A Black Falcon
Member
cartman414 said:
But almost any game from the past two generations is far longer than SCIV... I really can't understand this. The game is not long compared to most modern games. For a SNES game it's of good length, longer than some games and shorter than others.
Again, I'm pretty sure that length has nothing to do with your actual complaint here and it's just about how much you enjoyed the game, or, more appropriately, didn't enjoy the game. I thought the game was amazing and absolutely do not think that it was too long.
But how much does branching paths actually affect the gameplay? It doesn't, that much...
Like in RoB on TGCD, so you beat the game and then you go back and replay levels over several times until you find the alternate exits, then play those alternate levels. They're fun while they last, sure, but they don't go anywhere different and you get nothing much for your efforts. How is this better than just having you go through the levels as you go along? If there were better rewards it'd be more worth it, but as it is it just feels like alternate levels just for the sake of having them...
I mean, I find some of the ways you find the alternate levels clever, and it adds something to the game -- the wall with the hidden bomb in it, for instance. But as I said I just don't see it as THAT big of a difference.
... Did you say earlier that you had a bigger problem with the attack range, that is how you can hit anything because of the sprite size and range? Sure, the game has a big sprite, meaning you can't see far, and the whip is very long. I don't mind this at all, but to me that makes more sense as a complaint than just "I wish the controls were worse".
And returned the series to its frustrating and often-not-fun roots. Great. That was not an improvement. Again... learn how to make levels that fit the new weapon. Don't remove it and give up!
See Mega Man, some people dislike the charge shot balance in MMIV, but by the second or third game with the charge shot in it, it was balanced. The same would have been true of 8-way whipping had they not abandoned it.
Then why don't they have 8-way whipping in Metroidvanias...
No, it isn't. Not at all. I guess this is where we disagree, but seriously, how is it better to make it a lot harder to, say, hit flying enemies? To make it so you have to just hope they come in range without hitting your or that you have the right special weapon... no, the 8-way whip is far better.
And that's why in Bloodlines, I always play as the character who has the diagonal attacks in the air (Morris), as opposed to on the ground (Lecarde). It's much more useful to be able to attack diagonally while jumping, because of which enemies the diagonal attacks are most useful against.
Castlevania characters with whips are always very slow moving. Look at all three NES games, you move very slowly and stiffly... that's one thing SCIV didn't improve on. Rondo sort of did, but with Maria only; Richter's not an improvement (unless you really, really like that usually-worthless backwards jump thing...). It's kind of frustrating, but it definitely was a series tradition. As you say about some things, it was definitely was done to make it a bit harder, to restrict your options... and while I could complain, as I said before, with strong enough weapons as you have in SCIV it's really not a problem. You get places fast enough.
Better paced? I don't know about that... true about her being optional, though.
Sure, simplicity can be good. I'm not saying that all games need very complex control schemes. I do still like many NES games after all... but I just think that too few options is also a problem.
I don't agree about the charge shot there either though, a replacement for boss strategies, really? I don't think so... sure, 5 and 6 are somewhat easy compared to 1-3 (4 is kind of in between), but it's not because of the charge shot, I'd say, and the way that you need to play the bosses in a certain order is very much intact. This is even more true in the X games and beyond, charge shots stayed in the Mega Man series long-term, but many Mega Man games are very, VERY difficult... X5, X6, all four Zero games, MM&B, and more... in my opinion some of those might be too hard. But of course charge shots are just one thing, there are lots of factors in just your controls in MM games... that X5 added ducking but removed the ability to shoot through walls, for example. I'm not going to analyze all of those now or something... I guess I'm just saying that yes, designing controls and such is quite complicated and there are definitely a lot of factors to consider.
Still, I think the Castlevania series would be better off with 8-way whipping in more games.
