So there were two things on my mind.
The first is Japanese games; I was listening to the Japanese version of the Dragon's dogma OP. I'll give Capcom this much, just like Sengoku Basara 3 used T.M.Revolution's English vocals, the English version has B'z singing in English. Now we have a bit of a problem, why make a Japanese band sing a Japanese song in English? Its hard to even understand whats being said and for the most part its gibberish. Why? Dragon's Dogma (like Dark Souls and Xanadu) is similar to many RPGs made in the west and even started with a western idea. Thing is, you still have a Japanese band performing the intro song that has lyrics. Which leads me to my point. Be Japanese. The west is the west, trying to be like the west is pointless. So many Japanese studios keep trying to make these games that appeal to westerners but in the end they often fall flat because they are neither distinctly Eastern or Western. The Japanese often pride themselves on taking ideas and making them better, that is perhaps its olden tradition and it should be no different for gaming. Take the ideas that are being introduced and instead of trying to copy them, make them better. We got stuff like Record of Lodoss War, Final Fantasy, and ESPECIALLY Shin Megami Tensei from games like DnD, Ultima and Wizardry and I think if Capcom threw its support behind Dragon's Dogma and decided to evolve the genre it could be something special, instead its mostly half cooked ideas taken from other games with the original ideas muddled and hidden by bugs or straight up bad decisions.
The other thing that will inevitably make this a massive wall of text is teaching in games. So many games suck at it. I'm pretty sure a few of you guys got stuck in Arkham city because you forgot how to slide, theres no shame alot of people have. The reason why is simple, they never drill it in. You do it once as part of a tutorial and thats that. Instead you should do it a few times, get used to it and then keep it relevant by adding it once or twice to every "dungeon". Zelda is no different. Fi in is so completely useless because she'll tell you how to press a button but won't tell you button combinations. Rolling a damn bomb requires 2 motions and a button press, why tell the player after its necessary to use this? While searching for the Earth Temple Link needs to roll a bomb across some bones and explode a platform. Fi does not tell you how to roll bombs there? NONONO, instead she teaches you to roll bombs when you reach a hill which is beyond the bone bridge. This isn't a puzzle, its obscurity. The player isn't properly taught what powers they have, and they have no real guide for experimentation. Hitting every button shouldn't be the way to figure out a puzzle. Lets take, Lufia as an example. it has puzzle and specific items for use in dungeons, however the item is a one button thing. You can say "I placed a bomb here" you don't need to worry about rolling, throwing or anything like that until the game specifically gives you a power to do that, and often the game makes you use that power to get out of the room. Metroid is good for that as well. Games now seem to have lost that. Not to say every old game used it, but today's games are terrible at teaching and often offer tons of tutorials that don't really teach or offer lasting advice.