That little thing that ruins (or almost ruins) a great game

[Johnny_Boy]

Drastic, sudden spikes in difficulty frequently act as a metaphoric "brickwall" that brutally ends my run on certain titles. I sometimes wish I knew a gaming "wiz-kid" in my neighbourhood, so I could pay him to pull me out of those trenches, like in a certain Penny-Arcade strip. Cheating isn't always an available option...

[Rickstilwell1]

That in X-Men Legends games, Angel/Archangel is not a playable character, even though he was one of the first major X-Men and ended up saving everybody's arses when they were falling to their doom in the comics episode after episode. You don't even get him in multiplayer mode after defeating his brainwashed form in #2. I mean come on...

[bacteria]

I hate the fact that about 1/3 into a game the difficulty cranks up past being "fun to play" and the boss levels get too hard to be enjoyable. I get that a lot Currently, playing Medieval on the PSP, doing well, maybe 1/3 - 1/2 through the game, keep failing to kill the two winged bats enough times to pass the boss level, going to give up on the game soon as can't progress otherwise. Had the same on Donkey Kong 64, lovely game on the N64, again, half way through, can't get past a boss level (the one where you shoot your character through a cannon to blast away parts of the evil character) - can do half of the boss level but not the rest = end of game as can't get past the boss level.

That I find is really annoying in a game - making it harder, too hard in fact and detracting from the fact that a game stops being fun when you can't achieve the result. You pay your money for a game and can only play half of it; yeah, thanks programmers

[deltoidsteep]

Not being able to skip a cutscene takes the cake for me. Not being able to skip it the first time is fine. There's a story being told and I would like to hear it. But if I die and have to watch it over and over and over I'm likely to stop playing the game. This ruined Mass Effect for me

[SegaAges]

I hate the fact that about 1/3 into a game the difficulty cranks up past being "fun to play" and the boss levels get too hard to be enjoyable. I get that a lot Currently, playing Medieval on the PSP, doing well, maybe 1/3 - 1/2 through the game, keep failing to kill the two winged bats enough times to pass the boss level, going to give up on the game soon as can't progress otherwise. Had the same on Donkey Kong 64, lovely game on the N64, again, half way through, can't get past a boss level (the one where you shoot your character through a cannon to blast away parts of the evil character) - can do half of the boss level but not the rest = end of game as can't get past the boss level.

That I find is really annoying in a game - making it harder, too hard in fact and detracting from the fact that a game stops being fun when you can't achieve the result. You pay your money for a game and can only play half of it; yeah, thanks programmers

This happened to me in Dragon Age Origins. I flew through the game pretty easily, and then could not beat the final dragon.

[Zing]

I strongly agree with the complaints concerning Nintendo adding unnecessary voices to the remakes. I first noticed it on Super Mario Advance. I, too, felt that it totally ruined the game. I even went so far as to make a post about it on some other forums and people there had no idea what I was complaining about. It was also bad in Yoshi's Island (Advance). Why does he need to make a sound every time he jumps. "Yoshiiiiii!"

I am currently finishing up Super Mario World (Advance) and it still annoys me. I get to hear crap like "Just what I needed!" every single time I grab a mushroom.

[mezrabad]

1. Not allowing the camera Y Axis to be remapped to inverted. I remember I had just gotten Quake and Duke Nukem 3D, one allowed the remapping and the other didn't.... don't remember which, but I finished Quake, so I'm betting Quake allowed the remapping or at least was default to what I preferred.

2. Not allowing player to skip past cut scenes. I understand that it would be frustrating if a player could accidentally skip past, but there should really be an optional setting that you could turn on skipping past cut scenes in every game.

I can't say that #2 is a deal breaker, but #1 sure has been.

3. Hard to complete games. Make the side quests as hard as you want, but please let me get to the end if there is a story. It would be like getting to a page in a book that's too hard to read... or a part in a movie that stops you about 30 minutes before the end unless you can guess the secret code.

Sure, some games are supposed to be hard and should take skill to play, but if there's an actual story, let me finish it, regardless, give me a different ending (other than You're Dead) so I can get on with my life.

[exit]

Been playing Breath of Fire and it reminded me of something I hate more than anything. Not being able to progress because you didn't talk to some fuckwad in some random town and the game not even letting you know you can't progress, yet you're told you have to go North by someone in the town you just left. Thus leaving you wander around some forest for 2 hours, wandering how the hell you're supposed to go North when there are trees in the way.

