Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

[BIL]

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

^^^ GUN-DEC (FC) is bad for that in a couple stages. Especially galling, as it's otherwise solid on its fundamentals.

IMO, with scaling no longer a highfalootin' special effect (Sam Sho II camera will aways make me feel ten years old again ), zoom control is a good thing to have in sidescrollers. Bloodstained: ROTN dubiously ties this to actual gear, which take up slots... one zooms out the FOV (extremely useful - I get it ASAP, and leave it on), the other zooms in (great for taking glamour shots, an absolute deathtrap otherwise). Even the default camera occasionally cheapshots, with Werewolves serial offenders.

On that tangent, "jumpscare" enemies that rely on POV to work are poor at best, arrant shite at worst. In tough sidescrollers like Green Beret, Rygar and Saigo no Nindou, not even a realtime end-to-end view of each stage would help a player whose macro/micro fundamentals weren't up to scratch.

Very fond of Dragon: Marked For Death's approach (I'm fond of DMFD in general, though it's too early to say if it's more than a nicely-handling sidescrolling grindmachine, of a blunter sort than ROTN's usual Igarashi SkinnerTroid). Camera zooms in/out on right stick, and there's actually some gameplay effect, besides "you can see more than twenty feet around your character." Dark areas illuminate slightly when zoomed in, a grim last resort if you've no torches.

For older stuff, I'm center-locked all the way. Even games that are otherwise very well-designed, like Alien Soldier (which really does benefit from auto-biasing Epsilon away from the incoming screen, with its combo of simple run/gun interludes and nonstop 1v1 duels) would benefit from a center/offset toggle, for the rare fights where you want to rapidly alternate sides with the i-frame dash. The camera sways a bit much for my liking versus Sunset Sting - it's just you and him on the platform, no reason to block off most of your rear view. In fact, that makes it easier to dash right into a straggling projectile. However, this is what I'd call an optimisation issue, not an outright flaw.

Spoiler

: Character action games that don't let you drop weapons. I don't mind this effect in STGs like Image Fight (where your front-attached weaponry must amusingly be junked by ramming enemies for massive damage). I also don't mean stuff like the classic CV subweapon, where you've got to live with your choice, but your base moveset remains unaltered. I mean Datsugoku and Double Dragon, where your 1980s Karate Badass just can't part with things he's picked up. Looks dumb. Feels dumb! PROVOKES RAEG

You gots two frames to grab the knife before I turn your FUCKIN HEADS into a MATCHIN SET OF TACO BOWLS for my boy GARBAGE CAN CAT (■｀W´■)

Spoiler

Strategic Accidental Discharge attacks. Image Fight's much-copied BOOSTER BURN is the granddaddy, AFAIK. Also more recently seen in Blaster Master Zero 2 (a staggering improvement on the lukewarm Zero 1), where your HMG's shell casings can cause mortal ouchies if they eject directly into a motherfucker's face!

FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY (■｀W´■)

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BACK WORKS 2 THO（＾ω´ ）

Spoiler

[Mischief Maker]

Not really a game mechanic, but I hate GOG games that have a scoring system but do not save your scores if you're not logged onto GOG Galaxy.

I'm looking at YOU, Nex Machina and Ghostrunner!

The whole damn point of GOG is running games without DRM, and what could be simpler to program than recording a single number?

[BulletMagnet]

Not sure if this one's come up before, but one thing I like to see is on the rare occasions a game makes you fight two bosses at once they're treated as separate entities, i.e. they have two independent life meters and you can take one out before the other. I find it makes the fight more interesting if you have to consider which one to prioritize, especially if the two try to cover for each other and/or the remaining one goes into "berserker mode" once his partner dies, perhaps even to the point where it's safest to spread your damage out and kill the two as close together as possible. It always feels like a bit of a cop-out to me whenever two previous bosses make a surprise reappearance to team up but are sort of mushed into a single boss that happens to have two hitboxes.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Playing Gears Tactics has brought up a strategy hate: when enemies spawn without warning and still get a full turn.

Fire Emblem Awakening is an absolute shit for this, where it's possible to have units wiped out by unexpected reinforcements - like the game just says gee it'd be a shame if some archers appeared within range of your pegasus knight and lol replay the entire mission from scratch or live with a dead key unit the rest of the game. I thought Gears Tactics had this nailed with emergence holes but nope, you get enemies airdropping in and having a full turn which is great fun when one scores a critical hit or multiple melee/shotgun/explosive enemies can close in. Usually they're far enough away that you can prepare but occasionally it just dumps you in the shit.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Not sure if this one's come up before, but one thing I like to see is on the rare occasions a game makes you fight two bosses at once they're treated as separate entities, i.e. they have two independent life meters and you can take one out before the other.

