I need some opinions!

I'm currently doing a games development course at college and I need to do some qualitative research for my game idea.

If you have a moment, just tell me what you would want to see in a Character Action game (like Bayonetta or the Devil May Cry series) that would be in a Sci-Fi setting with possibly a Western theme (think Cowboy Bebop).

The game would follow an android that has gone rogue during an alien takeover of Earth and their journey to defeat the alien threat.

They are aesthetically female, but not actually female because y'know it's a machine.

The unique selling point of the game is that the difficulty changes dynamically, similar to how it did in God Hand.

What would you want to see out of a game like this? What things are most important to you?

Give me some opinions!

That is a pretty cool idea but if you are going to do a character action then have some top notch gameplay and great boss battles.If you are have the idea of doing a western theme then maybe have some western music then.

high quality moustaches

I don't know exactly how your college course works or any of the details but from what it sounds like from you post, the first thing I would caution you on is scope.

I don't know if this is just a class where you come up with an idea or if you ACTUALLY have to make this game. If you do have to make it, then I would advise that you need to go as simple as you can.

Beyond that, I would say that from your description, I don't really know a lot about this game. I know its a sci fi western and that the difficulty changes like in god hand (though wasn't God Hand also a sci fi western?) I know that it is a character action game but I don't know the details beyond that. I would start by looking at the reviews of Bayonetta 2 and how they describe the unique combat of that game and use that for an example of how you could describe the combat in your own. (For example, I understand there is something called Witch Time and that counters are important.)

Of course, fleshing out these details are difficult. But it is necessary. It separates vague concepts from game ideas. I like Dan, but one thing that annoyed me recently was when he was talking about Dead or Alive on the Playstation TV segment that just came out. When referring to the Virtual Fighter characters in that game, he said he said they seem like they would fit in DOA because (paraphrasing) 'There's no projectiles and shit and they are both 3D' That is a very surface level reading of the fighting of the two games. The details do make them quite different, even though they may not look it.

I mean, if you are only coming up with a game idea, I'm not saying you have to figure EVERYTHING out. But to be a game, it has to be a little more than 'sci fi western with robot girl fighting aliens'.

Tell us what makes this a game idea, and not just an idea for an anime.

The combat has to be fluid, powerful, and reward you for combos. Think Arkham City mixed with God of War: [any sequel you'd like to insert here]. In Arkham games, the combat is fluid and heavily based around combos. The more combos, the more powerful you get. In GoW games, you're a monster. You can wreck anything and everything that comes your way. Something that turns me off about Bayonetta is that you have guns that feel like they are just "pew pew" guns that don't really do much. Same with DmC. God of War lets you wreck everybody. Some of the encounters are made tougher, however, by larger, powerful enemies. They don't handicap you, they just make your enemies more powerful. Same with Arkham.