Things you'd change about games you like

[Kim]

Even our favorite games aren't perfect. What are just a few of the changes you'd make to the games you like?


Final Fantasy Tactics

Make magic less flashy, and drastically decrease the whole Gods thing in the plot. As much as I love the game, the more Final Fantasy oriented elements really clash with the Shakespearian narrative, and detract from the experience.


Final Fantasy XII

Make Penelo not exist, and make Larsa a permanent party member. Get rid of the sunstone quest in the very beginning. Make the Obligatory Tower dungeon less awful and/or non-existent.


Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories

Be nicer about the restrictions on opening doors. Give most enemies less health.

[Satan's Onion]

Okay, I likes me some Golden Sun, but there had to have been a way to make picking up the game after a hiatus a bit less confusing and/or more idiotproof (as in, proof against people like me), particularly if you're coming back to find your party on the world map.

See, I'll fire it up, and then find my party somewhere in the wilderness with no damn idea where I need to go to further the plot, and everything looks the same. I wander around for like twenty minutes getting into random encounters I'm either absurdly underleveled for or, later, absurdly overleveled for, and wondering "hey, have I seen that mountain range before? That patch of forest? There's a desert there, I think. Um." And then I see a town and run to it, overjoyed, only to discover that (a) I've been here before like five times and there's really nothing here I need or (b) this is nowhere near where my party needs to be, I recognize nothing and oh god I am so very lost. Maybe some kind of Phantasy Star option where your party talks to each other and says "oh yeah, we're gonna head to Thistown, and then we'll probably hit That Big Dungeon afterward" would be helpful, I dunno.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Disclaimer: HYPERBOLE!

I'd work out a way to make the camo system less annoying in MGS3.
So that you don't have to change it every three seconds and don't ever have to press start and endure ten hours of loading every single time I step from dirt into high grass, or press myself against a wall. Immersion my ass. Menus aren't immersive, don't tell me this shit is sooo immersive. It's not. Science fact. It almost ruined the game for me, don't get me wrong, I DID like it, just not its gameplay. Thanks to the camo shiznanigans annoying me so much I really couldn't bring myself to finish it a second time yet.

MGS and MGS2 were perfect in that regard, you don't ever have to enter a menu in the whole game, save for the HUD ones, of course. But those are also in MGS3. Incorporating the camo in that menu shouldn't be too hard. Maybe press circle and R2, I don't know. Or R2 and L2. The gamepad is overmapped anyway, so this wouldn't hurt, and maybe I'd finally get all the love for MGS3. But right now I'm actually preferring MGS2 over MGS3. There I said it.

I'd actually like to just remove the camouflage system entirely, because Its only purpose is to annoy me by forcing me to constantly change my clothes. <expletive> the camo system <expletive> <expletive> and <expletive> with <expletive> <expletive> your mother.

The stitch-yourself-up system can stay, since you don't get injured too often.

God of War II:
There's no chapter/level select. I know, this is not a major complaint, but most games really benefit from this, it adds a lot to the replay value. Maybe I was just expecting it to be too much like DMC3's special edition.

Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 2, I love you. But your gameplay wasn't even good way back when the game came out. Sure, the game is more about telling an awesome story, it's a great experience, and the scariest video game I ever played (the underground prison haunts me to this day). But the whole game, and the series as a whole, could be so much better if the controls and the combat were polished up a bit. The protagonist doesn't have to be a killing machine, I like to feel weak (in comparison to action heroes) or even helpless in a horror game, but I think there are ways other than shitty gameplay to achieve that.

Persona 3
Three words: Full party control.
I heard that's been added to the PSP port, sadly I don't have a PSP.

Painkiller
The lightning shuriken gun should have tits and be on fire.
Who thought a game that doesn't even attempt to hide it's all about killing shit could be so enjoyable? I'm really having trouble coming up with anything aside from that Zero Punctuation reference. Oh yeah, here's one. I'd remove the boss fights, save for the last one. And make that one interesting. Alastor can stay too, because he was awesome.

[Ecks]

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Disclaimer: HYPERBOLE!

Hatin' on the camo.

They fixed that in MGS4. Octocamo rules.

THAT SAID!

While I rather like the whole Drebin Points thing... y'know, being able to buy damn good equipment right in the first act (M14EBR... how I love you and your ability to put down anything I shoot at ever SILENTLY!) being able to stock extra suppressors for your weapons and rather than needing to apply them individually after each one wears out, they automatically attach until you run out, and how unlocking ID'd weapons is cheap for most stuff... and you can buy ammo instead of having to hunt for it everywhere...

I FUCKING HATE HOW EXPENSIVE SOME ITEMS ARE AND THE FACT THAT YOU CAN'T BUY REGULAR ITEMS (RATIONS, COMPRESSES, ETC.) Seriously, the mounted lasers, red dot/scope, etc. are MASSIVELY OVERPRICED.

THE BATTERY SYSTEM IS STILL ANNOYING. THE SOLITON RADAR SYSTEM WORKED INDEFINITELY ALL THE TIME FOREVER DURING MGS1/TWIN SNAKES AND MGS2. I UNDERSTAND THE SHIT IN THE SIXTIES IS ALL OLD TECH AND NEEDS BATTERIES. THAT WAS FINE, I COULD DEAL WITH IT, IT HELPED WITH THE IMMERSION THING. BUT FUCK, MGS4 IS SET IN MOTHERFUCKING 2014. WE HAVE LITHIUM IONS NOW. SHIT CAN LAST FOR HOURS, EVEN DAYS. SO WHY CAN'T I HAVE THE SOLID EYE ON WITHOUT DRAINING MY BATTERY CONSTANTLY? SURE, THE THREAT RING SORT OF MITIGATES THE PRESSURE YOU'RE UNDER WHEN YOU'RE CHARGING THE BATTERY, BUT FUCK!

