Topic: Sven Needs Your Input: Digital Capcom Games

[Protoman Blues]

You still have to kill yourself. And what if I have no lives left after the previous Wily stages?

Then you shouldn't be playing MM2. That game coughs up 1-Up MM heads like it's goin' out of style!

As for this...

And again, it's perfectly possible to cross that section of gate's lab unarmored, without parts. You DO require two specific special weapons, but honestly, you are just stupid if you want to go into the final stages early without having beaten all the bosses.

and Unarmored X available because it can't just DENY you unarmored X. It's there if you want to use it. He's completely optional. That doesn't mean he's recommended or encouraged.

I've never played X6, but if what you described is true then that's a whole lot worse than MM2. With MM2, you only need to learn your lesson once. From what you just described, X6 is like X5 in that it gives you the option to skip some of the bosses before the final stages. It also gives you the option of Armor Free X. So one can't get past this area without either these two special weapons or X wearing his Armani. The game gives you multiple options to get through the game while insanely hampering your choices depending on how you want to proceed. Which is [tornado fang]ing terrible. MM2 is at least linear. X games have offered you choices but have never limited the ability to make it through the game if you follow it's linear path. This game gives you too many multiple options to the point that you cannot, like Fxeni said, get through with the bare minimum no matter what.

[Strider Xhaiden]

EVERY SINGLE Megaman option was a definite buy for me. Considering I've only ever played X7/8 and MM9/10 from those series, I'll take 'em all. Twice, if necessary.

[Treleus]

I sincerely hope that we get the Prototype soon. It's too good not to get released. I'll play it in Japanese, I don't care.

As for X6/X5, if the game is not tailored for X to be unarmored, then why have him as an option? An extra, extra hard mode whose difficulty depends on misguided level design? Better to give him the previous armors' abilities and progress the character that way instead of providing unnecessary options. Same goes for the option to bypass stages. This game would be a lot better if at least two things were rectified:

1) You could get through the game with X without needing anything
2) THAT'S IT

It could still use copy+paste as a method for enemy placement, and I'd be a little less pissed at it just for that. Also if it didn't start me off with the armor from the last game. Mostly, it's the fact that the design is so hell-bent on getting you to use armors (that I don't like to boot), parts (which are a pain to get/rescuing Reploids is bullshit), or Zero that pisses me off about X6. In spite of times where X6 actually shines, the whole experience kinda bores me, or leaves me with anything but accomplishment at the end of it.

If you gave me a choice between a gauntlet of, like, 8 variations of Buebeam and playing X6, I might find the former much more rewarding in terms of challenge.

[Police Girl]

If you gave me a choice between a gauntlet of, like, 8 variations of Buebeam and playing X6, I might find the former much more rewarding in terms of challenge.

Except that would be impossible to accomplish since you don't have enough crash bombs to even make one mistake.

[Joseph Collins]

You can beat the Buebeam Trap with 1 Crash Bomb remaining.  2 if you're damn good at exploiting the game engine. (And of course, more if you die, refill your energy, and fight again.)

[Treleus]

Naturally they'd be refilled with each Buebeam defeated. Duh.

[Police Girl]

Naturally they'd be refilled with each Buebeam defeated. Duh.

That's a cop-out.

[Mirby]

That's a cop-out.

I agree with this.

You're changing the rules of the game to suit your own distaste for X6. I mean, to each their own, but still.

That's not really a fair comparison. That's like me saying I'd rather play a ridiculously hard boss rush mode where I'm fully healed after each fight than play a game which has no such modifications nor healing rules.

[Treleus]

You do realize you're also calling the health/weapon refills between boss rushes a "cop-out", then, right? That's basically what I was citing.

[Mirby]

Not all boss rushes have those, and having them lessens the difficulty severely.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be much of a challenge at all with the refills between.

[Treleus]

I'd still enjoy it more than X6. :p

But seriously, that's why I said variations. Nothing too complicated, just shuffling around the barriers and laser turrets, maybe making the room taller or fatter, having the turrets move around, etc. But I think we've gotten far out of hand enough.

[Gaia]

Then you shouldn't be playing MM2. That game coughs up 1-Up MM heads like it's goin' out of style!

If you think that's generous, look at one of the later games. Freemen galore!

[Hypershell]

That's a cop-out.

One born of a gamer who evidently never played ZX...

You do realize you're also calling the health/weapon refills between boss rushes a "cop-out", then, right? That's basically what I was citing.

Rarely do Mega Man boss gauntlets restore weapon energy between rounds.  And even rarer still does such a restore fill an entire weapon bar.

