Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Vanguard
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Vanguard »

In general...

Good randomness:
Random AI behavior
Modifying spawn positions/timing
Assembling levels from handmade chunks (Cave Noire, Spelunky)

Bad randomness:
Random missing/random failure
Fully randomized generated levels

Usually less is more.
Sumez wrote:For most pourposes such as action games and various kinds of boss fights I'd agree.
But in a game based entirely around preparing for the unpredictable? The bag randomizer in modern guideline Tetris variant is absolute garbage. Completely ruins the game.

The TGM randomizer has already been proven to be reliable enough to never result in unfair games, but still retains the importance of stacking for every possible outcome. Meanwhile organizing 7 different pieces in a bag and repeating that over and over, immediately creates easy-to-remember patterns that makes stacking forever a matter of basic strategy rather than constant on-the-fly tactical decisions.
How do each of these work? Sounds like in the bag randomizer you're guaranteed to see each piece type once in every 7 pieces? I'm guessing TGM is less predictable without being 100% random?
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by null1024 »

Vanguard wrote: How do each of these work? Sounds like in the bag randomizer you're guaranteed to see each piece type once in every 7 pieces? I'm guessing TGM is less predictable without being 100% random?
TGM keeps a history of what pieces have, and tries to pick pieces that haven't shown up in it.
It still rolls entirely randomly though when selecting, and if after a few tries it doesn't roll a piece that's been in the history, it'll just put the one it last rolled.
It keeps you from getting a bunch of the same garbage in a row and tries to ensure that new pieces show up fairly frequently, but it's still quite unpredictable, and there's still a chance of getting a piece that was in the last draw history.


The "Random Generator" [which is the actual name] used in other modern Tetris versions generates a bag with all 7 pieces, pulling one after another until it's empty, and then refilling. You get certain nice mathematical properties like guaranteed short runs of S/Z blocks [S/Z at end of bag, S/Z at start of next bag] and the guaranteed longest distance between pieces is 12 [eg, I piece at the start of the bag, 6 pieces in the rest of the bag, 6 pieces in the next bag, and then an I piece at the end of that bag], but it's definitely very predictable if you count pieces, and it's especially something else with modern piece preview lengths.

Sumez is almost certainly right and it's probably too little randomness for something like Tetris.
TGM uses a 4 piece history [and allows for pieces that are in the history to be rolled anyway since it re-rolls a few times instead of removing history items entirely from selection], so there's a much wider range of possibilities of what can come next.
also, I will admit that I used Tetris strictly as an example on bag systems -- I barely play it, but it was the first example that came to mind :lol:

edit: whoops, noticed half of a sentence was entirely missing
Last edited by null1024 on Fri Mar 06, 2020 9:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BrianC »

I'm guessing Arika was forced to use TTC's rules with Tetris 99?
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Sumez »

Vanguard wrote: How do each of these work? Sounds like in the bag randomizer you're guaranteed to see each piece type once in every 7 pieces? I'm guessing TGM is less predictable without being 100% random?
Yeah, and the fact that you're guaranteed the 7 pieces with such frequency makes the game extremely predictable (like counting cards in Blackjack, but with a much smaller deck). On one hand you could argue that adds a bit of puzzle strategy to the game, but it also minimizes the element of quick on-the-fly decisions, and at the end of the day it makes the game highly pattern-able, especially in combination with the hold feature.
To me, another awful thing about the 7-bag, though, is that it actually makes getting 12 drops in a row without a specific piece, and then getting two in a row, a very likely and frequent scenario.

Like null1024 said, TGM keeps a recent history (of the four most recent pieces) and tries to "reroll" if the new piece matches one of them. The first game rerolls 4 times, while the second and third reroll 6 times.
This effectively minimizes piece floods, which is the biggest "unfair" threat to survival in a Tetris game, and by extension it makes droughts less likely, but they are still a mild possibility. The third game adds a weird dynamic 35-piece bag system that's constantly refilled. It's hard to explain, but the gist of it is that it makes droughts impossible without making the game any more predictable.
Though it sounds unlikely, you'll still get the same piece twice in a row several times through most games (keep in mind, there are hundreds of draws in each full game), but getting the same three times in a row happens like once every second day or so.

