Pet Peeves in video games

[Jeff]

Time limits. What's the point of having one if there's already a time limit in real life?

 

[moonbits]

Character based collectibles in Donkey Kong 64.

 

[Dawg19]

Basically just wondering about things that irritate y'all when a game does them. Not on the level of "nah I'm out" but just relatively minor annoyances. I'll start, of course...

• When games don't pick the music back up where it left off after an enemy encounter
• When games tell me I can't go somewhere just because. No lore reason, no asshole NPC, just... "You can't go that way."

These two things, above all others, are the bane of my enjoyment.

Backtracking to any degree. If I'm done with an area, I'm not coming back unless I have to for game progression. It gives me a feeling of "I was JUST there..."

I recently got into the MGS series, and I dread replaying the PSG-1 and Key Card sections.

 

[DunkeyKong]

Similar thread to this (link @Waffles). Anyway, lives in a platformer. Is 0 the last life or 1? It can be quite confusing

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

(Bumped to merge).

 

[Nidoking's iconNidoking]

Possibly the worst one for me is when an NPC doesn't stop repeating the same dialogue over, and over, and over... especially if they do it really rapidly. Usually comes up when somebody needs your help, or wants you to follow them, or wants your attention. Ashley Graham and Claptrap are great examples of this.

 

[RetroLaw]

I remembered one because I started to play Moonlighter : constant sound when you're low on life. Just do it once to signal the player. I'm guessing it's done to stress out the player because he's about to die, but it's just insanely annoying.

 

[trickybus]

RPGs that tie damage output to your skill level... I feel that's simply wrong: your aim, speed and accuracy should suck, but you should be just as lethal with a weapon as a seasoned veteran than as a rookie.

I always thought about it this way: if a rookie character is missing more shots/hits than a veteran, they're going to do less overall damage on average, even if individual hits inflict the same amount of damage regardless of skill level

Pet peeve is shitty flashlights in every horror game ever

 

[Bakuma1997]

Healing bosses, ¿if it's a gimmick or some sort of puzzle? i take it ¿Healing just because? Now i want to go to the programmer's house and force feed him Gorgonzola

 

[miguk miguk]

Healing bosses, ¿if it's a gimmick or some sort of puzzle? i take it ¿Healing just because? Now i want to go to the programmer's house and force feed him Gorgonzola

You would probably hate fighting Ultima in Final Fantasy XII: a boss that can not only hurt you by casting healing magic on you, but can make you hurt yourself if you cast healing magic on yourself. And you get hurt every time you attack her.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Healing bosses, ¿if it's a gimmick or some sort of puzzle? i take it ¿Healing just because? Now i want to go to the programmer's house and force feed him Gorgonzola

Agreed, it's more like a race than having a strategy.

 

[Kid Dynamite]

RPG's that give you stupid items in chests. FF7 is a good example. You're near the end and on your way to fight Sephiroth, you have 9999 HP and you open a chest with a Hi Potion in it. Gee thanks, what a find!

 

[miguk miguk]

RPG's that give you stupid items in chests. FF7 is a good example. You're near the end and on your way to fight Sephiroth, you have 9999 HP and you open a chest with a Hi Potion in it. Gee thanks, what a find!

Still doesn't beat the ultimate item from Zelda BotW & TotK: Hestu's "gift" for collecting all the Korok seeds is literally a useless piece of ƒ¡‡.

 

[MasterEn]

Still doesn't beat the ultimate item from Zelda BotW & TotK: Hestu's "gift" for collecting all the Korok seeds is literally a useless piece of ƒ¡‡.

that's more of a joke from the developers. they seem to have started learning and hearing about what the players of their games do, and decided on a prank in response to that.

 

[Aeriththeflowergirl]

When random encounters are too frequent

Unskippable cutscenes especially after get a game over (i e. Final Fantasy X PS2 version)

Good game, ? story/annoying protagonist

Games with broken controls

Older games with really long passwords

Bad level design (i.e. Tomb Raider III)

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

When random encounters are too frequent

Unskippable cutscenes especially after get a game over (i e. Final Fantasy X PS2 version)

Good game, ? story/annoying protagonist

Games with broken controls

Older games with really long passwords

Bad level design (i.e. Tomb Raider III)

Agreed but 0 encounters isn't the best either.

True, Vanilla FFX is quite harsh especially with Yunalesca

I can stand a bad story if the gameplay is good. An annoying protag could break it tho.

Yes, of course.

Yes but bless savestates.

I didn't play TR but true, even with maps today.

 

[Aeriththeflowergirl]

Agreed but 0 encounters isn't the best either.

True, Vanilla FFX is quite harsh especially with Yunalesca

I can stand a bad story if the gameplay is good. An annoying protag could break it tho.

Yes, of course.

Yes but bless savestates.

I didn't play TR but true, even with maps today.

I tried to play Sword of Mana but the story was awful and hero was annoying. I prefer the original gane Seiken Densetsu/Final Fantasy Adventures

 

[Kid Dynamite]

When random encounters are too frequent

Unskippable cutscenes especially after get a game over (i e. Final Fantasy X PS2 version)

Good game, ? story/annoying protagonist

Games with broken controls

Older games with really long passwords

Bad level design (i.e. Tomb Raider III)

Yeah, I hate that too.

 

[nintara]

excuse me if there's already a thread like this, i searched for "cliche" and "pet peeve" and nothing came up.

anyways, mine is annoyingly long jumps in 3d platformers. why yes i would love to hold down the jump button for like 9 seconds while watching my character very slowly float towards the stationary platform! what a thrilling test of my abilities! especially when there's multiple right after one another, the fact that i've done this stupidly simple yet very slow task 5 times in the last 2 minutes really enhances the experience! (i can tolerate them if they're sparse though)

it's part of the reason why i consider battle for bikini bottom wildly overrated (and why i dropped it at the level where you jump from leaf to leaf at night), and one of my peeves with what little of crash of the titans i've played.

 

[otogirisou]

jump is overused

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

Always bugs me when higher difficulty levels in games just change around the damage and health values and nothing else. I always prefer when it changes actual elements of the game or enemy spawns, like Ninja Gaiden.

 

[KirboDeku]

RPGs with ridiculously high encounter rates or if equipment is a linear progression with no other fun stuff attached to it. Also any game where the walking speed is ridiculously slow.

 

[quixotic_kimchi]

forced tutorial

i get it. i kno how catch a pokemon BIANCA *seethes internally*

 

[Graw]

Crafting. I'm so fucking sick of crafting in games. No I don't want to go collect a bunch of random bullshit so I can turn it into something useful. Just give me the useful thing. It was novel when Minecraft came out and if it was only used here and there it wouldn't be so bad but crafting systems are everywhere. I just find them so boring and tedious. I think I hit peak crafting fatigue with Skyrim. There was one play session where I spent 3 hours doing nothing but crafting and arranging my inventory. When I realized that I turned the game off and I haven't played it since.

 

[nintara]

Always bugs me when higher difficulty levels in games just change around the damage and health values and nothing else. I always prefer when it changes actual elements of the game or enemy spawns, like Ninja Gaiden.

in fairness this makes it easier to add a more customizable difficulty selection like in persona 4 golden, though this potential is usually unutilized and might arguably make the game too malleable

and that reminded me of another design choice i dislike: games that automatically make themselves easier when you fail repeatedly, i know mighty no 9 and the ratchet and clank games do this, at it's best it's not noticeable, but i don't think it should be there at all.