Super Metroid Appreciation Station

[Trip Hazard]

I really want to get into La Mulana, but I'm basically terrified of it and my I start having palpitations when hovering my cursor over 'Play'. Will pluck up my courage, one day!

 

Did anybody ever play the freeware game Les Abbayes Des Morts? It's a nifty little adventure title with graphics and sound designed to emulate the ZX Spectrum. You have to explore underneath a big abandoned abbey, using clues to solve simple puzzles and collect items to unlock the boss. I'm not saying it's a metroidvania, but it's pretty neat!

[Sno]

I think Rogue Legacy imitates Castlevania in that it imitates other games that imitate Castlevania.  Yes, those mechanics are present in Castlevania, but they're also sort of standard fare these days so I don't know that saying it wants to be Castlevania is entirely fair.

 

I also disagree that it doesn't reward skillful play.  It's entirely possible to do well and beat the game with very few levels and abilities.  It takes good knowledge of how rooms are generated, enemy behavior, classes and traits, and movement abilities.  It's admittedly designed more towards progression via grinding but there's still room for skillful play.

 

I mean, Rogue Legacy is also mimicking the series mythology of Castlevania, it presents a caricatured take on Castlevania's central premise of a family of brave warriors that rises up every generation to take on a resurgent, amorphic castle and its demonic lords.

 

Also, i'm not saying that it's impossible to play that game well, but the way it pushes back against skillful play with enemies that have overwhelming statistical advantages is an obvious indication that the game doesn't want you to get far without first engaging with the primary character building systems, which is ultimately a system that is built to reward repeated failure. It's a loop that is intentionally necessitating a resource grind before reasonably allowing progress through the game. Maybe that's interesting, that it's a game about kind of failing your way through it, but i don't think it's fun.

 

Except, now that i've typed that up, here i am seeing some parallels in those words with how Monster Hunter is a game that is largely about grinding for resources to build the gear you need to fight bigger monsters.

So maybe put all that aside, maybe it just all boils down to the already stated reasons for why i think Rogue Legacy's core mechanics and level design are bad.

 

If the foundation of the game clicks, so does the grind, i guess.

[SecretAsianMan]

I mean, Rogue Legacy is also mimicking the series mythology of Castlevania, it presents a caricatured take on Castlevania's central premise of a family of brave warriors that rises up every generation to take on a resurgent, amorphic castle and its demonic lords.

 

Also, i'm not saying that it's impossible to play that game well, but the way it pushes back against skillful play with enemies that have overwhelming statistical advantages is an obvious indication that the game doesn't want you to get far without first engaging with the primary character building systems, which is ultimately a system that is built to reward repeated failure. It's a loop that is intentionally necessitating a resource grind before reasonably allowing progress through the game. Maybe that's interesting, that it's a game about kind of failing your way through it, but i don't think it's fun.

 

Except, now that i've typed that up, here i am seeing some parallels in those words with how Monster Hunter is a game that is largely about grinding for resources to build the gear you need to fight bigger monsters.

So maybe put all that aside, maybe it just all boils down to the already stated reasons for why i think Rogue Legacy's core mechanics and level design are bad.

 

If the foundation of the game clicks, so does the grind, i guess.

 

I agree with your second statement, but I personally found it fun.  I think the level design fits with how the game plays and the core mechanics, while relatively simplistic, are fine.  I also don't disagree that it mimics Castlevania's mythology, but again that's a fairly common motif in games.

[Badfinger]

I loved Rogue Legacy. Definitely in my top fistful of games for 2013. It's an obvious reference to Castlevania in terms of setting, but it does not feel like they were trying to make a Castlevania game to me. I don't think I ever drew the comparison until it came up in this discussion, unlike instantly seeing Metroid in Axiom Verge, for example. I never said "this is the Castlevania game I've been waiting for someone to make again!" Most of the reference is superficial. There is far too much Spelunky DNA in it for me to pierce through and see all the 'Vania in there.

