That’s how I feel about “Nintendo games” (i.e. Mega Man) too tbh.
I keep comparing the way video games “teach you” to how you’re supposed to learn a piece on a musical instrument, which is essentially the same process, and video games fail at every aspect: starting from the top every time: BAD. punishing mistakes: BAD. forcing you to play at full speed while you’re still learning: BAD.
If you want people to execute a long series of complex manoeuvres, fucking allow them to learn. You can have a separate “learning mode” if you care about merit. Stop rewarding maniacs who love to waste their time with punishingly inefficient methods!!!
I really appreciate how e.g. in Celeste you can run the game at 50% speed. It’s super satisfying to figure out a part that’s giving you trouble then confidently go through it again full speed
Right! After a lot of futile grinding I eventually hit upon a similar idea with Celeste: I used the invincibility/infinite-flight mode to repeatedly practice a section at the very end of a checkpoint zone (addressing the “starting from the top every time” problem).
This seems to be uncommon even among Celeste players though. Indeed, the principles of actual practicing are so remote from videogame culture that even dedicated speedrunners trying to beat records seem to restart from the beginning the vast majority of the time.
I guess this makes sense at some level because the point of games like this is striving for its own sake, not so much the resulting skill. But like… does it really?
This is kind of funny because most of these examples are the darlings of modern design sensibilities, but for so long lives, game overs, and completing entire levels without checkpoints was seen as barbaric design from the age of coin munchers, even though all this stuff is leading to the same kind of experience
The really funny thing to me is that players complained about checkpoints being too far away from the boss room, so “good” game design is now to put one right before every boss room. But around the same timeframe, the designs also “improved” to add more and more boss phases.
Now I am starting to notice a growing tendency for players to complain about too many boss phases. I wonder what sort of monkey’s paw design improvement will arise from this feedback
Although, come to think of it, Sekiro’s posture mechanic means you can wipe out earlier boss phases within seconds once you fully master them, so the large number of boss phases is not quite as obnoxious in that game as it usually is. Sekiro certainly has a lot of other issues with letting players practice correctly, but in terms of the fundamental “time wasted starting over” problem, it did come up with a thoughtful and creative answer.
I’m not aware of another game that imitated this aspect of Sekiro though. The influence of Sekiro on games in general has mostly been “more parrying”
It may not be the first game to do this (and I’m too lazy to check if I misheard something), but the very recent indie pixelvania Zexion reportedly has checkpoints between boss phases.
souls games rewinding bosses to their first phase after they went through a cutscene transformation is completely antithetical to their initial design sensibilities and i will never not feel disgusted with it. i’ve been vomiting continuously since sister friede.
This is a good joke but also I’m so Megaman-pilled that I mentally immediately pull out the lore that Rush is just an evolved Item #1-3 so his functions are just antromorphisized abilities faceless red platforms used to do.
Though yeah, why did Dr. Light think that it was natural that dogs would become springs or submarines? Maybe Dr Light never saw a dog before or they live in a post-animal society like Blade Runner, so he was never bothered by the limitations of reality and took all his knowledge from dr Seuss animals or something.
Thinking about how when you run back after getting to third phase of Bed of Chaos in Dark Souls 1, you slide down the arena entry slope, but unlike the previous times a dramatic burst of fire erupts behind you as you slide.
What’s really funny about that is that it isn’t really scripted, it’s just that form’s AOE attack trying to hit you before you’ve even entered the fight.
In contrast, Tango from Mega Man V (on gaem boy) can curl up into a ball and hurt things that are foolish enough to touch it, both of which are definitely things cats can inherently do.
the catch is that, gameplay-wise, tango is 100% useless
