raocow's talkhaus

agie777 wrote:

Lejes wrote:What? This game was released nearly a year ago and was high profile enough to get articles on a few gaming sites. It's not like no one else played this before raocow. The issues with it have been echoed by a lot of people, because they're really obvious.

Of course that's true. What I'm referring to is some people's reactions in this thread.

Heavy Sigh wrote:This stage is a pretty good example of how the people who made this game just don't understand how to make a good level

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:The bosses have been pretty neat so far, but the levels preceding them just look bad.

Blivsey wrote:I could make a better and more-fun Mega Man level than that. It looked downright painful to play.

Clemasterable wrote:Rainbow Man's level secret sections actually feels like an actual level compared to the non-secret part. That's not saying much though.

People that for the most part visit the thread once and leave a comment among the lines of "This game sucks it's the worst thing ever I have no arguments it just is and it's factual because I've heard other people say it as well". It's like they've never even played a MM game. It's obvious that this game's flaw is the stage length and midpoint thing, but besides that it's very much on par and better than the main series.

It's the classic internet hate train. Guess it's my fault for being bothered by that, but it's kind of hard to ignore as well.

10/10 post of the year all years. I especially like the part where you assume everyone who disagrees with you has no reasoning, has never played a Mega Man game, base their entire opinions on other people's opinions, etc.
Since I disagree with you, here's one of those arguments I clearly don't have. Everything threatening on that screen is either an instakill or a thing that'll probably knock you into a pit of getting instakilled. And since this is at the end of a level that is way too long and doesn't have enough midpoints, every time you slightly mess up the jump you have to play through several minutes' worth of level to get back to it to try again. Unless for some reason you're into redundantly playing through segments you've already beaten, this is bad. And most of the other levels have the exact same problems. And that's not even getting into all the random instakils throughout the level or the fact that this is one of the Robot Master stages, not the endgame where things are supposed to get significantly harder.

Compare that to, say, this really low quality .jpg of Mega Man X6. This is a much stupider screen; I can confirm that, having played the game myself. And most of the rest of the endgame fortress zone is just as bad. And yet I unironically like X6, because as stupid as all the instakill-filled rooms are there's actually a decent number of checkpoints and even when you game-over you still come back at the checkpoint. You never have to replay that much level to get back to where you died. Unless for some reason you're into redundantly playing through segments you've already beaten, this is favorable.

You're twisting my words here. Nowhere did I actually state that people I disagree with have no reasoning. And I only said it's "like" they've never played a megaman game. Which I say because the only problem Unlimited has that other mm's don't is the level length/lack of checkpoints thing. This doesn't make the game complete trash.

The high insta-kill pressure exists in many of the other games. And to me this is not a problem. That's just my opinion, I respect those of others. But when people call this game overall bad, that's where it's like they've never played a game from the main series. This game you're playing is a megaman fan game. If you're getting into it, it is to be expected that you are a fan of the game, and have significant experience with its controls, mechanics and design style.

And when people leave one sentence that calls the game completely bad/complete trash without any explanation, that's where I have doubts wether they formed this opinion on their own.

If you don't want to replay that much, just put it on easy mode. It's not a shame. It's the mode for you. Phil has added this mode because he recognized the complaints and he's made it playable for your demographic. I personally really love "redundantly playing through sections I've already beaten", because of my love for optimization, and I feel it greatly increases the feeling of success. Again, that is my opinion. I didn't critisise anyone's opinion. I critisised the lack of elaboration. If you're gonna leave such a hard statement, you at least need some arguments. The designer has now given you the option to have more checkpoints. there is NO reason to call his game complete trash.

Yoku man's tileset was really cool. Does anyone know where I can find it to use for stuff?

I mean just listen to how happy Rao was at the end of that video! Yes it's insane and heartbreaking, but man is it fantastic to overcome that.

Now it's time for the less exciting part of the game. There's still alot of awesome stuff in there, but at this point I can fully agree, it goes on too looooooooooooong.

I do love the refights-final boss-credits and other story sequence thingies though. It's all very climactic, and the story is 100 amounts of dumb, as it should be.

Oh man, 22:10, the saddest moment.

It's so easy to hate on Yoku Man's stage for being so ....hateful, but it IS optional. Whether or not that makes it better is a whole other debate on itself, though. It's a challenging stage, possibly the toughest in the game (though Fortress 4 will give it a run for its money), however despite how long it took raocow still breezed through it at the end (as much as you CAN breeze through this stage anyway).

And man, victoriouscow at the end there made it all worth it.

Though sometimes I wonder if it would've been funny if the game glitched out at the Weapon Get screen and sent you back into the boss battle for one final PSYCHE, but looks like there are some things that are too cruel even for MegaPhilX.

