4811 replies to this topic

[Fiyaball]

I "sold" my copy of Sunshine years ago so I could buy Awakening at launch, and I still don't feel like buying it back. There's way too many "nightmare" levels (Pinata Village level 3 especially) that makes me not want to go through the hell of beating Sunshine again.

[kurt91]

I got a PS4 a couple of weeks ago, and since there was a used game sale (buy 2 get 1 free), I got "World of Final Fantasy", "Final Fantasy XV", and "Persona 5". I know next to nothing about the two Final Fantasy games beyond the basic mechanics. I mean, I had watched a couple streams to see what the games would be like and the basics, but I only saw WFF up to the Yuna battle, and the opening 'tutorial' area of XV. As for Persona 5, I've seen the entirety of the first Palace, but I've accidentally spoiled the big plot twists at the very end. Other than that, I've got no idea on that game either. (So yeah, I know the beginning and the end, but none of the middle)

 

Also, due to some family stuff, I've got my sister's old PSP with me at the college. I had already hacked it for her beforehand, and I've been using it for some games that I've had on emulator for a while but never got around to actually sitting down and playing. I'm playing Grandia for PS1, which I've always wanted to play since I had the old magazine demo disc, and Disgaea 2. I've played and beaten the DS version of the first game, but never got around to the second. These games are so much easier to find time for on a portable system, I'm going to hate when I get to the third game and end up stuck on console. I might never get around to finishing it.

[Cukeman]

Recently played through the Orange Box again. It only reinforced how immensely superior the original HL and Portal are at storytelling than the HL2 games and Portal 2. All of them are fantastic games to be sure, but I much prefer learning the story through gameplay rather than NPCs at your side who never shut up.

Edited by Cukeman, 21 October 2017 - 01:14 AM.

[Norzan]

I "sold" my copy of Sunshine years ago so I could buy Awakening at launch, and I still don't feel like buying it back. There's way too many "nightmare" levels (Pinata Village level 3 especially) that makes me not want to go through the hell of beating Sunshine again.

It's the main reason why i gave up on Sunshine, there's just so many terribly designed Shine Sprites missions that it makes 100% the game a complete nightmare. In a game that heavily encourages 100% (it's collectathon after all), this is a major turn off. No amount of good controls make up for some these terrible levels. Not to mention how the reward for 100% is complete crap and pretty much a spit on the face of the player for all their hard work.

 

64 at its worst doesn't even come close to how terribly designed some of these missions are.

Edited by Norzan, 21 October 2017 - 07:07 AM.

[Anthus]

It's the main reason why i gave up on Sunshine, there's just so many terribly designed Shine Sprites missions that it makes 100% the game a complete nightmare. In a game that heavily encourages 100% (it's collectathon after all), this is a major turn off. No amount of good controls make up for some these terrible levels. Not to mention how the reward for 100% is complete crap and pretty much a spit on the face of the player for all their hard work.

 

64 at its worst doesn't even come close to how terribly designed some of these missions are.

 

I never really understood this line of thinking. Okay, so it is hard to 100%. But, it is not required, by any means. It is optional, and you can decide how much of the extra stuff you want to do. Granted you do have to get the seventh shine in each of the seven worlds to beat the game, that's still only 49 (50 with the air strip one) of the shines that are required to collect to beat the game. About three of those are frustrating. At least for me, that's hardly enough to consider the entire game bad.

 

And the crappy 100% reward? Come on, you'd be even more upset if there was some new content locked behind that excruciating 100% run. Not having some big reward never bothered me, cause I never felt like I was missing out before I 100%'d it. It actually kind of motivated me even more because I was able to take it at a leisurely pace, and the frustration was alleviated by knowing I'm not really missing anything, and I didn't have to do it. SM64's big reward was pretty useless considering you already got everything by that point.

 

No, see, what's worse for me is when there is some big reward hidden behind an annoying 100% campaign. That's when it starts to feel like work. It's more about the journey, then the destination with games like these.

[Orithan]

Sunshine, while it has a lot of hard shines, I highly disagree on the claim that there were many poorly designed ones and the ones that were are few and far between and nearly all of them are in sublevels. The Blue Coins, on the other hand, are tedious to keep track of and a good number of them are tied to specific episodes.

 

These are the shines I consider poorly designed from a design standpoint:

The Pachinko shine. Really, there is no defending this. It's the embodiment of poor design.

The toxic Lilly Pad shine. due to how tedious it is to walk back and catch another lilly pad if you miss a single coin. Also the amount of tedious waiting it takes to even get into the sublevel.

Gelato Beach Ep.4. It is just tedious to wait for the coins on the sand bird and the sand bird' interaction with clouds is buggy.

Gelato Beach Ep.8. Getting the big watermelon to the grinder is annoying and the ways in which it just breaks are dumb (eg being rolled over a knocked over cataquack, being rolled over one of those buds, etc).

