Frustrating Moments In Otherwise Great Games

[Seil]

Take God Of War - the first one. Now, 'cause of me financial situation, I'm unable to pick up GoW3, and have been replaying the first three games, and they're great. God of War 1 is still epic, fantastic and story-driven, though the graphics are a tad outdated. It's still a great game.

Except for Hades. Mother fucking spiked turning platforms. You remember. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sFnvPqgDNY&feature=related) The part just before Ares? The very worst part of God of War 1 was Hades.

In Psychonauts, the ending jumping puzzles are a little too tough for my liking. The circus tent, and the Meat Circus were just insanely brutal on my first run through.

Man, I guess I could rename this thread "I Hate Jumping Puzzles."

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Water Levels. (e.g. Water Temple in Zelda OoT)
Swamp Levels. (in Onimusha, the last one I think, the only one I played)
Sewer Levels. (often paired with water levels.)
Swamp-Sewer Levels (Diablo II)
Underwater sewer levels under a swamp (don't get me started)

There are so many of them in so many great games, but only so few get them right.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I never understood why everyone complains about the Hades section. I always found it to be fun.

For me, frustating moment would be the Thunder Plains in FFX. That was just unnecesary

[Melfice]

For me, frustating moment would be the Thunder Plains in FFX. That was just unnecesary

Only if you wanted Lulu's ultimate weapon.
Other than that.. eh. It was okay-ish.

[Julford Hajime]

It was still annoying and unnecessary.

Frustrating me right now, actually, is FF12. I love the Gambit system and find it a refreshing change of pace from normal RPGs, but sometimes the game can be more than just a bit of a bitch. For example, Pharos, the last dungeon, is incredibly long. To top it off, you can't leave the dungeon without redoing everything (Sans the easy boss fights sprinkled throughout). Oh, and the last chunk of it is a confusing-ass puzzle that requires you to fail it once before it even gives you the clues. Your punishment for failing is to be thrown in a pit full of enemy undead that inflict some of the strongest status effects (Confusion, Disease, Slow).


Other games that frustrate me are more often than not Strategy games like Fire Emblem and Super Robot Wars, where you can't choose reinforcements during the fight aside from story-based ones that often aren't useful enough to turn the tide of battle. Especially Fire Emblem, with it's "Somebody gets beaten once, they're dead forever" policy causing me to reset on 5% chance to hit, 1% criticals killing my super-awesome units >.>

[Seil]

I never understood why everyone complains about the Hades section. I always found it to be fun.

I strongly dislike fixed camera angles. Especially when they shift suddenly in the middle of whatever you're doing. The Hades level made me mad because of the jumping puzzles. I think Yhatzee said something about this:

Jumping puzzles? Fine. Timed jumping puzzles? Fair enough. Timed jumping puzzles with fixed cameras? Now we’ve dropped into the ocean of shittiness. But then they hit us with timed jumping puzzles with fixed cameras where enemies spawn in every time you fail, and now the ocean of shittiness has closed over our heads with no end in sight.

Yeah. I didn't mind the enemies, I didn't mind the puzzles, I didn't mind the jumping puzzles themselves. But trying to navigate those rotating spike-covered poles was a pain in the ass because of the camera angles. Especially trying to climb them, because the way it's set up, you only lose a small sliver of health, but as soon as you touch a spike, you instantly let go of the pillar and fall, and because of movement delay, you canna grab the pillar as you're falling. No matter how close you are to the top of the platform, you can still be screwed over by one spike.

[Dauntasa]

Other games that frustrate me are more often than not Strategy games like Fire Emblem and Super Robot Wars, where you can't choose reinforcements during the fight aside from story-based ones that often aren't useful enough to turn the tide of battle. Especially Fire Emblem, with it's "Somebody gets beaten once, they're dead forever" policy causing me to reset on 5% chance to hit, 1% criticals killing my super-awesome units >.>

Fucking Fire Emblem with it's fucking saving the random numbers that fucked you over. Wassat? Your best unit just got killed by a 1% chance crit? Well too fucking bad, he's gone forever and everytime you try to change that it'll just happen again.

