Mega Man X also let you stun some bosses with charged mega buster shots. Love doing that when Spark Mandrill goes for his MANDRILL PAUNCH attack. I don't think they did that much after the first game, though. But yes, it's indeed always quite nice when your attacks look like they actually hurt enemies, rather than just annoying them until they unexpectedly commit seppuku. At least with melee attacks, anyways.BIL wrote:I tend to like it when 2D action games let you hitstun bosses/major enemies with a heavy blow. Think Rockman X, when a boss is hit by their elemental weakness.
The last time I tried Mega Bustering the bosses in the NES MM games, I was left wondering why they even bother shooting projectiles from time to time. Like, 90% of the damage was just from running/jumping into me. or because the bottom pixel of my toe touched the top pixel of some dongle on the top of their head...I kinda dislike it when a boss can just keep the player on the run by barging in for contact damage, ala FC Rockman.
Yeah, ledge-guarding enemies in platformers don't work too well if you can just run through them!Sort of on this subject, I think disabling contact damage entirely in 2D games can be a good thing - Metal Slug's immortally exhilarating melees simply couldn't work otherwise - but it's not a universal good. More surgically-precise action like Contra wouldn't work nearly as well without that intense sense of vulnerability.
Yanno, I can't think of a lot of games that don't have contact damage, but also don't let you walk through enemies? I mean, maybe some brawlers, I guess, but definitely not platformers*, barring SMB2 USA "ride on their noggins" kind of stuff. Freedom Planet definitely could've benefited from that. Having contact damage in a Sonic-styled game can be annoying since you have so little time to react, but having no collision at all means you can just blow by a lot of the enemies no-problem.
*e: I say that, but I've been playing Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman Zero, which does exactly this. But, I guess there haven't been too many scenarios where it's been important at all.