Tag: platformer

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How’d It Age #11 – Epic Mickey: Rebrushed

More Info from THQ Nordic

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: PS5
  • Also Available On: PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Switch, PC
  • Originally Available On: Wii

I bounced off this game HARD when it originally came out. It’s not that the core game wasn’t good, but the forced integration of the Wii Remote really hampered the core painting mechanic. It made the camera miserable to control. It added unnecessary movement to painting. It was just a chore. Moving to standard controls frankly fixed the game.

Now I’m not necessarily saying that this is a modern masterpiece or anything but what a difference standard controls make. Platforming when you don’t have a good camera or good control of a camera just ruins the experience. You can’t hit your jumps quite right from lack of depth perception. You fall into danger because you couldn’t really see where you were landing. You get hit with things that weren’t necessarily in your camera view. It’s miserable.

Right on its own, having a camera stick fixes so much. You can run easily in different directions from your intended camera. You can look down when you jump to see the drop shadow for your landing spot. You can pan around during combat to make sure you have eyes on all the enemies. It just makes the game smooth. The worst part is that it’s not like this wasn’t solveable in the original title. Sure, the Wii Remote+Nunchuk combo was necessary as the default, but the Classic Controller add-on existed and offered dual-analog controls that could have been another useful control scheme to be used.

The other thing that really stood out to me was that this went beyond just moving to standard controls – it embraced modern touches with dual analog inputs. Since you no longer have pointer controls for the painting mechanic, it would have been easy for that to be incredibly imprecise. However, the game does two things that really improve the situation to do what I would argue matches the original game’s precision.

The first is simply that there is solid aim correction going on. The actual targetable area of things being painted is a decent amount larger than the actual target, and that sort of slushy space really makes quick targeting a lot more manageable. Obviously, this is something that most modern gamepad action games do, but it’s nice to see it here. The second is perhaps more important. The game just inherently supports motion controls during painting but not during normal movement. This is a really smart integration of that mechanic. Rather than the camera always darting around because of controller movement, the player is left to doing most camera movements on the stick. However, when the painting is activated, the camera stick movement is reduced and motion controls are enabled, allowing for really precise fine-tuned movement. This is a really smart touch as it makes combat precise in ways that even the original didn’t match and elevates it over a lot of “standard” action game control implementations.

What is on the surface a few small changes to core input really did end up fixing the game for me. It’s not like the original was all bad news anyway. The story and setting are wonderful, and that is still in place. The surprisingly dark story of Mickey effectively starting a cartoon genocide is still all here. It’s elevated by a pretty solid visual overhaul where everything is nice and high detail enough to now be a cartoon styled game in a modern engine. The platforming and combat are still good enough by modern standards and massively helped by the camera, so rather than being a downside it now serves to get out of the way of the really positive elements of the game.

The Wii was an interesting experiment to be sure, but now nearly 20 years later it’s pretty obvious that it didn’t really serve a lot of genres all that well. Wii Sports? Absolutely a banger for the console. First-person shooters? Metroid Prime on the Wii is probably the most precise way to play the game. However, more traditional genres like platformers really suffered from the lack of dual analog, and this is another example of that. Simply by moving to more standard controls, it took a game that had serious issues and made it pretty damn solid. It’s definitely no Mario Odyssey, but this is now a fun game on its own that can be played in a modern way without the frustration of poor input schemes.

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Game Ramblings #194 – Astro Bot

More Info from Sony

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: PS5

I was debating how to really start this because for me the gameplay of the game in a lot of circumstances is not worthy of the Metacritic score that this got. However, I was then thinking of the gameplay under the less normal circumstances and how playing a fully functional Ape Escape or Loco Roco level with its own mechanics ported over was incredible. I was thinking of how the challenge levels, despite their simplicity, brought in a sense of danger and speedrunning that was unique to those sections of the game. I was thinking about how playing a level themed around the Horizon series made me excited not for another title in that mainline – but instead, excitement for the possibility of the Lego Horizon game and how the Lego series typically adapts the various IPs that it uses. I was thinking about how exciting it was to find bots themed around games like PaRappa the Rapper or Space Channel 5 or Resident Evil or Ratchet and Clank or Sly Cooper or etc etc etc. This game really is a perfect example of the whole being better than the sum of its parts.

