I've been doing a play study on character movement in platform games, which sounds really academic, but I'm building a prototype for a platform game which could turn into a mega-awesome WiiWare title, so it's not academic. Pursuant to this I got to replaying two killer titles from my youth, Kirby Superstar and the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy. They're both not quite what I remembered them as, both were promisingly fresh examples of platformer kineticism in their time, and they're both dated in interesting ways. Kirby's series is one saturated in cuteness, softness, and padding: gameplay padding, physical padding, content padding. Ninja Gaiden is a series that is balls-to-the-wall difficult, being legendary among the grew-up-on-the-NES set for its insanely repetitive challenges.
Kirby moves slow, you can double tap or get the Wheel familiar to move fast in some instances, but most of your time is spent waddling around or huffing up and slowly floating. The difficulty level correlates as being very low; most of the extras involve scoring extra lives which aren't generally necessary. After all, gravity is just a timing consideration. These games were among the first in a now all-too-entrenched trend of making games hold your hand and gently lead you through a pleasant theme park of content. But at the time, it was a new thing, so it worked. While Kirby is kinda fat, Ryu Hyubusa is in good shape, and he moves like it. Speeds are constant, jumping and wall jumping is a pre-requisite, gravity is the enemy. The initial game has you carefully timing the y on your sword swings and puts you at the mercy of every hit, taking your control away as the slight peck of a bird will send you kneeling back into a pit. Oddly enough, for a game that has you up against the entire cast of SlipKnot, the most deadly enemy -- by far -- is a bird that does three bars of damage and tracks your movements in 360. The loss of control from hits is one movement shortfall that the two games have in common, although Kirby reserves it for only a few enemies and Ninja Gaiden lays it out from the slightest breeze. Incidentally both of these games also have an edge-of-the-screen respawn dynamic in place, which worked so well for King's Quest players but works precisely against you in Ninja Gaiden, and can be a useful way to copy the powers you want in Kirby. The later Ninja Gaiden games overcome the shortfalls of a narrow y range for the sword (III) and the frozen hang of the wall grab (II, where you can climb any wall); III also reduced the paralysis in being hit by cutting the x delta by 70% and made spawning much looser, i.e. no more killing something while standing still right at the edge of its spawn point and having it respawn immediately.
Kirby comes replete with character designs for each and every enemy, who through a pseudo-Freudian act of eating will convert from an oppressive other to a familiar sort. The simplicity of the Kirby design, in particular, lends it very well to highly iconic emotions. The cards for the samurai, the wheel, the fire character, and so forth all convey more personality individually than a truck full of Ninja Gaiden cut-scenes. Speaking of which, Ninja Gaiden's plot is waaaay stupider than I remember it. Basically there are these wacky demons and then the CIA ends up being evil after you take care of the demons, and your girlfriend keeps getting either threatened or killed but then she's OK. There's always a scene where you're standing on a cliff looking over at this big fortress where the last half of the game takes place, and then at the end you're always with your girl talking about how beautiful the sunrise is. Just get naked already. Kirby's storyline is stone stupid as well, but at least it has the dignity not to take itself so seriously.
Basically a truly next-gen platform game design, in my opinion, would embody the same kind of balance between character design and restrictions on movement while shedding any penalization of controls and making acceleration a lot more analog. The gameplay would also be grounded in a non-linear environment that is procedurally generated ala Spelunky. Maybe I'd keep the ridiculous plot line.
Ninja Gaiden
Man, I played the first Ninja Gaiden so much back in the day, I think the timings for the first 4 or 5 worlds are still buried in my cerebullum somewhere.
I think the cinematic aspect of Ninja Gaiden is neat because it was kind of groundbreaking. It also showed you how much you could do with faux letterboxing and a bit of parallax. And sure the plot's lame—it's a kung fu movie in video game form, what did you expect? According to Wikipedia the original Japanese title translates as "Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword". How much more Hong Kong can you get?
N
If you're checking out platformer kinetics, you really need to play N, if you haven't already. www.thewayoftheninja.org
Awesome minimalist graphics and interface and a rock-solid physics engine result in making the player (well, me at least) in feeling like an actual real ninja while playing.