One aspect I like about the TGM randomizer is that knowing how it works (which is surprisingly intuitive to the human mind - if you just had one piece, getting it again is less likely, right? People will some times imagine this from dice throws) allows the player to constantly make a qualified guess whenever a placement would benefit from getting a certain piece, rather than just taking blind chances.
BrianC wrote:I'm guessing Arika was forced to use TTC's rules with Tetris 99?
Absolutely.
That said, I wouldn't think of T99 as an Arika game, as much as a Nintendo game that was outsourced to Arika. This isn't Arika's vision of Tetris. :)
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Vanguard »

BrianC wrote:I'm guessing Arika was forced to use TTC's rules with Tetris 99?
Copyright law is such bullshit. No one should control Tetris like this.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Sumez »

You can't copyright Tetris, they are enforcing it as a trademark. And unfortunately they've won some court cases that IMO are highly questionable.

Like, the playfield size and piece shapes represent a part of the trademark, which is ridiculous since we're talking about very basic geometric shapes. It's not like they picked seven specific pieces that happened to work together - these are the 7 only tetrominoes that exist, and they mathematically just happen to work perfectly for a game of this type. It's hard to change any of those basics without making it a notably worse game.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Vanguard »

That's even worse!
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

Realtime action games with 1HKOs (nervy!) that let you bust out temporary, breakable shields, then attack full-blast through them. Aptly demonstrated by Search and Rescue's charge barrier. That's right, muhfucka, my offense IS my defense, hyper armour AND shells in your grill Image Y'ALL READY? Image

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Xenodude fall off the edge oh nawww Image

Obviously ripe for tension-deflating abuse, but when the time/damage constraints are tight enough, as above, the contrast of risk and unstoppable force is infernally addictive. Psyvariar's signature burst invincibility closely related:

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Big difference being Psy's shield is utterly invincible, affected only by time, whereas SAR's type breaks after absorbing hits - best of all is when enemies will suffer contact damage, allowing you to tear straight through hard targets as shown below (shield not captured due to 20hz GIF)

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Time it wrong, or try to tackle too hard a target, and you're dead meat! That risk/reward tension, baby!
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by XoPachi »

A good tight parry is always welcome in an action game.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by copy-paster »

Gunpoint lock in run and gun will always be one of the best game mechanics ever created to me, and one of reason why Contra Shattered Soldier is my favorite game in the series, and also testoterone-filled too.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

Best reason to investigate Hard Spirits (GBA), which imported Shattered Soldier's lock mechanic. :cool:

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Has its issues, mostly the lack of slide crippling its Hard Corps bosses, but in a few spots the aim lock really shines. Fighting Spirits' highway boss with your aim locked to the right is AMAZIN Image
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by copy-paster »

That looks good tbh.

Why does modern run and guns not much adapt this mechanic is out of question to me. :roll:
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Sumez »

Yeah I see the "stand in place while aiming freely" mechanic reused more frequently, which has much, much less utility.

Of course, Shattered Soldier has both, like aboss.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

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I'm a big fan of Wolf Fang / Rohga's approach, where you simply hold the shot button to strafe. Shock Troopers is the same in topdown, Hyper Duel (Saturn) potentially if you map [shot] and [lock] to the same button.

Being able to aim while locked in place can be handy in specific spots, of course, something Nakazato and co clearly designed Spirits/Hardcorps/Shin/Neo for. Generally speaking though, I prefer to stay mobile while placing shots in my 1HKO R2RMKFs.

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XoPachi wrote:I love emphasis on mobility.
If a game has dashing, air dashing, a grapple, wallrunning, double jumping, sliding, I'm on that shit. Specifically referring to mapped inputs. Things like BHopping, air strafing, and wave dashing are great but that's not quite what I mean.
I also love those game specific, unique movement options like drop dashing in Sonic Mania, the Recoil Rod in Mega Man Zero 3 or the R-moves in Sonic Advance 2.

But I'm picky. I can't stand where things just have no tactile feeling and are floaty as hell with no weight to it. Or are just incredibly broke. Double when the level design is just inorganic...blocks in the air like CloudBuilt or other "speedrunner" platformers. If it plays like the better Sonic games, Mega Man X/Z/ZX, TitanFall, or Metroid ZM, it's sex.
Have you played Strider 2 (Capcom, 2000, Arcade ZN1/PS1 - NOT the shitty outsourced Mega Drive sequel) ? You'd probably dig it, based on that post. :smile: Lots of barraging high-speed action, but also (as you suggest) a strong sense of gravity and consequence. Need to recall a walking jump? No prob. A running jump? Harder but doable. A full-blast sprinting double somersault? You're gonna want to slam on the air brakes via the [down/up+attack] command barrage. Besides the explosive sprint and hurtling doublejump, it also packs smaller but vitally handy tools for close-quarters movement, like a slide-cancelling back-hop and a quick wall-to-wall glide.

