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Is there an "anti-Metroid" game?
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
UncleSporky
Member
I had this idea a long time ago.
Like a guy who is slowly turning into a werewolf and trying to stop the curse before he loses his mind.
You lose some abilities, gain some others, but ultimately it's a net loss. Stuff like no longer being able to use the town as a resource because everyone is afraid of you. Or not being able to solve color-based puzzles because now you're colorblind. But being agile and on all fours, you can fit into smaller areas and reach places you couldn't before.
Different endings based on how bad you let things get before you stop the curse.
Like a guy who is slowly turning into a werewolf and trying to stop the curse before he loses his mind.
You lose some abilities, gain some others, but ultimately it's a net loss. Stuff like no longer being able to use the town as a resource because everyone is afraid of you. Or not being able to solve color-based puzzles because now you're colorblind. But being agile and on all fours, you can fit into smaller areas and reach places you couldn't before.
Different endings based on how bad you let things get before you stop the curse.
I guess on a small scale, Transistor is kinda like this if you die a lot. The overall progression is the standard get more abilities as you go through the game but dying temporary locks an equipped ability. It forces you to either rethink your strategy or make due with abilities you would have never considered using, so you must experiment with different synergies.
Sectorseven
Member
You look at a movie like "Predator" and it starts with fancy weaponry that gets dwindled down, culminating in hand to hand combat, and the tension only escalates.
That could be sort of model to follow for a game.
That could be sort of model to follow for a game.
I dunno, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance would give it a run for its money.
Sands of Time sort of did this. When you lost the dagger in the last third of the game. The platforming became the main challenge and they balanced it by making combat easier with a super sword. It was a brilliant way to shift up the gameplay and is the closet example I can think of to the OPs suggestion.
DeathoftheEndless
Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
In some "gun game" modes in Counter-Strike, you start with the best weapons and then they get progressively worse as you get kills, until you're finally trying to kill someone with a knife.
In the sidescrolling beat 'em up Street Hassle (also known as Bop 'N Rumble and Bad Street Brawler), one of your best moves (a roundhouse kick) was suddenly removed after seven levels or so.
The later levels became quite challenging because of this, but it didn't feel very fair.
It's still one of my favourite Commodore 64 games, though
Muscle Wizard
Banned
What if green potions hurt you? What if summons were normal attacks and normal attacks worked liked summons? What if the more you got shot, the less red your screen became?
The closest thing I can think of is the Undead campaign in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Since the storyline has Ner'zhul's Frozen Throne being drained of energy, Arthas is supposed to be getting weaker over time. To represent this, they either lowered his level or his max level (I forget which it was) for each successive map in the campaign.
Kamina
Golden Boy
What's fun about being weak and pathetic rather than strong and skillfull?
Something is a Challenge when you have the option to be good in some way, usually based on skill and powers. If you dont have that whats the challenge? The game would either be fuck hard work and unfair or piss easy.
Not 100% sure of your intention, but people ask basic questions like this as jokes without considering that games based on novel premises like this could actually be really fun if done with creativity and good judgment.
SuperEpicMan
Banned
A while ago I got involved in a project which started here. It was going to be a game where you started out fully powered and slowly the game would become less and less complex, losing powers etc
I was doing the writing for a time but the project seemed to stall.
I was doing the writing for a time but the project seemed to stall.
Aren't there any survival horror games which make your character less and less competent at dealing with in game situations the longer the game drags on? I reckon there's some that slowly eat away at the characters sanity, thus making them appear weaker, while not really giving a substantial amount of tools to counter this effect.
I'm actually unsure if there's such a game, it's the closest answer I have though.
I'm actually unsure if there's such a game, it's the closest answer I have though.
SerTapTap
Member
Oh right. Battle not exploration abilities, but it was an interesting implementation of it (if not entirely fair, due to RNG). I guess this could kind of work if powers lost were of a completely optional sort. Actual Metroidvania style traversal abilities would be near impossible, but battle stuff wouldn't...still not sured it'd be fun. In Battle Square you were always hoping not to get some of these.
Doing more with less can feel badass because you're rising to the occasion and there's a sense of higher stakes.
Muscle Wizard
Banned
But it really isn't novel, is it?
I'd call a complete reversal of a common gameplay convention novel if you actually stick to the idea and do some creative things with it.
Piercatore
Member
Hahahaha, I laughed so hard at this. An imminent future also.
Actually is a good concept, but the reward system should be powerful enough to balance the game. Remembers me the concept of the fallen paladin in D&D. Would be interesting loose your powers gradually justified in story, being like a rat for a while (not just a minute, like most of games that try this) and become the antagonist learning new ones in late stages of the game.
