How would you change a game?

[recme]

oh speaking of disney: kingdom hearts. less anime more disney. [/thread]

same. how about less zippers and more actual designs :0

[Ark Kuvis]

Donkey kong country returns: replace the spinning saw blade tikis with Zingers.

I feel like the DKCR games needed some non-kremling returning characters too. Zingers and Gnawties would've been enough for me, really.

[Crappy Blue Luigi]

hey. super mario 3d world is a pretty good game, right? but it's not perfect

it's missing waluigi

[MrYoshbert]

Paper Mario: Sticker Star: too many things to count.

• Beef up the plot.
  Shigeru Miyamoto requested that the guys at Intelligent Systems to dial the storyline down a tad, but apparently they followed this advice too extremely, and watered it down to "get these Royal Stickers AND NOTHING MORE THAN THAT EVERYONE GO HOME... oh yeah and save Peach from Bowser too".
  
  It doesn't need to ramped up to the point of fan fiction-esque melodrama like in Super Paper Mario (in my opinion, what with the Blumiere and Timpani love story and the "prophecy of four heroes" and the Queen Pixl and all that crap). I'd make it more like the first Paper Mario or even Super Mario RPG: simple yet substantial, but not heavy-handed.
  
  Kersti talks about stuff like the Royal Stickers causing trouble in the past and learning about their origins in some "Sticker School" or something along those lines. She also mentions that there are dozens of other crown-shaped sticker fairies like her; why don't we get to see them floating around? I really would've loved it if the game went more in-depth into stuff like that.
  
• Revise the battle system, in a way that you won't be screwed over if you run out of stickers.
  
• Retain more of the RPG elements. I don't know how FP would work with the new sticker mechanics, but stuff like badges and leveling up would add lots more depth to the game.
  
• Add more variety to the cast of characters. Ooh, this is a long one. For this game, Miyamoto told Intelligent Systems to use only characters who were "already established in the Mario universe" (i.e., no new characters), barring Kersti. The Mario franchise has 25+ years of unique and interesting characters to choose from, but all IS could think of was Kamek, Bowser Jr., a Wiggler, a Snifit with a bowtie, and a bunch of generic Toads. Good lord, they could have done a better job on capitalizing on that.
  
  IS even had the gall to say that as far as friendly characters go in the series, there's only Toads of different colors (I'm dead serious, they actually said this in an Iwata Asks interview). They must have been high on some really dank shit then, because I'm pretty damn sure Mario has a lot more allies than that. What about the Toad characters with actual identities, like Captain Toad and his brigade, Toadsworth, and Toadette (who also appeared in a Paper Mario game before this)? What about Yoshi and his friends? Professor E. Gadd? Rosalina? Nabbit? How about every damn NPC from all the 3D games combined (e.g., Piantas, Nokis, Bob-omb Buddies, Penguins, Lumas, Whittles, and lots more I'm sure)? I'm sure these guys would make great supporting characters.
  
  
• Better boss choices. Jumping off from the above, many of the bosses in this game felt just phoned in to me. You'd think that with the aforementioned limitation, Intelligent Systems would take the time to look at past Mario games and bring back a couple of bosses from those. Well, they did... for only two of them. Aside from Petey Piranha, Gooper Blooper (who were actually pretty good choices, imo), and Mizzter Blizzard (who surprised me a lot), we got giant sparkly Goomba, big Buzzy Beetle, big Scuttlebug, big Chain Chomp, paper ball Boo, giant Pokey with a crown, and big Cheep-Cheep. No sir, that is just lame.
  
  I would've taken the opportunity to go off the goddamn wall with the bosses; perhaps Hookbill the Koopa instead of a generic giant Buzzy Beetle, or Big Bob-omb (the SM64 boss) or something instead of some giant Pokey. I'd rather fight Boom Boom, the Reznors, Eyerok, Gobblebut, and Marching Milde than these pitiful characters they gave us. And how could they put Bowser Jr. in there and forget all about the Koopalings (especially when the NSMB games just made them relevant again in the eyes of fans and Ninty themselves)?
  
  See, that's a whole bunch of characters right there, and I didn't even have to resort to the obscure characters like Wart and Tatanga.
  
  Hell, Miyamoto's restriction doesn't really seem that burdening: I'd just flat out re-use a bunch of characters from Paper Mario 1 and 2 (maybe just the former, since Sticker Star also takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom); wouldn't you consider Goombario, Parakarry, Jr. Troopa, and all of those other guys to be "already established in the Mario universe"? They aren't new characters, after all. Hooray for loopholes!
  
