Tiny, insignificant details in games that really bother you

[BrawlMan]

Look, I'm all for immersion, but you can have that one, games industry.

Don't you want that realistic IMMERSION, @Xprimentyl?

Related to that, waggling the analog sticks back and forth to get out of the grab or for other "immersive" moments. Too many of these are doing these too often, or damage the analogue sticks and make stick drift happen even faster. These controllers are way over priced. I'm not spending seventy dollars on a new controller.

 

[Meximagician]

The later Tales of... games by Namco (I think this started with Tales of Vesperia, not sure) added "attachments" which are little cosmetic trinkets you can add to your characters. Depending on the game, these can be highly customizable: color, size, exact placement, and which part of a character's skeleton the attachment follows.

Problem is, I then spend a few minutes placing an attachment so it doesn't awkwardly clip into a character's limbs/hair/clothes/etc, only for the game to have clipping in the base animations and models. I normally wouldn't even notice but the attachments draw attention to it.

- - -

Also, anytime a character's hair can be customized but is then forced to change due to wearing headgear. If a game's setting allows for a spiked Mohawk, then it stands to reason someone in that setting owns a hat/helmet/spacesuit/etc with holes for their hair (or at least it's own, external spiked Mohawk).

 

[Drathnoxis]

In Silent Hill: Shattered Memories everybody is constantly making reference to how hard it's snowing and that the snow has basically caused the whole town to shut down and everybody to take shelter. IT'S BARELY SNOWING! It's a gentle snowfall, not a blizzard!

 

[NerfedFalcon]

The RIG suits in Dead Space (and its remake, which I'm focusing on here) show the general condition of the wearer in a light-up strip on the back. If all the lights are on, they're perfectly healthy, and as lights turn off, they're doing worse. This is used to justify Isaac's health bar within the world rather than making it a non-diegetic HUD element. However, this only seems to apply to Isaac himself; there's a number of times you encounter survivors who are clearly not in a good way, yet their RIGs show them as being completely healthy (including, for instance, the guy completely missing his legs) before suddenly shutting off as soon as they stop moving.

 

[Meximagician]

The RIG suits in Dead Space (and its remake, which I'm focusing on here) show the general condition of the wearer in a light-up strip on the back. If all the lights are on, they're perfectly healthy, and as lights turn off, they're doing worse. This is used to justify Isaac's health bar within the world rather than making it a non-diegetic HUD element. However, this only seems to apply to Isaac himself; there's a number of times you encounter survivors who are clearly not in a good way, yet their RIGs show them as being completely healthy (including, for instance, the guy completely missing his legs) before suddenly shutting off as soon as they stop moving.

Come to think of it, search, rescue, and triage would be much easier if the critically-injured-but-still-alive folks were lit up like Christmas trees, while Stubbed-Toe Stew blends into the background. So it's both inconsistent and silly.

Maybe the CEC wanted healthy workers more visible so they could be micromanaged more efficiently.

 

[BrawlMan]

As much as I love Shadows of the Damned: HR, there are still some in-game cut-scenes you can't skip, so not all of them are skippable. Such as the Big Boner sections. You die, you have to go through the Johnson "shcawing, shcawing, shcawing!" cut-scene again. This is only a problem if you're not good at the first section, as that has the longest cut-scene. The rest are much shorter, but you have to do three these. These sections are one hit and you die, if the giant demons are too close to you. Think of them as tower defense with a crotch position gun.

​

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Streets of Rage 4's alternate soundtrack is honestly pretty disappointing. Almost all the tracks are pulled from SoR2 with none I can recall from 1 or 3, and they don't really fit the locations that well. Honestly, don't even bother with it; Deriviere et al made an incredible soundtrack already.

 

[BrawlMan]

Streets of Rage 4's alternate soundtrack is honestly pretty disappointing. Almost all the tracks are pulled from SoR2 with none I can recall from 1 or 3, and they don't really fit the locations that well. Honestly, don't even bother with it; Deriviere et al made an incredible soundtrack already.

They couldn't get any songs from 3 due to licensing, rights, and creative ownership issues. Hence why some of the original tracks in SoR4 have an SoR3 flavor to them. Songs are used from SoR1....but they're all from the Game Gear version! That was the biggest WTF ever! If you have the PC/Steam version, you can mod whatever songs you want into either soundtrack.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

In Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, when you first meet the Warriors of Hope during the prologue, there's a button you can optionally press as each of them steps up to get a full self-introduction of the currently speaking member in a cutaway.

Pro tip: Do not watch the cutaway self-introductions, as the Warriors will also introduce themselves in the actual dialogue, containing all of the relevant information without any unnecessary waffle. There's literally no point to the cutaways being in the game at all.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

When a unit (friendly or enemy) that has an element affecting them already is hit with a second element in Genshin Impact, this usually causes an Elemental Reaction to occur, with a word popping up next to that unit showing exactly what just happened. For some reason, this also occurs when a unit is tagged with Hydro and no other elements, showing that 'Wet' has afflicted them.

This doesn't cause anything much different to being tagged with any other element in isolation, but Hydro is the only element this happens for, for reasons that I'm not totally sure about. Being stuck with Hydro can be dangerous, but Cryo is no less so because both of them lead to Frozen, but only one has the extra popup to grab your attention.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Dark Souls 3: Despite the 'Legion Etiquette' gesture being associated with the Abyss Watchers, the Farron Greatsword (their boss weapon) has the parrying dagger disappear if you try to use the gesture with it in that form. And the version you see in the mid-boss cutscene has the dagger, so it should by all rights work the same for your character.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

So I just found out that it is apparently possible to randomly die as a child during Kingdom Come Deliverance's character creation screen. I mean, I guess that's one way to get across the brutality and "realism" of the setting early on, but surely there are ways to do that without wasting your audience's time?

