Game mechanics you're glad have (virtually) died.

BrawlMan

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This is sorta similar to limited saves, but limited continues. You rarely see them nowadays aside from retro throwback and indie games every now and then. That did not start dying down until the early mid 360/PS3/Wii era. Before then, you would still see them a lot, mainly in Japanese games. Most Western developers just stuck with standard check points and unlimited continues.
 

fOx

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Im utterly sick of the weird platforming segments in uncharted, that everyones been ripping off for the last ten or so years. I still see it used from time to time, and I despise it.
 

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Im utterly sick of the weird platforming segments in uncharted, that everyones been ripping off for the last ten or so years. I still see it used from time to time, and I despise it.
Honestly, the worst version of Uncharted platforming I've ever seen was in Enslaved. Platforming is pretty much so automated that it is almost pointless. Say what you will about Uncharted, but at least the platforming can be challenging. When playing Enslaved, you rarely can screw up the jumping. I don't mind nor love cinematic platformers, because there are plenty of other types of platformers (whether 2D or 3D style throwback/modern) that I have no need to be upset. You can avoid cinematic platformers at this point with the huge amount of variety and not miss a thing.
 

Gyrobot

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This is sorta similar to limited saves, but limited continues. You rarely see them nowadays aside from retro throwback and indie games every now and then. That did not start dying down until the early mid 360/PS3/Wii era. Before then, you would still see them a lot, mainly in Japanese games. Most Western developers just stuck with standard check points and unlimited continues.
1cc runs is a challenge of personal skill, it sees if managed to overcome the dev's difficulty expectations because it's the ultimate example of easy to learn, difficult to master.
 

BrawlMan

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1cc runs is a challenge of personal skill, it sees if managed to overcome the dev's difficulty expectations because it's the ultimate example of easy to learn, difficult to master.
Thank you, but I already know that. Does not take much to figure that out. Especially if you read the previews and dev interviews in magazines back in da day. Hideki Kamiya made it super clear that his inspiration for DMC1 was Castlevania I on NES. Most arcade games inspired his games. Limited continues could work, but lets be real, it was artificial padding. Even back then, aside from RPGs and Adventure games, most games were short, and difficulty was extended replay value. You had plenty that had the right balance, but just as many went too far or fucked it up.Or in many cases, game design that has not aged well. I love a challenge myself, but I am not that bothered that we don't see games with limited continues much. If I need a fix that badly, I got plenty of arcade port compilation for days, old games I've kept, or MAME.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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This is sorta similar to limited saves, but limited continues. You rarely see them nowadays aside from retro throwback and indie games every now and then. That did not start dying down until the early mid 360/PS3/Wii era. Before then, you would still see them a lot, mainly in Japanese games. Most Western developers just stuck with standard check points and unlimited continues.
You can do limited continues well, but it's better as an optional difficulty rather than having the game built around it.

Doom Eternal can be pretty fun using the lives system.
 

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You can do limited continues well, but it's better as an optional difficulty rather than having the game built around it.

Doom Eternal can be pretty fun using the lives system.
I agree. I usually don't have a problem with a live system, it just better be done well, optional or not. Doom Eternal life system was the least of its problems. All I can say is I did not enjoy it like I thought I would.
 

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Password save system. This died mid to late in the 6th gen consoles, but a certain minority of GBA game still used this. They were deader than dead when the DS launched and was out in the open for 2 years. I am glad password saves do not exist anymore, because many of them would get obnoxious. Thank God for manual saves and auto saves.
 
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EvilRoy

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Sierra was full of that shit. Kings Quest in particular, where not only could you die because you didn't see one particular, easily missable detail, you could be fucked hours later by the same token. Notably the infamous "Throw the pie at the yeti" puzzle, where not buying the pie before you go up the mountain and/or eating it when prompted that you're starving can leave you fucked. And there's no way to go back by that point, so you pretty much have to revert to an earlier save(hope you have one).

Codename Iceman had a puzzle that required you to win a dice game several times. Also, if you try to save scum, the game accuses you of cheating and fails you(to make it worse, it's to get a part for the submarine you're on to fix it, from the engineering crew members, who apparently don't feel like fixing their ship is part of their job and the captain AKA you need to do it, but only if you can beat them in a game of chance). And of course, the not quite moon logic, but still dickish bit where you could easily not notice you got the wrong ID card at the beginning and not notice it till hours later when you need it again and there's no way to go back and get it other then start the game over.

