Biggest bullshit in a video game

[Dante Alighieri]

Value for money being measured in "hours" was the worst thing to happen to video games.

Especially when it may or may not be counting 100% completion.

 

[Articles and Nudes]

I would appreciate sidequests warning you they're meant to be played at a certain level range.

The Ascent is awful for this. Side quest levels have no relation to the actual enemy level, and the areas these quests are in can be locked off (due to story progress), with no indication that you can't physically reach them at the point you get the actual quest.

People are way too awed by the pretty cyberpunk lights to notice how badly designed a lot of this game is.

 

[Vault Boy]

Not true, COD lets you install only the campaign, and that won't include Warzone.

Sure, but I don't want to give up on the multiplayer just to be rid of Warzone. Just spin it off as its own title already.

 

[The Last Stand]

Sure, but I don't want to give up on the multiplayer just to be rid of Warzone. Just spin it off as its own title already.

It technically IS its own thing. It just reuses assets from the MW engine from all three games. But Activision considers it a platform, given their need to incorporate it AND Cold War onto the main menu in Modern Warfare.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

There was one very irritating thing I ran across in the positively ancient (1986) game Starflight. It's minor, but it's still annoying.

If you look at SF's galactic map (which is xbawkshueg for a goddamn 1986 game played on two 360k diskettes originally -- 300 fucking star systems), generally things get harder on the left side of the map, with the far 'spheres' of influence held by the Uhlek, who are afflicted with compulsive xenophobia to a level that would impress an Ordo Xenos inquisitor from 40k. They are ALWAYS hostile, will ALWAYS shoot first, and they have equipment you can't even get (homing plasma bolts).

This is not the problem, though.

As you move towards the right side of the map (you start roughly in the middle), things don't get... hard per se, but there's less civilization (actually, none). However, it is entirely possible to run into Uhlek scout ships on that far right side of the map. And while they don't have plasma bolts, their ships are usually kitted out with excellent equipment, forcing a hasty retreat if you haven't spent the time and credits to upgrade your ship's armaments. It can be a nasty, nasty surprise to be cruising around that side of the map and run into one of those assholes.

Ironically, you can exterminate the Uhleks by locating their Brain World on the far left side of the map, and using an artifact to destroy it. Good fucking riddance. At least you can bully the Spemin and outthink the Gazurtoids.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

Sure, but I don't want to give up on the multiplayer just to be rid of Warzone. Just spin it off as its own title already.

See, that's the best part; you're going to fucking install Warzone, you're going to like it and you're going to spend all of your money in the microtransaction shop. Embrace the future COD has in store for you.

Enough shitposting about cod, it's absolute bullshit that so many guns in Cold War are absolutely unusable until you get the attachments near the end of their levelling. It makes working on the guns an absolute chore.

 

[Book Thief]

That's nothing compared to getting to the special stages in Sonic Advance 2. You have to collect all 7 special rings in either of the two acts of a zone, which you'll definitely need a guide just to locate all of them and come up with a path through the level. Some of them are placed in tough spots that are easy to miss, like having to do a big jump just right or on a higher path that's easy to fall off of, and don't forget that this is on the tiny GBA screen so you won't have much of a distance to see then. You have to get all 7 AND finish the stage just for a CHANCE at the minigame, which is some weird 3d running one (on the GBA's tiny screen) where you're constantly being chased.
To unlock Amy, you have to do this with all 4 characters.

Really, collecting Chaos Emeralds in the whole GBA Trilogy is bullshit. In the first one, you have to search around for a special spring, which brings you to a special stage that attempts to pay homage to the famous Half-Pipes of Sonic 2, but since it's in free-fall, you have absolutely no visual cue to gauge depth from. Then, in the third one, you have to collect every Chao in an entire Zone, then find a hidden key in a random location in one of the levels, and then and only then will you get a chance at the Emerald. If you fuck it up, you have to find the key all over again.