• Give Luigi, Peach, and Bowser more screentime. Luigi got demoted to pitiful Easter Egg status, and Peach only appears at the beginning and end, same with Bowser. That just isn't goddamn right. I would've added post-chapter intermissions with Peach trying to help Mario out by sending information while she's waiting to be rescued (like in the first game) and Luigi going on his own solo quest to get the Royal Stickers in an attempt to beat his brother to the punch for once.
  
  Also, the fact that Intelligent Systems didn't consider throwing in cutscenes in which Bowser's hanging out with his own son or bossing Kamek around boggles my mind on so many levels. The dude doesn't even get any lines. Seriously, he's always a treat in the RPGs and it's a shame that we don't get the pleasure of hearing some of his funny-ass dialogue. What a criminally wasted opportunity.
  

All of this stuff they could have done makes me think that Sticker Star's shortcomings wasn't entirely Shiggy's fault; it was all on Intelligent Systems. Actually scratch all of this, what I really would have done was reject some of Miyamoto's suggesstions and make the game how I and my team wanted to make it... just like how Mario & Luigi: Dream Team ended up being.

[E-Man]

Personally, my favorite of the current two Mario RPG series is the Paper Mario series, but that doesn't stop me from saying that the latest installment is an embarrassment to the series. Besides all the things you have mentioned, Yoshbert, I think the game took the paper concept too literally. While it does lead to nice paper craft visuals, it gets very frustrating after awhile when the characters keep insisting that they are made of paper and keep discussing the problems and quirks about being paper again and again. Plus, just seeing how they act like they very seen real objects before just makes me want to bang my head.

I'm not saying that what they are doing is wrong, but if they keep stating over and over again that its a paper world and flip out over something like a normal fan, then it just breaks the fourth wall for me in a way that isn't as charming as previous fourth wall fractures in other games (i.e. doing it receptively). If this was the first game in the series, I would forgive that, but if you look at the other Paper Mario games, they never took it this far (even in the second game where things became more paper like).

[Koopaul]

Okay I can't find it. But I'll just say some of the things I would do.

One of the biggest problems of DK64 is that there are too many specialized items for specific Kongs. This makes exploring with a specific Kong a real pain. Let's say you climb up to this really hard area with Diddy only to realize... you needed to be Chunky.

This problem would easily be solved if:

1. All Bananas and Banana Coins are the same color (yellow) and can be picked up by any Kong.
This will allow you to explore more freely as your favorite and not have to worry about retracing your steps over and over again.

2. Less switches with Kong's faces on them and have more intuitive barriers you need specific Kongs to overcome.
For example, instead of having a Golden Banana in an area that requires Donkey to groundpound a switch with his face, make it an area that encourages the player to explore as Donkey. The fact that you had to be Donkey in that area was not made obvious until you reached the switch. If the environment looked better suited for DK to explore, it will feel more natural to switch between Kongs.

Now on to other problems.

Like poor Donkey Kong having the worst powers in the game. Each Kong has unique and cool abilities by DK himself has the power too... pull levers? Here's what they needed to do, cut Chunky and give DK his powers. Sorry Chunky but DK is better suited for smashing things and lifting heavy objects.

Another problem with powers is that there were a lot of pointless ones. The ability to play a musical Instrument was just another excuse to activate switches as a specific Kong. Just get rid of Candy's musical Instruments.

Barrel throwing, not Orange Grenades. Get rid of the Orange Grenades and replace them with barrels you can pick-up and throw scattered around the world. This is more appropriate for the series as barrel throwing was almost completely absent in that game and would achieve the same goal as throwing Oranges. Also it would be one less move you'd need to worry about. Instead of holding Z and pressing a C button, there with just be a barrel nearby you could press B to pick-up.

Lessen the amount of collectables. Don't even bother having Film to collect when capturing Banana Fairies. Don't even bother having to collect Crystal Coconuts and just make the transformation timed. No more Orange Grenades and Headphones (for powering Instruments). Less things to collect will make the game seem less like a chore and will allow the player only have to worry about collecting Bananas, Golden Bananas, and Banana Coins.

Replace Tiny with Dixie. Yeah everyone wanted to play as Dixie, the Kong we all know and love from the DKC series. Why replace her? Lanky Kong was a good original Kong that was unique so he could stay. But Chunky was essentially what Donkey Kong should have been. As a result we would have had these characters to choose from: Donkey, Diddy, Dixie, and Lanky.

