Modern Games Pet Peeves

[It's Thinking 2]

In general every game needs to be bloated and 60 milion hours to justify the fact they spent 80 milion dollars on it; so they give em filler like copy paste quests and shallow busywork. Just look at silent hill 2 remake, the original game you can finish in a weekend but now that it's big budget and next gen it needs to be three times the lenght (while still having only 3 enemies for the most part). So

I blame angry joe

I remember when the only long game was Kingdom Hearts II with the 3 hour long Roxas opening, but that was small potatoes. XD

 

[dropsmegamega]

The battle wouldnt have been so memorable if you just encountered it with the game camera with no dialogue, instead he's one of my fav bosses ever. And as the game is meant to be replayed you can just instantly skip it with one button so it doesnt interrupt the flow of the game if you're speeding through it

Modern devs just dont use demos like this, they want to use em to stop everything so they can beat you over the head with how profound and relatable their characters are and how this is a statement or whatever so video essayist can salivate all over it, the gameplay and mechanics are secondary, they'll just use the same mechanics as the last famous game that came out so no player will complain about having to learn new stuff and thats a 10/10. Mainstream players and review sites couldnt care less about mechanics, it's all about playing it once getting their deep ending and moving onto the next game

It depends on the genre of the game, slower games like adventure/horror can easily get away with lots of cutscenes as they don't break the flow as much(and also in the case of horror, it gives me a short sense of safety before going back to hell). For a game like killer7 I wouldn't mind super long cutscenes, while in these super fast-paced arpgs I don't even bother reading dialogues lol
DMC understands this and kept its cutscenes short, just enough to give tension before the battle or to reward the player for defeating the boss, but its probably not an easy feat, principally when devs want to tell their profound stories or something.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

It depends on the genre of the game, slower games like adventure/horror can easily get away with lots of cutscenes as they don't break the flow as much(and also in the case of horror, it gives me a short sense of safety before going back to hell). For a game like killer7 I wouldn't mind super long cutscenes, while in these super fast-paced arpgs I don't even bother reading dialogues lol
DMC understands this and kept its cutscenes short, just enough to give tension before the battle or to reward the player for defeating the boss, but its probably not an easy feat, principally when devs want to tell their profound stories or something.

Yes it depends on the genre but I think its also devs not looking at them as tools to enhance the gameplay anymore, but the main attraction. They are the main attraction for game journos too, when was the last time you read a mainstream review that was like "this game has really deep mechanics! here's a tecnical breakdown!" it'as always "You will cry when the grizzled man dies, that was such a statement on masculinity, videogames are finally art now".

Metal gear solid 2 already demonstrated it's perfectly possible to do make a good game with complex mechanics that will take months to master, lots of replayability and unlockables and a complex story thats full of sociopolitical themes that compliments the gameplay

 

[Strategist]

Basically everything that FF Rebirth does: Yellow Paint, talking down to the audience, bad Voice Acting/Direction, Ubisoft style checkpoints, overtly guided gameplay with maps, low quality mini games, unskippable cutscenes, in engine interactive cutscenes where the character is forced to walk. So many things.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

Basically everything that FF Rebirth does: Yellow Paint, talking down to the audience, bad Voice Acting/Direction, Ubisoft style checkpoints, overtly guided gameplay with maps, low quality mini games, unskippable cutscenes, in engine interactive cutscenes where the character is forced to walk. So many things.

Yellow paint isn't as bad in FFVII Rebirth as some other modern games but i think anything like that should be an option that is able to toggle on or off in a menu. There's menu options for other features for disabilities so why not? Really though i think the real reason they do the yellow paint thing isn't so much because it's for color blindness as it is because all modern games look like dark poop and the only way to see what to interact with is bright colors. Gee, maybe they should just make the whole game bright and colorful then?

