--

[xXGeckoXx]

snip

I gave up on it because it was hard too. But I gotta say it is a good game. First of all it has shitty controls as it's main source of difficulty, that is kinda the point. Actually if you pay close attention to the way the game works it is not the shitty scheme that makes the game difficult it is the lag between when you press the button and something happens. Let me emphasize this: THIS IS A PERFECTLY VALID DESIGN CHOICE AND A GOOD WAY TO MAKE A GAME DIFFICULT.

An example is arma 2, the controls are clunky and there is a built in lag between when you bush the button and something happens, this is to promote thinking about each action before you make it and add a different tactical element to the game. It is a perfectly valid choice that changes the gameplay. Many people who are not used to it find it easy to say "shit controls, laaaag" but it was designed that way.

Finally if you want the story without the pain emulate it and use freeze states to save the game , it is cheating but fuck it you are meant to enjoy the game so do it as you like.

 

[Evilpigeon]

-snip-.

oh there is plenty wrong with the game .

unforgiving gameplay is fine when done fairly, the megaman games are very unforgiving yet they are fair . if a player is very good he can beat the whole game on the first try without taking a single hit . even it?s more random elements like the unique boss attacks are handled by setting a checkpoint right before the boss room . the game sets up it?s rules at the beginning of each level and sticks to them throughout the whole stage . Another World on the other hand keeps introducing new gameplay elements that can instant kill you in almost every room . good games like limbo counterbalance this by including frequent checkpoints , while megaman always shows you the obstacle ahead before letting you attempt it .

It?s important to remember that this style of game design got popular because it genuinely makes games more enjoyable to play . Difficulty that comes from bad controls and lazy design is not good difficulty . the problem with Another world is that it doesn?t control ?differently? but that it controls like an elephant on skis. And I could forgive the 2 and a half steps you make every time you stop if the game only had a scrolling screen . because when you are running at 20 miles per an hour from a pursuing guard the last thing you want is to suddenly realize that the last 2 meters of the hallway you couldn?t see are actually a vertical cliff .

Im sure that for the time another world was ?the shit? but the mark of a good game is one you can pick up for the first time and play 20 years after it?s release and still enjoy (e.g Mario or Tetris).

You are asking for a 20 years old game known for its story to take on board mechanical innovations that made these other games from the same time period stand out. It's not a case of lazy design, it's a case of the conventions there are today did not exist then. Your expectations for the controls and difficulty curve are unreasonable.

It's that simple, the game stands on other merits and I'm afraid you have to put up with older games being inconvenient in one area or another. Is this difficult to understand, it gets well recieved because the parts it did well are still done well by todays standards and it's completely unreasonable to criticise it for things that were at the time no worse than anything else out there. It's like crticising Planescape Torment for it's UI, it's unreasonable for you to expect it to do well in these areas.

 

[StriderShinryu]

While I haven't played Another World for more than I few minutes back when it first came out, I have to agree with the OP's point in general. "Classic games" are too often judged far more on the word "classic" than the word "game." Their stature informs opinion far more than actual quality does and, while it's always good to view something in it's context, that doesn't mean it should be judged in a vacuum. There absolutely are old "classics" that really do hold up today but there are far more that make interesting museum pieces or stand as great mechanic/genre origin examples but just aren't really that good anymore.

Games are still, by many accounts, a fairly young entertainment and artistic medium, and they have evolved tremendously in that time both in terms of presentation and mechanics. When judging games, it's really important to consider both of those aspects.

Captcha: kitty kat
Yes, Captcha, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.. but kitties are cute.

 

[gideonkain]

Another World/ Out of this World is a style of game. It's almost exactly like Prince of Persia and Abe's Oddysee, just different settings.

Sorry you didn't like it, I thought MeatBoy was stupid and repetitive. Dr. Baby Fetus Head and Bandaid Girl? Good character design does not involve throwing some words in a hat and picking them out MadLib style.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

Oh, for a minute I thought you meant Ni no Kuni: The Another World, and I was worried. *whew*

 

[BeerTent]

I'm sorry, I'm not picking this up...

You vehemently hate Out of This World, because it doesn't match with today's standards of platforming?

Well, that's your fucking problem right there!

