I got bored of sotn at the inverted castle and bored of alttp at the dark world. Actually I'm just moronic and got stuck in alttp.
ALTTP does it better tbhonestly, because the two worlds differ substantially and you back and forth between them to solve puzzles and progress, things in one world can even affect things in the other.
I like SOTN, but the upside down castle always felt like it was a late addition to the game.
Reminds of that GBA Castlevania that we also have two castles and on later one we find out we kept going from normal to dark version as we advanced the game. I think it did "two castles" far better than SotN.
>Reminds of that GBA Castlevania that we also have two castles and on later one we find out we kept going from normal to dark version as we advanced the game. I think it did "two castles" far better than SotN.
There were a lot of things about the game that were worse than SotN but that part was very cool
>the upside down castle always felt like it was a late addition to the game
Considering it's a 2D PSX title, the game does feel a bit short without it.
>be boomer >come from castlevanias that have 8 stages as a rule >get this >be impressed with the jump in content >25 years later zoomers b***h about it
you guys are utter wastes of oxygen
>actually justifying the fact that the game reuses levels with barely any changes
Are you going to defend the fact that the game has shit balance as well? It's a fun game but it's not as perfect as some idiots like to pretend. Oh you were impressed by it when you were 8? Good for you, I was impressed when I caught lizards at 8, I would just sit and watch them go. How dare you attack my lizard watching, I enjoyed it at 8 therefore YOU must enjoy it at 30.
no it stems from being moronic and overanalyzing everything. likely a consequence of youtube infecting their growing brains. now software is under a microscope before it even came out. we just enjoyed these games. the second castle only exists to utilize the new cd format. now they see it as a problem when the developers intend it as a bonus.
this, they're also the ones talking about "objective good design practices" which was something improvised back in the day and as a result the games didn't all feel generic as frick
>ow software is under a microscope before it even came out. we just enjoyed these games. the second castle only exists to utilize the new cd format. now they see it as a problem when the developers intend it as a bonus.
i think you raise an interesting point, anon.
when we played games as kids we were on a "hero's journey". one of the nice things about old game design is how little handholding there was. now there's a lot more handholding and there's a fine line between handholding and "quality of life improvements".
anyway, as kids we didn't critique the journey. but if we as adults aren't careful we have this cognitive dissonance thing happen where after we digest youtube content about a game we have preconceived notions about what a game should be, and when a game isn't what we expect, we don't like it.
so now what can happen is when we play games we think about the software, mechanics, muh framerates, muh input lag, muh design choices, rather than the experience of the game itself. it may well be a sign of the times that we have this tendency to deconstruct fricking everything.
a fitting analogy i came across while researching this is it's like taking apart a clock to understand time: in doing so, you forget to enjoy passing moments.
i want to go back.
6 months ago
Anonymous
>when we play games we think about the software, mechanics, muh framerates, muh input lag, muh design choices
I'm guilty of this, but only because I already have an interest in design and an aspiration to maybe make a game later in life. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, a truly engrossing experience will still have plenty of both present-oriented moments and internal analysis.
Bad games are still bad and usually not fun so it's interesting to think about how we could change them to make good / fun games.
6 months ago
Anonymous
well, and the thing is it would be stupid for us, as adults, to just languish in this uncritical view of things. i don't aspire to design games, but i am an artist so i find it useful to learn about creative processes and the outcome of those creative processes. and it's probably useful to know what games are worth sticking to and what aren't. if a game is hard, but it was deliberately designed this way so you feel a sense of accomplishment, it's worth putting up with. if a game is hard because it's unfair. then maybe it's poorly designed and not worth the time investment.
also, yeah if we can narrow down what exactly is shitty about a game, you could either create or use someone else's romhack/mod to make it fun. you'd also know "okay, if i install this mod it's going to make the game too easy or too hard so it would be better for my experience if i skip it".
the inverted castle isn't great, but wasn't there something going on with the development of SotN where they weren't given enough of a budget or time to flesh out a second castle? was an inverted castle part of the plan from the beginning?
as it stands, i consider the inverted castle just the last hurrah before the end.
