I think the greatest moments of realizing how strong you've become happen when your character's strength doesn't actually change. The first thing that comes to mind are Mario games. Throughout almost any Mario game (except paper, m+l, and rpg) Mario doesn't actually get any stronger at all, but the levels and enemies undeniably get harder. This is because YOU are the one who got stronger, not Mario. You put in the hours, you made your mistakes, and now you are the one who defeated bowser. Mario was only there as an avatar. One way the games do this is that the scenarios become more treacherous as the game becomes more difficult, so you really feel like the danger is mounting, and when you see that castle looming in the distance, you know that it's go time and the only thing that'll get you through is your own skill and wit, not some items you collected along the way. And you REALLY feel the difference in strength when for whatever reason you decide to replay old levels that were once challenging and you just plow through them despite Mario being exactly the same now as he was then, the only thing that changed is you.
Vgamer311 that is way mario is the biggest definition of gaming. but, i believe the key element of the "Grow Stronger" concept is the fact they make the player feel smart every step along the way
Exactly! One of my favorite games is Blast Corps for N64. It has a great learning curve, especially for its strangest vehicle: the backlash dumptruck, which requires you to plow into buildings sideways while skidding in a kind of controlled chaos. A very strange skill to learn. When I first played the game, I didn't know how to erase my save file and play the earlier levels. No matter how I tried, I couldn't beat Angel City. Later, I figured out how to start from the beginning, built up my skill in the earlier levels, and finally destroyed that level, and went on to even more difficult ones. I was truly surprised by what I'd learned. Learning curves are the best progression. Making your in-game avatar stronger is fake learning that isn't nearly as satisfying.
You could argue the same for Super Meat Boy. However, i realized I got stronger when I decided to go play the earlier levels. I was like... "WOW, I struggled against that level, complained, and bitched about it? I can do that in my sleep".
Link8304 - Gaming in Hyrule if you don't one-shot at least the first few Pokémon you have little chance of beating the champ, at least in my experience.
one thing i noticed is sometimes games will take the first boss fight and make it into a common enemy in the late portions of the game. An enemy that you previously may have struggled with is now just another goon to your character.
+snomaN Gaming Cave Story even does this with Igor, for example. Hey Igor! Guess what! SPUR! (Dead Igor.) Cave Story also has Misery, who goes from not remembering Quote (in Mimiga Village), to asking him if he wants to fight (Sand Zone), to calling him a tough robot throughout the game. I think that's a cool example of progression in a game, because it comes from another powerful character in that universe.
I think I would've used Zelda as an example of lateral growth instead of just growing stronger. It's one of the few RPGs that you don't just arbitrarily gain numbers in, instead your main growth comes from expanding your arsenal of items to allow you to tackle more situations.
Yeah I guess that's kind of what I was exactly trying to say - it's not just growth by leveling up or attacking at higher numbers, it's actual player skill that increases...I feel like I said that? I think...
The problem with that is replayability. Once you've beaten a zelda game once, and play it again, you clearly feel that you have the skill for it, and the lack of tools is all that's holding you back, and this gives rise to stuff like the 3-heart challenge cause it's "too easy"... Dark souls handles it better in that sense. It soft-locks your progress with beef barriers, enemies that are far overpowered, but they're not impossible. You're not supposed to be able to cross those barriers before you're meant to. But if you already have the skill, then you can, even if you'll have a harder time than you should, and that really transmits the feeling that -you- have grown stronger. Metroid might make an even heavier case of this, although replacing leveling with expansions. It does depend on gained tools to progress... but the experienced player can use those tools skillfully and creatively for sequence breaking, like making impossible jumps by bomb-jumping, while still needing you to go through some of the tool-based growth, and really makes you feel like you've grown stronger as the player.
snomaN Gaming but the idea of lateral growth has nothing to do with getting more powerful, doing more damage, or even gameplay skill. Instead it's about expanding your options, letting you tackle situations in different ways and, yes, allowing you to get into areas you couldn't before. Your video series to be more about getting stronger in a general sense, especially since you used dark souls as an example and talk about getting linear damage upgrade items like going from the standard Sword to the Master Sword, or dealing more damage as an adult in ocarina of time.
snomaN Gaming or, I guess, your video seems to focus on player skill, whereas I feel like using Zelda would be better for something talking about games that expand your arsenal of tools instead of making you improve as a player. Like... (I can't see his username and RU-vid won't let me scroll without deleting my post) said, Darko should works better for this topic because the entire point of dark souls is to force the player to get better at the games basic mechanics.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door does this amazingly. They give you the underground area of Rogueport, and you see all of these places and pipes you want to use, but you can't get them at all. The fact that you keep having to return underground increases the desire to figure out what it is that's there; then you start getting new party members and paper powers, and bit by bit, the underground area of Rogueport gets more expansive. Not to mention that they upgrade your Hammer two or three times during the game, which is a progression of its own.
