I thought custom moves in smash were really fun, the main problem was the unlock process. The only people up to the task of unlocking them all were hardcore players, but everyone who actually wanted to use them were casual players. Was a HUGE disconnect in terms of design! I think custom moves should've been purchasable from a shop. Just naturally playing any game mode will give you coins, so accumulating them to spend on moves for your favourite characters would be a great goal to have.
Yeah, I had a lot of fun messing around with custom moves in Smash 4 once I actually got them all. Sure they were unbalanced, but they let me practically make my own moveset clones/echo fighters with some of the costume alts, and I really wish I could still do that in Ultimate with how much huger that roster is.
there were so many things they couldve done give each character challenges to unlocking them design a campaign where many of them are exploration rewards use a character in each game mode to unlock some of theirs’ along the way, like maybe scoring high enough in target blast gets you up special 3 and beating classic on a high enough difficulty without dying gets you neutral special 2, for example and maybe throughout you unlock each of the moves, idk
I’m surprised you didn’t mention any of the LEGO games. They’re all about unlockables. Playing through the story unlocks a good amount of characters, and you can use the studs you gained to buy the rest. Earning more gold bricks can also be used for cool stuff that varies from game to game. There’s also the ultra hidden red bricks, that unlock cheat codes for the game. It could be stud multipliers (that all stack), big head mode, infinite health, a minikit detector, all sorts of cheats are unlocked if you put in the effort and time to find them all.
but it also is not without its flaws. for one, the lego games all have the same unlocks when you boil it down to the categories you used. With no variation on the red brick powers, and some being cosmetic while others are functional, the mileage you get out of finding them varies. Detectors are all but required for completionists and multipliers break the game a bit too much. Red bricks are not the most complicated thing to get, even when they have the most devious puzzles, and depending on how early the functional ones are obtainable will greatly change the experience with the game. If a multiplier is found early and the player knows just how powerful they are, the high buying price doesnt mean anything, in fact it might be a hinderance. If a multiplier is available, it is wisest to save up for it, but that also means willingly ignoring everything else, again not helped by the fully cosmetic rewards that are treated as an equal reward. The short version is that players will optimize the fun out of the game from the moment a multiplier is revealed until it is finally bought, after which the fun that returns is greatly reduced. On top of all of that, the games cant decide if they want to be balanced around the multipliers or not. Sometimes, it is fun to try and fill the greed meter, for lack of a better phrase without the multipliers, yet in other instances certain levels feel so stingy that it is trying to push you into turning one on. Once you get every multiplier and stack them, all of the sudden the greed meter is no longer a mechanic. A single stud, even of the lowest value, will instantly fill the meter, and with so much money there is no more effort to any criteria that is bought. By invalidating the meter, there is less reason to exlore or destroy the environment, and the games are rarely subtle about the reward tier for a puzzle. With red bricks out of the way, next up is characters. They are arguably the best rewards in the series because there is always a level of mystery involved. What can they do? Who is the silhouette? etc. The problem again comes from quantity. If each character had a unique skill, that would mean every puzzle became overly strict and it would pose the problem of creating walls for the player that cant be overcome without grinding to find the secret they missed. Instead, that means skills are shared between characters, with the only difference beyond branding being the power combinations, and in most cases a custom can handle managing the ideal combination for the player. When you get a large enough pool of characters, each new character has less impact as they have nothing to offer. Mix that with franchise knowledge of varying degrees and players start knowing the exact move set of each character without ever using them. If there is a secondary money lock, players will actively skip over characters not because they dislike them, but because there are better things to spend the money on. Gold bricks also rarely have much practical use in game, and it is well known that the reward for finding all of them is never worth anything more than bragging rights, with a few exceptions. They do have one advantage, though. they are the only reward with a consistent value. Do something that needs rewarding? gold brick. The first gold brick feels as good to collect as the last, minus any benchmark hype that comes with one. The problem is that they are the ONLY collectable to have the same emotional weight and reward value regardless of when they are collected. Minikits are generally decent, but they fall into one main problem outside of the varying utility based off the completion reward that is dependent on entry. The issue in question is not exclusive to minikits, so i will address it elsewhere. And now fore "elsewhere". My single biggest complaint about the series really comes from how they handle levels and "replay ability". No lego game can be completed unless you play every level at least twice: once for story and once without the restrictions of story. The issue is not that you have to replay the level, but that it is very rare for a level to offer a new experience when replaying. Rush to where the barrier (that was impossible to clear during the story) is, smash it with the corresponding power, rush to the next barrier, repeat until everything is gotten, then rush to the goal to save the new stuff to the collection. The only complexity comes if you failed to find the barrier in the first run, or if you start replaying without at least one character with each power in the game. The series got a lot better when it started using "open worlds" for hubs, as most of the rewards started to match the effort put into them, but it did not inherently fix the problems the series had before. It instead tried to offset them by adding variety, and whether or not it works will depend on the entry in question and the player who is experiencing the game.
@@cullenlatham2366 LEGO games sure got tiresome really quick. And instead of fixing any of these problems, they just added microtransaction shops. No thanks.
@@mjc0961 i can still enjoy one occasionally, but it has been a while since my last one, and micro transactions sounds new to me. If that is true, then i will probably stick to the collection i already have and just replay them when the whim arises. If nothing else, i can give the games credit for having decent couch co-op.
That's why I like when games' final rewards for 100% or challenge modes are useless, like the golden turd in BotW. If a player goes all the way to get everything a game has to offer or to beat the most difficult challenges, it's already clear they're doing it for the sake of it, not because they expect a useful reward.
@@juanrodriguez9971 I like mechanics as rewards. Give me clip mode, infinite ammo, god mode, superspeed, infinite combo... So I can at least broke some of the game rules and have some fun with mobs.
Unfolding games - games that change the way you play them as a result of an unlock - are one of my favorite kind of games. Take any Castlevania or metroid as a easy examples: you unlock new abilities as you progress, and each can change how the game works plays.
I think 2 good examples of this are Super Mario Sunshine where you unlock 2 nozzles and yoshi, all of which radically change your available movement abilities. And the Pikmin series where you unlock new types through the games normal exploration cycle, and each type grants you new abilities to solve different puzzles which further enables the core gameplay loop.
