UI and Menus

What was Mana responding to in her first post? She tagged crocodile but we can't see what was said prior to it.

I can agree that the item usage was cumbersome in SOTN but i did like all the visual touches it added over just seeing the health bar go up in the DS games. It'd be cool if you pressed it an upon entering the game a green glow happens around your character or something. I think all the nice visual touches make for a more pleasant experience.

Yeah, have to say I'm more against potion use animations than I am for them. At least when it comes to IGAvanias. Same thing with cooldowns. I've even mentioned that before.

i do agree they look a little cumbersome in the mockup, i had a really hard time finding something that could get across what i was seeing in my head that wasnt pixel thin and would completely disappear when i tried to overlay it, or hugely bulky and would take up too much space, the main theme i wanted to get across is the ui elements being woven back into the game by having them attached to this picture framesque look rather than simply hanging in midair, much like how the platforms in iga games generally dont hang in midair like most platformers, theyre usually woven into the background somehow >P

It has everything to do with being "cute" because the change to quicker, snappier item use was a quality of life upgrade in pretty much all subsequent Igavanias. It sped up the gameplay, avoided awkward scenarios where you would/could die just because you couldn't use your items quick enough (lets not forget that SOTN was one of the easiest Igavanias too and that has often been cited as one of its major flaws - using that sort of system in a game even slightly harder would be problematic), allowed you to use small healing items in quick succession if you didn't have ones that could restore more HP/MP in one shot, etc. I see no reason to go backwards in this regard (having to equip healing items, having to actually grab them in play to use them, cooldowns, etc.) aside from nostalgia. Similar to how, as an example, going back to say having to manually switch boxes in Pokemon games to store excess Pokemon would be a quality of life reversion and would only serve to appeal to nostalgia. I'm not trying to be disparaging so I apologize if my tone at all sounds antagonistic but I can't cosign something I consider a strict quality of life downgrade.

If people are interested in some minor effect that doesn't impeded or affect gameplay in any fashion (like Miriam glows a specific color for a bit or a chime or whatever) after using an item and returning to gameplay from the inventory screen (or after using a hot key), I wouldn't be opposed to that.

For the Real Time Menu examples, I'll be sure to check out some videos of that when I'm in a place I can watch some videos. Thanks for the heads up though.

Ok thanks for that video. Now I understand what people are saying when they mean real-time menus. Yeah, I'm not sure that would be appropriate for this sort of game. Could lead to a lot of item fumbling during battle. Did it work well at all in Lament of Innocence? I never played that game.

I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding (or disagreement?) about the design philosophy and agenda of these games. The Metroidvanaia genre as a whole is about the theme of "growth". All games in this genre/of this type have interconnected worlds that open up as you grow stronger (either with an RPG system or without) and gain abilities to better explore the world. Everything is about a sense of pushing you forward and for the player to become more powerful and feel more powerful as the game progresses. Challenge isn't born out of restriction but rather putting up tougher and tougher challenges against the player or giving the player all the tools they could want but leaving it up to them to figure out which ones to use.

This is in contrast to games like Classicvanias, Dark Souls, Classic Resident Evil, etc. Those games emphasize the sense of horror and really drape themselves in horror themes and tropes. The best way to accomplish this is to induce fear and terror in the player and the best way to do that is to make them feel weak. As such, the theme of games like those is "fear through restriction". You want a small, restrictive toolset to work with. That is why Classicvanias have clunky as hell controls, why Classic Resident Evil games have tank controls and a weird inventory system, its why many games of that sort forgo RPG systems, etc. The point isn't to make the player feel overpowering by the game's end up rather to make them feel vulnerable the entire game - like the every man who has overcome adversity to triumph. It's the same way many horror movies are constructed as well.

Trying to apply some weird item restrictions to a Metroidvania game strikes me as counter-intuitive game design. Not that it can never work but its clearly not the modus operandi of the genre. I feel a lot of people loved Dark Souls but don't really understand why it works, why its designed the way it was and want to jam elements of that game into other games without a sound understanding of game design and game theory. The concept of "growth" and "empowerment" is the reason why Igavanias have progressively removed the mechanical "clunk" the from the games as the series has progressed. Given all this, I strongly feel the best way to make a challenging game in this genre is to have enemies and obstacles that force you to exploit your all your options rather than a game that tries to restrict your options. The later is absolutely a fine way to design a game - I just don't think its the best way to design Metroidvanias however and it seems pretty counter to how Iga's game design has evolved over his career as far as I can see.

I'm a bit puzzled by this part of the response. I don't disagree with anything you've said but I feel the fact you typed this means you misunderstood me perhaps? Maybe I was unclear? The item usage in SOTN was clunky in many respects. This was improved in every Igavania moving forward. I'm not interested in returning to that system in any regard because I would consider a reversion. This has nothing to do with playing a game blind or with a guide or if you try to collect all the equipment or whatever.


When I say "a lot of people" I mean "a lot of people I've either interacted with or watched discuss the subject over the course of my time both online and offline". I'm actually speaking in generalities. I saw how internet discourse changed after the release and success of Dark Souls. I now see how tons of game developers or gamers are calling "_____ is the Dark Souls of ______". I've seen how lots of people have asked that more and more games emulate Dark Souls. At the same time I've also seen a lot of those people fail to understand why _______ isn't like Dark Souls and would not be made either a better designed game or a more appealing game to a wide swath of people by emulating Dark Souls in particular ways.

Now, speaking specifically to you and others here, I've never questioned why you like what you like nor am I saying you're a bad person for having such an opinion. I'm arguing that I don't think actively adding awkward item usage to this game is good game design for this type of game or will make the game more fun to a large swath of people. I'm not making a judgement of you at all - I'm saying I think your idea and of those you quoted is a bad idea and I'm trying to be explicit in why I think its a bad idea using game theory.

To answer your question:  Yes, it did work at least for Lament of Innocence.  Item-use is instant in that game.