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Time(s) where you thought, “WT ackchyual H were the devs thinking?!”

6502

Member
Star Fox Zero

Some people will say something like the control scheme wasn't that bad, or you just had to get used to it.

No the game was decent DESPITE the control scheme. Its like Kid icarus Uprising where they had to bring out a new accessory so people didn't break their hand trying to play it. Nintendo constantly try to do "new" things but there is no way either of these games got to production without them already knowing the control schemes where ass backwards and a completely negative experience for any user.
To be fair, the control scheme really wasnt that bad after you got used to it.

However it really should have had options for a standard / nunchuck control scheme for single player. I half expected it done for a switch release.

Had the pad been used as an expert control option, part of a turret power up or used with coop it would have been accepted. Instead most people's introduction was akin to playing streetfighter with a racing setup.

Great idea, badly handled.
 
Almost everything about The Callisto Protocol.
just recently gave the game a try, & walked away after a few hours absolutely stunned. that its development was overseen by the same guy who helped create the far superior 'original' title that, 15 years on, callisto's nothing but a pale imitation of, only makes the whole thing worse. callisto's an almost shockingly bad game. it truly does feel like a triple-a game produced by an ai that'd processed a batch of survival horror games beforehand. eerily uninspired & soulless...
 

kiphalfton

Member
Castlevania LoS 2. The first game was great.

For whatever reason the devs decided "screw that, were going to throw it out the window". Probably a result of all the idiots who said it was a GOW ripoff, so they tried to make it different (but failed hard in the process).
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Seriously. That game could’ve been 20hours long dmc game.
Why even have 2 gil pick ups
My feeling is that’s what it was originally supposed to be. Then they decided to make it into a full mainline FF game and all that extra garbage was added so they could justify calling it Final Fantasy XVI.

“well it’s an RPG so we better add some areas to explore… okay now we need to give the player a reason to explore all this territory, let’s add some generic sidequests + scatter shiny blue dots all over… now we need to compensate the player for exploring and completing quests, let’s add a crafting system so players can run around collecting materials…”


Anyway I think one of the dumbest design choices was in Blue Dragon how there are items freaking EVERYWHERE with no indications, including “nothings” which unlock some of the best stuff in the game. So instead of exploring like a normal dungeon in any other RPG, you have to run up and down every surface mashing X like a dumbass and hoping you don’t miss any.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
Capra Demon. "What if we put shitty foliage billboards around that absolute shoe cupboard of an arena so you can't see what you're doing? Also dogs, people love dogs - put two in there. And make the runback shitty, that'll fuck 'em." Argued Miyazaki after seven beers and two lines of coke.
 

skit_data

Member
I've yet to hear a compelling reason as for why From Software won't let you pause in most of their games.
I'd say it's to make everything have consequence in a game that only autosaves every so often (maybe once every 15s or so, possibly). If you for example would pause and quit the game just before you die you would be able to reset the game and continue before you "died". Now you will definitely get an autosave upon death instead, which mean consequences for dying.
 
Not gonna as the game kept going I was like fuck this bitch, why am I even playing her.
I was happy at her ending I was like:
dd2.jpg
.
Regarding Abby or Ellie?
 

Deft Beck

Member
- Farming the Frostsaber and High Warlord/Grand Marshal title (World of Warcraft)..
- 5 minute escort missions on a PvP server (World of Warcraft).
- Not played it my myself, but read here plenty of stuff about how Ragnarok spoils the riddles before you can even try so solve them. If true--->stupid, especially in a 18+ game.
- Non skippable quick time events / cinematics / intros.
- Reputation grinding in a fucking single player game (Days Gone) and grinding mechanics in general in single player games.
- Making games too easy. Normal nowadays is like easymode + cheats back in the days.
- Controls in Heavy Rain. I really love that game, but come on.
- Stupid junk loot that wastes inventory space (Fallout, World of Warcraft and others)
- Stunlock mechanics

They do this because the game is so expensive to make that god forbid any of their customers don't finish the game because they get stuck on a puzzle. They also want the games to be as accessible as possible to the widest possible audience.

Just because the game is rated "Mature" doesn't mean the mechanical challenges are "mature". It just means "mature subject matter".
 
