Make a bad game better with one change.

[Someone Depressing]

The CDI Zeldas. Using an item was the 3rd button, and opening the menu was crouching with the 3rd button, the game would probably be not nearly as horrible; there, it keeps going through doors/buying stuff/talking all the second button.

You could make an abysmal game a piece of dogshit with just one change. The cutscenes are still an issue, though.

 

[Candidus]

Final Hallway 13 - Make it dual audio with English subtitles
Final Hallway 13 b - Erase from existence the official statement "doing towns in HD is too hard"; open it up like a real FF.
One or the other would make it 10x better.

Mass Effect 3 - Reverse time; subject the ending to the same peer-review/writing by committee process as everything else.

Dragon Age 2 - Reverse time; cancel it.

And below, not bad games that could still benefit from one huge improvement.

Dark Souls - Give summon-note detection priority to people on your friends list.
Dark Souls b - Better PC port.
No other improvements possible.

Dead or Alive Series - Drop the pretense of seriousness, go full ero.

King of Fighters XIII - NETCODE, NETCODE, NETCODE. Fix it ffs.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Wind Waker -> Instead of fishing for Triforce pieces under the ocean, you find them in dungeons under the ocean.

Well, they met you half way with your wish. In Wind Waker HD you find Triforce shards in the places you found their charts in the original.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Metroid Other M: Don't turn Samus into a repressed 50's housewife. I'm all for a deeper look into her character, but it actually has to be HER, not an offensive stereotype. Having her not take Adam's shit would have solved nearly all the game's narrative problems, though gameplay would still be kinda iffy.

 

[laggyteabag]

Assassin's Creed 3 - Give Connor a more adventurous personality.

Rage - Make the guns feel more powerful to shoot, and improve the texture quality.

Battlefield 3 - Increase the level of destruction.

 

[COMaestro]

Diablo 3: let me upgrade my character the way I want when I level up (ala Diablo 2), not just unlock the same skills that every other player gets when they hit the same level.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Final Fantasy XIII - use FFX's Battle System

Spoiler: Skyward Sword (not generally considered a bad game but still)

Shaq-Fu - Omit the story

Metroid Other-M - Omit the Story

Fable 2 - Mini-Map instead of Bread-Crumbs

Fable 3 - Add a Pause Menu

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Next-Gen, Sonic 06) - Turn all humans into anthropomorphic animal-people

I can't really think of any more at the moment...

 

[IrateDonnie]

All games- add mod support
Even if it was a crappy game someone would be able to mod it & make it better

 

[ThreeName]

Just Cause 2: Fix the fucking controls and sort that skydiving nonsense out.

 

[FPLOON]

Re:Coded for the DS - Needs more story than filler... or visa versa, depending if you're one of those that just "loves" to hate this game with a passion...

I get how this game didn't really add anything to the overall story arc, but if it either added more story to make it worth noting more within the story arc or just have it go full filler without any true connection to the story arc besides the characters... Then, I'm sure more people would have played it without complaining about its story significance... (as much...)

 

[Roxas1359]

Wind Waker -> Instead of fishing for Triforce pieces under the ocean, you find them in dungeons under the ocean.

They actually got rid of that for 3 of the pieces in Wind Waker HD. The only one I can fully think of that you have to fish out is the one after you sink the special ship.

OT: Make the International version of Final Fantasy XII be the original vanilla version.

 

[immortalfrieza]

FF12. Switch from that crappy hybrid between a real time combat system and a turn based one to one or the other, I don't particularly care which one at this point, either would be better than what we got.

FF13. Keep everything the way it is, I loved the story, the characters, (Hope is my favorite BTW) everything, except for ONE thing, get rid of that whole "if the leader dies it's game over" crap, there has NEVER been a time in the history of video games where that has been a good idea, ever. It just creates needless frustration especially when the rest of the party is perfectly capable of reviving said leader.

 

[SomeGuyOnHisComputer]

No More Heroes 2, adding camera control would have made the game sooooo much better, same with Madworld although that one wasn't nearly as frustrating. The computer simply isn't smart of enough to know what the player wants to see, and probably never will. If you can't have manual camera control, you either tie that shit to the player's back a la God Hand, or make sure that the gameplay isn't totally reliant on split second reactions.

Dead Rising 2, add hard difficulty. It's not a game I would call bad exactly, but it would have definitely been a better dead rising game if the timer actually meant anything. The entire thing was just too leisurely. I miss the planning and strategy required for saving all the survivors in the first game. They tried to make a compromise between the fans and the people disappointed that it wasn't Grand Theft Zombies, and it doesn't work. It looks like this may have changed for the 3rd game, but seeing as it's currently exclusive to the devil's machine, I probably wont get a chance to play it any time soon.

 

[Altorin]

Alpha Protocol - Remove the Pistol as a Weapon (I think this is a good game but the Pistol makes it far too easy)

it only makes it too easy if you spend all your points in Pistol. Without full training it's not nearly as potent.

I won't disagree, playing that game through as a pistol specialist is easy (except for the bosses, at least the russian and chinese bosses), but it's also kind of hilarious. If you don't like how that plays through, just focus on the shotgun. Entirely different game without needing to remove the pistol.

OT: The Force Unleashed with just Darth Vader.

 

[Nettacki]

Metroid Other M - Others mentioned the story, so I'll focus on gameplay: Remove the pixel hunt segments.

 

[Altorin]

Wind Waker -> Instead of fishing for Triforce pieces under the ocean, you find them in dungeons under the ocean.

Well, they met you half way with your wish. In Wind Waker HD you find Triforce shards in the places you found their charts in the original.

I didn't mind the fishing, I did however HATE the fact that the game suddenly turned into a Ruppee grind to pay Tingle for his services as chief jerk

so

OT: Windwaker without needing to pay Tingle.

 

[Altorin]

FF12. Switch from that crappy hybrid between a real time combat system and a turn based one to one or the other, I don't particularly care which one at this point, either would be better than what we got.

FF13. Keep everything the way it is, I loved the story, the characters, (Hope is my favorite BTW) everything, except for ONE thing, get rid of that whole "if the leader dies it's game over" crap, there has NEVER been a time in the history of video games where that has been a good idea, ever. It just creates needless frustration especially when the rest of the party is perfectly capable of reviving said leader.

as for that FF13 one, in general you're right and I certainly wouldn't say it made it "better" but Baldur's Gate did that, but at least Baldur's Gate there was an actual reason why "Protagonist Dies = Game Over".. I won't go into too much detail but

Spoiler

the entire plot of the game was sort of a take on Jet Li's The One - the villain's chief goal in the story was to kill the protagonist and all other people who shared their lineage, and when the protagonist dies, he just sort of evaporates

 

[alexwbyrd]

Well Slender: The Arrival wasn't exactly a bad or mediocre game but I'd say making the game at least 6 hours longer would have made it pretty damn good. As long as they didn't do it by padding out the game I'd be cool with it.

As an aside, the difficulty in parts could do with being less cheap but hey only one thing to change right?

 

[LegendaryVKickr]

Skyward Sword: Fi is now completely optional/never hassles you during gameplay. The game is now playable.