I don't know the details of the development, but the second castle absolutely FEELS like an idea which they did late in the dev cycle. I'm glad they did it even though they maybe didn't have all the time and budget needed to fully flesh it out as much as they might have wanted to, the game would still have been a lot less good and fun without it.
this, they're also the ones talking about "objective good design practices" which was something improvised back in the day and as a result the games didn't all feel generic as frick
That shit was not improvised, you fricking moron. Any game with a budget and experienced devs did not just throw shit at the wall on random, ideas were developed and then tested, then refined or changed, or if they didn't work out, they got shitcanned.
Things like how strong the player, his equipment, and the enemies were, that was generally very premeditated, and devs made use out of gameplay testers for input on what might need changing. Some specific thing can be too hard, too easy, or it's not conveyed clearly to the player and needs a stronger hint, and how the challenge escalates as the game progresses (or how more open ended games could fare depending on the order you did things), were absolutely things which had a lot of planning and thought put into it.
I get that you people hate zoomers, I can't fault you for that, but don't be so willfully fricking moronic, don't make up bullshit conjecture "to own the kids these days," because you're being dumber than the most TikTok brainrotted brat with this homosexualry.
The thing most plebs overlook about the inverted castle is that aside from the background and the map being identical your run through is not at all analogous to the run through the first castle.
The first run through the castle is about exploration and backtracking until you find what you need to access new areas. Everything in the inverted castle is accessible right from the beginning and you can go wherever you want. You know the layout and presumably have all the mobility relics and once you get the gas cloud or alucard shield you can basically just casually stroll through any area with impunity
The inverted castle is a boss run with lots of fun and sometimes game-breaking items. It's short and easy and was a great way to provide a ton of additional content without overextending the budget. The alternative would have been just to have the game go straight to dracula after the Richter fight or to add some small and limited additional area like the arena from COTM. Sure, I would have liked a fully original extra map that doubled the game length but that wasn't feasible. The inverted castle is fine, quit your b***hing
The annoying thing about the inverted castle is its not at all fun to navigate because a bunch of ledges are just barely out of reach of your double jump. So you're constantly turning into a bat just to get an extra couple inches.
>The annoying thing about the inverted castle is its not at all fun to navigate because a bunch of ledges are just barely out of reach of your double jump. So you're constantly turning into a bat just to get an extra couple inches.
That's a good point, but it's better than Harmony's overuse of zig zag corridors
>game-breaking items
Yeah the original run is full of that too, the whole game is pretty broken. >reused content is fine because I feel differently about it
Replaying games is fine too but telling me to replay a game to get an ending is bullshit
The game isn't hard but I don't think any of the truly broken items are available in the upright castle. The crissaegrim, Alucard shield and gas cloud are all in the inverted castle
People treating SotN as some flawless masterpiece is one of the most insane gaming opinions I still see to this day. How fricking delusional can you even be? The game is deeply flawed at best, and it's just not very well designed overall.
I played it for the first time a week ago and I very much enjoyed it, although it's clear that the dev made a ye olde super metroid but worse. It's fun but the RPG elements are tacked on and unnecessary. I think removing RPG exp/stats, keeping weapon/armor upgrades and giving it a simple rebalance could improve the game by a lot.
It still has some questionable design choices on the map and enemy distribution, would be trickier to solve these but someone can do it.
Definitely flawed but incredibly well done music, graphics, animation, and movement.
The Inverted Castle comes off way better when you don't know it's there and don't know what's in it. Suddenly finding yourself in an upside down Castle Keep with a completely empty map was quite the 'oh shit!' moment back in 1997. It's largely smoke and mirrors but you didn't know that at the time and every new boss encounter was...a new boss encounter. Every new item and item drop was a new drop. The game felt MASSIVE. Just because we know now, over 25 years later, that it was an illusion, doesn't take away it's significance at the time.
True. I just kind of wish the upside down castle had been developed a bit more and had a little more substance, but it's cool enough for what it is still, and that surprise blew me away.