Basically, the point I'm trying to make is that Sierra hates you.
That also snuck into a lot of early 3D games. Lightbults in a tin can, or melting wax to affix a horseshoe to use as a handle for a trap door. Early (like basement coder early) adventure games I always kind of forgave for a lot of this (aside from deadman walking crap) because arguably half the game was abstract sillyness intended to pad out a story, and it was all just written plus a blob of pixels on the ground. Its really hard to balance puzzles intelligently because if you make them purely logical then its easy to fall into the trap of everything being extremely straightforward, or everything being a best move chess trial. In 3D games it would drive me mad, because the puzzle was almost never really a "puzzle", it was just a set piece that defined a goal, so making it nonsensical was dual parts needless and frustrating after you wrestled with tank controls and shot a bunch of dog things to cross a room to find what you needed. I'm glad most of the worst offenders of moon logic have been slowly bred out of games now in any case.

For me, after re-playing HL1, 2, and Black Mesa: Jumping Puzzles in FPS. I always kind of wondered why this was "fun". As much as I understand moon logic pissing someone off endlessly I at least always enjoyed seeing how Sierra would kill me *this* time, and my brother always played the games before me so worst case I would bug him for a hint. I don't see how someone actually enjoyed navigating bullshit in early FPS. There was a time where I was really nostalgic for needing to carefully conserve ammo and hunt for health packs, but I always balked at the thought of re-doing any one of a dozen jumping puzzles.

Following up from that: bloody eyeball regenerating health. I know this still exists, but it seems to have found a way to co-exist with health bars, and I appreciate that. Something about the regenerating health thing would always kill a game for me because I never felt like I was in danger or really couldn't afford to screw up. Get shot a bunch? Hide for a while, and just try again. No ammo? Just heal up, run like a psycho at the enemies to beat them to death, if it starts to go tits up on you then flee to a hiding spot. no quietly sweating because your last save was 30 mins ago and you're down to 10 pistol bullets and 25 health, no combing areas to both find resources and mentally map it so you can more efficiently deal with another ambush, just sort of.. waiting them out.
 

meiam

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Those old adventure game were so freaking weird. I remember as a little kid who literally couldn't read English I would play them and would actually get quite far in them literally by just clicking everything and thinking this would be so much easier if only I could read English... little did I know I was actually playing them in the optimal way. I almost finished day of the tentacle and grim fandago that way and played quite a lot of one of the monkey island. But I think the most hillarious one was Leisure suit Larry 5, I had literally no idea that this was supposed to be about sex stuff, there's a scene where this girl suggestivly eat a banana split before giving Larry a blowjob and I watch that and did not understand it at all. The game is technically about taking picture of woman doing depraved act, but I had no clue and never tried taking picture during the scene, so I got the bad ending, but jokes on you game I couldn't read it so I didn't even know I got the bad ending.
 

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I don't know how universal this is, but newer Western RPGs have been going for more binary skill checks rather than chance based skill checks. Even the newer CRPG titles that typically try to be a bit more old school. I prefer binary skill checks. I'm either skilled enough to do the thing or I'm not. Don't make me stand there spamming my lockpick skill not knowing whether I even stand a chance of opening the bloody door or not.
 

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Those old adventure game were so freaking weird. I remember as a little kid who literally couldn't read English I would play them and would actually get quite far in them literally by just clicking everything and thinking this would be so much easier if only I could read English... little did I know I was actually playing them in the optimal way. I almost finished day of the tentacle and grim fandago that way and played quite a lot of one of the monkey island. But I think the most hillarious one was Leisure suit Larry 5, I had literally no idea that this was supposed to be about sex stuff, there's a scene where this girl suggestivly eat a banana split before giving Larry a blowjob and I watch that and did not understand it at all. The game is technically about taking picture of woman doing depraved act, but I had no clue and never tried taking picture during the scene, so I got the bad ending, but jokes on you game I couldn't read it so I didn't even know I got the bad ending.
Yeah, some of the games the puzzles made no sense, and some of them had puzzles that might not make sense even if you knew English.

Monkey Island 2 had an infamous example of this. One of the puzzles requires you to turn off a pump that doesn't have a handle or handwheel and there's none in the game. It turns out there is monkey in a bar on another island that you can kidnap(Monkeynap?) and twist it into a convoluted shape to use on the pump(It's an adventure game, okay). The reason? It's a MONKEY WRENCH!

