What's One "Old Game" Mechanic That You Don't Miss?

[Amechra]

I'd look at any sort of gaming that uses this as "padding". A damage/health multiplicator is literally just a line of code and thus easy to tack unto a small game. But arcade game also immensely profit from a second quest ala Ghouls and Goblins tacked onto the original run.

In that vein, padding your game to the brim with pointless stuff. I even liked it when Skyrim did it with its radiant system (even tho the radiant stuff is boring af) but stuff like "rob three households before you can continue your thieves guild quest" is literally busywork.

And when stuff in a game gets more boring than WORK for me I think I'm doing the wrong things then. I prefer a concise gaming experience to one that needlessly throws stuff at me.

I can think of one example where the difficulty settings actually matter. In Hero Core, Hard mode changes all of the enemy and boss patterns, and starts you off in a different part of the world map. Then Annihilator Mode is a completely new map.

But that's really the only game I can think of where there's that big of a difference. And in any case, you can play both Normal and Hard right off the bat.