THOSE FUCKING SURVEILLANCE DRONES (Are they Irvings? I forgot what they're called) TAKE TOO MUCH TO DROP, USE SWARM TACTICS, AND FUCKING EXPLODE WHEN THEY'RE DESTROYED. I FUCKING RAN OUT OF M60 AMMO DESTROYING A WHOLE FUCKLOAD OF 'EM.

(I love the Rail Gun. It is SO awesome. Oh, and so was the REX vs RAY fight. I hope there's a mode where I can go back and redo that, because I saved over it :( )

Brütal Legend needs some stuff to flesh out the RTS stuff, a minimap at the very least. But that's my only complaint. That and the lack of Metallica in the game's soundtrack.

[bluestarultor]

The Legend of Dragoon: improve the localization a bit. Most of the dialogue is incredibly stiff and just not very interesting. Most specifically, nobody talks like that. It's impossible. There is just no flow to it.

Final Fantasy IX: Fix the skill-learning balance. Some characters, like Vivi, just plain have wonky learning curves. He'll occasionally get more skills than he can learn at once with his weapons (Fire/Ice/Lightning Staff), but more often than not, he's just sitting there because short of his elemental spells, he just learns abilities too quickly, which gets annoying when he has to sit there while everyone else learns useful abilities. Also, for the love of all that is good, most abilities need to be on more than one piece of equipment, because having to grind a new party joinee with all the armor in order of weakest to strongest starts to get old by disc 2, and Eiko already is annoying with her crap level and crap damage until you kill fifty billion Gnolls for the Sapphires so Fenrir is worth a damn. At least with Garnet and Ramuh, you still have Quina around doing good damage so you can mine Peridot, but when you get Eiko, you don't have that, and Garnet doesn't have the MP to be constantly summoning. Eiko at least gets the useful MP+10% ability. To bring this around, Jelly, which prevents Petrification, is on the second-weakest armor and nothing else. If it weren't for Auto-Regen, things would have been a lot more difficult.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

FF IX:

Tweak trance so you can activate it whenever. Many times I have had trance occur during a weak enemy. On the subject of Trance; Switch up Vivi and Eiko's Dbl Blk and Dbl Wht. Make it so the spells don't deplete half your Trance bar. Amarant, make it like Zidane and he has access to a unique skill set while in Trance. Freya, Steiner and Quina can have a boosted attack power.

inFamous: Don't make it so damn difficult to grind for XP. When you get skills that cost 5000 and 12 000 XP allow it so enemies defeated give at least 50-100. Also trim down on the collectables. I mean holy hell you ahve to collect over 300 battery cores for 100% completion. That is balls.

[Bells]

For final fantasy Tactics i would change the level progression of Story battles.

I mean, it's great to grind and always fight random enemies that are as challenging or more than your... but then you go to a story battle and your whole team is twice as powerful as the enemy!

Actually, some tweaks on difficulty so that it isn't as easy to make a Invincible team would be very welcomed.

[bluestarultor]

FF IX:

Tweak trance so you can activate it whenever. Many times I have had trance occur during a weak enemy. On the subject of Trance; Switch up Vivi and Eiko's Dbl Blk and Dbl Wht. Make it so the spells don't deplete half your Trance bar. Amarant, make it like Zidane and he has access to a unique skill set while in Trance. Freya, Steiner and Quina can have a boosted attack power.

inFamous: Don't make it so damn difficult to grind for XP. When you get skills that cost 5000 and 12 000 XP allow it so enemies defeated give at least 50-100. Also trim down on the collectables. I mean holy hell you ahve to collect over 300 battery cores for 100% completion. That is balls.

I don't know what version you're playing, but my Vivi gets two full turns like anyone else.

[Magus]

Okay, I likes me some Golden Sun, but there had to have been a way to make picking up the game after a hiatus a bit less confusing and/or more idiotproof (as in, proof against people like me), particularly if you're coming back to find your party on the world map.

See, I'll fire it up, and then find my party somewhere in the wilderness with no damn idea where I need to go to further the plot, and everything looks the same. I wander around for like twenty minutes getting into random encounters I'm either absurdly underleveled for or, later, absurdly overleveled for, and wondering "hey, have I seen that mountain range before? That patch of forest? There's a desert there, I think. Um." And then I see a town and run to it, overjoyed, only to discover that (a) I've been here before like five times and there's really nothing here I need or (b) this is nowhere near where my party needs to be, I recognize nothing and oh god I am so very lost. Maybe some kind of Phantasy Star option where your party talks to each other and says "oh yeah, we're gonna head to Thistown, and then we'll probably hit That Big Dungeon afterward" would be helpful, I dunno.

Man, this is exactly why I never beat Golden Sun II. It's unfortunate 'cause it was such a great game, but combine putting it down for like four months with the fact that it was non-linear and I basically couldn't figure out what to do. I sure as hell ain't putting the long-ass password back in either (note to developers: don't pretend your customer is going to have two GBAs and a link cable to do the transfer with, come up with some other crazy method somehow!) so if I ever play it again it's going to be without the stuff from Golden Sun I I can tell you that much.