[Fifthfiend]

Only if you wanted Lulu's ultimate weapon.
Other than that.. eh. It was okay-ish.

Anyone who wanted Lulu's weapon is some sort of deranged masochist who got what they deserved.*got Lulu's weapon*

[krogothwolf]

Anyone who wanted Lulu's weapon is some sort of deranged masochist who got what they deserved.*got Lulu's weapon*

I did everything humanly and inhumanly possible in that game. It seriously took up more time they I care to admit. I did become a blitzballwiz though so it was all good.

[Krylo]

Fallout 3. Brotherhood of Steel. Last quest.

Only if you have a follower who isn't Fawkes or Dog, mind.

Problem is that the AI doesn't work well in the last section for any followers who don't have more hit points than a super mutant Behemoth (Fawkes and Dog with BoS installed), and when dealing with 2 or more Hellfire Troops and about 5 enemies with plasma rifles, and, hell, let's throw in a couple deathclaws just for shits and giggles, all of which are in a wide open area so they can all target you or your AI companion at once, unless you're really crafty?

Yeaaaaah.

Yeah.

It turned a companion who was, up until that point, a valuable combat asset into a goddamned annoying escort quest.

And once you're in you have to go prettttty far back to leave them someplace safe. Guess I coulda fired her now that I think about it. But yeah, annoying as piss.

Fallout 1 and 2. Anytime you end up in a fight with more than 5 enemies. Fucking turn based bullshit. Even with combat speed maxed it quickly gets annoying waiting to be shot at 20 times so you can shoot back once or twice.

Fallout 1. Time limits. Gragh. Don't give me a huge open world to explore with vast amounts of random encounters and whatever else and then only give me a few days to complete my primary objective.

FFT. Algus. Or Wiegraf. Or any of the random fights that are like "20 NINJA!" or "20 MONKS!"

God of War III. The story.

Every Final Fantasy Ever: The Last Dungeon. I don't know why they have to always make the last/one of the last dungeons some teleporting bullshit, but goddamnit I hate navigating teleport mazes. It's the worst thing ever.

Both Chrono Cross and Xenogears. Budget being appropriated toward FF8, and obvious signs of such (using a program to set different accents to characters instead of re-writing lines per personality, the unpolished battle command boxes, Magus turning into Guile, the dearth of double/triple combos, the entire second disc of Xenogears, etc.)

Dragon Age. Ser Cautherien.

FFX. ALL the secret weapons. Only two I was ever able to get easily were Tidus's (I know, I'm a freak, but I'm not going to pretend it's actually easy and not a total kick in the balls to make you get less than 0 on the chocobo races.), and Auron's.

Saboteur. Everytime you couldn't see a nazi fucker to shoot because of the artsy black and white bullshit.

Mass Effect 2. "You don't have enough platinum."

Vampire Bloodlines. The ghoul's death. You don't even get any scenes about dealing with it or anything, or have any chance at all to stop it. You can teach her to use a gun, and it doesn't matter. You can have max celerity and trigger it immediately, you can't get there fast enough. And when she's dead, the story plays out no differently than if you had never gotten her. Lots of little things like this, actually. Fuckin' game got released half done.

GTA:SA. "Hey, Carl, why don't you fly this model airplane!"

Demon Souls. All of it.

Samurai Legend Musashi. The voice acting. Dear god, the voice acting.

INFamous. "THEY BUGGED MAH BUILDIN'!" Fuck you lady, I'm not crawling all around the outside of your fucking building again, fuck. Oh wait, yes I am, because it's the only way to get enough alignment to learn the good abilities. Goddamnit.

Oblivion. Level Scaling. 'Nuff said.

The first ever Legend of Zelda. Finding the 8th palace. I think it was the 8th one. Whichever one it was that was hidden behind a goddamn bush you had to burn.

