Design: List of Things Games Should/Shouldn't Have

Originally posted December 18th, 2008 at adamgameapprentice.blogspot.com:

Older Post - List of things that every game should have

And here's my older post for today, though hopefully just as interesting. I'm going to post my "List of things that should/should never be in a game" - though mostly it's things that should be in every game. Here goes:

In a word: Customization!
In another few words: No Pointless Restrictions!

-Subtitle toggle
-Difficulty levels, ideally some reward for beating it on each. (If absolutely nothing else, some indicator next to the save file.)
-(Very) Customizable Controls, savable to profiles
-Independent volume control for sound effects, music, and voices.
-If you have a tutorial, make it skippable unless it is (and must be) plot relevant.
--Good Solution: Have "do you know how to do x?" 3rd wall-breaking text, a la Fire Emblem for GC and Wii.
-If you have cutscenes, make them skippable. Consider giving a "Do you really want to skip this cutscene?" dialogue.
--Good Solution: Psychonauts lets you re-watch cutscenes.
-Text speed customization.
-Postgame content, if nothing else in the form of collectibles and difficulty levels.
-Invertable (seperate) flight/aiming controls.
-Autosave, especially in very level-based games.
-(Never make me run towards the camera. 99% of the time, this isn't a good way to do it.)

RPGS:
-No truly random encounters (a la FF1, Lufia 1, etc - instead do it like Lufia 2 or Paper Mario)
-Whenever you can see the name of an item, you can see what it does (description, probably by pressing or holding a button). That goes for spells, too.
-Always able to see max and current HP/MP.
-Give the main character a default name.

FPS:
-Different sensitivities on aiming
-Team vs mode (divided however you want)
-Weapon sets/toggles in vs mode, including make-your-own weapon sets.

Fighting:
-Tag mode, if it's reasonable.
-Team mode (both types: standard team fights (2v2) if more than two people can fight at once, and 1v1 with each controlling a group of people one after the other.)

Super Minigame Party:
-Create-your-own minigame groups (IE, only these minigames will show up in this play session, not those)

Strategy/Tactics:
-Vs mode! If it's at all feasible. Preferably with some co-op missions, as well.

Escort Missions:
-A "stay here" command.
-Never, ever should they run headfirst at an enemy that you could otherwise get the jump on or avoid.
-In fact, they should never fight except to protect themselves, you, or attack someone you're attacking. And there should be commands to cancel the second two, and run away in place of the first.