What's One "Old Game" Mechanic That You Don't Miss?

[Cikomyr]

To me, if they gave out a lot more skill points or the same number of skill points and much fewer total skills then they may as well just remove all the skills because you could always do everything successfully without even having to think about it, so why put in a skill at all?

.....

Yes. Exactly

Why would they do that? I mean, why not have less skill choices and less skill points. Streamline the gameplay.

[factotum]

As an alternate to "but thou must!" And not an old mechanic, choices that mean nothing to the game.

One of the Heroes of Might and Magic games did that, can't remember if it was the first one or the second--anyway, about halfway through the campaign (whichever side you originally picked) you get the option of turning coat and going over to the other faction. The only effect this has is on the next mission, where, instead of it being you alone against three enemies, it's you and two friends against a single enemy. After that point you just switch over to the other campaign and do the remaining missions in it with no negative or positive consequences to being a turncoat.

[Toric]

I never did like needing to record and enter a password to continue my playthrough, for example in the original Metroid. But most of the frustration from that system came down to the font having one set of characters that looked almost identical to each other. Is that an I or an l? A 6 or a G? You'll find out when you try to pick up where you left off.

[Hunter Noventa]

Uhh... the only FF game which has 'Toad' you can cast, to my knowledge, is FF IV which doesn't actually have any alternative choices because characters enter and leave your party based purely on plot events, thus which party members, and skills, are available to you are predefined. Maybe 5? I never got a chance to play that one much, since it didn't show up in America until the Playstation, where it was combo'd with 6.

FF3 on the NES had at least one dungeon where you had to Mini your whole party to get in, but I can't think of anything that required Toad. Not to mention that didn't come out int he US officially until the relatively awful DS remake.

[Cikomyr]

I never did like needing to record and enter a password to continue my playthrough, for example in the original Metroid. But most of the frustration from that system came down to the font having one set of characters that looked almost identical to each other. Is that an I or an l? A 6 or a G? You'll find out when you try to pick up where you left off.

It was annoying, but. You know.. Blame the technology of the time.

[factotum]

It was annoying, but. You know.. Blame the technology of the time.

In a way, the password thing was actually a blessing. I gamed in my youth on a ZX Spectrum, and every game had to be loaded from tape (taking a good 5-10 minutes) before it could be played. Just being able to enter a simple password to jump back to where you were, rather than having to spend more minutes faffing around loading in a saved game from a different tape, was a godsend.

[danzibr]

FF3 on the NES had at least one dungeon where you had to Mini your whole party to get in, but I can't think of anything that required Toad. Not to mention that didn't come out int he US officially until the relatively awful DS remake.

Hmmmmm pretty sure it had both. There’s one where there’s a buncha frogs hopping around and you need to be a frog to get in.

Then again I never played the NES version.

[Traab]

Yeah on looking through the game guides its clear it wasnt final fantasy, now its going to bug me forever. I KNOW it was one of the older classic rpg console games, but now I have no clue which one it was! I must have just assumed it was final fantasy as that series was my jam. I played most of the other series and stand alone titles too as I was pretty much pure rpg gamer growing up, but those were the ones I tended to stick with. I just remember it was some rpg where the first dungeon or so (at least fairly early on) there was a boss where you basically had to turn him into a toad to weaken him, as I found out after dying repeatedly then giving in and reading a guide online. And as I tend to not focus on spell casting much (you never run out of sword swings, mana can be an issue) when I play, I had skipped those spells. Also, spells like that so rarely really mattered in the games, and being the genre savvy player I was, I "knew" that bosses tended to resist that stuff anyways. Yeah there are exceptions but in the main spells like toad sleep mini death etc, are pretty much pointless trash when you can just clobber the monster with a giant mace instead

[Rynjin]

It may have been one of the Legend of Mana games they rebranded as Final Fantasy Adventure?

