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Changing Voice Actors – Destiny
Destiny by Bungie had high potentials, as well as the buzz surrounding it. Although the series has been financially successful so far, it has also seen more controversy and backlash than expected.
In the original version of Destiny, players were awakened from their slumber at the beginning of the game by the artificial intelligence Ghost, voiced by Peter Dinklage. Dinklage, who was a very famous personality at the time due to his work in Game of Thrones, was the player’s companion throughout the campaign, leading to mixed reactions to his performance. While some were satisfied with his performance, others criticized his lackluster and non-emotional delivery of the dialogue.
Who can forget “That Wizard came from the Moon”? A line that was deleted and then reinstated twice due to fan reactions. Due to “Hollywood nonsense” (as executive producer Mark Noseworthy put it) or more specifically Dinklage’s high demands, the voice of Ghost was recast in the Taken Kings update in September 2015. Renowned voice actor Nolan North replaced Dinklage. Those who disliked the original Ghost voice were happy, while those who were satisfied with Dinklage’s performance felt at least slighted.
Debates still continue to this day about which voice was the better Ghost, but along the way, each side had their own reasons for feeling angry.
The Farm Boy Link – The Legend Of Zelda: The Twilight Princess
Each Zelda game has its fans and critics, and the Twilight Princess adventure in 2006 on GameCube and Wii was no different. Regardless of your opinion of the game as a whole, its opening act is something we can all agree on as a major frustration.
What set Twilight Princess apart from previous games in the series was the greater focus on Link’s community and his place in it. Previous games had shown us Link’s residence before he was whisked away on his adventure, but Twilight Princess really wanted us to experience this.
It’s one thing to have a long and intricate adventure, but you can’t get there by slowing everything down to a crawl. The first few hours of Twilight Princess, before Link acquires his classic green tunic, literally consist of tending to the animals on the farm and playing with the kids. While the intention was to portray Link as a regular young man, it wasn’t really the reason that drove players to buy The Legend of Zelda games in the first place.
When the game finally starts, Link is transformed into his new form as a wolf, so even then players don’t really feel like they’re playing a Zelda game. However, this stage at least is better than being literally asked to catch a catfish in the pond.
Morse Code – Victory Road
The original game Ikari Warriors was designed as an arcade spinoff to the blockbuster action hit Rambo: First Blood, which SNK had to rebrand when they failed to obtain the rights. However, the game proved to be a major success and led to several sequels.
The second game in the series, Victory Road, takes its Sylvester Stallone-like characters into the far future to battle aliens with missiles. Because it was the late eighties, and as long as you were having fun, the logic behind the game didn’t matter. When it succeeded in the arcade, SNK tasked Micronics with developing an NES version.
High fidelity at that time for an arcade game meant acceptable voice samples, but these couldn’t be ported to the relatively limited Nintendo Entertainment System. So, someone had what they thought was a brilliant idea. If we can’t get voice clips, let’s use the next best thing: Morse code.
The opening scene of Victory Road on NES is not only painfully slow, but excruciating to the ear as the NES chip clicks through each character in Morse code. As if it would somehow resonate with eighties kids who were excited for the sugar rush and just wanted to vanquish monsters.
Victory Road is not often mentioned, but if it were to win any award, it would easily be the worst Morse code segment in NES.
Tutorial Lessons – Final Fantasy XIII
The best game tutorials are those you don’t even think about, where you learn organically through action. But this isn’t always possible depending on the type of game and the complexity of the mechanics, as is the case with RPGs. If so, you should at least make an effort to make it engaging.
The beginning of Final Fantasy XIII constantly bombards players with new information on how battle systems, upgrades, and summoning works. Not only that, but the gameplay is paced in a way that tutorial lessons seem like a bigger part of the experience compared to many other aspects. Of course, this isn’t helpful due to the fact that the early stages of Final Fantasy XIII consist of barely concealed corridors with easy role-playing battles to the point where you may feel like you haven’t done anything.
You will quickly know if this is the right Final Fantasy game for you, because if the first few hours of corridors and tutorial lessons are enjoyable enough, there is plenty more where that came from. Even after three-quarters of the game, Final Fantasy XIII continues to teach players new things.
With a story that dives straight into action and doesn’t slow down to allow players to adapt, the opening act of Final Fantasy XIII is a big red flag for the rest of the adventure.
The Tutorial Lesson – Driver
One of the worst feelings in the world is being told to do something without being told how. We’ve all been there; feeling anxious and panicked if we missed some crucial important information or if we were simply clueless and helpless. The Driver tutorial lesson seems to look down on you and mock you from above.
Well, this may sound dramatic, but many players will hold extremely frustrating memories of the original Driver based on its tutorial lesson alone. Being dropped in a car park and asked to familiarize yourself with the control elements seems logical in theory, but just presenting a list of maneuvers and expecting players to figure them out on their own was sure to lead to many not getting out of that concrete block.
Before the days of the internet, we couldn’t look up these things, so not only did we have to discover what “The earthquake” was but also how to perform it. What really angered players was not just the mystery, but also the fact that it was not skippable. If you wanted to experience what the ads touted as a “revolution in driving mechanics,” you had to prove to Mr. Driver that you were good enough to be allowed to escape from that car park hell.