Pet Peeves in video games

[Jeff]

Every now and then, there's that big flaw that ruins your favorite game you like.

Some examples are the following, Time limits, escort missions, random battles in RPGs after moving one step after a previous random battle, cheap bosses that do not belong in the beginning of the game, cheap AI, cheap deaths, one hit deaths, restarting the game all over again after losing all your lives, or certain clichéd enemies you see in every game such as bats, bees, etc.

So the question is this, what are some of your pet peeves in gaming that you disliked or despised in any game, or game genre that you liked?

One of my pet peeves is having a time limit in video games. Why do we need one when there's an actual time limit in real life?

 

[DunkeyKong]

Well, there's a few
-nonstop tutorials
-complicated settings
-the difficulty spike
-no button mapping option

 

[Gorse]

Whenever I’m playing a platformer with lives, I always get this little sense of danger about whether 0 or 1 is your final life, because it’s different for every game. Someone should make a rule about that — just choose one, already!

 

[SkunkyBeaumont]

My biggest pet peeve is when a game hits you with an extreme, and I'm talking extreme, amount of cutscenes and non interactive moments, especially if they front load the intro with a ton of exposition and dialogue that could easily have been told or implied through emergent game play. Like Tales of Rebirth for example, has almost Kojima-esque levels of cutscenes and tutorials that you get bored of it and wonder where the hell the gameplay is.

 

[DunkeyKong]

My biggest pet peeve is when a game hits you with an extreme, and I'm talking extreme, amount of cutscenes and non interactive moments, especially if they front load the intro with a ton of exposition and dialogue that could easily have been told or implied through emergent game play. Like Tales of Rebirth for example, has almost Kojima-esque levels of cutscenes and tutorials that you get bored of it and wonder where the hell the gameplay is.

MGS4 in a nutshell:

 

[psvitaforever]

No map, I got spoiled by having it (even better if it's a minimap in a corner); I find it useful if it's done in a clear way, so you can explore 100% without getting frustrated.

 

[RedNin3]

You said it yourself, escort missions, if a game has an escort mission in it, no matter how decent it is, it is automatically worse in my brain and memory. Bonus points if the AI is borked beyond any repair.

 

[SkunkyBeaumont]

You said it yourself, escort missions, if a game has an escort mission in it, no matter how decent it is, it is automatically worse in my brain and memory. Bonus points if the AI is borked beyond any repair.

 

[Cris_Agev]

The "you have to die a lot in order to understand the boss and win". I think it is a soul-games thing, I didn't play them but I experienced this a lot with the Ys games. I mean, I force myself through it and it's a nice challenge and feeling when you win, but I fkng hate it! I'm doing alright and suddenly you reach a new hp threshold and the boss go nuts with a new skill that instantly kills me... aaghhh

 

[bjork]

Others I would say have been mentioned, so I'll say encumbrance. "But it isn't realistic for you to hold 87 of something." Okay, but it's realistic that I could dismember a giant creature? Or that I could get shot by a bazooka and eat a candy bar to immediately recover?

Also not a huge fan of gear degradation, but it depends on the game and how fast an item becomes useless.

 

[Glimbo]

Unskippable long winded intro segments where you can't do much of anything and it takes an hour or two to get to the actual game. Completely kills any chance of a replay.
Also stealth segments in non-stealth games will always be garbage since not much thought is ever put into a one-off mechanic.

 

[Tounushi]

Chest. High. Walls.

 

[Cris_Agev]

I just remembered another one. Stupid AI companions that keeps position themselves constantly in front of me and can't stop moving making me trigger over and over their default phrases. Seriously, in Growlanser V I was constantly telling to the screen: get out of my wayyyyyyy

 

[RustySK]

Non-stop, rapidfire cutscenes are awful, as are tutorial popups that get in the way of organically exploring a new mechanic as any player with half a brain would have done had no tutorial popup interrupted them.

Oh, there's also those pointless micro-objectives! "Go to the other corner of the room, pick up item, come back, watch dialogue, watch cutscene etc."
Pretty much anything that needlessly takes you out of the experience of playing a game in order to patronize the player.

Oh and a smaller pet peeve of mine that generally only pops up in Japanese games are those goddamn anime mouth sounds.
Genuinely rage-inducing to me. If you know you know.

 

[Clippy]

Inverted camera controls. Many old games don't let you change them and I hate that with a passion few things in life can still elicit out of me.

 

[fake-kun]

I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics

 

[DunkeyKong]

I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics

Relatable
Also you forgot to mentioned about the part I like…I hate ice physics

 

[SkunkyBeaumont]

Relatable
Also you forgot to mentioned about the part I like…I hate ice physics

 

[bobobobo2]

twinkle tale just hit me with "ima actual shmup now, b**ch", after being the dark souls of gauntlets forever, and i would have given it "best shmup that's not a shmup in the world" award in not for that, so i guess i hate when the game suddenly changes mechanics especially if it turns into something less than it was before, pretty sure there are a million examples of that but i can't remember anything now

 

[Brichye]

First what comes to mind is unskippable cutscenes and logo videos when you start the game. I genuinely don't understand why developers do this. Others are more of subjective thing: I just don't like respawning enemies and time limits. They can be done well but not a fan most of the time.

 

[marky]

- Escort missions.
- Missions with following someone, where in 99% of the games we don't even run and we move faster than the person we are following and only have to watch out not to get too close to him, which is annoying.
- Sudden, drastic increase in difficulty on the last boss/level compared to previous ones. (Pikmin 3 Deluxe which I have just finished is the best example of this in my opinion)
- Reducing the difficulty level in remakes/remasters of games. (Now I'm playing "Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu" and how the difficulty level has been lowered is shocking to me. I remember that, for example, the path to Bill's hut, the Rock Tunnel or the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town were much more challenging in the original and even in FireRed/LeafGreen.)
- Unskippable credits at the end of the game

 

[RageBurner]

Most of mine were already described here, so I'll add that I hate it when PC games and ports lack proper windowed modes. Either it should have as many resolutions as possible or a resizable window.

Here's the bonus round: I hate PC ports that don't have proper button glyphs for all major platforms.

 

[MasterEn]

You said it yourself, escort missions, if a game has an escort mission in it, no matter how decent it is, it is automatically worse in my brain and memory. Bonus points if the AI is borked beyond any repair.

i've only played one game where the escort mission wasn't terrible: Fable 1, where you escort the wandering merchant from the water fountain outside the guild to orchard farm. you get a jewel for protecting him, and then you could kill and loot him for another one. and some exp from the wasps and low level bandits along the way. good for getting a bit more skill or magic exp.

Post automatically merged: Jan 5, 2025

I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics
I hate ice physics

i wish i could like this more than once.
the first harry potter game on the psx is just made of ice physics everywhere. the floor, the air, the bank, the minecart section. pretty sure the title screen had ice physics too.

 

[raiden_dj]

I dont like it when old fighting games dont have training mode in their console ports or when racing games don't have time attack.

 

[BubblegumAthena]

I really hate unskipable cutscenes, and I hate even more when said unskipable cutscenes are very long and right before a boss battle/difficult segment that will invariably force me to re-watch said cutscene with each attempt.
Thank god for save states.