(retro video game music) - It's 2023 and although we
have seen an absolute ton of old school stuff returning, there's still a lot that's just gone and some of it really just shouldn't be. Hi, folks, it's Falcon and today on Gameranx, 10 things video games
shouldn't have abandoned. Starting off with number 10,
extreme sports mini games. Like where have all the mini games gone? There's an argument to be made that these things are a
drain on developer resources and could be better utilized elsewhere. But I mean, come on, a few mini games can
really add some variety, especially with how much AAA
games are ballooning in size. If I'm gonna spend hundreds of hours playing your game, give
me something else to do. Maybe this is just a personal thing, but the extreme sports mini games and stuff like Final Fantasy VII or Spyro the Dragon were
really some of the best, but the snowboard part
in Final Fantasy VII isn't gonna compete with SSX. But it's a really cool
breakup in the gameplay. It's something that just isn't like anything else in the game. And well, there's actually a lot of that in Final Fantasy VII. It's not all extreme sports, but the fact that there
is some extreme sports, when you're up on a snowy hill and you probably at least
think of snowboarding at least once during that
whole sequence, it makes sense. And no, I'm not saying it really, really, really
makes sense or anything, but in the terms of the world, you think about it, and hey, also, you can do it and it's fun. (upbeat game music)
(snowboard slides) (collectable chimes) (triumphant music) The Spyro skateboarding game
was actually pretty legit and it's easily my favorite
mini game in Spyro 3. (lively game music) (skateboard crashes) Remember the skateboard
mode in Metal Gear Solid 2? That was actually amazing. Technically, it was basically a demo for Konami's Evolution Skateboarding, but that game was nothing
to write home about, but skating around Big
Shell as Snake, (laughs) it's funny in a way, but it's also just a lot
of fun and cool-looking. - Yes. You do like pain, don't you? Nose grind. Pull out, that was a big fall. (upbeat music) - These old games weren't afraid to get a little goofy and janky at times. And these types of mini games weren't always great or anything, but I definitely miss when games weren't so carefully polished and actually include some rough edges like this intentionally. Half the time, games that come out now are just buggy messes,
seemingly no matter what. So, screw it. Why not just have some developers having a lot of fun
making a lot of cool stuff that maybe doesn't work
perfectly, but it's interesting? It's not like letting a
few guys put a skateboard into your game is gonna make
that much of a difference. And number nine is action hijack. For a while, it seemed like
every game had this feature, so maybe that's why it's less common now or maybe devs just collectively
decided it looks ridiculous. I don't care. It's an awesome feature that pretty much every
driving game should have. Action hijacking is when you steal a car driving another car. - Action accessories.
(car engine roars) (announcer speaks indistinctly) (weapons hit) (character babbles) (character screams) (car engine roars) - Sleeping Dogs has it, Just
Cause games basically have it. That Vin Diesel game, nobody
remembers, the Wheelman has it. (car engine roars) Those Pursuit Force
games on the PSP have it. What else do I need to say? It's awesome. It makes swapping cars so much faster than the normal method
of getting out of the car stopping another car, pulling
the person out, accelerating. I don't have time for that. I'm on the clock here. I know it looks absurd. I don't think I have to explain that the physics just go completely out the window when you do
this, but it's a video game. It's fun. Isn't that the thing that matters? It's not like you can actually
go out and steal a bunch of cars in the way you do in these games and you know, have that
not be your main focus. I mean, I want this feature so I'm able to keep
driving in a different car to a destination where
I have something to do. There's at least one recent game with some proper action
hijacking, but it's just a single level in Modern Warfare
2, The New Ones campaign. Yeah, it's fun stealing details while chasing on the
world's longest convoy. But this mechanic just isn't the same when it's not an open world game. It is still fun though. And number eight is
challenging platforming. Now, I know I'm beating
a long dead horse here but most AAA games have
completely given up on providing any kind of challenge in their platforming sections. Almost all these games have some kind of climbing like God of War, Horizon, basically any Assassin's Creed
game, I could probably go on a really long time here, and they all have