Games that recontextualise previously unlocked content or storylines are also epic. I love it when games go just that little step further to make unlocks not only cool, but immersive
A really interesting example of this that came out recently is a deck-building game called Inscryption, it may seem like a simple rougelite at first but it evolves in a really cool way that you really just need to experience for yourself! The game doesn't truly start until you hit New Game, may sound redundant but it's true
The Binding of Isaac has always been a really interesting case to me. Each unlock (with very few exceptions) adds some item, character, mechanic, etc to the game that makes it just that much more complicated when going for another unlock. You don't really get anything for unlocking everything on a save file (except a cool drawing on your save file select screen), but the real reward is that once you have everything unlocked, you can play the game however you want to, and with every possible item, character, and mechanic at your disposal. I've found that playing once the game is completed is way more fun, despite what the hundreds of hours getting to that point might have you think.
I'm making my way through afterbirth + on PS4 and once I buy repentance I'm gonna transfer my save data to the PS5 so I don't have to do my 300+ hours of gameplay again lol
Samus taking off her armor has always motivated me to challenge myself in Metroid games. Sad she doesn't do that anymore. Super, Fusion, and Zero Mission did it best.
I remember as a kid when I found the secret star road levels in super mario world I thought I was like one of the only people in the world to find it haha took me so long to complete them all as well. Ah, life before the internet.
Unlocking new characters in Fire Emblem has been an interesting field to look at, due to how many characters exist in the series and some of the more creative and unorthodox ways of recruiting them have been made. Radiant Dawn had a boss character who recruits themselves to your side if you put a non-combat unit within walking distance of them, or one in both of Ike's games that requires you to sit a specific unit in an area of a desert map before they even show up. while Shadow Dragon infamously locked optional side chapters and the characters in them behind permanently losing characters, due to the content being designed as a buffer to help players struggling with the main story. The 3DS games notably downplayed the unlock process almost exclusively to just talking to the character with the protagonist or their parent, but there were still a few outliers, like one of the bonus characters in Awakening being required to be spoken to with Chrom three times before they'll finally join, or a few characters in Fates requiring you to upgrade certain buildings in your home base to a certain level before the they will join you.
Wow, I’ll be honest. This sounded so fun that I feel very excited to play FE now, more than ever before! So, OP, mind giving me your personal suggestion on where to start or should I just search on youtube for it?
I would recommend Awakening on the 3DS as an excellent place to start. If you have a switch, can’t go wrong with Three houses too! And if you have the Gameboy advance, I recommend Sacred Stones :)
Kirby Air Ride has one of my favorite unlock systems (It actually inspired Smash Bros Brawl's achievement system shown at 20:43). All of the game's progression comes from the "checklist" system, which is a grid of achievements. Some of them give you a reward, like new vehicles, Kirby colors, and music. Some you'll get by accident, some take extra effort, and some are extremely challenging. I want to call attention to the challenging achievements in particular, because they really synergize with the game's design: The vehicles in Kirby Air Ride are intentionally unbalanced. Most of them are outright inferior to the basic vehicles because of a unique gimmick they have. One vehicle can't turn without coming to a complete stop. Another moves at a snail's pace unless you stop in place and charge it up with gas. One's handling is absurdly bad, frequently causing you to oversteer and slide all over the place. Most people wouldn't use them simply because they aren't good. But certain checklist achievements force you to to MASTER them. And after being forced to learn their ins and outs, you realize just how fun the extra challenge of using these gimmicky vehicles is. I really like Kirby Air Ride's unlockables/achievements because it pushes you to engage with parts of the game you might otherwise avoid at first glance. There's really not much body to the game UNLESS you start doing the achievements. But the achievements significantly increase the amount of time you can spend engaged with the game while keeping it interesting.
One unlock that always sticks out to me is in LoZ: Skyward Sword. The game does a great job of introducing the shielding mechanics throughout the adventure. You start with wooden shields. They're inexpensive and do the job. However, they do eventually break and are flammable. The game also introduces an upgrade system to improve their durability, but it does nothing to increase their inevitable odds against fire. Then you come across the iron shield. It costs a bit more than the wooden variety, but it has much more durability and doesn't burn. It even has an upgrade tree too. Unfortunately, it can't block electric attacks, unlike the wooden shield. So if you're looking to be optimized, you'll have to now carry around two different kinds of shields. After that, you'll come across the sacred shield. It doesn't burn, blocks electric attacks, blocks the newly discovered cursed attacks (unlike the previous two shields), and even scares the cursed bokobin enemies. It even repairs it's own durability over time. However, all these benefits come at a small fortune of rupees to purchase. Not to mention that while it does repair itself, its durability pool is abysmally small... upgrades only slightly mitigate that issue. The game can technically be beaten using any of the above shields. The only thing you absolutely need to beat the final boss is a fully upgraded sword, which is obtained through the critical storyline. But one of the NPCs presents the player with a challenging boss rush mode towards the end of the adventure. If completed, he awards the player the Hylian shield. It's 100% indestructible. It can also block any form of attack. Simply owning it means that all three of the other shield types are now obsolete, as well as any carried items used to maintain them. This provides a solid defense in the rest of the game's battles and frees up inventory space for other items (more arrows, more health potions, more fairies, etc.). Again, it's not necessary to beat the game, but is totally worth the effort in unlocking.
one small nitpick: iron shield does not mean you have to carry around 2 shields to be optimal. The game makes it pretty obvious that each area is only going to throw one element at you, and to encounter both fire and electric with the same pouch means you had to ignore skyloft when traveling between the 2 regions and their pillars. Any area that does have both fire and electric comes late into the game when the sacred shield is an option. As for the money problem, i can only say "it is LoZ. What money problem?" Yes, the upgrade trees do make the economic stress a bit higher than other entries for a longer period of time, but there is ALWAYS a money-making scheme. In this case, if you are confident in your brain and have a little luck, you can play minesweeper in eldin for money, you can learn the rhythm and visual cues for the diving minigame run by a clown, play some other minigame i am blanking on, or if all else fails you can harvest and sell materials in a countless number of ways. The sacred shield's low durability also is not much of a problem when considering nothing can instantly break it, at least not for a while. As such, if you dont want to devote the pouch space to restoring it in desperate times, you can always pay the price with your hearts...
