So recently it was revealed that the upcoming Mario Party would eschew an online multiplayer mode of the full classic gameplay style. It was a move some found to be quite questionable, however others contended that the gameplay style was inherently unsuited to internet play and it was the right move from Nintendo. Despite the efforts of some in that thread it is still a notion I can not begin to fathom, or at least have it go beyond "if you don't like it then don't play it but to omit it is at best terribly lazy of you".
In previous times some said that Diablo style dungeon crawlers were unsuited to consoles, particularly around the time Diablo 3 console ports were announced. I had played Diablo 1 and 2 on PC, then no small amount of time doing co-op dungeon siege on PC. Moving onto co-op in Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and similar games on the gamecube and xbox felt completely and utterly natural. The insistence some brought to such discussions left me wondering if I had experienced some kind of shared hallucination with my friends and family during such times. It was not even like a mouse and keyboard vs controller for FPS games where even middling players will often beat or seriously worry high end players of the console varieties, and even I can certainly appreciate mouse aiming at times.
There are cases where one device or the other is in some way ill suited, the movement of real time strategy games from the roots in things like Dune II to games where actions per minute and micromanagement of more modern games being a great example of things that routinely fail with a controller. Though somewhat amusingly, not to mention bringing it back to the idea about Diablo style games above, the DOTA/MOBA style of gameplay may be something of an answer to that.
Echoes of something similar also happened in the discussion of the game focused phone from Asus but that might be reaching for the purposes of this thread.
Another you may see this in is in fighting games on the PC. Some seem to feel that it is unsuited to it, and it would seem historically publishers have as well.

Controllers will obviously be a big part of this but screen architecture, the "community" for a device and other hardware limitations may also play. On the matter of "community" I once heard it said that consoles tend to keep multiplayer games active for longer where PC will drop them like a hot potato after a month or three.

This is part of a series on GBAtemp where we consider game design, aspects of play and game industry concepts. Previously we discussed the value of online play.

Spoiler: earlier editions

emulation vs hardware, a favoured game style that might have become less common in recent times, skills one might have learned or honed because of a game, games on the PS4 and Xbone that will stand the test of time, games that got better after launch, cancelled games and shuttered devs, and story canon in games.

You are then invited to discuss any of the things above, or similar things where people have insisted a game or style of game was ill suited to a given class of device, either to your puzzlement or history ultimately coming to argue otherwise. You can also try for the opposite and attempt to argue that all attempts at a given style have been flawed and that future game developers would do well to not try.

 

[Deleted User]

I always thought the DS was unsuited towards 3D games, any 3D game released for the system looked like a pixelated mess, whereas keeping the games 2D would have looked much better.

That's probably due to the fact that the DS is essentially trying to run PlayStation-style graphics on the screen with a resolution that's smaller than the SNES's, which results in a lot of games looking dirty. The fact that the system has no analog stick and has to rely on the touch screen for anything similar doesn't do much to help its case.

Besides, given the casual audience the system was aiming for, on top of the touch screen as a control interface, keeping games 2D would've done wonders to simplify gameplay.

 

[gnmmarechal]

A lot of games are defined by the hardware they're produced on, with variables such as control schemes and portability being huge in defining the character of any given game. Some games transfer better to other control schemes than others; for example, I've noticed that a lot of DS games work really well on smartphones, due to their touchscreen-heavy control interface. Many games are less graceful in the transition, such as playing some DS games on a PC, or playing many twitch-action-based console games on a smartphone with no controller on-hand.

However, a lot of what makes a good control scheme varies from person to person. This issue becomes more prominent over time, due mostly to emulation and the expanded number of control schemes available for games made on any given system. You may find yourself playing a game using a control scheme or controller the original developers could have never even dreamed of, such as playing Super Mario Galaxy on an Xbox 360 controller, or playing Street Fighter II on a touch screen. The nature of the controller has become a far more personal matter than it ever has been.

