, dodge canceling is extremely lenient in Ender Lilies so even if you can't move immediately after an attack, you can still dodge out of it. I think this is really an issue of what you're used to. It's not like I have low standards: I was really averse to Hollow Knight's on-taking-damage effects at first (freeze frame, sound mutes, other visual effects) but the game is amazingly polished in general so I was able to overlook that easily. By contrast, some indie games' movement system is just clearly not up to snuff in ways that are hard to pin down, because games like Celeste make it look effortless. But something like Wings of Vi shows that there's a world of difference between a functional movement system and a great one, and platformers live and die on how their controls feel. I didn't exactly grow up with Nintendo Hard platformers but I still feel like the games that call back to that era are foregoing some of the quality-of-life tweaks that make modern platformers less punishing. The Messenger, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon and Blasphemous all give me that feeling, and as a result I enjoy them much less than Celeste or Dead Cells, which feel like their movement is conductive to your success rather than an obstacle. Or maybe it really is all down to taste and none of them are any easier or harder than the rest?
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