As gamers, we've all noticed that when one game does something really cool and original, other games begin copying it. The first example to likely comes to your mind when I say this is the Zelda lock-on system. Since Ocarina of Time employed that game mechanic, countless other games have copied it in some way. I, personally think that's great. If its a good idea and it makes the game fun, then why not? But there are some great game mechanics that have never been used outside of the game(s) they originated in. That's what this blog entry is about, game mechanics that I'd like to see used more often

This one may seem insignificant, but its a mechanic that I think a lot of action, adventure, and platformer games would benefit from if they employed. It's a subtle mechanic that I've only seen in Power Stone, and even then it was still somewhat underused. In the game, when you approached any object up to waste high like a barrel or a table, pressing the control stick towards it would cause your character to quickly roll across it. That may seem insignificant, but it just seems to add a really cool Hong-Kong action movie feel to it that I find irresistible. It feels cool, it looks cool, and it would make movement in cluttered areas quite a bit easier. I can imagine it coming in handing in various action scenarios too. Like if a there's a chase level and the guy running from you goes through a place with a lot of tables like a restaurant. Instead of having to jump over each table, you can just roll over it without losing your momentum. Please people, start putting this in more games!


You can totally roll over that.

Another cool thing I've seen once and then have never seen again is the invention system from Dark Cloud 2. In that game the main character, Max, had a camera that you could take pictures of things with. You could then combine those pictures to form an ideas for an invention. Then all you have to do is get the materials to build it. This is how you got most of the weapons, items, and accessories in the game. The invention system was really deep and addictive and encouraged exploration because some pictures could only be taken in certain places. It was a really cool gameplay device that I would really like to see again.


Max likes to build stuff.

That's all I've got to say. If you have some ideas I'd love to here them .

I've decided to begin a series of blogs about things that I think would make great games, whether they be books, movies, TV shows, or comics/manga. This series is hereby dubbed MAKE A GAME OUTTA THIS! I do this because I love you, and I know you guys want to know what I think about stuff. I'll see if I can come up with a new one at least every two weeks. So, here goes...

Welcome to Neldakid's first ever MAKE A GAME OUTTA THIS! (MAGOT for short)

For this first entry, we'll consider a little known Korean comic called Vagrant Soldier Ares. It's about the adventures of a young swordsman named Ares and his friends. It begins with him joing a group of mercenaries for hire and meeting his brothers in arms Baroona, Micheal, and Gohue. What follows is a winding tale of betrayal, badassery, and even a little romance. Ares features a large cast of interesting characters and vicious, yet dynamic action.


Clockwise from the top: Ares, Baroona, Micheal, and Gohue.

Now, anyone can see that there is plenty of material here to make a game out of. Since this series is about warriors an whatnot, I thought it would lend itself well to being adapted into a turned based strategy game like Fire Emblem. You got everything you need: badass characters, a convoluted story, and lots of fighting. But I also liked the idea of a fighting game based on Ares, since most of the big fights in the series are one on one. However, instead of choosing between the two genres, I'll just mix' em together. I'm thinking of a game where you move your units across the battle field one by one, but when you engage an enemy, it turns into a one on one weapon-based fighting game like Guilty Gear. The catch is, you'd only have 10 seconds to fight before the fight ends as well as the attacking unit's turn. If you didn't eliminate the enemy in that time frame, he can retreat and heal himself with items or get reinforcements. In the same way, if an enemy is stronger than you, all you have to do is last 10 seconds and you can retreat and heal yourself or get another unit to take him on.

The fighting system would be simple, with the d-pad or analog stick to move and crouch, one button for quick attacks, one button for heavy attacks, one to guard, and one to jump. Different attacks would be done with combinations of buttons and the d-pad/a-stick and dashing would be done by double-tapping a direction. Special attacks would be performed by double-tapping up or down and pressing an attack button. Pressing both attack buttons would perform a smash/launch attack that could lead to air combos and wall bounces. If two attacks of the same power are performed at the same time, they will cancel each other out in a cool clashing animation. Of course, there would also be a versus mode where you could straight-up fight with no time limit.

Different classes would have different abilities and attributes. All main characters and some bosses would be in their own classes like the lords from Fire Emblem but other classes would be all pretty much the same in fighting style, except with different stats and colors. You'd have classes like heavy knights, who fight with hammers and have high defense, and archers who have long range attacks but low HP. Then you got bosses like Bellisk, who fights with kunai and a chained mace. Also, there's Cygnus, another young warrior like Ares who uses a lance and is very acrobatic. It would be FRICKIN AWESOME!! At, least in my imagination.

Well, that's about it. Please comment and tell me what you guys think of my ideas. Also, feel free to write your own MAGOTs (not like its copyrighted or anything.) I would love to hear your ideas for things you think would make great games (It would be awesome if a lot of people started doing these). One more thing; I posted a blog entry about combos a while back, but nobody has commented on it. I want feedback people!! So please check that out here.


That's it for the first ever MAKE A GAME OUTTA THIS! See you next time(who knows when that'll be.)

Last week I submitted artwork to Deviant Art for the first time. It's a character I imagined up when I was, like, 12 or something. I always imagined him as the main character in some kind of Zelda inspired, sci-fi RPG. He's got everything one needs to be the main character of an RPG. He's a teenager, he has something to cut things with, and he has things to cut. Check it out!!!
CM: Kele Artwork

And one more thing. Please check out my last blog entry. Its been up forever and no one has commented yet. Its about how combos have become a fad in the gaming industry. Pretty interesting if I do say so myself.

Have you ever played a game like, say, Marvel vs Capcom 2, where there are a lot of ridiculous combos and whatnot, against someone who's really good at it and they land a hit on you, and then that hit leads into an infinite and inescapable combo that will reduce your lifebar to zero. At that point, the best option for the player at the receiving end of the endless anus-kicking is really just hoping that his opponent will mess up.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like the feeling of doing a 16 hit combo on a really buff guy with a bowl on his head (Juggernaut). But sometimes it can get to the point where it's just plain cheesy. And I know that you know,as a dedicated gamer,that just about EVERY fighting game developer and their collective dog has tried in some way to copy the tried and true Capcom vs. combo system, ever since the idea of combos was introduced in good ol' Street Fighter II. The only current fighting games I can think of at the moment that don't have some kind of combo gauge or something to keep track of how many consecutive hits you've racked up are SSBB and Soulcalibur (I'm sure there are more). So I guess what I'm saying is that I... AM TIRED OF COMBO INTENSIVE GAMES. Or at least the ones where once you're in a combo, you're helpless until the other guy decides to finish it.



In my opinion, a good fighting game should focus on strategy and reading your opponent, not seeing how high you can get the combo meter to go. It should also encourage a player to get familiar with a character's entire move set before he can say he's mastered that character. It's always more satisfying to me to reflect a shell back at somebody in SSB or to knock my opponent out of the sky with a well placed Dragon Punch when they try to jump in Street Fighter than to do the same 30 hit combo every 5 seconds in Marvel vs. Capcom.

So in essence, I really just think that in games where there are preset combo strings, there should be a way out of the combo if you know what it's going to be. That would make things way more interesting in that it would discourage spamming the same combos, and encourage predicting the opponent's attacks. Fighting would be way more dynamic if you had just as many defensive and counter-offensive options as you do attacks. Yet, sadly, most games these days expect you to get by with only the ability to block the first attack in a combo.

Please comment and tell me what you guys think about the idea that in most fighting games, offense >defense by a huge margin.