For example, I remember one user on Reddit remarking how they were able to play Power Stone perfectly fine using touch controls. However, after giving it a go myself, I noticed that the controls where nowhere near as tight as I would have liked, and I decided that a controller would be the better option for me. Many would agree that playing a fighting game with a controller (or, in most cases, a joystick or keyboard) is the superior option to playing on a touch screen, but that doesn't mean playing on a touchscreen is impossible. It's a case-by-case basis. Some control schemes may work really well for a few individuals, even if it won't work out for even the majority. To reflect this attitude, control schemes should be more flexible, even if there are some out there who couldn't imagine ever playing a game with a given control scheme.

Now, take this notion of control schemes outpacing the original hardware; the same general concept applies to Super Mario Party. The series had its start on the N64, and was really defined by the limitations and strengths of the system. There was no online support for the N64, but there were 4 controller ports, which lent itself to a local multiplayer, party oriented game. Fast forward a good 20 years, and the limitations of games and the systems that they're played on have drastically changed. In a an age where everything including your toaster can connect to the internet, online play with Mario Party games has not only become possible, but outright expected. Online play is to Mario Party what control schemes have become to many emulated video games; it may just not work for some people. Heck, it may not work for most people, considering the entire series was designed with local multiplayer in-mind. However, there will be people out there who would appreciate the option to play the game with strangers, and so it feels strange for the devs to deny them that option. I guess it's like seeing past the bridge of your own nose, from a development perspective.

In this day and age, developers need to be more accommodating of different ways and styles of playing a game, even if some methods are likely to go unused. The fact that Nintendo is going against this grain doesn't really surprise me, especially considering their failure to keep up with many current trends in the gaming industry.

tl;dr just because you can't see the appeal in playing a game a certain way doesn't justify denying everyone the option to play it that way.

Jfc dude

 

[DeletedMember411838]

I'm gonna go with MMOs on consoles. Final Fantasy 11 kinda crashed and burned on PS2. And I think for a while, the general idea was that MMOs wouldn't work on weak consoles. Then FF14, Black Desert Online and Elder Scrolls Online all kinda turned that idea around, and now there's a definite market for that genre on consoles.

Yep going to have to disagree with you there, like a few others have.

I don't really consider either ESO or FF14 MMOs to start with. Granted I have limited experience with FF14, it and ESO are more like there games online.

I played ESO since beta, still at times you can find me there. It is in essence as it was insulted as, "Skyrim Online". It's not really a true MMO, more like a MMO / Single player RPG hybrid.

That said, they are still techinically MMOs, the experience on consoles is severly watered down, and has serious disadvantages. In the case of ESO, yes there is limited buttons making it semi playable, most MMOs are not that way however.

Love or Hate it, WOW is still the number one MMO and really what all other MMOs aspire to be. In wow, I actively use every single button ony Razer orbweaver (that's 20 buttons) I also use the dpad as a modifier for another 20 buttons, however it's actually another 80. I mostly PVP, and during that I use all of those buttons, and also use them with modifiers. A controller simply can never do that, there simply isn't enough buttons.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

That's probably due to the fact that the DS is essentially trying to run PlayStation-style graphics on the screen with a resolution that's smaller than the SNES's, which results in a lot of games looking dirty. The fact that the system has no analog stick and has to rely on the touch screen for anything similar doesn't do much to help its case.

Besides, given the casual audience the system was aiming for, on top of the touch screen as a control interface, keeping games 2D would've done wonders to simplify gameplay.

Not exactly. It's the texture resolution that's the problem, the textures are like minecraft level of quality but they try to put too much detail into them and it just looks bad.
Some games don't seem to have this problem though, it seems to be mainly an issue when you see objects close up, and there is no filtering so it ends up looking worse than a N64 game.

 

[FAST6191]

Re DS 3d then between its implementation (it did not really resemble much else out there before or since, not that before was all that much better) and struggled to push enough to do it justice if you wanted a "traditional" 3d game. However there were many devs that used it to create nice effects. The DS form factor with PSP grade hardware would have been spectacular, indeed maybe the 3ds with a better opengl implementation during the DS era would have done really well as opposed to the 3ds being outdated almost from the gate. That is not even that fun an alternate history so I will leave that one.