 

I disagree strongly that it doesn't reward skillful play. There are unlocks, classes, and items that very much reward finesse rather than pure stat accumulation. With that said, what I'm seeing from you is you don't like the Rogue in Legacy, because most of your pushback seems to be against the design philosophy rather than the execution of the mechanics.

[Sno]

No, i will reassert that the majority of what i dislike in Rogue Legacy is definitely the execution of its core mechanics and its level design. The dull and simplistic enemies, the loose control mechanics, the ambiguous hitboxes, the unreliable knockback, etc. (Edit: I keep wanting to add more things here, as i continue to think back on the game it just raises up more frustrating memories of it. Those classes were terribly balanced.) Some of them are certainly more open to debate, but the wild and confusing disparity between the player sprite and its collision surely is not. As for the level design, the layouts may be randomized, but the rooms are not. Play enough of that game and it's obvious that rooms repeat and are designed, and those designs are generally just not very interesting, and at worst are fundamentally broken. Treasure rooms that need to be solved with items that didn't appear on a given run, for example. Sure you can lock the castle until you have a character that deal with those challenges, but locking the castle reduces the rewards in the castle. The game is constantly giving you questions without answers. It's hard to overlook as an element of simple randomized omission when it constantly draws attention to the matter. Instead of something simply not appearing in a given run, it's giving you impossible tasks, and it beats you over the head with it constantly. I think that's really shitty design.

 

Trying to assert that i just don't like roguelike or roguelite designs is, i think, a bit of a false premise where Rogue Legacy is concerned. This is going to be a tangent. I like the genre and its derivatives quite a lot, but i how i feel about the genre seems rather immaterial here since Rogue Legacy doesn't actually even adhere to what i think is probably the core tenet of roguelike designs. I think far too much of Rogue Legacy depends on what you did in previous playthroughs for it be properly considered as such. So much of that game depends on you having persisted through mechanical progression in advance of any given run, instead of taking each run as a singular thing, a microcosm of choices, reactions, and game progression. There are other games, Nuclear Throne and FTL as examples, that have unlocks persisting through subsequent playthroughs, but they are not progression systems tying together disparate runs into a single advancing playthrough, they're different starting points. I think Rogue Legacy is a fundamentally different thing and that its name is something of a misnomer, and, fair enough, i don't like the thing that it is. (Or maybe i do and i just think its core mechanics are bad, who knows. I definitely think its core mechanics are bad though.)

 

I mean, but i get it, i'm apparently odd man out on the Rogue Legacy train.

[Griddlelol]

I don't really want to take this any more off topic, but I just don't understand your assertion that the controls are "loose" they're anything but loose. Have you tried to fight those extra bosses? The precise movement required to beat those completely discounts the argument of loose controls.

I'm not saying you have to like the game, but I feel that opinion is just wrong. Playing SotN feels like my character is under water. There's delayed input on everything, and the movement is incredibly slow. That feels loose to me. I certainly don't think I could pull off similar level difficulty boss fights with that control scheme like you're asked to do in Rogue Legacy.

[Sno]

See, that's a point i'm probably willing to concede on. If nothing else, all the conversations about platformers i've had on these boards over the last little while illustrate to me that people approaching the genre from different entry points expect very different things out of physics and control.

To me, the movement felt... I don't know how else to describe it other than loose, but not unresponsive as you're taking it to mean. It felt to me like none of the movement had any weight to it. I gave that game way more time that i felt like i should have, and i never got used to how it controls.

[BobbyBesar]

No, i will reassert that the majority of what i dislike in Rogue Legacy is definitely the execution of its core mechanics and its level design. The dull and simplistic enemies, the loose control mechanics, the ambiguous hitboxes, the unreliable knockback, etc. (Edit: I keep wanting to add more things here, as i continue to think back on the game it just raises up more frustrating memories of it. Those classes were terribly balanced.) Some of them are certainly more open to debate, but the wild and confusing disparity between the player sprite and its collision surely is not. 

