Video Games are awesome

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Video Games are awesome

Post by Sparky Prime »

Dominic wrote:It is a back-write because Capcom did not care at the beginning.
Capcom US (which is an important distinction to make here) not "caring" does not make it a "back-write". Calling it a "back-write" implies they had a purpose behind it, when really, it literally has nothing to do with the game or it's story. It's just something they rushed out to slap on the box when they brought it over for North American audiences. And you can't just ignore the *original* version of the games have *always* had consistent art across all the Rock Man games, or that moving forward with the 3rd game, Capcom US would do better with the Mega Man cover art.

Not to mention, the games manuals, packaged alongside the game, used the control art from Keiji Inafune.
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Dominic
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Re: Video Games are awesome

Post by Dominic »

The only reason the games had the hand/gun swap is because of the sprite flipping.

It was a technical quirk. But, that is why the hand/gun swap existed.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Video Games are awesome

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Dominic wrote:The only reason the games had the hand/gun swap is because of the sprite flipping.

It was a technical quirk. But, that is why the hand/gun swap existed.
I've already explained to you why he had a gun in the art... It had absolutely nothing to do with sprite flipping. It was simply because the artists had no clue Mega Man's arm itself was a cannon. Here's the words of the artist who drew the box art of Mega Man 2 himself after being shown a beta of the game:
Marc Ericksen wrote:So I said to the art director, 'what is he shooting? What is he shooting with?' The art director said, 'he must have a pistol because I don't see that he's got a rifle so he must have a pistol.'
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Dominic
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Re: Video Games are awesome

Post by Dominic »

The fact that Mega Man's gun and hand are functionally interchangeable is because of the sprite-flipping that existed in early games. That is why Mega Man's gun always replaces the hand that is opposite the direction he is facing on-screen.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Video Games are awesome

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Dominic wrote:The fact that Mega Man's gun and hand are functionally interchangeable is because of the sprite-flipping that existed in early games. That is why Mega Man's gun always replaces the hand that is opposite the direction he is facing on-screen.
And? That has absolutely nothing to do with the bad off-model box art.
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Dominic
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Re: Video Games are awesome

Post by Dominic »

The off-model box art exists because there was no control art available.

And, the whole point of this is "sprite flipping was a problem in the 80s and 90s".
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Video Games are awesome

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Dominic wrote:The off-model box art exists because there was no control art available.
I've already gone over this. Twice. Third time's the charm? The Capcom US president rushed out the release of the first game. Whether they had control art or not is a moot point considering they apparently didn't show the artist that did the box art anything to do with the game just to get it out faster. It is worth noting that they printed some of Keiji Inafune's art in the manual for the first game though, so they obviously did have the Japanese control art. They would have certainly had that control art available when they released the second game 2 years later. But for whatever reason, it was never shown to the artists who designed that box art either. They just were shown a beta of the game.

The off-model box art exists because Capcom US rushed out the games with out showing the artists much of anything. That doesn't mean they didn't have it available. For all we know, this was done intentionally so that the artists would come up with an "Americanized" design with out being influenced by the Japanese art.
And, the whole point of this is "sprite flipping was a problem in the 80s and 90s".
Dominic wrote:But, Mega Man was originally drawn holding an external handgun. The design team did not have consistent control art until the third game. As reasonable as the lore may seem, the hand/gun swap is a back-write.
This is the point. The box art from the first two games showing "Mega Man" with a hand gun has absolutely nothing to do with sprite flipping, and itself isn't a "back-write" as Mega Man was never intended to have an external hand gun in the games like that art shows. That art is therefore reasonably disregarded for being completely inaccurate.

And it's possible Capcom (Japan) always intended Rock Man to be able to use either arm for the buster because or the sprite-flipping or maybe even in spite of it. Doesn't mean it has to be a "back-write" as you're claiming. The Japanese art for Rock Man, when he has both of his hands, has always been symmetrical. Unlike say, the Ruby Spears cartoon version of Mega Man, where he had a asymmetrical design, showing one arm clearly had the buster built into it.
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Re: Video Games are awesome

Post by Shockwave »

Also, if you look at other box art from the time, it's almost never indicative of what's in game. Metal Gear had the guy who played Kyle Reese from Terminator on it and you don't see anything remotely like him in game. same goes for Contra and the Castlevania games. Box art isn't canon, period. And sprite flipping wasn't a problem, it's something that continues to this day in most 2D games (I've been playing Terreria a lot lately and it sprite flips as well. Most of the time).
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Re: Video Games are awesome

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Sprite-flipping is a problem if the characters are asymmetrical. It is more of a problem in games like "Street Fighter 2", where defining visual elements of the characters flip. (One could also argue that it makes the titular fights less coherent, because characters effectively switch from being left to right handed depending on which way they are facing.)

"Super Metroid" managed to avoid that problem because the design team put some thought in to their game, making sprite-flipping less forgivable (especially now).

Speaking of "Super Metroid", I have given up on reading the strategy guides. For whatever reason, the Metroid fandom cannot seem to produce a readable or coherent strategy guide or wiki. I am currently using a (middling quality) map to navigate through the game. When I get through this game, I might write a guide, as an example of what the damned things should be. (The amount of reading it takes just to find what buttons to press in order to do a move is ridiculous.)
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Video Games are awesome

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Shockwave wrote:And sprite flipping wasn't a problem, it's something that continues to this day in most 2D games (I've been playing Terreria a lot lately and it sprite flips as well. Most of the time).
Yeah honestly, sprite flipping has never bothered me, except for maybe Sonic's name being backwards on the Tornado in Sonic 3. It is something developers can fix, but in general, I don't think it's that big of a deal if it doesn't make any aesthetic difference. Most characters have symmetrical designs so...
Dominic wrote:Speaking of "Super Metroid", I have given up on reading the strategy guides. For whatever reason, the Metroid fandom cannot seem to produce a readable or coherent strategy guide or wiki. I am currently using a (middling quality) map to navigate through the game. When I get through this game, I might write a guide, as an example of what the damned things should be. (The amount of reading it takes just to find what buttons to press in order to do a move is ridiculous.)
I don't understand why you're having such a problem finding a "readable or coherent" strategy guide for Super Metroid. I don't know about the wiki's, but as I've said before, there are plenty of good guides out there.
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