Actually, since I've played ItN and FFA so much, regular controls feel… weird…
I always play the older games in shooter mode now.
Actually, since I've played ItN and FFA so much, regular controls feel… weird…
I always play the older games in shooter mode now.
Wow, exactly the same thing happened to me… Well, this is a pretty good control sheme to be honest…
Actually, since I've played ItN and FFA so much, regular controls feel… weird…
I always play the older games in shooter mode now.Wow, exactly the same thing happened to me… Well, this is a pretty good control sheme to be honest…
My only problem with it is how the game looses it's dynamic feel with it.
I assume you've played Size Matter on PSP? I think automatic strafing work like that; as soon as you hold a weapon you start strafing. The only bad thing being that it's not as reliable.
Actually I was about to use Size Matters as an example of the perfect control scheme for this trilogy. In Size Matters using the left jub thing would move Ratchet normally no matter what. Using the D-pad would move Rtchet in strfe-mode. So all they had to do was make it so any pressing on the D-pad would give the D-pad iput (on PS2 it does move Ratchet) plus R2 for the strafing. It couldn't be more suitable.
Eeeeeh…
I think being limitted to 8 directions would hamper strafe mode. I know that doing the side jump is a good way to avoid enemies, but I like other tactics better. Problem is these tactics just wouldn't be possible when using the D-Pad.
I think pulling an MGS3D and changing the control scheme for at least the second game would've been better.
I've played through Ratchet & Clank 3 using the D-pad before (my analogue sticks decided to take the week off… sometimes I worry about my PS2) and I was surprised. 8 directional movement sounds like it would ruin Ratchet & Clank, but really it doesn't. I never had any problems, and likewise with Size Matters, I just found the D-pad a great choice for strafing.
MGS3 was a completely different story. The reason why MGS3 had such a great 3rd person camera was because it is a port of the remake: Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. Subsistance was a PS2 re-release with some nice little additional features, including the camera. So the people porting the game (a very large team of people for these games) didn't actually make anything new, which by the sounds of it is what everyone wants with R&C1 having a strafe option.
Of course just re-mapping buttons is nothing like changing the entire games perspective. But one issue they would likely face is with the help messages. If they started re-mapping the fire and strafe buttons then they would have to cut the voice for even more help desk messages (I noticed they couldn't bring themselves to sar "R" instead of "R1" so just cut the clips of audio)
And besides we're supposed to get the original experience as flawed or functional as some things may or may not be… of course we use to have more buttons back then.
I don't know, maybe it's because I didn't grow up with classic PS1 games, but 3D and D-Pad just don't mesh well together for me, especially when I'm circle strafing or back flipping.
Also, I was referring to MGS3D, a port of MGS3 to the 3DS with Peace Walker controls (and a make your own camo option), not MGS3 HD.
And honestly, would you really mind not having any voices for help messages?
The last time we had voiced help messages in R&C was in ToD and even then there were only around 4 of those, I think we could handle it.
Also, it's not really the original experience if the port has bugs and control mapping not found in the original game 
I didn't grow up with PS1 either. Infact I didn't even know that the PS1 didn't have analogue sticks (originally) until about 2010 when I found a PS1 controller at my friends house. And I never had to use a D-pad (ignoring Deadlocked for a second here) until I played Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters on my PSP. It sounds like a bad idea, but believe me it's better than using the touch pad on the back of the Vita by a long shot. And besides, if they don't like the D-pad strafing then why not have the option there t turn on the touch pad strafing, and have them just ignore the D-pad? That's the whole reason people play games on PCs: Having the freedom to change your options to match your playstyle.
And yea I thought you said MGS3HD instead of MGS3D. But yea I heard about that and felt 2 things:
1. Nintendo has a legit MGS game!
2. Why doesn't the Vita have this stuff!?
That's the whole reason people USED to play PC games, nowadays it's all about specs and resolution. I don't blame them, after playing the R&C HD Collection at 60 FPS I couldn't play it again on PS2, but I still can't really tell the difference between 1080p and 720p.
Also:
1. I hear Ghost Babel on the Gameboy is pretty good :|
2. 3DS has choppy frame rate and enemies tend to blend in with the environment, so the Vita version is the better choice even with MGS3 controls.
Today that is still a relevant reason for playing on the PC. Even if it has mostly to do with framerate and resolution, you can still change it all up to fit your standards, even it fit's compromising resolution for framerate or vice versa.
I've never taken much consideration into framerate before. The only time I ever cared was when it dropped to below 30 in games. But in recent months I've stood back and actually thought about how smoothly certain games run at higher framerate. Games like Metal Gear Rising need it, games like Ratchet & Clank look better with it. I don't think I would ever trade in my PS2 rather games for PS3 ones for higher resolution or framerate. They still look good, and run perfectly fine, except they aren't jam-packed full of glitches like the PS3 ones.
You'd be surprised by how much 60 FPS improves the overall mechanics of the games.
Basically, I've had far too many deaths in ItN thanks to it's 30 FPS cap.
I found a video some time ago that goes into detail about this stuff and I totally agree with him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-wnwSfw0Vs
I've only ever died in a 3OFPS game when I wasn't paying attention… then again I could say the exact same thing about 6FPS.
