The Obligatory Lose Your Powers Mission
- Thread starter DeathWyrmNexus
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In Last Remnant when you lose your General Emma, who's then immediately replaced by her daughter, Emmy. Emmy has about 1/10th Emma's skills, and takes much longer to learn new ones.
You failed to mention Maian SOS [start with half your health and are immediately forced to waste almost all your ammo just getting out of the starting room] or Aztec [start in a tiny alcove with a handgun against three guys with grenades and assault rifles]. The Goldeneye engine gave us two of the most hatefully designed, unbalanced and unfair secret missions ever.WhiteFangofWar said:
I remember the "lose your powers" mission in bioshock. You didn't as much lose them, just somebody had a multi sided dice with every plasmid and rerolled it every 2 minutes. Forced you to use gunplay rather than just set everybody on fire.
Here's an interesting point: Bioshock, along with metal gear solid, is the only game to portray cigarettes (and cigars) with a positive side effect!
Here's an interesting point: Bioshock, along with metal gear solid, is the only game to portray cigarettes (and cigars) with a positive side effect!
I as well think they are a lame game design tactic to try and add difficulty. They are annoying too while playing wolverine they took away the ability to heal and use your feral senses, it was kinda lame they had you running all around the facility with meeting the same chick over and over again trying to get your powers back.
If it's done right, I welcome it with open arms.
As mentioned above, Metroid Zero Mission had a tacked-on epilogue thingy, which luckily did not feel tacked on at all. It was a very welcome change from the guns-blazing playstyle you've been handling all along. And when you get your suit back (upgraded while we're at it), you can backtrack as you want, and be a nigh unstoppable force.
Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway had the 'lose your squadmates and weapons' mission, which was pretty tense. you're used to having teammates and open fields to navigate through, and all of a sudden it's just you, your pistol, and a burning hospital full with germans. Oh, and you're having hallucinations of dead people. (And I just noticed someone else mentioned it before, kudos to you, good sir)
The most famous example would probably be Thief III: the Shalebridge Cradle, though. You know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
As mentioned above, Metroid Zero Mission had a tacked-on epilogue thingy, which luckily did not feel tacked on at all. It was a very welcome change from the guns-blazing playstyle you've been handling all along. And when you get your suit back (upgraded while we're at it), you can backtrack as you want, and be a nigh unstoppable force.
Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway had the 'lose your squadmates and weapons' mission, which was pretty tense. you're used to having teammates and open fields to navigate through, and all of a sudden it's just you, your pistol, and a burning hospital full with germans. Oh, and you're having hallucinations of dead people. (And I just noticed someone else mentioned it before, kudos to you, good sir)
The most famous example would probably be Thief III: the Shalebridge Cradle, though. You know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
Really? Very annoying? You have them for all of half an hour. If that.internutt said:
And it's a Metroid game, the entire point is that you start with nothing and build up (to the extent that I was mildly annoyed by the starting arsenal of Corruption (to my recollection: double jump, charge beam, morph ball, morph ball jump, morph ball bomb)
Zero Mission did it quite well, shifting to a stealth section (which is surprisngly good) before returning all your items AND THEN SOME resulting in carnage. Prime 2 also did it quite nicely, rather than losing your equipment Dark Samus tears it off you at the start and fuses it to the bosses that you fight throughout the game. Gives a nice reason for why you find your kit lying around.
Okami had a pretty decent power loss in a boss fight, you start with nothing and rapidly get your brush techs back, using them to kick some ass.
It's pretty much always a bad idea though, and rarely works. One of the golden rules in games is not to mess with what the player can do, feels incredibly artificial. I'm looking at you and your overheat attack Mr Saren. And Sudeki's final boss dropping slow-effects on you.
Not to start a fight but the content of your post about Metroid suggests that you are complaining about people wanting progress instead of just playing the same game again... As in build on what the game is already known for instead of making stock powers in the game the basis and actually make it feel that the people that Samus works for know how to equip a soldier or that the designers at least know how to write a story that doesn't immediately call for making the character weak as a kitten.StevieWonderMk2 said:
Or I could be missing some secret point.
Can be a very useful tool for getting the difficulty back up or to help with the pacing but there are cases were its far to arbitrary.
Prime was a progression. Parallel worlds in Echoes was a progression. Other M appears to be a heck of a progression. Removing the weapon spilling stops it being a Metroid game. Metroid (like most Nintendo games I guess) is about a very specific gameplay style that persists throughout the franchise. If I play Halo I expect the story to involve a bloke in green armour and weapons of mass destruction, if I play Metroid I expect item hunting.DeathWyrmNexus said:Not to start a fight but the content of your post about Metroid suggests that you are complaining about people wanting progress instead of just playing the same game again... As in build on what the game is already known for instead of making stock powers in the game the basis and actually make it feel that the people that Samus works for know how to equip a soldier or that the designers at least know how to write a story that doesn't immediately call for making the character weak as a kitten.StevieWonderMk2 said:
Or I could be missing some secret point.
