I don't think the checkpoint system has problems. I beat the game the other night, and personally I think they did a great job of spreading the checkpoints between challenging sections. I certainly know that Aceing every level will be hard and thus worth the rewards. It's the control scheme that poses the most problems IMO. It's very difficult to get your jumps right consistently, which in turn can cause frustration on difficult parts, which then leads to having to start from the beginning again often.
[PS3] LittleBigPlanet Impressions
- Thread starter patsu
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I'm fine with the controls; they are what they are, you get used to them. And if this were SMB or some other game I wouldn't complain, I'd just accept that I suck. But this is LBP: it forces you to go through the entire game to unlock all the cool create stuff, it's Sony's big attempt to broaden their appeal.
Also, checkpoints aren't that well positioned. Sometimes they'll put checkpoints after every trivial jump, only to them put you against the hardest challenge in the game with a 3 lives.
Haven't tried, but I assume you can, a bunch, if not all, have sections that can only be accessed by two people.
Ever watched a ninja movie? You run straight accross like a ninja. You can also jump accross- whatever works for you.
I'd say these levels are some of the most polished platforming levels I've played in a game Tough at points, but I'd say the spawn points makes the game incredibly forgiving. If not too forgiving. And stop all this "Sony hopes" blah blah. Media Molecule have delivered in a big way.
There is only one problem with the game - and that is in the thrid world...with the jumping mouths falling over. That's basically it. I don't believe I've had to restart a level again after that point.
Surely you knew that Patsu....the whole game is 4player co-op.
I got past the planks: I thought that that's what they were, but I fell in. Since the game doesn't even acknowledge these planks 'oh, hey, here's something completely new for you to traverse', I assumed that running across was not the way to do it. The game can be TERRIBLY frustrating; I was expecting some Kirby-esque platforming -- easy, but not entirely a cakewalk. I'm getting Sonic without any rings and with no way to get more than 3 lives.
The game's good, MM have made some really inventive levels, some really great stuff, except they went and applied the same 'do this in 3 lives' to the really hard stuff and to the ridiculously easy stuff, usually even within the same level. My problem isn't even the difficulty so much as with how unforgiving it is. And yes, Sony does hope for a lot out of LBP: whether MM has delivered or not is fairly immaterial until we can tell what sort of impact it has had on the userbase, so don't tell me to 'stop it'. I hate to say it, but I agree with several points in Eurogamer's review.
So you're saying the game isnt perfect? I dont think that is going to be a major surprise for anybody. Some will like it for what it is, some won't. Anyway this thread is about first impressions, particularly for those of us who dont go have the game yet so 'Sony's hopes' are pretty irrelevant to this thread.
But they're not; my first impressions are colored by expecting a game that isn't such a fiercely-punishing platformer. Who is this game targeted at? Us? Then I take it all back. But I don't think it is, and I don't think you guys do, because otherwise we wouldn't focus so much on how this game can appeal to 'casuals'. Don't cherry-pick your arguments just because I've pointed out the flaws in your sacred cow.
I'm saying that playing through certain levels more than once made me go 'I don't want to ever have to do this again'. And I'm a gamer, my passtime involves slogging through inanity after inanity. I think MM has put the ball in the court of the userbase, and I don't doubt that they'll deliver, but at the same time I'd be surprised if MM used continuous playstesting, Valve-style, and I certainly think the game could have been improved by it. Or, at the least, by a mode where you can disable all checkpoint respawn limits. Here's hoping that day-1 patch has something like that.
Please spare me the hyperbole. You seem so eager to pick a fight..?
Is this really the first game to ever have a steep learning curve? People are so quick to distinguish between 'casuals' and the 'hardcore', like they're residents of different planets. Whats to say that many people dont buy LBP based on certain perceptions and expectations, and adjust these after having spent some time with the game? Maybe some people will learn to love it and not get frustrated so easily. One thing for sure is that there's nothing else out there like it.
Anyway, like I said this is off-topic.
No intention to pick a fight, but don't break down my arguments into 'oh well, LBP isn't perfect, who cares?' There are problems, why shouldn't we discuss them?
Obviously not; Megaman 9 is a far harder game. Your point? This is a strawman argument, and part of why I'm so defensive. It's as if I'm saying that LBP sucks. I'm not, and it's not, it's a great game; what MM did with the levels is amazing, they're expertly crafted, but I don't think they're very balanced.
