Paprium: The Official Thread Mk 2

[SEGA-Jorge]

We all started as casuals and then, "X" game appeared in our lives that made us practise for hours/days/weeks/months until our skills got really good. A casual can convert himself/herself into a great player, they only need a game that causes such an inpact on himself/herself that makes them want to practise that game.

Instead of making a game for casuals, would be better to make a game so great that make casuals want to practise it to become a pro in it.

If you have the chance of make a game, what would you put as the priority?

1- Make the best gameplay you can make, even if its not casual friendly.
2- Make a game to be played by the biggest ammount of people, even if that means a simpler gameplay.

I choose the first.

If games are art, then neither of those is the wrong answer, and both are reasonable endeavors. People should make, and play what they want/like.

[Vludi]

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Fonzie did it intentionally

Neither me? I'm just saying he was clueless about it, his only motivation for putting that many enemies on screen was pushing the MD/Datenmeister or whatever. And I'd say the poorly balanced moveset and damage output are just as guilty as the AI.
As for Final Fight SNES the enemies are a bit more aggressive than the arcade to make up for the 3 enemies limitation, they also deal more damage.

[stika]

Good, now that we're all friends again, how about we all cool down with a nice drink?

Neither me? I'm just saying he was clueless about it, his only motivation for putting that many enemies on screen was pushing the MD/Datenmeister or whatever. And I'd say the poorly balanced moveset and damage output is just as guilty as the AI.
As for Final Fight SNES the enemies are a bit more aggressive than the arcade to make up for the 3 enemies limitation, they also deal a lot more damage.

Oh yeah, I forgot to name the poorly balanced damage output. Playing Alex can be quite a pain, agreed.

[pepodmc]

Sorry if this is off topic, and is not intended as spam, but perhaps will be interesting for some of the users here.

But im helping as a tester in the fangame Sor 2x in the page Chronocrash, and yesterday, Ayano Koshiro (sister of yuzo koshiro) who worked in the "art direction" of sor 2 logged into the page and is helping the developer of Sor 2x (kratus) with ideas for the game, making comments about adding things to the Sor 2 route that she would wanted to add and couldnt back in the 90s (lack of development time, budget,etc)

If someone wants to check her messages here its the page:

starts from page 52

http://www.chronocrash.com/forum/ind...topic=3685.780

[molasar]

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.

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My question was a trap. It obviously depends on expectations and preferences. And I myself like them both. So no so called expert or hardcore player can dictate me what I should play or like unless it is a suggestion based on my aforementioned preferences and expectations because I do not know anything about available products.
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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.

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Yes, it is similar based on preferences and expectations. And nowhere I said that Paprium is the best beat'em up game. It just has what I want. I can't say the same about SOR2 or anything that was made after Capcom's AvP. So I do not ignore anything because I stated before that objectively we need a universal rating criteria system. Also I mentioned that they were experimenting in this genre with other stuff but it pushed a lot of people into fighting games. That is why I expect easy to pick up mindless entertainment. This way anyone could join and play it with me.

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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.

My issue is with those who say that if they do not like something, it means others should do the same. That is why I try to get to personal preferences and expectations. For example even none of my favorite beat'em up games is perfect. Some aspects I prefer in other games but it is not always like that you can take all your preferred elements and build magnum opus. Or my perfect vision of beat'em up does not have to match up visions of others.

[molasar]

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

No, it depends on individual who experiences it.

[molasar]

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

Nonsense. And you know it.

[Vludi]

Sorry I don't speak clown

[molasar]

The difference is that, in that comparisson, those two games have great gameplay with their differences.
But with Paprium is not the same, its has an average gameplay and i told you why. If you want to ignore the reasons i gave you i cant do anything more.


About if a deeper gameplay can be bad...

No. I would say that, THAT would be an opinion. Because if the deeper gameplay is well implemented, it never can be worse. In any case , you have a preference for simpler games. But i will put what i said in context.

Its more a thing of you being lazy at playing videogames more than anything. Because talking about beat em ups of the 90s , its not like games of this era that adds to much things becoming a chore to play.
In any case, a deeper 90s beat em up gameplay wise adds more tools to play with to defeat enemies and make the gameplay more dinamic/faster. (being games that try to replicate arcade games, the gameplay is direct even if the gameplay is depper)

Now we are getting to your individual preferences and expectations.
And no I am not lazy I just choose a different genre to practice, e.g. fighting games.

More tools is not always better especially if you do not like them but you are forced to use them. So there goes your deeper gameplay.

[molasar]

Sorry I don't speak clown

But of course you do not. You made yourself insignificant here, bozo.

[pepodmc]

Now we are getting to your individual preferences and expectations.
And no I am not lazy I just choose a different genre to practice, e.g. fighting games.

More tools is not always better especially if you do not like them but you are forced to use them. So there goes your deeper gameplay.

Thats why i put well implemented in the message.

But you just want to go against everything i said without giving solid arguments. its a waste of time.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't know why Joe gets so angry. His method really doesn't work for me, tried on official and unofficial firmware with the same results (stuck at the minigame with wrong colors). I was just trying to find what causes that. Maybe there's more settings involved than those mentioned that are different between his Mega Sg and mine, I don't know. Maybe voltage is an issue. Anyway, I don't take it personally.

I was upset because initially you were saying that Paprium doesn't work with Mega Sg... a blanket statement which was 100% untrue. Now you are saying it doesn't work FOR YOU which is much better. With that said, the only reason it won't work is because your Mega Sg is attempting to do something that real hardware wouldn't before the cart starts booting up. Once ANYTHING like that happens, you get the minigame. So go through each list of options and disable anything like auto region check etc... anything that real hardware would never do. Also be sure to remove the SD card as it checks that for firmware updates. Save and power the system on with the cart in the slot and it should work. Mega Sg only needs 5v 2A from any USB source and Europe is at least powerful enough to supply that I think. If you still can't get it to work, the problem is yours and not the Mega Sg.

[crazyteknohed]

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.

You’ve got this completely the wrong way around: 3S is for the hardcore, Z3 for the casuals.

You can get pretty good at Z3 fairly quickly and its roster has all the main characters everyone knows and loves. I’ve ploughed way over 1000 hours into 3S, maybe even over 2000 hours, across arcade, Dreamcast, and then later Xbox 360 and Fightcade, and I’m still nowhere near elite level. The depth to 3S is immeasurable by contrast.

[Sut]

Target Renegade on the ZX Spectrum is still the king of 8-bit belt scrollers despite dumb AI (it wasn’t dumb at the time)

I think someone mentioned earlier Golden Axe has some really dumb AI that they walk into pits, but exploiting that AI is so strangely satisfying.

I’m going to spend some quality time with Paprium this weekend but dumb AI is not necessarily a game breaker. The above two games are fun that I still replay to this day and dumb AI does not detract from the experience.

[molasar]

Thats why i put well implemented in the message.

But you just want to go against everything i said without giving solid arguments. its a waste of time.

I go against nonsense.