As for the whole debate over the quality of the game, I will say that I feel that many people are harder on this than they would be to an actual Capcom game because it's a fangame, which is unfortunate. It DOES have issues, but it also has a lot of good things about it and I feel those many good things often get overlooked in the torrent of complaints about the one or two issues the game has.

Those one or two issues are BIG ones, of course, namely length and overused instakill deaths (I wrap midpoint usage up in with length since they're two sides of the same coin, really) and it's a shame they tend to dominate discussion about the game. Mega Man Unlimited is a fangame that really needed more playtesters and more differing opinions during its development. MegaPhilX clearly loves Mega Man, and is clearly very good at Mega Man, but there's definitely a lot of, I guess you could call it, 'developer's hubris' on display in MMU. Super long stages showing off super creative and challenging scenarios that rewards skilled play and knowledge of the stages, but maaaaaaaan is it a struggle to learn those stages. Seeing raocow breeze through Yoku Man's stage in one life on fast forward was great, but it came at the expense of all the frustration leading up to that point. Whether or not that's too much frustration is up to you since we all have our thresholds for nonsense.

(And not to spoil too much, but as I said above, Fortress 4 is a THING. Try and preserve your E-Tanks in Fortresses 1-3 whenever possible, raocow, you'll save future-you a big headache)

I find it really weird that the weapon you get is a stage enemy, rather than an actual attack from Yoku Man.

Just in case, one more time with the weakness chain since it got buried at the bottom of a page:
So today's stage was one I could not handle the first time through due to the ridiculous length of the stage, and I believe I lost my last life on the ladder transition sequence at the very end. Yeah, that was painful. I guess it's okay, but again, stage length and insta-kills continue to overshadow the gimmicks that look fun like "The Lost Woods" section.

I do not like that sequence where you're running on the blocks over the pit and having to pretty much guess your first time through of where the next one will pop up. It reminds me of the Heat Man sequence in Mega Man 2, although it's not as long.

And finally, there's one fortress stage in particular that I find to be even harder than this stage in terms of not getting a game over in. Mm-hmm.

Bean wrote:It reminds me of the Heat Man sequence in Mega Man 2, although it's not as long.

At least the timing of the blocks remains consistent throughout, unlike the hell that is Heat Man's yoku blocks.

Between the color palette, the traps, and spikes, this reminded me more of La-Mulana's Hell Temple than anything else.

Sebby19 wrote:I find it really weird that the weapon you get is a stage enemy, rather than an actual attack from Yoku Man.

I thought exactly the same. Why didn't you get the cube on Yoku Mans head that... does a thing? Ah well, this thing is pretty cool too.

Well that was a long video.

raocow goes to the caslte in the next video. Prepare for the 14th part when it comes.

Oh wow, so that was Yoku Man's stage, huh? That was... something. Very much something. It looked insane, but it is still completely doable once you know how to do it. Granted, learning the stage is super trial and error-y (and god help you if you're attempting a Buster only run of this game for some reason).

Nevertheless, yeah. Yoku Man. And Yoku Attack, which homes. Also from the Mega Man Wiki, "Yoku Block" is supposed to mean "Supporting Block" or something to that extent.

This stage. Oh man. I love this game, don't get me wrong. I'm willing to forgive a lot of this game's not so great choices, even though it's a little difficult for me to do so with Trinitro Man's stage.

This stage, however...It's bad. I don't think anyone liked Yoku Blocks to begin with, but whatever. But then the stage starts giving you Yoku spikes, and enemies that make it impossible to see until you kill them or go of screen, and things quickly become annoying. And Yoku Man himself has an instakill attack, which I kind of was okay with in Rainbow Man's stage, but this one is just a pain.

And you know, I probably could've forgiven all of that, if the second half of the stage wasn't just a giant maze. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Despite everything. You must admit that MegaPhilX has a hell of a sadist's humor. And I can respect that.

I love Yoku Man's stage. <3

Didnt actually know Yoku Block was a name for those things. That would have spoiled me this levels gimmick badly.

It occurs to me now that Yoku Man's portrait acts exactly like his blocks do.

Anyway, I'd probably be singing a different tune if I was the one actually playing, but I thought this level seemed pretty clever. Evil, but clever.

Can't wait to see what Yoku Attack does.

So, uhh,

Why are they called Yoku Blocks?

Someone here said they mean 'supporting block' but that doesn't make much sense to me. I also know the word Yoku has three meanings- "Skillful", "Greedy", or as a noun "A Bath", but I still don't understand. Does anyone know?

Well, they have multiple names. Appearing, Buzzing, Vanishing, and Yoku Blocks. I've called them Disappearing Blocks since I'm pessimistic towards them.

I played through the game so that I could get ahead of raocow before watching his playthrough.

My level of skill is considerably higher than raocow's when it comes to Mega Man, but this game is still poorly designed. It deserves the criticism it's getting. You can say that it has cool ideas and that the level design itself isn't that bad (though I can certainly think of points that contest that), but level length and checkpoint placement are still a part of design. It's a holistic thing, it's not "Oh, this is good except for this part", it's "This would be good if not for this part".