I was actually pretty good at ITN, because I went through the whole thing reasonably easily… I never thought I was good until I noticed other people having problems with the game (I'm talking other people sitting net to me in the same room). My little brother is as much a Ratchet & Clank freak as myself, and we'd both played every single game and gotten quite good at them. But he was sucking big time at Itn. He never completed the game stating that it was rigged, and there was something wrong.
It was not the framerate. I couldn't see how the framerate was a problem. If anything, I'd say the game could do with a bit of slowing down, in the way that everything moves a little faster around Ratchet than Ratchet does himself. (for the record, I found this to be one of the most well-controlled Ratchet's I ever controlled)
The Jak games are the only games I played on PS2 with their original framerate and resolution, and then moved up to the PS3 trilogy. Because I don't have the games on PS2 anymore I'll just compare the (significantly worse) PSV version with the PS3 version. On PSV the framerate is bad, really bad. It makes the games look much worse. But I still have to get the timing for the button presses just as right as on PS3 without as nice visuals. I never found either version any harder. I mean it's just not a fast enough game to need a high framerate. Sure it is a real dog on the Vita, but I never once died and thought to myself "That was the atrocious framrate!"… on the other hand there is Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault. This game runs at 30fps on PS3 and (99% of the time) much much lower on the Vita. I have died and thought to myself "I could have landed that If I had more than 8fps in there!". FFA requires a better reaction time in the middle of intense combat than most Ratchet and Jak games before it, so needs a higher framerate (of 30fps) as a result.
Then we have an extreme example: Metal Gear Rising. This game does not have high res textures and an amazing resolution (still looks absolutely incredible though) but it runs at 60fps on every system. Because it absolutely needs it. It also makes everything look nicer, but it must have a high fps so that we can react more sharply.
And for the final example: Borderlands 2 on PS Vita has a framerate of perhaps 20 or 25fps that often dips below. This is bad… very bad. It is a first person shooter that all goes by quite fast, but everytime I try to line an enemy in my sights it whizzes straight past (this has a lot to do with input lag too, which is a different thing all together). I have thought on a number of occasions "That death could have been avoided if there was less input lag and a better framerate!"
I think I've droned on long enough…
That's exactly it, in ItN, enemies move and attack faster than Ratchet can "react".
It's a problem I have with it. Ratchet himself is very fast in his movements, but it takes a bit before he actually reacts to what I pressed. This was the case in R&C1 as well, but there it was deliberate. In this one I have overestimated the game's performance far too many times, ending in death.
This is especially noticeable when using the Hoverboots. In ACiT, the controls were tight and responsive, in FFA and ItN they were not.
In ACiT, jumping off the far edge of a platform or rail has never cost me a life, it has in FFA and ItN a lot though.
And what pisses me the most off about it is how IG have admitted they sacrificed performance for "better" visuals (ACiT is still the best looking R&C game in my opinion, even without this technique they're using now).
It doesn't really "feel" like Ratchet without the smooth as butter frame rate and with that weird motion blur that occurs whenever you move the camera.
I can't explain why I never had trouble with it. There has to be some sort of reason?
Anyway as I've noted there are 2 main issues: Ratchet is too slow, and the enemies are too fast. Ratchet being slow could be a result of input lag, but I've never experienced this, so I can't say. But the enemies being too fast is exactly as it sounds. Yea sure it might do us well for them to raise the framerate a bit more, but that isn't the main issue. The main issue is that the Ratchet hadn't been adjusted to make up for the enemies being quicker. Infact he might seen appear slower than he was on PS2 because the enemies are quickened up so much.
Just look at the ground-sweep move enemies do. In R&C1 the Snagglebeast creates waves that move extremely slow. This way Ratchet (as clunky as he was back then) can jump over them fairly easily. In R&C2 and 3 Ratchet is quicker and moves faster, so they could get away with swarming him with more enemies and faster projectiles (R&C2) and giving the enemies a slower cooldown after each shot (R&C3). This upped the pacing quite a bit, but it was never unbalanced. ToD and ACiT are more of the same, and A4O is an exception to all of the rules, but FFA and Nexus are where things changed to become totally different. Ratchet actually takes another evolutionary step in the right direction, with a greater amount of control in the air (something Crash 3 could take a note on). But the enemies get upped, and there is some delay between the user and the game. So as they make the enemies more shooter-focused (they've said before that they are moving towards making R&C more of a shooter game by adjusting the control scheme, so it's safe to say they're doing the same for the enemies) the game is moving towards wanting a better framerate. Although personally I don't feel we're quite to the point where it's a serious problem, I guess others are experiencing these issues, and a higher framerate may be needed.
It wasn't really a problem in FFA because enemies behave like shooter enemies, they mostly stand in place but they shoot a lot. They're faster when they move, but to balance this out when they're moving they're not going for you, they're going or the stuff you're defending.
In ItN, enemies had the same mobility as FFA enemies but they behave like classic R&C enemies, so they're always going for you.
Combine this with the fact that Ratchet forgot how to swing his wrench properly and you've got some pretty bad balance right there.
Also, if IG wants R&C to have a more shooter focus, they should probably think about cool down moments where enemies are attacking you. Give us room to breathe, even if in an action packed sequences.
Also, giving us the crouch and a way to regenerate health at will would be good additions.