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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Aug 28, 2019 19:16:15 GMT -5
Yeah I know it's very common, and I'm not a fan. That's why I love save st-I mean the Thunder Force games. Aleste games also tend to be a bit better about it, letting you adjust your speed without power ups and keep some weapon power.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Aug 29, 2019 1:02:45 GMT -5
The last shooting part is the only reason I've never beaten Snatcher! Might actually finish it now knowing that. Ahhh! The Ring of bad Fortune!!
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Post by toei on Aug 29, 2019 5:50:07 GMT -5
Yeah I know it's very common, and I'm not a fan. That's why I love save st-I mean the Thunder Force games. Aleste games also tend to be a bit better about it, letting you adjust your speed without power ups and keep some weapon power. Another thing some of the more forgiving shooters do is make you lose just one level of power-ups when you get shot instead of losing them all (Coryoon is an example). And then you've got Elemental Master, where you gain new weapons permanently, and the regular types of power-ups are much less important. But yeah, the typical power-up system is the main thing I dislike about classic shoot-'em-ups, with the overuse of the generic space theme coming second.
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Post by Owlman on Aug 29, 2019 6:14:51 GMT -5
Checkpoints are also a problem in those games. Half the time, they just make your life harder because you miss the easy initial phase of the level where you collect all the power-ups.
An especially egregious example, though it's not a shmup: the level inside the sand crawler in Super Star Wars. The level has four parts: an initial part with a lot of power-ups and almost no enemies or other hazards, a part with laser gates, one with robot claws, and the final part with bottomless pits and the boss.
The only checkpoint in level is after the first quarter. All it does is gate off the power-ups after you die to the boss and nothing else.
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Post by toei on Aug 29, 2019 7:49:40 GMT -5
Checkpoints are also a problem in those games. Half the time, they just make your life harder because you miss the easy initial phase of the level where you collect all the power-ups. An especially egregious example, though it's not a shmup: the level inside the sand crawler in Super Star Wars. The level has four parts: an initial part with a lot of power-ups and almost no enemies or other hazards, a part with laser gates, one with robot claws, and the final part with bottomless pits and the boss. The only checkpoint in level is after the first quarter. All it does is gate off the power-ups after you die to the boss and nothing else. That's a surprisingly common problem, usually in more obscure games like that by smaller companies. There are games that really need to be beaten on one life or one credit, even if they have checkpoints. In the case of Valis 2 PCECD, the problem is infinite credits - the beginning of the final level has automatic scrolling and is incredibly hard without power-ups because you just don't deal enough damage to kill the enemies in time, so much so that it's easier to start the game over from the beginning if you get stuck in that situation. With power-ups, that part isn't hard at all.
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Post by alexmate on Aug 29, 2019 8:18:06 GMT -5
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancingGo ahead and post your thoughts on how well each implementation works if you want. " Archon's computer opponent slowly adapts over time to help players defeat it Danielle Bunten designed both M.U.L.E. and Global Conquest to dynamically balance gameplay between players. Random events are adjusted so that the player in first place is never lucky and the last-place player is never unlucky The first Crash Bandicoot game and its sequels make use of a "Dynamic Difficulty Adjustement" system, slowing down obstacles, giving extra hit points and adding continue points according to the player's number of deaths. According to the game's lead designer Jason Rubin, the goal was to "help weaker players without changing the game for the better players"." Zanac EX (MSX, 1986) - Vertical Shoot 'Em Up - The enemy AI gets more aggressive/difficult depending on a few factors: Weapon power (weapons 2 and 3 increase enemy aggression more), how many enemies you kill and how much you fire, how long you stay alive, if you fail to destroy a base within the time limit. Using weapon 6 and smart bombs decreases aggression I always wondered why the first Crash game seemed massively easy compared to the sequels. I always thought it was down to fewer levels, which it also has.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Aug 29, 2019 11:29:55 GMT -5
I haven't played the sequels yet, was a bit underwhelmed with Crash back in the day.
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Post by shelverton on Aug 29, 2019 12:49:36 GMT -5
Not entirely on topic but I always found it interesting that your journey through the GBA version of Super Ghouls’n Ghosts is completely different depending on how good you are at the game. And as I recall it all depends on what armor you managed to keep at the end of each level. I don’t remember which route is harder though?
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Post by Snake on Aug 29, 2019 15:14:01 GMT -5
The last shooting part is the only reason I've never beaten Snatcher! Might actually finish it now knowing that. Yeah! I died so many damn times in the stupid sewer tunnel. Here's the page, where it goes over the shooting range section in the beginning. I believe the writer for this walkthrough also worked on the fan-translation for Policenauts. lparchive.org/Snatcher-(Screenshot)/Update%204/
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Post by Woody Alien on Aug 30, 2019 6:21:39 GMT -5
I read a few times that Data East shmup Boogie Wings (AKA The Great Ragtime Show) had dynamic difficulty, but honestly I could never find confirmation of it.
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Post by toei on Aug 30, 2019 15:30:29 GMT -5
I know I've seen a few more shmups where enemies become more aggressive when you grab power-ups. One I know for sure is the Genesis version of Insector X - when you're fully powered-up, enemies fire a final bullet when they die, among other things, so holding on to your power-ups is harder.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Aug 30, 2019 15:49:47 GMT -5
I guess that's a good enough reason to add it to my innovative games page for MD/GEN. It's also a pretty early example of a visual overhaul being made to appeal to a different audience.
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Post by teroknor on Sept 2, 2019 6:04:54 GMT -5
Wing Commander II apparently has dynamic AI. The strategy guide gives an example in that if you destroy a number of enemies in a larger group, the remaining ones become smarter. But I have no real idea what exactly changes and what triggers it.
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