One thing that bugs me about the Castlevania series is how easy it is to upgrade your whip (for the record, I'm talking about Castlevania, Castlevania III, and Super Castlevania IV).
The rules of the game made it so that you needed four (4) hearts to upgrade from the leather whip you start with to a stronger ball&chain whip of the same length and eight (8) hearts to upgrade to the longer ball&chain whip. The thing is, you start each life with five (5) hearts so it's practically impossible to be stuck with the leather whip for any length of time.
The player may as well have started with the ball&chain whip...
This could've been rectified by having either the player start each life with no hearts or making the upgrades at higher heart levels, say eight (8) for the first upgrade and sixteen (16) for the second one.
Another option could've been to adopt the rule from Game Boy version of Castlevania: if the player gets hit, he loses an upgrade. In that game, you could get a chain whip that launches a fireball after two upgrades. One hit and you're back to the chain whip. A second hit brought you back to your standard leather whip.
Either option would've made the game a little harder. Whether it would've made the game better is a matter of debate. It makes me wish I knew how to ROM hack...
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Monday, October 13, 2014
LINE OF THE DAY, part XXXVII
from Emiscary:
"Being cloned makes an oddly perfect metaphor for birth.
Congratulations, you now exist. Here's a fistful of problems you didn't cause, they're officially yours to fix. Here are the expectations of everyone who existed before you showed up, their desires automatically take precedence over yours because they outnumber you and/or outrank you within an arbitrarily designed pecking order into which you've been inserted against your will.
Oh! And be sure to realize that what you feel is effectively meaningless beyond what it makes you do. And free will is an illusion. Good luck!"
Congratulations, you now exist. Here's a fistful of problems you didn't cause, they're officially yours to fix. Here are the expectations of everyone who existed before you showed up, their desires automatically take precedence over yours because they outnumber you and/or outrank you within an arbitrarily designed pecking order into which you've been inserted against your will.
Oh! And be sure to realize that what you feel is effectively meaningless beyond what it makes you do. And free will is an illusion. Good luck!"
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
METROID II THOUGHTS...
In retrospect, one thing that bugged me about Metroid II: The Return of Samus is why did she start the game with so few items? Now, I don't mean fully powered-up because that would be a weird game. I'm talking about the minimum necessary for her to accomplish her mission.
The story of the game has Samus traveling to the planet SR-388 to eliminate the Metroid species. I guess they have been deemed too dangerous to live. Unfortunately the game manual gives away that the Metroid species moults into successively larger forms when permitted to go through its natural life cycle but that's a God's-eye view for the player.
Samus, as far as I know, is unaware of this creature's capability so one would think she would've landed on SR-388 expecting to encounter the same creatures she found in the Tourian region of the planet Zebes. Those Metroids could only be killed by freezing them with her ice beam and pumping five missiles into their now-hardened gelatinous bodies.
Metroids attacked by grabbing onto Samus and rapidly drawing out her energy. That's how Metroids eat, they draw out the life force of living creatures. If this happened to you, you rolled up into a ball and dropped bombs. The bombs would knock the Metroid off you since you could not freeze them from inside.
Based on these attacks and abilities, one would think Samus would go to SR-388 bearing an ice beam, some missiles, morph ball, and bombs. Instead she begins the game with only a standard beam, the ball form, and 30 missiles.
The game had a chance to set up a HOLY SHIT! moment but missed the opportunity. Let me illustrate.
In the original Samus runs around a fairly open and unprotected cave encountering few enemies. At one dead-end is a pool of corrosive liquid through which she cannot pass and the other dead-end is a flashing Metroid resting on the ground and definitely not pursuing Samus. Get within a defined range and the Metroid's first metamorphosis occurs right before your eyes. An Alpha Metroid appears. Your shots have no effect on it, nor should you expect them to because in the original game only the ice beam would stop their advance. Your missiles, however, hurt the creature and five hits later it is vanquished, an earthquake happens, and the previous dead-end no longer has the corrosive liquid allowing you to advance.
Later on you find bombs and an ice-beam among other new and old items.
What I propose should have happened is Samus begins her adventure appropriately armed for killing the Metroids she expects to find (ice beam, missiles, morph ball, bombs). She travels through the same open cave.
The difference is she encounters an ordinary Metroid below several rock layers that one cannot quickly traverse. I'm thinking a couple layers of narrow corridors. Go all the way left, drop a bit, go all the way right, drop a bit, repeat. This is a set-up for the player. Why the Metroid is flashing would be unknown to the player and even easily dismissed as something the Game Boy's limited graphics were doing to make the enemy appear more interesting.
The Metroid would appear unaware of Samus perhaps because of the many rock layers between them the player might surmise. Either way, since this appears to be the point of the game, the player would give chase and the Metroid would dart out of the room further incentivizing the player.
The player then encounters the floor-resting Metroid like in the actual game and the metamorphosis sequence begins.
