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Unlockable Videogame Content Can Suck
Once again I sit down to play SNK vs Capcom : Match of the Millennium on my NeoGeo Pocket. Here is hoping that perhaps I will finally luck out and get the last damn tile I need to unlock B.B. Hood. You see once you beat the last boss there is a tic-tac-toe board with a hidden character. Some spots are randomly chosen and are removed but you need to play the game several times in order to unlock a single freaking character.
I do like some Unlockable content that is released after you have been playing the game but I think some game designers go to far and make it to damn hard to unlock content. The way that I think about it is that I already paid for this game and I should be able to enjoy 100% of it without having to spend months of playing in order to gain access to all of it. If I had one of the rare NeoGeo Pocket to Sega Dreamcast link cables I could transfer my unlocked credits from Capcom VS SNK and open all the nice hidden stuff.
If a game designer does their well job then all the hidden content should be with in the reach of the average gamer after a week or two of normal game play. That is only spending one to three hours a day on videogame playing. By restricting unlockable content to those who spend way to much time it cheapens the game experience. I understand that unlockable content extends the time that a gamer will spend playing a particular title but it is a bit of a cop-out if it requires 40-hours a week just to unlock all the levels and fighters and random good shit. The games that stand out in my mind is Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Gran Tourismo3 and of course SNK vs Capcom : Match of the Millennium. I mean I play games because they are fun and do not want to have to invest as much as a second job in order to get my freaking money's worth.
When you buy a car you do not have it be locked at 30 miles an hour only to have more speed unlocked after you have been driving after a week.
There has to be some balance in a progression of unlockable videogame content or it will lose the re-playability factor and start to suck.
Jake at April 21, 2004 
Games
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Comments
I agree with you 100%.
Marvel Vs Capcom 2 for Xbox is a great game, but its a bitch to unlock stuff in. You have to play it for hours on end to earn credits to buy more stuff which gets more expensive the further you get in the game. The only work around short of getting a game save off the net is to put the game in the practice mode and just let it sit all night. In the morning you'll have max credits, but you'll have to do it all over again multiple times to buy everything thats locked.
It pisses me off even more that some of the characters I really want to use are way down on the list so I have to play for hours on end to get them.
The DC version was cake to open stuff up.
Posted by: Kevin at April 21, 2004 7:54 AM
I was talking about the Dreamcast version. I have never seen the Xbox game.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 21, 2004 8:00 AM
I had the DC verision but I just downloaded someone's VMU save that had everything opened up...
Hence the ease of opening everything up comment.
The Xbox version is nearly identical only it's not as easy to transfer a save game.
Posted by: Kevin at April 21, 2004 8:42 AM
It would be OK if there was a cheat code that you could put in and unlock all of the secret stuff. If you did not want to use the code then you could unlock it the regular way and take your time.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 21, 2004 10:08 AM
I've always considered unlockable content to be anti-fun and terrible game design. Take the Gamecube title Sonic Mega Collection. It comes with seven classic Sega games and yet there still five more games that you have to unlock by playing the games. I paid good money for this game and yet I can't access all the games? It's a sad attempt to stretch out the experience.
Posted by: dunsany at April 21, 2004 11:07 AM
I agree. It shouldn't take more than 20 hours for the average gamer to unlock everything.
Although I guess a few hardcore gamers actually like having to spend 50 hours to do it.
Posted by: Jonathan Bennett at April 21, 2004 11:49 AM
I feel your pain... I just got a new Match of the Millenium cart, and it's quite the journey to re-unlock all the characters and 'buy' the super moves. At least you can crank the difficulty up and play tag-team mode to shave off some hours.
At least in this instance, maybe it's a good thing -- dead system, dead game, so it's not as if there's a sequel to look forwards to. :)
Posted by: Brian at April 21, 2004 8:32 PM
But shouldn't there be special rewards for the hardcore gamers that do want to spend the time to truly master a game? You should especially consider that with a fighting game, there are going to be hardcore fans that really do want to spend the time to really master the techniques and spend time practicing.
Posted by: Ken at April 22, 2004 9:22 AM
That special reward should not be the majority content of the game. I think mastery of a game should come from playing others not playing the game 200 times in a row to unlock everything.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 22, 2004 10:32 AM
I finally got B.B. Hood the other day
I'm kind of regreting erasing the date when I first got the game. As it had everything unlocked, including the specials.
bah
Still not as frustrating as Capcom Vs. SNK 1 for the Dreamcast
Posted by: ray at April 22, 2004 4:59 PM
I thought the unlockable content in Panzer Dragoon Orta was good though. Its like, what, only 30 hours of play in order to unlock everything?
Posted by: Arluss at April 29, 2004 7:22 PM
THANK YOU! I've been saying stuff like this for awhile! And finally people who agree with me! Its really starting to piss me off with this unlockable crap. Espicially, in the fighter games.
Posted by: Mike at May 27, 2004 4:40 AM
