Paprium: The Official Thread Mk 2

[paulojr_mam]

But the content of any game works around the gameplay of the game itself, and, if the gameplay its average, the game will have short legs, even if its the game with more content of the world.

For example, there are games today with 30 or 40 hours of campaign, of 100GB size plus a lot of DLC, that i dont even want to play because the gameplay looks dull as f***.

But Sega genesis games of 2mb or 4 mb of size can be played for decades, because the gameplay is really tight and well done. And its not nostalgia at all.

This to me is conflating having good gameplay with having replayability, to me those are two separate things. A game can have one and don't have the other and vice-versa. And a game can have great replayability and not be a good game, because being replayable is one factor among many. Paprium does seem to have shallow gameplay. But I'd say that about every beat 'em up I played, I'm not equipped to notice the gameplay nuances of those games. Paprium still seems shallower to me. Which to me makes it not a great game, because I care a lot about gameplay.

[Vludi]

Paprium does seem to have shallow gameplay. But I'd say that about every beat 'em up I played, I'm not equipped to notice the gameplay nuances of those games.

If you can't even tell a good game from a bad one then I doubt you can realize the replay value of these games either. Maybe some of your views on replay value apply to some genres that focus more on collectibles and sheer quantity than engaging gameplay, but definitely not arcade style action games.

[Arkanoid]

Did anyone else who pre-ordered enter their shipping info "late" and actually get a game? Thanks to Hotmail conveniently putting the Watermelon e-mails into my junk folder, I didn't enter my shipping info until Dec 22, my order status has been at "packing" ever since. I can't say I'm surprised that nothing has happened since then, especially with the website now saying their customer service is suspended until January 25th (aka their entire operation of probably 1 person is suspended until who knows when).

[axel]

The thing about the extra content is that back in the day nobody was designing a beat 'em up to have 20 or more levels, if you had 6 or 7 that was plenty. The goal was not to make the longest game, it was to find the amount of content that a consumer was willing to pay for to justify development costs. If there was demand for additional levels that's what sequels were for. It's cool that Paprium has so much but it reflects the design philosophy of the modern era, where games have gotten longer on average.

[zredgemz]

Did anyone else who pre-ordered enter their shipping info "late" and actually get a game? Thanks to Hotmail conveniently putting the Watermelon e-mails into my junk folder, I didn't enter my shipping info until Dec 22, my order status has been at "packing" ever since. I can't say I'm surprised that nothing has happened since then, especially with the website now saying their customer service is suspended until January 25th (aka their entire operation of probably 1 person is suspended until who knows when).

I wanna know if anyone in the US who got into the shipping phase but not shipped that put info on the 14th got anything and i mean Investor stuff not pre orders from 2017. Anyone after Christmas i mean.

[majinga]

It's a videogame.
People have different tastes, some may like it and others may not.

Personally I prefer something simpler like SOR or FF, with one start and one end.
I played them many times, and I will play them again for sure!
Like good movies, you can watch them many times, and enjoy them every time.

Probably some people, like me, don't care about multiple endings, hidden secrets, unlockable elements, in a brawler.
The only important thing is the fun.

I found paprium a very strange game, more appearance than substance.

There is a lot of strange things in this game.
The first time I played it, I just walked around, without throwing a single punch. And I found very strange that the enemies didn't even tried to beat me. I don't know if was for the difficulty level, or because the game help you to walk in front of the enemies and perform the special move.

I found the general gameplay very boring. I reached the level with the golden singing guy just by lazynelly pressing the B button.
I used the jump kick only with the bosses.

The game didn't catch players who don't want to look around in search of hidden secrets and collecting items.
And there is noting wrong with this. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of people who like this kind of games.

I would have preferred something more classic, at least for the arcade mode. I would have left the rest for the story mode.

The graphic is also strange. There are so many details. There are a lot of tiny elements on each level.
But there are also some huge mistakes.
There is a level where you can practically walk over the end wall on the right.
The level with the escalators is also odd. The level seems to don't match with the previous or the following.
There is the level with the fog, which is very beautiful in the beginning, the fog effect is great. Then the fog disappear, and the colors becomes faded. It became like a C64 game. Probably to make the idea of more fog. But the result is terrible, you don't have the feel to be in the fog, because there is no fog, and you was still able to see everything, every enemy. They are only more C64ish.

