Can A Good Solo Superman Game Be Made? How Would You Make Work?

[marhawkman]

Well you have to consider more directions, and with flight, you have to make sure the enemies don't end up awkwardly positioned, so yeah, I can see that lol.

I think the big impact is scenario design. You need to think 3-d in making halls and entryways. totally doable, has been done, harder than 2-d

[Vic Vega]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Undefeated yet.



If anything this is proof of concept that a Superman game can work.

[The Overlord]

DBZ Kart could be a fun experience .

Either way, the way I see it, there are 3 big obstacles when making a Supes game, and they're all about his powers, flight, speed and invulnerability.

While DBZ Kakarot was mentioned a few times, it's also worth pointing out that DBZ is a world where about every enemy can fly, so that doesn't affect the combat, you can fly, so can your enemy, and Supes has a lot of villains who can't fly, specially if he ends up fighting random mooks, while stolen tech can be excused to give them flight, all of them would be silly, and if you can just fly when your opponents can't, that is a huge advantage you have and can make the combat boring.

Speed, that is a problem combined with flight, and it's not really combat related, the problem is that Supes can fly and fly fast, so a game with high end graphics could struggle to load other areas if he ends up being able to fly too fast, and his super speed ends up being used only for fast travel, then it's honestly, lazy.

Invunerability, that's related to when he fights random mooks, 'cause, should they be able to even hurt Supes? 'Cause if they can then he's gonna look like a chump, if you make a plot excuse about Supes being weak then the producers are just being lazy, and if everyone has something like Kryptonite bullets it just looks silly.

The game based on Superman Returns had the right idea when implementing this (I think it was that game? Not sure...), Supes doesn't have an HP, but Metropolis does, and if Metropolis takes too much damage, you lose, so using that is creative, could even have random mooks attacking civilians so you have to worry about protecting everyone while also stopping the villains, though this "civilians get attacked" is a very dangerous idea 'cause it could become an obnoxious mechanic real fast.

So yeah, while I think this idea of "Superman is too strong" is stupid, that is kinda the case of you try to adapt him to a video game, 'cause again, random mooks can't just be able to hurt him, he's gonna look less "Super" in a game like that, his fligh can give a huge disadvantage against anything that doesn't fly, and his speed can make loading other areas complicated... Those aren't impossible obstacles to overcome, but they are obstacles, and if Supes were to get a Triple A game, then those obstacles are too big for those hacks with no creativity who make interchangeable Triple A trash.

The problem is making the city the health bar, making the whole game like a giant escort mission, and gamers generally hate escort missions.

Frankly I played Superman Returns, I don't think it is a very good game, its not a gold standard to use for other Superman games.

[Lukmendes]

The problem is making the city the health bar, making the whole game like a giant escort mission, and gamers generally hate escort missions.

In scort missions you have to protect someone else while worrying about yourself as well, in this case you'd just worry about the city, he could be given moves that prevents enemies from doing too much damage to it, but ultimately it's just an idea, can be done poorly or well, or doesn't have to be there at all.

Frankly I played Superman Returns, I don't think it is a very good game, its not a gold standard to use for other Superman games.

Supes in general lacks a gold standard game lol.

Edit:

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Undefeated yet.



If anything this is proof of concept that a Superman game can work.

Oh hey it's free, I'll take a look at that and post my thoughts about it eventually, assuming my PC can run it lol.

[Vordan]

The problem is making the city the health bar, making the whole game like a giant escort mission, and gamers generally hate escort missions.

Frankly I played Superman Returns, I don't think it is a very good game, its not a gold standard to use for other Superman games.

Yeah the idea of a city health bar, while well intentioned, is a dumb idea. It does not make the game fun. Ultimately what makes for fun gameplay takes precedence over accuracy to “the lore” which is something that a lot of people seem to be unable to grasp when it comes to Superman.

[Lukmendes]

Yeah the idea of a city health bar, while well intentioned, is a dumb idea. It does not make the game fun. Ultimately what makes for fun gameplay takes precedence over accuracy to “the lore” which is something that a lot of people seem to be unable to grasp when it comes to Superman.

W̶e̶l̶l̶,̶ ̶v̶i̶d̶e̶o̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶u̶n̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶o̶p̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶.̶

Either way, I'm checking out this Undefeated game and, it's fairly mediocre, while it can make you "feel" powerful with how strong Undefeated guy is, the combat, if I can even call it that, is pretty clunky, I don't know why the hell they thought it'd be a good idea for an attack button to force you to land instead of doing another attack, but they did, and you're either just gonna mash strong attacks, or mash the projectiles, and considering the projectiles are far, far better, you have little reasons to not spam 'em, even in challenges or the boss battles (Against bosses you have to use projectiles to break their armor to be able to damage 'em, but even after that is done, getting close and mashing projectiles is better than wasting time and punching the boss away in a poor imitation of Dragon Ball Z fights).