In RPGs, abusing this principle can become a flaw : i know it feels good to be overpowered, but it's kinda like a " one punch man " situation : you steamroll ennemies and bosses without having to stick to the gameplay because EXP has made you too powerful and you don't feel worthy for winning anymore . I think every RPG maker out there should know that EXP can ( and shouldn't ) break your game.
I played FFX again recently, and I fought the final boss but it was too hard, so I did some grinding in the Omega ruins for about 1 hour, and then I was SO WILDLY OP I destroyed the final boss like it was nothing. I thought it was interesting that such a little amount of leveling could make such a huge difference
Yes, it's true, i think it's nice to give the player the possibility to become OP, but it's often too easy to push it too far ( at least FF10 has a bunch of secret bosses that are so crazily hard that you just HAVE to be maxed out ) . I would be interested to find more games where grinding doesn't immediatly turn you into an unstoppable death machine ( Like Child of Light in hard mode ).
Spectral Child yes times a million. I was playing Dragon Warrior for NES just yesterday and that game is the biggest grind fest you'll ever see. Got killed by a tough enemy? Don't re-think your strategy or find clever weaknesses or anything, just grind for a few hours then go back and kill it in two hits. Rinse and repeat until you see the credits.
He's saying we'd never get a new megaman game. Seemed accurate at the time, kind of shocking that Megaman 11 is a real thing and not just a dream. They used to in that, when they released megaman games, they did it well.
I think Ōkami is worthy of mention for this, because it basically tells the player right from the start "You're missing like… all the powers you should have. You kinda suck, and don't stand a chance against the thing you need to beat." and then you gain them back over the course of the game, with each one ending up important throughout your adventure, and ultimately in the final boss fight. Along the way, you also become more comfortable with the game's mechanics, and certain elements you wouldn't consider significant(, like slightly increased damage on your weapon, or a double-jump, ) increase the sense of flow in the game, but require good technique to take advantage of, making the player themselves feel empowered, not just the character.
Philo Wintercoat I really like the way in which you grow stronger as you restore nature in that game. Not only you get new powers and more health/ink as you progress, you can see the barren land flourish again, with animals returning and flowers blooming.
Egoraptor used Megaman X to exemplify this design technique. YOu start as a weak X and then they show you the super crazy strong Zero. Slowly you get stronger and even look similar to him by the end of the game, making you feel empowered. OMG when i first got the Hadouken and blasted the bosses with it...such an awesome ability.
Metroid Fusion was always one of my favorites about the Growing Stronger Principle, as it is making you become powerful enough to overcome this unstoppable force in the SA-X-your mirror image. Egoraptor's favorite example Mega Man X is notable as well.
One I really felt this in was Ori and the Blind Forest. At the beginning, you can barely maike a jump, but soon you're soaring through the sky and 'bashing' off of enemies, all while unlocking new gated areas because of it.
Megaman X had the best "Growing Stronger" I've ever seen, with armor upgrades, weapon tank upgrades, health upgrades, and E-tanks available in every stage, not to mention getting the boss's weapons. You start the game fairly weak, and end the game a godlike being.
@@snomangaming I like Megaman X4 better than X... Specifically playing as Zero. Gaining new techniques instead of armor and weapon upgrades (although you do get one new weapon) makes you feel like you're becoming more skilled rather than just having more brute strength.
Metroid Fusion. The build up of t he SA-X is tremendously scary. You encounter it on multiple occasions but cannot even damage it: you have to hide and sneak past the thing.
I like the jrpg varient where the main character goes though a class change, because you went from generic swordsman into badass magic knight with all these amazing abilities stacked on to each other. I think the only real bad example is a game where the game has a cap so ludicrously high and nothing to show for it like dark souls after the 7th playthrough or disgaea where you get 1.8bil hp and you're like "i'm so puny"
One of my favorite things that I like about my favorite action adventure game series is indeed the sense of progression and this becomes apparent even more in the 3-D games. Take Ocarina of Time for an instance which was the game that set the standard for future 3-D games in the series. You start off fighting weak enemies like Deku Babas, Skulltulas, Deku Scrubs etc. These enemies are not very mobile and easily dealt with. Compare that to the end of the game where you have tougher enemies like Dinofos, Stalfos, Iron Knuckles etc. These tough more combat based enemies become more common place and if you are going for 100 percent it makes more sense that the enemies are getting stronger because your character is getting stronger too. Stronger character means stronger enemies to fight. It makes sense in that perspective and it works.