My impression is that they tried a lot of visual effects in the making of the game. Of course, not all of them gave good results, and not all of them were a good choice for that particular game. But they kept them anyway.

And there are a lot of other things.

It's indeed a strange game.
it is normal that there are conflicting opinions.

[molasar]

The issue here is that you try to justify the unjustifiable. Paprium gameplay is average:

*Bad hitboxes
*Strange hitstun
*Weapons like pipes with the same attack reach as your normal punches XD
*Only with jump and kick you can complete the game, because it lacks characters like donovan in sor 2/3 that will hit you if you try to do that.
*Very bad bosses, caused by a bad AI and a lack of a good spritesheet.


About if sor 3 gameplay would work on paprium, it would. But paprium developers dont have the talent to reach the gameplay quality of Sor 3 so it doesnt matter, Paprium feels like a beta even gameplay wise.

Thats why i always hate when a lot of people say that beat em ups are mindless games or simple games. You have to understand very well the way how a beat em up works, because if not, you will end up with something like paprium, a game which replay value consist more in the ammount of content than the quality of the gameplay.

I dont understand the last question.

Again this is your opinion.

I never stated that Paprium's gameplay is the best. It is approachable and decent enough. I do not want something in it like in Mother Russia Bleeds or Fight'N Rage.

To have something same like in SOR3 you need smaller sprites and more room for moving around. Copying gameplay itself is not a solution.

You can hate even the whole world but it won't change it that beat'em ups were considered as mindless in comparison to fighting games. And it is not something I made up. Experimentations in moving them closer to fighting games in some aspects made many people move to the latter.

The last question is about which gameplay mechanics and gameplay loop are easier to learn for anyone (even those who do not play video games)? SOR3's or Paprium's? IMO Paprium's.

[Stef]

Hi Stef, I was wondering if the Z80 was used for anything else than sound in this game, and if using the custom chip for sound freed up some CPU resources which are then used for sprites etc.?

No, Z80 is always used only for sound, to be honest it would be rather difficult to use it for something else...

So the MD3, Nomad and most clones are unable to play sound made by a chip inside the cartridge? That's why there is an option to use the MD sound hardware to make the sound instead of using the cartridge chip to make it?

Kind of.. sound is still generated through the chip but as MD3, Nomad cannot route the chip DAC, the Z80 will read generated sound data through a buffer and send it to the YM DAC instead.

If I want to know how the game would sound on a MD1/MD2/WonderMega/CDX/... if the cartridge did not have the extra chip, I just need to turn on this YM DAC option?

Not really, as the chip is still generating the PCM sound (up to 24 PCM channels), there is no way to generate 24 PCM channels from the Z80 alone.
But the PCM playback code from Z80 is definitely not optimal and quality is very degraded (16 Khz with auto timing adjustment which affect pitch and general quality).
A native Z80 driver would have less much PCM channels, but we can definitely have better PCM playback than here

A final question, with this YM DAC option enabled, besides the degradation of the sound, the quantity of sounds played at the same time will be the same or will it decrease?

Exactly the same quantity (as the chip still produce it the same way), just the play quality which is affected.

[pepodmc]

Again this is your opinion.

Gameplay being the most important thing in a videogame is not an opinion (is a fact) . If you think that is not, you are simply wrong.

For example, if i compare street fighter 1 and street fighter 2 and, i reach the conclusion that, SF2 is better, that would be my opinion and not a fact?

There are opinions that are simply wrong, like if someone says that Street fighter 1 is better than street fighter 2.

Because i consider that gameplay wise, there is the same difference between sf2 and sf1 than between Bare Knuckle 3 and paprium in terms of quality and polish of the gameplay.

About the mechanics and gameplay loop, its simple. Make the game with a lot of well implemented gameplay mechanics and , if the human player is bad at the game, he/she can practise and improve his/her skills.

