poll about a sentence from a contemporaneous review of gradius v

[shelter]

is this fun

• yes
• no

[Gate88]

i’m not sure what’s meant by “the lack of variation”.

[captainlove]

I assume they meant variety [of combat encounter/mechanics?].

[VastleCania]

sad that this is anonymous, i wanna spy on people’s taste

personally i don’t enjoy memorizing the steps of a complicated dance but i respect it as an art

i have never played gradius v

[MintyJuffowup]

I think it’s most fun when you sync up on accident, not even knowing what “right” might mean.

[Gate88]

I don’t even like the game that much but if Gradius V doesn’t have play variety I’m not sure what shmup does. All the options play pretty differently, you scroll in like every possible direction over the course of the game, there are a bunch of enemy types and tricky obstacle layouts.

Maybe it’s a criticism of the genre overall, but it’s not really framed that way in the excerpt we can see.

[notbov]

either a game has an identifiable game loop meant to be mastered or it has a problem with its scope of focus

don’t fear the man who’s practiced ten thousand kicks once, fear the man who’s practiced one kick ten thousand times

[schroeder]

@notbov

either a game has an identifiable game loop meant to be mastered or it has a problem with its scope of focus

Or it’s successfully tricked you into thinking each repetition of the loop is a new and unique experience, like doing a different cardio routine every day to hide that you’re just practicing the same kick a thousand times.

[Rudie]

Martial Artist over here thinking 10,000 of one kick is not that many.

[isfet]

everyone was allergic to games with any kind of actual difficulty during the PS2 era. so many people shitting on Contra: Shattered Soldier for not having a 30 lives code like gtfoh. dark days

[Myspace_Mavis]

What is a rhythm game if not this

[aislesgrises]

is gradius v really that strict? the ways you can move and lock the options seems like it would afford you more movement than a lot of other gradius

but then i’ve never beaten it

[notbov]

remind me, Gradius V is the game that tells you that you need more practice on continue/game over, right

I could see people getting salty about that

[SUPERSONNICK]

Ikaruga was out before Gradius V, even got its Cube port before that, iirc?

Also, first PS2 Cave STGs were out around the same time iirc… and R-TYPE FINAL was out as well, so yeah, any whining about difficulty is therefore moot…

[Cerium]

Every game wants to be Twister when they can’t even be DDR.