 

[Lee__Kanker]

Basically everything that FF Rebirth does: Yellow Paint, talking down to the audience, bad Voice Acting/Direction, Ubisoft style checkpoints, overtly guided gameplay with maps, low quality mini games, unskippable cutscenes, in engine interactive cutscenes where the character is forced to walk. So many things.

bland voice acting too is a big one, I dont know what it is but theyre all getting directed like tv shows instead of cartoons, thats what it feels like at least. They're all so sober and bland and forgettable, yes old they could have more weird cheesy lines (as if thats a bad thing) but they were way more memorable, they took more risks
And again it was all played way more like a cartoon show (both western and jap) than a netflix show

 

[Strategist]

bland voice acting too is a big one, I dont know what it is but theyre all getting directed like tv shows instead of cartoons, thats what it feels like at least. They're all so sober and bland and forgettable, yes old they could have more weird cheesy lines (as if thats a bad thing) but they were way more memorable, they took more risks
And again it was all played way more like a cartoon show (both western and jap) than a netflix show

Final Fantasy has been a series with a generally serious tone, but the subject matter is becoming more and more ridiculous as time passes that it becomes harder to take it seriously. Maybe being more self aware and leaning into the camp could help them. And the voice direction has been bad in the series for decades now. Either the directors force the actors to emote in a overtly monotone expressionless voice or they force the actors to imitate the Japanese VA and their quirks and grunts.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

Final Fantasy has been a series with a generally serious tone, but the subject matter is becoming more and more ridiculous as time passes that it becomes harder to take it seriously. Maybe being more self aware and leaning into the camp could help them. And the voice direction has been bad in the series for decades now. Either the directors force the actors to emote in a overtly monotone expressionless voice or they force the actors to imitate the Japanese VA and their quirks and grunts.

I dunno. FFX had some goofy stuff in it. lol

 

[dropsmegamega]

Yes it depends on the genre but I think its also devs not looking at them as tools to enhance the gameplay anymore, but the main attraction. They are the main attraction for game journos too, when was the last time you read a mainstream review that was like "this game has really deep mechanics! here's a tecnical breakdown!" it'as always "You will cry when the grizzled man dies, that was such a statement on masculinity, videogames are finally art now".

Metal gear solid 2 already demonstrated it's perfectly possible to do make a good game with complex mechanics that will take months to master, lots of replayability and unlockables and a complex story thats full of sociopolitical themes that compliments the gameplay

Yeah, its a mentality thats has become much more prominent in recent generations, ppl can't see art in mechanics and interactions (which ironically is what makes games in the first place) and instead they hope games can copy other mediums (mostly cinema) to achieve greatness.

Kojima is a weird case because his games actually have a lot of thought put into mechanics, but the guy is one of the biggest proponents for overly cinematic games with thousands of cutscenes and big names from hollywood and whatnot. Also he takes pics with cup noodles and monster energy drink. Completely insane.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

Yeah, its a mentality thats has become much more prominent in recent generations, ppl can't see art in mechanics and interactions (which ironically is what makes games in the first place) and instead they hope games can copy other mediums (mostly cinema) to achieve greatness.

Kojima is a weird case because his games actually have a lot of thought put into mechanics, but the guy is one of the biggest proponents for overly cinematic games with thousands of cutscenes and big names from hollywood and whatnot. Also he takes pics with cup noodles and monster energy drink. Completely insane.

Right, journos always go "videogames are finally art!" when they're imitating other mediums with mechanics as an afterthought, they seldom see them as something that has any artistic merit but they'll soy all over t h e m e s. And I say this as someone who likes the stanley parable and undertale

To hell with celebrities in games, Im sick of celebrities in everything let alone games, screw kojima for betraying David Hayter, when silent hills got cancelled I thought "Guess having something you've poured everything onto throwned in the garbage for no reason doesnt feel nice huh?". Plus many people forget the mgs studio was way more than just him, theres a whole yt series about that
I love mgs 1-4 (didnt play 5 nor do I intendo to), I think they're a great example on how a game being cinematic doesnt mean it has to come at the expense of gameplay; its stories are all in service of the game itself, the most direct example being the codec calls changing depending on what you do which enhance replayability and encourages the player to think outside the box instead of forcing you to walk forward and listen to whatever the frustrated writers wanna soapbox about. They also do things most modern games do which is present multiple points of view, when big budget wants to do SERIOUS GROWN UP topics they tend to childishly present story elements as black and white because they're terrified the view-I mean the player wont agree with them.

