Things that ruin games.

[Mario Enjoyer]

This is a thread for things you thing can completely ruin a game. Note this isn't for things you dislike in a game. This is for things that if you see in a game brings to at best a 6/10. The true scum of the gaming world.

The three worst things a game can have, in order from bad to worst.
1: Non-cosmetic Lootboxes/Gachas. It's bad enough that you lock characters or weapons behind a paywall, meaning people have to give you money to succeed, but you had to make it worse. Now, I could spend 100s of dollars and never see that character. This gets worse if you had to pay for the game.
2: Energy bars/Hearts: I must clarify, I do not mean health systems. I mean the bars that dictate how much you can play, unless you spend money. It is inherently bad design. Like number 1, this gets worse if the game ain't free.
3: Bigotry. I do not need to explain this pick.

Edit: Minor Grammar Mistake.

 

[Xiahou Ba]

I'd argue even cosmetic lootboxes and gachas are predatory as hell, because cosmetics are part of the experience and enhance the overall gameplay. Just because a game element doesn't like, directly affect gameplay or stats doesn't mean it doesn't leave an impact on your enjoyment of the game. This is also the reason they're monetized a lot in games such as Overwatch, because they're extremely desirable loot despite having no impact on the gameplay.

 

[Xiahou Dun]

A really terrible soundtrack that you can't turn off can probably be the reason you're not enjoying a game as much as you should. Bad voice acting can also really interfere but it depends on how bad it is.

 

[Denny Hamlin]

A bad camera system. For example, Sonic Adventure is a good game, but I find myself battling the camera at every turn. There's only so much bad camera I can take.

 

[Princess Viola]

Forced slow-walking parts AKA 'this could've just been a cutscene but no we need to have interactivity (read: make the player move their analog stick forward to slowly walk)'

 

[Koops]

mindless difficulty is almost all of the time an extreme turnoff. There's a fine line between that and organic difficulty, and it's not even that blurry. You can't throw the same enemies at me just with higher numbers cause while this might hypothetically force me to use the tools at my disposal in a more constructive way, it absolutely isn't fun when there's little you can do to prevent near instant death, especially when you aren't even given said resources. Basically the best way to design difficulty is make it so I need to rely on game mechanics for them to work in my favor and reward me handsomely for figuring out the ins and outs.

Oh and also random encounters in jrpgs fuck random encounters all my homies support visible enemies on the map that you can choose to engage or avoid

 

[Mike Wheeler]

Oh and also random encounters in jrpgs fuck random encounters all my homies support visible enemies on the map that you can choose to engage or avoid

I preferred when there were still random battles in Pokémon because there was more of a feeling of mystery about what would show up. There should have just been an Infinite Repel in my opinion. But other than that yeah random encounters are too inconveniencing to should be in games.

 

[Renjamin]

Diddy kong

 

[I'm the lil bro.]

2: Energy bars/Hearts: I must clarify, I do not mean health systems. I mean the bars that dictate how much you can play, unless you spend money. It is inherently bad design. Like number 1, this gets worse if the game ain't free.

Disney's Dreamlight Valley has this for literally no reason. It recharges when you go into your house, so what's even the point of it? It doesn't completely ruin it but it seems like such a needless inclusion, if I was an exec for that game I'd elect to just get rid of it. Dreamlight Valley ain't exactly a survival game or anything.

Forced slow-walking parts AKA 'this could've just been a cutscene but no we need to have interactivity (read: make the player move their analog stick forward to slowly walk)'

Personally, I think this depends on the game. Some games benefit from the integration of story with gameplay, and it can tell you a lot about the character and the gameplay change can create intrigue. It just depends on how it's handled, and what segment of the game it's being done for.

After all, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga had something akin to this with Luigi moving very slow, but it didn't bother me at all because it fit the tone of the story.

I preferred when there were still random battles in Pokémon because there was more of a feeling of mystery about what would show up. There should have just been an Infinite Repel in my opinion. But other than that yeah random encounters are too inconveniencing to should be in games.

It'd be nice if it was some kind of toggleable option. Another convenience afforded to Pokémon in particular with random encounters no longer being a thing and just being visible on the overworld is that it saves you precious time looking for a specific Pokémon, whether that be a species or a shiny, since you don't have to go through a whole encounter to see it.


I would say too many tutorials is a big turn-off for me. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, for how much I love it, is very lucky that I love Luigi and the bros. enough I'm willing to put up with it, but it's definitely toeing the line. To be clear what I mean here: I mean the tutorials that tell you that you can skip them, but you can't, not really, and they interrupt and slow down gameplay. I am not talking about tutorials that are blended seamlessly within the gameplay or have merely hint boxes that you have the option of looking at.

