Pet Peeves in video games

[RustySK]

Missable items that are in areas that become inaccessible after you finish them

Oh this one a hundred percent!
I'm getting flashbacks of that one chest in Final Fantasy 9's rat city. True cruelty.

 

[thanonyx thanonyx]

Oh this one a hundred percent!
I'm getting flashbacks of that one chest in Final Fantasy 9's rat city. True cruelty.

I missed that staff that gives Vivi Firaga, Blizzaga, and Thundaga.

 

[MasterEn]

Something that has really irked me so bad with recent games. I mean really pisses me off to the point of not wanting to even bother with the game anymore, are Boss Checkpoints. If you're gonna make your boss super difficult and them have multiple phases and such, let me as the player appreciate the challenge. God of War 2018 and Ragnarok have this bulldung and I absolutely despise it. I think the Soulslike genre has done some real damage to Action games of this style lately and it just gets worse and worse. I miss when action games were hard because of tight design that you had to learn and not just "whoops sorry man you didn't have enough stamina to dodge or parry." I miss Ninja Gaiden and DMC.

i think boss check points should be relate to difficulty settings. play on easy and enjoy the story, get use to the mechanics, and then as you go up in difficulty, less and less of them are in the battle, until you are on the hardest one; then the battle plays out in one continuous go.

 

[Yousef]

Someone has amnesia. Usually the protagonist. Lazy shit writing.

Unskippable intros when you start up the game, so you go through 4-5 different Devs/Producers and their shitty, obnoxious logos.

Insane encounter rate. Cheap way to bloat up the game time.

Open world with no life.

Amnesia writing is truly unnecessary. The characters either function perfectly without or it’s just to mask plot points. The latter is only fine in concept but often really bad in execution.

 

[MasterEn]

Amnesia writing is truly unnecessary. The characters either function perfectly without or it’s just to mask plot points. The latter is only fine in concept but often really bad in execution.

i think it worked alright in the Deja vu games, but those were supposed to be mystery games. ffx is one of the few games that gets around the barrier of introducing the payer to a closed off world that functions differently from ours.

 

[Yousef]

i think it worked alright in the Deja vu games, but those were supposed to be mystery games. ffx is one of the few games that gets around the barrier of introducing the payer to a closed off world that functions differently from ours.

Good examples.
I never played the Deja vu games although I might have to check them out.

 

[MasterEn]

Good examples.
I never played the Deja vu games although I might have to check them out.

i had the first one when i was a kid. never got very far but the music was pretty cool. AVGN has a video on it that came out a few months ago.

 

[Tonberry]

In almost every single game they're in, audio logs or overly specific diary notes just break my immersion completely. I get that they're sometimes needed as a way to hint at puzzle solutions or to give exposition to a mysterious story, but for the mostpart they just feel weird and redundant.

Like in Resident Evil Village, what are the odds that some random guy getting mangled by a werewolf just so happened to have a pen and paper ready to write to his wife that he "probably kinda sorta?" knows where the key might be hidden.
Oh, and that he also hid a grenade launcher somewhere nearby in this remote eastern european mountain village.

Or in Skyrim, where every single bandit leader handily scrawled a note and put it up on a wall telling his goons to not touch his treasure in this specific room that only he has the key to.

They also somewhat ruined Bioshock for me, because they're just too abundant and it's no fun listening to diaries of people dying when I could be immersed in the scary underwater city's atmosphere instead.

The main outlier here being the legendary "Itchy, tasty" log from Resident Evil 1.

 

[nachito]

I hate when some games are so dark that it's impossible to see anything unless I turn up brightness to the max.

 

[MasterEn]

I hate when some games are so dark that it's impossible to see anything unless I turn up brightness to the max.

but how else are you supposed to have atmosphere in a video game? good music? voice acting? game mechanics and world building? interesting characters? those are all so expense. :P

 

[RetroGameMaster]

What’s Your Least Favorite Recurring Gimmick or Trope in Video Games?

So over on RA we were discussing this topic and I wanted to get your opinions here at RGT. Whether it’s a poorly designed mission, an overused narrative device, or a gameplay choice that feels more frustrating than fun, certain tropes have a way of getting under our skin. For me, there are a few recurring gimmicks that consistently test my patience.

---

These undoubtedly get under my skin while playing.

Escort Missions
Escort missions often involve protecting an AI-controlled character who moves slowly, makes poor decisions, or gets stuck in dangerous situations. This can lead to frustration, especially if the mission fails due to the AI’s incompetence rather than the player's skill.

Fetch Quests
Fetch quests can feel like padding, requiring players to collect arbitrary items with little narrative or gameplay payoff. When overused, they can make the game feel repetitive and uninspired.

Forced Stealth Sections
I'll say I love stealth games but not forced stealth. When stealth mechanics are tacked onto games that aren’t designed for them, it can feel clunky and frustrating.

