It's a 9 mate

Hi all,

Reading through the "your top 10..." lists topic, Balla at one stage asked what people would change about their top games to make them even better. Fiddling about with that idea a bit, my question would be:

Is there a game that's not quite in your SUPER TOP 10 LIST EVER, but could be if they fixed one aspect? If so, what is that aspect?


I have a horrible feeling this is too similar to other questions, so feel free to ignore God Bless

Ooh yes, loads! Here's some I've thought up just tonight:

Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - The offensive stereotype that is Jean Armstrong.
Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice - The fourth case.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - The ludonarrative dissonance.
Mario Kart 8 - The Battle Mode... but first time around so that I don't mark it down for being a rehash.

I'm sure there'll be many more that spring to me as I consider the question. Nice thread!

Ooooh, good thread! I'm sure there will be loads, but not much is immediately springing to mind.

Any game that's on a machine other than Switch is losing at least one point for not being on Switch.

I honestly think Breath of the Wild could have been better. I think that with more interesting storytelling, more music and more variety with the enemies and how you battle (most of) them, it would have been a 10/10 game. Improve those, and it might have even reached OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast status.

A hard question as I personally wouldn't give a 10/10 and I instantly thought how I would fix a 7/10 which Cappa brought up but I've talked enough about that one.

Looking at my Top 25 then these come to mind and how to improve them:

Mass Effect Trilogy the ending of it even with the update is pants for something that was spread over a 5-year period

Shenmue II the Xbox version has decent controls over the Dreamcast version but overall it needs along with the first an HD update with online leaderboards for lucky hit

Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure the issue with this game is its stuck on the Neo Geo Pocket Color meaning hardly anyone has played the best Sonic game made, this is where Nintendo with the Switch look at the Wii and have other systems as part of the Virtual Console

Team Ico Collection, with the outstanding Shadow of the Colossus getting a remake makes me want an Ico remake so much as I personally think it needed one more but SotC has the bigger reputation that I get why it was first

Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection, This was where I used cheating to make my decision as it's hard to pick between Uncharted 2 & 4, now 4 has to pacing issues yet the overall narrative is the best in the series. However is that only true because of the other 3 games which Uncharted 2 is the cream of the crop. To improve it I'm not sure as is it make 4 a bit shorter and I don't know if that would even do that and as a collection where was Golden Abyss, now that would improve things.

Overwatch, Switch version with excluive skins.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I honestly think Breath of the Wild could have been better. I think that with more interesting storytelling, more music and more variety with the enemies and how you battle (most of) them, it would have been a 10/10 game. Improve those, and it might have even reached OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast status.

BotW's my favourite game ever, so it gets 10/10 for me by default... but I agree, it could be improved! The lack of enemy variety remains a major sticking point for me. Also: the lack of Shrine aesthetic variety, and the Zora Champion. Mipha remains one of my least favourite Zelda characters (although Colin will always win the Golden Turd of Shame).

Drunkalilly wrote:

Any game that's on a machine other than Switch is losing at least one point for not being on Switch.

Correct.

We're getting into why I don't like scores, and why I find comparing and contrasting 10/10 games difficult and reductive.
For me, BOTW is the best game ever made but I can acknowledge it has issues. On the other hand, I don't think Super Mario Odyssey puts a foot wrong, but I don't love it as much as I do Zelda.

OK, my brain is ready.

Was that the right meme?

1) Mario Strikers Charged Football on the Wii could be improved by smoothing out the difficulty curve. The difficulty increase when going between the cups is dead-on ridiculous and was one of my most frustrating times in gaming. That aside, it's hugely fun and playing humans is totally brilliant.

2) Sonic Colours could have been improved by a decrease in emphasis on the Wisp power things, particularly during the 2D stages. Those same 2D stages could also have been given much more of the spirit of the original MD games.

3) Wii Sports Resort could have been improved by being able to recognise my frisbee throwing technique. (a flick of the wrist as opposed to holding the frisbee on the other side of my body before release).

4) Ever Oasis's biggest crime was not allowing for local multiplayer. If your party of three could all have been controlled by humans... what a game that would have been.

5) Shantae: Half Genie Hero's crime is not quite being long enough. Another big level would have pushed it up the review score scale more than you might think.

Fully in agreement with Sonic Colours and Shantae. It's annoying how close to greatness that they both are - especially Shantae, which is one of the best games I've played in the last few years, but is over too quickly by half.

I honestly can't think of a single game that could change one small thing and radically change my opinion of it.

Thought of some more, a Zelda triple-bill:

Wind Waker HD - Fit in the bits they were originally going to include but didn't have time.  Especially the obviously lacking dungeon for the blue pearl.
A Link Between Worlds - Item-dungeon relations like every other Zelda, not the pants renting system.
Minish Cap - Modern release.  Seriously, this was a blinding game.  The only thing I think holding it back (affecting visuals, soundtrack, and possibly dungeon amount) was releasing it on the GBA.  Had it been a Switch or even 3DS game, it would have blown ALBW out of the water, I reckon.

Drunkalilly wrote:

We're getting into why I don't like scores, and why I find comparing and contrasting 10/10 games difficult and reductive.
For me, BOTW is the best game ever made but I can acknowledge it has issues. On the other hand, I don't think Super Mario Odyssey puts a foot wrong, but I don't love it as much as I do Zelda.

I'd say intangibles like 'gut feel' and 'magic' can feed into a score (which is, after all, only a tool for helping articulate opinions at the end of the day) as much as anything like visuals, combat, puzzle quality etc.

