What's with Capcom and logs rolling down waterfalls?

austin532austin532
in Gamer's Gauntlet
Seriously, was this some kind of inside joke? Several of their games have a level where there are wooden logs rolling down waterfalls. I've always wondered if it meant anything.

Comments

  • ne$_pimpne$_pimp
    They remind me of SMB2 and theyre fun to jump across.
  • CZroeCZroe
    It's a general videogame platformers trope. The Lion King, King Kings, Super Mario Bros. 2, and so many other non-Capcom games did the same thing. Think about it: you're making a 2D platformers on a system barely capable of even representing a waterfall, but you did it! The waterfall looks great, and you aren't letting all that hard work go to waste. So how will your running and jumping platformer character traverse it? Logs! *shrug* it worked for Frogger...



    ...and frogs can swim.
  • acromite53acromite53
    What capcom games have rolling logs in them?
  • CZroeCZroe
    Originally posted by: acromite53



    What capcom games have rolling logs in them?

    Mega Man 7 and one of the Mega Man X games come to mind.
  • austin532austin532
    Originally posted by: acromite53



    What capcom games have rolling logs in them?





    Several of them. It's not just the retro stuff either. Some of their newer games had them as well.
  • ifightdragonsifightdragons
    like CZroe already said, it's a general videogame trope found in countless platformers.
  • rlhrlh
    To put it differently, someone did it once and, then, a bunch of other developers/studios went "Oh, that's neat! We can use that..." and the rest was, as they say, history.
  • theinhumanwretchtheinhumanwretch
    funny - I recently got my copy of Duck Tales 2 and played it for the first time last night. The rolling logs in the Niagara falls level got me killed several times.
  • serene.velocityserene.velocity
    I think the real question is: What is with Konami and Moai?
  • TDIRunnerTDIRunner
    Logs in waterfalls shouldn't bother you. How about all of those floating platforms in platform games? What the hell is holding them up?
  • Uncle MeatUncle Meat
    Originally posted by: TDIRunner



    Logs in waterfalls shouldn't bother you. How about all of those floating platforms in platform games? What the hell is holding them up?



    80s rocket scientists.

     
  • CZroeCZroe
    Originally posted by: TDIRunner



    Logs in waterfalls shouldn't bother you. How about all of those floating platforms in platform games? What the hell is holding them up?

    Yeah. This kind of annoyed me. In simpler NES games it was often easy to imagine that the supports were in the background and just not detailed for us to see, but then we got parallax scrolling and there went that idea.



    It annoys me even more with fixed, non-secret doors. For example, the doors in Super Mario Bros 3 were often just sitting there with a black background, but they gave it a separately scrolling background later in Super Mario All*Stars that ruined the illusion. It would have been easy to draw a little fixed background around each door like Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, but I guess that was asking too much. Super Mario World was rushed and didn't even get the level of polish that SMB3 had, so I understood and begrudgingly accepted when it happened there (still thought it was weird).



    I love how Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission fixed it all up.
  • austin532austin532
    Originally posted by: TDIRunner



    Logs in waterfalls shouldn't bother you. How about all of those floating platforms in platform games? What the hell is holding them up?





    Clearly some black magic is at hand.
  • austin532austin532
    Originally posted by: serene.velocity



    I think the real question is: What is with Konami and Moai?





    I'm actually curious about this myself. I think they originally put them in Gradius to stand out from the crowd but then like Capcom it became a recurring joke with the company.
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