Feature: Top 7 Moments I Hated In Games I Love

I've never really encountered a game that has been absolutely perfect.  More often than not, there's almost always at least one thing I don't like about a certain title as I play it.  These little nitpicks usually become more noticeable whenever they are involved in games that I really enjoy.  As a result, I often remember them with deep-seeded hatred rooted in the memories of hours of frustration.  Sometimes when I think about them, I find myself curling up into a corner as I attempt to cry away my trauma.

...And then everything turns blue, for some reason...

The games on this list are among some of my favorites that I've ever played.  However, each of them has one of those moments that can be deemed "That One Part" by many fellow gamers who can relate to my sorrow (at least I'd like to think so...).



#7:  Riding Agro (Shadow of the Colossus)
I'll be honest, Shadow of the Colossus made a pretty bad first impression on me.  This was in no small part due to the clumsy way I had to navigate my horse across the landscapes.  Now, I've seen this game get praised left and right for its quality, and I can respect that it is indeed a very, very good game.  However, I've rarely seen people complain about fumbling with the controller as Agro stubbornly refuses to move.  It makes me feel as though there's something I'm not getting, but I know I can't be the only one who has this notion.

An awesome, epic, awe-inspiring moment...
...Too bad it's a pain in the ass to turn around...

Allow me to explain the basic control setup.  To move the horse forward, you have to repeatedly mash the X button.  So, if you want to go anywhere, you're thumbs going to be getting a workout the whole time.  I suppose I understand why they did this, because the left analog stick is needed to point the character's sword at the colossi in order to reveal their weak spots, so using it to move the horse forward as well would be kind of a pain. 

The problem is, the left stick is still used to turn the horse, so if you want to scan for weaknesses while riding, every single time you try to pan across a monster's body, the horse will more often than not turn with you and start running directly towards it.  Not to mention, as you're scanning for weak spots, you have to be continuously mashing X if you want to keep moving.

...And now I'm getting a headache just thinking about this mess...

Notice the horse.  Now notice you not on it.
That's because you just got knocked off.  Again.

Okay, so Agro doesn't control with the accuracy and precision needed to navigate a battle with a building-sized boss.  I suppose that's fine, as long as it can handle well when it's not under pressure...

Yeah, I suppose that would have been great, too.

Problem is, even in the wilderness, controlling Agro is still comparable to running down a winding alley with a bag of bricks tethered to your waist, and dragging behind you.  Sure, you can move in a straight line, with some effort, but try to make a turn, and all grace and finesse is out the window.  Controller commands are painfully delayed as you try to navigate a landscape.  And the worst part is, if you so much as graze a rock wall or a tree, your horse will come to a dead stop.  That means that you'll have to start mashing X again just to (slowly) get back up to speed.

And how can you not hit a tree when you're
riding into something like this?!

In the end, I never got used to Agro's controls, and I often left him behind as much as I could during the fights, leaving him to fend for himself, much to my entertainment.



#6:  The Last Stretch (Final Fantasy III (DS))
Oh, Final Fantasy III, how I love you so.  As my first game in the long-running series, you took me on a quest that was filled with whimsy, charm, and adventure.  Your job system was expansive and varied, and your sidequests were worthwhile and enjoyable.  I deemed you one of my favorite DS games of all time.  Why, then, Final Fantasy III, did you have to torment me with your last few hours of gameplay?  Why?

I am more familiar with this image than I care to admit...

When it comes to final dungeons, JRPGs are notorious for making them as difficult and time consuming as possible.  There are more often than not multiple stages to these dungeons, and the bosses within them prove to be no different.  FFIII doesn't deviate from this rule, to be sure.  However, it just seems to be much more cruel about it.

That image up there?  That exact spot is the last chance you are ever given an opportunity to save.  From there, you're expected to navigate up a 7+ story crystal tower, filled with some of the most difficult enemies ever encountered within the game (we're talking lay out your entire team in 3 turns kind of difficult).  At the end of that, you're supposed to fight a rather tough boss, as expected.  However!  After that you get sent into another zone, where you have to navigate through even more areas with even tougher enemies.

Oh, but we're just getting started!

At that point, you have to find and take down 4 respectably difficult bosses in order to access the next area, wherein you fight another boss.  And after that, you get a chance to fight the actual final boss in the game.  At which point, it will probably lay waste to your entire team in about 3 rounds, because it attacks 4 times per turn (something that was unprecedented throughout the entire game).  And then, once you inevitably fail.  Where do you have to restart from?

There is no expletive vulgar enough...

So, there you stand.  Over an hour's work, gone in an instant.  Every time you fail.  Finishing this game is a test of insanity.  And for better or for worse, I passed it in the end.



