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AceofAces's Super Metroid (SNES)
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| [January 25, 2008 10:17:35 PM]
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Part 2:
Gameplay:
I've explored a little bit more into the world, and noticed the difficulty does increase over time. In order to make progress through the game, you have to find the items that allow you to open doors to find new items. This starts out easy, as items are “hidden” in rooms with doors in them. You open the door, collect the item, and move on. Later on in the game, they hide the doors, so that you have to shoot some flooring to reveal a passage to a door. Sometimes, these secret passages are marked; there will be a cracked stone or a scorched tile. Other times, they won't be marked at all, and you'll have to infer the location of a secret passage by the fact that you're trapped in a deadend. Sometimes, you get stuck, and you'll have to do a brute force search, blasting every stone on every wall, ceiling and floor in your immediate area.
This is a bad thing, I think. Sure, it sells more issues of “Nintendo Power” when you need to look up walkthroughs to find that one stray tile that is holding your progress back. But to me this is pure frustration, and takes me out of the game. I can imagine a person who disagrees with me, and doesn't want to be hand-fed the game. I feel the ability to progress should not be treated as a reward, or if it is, the goal should be made clear.
Design:
The game fools the player into believing it's freeform, when actually there's a very linear sequence of events that the player needs to accomplish before advancing to the next area. The game doesn't really have levels, but instead has areas, each of which has its own art style and set of dumb minions to challenge the player. These areas are backtracked through a lot, and this is provides the main illusion of non-linearity. Sometimes, the path will feature different enemies on the way back than on the way in, and these scripted events emulate the feeling that Samus is having an effect on the world, and that the world is reacting to her.
Point A to Point B is the main challenge of the game, finding secret passages and avoiding pesky minions while doing so. The player isn't told what Point B is, but often you'll pass by an inaccessible door on your way to an item, and it's likely that the item you get will be of immediate use in opening said door, so it isn't necessary to keep notes. The game does provide you with some information on your progress by keeping a map of rooms that marks areas you've been.
Every once and a while you'll meet a boss, which distinguishes itself from minions by having a slightly more complex behavior, with one obvious weak point that will allow the player to defeat it. Bosses are also special in that the player will only face them once, so the player will need to learn a new trick for each one.
Bosses often reward players for beating them with a new item, which also reinforces in the player the idea that they've accomplished something. New items are the primary reward to players. They offer you new access to the world, and maybe an easier time vanquishing the minions in the world. Some items are more interesting than others... the morph ball changes the way you view the world, with every cranny a possible location of a secret. The spazer makes it easier to dispatch minions. This contrasts to the Varia Suit, which changes Samus' color scheme and lets her explore hot rooms without dying. The Spazer and the morph ball change the way the player looks at the game, while the purpose of the Varia suit is effectively to unlock doors. (Though, I do prefer its color scheme)
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| [January 25, 2008 10:17:25 PM]
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| [January 25, 2008 06:28:39 AM]
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Summary:
Today's game was Super Metroid, for the SNES, which falls into the 2D platform genre. You control Samus Aran, jumping from one rocky ledge to another, avoiding enemies or blasting them from a distance at your pleasure. The setting is a sort of science-fiction horror, with detectable influence from Ridley Scott's Alien. What sets it apart from other platformers is that the world is a little more open, and there are exploration and collection aspects to the game.
Gameplay:
The intro cutscene is clearly cut from a horror movie. The screen pans over a closeup of a lab, too close to really make out the entire room. Dissonant synth strings provide the background music. Eventually the view settles on a alien creature, which I recognized as a “Metroid.” Slowly the camera zooms out, so we finally get a view of the entire room, which contains the Metroid in a glass capsule, flickering computer screens, and 3 corpses surrounding the Metroid's container.
The actual playing of the game begins by Samus tboarding a research space station to investigate an S.O.S. She enters the station via a lift, and navigates a bunch of platforms. This part of the game is clearly the tutorial mode, as there are no enemies, and the player is being taught the movement mechanics. Jumping, moving, crouching etc. Samus passes the room displayed in the intro cutscene, only the metroid is missing. One room deeper, and the metroid is found lying on the floor, but as you approach, a pteryldactl looking creature swoops in from the background to grab the Metroid away from you. He then lands, and you have your first boss fight of the game. The first fight of the game is a bossfight, which is unusual in any genre.
The boss fight is abbreviated as the pteryldactl retreats, and you're given a timelimit to backtrack through the spacestation to your ship before the station self-destructs. The screen is shaking all during this portion, and some of the stages are rotated a bit off center from when you entered and the station was not falling apart around you. Pieces of the ship falling from the ceilings and vents of gas make getting back to your ship somewhat more difficult than just backtracking..
Next the real game starts, where you set down on a planet, and get to do some quasi-free-form exploration. The planet consists of a bunch of interconnected rooms, with platforms inbetween. Little creatures inhabit the rooms, they impede your progress without actually seriously threatening you. They exist just to make it somewhat challenging to move from point A to point B. Some rooms are currently inaccessible, I will need to collect power-ups to circumvent the obstacles preventing me from access, before I can explore further. This annoys me, I feel it contradicts the free-form feel the game seems to be trying to push by limiting my freedom to explore. I might as well be collecting blue, red and yellow keys. But on the other hand, the items I collect have functions in the game outside of opening doors, and this is sufficient motivation for me to seek them out.
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AceofAces's Super Metroid (SNES)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Something better came along
GameLog started on: Friday 25 January, 2008
GameLog closed on: Friday 25 January, 2008 |
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