When Furries Aren't The Worst Part Of A Game- Dust: An Elysian Tail

I was told my numerous people that I would really like this game, due to my love of the Castlevania series.  I didn't really trust their assumption, so I waited for the game.  Thankfully I did abd ended up getting it for free on Xbox 360.  I was originally hesitant on buying this game mainly because it starred furries and furries are just strange.  I sort of got over that fact, but every once in a while I would just think "Why does this guy have to be a god damned furry?"  It honestly ruins a lot of the fun.  Hell, they could have made the character an ACTUAL animal and it would have been so much better.  Okamiden did that really well, and I didn't feel at all uncomfortable, like I was participating in someone's fetish that stems from a childhood of abuse.

 Other than the awkward character design choice, the game is passable.  It's not really all that challenging, and the combo system lacks any sort of inspiration, but then again I really didn't expect much from a game like this.  There is a glaring issue though, something that I find even worse than furries; the constant mini tutorials as soon as you find any item, or have to use a specific ability, or really anything.  I honestly don't know where this trend of stopping the action in a game to tell someone how to use something very simple AND THEN HAVE THE CHARACTERS HAVE SOME SORT OF CONVERSATION AND MAKE THIS WHOLE THING A PART OF THE STORY OF THE GAME.  Really?  Why did I have to listen to this crap three times in the first fifteen minutes of the game?  Does everyone think that all gamers are too stupid to figure out how to press buttons without being explicitly told that they must hit said button?  Why did the developer think this was a good idea, especially when trying to make a retro-styled video game?  It makes absolutely no sense.  Back in the early ninties we didn't have this crap, and I was like four and could figure stuff out without being told.  Why now that I'm in my mid twenties, that now all of a sudden I have to be told what to do all of the time?  There are essentially two extra buttons on the controller and one extra stick for directions.  I can figure this stuff out on my own.  I can read now, I can do complex algebra problems, I went to college and stuff.  I think I can figure out how to press some buttons.  The funniest part about this is, it's always the simple games that are the biggest offenders of this too.

 The Elder Scrolls games can be super complicated, and sometimes actually needs to teach you how to do things, but they were smart enough to realize that having some random NPC tell you to hit the right trigger to attack would just be ridiculous.  How do they get around this?  They have a small piece of text come up at the beginning of the game to show you what to do when you absolutely need to use said ability.  It's there for new people to read just in case they need it, but not in the way for those who know what they're doing.  They also have small blurbs of text come up during loading screens that teaches you about items, weapons, enemies, and just about anything in the game.  It's not in the way, it doesn't distract from the story, it doesn't make the game feel like it's just a video game and not a world to explore.  Another great example of how to tell people what to do is the tutorial system in From Software's Souls series.  They slapped down some messages in strategic areas in the very beginning of the game that you can read if you want, or ignore.  The message system is so rich and well done with these games that the tutorial messages look like they were placed there by other people while playing the game.  Now I look like an RPG elitist, but whatever.  The whole point is, this stopping the game to tell me the most basic of things is just annoying, and it really needs to stop.