I agree with this.

 

When I said I felt Rogue Legacy has little to do with Castlevania, that was of course standard internet hyperbole. They have a lot in common, obviously. However I think that Rogue Legacy failed to capture the things that I think make Castlevania interesting. Depending on what people like about Castlevania, they may disagree.

 

Rogue Legacy felt to me like Box2Ds sliding around rather than a deliberately designed platforming-centric physics model. (I had a similar complaint about Thomas Was Alone).

[SecretAsianMan]

No, i will reassert that the majority of what i dislike in Rogue Legacy is definitely the execution of its core mechanics and its level design. The dull and simplistic enemies, the loose control mechanics, the ambiguous hitboxes, the unreliable knockback, etc. (Edit: I keep wanting to add more things here, as i continue to think back on the game it just raises up more frustrating memories of it. Those classes were terribly balanced.) Some of them are certainly more open to debate, but the wild and confusing disparity between the player sprite and its collision surely is not. As for the level design, the layouts may be randomized, but the rooms are not. Play enough of that game and it's obvious that rooms repeat and are designed, and those designs are generally just not very interesting, and at worst are fundamentally broken. Treasure rooms that need to be solved with items that didn't appear on a given run, for example. Sure you can lock the castle until you have a character that deal with those challenges, but locking the castle reduces the rewards in the castle. The game is constantly giving you questions without answers. It's hard to overlook as an element of simple randomized omission when it constantly draws attention to the matter. Instead of something simply not appearing in a given run, it's giving you impossible tasks, and it beats you over the head with it constantly. I think that's really shitty design.

 

This discussion is becoming increasingly weird and fascinating to me.  I agree with most of your technical points, but draw a totally different conclusion.  I never found the hitboxes or knockback to be a particularly big problem, mostly an occasional annoyance at worst.  The enemies are rather simple in design and action but again, that never bothered me.  I agree with Griddlelol in that I never felt the controls were loose.  I understand what you mean when you say they don't have weight but I found the movement to be responsive rather than sluggish.  While I think the room design could be more interesting, I don't think it's broken.  I could always navigate the room and move on, provided I survived the enemies and traps of course.  Some were more difficult than others but none of them felt particularly unfair to me, at least until the NG+++ when the game becomes a bullet hell.  And as for the treasure room example, you gave a solution to it yourself.  Locking down the castle is a perfectly sound tactic.  Yes, you lose gold but the potential payoff is gear or runes.  It's a choice that you as the player have to decide.  I actually liked the idea because it provides some benefit and reason to pick certain traits or skills that you might not ordinarily use.  Plus you don't have to do it at all.  I never locked down the castle and I beat the game several times with a fully unlocked skill tree and all the gear.  If certain gear was locked behind a chest that required you to be a specific class or have a specific skill, then I might agree with you.  But as it stands, you can entirely ignore that if you wish.

 

You are allowed your opinion of course so don't think I'm trying to say you're wrong.  I just find it interesting that what you perceive as faults I find to be strengths.

[Badfinger]

Trying to assert that i just don't like roguelike or roguelite designs is, i think, a bit of a false premise where Rogue Legacy is concerned. This is going to be a tangent. I like the genre and its derivatives quite a lot, but i how i feel about the genre seems rather immaterial here since Rogue Legacy doesn't actually even adhere to what i think is probably the core tenet of roguelike designs. I think far too much of Rogue Legacy depends on what you did in previous playthroughs for it be properly considered as such. So much of that game depends on you having persisted through mechanical progression in advance of any given run, instead of taking each run as a singular thing, a microcosm of choices, reactions, and game progression. 

 

I wasn't attempting to assert you don't like Roguelike elements in games. I think we can disagree about the movement and action mechanics without that spilling into anything, so I will admit I haven't played the game since I marathoned it right around release. I can't speak with confidence agreeing or disagreeing about those things.

