The little things that you hate in games

[Sexy_Raine]

There common things found in video games that people dislike. Name some of them that you find most annoying.

1. Cutscenes that cannot be skipped.
2. Long boring tutorials.
3. Too much unnecessary text to read.
4. The whole "teen boy saving world" plot. Yeah I'm looking at you Final fantasy!
5. Lag/slowdown
6. Cheap love scenes
7. Bad Voice acting
8. Cloned/reskinned areas, characters, etc.
9. No choice of difficulty level.

That's all for me. I know there are more out there.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sexy_Raine on 2008-03-15 20:13 ]</font>

[rogue_robot]

Ooh! Ooh! I've got one!

How 'bout when the entire damn game is a tutorial for the game (especially when there's no online multiplayer). You know, those damn games (mostly on recent Nintendo consoles) that hold your hand the entire time, and there's no way to shut it off?



...aside from that... The "teen boy saving world" plot doesn't irritate me too badly. It's Final Fantasy specifically that irritates me, there. "Teen boy saving world"? I can live with that, especially when dealing with a low-tech, medieval-style society, where realistically 10-12 would be an "adult" (as in Legend of Zelda, though they tend to use 15-17 for "adult" in that series, which, because of the presence of magic, is understandable).

"Angsty teen emo boy saving world"? Absolutely not. Take your damn problems elsewhere, princess, I don't wanna hear it. I want to see more leads like Vyse, or the amusingly cynical, non-emo side of Ryudo (whenever Melfice isn't around, in the first half of that game).


The occasional reskin isn't that bad. (Keyword: "occasional." PSU's got way too many.)
I definitely agree on the difficulty level issue, though.


Oh, and I just came up with another one! T/M-rated games which, on an intellectual level, are simple enough for average 5-7 year-olds to play through. It doesn't need to be anything hyper-cerebral, just something which would send said 5-7 year-olds running screaming to Gamefaqs in no time, while still containing enough well-presented information that an average 15-19 year-old would figure it out in a reasonable amount of time, like 10-20 minutes (counting all time spent gathering clues). Adventuring isn't all battling monsters, you know - sometimes, you gotta deal with the occasional trap, and the only thing they ever seem willing to throw at us is the occasional super-easy Zelda-style trap. Anyone who doesn't like those kinds of puzzles is invited to head over to Gamefaqs.

On the other hand, Nintendo's occasional-but-infamous "puzzle bosses" really piss me off. When I said I wanted a puzzle, I meant one that kills me for getting the wrong answer, not one that's busy killing me while I'm trying to figure it out!

Oh, and those games which throw 50+ hidden collectible items at you, without even the vaguest hints to the locations of any of them.

[Jife_Jifremok]

Unskippable cutscenes.

Reused cutscenes that really should be disablable. (I'm looking at you PPT shuttles!)

Cutscenes for boss introductions and deaths that add nothing at all, and destroy any potential to have any surprise element. (Cutscenes with conversations and jokes are acceptable.)

Bad voice acting---if it doesn't add any accidental comedy. (example: Castlevania SotN's horrid voice acting is classic and memorable. SotN's new voices on the PSP are unremarkable. BOORING.)

Escort missions. I know this was already addressed but it needed to be said again.

PUZZLE BOSSES, YES! I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates these! But my reasoning is a bit different...when I fight a boss, I want a FIGHT! I don't want something that's just gonna be an absolute pushover the instant I figure out a weak spot or proper weapon to use! I want a proper fight!

Speaking of proper weapons to use, I HATE it when most or all weapons besides one are rendered useless, ESPECIALLY in battle! Do you have any idea how much more fun many fights would have been if the X-Com style waypoint-programmable wind boomerang were actually useful for the multitude of enemies and bosses?

Most lock-on systems. If I'm forced to Z-target things like some pansy who has no idea how to keep track of single targets, it's a HUUUGE issue that often pretty much breaks the game for me. But if manual control is viable, then the presence of Z-Targeting or whatever is only a small issue (thus being suited for this topic ) that makes me think "oh what a waste of a button, something USEFUL coulda been mapped to it!".

Lack of full button remapping in the options menu. This includes being unable to leave functions unmapped (for instance, I'd rather have an empty button than have one mapped to lock-on!) and being unable to map the same function to multiple buttons. And would it kill to have some sensitivity adjustments? Even the SHOULDER BUTTONS of PS2 controllers have adjustable sensitivity, as was proven by (mediocre) launch game Eternal Ring!

Having to repeatedly go to the inventory menu to switch items or sometimes even abilities over and over and over...

Being unable to choose Japanese or English voices where applicable. If the game simply cannot fit both voice tracks, it's excusable. Games that were only voiced in one language, obviously excusable. But some games have no excuse.

Unskippable tutorials, sometimes even coming in the form of at least one story-related level!

Being forced to read a damn instruction manual in this day and age without any reasonable excuse, just to find out how to do something when the game itself should tell me. (Just a beginning-of-some-games annoyance.)

Instruction manuals being useless and in black-and-white. While it may seem to contradict the above entry, instruction manuals really SHOULD be a joy to read. For instance, Katamari's beautiful and stylistic manual...