The first time I saw this pop up in Stage 4 of Rolling Gunner it was a delight. It's such a rare thing to happen in a bullet hell shmup where you're ambushed during a boss by yet another boss and have to duke it out with both.

^^^ GUN-DEC (FC) is bad for that in a couple stages. Especially galling, as it's otherwise solid on its fundamentals.

It's unfortunate that an otherwise solid game falls apart completely at a handful of moments. The last stage is a mess as far as I'm concerned, especially the last room where you have to make blind jumps against projectile attackers who spawn mid-jump and will hit you unless you know they're there and bait them or pre-emptively toss a grenade that's well timed.

[Blinge]

Springs where you have to time your jump to get more height. Varies from game to game, because of course it does.
I always hate this.

[Sumez]

Donkey Kong Jr. does it one better: How about the same thing, except the timing for the high jump is frame perfect, and also random?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Eeeeeeeew. That sounds awful. Springs where you easily get max height automatically if jump on them, or if you hold jump to get max height are fine, but the ones where you have to tap at a precise time can definitely be a pain as the timing varies a lot from game to game.

[KindGrind]

HATE
I’m sure this has come up before, but 8-bit games that invert A-B inputs, B to jump and A to attack. Just, why? Alex Kidd does this, in Miracle World at least, and it makes the game unplayable for me.

LOVE
Warp Zones. Battletoads, I’m looking at you. Also, alternate paths like in Metal Slug 3!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

HATE
I’m sure this has come up before, but 8-bit games that invert A-B inputs, B to jump and A to attack. Just, why? Alex Kidd does this, in Miracle World at least, and it makes the game unplayable for me.

It's annoying when games lack custom control remapping due to sheer laziness. It's especially annoying when the game is for a console with only a small number of buttons and a remapping option screen wouldn't be unduly difficult to implement. Modern releases like Raiden Fighters Aces are the role model for how to do custom control mapping options in games.

Platinum Games is guilty of this, denying fully custom control remapping on Bayonetta and Vanquish... unless you're playing the PC version, and specifically only if you're using keyboard + mouse to play (ick). If you're using a controller, no remapping allowed (though you can remap your controller buttons using Steam's controller decidedly clunky interface).

We're fortunate that nowadays tools like JoyToKey and AutoHotKey exist allowing us to remap stuff that didn't have native remapping options, and that you can remap emulator buttons if you're using an emulator and hate the game's defaults.

[XoPachi]

I adore the shit out of photo modes and hope to see them continue to become more commonplace with extensive options where appropriate. So far the best I've seen are Horizon Zero Dawn, Control, Manifold Garden, and Forza Horizon 4.
I've been loving being able to capture a moment in video games. And as game's just get more and more beautiful, I think photo options are just a perfect addition to gaming standards.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've discovered something relatively new I hate, mostly because of encountering it in one game where it is implemented in the worst possible way. Enemies that can apply status effects by simply being in proximity to them without needing to first hit with an attack. There's a few games I can think of that do this but I've only encountered one recently where it turns the game into hot garbage.

Sekiro has bosses where your movement is slowed down, preventing you from running and forcing you to get used to the slower movement and sword swing speed. They're undead and spooky, so it's a feature of the arena more than anything. An annoying gimmick perhaps to learn to deal with, but not bad design.

Tales of Destiny 2 has a boss that activates a poison aura when his HP drops low enough, and where HP drains when in proximity. This (and other fights) can be managed by having a dedicated healer in the back, and the fight's conveniently setup so your team naturally has this. The HP drain is also manageable with items, or you can just be awesome and beat him without taking damage by never letting him get into range.

Both of these are good ways of implementing this as boss-specific gimmicks.

What's not good, as in outright annoying, is what a fan-made expansion pack for Risk of Rain I've tried recently does, called Starstorm. It introduces several new elite type enemies (where normal enemies are buffed with an attack element that gives them special properties). Originally, you had flaming and shocking enemies that could damage you by being close, as in right next to your character. Their damage was manageable and you could dodge them easily enough. The expansion adds new elite types, three of which have undodgeable auras (no attack animation to escape from) which immediately hit you if you happen to wander close to one.