Final Fantasy Tactics

Make magic less flashy, and drastically decrease the whole Gods thing in the plot. As much as I love the game, the more Final Fantasy oriented elements really clash with the Shakespearian narrative, and detract from the experience

What is the Gods thing? Is it the Lucavi? Also, the Shakespearian thing was sort of tacked on for the PSP remake, the original wasn't like that, it was about the level of FFVII and had lots of mistakes in it.

FFXII was also kind of annoying because of the Shakespearian language and it didn't really fit if you ask me.

[bluestarultor]

What is the Gods thing? Is it the Lucavi? Also, the Shakespearian thing was sort of tacked on for the PSP remake, the original wasn't like that, it was about the level of FFVII and had lots of mistakes in it.

FFXII was also kind of annoying because of the Shakespearian language and it didn't really fit if you ask me.

I think it might just be a problem with Ivalice abusing poor Shakespeare. Give the man some rest already! It's rude to abuse a man who can't defend himself.

[Magus]

What's also weird is it definitely appeared to be set in the Middle Ages what with the inquisitions and the church ruling everything, not a Renaissance.

Game:

Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter. Keep the battle system, drop the weirdo saving/leveling system.

[Donomni]

Most console games: Start allowing people to make mods. This applies infinitely more to games with a PC version.

I mean, really, if Little Big Planet can do user-made content, why can't the rest of you?

Nippon Ichi games: this whole "elevonty billion levels to grind without any side quests or anything" is pretty bullshit and masochistic. I know it's your gimmick and all, but it's still really fucking stupid. Granted, this is mostly post-game, but still.

[Julford Hajime]

Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2: FUCK YOU AND YOUR GIANT MECHS THAT REQUIRE THE VERY SLOW CHARGED ATTACKS TO STUN THEM SO THAT YOU CAN THEN START HURTING THEM. JUST LET ME HIT THEM LIKE ANYMECH ELSE. That's it, really. I loved the game otherwise, but the giant mech units fill me with SO MUCH RAGE that I play the first one more often

Suikoden 2 (Though this applies to ALL the Suikoden games): The Champion Rune? That rune that lets you ignore random encounters (Themselves a problem, but hey jRPG I'll deal) as long as you are strong enough to get, like, NO experience from them? The rune that would be incredibly useful during all the times you make me backtrack to old locales and fight monsters I fought twenty levels ago? DON'T PUT IT IN THE POST-GAME, ASSHOLE. MAKE IT AVAILABLE MID-GAME AT THE LATEST.

Monster Rancher 2: I can ONLY learn new moves from Errantry, BUT if I fail any part of the month-long training even once I run the risk of getting seriously injured and/or dying? AND learning the new move isn't even guaranteed? fnaewkjceghhfxefgjnh YOU. ALSO, the massive difference between ranks along with the rather short life expectancies makes it hard to get most races up to even A rank because you either train until your stats can do decent damage, train your moves until you have a decent arsenal, OR you do tournaments and get some money; most breeds can't afford to try even TWO of those things, let alone all three.

Fire Emblem series: Average stat level-up option, please? Instead of randomly giving me level-up stats based on "Character X has Y percent chance to increase stat Z by 1", do "Character X gains Y points towards raising stat Z by 1". Path of Radiance, the Gamecube title, had exactly this, actually (Though only on a second playthrough). The very next game, Radiant Dawn, a SEQUEL no less, did away with the system. WHY?

There's more, but y'know what, these are my big four. THESE are the things that make otherwise amazing games difficult to recommend in every situation.

[bluestarultor]

Most console games: Start allowing people to make mods. This applies infinitely more to games with a PC version.

I mean, really, if Little Big Planet can do user-made content, why can't the rest of you?

LBP is actually the exception to this, let me tell you. Releasing your dev tools to the public, well, it's complicated and generally not the best idea, and here's why:

1. If people are going to be using them, they need to be friendly. LBP did this, while Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games quite frankly didn't. Making it easy to create content is itself a problem because...

2. Letting users create their own content means you no longer have a monopoly on your own system. Simply put, why should people buy a sequel if they can make their own? LBP had to drastically change its capabilities for LBP2. Bethesda skillfully avoided this problem because TES's modding community is limited to die-hards. You have some VERY good Oblivion mods, as well as some very good Morrowind mods, which is a testament to the power of the dev tools, but having played with them, I decided it was easier to just make my own game. You need professional software and a very good machine if you're doing serious Oblivion mods, and that's BEFORE you factor in the artistic talent and basic knowledge of the underlying systems of the game. Oblivion modders take MONTHS to crank out their work, sometimes even years. LBP owners can do a level in a matter of days or even hours, depending on the quality. Simply put, the easier it is to mod your game, the more you have to change the sequel to provide new content.

3. Finally, user-created content only goes so far. Most people who buy a game expect to be buying a professionally-done work of art, and if the game itself doesn't provide much content, some people are going to complain. Not all people, but to put it this way, user-created content is the realm of online games, be they LBP or a shooter that lets you make custom maps. Not everyone wants an online game. In fact, not everyone has the time to even play with the dev tools, so you have many people either just playing the story mode or trying to slog through all the crap for decent levels. And there will be lots and LOTS of crap out there, because it's hard to make something good.



