If you could change ONE thing...

As you know I love these hypothetical discussions, so this time I decided to do one that you have to be a bit picky about. The question is what ONE thing would you change to significantly improve a game. If a game has multiple flaws, too bad...gotta pick one thing. One system, one character, one weapon, as long as its one thing. Similarly, saying "story" is too broad unless you feel that one particular twist ruined a game or something, in which case that is valid.

So what ONE thing would you add or subtract from your favorite or least favorite games to significantly improve it? I mean, you can interpret the idea as broadly as you want, but when me and my girlfriend had this discussion it was in the framework that you could change one thing and leave all the other flaws and still come out with a better product.

A few examples (some fairly easy ones):

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Remove the boss fights. I would say change the boss fights...but I'm not sure if I'm breaking my own rules. But no one would miss these and the game would have left a much better impression despite the ending.

Final Fantasy VIII - A game with MANY problems but I'd change the draw system. I think a modified draw system where you permanently gain the magic instead of getting amounts would make for an extremely interesting system, and take away from the tedium in the battles.

Metal Gear Solid 4 - 5-10 minute limits on all cutscenes. As in literally just recut what's there so that each scene is 5-10 minutes max. No more 25 minute cutscenes. Would make for a better game because the game that is there is pretty damn good, all things considered.

Mass Effect - Take out the Mako sequences. I like them in theory, I like having worlds that feel big but god these are tedious as fuck. Just drop me in a base and let me get whatever side quests done with or make another hub or SOMETHING.

Escort missions in Rogue Leader try to ruin an otherwise perfect game.

QTEs in Tomb Raider (reboot) actually do ruin the game.

Auto-aim or no aim at all in R* games makes me give up on anything but screwing around.

Sailing in Wind Waker.

The wiffle-ball bat combat in Elder Scrolls.

Unskippable familiar animations in FFX.

Mass Effect 2/3- Give Hammerhead sequences with Mako structure. Maybe have more stuff going on in the planets like they're full of ancient ruins

Mass Effect 3- The last ten minutes. Just end it with

Spoiler:

Resident Evil 4- Take out the QTEs

Kotor 2- Restore all the cut content

Metroid Prime 3 (and a lot of other Wii games)-Any stupid motion controls that add nothing. Like pumping or twisting something to pull it out

Uncharted 3- That shipyard section. They didn't even try to tie that into the story and later firefights had horrible enemy placement

Uncharted 2- Fight against Lazarovic. Nuff said

Every game that isn't Saints Row 4- Put The Touch in your soundtrack

Ratchet & Clank & Going Commando: racing sequences. If you must have them, make them optional.

@Casey: Yeah, that was exactly the thing about ME1...the Mako was cool becasue it did make it feel like you were on a planet but man, was it a pain in the ass to roll around. If htey had the hammerhead it would have made things slightly better, that is true.

Thought of another one.

MGS3: Change The Sorrow's boss fight. Yeah it's cool IN THEORY, but really...not that fun. And it kind of ruined the presence that villain had in my opinion. I actually dread coming up on this sequence when i replay this game as well.

Definitely agree about Lazarovic in Uncharted 2.

Make it so you can strafe in Ratchet and Clank 1 would be a good one.

I like the topic, I will think on it some more.

Here's one for Pokemon: Give any of the Gameboy ones the DS version's mechanics. They did that with Heart Gold/Soul Silver and it was fucking incredible.

I'd really love a big reward for not getting anyone killed in Fire Emblem: Awakening when playing on casual mode. Maybe if one of my characters "died," they could just be out of commission for a while, or their level could drop. Just something to maintain the satisfaction of finishing a mission with no casualties without making it overwhelming.

Maybe I'm totally wrong and this sort of thing is already in the game.

Yeah, there's either no penalty for death or too much it seems. Would be interesting to do an RPG that way where a death means a setback of a couple of levels or something...

Planescape Torment - Improve that combat system, holy shit. It was because of that it took me about a year to finish. I might be just too scrub to understand it but it was a goddamn pain in the ass.

Silent Hill 2 - Less ammo. When I travelled up the country to meet a friend, me, him and some other dude spent and evening playing SH2 (Studying all that symbolism and stuff, legit good) but we managed to run through the entire game just shooting enemies. Game is still 10/10 though, why haven't you played it yet.

Wind Waker HD basically did everything people would say about that game for it. Hero Mode not giving any hearts makes it a lot tougher, the swift sail makes it so you never have to stop to change direction, and from what I heard the quest for the Triforce isn't as bad as it used to be. Kudos to Nintendo for listening to things like this.

I think for Wind Waker my one thing would be improve the dungeon content, but that seems a bit multi-faceted so not sure if it is against the spirit of this topic.

Yeah, that would be cheating.

Will stick to rules this time ;__:.

Metal Gear Rising - Remove the 'Oh you're stunned now waggle the analogue stick' bullshit. You'd get hit by a bigass enemy, be on next to no health, and instead of having the ability to dodge and refocus it was wagglewagglewaggle. I think I get what they was after, maybe they hoped it would create some kinda tension, but it ended up just being annoying and felt like it really held up the cuhrayzee gameplay.

Well less ammo in SH2 isn't cheating. Improve the combat system is though =p

For Persona 3/4 (since they're so similar) I would want the dungeons to be changed so that instead of each floor being randomly produced, they were actually built by the programmers. The dungeons would basically just be like the rest of the Shin Megami Tensei series instead of just empty hallways with treasure and enemies.

In MGS2-MGS4...remove the tranq gun. Breaks the stealth. Among other things. It's just a stupidly overpowered weapon and it's stupid.

I get where you're coming from, but I love darting them.

I guess I just see these well planned routes that the guards have been given, obviously meant to sneak around and it's like "NVM, DART EVERYONE! And since darting enemies doesn't alert them, you can dart the other guards when they go to inspect" It's just...silly.

I thought it was well balanced in 3. You had to get into a perfect spot and line your shot perfectly. 4 it was overpowered as hell.

MGS2 I'd change the tranq gun...MGS3 I'd change the camoflage menu to some sort of next-gen wheel interface...MGS4 I'm keeping my 10-15 limit on all cutscenes that I said before.

I wish they'd rework the camera on MGS2 like they did with MGS3. I guess that would be the thing I'd change for that game.

I never finished MGS2, but my biggest issue was the random ass pace between showing cutscenes and playing. Sometimes you'd get a long ass cutscene, walk a few feet and then have another long ass cutscene. Then other times you'd get long stretches of gameplay. I wish they'd fix that issue I guess. If I must have a long ass cutscene at least let it follow a meaty gameplay portion. MGS1 despite being rather talky kept a good pace switching between typical stealth, boss fights and cutscenes/codec chatter. I really missed that superior balance while playing MGS2. It sounds like this issue gets worse as the series continues which is a bummer.

Act 3 of MGS4 is literally just tailing someone, a shootout from a side car in a motorcylcle, and a boss fight in terms of gameplay. The rest is cutscenes.

They do all get a bit worse. Actually thought the same thing while playing MGS2 today, Trip. Even thought "Metal Gear Solid 1 had the perfect amount of gameplay and story." I thought that after starting up the Raiden portion of the game and I played the game for like a minute after a cut scene of 5 minutes, and then had to sit through another 5 minute cut scene only for another minute or so of gameplay. It is rather vexing.

3 had a good balance too until the end (the game, not the boss). It gets really cutscene heavy then.

MGS2 should've taken off the laser sight for the tranq gun. You could practically snipe with that thing.