SNES gen:
-Cranked up difficulty to encourage multiple rentals. Several of the games I played as a kid were stuck on hard mode. I believe this was also to help sell strategy guides.
I honestly don't remember any of the games I rented being like that, and I rented
a huge portion of the SNES/Genesis library. About the only game that I remember that was truly hard during that period was Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. I never got to play Hagane though. Looking through various "hardest SNES games ever" lists...huh, so those were supposed to be hard? Not going to say I didn't die a bunch, but pretty much all of them were beaten within the 2-3 day rental period.
360/PS3 gen:
-QTEs. I think I liked them exactly one time and that was in Shenmue when they were brand new and had a novelty factor to them. After that I found them annoying, especially when failing them resulted in instant death.
QTEs might not be nearly as ubiquitous as they once were, but they are still around. The main thing I noticed being removed from the seventh gen up until now though for the better was the whole green/brown/gray color scheme. So fucking dull and lifeless.
I'm glad colors were back in vogue for last gen because PS360 games are so goddamn ugly.
Yes. There were a few games where I feel like that lifeless look actually enhanced the atmosphere, but as a general rule, it didn't help.
Unfortunately, other things from that era carried over to last gen, and are pretty much "staples" now and done to death.
Turning everything into Call of Duty.
Well now everything is *Call of Duty, an RPG and an "open-world".
*First-person even when the series was traditionally 2D or third-person, even if it doesn't actually make the gameplay better.
Obviously hyperbole, but still somewhat true.
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