PSO Areas VS PSO2 Areas

[Kitora]

This has been a topic me and my friend have discussed a lot lately. While I find PSO2 a fairly well done game, the level design seems a step back almost from what the original game offered, despite the graphics being improved.

I loved the old Caves, Mines, the Jungle and Seabed. I feel like nothing in PSO2 comes even remotely close to those places.

Forest is forest... The Volcano and Desert are alright. I feel like F. Continent could have been so much better than it is, and Tunnels, don't even get me started. Ruins is the only place that I don't mind. I think that the game needs more waterfalls.

Which do you like more? And what types of areas would you like to see added.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

This thread again?

[Kitora]

This thread again?
I haven't been on these forums in so many years, so I apologize if it comes up constantly. I haven't seen a thread on it.

[Sizustar]

Basicly, instead of designing specific area, they used a random generator which isn't as "pretty" or thought out as a level designed from start to finish.

[untrustful]

FC needs to have jump pads for me to island hop.

[Scale of Judgment]

I wouldn't mind a realm change while in the map...Like the floating continents suddenly falling and getting islands...Or forest gets a firestorm that turns it into a desert...A sleeping volcano makes the tundra into a magma filled caves...

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Those are different planets >_>

And if weather changes were that constant it would be unable to sustain life.

[supersonix9]

Those are different planets >_>

And if weather changes were that constant it would be unable to sustain life.

because this game is so realistic.

[Punisher106]

FC needs to have jump pads for me to island hop.

This.

I, personally, love the tunnels. Mostly because the robots in there do give you a sense of the PSO mines, but with some extra stuff added. Gilnas? Dubchic(h) that can split apart. Signo Beat? Sinow Beat. Big Varder? Someone put Vol Opt in a gigantic freaking ship. It goes on.

[Zorafim]

FC needs to have jump pads for me to island hop.

Play more story missions.


I wouldn't mind a realm change while in the map...Like the floating continents suddenly falling and getting islands...Or forest gets a firestorm that turns it into a desert...A sleeping volcano makes the tundra into a magma filled caves...

Play more TACOs.


I can see the point Kitora is making. Shot by shot, PSO2 is better. But each zone in PSO was thought out better, both visually and in terms of exploration. PSO gave that feeling of exploring a dungeon. Going through those felt like going through one in any good RPG. PSO2 feels like I'm just in a random area, and I need to get through it to continue. PSO also had more memorable landmarks, but at least PSO2 is better about those than PSU was.

I think this is one of the few things PSO2 didn't improve upon with PSO. But, it does its job well.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

because this game is so realistic.


There's a fine line between fantasy and sheer stupidity.

[Kion]

I mostly agree with the OP's post. For me the two main differences are the use of color pallet. PSO was really good in that area, everything had a very distinct color, feel and sound to it. PSO2, if pretty much generic area. There's not really much to each area as you randomly run around bland looking areas. And the other thing is that the areas in PSO2 do nothing to further the story. In PSO you had the downed pod, the central dome, the hole in the ruins, the robots in the mines. Everything told part of the story as you experienced it, while the only thing PSO2 has so far is the monument in the ruins.

The nice thing is that Advance Quests are done extremely well. They're a lot more in the style of PSO of going from one area to another, requiring team work and actually giving you incentive to kill all of the enemies, and give you a challenging boss to defeat. So it definitely seems that Sega missed the mark and concentrated on the wrong things in PSO2. The focuses on pervy clothes for female character, tons of cool looking weapons, and random areas that you can play a lot, but they really don't give you any reason to be emotionally invested in them. But with the falz battle, advance quests and even the quality of the preview videos has been improving, so Sega is definitely learning their lesson and improving PSO2 with time.

[Flame]

I can see the point Kitora is making. Shot by shot, PSO2 is better.

I agree with your post in general but what does this mean? Shot by shot?

[supersonix9]

There's a fine line between fantasy and sheer stupidity.

gotta cross it though

[Kitora]

I mostly agree with the OP's post. For me the two main differences are the use of color pallet. PSO was really good in that area, everything had a very distinct color, feel and sound to it. PSO2, if pretty much generic area. There's not really much to each area as you randomly run around bland looking areas. And the other thing is that the areas in PSO2 do nothing to further the story. In PSO you had the downed pod, the central dome, the hole in the ruins, the robots in the mines. Everything told part of the story as you experienced it, while the only thing PSO2 has so far is the monument in the ruins.

The nice thing is that Advance Quests are done extremely well. They're a lot more in the style of PSO of going from one area to another, requiring team work and actually giving you incentive to kill all of the enemies, and give you a challenging boss to defeat. So it definitely seems that Sega missed the mark and concentrated on the wrong things in PSO2. The focuses on pervy clothes for female character, tons of cool looking weapons, and random areas that you can play a lot, but they really don't give you any reason to be emotionally invested in them. But with the falz battle, advance quests and even the quality of the preview videos has been improving, so Sega is definitely learning their lesson and improving PSO2 with time.
Well worded. The atmosphere of PSO1, each level felt like more of an adventure visually, and the ambience, the way the sounds blended over the gameplay is something I haven't thought of but now the nostalgia is flowing.

[NoiseHERO]

How come people always bring up PSO's jungle alone? A jungles a jungle.... Hell psu had a lot too. But i always thought mountains and beach areas stood out 100x more...

Or are people talkin about all three when they just say jungle...

[Flame]

How come people always bring up PSO's jungle alone? A jungles a jungle.... Hell psu had a lot too. But i always thought mountains and beach areas stood out 100x more...

Or are people talkin about all three when they just say jungle...

I'm not sure but PSO's jungle was leagues better than anything in PSU

<3

[NoiseHERO]

I'm not sure but PSO's jungle was leagues better than anything in PSU

<3

Oh.... Kay? I'm comparing two pso areas though.

Also your name is flsme, what do you know about creativity! D<

[yoshiblue]

Oh.... Kay? I'm comparing two pso areas though.

Also your name is flsme, what do you know about creativity! D<

Don't get me started on your old names.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

gotta cross it though

Yeah I think you just did O_o

[NoiseHERO]

Don't get me started on your old names.

Good ones were taken/unuseable ALSO phones was awesome you can still call me that.

[MetalDude]

There's a difference between realism and suspension of disbelief. Unless something is an expected norm, you can't just do ridiculous things.

[gigawuts]

I mostly agree with the OP's post. For me the two main differences are the use of color pallet. PSO was really good in that area, everything had a very distinct color, feel and sound to it. PSO2, if pretty much generic area. There's not really much to each area as you randomly run around bland looking areas. And the other thing is that the areas in PSO2 do nothing to further the story. In PSO you had the downed pod, the central dome, the hole in the ruins, the robots in the mines. Everything told part of the story as you experienced it, while the only thing PSO2 has so far is the monument in the ruins.

The nice thing is that Advance Quests are done extremely well. They're a lot more in the style of PSO of going from one area to another, requiring team work and actually giving you incentive to kill all of the enemies, and give you a challenging boss to defeat. So it definitely seems that Sega missed the mark and concentrated on the wrong things in PSO2. The focuses on pervy clothes for female character, tons of cool looking weapons, and random areas that you can play a lot, but they really don't give you any reason to be emotionally invested in them. But with the falz battle, advance quests and even the quality of the preview videos has been improving, so Sega is definitely learning their lesson and improving PSO2 with time.

Yeah, what I really miss are the parts that told the deeper, implied story. The environment itself told quite a lot that the mediocre dialogue didn't, even while the dialogue also had a surprising amount of subtext and rather adult themes. It was definitely kid-friendly, but most of it went over a lot of our heads back then.

The unique, large rooms were the best parts of each map. They're what gave context for the area. The lava room definitely told you you were surrounded by active, moving lava (as if other ones didn't). So much that they had to build a platform across it at one point. Nobody does that unless they want something very badly. Also it just looks cool. The big room in ruins 2 pretty much settled any suspicions that the ruins weren't just old catacombs left by some long gone race. The explosion room in ruins 1 told you there was definitely something big somewhere around there. Then the windows in some rooms in area 3 of ruins told you the sheer scale of what you were in, and between the big room in area 2 and the windows in area 3 it became pretty obvious what you were really running around in.

These things are just absent in PSO2, and it's a shame because that depth is what brings a game from good to great.