The player would fire ice beams only to find they have no effect. This teaches the player that this new, lightly armored version of the Metroid has developed a resistance to cold.
The player would also quickly learn these Alpha Metroids don't draw out life energy by circumcluding their prey like the larval forms do. They instead directly attack prey, perhaps drawing out energy via pokes and prods making the bombs she has brought worthless for keeping these new Metroids at bay.
The player would then find only direct missile strikes in the smaller exposed core have any effect. Five hits would kill the creature resulting in the earthquake as before. Game continues as normal but this time the player gets that shock of finding out Metroids are a lot different from what we've come to know about them.
The manual, if it were especially devious, would give no hints about the various Metroid moults and explain them only in an ending sequence or via log entries like Project AM2R has been doing.
Sometimes I wish manuals wouldn't give crap away. In the original game the manual told you how to kill the Metroids. You would think it would have left that for the player to figure out. Too bad they couldn't just be killed with missiles but freezing them with the ice beam would make it easier. The game had a wave beam and you were pretty screwed if you entered Tourian with it. Hell, if you didn't have the manual, you might have thought the Metroids were invincible :-)
The story of the game has Samus traveling to the planet SR-388 to eliminate the Metroid species. I guess they have been deemed too dangerous to live. Unfortunately the game manual gives away that the Metroid species moults into successively larger forms when permitted to go through its natural life cycle but that's a God's-eye view for the player.
Samus, as far as I know, is unaware of this creature's capability so one would think she would've landed on SR-388 expecting to encounter the same creatures she found in the Tourian region of the planet Zebes. Those Metroids could only be killed by freezing them with her ice beam and pumping five missiles into their now-hardened gelatinous bodies.
Metroids attacked by grabbing onto Samus and rapidly drawing out her energy. That's how Metroids eat, they draw out the life force of living creatures. If this happened to you, you rolled up into a ball and dropped bombs. The bombs would knock the Metroid off you since you could not freeze them from inside.
Based on these attacks and abilities, one would think Samus would go to SR-388 bearing an ice beam, some missiles, morph ball, and bombs. Instead she begins the game with only a standard beam, the ball form, and 30 missiles.
The game had a chance to set up a HOLY SHIT! moment but missed the opportunity. Let me illustrate.
In the original Samus runs around a fairly open and unprotected cave encountering few enemies. At one dead-end is a pool of corrosive liquid through which she cannot pass and the other dead-end is a flashing Metroid resting on the ground and definitely not pursuing Samus. Get within a defined range and the Metroid's first metamorphosis occurs right before your eyes. An Alpha Metroid appears. Your shots have no effect on it, nor should you expect them to because in the original game only the ice beam would stop their advance. Your missiles, however, hurt the creature and five hits later it is vanquished, an earthquake happens, and the previous dead-end no longer has the corrosive liquid allowing you to advance.
Later on you find bombs and an ice-beam among other new and old items.
What I propose should have happened is Samus begins her adventure appropriately armed for killing the Metroids she expects to find (ice beam, missiles, morph ball, bombs). She travels through the same open cave.
The difference is she encounters an ordinary Metroid below several rock layers that one cannot quickly traverse. I'm thinking a couple layers of narrow corridors. Go all the way left, drop a bit, go all the way right, drop a bit, repeat. This is a set-up for the player. Why the Metroid is flashing would be unknown to the player and even easily dismissed as something the Game Boy's limited graphics were doing to make the enemy appear more interesting.
The Metroid would appear unaware of Samus perhaps because of the many rock layers between them the player might surmise. Either way, since this appears to be the point of the game, the player would give chase and the Metroid would dart out of the room further incentivizing the player.
The player then encounters the floor-resting Metroid like in the actual game and the metamorphosis sequence begins.
The player would fire ice beams only to find they have no effect. This teaches the player that this new, lightly armored version of the Metroid has developed a resistance to cold.
The player would also quickly learn these Alpha Metroids don't draw out life energy by circumcluding their prey like the larval forms do. They instead directly attack prey, perhaps drawing out energy via pokes and prods making the bombs she has brought worthless for keeping these new Metroids at bay.
The player would then find only direct missile strikes in the smaller exposed core have any effect. Five hits would kill the creature resulting in the earthquake as before. Game continues as normal but this time the player gets that shock of finding out Metroids are a lot different from what we've come to know about them.
The manual, if it were especially devious, would give no hints about the various Metroid moults and explain them only in an ending sequence or via log entries like Project AM2R has been doing.
Sometimes I wish manuals wouldn't give crap away. In the original game the manual told you how to kill the Metroids. You would think it would have left that for the player to figure out. Too bad they couldn't just be killed with missiles but freezing them with the ice beam would make it easier. The game had a wave beam and you were pretty screwed if you entered Tourian with it. Hell, if you didn't have the manual, you might have thought the Metroids were invincible :-)