Its like you are saying that, a deeper gameplay is something bad.

[molasar]

Gameplay being the most important thing in a videogame is not an opinion (is a fact) . If you think that is not, you are simply wrong.

For example, if i compare street fighter 1 and street fighter 2 and, i reach the conclusion that, SF2 is better, that would be my opinion and not a fact?

There are opinions that are simply wrong, like if someone says that Street fighter 1 is better than street fighter 2.

Because i consider that gameplay wise, there is the same difference between sf2 and sf1 than between Bare Knuckle 3 and paprium in terms of quality and polish of the gameplay.

About the mechanics and gameplay loop, its simple. Make the game with a lot of well implemented gameplay mechanics and , if the human player is bad at the game, he/she can practise and improve his/her skills.

Its like you are saying that, a deeper gameplay is something bad.

Again it all depends on individual preferences and expectations.

Also you can tell me which game has a better gameplay? SFA3 or SFIII:3rdS?

Yes, a deeper gameplay can be bad. Also not every human player wants to practice.

[stika]

Gameplay being the most important thing in a videogame is not an opinion (is a fact) . If you think that is not, you are simply wrong.

For example, if i compare street fighter 1 and street fighter 2 and, i reach the conclusion that, SF2 is better, that would be my opinion and not a fact?

There are opinions that are simply wrong, like if someone says that Street fighter 1 is better than street fighter 2.

Because i consider that gameplay wise, there is the same difference between sf2 and sf1 than between Bare Knuckle 3 and paprium in terms of quality and polish of the gameplay.

About the mechanics and gameplay loop, its simple. Make the game with a lot of well implemented gameplay mechanics and , if the human player is bad at the game, he/she can practise and improve his/her skills.

Its like you are saying that, a deeper gameplay is something bad.

Not that I have a horse in this race but that's not necessarily true.

Deeper gameplay is not always a good thing, if it was, we'd all be playing Dwarf's fortress and Caves of Qud instead of Streets of Rage.

Also, there are a few genres that people love that stretch the definition of "gameplay", stuff like Visual Novels, Hidden Objects and to a lesser degree, point and click adventure games.

As a general rule, there's a sweet spot to depth for just about every genre. Make it too simple and it'll only appeal to casual fans of the genre. Make it too deep and the game becomes niche. Finding that sweet spot can be tricky though as people's tastes are constantly shifting.

[SEGA-Jorge]

Again it all depends on individual preferences and expectations.

Also you can tell me which game has a better gameplay? SFA3 or SFIII:3rdS?

Yes, a deeper gameplay can be bad. Also not every human player wants to practice.

Most hardcore/expert players will universally agree that Zero III is the better game. But that by no means is a comment on the quality of 3rd Strike. They are very different types of fighting games, as in their pace and playstyle are quite different. If anything, 3rd Strike being so different is what made it so divisive. Some people think it's just the best, while others could never get into it. But both games are really, really good.

This is not similar to Paprium. Paprium has a ton of just bad design. I understand you're saying that that is just opinion, and you're right, to a degree, but there is objectively bad design, User Experience, feedback loops, etc. that you seem to be ignoring. When a game gets to the scale of Paprium, and if the dev team behind it is not experienced enough with the genre, some things can be overlooked. I don't necessarily believe this makes the game bad, but I do think that the overall quality and replayability of the game suffered as a result. You might still get a lot of time out of it though, and frankly, I think I lot of people will. You're right in that many of the nuances of beat 'em ups are lost on you. From what you're saying, they are not something you come into expecting fleshed out combat mechanics, scoring systems, tight pacing, enemy interactions, boss fights, etc. and that's fine. But what I will tell you is that you've experienced a lot of that in other beat 'em ups over the years, namely in arcade beat 'em ups, and some console beat 'em ups. Calling them simple or mindless games, or calling the design of them simple, or simpler than fighting games is sort of looking at them in the wrong way. There is a ton of work that goes into both game genres, in very different ways. neither is harder than the other, it's all based on the scope of the game in that genre.