This is why I love Wind Waker. At the beginning you are just some kid whose sister got kidnapped, and in the forsaken fortress you are sneaking around moblins, but already in the next dungeon you are kicking a moblins ass. Halfway through you kill the giant bird that kidnapped your sister. By the end you save the world. It’s so good.
In Pokémon, it's also a feeling at getting better at the game throughout the WHOLE game series. You don't carry over anything from a game to the next, unless you trade your old team to the new games (and even then, they will disobey you until you gain enough badges), but the knowledge you gain in one game can be invaluable in another! Say that in a new generation Pokémon game you learn from NPCs that the next gym leader you face will have Steel- type Pokémon. You may start to pick your brain about how you can gain an advantage over them: "Let's see, Steel is weak to Fire, Ground and Fighting...oh, there are wild Diglett here! Diglett is a Ground Pokémon and it's also pretty fast, so I can catch one and be able to outmaneuver that Gym's trainers!" In Pokémon, your greatest weapon is knowledge of all the monsters and knowing their strengths and weaknesses...and that's what the games are about too, giving you the Pokédex and giving you the task to catch them all. In the Pokémon universe, knowledge is power.
Terraria is one of those games, at first, you have copper tools and a short sword, but eventually you dig deep underground and craft better weapons, tools and armor. it's not easy to take down the Eye of Cthulhu with wooden armor and 100 Life, but once you start finding those weapons and armor and take down lots of bosses, your character looks and plays like a badass.
The amazing thing about Super Metroid is you can go anywhere in the game right from the beginning but most people aren't skilled enough to realize. Speed runs show that off. I love games that don't just make you "feel" ready but also let you know just how strong you can become. At the start of Ys Ark of Napishtim, you can jump a fence leading to a map filled with enemies that instantly kill you if you haven't gotten very far. It's great to go back to those areas and wipe 'em clean.
Megaman Legends (particularly the first one) does this really well. In the game, you start off exploring little sub-ruins. As the game progresses, you find parts to make into special weapons and equipment. Some of these help you rediscover the ruins you already explored earlier in the game, as you can either jump higher or are now able to destroy certain walls. This rediscovery shows that basically every single "level" in the game (sans the tutorial level) is intrinsically linked, going from the first little ruin you find to the Main Gate, where the final boss resides.
I think that the Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker takes the "Come Back Later" principal to literal terms. When you make it to Ganondorf for the first and second time, he basically tells you to come back after you become stronger.
I have to say the Star Tropics games filled me with a new kind of satisfaction when I played them. Since the chapters become increasingly more difficult, you really have to bring your A game. There are also going to be some nifty upgrades to help you out, but success will always come down to your skill as the player. It makes beating the final boss one of my most fulfilling gaming moments.
Final Fantasy VI does the growing stronger principle very well, and then it sends you back to the bottom and forces you to come back. Pretty good exposition.
In Breath of the Wild the feeling of getting stronger and more experienced is even more powerful knowing that you can take on Ganon inmediately, but probably getting destroyed in one hit (also a lot of enemies), I remember doing a secondary quest where the monster destroyed me in one hit. Coming back in late game and destroying them with no problem xD (like now I can take on those damn guardians)
I'm starting to really love this series because it takes these principles that we hear all the time and actually elaborates on them! Everyone likes to bring up these game design topics but no one wants to talk about why they work! Mad props man!
Thanks man. This was a principle I noticed even as a kid, and it feels really good to elaborate on it. I used to call it the "Pokemon" principle as a kid.
Metroid Fusion does a really good job of this. You start off weak after a near-death experience and are on a mission to basically save a space station while avoiding dying to the SA-X. You grow stronger and stronger on your mission until you've not only defeated the SA-X, but saved the space station itself and possibly the galaxy from the dangers of the X-parasite.
Lately I've really been enjoying roguelikes for this reason, because there's both the progress of becoming stronger in each individual run and the progress of getting further and further in the game because you as a player are becoming stronger. Stuff like FTL, Risk of Rain, Binding of Isaac, etc. Awesome vid once again :) Love this series
[BUZZ] Bacca I’ve been playing it mostly off of the computer for my normal guy. My computer terraria I’ve already downloaded tons of worlds and crap on 😆
The Gothic-Series - PC rpgs from germany. you can access almost every area from the beginning, but many are filled with enemies far too strong for you, after progressing on and on you become strong enough to conquer those enemies and areas.
