Favorite/Least Favorite Part of Any Video Game

[RokuGurin]

As the title says. What do you look forward to the most/least when you play any video game?

Favorite
Boss Battles
-I usually get a game based on whether or not it has bosses to fight. Though there are a few exceptions. Whenever I play a game, I always look forward to what I'll have to fight at the end of a level. And it is extremely satisfying when you defeat a very tough opponent. And we all know a thing or two about tough bosses.

Least Favorite
Early Difficulty Spikes
-And I don't mean when a game is meant to be challenging from the get-go (like the Prinny games for the PSP). I mean when a game gets hard too quickly. While you're still on level one, for instance. This is what usually makes an enjoyable gaming experience quite the opposite. Video games are supposed to gradually get difficult, not spike up while you're still early into it. Unless, of course, a game is supposed to be of that caliber, there's no reason for such a thing to happen.

[Kami]

I like RPG's with an interesting plot, fluid gameplay

I dislike games with uninteresting character designs and Hack'n'slash Rpg's with not enough murdering and puzzles.

[Viiper]

Favorite

Crafting and loot systems. Even games like RAGE, your typical shooter was a lot more fun because of the interesting crafting you could do.

Least Favorite

Timed missions. Especially timed missions which have you kill x number of things in a time limit. FUCK OFF WITH THAT FOREVER.

[puggsoy]

Favourite

Interesting or unique mechanics. Basically if a game is different and does something never done before, or does it in a new way.

Least Favourite

I'd probably have to agree with Viiper on timed missions, that sort of stuff can really put me off a certain part of a game. That, or having to keep someone alive other than yourself, since that character is usually extremely stupid.

[Gors]

Likes:

>Interesting gameplay mechanics. I like when the game uses its features to the max; it gives you more immersion and controlling the character properly gives me a sense of accomplishment. Things such as double jumps and 'press the button at the right time to reflect enemy projectiles' are a fave of mine.
>Boss Battles. The more elaborated, the better. I can live with the usual 'stomp three times to win', but it's just better when the weak point isn't as obvious and you must figure it by yourself.
>Music.

Dislikes:
>Water levels. They're boring and tedious in almost every game.
>Really difficult mission that you must accomplish to continue the game. I hate when the level is so hard, you can't beat it, and it's the only mission left to advance. It is one of the reasons for me to abandon the game. I like difficulty in games, but doing this just to increase gameplay time is really shallow and dumb imo.

[NICKtendo DS]

Love:
-Unlockables. Nothing beats the thrill of gaining additional content as a reward for specific achievements.
-Good level design. Something you can speedrun without cheap deaths, something with subtle optimal routes with a few hidden ones that contain special pick-ups. Levels that invite you to replay them without the need of a reward to lure you in. Just levels that are fun to do over and over again. X hours gameplay can suck itself when I can invest hours upon hours in a single, enjoyable level.

Hate:
-Water. Mario is a b**** to control and Sonic simply moves sluggish and floaty and has to collect bullbes in order to not drown.
-Level design focussed on a single gimmick/challenge. The danger of a gimmick being stupid, boring or annoying only makes the level in question risk not being fun to play. You'll clear it once for the sake of clearing it and abandon it forever.

[Sevenstitch]

Like:
Rpgs that level enemies proportionality with your party, but don't overpower your party. This pretty much negates conventional
"grinding" mechanics, and makes the player rely more on strategy instead of just leveling themselves higher than the boss.

Dislike:
ANY vehicle-based level in any game not designed exclusively around vehicles. Most are required to continue the game, and most
have strange, awkward controls that lead to unexpected cheap deaths and over all aggravation.

[RokuGurin]

I gotta add one more thing concerning aspects I dislike.

Hopeless battles. The kind that you aren't supposed to win. Every kind of battle I've faced like this, I'm not aware of whether or not I have to win. So I go all out not knowing that it doesn't matter if you win or lose.

This happens especially when I'm fighting a strangely difficult boss. I think, "Wow, this is pretty tough for this part of the game. Am I even supposed to win?" This can be a lose/lose situation. On one hand, you ARE supposed to win, so you have no choice but to persevere. On the other hand, you can't win at all but you still keep going, oblivious to the fact using up all of your precious items for naught.

The best example I can give of a game that not only raped this concept, but birthed hell spawn from it is Suikoden Tierkreis. That game was chock FULL of battles that you don't have to win that it got very unsettling for me. The aspect of the game is that you have to recruit 108 party members. Sometimes you had to beat them in a battle before they join you. That in itself isn't bad, as losing would just mean that they wouldn't join you. But the problem is that this is mixed into the actual game play as well. I remember fighting a boss that I lost to, but the story kept going. This didn't happen a lot, but it made things rather irritating.

[alexmach1]

like
a massive world that you explore via using items you collect throughout the game, ala Ocarina of Time

dislike
a massive world that is completely open and all areas can be accessed without the use of items, ala Skyrim(yes, i am aware they are 2 comepletely different games)

[Lemonray]

Likes:
>Epic/emotional/beautiful/awesome moments. Like Ocarina of Time's final battle. Not limited to boss fights, of course.
>Genuinely fun gameplay.
>Nice music/visuals/style choices.
>Good controls. This is essential.
>Unlockable/secret content.
>Likable characters.