Also, 100% agreed on the color palettes, and all that. That stuff is what first caught my eye and made me want to play through the whole game, and part of what kept me interested in it for so long. It's just neat to look at.

[Zorafim]

I agree with your post in general but what does this mean? Shot by shot?

Erm, sorry. Take a random screenshot of any area in PSO, and compare it to a random screenshot of any comparable area in PSO2. Chances are, judging only by the screenshot, PSO2 will look better.

[MetalDude]

Mines was awesome in that it was the furthest away from looking like any mines in the best way possible.

Also, Spaceship because Tricktrack is awesome.

[Porkmaster]

Okay, so Ruins.

PSO2 Ruins: No

PSO Ruins: Yes

Thus ends my in-depth explanation.


Spaceship because Tricktrack is awesome.
Also yes.

[Xaeris]

I never thought I'd see the day that nostalgia would grow in power enough to make people look back on Caves fondly.

[MetalDude]

Caves 2 is nice. Always thought Caves 1 was terribly drab because of the lighting and Caves 3 is eh with its few good rooms.

[Blackheart521]

I never thought I'd see the day that nostalgia would grow in power enough to make people look back on Caves fondly.

Caves > VR Temple

[Dongra]

I much preferred PSO's method of handling the dungeons. Little disappointed that you can literally ignore most enemies in PSO2. All the areas, including the free areas, should make you unlock the next area whether by killing enemies or with switch puzzles.

[gigawuts]

I never thought I'd see the day that nostalgia would grow in power enough to make people look back on Caves fondly.

I know people who always considered caves to be their favorite level.

Different people are weird, let's hate on them and either call them wrong or heavily imply they're wrong by saying they're just being ~nostalgic~.

[Xaeris]

The common opinion, back when PSO was current, was that Caves was horrible. Rooms that were doing tours of Episode 1 often omitted Caves, opting to run Forest, Mines and then Ruins, leaving Caves undone. I'm not hating on anyone or saying they're wrong. I simply find it interesting that the common opinion in the thread doesn't allude to the above fact.

I know it's maintenance, but relax.

[gigawuts]

Nah, I know, I really disliked caves 1 & 3 as well. I just think calling people nostalgic is an unclever copout.

De Rol Le made it worth it though.

[Kion]

I never thought I'd see the day that nostalgia would grow in power enough to make people look back on Caves fondly.

Caves was overall pretty well done I think. What I disliked most about it was the music. It was decently moody and put you to sleep. That combined with it being three really long stages really made it overall pretty boring. Could it have been implemented better? Definitely, but for what it was, it was still pretty well executed in terms of level and story design. But yes, comparably then weakest of the four pso levels.

[EvilMag]

Caves was overall pretty well done I think. What I disliked most about it was the music. It was decently moody and put you to sleep. That combined with it being three really long stages really made it overall pretty boring. Could it have been implemented better? Definitely, but for what it was, it was still pretty well executed in terms of level and story design. But yes, comparably then weakest of the four pso levels.

Add in a giant HP whore boss and you have the most boring area in the game!

[MetalDude]

Thinking over it, what made episode IV good was not the environments but the music. Nostalgia in Solitude is a wonderful throwback to a ton of different PS quadrilogy tunes. Subterranean Desert is really cool though.

[Cyclon]

Also, Spaceship because Tricktrack is awesome.
Well that's cheating. I cannot deny that.

I still think some area of PSO2 look really nice, but I just cannot hide my love for PSO's.

Funny thing is, they wouldn't work in PSO 2 at all. The rooms are far too small considering the mobility we have now. Yet, when I saw them with more spacious rooms in PSU, I felt like all the magic was gone.

PSO 2 areas also have the merit of not rehashing much from PSO(forest, maybe caves, and that's about it), even though that's obviously what some people would have wanted.

[Kitora]

The common opinion, back when PSO was current, was that Caves was horrible. Rooms that were doing tours of Episode 1 often omitted Caves, opting to run Forest, Mines and then Ruins, leaving Caves undone. I'm not hating on anyone or saying they're wrong. I simply find it interesting that the common opinion in the thread doesn't allude to the above fact.

I know it's maintenance, but relax.
Caves was one of the weakest areas of PSO but still better than most of the PSO2 areas released so far, which says a lot.

[gigawuts]

I felt the first desert in Ep IV was fairly neat, and the subterranean desert was a nice imagining of a completely alien environment and ecosystem. While I dislike the design of a lot of PSO2's environments I really appreciate what they tried to do with, say, Amduscia.

Amduscia has this cool theme going on, where you're pretty much in an oceanic environment - sans the water. The caves are deep trenches and caverns filled with vents reminiscent of hydrothermal vents, and the skylands are chock full of coral and seaweed. Adding to that is the dragonkin look quite a bit like merpeople, and the first time you see the fish darkers is in the skylands. I don't particularly like playing in or looking at caves or skylands, but I like what they seemed to have designed them around.

It'll be interesting to see if and when they add third areas for Amduscia and Lillipa.

[MetalDude]

More unique rooms would help and I think more enclosed areas would be good. Everything's just all too open aesthetically for a game that's built on a randomly generated dungeon system.

Of course, I'll happily leave an exception for the new coast location given that it's heavily reminiscent of Gal Da Val Island.

[Renvalt]

More unique rooms would help and I think more enclosed areas would be good. Everything's just all too open aesthetically for a game that's built on a randomly generated dungeon system.

Of course, I'll happily leave an exception for the new coast location given that it's heavily reminiscent of Gal Da Val Island.

You goddamned nostalgia whore. I'll respect your right to worship the ground Rico and Flowen walked on, but I am disgusted ultimately by the fact that you choose do so.

That said, I really felt like PSO2's areas were more engaging to me. There were far more of them, and they actually "connect" in some ways, if you actually bother to look at the subtle hints (though I'm going to assume you guys just play for the EXP grind and nostalgia doses).

The way they built Amduscia reminded me more of the Judeo-Christian trinity of "Heaven-Hell-Mankind" theme. I mean, you have the Skylands, referencing the Kingdoms of Heaven and Angels; Volcano references the demonic fires of hell, hence why insect type darkers exist in that realm as opposed to Skyland's fish types. Someone has an obsession with "Holy Trinities". Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if after we deal with the Falz Family, we end up fighting some kind of farked up trinity of divine emperors/empresses, with Shion being among them because she got arrogant.

Lilipa kinda reminds me of the paradise of a Tatooine oil-baron who has a massive fascination with weaponry. I mean, those Lilipans are obviously intelligent enough to be able to mess with those machines and walk away alive (hell, they even worship Lady Fourier as a goddess). It's like whoever specifically designed that planet was a Star Wars fan, through and through.

Naberius is the one planet I can say is kinda fucked up, although you have to consider that Elder's influence screwed it up majorly (hence the Tundra). All that ice? Elder was prepping the place for a massive ski trip once the Falz Family was back from boarding scho-err, I mean being unsealed. And being the nice, fucked up guy he is, he kindly invited the ARKS for some hardcore snow riding - of course, he also said the slopes are no holds barred. Didn't the Vita trailer give you enough hints as to Elder being a snowboard freak?

Sega's been able to distract me with environmental details long enough to where doing so gets my ass kicked. That has not changed. Some areas I wish I could simply take chunks out of and place in my own little sandbox world.

But unlike most, if not all, people in this forum, I am about 60% immune to the effects of the nostalgia drug. I take the old and new, and sift through it to find the good, the bad, and the downright Miku-liciously ugly.

It's why, despite people saying Sonic 06 is terrible, you'll never find me hating the game. I mean, it's a GAME for cryin' out loud, not a means of producing obscure propaganda meant to mock Teapugnicans (lookin' at you, DmC and MGR:R).

But I've rambled for far too long. The areas are fascinating to me, and that's all that matters.


Btw, what's so awesome about PSO1's Jungle area? Personally I saw nothing special in it. Then again, I also thought most of PSO1's areas were unmovingly dull.

[Xaeris]

Caves was one of the weakest areas of PSO but still better than most of the PSO2 areas released so far, which says a lot.

I disagree. I'd do any map in PSO2 before I'd do Caves. Hell, I would do almost any map in PSO2 before I'd do almost any map in PSO1 (Seabed and CCA are the exceptions). While I was content with it back then, the thing that always stuck out to me about PSO1's maps while I was playing through them was that aside from the defining rooms that marked each area (the waterfall in Ruins 1, the lava room in Caves, etc.), they were all constructed around the same basic skeleton: defeat enemies to open the lock to the next room. And hey, that was fine for the kind of game it was, but after playing for so long, I could start to see the joints of the skeleton sticking out from the skin.

