LordHypnos wrote:Do they bounce you, or just make sparks or something? Just so I know where to categorize them.
I seem to recall Border Down's walls bouncing you away slightly, but not so much that you can't rapidly come back for more (and soon enough explode!). Einhander and Delta will let you grind on a wall, but the former will quickly kill you for not backing off. Both BD and EH's walldeath seems to work on a principle similar to the "dizzy" mechanic in SFII and its ilk. Occasional bumps/grinds don't add up over time - it's a flurry of terrain contact that'll trigger death.
You simply cannot die via wall contact in Delta - environmental hazards exist, but they take specific, active forms like falling debris. Enemy contact is fatal as always - st3's titanic walker effectively
is the level, and fatal to touch at any point, but the ground it's passing over is harmless.
On that note, how common is it in modern Horis for walls to be non-damaging? Is it actually an unusual thing that would be worth tracking, or is it just all modern horis, pretty much? Or IDK, maybe I should track it anyway just because in most older horis the walls are thoroughly deadly. I'm having trouble figuring out where to draw the line, here
Might be tricky to determine with there being so many more modern verts than horis. Gradius V and Gradius Rebirth came out after Border Down, and their walls are as lethal as ever - there's also the more recent Satazius (PC) for a doujin example. R-Type Final's walls are safe but it's Delta's direct sequel - seems more stylistic than an "industry standard" thing.
Similarly, walls don't hurt in Deathsmiles, but they don't in Side Arms (1986) or Forgotten Worlds (1988) either - all three are horis with humanoid avatars, a style choice associated with safe walls in shooters of all types. More hori examples include the Cotton series, plus Irem's Mr. Heli and Gun Hohki - the latter's characters even freely walk on the ground ala Winds of Thunder. Hyper Duel's a particularly good example with its transforming mech - the humanoid form is invincible to walls, the jetfighter will explode as usual.
(apologies if there are any mistakes in the above, quite a bit of this is from memory! grateful for any corrections)