If I was to just talk about the core game, it’s simply a really good platformer. The jumping is solid. The exploration is solid. You get some occasional powerups that give for some fun changes to levels – for example, a chicken-shaped rocket jump, frog-themed boxing gloves, among others. However, on its own it’s still simply a really good platformer. Still worth playing for fans of the genre? Probably. However, the rest of the experience is what really elevates this to something worth playing for anyone. Lets talk about a few of those examples, because they are really what make this game click.

The most obvious example is the pure themed levels. You get one at the end of each world where the entire level and the powers you get during it are themed after the IP. Sure, the mechanics are simplified, but they’re effective. For example, God of War is reduced to the axe throw and return mechanic; Ape Escape simply has the radar and net; Loco Roco does not have any of the collecting mechanics. However, each level has just enough of the original IP’s mechanics adapted to the Astro Bot gameplay to be effective in really hitting that nostalgia while still feeling familiar within the scope of the core game.

Uncharted, God of War, and Horizon were not surprises. Those are arguably the biggest modern PlayStation franchises. Loco Roco and Ape Escape were absolutely surprises. Sure, those are past storied franchises – Ape Escape was certainly a PS1/PS2 era core platformer for Sony, and Loco Roco was a core franchise for the PSP, but both series haven’t had a new core entry in 15+ years. However, that gets at the real win here for Astro Bot. There’s something for everyone. Older PS1/PS2 fans are going to get a huge kick out of playing these levels because they are past memories. Newer PS4/PS5 fans are going to get a kick out of playing something new to them, and maybe introduce them to some series they should check out on PS Classics or through remasters. It works for both sets of fans because the levels are fun on their own due to the changes in game mechanics, but can still kick at the little nostalgia or curiosity boost for people playing.

Those little nostalgia spikes then extend to the act of simply collecting the Astro Bots. Each one is from some PlayStation game of the past so each one is another little tie to history. In most platformers it’s simply a core mechanic of the game, since you have to rescue them to progress to the end of each world. However, dressing it up like this is another way to open up memories for older players or new games to explore for newer players. It’s the perfect way to elevate a simple mechanic – the act of simply hitting a thing in a platformer – to a new fun height.

The boss fights are also worth talking about as an extension of the idea of the whole being better than the parts. Each world generally has a handful of boss or sub-boss type fights, and it’s here where I would argue the best combat mechanics take place. The boss fights are generally restricted to a small arena space with some power up, so rather than leaning on your core powers you’re leaning on the powerup as the core mechanic. For example, the snake fight above uses the chicken rocket to continuously jump over the snakes tail as it sweeps the arena, while the dinosaur fight above uses the Horizon IP to give you a bow to shoot at moving targets in the fight. They all do a great job of having a high action, fast response environment that still feels fair because of the fact that the actions are obvious. The powerups you bring into the fight will clearly be the main thing used in the fight. The tells by the enemies are well telegraphed, so I never felt like being hit was anything but my own fault. The set theming is all appropriately connected between the boss and its arena. They really are just all well done.

I also think it’s worth noting the challenge levels that are scattered around, because these are the real hard platforming available. However, they aren’t hard because they are being dicks. They’re hard for two reasons – there are no checkpoints and they demand precision. If you screw up, you are going back to the start of the level, regardless of the fact that you may have the end in reach. However, that’s balanced by the fact that complete runs of these levels are all under about a minute long. While these are absolutely testing your ability to execute the mechanics of the games precisely, they very much act like a speedrunning experience – very much a normal person digestable version of a Mario Kaizo game. Because of this, they act as nice breathers between longer levels. You can do a longer exploration, finish it up, then jump out to do a challenge level for a bit. Once you’ve hit a stress limit with these, jump right back into exploration. It’s the perfect way to break up the pace of the game.

