New enemies, new environments, new items, new visuals, refined controls (which are better suited for controllers too) et cetera. It's a fantastic 'remake' of an old game and the Daily Challenge (same seed for everyone in the world but only 1 chance) is a huge feature.
But that moment when you realize you have complete mastery over the shopkeepers, and are capable of just tossing a sticky on their stupid faces or shotgunning them down from afar, is one of the best moments.
Great game and its available on basically everything now, why are you reading this? Go buy it now!
Love the butthurt in these threads with people getting offended by a GOTY choice. Also to those who played for an hour or so and decided you didn't like it, sorry you just suck at the game and probably play everything on easy mode.
Bring on more games based around actual gameplay mechanics!
Sounds like you need to be a tad more methodical. Primarily focusing on reaching the next exit (with or without shortcuts) at the temporary expense of exploring the majority of a level or accumilating much gold helps a lot in terms of coming to grips (step by step) with Spelunky's intricacies and the mindset a decent run requires. You can worry about those other two matters once dying is less of an issue.
If that's not your cup of tea, then that's understandable. Spelunky cuts you no slack after all, truth to be told.
Cheers chap, I'll give that a good read and bear it in mind for my next play. I haven't taken it off my Vita memory card since I bought it because I can see there's a great game in there, I'm just struggling to crack it at the moment.
Have you played it? You don't even protect the "girl". You use her as an object. You use her as a weapon. You use her to sacrifice to a god for special items. You use her for health. There is no protecting. You don't even end up marrying any of them. The game is completely about getting as much riches and fame as possible.
This game is so good, and so fucking unfair at times.
I've beaten the hell out of Super Meat Boy, and Binding of Isaac, and I have not once seen even the FOURTH world in this game, let alone the fifth, and this is with 10 hours into it. I can maybe play it for 4-5 lives now every 2 hours or so before I want to break something.
I LOVED the last run I had, jetpack, shotgun, 6 health beginning of jungle level, then a damn monkey lands on my head and gets me to land on some damn spikes. Even better was another one where I was doing good, found the black market, then they had the audacity to have that be a DARK level! >:|
Premise - The whole premise of the game is to get to the end of each small level, and while it may be satisfying due to its difficulty; I find that there are other games that have a better overall premise that offers a more rewarding and memorable experience.
this is essentially the premise of every video game.
differences between Spelunky and your real games is that one is 2D while the other is 3D, and the path from beginning to end is gameplay, while your real video games break that up with immersive cutscenes, visceral QTEs and Oscar caliber dialogue.
It's fine if you don't like Spelunky since "Roguelike + X" doesn't coincide with your preferences, but I don't see how some of the tightest mechanics in platforming this side of Super Meat Boy and the best of Mario games is "uninteresting" from that point-of-view.
They got the physics right but that doesn't really mean much when none of the actual platforming in the game was interesting. Random level generation, in a genre that hinges almost entirely on its level design, is one of the worst ideas in probably ever.
The worst Mario platformer is still lightyears ahead of Spelunky. I'd much rather replay something as shitty as NSMB than play through an hour of Spelunky's incredibly repetitive levels. It's a game that fails at platforming but specially at the roguelike portions.
They got the physics right but that doesn't really mean much when none of the actual platforming in the game was interesting. Random level generation, in a genre that hinges almost entirely on its level design, is one of the worst ideas in probably ever.
The worst Mario platformer is still lightyears ahead of Spelunky. I'd much rather replay something as shitty as NSMB than play through an hour of Spelunky's incredibly repetitive levels. It's a game that fails at platforming but specially at the roguelike portions.
Can someone being this wrong really be put down to taste?
Spelunky is like adult NSMB, feels like the jump platforming deserved. I used to platform as Mario, now I'm Indiana Jones. Wait till you get semi-decent and you play in co-op (each with their own screen...on Vita anyway) - bloody brilliant.
They got the physics right but that doesn't really mean much when none of the actual platforming in the game was interesting. Random level generation, in a genre that hinges almost entirely on its level design, is one of the worst ideas in probably ever.