#5: Fighting Matriarch Benezia (Mass Effect)
I'm really lucky that this fight didn't make me rage-quit and stop playing this game entirely.  I came pretty damn close, though.

Truthfully, Mass Effect was a game that was completely foreign to me.  Managing my biotics, while shooting and running for new cover, were things that I had never had much experience doing all at once.  Still, I was somehow able to get by as I played for a couple of hours. 

Then, I was promptly slammed in the face by an immovable brick wall of difficulty.

...That just so happened to look like a stripper...

Depending on where you chose to go first, you could end up fighting Benezia within a couple hours into the game.  Unfortunately for me, she was the first boss I ever encountered.  As I desperately ran around trying to take out her minions as she threw a slew of biotics at me, I sat in front of my TV with my mouth gaping as I was killed within seconds of starting the battle.  In terms of a difficulty spike, this was just ridiculous.

So, I tried again, sometimes attempting to find different cover every now and then.  Still the same result.  I would somehow get stunned, and be unable to move as the minions pelted me full of space-age lead.  At that point, I pretty much assumed that I was doing something glaringly wrong.  I didn't think I could suck that much...

Turns out I was wrong, because when I looked up a walkthrough on Youtube, I came across an experienced player who had the exact same thing happen to him.  Seriously, just watch the first two minutes of that video.  After seeing that, bear in mind that you have to watch that same cutscene every single time you die, so you're going to be more than familiar with it by the time you actually manage to win.

Much, much more.

So yeah, finding that video made me feel better in some small way.  However, I soon came to the realization that I was going to have more trouble with the boss than I had originally thought.  Oh, the horrors upon making that discovery...



#4: The Kid's Warp Zone (Super Meat Boy)
If you talk about "that one hard level in Super Meat Boy," there are a plethora of different possibilities that you could be referring to.  However, everyone who's played the game will probably instantly know exactly which level you're thinking of...

...And a constant stream of naughty words will quickly fill the air...

To say that a level is difficult, even for Meat Boy, is an impressive thing to claim.  However, the statement couldn't be truer with this soul-crushing stage.  Just, well...Look at it! 

If you aren't having a heart attack right now, odds are you haven't played very much of SMB.  You see, if you touch anything that might cause you harm, you're dead, and you have to start the level over.  That's how the game works.  It's supposed to be hard, and you're supposed to die a lot.  That's why, even the slightest brush up against a spike or a blade can cause instant death.  Now, with that in mind, look at that stage again.  Odds are you're sharing the same thoughts as everyone else who's seen it: "How the hell am I expected to get through that?!"

Well, here's a quick little walkthrough image that might help you out:

Hmm...Oh yes, this makes it seem a lot easier!

Now, carefully look at that image above.  Notice the lack of solid ground to land on?  You're not going to have a moment to breathe until point 6, at best.  That means you have to keep moving and execute jumps perfectly and fluidly for 3/4 of the level before you even get a chance to stop and think for a little bit.  And if you mess up, it's back to point 1, and tears start to flow.

In most levels of Super Meat Boy, the player's deaths are a learning experience.  Each and every failure culminates into an adapted strategy for getting past an obstacle.  Unfortunately, that just isn't the case with this level.  Every time you die, you learn very little, if anything, about what you should try next.  And everything you do learn is still brutally difficult to pull off.  As I said before, this level gives you very little time to think about your actions.  This results in a sense of failure that is more bitter than anything I've experienced in a game before.

...And I'm only talking about the first of three successive levels...

...But for the sake of my sanity, I'm not going to cover any more...

#2: The Hammer Proving Grounds (Bastion)

The reason I hate this particular level so much is due to a simple bug in the game, which I'll explain later.

Proving Grounds are simple extra levels in Bastion that require you to use a specific weapon in order to accomplish a certain goal. In the hammer's case, you are tasked with breaking 100 objects as quickly as possible. Pretty easy, right? Well, it is...

I mean, just look at all the stuff you have available to break!

...At least for the 3rd and 2nd prize.

To get the 3rd prize, you just have to complete the course. Nothing special. To get the 2nd prize, you have to break 100 objects in 40 seconds or less. A little challenging, but still feasible.

Now, to get the 1st prize, you have to complete the course in 24 seconds. Just think about that. 100 objects in 24 seconds. That's a little more than 4 objects a second. While on certain sections of the scrap yard that's not unreasonable, on other sections it's practically impossible to accomplish. The challenge requires you to not only be utterly perfect, but also insanely lucky. Rolling around and swinging your hammer like a madman is pretty much your best strategy.

I would post another picture here, but I imagine things would be too fast and hectic for a screenshot, so I suppose a video of the challenge will have to do...