@@cullenlatham2366 🤣 Seems like a rather long nitpick if you ask me. My whole point anyway was about the build up to the Hylian shield. Yes, you can stop at Skyloft and switch out your gear between areas, but having the Hylian shield saves on both inventory space (don't need to worry about a breaking shield or different elements) AND time (one less reason to make a pit stop at Skyloft). This is discussion about beneficial unlockables, not optimizing playthroughs lol
@@JustinoElArtista hence "nitpick". just call it an attempt at stopping confusion before it arises. If a new player took the buildup as a guide, they could very well have wasted a pouch in the desert carrying around a shield they did not need. Was not actually arguing any point you made, only clarifying. XD
Best unlock of all time is the being able to fight DK at the end of Title defense mode on Punch-Out!! for the Wii. I was so hyped and surprised! Still one of my fav games of all time.
They did ruin it a bit by permanently locking you out of Title Defence mode if you lost 3 times which was quite likely to happen against DK since you had no chance to memorise his attacks and how to avoid them before the fight.
Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition is amazing for this: You unlock the characters so spread out that you have time to use each, and then the fact that the original DLC characters are spread out across the originally DLC bonus missions maps is awesome since it gives you a nice incentive to try each of those adventure maps. There are so many weapons and characters, and since there was no crafting that relied on collecting items (like there was in Age of Calamity), every unlock feels earned and not random. It's all skill based and it feels great to find everything!
Accurate, after playing the difficulty mess of Wii U with the DLCs that don't really connect that well with the main content and the levelling issues I felt surprised by how much better a good unlocking system like DE's can do for the game. Everything feels more balanced and fun to play through.
Not really. You unlock the characters at level 1, you don't have time to use each because what are you going to do? Take a brand new level 1 character into a mid or end game level and get absolutely wrecked?! No. You're going to keep playing as the one character you started the game as. The alternative is hours upon hours upon hours of repetitive grinding through the earlier missions to get the new character up to snuff. And in a game that's already as repetitive and way too long like Hyrule Warriors? No way, I'm not doing that. Terrible, terrible game design right there.
I love the unlocks in The Binding of Isaac. You unlock both characters and items, but a lot of items are won by defeating the various bosses as every character. As of Repentance there are SO many items and characters that you'll be constantly unlocking new things that can alter your next run.
Majoras's Mask Fierce Deity Mask, is one of the best Unlocks there are. A 100% unlock, that gives it to you -before- the final boss, which can be used on all bosses. All other masks can be seen as small rewards towards that overarching goal. It's just great, and 10x better than heartpieces or the faries imo.
I love the sidequest system in Neo: The World Ends With You. It's styled as a social network, showing connections between the main characters and the various side characters you help out along the way. And you even get small perks for helping out NPCs, but those small perks can definetly change how you play, for example letting you equip multiple attacks to the same button. The perks mean people who don't care about the NPCs will still do sidequests, and you also get character blurbs about those NPCs, to no effect besides random trivia. This random trivia is always fun though, like who one of the main characters bought his skateboard from, or which store clerks are friends, adding a small layer of depth to sidecharacters of otherwise little note. Another note would be how the game handles attacks: Pins, the items that give you attacks, are either random enemy drops, story progression rewards, or found in stores. By all accounts, different attacks are unlockables. However, enemy drop rate can be freely manipulated by how much of a risk you're willing to take. You can set down your level or chain enemy encounters for higher drop rates at the cost of higher difficulty, or even just upping the difficulty setting altogether to get Pins not available on easier modes. And there's still story and store Pins to fall back on for risk averse players, so they aren't locked out of having a diverse moveset. In conclusion, twewy good.
On-Ramping complexity is an interesting topic with competitive games. I have to shoutout Dungeon Fighter, and MMO Beat-Em-Up with a very strong PVP mode. You level up your character to unlock new skills but the later skills are both more complex and, if you don't use a hotkey, require more complicated motion inputs. This does mean that you get plenty of time to practice doing inputs like Quartercircle forward or Down-Up (236 or 28) so that by the time you unlock those later skills you don't need as many hotkeys for your earlier skills.
Nice showing Metroid when talking about not needing a proper reward for challenges. Like the little bit of extra text in Fusion for carrying a shinespark through a significant portion of the area. I think the best thing Super Mario World upgraded from Super Mario Bros 3 was the extra endings. Along with the singular world map, it made it feel more like a complete world to explore, rather than a sequence of levels. So the name is apt. Gonna echo the sentiment that Hyrule Warriors has a satisfying unlocking system. You know what you unlock with what, so you can aim for it, and there's so much there's probably more to unlock even after you get tired of the game. So there's more to do when you get back to it again. The Smash idea of fighting the character you're going to unlock is probably the best kind of double unlock (or single unlock in many cases). It feels like you earn that specific character.
Melee’s unlockable system was grossly unsuitable for a party game. They had the right idea by letting you unlock characters by playing regular matches, but the requirements were way too high, with 1000 being the requirement for G&W and 20 hours of match time for Mewtwo (which I remember cheesing with two controllers).
Yeah, but the quotes they gave to those locked chars when you unlocked them were great reads "A great evil walks the earth, Ganondorf has been unlocked." "Mewtwo's mental powers are now yours to command." "Cute, cuddly, ...and a threat to itself and others, it's Pichu!"
"They had the right idea by letting you unlock characters by playing regular matches" Nope, that's still the wrong idea for a party game. Party games should have everything unlocked from the start. If characters are locked, you have two choices: leave them locked and the game isn't as fun during your parties because a bunch of content is missing, or go through the process of unlocking everything before the party which means you're good at the game now and stomp all your friends so nobody has a fun time playing. Unless you don't play at all, but then you don't get to play at all, and that's no fun. Nobody wins when party games lock content.
@@mjc0961 I've always liked having unlockables in party games with an option of a cheat code to unlock everything for when you're just wanting to play with friends in a new file or something.
Bro I read the title as “how do you make fun unblockables” like three times hahahaa. Thoght thisbdude was boutta talk about a high and low hitting on the same frame
The Binding of Isaac has one of the best unlock systems ive seen in a video game. You are not only encouraged but rewarded for trying all the different modes, characters, routes, etc. the game has to offer in the form of new items and characters(although items and characters arent the only things you can get) you can find and use on subsequent runs which add new synergies and strategies to the game, which makes every unlock feel substantial.
