Console Debate #3: Sony Playstation

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

No, James' picture has it right; there's a reason SMW controls the way it does, which feels perfectly natural.  But since Nintendo screwed around with the button layout, suddenly Y is run and B is jump on a real SNES controller, when it was established with like 5 billion NES games that B is run/action and A is jump.  If Nintendo had designed the controller the way James has it pictured, SMW would have had Mario run/action with B and jump with A, just like on the NES...

Edited November 26, 2020 by Dr. Morbis

[JamesRobot | 5,786]

7 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

This layout would perhaps be the only layout that could add more confusion into the button layout marketplace of ideas.

 

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Uhh James, that right there is blasphemy.  Fix that controller right now, that's an image of nightmares.  B A are in the right place, your hand grips from the four o'clock position so B and A naturally would lay equally spaced apart for your thumb.  As is you can rock the thumb between the two for the primary buttons, otherwise it's a slower(slightly) up down reach for them on your spread.

 

Hear me out.  It wouldn't be confusing if it had been that way from the beginning.  Modern control schemes were established on the NES with with Super Mario Bros. and subsequent platformers as: A jumps, B shoots, and hold B to run, charge weapon or otherwise augment play.  (A is also the decision button in many games in addition to START.)  In order to play properly, one must hold B to run while being able to hit A to make the long jump. 

The natural position of the thumb in a standard grip is a 45 degree downward angle.  Nintendo fucked up the orientation by rotating the face buttons counterclockwise resulting in an unnatural upward 45 degree slant.  Nintendo even tried to correct the layout in Super Mario World by making Y the run button and B the jump button.  Completely arbitrary.

I largely blame the Game Boy for the incorrect slant but it really started with the NES MAX and Advantage controllers and was later applied to the NES dog bone and SNES controllers.  Here is what a Game Boy should really look like.

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by JamesRobot

[JamesRobot | 5,786]

23 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

If Nintendo had designed the controller the way James had it pictured, SMW would have had Mario run/action with B and jump with A, just like on the NES...

Exactly my point.  I was working that out as you posted. 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

I think the problem is that less-advanced gamers see the two buttons as mutually exclusive: either your thumb is pressing A or it is pressing B.  If that were always the case, having them equi-distant from the tip of your thumb would be ideal, and the dogbone, Game Boy etc would be spot on.  The issue that non-gamers and less-advanced gamers don't realize is that really good platform gamers press both buttons at the same time with different parts of their thumb.  If I'm playing SMB or pretty much any other B-run A-jump game, the tip of my thumb rests on B and the inside of the thumb joint hovers over A to be flexed onto it whenever I need to jump.  This is easy to do on a standard NES or SNES controller (using Y & B instead of B & A), but extremely difficult on a dogbone, Game Boy, etc due to the fact that you suddenly have to put your right thumb at a weird unnatural angle.  Fortunately, Nintendo realized their mistake and fixed it for the layout of B & A on the N64 controller, but by that point it was too late for me, as there are very few platform games I enjoy on that system...

Edited November 27, 2020 by Dr. Morbis

[fox | 1,665]

Amazing.  It did in a way feel like the next step after snes/genesis and was the place to play all the games.  So many different genres represented, advanced 2D games, cutting edge 3D games, stone cold classics, hidden gems for days. 

Playstation had it all.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

8/10, one of the greatest game platforms of all time.

I knocked off one point because the PS2 is far superior all around in terms of amount of quality titles, power, nostalgia, and sales. Though there is literally no other platform that can compete with PS2, its the clear GOAT.

I also knocked one additional point because the overall quality of the titles on the console have not aged well, similar to the Nintendo 64.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

On 11/21/2020 at 8:36 PM, OptOut said:

True, because every game on the system is 10/10. I don't even have to look at the carts, just pick up one at random and it's a BANGER! 

God I love Elmo’s Letter Adventure, and Power Rangers Light Speed Rescue!

... I actually unironically love Sculptors Cut and War Gods though. Too much rental nostalgia on those titles.