Let's avoid the casuals vs. hardcore discussion. Instead, look at it this way: I'm a gamer, for me it's natural to waste my time in videogames, grinding through levels or replaying sections -- I quit playing LBP twice and I'm still going back. This is because this is my hobby, often enough I choose to do this over other things. Other people, they might have other priorities, they might actually quit when things stop giving them fun. There are games out there that give them instant gratification, with little time investment, and I don't think LBP as it ships is one of them.
Actually, let me rephrase that last bit. It does; sackboys are incredibly cute. Not all the levels are equal; playing through story mode, though, will have limited appeal.
Out of the qualities I expect from a videogame, 'uniqueness' is not high on the list.
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Actually, I don't. I only know about the number of levels and co-op is in the game somewhere. However I don't know how extensive MM has implemented co-op into the game (e.g., co-op construction is not in yet).
Thanks for the heads up. That means I'll probably get stucked somewhere., leave it for a day or two, then come back to try to finish it again.
Oh yeah, that's what I'm doing. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't suck in any sense of the word, it's actually fun.
The whole game is drop-in coop up to 4 players on and offline. The only way to restrict this is to add a 'no entry' sign that stops new players joining once that point has been passed.
As for the balancing, the game is defintiely hard from what little I've played and seen, definitely not a level of difficulty you'd expect for noobs. But seeing the videos of everyone dying time and time again, they all seem to enjoy it none-the-less! The trouble is the gates. If there are no everlasting gates, and they all have limited respawns, then some areas will be too nasty. In all honesty I never finished a lot of the Beta download levels because I'd get to a point where I died stupidly and couldn't be bothered to replay the level. And this wasn't just because I wasa sucky player! I've been a pretty awesome platformerer in the 8 and 16 bit era. It's confusing designs where you don't know what you have to do, the trial-and-error solutions, that got me most of the time, and the control quirks of jumping to the wrong plane, jumping not being responsive, etc. on others (but of course sometimes it was me being sucky
)How good the sales are has no relevance to how good the game is. The marketting and reviews do that. Your opinion on the levels and MM delivering on sales are two seperate things. If LBP doesn't sell well, it's not because of your "spawn point" criticism. So yes stop the "Sony blah blah" that can go in the sales thread.
There are TOO many spawn points in my opinion. There are a few tough points, which ramp up throughout the game. It's a nice tough/easy platformer which gives you more than one life before you complete the level. After playing the debug copy - they have done a lot of playtesting for the full release - and the levels are just about perfect. And what is so hard in the game? And I find it is a tad too forgiving as I've already said.
Patsu...you were playing the LBP beta with me. Short term memory loss?
I remembered that. That's just one demo level. I wanted to know how MM string all these levels together. e.g., Whether they have sections that are restricted to one player, and some open to more -- instead of making all levels accessible to more players.Nonsense. If the game was promised as 'x', and it doesn't quite deliver 'x', then it's only proper to judge it on those merits. If a game promised to cure cancer, but in the end was only an exceptional first-person-shooter it'd be a letdown. I mean, we judge off the hype for every single other game, why not this one? LBP is touted as a game that is hugely accessible and I don't think the single-player game is. I want to finish those levels, but I don't know if at this point it's because I want to get all the item bubbles. I do know that I haven't shouted at my TV like this since, I dunno, playing Road Rash 2 on my Genesis.
I agree that there are too many! There are points where they'll put a spawn point after every little gap you jump over, even late late in the game. But then when you hit a hard point or a strange point and you only have one checkpoint to get through, that's a problem with balancing. Essentially, what Shifty said. And it's not about the game being 'hard', I've already said it. It's unforgiving, punishing.
You run into a new situation, you don't know exactly what's going to happen and anything kills you. Once you figure it out, no, it's not hard for the most part. The game would've benefited by fewer checkpoints over trivial parts, but having checkpoints with a lot more lives, if not infinite. That might be a big call, so I think the problem could be largely alleviated by having 'difficulty modes' that tweak the number of retries in all checkpoints.
It's all more the shame that some of the more frustrating levels are some with the more amazing designs.
I mean, India level 2 is just amazing... and then you run into a freaking fire snake at the very end. I managed to get past it in one try, on my last 'life' but I was 'aaaaargh' the whole time.
Ok so what is it? It's a success when it's sales, or a success when you think it matches to waht was "promised"?
Play it in co-op. You're experiencing it without online - where if you can't do something, there will be somebody who can.
And really...the single player is easy. It's not unforgiving. It's too forgiving. It sounds like you just don't have any common sense. The fire snake is simple...you just run under it.
One demo level? There were 3 single player levels.