I've thought about mission rewards for certain games. House of the Dying Sun, to name one, has both accumulative and achievable rewards: You get the achievable part from beating a mission as it rewards you with more weapons/ships, and the accumulative part from certain difficulties giving higher "favors" (the currency to buy modules for ships) from bonus objectives. There's more to it, though: beating the game on harder difficulties unlocks new endings and stars next to beaten nodes; and taking on the optional flagship bosses, on hard specifically, rewards a skull icon next to the mission nodes.
Unlockables are one of my favorite aspects in all of gaming and I've been disappointed to see them dwindling in recent years. BOY did you somehow hit every thought I had one the head! My mind *immediately* went to Proof of Omega when I thought of underwhelming rewards, and on the flip side, I've been following all of Super Monkey Ball's newest unlocks and been thrilled by each. I know there's a LOT to say about all of this, but I think you've made a great case study with the perfect examples. Well done, as always!
In Smash 64 and Melee, I mained characters based on how "special" their unlock criteria were. Luigi in 64 because he was the only character you could unlock outside of Classic mode, and Roy in Melee because he was unlocked by playing AS an unlockable character, Marth. Double Unlockable!
Sonic Mania had some of my favorite unlocks. Aside from the usual 7 chaos emeralds that give you a super form and the true ending there were also the medallions. Collecting medallions gave stuff like debug mode, & Knuckles mode, a whole blue sphere mini game, and access to mean bean machine
Mean Bean mode got me to finally learn how to play Puyo Puyo. I'm still garbage at it and am afraid to play other people in it but that got me to get Puyo Puyo Tetris and it's such a blast.
@@DesignDoc Funnily enough I have a similar origin with puyo puyo, played Mean Bean machine in the Sonic Mega Collection on gamecube and eventually got puyo puyo tetris. Playing with others is best when they are equally trash, very chaotic and very fun.
Really love the unlock systems of complex RPGs like divinity 2 and dark souls. It's always interesting to see how a lot of different unlock systems can be intertwined in the same game; like exp that let's you level up, in game currency that lets you buy new skills or items, and keys that open new areas. Not to mention in these games you're leveling up individual stats, and a weapon you wanna use might require a minimum level in one stat. Unlocks within unlocks! So much depth is mind-boggling at first, but makes these games so incredibly fun and customizable in the long run
Horizon Zero Dawn comes to mind. It had some sort of ultimate armor that you could unlock after doing some stuff (idr, it's been a while) and the armor, I remember, made the game SO much more enjoyable. It didn't break the game by any means, you could still very much get trampled. But it created a cushion that made it so I wasn't tediously farming health herbs nonstop.
Having recently replayed through the first two dreams of Nioh, I can see both good and bad unlock/reward methods in place, like how In some cases, missions have alternate ending criteria that grants end-card dialogue, and in one case, it's clear that there are multiple criteria at play, and others, the alternate criteria are obscure and would be impossible for anyone to have discovered without just sheer experimentation, like one sub-mission where if you do a specific emote in a specific spot, you get the alternate ending. Though sometimes these are more obvious to find than others, like the mission 'The Shiftling's Wise Judgement' where it makes it clear from the start that there are two ways the mission can end, as well as hiding a third. Though in that case, each route has its own unlockable mission for each choice, so they couldn't get away with that one not being clear for completionists' sake. Where Nioh's unlocks really drop off is with the unlockable crafting recipes that can be collected: Sometimes they're just straight up mission rewards, but most of the time they're random drops from a particular enemy, but the reward is understated considering how minimal crafting is done in late game; however, it's still worth farming certain enemies because sometimes they can drop some of the unique attacks that they themselves use in the fight, so many bosses have both rewards that are and aren't worth grinding for. And then there's the titles, where the rewards are minor stat boosts from a fixed rotation pool, but in order to get those stats, you need to achieve very specific goals from a list of objectives that includes both accumulative and achievement objectives, though some of the achievement ones can easily range from trivial to absurd: Do a main mission naked? Sure, early game's not that punishing. Defeat a dweller empty-handed? Sure thing, a few punches and kicks when I notice a weak one and it's done. Clear a main mission without fighting any enemies other than the boss? Sure, time for a mad-dash to the boss. Defeat Lady Osakabe without getting hit? Fuck that noise.
Hyrule Warriors has some of my favorite unlocks, it's not exactly a hard game to complete but there are so many challenges in all of the games that it feels totally different from the main story. Some goals are so difficult that you have to actually prove yourself and overall you'll spend way more time on the game than you initially expected.
Not sure if this counts but I like how when you beat the summit level in Celest the pie you make at the end looks different depending on how many barrys you got
Resident evil usually has my favorite unlocks. The Chicago typewriter in re4, the infinite launcher in re2, the suit of armor for Ashley in re4. The re3 costume for Jill in re1. Sure almost every one requires you to beat the game and sometimes on certain difficulties and under certain time thresholds. But it still is my favorite. Makes your first run through of the game stressful and full of deaths, with your last ones being an absolute jolly walk through the games because the weapons you have are literally over powered. And can be used infinitely.
I learned so much from this video and as someone who really wants to get into creating games one day, this video was so very helpful so thank you for analyzing this concept. Though in watching this, when I got towards the end when you were talking about Super Smash Bros, I just had the biggest ephiphany on why I just don't feel so excited with Smash Bros. Ultimate that I didn't even think about until now and it's the lack of mystery, when it comes to the cast (among the cut single-player game modes like Adventure). I know it's blasphemous to admit that I don't find Smash Bros Ultimate amazing even though it's the recent Smash Bros game of this time but when you were reflecting back on SSB64 and SSBM, it all started to make sense. You started with a small but generous base cast of characters and the thing that made playing those games so fun was the excitement of being able to unlock characters. Playing through the modes and making sure to hone your skill for the chance you have when you hear that exciting alert that a new challenger is approaching and it was a true test to see if you can beat that character and be able to add them to he roster. It was so exhilarating and unfortunately with Smash Ultimate, that feature no longer exists because they just default to DLC now. I'm very aware that in the modern day with the rise of DLC and how online/social media dominates the first world, we more than likely will never be able to experience the aura of mystery and wonder that was a big part of the gaming world back in the 1980s-1990s-early 2000s because it's so easy to get unintentionally spoiled, especially if you're active on social media and I'm just glad I was born in a time where I was able to experience that era of gaming, especially for SSBM. Though I feel like for the next Smash game, they should at least bring the concept back of fighting the unlockable characters before you get them , that was such a fun aspect of the smash games and even if it would be spoiled, you still have to earn that character on your own so you still get to have your own personal experience. Anyway great video!
