Phoenixmgs said:
I'm not saying games should be perfect or anything. I'm saying they are far from perfect and we can do much better. Again, I'm talking about GAME DESIGN, not other issues like number of enemies or narrative choice (with narration or say Trico fake deaths). Team ICO games have solid game design, there's rarely anything there that doesn't need to be there and if there is, it takes up little time in the game that it barely matters. Compare that to both the loot systems in Witcher 3 and Divinity 2 as per the examples. Both cost the player numerous time in menus for no reason and with Witcher 3, it makes no thematic sense to even be there. After watching the Divinity 2 critique (prior to story spoilers), I very much doubt I'll even play the game because Divinity 1 already has to much loot and time spent in menus, it's a chore already and it's only worse in the sequel. And games with open worlds for no reason just result is tons of wasted time traveling to actual content.
That's apples and oranges. Enemies and narrative IS game design. You're being picky about what constitutes as a major fault or something that is a systemic problem in game design. Both
W3 and I'm assuming
Divinity 2 simply have loot for you to sort through, that's just the type of games they are. It wouldn't make sense for
W3 not to have loot since a lot of the game is relatively indepth. So not being able to pick up weapons from enemies that might be stronger or that you can sell for money would be strange. Compare that to
H:ZD; does it make sense that Aloy just leaves the projectile weaponry on all those machines, despite them probably being very helpful in combat?
It actually handles loot better than something like
Skyrim where whenever you get encumbered you need to either drop something or take a strength potion to fast-travel to the nearest vendor. And this happens a lot. In
W3 your horse makes it so you can always travel at normal speed, and whenever enemies show up the encumbrance goes away for the time being.
Video games started stagnating a lot last-gen. Not every game needs a loot system, skill trees, Arkham combat, an open world, etc. Instead of copying say Arkham combat, why not develop a combat system that fits your game instead? Copying Arkham combat has seemed to finally calmed down though. Even something like Sekiro, which developed a combat system that fit the game, copied a bunch of game design from Souls for really no reason, From just did what they know I guess. What's the reason for enemies respawning in Sekiro? It really makes no sense, plus it only causes the player to re-kill mobs just to get to the actual fight they want to retry. It's like Shadow of the Colossus only has 16 enemies because adding mobs to fight is not the core experience; it's not about whether 16 colossi were too few, too much, or just right; it's that it knew only colossi should be the enemies. Sekiro's combat is similar in a sense to Shadow wherein Sekiro shines in the mini-boss and boss battles, it really doesn't need the standard mobs at all.
You don't know that, because you haven't played those versions of these games.
SotC and
Sekiro are completely different games from one another.
SotC's world is about isolation, and the game's combat/climbing mechanics are ill suited for fighting regular enemies.
Sekiro's respawning enemies are very necessary, since the Bosses are very likely to pound you into dust. And the respawning enemies not only provide you with EXP and money to get skills and resupply yourself for the Boss fights, they also grant you the chance to regain your confidence in the combat by fighting easier adversaries. This has ironically been the result of the respawing enemies in
Souls games; not to make it harder, but work as a confedence booster.
If you want to get technical about
SotC, is it really necessary to have to travel to each colossus? You're not doing anything, the horse pretty much rides itself, it's not helping you prepare for the fight that's to come. Why even have it there at all if the game is all about the colossus fights?