The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

[Garr123]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

Obscure Japanese name+Anecdote that doesn't relate to the game I'm reviewing in the least and serves only in stroking my giant throbbing pretentious Japan-****.

[Toaster]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

During his review on Cave Story, where he decides to look at possible inspiration from games Pixel has played in the past. Tim decides to go into depth about the Castlevania formula.

Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. Many players assume that Pixel is also an admirer of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, though we believe otherwise. Know that there exist two types of games: Cake Promisers and Carrot Danglers. Cake Promisers (we take this term from Portal, which is, ironically, a Carrot Dangler) impress upon the player a non-existent promise of some amazing reward at the end of the game. This promise — abstractly — affects the player’s subconscious in such a way as to compel him to do things such as place bombs in front of every wall or burn every tree just to see if there might be something hidden. The end goal of Symphony of the Night is to “defeat Dracula”, though the implications of this are never measured. You’re killing him because he’s there, because he’s being resurrected, because he’s evil; the “story” hides the details from the player in a manner that may be mistaken for “gracefully”. Ultimately, though, it’s only “hiding” because it doesn’t know what it’s doing. The player ends up believing — whether they put it into words or not — that the kleptomaniac behavior they regularly engage in during the course of the game will actually have some impact on the experience on the whole. In other words, Symphony of the Night is chock full of optional **** — hundreds of weapons that the player doesn’t need, little Monster Closets and big Monster Shelves with Something Shiny at the top. This isn’t entirely a Terrible Thing, of course: playing Symphony of the Night, at the very least, feels fun. Dracula’s Curse, however, is a Carrot Dangler. The player’s goal is always right there in front of his face. Every enemy encounter — every skeleton standing on a platform on the upper right of the screen brainlessly throwing bones — is more than just an enemy monster: it is an impediment to the player’s progress. This might seem like a tenuous explanation — hear us out: in Symphony of the Night, enemies are “things that can be defeated“; in Dracula’s Curse, they are always obstacles. Furthermore, Dracula’s Curse offers the player a choice of four characters, each character with his (or her) own move set. One character (Grant Danasty) can climb walls, for example. Cave Story does Dracula’s Curse one better, by giving one character a diverse set of moves, not all of which need to be used at all times.During the course of the game, the player will be offered upgrades, or new weapons. Turn down the jet-thruster machinegun, and you stand the chance of earning the super-powered charge-up pistol. You do not, however, need either to finish the game. This is very important (this is crucial).

God bless, man.

[John Mora]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

I'm sort of sick of people trying to insinuate Symphony of the Night is an empty experience or something.

[Toaster]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

And I'm sick of the Symphony of the Night formula being played out to the point where we get stuff like Portrait of Ruin.

Everything wrong about the videogame industry. Right there.

I've got nothing against Symphony, because it did it first and it actually had a soul. I just wish IGA would get his head out of the clouds and realize how to actually make a good Castlevania game rather than following the Metroid-vania formula everytime, which each and every incarnation being worse than the last. And I don't know, maybe expand upon the formula rather than giving us more useless crap to collect and abilities you will use maybe only twice and monsters with switched color palettes that don't actually pose any different of a challange than the 100 other monsters that are in the game.

[Magus]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

Let's not forget how good Aria of Sorrow is. {:3

[John Mora]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

Aria of Sorrow was fantastic. BETTER than Symphony of the Night, if I had my druthers. Dawn of Sorrow definitely did stretch that particular formula one game too far, though. And it lost the fantastic character designs.

[Toaster]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

Yes, Aria of Sorrow is Symphony of the Night at it's best.

All the rest can suck it, though. }:]

[Magus]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

Keep in mind he lives in Japan, subsists on teriyaki and Pocari Sweat and plays Japanese rock guitars and regularly ****s J-Idols somehow. He most likely plays the Japanese version of many of these games so there's bound to be language differences.

Oh, so, the whole list was just a countdown to him telling the world how awful MGS4 is because Snake and Otacon can't cook eggs on their own.

or something.

[Perversion]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

Hey Gloom, why did you recently start formatting your posts similarly to J Spaceman? I think Hrafn might have had them this way for a time as well. Not that it bothers me or anything, just something I noticed recently.

[Perversion]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

I don't like to see my text "wrapping" and I hate it when two lines aren't of
evenish length. I frequently change my wording to have them line up better.

So you made the "personal quirks" topic, and you didn't feel that this fact (especially what I bolded above) was relevant to that topic?? Are you daft, man?

[John Mora]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

I didn't think of it. {:3

Also you use two periods instead of three when making ellipses even though you know better.

[IRC]

Re: The Mana/Evermore debate rages on!

Also you use two periods instead of three when making ellipses even though you know better.

There's a gloomy-likes-to-quit-stuff joke in there somewhere.