Games saved by future QoL

[Weiss]

So I was thinking about Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, the greatest 2D platformer of all time, and it made me realize in the five playthroughs I've done over 13 years I've never 100% completed the game until my last one.

For those who don't know, DKC2 uses a heavily limited save system where you have to clear a certain amount of levels per map to reach the Kong College, and after your first save every one afterwards costs two coins, so it's completely possible to beat a boss, get a Game Over in the next few levels, and have to redo the boss. If you save and turn the game off or get a Game Over your life count resets to five and your coins down to zero, making it even harder to keep on going. This is further compounded if you want to get all 40 DK Coins and clear the Lost World for the bonus ending, because none of that stuff is permanently yours until you save at the Kong College.

So I eventually got the game on WiiU, whose Virtual Console comes with a restore function, and it was through this I was able to play to completion a game I already really love, because I don't have to worry about losing all my lives when I turn the game off and I don't have to redo the hardest level in the game for another chance of getting the DK Coin that only appears for 1/8th of a frame, I can just save my status and reload from there.

 

[werezompire]

TMS#FE is a drastically better game on Switch thanks to portability, a faster battle animation option, and much better load times.

 

[Raide]

Monster Hunter.

 

[Transistor]

The changes to how games are saved in Majora's Mask on the 3DS made the game so much better

Also, as much as I love Final Fantasy XII, the 2x and 4x options made the game infinitely more palatable in The Zodiac Age

 

[SunBroDave]

Persona 5 -> Royal. Hard to understate how changes like making Baton Pass unlocked from the start really dramatically improve the combat

 

[CloseTalker]

Monster Hunter World is the one here. "Saved" is the wrong word, obviously it was doing just fine prior, but World made some very smart changes to open the gates to a broader audience without sacrificing the core of the series. Very impressive game design.

 

[Vertpin]

Persona 5 -> Royal. Hard to understate how changes like making Baton Pass unlocked from the start really dramatically improve the combat

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Dang. I didn't know that was unlocked from the start. I haven't played Persona 5 since I beat it in 2017.

 

[Blackpuppy]

The Turok 2 remaster with the extended draw distance, smooth 60 fps and toggable mission markers make it a much more tolerable experience than on the n64.

 

[Weiss]

Oh yeah and Banjo-Kazooie XBLA which I'm playing now.

Not losing all your notes and Jinjos upon death, items appearing far in the distance where previously they'd pop in as you approached, smoothed out controls, it's lovely. What remasters should aspire to be.

 

[Beth Cyra]

Persona 5 -> Royal. Hard to understate how changes like making Baton Pass unlocked from the start really dramatically improve the combat

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Wait this wasn't like that in P5?

I had considered going back because of how often people say Makoto feels like the primary Female lead, where as Kasumi feels like that in Royal however if you can't baton pass out of the gate then no damn way I go back to it ever.

 

[Weiss]

Wait this wasn't like that in P5?

I had considered going back because of how often people say Makoto feels like the primary Female lead, where as Kasumi feels like that in Royal however if you can't baton pass out of the gate then no damn way I go back to it ever.

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Pretty sure it requires Confidant ranking yeah. Using a new character in a dungeon is always kind of a losing proposition since you lose all the benefits other lasting party members had.

 

[Beth Cyra]

Pretty sure it requires Confidant ranking yeah. Using a new character in a dungeon is always kind of a losing proposition since you lose all the benefits other lasting party members had.

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Who ever decided to change it in Royal absolutely deserves a raise and to be consulted on gameplay on P6 lol.

 

[crienne]

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, if only for the eternal ferrystone.

 

[Pompadour]

Street Fighter V: The Thread

 

[Trace]

Granblue Fantasy.

If Full Auto didn't exist I wouldn't be playing it.

 

[Pellaidh]

Trails in the Sky SC is basically unplayable without turbo options.

On hard, an average end of chapter boss fight takes about 30 minutes to an hour, due to extremely slow combat animations and huge HP numbers. And since the hard difficulty is actually quite hard, losing 50 minutes into one of these fights is very likely, at which point you'll never want to play the game again (also you can't change difficulty options after starting the game).

With 10x turbo, this gets down to about 5 minutes. Which is completely game-changing.

 

[criteriondog]

TMS#FE is a drastically better game on Switch thanks to portability, a faster battle animation option, and much better load times.

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I gotta check out the Wii U comparison. I loved this game on Switch and was genuinely surprised with it.

Edit: I forgot about the Baton Pass change from P5 to Royal. Honestly Royal has significant QoL changes everywhere (not even counting the new semester/content), that it would feel a bit odd to load up a new play through for the original P5, despite it still being an excellent game.

I agree, the baton pass being a confidant unlock in the original seems so silly, especially if you're doing a dungeon with the new party member, and they don't have it.

