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This is a good idea!

No, I want that to be what I'm remembered for if nothing else.

Well, I don't entirely agree with his stance on Metroidvanias, obviously. I mean, they're my favorite type of game. The problem with the term Metroidvania is that it's thrown around too much. A Metroidvania is, in my opinion, nothing more than a Castlevania game that happens to borrow the general game play architecture of a Metroid game. If it's not a Castlevania game, then it's not a Metroidvania.

And yeah, it's certainly not easy. In my opinion, no other Metroidvania has topped SotN, especially in terms of level design. You'd expect these games to get better and better if they were really that easy to create. Thing is, they don't get better and better. You can tell that they make every possible excuse to rehash the same special abilities that've been used in previous games. (I still love them, though.) In OoE, I found it to be a bit jarring how they just threw that flight ability in at the very end of the game, as it's the only way that you can even get up into the throne room. I mean, it's like they weren't even trying.

Del Duio wrote:

Yeah I was also surprsed she could fly. To back up your "just tacked it on" theory there are also next to no places in previous areas where flying up and off the screen gets you anything. If they had went a bit like NES Blatser Master and made a whole other huge area towards the beginning that was unaccessable until you got the tank's WALL 1 power to climb up said wall that would've been a lot better. (Run on sentence, sorry about that.)

You know, the problem with certain abilities is that they render other abilities completely obsolete. I mean, what's the point in giving Shanoa that fucking magnet ability if she can fly later on? What's the point in putting tricky platform jumps in a game if you can just glide right over them later?

And I hate Blaster Master.

Del Duio wrote:

As much as I like the double jump, that's exactly why I didn't want to even attempt to add it to H2. (I think one of you guys suggested it before, I forget). It's been done a million times before and is really the newer Castlevania's thing.

I do like double jumps for the extra control that they give you, but I'm pretty sure that nearly every single main playable character in a Metroidvania since SotN has eventually gotten a double jump. What bugs me is how most new abilities aren't even augmented by other abilities. I mean, how about giving the player the ability to run early on, allowing him/her to clearly slightly longer jumps? After that, how about giving the player the ability to glide a bit, allowing him/her to clear even longer jumps?

Del Duio wrote:

See, that's why the Metroid games are so great: They DO build upon existing abilites.

Ex. Missile -> Super Missile
Somersault jump -> Screw Attack / Sapce Jump
Regular Suit -> Varia (less damage) -> Gravity Suit (even less damage, negates gravity differences while in water)

A better example: Maru-Mari (round ball) -> bombs -> super bombs / boost ball / jump ball / spider ball.

I dunno...I just hate Metroid games. I think that it's the space setting, to be honest, as well as how horrible the level design is in terms of practicality.

Del Duio wrote:

Shanoa's magnet skill is actually great because not only is it something brand new to the series it's handled in a believable way physics-wise. That's also probably why they stuck the flight ability so far towards the end of the game. I own Zelda Twilight Princess but never got really far into it but I've heard a million times that the items you get from dungeons are either only used for that particular dungeon or are rendered obsolete by something else later. I kind of hate that too.

Why wouldn't they just allow you to launch yourself up by way of the magnet, anyway? It's very versatile. I mean, have you seen people beat Eligor in seconds by exploiting the living shit outta the magnet? It's insane.