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[Royal☭]

Yeah, I don't get the hate there. The wall-jumping in Super Metroid was awful, but Mega Man X was rad.

[TA]

Yeah, that's more of a "shitty unreliable wall jumping needs to go away."

Which, really, "shitty unreliable everything needs to go away."  When a character is capable of doing a thing, and I want them to do that thing, fighting the controller to get them to do that thing is not something that should happen.

[Brentai]

Would be fun to get an exact bead on how many instances of walljump are just bugs the developers decided to leave in.  MMX's was good because the game was very clearly designed around it, and it wasn't exactly everyone else's wild vault off an even surface anyway.

[Classic]

wall-jumping in Super Metroid was hard.

Which isn't bad*, exactly. I don't know if you know this, but wall jumping in real life is hard too.

The only real problem I have with a hard-to-use skill like that is that you can be trapped in a scenario where your ability to use this pretty tricky technique is heavily tested. So it's not a feeling of, "THAT'S AN AWESOME THING I CAN DO IF I MASTER IT" when you complete the challenge. It's a feeling of "FUUUCK" because you never complete the challenge.

I still don't think I can escape from that pit.

I'm pretty sure DN was complaining about something else, because as-is it doesn't make sense, even in an emotional knee-jerk reaction kind of way.




*That NSMBWii uses an MMX style wall-jump scheme is telling. That modern Metroids make the wall jump easier, moreso.

[Thad]

The only real problem I have with a hard-to-use skill like that is that you can be trapped in a scenario where your ability to use this pretty tricky technique is heavily tested. So it's not a feeling of, "THAT'S AN AWESOME THING I CAN DO IF I MASTER IT" when you complete the challenge. It's a feeling of "FUUUCK" because you never complete the challenge.

I still don't think I can escape from that pit.

Right, there's really only one area in Super Metroid where the wall jump is actually REQUIRED, and it's a secret unmapped area that exists for the explicit purpose of showing you how to wall-jump.

Not so bad on those grounds, but yeah it really is a fucking bitch.  And am I correct in remembering there's a save point down there?  That's fucked up.

(I remember walljump being fine in Fusion and ZM.  MMX walljump was great up until controllers with right sticks became standard; after that it cramped the fuck out of my hand and pretty much necessitated the spammy autocharge function in the later games.

Which I guess is as good a reason as any not to PLAY the later games.  Though I remember 8 being actually pretty good except for the fucking flying level.)

[Misha]

Walljump is the only thing that made me attach a wiimote to my iphone for playing super metroid, but I still like that it's a thing. I think we can find a good middle ground between super metroid's "too hard" and metroid prime 3's "YOU VILL VALJUMP IN ZE CLEARLY MARKED AREA UND NOVHERE ELSE"

[A²]

Super Metroid's walljump also completely broke parts of the game, as speedrunners are very quick to demonstrate. Done right, you can walljump off a single wall to incredible heights. Granted, at that skill level, what can a walljump do that an easier bomb jump couldn't?

And MMX's walljump was incredible. I remember this one part in MMX2 in Crystal Snail. The heart tank. I never figured out you were supposed to take the mech down there and use it's super dash jump, so I ended up doing a dashing walljump, airdashing, Speed Burning, the fullscreen destroy attack (to let me airdash again), airdash, and barely making it.

What I'm saying is, MMX's walljump let you do incredibly awesome things, and it only demanded handtwisting to get some of the extra items.

[Classic]

I think even SM's classically bad walljump could have been OK if you learned how to do it by trying to get an unnecessary item.
I like its power to break the game. It plays to the other strengths of the game*.

It's just the initial, seemingly impossible challenge that's meant to teach you the skill.

Am I correct in remembering there's a save point down there?  That's fucked up.

You're right on both counts.

EDIT:
Thanks for the typo spot TA, but I prefer it when I get a quick PM instead of a dekarma.

EDIT EDIT:
*Those being non-linear exploration and having different choices for how to deal with traversal challenges.

[François]

Batman on the NES has an amazing walljump that felt precise and was incredibly easy to perform. In this the ability may have had its best blueprint.

[Thad]

And MMX's walljump was incredible. I remember this one part in MMX2 in Crystal Snail. The heart tank. I never figured out you were supposed to take the mech down there and use it's super dash jump, so I ended up doing a dashing walljump, airdashing, Speed Burning, the fullscreen destroy attack (to let me airdash again), airdash, and barely making it.