I don't know why, but Sonic games in the early 2000's really decided to make Chaos Emerald stages a brutal chore.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

There's some interesting glitches in that recent remake of Trials of Mana. Not bad bullshit, but good bullshit:

【聖剣伝説3リメイク】開始数分で強武器を入手できる方法【裏技】 - YouTube

(google translate: "[Trials of Mana 3 Remake] How to get a strong weapon in a few minutes [Tips]")
(It's a Japanese video I somehow found - you can see how to use the glitches without knowing what's being said.)

 

[WULULULULU]

Twitch/streaming rewards. Who in the right fucking mind think that having a videogame connected to Twitch for "le epic rewards" equivalates to giving rewards exclusive for such? It only comes back to the FOMO bullshit and forces you to slog through a stream that just sits there as a waste of your time.

 

[Spunt]

I would appreciate sidequests warning you they're meant to be played at a certain level range.

Indeed, I'm fucking looking at you, UnderRail. The only way to find out if a quest is at your level is to accept it and see if the first enemy melts you into goo before you can move. Worse, sometimes the first encounter will be deceptively easy (or can be cheesed), so you just end up stuck in a dungeon you can't survive. Hope you saved before you came in!

In fact UnderRail is full to the brim with aggravating bullshit. It loves to throw stunlocks at you, and because there's no party mechanic and it's always your character alone against a horde of mobs there's often nothing you can do. I like challenging games, but it seems the devs have confused "challenging and hardcore" with "aggravating and hostile to the player". There's no meaningful fast travel for most of the game and the whole (gigantic) map is split into very small areas with long loading screens (for some reason, the graphics are basic AF) so the endless backtracking you need to do becomes tedious trudging through empty areas you cleared out hours ago. And there's no map.

The combat interface seems almost designed to confuse you into making mistakes. Click the wrong pixel and you can accidentally heal an enemy or drop a grenade at your feet. And your character build has to be absolutely perfect from the start or later quests (even ones at your level) will rapidly become impossible, so new players going in blind will find their build is useless, but only after about 15-20 hours - there's one notorious dungeon 20 hours or so in on the main quest with a HUGE difficulty spike, the first half of which can be cheesed so you end up deep in the bowels of this place and totally outclassed. Time to restart, get a build off the wiki, and do all those linear early-game quests AGAIN.

I wanted to like UnderRail, I was a big fan of the early Fallouts, but this isn't hard, or even hardcore, this is just sadism towards the player that wastes dozens of hours of your time just to be a dick to you. Fuck this game.

 

[Mimic]

The entirety of Riki's time in Mosperiberg in SaGa Frontier. Good lord it's tiresome.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Unless you're playing the Genesis version which nerfed the Black Egg.

View attachment 2468071

It's a seminal space sim. so it's worth seeking out. But you will definitely need a FAQ to complete it.

Yeah, this is a game from when men were men, women were women, and video games didn't hold your hand near as much. I would backup my game by copying the disk's save states, an early form of save-scumming.

Huh. If you think about it, SF really was an early example of 'open world' gaming.

Sadly, SF2 tripped on its feet as well. It had a wonderful trading system with some clever new aliens (the Ng-Kher-Arla were amusing, if infuriating sometimes). But it also locked a full quarter of the map inside the nebula which you couldn't traverse at all due to raiding Spemin and homicidal Umanu. Even good equipment wouldn't protect you. The game also ended when you finished the main quest, instead of letting you continue to explore as it did in the original. Sheesh.

 

[Berrakh]

I've grown to enjoy the Frozen Horse Rape Valley but I'm just weird.

