Actions that obscure the player sprite.

[Professor Paul1290]

Since there are so many possible player characters in the game and adding additional animation would be more difficult, perhaps you could introduce more movement to combat by having actions that obscure the player sprite in some way.

A directional boost or dash attack could get away with turning the player into a meteor of fire or lighting or whatever. It would add some nice movement to combat since it would double as both an attack and quick way to dodge projectiles.

You could make a spell called "attraction sphere" or something that would engulf the player in a blob that would stick to walls (essentially spider ball but with magic).


The combat could use a lot more movement to it and with magic and particle effects being used so heavily in the game anyway, you could probably come up with a lot of excuses to not show the player sprite.

[x4000]

Yeah, I've thought of doing this sort of thing, but it doesn't work as well as you'd think because people expect to be able to see their character, and if it's just a cloud of stuff it tends to look pretty bad.  But there's a variety of things we can do along some of those lines, and also with literally transforming players into this or that.  For instance, making them turn into a little blip and shoot forward or away for a second while doing a directional boost sort of thing.  That way you can still "see" your character, but your character just became energy for a second, etc.  Lots of ways we can do some pretty cool stuff!

[Nalgas]

A directional boost or dash attack could get away with turning the player into a meteor of fire or lighting or whatever. It would add some nice movement to combat since it would double as both an attack and quick way to dodge projectiles.

[...]

The combat could use a lot more movement to it and with magic and particle effects being used so heavily in the game anyway, you could probably come up with a lot of excuses to not show the player sprite.

Regardless of how it's accomplished visually, I still want a FALCON PUNCH upgrade for fire touch that lunges/dashes directly forward and does more damage.  I suppose it would only be appropriate to have some kind of diving kick attack to complement it (and it looks like there's already a suitable character sprite for it with the "down jump"), either like Captain Falcon's or like the Kicker Skeleton soul in Aria of Sorrow.  And then speaking of Aria of Sorrow, my wishlist obviously needs a backdash in the opposite direction to quickly dodge in the other direction...

Just because you took out weapons and turned it into a magic-only game doesn't mean I can't try to convince you to make playing a melee-heavy character possible just for variety, right?  Even if it's never practical against bosses or anything other than normal enemies.  Heh.

[x4000]

I don't mind at all having a short-range-specific magical character.  I think it's great for variety.  And there will be some melee options in the form of transforming into animals, for instance.

[Nalgas]

And there will be some melee options in the form of transforming into animals, for instance.

For some reason the first thing that made me think of was a scroll to turn yourself into a rhino, rather than summon one, and all I can picture is casting it and then being stuck running across the screen of a surface chunk, and then the next one, and so on, until you get to the last one and hit the wall and get stuck.  And then you discover that you're out of scrolls to change back and have to warp out, walk back to your settlement, and hope that you can hit the button to enter the crafting station to make more before you charge past it.  Heh.

[BobTheJanitor]

And there will be some melee options in the form of transforming into animals, for instance.

For some reason the first thing that made me think of was a scroll to turn yourself into a rhino, rather than summon one, and all I can picture is casting it and then being stuck running across the screen of a surface chunk, and then the next one, and so on, until you get to the last one and hit the wall and get stuck.  And then you discover that you're out of scrolls to change back and have to warp out, walk back to your settlement, and hope that you can hit the button to enter the crafting station to make more before you charge past it.  Heh.

Mantis report resolution: won't fix. Too awesome.

[x4000]

Hahahaha.