[Dan Locke]

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

Small enemy numbers? Ever played the game?

Yeah. Turrican II is probably my favorite C64 game, actually. And I said "relatively small" - there are rather large areas that are completely devoid of enemies, and when enemies do appear, they don't come close to swamping the player like the enemies in Gunstar Heroes do.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

And no, I believe first and foremost you're concerned with staying alive by shooting the shit outta stuff - or your preference, jumping on their heads in Mario manner - because it's kinda difficult to explore a game world when you're dead.

My point is that you stay alive in order to get further into the levels and explore them. In Gunstar Heroes, the primary focus is on shooting the ever-reappearing enemies and moving forwards when you can. By your logic, I might as well say that Sonic the Hedgehog's primary emphasis is on bumping into things while airborne.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

Yeah, I'd say Gunstar Heroes is a pure run n gun game, similar in vein to Metal Slug, but even more repetitive, and boring, IMO.

I never got into the genre myself, mainly because of its almost nonexistent emphasis on platforming and level design - something which the Turrican games have in spades, actually.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

Well, thanks for clearing up what your defininition for "accessory" is. That's not the commonly held one in plain English, or the O.E.D.

Sorry; it was the only word that I could think of at the time. Maybe "enhancement" would work better?

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

i.e., shooting is not the lens cap and platforming/exploration is not the camera. They're much more even than that.

Well, yeah, that's generally the case when games have multiple onscreen enemies. But then you're getting into the kind of thing that I talked about with my "Sonic the Hedgehog is about bumping into things" analogy.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

I don't know if any one's done it, but I certainly found myself rolling my eyes and either eluding or avoiding entirely. The emphasis in that game is explorative; Turrican 2's more about shooting shit up and jumping from here to there; exploratively, it's actually rather aimless.

Because Manfred Trenz was just being frivolous when he put in all of those secret passageways and bonus caves and branching pathways. Play the second world of Turrican II to see what I mean.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

My first assertion was about EWJ and DKC character animation distracting from a core platform game.

Which really makes no sense at all. Would choppier animation have made those games better in any way? If not, how can smoother animation be a detriment?

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

Another aspect of them I dislike is the scenery in the foreground blinding me to pure action, of which there is little enough in both games as it is...

Let me know where Earthworm Jim does that, because I've played it through and never encountered anything of the sort. I do agree about Donkey Kong Country trying to dress up a lackluster engine with "pretty" graphics, though (I actually hate that '90s plastic look with a passion).

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

there is even completely unfair edge-screen blindness.

If you're talking about Earthworm Jim, that's only the case for the SNES port; the SNES has a much lower resolution than the Genesis's, and a game originally developed for the Genesis will naturally be worse on the SNES. That's actually the main reason why I prefer the Genesis version.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

When I die in a Taito game, or something like Super Mario World, at least it's my fault, not one of poor game design.

I could understand your statement if you were comparing it to something like Brian the Lion or Bubsy the Bobcat, but neither Earthworm Jim nor Donkey Kong Country do that kind of thing.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

EWJ/DKC are mildly amusing eye candy platformers which require little skill and timing compared to Taito's stuff, and SMW etc.

Excuse me? Donkey Kong Country is easy to the point of being dull (unless we're talking about the barrel-cannon areas, which actuallly do require "skill and timing" to pull off), but Earthworm Jim is both hard and fair. And since when is eye candy a bad thing if it's part of a great game? There's a reason that game reviews rate graphical presentation.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

No, it doesn't. The designers were also fixated on eye candy.

So a game can only have good gameplay if the developers focus on that aspect to the exclusion of everything else? Am I missing something here? Believe it or not, a game can be both fun and polished; it's not like the developers trade one off for the other. There are good games with bad graphics, bad games with good graphics, good games with good graphics, and bad games with bad graphics. It's silly to say that a game with good graphics can't also have polished gameplay.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

Also, Rainbow Islands is far more sophisticated in testing the player's skills than EWJ is.

Elaborate.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

I also believe that, even though the controllable character is "cute" in the former, it is more responsive and enjoyable to manipulate than the latter, even with all those (superfluous) anim frames.

How is the little boy (or whatever he his; I can't tell because of the ugly graphics) in Rainbow Islands "more responsive and enjoyable to manipulate" than Earthworm Jim is? He's slower (less responsive) and his vertical movement has a fixed speed (acceleration makes Earthworm Jim's controls more enjoyable).

Don't take my comment about Rainbow Islands's graphics the wrong way; it was just a counterpoint to your obvious disdain for Earthworm Jim's excellent graphical polish (with animation frames drawn by the character's designer himself).