You're acting like coding subtitles to only be forced for certain dialogues is difficult, but movies have been doing it since laserdiscs in the mid-90s. It's not that difficult, at all.

Difference here:
* In a movie, the forced subtitles are baked into the movie, and there's no logic needed here.
* In a game where things are rendered in real time, the game must check the subtitles to see which type it is before displaying it, along with checking the status of the subtitle setting.

This may not be difficult to implement, but it adds more complexity to the game's coding, and each increase of complexity comes with it a bigger surface for bugs, which means more testing. The Fallout New Vegas is an example of this issue. (Part of the reason Bethesda games are so buggy is that they're so ambitions; they implement so many features that there isn't time to thoroughly test every possible permutation.

I could also point out that voice acting is more expensive than subtitles; hence it makes more sense for a game to skip voice acting than to skip subtitles.

Over here we've always had optional subtitles on TV... it just involved duck tape :-P

But seriously, TV programs (analog tv) had optional subtitles for programs in the native language (Dutch here) via this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext

Anyway, enough going off topic (for me).

Without spoken dialogue they're not called subtitles; it's just...text.
I'm pretty sure that in some old games text was written first, then voiced. So technically they're not subtitles - but in the end what difference does it make? I believe Monkey Island 2 is such an example (I could be wrong). Of course, only the developers know what came first, the text or the voices.
I played all the Lucasarts adventures text-only, until Full Throttle.

Nah, DVDs and the like have multiple subtitle tracks and they're player generated. Sometimes they're burned into the image, but it's rare. The players even detect which region you're in and auto-play the appropriate audio and subtitle tracks automatically. Obviously they default to off, but show subtitles for foreign languages. This is the common sense things games should do (and usually do), but some mess it up.

The thing here is that any subtitles that play when subtitles are turned off are probably baked into the video itself, unlike every others.

In any case, htere is another difference between games and movies:
* If you want to test a movie's subtitles, and the movie is 3 hours long, you just need 6 total hours of testing (with subtitles on and with them off). (If subtitles are available in multiple languages, you need to test each language, so there's an extra 3 hours needed per additional language, but the result is still manageable.)
* If you want to test a game's subtitles, you need to play through the entire game (probably with some debug mode enabled), and you have to be careful to hit every single line of dialog. For any game with a substantial amount of text, is takes much longer than 3 hours, and depending on the game, multiple playthroughs are required to get everything. (Remember that some lines of dialog may be affected by the race, class, and gender of the player character in games with character customization.) So, this takes far more time and resources, and it's still easy to miss some obscure line of dialog somewhere in the game.

But isn't 'decision making' a skill too? I mean, I understand what are you getting at - your definition is based on your notion of "roleplay" where you want a game to present you with a character with skills and abilities different from your own and allow you to feel what it would be like. But reflexes aren't the only type of skills.

In fact, there are games where characters DO have skills like "strategical thinking" and "sabotage" and skill-check for the success of the entire "operation" like going to the dungeon or sneaking into the fortress and assassinating some major character (the latter is an example from Total War games). Does that implies that the game, where you actually wandering around the dungeon by yourself or deciding how to attack aren't RPGs for they demand some tactical skills on your part?

No, they're not. My main hobby is collecting films on DVD and Blu-ray, I know what I'm talking about. Burned in subtitles for foreign languages are very rare. Almost everything is player generated.

I don't know why you insist that a simple coding command to make subtitles appear for elven dialog no matter what is some kind of really difficult issue, but I promise you it isn't. It's a simple oversight when it doesn't happen. I'm not gonna debate it any more because it's silly.

Except for Assassin's Creed Odyssey I still have to se what you claim yet.
Have you ever seen the arms of professional archers? And they use composit bows, not the heavy long bows often used in games.
In most games you have to level "dexterity" to use bows, which is completely bollocks. First you need the muscles to actually charge and hold a bow, only then we start talking about actually aiming (and holding the 150 long bow charged while doing so).

Yes, playing Tomb Raider as a dude would so very much improve the game. Or playing Duke Nukem as Lisa Nukem. Sure, why not. Kylie Katarn COULD be the main protagonist of Jedi Knight (since the story is quite gender neutral), but she's not. It's Kyle Katarn.
I don't play "me" in the games, I play that charakter who is the center of the story, HIS or HER personality, not mine. But then again ... I am a adventure player mostly (and read a lot of novels) and those are built around characters. I CAN relate to different personalities. Maybe too many people have not enough immagination to really get into a story where "they" are not the main protagonist.

Skill points ... I was quite happy playing Turrican and Doom (original) without skill points, Leaving the player too much choice also means that the level has to be completeable WITHOUT these skills.
Sure, there are games where skill trees make sense, but no, not every action game should have them.

This: Are you going to say that female here has no muscles?

That's just one melee-fighting Amazon warrior from a late 80's game though, not an archer.

Great. You found one. Now there's 2 exceptions, even if she's not really an archer, as the previous poster stated.
But then again, I too was not very specific in my first post, even if I went more into bows later. However ... she's still an exception.

This is a picture of a game with a woman climbing walls and shooting thousands of arrows (also check out the latest Tomb Raider Titles)
https://i1.wp.com/gametimers.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/horizon-zero-dawn.jpg?fit=1600%2C900&ssl=1]

Also these use arrows on a regular base, at least if they are hunters.
https://am24.mediaite.com/tms/cnt/uploads/2014/05/wow-female-640x344.jpg

No, I am NOT claiming that NO women in games have muscles, but you will find it much easier to find those without muscles than it is to find those with muscles.

And? Your "exceptions" are not as exceptional as you think. Thre are plenty of women in games who have muscles. There are many men, who don't. Look: Yes, I know it's from the film, but there are many games based on those films.

Maybe, but not by a large margin. Most female characters in fighting games are muscular enough. And...

An alternative might be to use a system that allows for more fluid character customization, where the player isn't locked in to the choices; that way, if the level is not completable with the player's current build, the player can just change their build and try again. Simply adding the option of respecing at every check point to a skill point system would be enough to fix the problem. (This is assuming a checkpoint system for saving, and that the game ensures the player is safe on reload; in fact, I would go as far as to not store the precise state of the game, and just reload with the player at full health/resources and the enemies in their starting positions at full health.)

On the other hand, skill points aren't necessary in action games; they aren't necessary in RPGs either. Often, a simple leveling system, while not ideal as far as growth systems are concerned, will work well enough, or you could even go with something like SaGa 2's heterogeneous growth system (though I should point out that Humans and Espers grow too slowly in that game).

I love horror games!
But for me, horror games are about story/atmosphere/stealthy gameplay, etc.
They're not, or shouldn't be about stupid stress-inducing gameplay tricks, like:
- "If boss monster X kills me, the game will delete all my saves/progress"
- "I have one bullet and 50 gazillion monsters are heading my way"
- etc.
The Resident Evil games are fine horror games when played on Easy mode!

Always lead off with the unpopular part first, eh? ;)