Seirena Beach Ep.3. This mission was just annoying in general, getting the pineapple and backtracking with it through the mansion is horrible and then there you are expected to find the nondescript door that doesn't make you abandon your pineapple towards the end of the backtracking. The Blue Coin hunt in this particular episode is also pretty stupid and tedious. The next episode gets pretty tedious at the start, but it is overall fun

Pianta Village Ep.6. The Chuckster sublevel is no. I get the point of it, but it is filled with waiting and trial and error.

 

Some commonly criticized but well designed shines

Anything that strips FLUUD from you: They are there to push you to not just rely on the Hover Nozzle for everything. It is just so convenient, but you shouldn't rely on it so much that you feel useless without it. That said, these sublevels come with really difficult platforming; to test you on your ability to platform. The only exception to that is Pianta Village Ep.6's sublevel, which I've covered already.

Pianta Village Ep.3. I thought this one was fantastic. It let you pick one of several different pathways to tackle the mission. The faster ones being harder while there is one easy passage through to the mayor if you looked around hard enough. Though, the blue coin hunt that you can do after you regain FLUUD is stupid and tedious.

 

Consider the reward for 100% Sunshine to be as bad as you want, but I don't agree 64's is much more memorable.

Edited by Orithan, 21 October 2017 - 02:34 PM.

[Norzan]

I never really understood this line of thinking. Okay, so it is hard to 100%. But, it is not required, by any means. It is optional, and you can decide how much of the extra stuff you want to do. Granted you do have to get the seventh shine in each of the seven worlds to beat the game, that's still only 49 (50 with the air strip one) of the shines that are required to collect to beat the game. About three of those are frustrating. At least for me, that's hardly enough to consider the entire game bad.

 

And the crappy 100% reward? Come on, you'd be even more upset if there was some new content locked behind that excruciating 100% run. Not having some big reward never bothered me, cause I never felt like I was missing out before I 100%'d it. It actually kind of motivated me even more because I was able to take it at a leisurely pace, and the frustration was alleviated by knowing I'm not really missing anything, and I didn't have to do it. SM64's big reward was pretty useless considering you already got everything by that point.

 

No, see, what's worse for me is when there is some big reward hidden behind an annoying 100% campaign. That's when it starts to feel like work. It's more about the journey, then the destination with games like these.

And i never really understood this line of thinking, that we should ignore a big chunk of the content just to make the game seem better. The entirety of the content needs to be taken into account and a big chunk of the content of Sunshine is either tedious, not very fun or outright terrible.

 

64 reward for 100% wasn't very good in hindsight but because that game is much less painful to 100%, it wasn't as bad. And at least you could ride Yoshi, which is far better than a stupid postcard. And yes, the destination also matters, there's need to be a pay off for all your hard work and in case of Sunshine is just a big middle finger to the player. It's like spending a week working really hard only to be paid for 5 bucks.

 

Did i also mention this game has next to no replayability? In 64 you can collect a large portion of the power stars out of order. This leads to major replayability. With Sunshine there's none of that, you can only do them in order. And the seventh mission being the same for every level is extremely lazy and repetitive.

 

The blue coins, jesus christ, did anyone thought these were a good idea? This is probably one of the worst collectibles in any game, ever. This is made worse by the fact that a lot of them are locked in some episodes.

 

And last, the story. This has to be the stupidest story in the entire series and that's saying a lot. Piantas honestly confuse Mario, a guy weaing a blue jumpsuit and a red shirt, with a guy that is completely purple. Not to mention Mario wasn't even on the island when it all happened. And some of the Piantas have Shine Sprites, the very thing the island needs to survive and they instead force Mario into these stupid minigames. Do they want their island be saved or not?

Edited by Norzan, 21 October 2017 - 02:44 PM.

[Anthus]

The Blue Coins, on the other hand, are tedious to keep track of and a good number of them are tied to specific episodes.

 

Actually, about that..

 

No, but I pretty much agree with you here.

 

EDIT:

 

 And at least you could ride Yoshi, which is far better than a stupid postcard. 

 

Wait, what? You can't ride Yoshi in SM64. He is in Sunshine though.

 

Hey, you are allowed to not like the game, that's fine. But, I love it in spite of the hate filled echo-chamber that is the internet.

[Norzan]

I could have swore you could ride Yoshi, probably mixed it up with another game. You do get a triple jump, 100 lives (which don't matter since you beat the game) and Yoshi can shoot you to the roof castle. I mean, it's not a very good reward but it's far better than a postcard. And Sunshine is the follow up game, shouldn't the reward be better by principle?

 

Maybe it's not hate but a lot of people actually having a lot of issues with this game? I know some people hate it for the sake of it, but a lot of people have genuine issues with it and they can voice it. Doesn't mean it's an echo chamber.

 

I don't hate Sunshine, i was actually having fun until i tried to 100% it and i just gave up. And in collectathon games like these, this is a major turn off. I expect some collectibles to have questionable designed levels around them and a difficulty spike when i try for 100%, but Sunshine just pushes too far.

[The Satellite]

I love Sunshine to death. I hate the blue coins for being nothing more than arbitrary padding. That's about the extent of my opinion on that game. Also getting to that one mission on the island with Yoshi is a pain in the ass but that goes without saying.

