Metal Gear Solid (PS1) is a Metroidvania and why Spider-Man 2 felt empty

[ethomaz]

Metroid gives the illusion it isn't linear, but for the most part it is. Metal Gear Solid is no different. There are multiple paths in cases to advance to the same objective and there are alternate ways of resolving some objectives.



Please tell me how you can progress without getting the required weapons needed to advance. Those are the same as abilities.



There is absolutely exploration.

Your mistake is that you can understand what is written.

MGS is linear… you follow the story… there is nothing more to do… every player follow the exactly same story progression.

Metrovania allow explore areas in non-linear way… you can get item/abilities/power up’s in different order each time… so every player have it own path/way to play these games and even the story progression is not linear… you previews beating the bosses in different order.

The weapon you get as example is just a story progression mechanic… you can't find it exploring… everybody will get it the same way at the same time because you need to follow the story.
Design wise you didn’t even need to have the weapon at all… they could have put anything else… it is only there to serve as background to the story progress.

In Metrovania you get weapons/item/abilities/poweruos all the time in any place exploring it… you can use them to open new exploration areas unrelated to story progression… you can even reach story progression areas in different order and ways depending of what you got exploring.

What exactly explorations has in MGS? You explore to see the environment? There is not point in explore… you follow an identical and pretty linear story path.
You won’t gain anything, find new areas, new bosses, anything if you explore the areas.

Exploration is not mechanics to progress in MGS…
It is like these open world games that don't have anything to do in the open world area... is that considered exploration to you?

 

[mibu no ookami]

Your mistakes you can understand what is written.

MGS is linear… you follow the story… there is nothing more to do… every player follow the exactly same story progression.

Metrovania allow explore areas in non-linear way… you can get item/abilities/power up’s in different order each time… so every player have it own path/way to play these games and even the story progression is not linear… you previews beating the bosses in different order.

The weapon you get as example is just a story progression mechanic… you can't find it exploring… everybody will get it the same way at the same time because you need to follow the story.
Design wise you didn’t even need to have the weapon at all… they could have put anything else… it is only there to serve as background to the story progress.

In Metrovania you get weapons/item/abilities/poweruos all the time in any place exploring it… you can use them to open new exploration areas unrelated to story progression… you can even reach story progression areas in different order and ways depending of what you got exploring.

What exactly explorations has in MGS? You explore to see the environment? There is not point in explore… you follow an identical and pretty linear story path.
You won’t gain anything, find new areas, new bosses, anything if you explore the areas.

Exploration is not mechanics to progress in MGS…
It is like these open world games that don't have anything to do in the open world area... is that considered exploration to you?

Again, I don't think you actually played MGS.

Every player follows the exact same story progression? That's simply not true. Some save Meryl and some don't. Some people get stuff like the handkerchief and others don't. You can explore using C4 or you can totally skip that. You can use the fast travel system by getting boxes that take you to entirely different areas or you don't have to.

There are multiple weapons that you can get out of order. But you do need to upgrade specific weapon systems to advance in specific areas.

Define exploration then. It seems like you want to define it pretty tightly and conveniently.

It seems like not being able to fight bosses in different orders equates to being linear to you. That's like saying mega man isn't linear because you can fight the bosses in different order. That's just silly.

I can explore Basement Level 2 before going to Basement Level 1. That's exploration. Metroid Fusion will block off your advancement if you try to go too far out of script. All games have a degree of linearity to them, you're grasping at straws.

 

[ethomaz]

Again, I don't think you actually played MGS.

Every player follows the exact same story progression? That's simply not true. Some save Meryl and some don't. Some people get stuff like the handkerchief and others don't. You can explore using C4 or you can totally skip that. You can use the fast travel system by getting boxes that take you to entirely different areas or you don't have to.

There are multiple weapons that you can get out of order. But you do need to upgrade specific weapon systems to advance in specific areas.

Define exploration then. It seems like you want to define it pretty tightly and conveniently.

It seems like not being able to fight bosses in different orders equates to being linear to you. That's like saying mega man isn't linear because you can fight the bosses in different order. That's just silly.

I can explore Basement Level 2 before going to Basement Level 1. That's exploration. Metroid Fusion will block off your advancement if you try to go too far out of script. All games have a degree of linearity to them, you're grasping at straws.

You accusing others to not have played games that you don't understand lol

I played day one on PS1... beat it several times.
Replayed to get Platinum on PS3.

While the first I have no evidence in the internet (you can ask my friends if you wish)...
The second you can look at my trophies.