Oh so I need a saw?! How about having one of the characters say HEY WE CAN'T GO ANY FURTHER BECAUSE OF ALL THESE FUCKING TREES, LETS CUT THEM DOWN SOMEHOW!

There's was a cut scence near the end of God of War 2 that I had to watch over and over again. It preceeded a quick time event, where someone was trying to kill you with a sword. I can't quite remember what the character was, but it did not let you skip it.

You're talking about the fight with Zeus and yes, that was extremely frustrating, but not nearly as bad as the final fight in the first GOW. The game wouldn't recognize me pressing the button and as a result, I saw the same death scene about 30 times.

[Red Warrior]

I was going to answer this topic, but I can't get past the original post, which DISSES the voice acting in Star Fox 64. Star Fox 64 is the most quotable game in the history of video games, and I'm not even exaggerating.

You know on board 8 on GameFAQs, they recently did a March Madness style bracket of the 64 most memorable quotes from SF64 to determine the best one. The fact that there were even 64 lines from one space shooter that people gave multiple nominations for, think about that. People love that game.

CAN'T LET YOU BREW THAT, STARBUCKS.

Seconded.

Star Fox in Iraq

[Therealqtip]

Paper Mario 2 had it bad for me, sometimes you'd be stuck at a boss (2nd to last boss right here) I couldn't kill him and have enough health potions to fight the last boss. So I made this elaborate scheme that I would kill so many monsters in the begining of the castle come back kill 2nd to last boss then level up so I'd have full health and FP. That's bullshit what kind of game is that? Oh god now don't get me started on the very last fight. What the fuck is this? Final Fantasy? I've seen this god forsaken 10 minute cut scene 2145215 times. oh and if that wasn't enough..they give you another 10 minute cut scene in the middle of the battle! God the ending basically ruins the game. That's another game I can't beat cause I hate those cut scenes and now it's been to long I'd have to relearn all the moves

[The 1 2 P]

Mine is simple since I just beat this game last month. Quantum of Solace for the 360. I played thru the entire campaign on the hardest difficulty and loved it. I'm a huge fan of Casino Royale(which you get to play thru flashbacks of that movie as well as QoS) so this game just expanded the movie even more for me. Now for my beef....

After I finsihed beating the game I went and played the online multiplayer to check it out and get some extra achievements. So why the hell did it keep making me swing my fist everytime I was aiming at a dude and trying to kill him? I figured this out a few days later when checking for an achievement guide online. Apparently theres a melee button on the controller somewhere. Funny thing is, it doesn't mention any melee button in the instruction manual. It doesn't even mention it on the controller menu of the options screen. And how come it never made me try to melee anyone thru out the entire 7-10 hour campaign that I played thru? Again, apparently this "magical" button was made for online play only so that you could get a certain melee achievement. But if you don't know that and go into multiplayer, 50% of the time that you try and kill someone by aiming at them will get you killed because it will make you swing(as if you are trying to melee them) while they shoot back at you.

So that one little thing ruined the entirety of multiplayer. And even though I now know what that mysterious button is, they still should have never put it there because you can still accidentally hit it. Plus, why the fuck would you add a button feature and not mention it in the instructions?

[XYXZYZ]

Double Dragon III, NES- you only get one life. You can acquire new characters along the way, but you still have to be good enough to get to them; it's just not the same. I did manage to finish it twice, though.

Gradius games- You get your ship powered up and if you die, you start back at a checkpoint with a ship that's too slow and underpowered to stand up to the shit thrown at you in the middle of the stage. I know that's part of the challenge of Gradius and I'm not man enough to step up to it, but I cut my teeth on Life Force (NES) so it's a but much to me. I don't play Gradius or Parodius because of this.

RPGs (or any game really) that have a cool female character I like, and she develops a love interest with some shmuck I hate.

Cool shmup ports where they remove tate mode for the western release. I won't play them.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii- They obviously have a great game here, but I just can't use that fucking sideways wiimote . One of these days I'll have to hack a wiimote into a joystick.

[mEgAsHoT]

Here are some things that bug me:

-FPS Games that give you almost no direction on where to go. I'm talking about Half-Life and Half-Life 2. No nav-point or objective marker system, which leads to you endlessly wandering down hallways after you have killed every enemy trying to see where to go next. Then, once you finally find the next area, you get lost again. Rinse and repeat. HL2 is notoriously bad about this, not to mention they give you puzzles that you are supposed to solve on your own, no hints or nothing. Some of the puzzles are quite tricky, and you could be stuck for days on one if you don't know what to do.