[tyckspoon]

Yeah on looking through the game guides its clear it wasnt final fantasy, now its going to bug me forever. I KNOW it was one of the older classic rpg console games, but now I have no clue which one it was! I must have just assumed it was final fantasy as that series was my jam. I played most of the other series and stand alone titles too as I was pretty much pure rpg gamer growing up, but those were the ones I tended to stick with. I just remember it was some rpg where the first dungeon or so (at least fairly early on) there was a boss where you basically had to turn him into a toad to weaken him, as I found out after dying repeatedly then giving in and reading a guide online. And as I tend to not focus on spell casting much (you never run out of sword swings, mana can be an issue) when I play, I had skipped those spells. Also, spells like that so rarely really mattered in the games, and being the genre savvy player I was, I "knew" that bosses tended to resist that stuff anyways. Yeah there are exceptions but in the main spells like toad sleep mini death etc, are pretty much pointless trash when you can just clobber the monster with a giant mace instead

Huh. That's gonna be on my mind for a while now. I thought I'd played or at least heard of pretty much every notable NES and SNES RPG (emulation did wonders for that, I've played some real obscurities) and I can't think of anything where this happened. I would have bet on it being a Final Fantasy, too - Toad/Pig/Mini are pretty distinct status effects to those games. There are definitely bosses I can remember where you are recommended to Silence or Berserk them because the trick is to disable their spellcasting/break their AI scripts, but nothing for Toad.

[Traab]

It may have been one of the Legend of Mana games they rebranded as Final Fantasy Adventure?

Could be, heck, it might have been a random game boy/advance/gamegear title for all I know now!

[LibraryOgre]

I never did like needing to record and enter a password to continue my playthrough, for example in the original Metroid. But most of the frustration from that system came down to the font having one set of characters that looked almost identical to each other. Is that an I or an l? A 6 or a G? You'll find out when you try to pick up where you left off.

We actually sat down and hacked passcodes a bit for Faxanadu. It's been long enough I cannot remember details, but change a few characters and things got interesting.

[Traab]

We actually sat down and hacked passcodes a bit for Faxanadu. It's been long enough I cannot remember details, but change a few characters and things got interesting.

I loved how they worked like cheat codes. i remember a game, I think kid icarus, where we had a password that would bring you right to the final boss with full upgrades. We were such l33t h@x0rz back in the days of nintendo. Considering the sheer difficulty of so many titles back then, being able to see the end of a rental game was awesome!

[LibraryOgre]

I loved how they worked like cheat codes. i remember a game, I think kid icarus, where we had a password that would bring you right to the final boss with full upgrades. We were such l33t h@x0rz back in the days of nintendo. Considering the sheer difficulty of so many titles back then, being able to see the end of a rental game was awesome!

Man, anyone else hack Game Genie codes? Like, look at enough of them to get a sense of the vocabulary and grammar for a given game, and then just... play?

I think we messed with the Shield spell in Adventure of Link so it would constantly heal you.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I never did like needing to record and enter a password to continue my playthrough, for example in the original Metroid. But most of the frustration from that system came down to the font having one set of characters that looked almost identical to each other. Is that an I or an l? A 6 or a G? You'll find out when you try to pick up where you left off.

Faxanadu and Gauntlet for the NES. That is all.

[Velaryon]

Only read the first page, so apologies if someone mentioned this already.

What I don't miss is having to write down passwords as a replacement for a game save. Oh, I finally beat that tough fight in Punch Out/cleared that boss in Mega Man 3/etc., time to write down this string of letters/numbers/dots on a grid so I can pick up where I left off later... unless I lose this paper (or don't have one handy in the first place). No thanks.

[Rynjin]

Only read the first page, so apologies if someone mentioned this already.

What I don't miss is having to write down passwords as a replacement for a game save. Oh, I finally beat that tough fight in Punch Out/cleared that boss in Mega Man 3/etc., time to write down this string of letters/numbers/dots on a grid so I can pick up where I left off later... unless I lose this paper (or don't have one handy in the first place). No thanks.