In some respect, it's the same thing for PSO2: head north and you'll eventually make it to an exit. The thing that makes me prefer its maps over Episode 1's is that they have nuance. Mines has the barrels of doom, Skyland has lightning needles and floors that drop out from beneath your feet, City has explodable cars and turrets, etc. And this is a thing that I feel most of us overlook because it's such a staple of gaming, but here, we can jump, and the maps allow us to take advantage of that fact with uneven terrain. It's a simple thing, but that really is a transformative aspect of gameplay for me.

And on a side note, while we're talking about exposition provided by atmosphere, I don't know how it can be said PSO2 doesn't have any. Ruins and Lilipa provide plenty of meat for speculation. On Lilipa, we have a whole infrastructure that's remained intact through means unknown. Was the civilization there forced to pack up and leave abruptly? Were they all killed in some mass extinction event? City missions give us a better look into an Arkz ship than PSO ever gave us into Pioneer 2. There is lots of stuff to work with here, no question there.

[MetalDude]

You goddamned nostalgia whore. I'll respect your right to worship the ground Rico and Flowen walked on, but I am disgusted ultimately by the fact that you choose do so.
The fuck is wrong with you?

[Cyclon]

It's why, despite people saying Sonic 06 is terrible, you'll never find me hating the game.
That kind of doesn't have anything to do with nostalgia. From what I've seen(by this point I've actually seen quite a lot), this game cannot really be qualified as good. However, good 3D Sonic games do exist. People dismissing those when they say that Sonic is only for 2D would have been an example more relevant to your point imo.

Btw, what's so awesome about PSO1's Jungle area? Personally I saw nothing special in it. Then again, I also thought most of PSO1's areas were unmovingly dull.
Great atmosphere. Each room's unique. Afaic, green everywhere. Overall I'd say the uniqueness is what's likeable about it. Felt like a lot of work was put into it, especially for such a small area. Gal da val as a whole felt like a gift to the fans imo.

[gigawuts]

I disagree. I'd do any map in PSO2 before I'd do Caves. Hell, I would do almost any map in PSO2 before I'd do almost any map in PSO1 (Seabed and CCA are the exceptions). While I was content with it back then, the thing that always stuck out to me about PSO1's maps while I was playing through them was that aside from the defining rooms that marked each area (the waterfall in Ruins 1, the lava room in Caves, etc.), they were all constructed around the same basic skeleton: defeat enemies to open the lock to the next room. And hey, that was fine for the kind of game it was, but after playing for so long, I could start to see the joints of the skeleton sticking out from the skin.

In some respect, it's the same thing for PSO2: head north and you'll eventually make it to an exit. The thing that makes me prefer its maps over Episode 1's is that they have nuance. Mines has the barrels of doom, Skyland has lightning needles and floors that drop out from beneath your feet, City has explodable cars and turrets, etc. And this is a thing that I feel most of us overlook because it's such a staple of gaming, but here, we can jump, and the maps allow us to take advantage of that fact with uneven terrain. It's a simple thing, but that really is a transformative aspect of gameplay for me.

And on a side note, while we're talking about exposition provided by atmosphere, I don't know how it can be said PSO2 doesn't have any. Ruins and Lilipa provide plenty of meat for speculation. On Lilipa, we have a whole infrastructure that's remained intact through means unknown. Was the civilization there forced to pack up and leave abruptly? Were they all killed in some mass extinction event? City missions give us a better look into an Arkz ship than PSO ever gave us into Pioneer 2. There is lots of stuff to work with here, no question there.

Sure, lillipa is neat, but they pretty much just left it at that. Whereas PSO1 had lots of side stories and side quests to lead you around, answer some questions while asking more questions and such, this game has none of that.

But, I didn't bring that up, because that has nothing to do with the map itself.

And neither do mechanics such as dropping floors, lightning pillars, or barrels (which aren't really "nuance"). These could easily be placed arbitrarily in PSO1, and given their random nature could easily be removed from PSO2. If we're talking about a map's aesthetic design we should talk about aesthetic design, not the gameplay in it. There's something to be said for an environment seeming fast paced, sure, but dropping floors and exploding barrels can be put in anything.

Moreover, trying to hold the room-door-room-door model against the first game's aesthetics is disingenuous. It'd be like trying to hold the top-down angle against Zelda LTTP when comparing aesthetics there, too. "All we saw was the top, I mean that was fine for the kind of game it was, but..." That has nothing to do with the design of the environment, just the angle you see it from.

Remove the barrels, and add some doors, and I suspect you'd like PSO2's maps a whole lot less.

edit:

You goddamned nostalgia whore. I'll respect your right to worship the ground Rico and Flowen walked on, but I am disgusted ultimately by the fact that you choose do so.

[SPOILER-BOX]That said, I really felt like PSO2's areas were more engaging to me. There were far more of them, and they actually "connect" in some ways, if you actually bother to look at the subtle hints (though I'm going to assume you guys just play for the EXP grind and nostalgia doses).

The way they built Amduscia reminded me more of the Judeo-Christian trinity of "Heaven-Hell-Mankind" theme. I mean, you have the Skylands, referencing the Kingdoms of Heaven and Angels; Volcano references the demonic fires of hell, hence why insect type darkers exist in that realm as opposed to Skyland's fish types. Someone has an obsession with "Holy Trinities". Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if after we deal with the Falz Family, we end up fighting some kind of farked up trinity of divine emperors/empresses, with Shion being among them because she got arrogant.

Lilipa kinda reminds me of the paradise of a Tatooine oil-baron who has a massive fascination with weaponry. I mean, those Lilipans are obviously intelligent enough to be able to mess with those machines and walk away alive (hell, they even worship Lady Fourier as a goddess). It's like whoever specifically designed that planet was a Star Wars fan, through and through.

Naberius is the one planet I can say is kinda fucked up, although you have to consider that Elder's influence screwed it up majorly (hence the Tundra). All that ice? Elder was prepping the place for a massive ski trip once the Falz Family was back from boarding scho-err, I mean being unsealed. And being the nice, fucked up guy he is, he kindly invited the ARKS for some hardcore snow riding - of course, he also said the slopes are no holds barred. Didn't the Vita trailer give you enough hints as to Elder being a snowboard freak?

Sega's been able to distract me with environmental details long enough to where doing so gets my ass kicked. That has not changed. Some areas I wish I could simply take chunks out of and place in my own little sandbox world.

But unlike most, if not all, people in this forum, I am about 60% immune to the effects of the nostalgia drug. I take the old and new, and sift through it to find the good, the bad, and the downright Miku-liciously ugly.

It's why, despite people saying Sonic 06 is terrible, you'll never find me hating the game. I mean, it's a GAME for cryin' out loud, not a means of producing obscure propaganda meant to mock Teapugnicans (lookin' at you, DmC and MGR:R).

But I've rambled for far too long. The areas are fascinating to me, and that's all that matters.


Btw, what's so awesome about PSO1's Jungle area? Personally I saw nothing special in it. Then again, I also thought most of PSO1's areas were unmovingly dull.[/SPOILER-BOX]
At first I thought that line was a joke, but after reading the rest of the post it's got me thinking you just don't know what nostalgia even means.

[Valkyrie Lovrina]

oh boy....


/thread one of my favorite area's in PSO1 were CCA Mountain and Seaside in EP2 and Sub. Desert for third. in PSO2 I would say Skylands and Ruins. Lilipa for third. though I really think the Lilipan desert would look better if we weren't walking on convientiently connecting rocks that felt out of place.

[MetalDude]

Sonic Adventure, like with Super Mario 64, was meant to pioneer Sonic into the 3D world. There's some questionable choices like the use of real world people and settings, but it's still got its own fantasies, a great soundtrack, and some decent gameplay for Sonic at the very least. It's quite dated now but it was hardly bad for its time. Sonic 06 is simply an abomination for so many different reasons. Considering the extreme difference in production values for what they claimed to be "Sonic HD" and then later Sonic Unleashed which looked tremendously better and did not take its story even remotely as seriously, Sonic 06 was very obviously rushed and had a story that made Adventure 2 look entirely normal. And even worse by comparison, Colors and Generations have made decent pushes with Unleashed style gameplay that have made the gameplay style fairly respectable.