I also actually don't like adaptive difficulty. I'd rather choose how difficult my game is. If that means I'm stuck on a level because I chose to make it hard, then fine. Give me freedom in how much I want to challenge myself ー no more locking me into a difficulty from the start, and no more forcing it on me because you think I need the handouts. In some games it's possible to choose it at will, so I'd rather all games follow that model.


Also, not related to specific game mechanics, but game companies acting like it's cheating the game and a crime when you decide to play it the way you want sours my opinion on game companies. I bought the thing, I'll eat it if I want to.
(Should note that this point is not referring to using cheat codes in online play or anything like that. I'm talking about playing Nuzlockes, or using cheat codes on single player games, or things like that. Using cheat codes in online play affects other players and should be considered an obvious exception.)

 

[Ihsan997]

mindless difficulty is almost all of the time an extreme turnoff. There's a fine line between that and organic difficulty, and it's not even that blurry. You can't throw the same enemies at me just with higher numbers cause while this might hypothetically force me to use the tools at my disposal in a more constructive way, it absolutely isn't fun when there's little you can do to prevent near instant death, especially when you aren't even given said resources. Basically the best way to design difficulty is make it so I need to rely on game mechanics for them to work in my favor and reward me handsomely for figuring out the ins and outs.

Oh and also random encounters in jrpgs fuck random encounters all my homies support visible enemies on the map that you can choose to engage or avoid

I am 100% with you on both counts. I'm adding my signature to this petition!

 

[Engineer]

A bad camera system. For example, Sonic Adventure is a good game, but I find myself battling the camera at every turn. There's only so much bad camera I can take.

This was me with SM64. I wanted to love it but gotdamn that camera was janky.

 

[Xiahou Ba]

A bad soundtrack can easily ruin a game, esp. if you can't turn it off.

 

[Princess Viola]

This was me with SM64. I wanted to love it but gotdamn that camera was janky.

That's definitely one of the few things I think Super Mario 64 DS has over the original game.

 

[Greninja The Mario Karter]

There are several things that can ruin a game, and here are some examples.

1. One thing that can ruin a game is inherently flawed game design. Sticker Star and Color Splash are the textbook examples of this, as both games suffer from this very issue.
2. Pay to win mechanics such as lootboxes, limiting how many times you can play a level before having to wait out the timer, and locking progress behind paywalls are another thing that can ruin a game.
3. Padding is one of the most common ways to ruin a game. Mario and Luigi: Dream Team suffers from this issue, as it has countless amounts of filler that make it longer than it should be.
4. Poor level design is something a game should never, ever have. Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels suffers from terrible level design, and it predicted what some people would make in Super Mario Maker and its sequel.
5. Luck based events can definitely ruin a game. The Mario Party series is infamous for this, and Super Mario Sunshine's King Boo fight can take a long time to beat because of this.
6. Giving bosses way too much HP. Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time has bosses which take FOREVER to beat, not because they're hard necessarily, but because they have so much health. Either that, or my damage output just isn't high enough. Even with Bros Items, they can still take a while to beat because of their insane amount of HP.
7. Taking WAY too much damage from a single attack and not getting enough experience from enemies. This is another problem Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time has, which makes the fights in this game BRUTAL, especially the boss fights. It's at its worst in Shroob Castle, where the entire area serves as a difficulty spike. I shouldn't have to go throughout most of the game feeling like I don't do enough damage, can't take a hit, or don't have enough HP to survive for a while.

 

[Xiahou Ba]

Taking WAY too much damage from a single attack and not getting enough experience from enemies. This is another problem Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time has, which makes the fights in this game BRUTAL, especially the boss fights. It's at its worst in Shroob Castle, where the entire area serves as a difficulty spike. I shouldn't have to go throughout most of the game feeling like I don't do enough damage, can't take a hit, or don't have enough HP to survive for a while.

Sorry but like, Partners in Time is a very bad example to list as a game that has severely punishing enemies. Just to be aware of, there are games that are built around this very concept and are probably much much harder than Partners in Time, namely Dark Souls and Cuphead, and I'm pretty sure there are RPGs with way more brutal enemies than Partners in Time. Partners in Time even gives you the tool to deal with such enemies, namely the Ulti-Free Badge which trivializes the entire game.

 

[I'm the lil bro.]

One thing that can ruin a game is inherently flawed game design. Sticker Star and Color Splash are the textbook examples of this, as both games suffer from this very issue.

