Your "What were they thinking." Moment while you were playing a game.

[Casual Shinji]

Exactly why I didn't bother doing repeat playthroughs of most God of War games. Say whatever you will about the Devil May Cry franchise, but most of its puzzles never went overly complicated. At worse, it was usually some minor tedium. I still say most of the puzzles in God of War 4 are better than a majority of the puzzles from past games.

Ooh, hard, HARD disagree.

The classic God of War games probably have some of the best puzzle implementations of any action game series. Not only does it emphasize Kratos' attributes - most of not all puzzles require heavy lifting/pushing/pulling - it also functions as a way of showing that the world is working against Kratos through more than just enemy forces. None of the puzzles are actual brain teasers either, the solution being within the same room typically. Most of them also serve as a test of endurance for the character, and how nearly impossible it should be for him to accomplish it, while obviously still being quite doable within the bounds of the game itself.

God of War '18 actually got me fasely excited early on puzzle wise, when right after you first meet Brok you get that little cave with the big spike platform that you need to raise and freeze in place with your axe and then enemies show up, and it becomes this nice dangerous puzzle and combat combo scenario that GoW was always so good at. Only for it to really be the only time something like that occurs in the game.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I had one recently playing the Indie RTS game Death Crown

TLDR: The game relies on you winning 50:50 coin flips to win the one fight

Simple run down of the game, you have 3 buildings, one generates gold, one generates troops and the final one is a defensive tower that kills enemy troops.
You place towers or barracks to expand your area of influence which then means you can build further from your base.
The goal as such is to expand your influence to capture black crystals which power up your troops letting them more easily take down enemy buildings and damage their main base.
The mission is near the end of the demon DLC campiagn. which introduces chests you can capture and when they open there's a 50:50 chance it will explode destroying all nearby buildings or give you 40 gold.
On Boss levels the enemy base gets special abilities.

On the Skeleton Altar boss where the mechanic is if you lose a building a crypt / catacombs all will rise up in it's place controlled by the enemy faction. Thus only enemy troops can pass through it and your troops need to destroy it to attack via that route.
The problem is every black crystal on the level has a treasure chest by it. So if you get lucky you get 40 gold and to get boosted ahead of the enemy. If you get unlucky then the chest explodes costing you the 25 gold or so the building cost, and taking away time from being able to focus on attacking the enemy by putting up a massive wall in your way and blocks your expansion to the black crystals which you need to win. So basically every chance you get at claiming one of the crystals is a huge risk compared to the enemy where they just lose the cost of the building if the chest explodes.

 

[BrawlMan]

Ooh, hard, HARD disagree.

The classic God of War games probably have some of the best puzzle implementations of any action game series. Not only does it emphasize Kratos' attributes - most of not all puzzles require heavy lifting/pushing/pulling - it also functions as a way of showing that the world is working against Kratos through more than just enemy forces. None of the puzzles are actual brain teasers either, the solution being within the same room typically. Most of them also serve as a test of endurance for the character, and how nearly impossible it should be for him to accomplish it, while obviously still being quite doable within the bounds of the game itself.

God of War '18 actually got me fasely excited early on puzzle wise, when right after you first meet Brok you get that little cave with the big spike platform that you need to raise and freeze in place with your axe and then enemies show up, and it becomes this nice dangerous puzzle and combat combo scenario that GoW was always so good at. Only for it to really be the only time something like that occurs in the game.

We already done this bit. If you feel differently than me, I don't mind and it doesn't bother me. My feelings stay the same regardless. I'm not saying the fourth game had perfect puzzles either, but I found them more enjoyable than most of the old God of War games. That's just how I feel about it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

We already done this bit.

I did have a familiar feeling creeping over me as I was writing that post.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

The axe was interesting as a puzzle tool as well as combat (loved the bit with Thor’s statue too), but there was also a very pleasing design choreography and flow to the classic games (which even the PSP games pulled off brilliantly) that tied all three pillars together so well (combat, puzzles, platforming). It’s mostly absent in the new game, but I appreciate the enhanced focus on exploration as a substitute.

