Castlevania mostly feels "fair" and it's so evidently a leap forward in graphics and enemy/level design and stuff
YES in a lot of ways it is like the Souls games are now now. If you master enemy patterns and know how to properly react you should be able to one-life it. It's INSANE that they have NG+ in the original Castlevania, which makes the game harder by manipulating damage. That game is already insane. As for level design, look no further than that room before the Grim Reaper, where you are dodging Medusa heads and axe-throwing knights that take multiple hits to kill.
Highly recommend the Anatomy of Castlevania: http://www.anatomyofgames.com/gamespite-quarterly/gjs13-anatomy-of-castlevania/ it goes into depth at why it's so good, how it may be the first game that really tried to do a linear and cohesive design. IE random platforms sitting in mid-air are connected to brickwork in the background and stuff. It is a masterpiece of impossible architecture. Here the sprite art really shines: what could be rather boring brick walls and archways have weathering and worn paint and moss drawn onto the tiles, one pixel at a time. This details suggests a world beyond what you just see on the CRT. Castlevania tugs at your imagination.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 28 August 2015 20:34 (nine years ago) link
Sorry that links is broken. Try this one. http://www.anatomyofgames.com/anatomy-of-a-game/
Jeremy Parish is a great game writer. He covers a lot of the games in this poll on the site.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 28 August 2015 20:38 (nine years ago) link
I used to read that guy religiously, going back to like, 1999/2000 or so. Evangelion Thumbnail Theater, all that stuff. He must be the king of unfinished or now un-archived projects, so many loose threads. Clearly struggling between the 'blog' and the 'kitchen sink website' as formats. As it is so much of the recent stuff is virtually un-browsable; maybe that's an incentive to buy the books. I do like that he's picked up the print volume as a format, and zeroed in on a few recurring obsessions (the "Metroidvania" genre in particular).
The only thing is, and this is hardly unique to that site, but there's also a real tension between what's brilliant about the insight and what's popular with most of the readers. I feel like a lot of projects like this burn themselves out screencapping everything and basically let's-playing every single step of the game, like a walkthrough but every sentence has to be written snappily and with nerd panache. Sometimes that's fun to read but sometimes it's just flab keeping us from a really taut single medium or long-form essay about, in this case, the anatomy of the particular game. Part of me loves the idea of a 14-article series on Zelda II, or 27 parts on Super Mario Bros., but I suspect some of the strengths of the insights actually get buried in all that coverage... which nonetheless I'm sure is very popular. This is by no means unique to Parish, and he has a way better ratio than some other blogs I could name, but you kinda wish his experience in print journalism would have helped him internalize some checks on excess. OTOH he's writing about what he loves so, y'know, more power to him!
Sticking closer to content, one thing I wonder about is the tendency for most of the games to assume that they're really well-thought-out masterpieces and that every little move is just incredibly amazing, or just brilliantly effective, or just perfectly calibrated. That's another common tendency in this kind of writing and it's exhausting, but I think it also starts to seep into the argument; he has a general predisposition towards games that 'teach' their mechanics through gameplay, and a good eye for ways games do this in subtle ways that also flesh out the story or atmosphere of the world. But I feel like, and I should have examples for this, but sometimes it starts to feel like every single thing you do in a game is a planned little teachable moment; every jump you have to make early on is there to train you for a more complicated jump in World 7. And yeah, sure, in general I buy that but this was also just an era of games being hard as fuck and throwing you in the deep end, and sometimes stuff wasn't really telegraphed all that well but the games were still fun for it. I dunno, I'm not explaining this well and it's not a reason not to read his stuff. Maybe it would be better to say that his essays for their emphasis on this theme have forced me to think for myself about what makes a good difficulty curve or how much of this stuff is necessary for a good game.
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Friday, 28 August 2015 21:29 (nine years ago) link
BTW: What is the best world of Super Mario 3?
Without knowing Castlevania II's secrets (ie without internet help), you won't be able to win. It's not the game's difficulty but the fact that you need a Nintendo Power or the prodigy kid down the street in order to progress in the game. I mean you would have to be pretty damn lucky to find/solve the secrets on your own.
― The Once-ler, Friday, 28 August 2015 22:06 (nine years ago) link
Nobody I know bothered to play all the way through Link II. I wonder if it had any bitchy secrets as well
― The Once-ler, Friday, 28 August 2015 22:09 (nine years ago) link
the tendency for most of the games to assume that they're really well-thought-out masterpieces and that every little move is just incredibly amazing, or just brilliantly effective, or just perfectly calibrated
Well given memory limitations everything was more or less meticulously thought-out, from level design to song length to character art. The designers themselves have admitted as much, the famous example being Mario's design was due to the limitations of pixel art, his moustache and hat being added to fix animation problems that cropped up with the tiny resolution they had to work with.
Nowadays there really aren't any limitations so less consideration probably goes into it. If you can only include X amount of art/music/gameplay, it is going to be the absolute best you can come up with.