People forget that SOTN was not a popular game at first, either during development or at launch. Konami brass didn't think it was that important so they let the development team do whatever. I don't know what the budget was but it was probably small. So a lot of what makes SOTN work is getting double and triple duty out of it's assets. Flipping the castle was, at the time, unique and also very, very inexpensive. The game constantly portrays itself as bigger than it really is. The backgrounds go out of their way to imply an infinitely large world. There are a dozen food items and random bullshit drops that clutter your inventory to imply that there's a neverending amount of stuff to find. Most of the items are useless and the backgrounds are just aesthetic but it helps make the game more than the sum of it's parts. To a player in the pre-GameFAQs days there was no reason to be disappointed.
>The backgrounds go out of their way to imply an infinitely large world.
I can appreciate the effort but I didn't get this impression at all. It felt like a series of corridors with a few courtyard-like areas. I suppose if there was no in-game map it might feel different. >There are a dozen food items and random bullshit drops that clutter your inventory to imply that there's a neverending amount of stuff to find.
It was just annoying and made drops seem useless, giving me negative incentive to keep exploring outside of the main objectives (in addition to getting OP from too much XP).
The only thing that is reused is the background. Which is reused constantly in all 2D games. "Asset" refers to everything not just the background.
It's virtually all the same geometry too.
ALTTP does it better tbhonestly, because the two worlds differ substantially and you back and forth between them to solve puzzles and progress, things in one world can even affect things in the other.
I like SOTN, but the upside down castle always felt like it was a late addition to the game.
Reminds of that GBA Castlevania that we also have two castles and on later one we find out we kept going from normal to dark version as we advanced the game. I think it did "two castles" far better than SotN.
>Reminds of that GBA Castlevania that we also have two castles and on later one we find out we kept going from normal to dark version as we advanced the game. I think it did "two castles" far better than SotN.
There were a lot of things about the game that were worse than SotN but that part was very cool
>the upside down castle always felt like it was a late addition to the game
Considering it's a 2D PSX title, the game does feel a bit short without it.
>actually justifying the fact that the game reuses levels with barely any changes
Are you going to defend the fact that the game has shit balance as well? It's a fun game but it's not as perfect as some idiots like to pretend. Oh you were impressed by it when you were 8? Good for you, I was impressed when I caught lizards at 8, I would just sit and watch them go. How dare you attack my lizard watching, I enjoyed it at 8 therefore YOU must enjoy it at 30.
>Play any retro game
>Later enemies are palette swaps of early enemies
>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I'M GOING INSANE HELP ME AVGN
Balance doesn’t exist and is something only zoomers bring up. Look in any retro game magazine for discussions on balance, you wont find it.
i feel like the desire for balance stems from zoom zooms playing too many competitive multiplayer games like CoD, league, WoW PvP, etc..
no it stems from being moronic and overanalyzing everything. likely a consequence of youtube infecting their growing brains. now software is under a microscope before it even came out. we just enjoyed these games. the second castle only exists to utilize the new cd format. now they see it as a problem when the developers intend it as a bonus.
this, they're also the ones talking about "objective good design practices" which was something improvised back in the day and as a result the games didn't all feel generic as frick
>ow software is under a microscope before it even came out. we just enjoyed these games. the second castle only exists to utilize the new cd format. now they see it as a problem when the developers intend it as a bonus.
i think you raise an interesting point, anon.
when we played games as kids we were on a "hero's journey". one of the nice things about old game design is how little handholding there was. now there's a lot more handholding and there's a fine line between handholding and "quality of life improvements".
anyway, as kids we didn't critique the journey. but if we as adults aren't careful we have this cognitive dissonance thing happen where after we digest youtube content about a game we have preconceived notions about what a game should be, and when a game isn't what we expect, we don't like it.
so now what can happen is when we play games we think about the software, mechanics, muh framerates, muh input lag, muh design choices, rather than the experience of the game itself. it may well be a sign of the times that we have this tendency to deconstruct fricking everything.
a fitting analogy i came across while researching this is it's like taking apart a clock to understand time: in doing so, you forget to enjoy passing moments.
i want to go back.
