Paprium: The Official Thread Mk 2

[Devil N]

I've just made a high resolution scan of the included poster that shows the game's world map and how all of the levels are interconnected. I'm still very confused by how everything fits together, so this'll be handy to have as reference for when I continue my playthrough.


(Click for full resolution and high quality)

[zborgerd]

Believe it or not, it's possible to have an opinion from watching videos or reading information, even if you didn't buy the game.
That "you didn't buy it, you can't have an opinion" argument is bullshit. If you want to defend Paprium, use actual arguments instead of trying to silence people or deny their opinion.

Not what I said at all. I said that people who didn't buy the game seem to have a lot to say. Never said that they cannot. Nobody tried to silence anyone. But clearly guys like you are very angry and hateful about it even though you've got no investment in it.

Seems more like you're trying to spread negativity over the excitement that the game has shipped and seems to mostly be exceeding expectations. But keep on. Nobody is going to try to silence you. Here's an opinion for you : Maybe your efforts to spread hate would be better spent on working on your own game. There you go. I just found some free time for you.

I did invest in the game and never was angry or hateful about the delays. I'm glad it's finally shipping though.

[pepodmc]

Not what I said at all. I said that people who didn't buy the game seem to have a lot to say. Never said that they cannot. Nobody tried to silence anyone. But clearly guys like you are very angry and hateful about it even though you've got no investment in it.

Seems more like you're trying to spread negativity over the excitement that the game has shipped and seems to mostly be exceeding expectations. But keep on. Nobody is going to try to silence you. Here's an opinion for you : Maybe your efforts to spread hate would be better spent on working on your own game. There you go. I just found some free time for you.

Even without playing it, it obvious that it has some hitboxes and hitstun problems. Some constructive criticism is a good thing.

About the AI, its not the best , but if i were fonzie i would have released the game only with the very hard difficulty because its the only difficult in which the AI kinds of do what it must do. i mean, if you combine a not very good Ai with having to dumb down the enemy behaviour because of the difficulty and you get a very bad combination.

With 6 more months this game would have released in a better state. Hope that Watermelon or fans can fix these problems.

[zborgerd]

I do agree with this. The neon sci-fi cyberpunk setting is pretty cool, but it does mean that all the stages have a somewhat same-y look. Lots of purple, green, pink and other clashing colors, with lots of flashing lights. The unfortunate consequence is that the levels don't really feel as distinct as I'd like. I can see what the levels are supposed to be and how they fit together, but they don't *feel* very different from one another.

Compare that to Streets of Rage 2 (it's the benchmark to which all other beat 'em ups are compared, after all) which had a more down-to-earth setting. You had the backstreets, the amusement park, the baseball stadium, the ship, the beach, the factory, the skyscraper... Each level felt very unique, has its own distinct color palette, and stood out in its own way. Paprium doesn't have that as much, and it's a result of the fundamental choice of setting and art style.

Yeah, i remember when the project was announced, i didnt liked the cyberpunk selection for art style.
I mean, for a rpg or a shooter it goes well but for a beat em up i would have prefered an art style like streets of rage or final fight.
Even if the final result is less original.

Outside of the futuristic neon everywhere theme, I can't help but to think that maybe some of it has to do with making the most of the Genesis' palette limitations. Some people have talked about dither but it's an unfortunate fact that, in spite of the systems amazing capabilities of the time, the color depth was not one of them.

I think it was Devil N who was playing when I saw him restart in Extra mode and spawned in a completely different area that I don't think we'd seen before after getting to the final battle. Maybe there is more that we've not seen / unlocked yet.

[zborgerd]

Even without playing it, it obvious that it has some hitboxes and hitstun problems. Some constructive criticism is a good thing.

About the AI, its not the best , but if i were fonzie i would have released the game only with the very hard difficulty because its the only difficult in which the AI kinds of do what it must do. i mean, if you combine a not very good Ai with having to dumb down the enemy behaviour because of the difficulty and you get a very bad combination.

With 6 more months this game would have released in a better state. Hope that Watermelon or fans can fix these problems.

AI does appear to ramp substantially in Very Hard mode. A lot of people playing on Easy which seems to have pretty lame AI.

[pepodmc]

Outside of the futuristic neon everywhere theme, I can't help but to think that maybe some of it has to do with making the most of the Genesis' palette limitations. Some people have talked about dither but it's an unfortunate fact that, in spite of the systems amazing capabilities of the time, the color depth was not one of them.

I think it was Devil N who was playing when I saw him restart in Extra mode and spawned in a completely different area that I don't think we'd seen before after getting to the final battle. Maybe there is more that we've not seen / unlocked yet.

Taking in consideration all the problems in the development and the final price of the game, i think that would have been better to develop this game as a Sega CD game.

The final price would be lower because of being a CD, fonzie would had more processing power to work, better audio quality and less size problems.
Because how much does a Sega CD addon cost? would be the same if the people had to buy a sega cd addon to play the game that what we have now having to pay 169 dolars for the cartridge.

But its just an oppinion.

