Gero Blaster -- better than Kero Blaster?

Jan 21, 2015 at 11:44 AM
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I've played Kero Blaster, twice trough the normal game and twice trough new game+.
I just recently watched the trailer for Gero Blaster, and I think it looked much better.
It also looked a lot more like Cave Story than Gero Blaster, Kero Blaster seems more like Cave Story Beta. (Money in exchange for weapons, more light heated and goofy, etc.)
It looks like the way you would get extra life is... Saving stuff? That's like picking up a life capsule, in Kero Blaster you buy them which is much less fun. I like to be rewarded for exploring and completing things. Sure you get weapons for beating bosses but the way you get to the bosses is pretty linear and I've never gotten lost in Kero Blaster... Ever.
In Cave Story you often get lost when you're not exploring enough (Especially in the Sand Zone, Jesus Jenka your puppies hide in wired places) but it's never too hard or too punishing because at the end of the day there's a reward or something at stake. In Kero Blaster it feels like nothing is really that wrong and everyone is always fine, even once the Negatvous lene-whatever invade it still feels like nothing is seriously wrong because the way people react isn't as great and there aren't enough people in the story for me to care!
What I'm saying is Gero Blaster looked really cool and I would've much preferred that over the game that was released. The fact you're a frog is probably related to the fact you seem to get kisses from the people you save. (Person A kisses frog B, frog B turns into prince story by the looks of it)
I don't know why Pixel would scrap such an awesome idea for a game. And I'm not saying I don't love Kero Blaster and it's (short and pointless) story, but it felt like it was going somewhere really interesting and then... *BOOM!* The End.
Also Kero Blaster doesn't have much intractability. In Cave Story you look at something and more often than not Pixel programmed in a description like "...Flowers?" for the red flowers at Arthur's House. In Kero Blaster you walk up to something really interesting looking and you think you've found a secret but it doesn't do anything because it's just a pretty decoration... I also thought Kero Blaster had multiple endings, but because that doesn't I guess that means there's room for a sequel (Unlikely though)

Thanks for listening to me ramble
Here's a link to the trailer I was talking about
 
Jan 21, 2015 at 1:19 PM
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My take on it is that trailers often lie. The reason Pixel scrapped it is that he wasn't happy with it, just like beta Cave Story, and if he wasn't happy with it then it probably isn't as fun to play as the version he DID release. You say it's the better game, but can you really determine that from a trailer?

I also don't quite understand your compaint about the final version's lives. Yes, you can buy them, but they're super expensive and far more commonly found as a reward for exploring anyway. =o
 
Jan 21, 2015 at 2:08 PM
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zxin said:
Kero Blaster doesn't have much intractability. In Cave Story you look at something and more often than not Pixel programmed in a description like "...Flowers?" for the red flowers at Arthur's House. In Kero Blaster you walk up to something really interesting looking and you think you've found a secret but it doesn't do anything because it's just a pretty decoration...
This is the most legitimate complaint I've seen. Not just in the exploration department, though - that's not as important in such a left-to-right, linear game - but in the enemies. The only enemies I remember taking skill to fight were the bosses.
 
Jan 21, 2015 at 6:26 PM
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The thing is, most of your complaints are just "It was like this in Cave Story and that was better"
I haven't played Kero Blaster myself, but Pixel probably changed these things for the simple reason that he wanted it to be less like Cave Story, and possibly also so they would be compared less.
 
Jan 21, 2015 at 8:18 PM
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Polaris said:
My take on it is that trailers often lie.
Fable. Fable 2. Fable 3.


But originally you were supposed to save your cat girlfriend, right? How did it get from that to stopping black blobs?
 
Jan 21, 2015 at 11:29 PM
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Lets be honest, Gero Blaster looked like it had less narrative, and it looked even MORE linear than Kero Blaster. Even when you lose at a stage in Kero Blaster you never feel like you have lost progress because of the money system. Gero Blaster on the other hand would have no such system. Yes I did feel like exploration could have been better rewarded, but Kero Blaster definitely succeeded where Gero Blaster apparently failed.
 
