How do you feel about games where note taking is considered required by the developers?
Vagrant Story is a good example. It is the lesser known of the Ivalice games made by Squaresoft but has a cult following from its tone, presentation and gameplay.
Being somewhere between Parasite Eve and Demon's Souls you play a 'Riskbreaker' who devs into the ruins of a sunken city to chase the instigators of a political coup. Inside this ancient ruin there are wild animals, bandits, undead, demons and all variety of monsters in between.
What made it stand out was the combat. Like Parasite Eve you move in real time but pause to select an enemy in your sphere of influence. Only in VS you can select body parts with their own hit and accuracy ratings as well as the games key component: elemental and damage type weaknesses.
You may fight the first wolves and bats with your base none elemental slashing blade weapon just fine. But not too far in you will run into things like Ghosts that can only be harmed by blunt weapons imbued with certain elements. How do you figure this out? by finding new weapons and trial and error. Does the game tell you the weaknesses? nope. Does it list them after you discover them? nope. So you need to take down notes yourself to make progress or reach points where you are out of items and cannot progress at all.
Do you like or dislike this idea? Should the game do everything for you? or is this just another layer to the gameplay?