robor said:
My mistake. I needed to elaborate on that. It is my opinion, but there is also a substantial amount of factors in the game that were pathological methods of play and during that period the developers recognized this, so they branched off from what worked for the game, and what didn't. I can't go on any further because I've stated before what I think are the glaring flaws in Metroid 1. It's clear as day for me. As for SotC, I find it hard to even call it a "game" but I'll leave that for another day, this is a Metroid thread.
Thing is, SM is also an experiment to see what worked and what didn't.
Heck if you take just the first 3 Metroid (and heck maybe even the 4th), they're VERY different and cannot be directly compared as a simple iterative process (like say FF1->3->5).
If you look at the very 1rst Metroid, you'll see it's not THAT different to something like the original Zelda in some of its design choices (non linear design, item based, reward exploration, arcade gameplay).
They made some choices toward a more sequential type of progression in the sequels (except maybe in ZM) and steered the serie toward a type of play more inline with what the market could bear at the time, that doesn't mean it's the only type of progression that could have happened either.
It's quite clear Metroid was meant to be a maze type of game by design, that's clearly lost in all the sequels (actually not in Metroid 2).
I shudder at how you would describe Heavy Rain :lol
robor said:
Games-as-art = bullshit. Unless we look at the traditional definition of "art" then sure, we can call it games-as-art.
good let's close that part.
robor said:
Super Mario 64 contains design choices that do not exist on a 2D plane. It is an evolution from 2 axes to 3. Certain mechanics must then be removed and replaced as they don't function nearly as competently on a 3D plane. This is what iterative design proves when you carry an existing formula. Games hold sets of rules and they are altered in order to improve the momentum of play and interest. Checkmate was not an original rule for chess and was applied later on through indirect iterative playtesting.
Except that as Sega demonstrated, making the transition from 2d to 3d is really really hard.
The compromise they found for Mario makes for a working game (and not a bad one at that), but clearly customers are uninterested.
If you ask me, while some element remained, many many things were lost in the process of the transition (that nsmbw actually makes it very obvious). The transition to 3d didn't improve the momentum of the game, that's for sure, and actually made the game way less interesting (it becomes glaring in galaxy 2 where the game try to pass of as 2d Mario but really fails due to how 3d Mario actually moves)
All that doesn't the change the fact that Mario, 2d or 3d, shit all over the other series in term of game play and design.
robor said:
Just because Metroid 1 was an experiment, doesn't mean it was a successful experiment. It does hold some merit and value, and that is it gave birth to the root of Metroid's core gameplay, it's just that it failed at executing it well (cue in SM).
Actually it WAS a success, or it would have suffered the fate of Wrecking Crew or Kid Icarus.
We're not talking about the crowning achievement of Nintendo either, but for an experiment it proved mighty successful (heck it even got copied and all).
Even something as simple as the ability to backtrack is something pretty momentous , especially in the sea of sidescroller that rode the wave of SMB.
robor said:
And if we're going by popular consensus then for their time, Mozart, Bela Bartok and Igor Stravinsky all sucked fucking hard. :lol
That could be comparable if any of their products were mass market products to be consumed by a market whose interest was instant gratification.
