He-Man

Complete HE-MAN 2019

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Overview Reviews (6) History Discussion
Project is completed.
I'm with the others about Glimmer and Frosta. I said in a previous post the ancillary characters were always more interesting to me than He-Man or She-Ra. More to the point, they had to be given the idiot ball in every episode to keep from solving the plot with their powers in 10 seconds. There is so much you could do with them in game.

Beyond that, the main problem I see so far is that effectively the different characters are all just re-skins. They all play exactly the same; that "hit hit hit, juggle launcher then dive attack" bit gets real old real fast. The fighting doesn't really feel solid either. Animations don't look like anyone is committing to an attack and none of the unique character aspects are coming into play.

Take She-Ra for instance. In the cartoon, her trademark strike was a wicked spinning back kick. Here she just kind of sticks her leg out. She could change her sword to nearly anything at will, had some healing powers and telepathy with animals. We don't see any of that here. Instead she shoots beams from her sword; something she could never actually do. It's as if you didn't feel like working up her real abilities so you gave her a generic projectile and called it a day. How hard would it be to do some of the following:

  • "Sword to lasso!":  Lasso an enemy and pull them in or out of the air. She did this several times in the series.
  • Summon: Use her animal telepathy to summon some weak but distracting NPC creatures to help.
  • "Sword to Shield!": Give her a block, and just make the animation her morphing the sword to a shield. This was her most oft used sword transformation.
  • Heal: She was never shown healing anything but animals, but no one would care if you fudged it a bit and let her heal other players (not herself).

Same goes with He-Man. The most powerful man in the universe? Apparently, because he just sort of waves his arms and sword around and it somehow hurts people. Where is his massive "power punch" or the whirlwind and earthquakes he was fond of making? Where's the cool take down throw he used every other episode? Why can't he parry attacks and reflect beams?

Ultimately it just plays and feels too much like a platformer with an extra plane of movement. Sorry if I sound like a wet blanket, but fantastic as this module looks, the game play it deserves just isn't there. You are one of the best authors around - you can do so much more than we've seen with this.

DC

 
Well you have to be realistic, where wouold you use that power punch and when? Every beatem-up needs chain combo, some people complain that he-man is not using sword all the time and its stupid to use punch if you have sword.Launchers are here to perform air combos and i keep this formula in all of my mods since marvel mod, i guess its a matter of taste, for example i dont like throws at all, they're useless for me unless used to attack enemies behind you.I dont like 2 attacks that do the same thing, i would like to have more attacks but they have to do something different from each other, distance wise or direction wise or whatever, but not like 3 throws and all they do is jump up while keeping one enemy and fall with him to hurt others sometimes if theyre close.Its not that easy to keep the balance in game, even alien vs predator had launchers like this, just shaefer was different and slow.
Characters arent in their final versions yet, she-ra cant have swiftwind when fighting in regular stages, only in flying stages.so she's weaker than he-man, I can change some things and add/replace stuff but that would have to be done properly without using  2 different animations to technically do the same move.Maybe i could use that he-man punch during  second grab attack but if i will give him one more special he will be overpowered and now i have to give other characters one more special too and it drags and drags.Keeping it strict to the show like that would be very poor gameplay wise, just power punch and throwing enemies around ? I can throw in she-ra roundhouse and he-man punch somewhere to replace current animations but launcher and dash gameplay style is my personal preference, unless i see more combo friendly gameplay style i will stick to it, if you guys have some suggestions from other games then i can take a look.IVe seen lots of gameplays and a lot of people cant perform specials so not all people are experts with deep gameplay knowledge about fighting games.There will always be people who say its too hard to do special moves or that gameplay is too simple because theres not parrys, no air blocks or at least 3 throws.But think about this, when i have 3 throws in he-man then i have to make other characters fair and give them something too, you might have one great throw idea for he-man but when filling that gap in other players you could just give them useless moves unless its similar to he-man but now we start again about characters being different skins of others.I dont like when character doesnt have uppercut/flash kick type of move in my game, its really as simple as that, because then i dont even want to play as this character and it is unfair that some characters have that move and some dont.What would you replace that move with ? We can talk technically about every character in game to give them proper moves but keep them fair compared to each other.
About she-ra.. you give her all her moves from show and she would be so overpowered it wouldnt be funny, she could transform sword into anything and do everything she wanted so lets say i gave her all the moves, healing and lasso and freezing others but what about orko or ram-man,man-at-arms they would really suck compared to her.
 
Damon Caskey said:
Ultimately it just plays and feels too much like a platformer with an extra plane of movement. Sorry if I sound like a wet blanket, but fantastic as this module looks, the game play it deserves just isn't there. You are one of the best authors around - you can do so much more than we've seen with this.