Honestly, Royal's QoL is everywhere and nearly everything was touched and improved.

 

[Teeth]

When Burnout Paradise patched in the ability to retry a race, that was pretty good.

 

[Redcrayon]

I don't think Monster Hunter World is really applicable here as it's a sequel, a different game to its predecessors on more powerful hardware. For all that it did to widen the appeal of MH, there's stacks of series where a new game on new hardware has loads of incremental QOL improvements over previous ones.

Re. the OP, the Etrian Odyssey Untold games spring to mind for me. Still contains the original game if you want it (with cleaned up dungeon art), but adds a whole new story mode, classes, cut scenes, dungeons and a stack of QOL improvements.

It's also possible to do the same and make it worse. Strange Journey Redux freshened up the art and made a ton of QOL additions to reduce difficulty for new players, and changed major combat elements like the main character dying being no longer game over. However, the new characters and dungeons added weren't great, just long, and the new ending, while adding something new, changes the tone of SMT by adding the option to go for a clearly favoured choice pursuing the new elements.

 

[Tavernade]

CODENAME STEAM TIME!?!?

I remember that patch to make enemy turns faster arriving really quickly too. I loved the game and even after the patch battles dragged a bit, but much less than they did early on.

 

[EntelechyFuff]

I'm gonna drop the deep cut and say Ancestors: the Humankind Odyssey.

I played through the game somewhat recently and was shocked that the other members of the tribe wouldn't copy your "pick up" actions for modified objects. You might have a pile of 25 sharpened sticks, but in order for your monke friends to grab one, you had to pick each one up one at a time and hand a stick to them manually.

I actually love this game, but I facepalmed when they released a patch literally the day after I platinumed the game that fixed this issue (with other QOL improvements besides).

I think it's very much a true love-it-or-hate-it game now, as opposed to "kind of just bad" that it was at launch.

 

[Desma]

Trails of Cold Steel adding a fast forward button (That makes the game run 2x times faster) for their western release.

Can't believed I managed to play 'em without that

 

[Weiss]

I don't think Monster Hunter World is really applicable here as it's a sequel, a different game to its predecessors on more powerful hardware. For all that it did to widen the appeal of MH, there's stacks of series where a new game on new hardware has loads of incremental QOL improvements over previous ones.

Re. the OP, the Etrian Odyssey Untold games spring to mind for me. Still contains the original game if you want it (with cleaned up dungeon art), but adds a whole new story mode, classes, cut scenes, dungeons and a stack of QOL improvements.

It's also possible to do the same and make it worse. Strange Journey Redux freshened up the art and made a ton of QOL additions to reduce difficulty for new players, and changed major combat elements like the main character dying being no longer game over. However, the new characters and dungeons added weren't great, just long, and the new ending, while adding something new, changes the tone of SMT by adding the option to go for a clearly favoured choice pursuing the new elements.

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I am extremely glad somebody mentioned Strange Journey Redux as a bad example of this but I am afraid I cannot allow anyone to say it freshened up the art.

 

[Redcrayon]

I am extremely glad somebody mentioned Strange Journey Redux as a bad example of this but I am afraid I cannot allow anyone to say it freshened up the art.

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I mean more the dungeon tiles than the character art if that helps :D

 

[Weiss]

I mean more the dungeon tiles than the character art if that helps :D

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I'll forgive you.

This time.

 

[Redcrayon]

I'll forgive you.

This time.

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/smirks

 

[Whowasphone]

Someone's gonna say it 🤷Bloodborne's rally system keeps it the most repayable souls game.

 

[Phoenom]

Dragon Quest 8 on 3DS had so many improvements that I'd happily take that version for future ports over the original. More party members, faster battles (I think?), enemies in the overworld, so many great changes.

 

[lucablight]

FFXII Zodiac age job changing patch. I couldn't bring myself to play it and lock myself into a permanent job because I was thinking I might choose the wrong one. Play the game for over 80 hours after getting the job change patch stress free.

 

[Lampa]

Who ever decided to change it in Royal absolutely deserves a raise and to be consulted on gameplay on P6 lol.

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Along with the person who made all the filler metro rides optional.

 

[Adhrast]

Trails in the Sky SC is basically unplayable without turbo options.

On hard, an average end of chapter boss fight takes about 30 minutes to an hour, due to extremely slow combat animations and huge HP numbers. And since the hard difficulty is actually quite hard, losing 50 minutes into one of these fights is very likely, at which point you'll never want to play the game again (also you can't change difficulty options after starting the game).

With 10x turbo, this gets down to about 5 minutes. Which is completely game-changing.

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This, so much THIS. I'm playing through Azure on the PSP and not having turbo is grating.
I'm honestly debating if I should play Cold Steel on the Vita for portability or PC for the turbo honestly.