It's, eh, usually good form even if you only read the first page to at least read the post directly above yours on the last page.

[Tvtyrant]

I actually liked the old password system. We used to trade completed passwords in elementary school, and there were all sorts of lies about what passwords could do. Learning about the Hadouken in Megaman X was one of the highlights of my childhood.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Anyone remember the 'all H's' password in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Basically gave you everything you needed to go beat the game.

[Velaryon]

It's, eh, usually good form even if you only read the first page to at least read the post directly above yours on the last page.

I get 15 minutes on my break at work and I don't type quickly on my phone. Niceties sometimes get put aside in favor of having time to post.

Another thing I don't miss from old games is arbitrary time limits, i.e. clear this stage before the time runs out or you fail. It was a holdover from arcades (where it made sense to make people spend more and give more players a chance to play) that console games held onto for way too long. It still crops up sometimes, but usually in the form of "escape the building before the bomb goes off" and so on where it at least makes some sense.

[Toric]

Man, anyone else hack Game Genie codes? Like, look at enough of them to get a sense of the vocabulary and grammar for a given game, and then just... play?

I think we messed with the Shield spell in Adventure of Link so it would constantly heal you.

Mostly I stuck to published codes but we did some fiddling around, especially with the SNES version. I remember my brother and I beat Final Fantasy 6 via a code that essentially reduced all damage to zero, enemy or ally. My brother would actually play the game and my job would be to flip the Game Genie's "hack" switch on and off as damage was doled out.

....It probably would have been less effort just to grind and learn to play tactically but boy did it shave down that playtime clock.

[Tvtyrant]

Mostly I stuck to published codes but we did some fiddling around, especially with the SNES version. I remember my brother and I beat Final Fantasy 6 via a code that essentially reduced all damage to zero, enemy or ally. My brother would actually play the game and my job would be to flip the Game Genie's "hack" switch on and off as damage was doled out.

....It probably would have been less effort just to grind and learn to play tactically but boy did it shave down that playtime clock.

Late game you could just cast X-Zone over and over as well (except bosses.)

[tonberrian]

I had a gameshark for gameboy, fondly remember my team of shiny legendaries with lock-on fissure. Didn't do much more than fiddle with it though, once I realized the power I had I went back to playing games normally.

[JellyPooga]

So, I'm probably about to get crucified by the grognard crowd for saying this, but there are a lot of old RPG systems whose complexity detracts from the game. For instance, Morrowind's "pick your class, abilities, skills, and star sign at the census office" approach, while it lets you generate a character that fits your vision, means that it's much less intuitive than Skyrim's "use what you like as you're using it" approach.

I'd especially like to call out Wasteland 2, as a modern sequel to an 80s DOS game, as having learned entirely the wrong lessons from twenty-five years of building RPGs. It's the embodiment of complexity for complexity's sake.

I'm talking twenty-nine different skill categories which require different investment of skill points to rank up, and listed in categories which are overly specialized and subdivided. For instance, Mechanical Repair, Weaponsmithing, and Toaster Repair could conceivably all fit under the same heading of Maintenance or Repair. The ability to notice small hidden details is not a function of the attribute Awareness, but is its own skill called Perception. There are four skills devoted to talking to people--Harda**, Smarta**, Kissa**, and Animal Whisperer--none of which are affected by the attribute Charisma. If you need to open a door safely, you need to first use Alarm Disarming to get rid of the alarm, then Trap Disarming to get rid of any traps, and then Lockpicking to actually open the door. (Note, also, that Lockpicking is distinct from Safecracking, Trap Disarming is separate from Demolitions, and Computer Science is different from Alarm Disarming.)

That isn't even touching on the perk system, which unlocks perks based on the rank you have in skills you've taken, or the attribute system, which has natural break points in each of its seven stats.

This is a game that released in 2014. I'm just saying, if the character creation screen sends players running for a guidebook, you've done a poor job designing your character system.