DC
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Yes ! DC and bWWd team up ! Just like Count and Bloodbane, one on the sprites, one on gameplay ! I have a name for you guys : the Consonant Team  :P
 
I like the gameplay and chain combo system the way it is at the moment, so I must agree with bWWd. And I don't think all the characters play the same, even though all of them have similar juggling moves. As I recall, bWWd said in some of his precious posts that they're not final versions, so I suppose there will be some tweaks... :)
 
I think I was misunderstood on when/how to place suggestions. I'll try to answer piecemeal...

bWWd said:
Well you have to be realistic, where wouold you use that power punch and when? Every beatem-up needs chain combo, some people complain that he-man is not using sword all the time and its stupid to use punch if you have sword.
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It's silly to use hands when you have a sword, and silly to use a sword when you have magic - but these characters all do. The Power Punch? Easy - Map it as his Charge Attack. Obviously it can't have the real cartoon power, but blasting the victim across a room with the classic sound effect he had and perhaps knocking others over would give tons of style points. It would be balanced by default because there isn't enough time when you are surrounded to use it, but players would love throwing it once in a while just for fun.

Launchers are here to perform air combos and i keep this formula in all of my mods since marvel mod, i guess its a matter of taste, for example i dont like throws at all, they're useless for me unless used to attack enemies behind you.
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True, it is a matter of taste. To me no fighting game is a fighting game without some nasty and well animated grappling. In any case, you don't need to add a bunch of throws if that isn't your thing - but the throws you do have look ridiculous. Just replace his current back throw with one more matching the cartoon version and it would help the feel/look a ton. A forward throw would be nice too, but I get it isn't your thing.

I dont like 2 attacks that do the same thing, i would like to have more attacks but they have to do something different from each other, distance wise or direction wise or whatever, but not like 3 throws and all they do is jump up while keeping one enemy and fall with him to hurt others sometimes if theyre close.Its not that easy to keep the balance in game, even alien vs predator had launchers like this, just shaefer was different and slow.
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I agree, but right now that's exactly what you have. Nearly everyone has the same melee combo (functionally speaking), a launcher, a dive attack, a dash, some half-backed grab attacks and a projectile that all work exactly the same way. It's not so much adding things, but switching it up a little. Example: Orko never was much of a fighter, but he could use the environment. A few moves where he makes silly things like flowers or plants that entangle, and perhaps other touches like a teleport would set him apart.

Back to He-Man. He has a special where he flashes and people just get knocked down. He could never do that. What he did like to do was spin and make whirlwinds. Why not take inspiration and animate that as his breakout special? Blows enemies back but otherwise mechanically do what you already have - just with style more befitting the character.

Characters arent in their final versions yet, she-ra cant have swiftwind when fighting in regular stages, only in flying stages.so she's weaker than he-man, I can change some things and add/replace stuff but that would have to be done properly without using  2 different animations to technically do the same move.Maybe i could use that he-man punch during  second grab attack but if i will give him one more special he will be overpowered and now i have to give other characters one more special too and it drags and drags.
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He-Man wouldn't be overpowered compared to say, Frosta if she could freeze people in place and drop ice on their heads, Orko teleporting around, Man-at-Arms having superior blaster attacks or the Sorceress able to fly about at will... When I spoke above I only cited He-Man and She-Ra as examples. Everyone should have stuff that sets them apart and makes it feel like you are playing another character and not He-Man with sparkles in place of a sword.

Keeping it strict to the show like that would be very poor gameplay wise... ...We can talk technically about every character in game to give them proper moves but keep them fair compared to each other.
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I think (hope) I covered this above.

About she-ra.. you give her all her moves from show and she would be so overpowered it wouldnt be funny, she could transform sword into anything and do everything she wanted so lets say i gave her all the moves, healing and lasso and freezing others but what about orko or ram-man,man-at-arms they would really suck compared to her.
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Sure, you can't give them everything, and if you want to make that point well then... if everyone fought exactly like the show She-Ra and He-Man would just smash every single mook enemy (and most bosses) with one hit while the other characters' moves would consist of automatically falling down and getting captured every time you pushed a button.

There's a give and take. Everything? No, that's stupid and you'd never get it done. But they should at least have some of their tricks, and if everyone gets that treatment, then they would all be fun in their own way. Lassoing people in, summoning paltry NPCs and adding a block to the game is hardly overpowered - especially with how frenetic you made the combat.