The first are black enemies that inflict a weakness aura simply by being close to them. It seems to reduce your damage output slightly, but not enough to be a major threat. Fine, I guess.

The second are enemies with glowing orbs above them that can fire instant hit laser beams. They hit you if you aren't moving to evade the beam, and considering most of the cast has to stop to attack, they can be rather dangerous if you accidentally stop moving when in range.

The third type with an unavoidable aura is literally the worst designed enemy in any platformer I've played ever. Not exaggerating, they're extremely off-putting and using the unlockable tweak options to disable the new elite types just to turn them off is probably the best way to enjoy the fanmade expansion pack. They inflict a "void" debuff. This utterly cripples your movement speed and jump height to the point of being negligible. It looks like if you have a ton of horizontal movement boosting items, you can overcome some of the speed reduction and escape, but even with multiple jump boosting items your jump will be unable to escape the short 1-tile high ledges everywhere. If you accidentally run into a void enemy over a small pit, you will literally be unable to escape and will get almost immediately swarmed unless you can kill the void enemy. It gets even better though; their aura is hilariously massive. If you try to attack them from above or jump above them, their aura is large enough that they can lock you down in the air, causing you to float very slowly and be a massive target.

Risk of Rain is a 2D game where the level design often forces you to double-back through enemy crowds, trying to mitigate damage and not get caught as you rush through them via tight hallways. The void elemental enemies that can randomly spawn are horrible and go against the spirit of the game, which originally only had two attacks that could slow you down: a short ranged spit attack from an enemy that made you a bit slower if it hit, and a shockwave attack from the final boss that stuns you if it hits (which can be jumped over). They are quite literally the most dangerous enemies in the game, and by a significant margin. And, they appear at random, and can be difficult to see if the enemy that gets the void element is small and in a crowd of like 30 enemies or so since the aura isn't big and glaringly obvious.

Void elemental enemies feel built to be dealt with a massive quantity of mobility items and drones, the sort of thing you'd normally have at the point where you're mostly unstoppable. Even then they're still annoying since you're running around and suddenly having your movement crippled by something you can barely see. But, due to the random nature of the item drops, if you encounter one early on or during a run where you're just headed to the final boss without looping and haven't found any mobility items, they can be fatal to a run as has happened to me multiple times. And not getting mobility items is more likely to happen in Starstorm due in part to the expanded item pool that includes a lot of questionably useful items. The Command artifact where you can pick what you get seems to be a lot more useful in Starstorm.

Proximity based movement debuffs that immediately cripple your movement speed and make you essentially unable to jump suck, especially when given out to randomly appearing enemies in a game where it can be hard to quickly spot individual threats in a large crowd. That's just bad design, and hard in the worst, most unsatisfying way possible. Even if the enemy had to hit you to inflict it it'd still be nasty, but nowhere near as bullshit as it is that an enemy can essentially kill you by wandering near you.

The game balance in Starstorm, especially the new Typhoon difficulty, is basically a mess. The difficulty largely from the danger of getting screwed over by sheer RNG rather than your own ability to dodge attacks, and the hard stuff is hard in largely uninteresting ways. The void portals you can enter have nothing but void enemies, forcing you to use the ropes to cheese the enemies slowly but safely since fighting them on the ground reduces you to near immobility. It may be intended that you avoid void portals until you've looped multiple times and have items stockpiled though, because entering a void portal can trigger nemesis enemies who basically come with a ton of random items and use them againdt you, rushing in and being near unavoidably once in their aggression range. It's like they're designed to be the only thing capable of threatening a player stockpiled with tons of items, but can be encountered long before that point for some reason, and it's more like an RPG where whether you win or lose is down to if you happen to be strong enough before meeting them. Gah.

These sort of game balance issues that feel like they thoughtlessly throw new content at a game with little regard for the original game's design choices are why I generally avoid fan made expansion patches...

[Rastan78]

Love: Things that fly around behind you and do shit. Familiars in CV sotn. Options, Shikigami attacks. Anything that does the work so I don't have to. Ninja Spirits trailing ghosts. Hey guys follow me and wreak some havok. The new Cyber Shadow has some of these going on. You could probably count captured enemies in Darius Gaiden and G Darius.

You can see it in fighting games like Blazblue and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Platinum tried to take it to the next level in Astral Chain. Your sidekick robot will do as much or more damage than you do and you have several control options with them including swapping for another robot mid combo.