I especially like its switch to Saigo no Nindou/Metal Slug-style free contact with enemies - you can really dive into the fray like a human buzzsaw, staying pixels away from bullets and blades while tearing enemies apart.

Sadly it lacks the original's aesthetic chops (wish it'd been on Naomi instead), but for high-speed, high-precision ninja action it's a landmark. Some nice codified replay value via its ranking system too.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BrianC »

One thing with the US PS1 version of Strider 2, I'm sure this has been said before, but if you plan to buy it, MAKE SURE IT INCLUDES BOTH DISCS. There's a common misprint where the Strider 1 disc is actually the Strider 2 disc and vice versa. I bought both discs in decent condition and this definitely was the case for me. Not to mention that the port of Strider 1 is still the best port of the game available.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Stevens »

BrianC wrote:One thing with the US PS1 version of Strider 2, I'm sure this has been said before, but if you plan to buy it, MAKE SURE IT INCLUDES BOTH DISCS. There's a common misprint where the Strider 1 disc is actually the Strider 2 disc and vice versa. I bought both discs in decent condition and this definitely was the case for me. Not to mention that the port of Strider 1 is still the best port of the game available.
When I bought my copy the Strider 2 disc was all scuffed (Strider) and the Strider disc (2) was pristine. I'm guessing they never tried the "original".
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

A specific order: Arcade (meaning single-sitting) action games with Rank (scaling difficulty) whose max is:

A) Intense, but
B) Survivable, and
C) Inevitable, if player survival persists.

Particularly good if they parlay this into a second and final loop, where the rank remains permanently maxed out regardless of player performance. If you staggered over the first loop's finish line, you're gonna quickly realise you need to improve for any chance at the second. If you caned the first loop authoritatively, you are now acclimatised to max rank and in shape for the final test. Image

Konami's Hideyuki Tsujimoto seemed to like this approach. It's how at least three games he headed - Super Contra, Sunset Riders and Trigon - all work. Having a blast with all three's loops.

Second, definitively final loops are on my always like list, too. Not a fan of infinite loopers, I'd rather get something concise with a definite endpoint. I swear there's some sick fuck out there who's shat his pants setting an infinite looper WR. That is a very different test of commitment!
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by copy-paster »

Recently game mechanics I love: Combat flight games with Return to Base feature, allows you to refuel ammo during missions. Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies nailed this perfectly. Sadly Ace Combat 5 completely omit this one, some missions have many targets to kill and if you ran out of ammo you might as well reset.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Blinge »

I always hate limited saves, I think.

Sorry if that was mentioned before.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

LIKEY LIKEY: Stomps, helm-splitters, and other air/ground attacks that double as Fast Falls. TY for the doublejump, but if I don't resume ground contact, my cornhole will be blasted rim from rim :O

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Autocollect. Items, particularly fuel or other consumables, that hoover up automatically while you move on.

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Devil May Cry's red crystals and Shinobi (2002)'s demonsword-quenching Chi are killer 3D examples. Good feels massacring a roomful of enemies, then plunging down a steep drop with a cloud of precious gore in hot pursuit.

Absolute Defenses, for player and enemies alike. It's good to have some things be Absolute, creates a sense of grounding and mechanical consistency. I want the planet-shattering laser of renegade satellite LUCIFER_ZERO to rebound off a Buzzy Beetle, inflicting fatal damage to its guidance systems and sending it careening into the sun.

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See also Absolute Counters.

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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Mischief Maker »

Slay the Spire and Star Renegades have ruined me for RNG-dependent RPGs.

Both these games recreate all the good parts of blobber RPG combat with deterministic results.

Iratus is a great game in theory, but I can't go back to executing my brilliant plan only for the RNG to say, "Ha ha, fuck you!"