Don't remember if I used the mech or not, but I'm pretty sure you have to use the armor attack to gain some air no matter what.  Or maybe I'm thinking of a different thing.

But there was definitely ONE bit where you had to use it to make a jump to grab a thing.

[Smiler]

After a while you learn to mostly control SM's wonky wall jump. The space jump, on the other hand, can go suck a dick. I learned how to any% run SM and I still can't get the space jump to work reliably.

Thad: You could get extra air to go on top of a cave in Chill Penguin's stage. There wasn't anything up there aside from one of those spawners that only the mechs could smash.

[Bal]

Modern wall-jumpers are mostly great too. First two games to come to mind are Super Meat Boy and Dustforce, both with unique takes on the concept, and neither very hard to execute in theory, but made challenging by circumstance. Arkham City has a very good and realistic-for-Batman wall jump too.

Basically wall jumps are cool and usually interesting mechanics, and, strangely for something so ubiquitous, everyone seems to do it a bit differently.

[Royal☭]

wall-jumping in Super Metroid was hard.

Which isn't bad*, exactly. I don't know if you know this, but wall jumping in real life is hard too.

Man, fuck you and your shiny metal ass. I don't play video games because I want a difficult time doing things that are also difficult in real life.

And really the problem is that Super Metroid made a freakishly difficult to pull off wall-jump and then provided a space where you could get trapped unless you could pull it off in successfully like 15 times in a row. First time I ever played the game I gave up because I got trapped in that hole and couldn't figure out how to get out. Really killed the momentum of the game.

[Classic]

Hey man, I didn't mean for that to come off as some kind of attack on you, sorry. We're clearly in the same camp, because you're repeating the experience Thad and I already concurred on.

But I mean... Yeah sometimes we do play games that make certain abilities more difficult to use. Whether that difficulty comes from execution or occluding that they're even things you can do. Fighting Games for starters. Eight year old Classic had a hell of a time getting the dragon punch to work on the SNES, but he felt like such a boss when he actually used it right.

EDIT:
I just want us to consciously reject the idea that when techniques are difficult (i.e. simply making the technique happen is a worthy skill-test on its own) the controls are bad.

[Zaratustra]

Super Metroid's walljump also completely broke parts of the game, as speedrunners are very quick to demonstrate. Done right, you can walljump off a single wall to incredible heights. Granted, at that skill level, what can a walljump do that an easier bomb jump couldn't?

Funny, because I could wall jump pretty easily, but I couldn't bomb-jump to save my life.

[LaserBeing]

Yeah, bomb-jumping in Super Metroid is much more difficult than walljumping.

Hey, you know what's great about the walljump in Super Metroid? I have never once been trying to jump over a completely normal wall, accidentally mis-timed a button press, and cause my character to fucking ricochet off the side with the enthusiasm and energy of a spawning salmon, straight into a bottomless pit.

Fuck you, Mario Sunshine. Fuck. You.

[Rico]

Having just replayed super metroid last month, you have a lot of leeway once you hit the wall and you get an obvious and distinct pose. Most problems are freaking out and performing the move too early.

[R^2]

Thad: You could get extra air to go on top of a cave in Chill Penguin's stage. There wasn't anything up there aside from one of those spawners that only the mechs could smash.

Smashing one of those spawners revealed the stage's Heart Tank. So going up there was moderately important.

Funny, because I could wall jump pretty easily, but I couldn't bomb-jump to save my life.

It's also possible to bombjump up the Etecoon pit everyone's complaining about, which in fact made it easier to get the Power Bomb upgrade at the top.

Having just replayed super metroid last month, you have a lot of leeway once you hit the wall and you get an obvious and distinct pose. Most problems are freaking out and performing the move too early.

Press away from the wall and then press the jump button a split-second later. Once I realized this I rarely fail to walljump when I need/want to, although I never practiced enough to be a sequence-breaker.

[Bongo Bill]

Wall-jumping in Mario games works well and is fun. I say we keep it.

[PhoenixUltima]

How did a conversation about wall-jumping go this far without anyone mentioning Ninja Gaiden? That's the first video game to use the mechanic that I can remember, and still one of the best implementations of it.