[OptOut | 8,881]

22 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

God I love Elmo’s Letter Adventure, and Power Rangers Light Speed Rescue!

... I actually unironically love Sculptors Cut and War Gods though. Too much rental nostalgia on those titles.

Actually, Power Rangers Light Speed Rescue is genuinely fun, although it's bad... One of those so bad it's good games! Plus it does have legitimately good comic panel style artwork for the cutscenes, so it's not ALL bad!

Elmo's games DO in fact suck tho, at least by the standards of N64 games... 8 out of tens, the pair of them!

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

2 hours ago, OptOut said:

Actually, Power Rangers Light Speed Rescue is genuinely fun, although it's bad... One of those so bad it's good games! Plus it does have legitimately good comic panel style artwork for the cutscenes, so it's not ALL bad!

Elmo's games DO in fact suck tho, at least by the standards of N64 games... 8 out of tens, the pair of them!

I would describe Beast Wars in a very similar manner. Fun but kind of terrible.

[rdrunner | 422]

7/10 - Missed the system when it came out, so no nostalgia hurts the vote.  I still own a lot of great games, though I won't play any of the blocky 3D stuff.  Had enough of that with the N64.

[Estil | 1,264]

On 11/25/2020 at 11:56 PM, JamesRobot said:

 

 

Hear me out.  It wouldn't be confusing if it had been that way from the beginning.  Modern control schemes were established on the NES with with Super Mario Bros. and subsequent platformers as: A jumps, B shoots, and hold B to run, charge weapon or otherwise augment play.  (A is also the decision button in many games in addition to START.)  In order to play properly, one must hold B to run while being able to hit A to make the long jump. 

The natural position of the thumb in a standard grip is a 45 degree downward angle.  Nintendo fucked up the orientation by rotating the face buttons counterclockwise resulting in an unnatural upward 45 degree slant.  Nintendo even tried to correct the layout in Super Mario World by making Y the run button and B the jump button.  Completely arbitrary.

I largely blame the Game Boy for the incorrect slant but it really started with the NES MAX and Advantage controllers and was later applied to the NES dog bone and SNES controllers.  Here is what a Game Boy should really look like.

 

It is for that very reason I use a PS1 controller (with a controller converter) to do my Game Boy Player...as it allows me just that very button layout...SQUARE for B and X for A...exactly like the standard Y & B (respectively) on most SNES platformers.  I haven't had one of those doggie controllers in awhile but when I did they were okay for the B for thumb tip/A for thumb knuckle layout.   Boy try doing that on say, the Game Gear!!

[MegaMan52 | 2,441]

46 minutes ago, Estil said:

It is for that very reason I use a PS1 controller (with a controller converter) to do my Game Boy Player...as it allows me just that very button layout...SQUARE for B and X for A...exactly like the standard Y & B (respectively) on most SNES platformers.  I haven't had one of those doggie controllers in awhile but when I did they were okay for the B for thumb tip/A for thumb knuckle layout.   Boy try doing that on say, the Game Gear!!

For me, the best controller to use with the Game Boy Player is one of the following:

-Wavebird (Wireless controls)

-Game Boy Advance SP (original Game Boy/Game Boy Pocket layout)

-Hori Digital Controller (SNES-style controls)

Edited November 28, 2020 by MegaMan52

[Estil | 1,264]

1 minute ago, MegaMan52 said:

For me, the best controller to use with the Game Boy Player is one of the following:

-Wavebird

-Game Boy Advance SP

-Hori Digital Controller

You can't do proper NW thumb placement on any of those.

[MegaMan52 | 2,441]

7 minutes ago, Estil said:

You can't do proper NW thumb placement on any of those.

Never bothered me.

[Estil | 1,264]

1 minute ago, MegaMan52 said:

Never bothered me.

So when playing say, Mario games, you don't use the tip of your thumb to hold down B and use the knuckle to jump with the A button?

[MegaMan52 | 2,441]

39 minutes ago, Estil said:

So when playing say, Mario games, you don't use the tip of your thumb to hold down B and use the knuckle to jump with the A button?