Just look at that madness. I have to admit, the player makes it look pretty easy. But don't be fooled. Every single one of his actions are just as meticulously planned as they are reflexive. Everything had to be perfect in order to ensure that the goal was met.

Although I would still hate this level no matter what, I suppose I could forgive it a little bit if the game didn't flat-out lie to you.

When you unlock the 2nd prize in this challenge, you are prompted with a notification saying that the 1st prize will be unlocked if you complete the course in 27 seconds or less. 

27 seconds or less.

While that may not seem like much, that is a significant difference when it comes to breaking just a few more objects. With an extra 3 seconds, I could have cleared this challenge no problem. In fact, I technically did. Multiple times. I was riding on the 26-27 mark every time I attempted to unlock the first prize. It wasn't until I hit the arbitrary 24-second mark that I finally got what I wanted. 

It's a shame you had to do that, Bastion. As much as I adore you, I will never forgive you for the rage you've instilled in me.

#2: Threading the Needle (BIT. TRIP Runner)
This is one of those things that is difficult to explain to those who haven't played the game.  However, those who have played it know exactly what I'm talking about. 

In the late levels of Runner, the developers randomly decided to get painfully sadistic.  They found this one obstacle that is an absolute nightmare to try to navigate, and they plopped it randomly into several other stages. 

And I have lovingly given it the name mentioned above.

For those of you who aren't familiar with what's going on here, allow me to explain.  The obstacle starts off with a garbage can that you have to jump over.  Then, immediately afterwards there are asteroids flying in your face that you have to duck to avoid.  You hold the duck button all the way down the stairs, until you clear all of the asteroids.  Now, why is that so hard?

Because you have to be absolutely freakin' perfect to pull it off!

I'm not exaggerating here.  Jump too early, and you hit the trashcan.  Time to start over.  Jump too late and your face rams into an asteroid before you have a chance to duck.  Time to start over again.  In order to get past this obstacle, you have to land in just the right amount of space to clear the jump and have enough time to duck.  And that window of opportunity is very, very narrow.

Now, this wouldn't be so bad if it just came up once in one level, but as I said, apparently someone at Gaijin Games just decided to be a total dick and put them all over the freakin' place.  Just watch this video of one of the levels, and you'll see what I mean.  Try to ignore everything else, and just pay attention to how many times that obstacle comes up within a span of about 2 minutes.

Did you notice?  Did you see it?  Four times.  That same nightmare of an obstacle comes up four times in one level!  What's even more sadistic is where they were placed on the stage.  Two are at the beginning, right next to each other, and two are at the end, similarly close by.  What an infuriating slap in the face! 

If you can't get past the first two, you're going to be listening to the same loop of music for a long time.  However, if you do manage to get past them, you have to deal with the rest of the level, which is a challenge on its own.  After struggling through all of that, you're faced with the same precision-demanding obstacle as before, twice in a row.  Again.  And if you fail (which you probably will), you have to start from the beginning. Again.

At which point Commander Video will scream at you
beneath his mouthless shell of a body.

Keep in mind, this isn't the only level that uses this obstacle.  Stages prior to this were abusing the hell out of it too.  Even today, my heart stops briefly whenever I approach this challenge.  It's the one thing about this game that I never want to remember.

#1: Princess in a Box (Professor Layton)

So, you've made it to the end of Curious Village.  You can feel a huge rush of excitement as you begin to approach the story's climax.  Everything has been building up to this point.  Just one last puzzle to solve...

...And it's ready to make you its bitch.

Without any exaggeration, Professor Layton's final "Princess in a Box" puzzle is one of the biggest dick moves I have ever encountered in a video game.  The whole story is about to come to a close, and all you have to do is navigate a stupid red square to an exit point.  Sounds simple enough.  And that's how it gets you.

In reality, the puzzle is brutally convoluted, and requires a minimum of 81 moves to solve.  That is beyond diabolical!  And to have the gall to make this the final goal you need to achieve in order to see the end of the game is downright sinister.

Here's a walkthrough image on how to solve it.
Just looking at it hurts my head...

To make matters worse, this isn't the first time you see a puzzle like this.  In fact, you see the same premise two other times during the final sequences of the game.  That's 3 infuriatingly difficult puzzles, each one more complicated than the last, sparsely separated throughout the last hour of the game.

But that hour can easily be stretched out into a much, much longer length of time.  Personally, I probably squandered at least 3 hours as I tried to figure out the final puzzle.  That's 3 hours of staring at multicolored blocks and moving them back and forth.  3 hours of trying the same patterns and strategies, hoping to see something different.  A part of me kind of misses those 3 hours, but another part of me never wants to remember them again.

So screw you, Layton, you kind-hearted, gentlemanly douche.