So, I finally got Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the 3DS. It's a great game, I had no doubt it would be otherwise. But something irks me, which isn't the game's fault. Why the hell do they not make actual manuals for 3DS games? For that matter, a lot of Wii games were like this, and I can only presume it's the same way for the WiiU. In the case of the 3DS, you get a single fold-out sheet that gives you the basic commands and very tiny bit of gameplay info.
I know how to play this game, that is, I know the basics already. I've been playing this series since it's spiritual ancestor, Super Mario RPG on the SNES. But there is this annoying trend over the years where they don't give you as much information before you play the game, which creates the need for the game itself to grind to a halt so it can inform you of all the things they could have told you in a manual. Which pulls you out of the game. Especially in the very beginning where every few seconds the game has to stop and tell you what to do. Even very basic things you should inherently know. Because the devs feel guilty about sending you in blind and they feel like they have to make up for it by holding your hand. That way they feel like they can't be blamed for not properly informing you. Which they could have done by just making a more in-depth manual as opposed to creating EXTRA work for the programmers by having to construct so many tutorials you can't bypass (and also could have avoided disrupting the flow of the game). Besides, I don't need a game to hold my hand, I have a girlfriend who does that just fine and is much better at it.
Then there are the things they DON'T tell you within the mess of tutorials in the first part of the games. For instance, in Sticker Star, they don't have any descriptions of items. All you have is the in-game description. One item I found told me that it's use is unknown and that I should sell it at a shop. And it sells for a decent price. What nothing in the game tells me, however, is that this item will cause every attack I make to do more damage and allow me to block every incoming attack for a short period of time. So why would I want to sell it, why would they even SUGGEST selling it? So why do games even bother force-feeding me information I can figure out just fine on my own and neglect to tell me things I really should know?
It's just annoying. It's like, how everyone hated Navi in Zelda: OoT. And as a cruel joke, all games have a "Navi" now.
Another thing 3DS games need to do is stop fucking telling me to take a break so I don't hurt my eyes. Seriously, I got enough of that from my mother 25 years ago.
I know how to play this game, that is, I know the basics already. I've been playing this series since it's spiritual ancestor, Super Mario RPG on the SNES. But there is this annoying trend over the years where they don't give you as much information before you play the game, which creates the need for the game itself to grind to a halt so it can inform you of all the things they could have told you in a manual. Which pulls you out of the game. Especially in the very beginning where every few seconds the game has to stop and tell you what to do. Even very basic things you should inherently know. Because the devs feel guilty about sending you in blind and they feel like they have to make up for it by holding your hand. That way they feel like they can't be blamed for not properly informing you. Which they could have done by just making a more in-depth manual as opposed to creating EXTRA work for the programmers by having to construct so many tutorials you can't bypass (and also could have avoided disrupting the flow of the game). Besides, I don't need a game to hold my hand, I have a girlfriend who does that just fine and is much better at it.
Then there are the things they DON'T tell you within the mess of tutorials in the first part of the games. For instance, in Sticker Star, they don't have any descriptions of items. All you have is the in-game description. One item I found told me that it's use is unknown and that I should sell it at a shop. And it sells for a decent price. What nothing in the game tells me, however, is that this item will cause every attack I make to do more damage and allow me to block every incoming attack for a short period of time. So why would I want to sell it, why would they even SUGGEST selling it? So why do games even bother force-feeding me information I can figure out just fine on my own and neglect to tell me things I really should know?
It's just annoying. It's like, how everyone hated Navi in Zelda: OoT. And as a cruel joke, all games have a "Navi" now.
Another thing 3DS games need to do is stop fucking telling me to take a break so I don't hurt my eyes. Seriously, I got enough of that from my mother 25 years ago.
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