STOP SUCKING, GAMES
This stuff should be mandatory by now
1. Hard Mode
Making dangerous, scary, competent enemies can be a challenge. But a hard mode should be relatively easy stuff. Increase the damage badguys do and maybe throw some more of them at me, and have my attacks do less damage. Dishes are done.
2. Level Cap
Every game with character levels should have level caps available. A super-easy way to make the game far harder. Even RPGs. I mean, maybe if you are hardcore enough to do everything for a 1/2/3 (or however it works) game of FFXII you won't concern yourself with stuff like that, but a level 20 cap on a Final Fantasy game would be fascinating. And Grandia would become entirely ridiculous!
3. New Game +
I suppose this is becoming more common these days anyway, but still.
4. Super-special-secret-mega-awesome-stuff-go!
I don't are WHAT it is, but give players awesome stuff for beating challenges. Beating a game on hard mode should at least give you an unlockable costume or something. Throw us a bone, dudes. Extra points if it is one of those "entirely awesome but outrageously boring after the first five seconds" bonuses like infinite Devil Trigger in DMC or the Chicago Typewriter in RE4.
5. Dual language options for Japanese games
I realize audio is apparently the largest item memory-wise in games, but it is damn important. Dynasty Warriors and Soul Calibur would both be absolutely infuriating without their original language tracks, and I can't get anyone into Naruto: Clash of the Ninja 2 for Gamecube because of the terrible dubbing. BELIEVE IT!
That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure there are more.
oh, more freakin' sequence breaking. I LOVE that stuff.
6 comments:
Are you saying that when Japanese games don't have any of the original Japanese, it's bad?
I've never been one for the Japanese. To borrow a phrase from Dylan's description of the Korean commentary on StarCraft pro games, the Japanese is like an a capella emotional narration. I'd much rather have my characters use meaningful words.
And, like you hinted to, additional audio tracks bog down the potential of games. I'd much rather have the other features you mention.
The most obvious thing I often find missing from games is statistics. Would it be so hard to let me know what my favorite weapon is? My favorite example is Halo, where it gave you exactly 4 stats: deaths, kills, flag caps, and assists. No flag returns, no flag pickups, no totally sweet mid-air-jumping-from-the-warthog- shotgun-blast-to-the-face-of-the- other-guy-jumping-from-his-own- warthog kills.
I see that as being the type of thing that uses very little memory or game-design-genius, but is almost never included in games.
BTW, I like the Starcraft commentary. The a capella emotional narration never gets old, but I see your point, Ryan.
Maybe a better solution would be to do a better job on the English voice acting.
I like how everything you listed is in Portrait. Subtitles are a must, but I agree with leaving in original audio. In a game like DMC3 though, it is always in English.
Customizable controls. Some games, like Metroid Prime, need "weird" control schemes, but there should always be options. Inverted aim is a must for me.
rmcdougall: Mm, not exactly. Some games do a great job with English voice-acting, others don't. I think we can all agree on that.
That being said, I'd much rather have my characters sound good. In RPGS, for instance, almost all spoken dialogue either has subtitles or text boxes with the exception of battle quotes. Grandia, Baten Kaitos, and Dragon Quest VIII are three RPGS I can think of with terrible voice acting. Now, I turn it off and I'm okay...but I'd much rather have the original audio to listen to.
dbrodeur: Yeah, better English voice acting is never a bad thing.
Dkaufman: Yeah, Portrait did a LOT of things right. Except for not being more like Dawn and Aria. I think I'm going to resent every CV game that isn't Dawn or Aria.
On stats: GTA keeps a BUNCH of stats on the pause menu, if memory serves. Yeah, it is a really easy thing to do that should be in more games.
Customizable controls: I rarely use them, but when I do they are awesome. I don't like it, though, when they offer pre-made setups but won't let you really customize. RE4 PS2 kind of pissed me off with that.
Inverted Aim is the devil.
GTA has nice stats and so does Smash. Now that I think about it, voice acting is pretty key. FFXII's Vaan, for instance, is pretty much constantly annoying ("I've got a surprise for you!").
I'd like to say that dbrodeur's solution makes the most sense. What part of that problem isn't solved by having competent English voice acting? But, like dkauffman pointed out last night, voice acting is A)an expense and B)difficult to find, even when you're willing to pay.
If being able to be a believable actor was easy, Hollywood wouldn't have an excuse to make so many bad movies.
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