I've never played X6, but if what you described is true then that's a whole lot worse than MM2. With MM2, you only need to learn your lesson once. From what you just described, X6 is like X5 in that it gives you the option to skip some of the bosses before the final stages. It also gives you the option of Armor Free X. So one can't get past this area without either these two special weapons or X wearing his Armani. The game gives you multiple options to get through the game while insanely hampering your choices depending on how you want to proceed. Which is [tornado fang]ing terrible. MM2 is at least linear.

"Linear" is not an indication of quality.  The original Mega Man was in fact very non-linear as compared to its competition, and that was its whole damn hook (BTW, on missing optional stuff, Magnet Beam).

The thing about X6 is that while you ARE required to collect some manner of upgrades, IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER is one specific upgrade required at any point in the game.  Each and every obstacle in the game has multiple solutions.  In other words, it encourages you to experiment, THINK, and apply the method that suits your personal play style.  Also, rather than choose to skip in a menu such as X5, X6 requires that you earn the right to skip either by defeating High Max or by spending an extensive amount of time farming for Nightmare Souls, either of which should familiarize yourself with the type of curve-balls that the game is expected to throw at you, and provide any intellegent gamer with an incentive to get equipped before facing the unfamiliar.

In the rare event that you are truly stuck in a level and not just giving up too easily (which outside of Gate's Lab can only happen on optional, alternate paths), the whole must-die thing?  It's called Use Previous Data.  Unless you're subject to X Collection's tomfoolery (if so, make a habit of saving), there is no excuse to not know the game's menu.  I'll admit that removing the "stage already cleared" exit restriction would have been more intuitive, but Start/Select to the Title gets you the same result.  X6 does not require suicide (which, if you are a completionist, X5 does).

Finally, in before "the reploid with the part I need was killed", because that's a popular myth.  The most valuable thing you can possibly lose is Speedster, which is useful ONLY for physics exploits that you have no reason to be attempting once you've got Hyper Dash.

[Fxeni]

I like having to think. Getting things early by using damage invincibility intelligently? Sign me up! Having no way to progress on a required path without rearranging my base setup and restarting said path? No. As simple as that.

I don't recall ever saying every classic game is perfect, either. A flaw is a flaw, no matter where you find it. You can like the game all you want, but the fact of the matter is that it's a flaw. I'm more lenient when it comes to optional paths (even though it admittedly still bugs me), but on a required path it's out of the question.

[Hypershell]

The spike wall is at the very beginning of the stage, you don't lose any progress.  And X's stunt jump falls into the "air dashing is a default ability in this game" thing brought up above.

Those are the only two on a required path.

I'm not saying that a user-friendly tweak here and there wouldn't make the game better, but the core design of X6 is sorely underappreciated and offers a unique challenge and appeal not found elsewhere in the "must use weapon x to destroy block y" obstacles of the rest of the series.

(I don't call the game Mega Man X: The Lost Levels for nothing)

[Fxeni]

Then they should have given the air-dash to everyone, much like X8. No excuse. It's just poor design foresight.

[Protoman Blues]

"Linear" is not an indication of quality.  The original Mega Man was in fact very non-linear as compared to its competition, and that was its whole damn hook (BTW, on missing optional stuff, Magnet Beam).

Never said it was an indication of quality.

The thing about X6 is that while you ARE required to collect some manner of upgrades, IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER is one specific upgrade required at any point in the game.  Each and every obstacle in the game has multiple solutions.  In other words, it encourages you to experiment, THINK, and apply the method that suits your personal play style.  Also, rather than choose to skip in a menu such as X5, X6 requires that you earn the right to skip either by defeating High Max or by spending an extensive amount of time farming for Nightmare Souls, either of which should familiarize yourself with the type of curve-balls that the game is expected to throw at you, and provide any intellegent gamer with an incentive to get equipped before facing the unfamiliar.

Again, my comment was directed at the fact that, according to what Flame said, you either need the armor or and I quote "two specific special weapons" to get past a certain point in the game. If that's the case, when the game gives you the option not to get either of those before reaching said stage, it's bad. You talk about the hook of the original MM games, and the hook is that, while not having to be linear in choosing which path you take, you ultimately wind up being able to progress without having to go back to a certain stage. Classic MM and MMX are not Metroid. It's why MM2 fixed the MM1 Magnet Beam flaw by giving you Items 1-3 when defeating a Robot Master. And then MM3 fixed the MM2 flaw by making Items 1-3 an adorable, awesome, transforming robotic dog. Not to mention Blues!

