When the predecessor to this game came out several years earlier it was a massive success. So much so that Konami felt that they could release a game with nearly the exact same engine and a few facelifts and meet with the same amount of success. And they were right. Manhattan Project was a well reviewed title that is looked back on fondly even today. The reason that it was able to stand apart from its predecessor is the addition of “special attacks” for each character, which had become somewhat of a requirement for side-scrolling beat’em-ups.
It is these moves, in conjunction with other distinctive characteristics that separate one turtle from the other, that I chose to map out. These are the obvious traits to analyze in a game that does not contain very many gameplay choices outside of choosing which character to use. Anytime a player engages in a game where these choices need to be made, they begin to do this subconsciously. They learn which characters would work best depending on their successes and failures in given situations. What I have chosen to do is provide a visual representation of this process.
I chose to use the Performance Chart (below) to represent the turtle’s attributes because it is a convenient way of comparing all of the turtles and their usefulness. By seeing where a given attribute lands on my chart for a certain turtle can give a player a good idea which character to choose for a given situation. This chart is more helpful in this game than the previous one because when you die you are able to switch turtles if you wish and respawn without losing progress. This would be very helpful in the second stage, which takes place on a submarine and provides many dangerous traps in the surrounding environment. This means that the “safe space” in the environment is limited, as well as the quicker combat pace. If the player dies using a slow character like Donatello or a lunging attacker like Raphael in this stage they would be better served to switch to a quick player like Michelangelo or a rounded character like Leonardo. By moving faster they are able avoid the spaces that are dangerous and not leave themselves open for attack. With this chart, the player can make the wise decision the first time rather than having to first make mistakes to learn which characters to use.
The other map I chose was the Cartesian Coordinates Representation. I chose this because it serves as another way of quantifying the attributes of each individual in a group. Rather than being somewhat informal in the Performance Chart, the Cartesian Coordinates actually provides the player with an arranged representation. What the player can decide from using this chart is whether they need a balanced brawler or a turtle that is exceptional at one skill or another. By presenting the kind of attacks that each character is strong with, I am providing the player with a representation of how each character impacts the space that he is placed in. For example, Donatello is very strong at hitting enemies that are far away from him but is not effective when enemies occupy the space very near to him.
I feel that both maps succeed in simplifying the process of character selection. I think that this would be a positive process for many modern game reviewers and walkthrough makers to develop for the complex games and characters that are popular today. By giving a visual representation of how each character impacts the space and time in which he or she occupies, the player can make a more informed choice. If nothing else, the reviewer would save a lot of time by substituting charts like these for a few of the pages and pages they use to breakdown the same process. It would also save the player time because he or she would only have to put a few charts on his lap to make gameplay decisions rather than paying $20 for a book that plays the game for them; completely eliminating the creative process that each gamer seeks from an interactive space and time that a game provides.
Limitations that my maps have is that they are not nearly detailed enough to address each of the plethora of environments and enemies that inhabit the game. There are many types of enemies in this game, compared with the very few variations in the previous game. They have different types of skills and weapons that impact the space around the player differently. Some of them actually interact with the environment in order to attack the player, like Foot Soldiers that splash sand into the turtle’s face, causing the event time to pause momentarily as the turtle wipes his eyes clean. To analyze this, each enemy would have to be addressed in charts similar to the ones created for the turtles.
The most difficult part of representing a dynamic environment like that found in videogames in a static format like these charts is the massive amount of factors that go into each and every round of play. Even in a game that provides the same enemies and the same environmental traps every time it is played, I still find that I cannot walk through a step ahead of the opposition. Most of the difficulty results from the massive amount of space that opposing forces occupy. There are many enemies that can attack at the same time in addition to the many environmental dangers that can make the event team seem to run much faster because of the frantic pace of the play time. There is no way to map out how time is used in the game because of all of these factors that can make one play very different than the next. In addition, these are factors that can change drastically from one player to the next, unlike the attributes that maintain their value no matter the player.
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