Overused Quick-Time Events (QTEs)
QTEs can feel like a lazy way to add interactivity to cutscenes or action sequences. If overused, they can make gameplay feel less engaging and more like a series of button prompts.

Artificial Difficulty Spikes
Sudden, unexplained difficulty spikes can feel unfair and discourage players, especially if they’re not given the tools or information to overcome the challenge. Now I do like hard games and challenges just not when its implemented in the way described above.

The “Chosen One” Trope
While not inherently bad, the “chosen one” narrative can feel overused and predictable.

---

These tropes aren’t always bad and they can work well when implemented thoughtfully. But when done poorly, they can really drag down an otherwise great game. What about you? What’s your least favorite recurring gimmick or trope in video games? Let’s discuss it!

 

[bjork]

What is RA?

Anyway, I dislike timers in general and hunger/thirst meters are a giant turnoff to me, which I guess are timers in a way.

 

[DunkeyKong]

Ah yes, great topic
Trailing missions: one of the most annoying missions ever made (especially in Assassin's Creed), I would rather play something else than stalking a slowass snail that pauses every 10 SECONDS just to get to the location

Hidden paths: as much as I like Metroidvania, some of these hidden paths can be a bit…too hidden. It's one of the reasons why I couldn't finish Super Metroid, even though I still love that game

Backtracking: another Metroidvania related (sorry) and it's pretty self explanatory…kinda. If it's not too constant and can actually give me something really valuable to progress, then I won't mind as much

Post automatically merged: Feb 3, 2025

What is RA?

Anyway, I dislike timers in general and hunger/thirst meters are a giant turnoff to me, which I guess are timers in a way.

Retroachievements I think

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

Definitively fetch quests and escort missions. Escort missions where the escort is controlled by AI and can die are the worst. Games chock full of simple fetch quests are generally boring, but they can be ok if they are used sparingly.

 

[Tonberry]

Crafting in non-crafting games.
It can be fun, but usually it just feels Iike busywork to elongate the game.

 

[Clippy]

Unskippable cutscenes and animations. Another thing I hate is when the set-up is too long. I get the need for an intro to set the stage and a brief tutorial if your game's mechanics are unusual but if I'm not playing the game proper within 20 minutes I am mightily cheesed off.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

Bloated crafting systems that require me to farm 20 bear asses to upgrade my damage by 5% or hold 2 more shots.

Forced stealth section in games where the mechanics are not suited for stealth too. Oh, how many Return to Castle Wolfenstein playthroughs I've cut very short because of this.

 

[Cozycaliban]

Forced tutorials for me. Don't give me a 15-minute mission on how to use a D-PAD / WASD keys ... Let me figure it out.

 

[RetroGameMaster]

What is RA?

Anyway, I dislike timers in general and hunger/thirst meters are a giant turnoff to me, which I guess are timers in a way.

Ra is Retroachievements. I'm Sorry, I should have typed it out instead of abbreviating it.

 

[Insomnia_ig]

Yellow paint and other shit like that. It's not the fact that the paint exists it just feels a bit silly at times like there was paint all over a ladder in RE4R and I thought that was really stupid like if most ladders didn't let you climb okay I can see a reason for it but you can climb every ladder and it's extremly obvious that's where you're meant to go anyways. If these guides were implimented better to show you the way like in FF7R for example using the lifestream to show your party where to go then I wouldn't be complaining. I get why it's there I respect it for what it is I personally think it's dumb.

 

[fake-kun]

There's already a thread like this: https://retrogametalk.com/threads/pet-peeves-in-video-games.2400/

@Waffles

 

[ZEGA ZONIC]

Yellow paint and other shit like that. It's not the fact that the paint exists it just feels a bit silly at times like there was paint all over a ladder in RE4R and I thought that was really stupid like if most ladders didn't let you climb okay I can see a reason for it but you can climb every ladder and it's extremly obvious that's where you're meant to go anyways. If these guides were implimented better to show you the way like in FF7R for example using the lifestream to show your party where to go then I wouldn't be complaining. I get why it's there I respect it for what it is I personally think it's dumb.

Ah yes, the curse of the Yellow paint.

 

[DunkeyKong]

Unskippable cutscenes and animations. Another thing I hate is when the set-up is too long. I get the need for an intro to set the stage and a brief tutorial if your game's mechanics are unusual but if I'm not playing the game proper within 20 minutes I am mightily cheesed off.

I agree, also I don't know how unskippable cutscenes exist (especially when she keeps appearing every fucking…)

Bloated crafting systems that require me to farm 20 bear asses to upgrade my damage by 5% or hold 2 more shots.

Far Cry (after 2) games in a nutshell

 

[RetroGameMaster]

There's already a thread like this: https://retrogametalk.com/threads/pet-peeves-in-video-games.2400/

@Waffles

My apologies, I did not know that there was already a thread for this.

 

[fake-kun]

My apologies, I did not know that there was already a thread for this.

You shouldn't apologize to me. My post exist to summon Waffles, so that he merged the threads.