I think it would be cool to see a 2D an action platfomer where you play a very weak but nimble character, and have control over a variety of spirits, robots or familiars with special skills that mess everything up so you don't have to. The idea Platinum had to have a chain tethering you to the robot so you can pull it close for close combat and send it dashing out to pick off distant enemies was a good one.

Hate: Invincible dodge rolls. Never liked this in Bayonetta. It makes it feel like for all the flash of whats going on it all boils down to just tapping roll at the right time. Especially bc you can do it midcombo. Coupled with the fact that enemy cues are are hard to see and sometimes come from off screen and I just find this annoying. I think if a game is well designed then good spacing and timing should get you through.

Which leads to another bad mechanic. I think in Bayonetta you're supposed to be listening for audio cues for when to dodge? Don't make your game dependent on audio cues. Maybe someone wants to play with sound off or listening to other music. Also don't make things harder for deaf people.

Oh and the invincible roll in KOF is ok bc it can be punished during recovery by the other player if badly timed, so it's no get out of jail free card.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Invincibility on dodges are pretty cool to me; they feel like they're supposed to represent the more fine tuned movement you can do dodging if moving an individual limb out of the way of an attack without literally having to implement such a system where you are in control of each limb individually (which would probably only be doable in VR?). It's important for such a system to be balanced so that it's not too easy or too hard though. Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa is a fairly easy game thanks to its dodge move but it's nevertheless a lot of fun.

God Hand's got 3 dodges, the duck that has chainable frames that dodge high only, the sidestep with extremely limited i-frames, and the backflip, a fully invulnerable dodge that has a punishable ender and is only meant for specific attacks. Beginners tend to use it way too much and rely on it instead of ducking. God Hand is probably the best example of this sorta thing.

Out of curiosity, how much have you played Bayonetta? I'm not sure if you're aware or not of all this I'm gonna get into as far as advanced dodge options, so apologies if this is redundant for you. Bayo's a game with a fully invulnerable dodge that I'd put in the easier category of such games. You have 5 dodges, with the last having a punishable finishing animation. You can reset your dodge count by not dodging for a few seconds, or by using Panther Within. Bat Within (the perfect dodge) as well as parrying (Moon of Mahaa-Kalaa) also reset the dodge count.

The cool thing about Bayonetta is that you can Dodge Offset, which allows you to dodge without resetting your combo. It's not about whether or not you can dodge individual attacks that makes Bayonetta fun, but it's about learning to dodge and then find that opening to retaliate without breaking combo. Bayonetta is a game where being attacked is no excuse to stop comboing away! If you're not aware of Dodge Offset and never learned how to do it, I'd strongly recommend doing this before being too critical of Bayonetta's dodging system as it makes it tremendously fun.

Audio cues help if an enemy attacks from offscreen or if the camera's misbehaving, but fortunately Bayonetta has a few built-in countermeasures if you're playing without audio. First, it's possible to learn which enemies can attack from offscreen and which can't (Jeanne and Joys can never initiate attacks when not on-camera, leading to exploits in larger arenas). Second, you have both perfect dodging as well as a parrying accessory available; your dodge has a fairly forgiving timing window. Most importantly of all, you have Pulley's Butterfly, the single most powerful accessory in your arsenal and one that smooths many of the bits that might otherwise be bumpy in a Bayonetta experience. There's a number of tricky fights where stuff can just smack you outta nowhere, and having a shield you can activate really smooths the difficulty out with them.

On top of a generally ridiculous mid to long rang combat game, with Bayonetta's spammable Wicked Weaves, Tetsuzanko, Heel Stomp, and rockets from Kilgore all stunning enemies reliably, Bayonetta can use a fully-invulnerable shield in combat that slowly drains magic meter in exchange for giving her complete invulnerability as well as zero stagger when hit. Pulley's Butterfly summons 5 butterflies that flap around you, with each attack taking a certain number of them (the superboss's full lifebar grab attack only costs 1 butterfly if it hits, trumpet shots cost 4, Jeanne's weaves cost 3, etc). If you fail to dodge or parry in time, the butterflies will pop, Bayonetta will be totally unstaggered, and the remaining butterflies will be there to protect from subsequent hits. The magic drain even slows down the fewer butterflies you have! It's not an effortless accessory to use though; you need at least 4 orbs to activate it, and you have to carefully manage your magic meter and make sure to use magic building techniques (flurry attacks, Afterburner Kick, taunting, Gaze of Despair) to keep your magic up, or else your shield will drop!