Dislikes:
>Games that take your favorite chatacters and wreck them. E.g, Other M.
>Forced grinding.
>Boring gameplay.
>Glitchy/bad game engines. E.g, Sonic Heroes.
>Bad storytelling. Again, Other M.
>Bad music/visuals/style choices.

Dislikes:
>Water levels. They're boring and tedious in almost every game.

Done right, they can be pretty awesome (Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Super Metroid for example, had great water levels) but I agree, 99% of water levels are god awful.

This is partly because so few games allow the player to acquire items/abilities that make navigating water levels easier. Like the Metroid series' gravity suit. In Metroid Prime 2, you're even able to get an item which combines the abilities of the gravity suit with an underwater jetpack.

[puggsoy]

Oh, by the way, I'd like to add that humour in a game is gold, even if it's cliché or pun-filled jokes (as long as it isn't overdone). All games I've played that have humour, even in serious situations, have been enjoyable. The Strong Bad games, which practically rely on humour, or the M&L RPG games, are great examples. It's never really failed for me, it seems that game developers have pretty good senses of humour.

But then again, that's just the games I've played. There might be some games out there with horrible humour.

[TheShyGuy]

Like:
-A game which gets the player immersed in the game world.

Dislike:
-DLC
-Sequels to a game where the first game was amazing and the games after that are nothing like the previous...

[TomGuycott]

Features I like:
>Lots of Bosses: I love games with a LOT of bosses. Sometimes I don't even care if certain bosses are even GOOD or not, so long as most of them are I'm okay with it. Good examples of games with a big emphasis on defeating bosses are Megaman, Alien Soldier, No More Heroes, Shadow of the Colossus and Dark Souls.

>Boss Rush: A feature commonly limited to one of the last unlockable features of a game. It is wonderful to be able to fight all the bosses in a game over again without having to play the whole game again. Good examples are Megaman (again), Kirby and Castlevania.

>Memorable Music: Good video game music that gets stuck in your head. I know it's really subjective overall, but you can really tell when a game's music hits home with its atmosphere. Take Dark Souls, which has no music except in a few safe(ish) zones, and then the rest is all boss music. Wonderful boss music I might add. In the same vein, I love games that are willing to have bigger soundtracks, such as having multiple battle themes in the case of RPGs, or having multiple tracks for different boss battles, or in some cases like No More Heroes a different track for each boss.

>Unlockable weapons, characters and features: Stuff like unlockable art or music is pretty cool in some way, but what I really love is when you get a ping and you realize you're suddenly able to play as someone else entirely different from the main character, or you just played through the majority of the game and now you have the ultimate weapon. I love fighting games with unlockable characters and games that have cryptically hidden ultimate weapons you have to find by the skin of your teeth. As for features, mostly spins on existing gameplay modes with added bonuses, like the aforementioned boss rush for example.

>Good voice acting: Granted, another subjective thing about whether or not something could be considered good or not. When a game has good, believable voice acting, it really helps immerse you into the game's world, and you get swept up in the game's emotions. A good example is Kid Icarus Uprising. Lots of the dialogue is cheesy, but it's sold really well by the voice actors, who seem like they had a lot of fun with their roles.

>Hilariously bad voice acting: Kind of the opposite, but there are some games that have voice acting that's just so horribly bad that you can't help but laugh. It's the kind of thing where you're with a bunch of friends, you rented a game, you hear one word out of a character's mouth and suddenly you're rolling all over laughing. A good example of this is Clock Tower for the PS1 or House of the Dead 2 for Dreamcast.

>Unused Content: As a sprite ripper, I get a little thrill out of ripping unused graphics. Even if its disappointing that an idea or music track or sprite was scrapped in the end, it's always fun dissecting a game's insides and seeing what was in the designer's heads, seeing what worked and what didn't. It's not a fully legitimate example considering its not necessarily done while PLAYING the game, but meh, I like it. Good examples are the unused character folders and music tracks found in Super Smash Bros Brawl, or the unused, fairly complete (albeit unassembled) Koopa Kid sprites found in Super Princess Peach.

>Lots of playable characters: I love variety. Sometimes I play games one way, and sometimes I play them another. It's especially fun to play a game as a character that was once just a regular enemy and then pummeling big bosses with them just for kicks. Dynasty Warriors Gundam is one of the best examples of this, making every robot in the game (save giant ones which have limited functions in a map area) playable. Granted, there are some REALLY awful ones you wouldn't even want to play as, but there's a certain charm out of flying a Zaku head first into the Dark Gundam and coming out on top. Another good example I'm aware of, yet haven't played for myself, is that Dragonball game for the Gameboy Advance which has a bunch of playable basic enemies and bosses after you beat the regular game (I think it had something like 30 playable characters).

