/vr/ - Retro Games

If you think Plok is trash you really haven't played many games. Smooth, responsive, colourful, fun story/world that anyone of any age can enjoy, gimmicks work well and are lampshaded by later games that drove them into the ground. The only real weak point of Plok is some of the level design.

>>9044591
This, Plok is probably in the top 5 western-developed platformers.
Yeah, it's not as good as the best japanese games, but compared to the average Amiga platformer, Plok is state-of-the-art.

Because musicians operate almost entirely separately to most projects and it's hard to fuck up if you're good at music.

>>9044591
What's everyone's favorite track? Mine is Akrylic since it reminds me of prog rock

Miyamoto stole this game to make Yoshi's Island. He knew that Japanese platformers outside of Mario were bad and couldn't complete.

>>9044620
It's funny you should say that, I was thinking the other day why I like the Follins' music so much and I think it's because it's like prog but without being tuneless or too overwrought. Anyway, for me, it's Rocket Launcher.

>>9044578
>plok
>trash
>>9044620
Too many good ones to pick, it's a shame people only ever bring up the boss theme (not that it isn't amazing either)

>>9044578
For some reason euro games have a lot of great music, it started with the Commodore 64 which has tons of music and composers held in the highest regard. That tradition carried over to their janky console games

>>9044612
If the camera was zoomed out a bit plok would be on par with jap stuff in my opinion at least. Maybe there is a rom hack or something to test this.

>>9044620
The boss theme is too obvious, so I'm picking Plok's House.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAejEcLxXB8

>>9045468
Typical 'patrician prog fan' picking obscure 'secret A-side/album track 7' lol.

How the fuck are you gonna call plok trash? Get the fuck outta here

Follin is a god tho

peak sovl

Wasn't that the case for just about everything Tim Follin composed the soundtrack for?

>>9044620
I really enjoy Cotton Island and Beach.

I disagree with calling the game trash. But Jesus Christ the game is ruthless. Every time I attempt to play it, I never get terribly far. I still love the Pickford Bros though, they've made some pretty standout games, and Wizards and Warriors 3 was my childhood.
W&W3 is actually pretty awful, but it looks and sounds good.

>>9046842
just use save states, the pickfords have said they went too hard so it's not like you should feel guilty

>>9044731
I think back in the 80s/90s electronic music was real big over in a lot of European countries, which was easier to implement in video games than like...something orchestrated, you know?
Not a euro dev but I remember reading a Yuzo Koshiro interview where he's talking about how awesome British electronic music was

There's a lot of things to like about Plok but the flaws are pretty significant. It'd be a classic on the Amiga but the SNES is too crowded with great platformers.

The impression I've gotten from the Pickfords is that they're great game designers who don't work that well with publishers or deadlines, hence why they were blindsided by Tradewest refusing to pay for battery backed saves and why their previous game Equinox had half its content cut. Their last video game came out a decade ago, which itself took 5 years to make

>>9044731

Euro game devs were often self-taught, so you have a glut of people good at the "fun" parts of game development, like graphics and music and demoscene-like tricks, but not so many people good at game design or bug testing. Like an 80s version of /agdg/.

>>9046941
>I remember reading a Yuzo Koshiro interview where he's talking about how awesome British electronic music was

He wasn't wrong.

>>9044578
Wasn't there that one guy from /agdg/ that was making a PLOK game? Whatever happened to that guy

genesis port

>>9047323
>the SNES is too crowded with great platformers
Too true, anon. Mario, Zelda...the list simply goes on

>>9049529
based anti-nintendo shitposter! big wing wahoo, am I right my fellow /v/ nintendo hater?

>>9047435

It wasn't meant to be console war shit, i'd say the same thing if it was a Genesis game.

It's frustrating, the Akrillic levels can be genuinely great, with level design that uses the limb mechanic in clever ways. But they're only 25% of the game; two of the other worlds are vanilla platforming sections with only the cute victory screens to look forward to, and the other is pure fucking bullshit.

>>9044578
muh muh mu-mu-mu-moriyama

>>9049748
Dynamite Headdy was great

>>9049750
The soundtrack is

is it that implausible that two companies could have been working on colorful platformers with projectile mechanics in 1993

>>9044578
>>game is trash
Prove it.

PLOK isn’t the most interesting game, but not being interesting isn’t enough to make a game bad.

>>9051139
It's a very interesting game though. The character itself might seem a bit unoriginal but the many expressions it has gives him personality, and his world is completely bizarre, feels a bit like an LSD trip, the way the shapes of cliffs and stuff are made, kinda fractal-ish, plus the bright colors and the psychedelic designs of the enemies.

>>9051153
Unoriginal is probably a better descriptor, you’re right

I’m trying to think of how to describe a game like PLOK, there are many. Games that aren’t *bad* but are often considered to be by many, Glover is another example though that one is a bit more straightforward because the control is the main problem. Everything else about Glover is great and I’m not afraid to say it.

