BAD MOMENTS IN GOOD GAMES?

The demo for The Mark of Kri was incredible. This was back in the Ps2 days, so I'll offer a quick recap of the premise: Conan the Barbarian as animated by Don Bluth. Limbs, heads, and torsos could all go flying at the slightest provocation of your axe, sword, spear, and bow.

Fun times.

Until the second level, when the game shifts into a more stealth oriented experience. You have to kill the horn blowers first. You have to kill the guys wearing armor next, or they'll royally screw up your battle plan.

The demo teased the perfect hack and slash game, but the final product was 75% stealth. I had fun, but have to admit it was a bit of a let down. The final boss battle tried to make up for it, of course. You pretty much just carve up an army of zombies while the evil sorceror throws magic at you. And then...



The Nar Shaddaa section in KOTOR2 also qualifies. It wasn't bad, per se, but it really dragged on for a lot longer than it should have. It padded the quests out by making you go through the same exact area twice, and then (if I recall properly) threw a maze at you. It didn't bother me as much the first time through, but each new character made me hate that damn moon a little bit more.

The Save system and the mission where you have to defuse the bombs in Dead Rising. The demo for Dead Rising was great. I had just started a horror punk band, we had songs about zombies, and like a bunch of dorks we would sit around after practice some nights and play Dead Rising. Here's the catch though, even once I had the full game, we just played the demo. There were a lot of little mechanics that conspired to make the full game more of a chore than a fun experience, but the mad bomber section was the worst. No thanks.

The ending in Mass Effect 3 was a great moment in "...I found this on the floor..." writing.

Resource gathering in Mass Effect 2

Getting pelted with werewolf torsos during pocket universe challenge rooms in Ninja Gaiden 2.

There needed to be an options in the settings for Max Payne 3 that would have let me watch the cutscenes as graphic novel panels. I want Max Payne to feel like he's in a graphic novel, not a Tony Scott film. Although, if Tony Scott were to direct a Max Payne movie starring Bryan Cranston... the brain reels!

When I'm forced into a mini-game that I had no interest to play to begin with. It's like they want me to experience it at least once.
It's worse when they tempt me with unique rewards, cause then I get this huge urge to win even though I might suck at it.

Example would be Tetra Master in Final Fantasy IX. I don't like the card games.

Oh, another I know! TIME-based missions! Especially time-based boss battles.
Let's take Skyward Sword for example:

Not a fan of repeated boss battles. Take Okami for example. The first time you fight Onigumo you're going crazy trying to figure out what to do, and when you've finally beaten the damn thing you feel such a sense of accomplishment and relief. Then later down the track you find another one... and another... And all that feeling of 'Wow, this was an awesome boss fight I'll remember for ages!" becomes "Oh, another one of these? Huh."

Last bosses from nowhere. As much as I love he Suikoden series they have a habit of pulling this. In the original, okay, it was a rune. I can deal with that since it was attached to the boss's arm and transformed him. In II it was another rune. Okay, we'd seen it before in action when it decimated a whole city. I guess I can deal with that. In III it was another rune? I can't really recall. In IV it was a tree that just popped into the story from nowhere. I think there was one mention of a tree that supplied ammo for the baddies super weapon and it turns out that that's the last boss? In V it's a rune... again...

Bosses that keep changing form. Now don't get me wrong, this can be used to great effect, but when you've got a boss battle that has over three changes and you've just used your last potion, that's getting a bit ridiculous.

X for the sake of X. Graphics for the sake of graphics, systems for the sake of systems... you know what I mean. The RM crowd falls to the same thing. When something is added to a game just so they can say that it's in there.

Freaking low level caps on games that encourage exploration and long play times. I can understand if your game is balanced in such a way that you only need ten levels to complete it and any extra content you might have stashed away, but when a long-ass game - like, oh, let's say Fallout 3 shall we? - has a low level cap I get pissed. Because I'm a side quest whore and by the time I'm done exploring a few of the outlying towns and areas I'm already halfway to the level cap.

Dragon Age II, while a great game, had an issue I hate. Dungeons that are repeated. And no, I don't mean you can go in the same dungeon, I mean the inside of x dungeon is the same as the inside of y dungeon. Dear God, but there was some lazy going on there.

author=UPRC
The Fade in Dragon Age: Origins. A lot of people seem to hate that portion of the game and I don't blame them. It's so dull and repetitive, and the fact that it goes on for a good 20-30 minutes is just awful.

The thing that makes the Fade part suck is that it kinda just comes out of nowhere and you're dragged into it, just when it seemed like you were almost done with the tower. It wouldn't have been so bad if you were given some notice.

author=WhiteLion

author=UPRC
The Fade in Dragon Age: Origins. A lot of people seem to hate that portion of the game and I don't blame them. It's so dull and repetitive, and the fact that it goes on for a good 20-30 minutes is just awful.

The thing that makes the Fade part suck is that it kinda just comes out of nowhere and you're dragged into it, just when it seemed like you were almost done with the tower. It wouldn't have been so bad if you were given some notice.

Yeah, there's that too.

All of the deviations from the standard gameplay in RE5. Every boss fight, every rail shooter segment, every QTE, every puzzle. I'd rather be killing zombies.

author=LockeZ
The entire hour long sequence at the beginning of Twilight Princess was basically a giant intolerable tutorial, but in Link to the Past, the game starts with the call to action, and the equivalent tutorial segment is spent finding and exploring the first dungeon (which is actually about as dangerous as the starting town in Twilight Princess, but has the feeling of action). Why did they stop starting games at the beginning of the story?

As controller complexity increases, the capability to attract new players decreases. They try to mitigate this with extensive tutorials, but I think they've gone way too far with the idea.

The ending of Devil May Cry 1. That whole thing with Trish's death was borderline SEGA acting.
Speaking of SEGA, the cutscenes in Sonic Adventure 2 ruined Sonic Adventure 2 for me.

An obvious one but... The Little Mermaid portion of Kingdom Hearts 2. There were probably other questionable moments the game(though I enjoyed it overall) but there was just no excuse for that. One of the worst moments in the history of gaming, for sure.