[puggsoy]

Braid needed more levels. Sure, there's a way to make your own, but the main game should have had more.
LIMBO and Thomas Was Alone also needed more levels, they were both very short. It worked, but I would have liked them to be longer all the same.

BIT.TRIP.RUNNER should have had the notes play on the instant you should press the button, instead of when you pass the obstacle.

LoZ: Phantom Hourglass had a number of flaws that were fixed in Spirit Tracks, but it's still a shame that they were there in the first place.

There's probably some other stuff that I'll think of later.

[Darky's Reincarnation]

Okay I can't find it. But I'll just say some of the things I would do.

One of the biggest problems of DK64 is that there are too many specialized items for specific Kongs. This makes exploring with a specific Kong a real pain. Let's say you climb up to this really hard area with Diddy only to realize... you needed to be Chunky.

This problem would easily be solved if:

1. All Bananas and Banana Coins are the same color (yellow) and can be picked up by any Kong.
This will allow you to explore more freely as your favorite and not have to worry about retracing your steps over and over again.

2. Less switches with Kong's faces on them and have more intuitive barriers you need specific Kongs to overcome.
For example, instead of having a Golden Banana in an area that requires Donkey to groundpound a switch with his face, make it an area that encourages the player to explore as Donkey. The fact that you had to be Donkey in that area was not made obvious until you reached the switch. If the environment looked better suited for DK to explore, it will feel more natural to switch between Kongs.

Now on to other problems.

Like poor Donkey Kong having the worst powers in the game. Each Kong has unique and cool abilities by DK himself has the power too... pull levers? Here's what they needed to do, cut Chunky and give DK his powers. Sorry Chunky but DK is better suited for smashing things and lifting heavy objects.

Another problem with powers is that there were a lot of pointless ones. The ability to play a musical Instrument was just another excuse to activate switches as a specific Kong. Just get rid of Candy's musical Instruments.

Barrel throwing, not Orange Grenades. Get rid of the Orange Grenades and replace them with barrels you can pick-up and throw scattered around the world. This is more appropriate for the series as barrel throwing was almost completely absent in that game and would achieve the same goal as throwing Oranges. Also it would be one less move you'd need to worry about. Instead of holding Z and pressing a C button, there with just be a barrel nearby you could press B to pick-up.

Lessen the amount of collectables. Don't even bother having Film to collect when capturing Banana Fairies. Don't even bother having to collect Crystal Coconuts and just make the transformation timed. No more Orange Grenades and Headphones (for powering Instruments). Less things to collect will make the game seem less like a chore and will allow the player only have to worry about collecting Bananas, Golden Bananas, and Banana Coins.

Replace Tiny with Dixie. Yeah everyone wanted to play as Dixie, the Kong we all know and love from the DKC series. Why replace her? Lanky Kong was a good original Kong that was unique so he could stay. But Chunky was essentially what Donkey Kong should have been. As a result we would have had these characters to choose from: Donkey, Diddy, Dixie, and Lanky.

i actually totally agree with you, i always found it rather stranger and a downer that in the final battle you did the final blows with chunky rather than dk

[SchAlternate]

I'll make it so that the shinespark in most Metroid games isn't so fucking imposible to perform.

Hours wasted just to get the damn thing working just to get that one power-up would've been avoided if it wasn't so awkward to use.

Well, that's just me, though.

[BullockDS]

To start things up, it would be really cool if they added a few more courses in Super Mario 64. Since Nintendo was going to implement over 30 worlds into it during development, it wouldn't hurt to squeeze a few more in. All they need to do is move some of the castle secret stars into the star set for each world and remove the somewhat tedious 100 coin missions. That way, they would have plenty of stars to use for a few more levels.

Oh hell yes. I'm just gonna go ahead and tack on some more shit to the SM64 list:
-better, more flexible camera, a la Sunshine's (in fact, there's an ASM hack for this already, and my god is it glorious)
-add Luigi, but make him not as game-breaking as he was in SM64DS, give him the ability to walljump, and let him fight Final Bowser (I'd probably make Luigi unlockable by some random-as-hell, obscure means as a callback to the countless and absurd "OMFG PALY AS LUIGI IN SM64" rumors)
-more specifically for some extra levels, I'd totally throw in an extra basement or tower floor of harder levels only accessible after beating the game once, and then a super-duper tough level accessible after gathering all the Stars in the game (much like the past few 3D Mario titles)
-Co-op mode (again, there already does exist a Mario+Luigi hack for this)

[Kriven]

I'd love to see, not so much a "change" as a side option or alternative playstyle, Super Mario 64 made into Super Mario Bros. 64 with the shrinking and power-up mechanics of the SMB titles, but still with the star missions.

