Bad parts in great games.

[Kerg3927]

I wouldn't say "bad." Because it's really an amazing masterpiece of designed misery and despair. But I'll go with Shrine of Amana in Dark Souls II. That place has literally made me want to cry before. It's ingenious.

You can't see your feet unless you walk really slow and squint to try to make out what's under water through the glare. And if you've never been there, and even if you have, it's easy to miss an underwater drop off... instant death. You can light a torch, which helps to see underwater, but there's a catch... it attracts all of the underwater monsters from nearby to come attack you at once. The place is littered with ranged caster mobs that do a fuckton of damage. You pretty much have to take them out with ranged, while dodging their shots, which is really tedious. But if you rush them, you're likely to get adds and ganked. And you can't pull them to you. They just stand in one spot and shoot at you.

Shrine of Amana > Blighttown, IMO, as far as misery and despair goes.

 

[CaitSeith]

I never finished Chrono Trigger because of the bit on the plane. You've been stripped of your weapons, armor, and items? OK. But your magic and skills are gone too? Whose bright idea was that?! Not to mention it's a forced stealth section in order to get your stuff back, which I've never liked or been good at.
Thankfully, Square learned its lesson near the beginning of FFXII in the Nalbina Dungeon. No forced stealth, and they've taken your weapons, armor and items...but, thankfully, NOT your magic, which makes everything much easier. (Especially if you've gotten Vaan and Balthier the licenses for basic black and white magic.)

It doesn't require stealth. You just go up the airducts and then search for the room with a chest and a guard sleeping. The chest has one of the character's equipment, and you can start fighting enemies again.

Although I agree it's a low point in the game.

 

[Belaam]

More recently, the Mary Jane and Miles portions of Spiderman. Poorly designed and virtually no fun (except maybe the part with MJ in Grand Central). Twice, I just turned off the game and came back later, and every single time, I sighed as soon as it happened.

 

[Trunkage]

I wouldn't say "bad." Because it's really an amazing masterpiece of designed misery and despair. But I'll go with Shrine of Amana in Dark Souls II. That place has literally made me want to cry before. It's ingenious.

You can't see your feet unless you walk really slow and squint to try to make out what's under water through the glare. And if you've never been there, and even if you have, it's easy to miss an underwater drop off... instant death. You can light a torch, which helps to see underwater, but there's a catch... it attracts all of the underwater monsters from nearby to come attack you at once. The place is littered with ranged caster mobs that do a fuckton of damage. You pretty much have to take them out with ranged, while dodging their shots, which is really tedious. But if you rush them, you're likely to get adds and ganked. And you can't pull them to you. They just stand in one spot and shoot at you.

Shrine of Amana > Blighttown, IMO, as far as misery and despair goes.

Its those ranged casters that really take the cake. You can't dodge anything incase of instant death. Those poison pea shooter where terrible in Blightown though... but at least they didnt come back

 

[Kerg3927]

I wouldn't say "bad." Because it's really an amazing masterpiece of designed misery and despair. But I'll go with Shrine of Amana in Dark Souls II. That place has literally made me want to cry before. It's ingenious.

You can't see your feet unless you walk really slow and squint to try to make out what's under water through the glare. And if you've never been there, and even if you have, it's easy to miss an underwater drop off... instant death. You can light a torch, which helps to see underwater, but there's a catch... it attracts all of the underwater monsters from nearby to come attack you at once. The place is littered with ranged caster mobs that do a fuckton of damage. You pretty much have to take them out with ranged, while dodging their shots, which is really tedious. But if you rush them, you're likely to get adds and ganked. And you can't pull them to you. They just stand in one spot and shoot at you.

Shrine of Amana > Blighttown, IMO, as far as misery and despair goes.

Its those ranged casters that really take the cake. You can't dodge anything incase of instant death. Those poison pea shooter where terrible in Blightown though... but at least they didnt come back

Yeah, the toxic blowgun guys in Blighttown are brutal the first time encountered. Not so bad on subsequent playthroughs when you know to bring some Blooming Purple Moss with you.

 

[gsilver]

The Micolash fight in Bloodborne. I'll gripe about some of the other bosses, such as the Gank Squad just before you reach Bergenworth, but Micolash is so damn obnoxious and just getting him to the point you can really fight him in an exercise in frustration.

So much this.

There is no excuse for Micolash. He isn't even difficult (or particularly interesting) when you fight after finally catching up with him. It's all the RNG of which hallway he runs down.

That is, *if* he lets you fight in the 2nd part... I've had runs where he never stops running away, all the way to death (after who knows how long chasing and getting in one hit every once in a while).

 

[Bat Vader]

As much as I love the first Max Payne game the blood maze portions in it is in my opinion some of the worst level design I have ever played through. You have to essentially balance yourself on these blood trails that includes jumping from blood trail to blood trail and certain points and going slightly in either direction or missing the jumps causes you to have to go essentially play the whole level again from the beginning.

I understand games are meant to be challenging and part of the fun comes from the challenge a game throws at you but these blood maze levels weren't challenging though. They were tedious, infuriating, and boring because of how easy they were to fail and how far back you went in the level when you failed.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Generally speaking any and all boss fights, but particularly those in the current crop of Wolfenstein games, and *particularly* particularly the London Monitor from New Order. Boss fights are a bit of a personal gripe of mine anyway, but the ones in the new Wolfenstein games really take the biscuit.

 

[Catfood220]

More recently, the Mary Jane and Miles portions of Spiderman. Poorly designed and virtually no fun (except maybe the part with MJ in Grand Central). Twice, I just turned off the game and came back later, and every single time, I sighed as soon as it happened.

