m.sniffles.esq wrote:Even though some people hate it... I always thought the gRev (and others) solution was best. When you first start the game -- zero continues. Then eventually time unlocking continues, until you hit infinite after spending five-six hours with the game.
^ yeah, same. I wonder, with G-Rev having contributed to Ikaruga and Gradius V, if this was something they came up with, or if they simply liked the effect, and kept it for their own STGs.
There's no ideal solution - noobs will either complain it's SUPEREASY (free play), or SUPERHARD (limited/no credits). But at least the latter might spark
some sense of achievement, however adversarially.
On that note: I like Gradius V's approach of trash-talking the player at each Game Over.
That kind of blunt feedback can be more compelling to novices than relatively esoteric rankings/stats. Crucially, the MC gets subtly less derisive as you approach the finish line, giving a surprised/exasperated
"WHAT THE HELL?" if you eat it at the 11th hour. Legitimately convinced me to 1CC the first loop BITD, when I'd have happily left it at a ~5CC, given GV's herculean runtime and not-inconsiderable difficulty from newbie standpoint.
Ideally, I'd combine the time-unlocked credits with the unfolding Practice Mode seen in Gradius V... and quite possibly Ikaruga and others, it's been a while. Reach a stage = unlock it for practicing. The PS2 ports of Metal Slugs 3, 4 and 5 do this, too. Even as a more advanced player than I was back then, this is an incredibly valuable feature I'm always happy to see. It's a lot easier to impart the iterative nature of arcade gaming, where you're expected to gradually refine a ~30minute run over many hours, when the player's given tools for just this objective.
(sounds like a given, but "Toaplan Shooting Battle Vol.1" and whatever Saturn Batsugun was subtitled haunt me from their graves!)
