Yeah this was also my understanding. But I just went one step further. Maybe one step too far, it seems.BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Roguelikes and Diablo-style top-down action RPG games did get mentioned here too despite feeling fairly distinct from what's usually classified as a dungeon crawler, so obviously it's not about being opposed to discussing games that straddle the boundaries of genres or give similar vibes
As you said, obviously perspective isn't the discriminator, as we've discussed roguelikes. I myself discussed Labyrinth of Touhou 2, and no one complained.
And having space and time divided discretely into squares and turns isn't important either, cause also as you mentioned, we've talked about Diablo.
So rather than going with something wishy washy like "give similar vibes" as you say, I went with a hard discriminator, and the definition I mentioned earlier is what I came up with.
Sure, but Maze of Galious and La Mulana are a step closer to the acceptable Rogue format than Zelda 2 and Battle of Olympus.BareKnuckleRoo wrote: Their controls and movement are simply too different to be categorized as the same genre. There are plenty of great 2D action adventure platforming games like this such as Legend of Zelda II and Battle of Olympus with varying degrees of RPG/puzzle elements
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But the importance of how everything handles such as player movement, environment physics, spacing in attacks, etc, in something like La Mulana make 2D action adventure games very different I think
Let's look at it historically, cause I think it might be fruitful to the discussion:
In the first Dragon Slayer (1984), your locus of control is exactly one tile in size, and you move tile by tile in world composed of tiles you can or cannot occupy. Spatially it's exactly the same as Rogue. Temporally it's different, because if you sit still other things will still move.
In Dragon Slayer 2 (1985), you also move tile by tile, and the world scrolls tile by tile, but now you will fall through some tiles. You can also "jump" ~3 tiles into these before you begin to fall. This makes it feel like a side scroller, but really it's just the addition of special tiles your character will fall through. There's also various one way tiles without the "falling". The tile world and its rules play a big part in navigating the game.
By 1987 you have Dragon Slayer 4, which is still a distinctly tile world, but now your character can straddle a state between tiles. Nevertheless your character is still exactly one tile in size, and it's really just a more granular variant of Dragon Slayer 2's rules.
This is where contemporary Maze of Galious (also 1987) fits in. It's exactly the same as Dragon Slayer 4 as far as the basics of movement and navigation are concerned - a granular Dragon Slayer 2.
Note that in none of these games do you ever die from falling. The world either scrolls down or flips. At worst, e.g. in Maze of Galious, you wind up in a water tile that may initially start to do damage over time, but by default you can completely mitigate that with 2 button clicks. Also note the presence of "ladders" that facilitate vertical movement. Sometimes the ladders are even right next to each other, and you can move left and right and up and down completely freely, blurring the line between "top down" and "side view" - it's all just tile world and tile rules.
Zelda 2 (again 1987) also obviously takes after Dragon Slayer 2, even the towns look similar. But, IMO, it's a more radical departure marked by two key differences. First, Link occupies 2 tiles, not 1, like Simon Belmont, and secondly, also like Simon Belmont, if he falls down a pit the world doesn't simply scroll down (or flip screens), he dies.
Now as for La Mulana, the game just is Maze of Galious. It started out as a straight up clone of Maze of Galious, but then they just decided to add more puzzles and make a more organic graph of "worlds" (20 screen maps) rather than the strict star topology of Galious. Those are really the biggest difference. I detail more differences in the post that started this discussion, and they add up, but they are still almost the exact same game.
So, my question to you is, where do you draw the line?
Is it simply the first Dragon Slayer? (can't imagine it would be!) Is 2 already too far removed? Maybe it's exactly at Maze of Galious and Dragon Slayer 4 (AKA Legacy of the Wizard)? Or maybe Zelda 2, due to the addition of platforming (I would say this is fair).
Strongly agree. It's a horrible term. Very ignorant, very biased.BryanM wrote:I've grown to loathe that term, "Metroidvania". Omits stuff like Cadash and Zelda 2. Both of which deserve more popularity