[Black Howling]

Seabed. Delbiters. Make it happen.

That is all.

[Skyly HUmar]

I liked PSO's areas more, but the one that really grinds my gears is ruins. I was just more impressed by a giant underground structure than a roman aztec jungle :/.

Darker den is very nice, and i love it the most out of all the areas. I just hate how you cant go there at will.

[Dongra]

It's why, despite people saying Sonic 06 is terrible, you'll never find me hating the game.
Did you play the game? It was clearly a rushed, poorly executed, and bug infested mess that was below the standard that even the older 3D Sonic games put out.

[Kitora]

I disagree. I'd do any map in PSO2 before I'd do Caves. Hell, I would do almost any map in PSO2 before I'd do almost any map in PSO1 (Seabed and CCA are the exceptions). While I was content with it back then, the thing that always stuck out to me about PSO1's maps while I was playing through them was that aside from the defining rooms that marked each area (the waterfall in Ruins 1, the lava room in Caves, etc.), they were all constructed around the same basic skeleton: defeat enemies to open the lock to the next room. And hey, that was fine for the kind of game it was, but after playing for so long, I could start to see the joints of the skeleton sticking out from the skin.

In some respect, it's the same thing for PSO2: head north and you'll eventually make it to an exit. The thing that makes me prefer its maps over Episode 1's is that they have nuance. Mines has the barrels of doom, Skyland has lightning needles and floors that drop out from beneath your feet, City has explodable cars and turrets, etc. And this is a thing that I feel most of us overlook because it's such a staple of gaming, but here, we can jump, and the maps allow us to take advantage of that fact with uneven terrain. It's a simple thing, but that really is a transformative aspect of gameplay for me.
My opinion with Caves definitely comes down to some nostalgia, but the slightly more explorative aspect is something I really cherished back then. Those defining rooms you described are something that I feel PSO2 needs for it to properly immerse and guide you into the lore and what these planets are all about. I feel so strongly about this.

One of my main issues with the maps released so far is the repetitious nature of these places, passing parts of the area identical to the one you just passed a moment before, excessively so at times, in my opinion overshadows the additions you speak of like the turret gun, dropping floors, etc. I think the worst place for this is the Volcano. It hardly branches outwards, but then again, it IS a Volcano I suppose, though more could have been done with it.


And on a side note, while we're talking about exposition provided by atmosphere, I don't know how it can be said PSO2 doesn't have any. Ruins and Lilipa provide plenty of meat for speculation. On Lilipa, we have a whole infrastructure that's remained intact through means unknown. Was the civilization there forced to pack up and leave abruptly? Were they all killed in some mass extinction event? City missions give us a better look into an Arkz ship than PSO ever gave us into Pioneer 2. There is lots of stuff to work with here, no question there.
Lilipa is interesting in that regard. They all are, really. It's those questions I love asking that could be answered in some way by more things that catch your eye, rather than purely an arcade style of hoofing it.

[Xaeris]

Sure, lillipa is neat, but they pretty much just left it at that. Whereas PSO1 had lots of side stories and side quests to lead you around, answer some questions while asking more questions and such, this game has none of that.

But, I didn't bring that up, because that has nothing to do with the map itself.

And neither do mechanics such as dropping floors, lightning pillars, or barrels (which aren't really "nuance"). These could easily be placed arbitrarily in PSO1, and given their random nature could easily be removed from PSO2. If we're talking about a map's aesthetic design we should talk about aesthetic design, not the gameplay in it. There's something to be said for an environment seeming fast paced, sure, but dropping floors and exploding barrels can be put in anything.

Moreover, trying to hold the room-door-room-door model against the first game's aesthetics is disingenuous. It'd be like trying to hold the top-down angle against Zelda LTTP when comparing aesthetics there, too. "All we saw was the top, I mean that was fine for the kind of game it was, but..." That has nothing to do with the design of the environment, just the angle you see it from.

Remove the barrels, and add some doors, and I suspect you'd like PSO2's maps a whole lot less.


We must be thinking of different things. The thread was asking about, specifically, "level design." That includes aesthetics, yes, but it also includes mechanics of the level that promote gameplay. It's perfectly legitimate to take those into account when judging the stages. I can't honestly entertain a definition that says otherwise. Yeah, dropping floors and exploding barrels can be put in anything...and they were put here, and not in PSO1. And they are indeed nuances, because those features are particular to the level they appear in; the very definition of the word.

"Left it at that?" While I don't particularly like this piecemeal diet they decided they're big fans of since Blue Burst, the story's not done yet. Unlike PSO1 which we got (mostly) complete, there's lots of missing pieces of the puzzle here. There could very easily be revelations that make us go back, look at the stages and say, "ohhhh." If not for Lilipa, almost certainly for Ruins; watch it turn out to be a spaceship or something.

[MetalDude]

Except for VR Temple although part of that stems from the design philosophy behind it. "Hey, let's make area 2 so that it's loaded with chains of those clusterfuck rooms with shitty camera angles and obnoxious smashing traps!" I adore Temple's music and atmosphere, but boy do the room layouts really get to me.

[gigawuts]

We must be thinking of different things. The thread was asking about, specifically, "level design." That includes aesthetics, yes, but it also includes mechanics of the level that promote gameplay. It's perfectly legitimate to take those into account when judging the stages. I can't honestly entertain a definition that says otherwise. Yeah, dropping floors and exploding barrels can be put in anything...and they were put here, and not in PSO1. And they are indeed nuances, because those features are particular to the level they appear in; the very definition of the word.

"Left it at that?" While I don't particularly like this piecemeal diet they decided they're big fans of since Blue Burst, the story's not done yet. Unlike PSO1 which we got (mostly) complete, there's lots of missing pieces of the puzzle here. There could very easily be revelations that make us go back, look at the stages and say, "ohhhh." If not for Lilipa, almost certainly for Ruins; watch it turn out to be a spaceship or something.

Yeah, it sounds like we took "level design" to mean different things. If that's what you're meaning I'll agree those should be included, but I'd more consider those to be the inclusion of elements of modern gaming than anything else, comparable to dashing and jumping. If we're to go purely on a map's visuals, though, what would you say about those? Also, no, I still wouldn't call dropping floors and barrels nuances. They're pretty blunt. I'd call the enormous rocks you can't reach and crevices in the ceiling nuances, but not RNG-placed barrels. But that's pretty unimportant semantics.

And, yeah, I've been saying Ruins in PSO2 is some kind of spaceship (probably an automated space station or floating city, nothing looks big enough for people to fit in unless they add more tiny races that don't need scaffolding on anything anywhere no matter what).

But for the incomplete story, we're over 8 months in and the first story is complete. This has pretty much been episode 1. Things are able to compare 1:1 now in terms of story. Granted, it's not fair to compare the gems of PSO1 to all of PSO2, but then I'm not. Compare the visuals of Mines in PSO1 and Mines in PSO2. There's definitely personal preference in play here, but I far prefer PSO1 Mines over PSO2 Mines for not just the visuals, but the detail and variety in the rooms themselves. If scaffolding + walls + large rocks + barrels = the amount of detail and thought put into PSO1 Mines design and variety, I fear the almighty power of a PSO1 Mines with barrels. Mines is one of my favorite levels in PSO2 because of the allusions to depth it makes, but really that depth is pretty much "I wonder who made this" and "I wonder what these bunnies are doing here."

[moorebounce]

I would love to see Sega double or triple the amount of area pieces to help make areas feel more random. Although it generates areas ramdomly it doesn't feel all that random.

Sega could also change things up by having better time of day effects. I would love to see the forest at night. They could also have different enemies come out at night too.

I like all the areas but F. Continent. It's a good idea but it's missing something and I can't put my finger on it. I do have to side with the OP on that.

[MetalDude]

I wish they stuck with having distinguishable areas. Forest 1 and 2 are very obviously different because 1 is much less covered. There's some very tiny differences between 1 and 2 in other areas but that's about it.

[Agitated_AT]

I like this thread. That is all

[Tachesis]

You know, I think I have the entirely other side of this coin. I liked pso caves way back when I originally played, but by the time of blue burst (and today) hated them and just ran through them as fast as I could; an obstacle to the River Rafting with Snakes and Sewers. In short, in pso, once the map was memorized I (and everyone I remember) tended to just stomp through it, never varying the route or exploring as people have stated.

