PEOPLE WANT WHAT THEY CAN'T HAVE.

Lufia I had a kind of introduction such as what Craze mentioned, with it being a look back into the past, when the Sinistrals were first defeated by Maxim and his friends. I didn't mind it at all, but that was mainly because I knew it was only the prologue of the story, and that I would probably be receiving a more standard set of beginner characters (well, at least the game itself made it so obvious, giving you so many elixir-like items!).

I only hate these "wimping" events if they a. come totally out of left field without any sort of justification, and b. affect a character that the game gives you an impression that you would be keeping him/her "intact". This probably also includes sudden character deaths too, since those can also give me a similar feeling of disappointment if I invested some time into developing them (like Aeris...uugh).

This is the Millennium Bridge Thread




Anyways I don't like powerful-start-but-you-lose-it-all. The game is training you in a situation that doesn't last and then the game decides that half of what you learnt is now irrelevant and throws it out the window. I'd even say that it hurts the player's skill development: They just spent the last half hour relying and building on abilities that they might not keep! Then the player will either almost immediately regain some abilities wondering what the point of losing or initially having it was, regain it at a point where the player has forgotten it even existed (oh hi Grapple Beam from Metroid Prime), or never gets it back making almost everything learnt during the start completely meaningless!

The worst case scenario is the game saps the fun out of itself after the start and forces the player to go hunting for it. All those neat abilities which synergize with each other or elicit reactions from enemies are gone: Now you have hop and blink aggressively at your foes. You might as well let the dog chew on the controller while you do something more productive with your time. Like reading Twilight. Furthermore reclaiming a lost ability could result in the game just going "neenerneener". Sure you got one ability back but what about the other cool ones you had? Getting a new ability should make the player go "Holy shit I got missiles and they make shit explode! " and experiment with their new-found power and finding out how it works and how to integrate it into their current skills and play style. Lost abilities are something the player has already played with, removing that new toy feel and reminding the player that they still don't have the rest of the cool shit they used to have.

Or maybe I'm just being grumpy

tl;dr There's no situation (that I can think of) where making the player lose abilities is a good thing.

I kind of agree with GreatRedSpirit. If I get a new ability, it is exciting and exhilirating. If I get back an old ability in Metroid Prime that I lost after the first stage, it just makes me think, "God, FINALLY." I don't feel any more powerful. I just feel like I'm back to where I already was.

However, taunting me with an ability before I get it can work really well if done right. For instance, if my character is spending the entire game searching for the Sword of Mana, it's intensely exciting when I finally get it. If I have several boss fights throughout the game against my evil twin, and he uses certain abilities, then when I finally kill him and absorb his power into myself, I will be super psyched.

But something about the way Metroid Prime does it is frustrating. I don't know exactly what. I think the fact that you lose the powers for SO LONG in Metroid Prime is what bothers me. Along with the fact that the excuse the game gives for taking them away is highly questionable. You HIT YOUR HEAD KIND OF HARD and now every single function of your suit is broken except the arm cannon. And then you go on to get the shit blasted out of you by explosions and energy beams and Ridleys for the entire game, and it never happens again. If it were presented better, I probably wouldn't mind. I think Chrono Cross does it really well, for example, with the opening dream sequence.

It also probably makes a difference that in Metroid games, you know damn well that you are going to get these powers back, so it kills some of the excitement. In other games, the game taunts you with a power, but until you get it, you're never really sure if it'll be obtained in the end or not. Maybe a plot twist will lead the villain to obtain the Sword of Mana. Maybe your evil twin won't die until the end of the game, or won't give you his powers when he does. The foreshadowing is still there, but less blatant.

In my RM2K3 game, I actually take away party members who are too powerful, and then give them back later. Specifically, I repeatedly find excuses to make the main character not be available in every other dungeon. I think temporarily taking away party members is a great way to implement this idea in a traditional JRPG.

Fou-Lu is kind of cheating. I thought of him after posting, but you get to play him a bunch of times. Not as much as Ryu, but still. He's a regular PC, just not with the main party.