If you don't get the joke or think that logic doesn't follow, you're not alone. Monkey Wrench is a predominately American term for a type of adjustable wrench/spanner that apparently is not used much elsewhere and the devs didn't realize that. So a lot of gamers in places outside the US couldn't figure out the puzzle(aside from trial and error or the damn hint line) because that term isn't really a thing.

Also, who the hell would kidnap a monkey, stuff it in their pants, twist it into a wrench shape and use it on a pump?
 
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Gergar12

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Sadly not; time limits, weapon degradation, and puzzles you have to google.
 
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BrawlMan

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Not died, but not as prevalent or in your face. Motion controls. Forced motion controls. Thankfully, publisher and developers (mainly Nintendo) are no longer sticking the shit down our throats and are either not the main focus or optional. Optional should be the only way to go.

Online passes. Fuck em! They did nothing, but screw consumers over for not buying a game new or renting. Some games I bought used just to be vindictive and prove a point.

Bad or tedious platforming mechanics in a beat'em up or hack n slash. This was especially true in the 8 bit/16bit days.
 

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I'm actually someone who didn't like health pickups that much. I felt regenerating health just let me get on with life.

Older shooters with health pickups typically had a quicksave system anyway, and I was perfectly fine with abusing it if I got myself into a shitty situation. I also used to be super neurotic about these games, constantly quickloading and retrying segments until I beat it with either no damage taken, or just enough damage taken that surrounding health kits could recover.

Though I don't mind some games returning to the older system. Games like the DOOM 2016(haven't played Eternal yet) offer alternate means of regaining health such as through executions. I enjoy having to fight to recover health. To a degree anyway. The new Wolfensteins kinda did a partial health regen thing so that you'll always at least have 20 health which I'm alright with.
 

Gyrobot

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I'm actually someone who didn't like health pickups that much. I felt regenerating health just let me get on with life.

Older shooters with health pickups typically had a quicksave system anyway, and I was perfectly fine with abusing it if I got myself into a shitty situation. I also used to be super neurotic about these games, constantly quickloading and retrying segments until I beat it with either no damage taken, or just enough damage taken that surrounding health kits could recover.

Though I don't mind some games returning to the older system. Games like the DOOM 2016(haven't played Eternal yet) offer alternate means of regaining health such as through executions. I enjoy having to fight to recover health. To a degree anyway. The new Wolfensteins kinda did a partial health regen thing so that you'll always at least have 20 health which I'm alright with.
Or more importantly, set it upon popular areas as +5 Health, so whereas cover shooters reward playing it safe games like Doom 2016 was meant to reward good movement with really good movement plays being more rewarding on trades.

I think more games should offer regen on the move where health recovers slowly in cover vs taking risk in movement restoring chunks of health on headshots and kills.
 

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Bad or tedious platforming mechanics in a beat'em up or hack n slash. This was especially true in the 8 bit/16bit days.
I'd go farther and say Platforming in any game where they don't want to put in the work to make it good. If you can't be bothered to make platforming responsive and fun, don't put it in your game. I know I keep harping on this but having just finished DS3, FROM keeps putting stupid platforming jumps in the games despite not having a dedicated jump button and it does not platform well. Sekiro, at least, shows they've learned a bit, by putting in a jump button and a grappling hook that makes this far less of a problem.
 
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Catfood220

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Bad or tedious platforming mechanics in a beat'em up or hack n slash. This was especially true in the 8 bit/16bit days.
Oh God, the absolute pain of playing Double Dragon on the NES and having to line up a pixel perfect jump over some broken bridge or chasm. And even then, the game might just decide that the other side doesn't exist and you fall through a solid object to your death. I still have nightmares.
 

BrawlMan

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I'd go farther and say Platforming in any game where they don't want to put in the work to make it good. If you can't be bothered to make platforming responsive and fun, don't put it in your game.
Many a game from the 5th, 6th, and even 7th gen suffer heavily from this. Dark times.

Oh God, the absolute pain of playing Double Dragon on the NES and having to line up a pixel perfect jump over some broken bridge or chasm. And even then, the game might just decide that the other side doesn't exist and you fall through a solid object to your death. I still have nightmares.
I'm so used to the bad platforming in DD I & II, I can almost always do it with little trouble. With that said, I always play these games with saves states. I won't even touch DD III. What sucks even more is that DD IV brings back the shitty platforming. It's a lot easier, but it's still annoying. At least you get unlimited continues. DD Neon is the only Double Dragon game with decent platforming. The platforming in that game is nothing complex, basic, simple, and competent.
 
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