 

What I was attempting to assert, and in my eyes you have reinforced, is that you are not interested in the Rogue specifically in Rogue Legacy. A good chunk of its design basically made it the standard bearer for Roguelite games, and the boxes you're ticking against it are specifically the things that made me so excited to play it in the first place or were literally advertising features. The rooms are all hand-made by a designer. That was a selling point of the game. If this game had a box, that would be a bullet point on the back of it. They're not broken, you can complete every room because they were built to ensure it. The "Legacy" in the title is selling the persistence over time aspect, and the twist on the genre.

 

You're welcome to not like it! Obviously! I loved it, and I would hope that's ok for those that didn't. I hope I'm doing my best to attack your comments and not you, but on review, mechanics aside, you're not actually interested in the Legacy portion in addition to the Rogue either.

 

PS. SUPER METROID IS A COOL GAME. I am excited to see another speed race at SGDQ next week.

[SecretAsianMan]

PS. SUPER METROID IS A COOL GAME. I am excited to see another speed race at SGDQ next week.

 

It wouldn't be a proper Games Done Quick marathon without a Metroid race of some kind.

[Sno]

This discussion is becoming increasingly weird and fascinating to me.  I agree with most of your technical points, but draw a totally different conclusion...

 

...You are allowed your opinion of course so don't think I'm trying to say you're wrong.  I just find it interesting that what you perceive as faults I find to be strengths.

 

It's an interesting conversation to have had, certainly.

 

What I was attempting to assert, and in my eyes you have reinforced, is that you are not interested in the Rogue specifically in Rogue Legacy. A good chunk of its design basically made it the standard bearer for Roguelite games, and the boxes you're ticking against it are specifically the things that made me so excited to play it in the first place or were literally advertising features. The rooms are all hand-made by a designer. That was a selling point of the game. If this game had a box, that would be a bullet point on the back of it. They're not broken, you can complete every room because they were built to ensure it. The "Legacy" in the title is selling the persistence over time aspect, and the twist on the genre.

 

Huh? I'm not saying that the rooms being designed is a tick against it, i'm saying that the rooms being designed and dull is a tick against it. There's no primitive procedural generation to blame it on. It's also obviously not producing levels that are literally broken, but in the broader context of the randomized nature of the game, they're not always completable. I feel the potential solutions that are provided have enough of a downside to not really warrant being engaged with.

 

Hey, Super Metroid though, Super Metroid's cool. I think this Rogue Legacy thing has run its course.

[dartmonkey]

Okay, I finished Aria is morning, good ending but without 100% souls. I then fired up Symphony of the Night for twenty minutes. First impressions are that the Alucard motion blur thing is weird (maybe supposed to convey he's got special powers?) and it feels slow, BUT I recognized bits of the castle and the UI made sense pretty quickly to me. The music seems completely in keeping with what I've heard elsewhere and I'm fired up to play it. On that evidence, I really recommend playing Aria first, Griddlelol, if you haven't lost patience yet. I feel like it's given me a crash course in 'good' Castlevania and I'll get more out of SotN by being able to see the links and the evolution. I assume SotN will feel less soupy as I unlock abilities too.

Anyway, Aria of Sorrow is a classy video game.

Edit. Like Super Metroid.

[Griddlelol]

Cool, I might try that. I beat the first boss, then after 40 mins of exploring I died. Without saving. I put it down and haven't looked back. I guess I'll try Aria of Sorrow, but it's not high on my list after my disappointment with SotN.

I'd like to jump into Cave Story. I've heard great things.

[dartmonkey]

Boom - just completed Super Metroid. 66% items. It was good. Fun. I had a couple of control issues (switching between weapons was fiddly and my space jump only worked intermittently). But I liked it.

(I think I preferred Zero Mission by a smidge.)

[Griddlelol]

I'm currently playing 3 different Super Metroid games, all at different places on 3 different devices. 

 

I'm in way over my head.

[Badfinger]

I'm in way over my head.

No that's Headlander.