even as an early fan of the game I agree, I don’t feel like the mega man style movement acceleration fits the level design. every other moving object in that game moves at a fixed velocity and snaps direction and it makes no sense why the player can’t
I still think there’s value to be found in many of its platforming challenges, especially the ones that are just hallways full of stationary spikes and switch-lines. creates a few “ah-ha” moments when you can figure out the proper sequence of inputs
huh, i didn’t even remember vvvvvv having acceleration (and what’s worse, deceleration!) but yeah you’re right, it doesn’t feel great!
i think mario maker actually feels fucking awful in terms of responsiveness, but some of that is switch input latency too. if i play it long enough i eventually get used to it, but whenever i go back i’m always surprised by how bad it is.
the ropey accel/decel heavy physics seemed to only hurt the level design.
I feel like the level design in VVVVVV is actually impressive and full of clever little stages that I absolutely hate to play because of how movement feels
yeah while it was novel at the time i felt VVVVVV pushed that bar to its limit with “doing things the hard way” and i’ve never been interested in seeing that kind of design explored further
exception might be super hexagon (which certainly benefited from more precise controls) although that’s mostly a game of learning how to ignore visual noise
interestingly cavanagh’s more recent designs have felt like they’re exploring something in the opposite direction a bit. any time there’s ambiguity in dicey dungeons, it seem to resolve in a way that’s oddly charitable for the player. e.g. splitting a one pip die in half gives you 2 one pip dice, rather than doing something mean (like deleting your die?).
i find both pretty interesting, but being antagonistic with the player is absolutely grating for me in some games. i think it’s mostly down to expectations: if i know the game is supposed to fuck with me, i enjoy it a lot more than if it comes out of the blue.
counterpoint: the designer has found the hoops that are fun to jump through, and is giving you the best hoops!
a large part of celeste working for me is that many of the later stages are a traversal puzzle in addition to being technically demanding. you’re having to figure out what series of discrete moves even makes the level possible. i also do think there’s more nuance and freedom as you get better at the execution too, but i will concede it doesn’t feel that way at the beginning.
Thinking today about how differently the trials in Phoenix Wright and Paradise Killer come across and how this has to do with the games’ fundamentally opposing attitudes to irony
You could describe Phoenix Wright as a game about mercilessly crushing irony whenever it rears its head: each “objection!” offers the relief of realigning what the characters perceive with what the player has perceived. And it always makes the defendant in fact innocent so Phoenix never finds himself making an argument different from his real beliefs
Paradise Killer is a game in love with developing and sustaining irony everywhere it can. The vaporwave “paradise” is of course a hell, the victims were responsible for the system so their murder was accidental justice, it’s a collectathon that loves to point out the vapidity of such a game design, etc. In the trial though the devs had no real way of handling the situation except to slip into a Phoenix Wright tone while giving you the option to act as Phoenix Wright would never (convict the innocent or the sympathetic), hoping this will continue to develop the irony. It kinda sorta works, but comes across as beside the point of the main stakes the player has come to care about (especially about the future of the island system) – it’s suddenly ironic about pettier things, so it loses the real irony
big exception i guess but there’s that one case in Justice For All where your client is absolutely guilty but they are forcing you to represent them by having a hostage so you are stalling for time while avoiding winning the case
if achievements were like, a system with good universal standards and whatnot i would be ruined for life and completely sucked into it. i’m only able to distance myself by reminding myself that the developers tend to not have respect for it so i shouldn’t either, as well as things like online achievements no longer being obtainable and whatnot. it’s a compulsive’s nightmare!
I love it slippy…
