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kviiri
kviiri
5:50 AM
@trogdor I have this too and become doubly frustrated when I lose the earworm without figuring out what it was x)
 
kviiri
kviiri
6:09 AM
I also have one ear wormy tune that I've heard in two different, unrelated(?) video games only whom of which I remember
I need to play it for a fresh memory of it, my sense of tune has improved a lot so I might be able to reproduce it by ear now
 
trogdor
trogdor
@kviiri that happens to me a lot
basically songs don't get stuck stuck in my head
instead they tend to play one or two times maybe and then I have to figure out which one it was and play it
@kviiri oh man that is like, almost every game I have ever played with a half decent soundtrack
I'm more into video game music than I am into most,...... normal is a weird word but normal music
 
kviiri
kviiri
6:31 AM
A friend who actually studies music theory said video game music traditionally is compositionally distinct from most music in ways that enhances its enjoyability to many, I just can't remember what the specific things were :>
I like listening to a lot of stuff. This one time I had one of Philip Glass's operas playing at home as my SO arrived, she sat on her computer quite a while and then asked if it's going to keep sounding the same for much longer :P
 
kviiri
kviiri
6:45 AM
And I found a new poprock artist I like, or well I knew of him but a concerted (heh) effort to listen through his work found me lots of good tunes and lyrics
 
trogdor
trogdor
7:01 AM
I do like some "normal" music too, but I can't listen to it for the extended periods of time I can for like, stage themes and boss fight music and so forth and so on
I mean, game music, sort of depending on what the game is, is usually designed to be listened to for longer than most singles
I still sometimes just open a playlist from Metroid Prime for example
and this conversation has caused me to do it now in fact
XD
(is why I mention it instead of any other game I do it with because my brain has currently decided on that one)
I will say though, I still love it when I hear a thing I like even a little on the radio
especially because I know it's only going to play once before something else comes on
but for game music I sometimes listen to the same thing for a couple hours or so
(or in this case a playthrough of a couple minutes each of each theme in Metriod Prime, but maybe also pausing on one I particularly feel like it with for an extended period)
some of it might be the autism :P
Space Pirate Facility is next and I've historically loved all the Space Pirate stuff
hmm, except this one is just ominous even though that doesn't fit with what I remember
oooh ok what I'm remembering is the Space Pirate battle theme
yep definitely that
XD
I really like that one
don't ask me to explain why, it's a weird one honestly
 
kviiri
kviiri
7:19 AM
I don't think it's too weird x)
I also occasionally pop on some foreign language music that I can't understand, the only worry is that they might be some nazi punk or somesuch that I might object to if I knew what it meant
 
trogdor
trogdor
that's fair XD
 
trogdor
trogdor
7:53 AM
but anyway, the reason I say Space Pirate Battle is weird is like, it changes the main tune like 3 or 4 times?
sometimes I like that sometimes I don't
other Metroid Prime stuff I like decidedly does not change the main tune, or if it does it switches maybe between two sets
 
kviiri
kviiri
8:09 AM
I've merely started one Metroid game, once, on NES
I never got into it much and when I heard "metroidvania" is a genre I read up what it's like and thought it's probably not for me
 
trogdor
trogdor
yeah the only ones I have played are Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 Echos
the main thing I don't like in Metroidvania games is when I really truly get lost and don't know where I can/have to go next
that happened to me in Metroid Prime and I almost never beat it
although to be fair another reason I almost never beat it is that the actual fight against Metroid Prime itself at the end is pretty dang hard
or at least was when I was,... I was that young when it came out? yeah it might not be quite that difficult now but it was definitely at the time
 
kviiri
kviiri
I am somewhat averse to stuff like backtracking which I think is quite plentiful in the genre
 
trogdor
trogdor
I used to have a less good opinion of backtracking until I played Hollow Knight
XD
that being said if you really hate backtracking don't play Hollow Knight
you really don't absolutely have to backtrack a lot in it, but that's assuming you know where you are going and in your first playthrough you just wouldn't know that
 
kviiri
kviiri
I did recently play Tomba! though and only realized it's a Metroidvania in retrospect
 
trogdor
trogdor
but I loved all the areas so much that I liked going to all of them
 
Miniman
Miniman
8:21 AM
@trogdor Yeah, I assumed I would hate metroidvanias, and since HK I've kinda been going after them.
 
