Topic: Falling to your death

[Arcraith]

Simon falls down that giant pit thing in the transition from i think its the 3rd level to the 4th in the original game. In fact we don't even see him landing so we just assume his landing was so unspectacular that the developers decided to leave it out Which of course contradicts the fact that he can fall to his death anywhere.
So I guess its in their blood.

But I guess that's where the metroidvanias and classicvanias clash in platforming design. Metroidvanias don't have pits because of their non-linear design but I don't see why the character's shouldn't take falling damage. It would definitely add to the gameplay. The only problem I see with it is when backtracking down a tower or something. Some people might just want to fall straight down to the bottom, but that's easily solved by decreasing the need for backtracking in vertical areas. And there's no problem with a bit of backtracking anyway, remember the clocktower in CV3 where you had to go up to the top to find Grant, then come back down afterwards (though Grant was good for that).

I don't actually dig instantly dying from falling out of a level, but the non-linear approach to the levels can still be used if falling damage is used.

so does anyone think that ledge hanging would work in a Castlevania game, lol it could even be an acquirable ability like backdash and slide. I mean, even various Castlevanias had their exclusive moves like Nathan's wall jump in CotM. And not to mention Grant's wall crawling ability from CV3. This could just be one more of them.

[quinnmjohnson]

I have been around since the very beginning of the series, and in my opinion the older games were just more fun than the Metroidvanias, the instant death pits a major example why. Like has been said, the threat of dying in a moment made the adventure that much more intense. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the wandering around and unlocking new areas and finding new abilities and items, but for me the fun factor comes from facing and overcoming deadly challenges with skill and ingenuity instead of just using another potion.

[Arcraith]

I have been around since the very beginning of the series, and in my opinion the older games were just more fun than the Metroidvanias, the instant death pits a major example why. Like has been said, the threat of dying in a moment made the adventure that much more intense. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the wandering around and unlocking new areas and finding new abilities and items, but for me the fun factor comes from facing and overcoming deadly challenges with skill and ingenuity instead of just using another potion.

I hear you quinn but didn't you ever get frustrated at the mechanics like limited midair movement, getting thrown backwards after getting hurt, and slow movement speed? Say if more fluid controls were implemented into the old games, do you think that they would be even more fun?

[TheouAegis]

Limited mid-air mechanics are more realistic. And don't say realism doesn't matter, because we wouldn't be having this discussion if anyone actually believed that. I always liked Castlevania over Mario because Castlevania was more realistic than Mario. Granted, I liked Mario over Metroid because in spite of Samus being so cool and her various blasters being so awesome, she had way too much mobility in air as opposed to Mario, who could move backwards but with limited mobility. And taking that further, I always had issues with jumping in Metroid (and Mega Man as well) because of the freer mid-air mechanics. Too often I'd over-jump a ledge and try to compensate for it on the descent, but then overcompensate and miss the ledge on the opposite side. This was more prevalent on Metroid than Mega Man, but I still made that mistake a lot in Mega Man. At least with Castlevania's limited mid-air mechanics, you could easily learn to gauge your jumps. You would eventually learn to tell at a glance at which moment to jump off one ledge toward another.

Now, from a developer's standpoint, Castlevania is too constricting. Mega Man and Metroid allowed for more developmental liberties. You didn't have to plan out jumps too carefully. Jumps 48 high and 16 over would be just fine because the player could jump straight up then move over while in mid-air. In Castlevania, a jump like that would either force the player to smack his face into the ledge or jump through the ledge and fall to his death, so jumps would have to be 32 high. Or something. I'm just making up numbers. Still, that's my only complaint with Castlevania's mechanics.

[Arcraith]

hm, TheouAegis so do you think the metroidvanias would benefit from more restricted movement? or not really since the old and new games can't really be compared since they are so different now?

[TheouAegis]

Well, if they want to implement the instant death pits, restricted movement would be good. I would personally prefer restricted movement with speed-boostablility, like Prince of Persia. Mix Prince of Persia with Castlevania and that might be fun.

I'm referring to the old, 1990s version of Prince of Persia.

[Arcraith]

That does actually sound interesting, though prince of persia was so difficult and slow paced. Wouldn't that suck the charm out of castlevania's current action-intensiveness?

[TheouAegis]

Prince of Persia was built around the pits and traps. That's what made it slow. And the fact that enemies could block your attacks. If Prince of Persia focused on the enemies, it might have been more action (kinda like the later ones).

[CastleToastM]

Limited mid-air mechanics are more realistic. And don't say realism doesn't matter, because we wouldn't be having this discussion if anyone actually believed that. I always liked Castlevania over Mario because Castlevania was more realistic than Mario. Granted, I liked Mario over Metroid because in spite of Samus being so cool and her various blasters being so awesome, she had way too much mobility in air as opposed to Mario, who could move backwards but with limited mobility. And taking that further, I always had issues with jumping in Metroid (and Mega Man as well) because of the freer mid-air mechanics. Too often I'd over-jump a ledge and try to compensate for it on the descent, but then overcompensate and miss the ledge on the opposite side. This was more prevalent on Metroid than Mega Man, but I still made that mistake a lot in Mega Man. At least with Castlevania's limited mid-air mechanics, you could easily learn to gauge your jumps. You would eventually learn to tell at a glance at which moment to jump off one ledge toward another.