The flight is alright, but is lacking vitals tools, like, why the hell isn't there a button to force you to stop when you're in that super sonic speed? 'Cause being able to stop flying fast without having to wait is important, not being able to change the control configuration is annoying too, like, for me it'd make more sense for RT to fly down, and RB to fly up, and LT to be the auto aim against bosses, but instead, RT flies up, LT flies down, and RB is the auto aim against bosses...

Overall the game's mediocre, but can be fun enough if you don't think too hard while playing, like Dynasty Warriors I guess.

Oh, and, speaking of protecting the city as HP, Undefeated has that during boss battles and, yeah, **** that mechanic, forget I suggested that lol.

Edit:

Oh and, one thing Undefeated does right is making you feel powerful, I care very little about something like that, but hey, if you like that then go play it and you might have fun, 'cause again, it's free.

[Prime]

I absolutely fking hate the city health bar mechanic. It's freaking lazy. Just give Superman a health bar and be done with it.

[Prime]

Btw, how does Superman play on Fortnite?

[Lukmendes]

Btw, how does Superman play on Fortnite?

The same as the rest, he's just a skin, he probably has his own emote though.

[Prime]

The same as the rest, he's just a skin, he probably has his own emote though.

How's the flying?

[Vordan]

There’s a rumor that Superman cameos in GK (on a TV in the Clocktower). Not linking the rumor because it has purported GK spoilers in it, but if true, might be a tease what WBM’s other DC game is!

[The Overlord]

In scort missions you have to protect someone else while worrying about yourself as well, in this case you'd just worry about the city, he could be given moves that prevents enemies from doing too much damage to it, but ultimately it's just an idea, can be done poorly or well, or doesn't have to be there at all.



Supes in general lacks a gold standard game lol.

Edit:



Oh hey it's free, I'll take a look at that and post my thoughts about it eventually, assuming my PC can run it lol.

But almost no one likes escort missions, I got annoyed with X-Men Legends 1 when there was a giant badly designed escort mission where you had to prevent a boat from sinking and saving the people on it, sounds fine in theory, but the mechanics of that mission did not work.

Spider-Man and Batman may do escort missions occasionally in their best games, but that is not what people like the best about those games. If you had an escort mission where Superman had to protect Lois Lane, but the Lois Lane AI is badly designed and keeps on getting herself killed, people would throw their controllers at the screen and a city far too wide an area to serve as the thing with the health bar you need to protect.

[13th Superman]

I guess I'm in the minority. I actually like the city health bar. It was a cool inverted feature in Superman Returns the game. Superman's main concern is the wellbeing of others. To constantly be alert and aware of your surrounds helps to place you in his headspace in my mind.

[marhawkman]

I guess I'm in the minority. I actually like the city health bar. It was a cool inverted feature in Superman Returns the game. Superman's main concern is the wellbeing of others. To constantly be alert and aware of your surrounds helps to place you in his headspace in my mind.

It's a good alternative to a system where you're constantly only worried about yourself. The Freedom Force games did this too. Some of the missions in them were focused on stopping bad guys from destroying things, and didn't care as much about your safety.

[Lukmendes]

But almost no one likes escort missions, I got annoyed with X-Men Legends 1 when there was a giant badly designed escort mission where you had to prevent a boat from sinking and saving the people on it, sounds fine in theory, but the mechanics of that mission did not work.

Spider-Man and Batman may do escort missions occasionally in their best games, but that is not what people like the best about those games. If you had an escort mission where Superman had to protect Lois Lane, but the Lois Lane AI is badly designed and keeps on getting herself killed, people would throw their controllers at the screen and a city far too wide an area to serve as the thing with the health bar you need to protect.

Oh, and, speaking of protecting the city as HP, Undefeated has that during boss battles and, yeah, **** that mechanic, forget I suggested that lol.

I have experienced the "city as health bar" mechanic, I thought it could be just a slightly more complex way of fighting enemies, but instead is a pain in the ass.

Short version, I learned my lesson lol.

I guess I'm in the minority. I actually like the city health bar. It was a cool inverted feature in Superman Returns the game. Superman's main concern is the wellbeing of others. To constantly be alert and aware of your surrounds helps to place you in his headspace in my mind.

The problem is making a system like that fun, which sounds like a bigger hassle compared to making regular combat where you die if you take too many hits.

Like, I know that games being fun is as optional as optional can be, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be fun lol.