My favorite unlockables are the type that are for replaying the game that makes part of the game easier, but not trivialized. Like having the Soul Reaver at the beginning of Blood Omen 2 is great, but having infinite ammo in Resident Evil sounds a bit questionable. I'm not sure how fun you'd be having halfway through your replay.
In my experience talking to people that have played enough of the RE games to unlock the infinite ammo weapons, it's a pretty decent reward, since they enjoy just running through the game and the power trip is a good time. Obviously millage may vary, but I know a lot of fans of RE4 that adore blasting through the game with the infinite ammo Chicago Typewriter.
Ratchet and Clank 3 probably had my all time favorite unlock system. (as far as bonus content goes.) There were "Titanium Bolts" you could find hidden in levels and you could spend them on different skins. There were also "skill points" that you got for doing weird things in different locations like breaking all the breakable objects in a location, shooting down all the cameras, aiming a jump perfectly and landing on a hard to reach spot. As you earned more "skill points" it would unlock fun gimicky things like big head mode, mirrored levels and other silly fun things. These things were definitely intended for people who had either beaten the game already or were almost finished, but it added a lot of extra fun for me and my sibling.
Some of the most satisfying unlock systems I've encountered, weirdly enough, are the various YuGiOh games. The game starts you with a fairly basic deck that can win but forces the player to really understand the rules, and as you win more, more specialized card packs open up. I realize this can be a double edged sword for some, a veteran player being locked out of their preferred playstyle for example, but for me at least, there's a weird sense of growth as you go from cobbling together a deck to barely scrape by to a deck that feels like yours, and is hanging with the toughest opponents.
I was always very impressed by Cry of Fear's unlock system, and how it encourages replaying and mastering the game. When you beat the game for the first time, you unlock a secret "joke" ending which is one big throwback to another game by the developer. Beat that, and you unlock the axe weapon, which is a onehit kill for all normal enemies. Now with that, if you can speedrun the game in under 2 hours, you unlock the Camera, which will permanently freeze all monsters you photograph except for bosses. With the Camera, nightmare difficulty becomes far more manageable since landing headshots becomes much easier with the insane enemy HP, and clearing Nightmare unlocks the Famas, which has infinite reloads. With that, you can easily beat the bosses of the game on nightmare no problem, and now, using the Camera, Famas, and Axe, if you can clear Nightmare with an S rank, you get an infinite ammo flamethrower, making the entire game a cakewalk. Each unlock is specifically designed so that it makes the next unlock much easier to obtain, allowing players to constantly replay the game and still have things to unlock, while also encouraging mastery of the game thanks to the final unlock requiring near perfect play in addition to playing on the hardest difficulty. Yet for those true challenge runners, each unlock is technically possible from the start, it is just quite brutal to do. It was the first ever "beat the game on hardest difficulty" type challenge I ever tried completing.
The idea of "skipping bosses I don't want to fight" comes up often in the Twitter circles I run. I wonder how well they'd do at a late stage, more difficult boss fight when they never learned what they needed from what they would potentially skip. It's kind of important to take the steps from 1 all the way to 10 even if you don't necessary click with it, like school it's not about knowledge purely it's about the way to think and approach problems.
To be fair with Smash Ultimate, having such a massive roster and giving every single character a specific unlock criteria would have felt like an unnecessarily chore for a public that only wanted to have all the characters as fast as possible, especially when they already know what characters are in the game. It may be simple, but the approach Sakurai took was effective: "You want the everyone is here? Just play the game and have fun". It's worthy to note that, after Brawl, Sakurai also felt discouraged with how all the unlockable content and cutscenes were leaked on the internet when he designed that content as a prize for the player.
I also loved how Sakurai gave two ways to unlock the characters. - Either through playing most modes, with one new character every 10 minutes in average. - Or either through adventure mode, at your own pace. Unlocking a character in adventure mode would also unlock them in the rest of the game, but the opposite is not true for story reasons: Kirby is the only fighter who survived at the start. Additionnally, for that same reason, you could "unlock" Mario, Link and the other base characters for the adventure mode.
I think New Game+ could deserve a mention here. It kinda falls in line with cheat code unlocks. The ability to mess around more with the standard game, the ability to do things the game explicitly forbids you from doing the first time around. Personally the thing I enjoy the most is when a game puts in the extra effort to acknowledge that you are messing around. Like if the New Game+ allows you to sequence break and the alternative route has some extra dialogue to highlight that you are sequence breaking. It's the tiny things, where the game tells you "yeah, I see you. Great work" Other than that I enjoy getting optional game mechanics. Something that's not required to get through the game, but that is fun to mess around with. Like a new way to move around (dashing, flying, teleportation) or OP skills like invisibility, enemy manipulation or transformation.
In Halo, I *looooooved* the fact that you get special armor sets for completing certain milestones. Like “you get this armor set after performing 500 assassinations” Or “you get Master Chief’s armor after beating the game in legendary difficulty” Certain armor sets reached legendary status like the Katana from Halo 3, or the Inheritor armor from Reach
One game I always liked the way it handled unlockables is SA2. After getting the Light Speed Dash or the Bounce Bracelet you can to use them in previous stages you already played to get a better time. That, in my opinion, is brilliant.
ALL of your videos are a mandatory watch for every new team member. And established team members are required to re watch them over and over again. You have the absolute BEST game design discussion point videos on you tube hands down! Thank you for these they DEF help new indie game devs like us. - (Joseph Z.E.G. Team Lead)
I want to give a shout out to the unlocks in Star Wars Racer Revenge! Most of the racers you unlock by winning races in the tournament mode. After each track you tend to unlock the track favorite of the course, which means there is a pretty nice and steady flow of unlocks to begin with. Each track also has a KO record, single lap time record, and three lap time record that the player can aim to beat. Beating each kind of record for each track unlocks a special character as well. Some of those characters are super cool fan favorites, and the path to unlocking them is pretty natural too. Beating those scores is a sign of your skill as a player, and in the case of KOs, you get extra money in the tournament mode for KOing racers, giving you yet another incentive to try and take out the opposition. Racer Revenge isn't the best game, but I really like the way their unlocks worked!