Trust me in that I speak from experience. I, myself, have tried game modding, RPG Maker, LBP, and other things, and making something good is often hard enough that it just doesn't feel like it's worth it. This is coming from a guy who's MAKING games, from the ground up no less, and therefore building his own dev tools. I am, in essence, building my own game modding tools, and the irony is that they're basically no different from anything else out there, which I've systematically given up on because they were too putzy and just not fun to work with. If it weren't for the fact that I'm making my own system and setting my own restrictions, there would be ZERO difference between my tools and anyone else's, but I'm able to tweak my own stuff so it's slightly less painful for me to use. Building the actual game is still going to be the most tedious and frustrating part.

[Bells]

Blues is 100% right at this, BUT there is, of course, a proper route to take with each type of game.

Like, On sports game you may be given tools to design your stadium, team uniform and players and share that with others.

On an RPG, you might be given some tools to develop special dungeons and share that. Or take a Note from Spore and take it down a peg or two and you could design your own bosses and monsters for that dungeon too.

For FPS's your could create your own maps (which is something that makes the FPS community MUCH more powerful on the PC, even though it's the least profitable platform)

Even games that don't have a sharing function but gives players some Customization power generate their own venues to share. Like Smackdown Vs Raw and Soul Calibur. People will share "Formulas" to make their beloved characters and videos of those character in action.

So, you know, most games CAN have user created content. But it only goes so far

[01d55]

While I rather like the whole Drebin Points thing... y'know, being able to buy damn good equipment right in the first act (M14EBR... how I love you and your ability to put down anything I shoot at ever SILENTLY!) being able to stock extra suppressors for your weapons and rather than needing to apply them individually after each one wears out, they automatically attach until you run out, and how unlocking ID'd weapons is cheap for most stuff... and you can buy ammo instead of having to hunt for it everywhere...

I FUCKING HATE HOW EXPENSIVE SOME ITEMS ARE AND THE FACT THAT YOU CAN'T BUY REGULAR ITEMS (RATIONS, COMPRESSES, ETC.) Seriously, the mounted lasers, red dot/scope, etc. are MASSIVELY OVERPRICED.

Man why would you buy anything other than tranq darts that shit is overpowered. Just lie down near some dudes and start a slumber party.

[TitoTheHappy]

In any multiplayer FPS I would get rid of goddamn sniper rifles (especially in the Battlefield series) but then I guess I would lose one more thing to blame not doing well on as opposed to just my less than stellar skills.

[Donomni]

I do understand your point, Blues, but it's still frustrating that a lot of console games are very restrictive in terms of content and how to use it.

I mean, for fuck's sake, we don't even have cheat codes anymore(Granted, that was a result of early game development, but still!).

That being said: Console games, you need to bring back cheat codes. Or something.

[Kim]

I'd make Chain of Memories not be a Kingdom Hearts game, but instead be a stand-alone original game with its own universe. Revisiting Disney worlds that had no relevance the plot was boring and a waste of time. An original character we don't know exploring his memories makes doing this the player's way of learning about the character. You haven't seen any of it yet, so it isn't boring, assuming it's done right. Have the player revisit some of the worlds after the halfway point, but the worlds are much smaller because the character is forgetting them. Namine shows up in these worlds where she wasn't before. This makes them matter to the plot. Revisiting them is less painful because of that, and because they're smaller and take less time to get through.

This also keeps it from going downhill after Kingdom Hearts 2 released.

[Krylo]

...But... If I liked them... why would I change them?

[Julford Hajime]

Because you didn't LOVE them.

[bluestarultor]

I do understand your point, Blues, but it's still frustrating that a lot of console games are very restrictive in terms of content and how to use it.

I mean, for fuck's sake, we don't even have cheat codes anymore(Granted, that was a result of early game development, but still!).

That being said: Console games, you need to bring back cheat codes. Or something.

Actually, games DO apparently have cheat codes, but only professional game reviewers know them. I read an article from the UK about how it was pretty much devolving into reviewers abusing the crap out of them to skip boring chapters and such just to see the game through to the good parts and ending what with pressing deadlines and such weighing in on them.

Aside from that, cheat codes don't make games any better. In fact, it takes all the challenge and therefore a lot of the fun out of them. Plus they're only good for purely single-player titles, since you certainly don't want cheating in multiplayer. And before anyone points out Starcraft, I'll say that those codes generally aren't very game-breaking and struggle to count as "cheats." Radio Free Zerg is quite catchy, though.

As a final thought, console games are just restrictive by merit of being console games. They have a largely fixed structure with fixed resources, where PC games benefit from much greater flexibility. With a console game, a custom map has to be built from existing resources, where a PC game offers you the very tools used to create the resources if you can get your hands on them, which means you can create new objects from scratch. Simply put, consoles are just now starting to see the benefits PCs have always had in that they now actually have variable storage and are getting point-and-click controls. They're also starting to get the same problems, as evidenced by the removal of the ability to install Linux on the PS3. The point is that a console is still largely a console. You know what else is a console? Command prompt. Yes, the things you play games on are operating in much the same way as DOS twenty years ago, with single-tasking setups, only with much fancier hardware. They're only just starting to move past that, not because they particularly need to, but because the technology is letting them.

To bring this around, until consoles actually are used to make the games, they will always be crippled in the content department. And when they finally are, they'll be no different from PCs, for both better and worse.




TL;DR: Consoles suffer in content because the content is still made on PCs.

[phil_]

Dokapon Kingdom.

DF handles magical and physical defense.

MG only handles magical offense.

The game is now perfect.