I came on to say exactly the same thing. The stealth sections add noting to the game and I'm not sure why I have to do them as Miles. Is he important to Spider-Man lore or something? But I did get a funny glitch in the Tombstone chopshop. I had turned the game off the night before just as it started and when I restarted the game the following night, Spider-Man spawned in instead. Made me chuckle anyway.

The Grand Central bit was fun though, distracting the guards so Spider-Man could pick them off was something a bit different. More of that and less of the other stealth and I wouldn't mentally groan when they popped up.

 

[BrawlMan]

As much as I love the first Max Payne game the blood maze portions in it is in my opinion some of the worst level design I have ever played through. You have to essentially balance yourself on these blood trails that includes jumping from blood trail to blood trail and certain points and going slightly in either direction or missing the jumps causes you to have to go essentially play the whole level again from the beginning.

I understand games are meant to be challenging and part of the fun comes from the challenge a game throws at you but these blood maze levels weren't challenging though. They were tedious, infuriating, and boring because of how easy they were to fail and how far back you went in the level when you failed.

I hated the blood trail section as a kid. I remember it taking me about 45 minutes to beat it. It's why I really don't want to play the first Max Payne anymore.

 

[Pseudonym]

I think most people agree that the level 'the library' in Halo CE is much too repetitive and as a result it can be difficult to get your bearings and know where you are and whether you are going in circles.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I think most people agree that the level 'the library' in Halo CE is much too repetitive and as a result it can be difficult to get your bearings and know where you are and whether you are going in circles.

I ended up quitting Halo 1 because of The Library; it wasn?t until after Halo 2 launched and I got badass enough at the multiplayer that I found the guts to go back and try The Library again to finally finish Halo 1.

 

[Dalisclock]

As much as I love the first Max Payne game the blood maze portions in it is in my opinion some of the worst level design I have ever played through. You have to essentially balance yourself on these blood trails that includes jumping from blood trail to blood trail and certain points and going slightly in either direction or missing the jumps causes you to have to go essentially play the whole level again from the beginning.

I understand games are meant to be challenging and part of the fun comes from the challenge a game throws at you but these blood maze levels weren't challenging though. They were tedious, infuriating, and boring because of how easy they were to fail and how far back you went in the level when you failed.

I hated the blood trail section as a kid. I remember it taking me about 45 minutes to beat it. It's why I really don't want to play the first Max Payne anymore.

I'd forgotten the damn blood trail parts of the game. I mean, I had until it got mentioned on Outside XBOX a couple days ago. Yeah, that is very much the most dreaded part of that game for me. The first one isn't so bad but it gets worse the more you do it. And the crying baby really doesn't help(especially if you have an actual baby in your home, so crying quickly becomes one of the most irritating sounds ever).

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I dunno if I'd call Senran Kagura: Estival Versus a great game, but it's well enough put together, the characters range from decent to hilarious, and it's got its moments. Plus, it's a Dynasty Warriors game that not about ancient China or sengoku Japan, so that's nice. I wouldn't have 12 YouTube videos playing it if I thought it was bad, and I'm planning on finishing the game at some point.

Unfortunately, one of its moments is four episodes in the middle of the main story where one character uses her body-snatching powers to sexually assault two other characters, and all she gets a near literal slap on the wrist for it. Kinda killed the mood. Someone else being in control of my mind/body is the closest thing I've got to a phobia.

 

[Xprimentyl]

After several playthroughs as Dexterity and Strength builds, I?m playing as an Intelligence build for the first time in Dark Souls, and I must say, I?m finding it a pretty underwhelming because of how limited your options are. Of the few catalysts there are, the best are all basically endgame. There are very few truly effective sorceries, but they?re all pretty much the same and eventually rendered obsolete when you find the stronger version of it (albeit with fewer casts,) and like the catalysts, the best ones are nigh end game. Few useful items scale with INT and many of the INT items are as crippling as they are useful, i.e.: the Dusk Crown ring grants additional casts, but halves your HP, Tin Crystallization Catalysts halves your casts, etc. The lack of being able to aim your spells without locking on means you have to get [usually] within aggro range which defeats the purpose of playing a ranged character and makes the application of the stronger spells (with longer cast times) mostly a fool?s errand.. The Intelligence build is basically just another flavor of a STR/DEX build with a couple added ranged attacks and not the completely different playstyle I was hoping to experience. Or perhaps it?s better suited to NG+ when you actually have a variety of powerful spells before the latter half of the game.

 

[Asita]

I've got one word for anyone who's played Okami: "Blockhead".

To defeat a Blockhead you have to play a little memory minigame. A series of dots (the hardest variant has 8) appear on the screen and then disappear. It is then up to you to remember their location and put down a dot at each location with the celestial brush. Doesn't sound so hard, right? Well, there's little in the way of visual reference points, you have to be relatively accurate in your strokes and you have to remember not only the location each appeared in but the order in which they appeared...and the time elapsed from when the first appears to when they all disappear is a grand total of three seconds. If you mess up, the pattern changes, so trial and error doesn't work.

Tellingly, the general advice for dealing with Blockheads can reasonably be summed up as "cheat", and that advice is apparently considered all but required for Blockhead Grande (the final one with the aforementioned 8 points to remember). The advice is literally to use a camera to record the appearance, mark the screen with a highlighter or marker (supposedly not possible for Blockhead Grande, for whom 8 points appear), or split the memorization with a friend or two.

On the whole I love Okami, but the blockhead minigame should never have made it off the cutting room floor.