Incidentally I do think SMO puts the odd foot wrong.  Lack of subtlety in the postgame, slightly dull final main-game level, and those flipping Moons that require the dog.  But the one thing that's kinda relevant to this thread is Moon frequency.  If they'd introduced a mid-tier collectable, and spaced out the Moons a bit more, I reckon that would have made finding one a bit more magical, and this would be the Best Game Ever.

ZeroJones wrote:

4) Ever Oasis's biggest crime was not allowing for local multiplayer. If your party of three could all have been controlled by humans... what a game that would have been.

For me EO was an 8/10 that needed a couple of things fixing... but an ability to switch party members on the fly would have been enough, I reckon, to push it up to 9/10 status.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I honestly think Breath of the Wild could have been better. I think that with more interesting storytelling, more music and more variety with the enemies and how you battle (most of) them, it would have been a 10/10 game. Improve those, and it might have even reached OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast status.

It's funny you use this example, as Outrun 2 is a classic and yet Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast manages to improve on it.

Twilight Princess is phenomenal but really needed more interesting townfolk and/or overworld. It's drab as a Friday night in Slough.

Viewtiful Joe is a great game but would have been better if it was a bit easier.

Jet Set Radio could have done with tighter controls.

Balladeer wrote:

Drunkalilly wrote:

Any game that's on a machine other than Switch is losing at least one point for not being on Switch.

Correct.

I sort of disagree with this as I look at something Monster Hunter World where if it came to Switch, the development team would have to make cutbacks to there vision of the game and to me its that's more important to me the game is fully realised then on Switch.

For me, it's as much a product of my circumstances as anything else. I spend four evenings in the working week in a room without a TV. Would I take a slightly downgraded game I can play every night (and on commutes, and at any other time I have to myself) over a beautiful high-fidelity game I can only play on weekends? Definitely.

That said, they don't have to be exclusive: games like BotW and XC2 show that. But it would definitely take a lot more effort on the part of developers, and it's completely understandable if they don't want to put that effort in on a machine that still has a comparatively small userbase. That doesn't mean we can't call them out in this thread for it, though.

gjones wrote:

Twilight Princess is phenomenal but really needed more interesting townfolk and/or overworld. It's drab as a Friday night in Slough.

This remains in my top ten games, but you're not wrong. I personally feel a full graphical freshen-up would do enough.

That's totally understandable, I'm just thinking as gaming as a art form.

That's funny because someone like Andyman might argue a switch version could be better because it's 'inferior,' as its graphical inferiority would make it easier, potentially, to add more monsters, worrying less about realism and more about variety. It'd be more like the monster hunters of old then.... Not that that's how it'd be handled.

Good ol subjective art.

Yeah I was thinking the same afterwards what would a artist vision be with hardware limitations but things like IR camera, motion controls and HD would they come up with something different.

I guess be the same if I gave a oil painter, artist pencils would what they come up with instead.

Yeah so even though modern games have much greater scope for soundtracks, I still fund that I prefer some gameboy era soundtracks because artists have found a way to come up with something clever within the confines of the hardware's limits.

Greater than the sum of its parts and all that.

Yeah maybe my original reply should have been IF a Switch version where to compromise / change a vision etc

I see what you were getting at but MH World was probably a poor choice to use as an example, even though Ive preferred the console outings more (a proper controller always trumps a handheld) the series just works better as a whole when it can be played anywhere.

The majority of the uproar of MH going to ps4/xo in my book isnt because it was swiped away from Nintendo rather it was because folk know how perfect the series is for the Switch as a system. (Its only not on there because of timing and overall vision they had for the game)

I used it as the Devs have been talking about it in relation to Switch and their vision of the game. The other game I almost said was Red Dead 2.

masofdas wrote:

I sort of disagree with this as I look at something Monster Hunter World where if it came to Switch, the development team would have to make cutbacks to there vision of the game and to me its that's more important to me the game is fully realised then on Switch.

I've yet to see anything mechanical on the PS4/ XBone that couldn't realistically be done on the Switch, and I'd pick the portability and convenience of the machine over pure graphical fidelity every single day of the week. Obviously, devs are free to take whatever artistic decision they see fit, and I have enjoyed playing games that look really good, but for me personally I'd prefer a Switch release to seeing every bollock hair on every enemy.

Muss wrote:

Yeah so even though modern games have much greater scope for soundtracks, I still fund that I prefer some gameboy era soundtracks because artists have found a way to come up with something clever within the confines of the hardware's limits.

It's pretty established, I think, that tight limitations bring out the most creativity in people. A lot of artists lose their way when they're given the complete budget and freedom to do what they want (see Kojima, George Lucas, Michael Bay . . .).

gjones wrote:

Twilight Princess is phenomenal but really needed more interesting townfolk and/or overworld. It's drab as a Friday night in Slough.

I felt that there were more folk in it than almost ever before but they did suffer from the kind of brown, brown world that NGamer would frequently lampoon in the 'Meanwhile...' section. I'm always naturally drawn to the brighter Zeldas, though.

Drunkalilly wrote:

I'd prefer a Switch release to seeing every bollock hair on every enemy.

Our dreams have taken us in different directions, Yottayuri.

Funny you go straight to graphics more than likely as I'm Mr 4k but I meant things like load times as I'm sure the MonHan World guys said about seamless world's but hey if they want have more hair's on the bollocks of a Great Jaggi more power to them.

On Kojima we've not seen what his freedom will bring but Norman Reedus has said that Death Stranding will be mind blowing but does think it might be unappreciated in our time.

If the Switch can handle Breath of the Wild, it can handle MHW's maps at MHXX's resolution. I am qualified to assess this, as I have played upwards of six video games.