>when we play games we think about the software, mechanics, muh framerates, muh input lag, muh design choices
I'm guilty of this, but only because I already have an interest in design and an aspiration to maybe make a game later in life. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, a truly engrossing experience will still have plenty of both present-oriented moments and internal analysis.
Bad games are still bad and usually not fun so it's interesting to think about how we could change them to make good / fun games.
well, and the thing is it would be stupid for us, as adults, to just languish in this uncritical view of things. i don't aspire to design games, but i am an artist so i find it useful to learn about creative processes and the outcome of those creative processes. and it's probably useful to know what games are worth sticking to and what aren't. if a game is hard, but it was deliberately designed this way so you feel a sense of accomplishment, it's worth putting up with. if a game is hard because it's unfair. then maybe it's poorly designed and not worth the time investment.
also, yeah if we can narrow down what exactly is shitty about a game, you could either create or use someone else's romhack/mod to make it fun. you'd also know "okay, if i install this mod it's going to make the game too easy or too hard so it would be better for my experience if i skip it".
OP was referring to the assets being literally flipped upside down, anon.
>spare the good players from this shit
>do poorly and get the bad end, never see inverted castle
I got bored of sotn at the inverted castle and bored of alttp at the dark world. Actually I'm just moronic and got stuck in alttp.
The Virgin "Metroidvania"
<- The Chad Private Snafu
Metroid 2 be like
needs moar Saddam.
Given that you'll have most movement abilities by the time you get to the flipped turned upside down castle, it really goes by quite quickly.
It was positive suprise the first time you discovered it. But the inverted castle sucks
>Koopa Troopa (green)
>Koopa Troopa (red)
Kino
the inverted castle isn't great, but wasn't there something going on with the development of SotN where they weren't given enough of a budget or time to flesh out a second castle? was an inverted castle part of the plan from the beginning?
as it stands, i consider the inverted castle just the last hurrah before the end.
I don't know the details of the development, but the second castle absolutely FEELS like an idea which they did late in the dev cycle. I'm glad they did it even though they maybe didn't have all the time and budget needed to fully flesh it out as much as they might have wanted to, the game would still have been a lot less good and fun without it.
That shit was not improvised, you fricking moron. Any game with a budget and experienced devs did not just throw shit at the wall on random, ideas were developed and then tested, then refined or changed, or if they didn't work out, they got shitcanned.
Things like how strong the player, his equipment, and the enemies were, that was generally very premeditated, and devs made use out of gameplay testers for input on what might need changing. Some specific thing can be too hard, too easy, or it's not conveyed clearly to the player and needs a stronger hint, and how the challenge escalates as the game progresses (or how more open ended games could fare depending on the order you did things), were absolutely things which had a lot of planning and thought put into it.
I get that you people hate zoomers, I can't fault you for that, but don't be so willfully fricking moronic, don't make up bullshit conjecture "to own the kids these days," because you're being dumber than the most TikTok brainrotted brat with this homosexualry.
Zoomerposting goes on Ganker
the inverted castle would have been better if it wasn't 90% final toccata
The thing most plebs overlook about the inverted castle is that aside from the background and the map being identical your run through is not at all analogous to the run through the first castle.
The first run through the castle is about exploration and backtracking until you find what you need to access new areas. Everything in the inverted castle is accessible right from the beginning and you can go wherever you want. You know the layout and presumably have all the mobility relics and once you get the gas cloud or alucard shield you can basically just casually stroll through any area with impunity
The inverted castle is a boss run with lots of fun and sometimes game-breaking items. It's short and easy and was a great way to provide a ton of additional content without overextending the budget. The alternative would have been just to have the game go straight to dracula after the Richter fight or to add some small and limited additional area like the arena from COTM. Sure, I would have liked a fully original extra map that doubled the game length but that wasn't feasible. The inverted castle is fine, quit your b***hing
The annoying thing about the inverted castle is its not at all fun to navigate because a bunch of ledges are just barely out of reach of your double jump. So you're constantly turning into a bat just to get an extra couple inches.