Conversely, I find myself still liking the modern levels more, particularly for the random things that just drop out of the sky now, and the changing weather. Magnetic storms remind me of ash storms from Morrowind. Sheltering from a storm in a forest cave is cute. In other words, I tend to meander, cruise and otherwise explore pso2 levels to a degree I never did in pso.

I'm not blind to the new randomization's drawbacks, those being the many door puzzles in pso that are harder to implement in a system like this. Even then though, once the puzzle was memorized the path was just trodden by rote I recall.

I think I treated the pso levels as an obstacle, and the pso2 levels we have now as a sandbox, directly inverse of what someone else has mentioned here.

I think there is a case of rose tinted glasses/nostalgia going on here. I mean, at the time even when I stopped liking caves all that much I think I still liked them more than most people; can you remember how many times you managed to get four people to open the four button doors in that place? everyone wanted to just be done with the run, I think I only managed to get them to do it once in a dozen runs, and only if I nagged enough. Similarly, outside solo good luck getting the entire group to explore the map unless they got lost.

Lastly, I always felt the pso levels had a manufactured, diablo like feel to them as well, even during the inital runs; the same pieces put together in different ways. As such, I don't see much different.

The last time I played pso though was about a week ago though, so... mileage may vary I guess; If you're that nostalgic about pso's levels maybe you should give the old game a spin, and see if the assertions from the heart hold true.

[MetalDude]

It's more so the aesthetics that I find way better done. I think a higher level of randomization would have helped PSO1, but I think PSO2, as I said, needs more unique areas as the effect of randomly arranged areas wears off quickly when they're all not really special in any way. That, and maybe less realism and more SciFi fantasy aesthetics.

[Hrith]

I like both equally, in different ways, but I greatly miss Seabed/Plant.

[Laxedrane]

Sure, lillipa is neat, but they pretty much just left it at that. Whereas PSO1 had lots of side stories and side quests to lead you around, answer some questions while asking more questions and such, this game has none of that.

But, I didn't bring that up, because that has nothing to do with the map itself

It be near impossible for sega to recreate that part of PSO. You talk to most people who played offline only and probably never played higher then hard they'll say terrible things about the story.

This was in part sega fault for not properly letting players know that if they went back they could find more story points. You had to be a detective to find all the story points. Talk to other people but what combination of options or npcs chats needed to trigger very specific story points. It was a huge risk they took and very expertly done. But it was one of the most unappreciated aspects of pso.

While I appreciate it, and I loved that aspect of pso. It be very risky for them to try it again with them to try again.

[gigawuts]

Yeah, but I'm not even talking about the branching story. Going down even ONE of the paths gave you twenty times the information PSO2's ENTIRE story does.

[supersonix9]

What if we got crater n,w,s,e and then subterranean as one huge area?

[Coatl]

I love PSO, but I can't play it for hours and hours at a time like I can PSO2.

[Swaggerjak]

I'd love some Blue Burst areas and something similar to Seabeds in here.

Mainly I'd love to see something similar to Seabeds... I used to love that place.

[Laxedrane]

Yeah, but I'm not even talking about the branching story. Going down even ONE of the paths gave you twenty times the information PSO2's ENTIRE story does.

Ahh I mistook you complaining about the style more so then the content of the story itself. I can't really bear an opinion on that since I have absolutely no idea what's going on haha.^^;

[Shadowth117]

I felt the first desert in Ep IV was fairly neat, and the subterranean desert was a nice imagining of a completely alien environment and ecosystem. While I dislike the design of a lot of PSO2's environments I really appreciate what they tried to do with, say, Amduscia.

Amduscia has this cool theme going on, where you're pretty much in an oceanic environment - sans the water. The caves are deep trenches and caverns filled with vents reminiscent of hydrothermal vents, and the skylands are chock full of coral and seaweed. Adding to that is the dragonkin look quite a bit like merpeople, and the first time you see the fish darkers is in the skylands. I don't particularly like playing in or looking at caves or skylands, but I like what they seemed to have designed them around.

It'll be interesting to see if and when they add third areas for Amduscia and Lillipa.

I honestly think that they could have gone a lot further with that, at least palette wise. For "alien" environments, many of the environments use very realistic colors and look very, VERY similar to real life areas. I mean seriously, why is it the grass has to be green, why do the skys have to be blue, and why does sand have to be yellow orange? Not to mention how washed out and plain subterranean tunnels aka mines looks to me. PSO mines and ruins are good examples of extremely alien areas to me and its really a shame there aren't many like that in this.

I can understand the forest was done for nostalgia the way it was, but do all of the flora and fauna there have to look so very much like real creatures for the most part? Tundra for me is pretty much nostalgic at best for me since it looks like some of the land I lived on in Maryland during the winter. Hell why does each planet have normal, earth-like weather? Rain/thunderstorms just seem wierd on Amduscia and they even look exactly the same on Naberius. It would be really neat to see them do something very weird and strange for these place, but they don't usually. :/

I'm not saying that the areas don't look somewhat cool, but I really don't think they've been especially original with them which disappoints me overall. Darker's Den is definitely the coolest looking to me so far since it strays from usual lackluster looking places and has lots of detail. If they could keep the quality of places on that level it would be nice, but I'm not counting on it.

[Renvalt]

Sonic Adventure, like with Super Mario 64, was meant to pioneer Sonic into the 3D world. There's some questionable choices like the use of real world people and settings, but it's still got its own fantasies, a great soundtrack, and some decent gameplay for Sonic at the very least. It's quite dated now but it was hardly bad for its time. Sonic 06 is simply an abomination for so many different reasons. Considering the extreme difference in production values for what they claimed to be "Sonic HD" and then later Sonic Unleashed which looked tremendously better and did not take its story even remotely as seriously, Sonic 06 was very obviously rushed and had a story that made Adventure 2 look entirely normal. And even worse by comparison, Colors and Generations have made decent pushes with Unleashed style gameplay that have made the gameplay style fairly respectable.

Oi, I never played Adventure 2 for its story - in much the same way I never play DMC4 for its story either. The sequences had their own brand of humor, but I never tried to make sense of them or tie them together to make any sort of reasonable plot. There were enemies there, and I killed them. Simple as that.

And I never touched Adventure 1, because that was a Dreamcast exclusive. Good luck trying to find a Dreamcast that isn't broken and destroyed.


At first I thought that line was a joke, but after reading the rest of the post it's got me thinking you just don't know what nostalgia even means.

Hrm. Perhaps. I just hate it when people bash a sequel simply because it's not their precious widdle old title that they grew up with. It's like people wanted gaming to somehow stay a cult hobby and be accepted (or just flat out die).

You can't have gaming both be accepted and be a cult hobby. That's like asking America to legalize lolicon hentai (and its production). It's simply not going to happen without something giving way - that something being the moralistic backgrounds of... y'know, I think you realize where I'm going with this, so I'm gonna shut up now.


Did you play the game? It was clearly a rushed, poorly executed, and bug infested mess that was below the standard that even the older 3D Sonic games put out.

My memory recalls playing the demo on Gamecube - this was at the same time that my friends and I religiously played Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (we skipped over the Dreamcast titles because only one of us had a Dreamcast and the only games they had for it were sports titles) and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

But I digress. The actual game I haven't played, however, I haven't seen that demo in ages (and I wasn't thinking too heavily about it back then) - so you got me there. But hey, I thought Sonic Heroes was somewhat okay (and a lot of Sonic fans put that just above 06 in terms of the suckiness factor).

Then again, this is coming from a guy who at age 17 was still into the 4kids dubs and had no idea of the wide, wide world of subbed anime (hell, I found the concept of hearing an anime in a foreign language to be heavily disturbing at the time). But that's a story for another day.

But yeah, I definitely will say that I hated PSO1's areas for the fact that they were too damn small. And don't even get me started on the bosses. Having a friggin huge boss at the end of every level got old - and got old fast.

[gigawuts]

You're confusing nostalgia with preference, dude.

If you have cherry pie when you're 3 years old and fucking adore it, but never try pineapple pie until you're 25 and wind up fucking hating it, does that mean you're nostalgic for cherry pie?