Annoyingly, the number of butterflies is difficult to track as it's not shown on the HUD, the only design issue with it. Otherwise, learning to use the accessory and manage its magic drain allows you to not only negate damage but hits, but safely use the parrying accessory (if you fail to parry the butterfly will eat the damage), as well as safely trade hits by allowing you to use the butterflies to ignore attacks outright. As with Dodge Offset, if you're not aware of how good Pulley's Butterfly is, I strongly recommend using it before assessing Bayonetta's dodging. I'd honestly say it should be on by default at all times, being the most versatile and powerful accessory in the game when used properly, and the main reason Pure Platinum runs of the hour-long bonus chapter are possible.

[Rastan78]

I did put a lot of time into Bayonetta and replayed through the higher difficulties. I have a lot of respect for the game it just never totally clicked with me. I could never get good at reading the cues that telegraph enemy attacks. Especially when the camera was being a little wonky. If I was going for a pure platinum stage I would always end up taking one little tiny hit from an attack I didn't even see coming. A lot of times I would just use a scrub tactic of mashing parry whenever I had an inkling that my combo would be interrupted which would actually work a good amount of the time with no penalty for trying it. I was OK at dodge offset, but I never used it enough. So I'd say I was past beginner but nowhere even near expert.

I'd agree that the extremely powerful roll dodge is designed to support the combo centric gameplay so that the combo never has to end. Maybe it's the fact that I'm not that into doing super long combos. I kind of like a little more weighty, tactical combat in 3D games. There's no waiting to pick your shots in Bayonetta you just go in knowing that the dodge or parry can always interrupt your own attack and get you out of trouble. I get it though. The game is about feeling totally overpowered in an almost ridiculous way and it does that very well.

But no one can tell me that the constant button mashing sequences during the torture moves were a good idea. I think mash as fast as you can to do X mechanics could also be added to my hated mechanics. Probably Kamiya feeling inspired by God of War.

Along with many of the long unskippable boss kill animations. And IIRC there was a semi convoluted unlockable input for skipping all the skippable parts? Then it sends you to that angel shooting mini game every time. Then a long animation on the map. For a game that's designed to be replayed and mastered over and over I think everything should be skippable and done with one simple press of the start button. Or even better just have a toggle that turns off all the cut scenes and/or the angel mini game altogether.

[Rastan78]

Oh, and I hear you about Pulleys Butterfly. I think I remember feeling like I really wanted to learn to dodge and parry well and it would be a little too easy mode. In hindsight I probably should've rocked it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of people streaming the game get frustrated with the game trying Hard mode or the bonus fights, but they've never tried Pulley's Butterfly before and then marvel at how much more manageable it is. I agree it's not a perfect game and there's a few bullshit elements, but Pulley's Butterfly smooths out so much of that. There's no shame playing with everything the game gives you and then if you want an additional challenge, doing without Pulley's, but players should at least be aware that playing Bayonetta without using Pulley's, especially for Lost Chapter, is a form of a self-imposed challenge.

Pure Plats without Pulley's is tedious as all hell and just involves a lot of restarts since so much stuff can easily plink you, and there's some stuff like the doggo bite attacks that count as grabs which you can't Bat Within!

I rather wish you could have offset your parries. I was always sad when I had to parry and it dropped a combo. :'(

But no one can tell me that the constant button mashing sequences during the torture moves were a good idea.

The torture mashing is tough for some of the enemies but it's nowhere near as awful as the button mashing during Route 666, Isla del Sol, and the cannon sequence in the following chapter. Also, winning Jeanne's optional QTE mash sequence on Hard/NSIC is pure bullshit and awful (normally you just want to dodge away when prompted). I can't stand them, and I use a rapid fire setup via JoyToKey when playing the PC version. No button mashing needed now, and it lets me use Umbran Spear without breaking lock-on and changing targets!

Or even better just have a toggle that turns off all the cut scenes

There actually is a way to quick skip most cutscenes aside from the ones on the map screen! It's just not well communicated to the player that you can do this. :/ Hold dodge and press inventory during any cutscene (RT + Back on an Xbox controller) to skip any cutscene without a QTE including:

• Lip kiss barrier breaking
• Shop entry/exit scenes
• Angel attack's announcement, you can then hit B to skip the game if you want
• Superboss intro scenes
• Rodin's weapon scenes

Vanquish intelligently just makes quickskip the Back button.

