Out of the Shadows: how would you fix it?

[sirroscoe]

By now, many of us has played OotS, and the reviews for this game ranged from mediocre to scathing. While many of us has looked over and/or tolerated the bugs in this game, there's no denying that this is a very FLAWED game. Despite that, there's a number of things this game does right, and there's no denying the love and ambition behind this game. I've played this game extensively as well as the game this game is trying to emulate...Batman: Arkham City. Here are some suggestions I've came up with.

1. Pan the camera out. The camera is entirely too close to the action. We're not able to see nearly every enemy on screen, and that makes players susceptible to off-screen attacks, adding to frustration. With a pushed out camera, players can see what attacks are incoming and can plan accordingly.

2. Clean the combat area up. I know there are obstacles that the Turtles can run about, showing off their agility, but in a combat area, its only clutter. They break your combos, mess up your evades, and traps the camera. I noticed in the Arkham games, there's nothing in the middle of the floor but Batman and his enemies (as far as FreeFlow goes). That same lesson needs to be applied here.

3. Fix the counter system. Enemies attack way too quickly, the counter window is too early, and you yourself can't counter mid-move, ending up in a lot of broken combos. All of that needs to be addressed, analyzed, and fixed. Enemy attack animations are far shorter than Turtle attack animations. That needs to be balanced. And get rid of that counter health bar. There's no point in having something limited that's an intrical part of the gameplay. That's bad planning.

4. I believe there is someone here that suggested the special attacks be assigned to RT+face buttons instead of the RS. And that's a GOOD idea. 90 degree attacks should be A and X, 180s are B and Y, and 360s are A+X or B+Y. Special weapon attacks are LB+RT+360-degree face buttons.
EDIT: In my infinite wisdom, I forgot that the face buttons were already assigned to TPKOs :-\. So I was thinking maybe, MAYBE change the takedown inputs as well, just like in Arkham City (Y+B for TPKOS, A+X for throws, A+B for team TPKOS, and X+Y for Shell Shocks).

5. Make combat areas a little bigger, with more enemies. We have 4 Turtles fully engaging in combat. At a point, things will get congested. It was a good idea for double/triple/quadruple team KOs to keep everyone's combo going, but there needs to be a few more enemies on screen. More enemies, a spaced out camera, less clutter, and an improved counter system will make the combat more enjoyable.

There are a lot more fixes that needs to be done, like being stuck in places, falling through floors, the collision detection, the input detection, overlapping conversations. But I believe there's a foundation that was laid with OotS, and I can only hope the reviews didn't discourage anyone from improving on it. There's a market for a Turtles game, just not a bad one, so do better.