>The annoying thing about the inverted castle is its not at all fun to navigate because a bunch of ledges are just barely out of reach of your double jump. So you're constantly turning into a bat just to get an extra couple inches.
That's a good point, but it's better than Harmony's overuse of zig zag corridors
>game-breaking items
Yeah the original run is full of that too, the whole game is pretty broken.
>reused content is fine because I feel differently about it
Replaying games is fine too but telling me to replay a game to get an ending is bullshit
>Yeah the original run is full of that too
The game isn't hard but I don't think any of the truly broken items are available in the upright castle. The crissaegrim, Alucard shield and gas cloud are all in the inverted castle
The free Holy Sword in the Colosseum is pretty broken, since almost everything in the first castle and a good chunk of the second is weak to Holy.
I still don't understand why there are more blocks in the inverted waterway. That 0.6% over 200 is bizarre.
It's actually an asset rotation.
Frickin gottem
sauce?
Asset mirroring about the horizontal axis.
Is it a reflection or a rotation? They are different transformations, you know.
inverted castle is lame because you steamroll all the bosses at that point
It's not an asset flip if it's in the same c**ting game, you doofus.
People treating SotN as some flawless masterpiece is one of the most insane gaming opinions I still see to this day. How fricking delusional can you even be? The game is deeply flawed at best, and it's just not very well designed overall.
I played it for the first time a week ago and I very much enjoyed it, although it's clear that the dev made a ye olde super metroid but worse. It's fun but the RPG elements are tacked on and unnecessary. I think removing RPG exp/stats, keeping weapon/armor upgrades and giving it a simple rebalance could improve the game by a lot.
It still has some questionable design choices on the map and enemy distribution, would be trickier to solve these but someone can do it.
Definitely flawed but incredibly well done music, graphics, animation, and movement.
Wrong.
It's flawed, but good.
It has some flaws, it's not perfect, but it's not 'deeply flawed'. The worst thing about it is how easy and breakable it is.
The Inverted Castle comes off way better when you don't know it's there and don't know what's in it. Suddenly finding yourself in an upside down Castle Keep with a completely empty map was quite the 'oh shit!' moment back in 1997. It's largely smoke and mirrors but you didn't know that at the time and every new boss encounter was...a new boss encounter. Every new item and item drop was a new drop. The game felt MASSIVE. Just because we know now, over 25 years later, that it was an illusion, doesn't take away it's significance at the time.
True. I just kind of wish the upside down castle had been developed a bit more and had a little more substance, but it's cool enough for what it is still, and that surprise blew me away.
People forget that SOTN was not a popular game at first, either during development or at launch. Konami brass didn't think it was that important so they let the development team do whatever. I don't know what the budget was but it was probably small. So a lot of what makes SOTN work is getting double and triple duty out of it's assets. Flipping the castle was, at the time, unique and also very, very inexpensive. The game constantly portrays itself as bigger than it really is. The backgrounds go out of their way to imply an infinitely large world. There are a dozen food items and random bullshit drops that clutter your inventory to imply that there's a neverending amount of stuff to find. Most of the items are useless and the backgrounds are just aesthetic but it helps make the game more than the sum of it's parts. To a player in the pre-GameFAQs days there was no reason to be disappointed.
You're right, it really does a lot to make it feel bigger than it is.
>The backgrounds go out of their way to imply an infinitely large world.
I can appreciate the effort but I didn't get this impression at all. It felt like a series of corridors with a few courtyard-like areas. I suppose if there was no in-game map it might feel different.
>There are a dozen food items and random bullshit drops that clutter your inventory to imply that there's a neverending amount of stuff to find.
It was just annoying and made drops seem useless, giving me negative incentive to keep exploring outside of the main objectives (in addition to getting OP from too much XP).
>spare the good players from this shit
it takes more skill and effort to find/beat the inverted castle
It was a really cool idea for the time
Jumping in Harmony of Dissonance is terrible.