There are many ways a game can allow players to unlock content, and according to TGR's Lawrence Sonntag, Patapon 2 chooses a method of unnecessary obscurity.
Beneath all the Smash and shovelware, the Wii really did have quite a few gems.
Not a bad list.. I would add Excitebots, Kororinpa 1 & 2, Bit.Trip series, Geometry Wars: galaxies
In the past, these games wouldn't have received a second lease of life. While it's sometimes easy to roll an eye and dismiss remasters as double-dipping, in the cases of the games that time (almost) forget, there's an undeniable joy in seeing a new audience discover them for the first time.
It's been well documented how gaming has struggled to hold onto its past, in terms of older games becoming inaccessible due to hardware moving on, in ways that film and music have never quite had to. With remasters like these, the hope is that foundations are being laid for these sort of cult curios to exist for a long while yet.
"Through a series of opinion articles on biweekly basis, I (Joaquim), Gil and Carla will present and share our experience with several Nipponese game series that have been marked over the years, whether they are, all It depends exclusively on the experiences we had with them and their origin. Thus, both can present an article a lot less known as Patapon, as other more popular, as Sonic, Final Fantasy or The Legend of Zelda."
Interesting take on unlocking game content. I disagree with it completely, but it still makes sense from this sort of perspective.
I think both sides of the issue have merit. I don't particularly care for the God of War style upgrades, but I loved Patapon. You might say that Patapon was the Master of Unlocking.
As the author said, I think a combination of the two mentioned ideas is the best bet. Direct unlocks (in-game stores for virtual points) is too direct, but hiding the ways to unlock things defeats the purpose. A progressive system thats rewards your time spent witht he game without overloading you with semi-useless items (concept art) would be swell.