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Offline Inccubus

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The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« on: March 22, 2013, 11:26:20 AM »
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I posted this at ROMHacking.net in the thread about the CV2 retranslation patch. I thought you guys might like to comment on it.

Quote
Here are some ideas on how to fix this. If you want the game to resemble it's action brethren then keep the lives, but place the player back at the last town they visited if they are on the "OW". Dying in a mansion could place the player back at the entrance. Dying in a town could place them just outside the town. That would create an actual reason to have lives at all. One could also consider adding some way of gaining extra lives. Getting an extra life when leveling up might work. Or making an extra life item that can be hidden in breakable walls would be nice if a bit more complex to execute. If you wanted to be a bastard you could also add an extra penalty for dying at night. Dying at night could advance the clock to morning. That would be a real penalty for a game that has endings dependent on a timer. If hearts were just ammo instead of also being currency I'd suggest resetting them back to 5 when you die too.

What happens when you continue:
CV1&3 - Same as when you die, except your lives are also reset to the initial stock and you restart the level from the beginning.
CV2 - Same as when you die, except your lives are also reset to the initial stock, and your hearts/exp are reset to 0.

Here's where people think CV2 is too harsh. Loosing all your ammo AND currency when you game over in a game where getting hearts is a chore "no es bueno". Let's face it that's a huge hassle. The ammo part of the equation isn't so bad because most of your weapons don't use hearts anyway. That, in and of itself is a big change from CV1, but I won't get into it. The problem here is that loosing all your currency is a huge hassle. The easy solution is the RPG one that has been suggested. Game over, get your hearts cut in half. Exp shouldn't even be touched, IMO. But this changes the flow of the game because it cuts down on the time it takes to continue on your quest, thus making getting the better endings easier.  The cooler more complex solution is to have hearts and gold as separate entities and put the candles back in the game. Removing the candle was the most block-headed thing they could have done in the first place. They are important because they give the player something to do besides murdering the same enemies over and over. You could even take things further by having lanterns in town and braziers outdoors that are off during the day and only give items at night. Along with this is to make all the sub-weapons cost hearts again. However, this would require that the horrible fake floor gimmick be modified. If your holy water costs hearts to use then you're not going to want to waste them on finding illusory blocks in the floor. And furthermore, if the holy water costs hears, it would probably be better if it burst into flames once again. But if it does, then the Sacred Flame needs to be re-purposed too. (But it was over powered anyway.) So might as well bring back the axe and the holy cross while we're at it. No need for 3 knives after all. Oh, and bring back the wall chicken. Having to always trek back to a church is a pain in the ass sometimes.

In closing the entire issue of the hearts and how to treat them in CV2 is complex because of all of the other changes that were implemented around them. You can't really change one aspect of the hearts without opening a can of worms that effects a ton of other aspects of the game. So really, in the end making hearts into currency was the single worst decision the designers of CV2 made and fixing it in a meaningful way would be no easy task.
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Offline Flame

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2013, 11:29:08 AM »
+1
The cryptic as fuck NOT HELPFUL townspeople are another point.

"HIT YOUR HEAD ON DEBORAH CLIFF"

Yeah okay.
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Offline X

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2013, 11:37:42 AM »
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Keep the hearts as ammo and bring back the CV moneybags to be used as currency. I don't know why they didn't do this in the first place. And every mansion should've had a boss, even if they all sucked.
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Offline Flame

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2013, 11:46:48 AM »
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I'm imagining Simon carrying around a bag full of bloody monster hearts and trading in a handful of them for an item.

What was this game rated again?  :-X
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Offline Sumac

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2013, 12:26:02 PM »
+1
Train harder and you will not die, hence, will not lose hearts and experience points (which by the way, mostly useless). This is the most simple solution. At least it is much more simple, then remaking the game. CV2 is not even hard as CV1. In fact it is very easy. ;D

And cryptic villagers were funny in a way, though, I'd really wish actual clues (red books) were more detailed.

Offline Lelygax

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2013, 02:23:21 PM »
+1
Well, remaking the game is cool for who likes to hack, so its not a waste of time. Its even more cool to play the finished game xD
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Offline Inccubus

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2013, 07:08:12 PM »
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Keep the hearts as ammo and bring back the CV moneybags to be used as currency. I don't know why they didn't do this in the first place. And every mansion should've had a boss, even if they all sucked.

RAM space wasn't even an issue. They could easily have had both. They pretty much removed all of the cool details that CV1 had. No money bags, no hidden treasure, a wide variety of sub-weapons, and NO WALL CHICKEN!! BLASPHEMY!!!!
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Offline Lelygax

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2013, 02:40:56 PM »
+1
Maybe only Dracula did it in his castle, something like "I'll hid food in the walls so I dont will need to walk all the way to my kitchen if I fell hungry".
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Offline julianbelmontxx1

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2013, 04:21:33 PM »
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Problems in CV2 are:
-the controls are horrible.
-simon being unable to float on water, i mean, he can fight dracula´s minions and soldiers but if he falls on the water,he dies.
-without the axe subweapon, you can´t kill flyng enemies and those annoying spiders.
-repetitive enemies.
-no boomerang cross, no fun.
-holy water got reduced to an exploration tool.
-the same background with different colors for the mansions.

Offline X

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2013, 09:21:15 PM »
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Quote
-the controls are horrible.

I have to disagree with this one. Compared to the controls of both CV 1 and CV 3, CV 2's controls were more fleshed out. Simon just seemed to control much better then he did in the previous game. It just felt better and smoother, and not at all clunky.
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Offline Inccubus

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #10 on: March 26, 2013, 12:24:51 AM »
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-the controls are horrible.

I have to disagree with this one. Compared to the controls of both CV 1 and CV 3, CV 2's controls were more fleshed out. Simon just seemed to control much better then he did in the previous game. It just felt better and smoother, and not at all clunky.

I don't know what the hell either of you are talking about. All three CV nes games seem to have the same exact controls to me.
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Offline Lelygax

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #11 on: March 26, 2013, 12:49:40 AM »
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To me too, after all they dont use the same engine?
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Offline X

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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2013, 10:36:50 AM »
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If you're not sure then try this experiment; play CV1 or 3, doesn't matter. But not through the whole game, just enough to get the feel of the engine. Then play CV2. Even Egoraptor in his 'Sequelities CV1 Vs CV2' said that Simon from CV2 controlled better then in his previous title.
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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #13 on: March 26, 2013, 11:05:40 PM »
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IIRC Egoraptor specifically said that the controls sucked for the set up in CV2 because they're still like CV1. Also, he stated that CV2 "feels" better because of the sound effects and improved graphical effects.
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Re: The root of the evil in CV2's basic design...
« Reply #14 on: March 26, 2013, 11:40:04 PM »
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Considering the Konami crew didn't change much during that time and CV3 even credits many of the former Konami programmers in the CV3 credits, without actually going through the code for all three games (already went through the code for CV3), there really isn't a whole lot to compare for the controls. CV3's controls are pretty basic. I mean, it's no Doki Doki Panic, but CV3's control code is so sound, I seriously doubt CV2's was actually better and doubt CV1's was much different at all. And CV3's collision detection was pretty damned thorough. If anything, CV3 had the best controls if you overlook Alucard being totally useless on stairs.  Grant's control code shows how much care and effort Konami actually put into coding the controls for CV3.
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