[Orithan]

I could have swore you could ride Yoshi, probably mixed it up with another game. You do get a triple jump, 100 lives (which don't matter since you beat the game) and Yoshi can shoot you to the roof castle. I mean, it's not a very good reward but it's far better than a postcard. And Sunshine is the follow up game, shouldn't the reward be better by principle?

 

Maybe it's not hate but a lot of people actually having a lot of issues with this game? I know some people hate it for the sake of it, but a lot of people have genuine issues with it and they can voice it. Doesn't mean it's an echo chamber.

 

I don't hate Sunshine, i was actually having fun until i tried to 100% it and i just gave up. And in collectathon games like these, this is a major turn off. I expect some collectibles to have questionable designed levels around them and a difficulty spike when i try for 100%, but Sunshine just pushes too far.

 

A lot of Sunshine's hate comes from it running off a slightly different formula to that of 64, namely with the inclusion of FLUUD, and the FLUUD-less sublevels. People criticize FLUUD's inclusion for "dumbing down the platforming", the FLUUD-less sublevels for stripping FLUUD off them and Sunshine's linear episodic format (with some ways to break the sequence and collect later shines). I personally don't mind the change to a more linear format, since you get kicked out of the stage for collecting a star in 64 anyway and some (mainly early ones like Mario Wings to the Sky) need other stars to be acquired first.

IMO, the Green Stars in SMG2 were way worse than the Blue Coins. I don't appreciate the padding in having to collect an extra 120 stars right as it looks like I am done with the collectathon, some of which were placed in some really dumb locations like one in Melty Monster Galaxy, to see the true 100% reward.

Edited by Orithan, 21 October 2017 - 04:27 PM.

[Norzan]

A lot of Sunshine's hate comes from it running off a slightly different formula to that of 64, namely with the inclusion of FLUUD, and the FLUUD-less sublevels. People criticize FLUUD's inclusion for "dumbing down the platforming", the FLUUD-less sublevels for stripping FLUUD off them and Sunshine's linear episodic format (with some ways to break the sequence and collect later shines). I personally don't mind the change to a more linear format, since you get kicked out of the stage for collecting a star in 64 anyway and some (mainly early ones like Mario Wings to the Sky) need other stars to be acquired first.

IMO, the Green Stars in SMG2 were way worse than the Blue Coins. I don't appreciate the padding in having to collect an extra 120 stars right as it looks like I am done with the collectathon, some of which were placed in some really dumb locations like one in Melty Monster Galaxy, to see the true 100% reward.

I actually like FLUDD and there's some good level design built around it. Don't honestly see people complaining about FLUDD much at all. Most of the complaints I've seen are pretty much the ones i have, which is mostly how a bunch of the missions are complete crap and 100% is a complete waste. The game being super linear is a major issue i have because i like replay ability in my games and this is one way to kill it.

 

I think it's a missed opportunity not being able to have every FLUDD application at once. This would make Mario extremely versatile and level design could have been made to take this into account. The need to go to a box to change to an application you need to use is another minor issue i have with the game. 

 

I do recall some people complaining about the green stars in Galaxy 2 and that seems to be a major issue with some people. The blue coins in Sunshine aren't any less atrocious because of this however.

 

 

I honestly hope Odyssey is a lot closer to 64 than to Sunshine. At least in the bullshit department. 

Edited by Norzan, 21 October 2017 - 05:30 PM.

[Fiyaball]

I "sold" my copy of Sunshine years ago so I could buy Awakening at launch, and I still don't feel like buying it back. There's way too many "nightmare" levels (Pinata Village level 3 especially) that makes me not want to go through the hell of beating Sunshine again.

Funny that I say this, as I'm now going to buy Sunshine along with 5 other games from a guy on Craigslist for $25 tomorrow, if all goes well. I probably won't play it too much, but it's nice to have for the collection.

[Anthus]

Funny that I say this, as I'm now going to buy Sunshine along with 5 other games from a guy on Craigslist for $25 tomorrow, if all goes well. I probably won't play it too much, but it's nice to have for the collection.

 

That's a pretty good deal. What are the other games? This guy probably doesn't know how relatively rare that game can be, especially if it isn't a player's choice edition.

[The Satellite]

IMO, the Green Stars in SMG2 were way worse than the Blue Coins. I don't appreciate the padding in having to collect an extra 120 stars right as it looks like I am done with the collectathon, some of which were placed in some really dumb locations like one in Melty Monster Galaxy, to see the true 100% reward.

Other than the placement of three (including the one you mentioned), my only problem with green stars was a more technical issue: Do I really have to sit through the level intro again for these stars individually, on a level I've already thoroughly combed? Other than that I still greatly prefer green stars because, at least to me, it encourages exploration and using your skills to locate them. And also listening for that sound cue. The blue coin locations usually have tells but many of them don't and are kind of arbitrary, to reuse that word. Even with the few bad green stars I could at least tell where they were.

 

Plus, I enjoy well-designed challenge levels in Mario, so The Perfect Run was a decent-enough reward to me.