The Soul Crushing Blow

[pendell]

Someone was ticked off at IWBTG and so he wrote a homage fan game. And that is just mean (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4veR4X9qV0&feature=relmfu) .

Strong language warning: The Let's Player finally lost it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvE6snB791E&feature=relmfu)


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Pronounceable]

IWBTG and its spawn is the best genre ever made.

[Weezer]

That's so evil. Save game points are supposed to be safe. It's a law.

[MLai]

It's just a theory, man.

[JoshL]

That's so evil. Save game points are supposed to be safe. It's a law.

It's a good change up for when the player is feeling TOO safe (or desperate). I remember some well placed non-safe save points in FFXII, that I loved because I hated.

Of course, IWTBTG and its' ilk turn that up to 11 and then beyond.....

[MLai]

Is it true that the first 5 videos of that series is just the player trying to get through that first shaft on the first screen?

(IWTSYS, not IWTBTG.)

[tyckspoon]

Is it true that the first 5 videos of that series is just the player trying to get through that first shaft on the first screen?

(IWTSYS, not IWTBTG.)

Only the first 3, he makes it that first save point a couple minutes into the third one (and then calls that enough for now, because he just recorded 22 minutes of repeatedly falling into the same spikes.)

[INoKnowNames]

I've tried some of the spin offs myself, and I have to say they lack a certain charm that the main game had. Maybe it's because they're purposely just trying to be IWBTG but crueler, but it doesn't really feel the same getting through them as it was getting through IWBTG. I felt a sense of accomplishment going through playthroughs with less and less deaths, even when I'd still get pasted by freaking cherries.

But the rip offs... just feel bland and tasteless. The entire genre's kinda spoiled to me. People trying to make games harder than the origonal,continuously one-uping each other with convoluted tricks that only one who has watched the game,made it, or died far more than truly is needed can pass. That some of those guys go back and patch in things that they missed doing and found out that others figured out makes it even more tasteless.

Eh, maybe I'm just an old hater, but all these "harder than hard" hacks just don't even amuse anymore. It's worse than mmorpgs in repeditively doing useless activities until a certain fake sense of gratification is met, before immediately getting into it again, until you quit... with the admited diference that these hacks have final bosses to aim for.

[MLai]

I watched the let's-play vids of IWTBTG, and I agree. IWTBTG has these charms that makes you want to play (and die):

(1) Retro gaming nostalgia. This means retro homages to Mega Man, Metroid, etc. It doesn't mean spikes and grey walls are nostalgic.

(2) Satire of platformer difficulty, that is funny. When a cherry kills you. When a background object (moon, hole in the wall) becomes foreground object and falls on you (and kills you). When familiar platformer conventions suddenly surprises you by being much more ridiculous than the games it came from (appearing/disappearing ledges)... That is playing with platformer conventions in a funny way. It makes you smile even if it killed you. Navigating the same narrow corridor of grey spikes for 2 hours is not funny.