zero_spelled_with_an_ecks

If you billionaires want to fight, can you at least do it with knives?

I really like the tomato. Kobato has this whole story in his head that relies on the other person not being a ditz. That's why Osanai is such a good fit for him, be it opponent or otherwise, as she would never defy his expectations like that by being so unintentional. I'm really looking forward to seeing how their interaction continues.

Isn't it great that we don't have to be so efficient anymore?

Sotn and Super Metroid are definitely ones I have in mind when it comes to positive examples. Axiom Verge is pretty darn good, too.

Other decent ones include AM2R, Bladechimera, Guacamelee, the NES's Blaster Master, and most of the Castlevania/Bloodstained ones.

Negative examples below:

Metroid Dread - I hated the stealth and the qte

Ender Lilies - bosses are meant to happen at exactly one difficulty

Gestalt Steam and Cinder - puzzley enemies that grind movement to a halt, bosses with immunity phases, the stun mechanic for bosses that meant more cycles if you didn't gain enough meter or miss your shot, absolutely bonkers plot, artificial barriers to character power

Hollow Knight - this is a platformer first and a motroidvania second. No flow for me, thought I understand that so many people love it. Ori feels like this as well. An some point, both were just about not hitting spikes.

Wonder Labyrinth - the aiming

All the Shantae games. I really enjoy them except when there's bottomless pits. And there's always bottomless pits.

There were also a few that weren't bad, just didn't quite catch me: Vernal Edge, 9 Years of Shadows, Timespinner.

Your freedom ends where mine begins.

You say those words but I don't think you really understand them. It's a declaration of negative rights, i.e. others aren't allowed to do something to you. Freedom of speech is such a right in the US as it requires the government to not infringe upon it. This is in contrast to positive rights, e.g. the right to healthcare where somebody has to do something in order to provide the right to others. Read up at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights

What it absolutely doesn't mean is: I am allowed to take away your rights by doing whatever I want. We're talking about smoking, but it could just as easily be pandemic prevention measures (if you were antivax or antimask because muh freedoms, let me know and I won't waste any more of my time), or shooting a gun into the air (others don't have the right to not have bullets randomly raining down on them /s). My freedom to not get shot (i.e. life) doesn't end where your freedom to shoot begins. That's called murder (or manslaughter etc). I'm not saying it's the same magnitude as smoking, just using an example to make the situation clearer.

Which is weird because it didn't work before weight loss drugs either.

Flow. Don't interrupt me. The rest of this just is about it in various aspects.

Make it feel good to move from the get go. Don't make progression about getting rid of negative traits.

Combat as well. There's a trend of making the player halt their progress to handle an enemy in a certain way (e.g. gotta wait for the telegraphed shield drop) and that makes backtracking and exploration tedious. It can be challenging going through the first time, but don't interrupt me with the same thing over and over. Let me ignore the puzzle/timing element by being overpowered or at least let me bypass it with increased mobility.

I prefer bosses (and terrain) that can be overcome with skill or preparation. Like if you book it to them with minimal exploration they're hard but not impossible, but if you explore everywhere you can and find everything it should be easier. Don't artificially keep the player's abilities capped to make things more difficult. Also, no invincibility phases, please.

I dislike items that only provide access like key cards. Every item that opens up more map should be useful in some other way.

If there's a plot that is more complicated than can be explained in two sentences (Find the Metroid. Kill Dracula.), please make it good. Have non-cliche characters, plots that I can't immediately poke holes in, plot that isn't contained in logs that real people would never keep, and reasonable time frames for world changing events to occur. Those things all rip my suspension of disbelief to shreds. Don't make me sit through world building info dumps. Let me skip scenes and tutorials in case it's my second time through.

Turtrucken

overqualified

Get over those barriers!

Babbages for me.

Yor background is nice.🥁🥁🛎️