[Rastan78]

I'm very curious to see where Bayonetta 3 goes. 2 was more or less a continuation of the first one overall. A lot of little changes but not a radical departure. Other series like DMC and God of War have obviously been through some major changes over the years. I think it would be cool if they really reboot and go in a new direction. The spirit behind Platinum isn't about doing incremental updates in a sequel bit trying out new things. Sort of like Treasure was BITD.

Astral Chain was actually pretty cool. It's a game that tried to do a lot of things. You can't go in expecting Bayonetta. Its a little bit like an RPG or maybe something like a Batman Arkham game where you jump between different modes of gameplay. The combat is just one element and very different to Bayonetta. Rolling is definitely not OP so youre encouraged to be a little more tactical in your approach and spacing. Also the combat is way more polished than some of the other aspects of the game like the Arkhamesque detective sequences, and the story scenes. I could see it being one of those cult classics people rediscover in 20 years when everyone's forgotten about it. Actually, people did already forget about it. Sometimes you get the feeling Platinum is trying to push a little beyond their means, so there are some rough edges. But they're one of the only companies in the business now that don't need to patch their games after release. That says a lot given they aren't really a big AAA studio, but they make ambitious games.

Re: skipping Bayonetta cut scenes. Yeah that was the convoluted method I was talking about above. And I think you had to unlock it by playing through once. Could be mistaken there, but if you start out on a new console or save data . . .

[Squire Grooktook]

Without fully reading the above walls of texts, free invincible i-frame dodges and parry mechanics (as they're typically implemented in modern action games and Platinum titles, to be usable at all times and chainable on success, essentially meaning you can parry/dodge-roll everything forever if you're good) have become a massive pet peeve for me.

My main problem is that these mechanics tend to make dodging via manual movement less important at best or totally unnecessary at worst. A good example is the evolution of the Ys games: Oath/Origin are totally raucous combinations of bullet hell, platforming, and hack and slash where you dash and jump around the boss arena like an absolute madman to dodge crazy attacks...then comes Ys 7 and 8 where the dodge roll and parry are implemented, and every boss ends up fought the same from there on out: stand in front of 'em, flash-guard/flash-roll their attack, combo, repeat ad infinitum. It's almost sad in Ys 8 where there's a bullet hell boss who sprays danmaku everywhere as a homage to Ys Oath/Origin, and you end up fighting him exactly the same by standing in front of 'em and i-framing through all his bullets for more combos.

When you give a single button that can eliminate all threats, the complex spatial maneuvering to dodge you'd have to do in a more traditional 2d game tend to become naturally de-incentivized. Now naturally this design evolution makes a bit of sense for 3d games since that perspective makes complex spatial maneuvering difficult to begin with (due to depth perception, camera control, having less control of the information presented to the player, etc.), but still it's sad to see defense/evasion start to feel exactly the same in between every single action game.

I've personally been leaning towards high/low mechanics for blocking/parry mechanics lately. My feelings are that the above problems disappear when the sheer terror of "choice reactions" enter the picture (compared to "simple reactions").

[Rastan78]

Yeah you did a better job summing up what I meant when I said I didn't like invincible rolls. Once you're in combo mode it's just execution. I think spacing and timing of when you choose to start an attack should be the priority and have some risk attached once you commit. Avoiding enemy attacks should be more than pressing a button. Souls games and Monster Hunter do 3D combat right IMO.

[BIL]

BATTLE ON 2 SIDES (■｀ω´■) in 2D action games where you're piloting some heavy machine. The Metal Slugs are really good for this, with most vehicles letting you shoot in one direction, bomb in the other, and typically run motherfuckers over too.

Whack the weenies, bop the biggie

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Now that is what I call HOOFING IT

Spoiler

Ex-Ranza (MD) has some good stuff too, with the vulcan being decoupled from the subweapons, letting you carpetbomb/autolaser some foes while hosing down others. Managing two/three attacks on the fly is a sweet spot of mechanistic 2D hardcore, I think - enough to impart a sense of controlling a character who's controlling a machine, without sacrificing accountability. Ranza even lets you "run over" enemies too, in its own way (bump 'em for a swift kick in the chops, invaluable vs turtlers)

Realistic Another Mecha Hackysack

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[Marc]

Which is the top Slug? Never seen that big bugger of a tank before.