[mudah.swf]

Vampire Savior: change the sprites so they look nice and shiny for the HD era and release on XBLA/PSN. Awesome. Also maybe make it so I don't have to hit 6 inputs just to do a pushblock.

[Donomni]

Aside from that, cheat codes don't make games any better.

Depends, really. While true for some games, I don't think nearly as many people would enjoy Contra without the Konami Code.

Also, Nippon Ichi games actually do have a cheat code, but it's to unlock a bonus story for the PSP remakes, I think, instead of something a lot of people would want instead, like say, a quicker way to reach the fucking asinine level caps(and thus grinding) of that game. I mean, 9999 is only the start, what with reincarnation and god knows what else.

You know what? On that thought: Nippon Ichi: Stop the fucking level grinding. I don't care if you think it's funny, it's depressing and horrible.

I'll admit you make good points about mods, however. Still pisses me off, though.

[bydlo]

Morrowind needs more cliff racers
"While defending, your Panzer has been killed by an Egyptian spearman!"

and I have no problem with the mechanic, I just want someone in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R universe to explain how vodka helps with radiation poisoning

[bluestarultor]

Depends, really. While true for some games, I don't think nearly as many people would enjoy Contra without the Konami Code.

That's because Contra is a bad game and the Konami code makes the damn thing playable.

If you need cheat codes to enjoy a game, you just have a bad game.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Contra is a bad game
You are a horrible person.

Clearly, not liking a game I love is both objectively and morally wrong on every account.

EDIT: The Konami Code is for wusses.

[gekkogo]

The Legend of Dragoon: improve the localization a bit. Most of the dialogue is incredibly stiff and just not very interesting. Most specifically, nobody talks like that. It's impossible. There is just no flow to it.


I totally agree on the dialogue bit, and honestly LOD of one of my top ten pretty much dude to the Combat System and story. However as you called the dialogue is terribly choppy and the story is unfortunately predictable.

Also White Knight Chronicles? Not sure if anyone's decided to pick up this terrible little gem but it's unfortunately recommended against. The story is a solid Four out of Ten with predictability, the battle system is frustratingly slow and all of the "side quests" pretty much require you to go get help from people online. Solo-ing is terribly difficult unless you've MAXed out every skill and for the last nail in the coffin, you're "avatar/PC" has 100% nothing to do with the game, nothing to do with the story and has a whopping total of Zero lines.

[bluestarultor]

Also White Knight Chronicles? Not sure if anyone's decided to pick up this terrible little gem but it's unfortunately recommended against. The story is a solid Four out of Ten with predictability, the battle system is frustratingly slow and all of the "side quests" pretty much require you to go get help from people online. Solo-ing is terribly difficult unless you've MAXed out every skill and for the last nail in the coffin, you're "avatar/PC" has 100% nothing to do with the game, nothing to do with the story and has a whopping total of Zero lines.

That's patently untrue and you should be ashamed of yourself for telling such vicious lies.

Your custom character has such memorable lines as "YAH!" "HAH!" and "OOF!"




In all seriousness, I think what they did with your avatar actually being in the party was pretty neat. It's certainly unique to actually allow you to put a custom character in the party and not actually have the player's character be the main character. Sure, there isn't any dialogue, but they did make an effort to make it look like there was conversation being held a lot as far as I played and the physical action and facial expression said a lot on its own.

I think it says a lot about society that we expect to always be the star in things, rather than a passive observer, and don't like to settle for less. The fact of the matter is 99% of the world is NPCs. People in real life would give their right arm to be in that Avatar's position if they were even ballsy enough to leave town to help. Western (or at least American) society likes to have a sympathetic character upon whom you can project and associate with. Normally, that's the main character of whatever media you're looking at. Making that character an outsider to the situation, an observer, serves the purpose greatly, but I'll admit when I started a file, my first reaction was "WTF! WHADDAYA MEAN I'M NOT THE HERO!" XD

I'll admit the game is far from perfect, but it's not terrible. Battle is pretty slow, but being able to build your own combos is nifty. The story is generic, but that's pretty much the worst you can say about it other than that it doesn't actually finish because they're making it span a trilogy. Not being the hero takes some getting used to, but it allows you to project better than any other game on the market once you do, because they do a great job of making your silent avatar feel very human and chances are if you sat down and thought about it, you'd realize s/he's still way more badass than you'd be in the same situation. Yeah, you can't really solo, but what do you expect? It's an MMO. Not too long ago, people actually played those with other people. At the very least, you have a party in the single-player and should recognize it's a party game and transfer that logic to the multi-player.



I mean, by all accounts, it won't appeal to everyone and there are better titles out there, but all too often I feel it takes a lot more flak than it deserves. It's easily Level 5's worst game, but if it were made by some nobody company, I think a lot of people would be more forgiving. It's at least worth renting to check out.