>>9050994
To my mind, it's not so much what Miyamoto "borrowed" that's so damning, it's what he *didn't* take. The transformations, for example. Car? Helicopter? Tank? I'll have some of those. But, flamethrower? Magnum revolver? Pass. That absolutely reeks of carebear Miyamoto.

I'd still be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt if Nintendo didn't have a long history of doing exactly this sort of thing. Once may be a coincidence - when it's four, five times you get cases like this, not so much.

>>9051249
>>9050994
wasn't there direct from an article where miyamoto was with the dev or oversaw / publishing plok as a bigger deal during the launch of plok then bailed on it at the last second and made yoshis island?

>>9051153
plok is a clothes golem with in a world made of clothes. the throw bits of yourself was pretty fresh back then. keep in mind rayman was during the ps1 era.

>game is trash, just on a fundamental level the gameplay is broken and clunky beyond belief
>soundtrack is fucking amazing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZP55hdRcvA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7zDdkQtMIk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MbfJmzLKW8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb7ZadKqGww
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCYwR9qb154
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJ0hzJ4wP4

>>9051249
But Yoshi's Island doesn't have a tank, yet it has a flamethrower-like power-up.
I don't know if Miyamoto and his people were really inspired by Plok, I wouldn't mind if they were, Plok is an interesting game in many ways.

>>9051274
The story goes that Richard Kay flew to Japan and (rather naively) gave NoJ a copy of Plok to see whether they'd be interested. Miyamoto raved about the game, and continued a lettered correspondence with him after he'd left. The Pickfords were then under the impression up until the eleventh hour that Nintendo would publish, but of course, they didn't*, which is why Plok lacks a save feature - the Pickfords were aiming for America and Tradewest wouldn't pitch in for the battery. The entire story is almost beat for beat the same tale that happened to DMA and Angel Studios, and (in my opinion) parallels with X on Game Boy.

*For some reason, Nintendo did publish Plok in Europe - if one is uncharitable it may be that Nintendo wanted to stake some claim to the rights. The Pickfords still own Plok the character, but they don't own Plok on SNES, which is why it's never had a Virtual Console release.

>>9051296
There are tanks in YI, they're just neutered. They're literally called "Mole Tank" in Japanese.

>uhhh yoshi's island ripped off some rando obscure platformer!
take your meds schizos

>>9051332
>>9051365
a quick google search reveals some stuff.

>>9051365

The one thing that gives it any credence is the Super Donkey prototype, which uses an animation system strikingly similar to Plok's.

But the whole floating-limbs style feels like convergent evolution. Sprites in the 16 bit era were steadily getting bigger, arguably too big. Detaching the limbs lets you have larger character sprites in less memory while also letting you adjust animations more quickly. And that's really all they have in common, the Super Donkey protagonist doesn't throw his limbs and they're not used as part of puzzle mechanics, he's closer to Rayman.

>>9049748
Maruyama*

>>9049759
No. Everything is

>>9051441
>only like 4 of the game's 10 stages have fully fleshed out, actual platforming design
>Headdy moves slow as fuck and his gameplay isn't that interesting compared to other platform games at the time
>shittiest bonus rounds ever conceived as the balls never go into the fucking baskets
>typical Treasure design where the game makes you fight too many crap bosses
>typical ugly as fuck Treasure art direction

Nah. Headdy is trash.

>>9051868
>the man with no taste.jpg

>>9051419
>But the whole floating-limbs style feels like convergent evolution. Sprites in the 16 bit era were steadily getting bigger, arguably too big. Detaching the limbs lets you have larger character sprites in less memory while also letting you adjust animations more quickly
that is one of the weirdest copes i've ever seen. 16-bit systems don't work that way

>>9052246
...says the treasurefag. LMAO.

>>9044620
Title theme for me.

>>9052840
Not an argument. Keep seething.

>>9044578
>trash
What's the matter? Bad at video games?
My only issue is the lack of continues
>>9044620
Beach, track is so fucking good

>>9052840
He's telling the truth australia. You lack a lot of things, but if there is one certain thing you lack is good taste.

>>9051868
based and fuckTreasurepilled.

>thread about another good western platformer not on amiga
>Gets detailed into anti-treasure shitposting

>>9047435

realized that i wasn't gonna finish it because i cared more about visuals than gameplay and gave up

i'm just glad plok didn't have any real fandom at the time and therefore nobody other than aggy daggy saw me faceplant

(on a related note, said fandom basically only exists because youtube keeps recommending the boss theme to people, which creeps me the fuck out. we've given so much power to a deliberately opaque algorithm sitting on google's servers)

>>9054492
Cope, treasuretranny.

>>9051868
Thank you. God I hate Dynamite Headdy and the rest of Treasure's "wacky" gimmicky garbage.

>>9044578
>Plok
>trash
It's not the best game in the world, but it's definitely not trash.

>why was this so common in the 90s
Video games offered a unique chance for young- or unknown composers to publish good pieces, Also developers generally had a mindset of making a game memorable and soundtrack is an important factor in that. You don't want trash music in your game.