15th August 2005, 5:48 PM
Quote:Concerning SD3 and SoE, I've played both (the former on an emulator, independently translated) and SD3 is something of a drag. The class-change system is cool, but that's pretty much all it's got going for it. It's whack-a-baddy for hours on end with tiny bits and pieces of a storyline popping up from time to time - the storyline btw seems really deep and detailed, but never really gets going - and when the plot does pan out, it's a big disappointment (for lack of spoilers). I guess it leads you to think there's more to the story than "bad guy wants to destroy the world; you are the hero of legend who will stop it" when there really isn't.
But it has six characters, and you choose one as the primary and two others as the secondaries, and the story changes some with each party... giving you some control over what happens and giving it replay value. And I thought the story was pretty good... sure, not the most complex one ever, but good.
Quote:Yeah, just like the GBC the SGB also had a huge number of "default" pallettes it would apply to popular Gameboy games that didnt' have SGB support already. They were just 4 colors applied across the entire game (though you could adjust them mid-game any time you wanted to, like I did so I could get all the dungeons looking nifty keen in LA), so it wasn't anywhere close to SGB support, but it was something.
Sure, but that's nothing special, because the GBC and GBA do that...
Quote:On Metroid, no really, I highly recommend changing the entire way you play that game. Exploring for it's own sake yields progress as well as letting you have fun wandering about. Or not, there are the limited few that simply don't enjoy that old game. I will say that yes, the lack of a mapping system in that game combined with the similar appearence of so many tunnels can get you lost. For me, it took many hours of exploring to really have a good sense of "where I was" and what the region I was in looked like. Now I can easily beat the game within the required time to see that Samus is in fact some sort of human woman. Not really a shocker these days, and honestly I can't see how that would have been such a big surprise back in "the day". Seriously, everyone talks about how there had never been a female hero until that game, but that is a bold faced LIE.
Yeah, of course there were female main characters before that, but have biases/expectations, and "action game hero" wasn't one people expected female characters to be I guess...
Metroid... between the horrible save system where you always start in the same place (playing it on Prime) and the very confusing design that forces random wandering, the only way you can play is to wander around until you accidentally bump into the next area... which works, if you want to spend that much time in the game... I got bored/frusterated well before finishing the game, myself. I did finish Fusion of course, but that's more modern... though some of the puzzles were definitely not easy.
As for the linearity thing, we've talked about this here before, and my opinion hasn't changed... I don't mind non-linearity, but I appreicate some concept of what I'm supposed to be doing, and don't mind nonlinearity in most cases... well non-linear stories are great, but that's a different question since a game with a good non-linear story will have structure and all, it'll just have a nicely varied branching structure. That is good. :) I just have some problems with stuff like Metroid of the Elder Scrolls games... it's not that I want them to be completely linear, but that I like knowing what I'm supposed to be doing (and in TES having clearly level-appropriate places to be...)...
Oh, and you can also tie the 'I like games with stories' thing to this... though some genres don't need stories, so sometimes it's invalid... um, yeah, it's complex... but no game has ever been hurt by having a good story (and the less linear your game the harder it is to have a good story). :)
Oh, just wanted to mention one other thing again... Metroid Prime. Good, well designed game... I didn't finish it, not even close, but that's because it's hard, not because I got lost... the map that tells you where to go is really helpful and the levels are linear enough that you're usually not completely lost about where to look, though it's definitely hard at times (but it's supposed to be!)... and I also like the story presentation in that game, of course. Making the player make an effort to get the story is not a bad thing by any means.
... I guess I'm just trying to say that it varies from case to case... and Metroid is a good game, though I'm not sure I'd think about playing it without that map on Gamefaqs...
Quote:Ms. Pac Man.
Well, then how about games where you play a character whose gender is not specified? You know, like most text-based adventure games and stuff like that... you play someone who is generally supposed to be "you" or someone like you in that situation. But if you're only talking about characters specifically mentioned as female, as opposed to games where you play "you" or games where you create characters or either gender (and/or various races), and add the stipulation that it's got to be a heroine and not just "one of the playable characters", then Ms. Pac-Man is probably a pretty good choice (though I bet something out there was earlier).
Quote:As for games to recommend for ABF, most of them have been covered, but I have to emphasize getting Yoshi's Island. The game was pretty innovative for it's time, a lot of fun, and also pretty challenging. And it is pretty funny that the reason most people like Metroid is what you don't like about it. I will say it is a bit easier to get your bearings in Super Metroid than it was in the original, but you'll still find yourself getting lost a lot. Also, if you like the Castlevania series I'd recommend Super Castlevania. It is a bit dated if you compare it to the more recent GBA games, but if you can get it cheap I'd definitely recommend it.
Yeah, I've played Super Castlevania IV, a friend has it, and it's pretty good... I don't have any Castlevania games (for any platform), though, so one of the GBA games might have precidence. I don't know, they are completely different kinds of games...