Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Mischief Maker
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Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Mischief Maker »

I'll start

Always Love:

Throwing one dude into a crowd of other dudes and knocking them down like bowling pins.

Always Hate:

Shooting at stationary turrets. It's never satisfying, and that was 1/3rd of MDK 2's gameplay.
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BIL
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

Concurred on crowd control, it's partially why I like MD Golden Axe 2 more than the original. Along with a bunch of other refinements.

Love: 2D shooters that let you hold the fire button to strafe (Wolf Fang, Shock Troopers, Granada, Saturn Hyper Duel)

Hate: 2D shooters that require button hammering without autofire and break with it (lots of eighties stuff, Darius Gaiden).
Last edited by BIL on Wed Oct 08, 2014 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Specineff »

Hate: When some games don't give you invulnerability or erase all enemy bullets when you deliver the final blow. MGS and Twin Snakes made me eat bullets fired right after I drained the last of the tank boss' health. Bonus if it takes control away from you as the boss' death animation plays, and there's no way to avoid that last (and possible deadly) strike.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by trap15 »

Love: incredibly tight stage design hell bent on screwing over the player in the best sorts of ways.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Vexorg »

HATE: Unskippable cutscenes.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by cicada88 »

Love: Breaking Scenery / Background Interaction

i.e., smashing bricks in SMB, smashing crates and oil drums in SF2 stages
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by iconoclast »

Love: An evasion/dodge ability in melee action games. Most 2D games from the past don't have it, but it's standard in 3D action. Makes combat much more enjoyable.
Hate: Random encounters. I'm only somewhat okay with it in games like Pokemon, which have designated areas for the encounters (tall grass, caves, etc.).
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Imhotep »

Love: double-jump (in 2D and 3D games)
Hate: exchanging gameplay (shmup stages in some random game, forced scrolling levels in a normal platformer, different gameplay for bosses, .......)
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by iconoclast »

Imhotep wrote:Hate: exchanging gameplay (shmup stages in some random game, forced scrolling levels in a normal platformer, different gameplay for bosses, .......)
Definitely. By far the worst thing about Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 are the godawful genre shifts. It's as if Kamiya's trying to make that his trademark.
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Squire Grooktook
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Squire Grooktook »

trap15 wrote:Love: incredibly tight stage design hell bent on screwing over the player in the best sorts of ways.
Stage design isn't a mechanic I don't think.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by KAI »

Hate: Grinding
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by KindGrind »

Love: When double tapping a direction makes you dash (in a brawler), believe it or not it's not always the case.

Hate: When the buttons are mapped the opposite of what a normal human being would use as a control scheme, and you can't change anything. I can't play Alex Kidd in Miracle World...(I realize it's not a mechanic... so...)
Hate: Grappling hooks in anything ever.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

KindGrind wrote:Hate: Grappling hooks in anything ever.
Even in Top Secret: Hittler Come To Life Again? :o
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by KindGrind »

BIL wrote:
KindGrind wrote:Hate: Grappling hooks in anything ever.
Even in Top Secret: Hittler Come To Life Again? :o
That includes Hitler's Revival indeed. (Yes, I'm an HERETIC of sorts!)
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Drum »

What the fuck, who hates grappling hooks?

Love: Homing lasers!
Hate: Abilities that amount to a simple temporary stat buff ie. +5 strength for ten seconds. Yawn.
Hate: Rock/paper/scissors-style strengths/weaknesses ie. elemental damage. Yaaaaaawn.
Last edited by Drum on Thu Oct 09, 2014 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by sojtrash »

Love: knocking enemies into pits

Hate: swimming levels
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Formless God »

Love: Countering/parrying.
Hate: Manual mapping. I can do that shit faster with a piece of paper and a pen.
Hate: Ice.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Ruldra »

Love: Characters with reversal moves in fighting games. Bonus points if the character has a special reversal move that catches almost anything the opponent throws at you. The mind games I could play with Kasumi in KoF '99 were glorious.

Love: Command throws. Grapplers are usually difficult to use but it's so damn satisfying when you land those high-damage grabs.

