Top 10 Video Games Cliches That Should Be Used Less
Isn’t it just annoying how ancient overused content just keeps reappearing in every game that comes out? Well it’s been happening for quite a while. Even now many game developers just haven’t learned to not include clichés that we’ve become so familiar with, that we swear if we spotted them again we would have to break our shiny LED monitors – which of course, we don’t, because they have become a backbone of our games.
Out of the dozens and dozens of common clichés we find in any two or three random games we pick up, I really do believe the following need to be used a little bit less than the rest:
1. Self-destructing Last Level! Oh No! Oh Wait, I’ve Seen That Before:
Yeah, it’s exactly the way this rather long heading suggests. You play a title tolerable enough to be played till the very end, and after you’re done with your last boss or whatever, the environment around you starts a bye-bye countdown.
How many times have we seen this cliché in games? Many! And the ironic part is, this cliché always seems to work. Players will show little irritation when facing this one. Why? Because it’s the end of the game for Pete’s sake, everyone’s too damned busy trying to get to the credits to notice the horribly traditional destruction going around them!
2. A Kill Scene After A Kill:
You’re fighting a boss. Damn he/she’s tough. But twelve unhealthy hours of consecutive gaming have made your skills rock solid, and you slay the dude/gal in style.
Right when you’re about to give yourself a pat on the back, you see a cut-scene displaying your hero or heroine slaying the boss, in a much more cinematic and supposedly hipper manner. Basically, you spent hours trying to kill that enemy, and when you finally succeeded in doing so, you get to see the more cinematic version of ‘how it was actually done’.
Dude, seriously, the enemy that just fell after a painful ‘uhn’ thanks to our wrath, repeating the same thing?Games such as the Devil May Cry series, Dragon Age 1 and 2 and many others have this annoying cliché.
3. The Baddy Ain’t The Baddy:
It may have been a pretty cool trick in some of the pioneering RPGs and action games, but ‘the seemingly bad guy turns out to not be a bad guy but instead a good guy’ thing is not just a very well known cliché, it has also become one of the most predictable ones.
I can almost definitely tell every time this ‘twist’ is about to happen. Games such as Chrono Trigger (Magus, remember?), Chrono Cross, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Deus Ex etcetera all have this cliché.
4. The Goody Ain’t The Goody
This cliché is usually found in combination with the above one; the bad guy turns out to be good and one of the smiling guys or gals you were just beginning to like ends up being a two-timing, two-faced treacherous moron. Like the above, games such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Deus Ex, and some others that I can’t care to remember, have this cliché.
5. Fighting Tournaments
Just about every fighting game has this annoying story-based cliché. Some of the best fighters from around the globe are being selected for a fighting tournament.
Supervising the tournament is some nemesis person whose real plans are more than to simply gather cool looking guys and gals with abnormally awesome fighting skills to beat each other up. Heard of this before? Of course you have! The most famous of the fighting games, such as Tekken, Street Fighter, and even Mortal Kombat form the cliché as the basis of whatever the heck they make you do.
6. Scripted Bosses
“Well I’ll be damned! That is the biggest friggin’ monster I’ve ever seen! Must be ninety feet tall or something. I wonder how to defeat it.” And after a minute, you’re yawning, with your fingers continuously repeating the same steps required for damaging the boss again and again that you discovered within thirty seconds.
Specific methods for killing bosses, which remain the same for the entire fight, are something we are so accustomed to, particularly in action games that it’s almost become a rule of thumb.
Like, whenever I have trouble with a boss, and some idiot who has never even played the game spots me doing it, would always suggest I ‘try and figure out the boss’s pattern, maybe that will help’. I mean come on! Even non-gamers are aware of this cliché!
7. From Zero To Hero
RPGs in particular like to incorporate this cliché. You’ll often start off as a low-life nobody who, by just happening to be at the right place at the right time, becomes a hero by the middle or end of the game. This cliché can be found in dozens of games, such as Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy XII, Crysis 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2… the list goes on.
8. Multiple Endings… How Convenient
Some like em’, some don’t, but it’s a safe thing to say that the ‘multiple endings’ system is overused in games nowadays. Even shoot-everything-that-can-move styled games such as Bioshock have multiple endings.
It may or may not be an annoying cliché, depending on how much time we enjoyably waste on a specific game, but its use definitely needs to be limited. I actually feel that developers make multiple endings just so they can say ‘look! Our game has 300 bloody endings!’ No offense intended. I won’t even think about mentioning titles which comprise of this element; there are so many even you could think of yourself.
9. Not That Boss Again!
After hours of hours of annoyance and frustration, you finally manage to defeat a certain boss, only to find out he/she makes a re-appearance.
I’ve never enjoyed the thought of fighting one boss several times; but so many games make you do it, that now I’m nearly certain that developers almost always run out of new boss enemies, and ultimately re-use the already-created ones again.
The game suffering from the recurring boss disease most is Devil May Cry 4, though there have been many others such as a few Final Fantasy games, Metal Gear Solid and so on.
