Features that make you love a game.

[Mercen-X]

This is fairly off-topic, but I had this idea once. By now, it's been done somewhere most probably but by whom I know not. Anyway, it's something between a Generational game (like Agarest) and a Tactics game, I suppose. You start off as a "custom" character, that being you choose your gender, "ethnicity", and base stats (choosing from a selection of pre-established stats created by beta testers) and you go through a training regimen to get used to the controls and further personalize your statistics. Then you'll be thrown head-first into the game. Each time you die, your final stats will be "merged" with another set of base stats of your choosing. Dying a second time, you can choose to merge the stats of your first two play-throughs. Because this is akin to birthing a new character, you aren't able to choose ethnicity or gender. You'll then pick up where you left off prior to dying.

Also, post-credits gameplay. Not quite New Game+ which let's you start over with everything you had the end, but just let me back in to explore the world for anything I may have missed (for people who didn't have access to a game guide). Also, it's great when at least a couple of extras are tossed in. Extra bosses, extra dungeons, preferably with their own narratives. Seriously though, POST-credits. What's the point an optional boss before you beat the game. If you beat him, you already know you'll own the final boss.

Just occurring to me: a fighting game where after using a character to play through the tournament, that character gets New Game+ options like not having to beat the final boss and unlocking branching battles.