Edit: Back on topic, things I'd change about it:
- I get you signed a contract for a trilogy. That doesn't mean you can't make a self-contained story in each one. By all means throw in a "To Be Continued" at the end, but at least give some sense of an ending.
- The lip synch is a little worse than would be expected if nobody bothered to change the mouths and it could be improved to make a pretty game look better.
- The writing could be improved. It's not necessarily bad, but it IS very generic.
- Battle could be improved. A lot of people bitch that range means jack to enemies, but it was the same thing with FF12. Square just hid it better. If you have a lock-on system where the attack hits regardless of range after the lock's been made, make your enemies agile enough to keep up to the characters to hide it better.
- Battle could also be sped up a bit. It's actually not as bad as FF12 in my book, but I still prefer faster battle systems.
- It would have been nice to get a third Knight, considering you have one hiding out in your party.
- That awesome royal knight dude. Why was he not in the party? Seriously, it looked for all the world like he was going to be in the party and he was well-characterized and then he just stayed in the castle. What, are you saving him for later? Oh, wait, you pretty obviously are, because he does run off from the castle and you hear about where he is from time to time. The problem is he's always a step behind you and for some reason this isn't your cue to backtrack and recruit him.
- I get the vizier is always secretly evil, but you could have at least tried to hide it. Seriously, he killed the queen. You see his unique nose. But then, again, nothing is ever done with it and you leave him peacefully ruling the kingdom. If you're going to save people for later, for God's sake, don't make it as a villain in the next game. It pisses people off in the game they have and it spoils the plot for the one coming next.
- On the interface, you guys should know better. Green for health, blue for mana. Switching them around for no good reason just makes it confusing.

[Terisse]

Morrowind needs more cliff racers
You don't know how much that statement makes me want to kill you, like I killed all of those damned cliff racers. I think they should be extinct by now.

Fallout 3: Makes the NPCs talk like real people. Not just stare at you. I mean, the voice acting is pretty good, but sometimes the voices just do not match what you think of the NPC or what they act like most of the time. It's annoying and makes me want to turn them into green goop with my plasma rifle.

[Osterbaum]

Continuing on Fallout 3 and voice actors: Hire more than three, seriosly. And while we're on it, make the guns less imbalanced between themselves and make it so you can't carry all of them around with practically infininite ammount of ammo.

e:
GTAIV, I do NOT want to take my cousin, or anyone else, bowling every 10 minutes, seriosly!
Mass Effect 2, please replace the whole mining thing with something else. Something more interesting.

[gekkogo]

Dragon Quest: Sentinels of the Stupid Stump

Now why Dragon Quest decided to never tell you where to go, or what to do in this hand-held masterpiece is beyond me. I went a solid 3 towns past where i was supposed receive my party, only to be told by a friend that i was missing about 3 people from my line up. Dragon Quest delivers on diversity, story, game play, and all of the great things we've come to expect from the title. However it lacks a consistent "clue" system. IE where to grab those important little things like party members.
Now don't get me wrong, i was ecstatic to hear that i wouldn't be grinding for an hour outside of town, only to have a mental chess game over who needs the one piece of armor i could afford the most.
All in all it was a great game for me, just lacked a basic "where to".

[Azisien]

Mass Effect 2

Bring back the majority of the customization from the first game, namely the inventory system. Albeit, in a working interface too.

Final Fantasy Tactics

Balance out the JP requirements between the classes. Seriously, I think some of my characters mastered two classes by my Black Mage masters just Black Mage.

Also, make JP come a little easier in normal combat, so that there aren't dozens of hours of late night Accumulate/Yell JP Grind sessions.

Also, just make a D&D or d20 Modern campaign on that exact engine. Yep, that last one would totally "fix" Tactics. :D

[EVILNess]

I would make Square actually finish every half game they released from 1997 to 2000 and actually make the plots make some goddamn sense.

In case you are wondering, I mean SaGa Frontier, Xenogears, Final Fantasy 8, and Chrono Cross.

[bluestarultor]

I would make Square actually finish every half game they released from 1997 to 2000 and actually make the plots make some goddamn sense.

In case you are wondering, I mean SaGa Frontier, Xenogears, Final Fantasy 8, and Chrono Cross.

In all fairness, FF8 only really suffered because Squall was specifically being emo while they were explaining time compression and Ultimecia's motivations and was too absorbed in himself to bother paying attention to something that might have been important.

It's a cheap-ass way of doing things, but the assumption is the rest of the party knows what's going on and only Squall and the player are really screwed out of an explanation. So it wasn't unfinished so much as sporting a glaring design choice.



That said, I totally approve. (b^-^)b

[Krylo]

Mass Effect 2

Bring back [...] the inventory system.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3067/2986161615_361f5e66b0.jpg

[Red Fighter 1073]

Paper Mario: TTYD

The super long backtrack session that is Chapter 6, looking for the mayor of that town filled with Bomb-ombs. No I don't think it's funny that I have to backtrack through every single town I've been to so far in the game just to find out that the mayor was back in the stupid Bomb-omb village. Seriously, I stopped playing because I'm dreading the wasted time I'm going to have to spend trying to find this idiot.

[Malek]

Dragon Quest: Sentinels of the Stupid Stump

Now why Dragon Quest decided to never tell you where to go, or what to do in this hand-held masterpiece is beyond me. I went a solid 3 towns past where i was supposed receive my party, only to be told by a friend that i was missing about 3 people from my line up. Dragon Quest delivers on diversity, story, game play, and all of the great things we've come to expect from the title. However it lacks a consistent "clue" system. IE where to grab those important little things like party members.

I don't remember exactly how clear they were so possibly they weren't clear enough, but there were definitely clues for where you could pick up party members, one of the npcs in the inn when you're first dragged in there will tell you to come back later and she'll sort you out with some friends and I believe the king of Stornway also tells you that you can pick up some companions at the inn. If you visit that inn any time after that I can't see how you'd miss it unless you don't talk to everyone behind the counters for some reason.

[Roland]

I remember seeing that bit about DQ9 on Gamefaqs. My favorite part was when the topic creator said the developers should have forced you to recruit a party before letting you advance the plot, because telling you outright that you should do so but not holding your hand through the process isn't enough.