That said, I’d still love to see a return to that classic formula at least for a good chunk of a chapter in Ragnarok.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Oh definitely. Where possible, I prefer to turn it all off (unless there's scanning involved, something about sci-fi scanning every suspicious object and creature pleases a curious lurking desire within the soul), but some games like Witcher 3 will screw you over in detective quests if you do that, which does not help feel particularly detectivey. It's kind of my main bugbear with every game trying to convince the player they are a very smart detective: you're still just following the glowy carrots on sticks being funneled towards a flimsy pretense of figuring that shit out yourself.

And that's why The Outer Wilds is one of the best detective games ever made.

 

[BrawlMan]

Having the character specific battle tracks not play in certain, non-boss only missions in DMC5. The ambience does nothing and actually makes things less exciting. The environments are repetitive enough as they are, and taking out the exciting music is a detriment to the experience. This ain't exactly new to the series, but it was usually saved for late game or the last 1 or 2 missions. Say whatever you will about DmC (2013), but it at least has a variety of songs whenever entering fights. DMC6 needs to fix that whenever it comes out.

Onechanbara Origin - Making what should have already unlockable content within the game DLC. What the fuck Tamsoft and D3?! DLC is nothing new to the series when going to HD, but usually boiled down to costumes. It's worse now, because you could still unlock most costumes in game. Z-II had lots of costume DLC, but there was plenty of content and extra bonus modes you can unlock by just playing the game. It's too much for the asking price in Origin, and just best to get everything on a sale like I did. The bonus missions have too many recycled bosses or assets from the main campaign and survival mode. I still like the game, but they tone down the bullshit for whenever the next game comes out.

 

[BrawlMan]

Final Vendetta - Training Mode has to be unlocked by beating the game first. Why? This is a problem as the game was difficult for the wrong reasons, before any of the patch updates. Ultra Difficulty sucks too. You only get two lives and all extra lives are disabled.

 

[thebobmaster]

Persona 5, as much as I love the game (it may be my favorite JRPG, in fact), has one major issue: skill gates. Skills take time to develop. You want to get as many confidant links as you can, because some of them give really fucking good bonuses if you max them out. The problem is, to continue on pretty much any of the confidants (or to even start them, in some cases), you need one of your five skills to be at a certain level. Sometimes, that skill gate makes sense (to start a confidant with one character, for example, you need a rank of 4 in Courage/Guts...but given that your conversation is basically "Hey, I took a look in that bag you told me to take out of here and not look in, and saw a very real-looking model gun. What's up with that?", yeah, that would take a bit of courage), and then sometimes it doesn't (I need a Proficiency of 4 to jury-rig the door on this shack to get it to open? Can't I just...kick the door down or something. It's an abandoned shack. The owner is in jail. No one will care if we break the door down.)

Even then, however, the problem is the time. Time management is a big part of Persona 5, and you can only do one activity at a time, so every section of time you are raising a skill is a chunk of time you aren't increasing your confidant ranks. It makes it nearly impossible, without some very careful planning and knowing in advance what the best confidants are, to even necessarily start every confidant, never mind maxing them out. I barely pulled it off on Persona 5 Royal, and that gave me an extra couple of months to work in it.

 

[Asita]

Inspired by Dalisclock's thread on his playthrough: The persistent blood spatters in Dragon Age. For starters, they're annoyingly low effort. If the game decides you got hit by blood, you're suddenly covered in it from head to toe, with the same pattern across every model, which just looks like someone was flicking a paintbrush of red paint at them. And that makes it quite distracting, never mind that you spend the next "until your character model reloads" covered in the stuff evidently without even a token effort to...I don't know, wipe the blood splatters off your lips, your forehead...your teeth...

