LIGHTNINGLORD2'S PROFILE

The programming needed for a decent game in RPG Maker can pretty much be learned in an afternoon - you could make a great story game where all the programming you need is the Display Text and the Control Switches events.

author=Solitayre
Watching my nephew try to play Mario is as frustrating as it is adorable.

I made levels for him in SMBX but he always wants me to make them easier for him.

The trick is to make the level look much harder than they actually are.

author=Isrieri
If I have a beef with ALBW its the dungeons. They don't feel like labyrinths, or have any sense of space, or dread, or mystique. Certainly not like Twilight Princess had. Go load the game up and look at the dungeon maps. They're all essentially a giant square room with walls dividing it up.

That's a very nitpick complaint though. The dungeons feel very "video-gamey" but that doesn't mean that the puzzles aren't well-designed nor that they aren't fun to play through. And its not like square rooms comprising your entire dungeon is something I can really get mad at, considering...y'know.

Lorule Castle gets me pumped for the finale. And the final boss was superb.

Locke does bring up a valid point with the items and how since you can have them all the devs assume you never have them. I didn't think about it that way before and is a real let-down. But the way I see it: Its baby steps. The only reason they did that was so you could play dungeons in any order. And they pulled that off. Next time, they'll expand to having all the items in one dungeon hopefully maybe.

I stated it before, but you do need to think about what to do with your items - while most Zelda games just ask you to use your temple item, ALBW requires you to master them.

author=Isrieri

author=LightningLord2
Bosses in OoT and Minish Cap are sluggish, easily predictable and merely require spamming whatever item you found in the dungeon until the opponent falls over,

Pretty true, and it sucks that every boss ever after OOT has you do that crap. But they had the benefit of being intimidating bosses at the time. There was a real menace to walking into a boss room and seeing that giant goddamn dragon monster or the creepy crawly parasite you had to actually look up on the ceiling to find. Or the scary ghost ganon that SHOT LIGHTNING BOLTS UP YOUR ASS in very claustrophobic conditions. And Deadhand. That guy.

Not the most challenging but they were cool bosses. The bosses in the newer games are just silly sometimes. (Not that there aren't a few winners now and again. The final fight with Ganon in Wind Waker is my favorite Ganon fight)

The LTTP bosses are superior gameplay wise, so that's why it got Best Gameplay from me.

Good idea, bad execution, basically, but LttP bosses are more frightening as you play them. Just the first Dungeon suddenly drops half a dozen statues on you out of nowhere that are immune to your sword and the third makes you constantly worry about falling. OoT's bosses are more akin to the animatronics in a haunted house - they look creepy until you realize they can't do anything to harm you.

author=Isrieri

author=LightningLord2
I also like the dungeon design in A Link to the Past as it is always clear which way to go next - in OoT, it's very frequent to run into dead ends, traverse extremely complicated floors (dat forest temple) and you don't get a map + compass until you beat most of the dungeon already.

The biggest thing the dungeons have going for it is that they don't always give you a key to immediately use on a locked door that prevents your progress to the next linear room. There were sometimes multiple locked doors you could choose to open and explore that room with. It didn't come up often, but the option was clearly there. It put the exploration of the dungeons in your hands. The reason they're so well designed is that they give you that non-linearity and allow you to get lost. But the tools are there so that you can find your own bearings if you use your noggin.

This freedom to use keys on multiple locked doors is the reason the Water Temple is so hated; they hid one of the keys in a pretty sneaky spot. And the entire world bitched about it and they've never let us have that freedom again. OOT kids all bitch about the Water Temple but we secretly love and cherish it. It built character.

Seeing the obstacles in a room and thinking about how to get past it is fun. Running through countless, identical-looking hallways which lead you in circles while mixing in slow death traps is not. Not even a walkthrough was enough for me to make sense of the Fire Temple. I probably would have went through if I searched for more hours, but I decided against it as it was no fun anymore.

My brother playing Terraria was fun - he built a base out of glass that was a >200 foot tall glass tower with a throne room on top. He was even savvy enough to beat the Wall of Flesh without an arena! (And yes, I didn't give him any hints whatsoever in taking it on)

It was so sad to see him hate the game now that he entered hard mode - I hate the beginning as well, even if I know how to handle it as the game frontloads you with an insane amount of changes no one could anticipate and which require actions that isn't even alluded to in the game...

Trying to think of how to design my last class in Boss Gauntlet - right now, I made him able to switch stances to have different playstyles - Shadow Stance boosts his attack and magic attack and Blood Stance grants him 25% lifesteal. I'm thinking about what would be an elegant way for him to have different skills / skill effects depending on his stance.