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EDMIX

Member
Here's the problem with it: MGS2 came out and everyone expected to play as Snake after the first game, but the game yanked the rug out from under them and made them play as Raiden. Ever since then, game directors want to be Kojima so bad that they're repeating that stupidity with their sequels. Like I said, Halo 5 with Locke replacing MC, Abby in TLOU2, and Atreus in Ragnarok. People are buying a sequel because they like the protagonist in the original game, but the sequels are forcing them to play as someone else and it's incredibly stupid.

nah, I'm ok with them doing something different and I'm not fucking buying games for 1 character here or there. I'm buying it for its story, narrative, overall design etc, so if a character dies, I'm fine with that too.

I had zero issues with any of those games and actually thought it was a change a pace to go against the norm and change direction. So writing regardless of medium is an act of surrendering yourself to the writer's creative vision and allowing the narrative to unfold at its own pace. Its about allowing the unknown, relinquishing control, and experiencing the work of someone else's imagination. In terms of vulnerability THIS MUST be allowed to even enjoy a work, even at the risk of hating it, how the fuck can you know if you'll like a story, if you are also within the notion of playing 1 expected character as not to have any surprise that hurts your fucking feelings or something?

So no one is forcing you to do shit, don't play it, move on. You are playing what someone else created, a story SOMEONE ELSE created, because within this concept of surrender, you become a passenger on a journey, relinquishing the role of the author (as clearly you didn't write those games) and instead embracing the role of the audience ie gamer, as in....it is THEIR GAME, who lives and dies, who you play as later on is based on what they decide, not you. Your job is merely to play and experience.



If you want some other experience, go fucking play MineCraft, a ton of shit you control in that game lol Play Little Big Planet, Dreams lol

You can play as who ever you like there.
 

BlakeofT

Member
I played Destiny 2 for a long time before quitting cold turkey. So so so many decisions were just insane. To name a few off the top of my head...

-Forsaken Expansion Gwisin Vest and One Eye Mask Exotic Armor Pieces: The former gave a near invincible roaming super the ability to pretty much last forever in a competitive game mode; with a team of these you could be pretty much guaranteed to win. If I'm not mistaken this exotic and or subclass was originally horrible but it got buffed at some point to be busted. One Eye Mask just did way too much. It let you track targets that damage you through walls, and then if you kill the target you get full health, an overshield and bonus damage for a bit. The main problems besides being busted were that they were so incredibly rare when they first came out so it's not like you could just join the people using them and that they stayed in this state for way way too long (at least OEM did).

-Beyond Light Expansion Behemoth subclass: It was stupidly fast and the super lasted an eternity and was basically impossible to kill.

-Sniping in general in pvp: One shot kill from any distance that turns the game into a boring wait behind walls fest. People got so good with it that it felt like you couldn't do anything to not get sniped sometimes.
 

Trunx81

Member
i just bailed on a windwaker replay a few months back because of this. it pissed me off, because i've always loved the game. i guess i just used to be more adaptable?...
I think the HD WiiU version has the inverted controls. We need a Switch conversion …
 
The stuttering in the Dead Space Remake, which still hasn't been fixed, definitely soured the experience for some and the lack of any action on E.As part is a further source of frustration.

It didn't ruin the experience for me, but I can see how it might.

For such a huge I.P, and at full AAA retail price, I think we deserve better.

A special mention must go to the utter shambles that is the Starfield U.I, the non existent maps for cities etc...and the lack of even the most basic features that have been the industry standard for decades.
The button prompts are weirdly inconsistent, with them working one moment then not working the next, and there's a sense that the user interface was thrown together by Craig the stoned intern two days before release.
The fact that it took modders barely a weekend to fix the entire system and provide something far more user friendly (and one that was far more elegant in its simplicity) tells you a lot about Bethesda.

No fov slider was pretty much unforgivable, and the lack of DLSS support was just bizarre.
Again, competent modders came to the rescue and offered the DLSS mod within hours.
Thankfully, at least in my personal experience, these things haven't made it impossible to still enjoy Starfield... although, it's worth noting we are now over a month since release and there is still no official fov or DLSS support.

(Spiderman 2 is coming, but until it does I'm still engrossed in Starfield enough to overlook its flaws.
I'm 67 hours in and probably still have another dozen hours in me.)
 
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Pejo

Member
Resonance of Fate battle designer(s). Just one of the most convoluted and stupid battle systems I've ever seen in a game.
 