If Smash Bros is a celebration of Nintendo’s history, this is the PlayStation representation of that ethos. Similar to later Smash Bros, it’s not just a celebration of Sony’s games, but a celebration of everything that has made PlayStation the brand that it is. It takes that celebration and adapts it to a platformer that is always good and often great. However, it’s absolutely true that the nostalgia is part of the experience and elevates the game beyond being a simply good platformer. The experiences they’ve crafted around specific elements of PlayStation history are incredibly detailed and well put together in a way that would never have happened without the tie in to nostalgia. Do I think that it reaches the heights of something like Mario Odyssey? Not quite, but it’s far closer than it looks on paper. What the team has created here is nothing short of spectacular and will likely be considered my surprise of the year when all is said and done.

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Game Ramblings #191 – Marble It Up! Ultra

More Info from The Marble Collective

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: Switch
  • Also Available On: Windows, macOS, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series

Sometimes you just need a game that you can play in quick sessions. For me, it’s when I’m sitting around waiting on Visual Studio or Unreal Editor to load for a couple minutes. This was that latest one to really hit that perfect spot for me. It combines some solid platforming, just enough chaos caused by physics, and levels that generally lasted under a minute to become something I could pick up and play whenever I had a minute to kill.

The way I played this game really benefited from being on the Switch. Playing this didn’t require me turning on the TV or getting away from my desk. It simply required me to reach over, grab the Switch, and immediately be in the game. The way the game levels are setup really played into that. It has a mix of speed and puzzle levels that are pretty evenly spaced throughout the game’s 100 or so levels. What it ended up meaning for me is that I would find a place to take a few minutes break waiting on something on my PC, get a run or two in with a couple chances to improve my time, then go back to what I was doing. It’s the perfect setup for something that I can do that isn’t just screwing around on Reddit during those little wait periods.

Within individual levels, the game is also setup to just let you rapidly push through improvements. The game levels load extremely quickly so I could retry to improve my times quickly. The select button is linked to a quick reset of the level so if I screwed up I could get back to the start even quicker. If I wanted to move on to the next level, there’s a button in the end level screen that immediately moves you there. Intentionally or not, the entire setup of the game was one that really pushed into this 5 minutes or less session time that I had for it.

Granted, it helps that the game itself is still fun so I want to play it repeatedly. There’s something about physics-based ball platformers that I really always just enjoyed, whether it’s the Monkey Ball series or older games like Marble Madness. Some of what keeps me engaged may very well be the inconsistency of the physics itself, or at least manipulating the physics to find some amount of consistency. This game really excels here due to a handful of small mechanics.

The first one that really stands out is that jumping forward while moving allows for speed gains. This turns every interaction into a sort of game around how many mini jumps I can fit in to maximize speed before it becomes hazardous. That same mechanic then combines with jumps in other direction and momentum gained via the ball’s rotation to allow me to manipulate direction in interesting ways while keeping speed up. However, the ball rotation is also an interesting mechanic at slow speed. As an example, if the ball is rotating to the left when it lands, it will inherently jump to the left because of friction. In slow speed platforming heavy segments this allows me to travel a bit faster than safely jumping forward, as I can change my rotation in-air to bounce me in a new direction when I land without necessarily losing all of my forward speed. The final mechanic is really just the core rolling itself. It feels good. High speed feels appropriately out of control, but pushing in a direction different than your movement shows obvious momentum changes. High speed racing-style courses in particular show a ton here where you’ll be really leaning heavily into the corners to drift in a new direction without ever really losing that sense of speed.

If there was one real gripe I had though, it’s that I kept wanting a quick key to reset to my last checkpoint rather than to the start of the course. This may be a habit from playing Trackmania, but I do like the distinction between reset to checkpoint and reset to start of level when I’m working on improving times. It gives me a lot more rapid iterations in going through sections to figure out best lines compared to falling off a level and waiting to reset (and in this game’s case, waiting a variable amount of time – the reset volumes are extremely inconsistent). Given runs with resets are inherently not going to be efficient, I don’t see a leaderboard concern for it being an option either. It probably didn’t help that at times I would just habitually hit the reset button expecting it to be a reset to checkpoint but that part is at least on me.

All that said, this game really hit a perfect spot for me. It was fast to get in and do a couple runs, fun to play during that, and fun to replay levels trying to improve my time. It has super solid physics, which is incredibly important for this type of game. It’s got a good mix of puzzle and speed levels, which is good for keeping the game from feeling repetitive. It just kind of checks all the boxes for me.