The worst Mario platformer is still lightyears ahead of Spelunky. I'd much rather replay something as shitty as NSMB than play through an hour of Spelunky's incredibly repetitive levels. It's a game that fails at platforming but specially at the roguelike portions.
Story - which is extremely limited in Spelunky.
Mechanics - that are beyond getting to a door before a ghost gets you, forcing you to rationalize your time on each level.
Graphics - Call me shallow, but I still look at this factor, and Spelunky while nice is based on an old game which some HD reskinning essentially.
Premise - The whole premise of the game is to get to the end of each small level, and while it may be satisfying due to its difficulty; I find that there are other games that have a better overall premise that offers a more rewarding and memorable experience.
There are other areas, but these are pretty important.
There are so many other great games that can easily replace Spelunky. While Spelunky is great, it's definitely not GOTY material. Maybe if they had an Indie games category.
Durante since I love you so much and all that you have done - I will re-consider it and watch some videos to see if I can find the appeal of it. Maybe it can grow on me.
Spelunky is a game that's just too damn hard and I never say that about games. Beat Dark Souls on NG++, no problem. All the stars in Galaxy 1 and 2, sure. But I'm never doing an Eggplant run or even seeing hell.
It's not maliciously hard, but somehow the random, impersonal nature of its dangers make it even more daunting. It's hard for the right reasons though.
I had to be satisfied with getting better at Spelunky in order to enjoy it, because beating it properly is going to be a long journey. Every trap dodge or enemy kill is a small victory. It's the same approach people used to take with multiplayer games, until everyone became obsessed with filling bars.
I could see PC Gamer's staff voting some other game GOTY just because it had more visibility, and then sneaking off to play Spelunky every chance they got. I'm glad they didn't feel the need to do that.
Story - which is extremely limited in Spelunky.
Mechanics - that are beyond getting to a door before a ghost gets you, forcing you to rationalize your time on each level.
Graphics - Call me shallow, but I still look at this factor, and Spelunky while nice is based on an old game which some HD reskinning essentially.
Premise - The whole premise of the game is to get to the end of each small level, and while it may be satisfying due to its difficulty; I find that there are other games that have a better overall premise that offers a more rewarding and memorable experience.
I don't get the impression you played enough of Spelunky to make a complete judgement on it. But let me address your individual points;
Story - Videogames as a storytelling medium are very immature, and the stories contained within them are known to pale in comparison to good novels. Few games use the format's actual strengths to tell a story that could only exist in a videogame.
For those reasons, I do not think story should be a crucial criteria in determining a GOTY, at least not until videogames mature enough to know how to tell a story that would only exist in a videogame.
Mechanics/Premise - This is where you showed that you didn't play much of the game. The mechanics are a lot more than just getting to a door before a ghost comes. Here are a few things that come into play in a regular run for me;
-Proper execution of platforming/combat
-Collecting all treasure possible, often having to kite enemies to an area I can jump onto them to reach high up gold
-Robbing/killing shopkeepers
-Collecting gems for the ghost to run over to maximize score, and kiting the ghost onto them
-Breaking into vaults once per area and getting the ghost over them for a huge payout
-Looking for and collecting items, including specific ones that unlock crucial areas
-Finding, accessing, and clearing out the blackmarket
-Saving damsels for health or sacrificing them if possible
-Miniboss/boss fights in certain areas
Spelunky also has completely tight platforming, hitboxes, and intelligent level randomization to facilitate the ability to do all the things I mentioned.
And that's just some of it. The premise is certainly much more than "get to the end of each small level". That kind of reductionist view could be used to belittle any game;
Competitive Starcraft is just about beating your opponent. Bioshock Infinite is just about killing enemies. Zelda games are just about getting the triforce.
Graphics - Spelunky is far from just an HD reskinning, it added tons of new content and the graphics were completely redone. The graphics in Spelunky, while 2D and somewhat minimal, are clean and pleasant, and do not distract from the gameplay which is important for a game like this.
Graphics in most AAA games are full of irregularities such as jagged edges, low res textures, framerate issues, etc. A lot of this can be fixed on PC, but even still 3D graphics rarely look as clean as 2D hand drawn graphics. Anyways graphics are somewhat subjective, and I'd take a clean looking game over one with tons of visual oddities any day.