Yep going to have to disagree with you there, like a few others have.

I don't really consider either ESO or FF14 MMOs to start with. Granted I have limited experience with FF14, it and ESO are more like there games online.

I played ESO since beta, still at times you can find me there. It is in essence as it was insulted as, "Skyrim Online". It's not really a true MMO, more like a MMO / Single player RPG hybrid.

That said, they are still techinically MMOs, the experience on consoles is severly watered down, and has serious disadvantages. In the case of ESO, yes there is limited buttons making it semi playable, most MMOs are not that way however.

Love or Hate it, WOW is still the number one MMO and really what all other MMOs aspire to be. In wow, I actively use every single button ony Razer orbweaver (that's 20 buttons) I also use the dpad as a modifier for another 20 buttons, however it's actually another 80. I mostly PVP, and during that I use all of those buttons, and also use them with modifiers. A controller simply can never do that, there simply isn't enough buttons.

I still reckons many buttons is a symptom of a problem rather than anything close to being a requirement or useful delineation. Anyway a choice video at this point

 

[DeletedMember411838]

Re DS 3d then between its implementation (it did not really resemble much else out there before or since, not that before was all that much better) and struggled to push enough to do it justice if you wanted a "traditional" 3d game. However there were many devs that used it to create nice effects. The DS form factor with PSP grade hardware would have been spectacular, indeed maybe the 3ds with a better opengl implementation during the DS era would have done really well as opposed to the 3ds being outdated almost from the gate. That is not even that fun an alternate history so I will leave that one.



I still reckons many buttons is a symptom of a problem rather than anything close to being a requirement or useful delineation. Anyway a choice video at this point

I didn't say alot of buttons we're a requirement, I said that the MMOs that are on Consoles, are not really MMOs. This comes from someone who has played every MMO pretty much released since UO.

Those games are very solely based, story driven, they do not push you to interact with others, in the case of BDO it actually drives you to stay away from others.

All of those games community's have said that since their launch. They were never, and still are not, really MMOs. Sure they are massive, (though sharded) and online, but it doesn't have the social needs that MMOs typically do.

There is also MMOs with limited buttons. Guildwars 2 and Tera are good examples. (Of which I actively still play both, Especially GW2)

Now that said the way I play GW2 is more akin to Arena Simulator than MMO, but that game is more multi faceted.

As far as too many buttons being a problem. I disagree there too, I don't need my games dumbed down or the skill cap lowered. There is plenty of games already like that, and there is a few MMOs like that. Stating they should all be like that, is like saying all future poke.on games should be like Let's Go.

 

[FAST6191]

The video was in turn to question what a MMO actually is. Your notions of making things party/community based, story being that the world generates itself and meaningful interaction are interesting ones. I imagine a fine game could be built around that, mainly as many have, but I am not sure it means all that much.

On buttons then if a fighting game can have some kind of crazy complicated game system and a skill cap around "you will need to dedicate your life to mastering this" with four buttons and a dpad then from where I sit that stands in stark contrast to that assertion. It is by no means impossible to have many buttons create a complex and skills requiring system but if the low level/core play play is wasd and a mouse then when I see high level stuff adding more and more buttons I find it speaks to a "we'll just bolt this on" mentality and that rarely lands anywhere good. Maybe some slowly introduce more and more mechanics over the course of however many hundreds of hours it is to get to said high level play but that would be the exception and pretty clearly the case.

 

[DeletedMember411838]

The video was in turn to question what a MMO actually is. Your notions of making things party/community based, story being that the world generates itself and meaningful interaction are interesting ones. I imagine a fine game could be built around that, mainly as many have, but I am not sure it means all that much.

On buttons then if a fighting game can have some kind of crazy complicated game system and a skill cap around "you will need to dedicate your life to mastering this" with four buttons and a dpad then from where I sit that stands in stark contrast to that assertion. It is by no means impossible to have many buttons create a complex and skills requiring system but if the low level/core play play is wasd and a mouse then when I see high level stuff adding more and more buttons I find it speaks to a "we'll just bolt this on" mentality and that rarely lands anywhere good. Maybe some slowly introduce more and more mechanics over the course of however many hundreds of hours it is to get to said high level play but that would be the exception and pretty clearly the case.

