Perhaps this is an obnoxious take on my part, but video games should, above all things, prioritize the ability of being paused. At any point. Regardless of whether it's during a cutscene, a special animation, or a time-based puzzle. You never know when you're gonna get a phone call, or someone will need you in another room, or you get a sudden urge to go to the bathroom, or you hear your cat licking plastic, or whatever. Other entertainment mediums like books, movies, and music can be paused whenever you want. Why do some games not give you the same luxury??
This is one thing I really appreciate about the Nintendo Switch as a platform. You press the HOME button and whatever game you're playing pauses, period, no exception.
Also something I like about playing old games in emulators, you can always pause the emulator.
Like ideally you want pausing to be implemented at the platform level, and not in the hands of the game developer.
On small multiplayer games it should be possible for a player to request a pause and other players to approve, maybe. Might be a pain to implement though.