Jan 21, 2015 at 11:36 PM
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zxin said:
I've played Kero Blaster, twice trough the normal game and twice trough new game+.
I just recently watched the trailer for Gero Blaster, and I think it looked much better.
All trailers are meant to build up a game to convince of purchase, so it really isn't evidence that the beta build was any better.
zxin said:
It also looked a lot more like Cave Story than Gero Blaster, Kero Blaster seems more like Cave Story Beta. (Money in exchange for weapons, more light heated and goofy, etc.)
You couldn't have played the beta of CS either, so you don't know this.
zxin said:
It looks like the way you would get extra life is... Saving stuff?
What you are referring to looked like a cutscene, probably one at the end of a level (probably the first one), so it is inferable that you get extra life by simply advancing in the game. I'd rather have it bought, cause that's a choice one can make rather than it handed to you (and it allows for me to make single-heart runs, but that's a subjective point).
zxin said:
I like to be rewarded for exploring and completing things.
You get money for these two things, therefore you get rewarded for secrets and killing extra enemies.
zxin said:
Sure you get weapons for beating bosses but the way you get to the bosses is pretty linear and I've never gotten lost in Kero Blaster... Ever.
It's a linear game, much akin to other titles that do the same thing. My biggest gripe about this though is that you are inferring way to much that Gero Blaster is more similar to Cave Story. That trailer shows what I can only guess is a level screen. I would almost guarantee that Gero was as much Linear as was Kero.
zxin said:
In Cave Story you often get lost when you're not exploring enough (Especially in the Sand Zone, Jesus Jenka your puppies hide in wired places) but it's never too hard or too punishing because at the end of the day there's a reward or something at stake. In Kero Blaster it feels like nothing is really that wrong and everyone is always fine, even once the Negatvous lene-whatever invade it still feels like nothing is seriously wrong because the way people react isn't as great and there aren't enough people in the story for me to care!
By this point you're off-track from what you set out to persuade in. This isn't about Gero V.S. Kero anymore, it's the "I like CS why can't everything be CS" topic. (I think CS is better than Kero Blaster as well, but if I was in his shoes I would want something easier to make than that 3-5 year project.)
zxin said:
What I'm saying is Gero Blaster looked really cool and I would've much preferred that over the game that was released. The fact you're a frog is probably related to the fact you seem to get kisses from the people you save. (Person A kisses frog B, frog B turns into prince story by the looks of it)
Amaya decided to make a game loosely based off of the Ame Manga he created. You might not know this but before CS was made there were 20-or-so issues of a Magna revolving around the complicated love life between an unnamed Frog and a Cat named Ame. The black cat from the final game is also in this magna. Now, the Kero Blaster game only uses the design of these characters (the plotline is completely different than anything in them), but I feel that Gero Blaster was a little closer to it plot-wise, a love-abduction story, without any of the prince-frog stuff you think of.
zxin said:
I don't know why Pixel would scrap such an awesome idea for a game. And I'm not saying I don't love Kero Blaster and it's (short and pointless) story, but it felt like it was going somewhere really interesting and then... *BOOM!* The End.
I'm not even gonna dance around this: Gero Blaster would have been even shorter. It was made in half the time, with half the developers (Amaya hired another guy for level creation while he focused on art/sound/programming).
zxin said:
Also Kero Blaster doesn't have much intractability. In Cave Story you look at something and more often than not Pixel programmed in a description like "...Flowers?" for the red flowers at Arthur's House. In Kero Blaster you walk up to something really interesting looking and you think you've found a secret but it doesn't do anything because it's just a pretty decoration…
Like Dunc said, you're absolutely right about this comparison, except that again you are comparing Cave story to Kero Blaster rather than Gero to Kero. Gero would have even less of this uniqueness no doubt.
zxin said:
I also thought Kero Blaster had multiple endings, but because that doesn't I guess that means there's room for a sequel (Unlikely though)
Not everything needs multiple endings, Gero would probably be the "You saved the girl" cliche ending.

Not to directly attack you, but you are all over the place and make too many assumptions on how Gero would have been made.
 
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