And as for Yoku Man... vanish blocks are fine. Vanish spikes are bad. Vanish blocks and vanish spikes at the same place are hellish.

(Also, the fact that his official profile lists his bad point as "Unknown" and that he's the most fan character-y of the Robot Masters annoys the hell out of me.)

I get the feeling that YM is just very quiet and elusive, that there flat out is very little known about him.

Still, listing the sole bad point as unknown is still pretty bad.

SpoonyBardOL wrote:It's so easy to hate on Yoku Man's stage for being so ....hateful, but it IS optional.

His boss fight is pretty difficult too. Man, I didn't know the Nitro Blast was so useful against Yoku Man, I just thought his own weapon was his weakness and took him out with my Mega Buster.

Dark_Paratroopa wrote:So, uhh,

Why are they called Yoku Blocks?

Someone here said they mean 'supporting block' but that doesn't make much sense to me. I also know the word Yoku has three meanings- "Skillful", "Greedy", or as a noun "A Bath", but I still don't understand. Does anyone know?

... I am now officially going to start calling those things "A Bath Blocks".

I can't really complain about the Yoku Man level.

The looping guessing game with the ladders aside, there was nothing there that felt really wrong. Cut those few screens of relatively safe trial and error out and it's on par with some of the trickier Wily levels. It seems carefully designed so that certain parts of it can be cheated with dogs, glue, and comets, but there's no one tool that will work everywhere and sometimes it's just easier to do it right. Exactly like the disappearing block sections in the actual games. Someone could argue that the instant death requiring fast reactions or prior knowledge doesn't fit the series, but in response I would just leave these four words: I knew this was going to happen, too. As soon as everyone started hyping up Yoku Man as this big terrible thing, I just knew it would be a level that I ended up legitimately liking. Although it did also reinforce my position that if you just cut the right 5-10 screens out of every level, this would be a much tighter game. Still, at least the 5-10 screens here were minimally lethal time wasters instead of brutal murder rooms right at the end.

agie777 wrote:You're twisting my words here. Nowhere did I actually state that people I disagree with have no reasoning. And I only said it's "like" they've never played a megaman game. Which I say because the only problem Unlimited has that other mm's don't is the level length/lack of checkpoints thing. This doesn't make the game complete trash.

The high insta-kill pressure exists in many of the other games. And to me this is not a problem. That's just my opinion, I respect those of others. But when people call this game overall bad, that's where it's like they've never played a game from the main series. This game you're playing is a megaman fan game. If you're getting into it, it is to be expected that you are a fan of the game, and have significant experience with its controls, mechanics and design style.

And when people leave one sentence that calls the game completely bad/complete trash without any explanation, that's where I have doubts wether they formed this opinion on their own.

If you don't want to replay that much, just put it on easy mode. It's not a shame. It's the mode for you. Phil has added this mode because he recognized the complaints and he's made it playable for your demographic. I personally really love "redundantly playing through sections I've already beaten", because of my love for optimization, and I feel it greatly increases the feeling of success. Again, that is my opinion. I didn't critisise anyone's opinion. I critisised the lack of elaboration. If you're gonna leave such a hard statement, you at least need some arguments. The designer has now given you the option to have more checkpoints. there is NO reason to call his game complete trash.

The designer's given the option to have more checkpoints, less damage, slower Rainbowman lasers, and safety platforms over everything. The game's actual problem is that it's way too long. MegaPhilX's implementation of easy mode solves a bunch of problems that may or may not exist instead of dealing with the one that ruins his game entirely. Yes, the other games have instakill pressure, but they can get away with it because for the most part they don't get as absurd as this, and even if they did they could still get away with it better than Unlimited because their levels are of a reasonable length, even if you game-over it's not that much level you have to go through to get back to where you were. Easy mode's extra checkpoint helps, yes, but only until you game-over, then you still have to go through the entire excessively-long level to get back to where you died. If you're into that, that's fine, I'm not going to tell you you can't be into it, but you enjoying replaying large amounts of level to get back to where you were doesn't make it a good thing.

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:Unless for some reason you're into redundantly playing through segments you've already beaten, this is bad.

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:Easy mode's extra checkpoint helps, yes, but only until you game-over, then you still have to go through the entire excessively-long level to get back to where you died. If you're into that, that's fine, I'm not going to tell you you can't be into it, but you enjoying replaying large amounts of level to get back to where you were doesn't make it a good thing.

You, sir, deserve a high-five for that. Couldn't have put it better myself... and believe me, I've tried.

I don't really see the problem with Yoku Man's blank spot in his Bio. Given his status as a bonus boss, and as an enigmatic disappearing bloke, it doesn't seem a problem to me.