At which point would say a game becomes an action platformer, as opposed to just a platformer?
>>12810926A permanent weapon or punching instead of just jumping and stomping over enemies
A good starting point would be: does it have bottomless pits you can die or at least get damage from?
>>12810926If the challenge stems from patterns that enemies throw at you and clearing them alliviates difficulty (action platformer) as opposed to the challenge being fully environmental and enemies acting as easily wipable obstacles (regular platformer).
>>12810926On the video game genre defining family tree, action is at the top, it's the most generic term. A a platformer or an action platformer are therefore more specific, with "platformers" being even more specific than "action platformers"There is a simple formula to tell them apart: you look at the importance of jumping (the 'specific' part of platformers) in the game design>PlatformerThe action revolves mainly around the act of jumping, be it for platforms, pits, other gimmicks or to deal with enemies (killing or dodging). There are usually different kinds of jumps, usually due to momentum. There can be other means to dispose of enemies but they're not the main game mechanicExamples: Super Mario Bros, Adventure Island>action platformersThe action revolves both around the act of jumping, and on dealing with enemies through other means, usually weapons. Jumping is usually more limited than in pure platformers, and enemies are usually dealt with not through jumping but through those other means like weapons. Since 'action-platformer' is already a more generic term, the degree of importance of jumping vs other types of action can varry (and this is where opinion on can vary, for instance should an action game for which about 20% of its design revolves on jumping be called an action platformer? Personally I would say no but some argue that yes, in video defining literal edge cases like this can be debated)Examples of action platformers which are about 50% about jumping, 50% about other types of action: Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Kirby[cont]
>actionThe more generic term therefore it doesn't have more specific mechanics, therefore (in this case) gameplay doesn't revolve around jumping. There can still be a jump button but it's a very limited type of jumping (no momentum etc), it's usually not used for platforming (but for instance to perform another type of attack), and there are usually very few platforms/pits in the game if any at all. The action mainly revolves on other types of actionsExample: Monster in my Pocket (it's a beat them up really)Now the ones we can argue whether belong in "pure action" or "action platformers" are the likes of Castlevania or Contra. The amount of platforming in the series differ from game to game so I'm mainly talking about the first games. In the case of Contra, your jumps doesn't have momentum but you do retain a lot of control on it. There are quite a lot of platforms and pits in the game. I would say it's about 33% platformer - 66% other types of action and I would call it an action platformer.In Castlevania, you have zero control on your jump, there is only one kind of jump, jumping is mostly used to go above pits, otherwise jumping is usually something that puts the player at pits. The amount of pits/platforms is also very low (people always argue with me on this, to this I say go look at maps of the game, people remember the platforming more because that's where they died a lot, but it's never the main focus of the game). I'd say the platforming isn't even 20% of the game's design, so I wouldn't call it an action-platformer, Castlevania is closer to Kung-Fu than to Super Mario BrosNow to conclude, lot's of people use the term platformer wrong, for 2D games they use it for "anything that's a sidescroller", and for 3D "any exploration based third person game". They wouldn't be able to explain why they use the term platformer for those games, they just repeat what they heard and never stopped to think about genre defining at all.
>>12811710> otherwise jumping is usually something that puts the player at pits.at risk*I did proofread myself goddamnit
>>12810926If your main attack isn't a jump, but instead a weapon of punch, then it's action.
If there's an attack button it's action platformer.Therefore, only Sonic counts.
>>12810926There are only action games, platformer is a useless term
>>12812361What if I wanna play games that mainly challenge the player by following the general formula of getting through obstacle courses by jumping how would I tell those games apart from other side-scrollers?
How do enemies function within the stage design? Are they predominantly obstacles to be navigated around (platformer) or are they generally meant to be dispatched (action)? The streams can certainly cross, but usually a game leans in one direction or the other with intent.
Speaking of genres, I'm an oldfag and I remember that action games were stuff like DMC, Onimusha, Ninja Gaiden, GOW, while hack n' slash was musou games and Sengoku Basara and other simple "kill enemies by mashing button" games. Browsing nowadays, I discovered that people call DMC-likes hack n slash. That was a weird mandela effect moment for me.
>>12813781Mmm. I remember this too. DMC was an "action game", I feel like that's what magazines called them.I heard "character action" a few times, but it never caught on. /v/ had a phase where they called them "cuhraazy" I don't like "hack n slash" for the genre, because I think it better suits something like baldurs gate dark alliance or the gauntlet series imo.