Dazraell

Member
Crafting in Assassin's Creed III was always confusing to me. I was playing a Remastered version of the game some time ago and still couldn't grasp what they were thinking with it

Combat in Torment Tides of Numenera was the other thing that comes to mind. I was glad there was an option to skip most of encounters, but in the end instead of feeling satisfied that game allowed for solving problems without combat, I just felt relieved I haven't had to go through it
 
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Halo vehicle/ Destiny sparrow type controls... Right now I'm playing Hogwart's Lega... I mean Wizard Game plz don't ban plz plz I'm an ally.... and the equally idiotic (but somewhat different from Bungo trash) broom controls also hurt my head. The designers and enjoyers of said controls don't belong in gaming.
 
Context: I am playing through FF16 again on FF difficulty because having 2 trophies away from the platinum is triggering my OCD.

This second playthrough highlights how much of the game is dull & pointless filler (in the MSQ, the side content is another thing entirely) and the repeating structure is really apparent. Oh, and the majority of story "dungeons" are FF13 level of hallways.

The combat system doesn't support that length of game, and they could have easily condensed it into a 20 hour experience and have been far better for it.

I actually enjoyed FF16 overall on my first playthrough, this second one has just destroyed any goodwill I had for it, along with the square button on my controller.

On the topic of SE, the stagger system they introduced from FF13 onwards just drags down battles and forces enemies to become damage sponges until you get a short window to boost damage. This is not skilled or varied gameplay, it is padding. I wish they would have focussed on proper mechanics like status effects, elemental affinity, etc. No reason why that should only be relegated to ATB style battles.

---------------
SE Rant over, now for my general gripes:

* Any form of multiplayer trophies/achievements
* Gating content just to dangle MTX boosts in front of people
* Large barren empty worlds without the traversal mechanics to make them fun
* That collect-a-thons are no longer in style :)
 

Kusarigama

Member
Batmobile's battlemode sections in Batman Arkham Knight just brought the entire game's pacing down by 2 notches for me. Made even worse by the stealth sections of the batmobile battlemode.

Mass Effect 2's resources gathering chores because it was very very tedious and not fun at all.
 

Stratostar

Member
I'm sure it's skippable on PC and in NG+ or whatever, but in my experience as first-time player on console, Okami's egregiously long, unskippable 20 minute intro is unforgiveable.
I bought it on PS3 but dropped it the minute I realized the intro was dragging on longer than Christopher Judge at The Game Awards. I normally don't even mind long cutscenes or story dialogues, but an unskippable one the length of an anime episode, right as you sit down to play the game for the first time? I'm good. I have a million other games to play. Games that will respect my time enough to let me play them.
 

StueyDuck

Member
Pretty much the co-op in 90% of games that have co-op.

And then the biggest issue is why the fuck aren't most sp games just co-op, back ps1/n64 you just reskinned the main char and that was it boop.

They didn't need all these technical hurdles and scripted reasons etc. You like master chief well boom here's 2 of them running and shooting.

And what co-op there is, usually ends up being terribly implemented, only the host progresses, rubber bands between players, poor drop in/drop out systems and so on and so forth.
 
Naaaah! I might be being dramatic here but I played for two hours and just thought it was a bit of a mess.
Yea I put maybe 30mins into it. Very slow start but Im not entirely put off yet. Nothing to make me consider cremating the devs pre-mortem (except the opening video narrated by a kid or something, kids are always cringe in games) Is the story at least good? I will give it some more time and see how it goes. So far its kind of like a mix between desperados and american fugitive (neat little gta style game)
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
Here's the problem with it: MGS2 came out and everyone expected to play as Snake after the first game, but the game yanked the rug out from under them and made them play as Raiden. Ever since then, game directors want to be Kojima so bad that they're repeating that stupidity with their sequels. Like I said, Halo 5 with Locke replacing MC, Abby in TLOU2, and Atreus in Ragnarok. People are buying a sequel because they like the protagonist in the original game, but the sequels are forcing them to play as someone else and it's incredibly stupid.
I agree. MGS 2 was such a cop-out considering that the first MGS was legit one of the greatest action games of all time, and had such a captivating story that was told in a way that I can only describe as perfection. Granted, you can still feel some of that stuff in MGS 2 and the mind-bending themes towards the end were pretty cool too. But to replace the main hero of the first game with some wimp that no one knew or cared about at the time has to be one of the greatest bait-and-switches in the history of gaming, and anyone who defends this game over the first one has objectively bad taste in my opinion.
 