In the rare event that you are truly stuck in a level and not just giving up too easily (which outside of Gate's Lab can only happen on optional, alternate paths), the whole must-die thing?  It's called Use Previous Data.  Unless you're subject to X Collection's tomfoolery (if so, make a habit of saving), there is no excuse to not know the game's menu.  I'll admit that removing the "stage already cleared" exit restriction would have been more intuitive, but Start/Select to the Title gets you the same result.  X6 does not require suicide (which, if you are a completionist, X5 does).

Wait wait wait. Are you saying that instead of dying, you can just reset the game and start off at where you last saved? If that's the case, then what's the freakin' difference?

Finally, in before "the reploid with the part I need was killed", because that's a popular myth.  The most valuable thing you can possibly lose is Speedster, which is useful ONLY for physics exploits that you have no reason to be attempting once you've got Hyper Dash.

I have no idea what you're talking about, but all I'll say on the matter is that saving reploids is god awful and should never have been implemented in the X series! LET THEM DIEEEE! 

[Mirby]

I didn't mind reploid-saving in X5... but that was because it wasn't necessary and they didn't give anything truly vital. just 1ups and health iirc.

[Protoman Blues]

I didn't mind reploid-saving in X5... but that was because it wasn't necessary and they didn't give anything truly vital. just 1ups and health iirc.

LET. THEM. DIEEEEEEEE! 

 

[Mirby]

LET. THEM. DIEEEEEEEE! 

 

See the point I was making is that if they just so happened to die in X5, then no worries.

[Police Girl]

See the point I was making is that if they just so happened to die in X5, then no worries.

I don't think they could die in X5 unless it was Skiver's stage, X6 they could only die through Nightmare posession (Man I got so pissed with The ice stage, having dogs as both rescuable reploids and enemies confused me for a long time). And as anybody who played X7 would know they would die through getting touched by anything.

[Hypershell]

Again, my comment was directed at the fact that, according to what Flame said, you either need the armor or and I quote "two specific special weapons" to get past a certain point in the game.

If you lack both, there's still Hyper Dash.  "Armor" also entails three options in itself, including your starting set.  Could possibly add a fourth if you're that obsessed over Shadow Armor's ghetto version of the special weapon exploit, but that's really a shits-and-giggles thing.  For practicality's sake, it's more trouble than it's worth (although I personally would have said that about the special weapon route to begin with).

And then MM3 fixed the MM2 flaw by making Items 1-3 an adorable, awesome, transforming robotic dog. Not to mention Blues!

Can't argue with that.

Wait wait wait. Are you saying that instead of dying, you can just reset the game and start off at where you last saved? If that's the case, then what's the freakin' difference?

What I'm saying is that on the PS1, you don't even need to save.  The game keeps track of where you last were automatically as long as you don't power the system off, it's just that the game designers for some reason felt the need to make you jump through a few extra screens to use it.  Rather than fixing (ie: just make the damn Exit button available at all times), X Collection removed this feature outright.

I have no idea what you're talking about, but all I'll say on the matter is that saving reploids is god awful and should never have been implemented in the X series! LET THEM DIEEEE!

Mark my words, ONE OF THESE DAYS I'm going to upload an LP where I do exactly that.  The importance of the Reploids who can die is seriously overestimated.  (though I admit, X7 did start to [acid burst] me off a little...)

It's not directed at you specifically, it's just that I'm tired of hearing random YouTubers who don't know Wolfang's stage layout claiming that they lost Jumper.

Then they should have given the air-dash to everyone, much like X8. No excuse. It's just poor design foresight.

I realize that you're talking about availability and not mechanics, but NEVER use X8 as an example of proper dashing.

That's like the divide-by-zero of 21XX, right up there with X7 as an example of wall-climbing, and X5 as an example of finality.

[Fxeni]

Hey man, as far as I'm concerned dashing in X games started to fall apart as early as X3! Stupid upwards air-dash

[Treleus]

Sans the delay, the upwards air-dash was fine. I don't know why they didn't continue with that upgrade. Or why they didn't start X out with horizontal air-dashing.

One born of a gamer who evidently never played ZX...

Oh, I did. I also didn't like it that much, but that's a different topic.

Rarely do Mega Man boss gauntlets restore weapon energy between rounds.  And even rarer still does such a restore fill an entire weapon bar.

Considering the inherent requirements of the Boobeam fight, I think an exception would be reasonably necessary. But if that's not acceptable, then the only other option is farming areas, Like Final Stage 4 in X1 or pretty much any other final stage.