I guess you could say similar things about Steamworld Heist and XCOM, if they ever made a 3D version of Heist.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

Further to Blaster Master Zero 2, CHAIN BODY RAM

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Or really, any aggressive, i-framed movement option that chains into itself. I like it when there's some limit, eg meter, but you're otherwise good as long as inputs register. Air-dashes work particularly well, with their innately visceral gravity-defiance.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Squire Grooktook »

BIL wrote:Or really, any aggressive, i-framed movement option that chains into itself. I like it when there's some limit, eg meter, but you're otherwise good as long as inputs register. Air-dashes work particularly well, with their innately visceral gravity-defiance.
One of my favorite examples of this is in the doujin Ikaruga clone eXceed 2nd: the game substitutes Ika's homing charge attack for an invincible laser burst, and adds agressive pointblanking damage and a scoring mechanic based on speedkilling bosses to the mix. The result? Surf on enemies to charge up your invincible beam, blast them all and scoop up even more bullets to recharge while soaking in the resulting invincibility frames, and repeat! Leads to glorious yet tense carnage during the boss fights once the system and patterns are fully mastered.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

I think a well-done Shoryuken is pretty universally lovable. There are various good examples, some mutl-hit, some one big bang, some partially/totally invincible, others stuffable without careful placement... my main thing is absolute invincibility followed by a dangerous cooldown. If it whiffs, you're up shit creek, but if that thing hits square, the target's asshole is going to enter hyperspace only to return as a steaming tray of ravioli. Image

Enemies that explode into showers of shiny goodies/food/toilet paper are always welcome too.
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^ buddy tearing off in the background Image

Oho! BIG CHAIN BOUNS - tying your SRK/SPD/BBC to combo enders, and therefore making enemies not merely targets but valuable resources is A-OK too! Image Works great in hectic boss+zako scenarios, as seen above - is boss going for the IZUNA DROP? Time to POUND FAEC - and also toe-to-toe duelling.

He let me land two clean hits banking on he BOMBA taking me out! NOW HE FUCC (■`W´■)
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Quite fond of throwable, fully aimable weapons in brawler context, too. Zoning? Wazzat? Heads up motherfucker! Oh FML where's me stick. One of WWF No Mercy's niggling little gains over the otherwise superlative Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, another being its exclusive ownership of the bestial "bounce supine opponent's head off the floor repeatedly when the ref's not looking" attack. Even better if you can catch/deflect the unlovely flying object, again ala No Mercy.

So You Thought You Were Safe: An Introduction To Flying Implements In Three Dimensional Space
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You know, let's round this out with doing really bad shit to grounded enemies. Bonus points if they can turn the tables on you - again, AKI's VPWs were great for this. That surefire Boston Crab might provoke a tide-turning kick in the teeth if the target is too fresh and/or you're too ragged! As always though, there is something to be said for the Absolute.

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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I hate it when a game has an input done by pressing two buttons at once, but it's an input that can't be done by holding one and then pressing the other. Especially if the timing is very precise and the move you get is something like a desperation attack with full invulnerability that really messes you up if you screw up the input and that you could have just mapped to a third button.

Good:
• Progear's character select screen (hold one button, tap the other for alternate gunner formations)
• Streets of Rage's back attacks (can tap jump while holding attack), third game and remake introduced dedicated buttons on 6 button controllers
• Crisis Force (bomb is A+B, will register if you press A while holding B to shoot)
• Tekken grabs (the timing window's very reasonable)

Bad:
• Basically any Konami arcade beat 'em up's desperation attacks, the timing window is incredibly strict in some games, Capcom games seem to be are a few frames less strict?
• Moo Mesa's dash input, same strict timing window, crucial for dash cancelling to dodge, accidental jumping instead puts you in danger, also Konami

Fortunately a lot of stuff in MAME lets you map two buttons to one input to effectively have a third button for this sort of thing.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

My favourite example of a partitionable two-button command is Splatterhouse Part 3 (Japan)'s roundhouse. It's so smoothly implemented, you can easily use it to terminate combos - just hold [attack] on the desired last hit, then press [jump].

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(as shown above, this is particularly handy with SHp3 "storing" the aborted combo. ie, the next [attack] will skip the jabs, going straight to the i-framed finishers. Good when you want to assail enemies too tough/dangerous for head-on jabs! just bank the starter hits off their friendlier pals, ala The Ninja Warriors Again/Once Again, which are pretty much built around staggered combos)

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It's also one of my favourite finesse tools in a brawler. Guaranteed knockdown, hits both sides, no cooldown, and 100% MUTEKI DA (check out homie's jagged bone going straight into Rick's eye - MUDADA). Blows away the target and backstabbers alike, can even be used to boot corner-loiters clean into the middle of the room (handy, with SH3's inbuilt time-trialling). HOWEWER! It does near-zero damage, has little reach, and can be blocked by guard-capable enemies.