For unlockables, Persona 5 Royal has the Thieves Den, a cosmetic mode for storing the game's achievements. Major actions like progressing the story, collecting achievements, or raising Confidants will get you stuff to show off in your installation's den, ranging from posters (including both every photo taken in the story, aka basically every outing the thieves take, plus tons of concept art), music, statues, or even background/theme changes for the den (particularly when you beat the final* boss). A lot of these achievements are stuff you'll naturally get in your first playthrough, stuff like getting a million yen or doing a bunch of Hold Ups, though some achievements, like True Rehabilitation, require you defeat optional superbosses that generally require you go into a second playthrough.
One unlock that I'm sure many people were fond of when they first found it, the Chao Garden in Sonic Adventure 2. It's entirely optional and requires most players to go the slightest bit out of their way to find the key in each level, but the Chao Garden is the thing that pulls together basically the rest of the game's design principles. It rewards hardcore players for engaging with it, while giving casual players something to enjoy that doesn't require a ton of skill. ______________ "Why should I care about completing each of the 5 missions in each level?" Because more emblems means you can buy more items for your chao/more types of chao. Customization options are always a neat reward, especially since this game's breeding system can require some of the unlockable chao types for some of the cooler offspring. This explanation also extends to the kart racing mode and the boss rush mode that give emblems as well, rewarding players for engaging with the various modes. "Why should I care about getting A-ranks on each mission?" Not only do they give you emblems as well, but each time you collect the chao key as you gradually get better at a stage, the more powerful your chao become, so even getting C or B ranks can still feel like you're progressing in some way and incentivizing players to master the game's mechanics to get those A-ranks. This really puts into perspective the fact that the levels were designed to be played multiple times, not just once each with the player then sitting the game down. Without the Chao Garden, ranks would be just as irrelevant as score is in the original Sonic game. Almost every level can be fun once you get good enough at it, so if you want a dark chao but only have fun playing Sonic and Knuckles levels, you may want to experiment with Shadow or Rouge to get the chao you want, and you may grow to like those levels in the process.
I liked the unlocks in the Ratchet & Clank series. Doing everything, and then unlocking an entire new planet, showcasing various cut content, etc. is very cool. Insomniac museum was cool.
One of the earliest games that I spent the most time on was castle crashers. It was a very very simple game but for every time you beat the campaign or beat a specific boss, you would be rewarded with a different playable character that usually has a different ability. It encouraged the hell out of playing it over and over just so people could show their school friends who they finally got. I think its one of my earliest and most played game just for this.
Bro, this was the perfect chance to talk about The Binding of Isaac, anyone who has played that game can tell you how almost all the content is locked behind achievements, there are 3 ways of getting them: 1. Challenges. 2. Do specific thing. 3. Get boss marks. It's so easy to unlock a lot of stuff that it becomes an injection of dopamine for any begginer, and people would get the hard unlocks after liking the game just that much, also, the boss marks are specially great to get because if you get them in normal mode they are regular writing, get them in hard mode and they are covered with blood which makes for a more impactful reward, even the most useless rewards such as the colored babies from Mega Satan are a nice reward thanks to the marks. The game is just making it even more replayable each gime you unlock something, and all of it starts with a single character and a single goal.
I think the first unlock I will never forget was getting the last level in Rayman Legends on my old 360. Meeting the requirement was not difficult, I just had to do a little replay searching after beating the campaign. But I can still remember some of the chasing chest sequences! And getting that reward... It was MAGICAL! A little surprising and intimidating at first. But slowly getting through the level and reaching checkpoint by checkpoint it was awesome! Little touches like the music and how it felt like what would later be rhythm levels felt great to give that level “just one more try”. And after beating it all, not only did it feel like a prize on of itself by also made me find new appreciation on how quickly I could be the levels, or speedrunning, years before I heard the term or used the internet! (Even if I never became a speedrunner)
The DLC Alternative Storylines were actually pretty cool in Dynasty Warriors 9! They came with a new campaign story for a specific character, giving an AU twist where things go differently for that character. Most famously was Guo Jia, a renowned strategist that fell ill and died towards the start of Cao Cao's campaigns in China. It's often quoted that if he DIDN'T die, many famous battles would have gone differently, and Cao Cao would have gained control in China during his time. One example being Chibi, a devastating loss for Cao Cao's forces due to the enemy strategist Zhuge Liang, or the Sleeping Dragon's, naval battle plot. It's said that if Guo Jia lived, the entire plot would have failed! So in the DLC, it gives you a different story where Guo Jia took some experimental medicine to power through and win for his lord's sake. Once you complete the story, you unlock a unique (and honestly really cool costume) that you can equip and use for that character outside the Alternative Story. I've done three of them for my favorite characters Guo Jia, Zhong Hui, and Xu Shu! I really love the storylines because they feel real, compelling, and completely fit in. The unlockable outfits look really cool and are super satisfying. My biggest critic is how you have to pay for the DLC, the Alternative Stories are really rad and I would've loved to see the ability to unlock them after playing the regular character stories on Hard or Nightmare instead of spending money, it would feel WAY more satisfying overall, and DLC in general is pretty iffy! It sucks striking a balance between GOOD DLC and just straight up "paying for the missing content," and since I'm planning a game that WILL have DLC, I think it's important to explore what constitutes good DLC or not. I want to make good DLC to encourage players to pay for something they really will enjoy while getting enough bang for their buck, this game is gonna be MASSIVE but from a small indie company, so I have to price it lower for those reasons, and I want the ability to pay my employees really well for their hard work, hence DLC to help reap more profit. I genuinely think there's a divide between indie and AAA DLC and what can be acceptable depending on the parent company. For something indie, you want to give them as much support for what little resources they have to make something good, but for AAA you expect better quality overall since they already have those resources. Sorry for the long comment, but I'm willing to hear some other thoughts and opinions on this!
