Sometimes I will play a completely random free game to see how it does. Yesterday, I took a look at Pockie Ninja. Not sure what to really say about it as a whole; it’s practically the opposite of fan service; it is a blatant copy of the show, Naruto, and advertises as being basically Naruto VS Bleach. I can’t find any indication weather or not they are endorsed by the creators of these shows, but I’m inclined to believe not.
This is not my main problem with the game however; as the title of this article indicates I’m not judging the late-game or any of the in-depth mechanics. I’m here to point out the ways the game will chase away new players, ultimately hurting it’s playerbase and missing out on profit. The reason for this is they manage to make quite a few mistakes all together, and future game companies need to learn to avoid them.
First on the list: Fake customization
The first thing you are presented with is the option to choose a character to look like with stats, weapon, and abilities predetermined for you, then give them a name. One major problem with this is it divides the players, especially in a show related game like this between two major groups. The players who pick the main characters because they want to be the main characters. And the players who pick the characters strong against the main characters.
Battle in the game is also just as fake. You select skills that you might use, and battle is completely automatic. Personally, I prefer there to be a little more play in my gameplay.
Secondly: Badly scripted battles.
In many good games, such as Suikoden, or Legend of Dragoon there are battles that are going to go a certain way, weather it be that you have to lose the battle or that the battle will be interrupted, ‘scripted’ battles are one way to immerse the player further into the game.
There are good ways to do this; such as in Legend of Dragoon giving the enemy in such a battle a unique dodging animation so you are clued in on the fact that you are supposed to lose, or Suikoden where the battle is interupted before the conclusion so that if you were getting destroyed you see that it’s supposed to be that way.
There are also bad ways to do this. Such as in Phoenix Wright, during one trial getting the game over screen; or ‘guilty’ screen which lingers a couple seconds before being interupted. Most players once they see the game over screen reset the game so they can get back to playing faster. This lead to frustration at being ‘unable to win’ when infact the plot demanded they lose.
Pockie Ninja does it badly. Twice. When you start the game, you are immediately attacked by Gaara. My character of choice just happened to be stronger than him though. Instead of allowing my character to win however, Gaara revived himself upon death so that the fight would continue until my character loses. At the end a nice big ‘a winner is you’ message pops up over Gaara’s head complete with confetti and a little victory dance.
I am then told that someday I might be able to face the dreadfully powerful Gaara, but for now I need to learn how to fight. And how best to learn how to fight? Easily killing two training dummies then facing another boss fight that my character is required to lose against. This now leads to the next part of the tutorial; wearing equipment so you don’t get punted by every enemy you see.
This also brings us to the third major problem: Railroading tutorials.
I was listening to something on my computer that I really did not want to pause while playing. Unfortunately, even at max volume it was drowned out by the default music in the background of the game. I quickly searched for the settings button but found I was not allowed to click it.
The only button I was allowed to press at any given time was the exact button the tutorial was telling me to press. I decided that since everything in the tutorial was more or less self explanatory I’d just rush through it so I wouldn’t miss much of what I was listening to.
From duels, to how to buy items, how to buy weapons, how to buy armor, how to appraise armor, how to equip weapons, how to equip armor, how to leave town, how to fight outside of town, how to get back to town, how to accept quests, to how to claim rewards, all with absolutely no break. It was a nonstop chain of instructions to click where I tell you to, and you can’t do anything you want until I’m done.
First of all; I lost all interest in the tutorial because I was trying to get it to end so I could shut off the thrice damned background music. Secondly; with every detail of the game mechanics frontloaded in a tutorial, you are not likely to remember much of it when you actually get around to needing to know something if you did actually try to pay attention.
I had to pause what I was listening to and shut off the computer’s volume. It ended up taking over 20 minutes to rush through the entire tutorial without paying attention to most of it and just clicking each button that glowed as they glowed.
Honestly, by the time the tutorial ended, all I wanted to do was stop playing. So I did.