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

[bitrate]

NES Dragon Warrior 4 is one of my favorite games of all time. However, there is one "feature" in this game that nearly ruined it for me - the artificial intelligence given to the other members of your party during battles.
I can understand where they were trying to go with this, but I can remember it being a collosal disappointment after playing previous Dragon Warrior games where you had control of your party members.

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, I'll second the "no save between battles". I don't care if the battles are quick, but in something like a strategy RPG where each can take upwards of an hour? Yeah, fuck you, developers. That was one of the main things that really soured me on Valkyrie Profile on DS. Once you get about halfway through the game, practically every battle is either a double battle like that or, equally as annoying, "protect so-and-so from dying" battles, where of course the A.I. is horrible and you can lose a battle purely by bad luck and no fault of your own.

For something more game-specific: the whip sound effect in Castlevania Bloodlines. Drives me nuts.

[MissingNo_1231]

also in Pokemon Blue I was pretty close to catching missingno once. thankfully I didn't cause i'm pretty sure that would have ruined Pokemon for me.

MissingNo. was one of the most trusted members of my team. Sure, all the text in the game got corrupted, and eventually my save file got erased, but it was totally worth it, lol.

Baten Kaitos on Gamecube has some of the nicest graphics on the system, but also some of the worst voice acting ever. Almost ruins the game for me.

[Cryomancer]

I call this phenomenon "Meat Circus".

[tom]

Salamander for the MSX. Two things ruin the game for me:

-Reqiures Gradius 2 to get the good ending. WTF was Konami thinking?
-TOO DAMN HARD!!! You die once, and you might as well start over, as it's impossible to recover.

Speaking of games being so hard you can't recover after dying, EVERY R-Type game I've played up to R-Type Delta is just ruined because recovery is impossible after dying.

So your nick shouldn't be Ace?.....

[Rogue]

The wall jump in Super Metroid.

There's a part where they force you to use it, where they have little critters demonstrate it for you. However, executing it is very hard. It seems like they didn't finish the wall jump controls. To top it off, that part is close to a save point, so if you save right before you do it, you can be stuck there for a long time.

The rest of the game is spectacular, which makes that difficult part stand out more (in a bad way) than it would in other games.

Really?

I think that's very easy! Actually, the Super Mario 64' wall kick is harder. I mean, not to execute, but, like in the 15th course, you have to do a lot of times to get all the blue coins. If you're going for a record and miss one, you have to restart the whole course! Not just this tiny part, like Metroid.

On that part you can even turn a ball in the air and get inside the entrance to get an extra missile.
And in the later parts of the game when you get used to it, it helps a lot.
I really think that's pretty easy... =)

[exit]

Games where you literally have no clue on what to do, this is especially bad when you stop playing said game for a while. I tried getting back into Soul Reaver after I had stopped playing it for quite some time, with help from YouTube and some guessing, I was able to get back on the right track. Then a few minutes later I again had no idea what to do, went back on YouTube and then saw that I had to do some pretty obscure stuff, then I remembered why I stopped playing the game.

I like the whole open world feeling, but some upgrades you actually need were tucked away in places you'd never look, yet the health upgrades and such are practically in plain sight. Either newer games have really dumbed me down, or the developers were just evil masterminds.

The wall jump in Super Metroid

The wall jump can be tricky at times, I remember playing the game with my brother way back in 1994 and we had a bit of a problem doing it. I got better at it as I got older and eventually I was able to do it flawlessly, fired the game up not too long ago and I was still able to do it pretty decently.

[calistarwind]

I always hate when there is 15 or so minutes of dialogue in a game before a boss battle or event. Then it just so happens you die but when you start the game back from your save point you are treated to the same 15 minutes of dialogue with no way to jump past it (see Dragon Age).

[j_factor]

For something more game-specific: the whip sound effect in Castlevania Bloodlines. Drives me nuts.

Then play as Eric Lecarde.

[ccovell]

Unskippable training levels in modern (and newer 2D) games.

"Edge" and Angst.

[Rogue]

Those damn "do this...", "press some button to do that" type of messages...

A lot of games, for example Tomb Raider AoD, Legend, Anniversary and Underworld are doomed with this type of bullsh$% of this decade.

2001-2010: The noob (or lazy?) gamer decade.

[ReTrO-pLaYeR]

The fourth level in Battletoads Double Dragon pretty much ruins the game for me. Other than that one level, I love it. But that level sucks so much.

Right on! The poorly designed asteriods-esque controls, worthless lock-on system and ridiculously cheap enemies assure most players aren't going to finish the game. Almost makes me happy that Rareware never decided to get into shoot 'em ups if they couldn't do that one level correctly. Somebody along the lines should also mention the Wind Tunnel in the original Battletoads.

[shadows]

That green gooey monster, can't remember it's name in Earthworm Jim (Genesis). Love the game , good music/gameplay. But when I get to that boss ,which up until that point is pretty easy . I just want to bump the cars of the game designers off a cliff and watch them go up into a fiery ball. Maybe I should look up a cheat code and just skip it.

[Aussie2B]

Then play as Eric Lecarde.

I know that. :P I like using both characters.

[Jehusephat]

I didn't mind the way saving in Borderlands worked. I had a lot of fun with that game, and I'll probably play it again on new game+ mode once I'm done with Demon's Souls. Scooter, on the other hand, almost ruined the game for me. "This is where the cars live! Git you one!"

The game that's currently being ruined for me is The Bard's Tale for the NES. I love the genre, and the game looks like a lot of fun. Someone seemed to think that letting the game programmers write their own music was a good idea, however, so I'm forced to listen to what I'm guessing is a cat walking across a keyboard for the duration of the game. I've tried to play it many times, but the music makes me stop about 15 minutes in every time. I actually think it has some of the worst music of any game, ever.

[mobiusclimber]

Oh another I hate (yeah yeah I'm always going to be picking on RPGs since it's one of the few genres I play): poor voice acting and stereotypical characters. It's why I gave up on Enchanted Arms after about half an hour. Not only is the gay character horribly voice acted but he was so over-the-top flamboyant and such a horrible horrible caricature I just couldn't stand playing the game.

In fact, the only stereotype that gets a pass is Barrett. Cuz Mr. T is fuckin awesome.

[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.

[Soviet Conscript]

Oh another I hate (yeah yeah I'm always going to be picking on RPGs since it's one of the few genres I play): poor voice acting and stereotypical characters. It's why I gave up on Enchanted Arms after about half an hour. Not only is the gay character horribly voice acted but he was so over-the-top flamboyant and such a horrible horrible caricature I just couldn't stand playing the game.

In fact, the only stereotype that gets a pass is Barrett. Cuz Mr. T is fuckin awesome.

i found the over the top gay character the only entertaining aspect of enchanted arms, a game i found incredibly ho-hum and boreing. hes not even really in most of the game. if he really bothers you and for some reason you like the game just keep playing for a bit longer, he goes away.

[Emperor Megas]

Intros and cut scenes that you can't skip.

[jdc]

Playing in the morning (it's how I like to wake up)......no save point after a while of gaming....and then a long series of non-skippable cutscenes with the realization that "this isn't going to end anytime soon and I've GOT to leave for work!".....and having to simply quit out without a save, losing a few hours of gaming. This is why I now simply level grind an rpg if it's the morning of a workday, lol.