climbing in 'em somewhere, but it's also automated. It barely serves a
gameplay purpose at all. In some cases it's so
automated it might as well just be a loading screen. Like all you're doing is
pressing a button and waiting. For a lot of people out there, it's fine. Not everybody wants to go back to the days of Tomb Raider where the most
basic jump was life or death. But there is a satisfying
middle ground here. Like pretty much everything on this list, there are exceptions that prove the rule like Jedi Survivor, which manages to include some interesting
platforming sections. But for every game like that there's a bunch more where
getting from point A to point B is just so simplified, it's just basically an in game cut scene and there's no reason for
it at a certain point. That said, games keep getting it anyway. If games are gonna dedicate a lot of gameplay time to climbing and jumping they shouldn't have abandoned
any semblance of difficulty or even just having it be something, 'cause all it does is
make these parts feel like total filler. And number seven is
Puzzle Dungeons in RPGs. Way back when, the dungeon
was the big highlight of playing an RPG, these
things were elaborate locations filled with puzzles and challenges, like they were the set
piece moments of their time. As games have gotten more
complex, however, some dungeons let's just say have
gotten a lot more basic and maybe more than some, I'm being kind. In all seriousness, look at
recent RPGs including the ones that are mostly throwback
Octopath Traveler II, Zen Blade Chronicles 3, the
Final Fantasy VII remake, Hell, even Final Fantasy VXI. They all have pretty linear
dungeons that just boil down to a series of fights
that culminate in a boss. There are exception, obviously. Western RPGs aren't a lot
better in that department, but Lair is still
knocking it outta the park with dungeon design, and a recent indie game
called Chained Echoes has some fun dungeons in
it, but for the most part the bigger RPGs have
moved away from the more exploratory elements of their
predecessors that essentially make the dungeon into its own puzzle. In order to get past it,
you have to find everything in it and put it together
in some novel way. (epic music) - Are you okay? Pretty easy, right? Nice Job Cloud. - I'm not saying that the
games I mentioned are bad or even that linear
dungeons are bad sometimes, it's just nice when they take the approach that requires you to be creative
In terms of exploration. At number six, an in-game web browser, it's one of those things
that doesn't really pop up much anyway, but it's a shame that
more modern games still haven't given this idea a
shot, being able to learn more about the world of the game by sitting at a computer, by browsing
real, I (sighs) fake, real, I don't know. Sometimes they make the
websites in real life or at least used to when
this used to be a thing. But it made the game really immersive and fun without reading a
dull encyclopedia of terms which is kinda rare for
games to put in this effort. Like Grand Theft Auto IV
and V of course do this. They're both great in their own way and have way more work put into them than might appear at first. Cyberpunk 2077 also has an
in-game browser, but it's kind of basic and doesn't
really try to be immersive which is pretty disappointing considering the world of Cyberpunk. One game that really went nuts with this idea was Front
Mission 3 on PlayStation, the original PlayStation. It's set in a science fiction future that's really different from our world, but that doesn't mean the
webpage don't have some of the most nineties-ass
designs I've ever seen. It's still a really
cool feature to include especially because you never
actually have to use it. It really has nothing to do
with the rest of the game but it's there and it says
something about the world. There are other games that
have fake computer interfaces or DOS prompts, but a
full in-game browser is an idea that's mostly been abandoned. Hell at this point, I'm not even sure Rockstar
will bring it back for GTA VI. I hope so, but I'm not
really that confident in the idea they will. And number five is small open world game. Open world games just keep
getting bigger and bigger. And while that can be
cool at a point, it does make me miss some of the
smaller open world designs of previous generations. You know, games like
Crackdown or Infamous where they're still open world,
it's all one big seamless map but they're not expecting you
to play for a hundred hours at least not to experience the whole game. (gunfire) (character chatters
indistinctly over radio) - We're not going anywhere, folks. Might as well do whatever
you can to get comfortable. - Big games are cool and all, but sometimes you just wanna
play something quick, you know? Like, the AAA space