Puzzles in action or action-adventure games. Knowing full well that I have to push blocks around, backtrack, etc can really hurt replay value. Some puzzles I find to be fun though, like the "hacking" in Timesplitters Future Perfect. But that's because they're randomized (at least somewhat) and keep with the fast pace of the game, only slowing things down for those who keep failing at them and dying as a result. It's the only exception I can think of, really.

Being unable to get rid of that damn targeting reticle in shooting games! I KNOW WHERE THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING SCREEN IS! Have you seen how targeting reticles are handled in RE4? That's PERFECT! Wii games are an exception since you kinda have to move that reticle all over the screen, but the reticle should be removable in those games too for added challenge! (maybe...)

Unmovable HUDs in certain games. Yeesh...

"Custom" characters with extremely limited options.

While it's great to have adjustable difficulty levels, it sucks when there's NO EXPLANATION as to what they do! It's not so bad in a fighting game or Smash Bros since it's obvious, not to mention Smash Bros has various goals concerning various difficulty levels and each game is short and sweet, but longer games NEED explanations! Does it take more hits to kill enemies? Do I get less ammo to use? Do I take more damage? Will there be more enemies? Different enemies? Do enemies get smarter? Do they just get cheaper?

Yikes that's a long list. I'll stop here.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jife_Jifremok on 2008-03-15 23:53 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jife_Jifremok on 2008-03-16 00:19 ]</font>

[GunnerGoddess]

only thing that really bugs me is ridiculously easy final boss battles in rpgs. like really you do all that hard work to get to the end just to have something so easy it doesn't feel like an accomplishment. it's even worse when the ending sucks. I want more final bosses like in FFXII or the harder modes on ToS/ToA. the kind that could probably kill the whole party off in one shot if you make a single mistake. that or maybe another setup like odin sphere where you had to build up all 5 characters and pick out which of the 5 final bosses they each fought

[Syl]

On 2008-03-16 00:05, GunnerGoddess wrote:
only thing that really bugs me is ridiculously easy final boss battles in rpgs.

QFMFT

I expect final bosses to epic in all perspectives (music, difficulty, setting, the boss itself, its attacks, etc).

Other than that, stale, poorly made BGM upsets me as much

[Weeaboolits]

Those mazes in some RPGs where there's no actual map you just need to go through the right ways in sequence and a wrong turn lands you back at the start. I'm terrible at memorization, so these force me to rely on hours of guesswork.

Also, unskippable cutscenes that suck, I just bought NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, and that's the reason I'm not playing it at the moment (would it really have killed them to leave NiGHTS unvoiced or at least include original JP voices?). .-.

[SubstanceD]

On 2008-03-15 20:09, Sexy_Raine wrote:
There common things found in video games that people dislike. Name some of them that you find most annoying.

1. Cutscenes that cannot be skipped.
2. Long boring tutorials.
3. Too much unnecessary text to read.
4. The whole "teen boy saving world" plot. Yeah I'm looking at you Final fantasy!
5. Lag/slowdown
6. Cheap love scenes
7. Bad Voice acting
8. Cloned/reskinned areas, characters, etc.
9. No choice of difficulty level.

That's all for me. I know there are more out there.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sexy_Raine on 2008-03-15 20:13 ]</font>

You've pretty much listed most of the things I hate in games. The "Child/Teen character saving the world" plot is in particular a major pet peeve of mine.

[darkante]

1. When they make the game too easy because people don´t like to be challenged at all.
2. Secret bosses which doesn´t really put up that huge of a fight.
3. Tedious grinding to get that ultimate weapon which you could live without. (Ehum..Rattlesnake in PSU example)
4. Game with customization which is really limiting.
5. Annoying voice acting.
6. No VA in games with alot of text.
7. Things that depends mostly on luck rather then skill to survive..example a boss which you might or not defeat depending on its random behavior.
8. Reskins of monsters or places in high degree. Shame on you ST doing this to PSU!
9. Repetive stuff..grinding the same place and shit for example...points at reason number "3"
10. Long distance between check points or SAVE areas.
11. Alot of text which cannot be skipped and afterwards will result in a very hard boss fight..chances are you die at least once.
12. Games that are insane in difficulty..example the R-type and Gradius games.

That is what i have come up with now.

[Weeaboolits]

Yes, save point spacing, hard to enjoy the game when you're muttering to yourself "please let me save, please let me save, please let me save" half the time.

[rogue_robot]

On 2008-03-15 23:51, Jife_Jifremok wrote:
PUZZLE BOSSES, YES! I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates these! But my reasoning is a bit different...when I fight a boss, I want a FIGHT! I don't want something that's just gonna be an absolute pushover the instant I figure out a weak spot or proper weapon to use! I want a proper fight!

Oh, I agree with you here, too. This is what really sucks about every 3d Zelda/Metroid game - especially because of this -

I can just imagine Link muttering this to himself on popping open some big treasure box:
"Oh, whuzzat? Interesting toy... hmm... wonder what I'm gonna have to do to kill Ganon's next big minion... "