Mostly an actual real ninja who is dying again and again and again, but still, it's compulsory to check out if you're interested in character movement in platform games
@John: exactly, but at the
@John: exactly, but at the time I didn't think of it that way. The CIA briefing me about amazonian ruins taken over by a man called Guardia de Mieux a.k.a. the Jaquio, that's hauntingly plausible! And some of his henchmen have turnip heads. Oh to be young again.
@Danman: I probably clocked over 100 hours playing N back in 2005, definetly a step forward from this lot.
No Kirby fans in the audience?
Kirby
Here's one.
Kirby is very easy - I wouldn't say it holds your hand, but yes, I'm not using most of those extra lives even though I know where they're all hidden by now. There are things just on the platformer level that can make it difficult - it's entirely possible to screw up in the Arena, and a lot of the new games in the DS remake actually put up a fight, especially the "Helper to Hero". The possibility for three-heart-run type approaches is great, though that isn't saying much.
Still, I think the Kirby formula works. Running and jumping around is a lot of fun, and the sheer amount of chaos you can cause on the screen keeps things lively, while the hidden extras (useless in Superstar except for completeness, but they give you nifty bonus stuff in Squeak Squad, for example) add a challenge on a different level. These are not so facile as to be insulting; they aren't on a level with games that pride themselves on difficulty, but since every problem is tractable you won't need to take a break from the game or run off to GameFAQs because you can't get treasure chest XXX.
Then again, I've never gotten into any Ninja Gaiden game - I was young enough to miss the NES era and while I tried them they never bit me in the way, say, River City Ransom did.
I find your interest in the loss of freedom of movement on a hit interesting - why do you think that isn't good as a punishment mechanic? -POLM
Hooah
Off Topic:
We Do Not Condone The Use of ROMs
Tired and half drawn into the waves of stupidity and dual morality around the copyright debate, that was a gust of fresh wind.
for a second I really hoped for a kirby-NG matchup..
..not unlike the recent Mega Man vs metroid series. No, it would not have made sense. Didn't care!
What I really liked about Kirby was that anyone could just pick it up and play and have fun. Especially kids. Can't get the hang of a specific power? just dump it and get another one.
The multi-player in Amazing Mirror's was just awesome.
When I glanced at the title
When I glanced at the title I also thought this was going to be a Remix game. =p
As for Kirby, I beat the Game Boy one when I was maybe six or so. In hindsight, the low difficulty and cute aesthetics are a great combination for fledgling gamers. My pre-teen sister, who mainly plays Animal Crossing and games of its ilk, loves the Kirby franchise. Off-topic but vaguely related: I beat Yoshi's Island when I was five, and I still remember the elation of beating a game all by myself for the first time. I replayed it a couple of years ago and was a bit put off by how much the game relied on frivolous trinket collecting for any semblance of challenge. I think the difference between that and say, Donkey Kong Country, was that the controls and level design overcame those pitfalls.
I didn't know that we could write up retro games. I've been playing Super Mario 64 again lately and realized a couple things design-wise that gave the game it's spark, and how it's derivatives get it wrong. I might do a contrast between it and DK64 at some point.
Retro Games
Well -- I don't actually encourage it. Our greater purpose should be to point to more obscure things -- new for the most part, although overlooked older things too. In this case, I think it's okay, because a) Patrick is making an interesting design point, and b) I dropped the ball on reviews while at Austin, so almost anything to keep the conversation going is good.
I'm a huge fan of both Kirby
I'm a huge fan of both Kirby and Ninja Gaiden, but my fondness comes from NES days. I think Kirby's transition to the SNES was a huge drop -- though I seem to be the only one. The larger sprites and reduced field of vision made it feel much more cramped, defeating one of the great joys of Kirby (which was the sense of free movement). So I can't comment on Kirby SNES, but I can try to explain why I love the NES Kirby: it embodies the joy of creation, and shares that joy eagerly.