So what you're left with is a means to artfully colour outside the lines, a favourite design ethos of mine. EG, getting in a boss's face and repeatedly stuffing his unstoppable knockdowns. Won't do any meaningful damage, but it will let you force them into blockstun (easy grab), or bulldoze them into a corner, or knock them down. Also lets you aggressively liberate enemy-controlled space:

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Double Dragon II (AC)'s reformed elbow is broadly similar, but it doesn't feel nearly as solid, since besides it only hitting behind you, the game also demands simultaneous [attack+jump] inputs. (pretty leniently, to be fair)

Annoyingly, the US version of SHp3 turns the roundhouse into a trendily SFII-aping hurricane kick... which, in exchange for a trivially demanding [f,b,f+atk] input, will demolish roomloads of monsters so handily, there's no reason to use any other attack. Seen casual reviewers slate the game's balance due to this, not unfairly. You can go without, but that obviates the aforesaid JP RH techniques. Monster Rick is similarly busted... his hentai bomb is a command move now, too, but costs zero meter. :shock: Still one hell of a 16bit body horror/occult/slasher show, at least.

---

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Negative Edge BOMBA (or anything really) control. Press to initiate, release to terminate. Good way to fold multiple functions into a single button without involving the dpad. Put to great use in the Raiden Fighters (launch bomb with press, detonate with release - enables instant defensive auras, long-ranged killshots, and artfully-placed chain extenders) - recently reacquainted with in Sunsoft's Markham, a surprisingly (seemingly) superunknown hori that plays something like Xevious in horizontal, plus Gradius-prefiguring missile mechanics.

PRECISION TRUMPS PROLIFERATION (■`W´■)
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Drum wrote:Markham is a legit awesome game. If you like that, also try Stinger!
God damn it, why'd you kamikaze your account like that. The only important casualty of Gamergate. Image Sure enough, one of three people to mention this game in the last decade and a half. "Games Drum Would Like" has become one of my favourite subgenres, though if you were still around, I would still be throwing down the internet dance battle gauntlet re: The Tin Star! Who the fuck was in charge of bullet visibility, Ray Charles?! No, he'd probably have done a better job. :evil: Belt-view rotary arena STG's still fresh as all hell still though!

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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Marc »

Belt-scrollers without a walk-in grapple. I hate it when you can't get a hold of the enemy, and a throw is part of a pre-baked combo. Never like Golden Axe for that reason, but the Konami examples are even worse.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Sumez »

Random(?) throw directions is such a crazy decision for a game largely based on crowd control XD
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

I like it when genre works tinker with convention. Lately I've been playing a lot of the brawlers released in that brief window post-Kunio, pre-Final Fight, when beltscrolling fundamentals were still somewhat up in the air. At ground zero there's the Technos grapple, which is very involved and germane to their aesthetic of vicious street-level scrapping. You have to belt the target until they're in stagger before you can scruff 'em, and even then, stronger enemies will shove you off until they've been sufficiently weakened - which invites use of the other stagger option, a stiff haymaker sending them to the floor. In certain games (Kunio, Combatribes, DD1FC, DD Advance) you can mount floored enemies rather than let them get up, though again, overly healthy d00ds will violently escape. Lots of good stuff.

The Capcom method introduced with Final Fight has a good sense of absolute overpowering - I particularly like The Ninja Warriors Again's Kunoichi and Ninja, the former wrenching enemies 180':

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And the latter choke-lifting them clear off the ground:
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And it obviously facilitates snappier, speedier action than the deliberately ragged, dry-heaving violence of a comprehensive Technos beatdown. But ala OG Haggar, who likewise leaves the target hanging by their neck (exception for Andore, who just looks incredulous at being manhandled so), I like there to be some visual feedback on the grab. Just instantly freezing a mighty enemy, or even a middling one, takes me out of the aesthetic a little.

Ninja Gaiden (AC)'s flying throw is an interesting example I've not seen repeated elsewhere. Famicom DD3's Billy/Jimmy and Zero Team's Spin both have equivalents, but only as additions to Technos and Capcom grapple systems. Being forced to jump at an enemy to throw them gives NG a particularly aggressive, kamikaze aesthetic (one you can't let get out of hand, with its Bilateral Touch Of Death policy).
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Incidentally, your three-hit combo technically puts enemies into throw state, too. They won't wipe out their pals (nor will outright thrown enemies), but they will destroy any scenery they land on. Good asset, with this being your only means of acquiring items.
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Datsugoku very nearly gets away with not having grapples at all, instead marking critically damaged enemies for death via its spectacular combo enders. Doesn't matter if you've left them alone to beat up their pals in the interim - if someone's on their last legs, the next attack you land on them is gonna be a coil-shuffling brain-wrong, sending them flying offscreen with a resounding *BLAOW*