+Christian Jendrachek Oh yes! The first one does this especially well, since it basically starts with this guy kicking your ass and laughing about it. You are incredibly weak, even the smallest enemies pose an actual threat. You need to do petty jobs to have other characters protect you while you collect experience and equipment. When you finally progress enough to reach the guy from the beginning again, you have become strong enough to beat him up and take all his stuff. So rewarding!
The game I found had an amazing feel of this power trip effect, was Ori and the Blind forest, you start off with just a basic jump and a weak short ranged attack, but by the end you'll be bouncing around enemies, turning their own attacks against them, completing much more difficult platforming, etc.
The Mass Effect series does this really well. You start of the first game chasing Saren who is merely a puppet of the greater threat sovereign, until you finally take sovereign down with a whole armada, all while leveling up and gaining new allies. In ME2 you face a "next level" reaper and the threat grows and grows and in ME3 you head to the final battle that decides it all... well and then the last 10 minutes happen lol.
The original Mega Man X is one of my favorites with this. The feeling you get at that introduction stage when Zero shows up to save you... and him straight up telling you that one day you may be stronger than him
i like how this is done in Chrono Trigger. in that game you can chose to fight the last boss at any time and theoretically also beat him. of course, youll try it at least once early on and get your ass handed to you. of course you could grind for an eternity until you can beat him, but theres a main story and many side quests trying to get your attention, so you naturally chose to do those instead and gain levels along the way. at some point youll be strong enough to fight the final boss, and at the penultimate point in the main story youll be encouraged to do so and nudged along because if youve gotten that far youre surely ready, but you could also do side quests instead and get different endings when ultimately defeating the final boss. this only works because its an rpg though. if it was a platformer, players would practice and practice the final boss until theyve beaten him and not see the rest of the game, but because you need to have at least moderately higher stats to stand a chance, youre encouraged to do the rest of the game in the way you see fit and until you feel ready. i prefer this over the zelda trope where items serve as keys and literally lock the final boss away from you. it doesnt make ganon feel stronger to me, it just makes him feel like a coward who puts gates inbetween him and you.
I would say rouge legacy is a great example, you start off with no clue of what to do but very quickly start gaining upgrades and classes until your strong enough to fight bosses or explore new areas.
Jade from tales of the abyss is a great example of this the game lets you have a taste of how strong he is by making him overleveled the first time hes in a fight to show how awesome he is
I get a sense of growing stronger in Dragon's Dogma. Like there are all these enemies that you can come across while adventuring and they're big and tough and you're like "I can't defeat that!" but then you go off and fight a bunch of smaller enemies and become stronger. Then when you face that enemy again, you're strong enough to take them down. It makes you feel like Goku in Dragon Ball Z where he's not strong enough to face an enemy so he goes back and trains and becomes even stronger and then he's a match for them!
Pikmin actually has this quality in it. When you start, you only have access to one type of pikmin, but as you explore different areas and progress through the game, you unlock the different kinds of pikmin. Of course, then you have to backtrack to get all of the collectible a that you couldn't get before.
I think Terraria also has this principal. When you start, all you have are copper tools that have slow speeds and you feel very weak. then you find a better ore. you make bars out of it then craft better armor and tools. because of this, you aren't restricted to almost immediate underground death. after defeating the first bosses, you upgrade to better items and armor, and can finally go into hell and even BETTER items. you defeat the wall of flesh and you feel like you could overcome anything. But, you have new biomes where you need to test your strength. enemies become harder, more bosses, and there are more item upgrades. you go to the final bosses and get near endgame items. you feel near invincible by this point. you fight the final boss and feel like you could destroy anything in one blow. your journey is (almost) over. tl:dr version: you get better stuff overtime and you win gg m8.
+Alex Williams Oh yeah good call! I loved Terraria! You definitely felt like you were growing stronger in skill and equipment. That game is HARD near the end
Xenoblade Chronicles (X) does this in a cool way where it throws alot of powerfull optional enemies at you early on. It feels great to finally defeat that one unique monster you have been avoiding the entire game once you're a high enough level.
Hitman. You start off not knowing how to get past certain enemies, but over time you don't change, but know which paths to take, where to hide, which items to pick up, and which disguise is most important for the first level. And as another one, games that make you start with every power up, but quickly get rid of them after your first encounter with the final boss.