If you like games with constricted jumps, you'll love the prinny games.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/952784-prinny-can-i-really-be-the-hero

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Limited mid-air mechanics are more realistic. And don't say realism doesn't matter, because we wouldn't be having this discussion if anyone actually believed that. I always liked Castlevania over Mario because Castlevania was more realistic than Mario. Granted, I liked Mario over Metroid because in spite of Samus being so cool and her various blasters being so awesome, she had way too much mobility in air as opposed to Mario, who could move backwards but with limited mobility. And taking that further, I always had issues with jumping in Metroid (and Mega Man as well) because of the freer mid-air mechanics. Too often I'd over-jump a ledge and try to compensate for it on the descent, but then overcompensate and miss the ledge on the opposite side. This was more prevalent on Metroid than Mega Man, but I still made that mistake a lot in Mega Man. At least with Castlevania's limited mid-air mechanics, you could easily learn to gauge your jumps. You would eventually learn to tell at a glance at which moment to jump off one ledge toward another.

Well, she is on different worlds, usually with varying degrees of gravity, and has a powersuit to boost her acrobatic abilities...  But anyone who knows Metroid games knows that it is a skill to figure out when you want to do a spin jump (higher jumps, less control) or a regular jump (lower height, far more control), as well as when you should use another method to get around.

[TheouAegis]

Games like Prinny and Be The Guy are different than old school platformers. People call lack of control old-school, but that's just assy programming. I don't think Castlevania had "old school platforming" in that sense. I thought it handled actually pretty well. In truth, the NES games were very forgiving. As long as your reflexes were sharp enough to whip as soon as an enemy showed up on the screen, you could have your path cleared before you got hit and reach the ledge safely. Also if you have to fall a long distance, whip before you hit the ground and you can run as soon as you land. And hit boxes in the old CV games were VERY gracious. In my CV3 engine, I'm having issues with hit boxes because some enemies in my engine can actually dodge the whip even though on the NES they'd clearly be dead.

[CastleToastM]

Games like Prinny and Be The Guy are different than old school platformers. People call lack of control old-school, but that's just assy programming.

Other than the graphics and higher resolution animations, what difference do you mean by that? What would classify as old-school then? Don't say the graphics, cause really, 8 bit or 64 bit, the graphics shouldn't matter.

I thought it handled actually pretty well. In truth, the NES games were very forgiving. As long as your reflexes were sharp enough to whip as soon as an enemy showed up on the screen, you could have your path cleared before you got hit and reach the ledge safely. Also if you have to fall a long distance, whip before you hit the ground and you can run as soon as you land. And hit boxes in the old CV games were VERY gracious.

I thought the Prinny games handled actually pretty well. In truth, the Prinny games were very forgiving. As long as your reflexes were sharp enough to mash the slash button as soon as an enemy showed up on the screen, you could have your path cleared before you got hit and reach the ledge safely. Also if you have to fall a long distance, air slash before you hit the ground and you can run as soon as you land. And hit boxes in the Prinny games were VERY gracious.

Everything you just said can also apply to the Prinny games. The only real difference is that the Prinny games are like four times harder than the first CV game. But then again, both games have tons of cheap death areas.

It really depends on which play style you're more used to. It's really up to opinion to say which one is harder.

If it sounds like I'm defending the Prinny games, it's because I am.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/952784-prinny-can-i-really-be-the-hero/saves

http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/977827-prinny-2-dawn-of-operation-panties-dood/saves

I made perfect save files for both Prinny games.

I'm CastleMega on GameFAQs.

[Darth Cariss]

I like both the orignal and metroidvania styles of CV games, but one of the things I've come to enjoy the most in the recent games is how easy it is to control the characters. While I was mostly okay with Simon's jumping, there were points when it annoyed me (like against Medusa Heads...). I'm not against bottomless pits but I like the easier controls of the recent games. I wouldn't make them instant death though, just make the player lose health and then respawn on the ledge they jumped from. I say this because I feel there's often a lot more progress to lose in the recent games, whereas in the originals you just started the current stage over again (unless you got a Game Over of course, but metroidvanias don't have 'lives').

[TheouAegis]

You could add continues into a Metroidvania. Call them "God's Favor" and the more times you die, the more fed-up God gets with you until he finally says, "Just forget about it..."

[Dark Nemesis]

You could add continues into a Metroidvania. Call them "God's Favor" and the more times you die, the more fed-up God gets with you until he finally says, "Just forget about it..."

That reminds me of Wild Arms 2. If you die, you can use a special coin, i can't remember the name, to continue from the start the battle you have lost.