I know that was a question to what an MMO was, but my answer was it's the same thing it's always been. Like you already said it was, when UO coined the term, that was there actual defition. The MMOs to follow followed suit.

The community can also play a large part on that, ESO could have been a great true MMO, a few missteps from the devs those were correctable, however the majority of the community were Skyrim players never stepping foot in an MMO. They brought Skyrim tendencies and anti social playstyles that forced the game out of that genre, IMO.

Some of them adapted to MMO play, the majority did not. The ones that did, actually became to like the genre more in other MMOs in my small sample size of about 100, that were with my MGC, which was over 1k players in ESO.

Of course I'm old school, like I said been MMOing since UO, so my views could be tainted to what I have known for so long. Where as others newer to genere could see things diffrently.

We see that with BDO, alot went there, most of the older players left (as happens with alot of MMOs) toe the combat system was atrocious, as was the punishment for PVP, as a mostly PvP player.

They say Tab targeting with a alot of buttons is dated, and to them that may be true. To me it's preferred, as it is what I'm use to.

 

[SirNapkin1334]

I always thought the DS was unsuited towards 3D games, any 3D game released for the system looked like a pixelated mess, whereas keeping the games 2D would have looked much better.

Actually, some games did look pretty Good, though there are many games that look like that.

 

[VitaType]

I think action RPGs like Diablo feel completely different when played with a controller or with mouse and keyboard. The direct movement of your character indeed works, but it really dosn't feels the same as with mouse, also in Diablo 3 for consoles the item dropping was reduced and you can collect money by running over it which are sacrifices to not having proper point&click with controllers. I don't even begin with having place for 10 potion in a belt All in all it feels the UI suffered from controller-ready design and that already with the PC version
Complex micromanagement with multiply party members and pause-function for battles like Divinity: Original Sin do work on consoles, but I think the controller gets "in between" you and the game much more then mouse and keyboard. Not a fan.
As for FPS it's clear that mouse aiming is better, but I have to admit that gyro-aiming fixed it to a surpising extend.
As for RTS. Yes, that still is problemetic. Pikmin is a great example, but classical RTS like C&C or Age of Empires with controller? No, thanks.

 

[tbb043]

I always thought the DS was unsuited towards 3D games, any 3D game released for the system looked like a pixelated mess, whereas keeping the games 2D would have looked much better.

But that's true of any (1st gen) 3d system, PSX, n64, look like crap usually far worse than DS in 3D

 

[The Real Jdbye]

But that's true of any (1st gen) 3d system, PSX, n64, look like crap usually far worse than DS in 3D

PSX and N64 had filtering and a (at least slightly) higher resolution which helped a lot. Early PSX games may look worse than the DS but I'd be hard pressed to find a single N64 game that does. Even Super Mario 64 looks better on N64.

 

[DS1]

This is a great one, lots of good discussion here. Rather than barrage people with my own anecdotes, I'll bring up something I've been afraid of for a long time:

PC-style simulation games on console. I'm talking about city-builders, management sims, etc. Hell, even some games that are ONLY released on console in America - Koei classics Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition come to mind.

Despite being 95% console player and 5% PC player*, I love these types of games, but have never tried them out on console. Even though Tropico 5 is routinely on sale for PS4, I've been afraid to try it. The chair at my desk with my laptop is super uncomfortable, yet I'll have a 2 hour Caesar session perched on that thing before I'll try Railway Empire on console.

*my laptop is about 12 years old now, and was a budget purchase at that time

Has anyone played these on a console? Should I even be afraid?

 

[VitaType]

Should I even be afraid?

Yes. Never do that! If you do, the bogeyman will come and eat you ... in one piece!
No seriously, the control is awful that's all. With your setup it may makes sense to rather play the games on console then never. Just buy one of these games you're interested in next time it has a (very) good discount and try it out (or try the demo if one the games you want has one)