So, I'm going to preface this by letting you know that I have read through the entire thread and the back'n'forth that's been played out on this subject. I'm just quoting this post because if you're going to start anywhere, it's probably best if it's at the beginning...

I would suggest that you're missing the point of systems with a large number of skills/options/whathaveyou. The point *is* that there are so-called "trap" options. The point *is* that you'll have to restart and replay if you want to experience all that the game has to offer. The point *is*, in these kinds of games, that the expectation is that you'll be roleplaying, as opposed to merely gaming.

As much as I love Skyrim (and I really do; it's a great game), I prefer Morrowind. Is the gameplay of the earlier game better? No. Is the interface better? No. Are the graphics better? No. Is the story better? Debatable. Do I prefer the skill system? Absolutely. Do I prefer the quests and guild system? More than I can express.

Skyrim lets me play a single character that can do everything. I can get every skill to 100, join every guild, complete every quest. Huzzah for my one character of ultimate doom. That single playthrough where I can count the choices that actually made a difference on one hand. Morrowind, on the other hand, I'll have to play that game three times just to experience all the quest-lines of the three Great Houses, let alone any other in-game choices. Not to mention how significantly harder is is to get every skill/stat to 100...or beyond...making each play through different in not only content, but style of play and what is or isn't achievable.

I'm not at all familiar with Wasteland 2 (yet), beyond what's been discussed in this thread and some vague memories of the orignial game, but for me, it sounds like an intriguing experience of having to choose, without knowing the consequences, what skills to focus on, what decisions to make. If those decisions make certain things harder or even impossible, some time down the line, so be it. So long as I can still complete the game, I'll be a happy gamer and maybe the next time I play I'll know better, or make a different choice that opens up still more aspects of the game. I want that choice. I want that replayability. I'm still discovering lines of dialogue, quests and items in games like Morrowind that I've never come across before because I'm still playing those games and I'm still exploring all the myriad ways of playing those games, decades and hundreds, if not thousands of hours of game time after their release. Without having to rely on DLC.

Streamlining and intuition is great for pick-up-and-play. It's great for giving you a singular gameplay experience that you can one-and-done, then never play again (after all, what would be the point?). It's great marketing. It doesn't necessarily make great games because it doesn't invest you in the game as much as complexity and granularity do.

In my opinion.

[PraetorDragoon]

I lost respect for trap choices when I ran in a game that skill options that didn't came up or only came up once or twice the entire game. Either make it that they do something, or don't include them at all.

[Cikomyr]

So, I'm going to preface this by letting you know that I have read through the entire thread and the back'n'forth that's been played out on this subject. I'm just quoting this post because if you're going to start anywhere, it's probably best if it's at the beginning...

I would suggest that you're missing the point of systems with a large number of skills/options/whathaveyou. The point *is* that there are so-called "trap" options. The point *is* that you'll have to restart and replay if you want to experience all that the game has to offer. The point *is*, in these kinds of games, that the expectation is that you'll be roleplaying, as opposed to merely gaming.

As much as I love Skyrim (and I really do; it's a great game), I prefer Morrowind. Is the gameplay of the earlier game better? No. Is the interface better? No. Are the graphics better? No. Is the story better? Debatable. Do I prefer the skill system? Absolutely. Do I prefer the quests and guild system? More than I can express.

Skyrim lets me play a single character that can do everything. I can get every skill to 100, join every guild, complete every quest. Huzzah for my one character of ultimate doom. That single playthrough where I can count the choices that actually made a difference on one hand. Morrowind, on the other hand, I'll have to play that game three times just to experience all the quest-lines of the three Great Houses, let alone any other in-game choices. Not to mention how significantly harder is is to get every skill/stat to 100...or beyond...making each play through different in not only content, but style of play and what is or isn't achievable.

