There are a few that are actually fun as games, Tifa Tanx2 being the only example that comes to mind, it’s a fun Kung Fu (NES) like beat’em up with easy combos. There are even some work-safe gameplay videos of it on YT
A lot of the games are visual novels, this is where you find a decent variety of styles, though a lot of them use daz3d models, which I don’t like. I’d wager that hentai games are like 60% VNs, 30% RPG Maker, 10% everything else
QTE “final bosses”. Seemed to be a much bigger problem in the PS3/360 era.
“Open world” or “Sandbox” games that don’t care about your progress, where it’s painfully obvious that your actions don’t matter at all. Yes, this is mostly about Starfield
Games where you can win by a landslide but the computer/story goes “Hah, you were just lucky!”
I think the 2 last points are what really end up making it such a success with kids - low attrition to start and lots of different games in one place. It takes 2 clicks to go from a parkour race to a pet care sim.
When you’re targeting kids, your graphics should be easy to understand. Bright colors, simple shapes, it’s enough. If you think about it, those graphics wouldn’t be too different from what a kid can usually draw.
Pretty sure Club Penguin only let you choose from a predetermined list of ready phrases, it worked well afaik. Roblox could do that, but something something engagement
I loved Secret of Mana and on several playthroughs, the hardest boss, for me, has always been that damn tiger in the witch’s castle. When it zig-zagged like a spike ball, the chances of getting wiped were huge. One hit = unconscious.
Capcom is 100% betting on their Japanese viewers, the west is just a “sad casualty”, so to speak. If this ends up working in their favor, expect this shit to expand to other companies and tournaments, just like pay2win did.