On replayability, yeah, almost all this is sort of subjective. Whatever you find enjoyable enough to engage in multiple times, would have 'replayability', buy that might not be what some of the other members are commenting on. The stickiness of any game generally is found in the ability for a player to engage in the challenges provided by they game, within the ruleset set by the gameplay, and the variety of interactions in any given game. We can sort of see that in older and newer games, stuff like difficulty settings, enemy and level nuances, etc would help to provide some of that challenge. Replayability can manifest itself in how a player wants to see an ending or endings, or complete a game on a specific difficulty, or get a higher score, or win within a certain time limit, etc. All those things really are not achievable without the core gameplay being engaging, enjoyable, challenging, and in the case of beat em ups, expressive. And I can't stress this enough, expression in combat is a big deal. I'm not even saying that the combat has to be deep or complex, but it has to be fun, and engaging. There are things that make combat engaging, the feel, sound, hit-detection, move impact, variety, enemy behavior, hit-boxes, states, variation, etc. Then you get to enemy pacing, grouping, AI, routing, then bosses, etc. All this stuff, that other games don't always get right, but _some_ got really well, are things that Paprium sort of struggles with. This doesn't mean it's bad, but for the overall enjoyment, replayability etc. It will more than likely wear off for players, (perhaps not yourself) faster than other games that came out before, or even this year. That's the core issue here. There is this nature to Paprium where, it's the new thing, and we're all sort of praising it (myself included) but the stickiness of this game, the impact post-release, the tech we'll discover, the nuance and details and tricks, etc. won't be as impactful, and it's as a result of the design. There's fundamental issues with design of levels, enemies, combat, bosses, routing, pacing, feedback, etc. that, for me at least, have started making my subsequent playthroughs less rewarding, less engaging, less impactful, and as a result, less memorable. All the endings are pretty much single screen nonsense. All the unlockables are half-made characters. And all the extra areas are just new (really cool-looking) backgrounds with most of the same enemies, albeit in different groupings (which I'm fine with, but the pacing is still wonky and the enemies are not really fun to engage) and all this kinda adds up to what? I go through the game again to play 1 extra mission to fight another boss that doesn't really pose any challenge? I don't really always unlock a new thing, and it's not like score matters, cause Fonzie abstracted it behind hex for some nonsensical reason. I mean, after you unlock the arcade mode paths, what do the scores even mean? Are we going to share those? How do we brag about scores that are in hex? It's such a backwards, elitist way of designing a basic, straightforward concept in game development, and they had to somehow muck that up as well.

Anyway, I'm really happy so many people are playing and talking about this game, but I wish there was this much discussion about mechanics, game play, design, etc. about all the other games I try to break down. We should spend this kind of time on some of the other titles in the library.

[pepodmc]

Not that I have a horse in this race but that's not necessarily true.

Deeper gameplay is not always a good thing, if it was, we'd all be playing Dwarf's fortress and Caves of Qud instead of Streets of Rage.

Also, there are a few genres that people love that stretch the definition of "gameplay", stuff like Visual Novels, Hidden Objects and to a lesser degree, point and click adventure games.

But you are comparing different gaming genres, stay in beat em ups.

if betweem beat em ups, there is one with deeper (well implemented) gameplay mechanics that will have a better gameplay.

[stika]

But you are comparing different gaming genres, stay in beat em ups.

if betweem beat em ups, there is one with deeper (well implemented) gameplay mechanics that will have a better gameplay.

Even if I stay within beat'em ups, the argument stands though? Not everyone wants deeper gameplay. In fact, I can't think of a single genre where the deepest game is the one everyone immediately defaults to.

In my case, I love Capcom's D&D series and I consider that series better than either Streets of Rage or Paprium, would I introduce that game to a casual beat'em up fan whose only experience with the genre is stuff like Double Dragon for the NES or Final Fight for the SNES?

Absolutely not, chances are they'll get crushed and become easily frustrated. It's a great series, but it's not for everyone.

[Vludi]

But you are comparing different gaming genres, stay in beat em ups.

People who don't actually play beat 'em ups love to make cross-genre comparisons for some reason.