-Little or no ammo in FPS games. Once again, Half-Life 1 and 2 come to mind. When I play both games, I always end up running out of ammo and subsequently dying. What is the point of even having guns when your ammo is scarce? I have to be playing the game wrong, because everyone else absolutely enjoys it, while I think they are just average shooters that are too difficult. Nobody told me that HL1 or 2 require strategy or to conserve bullets.

Both of these things ruin Half-Life 1 and 2 for me. The difficulty, combined with the above two issues, turn me off of the game. I played through HL2 with cheats, and it has a great story, everything about it is great. But it's just too hard, even on Easy.

Another thing that bugs me is having to go through a few screens and then fighting the final boss in RPG's. Final Fantasy 10 comes to mind. When you reach the final save point, you have to go through this slow and tedious part in the next screen where you dodge crystals and grab these items in order to progress to the next to last boss. Then you have to sit through a long, unskippable cutscene, THEN it's time for the boss. Oh, and no save points from then on either. So if you lose to the boss, you have to go through the slow crystal room, AND the long cutscene before you fight the boss again. I can't beat this boss (Braska's Final Aeon), so I'm infinitely stuck until I get the right equipment to kill him on my first try, and hope that I get lucky, so I won't have to sit through 10-15 minutes of wasted time to get to the boss again!

-One more thing in RPG's: reaching a boss and figuring out you have no chance of winning. Then you realize that you saved it right before hand. Worse of all, this is a one-time only area, so you can't go back to train up. I am stuck on one boss on Final Fantasy 12, and it's on the Dreadnought Leviathan. It's a one-time only area, and there's no way my party I have on my original save file can beat it. So I luckily created another save file beforehand to avoid having to replay through the entire game again.

[cityside75]

Originally Posted by Snapple
I was going to answer this topic, but I can't get past the original post, which DISSES the voice acting in Star Fox 64. Star Fox 64 is the most quotable game in the history of video games, and I'm not even exaggerating.

You know on board 8 on GameFAQs, they recently did a March Madness style bracket of the 64 most memorable quotes from SF64 to determine the best one. The fact that there were even 64 lines from one space shooter that people gave multiple nominations for, think about that. People love that game.

CAN'T LET YOU BREW THAT, STARBUCKS.

Seconded.

Star Fox in Iraq

I stand by my original statements, but that video is hilarious

[Rob2600]

Poor English dubbing mangled a few games other than StarFox 64 as well.

Actually, Star Fox 64 has some of the best voice acting in a video game ever.

[Robocop2]

Not being able to skip a cutscene takes the cake for me. Not being able to skip it the first time is fine. There's a story being told and I would like to hear it. But if I die and have to watch it over and over and over I'm likely to stop playing the game. This ruined Mass Effect for me

I'll second that. Another thing that always bugs me is on so many games with QTE's that the button prompts obscure the action. For example in GOW 1/2 you have this huge button right in the middle of the screen. Granted its slightly translucent but it is ridiculously distracting when I feel like I'm looking around a button to see what violent act I'm in the middle of comitting. GOW 3 did a fine job of fixing that problem though.

[somesortofrobot]

The spike glitch in Sonic 1. Ughh.

[kupomogli]

Been playing Breath of Fire and it reminded me of something I hate more than anything. Not being able to progress because you didn't talk to some fuckwad in some random town and the game not even letting you know you can't progress, yet you're told you have to go North by someone in the town you just left. Thus leaving you wander around some forest for 2 hours, wandering how the hell you're supposed to go North when there are trees in the way.

Oh so I need a saw?! How about having one of the characters say HEY WE CAN'T GO ANY FURTHER BECAUSE OF ALL THESE FUCKING TREES, LETS CUT THEM DOWN SOMEHOW!

I recently got to the end of BoF again. Make sure you keep one of those W.Ant for endgame. Finding another White Deer to kill in order to get a W.Ant took me about an hour of luck, even when staying at places animals regularly came.

[bacteria]

Gradius games- You get your ship powered up and if you die, you start back at a checkpoint with a ship that's too slow and underpowered to stand up to the shit thrown at you in the middle of the stage.

Yes, QFT

Pain in the butt - I like Gradius games, but suck at them - make your ship invincible and the game is boring, battle through most of a stage, get to the boss stage, lose a life; game changes from being a good skill level to bloody impossible, and no fun.