I was thinking about Metal Gear Solid today and how that game was pure design genius. And I thought about how it definitely feels like a 3D (top down) metroidvania. So I wondered if anyone else had that idea and there was a reddit post where someone got flamed for the suggestion, but I agree with him.
In Metal Gear Solid, your items and weapons allow you to progress to different levels of the game. While the game is pretty linear, it's not as if Metroidvanias are open world...
I think Metroidvania type games are inherently some of the best gameplay design you can have. You're actively invested in progressing through the game because there is always a subsequent challenge that needs to be tackled and something you need to do differently to resolve it. Then there is the end game where you are at peak levels and the overall challenge of the game can be upped based on the strength that your character has reached and everything you've learned through the game.
That's also where I think Spider-Man 2 went awry.
There was no sense of progress. Nothing you earn in the game feels necessary to progressing. I
The desire to have both Spider-Men in the game leaves little difference between the two. The game isn't at all balanced against the differences between characters. Something I assume Insomnaic is looking to avoid in Wolverine, with Wolverine and Jean Grey having very different play mechanics. What they do with Jean will be interesting because I don't think I've ever seen her power type used properly in a video game... I heard Control was good, maybe they'll take inspiration from Control like they took inspiration from Arkham Asylum for Spider-Man.
The Spider-Man 2 skill trees are uninteresting because there is nothing to distinguish each ability from a gameplay perspective. You're not even forced to learn each move and the moves have little to nothing to do with how you progress through the game. The lack of development I think takes you out of the game and makes it repetitive and ultimately boring.
The first game did a much better job at this and with a generally better story, made for a much better overall game.
I also think Spider-Man 2 struggles from being a linear game disguised as an open world game. There's really no incentive to explore the open world. I think they try to adjust for this with the Miles storylines, but all the missions like this were extremely weak.
In Metal Gear Solid, your items and weapons allow you to progress to different levels of the game. While the game is pretty linear, it's not as if Metroidvanias are open world...
I think Metroidvania type games are inherently some of the best gameplay design you can have. You're actively invested in progressing through the game because there is always a subsequent challenge that needs to be tackled and something you need to do differently to resolve it. Then there is the end game where you are at peak levels and the overall challenge of the game can be upped based on the strength that your character has reached and everything you've learned through the game.
That's also where I think Spider-Man 2 went awry.
There was no sense of progress. Nothing you earn in the game feels necessary to progressing. I
n fact you get abilities that you don't have for the entire game, so you're not actually at your strongest at the end of the game from that perspective.
The Spider-Man 2 skill trees are uninteresting because there is nothing to distinguish each ability from a gameplay perspective. You're not even forced to learn each move and the moves have little to nothing to do with how you progress through the game. The lack of development I think takes you out of the game and makes it repetitive and ultimately boring.
The first game did a much better job at this and with a generally better story, made for a much better overall game.
I also think Spider-Man 2 struggles from being a linear game disguised as an open world game. There's really no incentive to explore the open world. I think they try to adjust for this with the Miles storylines, but all the missions like this were extremely weak.