NO! It's not Mirror's Edge, Halo, Meatboy or VVVVV. It was out on the Sega Genesis, and a few other consoles around that era. This is like picking up Road Rash again and shitting on it because it's not Shift 2 Unleashed.

Look, my point here was that these games were pretty good for the time, and I downed weeks on Out of This World (Another World). Would I go back and try beat it? Not really, because, shockingly, standards and interests change over time! Imagine that!

As for the remakes, they're remakes with changes to the graphics. Game-play should have remained unaffected with the exception of difficulty modes according to the Wiki. Try playing on Easy... Because I know I wouldn't touch medium or hard.

 

[TrevHead]

-snip-.

oh there is plenty wrong with the game .

unforgiving gameplay is fine when done fairly, the megaman games are very unforgiving yet they are fair . if a player is very good he can beat the whole game on the first try without taking a single hit . even it?s more random elements like the unique boss attacks are handled by setting a checkpoint right before the boss room . the game sets up it?s rules at the beginning of each level and sticks to them throughout the whole stage . Another World on the other hand keeps introducing new gameplay elements that can instant kill you in almost every room . good games like limbo counterbalance this by including frequent checkpoints , while megaman always shows you the obstacle ahead before letting you attempt it .

It?s important to remember that this style of game design got popular because it genuinely makes games more enjoyable to play . Difficulty that comes from bad controls and lazy design is not good difficulty . the problem with Another world is that it doesn?t control ?differently? but that it controls like an elephant on skis. And I could forgive the 2 and a half steps you make every time you stop if the game only had a scrolling screen . because when you are running at 20 miles per an hour from a pursuing guard the last thing you want is to suddenly realize that the last 2 meters of the hallway you couldn?t see are actually a vertical cliff .

Im sure that for the time another world was ?the shit? but the mark of a good game is one you can pick up for the first time and play 20 years after it?s release and still enjoy (e.g Mario or Tetris).

So by your definition of this type of memoriser and trial and error gameplay as bad game design would make Dark Souls a bad game? It too has slow actions that has unique timing plus can't be completed without dying.

It's a shame so many genres today are shackled down by ppl who take perfect "good game design" to extremes so much that they ignore everything else. It's apples and oranges or to put it better apples and lemons, Most ppl like apples than lemons and lemons are best cooked or mixed in with other foods, that doesn't make the lemon a bad food however.

In AW you can easily see the animation of the characters legs so you should be able to master the timing and length of the character's steps with some effort. As for the restarts, like I said its needed for the puzzle gameplay as they have multiple steps in them, it's best to think of each area as a stage just without scrolling. Its not like VVVVV or SMB where there are many elements that can kill you between each restart, imo once i've mastered the controls and what the PC can and can't do it's rather easy to recognise where i'm going wrong and adapt my strategy, it just needs a little thinking outside of the box compared to your normal run of the mill game.

The game is quite short and can be played through in 20 minutes by someone who knows what they are doing. Flashback, Oddworld and Dark Souls are much longer

 

[Rack]

It was the Demon's Souls of its time. Every aspect of the design contributed to the atmosphere, you had to figure out how the gun worked because it was an alien gun, you were constantly surprised by the things that could kill you because you were on a completely alien planet. The game was designed to lead you in subtle ways to make progress and most of the blatant trial and error stuff occurred near to check points.

Essentially you can't "fix" Another World without destroying it. While I think it's still a classic and that isn't all down to nostalgia it's also something I can't recommend to anyone with modern sensibilities and expectations. It's a cleverly designed asshole of a game.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

Haven't played another world, but after I watched some of the Gameplay trailers, there was a little twinge in the back of my head that said, this is going to be a pain in the ass

 

[havoc33]

Another World (as it was called in Europe) was one of my favourites on the SNES. The gameplay could be unforgiving in places, but the game itself was so short that it didn't bother me that much. Today's gamers are spoiled though, with in-game hints, online walkthroughs and endless continues.. IMO, part of the fun is to figure out where to go and how to do it, and even dying countless times just makes it that more satisfying when you eventually finish it. It gives a sense of achievement rarely seen in todays games, except for maybe Dark Souls.

Flashback, Prince of Persia and the Oddworld games have already been mentioned as being in the same genre; who remembers Blackthorne (Blackhawk in Europe)?