No. It just means you like cherry pie. Stop calling different opinions nostalgia. If they didn't genuinely like PSO1 they wouldn't have fucking played it. There was a ton of shit we hated in our youth and don't talk about liking because we didn't like it.

Somewhere I read that nostalgia is just something young people accuse older people of having when they feel differently about something. It is way, way, way too true.

[Xaeris]

That's not quite what happened here though. It's more like you have cherry pie when you're 3, and think it's pretty good. Then, you try pineapple pie ten years later, and hate it because cherry pie was the greatest thing to have ever graced your tongue and this foul concoction besmirches its memory.

While nostalgia is something of an overused accusation, the term does have a legitimate use and is not just "something young people accuse older people of having when they feel differently about something." As soon as I pressed you and gave you a reason to analyze your memories more deeply, you admitted to disliking Caves 1 and 3, despite having just put it up as a paragon of a finely crafted atmosphere. That is nostalgia.

[gigawuts]

Yeah I don't see that pretty much anywhere here. Some people do that, yeah. But, no, that's not really going on at all here.

Nobody anywhere on PSOW, that I've ever seen, has ever said PSO2 is bad simply because it's not PSO1. It has not been alluded to or implied, either.

I did not put up caves as a "paragon of a finely crafted atmosphere," I referenced a single room in it because there is such a thing as a good component of a bad map. You want to talk about nostalgia? It sounds like you have nostalgia of hating something, which is unfortunately all too common (especially around here, people adore spreading around hate just for the sake of it). If you'd stop rampantly accusing people of what you seem to consider the political equivalent of the term "socialist," you might get something more out of a conversation like this than "herp derp you believe something different therefor I will accuse you of being a socialist."

And that's the gist of a depressingly large part of this forum, actually. People are all too happy to automatically revert to namecalling. If you know how to play the game and correct someone who doesn't, you're an elitist. If you feel differently about something that's older, you're nostalgic. Very few people actually take the time to think before blurting those terms out, which is a bit sad. When called on their bullshit they try to rationalize it and dig as deep as they can for reasoning why they're not full of shit, and in the end they do just what you're doing now - grasping at straws for some faulty yet semi-plausible reasoning, then probably acting like the person's denial is an affirmation of your stance.

[Grifs Astoni]

Well coming from someone (me) who's played PSO2 before PSO. I've liked PSO's areas way better than PSO2. Seabed and Ruins are pretty much my favorite places are so far. Seabed seemed like the perfect biolab-gone-wrong place to me, and Ruins (indoor) kinda gave me an impression that the staff of Xenosaga got their Gnosis design from this.

Forest was also nice imo when the place was out of power (it being surrounded by some sort of pitch black fog of war like in RTS games). It gave me that feeling of being shrouded in something sinister and mysterious.

All in all I liked PSO areas way better than PSO2; some of PSO2's areas looked bland and dull even with updated graphics. Not to mention PSO had more variety, although other than that the areas are fixed and less open-spaced as far as I know. Which would give a shittier flavor in MPAing.

Anyway to put it simply, judging from what I've seen with PSO1 and 2, it's just that the former had more art direction than the latter, at least to me. :p

(edit: just added more input)

[Xaeris]

You seem a little wound up. That post turned in something way beyond the scope of what I came here to talk about. I think we should stop.

[gigawuts]

If you don't want replies on a topic, don't start talking about that topic.

[Xaeris]

I wanted to talk about how nostalgia isn't just an overused buzzword and how there were a couple examples in this topic that I could substantiate with evidence. You started talking about what's wrong with PSOW and its penchant for namecalling and negativity. ...Which sounds ironically familiar, come to think of it.

[gigawuts]

You tend to try to get going with people, and normally I don't oblige, but I think I'll see what it is you wanted to say. So go ahead. Tell me where I called caves a paragon of blablabla. I'll wait. Really. Here, I'll even quote everything again, since you obviously didn't read it through the first time or you wouldn't have put those words in my mouth.

I underline the parts where I say positive things about caves.


Yeah, what I really miss are the parts that told the deeper, implied story. The environment itself told quite a lot that the mediocre dialogue didn't, even while the dialogue also had a surprising amount of subtext and rather adult themes. It was definitely kid-friendly, but most of it went over a lot of our heads back then.

The unique, large rooms were the best parts of each map. They're what gave context for the area. The lava room definitely told you you were surrounded by active, moving lava (as if other ones didn't). So much that they had to build a platform across it at one point. Nobody does that unless they want something very badly. Also it just looks cool. The big room in ruins 2 pretty much settled any suspicions that the ruins weren't just old catacombs left by some long gone race. The explosion room in ruins 1 told you there was definitely something big somewhere around there. Then the windows in some rooms in area 3 of ruins told you the sheer scale of what you were in, and between the big room in area 2 and the windows in area 3 it became pretty obvious what you were really running around in.

These things are just absent in PSO2, and it's a shame because that depth is what brings a game from good to great.

Also, 100% agreed on the color palettes, and all that. That stuff is what first caught my eye and made me want to play through the whole game, and part of what kept me interested in it for so long. It's just neat to look at.


I never thought I'd see the day that nostalgia would grow in power enough to make people look back on Caves fondly.


I know people who always considered caves to be their favorite level.

Different people are weird, let's hate on them and either call them wrong or heavily imply they're wrong by saying they're just being ~nostalgic~.


The common opinion, back when PSO was current, was that Caves was horrible. Rooms that were doing tours of Episode 1 often omitted Caves, opting to run Forest, Mines and then Ruins, leaving Caves undone. I'm not hating on anyone or saying they're wrong. I simply find it interesting that the common opinion in the thread doesn't allude to the above fact.

I know it's maintenance, but relax.


Nah, I know, I really disliked caves 1 & 3 as well. I just think calling people nostalgic is an unclever copout.

De Rol Le made it worth it though.

That was it. I said a particular room looks cool. Which it does, and rightfully so. It was the centerpiece of caves 1. It's going to have the most work put into it.

Now, that shouldn't even matter, should it? Am I not allowed to like caves? Is this something that's against some kind of rule? Or are you looking to get into an argument over nothing in particular?

I'm not a saint. If I feel like responding to the kind of attitude you're putting out right now, I give as good as I get. Your attempt to back out of something you clearly wanted to get into upon realizing I'm actually going to oblige is funny, and not very surprising. As for what I said is wrong with this forum? I started talking about people doing exactly what you're doing here, and that it's common around here - dropping labels in an attempt to dismiss perfectly valid standpoints and attempting to create strife based on the minutest of details, then backing out as soon as you realize how little it is you've actually got to back up your claims.

If you want to throw out accusations you could have started by saying I was nostalgic for some other random reason, but you chose to go with me flipflopping on caves. That is both provably false, and even if it were true it still wouldn't matter because things such as opinions exist.

[Xaeris]

I'm really not comfortable with this conversation anymore. Between that dramatic spiel earlier and how personal you're making this ("you tend to try and get going with people," huh?), I'd normally have enough cause to terminate this conversation. However, you made a specific request of me, and I think it'd be rude not to answer it at least once. So, here's what I'll do: I will address that post, but after that, I really must insist that we stop, because this animosity is just awkward for me.

Here's the problem; you've taken anything I've said to say that you're not allowed to like Caves. For someone accusing another of putting words in his mouth, you seem to be the one with his shovel in the dictionary. The issue is not whether you like Caves. You can personally believe that Caves was the best zone in the whole game for all I care, that's perfectly fine, and you'd be extremely hard pressed to find a place where I say that such an opinion is outright wrong.

Let me tell you a little about why I posted my first post here. I did not find it objectionable that you were speaking highly of Caves. The problem I had (if we can even call it that; like I said, I found it to be an amusing curiosity) is that this rosy image you were painting, ("environment itself told a lot that the mediocre dialogue didn't," "context for the area") was not one observed or appreciated by the majority of the playerbase at the time. The playerbase at the time thought of it as an obnoxiously large place filled with an ass ugly eye searing orange that diminished the play experience so much that they skipped over it entirely.

You're entitled to a divergent opinion, naturally. That's just the thing though: you don't have a divergent opinion. You disliked Caves 1 and 3, just like the rest of us (not meant to be all inclusive; I know a few of you people liked that place). It's only here at your keyboard that you can wax poetic and appreciate Caves' atmosphere. In actual gameplay, you didn't like it. It's not unlike the gamer who pines for the good old days of the 8-bit era when games were hard, and you worked for your progress, and you didn't have unlimited continues, blah blah, only to find that when he sits down to relive his glory days, that his palms have come to rather like that controllers aren't rectangular objects anymore. Would you happen to know a good word to describe that phenomenon?

