Last week, we talked about certain aspects in gaming we didn’t like. This week, let’s be positive and talk about what we like and what we’d like to see more of.
Jenni: Well, I love to see when companies take chances on games that we’d normally never get to see outside of Japan. Atlus and Xseed always seem to be great at surprising gamers with titles we’d oogled a few months back when they debuted in Japan, but never expected to see translated. I’m always excited whenever I hear either company has a new title coming out. I’d love to see other companies take more risks when localizing.
I also like genre bending games, it helps keep fresh and more interesting. Professor Layton and the Curious Village, which could be considered both an adventure and puzzle game, is a good example, as is Persona 4, which is both a life simulation and an RPG, and Rune Factory 2, a farming simulation and dungeon crawler. I think its because the lines are blurred in these games that I find myself continually playing or replaying.
Spencer: I tend to enjoy and remember video games with stories. As a whole games are better at storytelling than before. Ninja Gaiden was one of the NES games that experimented with cutscenes. Now it seems like every game has them and a purpose for the protagonist. Some of these stories are pretty good too! The Phoenix Wright games come to mind for being witty, Klonoa is a tearjerker, and there are too many RPGs to name here. Since stories are important companies are investing more into writing them and localizing them. Chrono Trigger may have not changed much, but one can look back at all the different versions of Final Fantasy IV to see how video game writing has evolved.
Louise: It might sound silly or superficial, but I would love to see more games show their characters wearing whatever equipment they currently have on. This mostly applies to RPGs. I really liked it in Ragnarok Online and always wondered why more games didn’t do this.
While I was playing Persona 4 and upgrading my armor and weapons, I kept wishing I could see pictures of these strangely named objects. Sure, we see different weapons during fights, but I’d love to see my party members running with their different weapons and armor while exploring in the dungeon.
This was one thing I liked about Too Human. In addition to the stats boost, finding new armor felt rewarding because I could see my character wearing it. It makes sense to do it on an MMO, so you can show off your new gear to everyone else, but I’d like to see more of it in single player games.
