Vyse of Arcadia
08-24-2006, 02:57 PM
Being gamers here, and Sega gamers at that, I'm sure we're familiar with those games that sound excellent on paper, but struggle to rise above "meh" when implemented. Or those games that sound excellent on paper, and play decently, but have critical flaws that significantly subtract from the fun. This is a topic for those games.
First of all, how about Sonic CD? Sonic + time travelling = awesome, right? Yeah, it sounds great, but the actual game suffers from uninspired amateurish level design and pointlessness. I have a feeling that with a better level designer, and more emphasis put on the time travelling, the game could have been awesome.
How about another one close to almost every Sega fan's heart? NiGHTS. Don't get me wrong, the game was fantastic. It's one of the few games I can play over and over and over again just for the fun of getting high scores (Sonic Rush, Flicky, and Defender being the others). But imagine how awesome the game could have been if some stages had included actual platforming worth playing as Claire and Elliot, and if some segments as NiGHTS had been free-roaming 3D flight as in Mario 64's Wing Cap segments rather than on-rails. (Ironic, considering NiGHTS was supposed to be the Mario 64 killer.) Not that the on-rails segments were bad...as I said earlier, the game was fantastic. But there could have been so much more.
For another Saturn-era game, how about Panzer Dragoon? "Oh boy!" I thought. "A 3D shooter with dragons!" I was expecting something like a fantasy version of Star Fox or a very upgraded fantasy version of Space Harrier. Instead, I got a slow, but beautiful shooter with lots of shooting, but very little in the way of maneuvering. I enjoyed it, but I can't stop thinking it would have been much better if the speed had been kicked up a notch and there had been less aiming and locking on and more shooting and moving around.
Now for something more recent. My little brother scrimped and saved for an XBox for Blinx the Timesweeper. Finally getting both console and game, he and I both found the game to be incredibly meh. First, Blinx was slow as hell. Second, there wasn't much real platforming...just sucking up trash to shoot at enemies with a system that will not let you aim. And although the time controls were awesome to play around with, the time crystals system was frustrating and ill-designed. Even something as simple as an MP-style system for the time controls would have been better.
But anyway, that's enough for now. What examples do you guys have of games that sounded great, but could have been much, much better had they been implemented differently?
First of all, how about Sonic CD? Sonic + time travelling = awesome, right? Yeah, it sounds great, but the actual game suffers from uninspired amateurish level design and pointlessness. I have a feeling that with a better level designer, and more emphasis put on the time travelling, the game could have been awesome.
How about another one close to almost every Sega fan's heart? NiGHTS. Don't get me wrong, the game was fantastic. It's one of the few games I can play over and over and over again just for the fun of getting high scores (Sonic Rush, Flicky, and Defender being the others). But imagine how awesome the game could have been if some stages had included actual platforming worth playing as Claire and Elliot, and if some segments as NiGHTS had been free-roaming 3D flight as in Mario 64's Wing Cap segments rather than on-rails. (Ironic, considering NiGHTS was supposed to be the Mario 64 killer.) Not that the on-rails segments were bad...as I said earlier, the game was fantastic. But there could have been so much more.
For another Saturn-era game, how about Panzer Dragoon? "Oh boy!" I thought. "A 3D shooter with dragons!" I was expecting something like a fantasy version of Star Fox or a very upgraded fantasy version of Space Harrier. Instead, I got a slow, but beautiful shooter with lots of shooting, but very little in the way of maneuvering. I enjoyed it, but I can't stop thinking it would have been much better if the speed had been kicked up a notch and there had been less aiming and locking on and more shooting and moving around.
Now for something more recent. My little brother scrimped and saved for an XBox for Blinx the Timesweeper. Finally getting both console and game, he and I both found the game to be incredibly meh. First, Blinx was slow as hell. Second, there wasn't much real platforming...just sucking up trash to shoot at enemies with a system that will not let you aim. And although the time controls were awesome to play around with, the time crystals system was frustrating and ill-designed. Even something as simple as an MP-style system for the time controls would have been better.
But anyway, that's enough for now. What examples do you guys have of games that sounded great, but could have been much, much better had they been implemented differently?