Non-linear games that include elements that only work in linear games. Super Mario World is an excellent example. What a worthless, shitty life system that game had. And the only reason it had it is because the previous games did. A finite number of lives works in a game like Super Mario Bros. because it's
linear; the screen doesn't even scroll backward. The only way to recover lives is to find a 1-up, of which there is never more than one in a stage, or get 100 coins, which you will also never find in a single stage. Not only does this ensure adequate stakes to make losing a life sting, it adds a risk-reward dynamic to gameplay in the form of stowing away coins in dangerous spots.
Super Mario World, on the other hand, is not linear in the slightest. The interesting risk-reward system is replaced with endless coin buffets that make getting lives easy, and you can even revisit previous stages. It's grinding. GRINDING in a platformer! The game even gives you an automatic 1-up machine in the
first level, for the single purpose of wasting your time grinding out lives. It uses the player's time as a balancing resource, which is universally unnecessary and unfun.
Endless fetch quests crammed into the last hour of the game. Metroid Prime, you were so good and then you had to screw it all up at the last second. You know what's fun about Metroid games? Getting new items. You know why it's fun to get them? Because they give you a new ability that changes the way you play the game. It's
not because it's a shiny key that lets you open a door. Those
Chozo artifacts were just an excuse to pad things out, and you couldn't get most of them until near the end of the game.
Also, those Chozo ghosts. Whose idea was it to take a game about exploration played from a first person perspective with good music, and insert an enemy that completely halts exploration, zips around and is hard to locate from a FPP, and plays
annoying music?
Author
Topic: Gaming Pet Peeves (Read 523568 times)