I was playing pokemon Black 2 the other day, and took notice that there's many places where the game essentially babysits you, especially when compared to old school Red\Blue\Yellow.

Then it hit me that there's tutorial levels on most games modified into standard play.

Gone are the old days when you had to read the instruction booklet or you'd be on your own before playing. I still remember Resident Evil 2. Opening scene and BAM, you're in the middle of a street with a gun and a knife and 8-10 zombies around you. Enter game.

Or old pokemon games, where you had to buy everything and just train things and enter caves and whatnot. In the newer games there's a healer at each cave, people give you stuff for free [I've got a full inventory of potions, pokeballs, greatballs, lemonades and whatnot].

Final Fantasy VIII? Take a wrong turn, don't pay attention to a tutorial, BAM, you're in the training garden with no guardian forces against a Tyranosaur with 14.000 health.

Anybody else feel this way? What's your take on it?

 

Well I will say non optional tutorials drive me crazy. As far as overall difficulty goes though, I don't mind dying but I can't stand losing a half hour or more of progress. Working and generally being busy, when I sit down to relax and enjoy a game, it needs to count and I need to make progress.

The worst game I've ever played in terms of holding your hands has to be Zelda: Skyward Sword. It stops being an intro tutorial almost 3 hours in, and no matter what, every time you load your game, every item you interact with you will be forced into the explanation of what it is.

 

I thought this was a good assessment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

 

If by user friendly you mean no longer punitively hard? Then yes, and thank fuck for that.

 

Yes.

 

I noticed alot of games these days (particularly shooters) use a one button does everything.

 

It's a good and bad thing. Now-a-days, to me at least, the games are complex with all the moves, inventory tallying, potion mixing, etc. Heck, I still have a hard time playing Castlevania Lords of Shadow on the XBox 360 because I can't get the dang combo buttons figured out for all the moves. There are tons of them. What happened to just whipping and throwing your special item?! This is why I always hated Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat and would just button push through the game. The tutorials at least help me get an idea of the game, but I do agree about Zelda games...enough with the same dialogue about crap I already know.

I remember back in the day I was a kid and had time to spend all my holiday vacations and weekends to play through those tough SNES and NES games. Today, all I ask for is the save anywhere function that most games have now. I have gone back and tries playing some of the old school games on the console and it truly sucks that you couldn't save anytime you wanted to, like on PC games. This is why I have revisited many games in the emulator world because I can save states anywhere. I don't think I would have beaten the original NES TMNT game without playing it on an emulator.

 

Games just have a huge audience now, and they try to cater to a large portion of them. Back in the day, during the 8-bit and 16-bit days, games were usually FAR shorter and smaller, but felt large becuase we would die 30 times before beating a new stage, and then run out of continues and do it again. As a kid I had that kind of patience and time, and game companies knew that was the audience, but I'm glad we have options now. I feel every game should have good in-game manuals and control explanations, but I don't think they should be forced on you to progress the game.

 

I enjoyed it. Can't believe I watched it all through.

"Mega man! Mega Man!"
"STFU!! I don't need you!!!"  

 

Non optional tutorials bug me too and here's another aspect of why: Replay value. Ok, so maybe its useful when you first put the game in and are going through it the first time. But to have to sit through all that again the second time or a third time... yeah.

 

Yes. But I am torn on this issue. On one hand, they're making some games either annoying or downright boring to play. On the other hand, these days I do not have as much time to play games, so a bit of handholding can save me a few hours of my time when done right.

 

I was gonna post this as soon as I finished reading the original post. Dammit

I pretty much agree with every single thing in that video. Forced tutorials are annoying. I'm always bored out of my mind when I first start one of the newer Pokemon games because you're bogged down with tutorials. At least give me an option to skip this shit just in case I've, you know, already been playing these games for the past decade.

 

I think it was painfully clear in Black/White 2 that they were afraid of letting go of your hand. Hell, that was my primary issue with it, that almost literally before you enter any new town Bianca or someone would come running in and tell you how to do something/give you a plot crucial item.

 

Yeah, I found the original Black and White to be the same in that regard too. Pretty much all the changes made for gen 5 seemed to be to make the game significantly easier.

 

Red still had tutorials ( I hate you old pokeball guy ) but not as much as current games. There should be an option when you start a game that asks if this is your first game. Metal gear has it right in the beginning of the game it asks you what is your favorite metal gear game and it chooses a similar style to that game that you like.

 

Nintendo as a game developer basically has a big problem with tutorials. The "New Mario Bros" series is about the only game that they don't shove tutorials down your throat. I know they want to appeal to all audiences and worry about making their game's streamlined enough for kids but complex enough for adults... but there's ways to actually make the games work that way and not make over complicated controls. Like that Megaman X video, teach someone something basic and work the game world around that concept and grow in a logical way. Again, I think it's also always good to have a manual you can check in game at any time.

 

dark soul held your hand for a little while and then push you right into a puddle

 

Thank god, someone else who thinks like me.

 

Yeah. People are handing me stuff ALL the time. I spoke to a guy at the movie theatre twice and got 10 lemonades. There's a guy that wants a pokeball and gives you back a great ball every day. There's fast balls, lux balls and whatnot in my backpack that I don't even remember who gave them to me. Doctors halfway through any dungeon. Boxes automatically change when they're full. Natures now highlight which stats they affect [this is actually welcome]. TMs are infinite in use. HM moves can be forgotten. Moves can be re-learned. Move tutors everywhere. There's berries to decrease your EV points on stats so you don't have to breed a new pokemon should you mess up.

I could go on, but some of these refinements make the old games play like European Extreme on Metal Gear Solid 2.

 

I'd say yes and no depending on what genre of game your playing. Generally I play FPS's so when I jump to a game like Halo Wars it's nice to have some idea of what I'm doing.

I really rather you be able to skip tutorials especially if it's your second and up time playing. XCOM Enemy Unknown gives you the option of "do you want us to hold your hand for friggin forever while we explain EVERY bit of the game mode" or "NO get the friggin heck away from me I"m going to do it by myself and get my squad killed over and over because I didn't know about X/Y/Z mode".