Glitches Ruin Games

I've been playing titles in the Harvest Moon series for years now. The quality of the titles definitely vary, but one thing has been for sure: they have always been technically sound games for the most part. Sure, like any game, you'd spot a small glitch here and a minor bug there, but it was nothing that could ruin the entire experience...

...until Harvest Moon DS was released, however.

Harvest Moon DS, game play and design wise, is actually a very enjoyable entry in the series. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but I'm sure I'd still get a few hundred hours of enjoyment out of it, which is a good thing in my book.

The major problem is, the lack of adequate play testing from the developers has really shown in this product. Glitches abound in Harvest Moon DS - enough, in fact, to ruin the game as a whole.

Not only will you find tons of little glitches, you will find crucial ones as well: bugs that corrupt your actual game save. Even if you've been treating the cartridge with care and have been saving without shutting the power off, your game save will eventually become corrupted for no apparent reason.

After wasting a few months of play time in Harvest Moon DS I decided enough was enough. I speedily drove to the nearest Gamestop and pawned off my copy. I lost a bit of money, but it's definitely superior having $7 in your pocket than an unplayable release.

Even if a game itself is top-notch, glitches can completely ruin it. Despite the fact that game prises are actually rising there seems to be no end to this mess. So the moral of the story is... developers, test yer damn products!

Related article: Poor Play Testing + A Rushed Product = A Broken Game

Poor Play Testing + A Rushed Product = A Broken Game

There is a growing trend in the industry that seems to be affecting all types of games, regardless of genre, size, or console. Despite the leaps and bounds we’ve made in technology through the years, numerous “glitchy”, barely-tested games are hitting the market. In fact, this seems to be becoming more and more acceptable with game publishers who just want to make a quick buck by putting their title on the market without thoroughly testing it.

Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about this problem besides voting with our wallets. If you have heard about a game being filled with bugs then simply DO NOT purchase it. If you would try to return a bug-ridden game to the store you would only be provided with the same copy, and most of the time game publishers could care less about these bugs. A popular and well-known game publisher, Activision, provides walk-throughs and tips on how to get past known bugs in their products, but this is rare and if they didn’t’ have these rushed products filled with bugs in the first place it would not even be necessary. Many PC games provide patches for these problems, but on consoles it is not too often that a patch is released to fix some known-issues in a game (the only title I could think of is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the Xbox 360).

One recent occurrence of a major glitch is SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighter’s Clash for the Nintendo DS, and this one is a doozy. This huge glitch prevents you from progressing through the game at a certain point, and the sad thing about this is that it wasn’t found in the original Japanese release. That’s a sign of piss-poor play-testing, and so far the official word from SNK on this issue is, simply,

"We're looking into it".

Um, thanks for that response, guys, but some people blew $30 on this broken game. Sadly, this occurrence is happening more and more often in games and needs to be stopped before it becomes even more of a problem.

Update: SNK is offering replacement cartridges for those who have received the initial broken version of the game, but the growing trend of glitch-ridden games continues...