Now, one other thing. I'd like to address this fiction you're weaving about me trying to dictate your opinion. If...any of that were true, like, any of it at all, then why, when Kitora later said that Caves was still better than any PSO2 zone, did I simply say, "I disagree." If this picture you were painting of me were accurate, I should have said something like, "your opinion is bad," or "you're wrong and you should feel bad," or something definitely stating that PSO2 maps are objectively superior to Caves. But no, I just said, "I disagree," in complete respect of their opinion. Because I have absolutely zero problem with what maps people like and don't like, so long as they've taken honest, unbiased stock of them all.

All right, that's my piece. Help yourself to the last word if it pleases you, but I's out.

[gigawuts]

I'm really not comfortable with this conversation anymore. Between that dramatic spiel earlier and how personal you're making this ("you tend to try and get going with people," huh?), I'd normally have enough cause to terminate this conversation. However, you made a specific request of me, and I think it'd be rude not to answer it at least once. So, here's what I'll do: I will address that post, but after that, I really must insist that we stop, because this animosity is just awkward for me.

Here's the problem; you've taken anything I've said to say that you're not allowed to like Caves. For someone accusing another of putting words in his mouth, you seem to be the one with his shovel in the dictionary. The issue is not whether you like Caves. You can personally believe that Caves was the best zone in the whole game for all I care, that's perfectly fine, and you'd be extremely hard pressed to find a place where I say that such an opinion is outright wrong.

Let me tell you a little about why I posted my first post here. I did not find it objectionable that you were speaking highly of Caves. The problem I had (if we can even call it that; like I said, I found it to be an amusing curiosity) is that this rosy image you were painting, ("environment itself told a lot that the mediocre dialogue didn't," "context for the area") was not one observed or appreciated by the majority of the playerbase at the time. The playerbase at the time thought of it as an obnoxiously large place filled with an ass ugly eye searing orange that diminished the play experience so much that they skipped over it entirely.

You're entitled to a divergent opinion, naturally. That's just the thing though: you don't have a divergent opinion. You disliked Caves 1 and 3, just like the rest of us (not meant to be all inclusive; I know a few of you people liked that place). It's only here at your keyboard that you can wax poetic and appreciate Caves' atmosphere. In actual gameplay, you didn't like it. It's not unlike the gamer who pines for the good old days of the 8-bit era when games were hard, and you worked for your progress, and you didn't have unlimited continues, blah blah, only to find that when he sits down to relive his glory days, that his palms have come to rather like that controllers aren't rectangular objects anymore. Would you happen to know a good word to describe that phenomenon?

Now, one other thing. I'd like to address this fiction you're weaving about me trying to dictate your opinion. If...any of that were true, like, any of it at all, then why, when Kitora later said that Caves was still better than any PSO2 zone, did I simply say, "I disagree." If this picture you were painting of me were accurate, I should have said something like, "your opinion is bad," or "you're wrong and you should feel bad," or something definitely stating that PSO2 maps are objectively superior to Caves. But no, I just said, "I disagree," in complete respect of their opinion. Because I have absolutely zero problem with what maps people like and don't like, so long as they've taken honest, unbiased stock of them all.

All right, that's my piece. Help yourself to the last word if it pleases you, but I's out.

Let's compare the attempts you're making here to paint what you said as anything other than what you said with what you actually said, which I'll just requote...

I never thought I'd see the day that nostalgia would grow in power enough to make people look back on Caves fondly.

Well then. You'll have to backpedal harder, because you're not going anywhere with that little effort. You replied to everything that wasn't the damn point, in predictable style. Nothing hinges on me saying you thinking people liking caves is bad. It all hinges on you saying I thought caves was bad until I became nostalgic. That did not happen. You started off trying to accuse me of flipflopping and being nostalgic, got caught in your bullshit, and now want out.

Don't like the situation? Then don't do that anymore. I don't give a damn about last words or internet arguments, you're just being asinine and I'm not about to sit back and watch you do this kind of shit time and time again - same with how I said enough was enough with Zyru's inane bickering and passive aggressive bullshit.

Oh, and, you're full of shit. In actual gameplay I did like the large rooms. All of them. Yes, even caves. Your disingenuous attempt at telling me what I did or did not like 7 years ago is the last damn thing you should be trying to pull when trying to save face.

Like I said, I don't give a damn about last words. Just don't do that kind of argumentative, nitpicky, asinine, childish BS that is oh so common here, and then hide behind distractions when caught red handed as though they have anything to do with what you full well know you failed to do.

[Kitora]

Well, I'll say it. Take the drama elsewhere.

You both made some good points throughout your disarray, but this shouldn't be the battle you're both making it out to be.

It began as a nice walk down memory lane with some good perspectives regarding aesthetics and design, then turned into a shit storm.

When threads reach that stage of quoting earlier posts in an attempt to cauterize wounds, it just gets irritating to read.


Well coming from someone (me) who's played PSO2 before PSO. I've liked PSO's areas way better than PSO2. Seabed and Ruins are pretty much my favorite places are so far. Seabed seemed like the perfect biolab-gone-wrong place to me, and Ruins (indoor) kinda gave me an impression that the staff of Xenosaga got their Gnosis design from this.
Seabed is one of my favorite areas in any game I've ever played. You described it perfectly as the bio lab gone wrong.

I feel like PSO2 needs more indoor combat. Whether it's down under like the seabed, or on the ship defending as rogue ARKS attack, it needs to branch out further than typical outdoor areas.

Also, I don't think I even mentioned Tundra in my original post. I love Tundra, I just forgot about it.

[gigawuts]

This is probably the first time I've actually gone back a few pages and quoted posts to call someone on their BS in about 2-3 years, and I have zero intention of doing it again for about as long. Xaeris more than earned it with that stellar performance, though.

This is an invariable result in this kind of thread, and people accuse eachother of being nostalgic pretty eagerly instead of ever acknowledging differences of opinion until confronted on the subject. Unfortunately, if it didn't go down that way, it would have gone down some other way with different people, and probably for many more pages as it has in previous threads.

[Anatha]

Sonic 06 is absolute shovelware, the complaints that people have about it have NOTHING to do with nostalgia.

It really is simply a terrible terrible game. You can see that quite plainly without even having to play it yourself.

That being said you also listed two other games, which I've not see anyone complain about for the same reasons.

MGRR has always been marketed as it's own title, in its own genre. People complained about it being action based instead of stealthy, while simultaneously trying to feign ignorance to the fact that it wasn't a Metal gear SOLID title(thus which deal with stealth), when the developers and marketing material have been exceedingly upfront about it. That is on the complainers' heads.

DMC on the other hand, is an example of a failed reboot, it lost everything that made the original series what it was. No longer had the difficulty or the memorable character designs. Ultimately, a joke. Seems like that is a trend with Ninja Theory.

[Emizel]

I liked DmC, but it was too easy. I still think it was a very fun game. The way they did weapon switching was very cool and added a lot of variety to combat. It also had some really amazing stage design (while we're on the subject of areas). It really is a gorgeous and imaginative game from a visual standpoint. the ending was underwhelming though.

MGRR sucks, and wasn't worth $60. It really has nothing to do with it being a Metal Gear game without stealth. It's just crappy in every aspect... clunky controls, way too short, terrible bosses, terrible story, spastic camera, and so on... there's very few good things I can really say about MGRR

[Anatha]

The story is typical of the things that come out of KojiPro, same with the bosses.

It's no shorter than most hack and slash games that have come out in the past however many years.
The camera does need a bit of an improvement, but it's not spastic so much as lazy, it could do with less player needed intervention.

Not sure how the controls could be clunky, they happen to be exceptionally responsive.

[SociableTyrannosaur]

Let's compare the attempts you're making here to paint what you said as anything other than what you said with what you actually said, which I'll just requote...


Well then. You'll have to backpedal harder, because you're not going anywhere with that little effort. You replied to everything that wasn't the damn point, in predictable style. Nothing hinges on me saying you thinking people liking caves is bad. It all hinges on you saying I thought caves was bad until I became nostalgic. That did not happen. You started off trying to accuse me of flipflopping and being nostalgic, got caught in your bullshit, and now want out.

