that was really interesting, it makes me think of game design and how to break through
i think with games nowadays theres nothing that hasnt been done with features, besides im not good at inventing new features anyway. ive been focusing on story telling and writing lately, i think games need to have better, less generic stories. i think thats the best way to stand out sinse everythings already been done. sinse all rpgs are very similar and with horrible story ideas theyre all pretty much the same game, same with shootings games, theres so many and theyre even more identical sinse there isnt much gameplay depth for fps's. another thing is art design, give me something interesting to look at, cool looking characters, games either have the scruffy looking generic tough guy or some generic anime style, or something very symetrical, simple, and uninteresting.
an excellent example is gungrave overdose(PS2), great character designs, im a big fan of yasohiro nightows gunslinging style. i also liked xiii(ps2), i guess its an obscure game, i got it for like 5$ at toys r us a long time ago. it had comic inspired cell shaded graphics (which was new at the time) i really liked.
designers need to give the characters more personality and life for the player to-not relate to but connect with , they always kill off a character in the story(which is just cliche anyway) before the character has really defined themselves.
so i think to make a great game you could go with a successful gameplay formula like the original final fantasy and add unique character design, story events and character interaction
this kind of turned into a rant, but i liked that guys story