An example of Bad Game Design: Elite Beat Agents.

Yes yes, I know I gave this a glowing review last week. I still stand by it: EBA is an excellent game that's a ton of fun.

BUT.

They've put one mechanic into it that absolutely drives me up the wall: the constantly decreasing life bar.

Let me explain: In EBA you have a life bar that's constanly decreasing at a set rate. If you miss a note, it takes a large hit. If you get a note, you get an increase, the size of which depends on how closely you hit the note. If you keep the life bar above a certain point, your character succeeds in their actions. If it drops down too far, the stage automatically ends.

Now here's where the problem is: If the beats are too far apart, then the life bar will go down no matter how well you hit the notes, which means if you've entered that section with too low a life bar, you're basically screwed no matter how good you play from that point on. This becomes a real problem during verses 2 and 4 of Let's Dance on 3 star difficulty - if you haven't built up enough life during verse 1 & 3 (or even if you get a bit too many 100 point taps instead of 300 point taps) there's no way you can win. I've hit every note and gotten nothing but 100 and 300 point taps and I STILL lost.

I don't see why they instituted the draining life bar - why couldn't they do a ddr type thing where 100 and 300 point hits raise the bar and 50 points/misses lower it? It'd prevent this kind of frustrating situation, where a player has lost already, but doesn't know it until he futilely attempts to finish the stage. I suppose one could argue that they're trying to actively require A rank songs, but I disagree with that philosophy. In rhythm games, I should still be able to pass the stage without being perfect - obviously I need to hit all the notes, but I shouldn't have to S-rank a stage in order to complete it.