The Nintendo franchises have become so ingrained in one style that I pretty much think of them as a genre rather than a game. (Okami is VERY much a Zelda game, Vexx is a Mario game etc.) Taking the item hunting out of Metroid is like taking bullets out of an FPS.
*headdesk* Okay then, I see your point. It gives me a headache but I am far from one to judge since I played Dynasty Warriors 3 through 5... Then nabbed Warriors Orochi 1 and 2...StevieWonderMk2 said:Prime was a progression. Parallel worlds in Echoes was a progression. Other M appears to be a heck of a progression. Removing the weapon spilling stops it being a Metroid game. Metroid (like most Nintendo games I guess) is about a very specific gameplay style that persists throughout the franchise. If I play Halo I expect the story to involve a bloke in green armour and weapons of mass destruction, if I play Metroid I expect item hunting.DeathWyrmNexus said:Not to start a fight but the content of your post about Metroid suggests that you are complaining about people wanting progress instead of just playing the same game again... As in build on what the game is already known for instead of making stock powers in the game the basis and actually make it feel that the people that Samus works for know how to equip a soldier or that the designers at least know how to write a story that doesn't immediately call for making the character weak as a kitten.StevieWonderMk2 said:
Or I could be missing some secret point.
The Nintendo franchises have become so ingrained in one style that I pretty much think of them as a genre rather than a game. (Okami is VERY much a Zelda game, Vexx is a Mario game etc.) Taking the item hunting out of Metroid is like taking bullets out of an FPS.
I shall go bang my head on the wall as the obvious should have been obvious to me. *bangs head* Ow ow ow ow ow ow Ow... hey...
One thing though, couldn't they have the item hunting without an arbitrary lose your shit event? Perhaps have Samus be briefed that they can't afford to kit her out from the beginning due to detection issues but give her a suit that absorbs weaponry from the indigenous technology thus leaving basic maneuvers intact while allowing for the story to come up with creative ways to give her new weapons?
Or is the writer in me just trying too hard to avoid a cliche'? -_-
I never liked the mechanic because it's a lame way to throw in puzzle or increase the difficulty of a game without actually changing anything. Usually it's for environmental puzzles or boss fights but there are two main reasons for it each with an obvious solution.
1) Your character can fly or is in some other way bypass most of the environment effortlessly.
Solution: Make a environment that requires them to use their abilities to the limits of their capabilities.
2) Your character is overpowered for the pending boss fight and there wouldn't be any sense of accomplishment for beat them as you are.
Solution: Make a harder boss, maybe by boosting it's power or redesigning how you beat it but don't make it so that a power or ability becomes useless for arbitrary reasons.
Bosses that pose a threat simply by virtue of a staggering amount of health are not well designed since the tactic is always to take your strongest weapon or move and use it against them. Another style is to have a process that you repeat which can be fun so long as the process isn't too long so that it becomes tedious or completely resettable by the boss itself. both ways require do refining to be done well in a game but it's better than introducing challenge through taking away the players abilities.
1) Your character can fly or is in some other way bypass most of the environment effortlessly.
Solution: Make a environment that requires them to use their abilities to the limits of their capabilities.
2) Your character is overpowered for the pending boss fight and there wouldn't be any sense of accomplishment for beat them as you are.
Solution: Make a harder boss, maybe by boosting it's power or redesigning how you beat it but don't make it so that a power or ability becomes useless for arbitrary reasons.
Bosses that pose a threat simply by virtue of a staggering amount of health are not well designed since the tactic is always to take your strongest weapon or move and use it against them. Another style is to have a process that you repeat which can be fun so long as the process isn't too long so that it becomes tedious or completely resettable by the boss itself. both ways require do refining to be done well in a game but it's better than introducing challenge through taking away the players abilities.
i hate it, because i spent so much time building them up, and now they go away for awhile, on one of the hardest missions, of course, but i also love it because it actually tests how good you really are
This gives me an idea for another thread but I will leave it be for the moment.Ambitious Sloth said:
Ya know, this thread makes me appreciate how Prototype used this cliche'. I didn't get dragged into a stupid boss fight and the stealth aspect was something the game already used. It also didn't take that long to get past it. Still hated it but this thread has made me appreciate it a bit better...
I must say that boss fights in moments of weakness can add drama but they always feel like a cop out in the idea of challenge.