So I feel like you didn't get Spelunky, which is fine, but it doesn't diminish its value as one of the best games of this generation. Saying it's not GOTY is fine since that's a subjective marker, but saying it could only compete in an indie games category is unfair and in my opinion incorrect.
And Last of Us wasn't a PC game, to all the people mentioning it.
They got the physics right but that doesn't really mean much when none of the actual platforming in the game was interesting. Random level generation, in a genre that hinges almost entirely on its level design, is one of the worst ideas in probably ever.
The worst Mario platformer is still lightyears ahead of Spelunky. I'd much rather replay something as shitty as NSMB than play through an hour of Spelunky's incredibly repetitive levels. It's a game that fails at platforming but specially at the roguelike portions.
The game didn't really click with me. I like roguelikes where you can accumulate a lot of powers ie. binding of isaac and risk of rain. In this game, its gets boring quickly exploring randomized dungeons with the same small handfull of items/powers, and it is tedious having to drop/pick them up all the time.
I knew this game had a small cult following, but I didn't really think it was GOTY material. I'm surprised.
The game didn't really click with me. I like roguelikes where you can accumulate a lot of powers ie. binding of isaac and risk of rain. In this game, its gets boring quickly exploring randomized dungeons with the same small handfull of items/powers, and it is tedious having to drop/pick them up all the time.
I knew this game had a small cult following, but I didn't really think it was GOTY material. I'm surprised.
This was my biggest issue with the game also, but I find the game shouldn't really be called a roguelike (not even by the modern definition)
To me it is a game about getting high scores, and competing on the leaderboards. The fact that each gameplay ends up going pretty similarly helps it to succeed at this, since if it was wildly different each time, like a Binding of Isaac run can be, it would be hard to be "good" at the game and to compete on leaderboards.
Expecting Spelunky to be a real roguelike is kind of setting yourself up for disappointment, since that's the area it fails in in my opinion.
To me it's a classic score based platformer with some randomized elements.
Fantastic choice. It's grown on me since XBLA day one, to the extent that I genuinely think it is one of the best-designed games of all time. There is almost no trial and error and the game is so deceptively deep and substantial that it's immediately obvious in this thread who hasn't played much of it from the complaints that it's shallow.
-Collecting gems for the ghost to run over to maximize score, and kiting the ghost onto them
-Breaking into vaults once per area and getting the ghost over them for a huge payout
"What is this madness?! Looks like I've missed a few game system stuff."
It's what makes the earlier complaint in the thread about shotguns being too expensive by level 2-1 especially comical. Even if you don't want to kill a shopkeeper, you can absolutely afford pretty much anything you want if you set up properly for the ghost. That detracts from your score, of course (by spending gold), but the option is definitely there.
The ghost is a mental block more than anything. Stages are usually small enough to be completed within half a minute (or even as quickly as 5 seconds), the ghost is so slow it can easily be kited around with a little foresight (resource management plays some part in this too) and its presence is integral to a number of gameplay nuances that benefit the player. The ghost admittedly does seem threatening if you're inexperienced with Spelunky and that's a natural first impression, but it's merely just another layer of tension to keep in mind when taking the game's balancing act of risk-reward into consideration in the grand scheme of it all.
If you feel you're frequently having your back against the wall any time the ghost spawns, then your game plan or general strategy is up for improvement one way or another. Your priorities may not be in the right place, you may be manoeuvring around the enemies (or eliminating them altogether) too slowly or you may be putting too much emphasis on exploring every nook & cranny of a level for spoils that may in actuality be rather trivial; it could be one of many possibilities! Spelunky is designed for every run (or at least the good ones) to be a gradual learning experience, which honestly isn't for everyone and that's fine if in the long run you'd rather spend your time elsewhere.
It really is, I used to run for it when the ghost came but I'm quite good at guiding it over the jewels now, provided I've got the right supplies.
Picked up the necromicon today thinking ' what's the worst that could happen?' That was a bad move, I think I ruined my best chance at a first no shortcut run.