They're obviously trying to set a gritty tone with it, but it just ends up being distracting, and that's before we consider that the enemies you face (especially in Origins) include Darkspawn, whose blood is so poisonous that getting sprayed with it is supposed to be dangerous. There are even combat lines warning you to avoid the stuff! "Darkspawn! Watch out for their blood!" Yet after mopping up the darkspawn, nobody bothers to even wipe their face or spit out the blood from their mouths while they shoot the breeze. For the effort they put in for it (or rather, the lack thereof), I question their decision to include it at all.

 

[Dalisclock]

Inspired by Dalisclock's thread on his playthrough: The persistent blood spatters in Dragon Age. For starters, they're annoyingly low effort. If the game decides you got hit by blood, you're suddenly covered in it from head to toe, with the same pattern across every model, which just looks like someone was flicking a paintbrush of red paint at them. And that makes it quite distracting, never mind that you spend the next "until your character model reloads" covered in the stuff evidently without even a token effort to...I don't know, wipe the blood splatters off your lips, your forehead...your teeth...

They're obviously trying to set a gritty tone with it, but it just ends up being distracting, and that's before we consider that the enemies you face (especially in Origins) include Darkspawn, whose blood is so poisonous that getting sprayed with it is supposed to be dangerous. There are even combat lines warning you to avoid the stuff! "Darkspawn! Watch out for their blood!" Yet after mopping up the darkspawn, nobody bothers to even wipe their face or spit out the blood from their mouths while they shoot the breeze. For the effort they put in for it (or rather, the lack thereof), I question their decision to include it at all.

I'm honestly shocked more people aren't sick or tainted by Dark spawn considering all the blood flying around. Especially with the open wounds in battle.

Honestly infection is a huge problem in real warfare, less so with proper medical treatment and antibiotics(iirc WW1 was one of the first wars more died in battle then from infection afterwards), but still you'd think this would be treated a lot more seriously then it is in game, especially with all the blood splatter.

Granted it is funny when someone tries to threaten you and you point out you're covered in the blood of their various minions.

I'm not locked in here with you, BUDDY. You're locked in here with me.

 

[Asita]

Granted it is funny when someone tries to threaten you and you point out you're covered in the blood of their various minions.

True. But still, I turned the stuff off probably no later than meeting Morrigan because it annoyed me so much.

 

[Elijin]

ARPGs do this thing where the game is about managing your positioning and resources (health / magic) in amongst a cluster fuck of on screen chaos.

Then you get to the end game and 99% more or less say "fuck what we taught you, fuck resource management, basically any hit will kill you, good luck asshole"

It's just kind of baffling.

 

[Dalisclock]

ARPGs do this thing where the game is about managing your positioning and resources (health / magic) in amongst a cluster fuck of on screen chaos.

Then you get to the end game and 99% more or less say "fuck what we taught you, fuck resource management, basically any hit will kill you, good luck asshole"

It's just kind of baffling.

Honestly any game that decides to change gameplay up drastically at the very last minutes is making a mistake and should feel bad.

I'm looking at you MGS2 and the Solidus fight.

 

[Gyrobot]

Persona 5, as much as I love the game (it may be my favorite JRPG, in fact), has one major issue: skill gates. Skills take time to develop. You want to get as many confidant links as you can, because some of them give really fucking good bonuses if you max them out. The problem is, to continue on pretty much any of the confidants (or to even start them, in some cases), you need one of your five skills to be at a certain level. Sometimes, that skill gate makes sense (to start a confidant with one character, for example, you need a rank of 4 in Courage/Guts...but given that your conversation is basically "Hey, I took a look in that bag you told me to take out of here and not look in, and saw a very real-looking model gun. What's up with that?", yeah, that would take a bit of courage), and then sometimes it doesn't (I need a Proficiency of 4 to jury-rig the door on this shack to get it to open? Can't I just...kick the door down or something. It's an abandoned shack. The owner is in jail. No one will care if we break the door down.)