I wouldn't say that the ideas behind Sticker Star and Color Splash are inherently flawed; I just think that they are using too many ideas that don't complement each other very well. The sticker system isn't a bad idea in and of itself, but it works against the rest of the battle system, making it so battles aren't rewarding because they take away a limited resource to attack with. Origami King basically uses a more refined version of the same idea, after all, and it's not the part of the battle system people tend to complain about with that game. (Plus, I personally like Origami King's battle system in general. I think it's a cool idea to make a battle into a puzzle of sorts.)

Luck based events can definitely ruin a game. The Mario Party series is infamous for this, and Super Mario Sunshine's King Boo fight can take a long time to beat because of this.

While I'm not the biggest fan of RNG and all, I don't think anyone seriously thinks the Mario Party series is ruined by luck based events. Actually, the major upset that RNG can cause is kind of the main draw of the series, and it's a pretty popular one at that. I think it just depends on how RNG is utilized and how it's advertised to be utilized. Mario Party is a gimmicky game and everyone expects these major upsets from it. Meanwhile, something like, say, Smash Bros. which is inherently more skill based by design can feel cheapened by RNG that suddenly turns the tides (that you don't have any control over). Pokémon has a lot of RNG, and without it, a lot of match-ups would simply be unwinnable.

You could argue that design that necessitates RNG in order to function is bad game design, but that assumes that those major upsets and turning the tides aren't exactly the feelings that the designers are going for, which I would say it definitely is. Games that have it to such degree want to give you the adrenaline that comes with suddenly getting a lucky break. And it does evoke a strong emotion, which is what it's trying to do.

That being said, I do think some versions of RNG are archaic holdovers from genre staples rather than strictly necessary. If the Mario & Luigi RPG series proves nothing else, it certainly proves that you don't need random chance "misses" to make battles engaging; placing it in the player's hands whether an attack misses or not, if anything, makes the game more fun to play, and it's the reason why that series is my favorite RPG series gameplay wise. It'd be good if games attempted to break those boundaries more rather than relying on RNG as a crutch for thrills.

Taking WAY too much damage from a single attack and not getting enough experience from enemies. This is another problem Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time has, which makes the fights in this game BRUTAL, especially the boss fights. It's at its worst in Shroob Castle, where the entire area serves as a difficulty spike. I shouldn't have to go throughout most of the game feeling like I don't do enough damage, can't take a hit, or don't have enough HP to survive for a while.

... Are you skipping enemies in areas rather than fighting them? Genuine question. This sounds like the result of you being underleveled. Of course Shroob Castle is difficult, it's the end game level. These are enemies you're supposed to be in your 40s or so when fighting. If you want to be underleveled for the challenge, that's absolutely your call to make (and I've even tried to do so in RPGs before), but it doesn't make the game unfairly scaled if you are struggling in an end game area at level 25.

Ray Trace brought up the Ulti-Free Badge, but there's also end game equipment that you can get from these enemies that can help to trivialize them as well.

Partners in Time was simply not any harder than the other Mario & Luigi RPGs from my experience (except Paper Jam, but everything was more difficult than Paper Jam; having Paper Mario there to attack is maybe a little OP).

I was looking at your previous point:

Giving bosses way too much HP. Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time has bosses which take FOREVER to beat, not because they're hard necessarily, but because they have so much health. Either that, or my damage output just isn't high enough. Even with Bros Items, they can still take a while to beat because of their insane amount of HP.

...and while Partners in Time definitely has enemies with HP sponges, I'm wondering if your problem isn't double-fold here, especially with the damage you're saying you're taking.

 

[Koops]

if you really wanna complain about enemies being damage sponges castlevania cotm is right there

 

[Koopa con Carne]

if you really wanna complain about enemies being damage sponges castlevania cotm is right there

twitching my eye at the thought of that Zombie Dragon

 

[Koops]

Ironically the zombie dragons are my favorite boss battle in the game (and one of my favorites, if not favorite in gaming as a whole) but god forbid you don't kill every single enemy on your way throughout the game or some basic ass goons one area later will take a million hits to kill

Oh yeah while we're complaining about the game can we talk about how ASS the movement is

 

[Koopa con Carne]

Oh yeah while we're complaining about the game can we talk about how ASS the movement is

are you confusing Circle of the Moon with Harmony of Dissonance pechance?

 

[Ihsan997]

I'm not a fan of arbitrary weakness in the player character. That's obviously very subjective, and deserving a discussion in and of itself, but that's my own pet peeve.

 

[Koops]

are you confusing Circle of the Moon with Harmony of Dissonance pechance?