completely abandoned the idea of small open world games. Every one that comes out seems like it's trying to get
bigger than the last. I mean, Bethesda is describing Starfield as being irresponsibly large like those are their exact words. So, I guess maybe it's
time to admit these games are just too big. Starfield gets a pass. It's supposed to be huge. That's part of the game. It's a space game. But you get what I'm saying. And I'll say this too,
at least Assassin's Creed is shrinking a little bit with Mirage but it's one game among many. And also I don't think
that's the permanent state for Assassin's Creed. If it's successful, it'll
probably be two types of Assassin's Creed games that come out, the massive epics and the more
intimate Mirage type story. And not every big budget
game has to be a huge map. Spider-Man, still relatively
small in comparison to most of these games and no
one complains about that. That said, anything we're
talking about here is always gonna have at least a few exceptions, and it's nice that they're
good and kinda prove my point. It's just, okay, sure the
maps of the open world games could do with some shrink. That's the main point, but it's
not really what's going on. It's the over-ambition that
a lot of these maps have. I'm not saying that all these
games have too much stuff in them or too much world
in them, 'cause a lot of 'em are great too. It's just sometimes it's fine
to just get dropped into a map and be told to hunt down a
bunch of crime bosses, right? Sometimes that's just
all that a game needs. (guns fire) (character yells indistinctly) (guns fire) - And number four is secret
party members in RPGs. Now, I kinda feel like
a boomer for saying this because it's been that long, but unlocking a secret character in an RPG just felt awesome. Getting Yuffie and Vincent in
Final Fantasy VII was so cool because you could just miss them. They're totally optional and they took some extra effort to unlock and they're both vital
for their full story. They're not optional if
you wanna know everything but they're optional in terms of actually getting through the game. (epic music) (console beeps) (sword swishes) Most RPGs now give you the
entire party pretty much right at the start. For telling a story, it makes
sense, but it does take some of the fun outta these games. Listen, I know the complaints here. I know that most of the
time secret characters in RPGs are barely characters at all. They get almost no development and have nothing to do with
the story, but I don't care. Again, Yuffie and Vincent,
"Final Fantasy VII", that's an example of it done right. And even if they don't have
an interconnected reason to be in the story, they're
a tangible reward for your efforts that can make
the game way more interesting. At least more interesting
than getting a new sword. During the PS1 era, secret characters were all over the place, but as
production values increased these guys eventually stopped showing up, probably because they're
a lot of extra work for not necessarily any extra reward because a lot of players
just miss them completely. Rarely they'll show up in games like Mass Effect two or Dragon Age as alternative characters,
but for the most part you're not seeing full blown
secret party members anymore. They do show up rarely. Like Chained Echoes had a few, Xenoblade 3 had a guest
character that only unlocked after finishing a bunch of
seemingly unconnected quests. But that's basically
all I can come up with. RPGs barely even have parties anymore let alone secret characters. So, I guess it should come as no surprise that these things are rare. Still wanna see more though. And number three, trolling cheat codes. Cheat codes, rare enough
themselves these days. But what's even more rare
are the fake-out cheats that are just there to mess with people. You have to go back a long, long time to find an era where these
things were more common. I'm talking about mid-nineties and earlier we're talking about stuff
that's like over 20 years old. At this point the internet
was still in its early days information was more scarce and fragmented so it was easier to trick
people with codes like these like in Hexen, if you
put in the Doom code, it makes fun of you and then kills you. (chiptune music) (explosion sound effect plays) Or the Tomb Raider one where
it just makes Lara explode. (explosion sound effect plays) Even a relatively wholesome
game like Super Mario RPG got in on the action, only
in the Japanese version. But if you put this code into
the game, you get a message from Toad congratulating
you finding the secret, and that's it. Nothing happened. The funny thing is the internet
is more and more fragmented. information is harder to find nowadays and depending on the game there's major secrets that seem
