Good Design, Bad Design X - More of the Best and Worst Graphic Design in Games 

oh?

Another great video, though a tad too lengthy per segment. I think 2-3 minutes per game is enough to explain the design concepts and keep the flow still moving, but longer than that starts to feel long winded and borders a rant style critique rather than a design concept overview.

for the next April Fools you should have a Persona 5 Royal Bad Design section

@@danytalksmusic i agree with this feedback but the rant-style was still enjoyable personally

Could you look at the megaman Battle network series it is this weird action card game with a lot of menus and icons to make out things. then their was the DS port of 5 that had this horrible styles menu it had to work with.

I'd legit have watched that rant as its own video. I probably still would. Panel de Pon is underrated as hell over here, but I know tons of people who grew up thinking Tetris Attack or the Pokemon one were incredible and just had no idea they made more. Hell, I know about the overall franchise and still hadn't even heard of half of these ports they did.

@@Ketirz man the ONLY puzzle league game I had heard about was the Pokémon one for the 64 until very recently. I thought it was a one-shot random puzzle game made to combat the yugioh dungeon dice monster game (that child logic was SOUND) lmao

@@kblade08 I'm old enough to remember Tetris Attack demoing in a Toys R Us so I knew what I was looking at when they did it again with Pokemon, but I was a dumb kid and couldn't figure out the SNES one for shit and thus never touched the series until I was in my 20s going though ROMs on an emulator and experiencing DEEP REGRET. Whole thing deserves _so_ much better!

What a Gordian knot they managed to create. Couldn't be messier even if they had planned to sabotage the series on purpose...

what i wanna know if there are any puzzle league games for mobile, any kind of cheap ass mobile version of the game will work as long as its for my old as fuck honor 8, if you know any games

It's funny, because literally just last week I was telling a friend about how Xenoblade Chronicles X's tiny text was one of the reasons I ended up getting a bigger TV :) It was the only game I had that problem with, lol

is not bad on pc

I played the entire game on Gamepad for my second playthrough. But yes, I love the game, but the legibility is absolutely horrible

Xenoblade X is also my favorite game and I came in really angry about it being in a bad design section haha. I get how the text can be annoying, but its still a great game.

I had to constantly switch from the TV to the game pad, just to read the menus. But I have a bigger TV now, so maybe I should get back into it

Good point! It reminds me of the evolution of Mortal Kombat; I had fun as a kid with the arcade games and their explicit but very low-res pixelated gore, but a video compilation of MK10's fatalities, with modern high-fidelity graphics, made me feel squeamish... And, more concerningly, its developers were made to study real-life gore material to achieve that fidelity, to the point it took a toll on their mental health. One more reason to prefer stylized graphics.

Well... it was kind of disturbing to me :( but I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing

Gaoh Kai It makes me wonder why people enjoy looking at that. I mean... seriously, why make that realistic? Who finds this fun?!

@@wannabehistorian371 i am in no way, shape or form eligible to give a professional or well-researched reply to this question, but i think it might be somewhat of a "reward" so to speak: if an opponent has been very tough and given you a lot of trouble, but you finally manage to beat it, you want to return the "favor" they gave you in the previous rounds you lost against them. So aside from blood that comes from general attacks, as a way of signifying feedback to bring over to the player that one's attacks are doing something and make the fighting satisfying, something extra's in order. On top of that, it might be just for the sake of spectacle, seeing something flashy, over-the-top or just something you'd never see in real life play out in a manner like it *could* have played out, with all the grimness and horror that comes with it. But i must admit, i've rarely played a proper fighting game like MK and my goriest experiences range from the combat of Kya: Dark Lineage (obscure but very solid game), which is VERY light, to Darksiders, of which the gore and blood when it appears in like an Execution are to me more bearable thanks to its stylized presentation. I can't rightly explain it, and it might just be that i've gotten more used to it/less shocked throughout the years.-- but for me that's the peak of bloody gory combat i've come across and it doesn't really affect me. Or not anymore. But that aside, hope that however limited my knowledge on the subject is, it provides a satisfactory answer!