... no, really, that was a genuine complaint from somebody on Gamefaqs. Somebody actually thought the easiest Dragon Quest game by far did not hold his or her hand enough.

Anywho, rambling about somebody else's opinions when I shouldn't be aside, let's see...

Metroid Prime 1/2/3. Retro, guys, really. Sequence Breaking is one of the biggest highlights of the series for veteran players. They enjoy finding all the nifty tricks that speed up the process of getting through areas and let them reach places before they're supposed to.

I mean, sure, getting rid of that 1" tipped stalagmite that players used to get the Plasma Beam early? Good move, that was silly and dumb. Fixing every "Secret World" clipping error you could? Also good, that was game breaking at best and broke your game at worst.

Slapping a rock in front of the door to said weapon that needs Power Bombs to clear? Not so much. Same goes for removing the mechanics that let you get the Space Jump Boots early. That was a creative maneuver that really opened up a lot of potential in the game's structure.

That's the kind of stuff that they should have embraced. Nearly all of the sequence breaking in Prime 2 is of the 1" stalagmite or the clipping through walls variety, and afaik no sequence breaking exists at all in Prime 3, which is probably what made it so unreplayable for me compared to the rest of the series.

[gekkogo]

I don't remember exactly how clear they were so possibly they weren't clear enough, but there were definitely clues for where you could pick up party members, one of the npcs in the inn when you're first dragged in there will tell you to come back later and she'll sort you out with some friends and I believe the king of Stornway also tells you that you can pick up some companions at the inn. If you visit that inn any time after that I can't see how you'd miss it unless you don't talk to everyone behind the counters for some reason.

It really wasn't a matter of "I didn't talk to everyone". It was more or less an issue for me that you can honestly go through the entire game without them and it not even glance back and say "Hey maybe you forgot something". Now granted it isn't an issue for most people but personally when I pick up a hand-held game like Dragon Quest or Pokemon I'm not thinking "well this is going to keep my attention 100%" I, much like some have become more accustomed to games where you can pick up and leave, come back an hour later and resume. Now unfortunately I can say that this has led me to skip over quite a few important lines of text while I'm wondering when i can kill more Metal Medley's next, or try some new alchemy I find in this perfect stranger's house. All I'm getting at (with the winded rant) is that with the new hand-held gaming devices that allow you to just close it, and resume it 20 second, hours or days later are allowing people too much leeway. A few of the games out there need to be catered to the fact that people aren't going to be paying 100% of their attention to the game. A stretch of the mind sure, but why not just make the people go to the Inn and at least talk to the people there. Again it's a stretch but i honestly think hand-held games just need a little more structure if they're going to put big RPGs and such games out there. Hope it doesn't offend.

[Terisse]

Metroid Fusion: Jaysus effin' chroist. Lay off the melodrama between Samus and her CO. The story was good (for a Metroid game), it felt and handled much like Super Metroid, and in general was about as large in scale. HOWEVER, The dialogue between Samus and the ship's computer was about as drama-packed as an episode of 24. It made me feel like the importance of everything was being overplayed way too much.

[Niveras]

Mass Effect 2, please replace the whole mining thing with something else. Something more interesting.

I would have liked to have seen the resource collection expanded significantly beyond just collection materials for making upgrades. It is actually pretty preposterous to me that you need a hundred thousand units (?) of material just to research and equip one ship's worth of special forces - surely that accounts for metric tons of materials?

It would be neat if there was a trading/homebase subplot that would make better use of resources and scanning or mining. Something across between NWN2's keep minigame and the expansion for NWN2: Storm of Zehir's trade 'economy'. That said, it would probably be difficult for it to make sense within the context of Shepherd's role, but perhaps the solution would be for it to be handled by a member of Cerberus if you're not hands-on with economic management.

[Kim]

Make sure this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szHD31_AA-8#t=1m15s) never happened in Twilight Princess.

[Bifrost]

Golden Sun and GS: The Lost Age. Lack of automatically retargeting attacks. 'nuff said.

Dear game designers: I didn't like it in FF1, and I don't like it now. It's called Artifical Difficulty/"Things that are stupid and shouldn't be in any game post-NES" and it's not making the game hard, it's making it annoying. I'm so glad the new sequel fixed that issue.

And now for games nobody has heard of or cares about: Sweet mother of god why did Legacy of the Wizard not have a map? I mean, having one in the manual would have been enough (See: the first Zelda game), but no map at all in a game where the only dungeon looks like this (http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/nes/lotw/maps/dungeonfull.shtml) is... not good. :ohdear:

Also, Crystalis and the only thing the horrible GBC port fixed: Save points and how to do it wrong. I wouldn't mind save points, although they do bug me... If there were ever save points before bosses. No, die at a boss and you get to go through the entire dungeon again. I love this game to death, but that's a pretty glaring flaw.

Adventure of Link: Why do you not have respawning one-ups? The game's wonderfully brutal enough as-is, you don't need to punish the players for not knowing that the path to the final dungeon alone comes straight from the hell those demonic chickens came from.

[Yrcrazypa]

Holy crap, I always knew Legacy of the Wizard was ridiculously confusing, but I never realized the game was that big! Of course, I've never really gotten far, and I still to this day don't know the goal to the game.

[Bifrost]

Holy crap, I always knew Legacy of the Wizard was ridiculously confusing, but I never realized the game was that big! Of course, I've never really gotten far, and I still to this day don't know the goal to the game.