Not a 'mechanic' as such, but I've realised I hate games with loot and crafting systems. Give me properly designed weapons that have reasons to use them, don't expect me to scan your world for random shit and waste time sticking it all together to craft a weapon that looks like the other two dozen I'm already carrying. No.

[BIL]

MS4, the "professional ROMhack" of the Neo games. It's an enemy vehicle in MSX/3, but you can hijack one at the start of Mission 2. Noise Factory forgot to give it hitstun, so a single heli/footsoldier burst can wipe it out... but as shown, that just encourages a particularly intense battle.

Giving it a worthy send-off is a must! ;-;7

[BIL]

: WHOOP DAT ASS LIF A MUHFUCKA UP (■｀W´■)



I insist that when you choose the Big Buff Dude in a brawler, his grapple lets you walk around with enemies in his murderous grip! Very handy in Final Fight and Ninja Warriors Once/Again!

[Vanguard]

Yeah, when you've got constant access to an invincible dodge it starts to feel like positioning barely matters to your defenses. The complex dodging you get in eg. shmups degenerates into just remembering at what point in the enemy's animation you need to hit the dodge button.

[Marc]

I mentioned in the Pocky & Rocky thread, but revisiting Commando and Mercs recently has made me realise that I'm no longer anything like as keen on top-down shooters that offer no other way of shooting than 8-way. Rotary / second stick / even 8-way on face buttons should all be mandatory options in these now.

[Ghegs]

I mentioned in the Pocky & Rocky thread, but revisiting Commando and Mercs recently has made me realise that I'm no longer anything like as keen on top-down shooters that offer no other way of shooting than 8-way. Rotary / second stick / even 8-way on face buttons should all be mandatory options in these now.

I've recently wondered about this, why don't more games of this ilk offer the simple solution of holding down the fire button for locking direction? Off the top of my head I can't think of any others than the Shock Troopers games that do this.

[BIL]

Granada's MD version does, technically - you have to rejig the controls a bit, but then it's just as smooth as ST (despite having two shot types, one tied to an advanced movement technique).

I like it since with [fixed cannon] tied to both shot types, you can easily enter and exit strafe mode with either, as well as hold [shot] to lock direction for easy blaster boosting. The third button [fixed cannon hold] is handy when I want to strafe without firing. Putting the most frequently used button [shot] in the middle ensures easy access to the adjacent two.

As mambo mentioned in the main forum's Kiki 2021 thread, I'd like this for the new game - ideally on the fire button, but a separate "lock button" would do, too. I think all Senjouesques should allow this - being able to focus fire on a target while evading its attacks, or advance back to back with a partner, are pretty much objective goods.

(Goddamn, just typing this activates my undying boner for Shock Troopers 2P - one of the most truly cooperative arcade games. Yeah I bet you thought you could backstab my buddy, WHO'S GETTIN STABBED NOW BITCH )

I generally never feel like adding twin stick controls to games that weren't built around them from the ground up. I'd absolutely never play ACA Ikari or other LS-30 games with "Type B" (lock button) controls - nice they included them, but being able to pick off targets without breaking stride is critical, as is sniping from pixel-perfect safespots without budging. Kiki and its MD rival Twinkle Tale are nearer Senjou's twitchier "run/gun" pace than punishingly tactical SNK/DECO "move/gun."

[AyeYoYoYO]

^Shock Troopers may be simplistic, but who doesn't always love the MOST IMPORTANT aspect of a good run n gun, the STRAFE.

Always Love:

Throwing one dude into a crowd of other dudes and knocking them down like bowling pins.

Eleventy gorillion percent.
especially when i can throw them bi-directionally.

Always Hate: Turn-based anything.
Hated it from the first moment I learned it existed and felt cheated out of a weekend rental.

ALWAYS LOVE: PARRY + COUNTER. Offensive defense is the greatest.

[Licorice]

In Human's very awesome The Firemen you can swat away fireballs that come at you from all 4 diagonals by holding shoot and doing a circle on the dpad, which wouldn't be possible at the speed you need to do it if shooting locked you to the direction you were shooting. You can of course duck under them, but sometimes it's good to shoot them down too.

The Firemen has a strafe button, but I like games without one too, like Mercs.

I consider these shoot in the direction you last travelled games their own subgenre. Strafing is cool and all, but I appreciate that there's games designed around its absence (just like how most shmups are designed around the absence of being able to change shooting direction).