trogdor
trogdor
yep
definitely played more after it than before it
 
kviiri
kviiri
I did hate the metroidvania-ish aspects of Tomba tho :P
 
trogdor
trogdor
that's fair
 
V2Blast
V2Blast
8:37 AM
the only actual Metroid games I've played were the one or two on GBA in emulators. I think technically I played a tiny bit of Metroid Prime on GameCube but not really
 
trogdor
trogdor
I managed to finish Metroid Prime despite it and the Gamecube belonging to a freind
I think I even finished Metroid Prime 2 despite, the exact same obstacle
to be fair I was over there a lot, they lived pretty close by
and I forget why but there was often a pretty good excuse of some kind to go over and visit
I think on the weekends it was easy to go there and our parents liked that whole family and we had bikes, but I think it was more than that, I think we went there for actual reasons a lot but I literally can't remember what they were XD
it was probably often different to be fair
sometimes it was definitely a party
those times I could probably only get away with so much video gaming
 
Derpy
Derpy
9:05 AM
@trogdor .... you know that the option menu has an "help" feature that would pinpoint the next location you have to reach on the map after about.... 10 minutes of wandering around?
 
trogdor
trogdor
no actually, no
I did not ever figure that out
 
Derpy
Derpy
@trogdor :P
 
trogdor
trogdor
XD
I was,... kinda young at the time
one thing I've learned since then is to mess with menus a bit and see what they can do for me :P
 
Derpy
Derpy
best screenshoot I could find:
this is a better one:
 
trogdor
trogdor
to be fair, I probably got legitimately lost like, one time
 
Derpy
Derpy
9:12 AM
 
trogdor
trogdor
but it did seriously turn me around and mess up my ability to figure out what to do next
 
Derpy
Derpy
after the hint activates, you press Z and it would show you the next target location on the map.
Not perfect... but could help if one gets stuck.
 
trogdor
trogdor
that's fair
I think honestly that would have been good enough to nudge me in the right direction at least
I managed anyway though
apparently
I remember fighting the last boss so obviously I wasn't stuck finding my way around enough to not,... get to that point XD
 
Derpy
Derpy
@trogdor Metroid Prime... gets quite annoying at the hard difficulty setting
basically it becomes an exercise in luck
at the very least it requires you to notice an unexplained feature of the Phazon Beam
 
trogdor
trogdor
9:29 AM
I don't think I was on the hard difficulty setting
 
Derpy
Derpy
@trogdor the main problem is the spawned enemies during the battle with the core. After a while it begins to spawn only Fission Metroids.
 
trogdor
trogdor
I am going to shock you and say I don't remember what those metroids do
XD
 
Derpy
Derpy
you need to destroy those fast, but as you may guess, Fission Metroid are the ones that you can't really destroy fast since they split into two when they die.
@trogdor they are the ones that split into two metroids when you kill them. And each one of the two metroids is vulnerable to only one specific beam.
 
trogdor
trogdor
oh ew
yeah that sounds annoying
I mean, you can switch beams but I didn't like having to do it multiple times quickly in one fight
which if I remember correctly was a thing against Prime itself
 
Derpy
Derpy
basically, at hard setting the common strategy was to wipe out the spawned metroids in one hit using a power bomb.
but that means that if the battle stagnates and you use up all your bombs... FUN!!
and that ties into the hidden feature of the Phazon beam.
First, because of the way it shoots, its damage is greatly influenced by distance.
Second, if I remember correctly, continually pressing the shoot button uses up the charge slower than keeping it pressed...
so, you have to try to maximize the damage by exploiting the way the beam works in order to keep the battle as short as possible.
 
trogdor
trogdor
9:42 AM
interesting
 
Derpy
Derpy
9:59 AM
the luck comes into play when you consider that since the metroids are spawned at the same time the core creates one of the Phazon pool you require to use your Phazon beam....
 
kviiri
kviiri
@Derpy I've been wondering why old games had these weird weapon mechanics
I guess there wasn't the standard "doom weapons" palette to copy yet (although even Doom had a few rather funky ones)
 
Derpy
Derpy
you need to run straight at the core so it doesn't run away (the pool is created under the core), morph into morphball mode and drop a bomb - hoping that both the metroids were near enough to be hit by the blast and then quickly morph back to hit the core while the pool is still there.
@kviiri after Super Metroid, many Metroid games have taken on the cliché of having you fight the last boss using a special weapon that is never available outside that battle.
 