like they should be obvious but often go years and nobody notices it. I could see this trend coming back. Maybe I'm just old school though but I don't want games to be so nice, sometimes I just want to
get blown up after cheating, you know? "I think this will give me infinite lives! Oh, my character exploded
into many piece." And number two is actually cool
platform-exclusive content. As we see more and more paid exclusives it just makes me nostalgic
for the days when exclusivity didn't feel
quite so manipulative. Even when games are multi-platform there still are certain
console exclusive features, depending on the game. Call of Duty got PlayStation
exclusive content, stuff like that. Ah, I don't know if we're
gonna be seeing that anymore but that's a different topic. These days, that stuff mostly just
feels like random bits of content that they
arbitrarily make exclusive but they used to be creative about it. Sometimes games would have exclusive stuff that was custom built for the console. One of the best examples specifically of this is Soul Caliber II, depending on which console
you bought the game on you get an exclusive character. PlayStation two got Heihachi from Tekken. GameCube got Link, yeah,
Link as in Zelda Link. Not exactly a guy you'd
expect to witness the body part physics of that game. (exciting music) (Link yells) And Xbox got Spawn, which,
(laughs) okay, why not? (exciting music) (character yells) (character yells) It felt like it got a unique version of the game though, and it helped that the
new characters were fun, they were actually good. It's not as cool when
exclusives were locked with just one version of the game. But that said, like
Kratos in Mortal Kombat 9 was an awesome addition, and
even came with a new stage. It's hilarious how protective Sony was of the character though, they forced NetherRealm to
edit a ton of fatalities so Kratos doesn't look weak,
but it doesn't really matter. It's Kratos in a fighting game. The Wii-U may not have been
the most successful console, but they did have some
fun with the exclusives like Mario costumes in
Tekken Tag Tournament and Bayonetta. Overall, pretty minor additions, but I'd rather have exclusive
content that's added to a game rather than
something that's taken out. You know, like how
things typically are now when they do that? And finally at number one is airships. The list is a little RPG heavy so far and well we're ending it out that way too. But if there's one genre out
there that's really abandoned a lot of its previous
identity, it's the RPG. I don't think anyone's
howling for new games with random battles or
annoying status effects but there's still some cool stuff in these games I'd really
like to see come back and airships are chief among them. Think back to playing
old Final Fantasy games. And some of the best moments are when you finally get the airship. You spent the whole game walking around on foot like a chump and
now you've got an airship. So the world is your frigging playground. There's triumphant
music, no random battles you got free roam of the map. It's just an awesome feeling. Most modern RPGs,
especially JRPGs, are kind of missing this big moment
when everything frees up. Even the ones where you do get an airship like Final Fantasy X, it's
kind of a glorified menu where you select the spot to travel to, and with games having fast travel systems and more realistic worlds it's harder to justify some
kind of flying vehicle. But I don't really care
how impractical it is. Some games have weirder things
that they have to justify. So, I don't know, we're
supposed to be next gen, right? Like why isn't there a game
where you can seamlessly get into an airship from ground level and take off, no loading screens, nothing? Kinda like captaining a boat in Assassin's Creed,
specifically Black Flag, and you know maybe Skull and
Bones someday, if that... I mean it's not a Assassin's Creed, but if that turns out to
be a thing at some point. But you know, in RPGs. Anyway, it'd be really
cool to maybe get a rebirth of the High Wind in Final
Fantasy VII at some point. You get my little play on words here 'cause the, the next one's called Rebirth. Okay, I do ask for your
forgiveness on that one. But if Square Enix really
wants to wow people let us pilot the damn thing,
that would be beyond cool. it's not like a Hindenburg like incident in the RPG industry had. Why don't we have airships? (epic music) (engine rumbles) - (laughs) Whoo! - Whoa, this is awesome. - Taking the high road. Where we're going, we don't need roads. - And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, let
us know what you think. If you like this video, click Like, if you're not subscribed,
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right here on Gameranx. (epic music)
