Welcome to the second in a series of blogs wherein I discuss ideas for A Koopa’s Revenge 3. Last time we discussed a system of combining powerups. Today I’m presenting an alternate idea for powerups.
Unlike AKR2 which used player-character skins, in AKR3 each playable character will have slightly different physics and abilities, making them distinct from one another. For instance, Shy Guy will have low traction and higher jumps, like Luigi. I’m going to extend these differences to how each powerup affects each character.
For the first example let’s use the fire flower. In AKR2 every character threw fireballs like Mario. But in AKR3 Koopa will use the fire flower to breathe out flames like in the original A Koopa’s Revenge. Piranha Plant’s fireballs ignore gravity and diagonally bounce off surfaces like in Super Mario Land. And so on.
Though each character utilises the powerup in different ways, the attacks will have the same effect on enemies. Fire will burn some enemies and glance of others no matter which character wields it. This is to keep some consistency between characters. I also hope to balance these different attack methods to be sure every character is useful with every powerup.
This applies to movement powerups in addition to offensive ones. The flight-based powerup will give Koopa wings, but Shy Guy gets a propeller on his head, making him a Fly Guy. This affects their jumping ability. Koopa can jump higher and float gently when he falls. Again, like in the original AKR. Fly Guy will behave like the propeller suit from New Super Mario Bros. with a double jump of sorts.
Another reason I’m making this change (other than it just being cool) is to make the attacks match the appearance of the character. Shy Guy’s hammer bro equivalent has the appearance of a Snifit, but in AKR2 he just throws hammers. In AKR3 Snifit Shy Guy will spit iron balls out of his nose-cannon.
After a lot of consideration I decided to use this idea instead of the one presented in the last AKR3 Idea Blog. This blog’s idea opens up a lot of gameplay possibilities and should add replayability to the game. While last week’s idea has some serious cool factor, it exhausts itself pretty quickly, requires a ton of unique assets (particularly if combined with this blog’s idea), and it actually limits how many powerups there can be by requiring them to be combinable. Sorry to all the fans of Kirby 64.