When gamers aren't fighting enemies in character action games like Bayonetta or DMC, there's usually a bit of down time where they might have to walk somewhere, solve a puzzle, or play a minigame. Problem is, they're not always fun to do. What do you think would improve this aspect of action games?
I'd remove it outright, or come up with not-quite-combat challenges, like the doors in God Hand that need to be smacked and regularly dodged, or the boulders that need to be hit in order to push them up hills, and so on.
I always felt like that was a drawback of the DMC games especially. I ended up having no idea what the next thing to do was in one part of DMC3 and wandering all the way back to the start (there was surprisingly a fight there, which made me think I was going in the right direction). The game isn't really about navigating mazes, it doesn't totally make sense to have all these resident evil adventure game leftovers.
The idea of downtime appeals to an idea about pacing, though personally I think it makes more sense to just give players a chance to catch their breath and proceed when ready instead of forcing them into another style of slower gameplay.
I always felt like that was a drawback of the DMC games especially. I ended up having no idea what the next thing to do was in one part of DMC3 and wandering all the way back to the start (there was surprisingly a fight there, which made me think I was going in the right direction). The game isn't really about navigating mazes, it doesn't totally make sense to have all these resident evil adventure game leftovers.
The idea of downtime appeals to an idea about pacing, though personally I think it makes more sense to just give players a chance to catch their breath and proceed when ready instead of forcing them into another style of slower gameplay.