10. I’m Either Grim or I’m Whacky
Finally, this is my personal favorite cliché. Notice how all the heroes/heroines have extreme personality cases, particularly in RPG games? Well, if you do, then you’re with me.
It’s often amusing, and at times irritating, to see how majority of the heroes, particularly in story-oriented games, are very grim, quiet and bad ass, or are ultra whacky and total goofs. Good examples are all the Final Fantasy games, and many other Square Enix games.
Be it the grim Squall or the happy-go-lucky Tidus, Square Enix games always integrate this cliché into their otherwise fantastic games. Even several shooter games, such as Far Cry for example, have this cliché.
Do note that I don’t condemn any of the above clichés, but only wish they were used a little less. If you have other clichés in mind, which have been observed in more than one game, please make sure you share with us by commenting below.
Find us on Digg
Our YouTube Channel
you don’t like games do you….hell I think you hate them.
Some of these things seem like you were scraping for things to fill your list.
He’s right, and wasn’t scrapping for things. Everything is well mentioned, especially the good guy turns bad and other way around, boss return’s although you beat him, and zero to hero.
I’ll add some too. In RPG’s, prices and item quality rise with the story. Why can’t I buy the best suit or weapon right on if I manage a few hundred thousand bucks.
What I find in almost all games and it bugs the hell out of me is cutscenes where someone escapes while the dumbfounded hero simply stares paralyzed. THe hero could stop the enemy easily, by attacking, but noooooo.
i agree with some of them yes but some of those things r what makes videogames memorable like the 1st god of war when u fight the hydra throughout the entire 1st level
Nerko, there is a slight problem with your item price/quality cliche. What are the odds that the greatest blacksmith, alchemist, etc, in all the world is living in your hometown, or even within a few days of your home town? on top of that, what are the odds that said craftsman has perfected the method of crafting the ultimate weapon, or the ultimate potion, or even the ultimate suit of armor, just in time for you to waltz into his shop and buy it? Given highly skilled blacksmiths might migrate to the bigger cities where there are many customers it is simply unrealistic to expect that a master craftsman is conveniently living in your town and just so happens to have a sword with the power to kill a god. The reality is that a craftsman makes things that the local population needs, if they are a farming community that only suffers the occasional goblin raid then the blacksmith’s skills are going to be tailored more to making hoes and other farm implements and weapon forging will mostly be used to replace and repair the few weapons that they break defending from the occasional raid.
One last detail. Where is a blacksmith most likely to be able to find a store owner with the funds to buy and find a customer to sell a $300,000 sword? a small peaceful farming community or a large wealthy city preparing to go to war? In all these RPGs (except oblivion with the items scaling to your level) if you had complete free access to the world, and could survive the trip you would find the store with that extreme price tag. (in Morrowind for example you could find obsidian or glass armor the second you finished the prisoner transfer papers if you knew where to look for it. Though unless you had the difficulty set to a cheating low difficulty you would die in the attempt of stealing it.)
I can agree that these things are a bit cliche, but are they really bad things? I mean, a lot of video games use stuff like scripted bosses because they work and they’re fun. They were fun in Legend of Zelda back in the day and are still fun in Demon’s Souls today. Multiple endings are essential for games that give you choices that affect the story. And the ol’ switcheroo and double-cross is only bad when they make it too obvious. When you don’t see it coming, it can make for a really great “oh, snap!” moment. Storytelling itself is full of tropes and it’s not an easy thing to fix since practically everything has been done already. So story cliches should probably not just be pinned on video games in general. For the most part, these cliches keep games fun, so its up to devs to find more creative ways to implement them. I’m all for seeing a few of them again. G’day, sir.
This entire top 10 list seemed to have been put together with the Final Fantasy series on the top of the author’s mind. It probably would have been a better use of space if the author had simply said “top 10 reasons why I hate Final Fantasy.”
How did you forget amnesia? (oh!!! A pun I made…)
I feel like saying a story having multiple endings is cliche is like saying having a heroine for a protagonist instead of a hero is cliche—comparing the number of times it’s been done throughout history to the number of times it hasn’t makes it impossible to be a cliche (which is downright sad considering over half the population is female)…
really–do you know what cliche means? Just because YOU don’t like something or it’s a NEW trend doesn’t mean it’s cliche.
N°3,4,7 and 8 are called “having a scenario”. Not everyone want to play an unsurpising piece of mud with a flat story and flater characters. N°5 is stupid. How do you want to explain that somehow, a hundred guys start fighting at the same places, other than in a tournament? As for the rest, it’s all depending on the player’s point of view.
the cliche i missed is the i just beat hundreds of them and then the last sixty are in a cut scene and overwelming, really?
that happens in a lot of action games or action rpg’s wich is something i start to dislike
This is not a very good list. Many of these things are positives.