[zborgerd]

I've just made a high resolution scan of the included poster that shows the game's world map and how all of the levels are interconnected. I'm still very confused by how everything fits together, so this'll be handy to have as reference for when I continue my playthrough.


(Click for full resolution and high quality)

Interesting. There is a "Central Park" there. Even "Docks".

Maybe I'm mistaken but I think it has something to do with how (I think it was) you restarted in the extra mode after playing arcade mode. Like you started in the "Reformatory" rather than the "Block888" or something.

[pepodmc]

AI does appear to ramp substantially in Very Hard mode. A lot of people playing on Easy which seems to have pretty lame AI.

Yeah, thats what im talking about.

All people playing in lower difficulties makes the game look worse than what really is.

I would make the game even harder.

[EPSYLON EAGLE]

This is pure gold!

[zborgerd]

Taking in consideration all the problems in the development and the final price of the game, i think that would have been better to develop this game as a Sega CD game.

The final price would be lower because of being a CD, fonzie would had more processing power to work, better audio quality and less size problems.
Because how much does a Sega CD addon cost? would be the same if the people had to buy a sega cd addon to play the game that what we have now having to pay 169 dolars for the cartridge.

But its just an oppinion.

I don't think that you could do the game of this size on the CD as a result of the transfer speed and RAM limitations, especially if you wanted CD audio playback. There is a reason that most Sega CD games are pretty visually simplistic (static images) outside of playing music or FMV.

Edit: Not necessarily related but I just checked out that sound test. There is a ton of music that doesn't seem to be part of the main arcade mode / route.

[Devil N]

Interesting. There is a "Central Park" there. Even "Docks".

Maybe I'm mistaken but I think it has something to do with how (I think it was) you restarted in the extra mode after playing arcade mode. Like you started in the "Reformatory" rather than the "Block888" or something.

Yeah after studying the map for a while I can see how my stream audience's choices have led me on to the path towards the Police H.Q. I played pretty much through the entire "Mid Level" path. Other choices could have led me to the upper levels or a lower level.

The manual explains how when you get a Game Over you get sent back to one of five starting points, depending on which level you died on. This is indicated by the colored diamonds. I died on Police H.Q. which has a red diamond, so I got sent back to the Reformatory which is also marked with a red diamond.

On my next play from here I should get a choice on the S.P.U. level which allows me to either go back up a level and replay the latter part of my previous attempt, or continue on to Central Park and go after a different boss. I'm not sure if this path will end on Green-Cross or if it'll allow me to proceed all the way to G.O.S.

The manual also makes mention of red "N.X. Terminals" which you can access under certain unexplained circumstances. My guess is that these allow you to take shortcuts which are the red dotted lines on the map.

[inqualls]

Has anyone from the USA gotten their copy yet?

It seems shipment at the Las Vegas location is at a complete stand still. It's been 5 business days and I still haven't received any updates or USPS tracking. I put in a support ticket this morning to see if I can get a little clarity on the situation.

[zborgerd]

I might have figured something out about the map. I might need to go back to watch the video though.

The game over occurred at at the "Police HQ", which has a red diamond after the name.

Your restart was at the red diamond "Reformatory".

This could be why the game says "The End?" when you beat it. There are probably multiple endings. The police chief is just the start. You ultimately need to get to the labs at the top of the map to presumably put an end to the blu drug manufacturing. Probably something that you need to do at the docks or below to unlock the areas at the top (notice the lock on the map) but also looks like you could somehow take the green line b over there.

The sound test seems to indicate that there are a lot of levels that have yet to be seen.

Edit: I see you responded w/ the same thing as I was also writing, so seems like we may be onto the same thing.

[zborgerd]

Has anyone from the USA gotten their copy yet?

It seems shipment at the Las Vegas location is at a complete stand still. It's been 5 business days and I still haven't received any updates or USPS tracking. I put in a support ticket this morning to see if I can get a little clarity on the situation.

Someone told me that he has a USPS package that's supposed to arrive today and he's not expecting something other than this game. It's possible it's shipped but there has been no tracking info posted on the site. I'll keep you posted if he gets his.

[zborgerd]

Yeah after studying the map for a while I can see how my stream audience's choices have led me on to the path towards the Police H.Q. I played pretty much through the entire "Mid Level" path. Other choices could have led me to the upper levels or a lower level.

The manual explains how when you get a Game Over you get sent back to one of five starting points, depending on which level you died on. This is indicated by the colored diamonds. I died on Police H.Q. which has a red diamond, so I got sent back to the Reformatory which is also marked with a red diamond.

On my next play from here I should get a choice on the S.P.U. level which allows me to either go back up a level and replay the latter part of my previous attempt, or continue on to Central Park and go after a different boss. I'm not sure if this path will end on Green-Cross or if it'll allow me to proceed all the way to G.O.S.

The manual also makes mention of red "N.X. Terminals" which you can access under certain unexplained circumstances. My guess is that these allow you to take shortcuts which are the red dotted lines on the map.

I'm thinking that the interconnected "LINES" are all different subway trains that can take you to different areas.

There are also very light colored lines that might be easy to overlook. I wonder if they connect to anything? Secret areas, perhaps? Seems almost as though they can take you to other paths.