I would never I love Harmony to death

the latter has wonky physics but it still controls fairly alright, cotm on the other hand has the fucking sluggish as hell walking and double tabbing to run and I hate it. Even worse that you lose all momentum when you do so much as turn around

 

[I'm the lil bro.]

I'm not a fan of arbitrary weakness in the player character. That's obviously very subjective, and deserving a discussion in and of itself, but that's my own pet peeve.

Curious about what you mean by "arbitrary weakness". Are you talking about a character flaw that the narrative of a game tackles, or something else?

 

[Ihsan997]

Curious about what you mean by "arbitrary weakness". Are you talking about a character flaw that the narrative of a game tackles, or something else?

Nah, I solely mean gameplay, but it's a highly subjective issue.

I never mind difficulty in terms of tough odds. I quit and boycott games with shoddy controls, however, because that hampers the player from achieving objectives - particularly ones which require quick response times. Poor camera angles are another one; if that is mishandled in development, then the player is permanently limited in their ability to act, and all due to a mechanic which isn't fun.

 

[Greninja The Mario Karter]

... Are you skipping enemies in areas rather than fighting them? Genuine question. This sounds like the result of you being underleveled. Of course Shroob Castle is difficult, it's the end game level. These are enemies you're supposed to be in your 40s or so when fighting. If you want to be underleveled for the challenge, that's absolutely your call to make (and I've even tried to do so in RPGs before), but it doesn't make the game unfairly scaled if you are struggling in an end game area at level 25.

Everyone on my team has EXP in the mid to late 30000s range (Mario has 35763 EXP, Luigi has 35757 EXP, Baby Mario has 37285 EXP, and Baby Luigi has 37261 EXP), and do you want to know how much EXP you need to reach level 31? Mario and Luigi each need 50902 EXP to reach level 31, and their baby counterparts need 53374 EXP to reach level 31. The amount of EXP I have nets me a level of 27, so I was actually at level 27 when I beat the game on an emulator. Charriii5 was at level 23 when he got to the final area. I only skip the enemies that I know I'm going to lose to, and an example of this is a group of five Bob-ombs as Baby Mario and Baby Luigi. Also, it's not just the final level. there are several points in the game where I feel like I'm underleveled. Also, you want to be on par, maybe a few levels lower than the final boss. Well, in Elder Princess Shroob's case, that's level 30 for her first phase and level 31 for her second phase. The highest level enemies are level 28, and those enemies are Shroobsworth, Intern Shroob, and Ghoul Guy. Meanwhile, the regular enemy with the most HP, the Shroob Rex with 200 HP, is level 27.

On the topic of the Shroob Sisters, Princess Shroob, who is level 29, has 3000 HP (thankfully, she only has 1700 HP in the European and Japanese versions of the game, just over half the HP of the American version). I've only been using Bros Items when fighting bosses, and even then, I only use the most powerful ones I have at the moment because the first few Bros Items kind of suck, especially when I get the Trampoline, Copy Flower, and Mix Flower. But even then, it's not like it'll be super useful if I have a 75% chance of screwing up an input with something I have a limited quantity of. Granted, I have an Ulti-Free Badge, which costs 90 beans, but because there aren't many beans in this game, you can only buy one, and this is your only way to keep more Bros Items.

And the worst part about this battle is, you don't even get experience for it. You realize that there's one more fight after this, right? One where I could use the stat boost, because Elder Princess Shroob has 3500 HP in her first form. That's 500 more HP than her sister as well as her second form, which you don't get to heal for: you beat Phase 1, you go straight into Phase 2, meaning that altogether, she has 6500 HP. And do you know how I know that even the developers agreed that she had way too much HP? In the European and Japanese versions of the game, she has 3800 HP total (1800 in her first phase and 2000 in her second phase). Only 300 more HP than her American first phase, which, by the way, is almost twice as much HP as the non-American first phase. And honestly? Thank God for the Trampoline, Copy Flower, and Mix Flower. Because otherwise, I don't know how the game expects you to beat her second phase. You have to damage her, same as any other enemy, right? But in order to do that, you have to damage her crown to deactivate it. Okay, that's fine, but in order to even be able to reach the crown, you have to take out her legs. Keep in mind that each body part has its own HP; each of her four arms has 200 HP for a combined total of 800 HP for the arms alone, way more than any regular enemy in the game, the legs which have 400 HP, also more than any regular enemy in the game, and the crown has 200 HP, the same amount as a Shroob Rex, the regular enemy with the most HP. Also, each body part regenerates after three turns, so get in as much damage as you can before then.