"If you just walked in to fight gannon at the very beginning of the game and whipped his butt in 30 seconds there would be no pacing" how much he knew about the future maniacally laughs in Breath of the Wild
Anybody remember a little gem on the SNES called Goof Troop? Great puzzle elements, progressive difficulty. And multiplayer action. Also shows the go elsewhere get thingy come back principle.
Great video! Love Super Metroid when you first morph into the tiny ball. Also Super Mario World when you hit the big colored pow switches to get the colored exclamation points everywhere.. not exactly saving the world from destruction but from millions of missing exclamation boxes haha
Jak II does this by having grind poles you can't grind on yet because you haven't got the jetboard, a hoverboard basically. It lets you get to Precursor Orbs or take shortcuts to get more Precursor Orbs.
In all honesty, I think Anti-Chamber might be the quintessential example of the 'Growing Stronger' principle. Though you're not exactly getting stronger, per se, you are gradually building up to something greater. You start off with nothing at your disposal, and by the end you can solve even the hardest of puzzles by applying your new skills and learned tactics. Even puzzles that once seemed insurmountable at the beginning become child's play with a bit of intuition. The game doesn't stop you from trying the harder puzzles at the beginning, instead allowing you to experiment; allowing you to grow and learn, though you might just be learning that you're not equipped enough to solve the puzzle at hand.
+Cryptic Bagman Yeah thats awesome, I definitely agree. In the beginning its almost jarring how crazy the game is, but you learn a lot over time. I would say Portal does something similar.
Great video! I really enjoyed it and look forward to seeing more of them. Like you point out this type of mechanic gatewaying or whatever it's called isn't limited to the idea of growing stronger, and I think generally we can best understand how it works by comparing it to narrative devices like Chekhov's gun with all its setup, foreshadowing, and payoff. Which also helps explain why it is such an effective tool for communicating to the player a narrative of growing power and skill.
F-Zero (and GX in particular) comes to mind. Doing the hard modes are very frustating and you will lose many times, but with practise you get better and have the skills to overcome these obstacles. It's very rewarding and that's when you know: "I've got a lot better in this game"
GOLDEN SUN At the beginning you play lil kids that get wrecked but in the end you are those insanely powerful tamers of the elements that can rip apart any monster with ease and summon the strongest beasts. It gives you that feeling with increasingly awesome, impressive and epic battle animations
This was one of my favourite parts of Link to the Past. In the beginning, your crappy Sword felt like it took ages to take out the First bosses, but by the end of the game when you have the golden sword, and you have to fight those bosses and realize how much easier they were, it really does convey a sense of growth, and that's what I loved about Link to the Past.
Something I didn't pay attention to in my early playthroughs of Pokemon Y,R,B was the level of Pokemon in the water. Especially near Pallet town. It's very intuitive to ingrain in players the idea that Pokemon you encounter on your journey should be relatively close to you in terms of LVL and the LVLs increase as you progress through the map. Surfing new Pallet town or Cerulean City and seeing Pokemon in the water at a similar LVL definitely helped guide me as it let me know I was going on the right path.
I think a good example of this mechanic is Paper Mario (specifically the Thousand Year Door) even coming back to Rogueport with a new partner, ability or item makes you feel powerful and makes it so you can access another part of the city (not to mention the other areas of the game).
Charater-building video games are my favorites. There are really two main types. First there are action-adventure games, such as: The Legend of Zelda (series), Beyond Good and Evil, Metroid (series), Donkey Kong 64, Banjo-Kazooie (Series), and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. Then there are of course RPGs such as: Tales (series), Final Fantasy (series), Mass Effect (Series), Elder Scrolls (series), and Jade Empire. Action-Adventures have the style I prefer. You build up your by finding either items (Zelda) or unlocking abilities (Banjo-Kazooie). The focus here is not only on making your characters stronger, but also giving them abilities to go places and do things they couldn't before. RPGs on the other hand have there characters grow stronger by repeating tasks (usually fighting). The focus here is just on making your characters stronger (at fighting/alchemy/farming/etc), not on giving them the abilities to explore new places. Then of course there are games that do both such as: The Illusion of Gaia, Pokemon (series), Golden Sun (series), and Castlevania: Symphony of The Night (and some other Castlevanias).
I really enjoy Monster Hunter because you grow stronger not through armor, necessarily(Though it definitely helps) or through map progression, but through learning monster patterns. You really get a sense of accomplishment when you can beat a Diablos or a Rajang in your underwear without getting hit. It really demands you learn about monsters rather than just being able to plow through them because you have a really advanced sword or armor set(Though, even with a good armor set, without proper experience, you can get wrecked easily).
