R P G A M E R . C O M   -   E D I T O R I A L S

To the Developers

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Kash Afshar
FAN EDITORIALIST

I have had a lot of time for playing games these past few days, and I’ve noticed a few tweaks that game developers can make in order to make their products just a little more agreeable. The inspiration for this letter comes from playing Persona 3:FES. In this game, one shot kills directed against the player can ruin the game, especially since for this game and its predecessor, when the main character falls in battle, the game is over. Basically, dying in this game is really common. So here’s my gripe: many games lack simple convenience feature, for instance,

1) Don’t make me reboot the entire system every time the game is over. I understand that game developers want to make a game challenging, but don’t make it frustrating by forcing the gamer to reload the entire game every time they lose. A continue button would be nice when the game is over so that I may conveniently reload my save from the last save point. I dont want to watch the company logo, navigate the title menu, access my memory card and load everything from scratch everytime I die.

2) A pause button is invaluable. When a game is as long as Persona 3, there is no doubt that at certain points we need to take a break without wanting to add needless time to our game clock. This was also the case in all the Metal Gear Solid games, including the newest one. While the latest of that series provides a pause button, the in-game clock is still running, which is still a major flaw. A good pause feature, is essential when there are battles/cutscenes that last for over an hour.

3) A “load” button. In games lacking a load button, this is what needs to be done in order to go back to the previous save location: either press reset and watch all the logos again or get yourself killed. How hard is it to just include a load button? This is a problem in MGS games where certain areas need to be cleared without being noticed by the enemy and multiple tries might be necessary.

I think developers can drastically improve on aspects like this and I encourage everyone to write down little things that they would like to see in games that make gaming more enjoyable all around. We want to end a game on a good note, not by chucking the remote at the wall and yelling like a maniac.