Lufia 2. Lufia 1. Playing the second got me nostalgic for the first. Mistake on my part.

No More Heroes. Unresponsive waggle controls when you try to pull off the wrestling or finishing moves off too quickly.


Yeah, gonna just call that good for now.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I actually got Lulus weapon in like 20 minutes on my first attempt. THAT was the easy bit, it was all the other times when you're just walking through the area not paying attention that were annoying. Random battles are annoying enough, random lighting strikes knocking you over WITH random battles was just, ehh!

More annoying though was the stupid butterfly bit in Macalania. Now there's a fucking frustrating bit for you. That was the worst bit of the whole game.


As for Hades, meh, I never found that too difficult. Yeah I fell off a few times, and had to restart the climbing bit occasionally, but I never got knocked off at any point above the first 10 feet or so, so it never got frustrating. In fact I used to enjoy the challenge of trying to do the whole level in 1 life. Only managed it once though, usually I got screwed by the archers during the platform section enar the end.

[Aerozord]

Megaman 9, that STUPID FLOWER. Most annoying mini-boss in the game. Randomly appears on platforms you need to continually be jumping around because of an equally annoying pinwheel continually spinning around, with an instant death spike pit just in case you miss a jump.

Oh and the weapon best used against this guy? the one you get AT THE END OF THAT LEVEL

[Loyal]

Megaman 9, that STUPID FLOWER. Most annoying mini-boss in the game. Randomly appears on platforms you need to continually be jumping around because of an equally annoying pinwheel continually spinning around, with an instant death spike pit just in case you miss a jump.

Oh and the weapon best used against this guy? the one you get AT THE END OF THAT LEVELMM10's Whatever-Devil. Ugh, ugh, ugh. If Capcom released a Megaman game where every boss was a Devil variant I'm pretty sure the world would collectively burst into tears.

Also, I tried playing Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia on Hard Mode without using a New Game+. Big mistake. Trying to beat Dullahan was bad enough. Then you get to the forest, with three long screens full of Winged Guards (60+ damage and they're EVERYWHERE), Bats (30-ish damage, but they're hard to dodge), and Medusa Heads (70+ damage plus petrification) respectively, and you with your sub-200 hitpoints and trying to dodge/kill everything when you have no healing potions and you have to do the whole thing in one go. It's nerve-wracking to say the least.

By now I've gotten to the Tymeo Mountains and it's somehow gotten worse. I've got more (unrecorded) deaths on this file than on an entire runthrough of IWBTG.

[Tev]

Trying to figure out what that annoying little puke of a child meant by "Palm trees and eight." in Final Fantasy Adventure...

I honestly feel that is the baseline for judging frustration in my games. No matter what the issue is, at least it's not that vague little asshole.

[Loyal]

Trying to figure out what that annoying little puke of a child meant by "Palm trees and eight." in Final Fantasy Adventure...

I honestly feel that is the baseline for judging frustration in my games. No matter what the issue is, at least it's not that vague little asshole.

Well, in the GBA remake Sword of Mana, there was a pair of palm trees that you had to walk a few figure-eights around to unlock a passage.

[krogothwolf]

Empire: Total War. Unit's deciding to wander off mid battle at stare at trees. I attacked an evil fortress of the French! I had them surrounded and reduced their walls to nothing. They came out to attack me and I did slaughter them in open field. I did deem that as they ran back into the fort to follow. My troops charged forwards pouring through the gaps. Wait, I meant one of my troops did. The other 5 decided to go around the fort and through the back door that was you know, locked and there were no holes in the walls there. Happened a freakin lot that the troops would try to go through unopened gates or run around the fort once before going through the giant holes in the wall.

[Tev]

Well, in the GBA remake Sword of Mana, there was a pair of palm trees that you had to walk a few figure-eights around to unlock a passage.Wait....so in the remake they didn't even give you a poorly executed hint? They just expected you to know that you had to dance around a pair of trees to progress in the game?

