Topic: Metroid Dread

@Buizel Supers controls aren't bad, they're just really really stiff by design. Even when it was new on SNES it felt weird and wooden, but it's not accidentally shoddy controls, it's just unusual controls that feel right once you're used to them.

Except wall jumping. That's just "Nintendo hard" for unforgivable input reasons.

Say what you will about Super Metroid's wall jumping, it really is satisfying when you know how to pull it off.

@NEStalgia Interesting to know. One thing I really didn't like about Zero Mission was the space jump...it felt like there was absolutely zero room for error and I really struggled to pull it off a lot of the time. I imagine it's a similar case with wall jumping?

@Buizel There will be a learning curve for the controls in Super Metroid and probably a period of adjustment coming from the newer games first but if you take it on its own merits you'll find it very freeing. The freedom you gain from learning to wall jump alone is beyond rewarding, really blows the game open.

@JoyBoy I'd call it more relief than satisfying. Makes no sense why it's as difficult as it is lol

@NintendoByNature You don't think it makes sense for a woman in a space suit to have trouble wall jumping? ;P

@JoyBoy

@Bolt_Strike To be fair, I think the reason they made that choice with the power bombs is to reduce the amount of backtracking required in 100% runs. The majority of power bombs that can be gotten early require no tricks whatsoever, and are just open to obtain once you get either Gravity Suit or Grapple Beam.

The game is incredibly sequence break friendly though, at least in once crucial way. Despite the sheer insane number of ways you can sequence break (including stuff like pseudo beam and early Screw Attack that are very unintended), the game is designed in such a way that you absolutely cannot softlock yourself as far as I can tell. That was definitely a purposeful design decision.

I'm sure someday someone will manage a softlock, sure (Ghavoran w/o speed booster could cause one if it was managed), but the game works super hard to always provide a way out.

Meanwhile, the ADAM sequences are also setup to not break no matter what order you play the game in, which is another nice touch.

@Buizel Yeah, space jump was tricky in ZM (heck, sometimes it's almost tricky in Dread), but Wall jumping in Super is just.....IDK if they tried to make it hard on purpose or if it's just broken and fans have embraced the brokenness. It's not just a skill for sequence breaking, one point in the game requires you do it, and it has "phantom" characters demonstrating it on repeat until you learn it. It's very very specific the sequence you press buttons in, and the timing of it. It works more like a fighting game than fluid platformer controls. Jump into the wall, start the slide down, press away from the wall for a split second THEN press jump, repeat, with perfect sequence.

There's nothing fluid or intuitive about it, it's a very deliberate button sequence event.

@mr_somewhere I'm not sure I'd call wooden controls that require freakishly impeccable timing "freedom"

@JoyBoy She can cling to magnetic walls, scale magnetic ceilings, curl into a ball, drop a nuke, roll through it, and slip through cracks, break rock by boosting through it while in a ball, or just with her head when she shine sparks, walk through lava, survive a 1000ft drop with no damage, and infinitely suspend herself in the air with unlimited jumps. But leaping off a wall...that's a feat of miracles!

@NEStalgia The pattern you're missing is rhythm. She was raised by bird people, and not the musical kind.

@NintendoByNature you don't need the wall jumping in super Metroid. It is there for speedrunners. I am terrible at it and every time I go down the animals path it takes me a good 10-15min to just manage to get out... For some reason I can easily do one wall jump but 3 in a row? God no

@NEStalgia If you use the brief animation where Samus is pushing against the wall as a tell it helps a lot. I played it quite a number of times as a good and found it difficult to get back into when I was older but that helped a lot. It does take some time to get used to.

@Balta666 hmm I didn't realize that. I feel like I needed to use it at one point but I might be wrong. Anyway, it's a horrible mechanic for an otherwise good game. I have to admit though, super is lower on my 2d metroid list. Dread is by far my favorite.

@JoyBoy Rayman requires rhythm. DKC requires rhythm. Super Metroid wall jumping requires wiring your nervous system to a Metroid gnome.

@Balta666 I thought it was required in the room with the animals. Once you're in there I'm pretty sure that's the only way out, and the room exists to teach you. Maybe you can bypass the room, but if it's your first play you don't know where that is, and the game guides you into it.

@mr_somewhere There's also the issue that the game is meant for CRTs with zero latency and most of us are playing on laggy LCDs, or slightly laggy OLEDs. So what was once somewhat balanced for the lightning fast reactions of a child is now played on a display delay with an input delay by we who are not children.... It's actually harder than it was back then because of that. The reaction window from the animation is significantly shorter than it was meant to be.... And it was somewhat challenging even originally.

@NEStalgia yes, only to get out of there. It is the tutorial per se. I mean outside that room

@link3710 Yeah, there's a lot of intentional design decisions, but most of them restrict your sequence breaking ability, not enhance it. There's a lot of paths where the way back closes and the way forward opens until the game decides it's time to go back there. Teleports are one way only instead of letting you warp anywhere on the map like SR. There's the Power Bombs Expansions being locked instead of just letting you use the Power Bombs.

Also several of the benefits you mentioned don't really expand your ability to sequence break. Not being able to softlock yourself is great, and very savvy game design, but it doesn't open up the possibility for new sequence breaks, it just stops you from having to start over if you screw something up. And ADAM's cutscenes being designed to accommodate visiting the Comms rooms in any order doesn't really do anything either, it just makes the cutscenes make sense. There's very little in the game that actually allows you to explore areas before you're supposed to and much more consciously designed to prevent you from doing so.

Small pet peeves, but why is Kraid even in this game? space pirates are otherwise never mentioned and there's no story reason that makes sense for him to randomly be chained the the basement of ZDR. I know it's fan service, and Metroid story never makes sense, but that's just so out of place

@NEStalgia Metroid stories usually do make sense, but in terms of that appearance there's nothing from the game to really go off of to explain the appearance. My own thoughts is that ZDR is Kraid's homeworld and we happen to encounter a captured member of that species. The Mawkin Tribe likely wanted a member of the species to experiment on. I do not believe at all that Kraid on ZDR is a continuation of the Space Pirate ruler faced on Zebes. That one probably is a clone designed by Mother Brain to serve its cause and alongside the Space Pirates. The timeline of Samus's missions and the X pandemic on ZDR don't add up either for ZDR's Kraid to be anything other than an original of the species.

@NEStalgia Maybe it's an X?

Also, Samus was pregnant in Super, that explains everything.

Lol, I love fanfic conspiracy theories! I'm still going by the theory it was nonsensical fan service. Your theory is as good as it gets but it's so convenient, it might as well magically be the original!