In Pokemon you also get to save the world, or at the very least bring down a huge crime syndicate, depending on what version of the core franchise you are playing. Thing is, these missions are kind of mandatory side-quests. They make you don't care about these evil groups or give you a need to stop them, your main objective will always be just to capture more Pokemon.
Most MMORPGs have a couple very strong high level zones next to some of the lower level ones (like a lvl 60 zone next to a 30). When you first go into that zone and see their levels you're like "nope nope nope nope" but when you're 60 and your questing leads you there you're like "OOOOH I remember this place." You suddenly recognize how much stronger you are.
Baldur's Gate game does this principle WERY well. At the start of the game you are 1st Level whimp who can only run from a bad guy Sarevok (I think, he is 8th LVL fighter or something around that), but at the end of the Baldur's Gate 2 Throne of Baal, you are 20th Level demigod and you casually talk with Cyric, god of Deception. Oh yeah and when you reach as a wizard your 5th level, learn that neat Fireball spell (level 3 spell, deals 1d6 per caster level damage which effectively makes 5-30 damage per target on start and only more when you get every new level) and wipe a room clean with it. YES! That's it!
I think that one of the best Grown Feeling is made by GTA's games. I mean, at the very beggining u are a nobody, a maggot a wimp. But at the end of the series, you became a Godfather. U have an empire and everybody knows that if they mess with u, they are dead.
If mashing the like button gave you more likes instead of alternating between on and off, I'd mash it like a mad man. I was looking forward to this video and it was definitely worth the wait. It had Zelda too, which makes it that much more epic. Awesome job man!
I Metroid series in particular the Prime series does this really well of unlocking new areas once you get stronger as often stopping you from getting to a new area may be a boss that you need a key weapon to defeat for example to progress
I had not played Link to the Past for a while ,so I was recently playing the game again and I was just randomly exploring the map and found the master sword and it made me really excited again because I forgot you could not get the master sword at that time
Wario Land 3 did this to a massive extent. Each level had four goals and most of the time you had to get a power up of some kind or complete another level to unlock new areas in earlier levels.
I would have to give it to most, if not all, of the Castlvania games that come after (and including) Symphony of the Night for the PSX. They were linear before that, but Symphony of the night introduced a Metroidesque design to the game that combines really well with the RPG mechanic level progression. Also, since most of the power-ups you get are movement based, you suddenly feel like a bad-ass from double-jumping, dashing, and wall jumping around the field. Eventually, you get the super jump ability that allows you to more or less fly. Actually, you are flying, just with fairly low maneuverability since you don't have a lot of control over your ascent or decent speed. You are flying about as well as a rocket does. And then there is Aria of Sorrow where you actually get the ability to turn into a bat and have slower but very high maneuverability flying that also includes the ability to pass through small spaces. Yeah, all the Metroidesque Castlvania games are pretty good for this mechanic. I would actually argue they do Metroidesgue better than Metroid does.
I think that Ori and the blind Forest is a good example of the growing stronger principal, as you go through the game, some areas containing Ability points, spirit orbs, etc. Are blocked off by gates that require you to have gone through enough of the game and found energy cells to enter them. And with finding new abilities, When you find a spirit well, (first, second, I can't remember which) there is a ledge that is too high to jump to, but a small distances away you find the wall jump ability which allows you to enter blackroot burrows. It does this kind of thing all over the game requiring enough energy cells to enter a gate, or the right abilities to enter an area or find a new secret. It makes you wonder how you got through the game so early on when you didn't have anything. EDIT: also I don't care how old the video is.
There's a great moment in Final Fantasy VII when you come across a giant cobra. It's so impossibly tough that you have to catch a chocobo to run past if before you get into a fight with it, but after you clear it you see Sephiroth has impaled the cobra on a tree! It's the best moment of "how on earth can I kill somebody who did that?" of any game I've ever played
Excellent video. This reminds me of megaman x (3 maybe?). You fight Vile in the beginning of the game and GET WRECKED, but you get to fight him later and defeat him! So good!
I think that Xenoblade Chronicles is an excelent example. You can go anywhere,but there will be some places that it's impossible to win,but when you come back you can actuallystand up the challenge and have some good old battles with hard enemies!
It's all in the villians. Final Fantasy 7 is a great example of this if you ask me. Fairly early in the game, there's this storytelling part where Cloud looks back at his past, especially the point where he met Sephiroth. This dude's already legendary by the time you team up with him, but once you get into a battle with him as a teammate, and he basically kills some huge dragon with his pinky, it's a real "Okay, holy shit" moment. This dude mentally tortures you throughout the whole game, complete with mind control and all. This sort of stuff creates a huge scope. It feels pretty much like failing endlessly regarding Sephiroth, but all the stuff you can do and all the beasts you fight later on in the game still make you feel like a professional. That insecurity and doubt give it a really strange effect.