Don't like the situation? Then don't do that anymore. I don't give a damn about last words or internet arguments, you're just being asinine and I'm not about to sit back and watch you do this kind of shit time and time again - same with how I said enough was enough with Zyru's inane bickering and passive aggressive bullshit.

Oh, and, you're full of shit. In actual gameplay I did like the large rooms. All of them. Yes, even caves. Your disingenuous attempt at telling me what I did or did not like 7 years ago is the last damn thing you should be trying to pull when trying to save face.

Like I said, I don't give a damn about last words. Just don't do that kind of argumentative, nitpicky, asinine, childish BS that is oh so common here, and then hide behind distractions when caught red handed as though they have anything to do with what you full well know you failed to do.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I took that nostalgia comment as playful.

[Emizel]

The story is typical of the things that come out of KojiPro, same with the bosses.

It's no shorter than most hack and slash games that have come out in the past however many years.
The camera does need a bit of an improvement, but it's not spastic so much as lazy, it could do with less player needed intervention.

Not sure how the controls could be clunky, they happen to be exceptionally responsive.

No, it's pretty freakin' stupid/awful story-wise for KojiPro standards, or any standards

[jmanx]

No Neon lights PSO2 lvl design fails

[Alisha]

i believe that for the most part pso2 areas were designed to accomodate MPA's and thats why they are the way they are. the 2 coolest areas are ragne dome and chromes boss chamber.

[Nakuri]

Now that I'm thinking about that, I'm encountering a lot of aspects which I compare when I think about PSO vs. PSO2 areas.

PSO2 areas are designed to be more dynamic, there are no doors that keep you from proceeding, monsters pop out more randomly (most player already know the scheme, but the waves of monsters aren't set in stone like in PSO). I like the urban area, probably because of the fast music that fits perfectly to the dynamic of PSO2. I really feel how I want to run through it and to bash some enemies, having Emergency Codes everywhere, seeing people fight everywhere. This was a very magical moment for me, who only played PSO so far. (But PSO a lot again, many many years, many thousands of hours).

This open structure is surely mostly because of the MPA-System they introduced to us. It is the dungeon-feeling that got lost in PSO2. You needed to "solve" a room before you can proceed, you needed to solve the whole area as such to proceed. And even if it was simple and plain, but I miss how I need to go to a certain room to activate a switch to open a door somewhere else. Also, the length is very different. If I decided to go into PSO Caves, I needed to expect all three levels of it, which always cost a certan time. But that was alright, it was a fun experience for itself.

Adn there I'm coming to the things I don't like about PSO2. Again, it's about the speed that is signifcantly higher in PSO2. While it's absolutely a good feeling in terms of battle and variety, I'm bothered by the fact how we're rushing through the areas to fulfill the conditions of the mission. Many COs require us to do a mission in a certain time. All you do with the area is to rush quickly through it, being annoyed by any wave that occurs as you want S-Rank and then search quickly for the exit. Instead of enjoying the area, you're stressed to find the exit. That way, PSO2 Forest doesn't feel any different to PSO2 Caves, Desert and all other areas. You're simply running from A to B through a random structure of ways to activate the Emergency Code at the End.

As for the design itself, I think that PSO2 has a hard time to give that randomly generated dungeons a distinct and unique feel at some points. PSO had pretty generic rooms, but also unique and specific rooms, that belonged to that area. You knew that you're going the right way as soon as you hit that waterfall-room in Caves 2. I personally liked Episode 2 more than one, because they got rid of the "square-room" scheme a bit, which was really potent in Caves, Mines and Ruins. From the atmosphere, I liked Mines, Ruins, CCA and Seabed. I can find this rarely in PSO2, but I don't mind that much, as the new design of open structures and fast battles are a good exchange for what I liked in PSO.

[Neith]

It's hard to match level design from PSO; in PSO each area only had a couple of variations so the designers could really go to town making each area look great. In PSO2, each time you load a mission the map is randomly generated (it seems like there are certain room layouts the game has a list of and it basically throws them together into a map) so this impacts the depth of the levels to an extent.

I do agree that Episode 2 in PSO had some brilliantly done areas (Central Control Area in particular is an area I'll always remember) but some of the areas in PSO2 are done very well considering the limitations of a random map generator. Naberius Ruins for example looks great. I do agree that Floating Continent is a disappointment; it would've been more enjoyable if it involved jumping between different islands like the White Day mission (but fix the zooming-out camera glitch if you're going to add more jump pads!).

Please also remember in PSO that you could outsmart enemies by walking out of the room (except Episode 4) due to limitations in design of the time. We have come a long way but due to the randomness of each map generated, sometimes you won't get the same immersion as you did on your first time through PSO. There were always certain rooms in PSO that would always be there and immerse you- the waterfall room in Ruins, the long corridors before Falz and Flow, the flooded part of Seabed and so on. With a random generator you don't seem to get this.

Kind of hard to look at it without nostalgia goggles really; most of us loved PSO back in the day so comparing it to anything is difficult.

[DreamState83]

While PSO2 levels are conceptually better than PSO's, I feel it just doesn't reach the expectation mark that PSO1 was able to obtain in it's time. It may be that my expectations have grown a lot since PSO1 on the dreamcast, while the execution of level design in Sega has only increased a small amount.

PS. Caves was fun, but unless I played without music it put me to sleep!

[TaigaUC]

Visually, caves and mines stand out to me as being particularly worse than PSO1. Many of the areas in PSO2 (volcano, desert, tundra, tunnels) almost entirely consist of one color and look bland.

Ragol's caves gradually changed from volcanic to cold/beautiful, then to pristine. A wide variation of color schemes. There were also signs of excavation. Amduscia is almost the same brown and red mess from maps 1 to 2, and as far as I can tell, no sign of civilization by either people nor dragonkin.

Ragol's mines were also much more colorful and appealing, with many signs of life left behind in the form of abandoned equipment. You could feel that you were getting deeper as you progressed. Lilipa's mines feel like the tunnels as they are named - large and empty. They managed to maintain a feeling of getting deeper in area 2, but it still feels empty and dull.

In PSO1's caves and mines, there was a feeling that you were going somewhere, and the boss arenas (ie. sewer tunnel and computer core room) were further progressions of the level. In PSO2, boss arenas are just boss arenas, and nothing else. They don't connect between each area like in 1 (for story purposes) and you don't feel like you're going anywhere. They're just... there. The only exceptions I can think of are Ragne and Vardha.

I do like PSO2's weather effects, but they often vanish immediately after they appear, or are so rare that they don't occur at all. Some of them are so subtle that I can barely tell there's a difference (volcano).

Music-wise, I strongly prefer Ragol's mines music. Can't stand the Lilipa mines music.

Gameplay-wise, I've never liked randomly generated maps in either PSO1 nor 2. They just don't add anything fresh or new for me, and end up being a hassle when the goal is to get from point A to B quickly. I particularly despise Amduscia volcano, because it's the only area in PSO2 that constantly walls you off, to the point that you can't backtrack without getting walled off again. It also tends to have more convoluted paths and unpredictable exit positions compared to the other areas.

Technologically, I feel that PSO2 is let down by the faded compressed textures and inconsistent resolutions. Those weren't issues back in the days of PSO1, but they stand out in modern graphics. I'd really like to see what PSO2 would look like without those texture problems.


Edit: I'd like to also say that I think modern games tend to suffer from more generic design. The reasons for this that I can think of are:
- older tech was more about the overall presentation because the technology wasn't capable of fine detail
- modern tech and higher standard of quality means more time spent on minor details and less on overall presentation
- it was easier to convey crazier, more unique designs when the tech was simpler and they could still be forgiven
- a lot of people have hard-ons for modern tech, are being less clever and just throwing flashy effects in (same problem modern film has)

[Mikessc88]

I love PSO Ruins, not really digging PSO2 ruins, doesn't seem dark and evil enough for me

[Ezodagrom]

I love PSO Ruins, not really digging PSO2 ruins, doesn't seem dark and evil enough for me
The only thing similar between the PSO1 and PSO2 Ruins is the name. I think currently the closest we have to PSO1 Ruins aesthetically in PSO2 is the Darker's Den:

[spoiler-box]http://imageshack.us/a/img341/6218/pso2333.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img607/1296/pso2339.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img824/6973/pso2340.jpg[/spoiler-box]