Forspoken the thread. The entire game is wtf am I playing and why does it look like straight out of the ps3 era.

Monster Hunter World - unskippable story cutscenes. A story is also a waste of time in a game like MH.

Calisto Protocol - how was the melee combat approved with its final design and how did the devs thought it was good?

Destiny 2 - to get into the game you have to pay a ton of money
 
Yea I put maybe 30mins into it. Very slow start but Im not entirely put off yet. Nothing to make me consider cremating the devs pre-mortem (except the opening video narrated by a kid or something, kids are always cringe in games) Is the story at least good? I will give it some more time and see how it goes. So far its kind of like a mix between desperados and american fugitive (neat little gta style game)
Desperados III and Shadow Tactics are both leagues better in my opinion. I LOVE those games. I have to give this more time as well but the combat and camera just feel like serious poop to me.
 
Forspoken the thread. The entire game is wtf am I playing and why does it look like straight out of the ps3 era.

Monster Hunter World - unskippable story cutscenes. A story is also a waste of time in a game like MH.

Calisto Protocol - how was the melee combat approved with its final design and how did the devs thought it was good?

Destiny 2 - to get into the game you have to pay a ton of money
Everything outside of the visual and audio presentation in Callisto feels like a bargain bin knockoff of Dead Space you would've expected in the PS3 era. How someone can come back to their own creation and seemingly have so little understanding of what actually made that game good, or even of basic fun mechanics, is beyond me.

I stopped at around 6 hours and even that was very generous. The game is a true stinkers on every level. Every element feels underbaked, archaic and shallow. Somehow they even fucked up the setting and I've rarely played a modern game where the world felt more like a boring movie set than an actual place I'm playing in.

Then there's the hilariously superior DS Remake releasing around the same time. Schofield must've been so far up his own ass because someone on that, no doubt talented, team must've raised their hand somewhere. Such a massive fucking letdown.
 

Interfectum

Member
Making Abby ugly and unlikeable was a mistake. There was an avenue where Abby could play golf with Joel but her archetype was all wrong. They tried to pull a MGS2 and failed miserably IMO.
 
Everything outside of the visual and audio presentation in Callisto feels like a bargain bin knockoff of Dead Space you would've expected in the PS3 era. How someone can come back to their own creation and seemingly have so little understanding of what actually made that game good, or even of basic fun mechanics, is beyond me.

I stopped at around 6 hours and even that was very generous. The game is a true stinkers on every level. Every element feels underbaked, archaic and shallow. Somehow they even fucked up the setting and I've rarely played a modern game where the world felt more like a boring movie set than an actual place I'm playing in.

Then there's the hilariously superior DS Remake releasing around the same time. Schofield must've been so far up his own ass because someone on that, no doubt talented, team must've raised their hand somewhere. Such a massive fucking letdown.
It's extremely sad what happend with Calisto Protocol. We got a review copy of it so at least i didn't had to spend the money on it. It was one of my most anticipated titles. The game's production quality value blew me away. But then like you said, everything was just kind of doo doo.

They should of just played a bit safer and introduced actual good combat with guns or some sort of a unique weapons. don't t get how anyone of them went into the meeting room and none of them said "this combat system sucks ass, we need to do something about it!"

Sometimes I just wish I could get a a special tour of a development studio for an entire month or two so I could experience and understand the working culture and their thought process and be taken into meetings as someone who's being specifically educated for a life of a game developer. It truly boggles my mind with some of the design decisions some studio end up staying with. And how does QA even let it pass too? Lol, I really don't get it.
 

SCB3

Member
7R blinded you? Put on some sunglasses.

I tried Xenoblade saga/saga/whatever recently. I found that doing combo attack among team members is important, but there is now way to control, effect, or predict what your party members will do. I played for quite a while expecting some mechanic to be introduced before asking here and realizing that was it.

Let me know if I'm missing anything because liked it but atm considering it unplayably stupid design.
Do yourself a favor and look at a combat guide for Xenoblade, it feels convoluted and shit to do, but there is something there that is fun to master, I was the same as you when I played 2 a year or so ago, I hated it so much but looked up how to do it and it improved the game so much

Also the fuck OP, how is F7R too flashy? I have light sensitive eyes and it was perfectly fine imo


As for me, I finished Sonic Frontiers this week (finally after a year of not playing it) and the Boss fights as Super Sonic fucking suck, so the way Super Sonic works is on a Timer based on how much rings you have, so for example if you have 400 rings, you have 400 seconds to beat the boss, better be prepared!