I think my favorite unlockables comes from Majoras Mask. All the items, heart pieces, bottles, and obviously, the masks, are so entertaining and unique to find. You never know what youll find
I think Kirby Air ride had my favorite unlock system. It's was a giant checkerboard that color-coded if an achievement unlocked something or not. I remember being surprised when I unlocked the white Kirby for seemingly no reason and it became my favorite Kirby color to play as in every game that had Kirby since then.
I loved unlocking stuff in Geist on the GameCube. Finding the hidden Host Collectibles scattered throughout the levels was fun and sometimes challenging. The system fails in the end due to a glitch involving one of the collectibles, in the fridge in the morgue. You collect it, but upon completing the stage it is removed from your inventory, preventing you from unlocking the final multiplayer stage, catacombs
Sonic Adventure 2's final unlockable stage is amazing! While it may have gotten more mileage from the player had it been unlocked sooner, it's not something every player needs to experience. Yet, it goes well beyond being a "you got 100%" certificate by being a mind-blowing surprize level that feels like its weight equals the effort you put in to get to it. Plus, the game came out in the era where not everyone had the internet, so it felt more like a mysterious legend that feels satisfying to unlock even if you already knew it would be there. It strikes the perfect balance between not feeling useless once you got it, but you're not missing out too much if you don't get it.
Is Ruby really the most powerful boss in FFVII? Or is it Emerald? Personally I prefer breeding a gold chocobo myself, getting Knights of Round, then defeat Ruby, and then take on Emerald.
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter knight of the round paired with an HP absorb materia and W Summon to cast it twice. Then someone else uses Mime. Third person hold the underwater materia so you don’t get timed out
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter I dunno, Ruby was super easy to cheese too. Cloud with maxed HP/MP, full limit, two dead party members, mimic, and ... fuck, I forget the name of the armor, but it gives a hefty chance of dodging spells. Toss on a regen, omnislash, mime your way to victory. I've heard good things about counter-mime too, but never actually used it.
I like having blockable things " In game ", opposed to trophy ( when it's in game, well, it's just there, not in damn steam. And, there's in game tangible reward's )
The binding of Isaac is great at this, there are two places where you see your in game achievements, at the moment of choosing a character and knowing which boss you haven't defeat, and at the status menu where you can find every single item, ending, and unlocked screen you got through the game.
Slice and Dice is a mobile rogue-like with a great list of unlockables. New game modes, new characters, new items, new monsters, new curses, new blessings. Everything is unlocked through gameplay but the requirements are hidden except for 3 random ones. It doesn't feel grindy and it encourages you to adopt specific playstyles. Stuff like " Beat the game without equiping any items" feels a lot better that "deal x amount of damage".
My favorite unlock system in video games is in Mario Kart Wii. Exactly half of the characters (not counting miis), karts, and courses are locked from the beginning, so it's not too little or too much. The courses, the most important to the game mechanics, are unlocked in progression like levels in a single player game. The characters and karts have varied criteria, such as winning specific cups or beating time trials fast enough, but they still unlock eventually after messing around in the game enough just in case you don't figure out how to unlock them otherwise.
Burnout 3 has a series of unlocks of the course of a near 30-40 hour campaign if you're trying to get everything, which involves getting gold medals on every event to get every car and over 100 crash events to unlock
I liked the idea behind Ys VIII's superboss reward. Instead of something you don't need anymore, it's a special option for an eventual New Game Plus playthrough.
Getting Mr. Game and Watch in Melee felt so rewarding after the arduous VS. mode grind you had to go through for Mewtwo; moreso due to being the original "weird" character most people probably wouldn't have expected (Or even known about in general for that matter).
you can unlock quite a few things in A Hat in Time, pretty much all of which are well-implemented and not grindy new badges and outfits with in-game currency color schemes, hat reskins, and song remixes by finding rift tokens scattered throughout the many areas stickers just by playing the game and finding them (mainly in the Nyakuza Metro DLC area, since that's when stickers were added) even more outfits, color schemes, hat reskins, and badges by completing challenging ordeals on the Death Wish map you even unlock little bonus platforming stages by finding time rifts hidden in the main stages you'll almost always have a surplus of in-game currency, so things that require that are rarely an issue the Death Wish challenges are sometimes very frustrating, but your heart will soar with pride when you finally overcome a difficult Death Wish and receive your reward the rift tokens reward you for taking time to explore the stages
One of my favourites is Pokemon's shiny charm. It is an item that only extremely dedicated players would want, however, only extremely dedicated players will ever even get it. Beyond that, while it doesn't seem to make a difference when on the small scale, the shiny charm makes massive change large term. It helps get the extremely rare shiny Pokemon which aren't any more powerful than regular Pokemon, but rather act as theophies.
Firce Deity Link. In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, if you get EVERY unlockable mask by the end of the game, you are given the opportunity to unlock the Legendary Fierce Deity Mask, which you can then use on Majora, or any other previous boss fight. It is such an amazing power trip after grinding for that long, super satisfying.
One unlock that I really liked is the Gem Finder in the original Spyro: Year of the Dragon. To unlock it, you need to complete all of the special Sparx levels, one in each home world. Once you complete the one in the final home world, not necessarily before you finish the game or even do anything else in the final home world, you get a special new ability for Sparx, by a press of a button, he will point at the nearest gem, including ones that are still held by enemies, and gems are the main collectable and currency in this game. It also helps that once you get everything, you unlock a bonus level, which of course it's easier to do with the Gem Finder.
The sonic & knuckles special end boss for getting super sonic (and I think having sonic three plugged in) was just a blast. When I stumbled onto it I was so thrilled I found something like that.
My favorite unlocks are new quests that lead to more unlocks or something that is balanced but extremely fun that changes how I approach the game and allows me to express myself more. Some examples of unlocks that change the game are the guns in Axiom Verge, extra (mandatory) items in Metroidvanias, pins in the world ends with you, and new moves in the River City Series.
I think easily one of my favourite unlockables is Maxwell in Don't Starve, minor spoilers but playing through the campaign isn't enough to unlock him, you have to make the character you were using take his place on the throne and you PERMANENTLY loose access to them unless you go through the whole thing again and switch them out with someone else, it leaves a permanent mark on your roster and is a perfect case of an unlock that makes you wonder if it was truly worth it in the end. That's why I have a Wilson pfp people! It's a bloody masterpiece!