But yes there is probably some projection/fandom in there largely coloring things.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 28 August 2015 22:15 (nine years ago) link
Also I may be confusing this (with DOOM?) but I seem to remember them saying the first stage of Mario was built at the end of development, after they had figured out the tools, and thus were able to use more deliberate planning irt what the player would encounter and how they would likely respond.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 28 August 2015 22:17 (nine years ago) link
Sure, I just think it gets taken to this level of "and here's yet another example of the unfailing inexhaustible genius of the designers" and it just becomes unreadable after a few paragraphs. Definitely talking more about the game design/challenge/information stuff here than the pixel art stuff. Obviously, there's more care at all levels in the classics than the far, far more numerous dudfests... s'what makes them the classics!
Zelda II is profoundly flawed but in the end, basically playable and satisfying in its way. If the first one had never existed it'd probably be pretty well remembered as an ambitious if incompletely-worked-out action RPG. I can think of only two totally baffling points that really scream "Nintendo Power, take me away!" which is basically zero compared to Castlevania II. Will be stunned if anyone ends up voting for that one...
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 29 August 2015 00:24 (nine years ago) link
Thanks for responding to that
― The Once-ler, Saturday, 29 August 2015 00:32 (nine years ago) link
I never understood the love for Zelda II. All I can remember is getting it and being like WTF, this isn't Zelda. But I was 9, so maybe I'd feel differently now.
― Jeff, Saturday, 29 August 2015 00:49 (nine years ago) link
Yeah it's pretty fun.
CVII is really fun too when you have a walkthrough. Killer music. The bosses are piss easy but I don't mind that after the nightmare bosses in the first game.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 29 August 2015 00:52 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfh0ytz8S0khttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rsycfDliZU
― The Once-ler, Wednesday, 2 September 2015 18:55 (nine years ago) link
zelda 2 the first game i ever beat. dark link an all-time end boss. (his cameo in ocarina is kind of misplaced and random.) a genuinely difficult game, probably less forgiving than the first (definitely meaner: ganon's digitized chuckle on game over) and the last zelda game to be hard at all. its dangerous places (the forests, the pitch-black caves, the big mess of rocky maze in the southwest, the town where people are bats) are stressful and frightening in ways no death mountain has ever been, and a combination of nes-memory restrictions on text and a number of NPCs hugely increased from the first game meant even the non-hostile townspeople (health-restoring hookers aside) seemed standoffish and terse. the rare game i remember (vividly) as a hostile place, remote from help, instead of as a beloved playground. it's also weirdly colorless, simultaneously too simple and too fiddly to be a working platformer, and (alone in the series) reliant on dedicated, mindless grinding without any of the monster or spell variety that's supposed to entertain you when you're doing that in FF games. so it probably deserves its reputation in comparison to the likes of zelda 1 and link to the past, but in the post-twilight-princess era of nintendo's long enslavement to ocarina of time it definitely shouldn't be called the series' worst anymore.
― playlists of pensive swift (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, 2 September 2015 19:22 (nine years ago) link
I had a great idea for the upcoming Zelda game the other day. You start the game with a sword, shield, bow, boomerang and bombshttp://i44.tinypic.com/2z8ce9u.png
― The Once-ler, Wednesday, 2 September 2015 19:55 (nine years ago) link
tbf the last Zelda game was in thrall to Link To The Past rather than Ocarina (and was all the better for it)
― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Wednesday, 2 September 2015 19:59 (nine years ago) link
Myself and a few other guys are using Minecraft to build a working 3D remake of the original Zelda. Not sure how you guys feel about Minecraft, though.
― Evan, Wednesday, 2 September 2015 20:14 (nine years ago) link
i'm trying to think of the most recently released game that has as much content as SMB3, with no save system.
Kid Chameleon (Genesis, 1992) had over 100 stages and no saves. Stages had multiple exits that lead to many paths through the game.
― aaaaablnnn (abanana), Wednesday, 2 September 2015 20:36 (nine years ago) link
those videos on graphics were really cool, thanks - somehow got this far in my life without knowing that stuff. wild about the 'color cells,' amazing how well the artists knew how to camouflage the boundaries. super cool.
high-fives to dlh. love this - "the rare game i remember (vividly) as a hostile place, remote from help, instead of as a beloved playground." totally. I AM ERROR. it's a bleak and ugly sort of hyrule you're saving here, not unlike the transylvania of castlevania ii but a lot more playable. i also think it should get credit for the dungeons, which are sometimes really irritating, and are nothing on the high-concept ones from link to the past, but again, legitimately hard, and considerably more varied than CV2's mansions which really all feel like the same place (and don't even have bosses!). and of course, the 'big rocky maze' - which IS death mountain! - thrown at you way too early in the game, super punishing. these mean motherfuckers, man:
http://www.nintendojo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Zelda-Daira.png
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 3 September 2015 13:42 (nine years ago) link
I'm on vacation so I don't have the master list handy. But I can post it on Tuesday. If anyone thinks some hang is missing, nominate it I won't get mad if it's a dupe.
― Bouncy Castlevania (Will M.), Sunday, 6 September 2015 16:44 (nine years ago) link
Am I missing anything?