Also think about Shadow of the colossus (SOTC) was a interesting concept since you only have an arrow and a sword. No level progression or new abilities. I imagine a game with features in abilities like all we are accustom and then going to a SOTC setting.
More_Badass
Member
Cool concept. Game could gradually shift from action platformer to strategic guerrilla-warrior stealth game
Gurgelhals
Member
Yes. It's called Metroid: Other M
Yes, I did read the OP, but this was too obvious to pass up.
JinjoUnchained
Member
The closest thing I can think of is RPGs where you get a strong character early on and either lose them permanently or don't get them back until much later on. So maybe Golden Sun? You also get a pretty OP character in FF IV fairly early on and they're taken away.
lazer_bean
Member
i could see a post apocalypse setting where you start with a lot of technological weapons and then, after the apocalypse, you have to craft your own weapons, which would be less powerful of course
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
well in Spec Ops: The Line you are gradually losing it, but that's another conversation.
Must have not understood fully what you meant. Sorry.
Simply Sarah
Member
This is a viable idea, but you'd need to be careful in execution. The most obvious way I can think of to make in work in my head would be to have a fairly deep system on top of which you toss simple but strong abilities which you can slowly strip away while forcing the player to become familiar with the actual game system below. Some parts of the base system can always be there and some of it can become exposed as the simple stuff disappears so that the player doesn't feel that they are simply losing powers without gaining anything.
This could work both with truly linear designs as well as more exploration based designs. The linear designs probably speak for themselves whereas the more exploration based ones would likely be a combination of:
1. Traversing the same area after losing powers that made moving through it previously trivial.
2. Forcing a largely or completely different route from point A to B that may or may not have previously been accessible.
3. Moving through entirely new areas to entirely new locations that are unlocked by triggers/keys/newly exposed abilities.
Overall, the gameplay should usually get more complex as you go instead of less.
This could work both with truly linear designs as well as more exploration based designs. The linear designs probably speak for themselves whereas the more exploration based ones would likely be a combination of:
1. Traversing the same area after losing powers that made moving through it previously trivial.
2. Forcing a largely or completely different route from point A to B that may or may not have previously been accessible.
3. Moving through entirely new areas to entirely new locations that are unlocked by triggers/keys/newly exposed abilities.
Overall, the gameplay should usually get more complex as you go instead of less.
Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
There is a cool idea in there somewhere, where what if you start with a fully capable power suit and early on your systems get damaged and they slowly start failing as you continue through the game.
It could be a survival horror type game, where you start off with like a fully functioning HUD that displays everything and you slowly lose more and more of it. Your secondary functions like a heat sensor, thermal vision, sonar, defensive and traversal options would also fail as the game continued making you rely more on your own senses and skills.
If weapons are non integrated into the suit you could even have a thing where previously the pistol would display an ammo counter on the HUD but after a while you have to manually check the magazine for how much ammo you have. Reloading partial mags would mean that you would eventually cycle back to a 12/30 magazine, previously self filling magazines would have to be done manually instead so you'd have to find a safe place to rearrange your ammo from maybe 10 barely filled mags into 3 or 4 topped off ones.
So really to make this compelling you'd have to replace the abilities with something that goes from automated to manual. Imagine if once you lose thermal vision to hunt invisible enemies you need to start using smoke bombs or some kind of device that launches coating out. Or where you once previously had a self administering medkit you had to start tending to your wounds manually in an MGS3 style type menu or something.
Hell it could make for awesome scenarios where like maybe your O2 systems start to fail as you're exploring a heavily toxic location.
It could also make for an excellent climax where for the finale you manage to restore your suit to full power (with maybe a few new powers) and you get to feel like a total bad-ass for a glorious set piece before the credits.
It could be a survival horror type game, where you start off with like a fully functioning HUD that displays everything and you slowly lose more and more of it. Your secondary functions like a heat sensor, thermal vision, sonar, defensive and traversal options would also fail as the game continued making you rely more on your own senses and skills.
If weapons are non integrated into the suit you could even have a thing where previously the pistol would display an ammo counter on the HUD but after a while you have to manually check the magazine for how much ammo you have. Reloading partial mags would mean that you would eventually cycle back to a 12/30 magazine, previously self filling magazines would have to be done manually instead so you'd have to find a safe place to rearrange your ammo from maybe 10 barely filled mags into 3 or 4 topped off ones.
So really to make this compelling you'd have to replace the abilities with something that goes from automated to manual. Imagine if once you lose thermal vision to hunt invisible enemies you need to start using smoke bombs or some kind of device that launches coating out. Or where you once previously had a self administering medkit you had to start tending to your wounds manually in an MGS3 style type menu or something.