@@wannabehistorian371 because it looks awesome.

Agreed, Xenoblade 2 amidst all its problems really upped the standard of ui among monolith soft and their games

For Puzzle League they should just say fuck it and revert to Panel de Pon in all of it’s magical girl glory

@@pesky2119 Ha, Xenoblade 2 over corrected the font size from ridiculously small to comically large imo. Probably works well in handheld mode though, and I'd take too big text over too small text any day

@Christian O'Connell Interesting, I didn't know that.

God, that Quest tracking system though- I'm glad to see that Xenoblade DE took the good UI parts from 2 and made it even better

Just go into massive debt to get a SMILE surgery, did wonders for me.

@@eskreskao my doctor said i shouldnt get surgery until I'm fully grown cuz my eyesight might worsen till then (which it has before), so no dice, sadly. Good for you though.

I can relate to that, still with my glasses on I have poor eyesight and can hardly recognize rpgs with small text fond. Every time I have to stand in front of the screen, which often give me a headache because my eyes are sensitive towards light. :/

Honestly a lot of video game text could stand to be larger. I'll be sitting on my couch trying to play a game (contact lenses in because I can't see without them) and I'll still have to squint to read some things. At least give us an optional larger text version of the UI!

It's even worse in the Japanese version. It's still tiny, but now there's tiny KANJI.

@Chip Wiseman played it on a 480p TV, it read better on the Gamepad and that's sayin something

As someone with poor vision as well, I can confirm it's downright awful. It's one of the reasons I gave up on the game.

@@raulmojarro9427 I finished it and loved it but yeah, the text font size was awful

Yeah, I love the other Xenoblade games, but could never get past the tiny font in X. Hopefully it'll get a nice remaster / port soon that will fix some of those problems.

I couldn't finish the game. I have okay vision but I need glasses. Also this game made me realize I might need glasses.

I was going to comment that but thanks for doing that for me. I absolutely adore Crosscode. Hopefully this outro music is a sign from Design Doc that he'll talk about the game soon?

It really deserves a lot more attention. For people that like (action) RPGs, it's easily among the best in the indie space and doesn't have to hide. Hope the DLC doesn't take too long. Would gladly play it again or continue on the NG+ (since i haven't really done much in it, besides basically starting it) Atleast we now have it finished on steam, gamepass, switch... and i think PS4 and xboxone, but not sure on those two.

CrossCode is an excellent game! Glad he's giving it a bit of respect.

I'm waiting for my phyiscal Switch copy to play it!

@@stratoge Same here.

Thanks, I couldn't remember where had I seen that character before.

Not to mention it would have made the package with Dr Mario on GBA make a lot of sense. Although don't forget that Yoshi already had his own puzzle game literally called "Yoshi", so maybe they didn't want to confuse consumers (which they failed at, especially since Yoshi and Puzzle League do have similar elements like how it's about switching two items around).

HELLO Is this thing on? Am I all alone? Is there anyone here? I need a bigger FONT

So close it's a Voice I'm hearing Overwhelms me Can't stop bleeding Show me, show me, show me, show me-- show me, show me, *bigger font*

You forgot about... *jumps for 0.2 seconds in a skell* dOnT WorRy BouT thE FuTuRe It's AlRigHt

@@syepieplays That song is good though.

What about final Fantasy 7 remake that will win GOTY.

@@1BadAssArchAngelvs14 Not if Xenoblade DE has anything to say about it.

@@TheAbsol7448 Do you even have Multiple game consoles, Do you have a PS4.Xenoblade chronicles does not have a huge Fanbase like final fantasy 7 the Final Fantasy 7 remake is in unreal engine it broke game sales you are Delusional.GOTY depends on how huge the fan base is your outmatched. I have Pokemon sword for the crown Tundra since I made a promise to my friend that I will shiny hunt the 6 new galarian legendary pokemon to trade to him. Also, Metroid Prime 4 if it ever comes out.Xenoblade chronicles DE is a good game but I have Final Fantasy 14 MMO and it's expansions to play for the same experience but only better.

