In the early days of NoobToob, Yuzo mentioned a subtle flaw with God of War that he might not have otherwised noticed. Initially, he was getting into the game, and found it to be quite enjoyable.
Then he went on vacation.
When he returned to the game, he realized that he did not remember the control scheme at all. Unlike games like SSX Tricky, it didn’t have a mechanism for people to see how the moves are performed and to practice them in a controlled environment. He had to either start over or play through without a portion of his moves arsenal.
I found the same to be true for Darksiders. The last time I had played the game was about a week ago, and I saved just outside of Tiamat’s lair. Unfortunately, because of school, work, and other games, I had to set Darksiders aside for about a week. During that time, I forgot the control scheme, and I had no place to go to practice before fighting Tiamat. Fortunately, the game has a mechanism for looking up moves, and I was able to quickly remember.
The only thing that I don’t like about the game now is the fact that it doesn’t seem to remember changes to the control scheme in the save file. I inverted the vertical camera controls because it felt more natural, but this appears to revert back each time I return to the game.
Here’s a note to developers: make sure you design your game to keep the player’s settings from game to game. Going into the Options menu every game to make the same change is quite annoying.