The GTA games had some good ones, namely unlocking vehicles through just completing stuff. Tommy getting the Hunter, Claude getting the Rhino, Carl getting the Rhino and the Hydra, and those were mostly for completing extra content and finding extra items. Not to mentioned San Andreas let you unlock a jetpack just by playing the story, and the jetpack became handy in unlocking other stuff
Okami and Okamiden comes to mind. In Okami, you have to find 99 Stray Beads hidden across the entire game, three of which are locked behind three gauntlets of jacked up common enemies and minibosses. Beat the game and you'll be given the 100th Stray Bead in the results screen. Have all 100 beads, and the String of Beads can be used in New Game+, which removes your health bar and ink pots to grant infinite amounts of both, as well as causing the player to deal 10x the normal damage. Okamiden does things similarly to where you need to finish the game before you unlock the String of Beads, however you instead collect all 50 pieces of Issun's Masterpieces. There is also a special 4th weapon you can unlock known as the Providence Crystal by beating the game. It can not be upgraded like the other three weapons, nor does it have a proper combo that leads into your partner attack, but it is both powerful and capable of charging to add elemental properties to the attack.
Nice Video! The beginning of most rogue lites keeps you going almost exclusively through unlockables I think. Mix it with good gameplay and you can count me in.
I think one key thing to think about when designing ability unlocks is to consider what sort of challenges they can bring to the player before letting them have the better stuff. A minecraft modpack called Sevtech Ages does this pretty well, locking items behind different ages. The first age you don't even have access to a crafting table or chests, getting primitive hard to use versions of them instead. Eventually you figure out how to use them, and crawling your way through caveman tech to finally make yourself a basic metal melter and get out of the first age unlocking a bunch of new recipes. It will be rare for an unlock to be as exciting as seeing a regular vanilla crafting table after all of that time without one.
I really like the unlock system from CrossCode, where the achievements have points attached to them you can use to get different upgrades in the new game plus, like killing everything in one hit or carrying over gear from your previous file.
When I played Sonic Mega Collection as a child, I was interested in the ??? spots, but never went out of my way to get them & I remember being pleasantly surprised when I got Flicky and Sonic 3 & Knuckles naturally. I didn't have internet & was 6 years old. I think they just expected you to enjoy the game collection instead of go Unlockable Hunting.
Burnout Paradise handled unlocks in a cool way. With it being an open world driving game, cars you can unlock roam the world and you have to chase them and take them out (make them crash). Once you bust one you can pick it up from the junkyard to add it to your collection (after a trip to the repair shop)
For some reason, the List of Minor Prophecies in Hades always compelled to try new things and keep trying to unlock new things. I'd take upgrade I otherwise wouldn't, and would even go for *boons* I otherwise wouldn't, all just so I could complete another prophecy. When I got the lyre in Zag's room, I sat there for a good few minutes just interacting with it because there was a prophecy for practicing, and ... I mean, why not? It's satisfying to see another achievement unlocked, and everytime something new shows up, I can't help but go for it as well.
Ace Combat 6's Nosferatu unlock was sick. I don't recall if it was teased before you got it at all, like having it in a locked state on the selection screen. It was really cool seeing and hearing one of your rivals having a technological marvel as a plane, but unlocking Nosferatu was awesome. What was better was selecting the aircraft and realizing that they gave you the whole thing and they didn't hold back. It let you obliterate the invading army on the first mission, something that felt impossible given the time limit. I mean, you can't "win" the mission anyways, but boy was it exciting to use. Another was the Insomniac museum on a lot of the Ratchet and Clank games. I felt like the one they had for RaC 2 and 3 was the best, but the idea itself is always fun, like seeing cut content or concepts that many times returned in future games. However, RaC's "cheats" were almost always quite lame. Big head mode never really excites anyone on the best of days. RaC 2016 let you do a little more, like changing bolts to rupees, which is great, but a little more would have been nice on the topic of secrets.
I remember in Mega Collection Plus I unlocked a few of the games naturally, but did indeed then do the long, boring boot up and exit sequence you described.
A system of unlocks I like is in Kirby Star Allies. The game is full of references to previous games, and beating certain challenges can allow you to unlock boss characters to use yourself, which is awesome. My brother, who is a huge Kirby fan, thinks the Three Mage Sisters are kinda broken, which makes sense since you have to beat a really hard challenge first.
I liked it in Celeste when you beat everything, (I'm not sure if this counts the DLC and C-sides, but I think it does), the game gives you multiple different things to toggle. One of them mirrors every scene in the game. Another gives you a super dash that goes farther and allows you to dash in 360 degrees and change the direction of the of dash during the middle of it. I played through the base game again with this on. I'm not exactly sure if all of the harder levels are completable because a very small number of them have sections where you're only supposed to use one dash length or you'll fly into some spikes, but this can sometimes be avoided by making an arc with the dash so that you don't go forward as far.
I like it when you have to collect a certain amount of an item to get a reward that isn't required, but a thing you want to try to get. Like the underated Gamecube/PS2 Game Ty the Tasmanian Tiger comes to mind where for every 15 Golden Cogs you can get a new Boomerang and with the exception of the last one, they all get better and better. You never at anpoint need these Boomerangs as the ones required to beat the came are given to you as you progress but this makes you want them but not need them. If you don't want them though you can just ignore them and move on with you life. Ty 2 was a step back where you had to buy them. This basically meant you could just grind Opals until you could buy them which in my opinion is less interesting.
I didn't like the Ni No Kuni car. You unlock the car at the end of the game, which is... kind of useless. I mean, it's nice but you finished the game, so there is no reason to play with the car.
I agree- the questline to unlock it and the car itself are both really enjoyable, but the fact that there is Nothing left for you to do once you unlock it makes the whole reward fall flat.
My two favorite games in terms of unlocks One Must Fall 2097 which had unlocks hidden within unlocks that you get by doing moves you had to read about to find out even exist and Bayonetta which either let you find items through levels and/or accumulate coins to use in a hidden cheat like system
Castle Crashers had a pretty good unlock system in my opinion. See an enemy you think looks cool? Wanna play as it? just beat the game as a certain character or play in an arena! I just think it makes for a great example.