That beyond ridiculous.
I could use your own argument saying you never played a Metrovania game in your life... because thinking that a linear games based in story progression like MGS is equal to the out of order exploration based story way of Castlevania: Symphony of Night is really grasping at straws lol
You basically don't understand what metrovania is.

Let's wait the thread about Resident Evil, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Zelda, Journey, etc being Metrovanias.

BTW the Zelda can be used as case to understand the difference between it and Metrovania... compare Zelda LTTP with Super Metroid first and when you understand you will easy see why MGS is not a Metrovania.

 

[rofif]

I hope they rethink these things...

It's really killing the flow and resonance of their games and eroding trust gradually.

in games like uncharted3, playing as kid Nathan for a while was FINE but no way in hell I would want to play as Nadine for in his game

 

[ethomaz]

I hope they rethink these things...

It's really killing the flow and resonance of their games and eroding trust gradually.

I do like change of gameplay with alternative character is story driven games...

That remember me Breath of Fire 4... loved it.
The Last of Us playing some parts with Ellie was awesome too... particularly the bow she used was one of my most loved weapons in Factions.

Maybe it is how it is done.

Ateus is mechanically bad imo.

 

[ethomaz]

in games like uncharted3, playing as kid Nathan for a while was FINE but no way in hell I would want to play as Nadine for in his game

Well I should pretty well play as Chloe or Sullivan.
Nadine is just weak character wise.

 

[rofif]

Notice you weren't able to come up with a single example of a game that was 15+ hours and pure melee.

Your solution of make the game shorter has another consequence of people not thinking the game is worth it.

You think it's about forced agendas, but the reality is that during playtests you're going to find that you need to break up monotony.

Kratos has a pretty good mix of weapons especially in Ragnarok, but you risk him becoming stale without breaking up the gameplay. This is exactly what happens in Spider-Man 2 with both Spider-Men having essentially the exact same gameplay. It's also why they throw in spider-bot and mary jane missions. You don't think spider-bot is about pushing an agenda, because your own personal agenda has no problem with it.

Games have become significantly longer and gamers demand that with the price tags associated with games. And even though many of us would be happy with shorter games, that's not as efficient for developers either. Once you have a game built out, building some length into the game doesn't drastically increase the price of the game compared to creating an entirely new game.

Ultimately, that's a flaw of a character like Wolverine is that you can't fit him into a modern video game at 70 dollars and have him play as just himself. Wolverine has rarely been a solo character in any game of this length.

X-Men Origins Wolverine is probably the longest and it comes in at 9 hours. Marvel's Wolverine is probably going to be double that length...

I didn't gave any example because it was not my goal to give examples.
still that doesn't change that game sucks if you think it's boring when it starts to drag with a single character.
There are ton and ton and ton of long games that are played with only 1 character that do not get boring.
Stellar blade was 50 hours for me and was amazing. Same with FF16. Even Hogwarts Legacy. Souls are melee games that are long and never get boring. Returnal is just shooting. Story game sare often 15-20 hours and do not get boring if story is good like uc4 or tlou2.

bad games are bad and adding another character is a cheap trick.
It makes sense in some games like Alan Wake 2. That game structure was good around 2 playable characters for story reasons. I just disliked some of the execution on saga side like repetitive fake detective and talking heads

 

[mibu no ookami]

I didn't gave any example because it was not my goal to give examples.
still that doesn't change that game sucks if you think it's boring when it starts to drag with a single character.
There are ton and ton and ton of long games that are played with only 1 character that do not get boring.
Stellar blade was 50 hours for me and was amazing. Same with FF16. Even Hogwarts Legacy. Souls are melee games that are long and never get boring. Returnal is just shooting. Story game sare often 15-20 hours and do not get boring if story is good like uc4 or tlou2.

bad games are bad and adding another character is a cheap trick.
It makes sense in some games like Alan Wake 2. That game structure was good around 2 playable characters for story reasons. I just disliked some of the execution on saga side like repetitive fake detective and talking heads

Notice you changed the structure of my ask.

You gave examples, but not characters that were strictly melee.

Every game you brought up is not melee only. You're making my point for me.

 

[Bryank75]

I do like change of gameplay with alternative character is story driven games...

That remember me Breath of Fire 4... loved it.
The Last of Us playing some parts with Ellie was awesome too... particularly the bow she used was one of my most loved weapons in Factions.

Maybe it is how it is done.

Ateus is mechanically bad imo.

Agree, it CAN be done well.

 

[rofif]

Notice you changed the structure of my ask.

You gave examples, but not characters that were strictly melee.

Every game you brought up is not melee only. You're making my point for me.

yakuza.
but god of war ragnarok is not melee only lol. he throws and have different weapons