Kirby is just full of the little things that only love (or a great simulacrum of it) can put into a game. There are tons of abilities with no practical purpose but with great whimsy. The abilities capture childhood imagination so well and all feel exactly right -- whether it is the Errol Flynn swordsmanship (culminating in a sword duel against your recurring foe called Zero Knight or something -- it's been years) or the speeding wheel (look at the drag and momentum when you change directions in it). Is there any reason for the bomb *and* the microphone? The answer is yes -- the smile they bring to your face.
It's not just the abilities, though. Levels are painstakingly constructed with the limitation of a NES system to have all sorts of different visuals and different feels. The pirate ship, sinkable by blasting a bomb in its base? The ice levels? The soaring parapets and crazy canyons to whiz through in said wheel?
And what about the finale? Its sudden change of the game's scale and gravity outdoes the comparable boss reveals at the end of every RPG (and Ninja Gaiden) game. And indeed this boss, like many others, plays off the tropes we've become familiar with as gamers (the evil tree, the dark knight, and so on), further building on the sense that the game is a work of love -- love, in part, for the medium it's in.
Kirby is one of the few games I could just play forever. (And indeed I logged dozens of hours in it during law school lectures.) That's because all these "labor of love" details the creators put in were not self-indulgent (like the endless yapping you see in Ragnar Tornquist's games) or obnoxious (like the ultra-high difficulty or arcane puzzles one sometimes sees in "hardcore" labor of love games). Instead, everything was designed to let the player play and have fun. Penalties are mild, but reasonable enough to create a gamey sense. There are lots of secrets to uncover, but they don't require an FAQ (I found them all without one, a rarity for me). You can't help but get caught up in the pleasure the game abounds with.
Okay, so that's Kirby.
Ninja Gaiden is a different beast, and frankly (despite the improvement syou note), I actually think it got worse with each iteration. The point you don't really hit is the crazy thrill the game hits you with.
Sure the plot is cheesy. But for sheer cinematic awesomeness, does anything compare to two ninjas racing across a field of grass, jumping high into the night sky to be silhoutted on a full moon, and cross katanas? Why did my father fight that duel and die? Whatever his reason, man -- what a dad to have! And then the music hits, the sad, tragic music. The son is not some bereft orphan loser. He's a f*cking ninja, too. And he's going to get to the bottom of this.
Then you hit the game. Compare this to Contra. (Another of my absolute favorite games of that era.) In Contra, you are a fat, kind of slow moving guy deathly afraid of every little pea-shooting guy in your way. Not so with Ninja Gaiden. Look at how fast Ryu moves! (In specific, look at how they animated his feet moving so fast. I defy you to find anyone other than Sonic whose feet moved so fast.) Look at the deadly power of his sword! Look at how fast it is! Watch how he shrugs off enemy attacks! Then out come the ninja stars. Ninja stars! So fast, so casually flicked.
And then he can jump off walls. JUMP OFF WALLS! Hell, he doesn't just jump -- he flips. He cannot jump without flipping. (In fairness, Contra had this too.)
The whole game sells you on this idea. The music urges you to rush forward; levels typically give you a bit of an empty, flat start to get you running, and the best strategy is typically to rush forward, killing everything in your way. (The main vice, in my opinion, is that you have to stop running to slash your sword.)
You're absolutely right that the birds are outrageous. (Incidentally, the boxer at the end of the first stage, who can sort of chain hit you, is awful too.) But the reason they stand out in our memory is because the rest of the game made you feel like an unbelievable agile, awesome NINJA. Hunting down his father's killer. With a girlfriend who's not afraid to shoot a monster in the face.
I mean, really. I'm not sure I've played much other than God of War in recent years that instantly conveyed you were a real force to be taken seriously.
But while I also spent a lot of time playing Ninja Gaiden in class, it really doesn't hold up well. For one thing, 95% of your time is spent playing the easiest parts of the game because of the harsh restarting rules. It is thus a game designed to force the player to redo what he has already mastered, rather than push on to what he hasn't. But that's for good reason. Once you get good at the game, there's about 10-15 minutes worth of content. (The same is true of Contra.) There's nothing really to do in the game that's fun other than to try to win it (unlike games like Kirby or Mario where puttering about is a pleasure).