Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2007-12-15 03:07 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2007-12-15 03:07 pm
Entry tags:
Someone Must Have Actually Thought It Was A Good Idea.
Dear videogame designers:
Just so you know, nothing is more likely to prevent me from playing a game than your making it unnecessarily difficult to save. Depending on the game, I tend to save somewhere between four (Ōkami) and ten (Silent Hill 2 - this is not an exaggeration; that game scared me half to death and one of the few ways I could take comfort was in thinking that at least my progress was recorded. 'Right, that door has been marked as locked on my map. TIME TO SAVE') times per hour. If you make it necessary to use a consumable item in order to save, I'm not going to play. Why shouldn't I be allowed to save whenever I need (or irrationally want) to? Some people may even need to save for legitimate reasons, videogame designers. By limiting saves, you're making it impossible to pick up the game and play for a few minutes; you're saying 'NO SHORT BURSTS FOR YOU; YOU MUST SET ASIDE A GOOD FEW HOURS TO PLAY THIS', and that's just making inconvenient demands on the player's time.
(You shouldn't give me the ability to save at any point, though. Because then I'll spend all of my time saving and absolutely none of it actually playing the game.)
Do we understand each other? Good.
Yours,
Riona, who is sure that Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter is a lovely game but is almost certainly never going to find out. Stupid bloody save tokens.
(If there are any gameplay mechanics you particularly dislike, do share!)
Just so you know, nothing is more likely to prevent me from playing a game than your making it unnecessarily difficult to save. Depending on the game, I tend to save somewhere between four (Ōkami) and ten (Silent Hill 2 - this is not an exaggeration; that game scared me half to death and one of the few ways I could take comfort was in thinking that at least my progress was recorded. 'Right, that door has been marked as locked on my map. TIME TO SAVE') times per hour. If you make it necessary to use a consumable item in order to save, I'm not going to play. Why shouldn't I be allowed to save whenever I need (or irrationally want) to? Some people may even need to save for legitimate reasons, videogame designers. By limiting saves, you're making it impossible to pick up the game and play for a few minutes; you're saying 'NO SHORT BURSTS FOR YOU; YOU MUST SET ASIDE A GOOD FEW HOURS TO PLAY THIS', and that's just making inconvenient demands on the player's time.
(You shouldn't give me the ability to save at any point, though. Because then I'll spend all of my time saving and absolutely none of it actually playing the game.)
Do we understand each other? Good.
Yours,
Riona, who is sure that Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter is a lovely game but is almost certainly never going to find out. Stupid bloody save tokens.
(If there are any gameplay mechanics you particularly dislike, do share!)
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The other reason was that the music was unbearable.
It had some great ideas, though! Like a Western-themed RPG, and a female main character, and the whole party having different kinds of guns, and one character actually being married with children who were actually on-screen and visitable and not dead.
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And annoying controls, I don't like those either, which is probably why I was crap at the flying in the Philosopher's Stone game.
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Especially in RPGs and Adventure games, where you really ARE supposed to have everything on you. Oh, or in RPGs where you can only carry 100 lbs or you can no longer run! I HATE THAT. I want to carry weapons and armours to sell to the townspeople for money! Why can't the game respect that? Stupid realism imported from the tabletop D&D game.
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I can never think of things that annoy me, though. I know them when I encounter them, or when someone says something that reminds me of it, but I am very bad at rattling off lists in such a manner. The only thing coming to mind now is world map saving in FFIX, when you had to call the Moogle by pressing, what, square? Sometimes I would accidentally hit the button and then have to save, even if I'd just saved, because I didn't want to get yelled at by the Save Moogle, which is kind of lame on my part...
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BUT ALSO ADORABLE. I have to admit that I did that, too. 'Don't call me if you don't need me, kupo!' I FELT SO GUILTY. He had to rush across the entire map just so I could save!
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That's another thing: save points. There are always loads of them in the really safe places (and even though I might want to save the fact that I made it to the other end of a street, I might rather save when I, you know, didn't die in the bad place) and none in the Places of Imminent Death. I like games where you can save wherever and whenever the
irrational paranoianeed strikes.Also, I get weirdly scared by playing games that aren't nice, non-threatening, Sims 2-type games. Games where I have lives or, say, a time limit (I HATE TIME LIMITS. SO MUCH. They make me nervous and panicky).
I fail, basically D: (never mind).
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My other pet peeve is random battles in RPGs. They're all right in theory, but when you get one every thirty seconds, it gets old really fast. (Skies of Arcadia is the worst offender at this, which is a shame, because Air Pirates!) More RPGs should adopt Avernum's system where you can a) see the monsters coming and outrun/avoid them if you need to, and b) opt out of fighting them if your party is a high enough level. It saves a lot of headache in the long run, especially for impatient people like me.
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