The thing about X6 is that while you ARE required to collect some manner of upgrades, IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER is one specific upgrade required at any point in the game.  Each and every obstacle in the game has multiple solutions.

Unless you're X, in which case you either have to go on an expedition to find the part you need (assuming the Reploid in question wasn't killed), or use Pause exploit. The latter shouldn't even be considered an option, since the design of how the game should pause--or how a weapon is coded--has no intended (read: intuitive) bearing on how you clear platforming obstacles.

In other words, it encourages you to experiment, THINK, and apply the method that suits your personal play style.

Even if it means the above.

Also, rather than choose to skip in a menu such as X5, X6 requires that you earn the right to skip either by defeating High Max or by spending an extensive amount of time farming for Nightmare Souls, either of which should familiarize yourself with the type of curve-balls that the game is expected to throw at you, and provide any intellegent gamer with an incentive to get equipped before facing the unfamiliar.

Any "intellegent" gamer would realize how easy it is to short-circuit the game's design when all that's needed to defeat High Max is one single weapon. If the game punishes you for doing that anyways, then it's a trap. Why put that there? Is the point to give us the option and then chastise the player for taking advantage of it? It's a case of mixed messages.

In the rare event that you are truly stuck in a level and not just giving up too easily (which outside of Gate's Lab can only happen on optional, alternate paths), the whole must-die thing?  It's called Use Previous Data.  Unless you're subject to X Collection's tomfoolery (if so, make a habit of saving), there is no excuse to not know the game's menu.  I'll admit that removing the "stage already cleared" exit restriction would have been more intuitive, but Start/Select to the Title gets you the same result.  X6 does not require suicide (which, if you are a completionist, X5 does).

Yes it does. If you unwittingly find the secret path in any stage before getting a weapon, after defeating Nightmare Zero, that will lead you to High Max. That not only means you have to kill yourself, but it also means you've wasted your time.

Finally, in before "the reploid with the part I need was killed", because that's a popular myth.  The most valuable thing you can possibly lose is Speedster, which is useful ONLY for physics exploits that you have no reason to be attempting once you've got Hyper Dash.

True, but between needing Blaze Heatnix's Nightmare Effect AND Blizzard Wolfang's weapon to get the vital Jumper part, the whole ordeal is just bullshit.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcmpO3CDcOE[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMfsoTaqNYM[/youtube]

[Hypershell]

Treleus, read what you are responding to before you respond to it.  Paragraphs 4, 7, and 8 contain outright false information that I already addressed.

Circular discussions aren't any fun if the circle is only two posts long.


BTW, a "minimalist run", such as you linked, by its very definition rules out alternate solutions solely because they are deemed by the player to be less efficient.  Using that as a "requirement" argument and claiming such a requirement to be unreasonable is completely invalid: Minimalist runs are SUPPOSED to break the game's requirements and obstacles by any means necessary no matter how outlandish.  That's what makes them minimal.  If you honestly wrote a post that long without noticing how Shadow Armor is relevant to a spike situation, you have no business discussing X6's obstacles.

Any "intellegent" gamer would realize how easy it is to short-circuit the game's design when all that's needed to defeat High Max is one single weapon. If the game punishes you for doing that anyways, then it's a trap. Why put that there? Is the point to give us the option and then chastise the player for taking advantage of it? It's a case of mixed messages.

Yes, it is completely unexpected and unreasonable that there will be consequences and handicaps to deal with if you decide to skip 7/8 of a game that emphasizes collecting abilities to become stronger.



I get that not everyone LIKES the fact that X is knocking on Metroid's door with X6.  Simply throwing the player into the wild, with numerous forks and shortcuts but nothing hand-holding your equipment, is a departure from the norm of the series, doubly so in light of the fact that its predecessor, X5, went the complete opposite way and was considerably more linear than X games normally are.  Combining a more open power-up/obstacle/progression mentality with the more typical 2D stage select structure introduced a few bumps in the road that they honestly could have smoothed out a bit more, I'm aware of that.  This in addition to the fact that there's a much wider than normal gap in power between minimal and fully equipped characters in X6 (also something that X5 dampened; 4th Armor is WAY too overpowered for a starting game item). But a preference in game direction is not a flaw, and to people who actually enjoy X6, the new spin is the whole damn point.  Love it or hate it, X6 takes the quest to become stronger and the ability to find and plan your own way, two core themes of the X series, to a greater extreme than any other entry.