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Post by Ex on Jun 28, 2023 10:05:09 GMT -5
I dropped it immediately when I saw you only have one life. Let me be crystal clear; even with save-states this game is still balls hard. The first two levels not so much. From the forest level on, shit gets real. I can't imagine someone beating this game in real life on real hardware, because memorization doesn't help. It doesn't help, because there are so many bullets flying at the player, which are spawned erratically and unpredictably from enemies and bosses. The last two stages are crazy hard. I'm not a shmup god, but I'm above average at this genre after having beaten so many shmups... but even I was contemplating giving up on the final stage. If anyone can beat this game 100% no BS legitimately, they are a shmup master in my book. Or are you talking about literal separate stages? Cause that hardly sounds RPG-like. Play through Deus Ex if you want to understand. It's the paradigm of this particular design ethos.
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Post by Sarge on Jun 28, 2023 11:57:12 GMT -5
Think of it more as chapter-based. Deus Ex has large, non-linear areas, but you'll eventually complete your mission there and go to a different locale. You may even revisit some areas, but it's both linear and non-linear at the same time. I suppose a true open-world would let you go anywhere, although those are generally gated in different ways, either by enemy difficulty or necessary traversal abilities.
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Post by toei on Jun 28, 2023 12:25:58 GMT -5
So Shadowrun is closer to what we call an open-world today, just on a smaller scale (which is what you would expect from a Genesis game vs a modern game). And yet it would have just been called a non-linear RPG at the time, and it's real-time, so "action" would have been thrown in there. It seems to me that open-world is a redefinition of something that already existed prior to it. At that time the only genres that really had a world to explore were RPGs or adventure games, so there was no need for a term like "open world". It also wasn't relevant whether you could go anywhere from the start unless the game was non-linear, so "non-linear" would have been used. For example, the wikipedia article on "open-world" mentions The Portopia Serial Murder Case as an early example of open-world design in adventure games. But being able to go anywhere has no benefits in that game, because things must be done in the proper order, anyway. Going somewhere before you have a reason to is just a waste of time, as there won't be anything to do there or any information to gleam. Eventually games that were clearly neither started incorporating RPG elements like NPCs and hub areas and whatnot and games like GTA III arrived which had action gameplay and felt far away from RPGs so terms like "open world" and "sandbox" came about to describe this new thing. In a loose sense GTA III could have been described as a non-linear action-adventure game, but that starts to get a little long and incorporates a lot of concepts. And then once the term "open world" is in common use, suddenly games journalist go back and retroactively label games like Zelda as open worlds.
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Post by Ex on Jun 28, 2023 13:00:12 GMT -5
toei
>But being able to go anywhere has no benefits in that game, because things must be done in the proper order >Going somewhere before you have a reason to is just a waste of time, as there won't be anything to do there or any information to gleam
It does provide benefits, by way of discovering optional side missions (to gain experience and items/equipment), rare difficult enemies to take down (for big experience boosts), hidden treasures to find, collectables to collect (some people love that), lore dumps by way of NPCs or tomes, and sometimes beautiful scenery to enjoy. These are things that don't correlate directly with the primary campaign missions. Optional out of the way stuff is one of the aspects I enjoy most about open world design. You have to get off the beaten path and explore to find it. New Vegas, Risen, and Red Dead Redemption 2 were full of such things. I believe you would appreciate these concepts better, if you were to play through more recent open world action-WRPGs. From what I've gleaned of your gaming history, that's not a genre you partake in.
It may be true that Genesis Shadowrun is a rudimentary implementation of this concept. And you've raised my interest in the Genesis Shadowrun, I think I'll read over its manual soon. I've played quite a few Shadowrun related board games, but only dipped my toes in its digital iterations.
As far as how "open world" is used today, it's all nebulous semantics. "Open world" nowadays tends to describe action-adventure games with large continuous areas to explore. Far Cry 2 that I'm playing now, is of that description. So I'd call it an "open world FPS". But FC2 has no leveling system, there's no experience points, or even equipment to outfit the protagonist with, so it's not an RPG.
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Post by toei on Jun 28, 2023 13:07:11 GMT -5
Ex "That game", dude. Portopia. There are no side-missions, enemies, or anything else you named. You read that paragraph too fast. I'm making the point that a game like Portopia letting you go anywhere from the start meant nothing, because it did not lead to any content. All it does is make you waste time if you decide to go to places the hints aren't taking you to. Being able to go anywhere from the start didn't acquire meaning until games began being built around it - rewarding exploration with content.
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Post by Ex on Jun 28, 2023 13:19:11 GMT -5
toeiIndeed, I misunderstood what you meant. No, I would not think of Portopia as an open world game, not in the sense of what we consider "open world" design today. That's a stretch.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 2, 2023 23:35:12 GMT -5
Atomic Runner ~ 1h01m
Everyone was playing it so I had to! I was planning on getting back to it anyways.
Not sure I like it as much as everyone else here, but it is pretty cool. The second to lass boss just drove me absolutely nuts. And yes I was using save states in spots, I even got to it with two different weapons and just had to brute force it with homing missiles. The spiral fire shot was my favorite most of the time. But the final level was so crazy, I just stuck with the up close shotgun/spikey blast thing that does MONSTER damage. I killed all forms of the final boss in a blink unlike Ex apparently. So I imagine some weapons are better than others for some bosses... wonder how that second to last boss takes to the shotgun spikes.
I can't find a picture but it was this robot boss:
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Post by Sarge on Jul 3, 2023 0:40:46 GMT -5
Yeah, that mech boss was the one that drove me crazy for a bit. But Ex was right, if you crowd him close to the legs, you can keep him from firing his big gun shot, so you just have to worry about the smaller ones. Then, if you have a really strong weapon (i.e. not homing missiles), you can take him down in one cycle when he's vulnerable. At least that's how I eventually did it.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 3, 2023 8:15:58 GMT -5
It took me like 4 cycles, with homing missiles. I'm not sure if they weren't upgraded enough or what. I even abused save states there to make sure I got maximum damage on the orb/weak spot.
I think I liked and didn't like the platforming aspect. It forces you to worry about something else beyond it basically being a shmup of sorts. Yet the sparse tougher platforming moments that are there, like hopping on a dragon and other enemies to get around, I kind of wanted more of that! And less of those weird drill/platform puzzle moments, the walls you had to destroy quickly while the huge platform above would fall down and crush you, or you could sometimes jump on them.
Hate to say it but I think if this game gave you some health or a shield, that would have been nice. toei loves his one-hit games though.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 3, 2023 11:14:42 GMT -5
Bionic Commando (GB) ~ 2h15m
My final game for this theme, had the itch to hit this one up since the NES game finally clicked and was awesome. I might even like this one even more. Felt a little tighter and awesome to control, yet without save states I think some of the trickier parts would have been rage inducing as a kid back in the day. It's easy to stock up on continues out the wazoo though, because of how frequent the random encounters are on the overworld map. Almost too much so, but I guess for a legit full play you'd be swimming in continues and really need them. To get so far into the game and defeat some of the tricky bosses, only to sink lives in some of those parts where you have to perfectly swing from ceiling to ceiling without falling into a pit or spikes... talk about sweaty haha. The grenade launcher was still ace and my go to when I didn't need a special weapon to break a wall or whatever. The final machine gun weapon was again... super underwhelming? Didn't see the point in using it, maybe you get a unique ending or something, I don't know. Production values were amazing. Overall really fun stuff.
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