Features I dislike:
>Incredibly Frustrating Spikes in Gameplay: There are certain games that I've played where the difficulty on a section suddenly ramped up so high due to either poor design or outright sadistic game design, and you are forced to play it over and over again, usually for no decent reward aside from the fact you are spared that horrible section. I can't think of any specific examples, probably because I repressed them.

>Unskippable Cutscenes: This can cause a number of problems in your game. Granted, certain cutscenes in certain games shouldn't really be skippable, like endings of games that have nothing after the credits. It would be really disappointing if you were playing one of the classic Final Fantasy games and your cat jumped on your controller during the climax of everything and you skipped to the credits. However, there are games out there where there are reasons to play through a game multiple times, and sometimes you have to sit through a looong cutscene you've seen five times already. What's worse is sometimes an unskippable cutscene keeps happening every time you continue from a checkpoint, and coupled with the previous disliked feature I mentioned you end up with a point you can't beat and a cutscene you can't skip.

>Quick-time events with dire consequences for failure: I don't hate ALL quick-time events. A lot of games did them well enough. They were okay in God of War (which is pretty much KNOWN for them) and in Kingdom Hearts II (Where it was just one button that activated certain actions), but there are instances where failing a quicktime event cost you your life instantly with no room to redeem yourself except try again. An example is Resident Evil 4, where Leon is forced to fight CQC style against a guy in an annoying cutscene. For some reason I remember my friend not being able to do it, and I had to sit there over and over watching this unskippable cutscene trying to get it over with. I didn't have too much trouble with it myself when it came time for me to do it, but for some reason I just remember that. The most notorious example I know of is Sword of the Berserk on Dreamcast, where there's a pre-boss cutscene where you have to do a quicktime event, and failing to complete even a single step INSTANTLY KILLS YOU. That'd be fine if you had infinite lives or something, but this was a game with LIMITED lives. I lost all my lives the first time I got to it because the game was so stubborn about how the button had to be pressed. Ironically, the game also had examples of quicktime events that I'm okay with, such as where your penalty is either losing health or being forced down an alternate stage route.

>Good bosses trapped in a long game: There are games that I've played that are both good and have good bosses, but sometimes I want the thrill of a certain boss fight again, but it's bookended by an entire game. In games without a Boss Rush or Boss Select style of gameplay, you're pretty much out of luck if you want to be able to fight a boss you remember over again. Granted, in most games bosses like a final boss are supposed to showcase your skill at the game and your ability to get through every trial of it, but unless it's a game you can sit down and beat in a day it's kind of annoying to not be able to return to a boss battle you like. A good example of this is Legend of Mana, an underrated game that I love to death, but the game is LONG, and that means after I've beaten a boss it's GONE until the next playthrough. The Ys series was a big offender in this regard too, but later installments took a page from the Book of Boss Rush and now it's hardly so bad anymore.

>Games with no bosses: I don't really play them, so I can't give you a good example. And I don't mean games like a racing game or something like that, I mean games that have gameplay akin to games that have boss fights, but for some reason the particular game completely abandons them.

>Over-emphasis on Level or Materials grinding: In most good RPGs, if you fight most of the random encounters (or just regular enemies if its an action RPG), you USUALLY are progressing far enough to have at least a chance against the next boss or major obstacle. There ARE exceptions like a really hard boss meant to surprise you and keep you on your toes, or if you are given some alternate routes to take and you want to take the harder one early just for the hell of it. However, some games force you to grind right out of a boss area just to COMPETE with the next area's basic enemies. If its not a game based so much on your levels, then its games where you have to get materials or the like from enemies in order to get equipment or the like. The Ys series is an example of heavy level grinding, where you are forced to grind in an area to even DAMAGE higher level enemies or bosses in an area, and the moment you are in that level range the enemies stop giving good experience, sometimes just giving you 1 exp at a time. Instances where this is TOLERABLE is when you have to level grind for difficult meta-game aspects like super-powered bosses, or getting all necessary objects to get an even greater reward like an ultimate weapon or power.

I could probably go on forever, so I'll stop for now.


Edit: On the subject of good and bad Water Levels, I love the Super Metroid water levels. Namely because of the atmosphere, so crippling and claustrophobic. However, once you get the Gravity suit the tedious slowdown in the water is gone and you are suddenly able to move like normal. I think that's why people like it so much, because you eventually AREN'T as hindered as most water levels.

[Baegal]

Like:
-Art direction and sprite style (S3&K is )
-A game that's easy to jump into (one that doesn't need too much explanation, and if it does, is for gameplay mechanics. The one thing I don't like about pokemon is how long it takes to get into it.)
-A game that doesn't take itself too seriously (Paper Mario, EB, Sonic generations. Even though Portal2 and Mother3 were darker than some other games, they were still able to effectively tie humor into it, which I think is very important.)

Dislike:
-DLC
-Boring and repetitive missions (I'm looking at you, SA2B)
-An unnecessarily overly complicated story (kind of like Brawl. They could have simplified it a whole lot.)
-Games that are hard to casually play or jump into quickly. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like games that need time devoted to them, but sometimes they are way too hard to get into again once I've beaten it (I guess RPG's mainly suffer this one).

[Virt]

Why do you people dislike DLC? :I