Hell it could make for awesome scenarios where like maybe your O2 systems start to fail as you're exploring a heavily toxic location.
It could also make for an excellent climax where for the finale you manage to restore your suit to full power (with maybe a few new powers) and you get to feel like a total bad-ass for a glorious set piece before the credits.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
The Order 1886.
Muscle Wizard
Banned
Play Metal Gear Rising and quit before the Monsoon fight. That's the game you guys are thinking of. Additionally, play MGS 2 and quit before Raiden gets his clothes back from Snake.
badcrumble
Member
If you see Devil May Cry 1 as one long campaign through three total difficulties, it's very much like this. On normal difficulty, basically every single enemy has some kind of extreme exploitable weakness, and this becomes less and less the case as the game goes on (forcing you to rely more and more on just being straight-up good at combat instead of exploiting Zelda-style weaknesses).
Likewise, I'd argue that this is the case in Bayonetta, where Witch Time gets less and less easy to activate until it's eventually impossible.
Those are both games in which you gain more abilities, but in which things that act specifically as a crutch get taken away from you over time.
Likewise, I'd argue that this is the case in Bayonetta, where Witch Time gets less and less easy to activate until it's eventually impossible.
Those are both games in which you gain more abilities, but in which things that act specifically as a crutch get taken away from you over time.
This is a fun concept, but it would be absolutely horrible in metroidvania style game, as the power ups also double as traversal mechanisms, meaning the level design would be forced to get less, and less, and less engaging as the game progresses, and the payer would no longer be capable of traversing large swaths of the world after each downgrade.
More_Badass
Member
Not exactly. Perhaps rather thans simply being able to traverse with gadgets and gear, traversal would become more environmental puzzles. Parkour, creating bridges and platforms from debris and other objects, etc
shiftplusone
Member
Dark Souls naked runs, FFX no sphere grid challenges, FF1 all white mage runs, etc
People have been creating "weak" challenges forever, and they keep happening so there has to be something people see in them. sometimes it's fighting against RNG, others its learning how to exploit or break a system or just learning it well enough to complete it based on pure execution
eh not necessarily.
It would require incredibly creative level design though
Maybe your guy has rocket boots that always activate so he effectively double jumps, making you overshoot some ledges and stuff. Lose the boots and then now you can get to different areas that aren't as high.
or he has like a space marine power suit on, can't crouch or move your arms well but you can equip huge guns and have super armor it's destroyed during the story and you lose your protection but you can now crawl and equip knives and shit?
I dunno I dont make games, but it's totally possible to have something replace another mechanic, though I dont think that's exactly what OP is asking about
br0ken_shad0w
Member
It could definitely work with the latter. Use Ultima IV as a guide and go from there.
I'm not sure if a game's ever done it well, but I can imagine a game where you play as an old man over the course of his late years, and the game ends with his death. Probably would have to roll hard with the tragic hero motif to be palatable in spite of becoming gradually less fun.
Yeah, what would really make it super clever is if it gave you the same exact puzzle you solved earlier in the game, but made you solve it again with less tools and a solution that was entirely different and would have never occurred to you otherwise (because you were so used to using the tools you start with). Would be really tough to design but would be totally worth it.
I've actually thought about this! But I was like "that's stupid and would never work. Why are you so stupid, brain? I hate you." But you know, now that you've said it, I like the idea again!
I could see a linear game where, I dunno, you're shipwrecked/stranded/whatever, but you have all of these radical weapons and tools, but as you progress/get to certain parts of the story -- "Oh crap! My Plasma Blaster 5000 ran out of juice!" and "Fiddlesticks! My go-to Knife of Swift Justice broke in two!" etc. etc.
Could be interesting. But who's a bad enough dude to make such a game?
I could see a linear game where, I dunno, you're shipwrecked/stranded/whatever, but you have all of these radical weapons and tools, but as you progress/get to certain parts of the story -- "Oh crap! My Plasma Blaster 5000 ran out of juice!" and "Fiddlesticks! My go-to Knife of Swift Justice broke in two!" etc. etc.
Could be interesting. But who's a bad enough dude to make such a game?
Remachinate
Member
The general idea was explored in an Extra Punctuation a few years ago. It's a really neat idea and could be a great subversion of Metroidvania tropes if done properly.
Rabid-Coot
Member
It would be good for a survival horror game, you could be sent into the situation fully equiped and gradually lose weapons as you run out of ammo or story events take them away slowly shifting the style of play.
Holy Order Sol
Member
There was that game that Anita highlighted as a good example of a female character. Forget the name of the game but the character is called the Scythian. Apparently loses health as the game progresses which emphasizes the brutality of the journey. Don't know if you start out super-powered though, but there you go.