I hate: Platforming Puzzles where it doesn't belong

A said a Hip, Hop-

We all have our places in life, I am told. Our inexorable, inexplicable mortal duties to which we are chained and drawn like moths to a roaring open flame. To lash out against that fate, or to rove off in search of it, is the topic of many a philosophical piece; but the way I see it, the proposition alone contains the most salient tincture of truth. For if we are to accept the premise that somewhere out there, tucked behind the golden clouds, lays our marble-paved destiny draped and ready in anticipation, then wouldn't it track to say that there are plenty of paths in life simply not for us? Pitfalls to ruin? Dreams within which we simply do not belong? If there is one then there must be the other, and that's why I never shy to point out when I see an errant pilgrim, driven far from their field and languishing in a life not theirs. And today my finger points towards platforming puzzles.

For some reason or other, games absolutely love throwing sections of precision platforming into games that, rather pointedly, are not always platforming games. It galls because platforming is not some throwaway minigame you can just shove into your game when your think the loop lacks variety, like a match 3 tile game. Platformers are delicate and intricate machines, a masterwork of delicate control tweaking, mindful level design and balanced vectors for challenge. Platforming has been around for as long as home gaming as been (longer even) and still it's an artform being worked upon and reiterated towards; people have dedicated their professional lives to making sure their platformers play the best they possibly can. And then Valve comes along and just shoves a platforming section into their first person shooter.

Yes, Half Life, a game renowned for it's groundbreaking variety in mission structure, apparently abandons all vestiges of sanity near it's end act and sends the player into a notoriously fiddly platforming section. I haven't played the game myself so I can't attest to it from experience, but I have seen the section in question and heard tell of controls implicitly not designed for precision platforming. Because of course not, why would they be? The sorts of movement you need for a good first person shooter, smooth fluid movements, decent travel, subtle immersion touches; don't cross the Venn diagram for Platforming in the slightest. (intuitive movement weight, responsive and disciplined controls that start when you prompt and end when you stop.) And perhaps I can't add my own voice to the mix for this game; but I did play DOOM.

In DOOM (2016) there is one level in particular that tasks you with making large jumps over deadly pits of death whilst trading projectiles with a smattering of imps all scattered across a service pipe leading into your destination. This isn't the only platforming puzzle section, but it's the most frustrating to my mind. The large leaps to safety you are required to make, whilst the split second reactions you need for avoiding demonic balls of flame, often clash together to spectacularly frustrating effect. In the heat of it's action, DOOM is dance of call and response between waves of enemies and the suite of movement/violent tools at the player's disposal. All of which comes to a grinding standstill when you need to line up the perfect jump for fear of tumbling to your demise. For this one small section of an otherwise adrenaline fuelled game, it suddenly becomes most heavily advised to find a vantage point and pick off the imps from afar before getting all embroiled in the steelworks of the service bridge. It changes up the pace, I guess; but since when is DOOM not about getting up in the face of demons and blowing their jaw through their skull with a super shotgun? Consider me wholly unconvinced as to the necessity of that platforming section.

And speaking of platforming sections that wrestle with the genre of the game they're thrust into; who's played Dark Souls? Yes, the king of difficulty itself tripped into a vat of ill-advised platforming section for a few memorable awful scenes. Everytime it's been a case of 'you need to drop on these tiny ledges in order to reach the bottom of this pit', and everytime the result is you being reminded once again how pathetic Dark Souls' jump mechanics are. The way you hardly leave the ground more than a couple centre meters, heavy amounts of fall damage, the fact that the button to jump is the same as the one to sprint; everything about these sections are awful. Although little tops the platforming puzzle in the worst boss of the franchise. Which, incidentally, is the reason why this is the worst boss in the franchise. The Bed of Chaos requires a precision jump in order to finish it off, and that single leap alone is the hardest challenge Dark Souls has to offer. It's so unreasonably difficult, that this is the only boss in any Souls game where the progress you make on the boss (cutting his roots) actually stays completed if you die and respawn. Platforming so bad it challenges the traditions of an entire subgenre; that's impressively terrible.

Hollow Knight is a platformer. It's a lot of other genres besides just sharp and precise jumping from stage to stage, but the platforming element to the gameplay cannot possibly be overlooked or undersold. But does Hollow Knight dedicate itself to it's platforming? Well... yes actually. There's a plethora of abilities, some discrete others locked until found, that modify the way you explore the world in a way that meaningfully unwraps the corners of the Hallownest like any good Metroidvania demands. However, is that any excuse to give me something like the Path of Pain? For the entirety of Hollow Knight it's challenge proposition has been on the dance of boss fights, weaving between deranged swipes, crazy slashes and a prolonged assault of energy wave beams shot periodically at you from the boss who is currently rolled up in an invincible ball in the centre of the room. But the optional 'Path of Pain' forgets all that, and shoves frankly inane platforming challenges, squeezed one after the other with but a rare smattering of platforms inbetween hell to rest and checkpoint. They pull platforming tricks on you that the rest of the game never even hinted at. Suddenly you have to pogo bounce on thorn walls, jump-dash-jump through tiny slivers of free space between deadly spike walls and even master a bit of wall-dash cancellation. And what is the reward? For what do we endure these ceaseless attacks on our sanity and goodwill? An insultingly uncomplicated 3 second cutscene. Thanks for the rondo of pain followed by salt to fester the cuts.

And finally, the very reason which I bring this topic up: Blasphemous. Crossing over with another big Metroidvania should have been a cause for celebration, specifically when that game is 'Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night', the much-beloved spiritual successor to Castlevania! But then the team at The Game Kitchen conspired to have us associate Miriam forever with hatred after they unveiled the five Miriam platforming challenges that made up this collaboration. Movement in Blasphemous is decent, it's not the draw and it's platforming challenge typically comes from frustrating movement elements, such as the way this game breaks the rule of 'whatever your sprite can touch, it can climb on', due to the Penitent One's lengthy conehead that doesn't count to his climbing hitbox. Or the unexpected heft which makes you sink like a rock the second after your manual jump is done, so don't expect to angle-glide to your destination. Which makes the concept of challenges that are only platforming related just a nightmare. And indeed, the Miriam Challenges are that nightmare. Precision jumps when the Penitent One is liable to combust the second his pinkie toe scratches a spike's hitbox. Prolonged and timed stringed-together challenge hallways wherein a single death restarts the entire three minute sprint. Oh, and lamp jumping. A mechanic absolutely never explained in the game wherein you attack a lamp mid-air in order to stunt the momentum of your fall briefly. Sounds simple right? Wrong. Because the only time it works is if you hit down as you swing, a variance in attack with absolutely no visual indicator whatsoever, and which makes it difficult to make forward momentum for the way you have drag your analog forward-down and then forward again. Of course, a little tip on that front: you get the same Lamp-jump effect automatically if your just hold the 'dash' button whilst you hit, something else the game goes through great pains to never tell you! I completed these once and they were easily the most frustrating and unrewarding challenges this game had to offer; curse that poxxy Miracle!

And so you can see my problem; when you shove platforming challenges into games not built for them, you are no longer adding to the gameloop but you're throwing in the game's own controls as an enemy to wrestle with. Even games like Hollow Knight, with great movement, feel a little out of place sending us up against a platforming-only battle. Yet despite saying all that, I do recognise the desire to diversify content and would myself wonder about the viability of a game who's only battles are against platforming sections. I suppose at the end of the day this comes down to a question of how you handle it and if your game is built to sustain it; which in that case leaves no room for justification for games like Dark Souls and bloody DOOM; Learn to stick to you lane a little more, devs!