Misplaced Mechanics #3
Misplaced Mechanics is a weekly Wednesday feature, in which Gyuri brings three games with flawed game mechanics to question them and share his frustrations.
Resident Evil 0 – Because realism is fun!
Anyone who likes horror games has no doubt heard of Resident Evil. It was the game that put down the basics of the survival horror genre and created the opportunity for horror games to break into the market. It’s a classic series that has changed to something radically different since the first game. But we’re not here to talk about that today.
It has been a tradition in RE that the characters could only carry a set number of items (between 6 and 10 depending on the game) and everything useless could be stored in item boxes until the time came to use them. The item boxes were scattered throughout the game, generally appearing in most save rooms, however anything that was put in one box appeared in another, as if connected by magic. Perhaps it was because RE always went for a realistic approach, but reviewers often complained about the item box being “unrealistic”, despite the fact that the mechanic itself worked almost perfectly.
In RE0, the developers decided to do away with the item boxes and instead used a system where the player could leave behind items anywhere and pick them up again later. Fine in theory, but flawed in the actual game. First off, the developers not only gave each character only six item slots, but also made it so that two-handed weapons took up two spaces, making it even harder to manage the inventory. The mechanic also had negative effect on the level design, because the developers had to make sure that anything important the player may have left behind could be recovered at any time, in a short amount of time. It was only in the last areas that they moved away from this, simultaneously creating one of the most annoying areas in horror game history. The constant backtracking to earlier areas was incredibly frustrating after a while and made it much harder to prepare for the final boss as well. Not to mention that there were so many items that couldn’t just store everything in one room, in fact every room had an item limit which also meant that if the player wanted to keep his items close, he had to find not just one, but multiple safe rooms – after all putting items down in a zombie nest isn’t a good idea. As you may have guessed, the reviewers who disliked the item boxes suddenly came up with a dozens of reasons why it was good.
Final Fantasy Tactics – Hindsight is a bitch
Final Fantasy Tactics was Square’s first venture into the strategic RPG territory, which ended with them creating one of the best strategic RPGs of all time. To many, the FF Tactics Advance games seem like a joke in comparison.
There was one thing about FFT that really annoyed me though. A design choice that almost made me restart the game at one point. You see this is a game where you can get into real trouble if you aren’t careful or using a walkthrough. When certain events are activated, some areas may be sealed off until you resolve the situation. It happens rarely, but it can be game breaking at one point, when you face off against arguably the strongest boss in the whole game. While it is a good idea to save often, you should never save between two consecutive fights in the same area, because if you don’t have an earlier save, you won’t be able to go back before the battles. This means you won’t be able to prepare yourself in case you realize the boss is too much for you. In hindsight, you’ll realize that saving often is a very good idea if you don’t want to end up having to start the whole game over.
Devil May Cry 4 – It feels like I’ve been here before…
Devil May Cry was the first modern hack n slash game to hit the Playstation 2. It was precisely because of this fact that it was a success. Devil May Cry 4 was the first DMC game to be released on the current generation consoles and it was also a hit, though a lot of fans didn’t like it as much as they did some of the earlier games.
My main problem was the amount of boss fights you had to do multiple times and the repeated levels. The major bosses had to be defeated two-three times and Dante’s path mostly consisted of going through the same levels Nero did, only backwards. While the fighting and bosses were still somewhat fresh, due to the two characters having different fighting techniques, the environments were not. Also, the bosses that had to be fought a second time with Nero just became boring, seeing how you already beat them with both Nero and Dante. To be fair the game is still fun, but going through the same areas and fighting the same bosses multiple times with different characters cannot substitute for more creative, unique boss fights.
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