Friday, September 18, 2015

How to describe the gameplay of Aozora's Adventure 64

So after a few ideas flew through my head recently I decided to give everyone a brief description of the general gameplay of Aozora's Adventure 64, it's sequel, 64 2, and spinoffs 64 Darkness and 64 Darkness 2.

The games play as a mish-mash of platformers, beat 'em ups, hack and slashers, RPG's, and FPSes. Player characters have 3D Mario-styled movements, a hack-and-slash combat system ala games like Devil May Cry, weapon swapping systems ala Donkey Kong 64 (but much faster/instant, with two slots for weapons ala the Halo series), and a GUI styled after the one found in the Kingdom Hearts games. It's RPG mechanics come from getting points, ala Super Paper Mario, to level up player's Health, Attack, Defense, Weapon Attack, and Weapon Defense.

You have a movement joystick, a joystick for changing camera angles, a D-Pad used for activating either the Quick Menu in singlepalyer or taunts/ping in multiplayer, a jump button, two attack buttons (one for light/main and another for heavy/alt) a crouch button, a dodge button, and a lock-on button.

During the game's single player story modes, Aozora/Dedrick can find a large variety of what's known as "Gear", which include swords, guns, hammers, gloves, boomerangs, and starting in 64 2, miscellaneous tools that can be equipped to give extra abilities. On consoles, pressing "Weapon Switch L" and "Weapon Switch R" will cycle between melee attacks, the first weapon and the second weapon.

*Swords: Any bladed weapon falls under this category. These are secondary Melee options that allow players to attack differently than with basic melee, such as with greater range, higher agility/speed, or attack power, along with additional perks and effects.
*Guns: Used to weaken foes from a distance by firing bullets and other projectiles. Includes automatic firing weapons, shotguns, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers. Guns that are more effective at close range tend to deal greater damage.
*Hammers: Large objects on a stick used to pound opponents with. They tend to have the strongest attack power of any of the weapons, but can be somewhat slow, including weighing down a user and their maneuverability should they have it currently equipped.
*Gloves/Boots: Unlike other weapons, these are always shown on the wearer's hands at all times and are active when standard melee is selected. These enhance the user's melee attacks in some way, such as adding effects or providing them with elemental damage, among other boosts.
*Miscellaneous Tools: Anything that isn't used for directly attacking, either to boost something on the user, assist allies, or disrupt opponents. Sometimes, these tools will be in effect when the weapon in the other slot or standard melee is being used.

Gear can provide attack, defense, or speed boosts when equipped (even if not currently in the user's hands), alongside various types of elemental damage. In Multiplayer, the players instead use "mass-produced" versions that are player-balanced and sometimes give out nerfs/stat reductions when used if wielding the weapon has some kind of positive stat enhancement.

In Multiplayer, players create a custom avatar from scratch, which can use one of the following body styles, available in both genders.

*Child
*Teenager
*Young Adult
*Slim Adult
*Muscular Adult
*XL (Heavy) Adult

Avatars can be customized in many, many ways, with simple and advanced customization. In Advanced, players pick front hair style, top hair style, back hair style, eyes (including eye shape, color (of both the iris and the sclera, as well as adding eye shadow), nose, mouth, ears, headwear, head accessory, neck, shirt (with three layers to allow for open coats and the like), wrist-wear, hands, belts, pants-top, pants-bottom (also with multiple players), socks (if wanted), and footwear. All of these parts can be individually colored, some even with multiple colors/patterns. Tattoos on the skin and decals/patches on clothes are also possible.

Each type of avatar has different base stats, with varying power, defense, and agility. Switching genders does not change the base stats, so therefore a female Young Adult will have the same base stats as a male Young Adult. Stats can be customized by adjusting each one individually- when rising one stat, the others will drop steadily. Depending on how you change your stats and what weapons/equipments you pick, your character is given one of seven different labels.

*Balanced - A style that can play well on any role.
*Offensive - A style geared for directly attacking forces.
*Defensive - A style that is geared for guarding defending key locations on a map, but can also deal damage if necessary
*Speedy - A style based on high speed, usually enforcing hit-and-run strategy, but is quite frail.
*Tank - The opposite of Speedy. They're big, can take and deal hits, but move slow.
*Support - A style that provides direct aid to allies and/or disrupt enemy forces, while having small offensive presence.
*Tricky - A variation of Balanced, a character that battles through unorthodox strategies or a perfect blend of two different playstyles without going into Balanced.

You can save up to 30 different character designs and bring 1 into each battle, with 5 weapon loadouts for each character with the ability to swipe weapons from downed enemies and the map itself and use them until death, though some gametypes/maps will start you off with no weapons or a basic weapon set, requiring you to seek out equipment on the map.

The following game modes are what I'm considering for the 64 series, with game modes colored blue being free-for-all with no set teams.

==Deathmatch Arenas==

Deathmatch
>Team Deathmatch
Last Man Standing
>Team LMS
Zombies
Juggernaut
>Team Juggernaut
Possession
>Team Possession
King of the Hill
>Team KotH
Territories
Tag
>Sticky Bombers
Boss Battles
>Light vs. Dark

(if arenas are symmetrical, CTF game modes can be played as well)

==CtF Arenas==
Capture the Flag
>One Flag CTF
>Stockpile Flags
Attack the Base
Team KotH
Territories
Assault
>One Bomb Assault
Double Payload
Two-Team Payload

==Defender Arenas==
Payload
Battery Attack
Flag Defender
Team Sneaking

==Circuit Arenas==
Race
Demolition Derby

==Other Arenas==
Balloon Race
Water Balancers

==Sports Centers==
Bowling
Billiards
Hockey
Golf
Shuffleboard


(Currently in progress)

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