I played this mod a little longer and decided to do some long-term tests (actually, I just wanted to play the entire game from start till end
). I got a little frustrated, however. I had a hard time just with getting out of the first stage in decent shape. Getting past the jungle was just about as hard. Past that point, it was all pretty managable though. But the first 2 stages just went crappy.
At first I thought it might just be my skills. I started to play a little less lately (no more 2+ finishes front to back each day... :
), so perhaps I was getting a little rusty. But after F1-dyinging yet another time in the 2nd level because I was in such a bad shape (1 health, stuff like that), I figured it might not just be me.
But how could this be? Both Abra and Digglet are fairly straightforward, not to mention Abra being quite slow. They can't be that much of a problem, can they?
But then I compared them to the other enemies in area 1. A snake: moves forward, not much else. A bat: moves after you, not much else. A spider, drops down on you, hops around, not much else. All simple, movement-orientated 'attacks'.
Now compare this to digglet: moves around, like the snake. But it does so through stone, making it invisible and unpredictable (as opposed to the other enemies, who are all almost fully predictable). And it shoots for
2 damage. Then the difference is quite a bit bigger.
Abra is a bit more complicated. He doesnt move at all. On top of that, he's actually quite slow. But on the other hand, he's quite unavoidable as well. Come to close for too long, and he'll zap you, regardlessly of his position. That makes stairs and narrow corridors quite a bit of a challenge. Having another enemy near him is even worse, as you'll usually be forced to deal with the quicker enemy first, then deal with abra and the spychic blast he's conjured for you. If you get zapped before you deal with the other enemy, you'll usually be hit by that second enemy as well, as you'll get knocked out. The blast also serves as a defence: wait too long, and you won't be able to whip or jump Abra, as the blast originates from him. Another thing is that the blast instantly kills damsels, which happens more often than you'd think. A last note is that Abra's movement is entirely unpredictable as well, making him a bit harder to deal with. Though all these factors are a bit harder to evaluate, it's still easy to see that, although abra may not be that much harder to kill than other enemies, at least is a lot more complicated than all the original enemies.
So we now have new enemies that are probably more dangerous and quite unpredictable, as opposed to the old predictable movement-orientated enemies. I think that is explanation enough for the fact that area 1 got quite a bit harder.
As for area 2, I don't think that it is quite as hard as area 1. Still, Bulbasaur seems to have the precision of a stealth bomber. Not to mention that the webs from catterprie can quite quickly lead to sticky situations if combined with other enemies. The quick bird offers few problems, though his movement is somewhat erratic, and I occasionally have difficulties jumping on him if he's in a 1space sized hole, for some odd reason.
After that, there's the black market, which usually provides enough gear to easily make it to the end, making areas 3 and 4 quite managable. An exeption is the boss, which with the new enemies has gained quite a bit of power. Drowzee especially is tough, as he easily covers a large area with his blast. Getting hit can easily steer you right back under the giant head, or into the clutches of yet another enemy.
So, what does all this ranting lead to? Suggestions!
- Start the game with +1 health. This offers no benefit in the later stages, but makes the initial stages a bit more manageable
- Make the dirt-attack on digglet deal 1 damage. 2 damage usually means 50% of your health is gone. That's a lot.
- Make Abra's minimum teleport distance a bit bigger. This means that after the initial confrontation, you won't nessecerily have to deal with him again. In small areas, you can just draw out the first blast, then deal with him later in a (hopfully) easier spot.
- Remove the damage done by the quick bird as soon as he stands still. It's quite annoying to not jumpkill an enemy if you're both sharing a 1sized pit, but even worse if it does manage to kill you.
- Quicker disintegration of Caterprie's web. Perhaps 2 or 3 seconds is long enough?
Lastly, I also managed to find another bug: I got hit by catterprie web while playing the damsel. I held a stone at the time I got webbed. Somehow this I got knocked out inside the web. But I also didn't get out of my unconscious state after the web dissolved. So I was forced to wait helplessly for more than a minute for the ghost to show up and put me out of my misery. In front of the exit. bah.
I hoped this wall of text wasn't to tedious to read
. But at least it's pretty complete, and so hopefully more helpfull as well.
F