I do. The layout never bothered me. Heck, as an example, I use one of those GameCube-style Switch controllers when playing Super Mario Bros. 35. I've gotten first place over 150 times largely due the fact that I've played Super Mario Bros. for about 30 years, but also partly because I've been using that controller:

Edited November 28, 2020 by MegaMan52

[croagunk | 798]

The PS1 is one of the best consoles in my opinion. So many great games, many exclusive. There were stinkers too, but every console has them. The controller is really nice as well. My old PS1 has trouble reading discs sometimes nowadays, but I still love when I get it to work.

[Sumez | 2,933]

On 11/26/2020 at 6:56 AM, JamesRobot said:

The natural position of the thumb in a standard grip is a 45 degree downward angle.

I agree with everything in your post, but I think you must has mixed up "downward" and "upward", because this part makes no sense to me.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Sumez

[JamesRobot | 5,786]

4 hours ago, Sumez said:

I agree with everything in your post, but I think you must has mixed up "downward" and "upward", because this part makes no sense to me.

Indeed.  I suppose I was thinking more of the button layout as a downward angle from the perspective of reading left to right.  I like @Estil's description of a NW thumb placement better. 

[Sumez | 2,933]

Oooooh. I was so damn confused, I'm not sure why I didn't think of reading the direction from any way other than the root of the thumb outwards. 

For a moment I was really questioning what your mutant hands might look like  

[Estil | 1,264]

So I finally get back into my PSIO equipped PS1...more specifically Tales of Eternia (Destiny 2).  I'm on the Abandoned Mine section of Disc 2...I hope level 29 is about right for that point in the game.  I'm a bit surprised though I'm only about 13 hours into the game and I'm on the second disc.  And that's on my first playthrough and taking my time (no offense to you speedrunners but RPG/quest kind of games just don't belong in speedrunning)

Another game I need to get back into is Dragon Quest 9...the only DQ game I've yet to beat or at least come close.  DQ 10 doesn't count as that's online only and I only do the old fashioned single player offline games because well...the only other soul left in my immediate family (I'm sorry to say  ) I don't think his tiny little paws could hold a controller properly!  

And what a God send that PSIO equipped PS1 is!  I think just the two Tales of Destiny games released on it by themselves as CIB is about what I paid for both the PSIO system and the 512 GB SD card for it!!

Edited July 3, 2021 by Estil

[Estil | 1,264]

On 11/21/2020 at 8:02 AM, themisfit138 said:

8. The PSX has a good number of awesome exclusives, and the best version of multi-platform games. Even a good number of the lesser games like Dukes of Hazard and Loaded were enjoyable. 

 After getting use to modern gaming. The load times and music stopping while going into menus can be a little annoying.  

I appreciate so much at the effort they put into making Dukes of Hazzard Racing for Home as realistic as possible (though for whatever reason they couldn't John Schinder to do Bo's voice) and indeed the intro for the game is pretty much exactly like the TV show intro...though the characters look like creepy department store mannequins!

 

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

On 11/25/2020 at 10:44 AM, RH said:

It's funny that FF VII wasn't even Square's first PS1 game.  It's Tobal No. 1, and though I own it, I've never played it. 

Very solid fighter. Completely underrated.

Einhander was also released before FFVII, so it's noteworthy that Square's first PSX games were not RPGs.

On 11/26/2020 at 12:44 AM, Dr. Morbis said:

No, James' picture has it right; there's a reason SMW controls the way it does, which feels perfectly natural.  But since Nintendo screwed around with the button layout, suddenly Y is run and B is jump on a real SNES controller, when it was established with like 5 billion NES games that B is run/action and A is jump.  If Nintendo had designed the controller the way James has it pictured, SMW would have had Mario run/action with B and jump with A, just like on the NES...

This is funny because my initial playthrough of SMW had me wondering where the run button was and instinctively pressing A to jump all the time and I'm not ashamed to admit it took me about a hour to figure out that Y+B were the buttons I sould have been using. I remember thinking to myself "This is how Mario jumps now" lol.

Also, the PlayStation friggin' ruled. It was the true successor to the SNES.