Man, the camera in Earthworm Jim is terrible (on both SNES and Genesis)

[Kirk_Johnston]

Seriously, you can barely see ahead of you in the direction you're moving most of the time, especially if you're running in one direction for a while:

 

So many SNES games had terrible cameras like this in one way or another, and it often harmed what could have been otherwise top-tier games.

 

Here's a perfect example, where it had the right idea of moving the camera ahead of the player in the direction they were facing to show more of the level in front of them, but it has literally no dead zone and/or a nice slow-in or something like that, so it is completely jarring and headache inducing if you ever turn direction back and forth a few times at any point in the game, like when jumping onto a small platform and trying to adjust position mid-jump:

 

Here's how you do actual great cameras on SNES, and ones that are properly designed to work around its relatively low horizontal view size:

 

I'd love to see someone go in and hack/mod any SNES games that have terrible cameras to do something much closer to the examples above or even something along the lines of Super Mario World as another great example. That one change could increase the library of good games on the system actually by quite some margin.

 

Anyway, that's now off my chest. Lol

Edited June 23, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[Wayler]

Secret of Mana's scrolling is a bit crap because you need to be near the edge of the screen before it starts moving. I have no idea why it was implemented this way, although truth be told, I did not even notice it as a kid. But it certainly irritated me later when replaying it a few years back. 

 

This issue has been fixed in post: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2913/

[roots.genoa]

Fixing EarthWorm Jim's camera won't make the game any better, though. 🙂

[Kirk_Johnston]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

Fixing EarthWorm Jim's camera won't make the game any better, though. 🙂

Well, fixing the camera will make the camera better, which will make some percentage of the overall experience better, so it will--but I totally get what you're saying. Lol

 

Making the levels a bit less maze-like and all over the place, just going a bit more traditional left to right for the most part basically, would also help somewhat too imo.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[jeffythedragonslayer]

I don't have a problem with SoM's camera, but I did notice that there is a slight pause after entering a new area that I would prefer not be there.

 

There's a reason that your car's front windshield is larger than the rear view mirror: it's more important to be able to see the danger in front of you than danger you've already cleared, but Earthworm Jim did it backwards.

[Bloodreign]

The camera is the least bit of a problem for EWJ, the level design isn't exactly the most intuitive, it's trying to find your way to the end of a level (most anyway, escorting Petey Puppy back home levels are thankfully straightforward) that is the most annoying. Another one that falls in that same mold is Pitfall the Mayan Adventure. While not a bad game, the level design seems cluttered and confusing as hell at times.

[Kirk_Johnston]

2 hours ago, Bloodreign said:

The camera is the least bit of a problem for EWJ, the level design isn't exactly the most intuitive, it's trying to find your way to the end of a level (most anyway, escorting Petey Puppy back home levels are thankfully straightforward) that is the most annoying. Another one that falls in that same mold is Pitfall the Mayan Adventure. While not a bad game, the level design seems cluttered and confusing as hell at times.

Yeah, I've never been a fan of this kind of maze-like going round in circles level design in platformers. I think even Sonic suffers from that to a degree too. I'm far more of a fan of the more straightforward A to B level designs you find in games like Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, or the Donkey Kong Country series, which all still have more than enough areas off the beaten path and hidden items and such to find to make them utterly compelling and satisfying, and indeed endlessly replayable too. I actually have a kinda similar issue with Super Metroid to some degree also, and have always wondered what a more run 'n' gun version of that with levels closer to something like Contra III might actually play--I think it could be rather awesome and maybe even turn into one of the best run 'n' gun games on SNES.

[roots.genoa]

2 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

I actually have a kinda similar issue with Super Metroid to some degree also, and have always wondered what a more run 'n' gun version of that with levels closer to something like Contra III might actually play--I think it could be rather awesome and maybe even turn into one of the best run 'n' gun games on SNES.

But... the WHOLE point of the Metroid series is being NOT linear. 😩

[Kirk_Johnston]

10 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

But... the WHOLE point of the Metroid series is being NOT linear. 😩

Yeah, I know. Lol

 

But I'd still be very curious to see basically a Super Metroid run 'n' gun.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[Tanooki]

Then get Metroid Fusion.  That one got ragged on hard rightly so for being mostly linear and keeping you on a leash with a force fed story to excuse away why it's a linear game.

[roots.genoa]

Metroid Fusion is awesome, though, and I wouldn't call it a run and gun either.