Even then, however, the problem is the time. Time management is a big part of Persona 5, and you can only do one activity at a time, so every section of time you are raising a skill is a chunk of time you aren't increasing your confidant ranks. It makes it nearly impossible, without some very careful planning and knowing in advance what the best confidants are, to even necessarily start every confidant, never mind maxing them out. I barely pulled it off on Persona 5 Royal, and that gave me an extra couple of months to work in it.

In terms of the Iwai social link, it makes sense since you essentially being an assistant so he can focus on his job to keep his son from becoming part of the criminal underworld and he doesn't want some easily intimidated kid who will squeal about his job he forced to do for an oath brother. And really, breaking and entering indiscreetly when your goal is to not get arrested again because the parole terms are extremely sensitive

 

[thebobmaster]

In terms of the Iwai social link, it makes sense since you essentially being an assistant so he can focus on his job to keep his son from becoming part of the criminal underworld and he doesn't want some easily intimidated kid who will squeal about his job he forced to do for an oath brother. And really, breaking and entering indiscreetly when your goal is to not get arrested again because the parole terms are extremely sensitive

You have a point about the parole thing, although I still think Yusuke would have your back there. And as I said, on a story basis, needing to have your Courage/Guts up that high for Iwai's social link makes sense. It's just from a gameplay perspective, it really makes things more stressful/complicated than they need to be because of the time management system.

 

[Gordon_4]

Inspired by Dalisclock's thread on his playthrough: The persistent blood spatters in Dragon Age. For starters, they're annoyingly low effort. If the game decides you got hit by blood, you're suddenly covered in it from head to toe, with the same pattern across every model, which just looks like someone was flicking a paintbrush of red paint at them. And that makes it quite distracting, never mind that you spend the next "until your character model reloads" covered in the stuff evidently without even a token effort to...I don't know, wipe the blood splatters off your lips, your forehead...your teeth...

They're obviously trying to set a gritty tone with it, but it just ends up being distracting, and that's before we consider that the enemies you face (especially in Origins) include Darkspawn, whose blood is so poisonous that getting sprayed with it is supposed to be dangerous. There are even combat lines warning you to avoid the stuff! "Darkspawn! Watch out for their blood!" Yet after mopping up the darkspawn, nobody bothers to even wipe their face or spit out the blood from their mouths while they shoot the breeze. For the effort they put in for it (or rather, the lack thereof), I question their decision to include it at all.

Its probably one of those times where the gameplay guys are just ignoring the lore guys because if Darkspawn blood was THAT dangerous then people wouldn't be fighting them in melee, it would have to be ranged or at the very least at the end of a very long spear. And while that might make for a fine RTS style game, its gonna suck balls for a party based RPG. As a result, Darkspawn blood is only dangerous when plot calls for it.

 

[twistedmic]

Honestly any game that decides to change gameplay up drastically at the very last minutes is making a mistake and should feel bad.

I'm looking at you MGS2 and the Solidus fight.

Don’t forget The Last of Us and their “fun” idea of suddenly making you play as Ellie out of nowhere. I spend the whole game learning and using Joel’s strengths and weaknesses and all of that gets thrown away.

 

[BrawlMan]

Honestly any game that decides to change gameplay up drastically at the very last minutes is making a mistake and should feel bad.

Speaking of which...Treasure is so guilty of this in a lot of their games. The worst being in Gunstar Super Heroes. The helicopter portion in Orange's stage can eat a bag of dicks. It's even worse in Hard Mode, as you can't afford to take damage (100 health with no health pick-ups in between), and it's arguably worse when playing as Gunstar Blue once finishing the first section. I hated it in high school, and I still hate it now. How managed to get through that stage both times with Red and Blue I will never know.

​

 

[Dalisclock]

Don’t forget The Last of Us and their “fun” idea of suddenly making you play as Ellie out of nowhere. I spend the whole game learning and using Joel’s strengths and weaknesses and all of that gets thrown away.

What might be the worst part is that joel can't make/find a weapon that lasts more than a couple hits but Ellie's Switchblade can be used forever. Maybe some of the more complex stuff might break but why does a steel piece of pipe fall apart if you crush a few skulls with it?