I'm not at all familiar with Wasteland 2 (yet), beyond what's been discussed in this thread and some vague memories of the orignial game, but for me, it sounds like an intriguing experience of having to choose, without knowing the consequences, what skills to focus on, what decisions to make. If those decisions make certain things harder or even impossible, some time down the line, so be it. So long as I can still complete the game, I'll be a happy gamer and maybe the next time I play I'll know better, or make a different choice that opens up still more aspects of the game. I want that choice. I want that replayability. I'm still discovering lines of dialogue, quests and items in games like Morrowind that I've never come across before because I'm still playing those games and I'm still exploring all the myriad ways of playing those games, decades and hundreds, if not thousands of hours of game time after their release. Without having to rely on DLC.

Streamlining and intuition is great for pick-up-and-play. It's great for giving you a singular gameplay experience that you can one-and-done, then never play again (after all, what would be the point?). It's great marketing. It doesn't necessarily make great games because it doesn't invest you in the game as much as complexity and granularity do.

In my opinion.

Again, there is a big space between "you can do everything" and "there are 40 skills, 15 them will only be marginally useful, I hope you guess right!!"

How about a skill system of, say, 10 skills, you get to pick 3-4, and they are all actually useful? That way, you need to rerun a new playthrough next time with a different format.

[Cespenar]

Again, there is a big space between "you can do everything" and "there are 40 skills, 15 them will only be marginally useful, I hope you guess right!!"

How about a skill system of, say, 10 skills, you get to pick 3-4, and they are all actually useful? That way, you need to rerun a new playthrough next time with a different format.

Big thumbs up here. As gamers, we all might have developed a knack for spotting trap choices and on occasion, the act of spotting them might very well be a part of the gameplay, but overall, these things are supposed to be a tool for your actual mechanics. And tools should be efficient.

[factotum]

I would suggest that you're missing the point of systems with a large number of skills/options/whathaveyou. The point *is* that there are so-called "trap" options. The point *is* that you'll have to restart and replay if you want to experience all that the game has to offer. The point *is*, in these kinds of games, that the expectation is that you'll be roleplaying, as opposed to merely gaming.

I entirely agree that not being able to see all the content with one character is a good thing, see my posts earlier in the thread. However, that doesn't mean you have to include skills that are actively useless, or set things up so that somebody might have to restart the game just because they picked a bad selection of skills and can't actually make it through. When I was younger I had the patience to play through the first few hours of a game two or three times trying to find a decent set of skills that would get me through, but nowadays that sort of thing is just going to make me ragequit and uninstall.

[JellyPooga]

Again, there is a big space between "you can do everything" and "there are 40 skills, 15 them will only be marginally useful, I hope you guess right!!"

How about a skill system of, say, 10 skills, you get to pick 3-4, and they are all actually useful? That way, you need to rerun a new playthrough next time with a different format.

Perhaps it's just my personal preference, but those 15 skills that are only marginally useful are the ones I'd be exploring years down the line to find out just how useful I can make them. To use Fallout 1/2 by way of example, I've done playthroughs that never invested points in any weapon skills except Throwing; a marginal skill at best by most accounts, but one that can be done. Perhaps a "trap" option for newbs who don't yet know how rare grenades and throwing knives are in the early game, but a solid "iron man" option there for more experienced gamers. Similar for a Martial Arts or Knifing Expert in Jagged Alliance 2. Those "trap" options are only traps for as long as it takes to learn it's a trap. After that, it's a tool for another style of play or area of the game you wouldn't otherwise experience.

[danzibr]

Character creation.

Not that it’s necessarily an old game mechanic. Also, it can be done well. My major complaint when you build your character up from a blank canvas, your decisions usually aren’t (in my experience) important to the plot.

Like in Xenoblade Chronicles X. It feels your companion is actually the main character.

Or Fallout 3. Your character’s most defining trait is their father.

Or KOTOR. You actually have an awesome backstory, but that’s wiped clean by the time you actually make your character.

The more I think about it, it feels the more freedom a player is given, the worse the plot is.