+Vezonmodder Yeah that's awesome! Great example! Kinda like Vile in Mega Man X too, makes you feel weak in the beginning, only to feel really strong later on
+Vezonmodder Another example in the same vein is Breath of Fire 4. You start out with the main party and adventure for a little while, and then across the world the main antagonist (altho it isn't made immediately obvious that that's what he is) wakes up and you start using him. He doesn't waste time with lunging at enemies or keeping weapons in sheathes, he just teleports around and conjures them out of thin air. He hits twice with every basic attack, and he's capable of taking down huge foes with just a few attacks. A bit later, the game openly reveals that he can conjure/transform into dragons (altho I think the option was always there), which makes you even more powerful. After he basically stops a whole section of the world empire's army, destroys several huge mythical beasts and survives an entire forest burning down (despite his weakness to fire), singlehandedly, they send you back to the main gang and things resume as normal, with occasional switch-backs to the villain. As you progress, the gap between power beings to grow smaller and it becomes more and more obvious that this guy here is who you need to take down to save humanity (either from enslavement or destruction... I can't remember which. Maybe both :D). Oh, and I forgot to mention that the villain's stats are MUCH higher than yours (2000ish as opposed, I think 150ish?), and even his gear sounds more powerful than yours. He starts with an accessory that protects him from all status ailments, even. Called a Dragon's Tear. The music is also more powerful-sounding, and if you happen to know the titles, even the titles outline this gap in power. Speaking of the music, as the main gang progresses, they eventually start using the same battlethemes, which cues you in on the fact that you're growing stronger, almost as strong as this half-god from the beginning of the game.
Growing Stronger Principle, perfectly captured on the SNES by Mega Man X. I loved that game. MMX, Super Mario World, and Link to the Past remain my favorite SNES titles.
Mass Effect 2, the Omega 4 relay, it's pretty much right in front of you as soon as you get your ship but you can't (and shouldn't) go through it until you're ready. You also told early on this might be a one-way trip.
The Witness did this kind of thing really well. What's awesome about the way they did it is that you can go to any location at any time and try to solve the puzzles there, but you won't necessarily know how to solve those puzzles until you learn from other puzzles first. So, you don't get stronger based on stuff you unlock, but puzzle solving methods that you learn.
The first example that came to mind was Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (probably because I played it for the first time last week). In the very first level you fight Sam who totally annihilates you. He's a lot faster than you and he blocks almost every attack you throw at him, while you the player can barely block or evade any of his attacks. Five hours later you have to fight him again but this time you know how to parry and block and the game tought you those things with the bosses before Sam. Blade Wolf and Mistral teach you how to block and Monsoon teaches you how to parry (Sundowner also teaches you something but that's for the final boss). You feel like you have become stronger and not just because you have more HP and more unlocked skills but because you have mastered the game's mechanics. P.S. Great video dude! I just decided to type in game design in youtube and your Good Game Design videos were one of the first things that came up and now I'm binge watching all of them and I'll probably take a look at your other videos after that. Keep up the good work!
+Keita Kart Yeah thats an awesome example, I really need to play the Metal Gear games! Haha thanks I'm glad you like them! Game design is really fun for me to talk about, so there's more coming :P In fact, I just released a new one yesterday on Undertale
+snomaN Gaming Yeah, I watched it and it was very interesting to hear that the genocide run is completely different to the pacifist one because I thought that there wouldn't be that many differnces. I only did the pacifist run and didn't plan on doing a genocide run but because of your video I'm probably gonna do it later this month.
Oh I think the best examples for this effect are "One Way Heroics Plus" and "Mystery Chronicle: One Way Heroics". Once You beat the final boss after a long run, the game tells you that you have yet another quest to gather on. As another hero. You have to restart from level 1 but that is okay because you unlock new classes and perks over time. Also the field is always different, cause it is procedurally generated. But the magic comes in here: Sometimes you encounter several buildings in your journey you cannot enter - such as the Town of Sinners or a sealed Temple containing legendary Armor and Weaponary. But you first need to find a Dark Brotherhood license or a Key of Seals to enter these places. But you don't need to find these rare items every run, they can be transmitted from one run to another via Dimensional Vault, as well as anything else you found. That enables you to start with better equipment and take legendary stuff with you from the beginning which also gives the player the feeling of getting stronger. And after many dozens of runs the "final boss" the game tells you about in the beginning will seem to be weak and won't do any critical damage to your holy armoring and advanced shields - because SPOILER there are many more bosses to defeat in order to save the world, dimension or the whole universe!