Then the levels are super interactive, can be approached in many many different ways, difficulty options are thought out and meaningful, theres ton s of unlockables, boss fights will make you have to learn every tool at your disposal and learn the games movement and shooting...

It also rememebers being meta=\= crappy generic mechanics, mgs2 is as meta as it gets and it's also one of the most technically impressive games ever, it's Mind Boggling it was made in 2001, it feels like a late ps2 game! It also doesnt have graphical detail for the sake of it, it's all to make it replayable and give you more options!

 

[sandogma]

Yeah I tend to cringe when I see a celebrity in a video game or animated flick.
In animated flicks, my personal opinion is that most celebrities just aren't good at voice acting. There are a few exceptions, like in Aladdin, where I very much enjoyed Robin Williams performance. I think Aladdin started the trend of adding big celebrities to animated films, unfortunately.

In video games, seeing a celebrity, especially when they attempt to look like their real life portrayal, often takes me out of the experience. I think part of the reason is because you get the Uncanny Valley factor. You've see the real version of celebrities in some form or another previously, and the transition to digital still isn't quite there yet, so it just starts looking odd. Johnny Silverhand looked best when he kept his shades on, but when they were off, not even pathtracing could remove the uncanny valley lol

And as much as I liked watching the cut scenes in Death Stranding, EVERYONE, despite how great the models looked, every celebrity had the uncanny valley effect going on. But I think it was less jarring here because everything else about the game was uncanny lol

In contrast, with The Last of Us, you see Joel and Ellie who both look nothing like their real life VA's, and everyone looks less uncanny because you have no real life reference to compare it to.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

Right, journos always go "videogames are finally art!" when they're imitating other mediums with mechanics as an afterthought, they seldom see them as something that has any artistic merit but they'll soy all over t h e m e s. And I say this as someone who likes the stanley parable and undertale

To hell with celebrities in games, Im sick of celebrities in everything let alone games, screw kojima for betraying David Hayter, when silent hills got cancelled I thought "Guess having something you've poured everything onto throwned in the garbage for no reason doesnt feel nice huh?". Plus many people forget the mgs studio was way more than just him, theres a whole yt series about that
I love mgs 1-4 (didnt play 5 nor do I intendo to), I think they're a great example on how a game being cinematic doesnt mean it has to come at the expense of gameplay; its stories are all in service of the game itself, the most direct example being the codec calls changing depending on what you do which enhance replayability and encourages the player to think outside the box instead of forcing you to walk forward and listen to whatever the frustrated writers wanna soapbox about. They also do things most modern games do which is present multiple points of view, when big budget wants to do SERIOUS GROWN UP topics they tend to childishly present story elements as black and white because they're terrified the view-I mean the player wont agree with them.

Then the levels are super interactive, can be approached in many many different ways, difficulty options are thought out and meaningful, theres ton s of unlockables, boss fights will make you have to learn every tool at your disposal and learn the games movement and shooting...

It also rememebers being meta=\= crappy generic mechanics, mgs2 is as meta as it gets and it's also one of the most technically impressive games ever, it's Mind Boggling it was made in 2001, it feels like a late ps2 game! It also doesnt have graphical detail for the sake of it, it's all to make it replayable and give you more options!

Sega is the only company that should be allowed to make celebrity games.

 

[sandogma]

Sega is the only company that should be allowed to make celebrity games.

Not even Sega is immune lol

 

[Adrastia]

Too many tutorials and over-complicated controls.

Tutorials should all be skippable and made available any time from a separate menu.

Hmm... gotta go with Gacha games and how some of them are good and then they just hit end of service and vanish forever. The worst of this is when a game like Breath of Fire 6 is a gacha and it disappears. Like, bro, it's the 6th game in the series, why make it a Gacha? Stupid.

There was a Wild Arms gacha too. I don't think either of these left Japan. Good gachas print money whereas a standard game is a one time price unless it includes paid DLC or loot box garbage. But once the gacha is gone so is your investment. I really wish companies wouldn't make their gacha whale bait a part of a main series. Well, it's not like there's ever gonna be a Breath of Fire 7 anyway.