The issue with that is if you fail the boss you only get a portion of those Rings back, usually no where near enough to actually finish the fight and you cannot get more rings during the fight either, so you are forced to reload a save, which you'd better hope is close to the Boss area
 
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SCB3

Member
Making Abby ugly and unlikeable was a mistake. There was an avenue where Abby could play golf with Joel but her archetype was all wrong. They tried to pull a MGS2 and failed miserably IMO.
I'll always maintain that the Last of Us 2 should not have had Joel or Ellie in at all, if it was just Abbie and her crew etc, it would've been a much better game, Ellies parts were just not as good aside from the Story beats (aside from that fucking last chapter that was so uneeded)
 

Crayon

Member
Do yourself a favor and look at a combat guide for Xenoblade, it feels convoluted and shit to do, but there is something there that is fun to master, I was the same as you when I played 2 a year or so ago, I hated it so much but looked up how to do it and it improved the game so much

Also the fuck OP, how is F7R too flashy? I have light sensitive eyes and it was perfectly fine imo


As for me, I finished Sonic Frontiers this week (finally after a year of not playing it) and the Boss fights as Super Sonic fucking suck, so the way Super Sonic works is on a Timer based on how much rings you have, so for example if you have 400 rings, you have 400 seconds to beat the boss, better be prepared!

The issue with that is if you fail the boss you only get a portion of those Rings back, usually no where near enough to actually finish the fight and you cannot get more rings during the fight either, so you are forced to reload a save, which you'd better hope is close to the Boss area

Cool, I'll have a look at that. Checking out a guide for a systems is not something that crossed my mind at all. I did just on here and ask perhaps the wrong question, confirming my fears that what I saw was what I get. I did give it a good 20 hours!
 
It's extremely sad what happend with Calisto Protocol. We got a review copy of it so at least i didn't had to spend the money on it. It was one of my most anticipated titles. The game's production quality value blew me away. But then like you said, everything was just kind of doo doo.

They should of just played a bit safer and introduced actual good combat with guns or some sort of a unique weapons. don't t get how anyone of them went into the meeting room and none of them said "this combat system sucks ass, we need to do something about it!"

Sometimes I just wish I could get a a special tour of a development studio for an entire month or two so I could experience and understand the working culture and their thought process and be taken into meetings as someone who's being specifically educated for a life of a game developer. It truly boggles my mind with some of the design decisions some studio end up staying with. And how does QA even let it pass too? Lol, I really don't get it.
I'm on the same wave length. I was really, I mean really, fucking excited for Callisto. It looked fantastic, I thought the combat would introduce a real skill-based melee system we hadn't seen in a game of its ilk before and all that. I mean this guy helmed Dead Space and Dead Space 2...what could go wrong!?

I still remember being like 2 hours in and the copium wearing off. I think it's a legitimately bad game with a very shiny coat of paint. It just feels like Schofield waving his big director dick and just not listening to anyone else. I mean I'm probably making that shit up but this has auteur fail written all over it to me. It's incompetent at very simple shit which usually means someone isn't listening in a project.

Probably my biggest disappointment of this gen so far. I was like 110% sure this was going to be a classic. Welp!

PS: This reminds of basic, basic stuff this game does that is so goofy. In the boring-ass "shit is going wrong" intro you're introduced to the combat followed by like 10 minutes of no enemies and slow walking with something like FIVE "smash Triangle to pry open" doors in a row and insta-death robot stealth for no reason. I'm no dev but even that already jumped out to me as a wait...what kind of pacing is this and what year is it?
 
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Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
The Hollow Knight devs making you waste a precious badge equip slot just so you can see where you are on the map.

Never trade gameplay for QoL. What a ridiculously stupid choice.
 
I'll always maintain that the Last of Us 2 should not have had Joel or Ellie in at all, if it was just Abbie and her crew etc, it would've been a much better game, Ellies parts were just not as good aside from the Story beats (aside from that fucking last chapter that was so uneeded)
I like TLoU2 a ton because it's fun as hell to play but even I can agree with that. The clubbing would've been much more effective near the end as a clash or something. Abby was also more fun to play moveset-wise. The Lev storyline was aimless drivel and seemingly written around "how do we fit this social justice checklist item in here" as well as far as I'm concerned.
 
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