Why don't platformers have fun flying or grapple mechanics these days? all these artsy walking simulators are boring

why don't platformers have fun flying or grapple mechanics these days? all these artsy walking simulators are boring

too much work to program

undertale proved that controls don't matter

what game?

gargoyle's quest

gargoyles quest I think.

Undertale proved that you can make a mediocre game with almost zero programming ability and retards will eat it up as long as it has progressive themes.

Thats about it. You brought up Undertale for no fucking reason.

Breath of Crest of Demon Gargoyle of Fire Quest II!?!

Man, I loved those game(s).

So yeah, the realism thing. I dunno, I think devs are trying to do something entirely different from what they used to be doing. They now CAN make something that looks like a movie, so they're gonna try.

There are exceptions though. I mean, fairly obvious one is BotW. NuLink has almost the same moveset as Firebrand the Red Armoire. Climb walls + gliding + melee + shooty + wacky spells.

More on point, a lot of recent platformers have been reviving the mold. Ori actually felt a lot like the gargodemon questcrest games, for instance. A lot of similar mechanics and level design. It gets compared more to metroid and symphony, but it actually reminds me more of this.

>grapple mechanics
Ori and the Blind Forest was one of the most fun games I played in years purely for the Smash mechanic. Music was nice too. Is that what you mean by grapple?

Ori is really similar to the Gargoyle's Quest / Demon's Crest games, yeah.

For those who don't remember, it was a capcom franchise based on one of the baddies from ghosts n goblins having his own narrative. There was, IIRC, one on the gameboy, two on the NES, and one late sequel on the SNES.

Your little dude could spit fire, cling to walls, and fly a short distance. Over time you'd upgrade to fly farther and get different spells / moves that would unlock more areas. The moveset meant it had a more vertical level design than most platformers at the time.

nice, i'll have to play Ori then. it seemed too artsy to have gameplay

Who makes 2d walking simulators?

Gargoyle's Quest II was a really solid NES game and probably the best in the series.
Demon's Crest was good, but I prefer more focus on platforming.

>Ori seemed too artsy to have gameplay.
Quite the opposite. That's just what happens when a retro style game suddenly has studio backing and an AAA budget. Ori's in the discussion for best platformer of the last decade. Hell, it's one of the best I've played period since the big dogs all went 3D back in the N64/PS1 days.

Hollow knight has it beat.

Yeah, I agree that GC2 was the best one. Still have my NES cart for that game lying around someplace.

Demon's Crest probably had the best boss fights though. They took a cue from bullet hell games and made them all big wiggly artsy scary monsters. Come to think of it, DC actually focused a lot more on combat at the expense of platforming / exploration.

The more mechanics you have, the harder it becomes to balance it, especially when it's something as powerful as flying in a platformer. Demon's Crest had a truly awful difficulty "curve" because you could just ignore most obstacles for free, but you still had to deal with those bosses at the end, and some of them really busted your balls if you went there too early.

Thx lads

This.

Ori is the best 2D platformer since the Mega Man Zero games on the GBA, alongside DK Tropical Freeze.

And this isn't even close. Hollow Knight is a better metroidvania, but a much much worse platformer.

yes, the platforming was meh. maybe because the levels were made to be playable in all the transformations. bad design imo considering how fun the first 2 were

Yeah? I played a demo of it a while back and it seemed just-OK. I'll have to give it another shot at some point.

>Ori is the best 2D platformer since the Mega Man Zero games on the GBA, alongside DK Tropical Freeze.
I should say though, that there is PLENTY of discussion to be had. Platformers have been coming back in a huge way the last few years, and a lot of them get really creative with the core assumptions.

It's really, really hard to combine flying and platforming. Gargoyle's Quest nailed it by making it a resource and spacing out platforms and obstacles so you had just enough time to fly between them, then introduced ways to create your own safe spots on spiked walls and shit, so you could recharge the flight meter. It was simple and clever, but that's pretty much the only way I can think of handling flight in a platformer game.
Look at Kirby or Demon's Crest as examples of how overpowered and boring they can be. Like pointed out.

Grappling hooks are a different story though. I love them. There's something innately satisfying about grappling a target and using the physics to build up speed. Super Metroid almost got it right, but you completely lose all momentum after a while and there are no good way to link grapple swings together.