kviiri
kviiri
@Derpy huh
 
Derpy
Derpy
Based on the game, the weapon is either always available or require some form of special charge
@kviiri Super Metroid final boss was basically a "scripted event"
you can't really damage the boss until you get "saved" by a metroid.
After that, you get a weapon that is so powerful that it basically makes the fight impossible to lose.
The knockback is so high that is kinda "stun locks" the boss without giving it any chance to fight back.
It was meant to be plot element and an emotional battle since you are saved by the same metroids you have always fought against in every game.
 
kviiri
kviiri
10:16 AM
well it's better than what some games do :P
eg. putting really emotionally climatic boss scenes in fights the player is likely to lose in, many many times
 
V2Blast
V2Blast
the worst in when the save/reset point is just before a really long unskippable cutscene/monologue
 
kviiri
kviiri
Yes, Final Fantasy X has that. It's literally right before one of the biggest turning points, narrative-wise, of the game
Loooong looong cutscene, then tricky boss that is rather difficult if one doesn't figure out the easy trick (which is only applicable in its last phase)
 
kviiri
kviiri
10:43 AM
(and even then, "easy trick" is very relative)
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
11:18 AM
Oooh, Metroid Prime.
I've never played it but I did watch a series of videos deconstructing its dungeon design :D
(and how lots of it was amazingly good but how it also kinda fell apart and was bad in some glaring ways)
In case anyone's curious, the series is Boss Keys and there's three Metroid Prime episodes:
• Metroid Prime 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyoGD6uwCmk&list=PLc38fcMFcV_ul4D6OChdWhsNsYY3NA5B2&index=19&t=0s
• Metroid Prime 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBAQTd2MJFQ&list=PLc38fcMFcV_ul4D6OChdWhsNsYY3NA5B2&index=20&t=0s
• Metroid Prime 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi4fhAdndYA&list=PLc38fcMFcV_ul4D6OChdWhsNsYY3NA5B2&index=21&t=0s
It's a series that started off by analysing the dungeon design of all the Zelda games one by one. The second season delved into Dark Souls, Metroid, Castlevania, and Hollow Knight.
 
Derpy
Derpy
@doppelgreener Dark Soul.
And as usual, poor Demon Soul is forgotten.
 
Carcer
Carcer
@kviiri does this involve throwing a revive at something
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
They didn't forget about Demon's Souls, it's just not covered in the video. They're not covering Bloodborne or Sekiro either, or any Dark Souls except for no. 1.
 
Carcer
Carcer
the only final fantasy I ever played is FFX and at some point I remember killing something huge by using a phoenix down on it, but I did not finish the game
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
nice
i love that that's a thing
 
Derpy
Derpy
11:28 AM
@doppelgreener "when you get the Varia suit, you know where to go because the dead end that required it was easily memorable".
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
final fantasy 7 has an enormous undead boss in the later stages of the game who's absolutely terrifying and has a move that could just kill your entire party, but you can just use a phoenix down on it and it dies
i can't play those games myself but i was watching my brother play it and as he was fighting the boss he was like "wait for it, wait for it" like there was something great coming up. and there was.
 
Derpy
Derpy
Nice way to twist it to support your narrative, mr Boss Keys. You kinda forgot to mention that right behind the Varia Suit there is a door that... guess what... brings you to an elevator to said hot caves....
Seems he made the worst example he could.
So, it is one of the rare cases where you don't even have to backtrack.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
I... don't think that's what he was doing..?
This dude's making an earnest effort to deconstruct dungeon design of various games so we can learn level design lessons from it. He hasn't got an agenda of making any game look bad or good.
He's not even reviewing Metroid Prime. He does highlight problems in the level design, because it's important to learn from design problems as well so that we don't recreate the same problems in our own designs.
 
Derpy
Derpy
kinda did. He claims that you know that you have to go to magmor caves because they are easily remembered. But in that case, you don't need to remember that because your only option to leave Flaahgra room is a corridor that brings you to an elevator to Magmor.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
He also highlights missed opportunities, but that's so that we can be more aware of opportunities our own level design presents.
 
Derpy
Derpy
11:37 AM
I am just pointing out that the previous example, the Gravity suit works far better since in that case backtracking to the Frigate is required.
In the case of the Varia suit, you are pushed in Magmor soon afterwards, so even if you didn't remember it (or you never visited it in the first place) the game brings you there.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
I don't get it. He's talking about memory cues. He points out having a memory cue occurred, which is good. And you're accusing him of twisting facts to support a narrative?
 