Atari CommandoAtari Dark ChambersAtari Desert FalconAtari Donkey Kong Jr.Atari Food FightAtari GalagaAtari Mario Bros.Atari Tower TopplerAtari XeviousNES 10 Yard FightNES 1943: battle of the midwayNES A Boy and His BlobNES Adventures of LoloNES Adventures of Lolo 3NES Bad DudesNES banana princeNES Base WarsNES Baseball Simulator 1.000NES Baseball StarsNES Bases LoadedNES BatmanNES Batman: Return of the JokerNES Battle of OlympusNES BattletoadsNES Bionic CommandoNES Blades of SteelNES Blaster MasterNES BombermanNES Bubble BobbleNES California GamesNES CastlevaniaNES Castlevania IINES Castlevania IIINES Cobra TriangleNES CommandoNES ContraNES Crisis ForceNES CrystalisNES Deja VuNES demon swordNES Destiny of an EmperorNES Double Dragon NES Double Dragon IINES Double DribbleNES Dr. MarioNES Dragon Warrior NES Dragon Warrior IINES Dragon Warrior IIINES Dragon Warrior IVNES Duck HuntNES DucktalesNES Ducktales 2NES Dusty Diamond's All-Star SoftballNES Earthbound ZeroNES ExcitebikeNES fantastic dizzyNES FaxanaduNES Fester's QuestNES Final FantasyNES Friday the 13thNES gargoyle's quest iiNES GauntletNES Ghosts 'n' GoblinsNES GolfNES Golgo 13NES Goonies IINES GradiusNES Gradius 2NES GumshoeNES Hogan's AlleyNES holy diverNES ice climberNES Ice HockeyNES Ikari WarriorsNES Impossible MissionNES JackalNES KarnovNES Kick MasterNES Kid IcarusNES Kirby's AdventureNES Kung FuNES Legacy of the WizardNES LemmingsNES Life ForceNES Little League Baseball: Championship SeriesNES Little Nemo: The Dream MasterNES M.C. KidsNES Mach RiderNES Maniac MansionNES Marble MadnessNES Mega Man NES Mega Man IINES Mega Man IIINES Mega Man IVNES Metal GearNES Metal Gear IINES MetroidNES Mike Tyson's Punch OutNES Mission ImpossibleNES NARCNES Ninja GaidenNES Ninja Gaiden IINES Ninja Gaiden IIINES Nobunaga's AmbitionNES OtockyNES Over HorizonNES Parodius DaNES prince of persiaNES Pro WrestlingNES Rad RacerNES RampageNES RBI BaseballNES RC Pro AmNES RC Pro Am IINES ReccaNES Rescue RangersNES Ring KingNES River City RansomNES Rockin' KatsNES Romance of the Three KingdomsNES Rush n AttackNES RygarNES Section ZNES ShadowgateNES Smash TVNES Snake, Rattle & Roll NES Solar JetmanNES Spy HunterNES StarTropicsNES StarTropics 2NES StriderNES Super CNES super dodge ballNES Super Mario BrosNES Super Mario Bros 2NES Super Mario Bros 3NES Super Spike V'BallNES sweet homeNES Swords and SerpentsNES Tecmo BaseballNES Tecmo BowlNES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles INES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IINES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IIINES TetrisNES The Adventures of Rad GravityNES The ImmortalNES The Legend of ZeldaNES The Legend of Zelda IINES Tiger HeliNES Town & Country Surf Designs: Wood & Water RageNES Track and FieldNES Ufouria: The SagaNES Ultima ExodusNES UninvitedNES Urban ChampionNES Wall Street KidNES WillowNES Winter GamesNES Wizards and WarriorsNES YoshiNES Yoshi's CookieNES ZanacSega Action FighterSega Alex Kidd in Miracle WorldSega alex kidd in shinobi worldSega Altered BeastSega Batman ReturnsSega columnsSega enduro racerSega fantasy zoneSega GhostbustersSega Golden Axe WarriorSega golvellius: valley of doomSega James "Buster" Douglas Knockout BoxingSega Kung Fu KidSega Mickey Mouse Castle Of IllusionSega miracle warriorsSega operation wolfSega Phantasy StarSega psycho foxSega rampageSega rampartSega Revenge of ShinobiSega rockySega r-typeSega Shadow DancerSega shadow of the beastSega ShinobiSega smash tvSega snail mazeSega sonic chaosSega Space HarrierSega SpeedballSega Speedball 2Sega Spy vs. SpySega Super Monaco GPSega teddy boySega TransBotSega ultima ivSega Wonder Boy in Monster WorldSega Wonderboy III: The Dragon's TrapSega ysSega ZillionSega Zillion II: The Tri Formation
― Bouncy Castlevania (Will M.), Tuesday, 8 September 2015 17:01 (nine years ago) link
Nes Balloon FightNes Donkey Kong JrNes Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & HoppyNes Guerilla WarNes Wizards and Warriors II: Ironsword
― The Once-ler, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 19:57 (nine years ago) link
Those are going to be the final nominations unless someone else adds to it in the next ~3 hours, going to start the new thread around 7pm Eastern! (also sorry it took me so long!)
― Bouncy Castlevania (Will M.), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 20:03 (nine years ago) link