Favorite/Least Favorite Part of Any Video Game

[NICKtendo DS]

I, for one, embrace DLC on the sole condition that it is created after the game's completion (the reason I hype NSMB2's DLC). No need to cram a game full with content you can't use until you murder your wallet.

[TomGuycott]

I think when people say they hate DLC, they've been burned by several striking examples by companies like Capcom. For example, in most Capcom fighting games of the DLC generations of games, Capcom has fully stocked, fully functioning content like costumes or even playable characters working on the disc, just locked. They put them there with the intention of charging you more for the content later.

However, I SUPPORT DLC in the opposite end of the spectrum, where a game company either can't get the content ready in time for the initial game release and spend more time to polish the extra areas, items, characters or whatever, and then release them when they are ready. In the case of ridiculous things that are already on the disc, sometimes the cost is as much as the arcade games on Xbox Live and PSN, if not MORE.

[Marth]

I hate;

WATER TEMPLES

[Viiper]

Why do you people dislike DLC? :I

because they are old

back in mah day everything came on the disk!

[Koopaul]

LIKES
-Great World(s) to explore! None of that gray and brown stuff. I want a colorful awesome place to run around in!

-Freedom of exploration. I love to wander freely and immerse myself in a fantastic setting.

-Sidequests! Gimme lots of random stuff to do.

DISLIKES
-Annoying tutorial characters who tell you stuff you already know.
-Boring brown and gray settings. I'm sick of post-apocalyptic worlds damnit!

[Goemar]

Hard Modes (without New Game +, though even New Game + isn't amazing). Like seriously, after completing a game of considerable length the last thing I want to do is to play through it again straight away. But if I leave it and play something else not only will I loose interest in the game but then when I play it again I'll suck at it because I haven't played it for ages. And thus my completion rate is ruined.

Also... games without Hard Mode (feel free to applaud the contradiction that has just happened). Though this is more for "kids games" (god I hate that term). New SMB on the DS was the most disappointing game I've ever played. I was hyped for this game, like super hyped. It had been a long time since we had a new 2D Mario game. It pretty much killed Nintendo for me for a long long time, was the last nail in the coffin, the straw that broke the camel's back etc and all that stuff. It was too easy, like way way too easy (and the music sucked and the polygon on sprite floor and all that looked awful). Why did they not make a Hard Mode? Sure it wouldn't fix all the issues but at least then I'd feel as if I was playing a game, and not just watching a game be played. The difficulty was so non-existent that it was boring. For Mario "Make it harder" isn't the best solution as it stops kids from enjoying it. I mean how many 6 year-old kids could actually complete SMB3? Very few. Here an option of difficulty would work, and work well.

Freedom to explore back to where you're meant to be going - Exploring is great. But say your out in a big desert in a game, and then you go away for a few days. When you come back you have no idea what the smeg you're meant to be doing or going. Batman's loading screen is a prime example of how to fix this without even touching the game. But Darksiders 2's crow also seems to be fine. Basically I like something which lets me know what the hell I'm meant to be doing if I have forgotten.


Capcom's on-disc DLC (and that they see no issue with it) should be illegal. Imagine if it happened with music. You don't buy an album and then pay £3 for 2 extra tracks to be unlocked. Gamers are utterly useless at boycotting things though so it'll never end. Konami (minus Kojima) and Capcom need to start getting their act together before it's too late.

[Ryan914]

Like:

Optional Bosses that give the player a challenge, it's even better when said optional bosses are part of the game's myths and legends. (Example: Death and Schirach from Romancing SaGa or Philemon from Persona 2)

Dislike:

Quite surprised nobody said ESCORT MISSIONS yet.

Holy shit those things are annoying. Taking a person to a location without them dying. (Example: Escorting Banon in Final Fantasy 6)

[Goemar]

Escorting, and nearly every GTA mission (aka get to A, kill people, Get to B etc.) really really suck.

I don't think escorting missions are fundamentally flawed but bad AI destroys most of them. I only think puzzle games have really nailed them (aka Exit 2) but in action games or RPGs (where you can't move the character being escorted/protected) they are utterly dire. Fire Emblem (the first GBA one... or maybe it was the second... been a while) had them and for the most part they were fine.

[TomGuycott]

Another escort mission that I don't remember having a big problem with was Resident Evil 4. Ashley was pretty responsive as an AI character, and there were a lot of ways to keep her safe. In fact on my first blind playthrough there was only one time I remember her even getting picked up by the bad guys, and that's because the scene put you apart from her and dropped the enemies right next to her via a cutscene. Granted, I don't remember much about her as a CHARACTER, but as a gameplay element it wasn't SO bad.

What's the worst though is escort missions where the NPC is UNBEARABLY SLOW. I think the worst example of this is Lagoon, there are several instances where you get an NPC to follow you, and they move like snails.

[Goemar]

Slowness is annoying but I still think bad AI takes the cake. I mean look at Dead Rising - man the stupidity of AI on that... saving everyone was just so hard because they seemed to seek out death.

[puggsoy]

Quite surprised nobody said ESCORT MISSIONS yet.

That, or having to keep someone alive other than yourself, since that character is usually extremely stupid.

I meant escort missions by that, luckily I don't play enough to know the proper name.
But yeah I agree with Goemar that it's mainly the AI that ruins it. I mean they suck in general but seriously if that merchant you're supposed to protect goes and walks into a horde of orcs that you were hoping to avoid, it can really ruin the entire concept.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I love saving a game: it's a satisfactory relief.