Hate: Grinding in any shape or form.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BrianC »

iconoclast wrote:
Imhotep wrote:Hate: exchanging gameplay (shmup stages in some random game, forced scrolling levels in a normal platformer, different gameplay for bosses, .......)
Definitely. By far the worst thing about Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 are the godawful genre shifts. It's as if Kamiya's trying to make that his trademark.
This is a like for me, if the levels are done well. I like the change of pace the shmup levels bring to Super Mario Land and Batman GB. Some of my favorite levels in SMB3 are the auto-scrolling ones. It can be something I dislike if the levels suck, but if done well, it can be a nice change of pace.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BIL »

Love: brawling games where characters get gradually worn down with punishment. Most Technos beaters, AKI's N64 wrestling tetralogy... basically anything where a sound beating will degrade a character's ability to get back on their feet, escape grapples, etc. Going up against a dangerous opponent, landing solid hits, then smashing them with a power move they'd have previously evaded is way more visceral than simply depleting a meter with no corresponding performance impact. Likewise, triumphing with your character on their last legs.

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Dunno if this quite counts as a mechanic (a very fundamental one perhaps), but all my hatred: 2D gameplay with scrolling that doesn't keep the player character at least very near, if not directly at the center of the screen. Spent a few hours on Story of Thor (MD) tonight and despite loving basically everything about it, I can't play it anymore. Literally gave me a headache. Fired up Twinkle Tale to see if I was playing it up and nope, all good. Headache disappeared in a jiffy. This is one of the few things that'll instantly kill a game for me, I can't deal with the claustrophobic effect of a moving character being right at the screen edge. Might be some kind of spergy synaesthesia.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Skykid »

BIL wrote: Dunno if this quite counts as a mechanic (a very fundamental one perhaps), but all my hatred: 2D gameplay with scrolling that doesn't keep the player character at least very near, if not directly at the center of the screen. Spent a few hours on Story of Thor (MD) tonight and despite loving basically everything about it, I can't play it anymore. Literally gave me a headache. Fired up Twinkle Tale to see if I was playing it up and nope, all good. Headache disappeared in a jiffy. This is one of the few things that'll instantly kill a game for me, I can't deal with the claustrophobic effect of a moving character being right at the screen edge. Might be some kind of spergy synaesthesia.
It's just poor game design/coding.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BrianC »

Drum wrote: Hate: Rock/paper/scissors-style strengths/weaknesses ie. elemental damage. Yaaaaaawn.
This reminds me of something I hate in Alex Kidd and the Enchanted castle. Needing to play rock paper scissors to buy items.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by LEGENOARYNINLIA »

Hate: having to draw a weapon first before being able to shoot/attack.

Kind of hate: losing control of your character as soon your opponent has zero life left in a fighting game.

Love: being able to travel faster by jumping rather than walking/running. Even better if doing an attack in the air makes you travel even faster.

Super deary sweet love: command grabs in fighting games.

Ultimate state of love and bliss: autoscrolling anything.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Krooze L-Roy »

Like
It's become a huge cliche, but I still really enjoy slowmo/bullet-time.

And stats, the more the better.

Hate
Hacking/lockpicking mechanics. They're never enjoyable, usually just a shameless way to pad out a game's length. And when you finally unlock an ability that makes it less of a pain in the ass, you're as grateful as a classic Stockholm Syndrome case.

NPCs who say different things if you click on them multiple times, so to be sure you've heard everything they have to say, you'll have to wait while they repeat their last spiel.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by ACSeraph »

Agree with a lot of what's been mentioned here. Should be required reading for game designers.

Love: Air-dash (Rockman X)

Hate: Limited amounts of saves (Classic Resident Evil)
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Captain »

TheRedKnight wrote:Super deary sweet love: command grabs in fighting games.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by LEGENOARYNINLIA »

^ I'm talking about stuff like 360 commands, not LP+LK throws like in some SF games.
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by BrianC »

Love:
-choosing the in game music in Outrun and Super Hang-On
-wall grabs like the one in Batman NES
-drifting in games like Daytona and Ridge Racer

Hate:
-single save slots in games like Pokémon
-super long passwords
-enemy respawn after barely moving
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by Nana »

Love: unconventional and ass-backwards control schemes (Gunvalkyrie, Gungriffon, Sin & Punishment)
Love Plus: Being able to pick apart bosses piece by piece, to make the fight harder. Especially refreshing to see this in non-shmups!
Love Max: Being able to string combos to stay airborne

Hate: When action games, or any games based on skill, have upgrade systems. Especially if they reward you for failure, so the second time you try something it's easier. Fuck that shit. Most home console roguelikes are guilty of this, and uncomfortably many action games of late too.

EDIT:
Love Extra: Locking onto multiple enemies ala Panzer Dragoon in a third person shooter
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Re: Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

Post by guigui »

Love : how the death mechanic works in the Souls serie. Also about that serie, as trap15 said :
trap15 wrote: Love: incredibly tight stage design hell bent on screwing over the player in the best sorts of ways.
Hate : checkpoints in shmups.
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