This isn't just about gaming but it seems worse in gaming: real severe mismatch in set up and payoff in the story.
So many games where you're given an absurdly emotionally cathartic scene that sees its subject or place supplanted by new developments later on without acknowledgement or bridging.
You know it when you see it.
I think G(ears)oW would do this a lot with its tragic death scenes. Or how G(od)oW1 lost all the punch its denouement had.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Really, collecting Chaos Emeralds in the whole GBA Trilogy is bullshit. In the first one, you have to search around for a special spring, which brings you to a special stage that attempts to pay homage to the famous Half-Pipes of Sonic 2, but since it's in free-fall, you have absolutely no visual cue to gauge depth from. Then, in the third one, you have to collect every Chao in an entire Zone, then find a hidden key in a random location in one of the levels, and then and only then will you get a chance at the Emerald. If you fuck it up, you have to find the key all over again.

I don't know why, but Sonic games in the early 2000's really decided to make Chaos Emerald stages a brutal chore.

I liked the SAdv. 1 special stages thematically, because they made logical sense (rocket into the sky > fall > get caught by plane) instead of being teleported to some weird pocket dimension. That's the only thing I liked about it though.

Honestly any game that doesn't let you play as Super Sonic in regular gameplay after collecting the emeralds is bullshit. The whole point of Super Sonic is to reward the player for suffering through the difficult special stages, not to unlock a final chapter with some lazy DBZ shit.

 

[Cod of War]

Value for money being measured in "hours" was the worst thing to happen to video games.

That's exactly how Simtards justify paying hundreds for The Sims

 

[Eggplant Wizard]

When RPG boss battles hit so hard you thought they were cutscene fights you‘re supposed to lose.

The first fight against Lenus from Legend of Dragoon is an example. The damage spike compared to everything else was absurd. Also, going into Dragoon mode (which is heavily encouraged, being the title of the game and all) makes her attack twice per turn, which was the root cause.

 

[Pringles Can]

Every puzzle in siren. I love that game a ton, but the puzzles and secondary missions in the game are absolute bullshit if you do not have a guide, or know exactly what to do.

 

[Punished Magician]

That's nothing compared to getting to the special stages in Sonic Advance 2. You have to collect all 7 special rings in either of the two acts of a zone, which you'll definitely need a guide just to locate all of them and come up with a path through the level. Some of them are placed in tough spots that are easy to miss, like having to do a big jump just right or on a higher path that's easy to fall off of, and don't forget that this is on the tiny GBA screen so you won't have much of a distance to see then. You have to get all 7 AND finish the stage just for a CHANCE at the minigame, which is some weird 3d running one (on the GBA's tiny screen) where you're constantly being chased.
To unlock Amy, you have to do this with all 4 characters.

I forgot to mention, it's impossible to get all special rings in Act 1 of Techno Base Zone (the final zone) as Sonic, since every character besides him has a movement-enhancing ability (flight or gliding/climbing) but he does not. There doesn't seem to be any indicator of this in the game, though, so I can only imagine the suffering of people who tried it over and over without realizing they'll have to use Act 2 instead for the rings.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

When RPG boss battles hit so hard you thought they were cutscene fights you‘re supposed to lose.

The first fight against Lenus from Legend of Dragoon is an example. The damage spike compared to everything else was absurd. Also, going into Dragoon mode (which is heavily encouraged, being the title of the game and all) makes her attack twice per turn, which was the root cause.

The doubt creeping in is what makes those really suck, especially when you start thinking about item consumption. If it is a battle you're supposed to lose there's no idea using up all your really expensive potions and items. But if you are supposed to win it and take a dive you will have to play 30-40 minutes of the game again to get back to the boss, and maybe you got a rare item drop this time so actually dying and losing that would make it suck twice as much.

 

[Eggplant Wizard]

The doubt creeping in is what makes those really suck, especially when you start thinking about item consumption. If it is a battle you're supposed to lose there's no idea using up all your really expensive potions and items. But if you are supposed to win it and take a dive you will have to play 30-40 minutes of the game again to get back to the boss, and maybe you got a rare item drop this time so actually dying and losing that would make it suck twice as much.

This is why I liked later Tales series games. Sure, you’re supposed to lose, but if you win anyway the story changes slightly and you get special drops.