DC
 
I will think about lasso, I know orko is missing at least one special move so i might add him something to spawn with his magic.Manatarms is weakest character now i think.Sorceress is almost unbeatable in zoar form.
What sets characters apart is first of all their acutal size and their reach, that alone is a huge difference between them.Im more worried about keeping all characters on the same level than using everything from the show and having overpowered she-ra with totally unbalanced attacks because like i wrote earlier, you add her some attack then you have to do the same for other characters and try to figure out something equally powerful, that is not easy.
I think what youre trying to say is to use moves straight from the show cause characters feel incomplete without them and youre right , they are incomplete.
I would like to have he-man punch or she-ra roundhouse and play that animation from the show but it takes time to draw huge fullscreen frames to cover 960x480 area but then... what about other characters and creating similar attacks for them, i add one move and spend half week on it , it comes out nice and surprise now i have to create the same stuff for other 5 characters, great thinking ? NOT.
I hope you understand why i have to pass on some stuff, when i add new special move to one of the  characters then i have to think about other 5 characters too.Im not against using moves from the show, im planning to change he-man's throw to lift opponents with 2 hands so you could throw them behind you or in front of you.
Currently there arent moves that duplicate the same enemy reaction, velocities are different, you can end chaing combo by launching enemy up or send him forward, with jumping kick i had to give enemies enough velocity to be able to juggle them around, everythin needs to be matched so all attacks can be connected into nice combo.I never aimed to give all characters totally different moves, that would make some characters very weak without projectile or without uppercuts, they have to stay.
My personal taste against throw attacks is also dictated by not properly working bindentity feature in scripts, binding and unbinding doesnt always work, doesnt work on frame 0, there always have to be some workaround, i  remember in marvel mod i wanted to have some different types of throws and used bindentity heavily but that created some problems and it was in 2008, problem still exists so now i just prefere to have simple throws, coding something and waiting for fix discouraged me many times to work on mods, i just dont want to be in that spot again, i barely was able to create riding on battlecat and it still looks bad when you get killed when youre on him cause you have to kill both entities at the same time instantly otherwise he-man dies first leaving cat in loop or cat dies first leaving he-man in midair.Things like this prevent me from even thinking about some types of attacks.
 
I think some people are expecting too much.
this game is fine the way it is and many have enjoyed it from all the feed back I have seen on different websites so bWWd must be doing something right.
 
Its normal for coders to expect a lot, theyre working close with sourcecode and know what can be done using latest features so seeing some regular stuff just doesnt cut it anymore, DC had some complicated features in his own mod so i understand why he feels like that, i have a bit different stance , there is also that case when you keep adding and adding features and moves for one character , then you think how about second character and suddenly you get overwhelmed by creating the same stuff you did entire month AGAIN, thats not fun. For me its not like big championships to prove myself and use the most , i have no $ for this so its not like i will be judged  for not doing he-man justice for all the $$$ i took, its all created in free time, i had he-man mod in plans long time ago and even created some poor demo right after battletoads mod, i released some mods in the past so i kinda know how i should treat whole making process so i wont be discouraged  in the middle.Anyway mod can be updated at any time in any point of my life so, there is no deadline for this.
 
I think i'll take some time to create more enemies, with 2 legged ones game might be more boring but in fantasy world like this i can add some more interesting stuff than 2 legged attacking soldiers.
I changed his attack to headbutt and i think he's finished for now, i can upload new version but besides ram-man and one new enemy there's nothing new.I will also look up that lasso in she-ra show to figure out how it should work so it wouldnt be cheap.
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Excellent, can't wait for Rammy-- is Teela close behind?

Question, has anyone been able to get a Mac version running?  I see the option to download the He-man OpenBor version on BwwD's he-man page, and I've tried several times, but haven't had any luck-- is there a step by step on doing it?  Can anyone confirm it actually works?  I'm dying to play this.
 
Nice update. Ram-Man's pretty cool and I like new enemies. :)

I've got a question: Is She-ra's "forward, down + attack" move supposed to generate a fireball, right before she rises into the air, or is that some kind of glitch?
 
Started some new characters
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That music is from brazilian version of the cartoon.
Answer to that She-Ra question is yes, he-man have the same fireball.
Anyone knows name of the episode where she-ra is using her lasso?
I think i will include some animations from show as cutscenes or intros, but im not sure if its better to crop them to fill entire 960x480 area or leave them in original 4:3 ratio so theres gonna be black area on sides
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New animations look great!  I'd say use the full screen-- it looks more intense like that.
 
Yay, Teela!!! :D
The new enemy looks interesting as well. :)
As for the animations, I agree with WSkullhead - fullscreen leaves more impact.
 
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