Game mechanics you hate for any reason

I don't think I've ever skipped a cutscene unless I've already seen it

I'm not a fan of being able to die *instantly* due to a minor mistake made while traversing the game environment - it's one of the reasons I don't play platformers! - so when games introduce this mechanic from out of nowhere, it frustrates the hell out of me.

The section that prompted this post is The Ocean Roars Again, from Nioh - it's a nighttime level, with very low lighting, so of course the devs decided that this was the perfect place to add an instakill element.

How so? Apparently, despite being a badass samurai, William can't swim; as a result, every time you fall in the water, you die.

This wouldn't be an issue if the entire level hadn't been designed in such a way that there are bottomless puddles every 10 feet or so, concealed from view, so falling in at some point is all but inevitable. It's even a constant threat in the boss arena.

Haha, I remember that level well. It can happen while you're fighting the boss as well

JuniorFE

A pox on thy realism - let me swim, dammit

Many thanks for the tips.

I don’t even remember how that game ends, but I remember LCD Soundsystem kicking in as the credits rolled. That bit was awesome.

Making me become an absolute pro at a game to unlock things like infinite ammo that I now have no use for because I'm a pro at the game and all the fun has been sucked out of it on the journey to unlock the bloody thing.

Never seen the point of infinite weapons being the reward for hard playthroughs of RE games. Just seems redundant at that point

I think they include this as a power fantasy after being on the backfoot for a lot of that particular game, nowadays it also seems to be a tool for people who like to do speedruns especially as trophies/achievements actively target this particular thing.

The handcannon is infinite I think (need to unlock its special) and I think you can just buy the infinite rocket launcher. No need for S+ or cat ears

I’ve been playing and loving the Red Dead port on Switch at the moment, but I had to remind myself that what I had initially considered to be a quality of life improvements over Red Dead 2 were obviously not acurate as this is the much older game. It’s shocking just how much gameplay is sacrificed for realism in the sequel. I know I’ve banged on about my love/hate relationship with RDR2, but I didn’t realise just how much more I preferred the original until I went back to it.

The controls; snappy, responsive and faster.
The horse; doesn’t require constant maintenance.
The player; doesn’t require maintenance.
The menus, especially the privisions, much larger and more clear to read.
Looting bodies; both faster and more rewarding.
Health; just one kind of item sourced from a doctor, rather than 50 various food types obtained from looting or hunting. Speaking of which…
Looting houses; one very obvious and clearly visible chest rather than a load of cupboards and drawers.
Herbs; clearly visible and even highlighted on the radar, rather than requiring a third visual perspective that requires clicking in both analog sticks at the same time.
The stranger missions; all nicely logged and kept together in one tab.
The campaign; possibly about a quarter of the size of the sequel. Has shorter cutscenes that get to the point.
Item Wheel; only 1 wheel instead of 3!
Music; far more frequent when out in the wilderness.

I think the only 2 things the sequel has over this game is the narrative and the graphics. Obviously RDR2 is still one of the best looking games out there and definitely the most convincing open world environment I’ve ever seen, but also it doesn’t suffer from Rockstar’s old narrative crutch, which is to pass the leading character around to a bunch of random characters, as an errand boy, for 90% of the game, as you look to follow up on that one lead that gets you a chance to get revenge on somebody that has done you wrong.

But yeah, it’s still not even close. Red Dead 1 is a massively better game overall. It doesn’t sacrifice gameplay in order to make its world more believable. Who cares that all the belongings of an abandoned house are in 1 little chest sticking out in the corner? Is it really more engaging to open 11 draws and a couple of cupboards to collect the same few scraps of healing items and then in order to use them you have to hold a shoulder button down and cycle through 30 variants of an item in order to use it?

I genuinely think RDR2 might be one of the worst offenders out there for mechanics in games that drive me crazy.

Now I’m off to brush my horse for 2 minutes, feed it some oat cakes and then down a couple of beans. Just to make sure I don’t run out of stamina and health over the next 15 minutes.

Not sure if already mentioned. But I dislike it when games darken the screen when I am an crouching in a stealth mode.

I’m trying to find my way around without being noticed, I don’t want my vision restricted.

This is where game and simulation clash. 

My current gripe is booting up a game for ther first time to be treated to a lavish cinematic CGI intro with fucking subtitles. I either watch it with subtitles thus ruining the experience, or skip it, go to the menu, put subtitles off then reboot the game and hope it plays the intro again.

Stupid. It's fucking stupid. I know why, because nearly everyone plays with subtitles on. Hell, so do I most of the time. That's becasue games throw too much dialogue at me and I like to read then skip as opposed to waiting til it's laboriously spoken. The intro though. The fucking intro. It's literally the only part I'm happy to sit through and you're runing it for me. Why? WHY ARE YOU RUINING IT FOR ME!?

I'm fine. It's fine. I'm fine.

My PS5 seems to have learnt that I like subtitles off by default somehow.