[Aerozord]

had something like that in paper mario for the Wii if I recall. gotta run around Yoshi statue three times, and I never got any hint

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I got a new one; 2 units of Peatorians and a spear man, sent to fight a unit of archers and a barbarian and each of them getting their arses kicked without taking out a single enemy. It took me 20 turns to buld those 3, I left my city un-protected to move them into a fight and they died in 1 turn.


FUCK YOU Civ4!!! Fuck you!!!!

Note that this is on slightly easier than normal, becuase last time I played on normal Alexander the Great randomly decided to attack me with 15 fucking chariots, took 2 cities in 1 turn, everything I had on defence fell to everything he had and I was left with nothing, while all the while I was hemoraging money and my people were unhappy and on the verge of stagnation despite the fact that Id been putting all my time into city growth.


Yeah, the combat system in this game is fucking bullshit!

[Niveras]

Wait....so in the remake they didn't even give you a poorly executed hint? They just expected you to know that you had to dance around a pair of trees to progress in the game?

A lot of JRPGs reward dedicated try-everything kind of testing. Who do you think was the first to find a pink tail on the pink puffs in FFIV, which are themselves highly uncommon spawns?

[Ecks]

Devil May Cry 4. ANY of the bosses post-Devil Trigger as Nero... and ANY time you had to fight the damned Blitz. MAN those bastards are ANNOYING! Hard enough to kill as Dante... but when you regain control of Nero... hoo boy.

Uh, I'm sure there are others, but DMC has been a staple of mine as far as frustration goes. If I didn't love the combat system to death, I would've stopped playing it after 2 (and I almost did, so horrible THAT one was).

[BattyAsHell]

Meta Gear Solid: Getting to the top of that damned staircase. The one before the Hind D battle.

[mauve]

FInding the damn ice dragon in FF12, the one that only comes out during a blizzard. I've finished every single hunt in the game except that one, because I've had that game since the year it came out and I have NEVER seen a blizzard in that particular section of the Paramina Rift. Ever.

And to make things worse, that section has two separate entrances, split by a frozen river you can't cross. So even if there was a blizzard, with my luck I'd be stuck on the wrong side of the river when the dragon showed up.

[Krylo]

FInding the damn ice dragon in FF12, the one that only comes out during a blizzard. I've finished every single hunt in the game except that one, because I've had that game since the year it came out and I have NEVER seen a blizzard in that particular section of the Paramina Rift. Ever.

And to make things worse, that section has two separate entrances, split by a frozen river you can't cross. So even if there was a blizzard, with my luck I'd be stuck on the wrong side of the river when the dragon showed up.

You can control the weather there. Blizzard pops up when you talk to Relj, goes away when you cross a certain room. Have to use an alternate path, which, I believe, requires a chocobo.

[bluestarultor]

The Fifth Element. Yes, there was a game for that, and it was surprisingly good! Only there's an unbearably unforgiving timed portion in the second chapter where you're given 1 invincibility vest, infinitely-respawning enemies, and about ten seconds less than you can be reasonably expected to reach your target in before the window closes on you and you have to start over. Oh, and the vest only lasts for the allotted time. Once. I put the game down over that, which is a shame, because I otherwise loved it, and it's the only 3PS that can claim that.

[Roland]

DKC2: Animal Antics, specifically the section with that parrot. Wind is okay, spiked walls, floors, and ceilings are okay. Flying birds are okay. Combining all three? Is it any surprise that I only just recently beat this stage, despite having owned this game since I was just a young boy?

Mario Kart Wii also has any course with more than two jumps, or in the case of Wario's Gold Mine, is Wario's Gold Mine. I know a lot of people complain about complacent gaming with this game, but Wario's Gold Mine is a course I prefer to avoid at any cost.

[Jagos]

Super Mario RPG.

100 jumps. To this day my best is 98. I'm pissed.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Getting gold medals without hitting the walls in Wipeout Pluse.

That and trying to beat Mushihimesama futoria on ultimate mode.