And then somebody forgot/didn't care to include a "drop spent gun" command, or worse, WANTED it this way. Pick up a gun, enjoy your brief release of Commie-shredding carnage, and congratulations asshole! Now all you've got is a dogshit riflebutt, and the incredibly boring jumpkick. An instant of pleasure, a lifetime of regret. Maybe it's all metaphorical, and shit. :o

On the subject of grabbing opponents and mangling them, I'd like to mention AKI, of N64 wrasslin' fame. Their games (the best being Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, with No Mercy a close second) play almost like head-to-head(-to-head-to-head) beltscrollers. Grappling is a tactical minefield much like striking. On offense, tap the button for a quick grab attempt, good for wearing down fresh opponents with light, hard-to-reverse attacks. Hold the button for a slower, heavier grab that lets you execute power attacks, but you'd better have the momentum to not be reversed. On defense, grab attempts of either type can be violently broken with a deft press of [L], the backdash button. Or you can reverse them into a go-behind grapple of your own, again, provided your timing is good.

(backdash away from a strike, instead of blocking with [R], and you're getting nailed - this grab/strike offensive/defensive dichotomy being the heart of the AKI mixup game. Likewise, if you're quick enough, it's entirely possible to reward a grapple attempt with a nice punch in the mouth.
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^^^ VPW2, tag match
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^^^ Even Ninja approves of AKI's bone-crushing wrasslin'!)

I would've loved to see AKI try a Double Dragon-styled street brawler. The lockon system might've gotten awkward with large crowds, but a two-a-side barfight would've gone great. (a simple toggle of free/lock movement may have gotten around this)

Speaking of crowd control: do thrown enemies in the original Golden Axe even knock down their comrades? I seem to recall this being one of the myriad upgrades made by Golden Axe II (MD), in addition to throws being aimable. I enjoy AC/MD GA1, but I wouldn't say it's aged as well as Ninja Gaiden or AC Double Dragon II.

Thrown enemies don't crowd-control in DD1 or DD2 either, though they do in the much later Return of (SFC, 1992). I wonder if FF really was the first brawler to feature this mechanic? Never thought about it before, I'd gotten it in my head that one of Technos's games did it first.

EDIT: oh lmao.

I get by with a little help from your friends ♫
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Good ol' Kunio, deliverer of cutting-edge beltscrolling mechanics not found in games many years younger than it. Dash, ground pound, wall-kick, crowd control, probably others I'm forgetting.

Image: Enemies that aggressively compete for resources, in this case, weapons. DD2 enemies will not only try to recover/steal dropped weapons, they'll also beat your ass if you get in their way while doing so.

"Its mine!" "NAW, its mine!" *yoink* "BITCH IMMA KILL U"
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Image: Lots of contemporary Techos beaters share this feature too. Annoys me how SFC Return's enemies are completely ignorant of a weapon once it hits the floor, given its otherwise rather nice choreographic take on Technos violence, and how mortally dangerous they are in player/enemy hands!

Splatterhouse Part 3 has a cute take on this. Regular monsters ignore weapons (because they are monsters, outfitted with gruesome claws n' maws - in fact most lack opposable thumbs!) - but there's a specialised type who'll pop in and nick 'em, depositing them at a certain location in the current stage. Not really worth getting them back, but as ever with that game, a charming detail enhancing the air of total occult invasion. While weapons are rarely vital, there's some great "busted like an overripe melon" aka BURSTIN W/ FLAVOUR kill animations on the cleaver and bat. Cinderblock is a goddamn joke, WTF is this, a styrofoam prop? We ain't filmin' pitchers, here!

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BUSTIN MAKE ME FEEL GOOD~
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Durandal
Posts: 1530
Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2015 2:01 pm

Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Durandal »

Hate hate hate:

Being forced to move left or having enemies spawn from the left in a sidescrolling game which locks the player character's position on the screen somewhat to the left of the center.
If you want to Contra-style surround me with chaos everywhere, that's fine, but you better give me the adequate screen space to react to it :evil:
Xyga wrote:
chum wrote:the thing is that we actually go way back and have known each other on multiple websites, first clashing in a Naruto forum.
Liar. I've known you only from latexmachomen.com and pantysniffers.org forums.
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