Derpy
Derpy
sorry, that was probably bad exposition on my part.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
Yes, it was.
 
Derpy
Derpy
The point I was making is that of two examples he gives, only one really fits.
 
kviiri
kviiri
@Carcer The reverse actually
@Carcer The boss throws insta death spells that can randomly kill all your party members unless you have explicitly death-proofing gear or leave some of your group in zombie status
The latter is the "easy trick". It makes sense in retrospect, but it's an undocumented feature, and prior to this the player has been primed to understand that insta-death spells miss randomly, so it might take a while to understand the pattern that the Zombie status is the protection
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
11:48 AM
oh wow!
...... that's got some good lessons to it
interesting
my brother was told "just throw phoenix downs at everything undead that's actually tough" so he never had the opportunity to learn about that strategy (at east in FF7)
 
Derpy
Derpy
@doppelgreener no, I meant that I would like to see what a reviewer thought of Latria.
The second level of that place is pretty good. To give you nightmares at night, that is.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
you might wanna think about how you phrase these things :P
what you're meaning is not the "boo this sucks" you're saying
 
Derpy
Derpy
@doppelgreener "Forgotten" in the sense that no one talks about Demon soul, just Dark soul
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
Yeah, I got that
but there's a night-and-day difference between saying "boo this sucks they're covering dark souls and not demon souls" and saying "i'd be interested to see what they thought of demons souls, some of the levels are good"
and what you said meant the former, not the latter, but you apparently meant to convey the latter, so ... you might wanna think about how you phrase these things
likewise a night-and-day difference between "way to twist the facts to support your narrative" and "that seems like a bad example to pick"
to the point these are not even the same statement and one does not even contain the other
 
Derpy
Derpy
I am looking at more of this ....
now the Wind Waker one... he talks about the Forest Dungeon, praising the fact that you first see a place that needs the boomerang, then you find it .... and the path you are forced to follow brings you back to the same room you needed the boomerang.
That's the same thing that happened in Metroid with the Varia suit. Again, sorry for the previous exposition but I stand that I would have preferred if he pointed that for the Metroid video too.
to use his words:
> "forget taking notes or remembering places, the game did that for me"
 
Derpy
Derpy
12:33 PM
@doppelgreener to be fair, I agree with your second point - I could have expressed better what I meant but not quite with the first one.
I just said "And as usual, poor Demon Soul is forgotten."
that is just because everyone tends to forget Demon Soul and just concentrate on the Dark Soul series.
That, to be clear, is not his problem - is simply that Demon Soul gets "less coverage" than the later "Dark Souls" games.
That was just venting that once again I get no one to talk about Demon.
 
 
4 hours later…
Carcer
Carcer
4:54 PM
for some reason my phone occasionally gives me a notification that "memes are taking up space" and offers to tidy up
I don't save memes on my phone
all the pictures it finds are album art from the music folder
I don't know why my phone thinks these are memes
 
kviiri
kviiri
5:20 PM
Robot vacuum saga continues: I sent the third mail today, did not receive a new ticket number. This, along with the slight delay and slight differences between the previous mail, suggests there is a human processing element involved.
 
Rubiksmoose
Rubiksmoose
@kviiri Unbrelated: But I'd probably read a series called "Robot vacuum saga"
 
kviiri
kviiri
Gonna bother the consumer protection agency tomorrow, see if they have opinion on whether "total silence for almost two weeks" is an appropriate answer to a customer complaint
total silence *excluding non-informative ticket number replies
 
 
3 hours later…
V2Blast
V2Blast
8:15 PM
@Carcer Your phone wants to be "hip" and "with it" like all the cool kids
it's like how all consoles are "the Nintendo"
 
trogdor
trogdor
8:42 PM
lol
all phones with pictures on them are phones with meme pictures on them
the memepocalypes is upon us
 
 
1 hour later…
goodguy5
goodguy5
10:04 PM
@GcL hrm.... isn't working
I'll monkey with it some more tonight
 
 
1 hour later…
GcL
GcL
11:34 PM
@goodguy5 Word. Which one didn't work?
And what was the error?
 
goodguy5
goodguy5
11:51 PM
@GcL no error, just couldn't sync the bashrc
 

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