Architect Address - April 2020 (Patreon)

Hello hello hello and welcome to yet another architect address! How are you all holding up with the COVIDs? Hopefully good, remember to wash your hands you filthy degenerates. Well, enough about that, it’s time to talk about the videos that got released in the last month or so.

First of the two is What’s the Meaning of Metroidvania. The idea of metroidvania as a genre has always fascinated me, because it’s not based around mechanics or a particular feel, but similarity to, let’s be honest, one game. Super Metroid. Seriously, the number of so-called metroidvanias that just don’t give a single crap about castlevania is staggering, the genre name sucks. I wish I had a suggestion for a better one, but I think it’s a little too entrenched by this point so we’re just going to have to deal with it.

As I explain in the video, it’s this very idea that, paradoxically, holds metroidvanias back. If we keep copying super metroid over and over the genre’s going to remain in its shadow forever. 

This video was originally going to be all about what makes super metroid great, but it was only in playing other metroidvanias to use for comparison’s sake that I realised they were all… basically the same, and whilst a video about genre and the state of a fairly niche genre is less crowdpleasy, I’m reasonably happy with how it turned out in the end. Of particular surprise was the Ori games, the blind forest and the will of the wisps.

The blind forest is… such a weird game. It is gorgeous, the music is fantastic and there are some utterly inspired moments but man, every time it tried to actually be a metroidvania it  turns into a weird frustrating mess, it’s such a shame to see - but that’s what made the sequel so great, it’s pretty much the same game but with none of the weird baggage.  I really wish those games would give owls a break though, they’re the baddies in both games, owls are nice.

Overall, the metroidvania vid was pretty typical for one of my weird wanky genre videos in of that it didn’t do that great, but I thought the result was quite interesting, it’s a start of the conversation, and if one more person plays supraland as a result I’ll be happy with it. That game rules.

And the other game was What makes DOOM Eternal different. Doing a doom video is, let’s be honest, a bit of a crowdpleaser move but it is, surprisingly, a really fascinating game. Vast swathes of doom eternal are just… what were they thinking - they threw so many ideas at the game that some of them, in particular the story just don’t work at all, but when the game’s combat loop does click, it blows the more simplistic 2016 out of the water.

It’s been interesting to see the people in the comments talk about which of the two games they prefer because as I predicted, they’re split right down the middle. These two games are going to be a talking point for literally years, and I’m interested to see what shape the inevitable doom reboot number three will take because they’ve run out of games that everyone likes. Will they go the horror-focused direction of doom 3 or the mazelike doom 64, I can’t wait personally.

One thing I did see was a bunch of people talking about different ways to kill the marauder - I played the game before people really had the time to deep dive and break it, but apparently the marauder can be taken out really easily with a stunlock combo using the super shotty and ballista. It feels kind of like an exploit but I don’t know for sure. At least there’s a way to make him easy if you want to I suppose. 

I’m still conflicted over which game I prefer. DOOM 2016 is one of the most hardcore pulse pounding games I’ve ever played… for the first four hours, and Doom Eternal’s combat is possibly one of the best fps systems ever, but only when you’re not being made to do other stuff. I dunno, it was fun to make a video about a specific game for once, and I’m glad to see it doing well.

That’s it for this month’s architect address - hope you enjoyed and I’ll see you around, bye!