Re: Number 7. You DO understand how RPGs work, right? There is no other way I can imagine to do one other than starting at Level 1 and getting as powerful as possible when you get to the end. I mean, yeah, the game could leave you mediocre at the end rather than effing awesome, but I don’t see a large market for that sort of RPG.
It’s pretty much the point for most games. I don’t think anyone would play a game in which they grew less powerful over time. That would be a little too much like real life.
some of those have good points. some of those are bloody stupid. like the fighting tournament. how much of a story do you want from that. they do exactly what they aim for. make it into DUH DUH DUNNNNNN a fighting tournament.. where fighters go… to… fight. and the role playing game. well of course you start out a zero before you become the hero… thats called playing a role.. role.. playing.. game. the whole point is to build. honostly if you hate these games so much lets see you make one thats different.
Everything is more powerful the further north you travel.
All the strongest animals live in the forest.
Thank you for saving the world, but I’m still going to have to charge you full price for those potions.
I can resurrect Aerith seven times in a five minute span, but not when Sephiroth stabs her.
god some of these commenters are so fucking stupid [sigh]
first off some of you obviously have no idea what cliche means and the entire fucking point of this article
its not about \OH I HATE THIS STORY TELLING ELEMENTS\ its about how that story telling element has been over used again and again in so many games you have to get a pen and paper to jot them all down
the author is not saying he thinks these should never be used again or are horrible just over used … god you people are stupid
biggest one you fucking retards seem to not be able to grasp is the \zero to hero\ cliche
its about going from a fucking peasant/slave/prisoner/dirt farmer and some how throughout the story becomes king/world savior/greatest-fighter-ever/god
this has nothing to do with the progression of leveling a character or becoming stronger
but from being the most insignificant person in the entire videogame world and then SOME HOW becoming the most important and godly character to ever walk that world
why the fuck does some peasant/scum some how become the savior of man king THAT is the cliche and its been done over and over 100s, if not easily more, times in videogames, movies, and books
it has NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING! to do with leveling or becoming stronger in a fucking rpg
get that through your thick fucking skulls you idiots
god damnit some of you people are fucking stupid
also the AMNESIA thing is pretty overused but not as much as the top 10
a more overused one would be the mute (or just quiet/shy) character (usually young girl) who doesn’t speak throughout the entire story until BIG BATTLE! HERO IS IN DANGER! (possibly unconscious) and the mute/quiet/shy girl magically regains her voice to scream the hero’s name to save him by reinvigorating his “spirit” to defeat the generic evil bad guy
^OVER DONE
one other huge one thats overused but does work well is the “main badguy is a psychopath”
so many games and stories in general have the main antagonist (usually a conqueror or destroyer of the world) be a psychopath
its a story element that does work and makes you dislike the enemy but is so widely overused
whether it be the binary thinking black/white morality ruler thats going horrible things for “the better of all”
or a deranged nutjob thats trying to destroy all of existence for a distorted ideal/cause/reason
its always used
in way fewer stories do you see the antagonist being a smart and LOGICAL thinking person… he always seems to end up as this crazy guy/gal who has some horrible askew way of thinking and THATS why you have to stop him
not cuz hes the impending force on your city/nation/country/world but because hes the ROOT EVIL that seeks to destroy everything for pure evil or psychopathic reasons
again not saying i HATE that story but just saying its way way way way way way overused, cause it works
Lol Fallout New Vegas uses the exact cliche “From Zero To Hero”
You start off as a mailman/courier and you end up ruling the whole of Las Vegas at the end. (If you chose so)
1)Quick time events.
How hard was that to think up? They’re not that new, very ubiquitous, extremely jarring/frustrating/hair-pulling, nobody likes them.
2)Levels that involve water, going under water, the threat of drowning.
There has never been a good water level. Ever. Not even in that fucking dolphin game (which sucked).
3)Lives. Limited continues. 1ups.
A convention from coin operated arcade periods. They don’t belong in modern games (Hell not even Mario games, which are lobby based now), unless a single playthrough can be accomplished by a first timer in under an hour. Then I would accept that as a challenge component. Otherwise, it’s autosaves, saves-on-demand, and saves on exit for everything else.
Appreciate the article, but there are other cliches that are far more annoying than the ones you listed. 1) same old enemy, different color, and we supposed to believe it’s an entirely different creature. It has been done since Final Fantasy I up until Skyward Sword. 2) Doing chores in the video game. Do the chores in real life instead! Who want to wash dishes and deliver packages. You get pay to do those things in real life. 3) Talk to everyone in the village or else the player can’t progress. 4) And I hate this the most. Final Boss is too easy, SO THEY ADD IN HENCHMEN to annoy you and make you lose concentration. That is such a lame and lazy way of making the final boss harder. That is all. Oh, and 5) I love Nintendo games, but they are guilty of this the most (and also Mega Man). Why do we have to always start the game at zero. Can’t we start with the shield, sword, arrow, hook shot, bomb (Zelda) ice beam, morph ball, and armors (Metroid) at the beginning of the next game? We already know how to use them, why not let us start with that and let us collect something else for the next game.