@@1BadAssArchAngelvs14 Xenoblade DOES have a huge fanbase right now. Not as big as other games, but it's definitely on the radar.

X needs a switch port it's the only Xenoblade I've never played :(

I 100% agree. With XC:DE they managed to make a game that lives up to my nostalgic, rose-tinted memory of how good the original was. It took a lot of deftly implemented good design choices, and they stuck the landing so hard.

Obra Dinn is so good!!! You won't regret it!

Do it!

It’s stupid hard, I revisited it after not playing for a while which is something I highly recommend against doing. do it all in a few sittings if possible.

@@MookalH if you think a deduction game is hard, I might have some bad news for you

@@lavenzavantas in all fairness, some people are extremely difficult to pinpoint, you must use everything that the vignettes have, and I mean Everything.

X definitely has my favorite aesthetic overall in the series.

My eyes were hurting watching that tiny text

I loved the sci-fi feel of it so much I pretended to be an ant during my entire playthrough so I could read the text

IIRC in one episode they mention it on one of Legend of Zelda remake where the touch screen is used as dedicated menu

That's exactly the same analogy I go with regarding the two franchises. Hell, people still stick PuyoPuyo for Mean Bean Machine or Kirby's Avalanche and those were at least 25 years ago while the series still retaining frequent releases with their source materials. The main flaw being that Puyo games rarely ever got localized until the last few years. Now you got Panel de Pon, only 2 proper releases, 2 abandoned projects, reskins have more releases than actual Panel de Pon, even more coming out beyond when the last Panel de Pon game was released, *and* none of the games involving the fairies have been localized, ever. Switch's SNES just recently finally released the fairies for the rest of the world to see for the very first time, but as an untranslated ROM because they couldn't release Tetris Attack instead without getting into legal issues. SEGA did the same with Puyo 2, but they get a slight pass due to obvious signs of wanting to actually push the series' name to an international crowd. And, while legal issues still would exist with Kirby's Avalanche, they would not be as tough to deal with compared to how strict The Tetris Company is with their usage of the franchise name.

Is it good ?

@@skydiamsteam6005 definitely give it a shot

I remember that being an issue with Dead RIsing back in the day when CRTs were still fairly commonplace, so the small text of that game was damn near impossible to read.

That's one of the main explanations I've heard for bad font size, and yeah, that probably would explain a lot

Looking at the clips of Xenoblade X on my 27" monitor from about a meter away I thought it looked fine. Just now realizing that people play on a TV across the room and the complaints make a lot more sense haha.

I remember seeing it on Skyrim for console. Definitely sucked to see

@@DeronHargrove yeah skyrim is a guilty one. Especially with enchantment descriptions. I've also had problems with Spiderman ps4, mortal kombat 11, red dead redemption 2, tomb raider, and there is probably more but those are at the forefront of my brain.

Missile uwu

@@sacredyveltal4688 BEST DOGGY

@@Zero_de_Nova Yes!

Damn right

I'm sorry to be a grammar freak but its beat. I'm sorry.

Maybe a slight speed up on Skell combat (ᵔᴥᵔ)

But just calling it Panel de Pon in Japanese and Puzzle League internationally works too. They could do a retroactive name change of the first one to "Yoshi Puzzle League"

Also it's read as Xenoblade Cross, not X

The World Ends With You had a perfect balance. The game can be exactly as hard as you want it to be but still feel fair

It's upsetting how Nintendo basically made a grave for that series then slammed it into a coffin. The extremely inconsistent branding along with it mainly being associated with Tetris and Pokemon in the west will guarantee that people won't recognize when there's a new entry in the series and it's just called "Puzzle League". This probably isn't the best business decision, but I think (if they make a new one) they should just keep the fairy characters from the original game and have that be the Puzzle League branding going forward. It's a cast of original characters that has it's own charm and flair that, while niche, would make the series much more recognizable. Even Lip's Stick is an item in Smash Bros and they can use that to their advantage.

Panel de pon is a gem. If you've never played it, do yourself a favor and try it out. 1 player vs mode is a good introduction (and one of the only things you can get to without guessing what the japanese says)