Final Fantasy Tactics Remake - UI Breakdown

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Final Fantasy Tactics Remake - UI Breakdown

Final Fantasy Tactics has been my favourite game for almost 30 years now - so when the Nvidia leak of 2021 sparked rumors of a remake, you could say I was interested.

FFT is a game that has never really had a definitive version - previous ports and remasters have all had pretty major shortcomings. More to the point though, Tactics is also a game that has a lot of room to improve when it comes to explaining itself. Now that the Remake has been announced, lets dig into how the modernizations and updated UI might address that!

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How Sekiro Could Have Done Accessibility

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How Sekiro Could Have Done Accessibility

We’ve talked about how Sekiro manages it’s difficulty, and found that in general, the game suffers a lot from a lack of options. Sekiro is a very specific kind of game, meant to be played a very specific way.

But what about those who want to experience the game, but need a little bit of help getting there? Let’s brainstorm some accessibility options Sekiro could have added.

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Difficulty, Accessibility, and How Sekiro Failed at Both

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Difficulty, Accessibility, and How Sekiro Failed at Both

Whenever a high-profile, difficult game is released, we see the same arguments about difficulty and accessibility in games, and few titles have embodied this phenomenon as wholly as Sekiro, Many people feel they just can’t play the game, whether because it’s too hard, or because it’s lacking accessibility options.

So let’s look at why that feeling is valid, and how Sekiro could have done it better.

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How Devil May Cry 5 Encourages You to Play the Right Way

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How Devil May Cry 5 Encourages You to Play the Right Way

One phrase you will often hear if you hang out in gaming circles for a while, is that “there’s no wrong way to play a game”, but I don’t necessarily agree. I think one of the biggest successes in Devil May Cry 5 is that they did a good job of guiding the player down the path that is the most fun to play.

Here’s how they accomplished that…

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Redesigning Red Dead Redemption II's Menu

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Redesigning Red Dead Redemption II's Menu

Previously, I posted talking about the UI/UX of Red Dead Redemption II, and came to the conclusion that, it wasn’t really worth trying to fix or analyse. But after thinking about it, and talking to friends and colleagues about it, I eventually came to the conclusion that perhaps the game’s pause menu was one area that actually was worth a look. So here is my attempt at redesigning that menu from the ground up.

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User Experience, Gamification, and Why Red Dead Redemption II is a Bad Video Game

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User Experience, Gamification, and Why Red Dead Redemption II is a Bad Video Game

In theory, a UX designer’s job is to solve the problem of “It wasn’t anybody’s job to think about this from the player’s point of view, and now we accidentally have an unintuitive game that’s hard to understand, and a chore to play”.

But what happens when that’s the point?

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UI Comparison: Assassin’s Creed Origins vs. Odyssey

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UI Comparison: Assassin’s Creed Origins vs. Odyssey

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey sits in an interesting position wherein, it is so very similar to it’s older brother, Assassin’s Creed Origins. So many of the screens, systems, and mechanics are inherited nearly exactly, and so it serves as a fun comparison to look at what parts of it’s UI it decided to change, and why. So hey, let’s do that!

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Octopath Traveler UI/UX Review

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Octopath Traveler UI/UX Review

Octopath Traveler is a game that clearly takes a large amount of inspiration from JRPGs of yore, but the question is, when we’re dealing with a genre that historically has stuck to very menu-heavy, straightofrward interfaces, how does this translate into a modern game's UI/UX experience? Let’s take a look at Octopath Traveler, and see how it fares.


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How I Build My UI in World of Warcraft

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How I Build My UI in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft and I go way back- all the way to 2006 in fact. And while it's been several years now since I actively played, Blizzard still manages to pull me back for every new expansion, and the upcoming Battle for Azeroth is no exception. A new expansion means setting up my UI again for the umpteenth time, so I wanted to use this as a chance to walk through how and why I make all the UI decisions I do.


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