When I lose a save, it saddens me.

[Pokemondothon]

Favorites:

-Post-credits gameplay
-New levels/items/etc. after defeating the final boss
-Sound Test (All games should have this!)
-Re-battle previous bosses during final stage(s) - either in current state, or how your character was when you first fought them... both are fun in their own way
-"Enlightenment"-type event (where your character receives a tremendous power-up following a difficult trial)
-Second quests... with enough new features to distinquish them from their standard counterparts (perfect example: Super Mario 3D Land)

Least Favorites:

-Water levels, where underwater control is difficult or tedious
-Cutscenes with slowly-panning camera and/or slow-scrolling dialogue
-Obscure parts where you are forced to control another character that doesn't really have much meaning/relevance
-Long stretches with few or no save points
-Escort-type missions where the escortee is fragile, slow, or has poor AI
-Stealth-focused missions where you're without a means of defendng yourself

[Zero Kirby]

Spoilers in this post for Other M but to be honest I'd be saving you fifty dollars better spent on something good

What I Love

Story-Telling in Gameplay - By this I mean a number of things, but basically it's when the story isn't told through another cutscene, but through gameplay. Take Metroid Prime, for example. The entire story and mythos of that game has to be discovered, by you. You become a detective, uncovering the past of a lost civilization, the insane machinations of the Space Pirates, the battles of a war fought long ago between two worlds, the horrors a group of troops face as they're caught in the middle... Uncovering the stories yourself and being able to piece them together bit by bit not only made the story interesting in that you wanted to find more, but also a part of the game, as opposed to just the backdrop of it. Another good, if somewhat short, example would be right after the final boss of Metal Gear Solid 3.

Spoiler

When The Boss asks Snake to pull the trigger, the game makes you do it.

New Game Plus - When the game's over, the game really isn't over. You can play through the game using new stuff, or have all your powerups carry over to a harder difficulty mode, or whatnot. Like in Batman: Arkham City, which rearranged most of the game to let you play it again with all your old tools, and made it a much more difficult experience. Replay value's essential to a game!

What I Hate

Telling, not Showing - Other M is a huge offender in this department in regards to story telling. You don't infer that her feelings are hurt, she straight up tells you. You don't learn that there's a saboteur, she straight up tells you. You don't figure that the main villain gained a soul, she straight up tells you. The only thing you can infer yourself is the identity of the saboteur - and by that time he's already been killed, and it doesn't matter anymore, and you're not even the one who killed him, he's killed off-screen. But then you have a character like Fi from Skyward Sword, and as much as I love that game, the fact that she outright spoils a number of (often quite good) puzzles is infuriating. There should've been an option to shut her up.

When You Really Weren't That Important - Again, Other M is a huge offender. What do you do in the game that has permanence? You kill a Queen Metroid. (And even then, the BSL Station in Fusion had the same Metroid cells, and you fight an Omega Metroid at the end of that game, so they were getting close anyway.) Who kills the main villain? Not you. Who kills the saboteur? Not you! Who kills Ridley? Certainly wasn't you! Who rescues the Galactic Federation guys? You do it, what, once? They rescue you more times than you rescue them! Who destroys the Metroid research facility? Again, wasn't you. Who stops the Bottle Ship from crashing into the Galactic Federation, rescues Madeline Bergman from the Federation, and destroys the ship in the end? Not you, not you, not you! But hey, you blow up that Nightmare thingy from Fusion? You didn't do a good enough job since he still shows up in Fusion! You don't do anything of import in the game! It's ridiculous! Metal Gear Solid 4 is also kind of an offender here - Snake just guards Otacon's robot to save the day, though the final fight with Liquid Ocelot is pretty awesome.

Changing the Rules Without Telling You - Hey it's Other M again! Remember when the game tells you that you're allowed to use the Power Bombs to blow up the Queen Metroid at the end of the game? I don't! Because until you fight the Queen Metroid, you can't use Power Bombs! Heck, you're allowed to CHARGE THEM UP TO NINETY-NINE PERCENT CHARGE yet still aren't allowed to use them, so it's not like you could accidentally hold the button down an extra second and realize, "Wait, it's charging now! That must mean I can do it!" You can't rely on nostalgia goggles, because there weren't Power Bombs in Metroid II! It's horrible, cryptic, poorly-designed gameplay. Plain and simple.

In this post I dislike Other M immensely.

[Goemar]

Other M suffers from what I call "Anime Inner-Monologue" in which the main character has to explain how they're feeling in great detail with very little emotion but this is never shown outside those scenes. They was given a huge chance with Other M and well, the smegged it. The game itself is rather froody (minus the whole rotate controller to use missiles thing) if you took it as an action game but the story and characters were pants. I can't hope but feel that the idea of having none 2D characters is becoming more and more a Western game thing. Apart from the MGS series (Peace Walker's story was just awesome) I can't think of any Japanese games I've played recently and cared about the characters or what was going on.

Other M also seems to forget there's someone sabotaging the missions, and that guy who dies at the end (forget his name) didn't really need to die and why is the Queen Metroid in a big empty room? I can't even remember why you go in there anyway. The game feels like it needed an editor or something. In some games story isn't really important (aka Metal Slug, Vanquish etc) but if you're going to have one it at least has to be up to Saturday Morning Cartoon standard otherwise you're better off without it.