Things you wish designers would stop doing?

[Para]

Resident Evil 4 was different but at least it was good. I still prefer Code Veronica and RE3 over 4 but it is still a very good game. It really doesn't feel like a Resident Evil game though because of the huge changes, ie: the genre and zombies.

Resident Evil 5 is absolute garbage though.

Give us slow zombies, not talking Mexicans/Africans and go back to an actual survival horror aspect instead of an action oriented shooter, then Resident Evil will be back where it belongs.

[Flake]

Stupid overwrought game titles. This is especially aimed at Japanese developers. Really, Squaresoft? 'Birth by sleep?' 'Dissidia Duodecim?'

Or game games like Xenosaga where the title is both overwrought and translated into a language that isn't even spoken by a fraction of the population. 'Der Wille Zur Macht?' Yeah, go ahead and keep that subtitle for the version released in the Rhineland. Localize the damn title for everyone else! Giving something a weird name just for the sake of being weird only alienates potential customers.

[AppleQueso]

Or game games like Xenosaga where the title is both overwrought and translated into a language that isn't even spoken by a fraction of the population. 'Der Wille Zur Macht?' Giving something a weird name just for the sake of being weird only alienates potential customers.

The Xenosaga subtitles are just the titles of Nietzsche books. Also I didn't realize that German wasn't even spoken by a fraction of the population.

[Flake]

The Xenosaga subtitles are just the titles of Nietzsche books. Also I didn't realize that German wasn't even spoken by a fraction of the population.

And the games had what to do with Nietzche? Nada. The titles were wacky because someone in marketing was like 'oh, let's be different!'

To my knowledge, In the United States German is only spoken by a few people in the Texas Hill Country and a few parts of the North East, basically where the German settlers went back in the 1800's.

Edit: Dumb internet connection

If the subtitles (as localized in North America) had been in either Spanish or French, even that would have been okay with me. Most North Americans understand at least a little of both languages. Or if the games had actually had something to do with Nietzche (the man or his ideas), that'd be fine as well. Localization is important because a consumer, unfamiliar with a game title, has only that front cover to go off when deciding how to spend their money.

[AppleQueso]

The Xenosaga subtitles are just the titles of Nietzsche books. Also I didn't realize that German wasn't even spoken by a fraction of the population.

And the games had what to do with Nietzche? Nada. The titles were wacky because someone in marketing was like 'oh, let's be different!'

To my knowledge, In the United States German is only spoken by a few people in the Texas Hill Country and a few parts of the North East, basically where the German settlers went back in the 1800's.

Edit: Dumb internet connection

If the titles (as localized in North America) had been in either Spanish or French, even that would have been okay with me. Most North Americans understand at least a little of both languages. Or if the games had actually had something to do with Nietzche, that'd be fine as well. Localization is important because a consumer, unfamiliar with a game title, has only that front cover to go off when deciding how to spend their money.

Obviously market research doesn't support your claim that customers are turned off by weird titles. There's a huge chunk of the population that eats that sort of shit up, a chunk that has a pretty big overlap with the group that buys anime and jrpgs.

Of course, though, all of this has nothing to do with game design.

[Flake]

Obviously market research doesn't support your claim that customers are turned off by weird titles. There's a huge chunk of the population that eats that sort of shit up, a chunk that has a pretty big overlap with the group that buys anime and jrpgs.

Of course, though, all of this has nothing to do with game design.

I won't (and can't) argue with that as it's entirely my opinion that games would benefit from sensible titles. Namco's magnum opus failed for numerous reasons; the titling is just a pet peeve of mine.

[Opa Opa]

Give us slow zombies, not talking Mexicans/Africans and go back to an actual survival horror aspect instead of an action oriented shooter, then Resident Evil will be back where it belongs.

They are Spaniards. Not Mexicans. And I agree. Give us zombies!!!

[neilencio]

Add me to the list of people who hate button mashing. It's not fun, it's a chore. And in a practical sense, it's pretty hard on your controller. I get paranoid about shortening the lifespan of my controllers due to button mashing. It's worse if I'm using a handheld, where replacing parts are not as easy.

[AppleQueso]

This one's a pretty outdated complaint, but I hate it when games require you to use an item of some sort for the ability to save. Being able to save my game progress shouldn't be something I have to earn.

[kamiboy]

The worst repeated gievence of all games in the RPG genre is that they are unnecessarily long, mostly, I suppose, due owing to genre traditions. They are painfully long but fail to fill up all those squandered game hours with anything interesting, always falling back to stretching things of interest apart by the artifice of recycled menial and unfulfilled battles. Oh, what is this? A walking shrub of some sorts, well, why don't I mash the attack button for a few rounds until it goes away, for the 100th time. So thrilling, well worth my time it was, that.

Anyway, I have a long list of things I wish JRPG developers would get rid off in games going forward, I wrote an article about it a while back for IGN, here it is: http://insider.ign.com/articles/967/967907p1.html