As for responses like GRS and Lockez': I kind of feel like yeah, you guys are just being grumpy about I LOST STUFF I OBVIOUSLY COULDN'T KEEP. GRS, which games let you have the power long enough to actually synergize?

Lockez does bring up a good point about the twisty paths of RPGs. You honestly don't know if you're going to develop the same way.

I'm surprised that nobody (...including myself...) has brought up Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger. I know that Brickroad says that "FF6 is a really good game, and then the planet explodes and it sucks." Well, I think he's gotten over the World of Ruin by now, but I'm guessing it's not a sentiment only he holds/held.

Basically, what I'm bringing up are two things:

-Is it okay to lose some/all of your party members if you can bring them back optionally? (Feel free to elaborate on Aeris more, even though she doesn't fit here.)
-Does greatly reducing your power work if the gameplay also changes? E.g. in FF6, the game becomes non-linear and about epic amounts of exploration.

post=204036
-Is it okay to lose some/all of your party members if you can bring them back optionally? (Feel free to elaborate on Aeris more, even though she doesn't fit here.)

As long as you make it reasonable and not like getting Mia back at the end of *Hack//Quarantine, then I wouldn't mind getting a character that I've become attached to back.

Craze: Metroid Prime. In the opening area you have both the Charged Shot and Missiles. Both are more powerful than the basic shot but you can't quickly use them in succession (The charged shot needs to charge and there's a pause between firing missiles). An easy and quick one-two is to fire a charged shot and immediately fire a missile. It's a basic move that can do more quick damage than either alone * and require both abilities to perform. I'd call that synergy between two abilities.

* until you find the rapid missile glitch or super missiles


Hypocritically enough, I didn't mind it in either FF6 or CT. In FF6 the characters themselves don't become weaker: Lose magic, go to level one, ect. but rather your party just changes. I have no adequate explanation right now for why I regard "characters become weaker" and "party becomes weaker" as two completely different entities though besides "it just feel right".

Chrono Trigger is completely different though. Chrono dying for me is more "opening up the third character slot" than "losing the strongest character in the game". Chrono can go warm the bench for all I care, I can finally put together the Dream Team!

There was a somewhat related mechanic in Valkyrie Profile.

At the end of individual dungeons and defeating the boss, you will find special treasure chests marked as Artifacts of Odin. These items were very useful/powerful but came with a catch. Raiding these will present you with a warning that the item is property of Lord Odin; keeping it for personal use is punishable. For keeping the item you lose Seal Points which determine whether or not you can get the good ending.

Of course, the execution of this is flawed and you can raid every treasure in the game as long as you send a suitable Einherjar to Valhalla every chapter and you'll still get the good ending. The genius of this is, however, you wouldn't know any better unless you were using a guide to play through to the good ending. Thus, the player is psychologically tricked into considering both options.

This can play into your own game design by implementing similar types of godly loot but have more drawn out punishments for disobeying the warning label. I dunno, be creative with it. :B

Or in Soul Blazer where there's little instances of things you can't get to or metal enemies you can't kill until you get that Zanetsu Sword.

post=204783
I've always felt metroidvania type games were the best, and alot of it has to do with the mechanic being presented here. Like when there'll a room that's just out of jumping range, and you can't ever quite get there.. well they give you the Hi-Jump in Metroid. SOTN gives you the Double-jump. Blaster Master gives you the Hover mechanic.

Zelda does this well too! They give you a hookshot, they give you the pegasus boots, they give you all sorts of stuff! But what's important is they show you that these places exist, so once you DO get the item that allows you to reach those areas, you immediately think "OH! So THAT'S how I get up there!"

I always loved that in Zelda. You can see the little hookshot pads and go "efffff I want that item right now gimme gimme"
In newer Zelda games it's fun to try and guess what the game will give me. I'll think it'll be a hookshot and it'll end up being magnetic gloves or a cane that creates blocks or something. Once you've beaten a couple of Zelda dungeons, you know how it works, and the most fun part of the game becomes (for me) getting new dungeon items and dicking around with them. I'd say Zelda does it very well.