Yeah; it never really hit me until I saw that the map was big enough to stretch my behemoth of a screen.

And the goal was basically "collect crowns, kill dragon". I never really got anywhere, but my mother got up to three crowns before she lost the password or it got corrupted or something. ...Actually, that's another problem, but I'm not sure how saving actually works past the fact that it requires a battery to power it in (older?) cartridges and having a real-time clock drains the sucker really fast.

[Azisien]

I would make a Dirt league in StarCraft 2, below Practice league, so that I can have a shot at winning some games. :D

All hail Azisien, king of the Dirt!

[akaSM]

Yeah; it never really hit me until I saw that the map was big enough to stretch my behemoth of a screen.

And the goal was basically "collect crowns, kill dragon". I never really got anywhere, but my mother got up to three crowns before she lost the password or it got corrupted or something. ...Actually, that's another problem, but I'm not sure how saving actually works past the fact that it requires a battery to power it in (older?) cartridges and having a real-time clock drains the sucker really fast.

I remember that game, I saw it a looong time ago at a friend's house, and seemed interesting but...damn that map is huge :eek:. So it seems that now, instead of borrowing it from that friend (my bro's NES still works :D), I'll just resort to my good ol' phone and savestates to make it a bit easier *downloads map*

[Art of Hilt]

I'd make it so that there would be less guards and more open city-wide exploration in Mirror's Edge because honestly that's where the focus should have been. It was a parkour videogame for fuck's sake

[Bifrost]

I remember that game, I saw it a looong time ago at a friend's house, and seemed interesting but...damn that map is huge :eek:. So it seems that now, instead of borrowing it from that friend (my bro's NES still works :D), I'll just resort to my good ol' phone and savestates to make it a bit easier *downloads map*

Quick warning: It's a good example of how utterly determined to crush your soul old school Nintendo games were. I don't mind it, but I grew up with that sort of difficulty.

[akaSM]

Quick warning: It's a good example of how utterly determined to crush your soul old school Nintendo games were. I don't mind it, but I grew up with that sort of difficulty.

It...it can't be that bad, right? I mean, I got save states on my side :D. I'll try to not abuse them that much/at all though.

[EVILNess]

OH! I GOT ONE!

Megaman Legends! To fix the glaring flaw in that whole series all they have to do is this...

Make another game. Maybe have it tie up some of the plot you kept introducing at the last second? Pretty please?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Make sure this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szHD31_AA-8#t=1m15s) never happened in Twilight Princess.

Jermaine this. Zant could have been a sweet final boss with Ganon only really referred to if they had just kept Zant as he was instead of going for the wacky backy.

[Odjn]

All games that have card systems in them that aren't explicitly about card games vanish forever.

CARDS

UGH

I'M LOOKING AT YOU METAL GEAR AND KINGDOM HEARTS

[Doc ock rokc]

Red Dead Redemption
- Move the camera in a little. I mean I love that i can see the awesome environment's but it makes me think of Marston as a puppet rather then anything else.

-Make the throwing knifes better. Although it's fixed in the DLC with the tomahawk it didn't fix the knifes. One way to fix it would be able to throw multiple knifes in Dead eye.

Otherwise this game is fantastic.

FPSs
-Body and other bits. Sometimes i feel like a camera with limbs and jedi powers. I mean Yeah i want to keep my hand on my gun. but can't i use my other hand to press the button. Or my FEET that are magically not there.

-Can we have more intresting weapons in games again. I mean in the 90's we had bee Guns, Tesla launchers, Gravity guns, bio launchers, the gun that shoots shurikens and lightning and other stuff. Where did they go. because this Pistol machinegun sniper rocket launcher only thing is annoying me. Speaking of that what happened to the old time 90 different enemies thing. I mean Yeah it's nice to have 9 mini bosses in a FPS but what about the variety. I am tired of solders and Russians and zombies. What happened to the angel that shot flaming arrows at you or the big muscle charger that would crush small foes in his wake or the goblin monster that would steal ammo and run away. Those guys made the game fun different and interesting

[Odjn]

Basically every game where you press a button to attack/combo like Kingdom Hearts needs to do two things.

1) No repeating combos. Do what Arkham Asylum did with Batman and throw a town of different combinations in there, even for the same button commands.

2) Don't give vanilla attacks all the time. In KH2 for example all your Organization bosses use generic attacks AND supercool awesome attacks like Xaldin's dragon or Axel's flame crap or SaiX going berserk and using shockwaves and shit. Have the same thing available for your protagonist and make sure if you have multiple protags they have individualized types of those moves.

[Red Fighter 1073]

1) No repeating combos. Do what Arkham Asylum did with Batman and throw a town of different combinations in there, even for the same button commands.

Basically, make any combat system like Arkham Asylum and you've got a great game.

And a major seconded with Mirror's Edge. It started out great, but again the gunplay segments with the heavy security shooting was incredibly annoying. And this is a bit more debatable, but I didn't like how the game become more about solving the platform puzzles, rather than the challenge being more about just doing all of these crazy parkour things.

[Yumil]

Red Dead Redemption
-Make the throwing knifes better. Although it's fixed in the DLC with the tomahawk it didn't fix the knifes. One way to fix it would be able to throw multiple knifes in Dead eye.
Throwing knives are one hit kills with Dead Eye, plus they throw extremely long distance with blind cover fire. I actually hit someone a good mile out with one>.<