I'm gonna say Half Life 2 does this well. You start out the game coming to the dystopian City 17, with a huge, imposing monolith and have to escape from Civil Protection with nothing but a pistol and your legs; after journeying to all the game's locales on the way to Nova Prospekt, you pick up an arsenal and learn more about the world. By the time you return to City 17, you're better equipped, savvy about the world's threats, and therefore powerful enough to storm the Citadel outright , tossing the Combine around like literal rag dolls.
Thanks you got me back in to ocarina of time because i thought i was just wasting my time collecting songs and so and so i quit and just last week i restarted the game and remembered nothing and just feeling that my character (Link) was weaker way weaker than before. so thanks for pointing that out.
Your videos are awesome. I'm glad to see someone from outside the industry having the initiative to do this kind of analysis. It's a very fresh look. Many of the videos from industry insiders rehash textbook dogma. I am a huge Zelda fan, and have played almost all of the games, but aside from Majora's Mask, I don't think the series is a great example of the growing stronger principle. Gannon(dorf) is the easiest boss in every game. Even worse, Demise was extremely easy in Skyward. The fact is, you can beat either of them as soon as you get the master sword, and for a couple of the games, maybe some early combat skills (Twilight). You don't even need a ton of hearts.
Hey thanks, glad you liked it! I will certainly do many more in the future. Yeah, fair enough. I've gotten a lot of feedback on this particular episode, I might have to do a follow up with other examples. Can you think of a game that does this principle better?
I agree on the original LoZ except for the final boss. Zelda 2 and Majora's mask do a good job with it. Off the top of my head: Fallout 3, Final Fantasy 1 and Dead Space.
Alundra for the PSX was great at this. While many times the characters throw signposts in your face, telling you to go to dungeon X now, many times it's left up to you to figure it out. And with a massive, expansive world around you, you feel like a true explorer. Every weapon you find is also a tool, and will open or unlock some door or another. You start the game helpless and powerless, with just a dagger to fight your foes. But then you find bombs and such. The Muurg, the base mook of the game, never gets stronger, but you encounter stronger types, and face off against the same enemies on the overworld, so you never lose track of your own strength. So when you finally open the pathway to the final dungeon, you feel like you're ready to confront the great demon. It's a vastly underappreciated title that themes and encourages and rewards exploration better than most modern games. If you get a chance, I'd recommend taking a look into it.
It's not the same genre but this is 1 of the reasons Fighting Games is my favourite type of video game. You see, while games like Final Fantasy, Zelda, and Mario focus on letting you explore, fighting games are much more condensed in comparison which may sound contradicting but hear me out. Fighting games may not have the exploration that Platforms and Open-World RPG's have but what they do have a tons of in-depth mechanics and strategies not just with the standard Gameplay but with the characters as well. Because of how much fighting games give you in terms of learning how to play, it really emphasizes on how much progression you can make as a player. Heck, fighting games are so in-depth that some games that are years old are still being discovered of things we didn't know beforehand. As I learn a character and I experience matches with that character, I slowly but surely get better not only with the actual character but at the game itself as well. If I was to use a good example for this, it's definitely Super Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS, I've been playing that game since it's first release back in October and I am still in the learning stages and I love it! It makes me feel like my progression is worth it and it gives me a sense of autonomy. So there is it, that's 1 of the main reasons fighting games is my favourite type of game genre.
Anybody remember a game on the PS1 I believe called King's Field? It was a Skyrim-like RPG in first person, that focused on small corridors and tight corners as opposed to open world. At the beginning you are literally so weak even the grunt-monsters of the game can kill you quite easily. But after you've explored and collected weapons and armor, as well as spells, you slowly get stronger to go further until you defeat the game's final boss.
Mega Man X and some of its sequels are pretty good examples. Aside from the fact that there's obviously the special weapons and heart tanks and armor upgrades that you can collect and ACTUALLY get stronger, there are a ton of places where you can apply old upgrades and abilities like in Zelda. A particularly memorable example is the heart tank in Boomer Kuwanger's stage, which if you don't have the necessary upgrades you'd be wondering how in hell you'd ever get it, but then if you have the Ice Shotgun and the Arm upgrades, you can test out some of the charged weapons and see the ice sled, and if you think about it, you suddenly realize how to get that heart tank in Boomer Kuwanger's stage.
