Well....I certainly would hate to have my shovel removed. I, for one, happen to LIKE my gardening tools.
But seriously folks.
There are many games that fit the subject line for me. Too many actually. That's one of my biggest problems with a LOT of modern games, is that they feel unfinished, like they cared more about the graphics or the story or the online gameplay, and kind of left important things like camera, hit detection, good solid platforming physics, and in general just tight controls, in the background.
One example I will bring up right now, is FFCC: The Crystal Bearers. Honestly, that game had a LOT of potential. I was excited about from the first time I saw the first real game footage trailer. The idea of having a character who could levitate things to attack and affect the game world was awesome. The setting, the graphics, the music, hell, even the STORY was pretty decent. The whole game had a nice polish to it, whatever team developed it obviously put a lot of effort into the game. It's hardly "shovelware". But the one thing they really messed up, or should I say missed out on, was the CORE idea that made the game interesting and different.
They should have spent some more of that development time working on allowing you to DO alot more with the TK power. As it is, you can manipulate SOME things in obvious situations, and otherwise you can lift things up and throw them. Mind you, this STILL makes for some interesting and fun gameplay. But it feels very incomplete. You see these bad ass cutscenes where the main character does REALLY cool s*** with his powers, and you sit there thinking "Hey, why can't I do that in the GAME?"
That was the main issue with the game. There were others, but that one right there would have made it a lot better. So I'd say, the game is STILL decent, worth playing, even worth owning. But it would be a lot better if:
1. You could actually do a lot more with your powers, especially manipulating the game environment.
2. If you you could actually interact more with NPCs. A lot of them, you simply can't interact with at all.
3. If when you clear an area of monsters, it STAYS clear, so that you feel a sense of progression and improvement. And just get rid of the stupid timer. Fighting some of the monsters is fun. Some of the bosses are damn hard. But it's anticlimactic when you haven't killed all the enemies in time, and they just disappear. It's also anticlimactic when you come back to that area, and it starts all over again.
Improve those three issues, and it would automatically go from a decent, worth a look title, to a must own, fantastic exclusive for Wii. I appreciate what the team was going for, and it IS a worthwhile game to play through. It just could have been so much better. And with a game like Mario Galaxy or Twilight Princess, you DON'T sit there thinking that, that it could be so much better. More games need to have that sense of completeness.
