SecondWindGroup
patreon
Please, Stop with All the Menus | Unpacked
🕑 Added 2024-04-19 15:05:22 +0000 UTCThis week's episode of Unpacked is now available!
Comments
Tim Wilson
Now I’m not necessarily on the side of massive menus, but normally when I see them it’s in a big ol’ JRPG or something like Disco Elysium. And when I’m not, I don’t tend to see massive menus. Especially with the GOW example being so prominent, it kinda seems like you’re unhappy with the direction the game went because yes, it has a narrative focus but it’s also an action game that allows for a lot of different builds and a full rouge-lite dlc section, not a pure action game anymore in the vein of DMC. It doesn’t seem especially out of place in the games you mentioned, and it’s not like Bayonetta 3 now has 50 menus to update each high heel or something. I’ll also mention that Final Fantasy 2 had a system where stats upgraded naturally based on what you did in battle and it kinda sucked, hence the return and maintaining of the other systems.
Nick Calandra
Yea, never said get rid of em! Just upgrade as you play. Playing Lords of Shadow right now and I spend two seconds unlocking the next set of skills in-between chapters and then I'm on my way. No percentage stuff, just straight up, here's a move, here's what it does... go!
Adam Heikkila
He didn't say get rid of upgrades altogether, he's saying we used to be better at the implementation. The new GoW could have had all the upgrades and armor without having you scrounge for materials and sift through menus, it used to be more organic to the gameplay. My only gripe about the new games is all the incrementalism employed, they'd have been 10s if I didn't spend half my time in menus.
Quazillionaire
Yeah, exactly, lol.
Luuuuuuu
If you could do this without the menus the problem would be solved
HardRevenge
That sounds dope
Ryallen
I definitely agree that I'd like modern GoW more if the weapons visually upgraded as you used them rather than changing out look. The different outfits would be lost in the fog but A: as cool as they are, it'd probably make the game cheaper to produce so that's a plus and B: they could still be added as cosmetic options instead if they absolutely needed to be implemented. But then we'd probably be charged for them in that case so idk if that's really the way to go about it. As for unlocking skills and the like, I totally appreciate the perspective. Minimize the time people spend not engaging with the primary gameplay loop to maximize the fun people are having with it. But I also think that unlocking different skills and expanding the player's options as they go through helps keep the game fresh. Otherwise they fall into a pattern and get bored quickly. There's a way to do it to do both, I'm sure of that, but I don't think we should outright remove unlocking skills and attacks altogether.
Spiders in a Trenchcoat
I like menus, but mostly in theory. I used to play AD&D, so I got a softspot there.
Quazillionaire
Not trying to defend menus in general, I'm a big fan of games that have less UI. But it seems to me that the issue you're talking about is really about games having unnecessarily complicated systems (rpg, loot, etc.) rather than menus being the crux of the problem. Games with simpler systems have fewer/simpler menus.
Wally Hackenslacker
There is an indie game named Red Dust (on GOG here https://www.gog.com/en/game/red_dust) where reloading weapons is a long and overdrawn process but instead of with menus it's a muscle memory heavy thing you have to do in real time. The effect is pretty much as you describe but with added pressure.
Ethan
I feel like this speaks to a larger trend of adding complication. Adding leveling, crafting, and equipment customization where it is not needed.
Luuuuuuu
Imagine if every time you reloaded your gun in an FPS you had to open a menu, select your gun, open another menu to select the right ammo, then another menu to load your gun - that's what menus in games these days feel like to me. I just want to play the gaaaaaaaaaaaame. The menu is not the game!
