BulletMagnet wrote:jp wrote:Games with great level design that may or may not have focsed on scoring did not "evolve" into games in which the level design is replaced by bullet mazes and memorizing patterns where the emphasis lies squarely on scoring.
Perhaps I'm a bit forward to ask, but what, aside from the aesthetic aspects, truly separates an emphasis on "level design" from an emphasis on bullet patterns? Both are simply means of making a player go to certain places and avoid certain things, when you get right down to it. This isn't to say that I can't appreciate a longing for more varied obstacles than "bullets and more bullets," but it's not as if "modern" designers have lost sense of something absolutely vital, they're just taking a more economical, free-form approach (after all, bullets are easier to form into whatever sort of "obstacle" you want, as opposed to having to cook up some new "background element of doom" from scratch for every stage. Again, I understand wanting to see more than bullets, and agree with you to a fair extent, but I don't agree that such an element is nearly as vital as you seem to assert. Also, I'd argue that most modern shmups (especially talking about Cave, specifically) can be played relatively memorization-free, if only for survival - the heavy-duty memory stuff is only for scoring, which can be ignored. In the "good old days," more often than not just
finishing the game was all about knowing when that rock wall was going to drop without warning - I'm not sure where you get the (apparent) idea that an "emphasis on level design" equals a near-absence of rote memorization. In my experience, at least, the opposite is largely true.
Again, not trying to berate your preferences or anything, but I'm not sure what examples your general idea of the genre's evolution is based on.
I think there's a huge difference between say, a later Thunder Force level and say, any level in DDP. One has you avoiding walls, various obstacles, enemies, bullets, etc., whereas the other just focuses on bullet mazes.
Granted, Cave has made a game with solid "level design", see: Death Smiles.
Regardless, I feel there's a huge difference between Caves normal type games and stuff like Thunder Force IV or Metal Black wherein the levels themselves and the enemies play a role.
And I'm not saying I vastly prefer one to the other or that one is bullshit and one isn't, they're two completely different things in my mind. I'm not putting down Cave for doing what they typically do, that was never my point. Hell, I'd think DDP DOJ was a great game if the scoring system wasn't fucking horrible (IMO). And I'm sure I'll love Ketsui since I thought Ketsui Death Label was a blast. *shrugs*
Really, I guess my point would be that for various companies their games have certain styles or similarities so its kind of hard for me to swallow that only one of them really "mastered the genre" or something, you know? You can generally tell without even knowing the name of a shmup if Psikyo, Cave, Konami, Tecno Soft, Raizing, etc. made it, so I'd still raise an eyebrow if say, 11 Konami games were in the top 25 or 11 Psikyo games, because to me, they're all very similar. Same goes for Cave.
Just my opinion. I don't really care one way or the other. I just wish folks realized that more shmups exist than what Cave makes. *shrugs*
She could have been jerking me though, that minx.
