You might be thinking "what's so special about a pause menu?" You just press the pause button and a menu comes up and that's it, right? How can on possibly improve upon something so basic? By delaying the pause menu, that's how. Accidentally hitting pause is, at worst, an inconvenience that might cost you some vitality in an online match if you're playing by yourself. In tournaments however, accidentally hitting the pause button can result in forfeiture of a round, which can be especially nerve-wracking if you're playing on a controller with the pause button so close to all of your face buttons. Plenty of fight sticks try to avoid this problem by putting the pause button out of the way of your fingers or even including a lock switch to prevent such buttons from working, but surely, there must be a more elegant solution. There is. In Skullgirls, tapping the pause button does nothing. If you hold the pause button for a few seconds however, the game will then pause. By delaying the pause menu for just a few seconds, you remove any concern one might have about disqualification from competitive play. With a solution this simple, we don't really understand how this isn't standard in every single fighting game. What did we miss? Sound off in the comments section below and let us know which features you think should be in every fighter!
Ken was born in 1994, and before the turn of the century, he was already a gamer for life, starting with Pokémon Blue Version. He has a passion for storytelling, especially in the gaming medium. Growing up on a healthy diet of JRPGs and point and click adventure games, young Kenny grew up playing Nintendo and Sony consoles, before becoming a snobby member of the PC Master Race. Nowadays, he resides in a time warp, refusing to believe the nineties ended as he fills up his Steam library with old point and clicks and cRPGs.
