Disturbing/Awful (Game) Design

Pretty much the worst decision I've ever heard of was to make the voice audio in Bates Kaitos sound like it was recorded behind a window.

Honestly it sounds like that. On purpose.

The whole concept of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem's "insanity effects" was disturbing... so I guess it did a great job as a horror game

I could never get over the Ooccoos either. Maybe the feathers also count for nipples? I don't think their biology is ever fully explained haha. ReDeads from OoT also used to terrify me as a child. I always muted my TV so I didn't have to hear their shrieking.. up until probably the Shadow Temple where I had to be more aware of my surroundings. 


For awful game design, I'd say the "remaster" of Silent Hill 2. Not just the fact that they put the fog distance so far away that nothing was a real threat or surprise anymore, but also:




That eye texture was not necessary at all.

Does somebody has played Panic Restaurant? It's a NES platformer game, it's entertaining, yet it's american cover has the main character Cookie the Chef drawn this way:



The japanese and european covers were much better.Here the chef is very weird!
Anyway, great little game C=

How about massive amounts of backtracking? Especially in a certain game called Resident Evil CODE: Veronica.

Compared to the rest of the games in the series, that one has too much of it.

Too many things to list. Im sure Ill miss like 90%.

1: escort quests... Nobody likes em, why do they keep appearing?

2: technical/strategic games where you can see lots of info like chance to hit 74%. 5% chance to crit, 5-15 damage, etc... Which feature skills that are vague like "inspire: increases squad attack" and doesnt say by how much... WDF!?!?

3: Most perma missables... Some are ok, like story or choice related ones... But ones like you must talk to this normally completely unimportant npc at this exact moment of the game when there is no reason to do so using logic or common sense or forever miss something cool... Ugh.

4: most morality choices. Like... A thief snatches your wallet and runs into the crowd, what will you do? A: bust your your rocket launcher and murder him and every innocent bystander in a 30 foot radius for your wallet back, or b: let him keep it... NO DAMN C: chase after him and take it back.

5: games where you can customize your looks somehow but the costumes have stats attached to them so you cant wear what you want and have the best stats.

6: games that have amazing gear or rewards that can only be obtained by some in game casino ot gamble thing... Hey, lets teach kids gambling is good!

7: ditto the above with gachas using rl cash... Dont tell me it isnt luring kids to gamble real money. Offering virtual lumps of coal instead of nothing is such an obvious farce of an excuse for it to not TECHNICALLY not be gambling... thosr people who do this have no scruples.

8:general skill imbalance that somehow gets released that I can see is obviously op or up in 5 minutes. Like.. 90% of skills and runes in vanilla diablo 3. Seriously, did they even TRY!?

9: games that force boring ass quests or segments that everyone knows everyone hates. Like "talk to this npc in some town you already visited to pick up a letter and bring it back here with no exciting events or encounters scripted along the way... Yay!

10: racing simulators that try to make cars feel more realistic more and more and more, swearing up and down that pro drivers cant tell the difference esch time, only to continue the trend... While making absolutely ZERO effort to try and simulate the actual career of a racer... For example professional racers dont feel like losers because they didnt get the podium for ONE rACE...Hell. Getti getting it once at all is a highlight to many's careers. Games should be balanced so that you have to work up to that level. And why is the player always starting at the very back?!

11: games that have AI controlled squadmates that follow you around and "help" but cant actually kill anything on their own because their attacks do 0 damage. I would get them being there to make a game feel more realistic but seeing your squadmate ciring their rifle at that last enemy you cant seem to find for 2 minutes without ever killing em only for you to kill it in 1 second when you finally DO spot them hurts more than the npc ever helped... They had to code the ai for those dudes for virtually nothing.

Thats enough for now. Especially since Im texting via phone =p.

One of the worst games I've ever bought was Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I wrongly assumed that since I had really enjoyed the first and second games in the series that the portable offering would be just as much fun, albeit on a smaller scale. Up until this point I had enjoyed most of the games I had purchased for my Gameboy Advanced at the time. Once I began to play Chain of Memories however, everything changed. The main thrust ofgameplay--the card mechanics--awful. I understand a developer's need to expand the scope of a game, maybe make a few positive changes in mechanics from a previous iteration...but this complete 360 that Chain of Memories introduced really fell short of the mark.

The plot got pretty tangled in the second game, so I can excuse the fact that they blundered about in the middle for a little while there. At least it didn't suffer the same fate as one of my all-time favorite series: Dead Space. The first game was handled by one studio and then the sequel only retained some of the original staff..which changed the entire feel and pacing for the sequel.
Yes, you're right. I should have said "about face" which is 180 degrees. 360 puts you right back where you started...it's been a long day.

I also enjoyed Chain of Memories. Especially with Riku. Did you know they remade Chains of Memories for the PS2?

I only remembered now but I actually played the game too and I think I liked it, until that battle with Riku against Ansem. My game bugged, save got corrupted, gave up.