[Zero Kirby]

I'd give Metroid: Other M a few changes

1) Change the bloody controls
"Retro" is not a good excuse when it actively detriments the game. By using a Wiimote-Nunchuk control scheme, you eliminate both the hassle of first-person (either making it a button or removing it completely in favor of Epic Mickey-style aiming which would work just fine as well), and the hassle of moving in 3D without being able to control speed or fine-tune direction. Other things, like shooting missiles and whatnot, can now have buttons dedicated to them instead of having to use a clunky, backwards (seriously WHY ARE FREE-LOOK AND LOCK-ON THE SAME BUTTON THAT MAKES NO SENSE), and really generally useless first-person view.

2) Change the bloody story
Government conspiracy! Wow, never seen that before, except in Metroid: Fusion. So wait, since this is before Fusion, how come Samus is still working for the Federation at the beginning of Fusion when it's made abundantly clear the Federation are a bunch of asshats? Somethin's screwy here

Adam was also kind of a bad character. He was bland and uninteresting and didn't do anything except give you orders and blow up a bunch of Metroids. Whee. All that stuff about who he is? It's just straight up told to you by Samus, as opposed to you getting to infer it or anything through his actions, which were... giving you orders, and blowing up a bunch of Metroids. Oh, he also said that one line a couple times

And Samus was annoying. She lacked gravitas. In Metroid Prime it's evident the moment you look at her that she is here to kick ass and take names and don't mess with her. Here? She's an emotional wreck whose inner monologue puts me to sleep (see Metroid: Fusion for a proper way to do Samus monologues) and really seems rather idiotic and incompetent.

Also either she's really short or the Federation hires nothing but nine-foot tall men as soldiers.

I'd probably put the game farther back in the past. It seems kinda weird that Adam's sacrifice is so close to Fusion. I figured it was before even the first Metroid game. That way an inexperienced Samus actually makes sense and the game's story can be about building their relationship as opposed to just telling you they had one.

3) Change the bloody structure
Why do I need authorization to use the Varia Suit?

It really is kind of lame running into an enemy and it's like, "Oh how do I fight this" and then Adam chimes in with "WEAPON THAT'S USEFUL IN THIS EXACT SCENARIO AUTHORIZED" and then it's just like, "oh well that was easy." You only get a couple items from beating boss fights. That sense of satisfaction from beating a difficult boss is just... not there. Having doors and such constantly locked behind you shuts down exploration. Not being able to collect all the items before the final boss is just... what? And also hey WHY DO GAME NOT SAY POWER BOMBS ARE AN OKAY TO USE DURING METROID QUEEN? You have no hints of being able to use them, and every other time you try to charge them up you're actually allowed to charge them up to 99%! So you have to "accidentally" hold down the button for a full ten seconds or be psychic (there were no Power Bombs in Metroid II, the only other game where you fight a Metroid Queen). And then the boss after that one was just a joke. "Stare at the target for a second. You win!"

You get an item, and it's not like, "Hey! Now I can go explore that one place!" It's, "Oh! I hope the story directs me towards that one place so I can explore it!" Yep that's a uh-huh yeah that's uh hmm. Metroid Prime 3 gets a lot of shit for being linear in comparison to 1 and 2, but at least you were allowed to go wherever the hell you wanted as long as you had the requisite abilities.

So I'd just make the game more open, come up with more interesting items (was there any original items beyond the Diffusion Beam?), and probably put the game in a different setting. A planet would be cooler than a spaceship. The trailers made the game's areas look open, as opposed to just an illusion of such.

And less cutscenes.

4) Change the bloody name
Real subtle Nintendo. Might as well just bash my head in with a tire iron saying "GAME IS ABOUT MOTHER ISSUES"

Any title would be better. Metroid: Super Turbo Championship Edition would be a better title.

[Kriven]

Replace Blue and Yellow Toad with Stanley and Wario in the NSMB games.

Allow Nabbit to play as a regular character in NSLU.

[psychospacecow]

I would make DBZ Tenkaichi modern, and maybe make it easier to run from cqc situations.

[E-Man]

While Wario Land: Shake-it! was a great game for me, what I would like to see more of is the "transformations" Wario goes through whenever he gets damaged by certain attacks. While it is true that he has his Fire and Snowman forms in that game, it would be great if he would be able to turn into a vampire or a spring like in the previous games.