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Animal crossing, there's a few...mostly fall under "unnecessary time-wasting bullshit"

1.the text speed is so slow, has no autoplay and every dumbass loves to repeat themselves before every single option/change you want to select, plus all the characters are so dull, 1-note and less interesting than even children, yes those annoying little fuckwits may be incessant singularities of noise n mess but they can still surprise you with a random edgy, dark or spicy moment that'll cause your nan to choke on a biscuit out of shock. when I'm out picking fruits/collecting supplies and one of the airheaded tits start twinkling cos they spot me and just have to tell me their latest CTE-induced whims, they chase me and I run from them, I fucking ran, I ran so far away, I can't get away.

2. when they do catch me (and it's always 'when' ) occasionally they may ask to pass on a gift to the character they're stalking, and despite resisting temptation to sell the gifts every time, I do the deed and return only to be rewarded with a single solitary sodding fruit, of which hundreds already litter the ground around the island anyway. you cheapskate kunts I'm definitely selling the next tat you try that with

3. it's probably not a new gripe, but seriously not being able craft more than one of any item at a time is such a disrespect of the players time cos it ain't merely a button press hell no, it's a load out of menu to animation screen you get to """""""speed up""""""" by mashing buttons with, followed by a zelda-like "TA-DA!" animation of the crafted item then loading back into craft menu once more. & especially when you put a mechanic in the game literally encouraging to craft many of the same item with the 'daily double pay offer' that cycles through various crafting recipes the shop pays twice the normal cost off you for. it's such a basic obvious QoL feature that not including it at this point feels intentional, and whatever intent currently lurking behind this is....don't. stop. do not give it life. cut off its oxygen. unplug the ventilator. liberate us and yourself

4. doing anything related to customisation in this game is a real bloody chore. want to put a cool new path down? ok champ but you gotta do every tile separately with the same animation, and uh oh whoops did you not move forward enough steps to count as being on the next tile? well another dreary animation has removed the tile you just put down, whoopsie doodles! hope that doesn't happen too often! oh wait, it happens all the fucking time omg! I'm no mad, you're mad. don't print in the papers I'm mad!

5. the shopkeeper twins. ohh the twins. a distressing combination of an overly clingy dog and a racist supermarket security guard who refuses to let you out of his sight after he spots the colour of your skin. as soon as I enter those dreaded doors the kunts laser lock on to my position and swarm my ass following my every move, staring with unblinking eyes never looking away. do you want food?? water?? what the fuck do you want from me?? I try to reach for the milk in the store fridge only for them to leap in way with a "ahhh we see you're interested in our fridge products...yes we certainly have some fridge products for you if you so happen to desire purchasing any or some or all mayhaps...would you like to purchase some of our fridge products?"

aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhggggghharrgh this is the tenth time today just gimme the fuckin milk!

Any time a game has your character crank something, and you have to move the analogue stick in a circular motion to simulate the crank. Worse when you're expected to match the position of the analogue stick with the crank on the screen. Look, I'm all for immersion, but you can have that one, games industry.

what gets me with those are the 3D third person games that sometimes have an Avant Garde interpretation of what counts as what direction at any particular time, and what speed counts as rotation also. sometimes I'll rotate the thumbstick with what I assume is a reasonable pace and direction only for the character to suddenly decide to turn the opposite direction midway through, and when I try correcting it often leads to a rather awkward confused back and forth moment lol

 

[thebobmaster]

Playing Persona 3 Reload on the PC, with keyboard and mouse controls. For the most part, everything works well...but there is one control decision that bugs me. During the Tartarus sections, where you are running around, you move with the WASD buttons, camera controls with IJKL. Feels somewhat natural, right? Well, any Persona player who isn't actively trying to get ambushed by Shadows will want to ambush them instead with a strike. How do you attack enemies?

Ctrl. Ctrl is the key assigned to attack. I can't tell you how annoying it is trying to stretch out my fingers on the left hand enough to tap the Ctrl button with my pinky while also trying to not shift my other fingers off the camera control so I can keep the camera focused on the Shadow. What was so wrong with the attack button being...Y, or N? Or the Space bar, which is also used as the confirmation button in menus?

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

After spending about 80 minutes with Bloodstained Ritual of the Night I was already able to see into the future into all the stuff that turns me off of so many metroidvanias- bullshit checkpoint spots and klugy jump mechanics. This one has a sort of 2.5 or 3d art style that looks nice sometimes and makes it hard to read what's going on other times (at one point I though I somehow unlocked some air-dash ability only to realize I was just stanind on a platform I couldn't see).
Fighting with a sword or whip was fine but there are also guns, but I couldn't figure out how to aim the guns but there's also magic ranged weapons so it's all needlessly confusing. A pointlessly cheesecake protagonist and eye-rolling story doesn't help.

I think if the controls were smoother I'd have gotten past most of this- I mean like most of us I can forget a lot of stuff around the gameplay if it looks and feels good to play but it didn't really. And when I beat the first boss and did not get a save spot, exploring the next area for a while and losing all that progress and having to repeat that boss, I was done.

 

[BrawlMan]

After spending about 80 minutes with Bloodstained Ritual of the Night I was already able to see into the future into all the stuff that turns me off of so many metroidvanias- bullshit checkpoint spots and klugy jump mechanics. This one has a sort of 2.5 or 3d art style that looks nice sometimes and makes it hard to read what's going on other times (at one point I though I somehow unlocked some air-dash ability only to realize I was just stanind on a platform I couldn't see).
Fighting with a sword or whip was fine but there are also guns, but I couldn't figure out how to aim the guns but there's also magic ranged weapons so it's all needlessly confusing. A pointlessly cheesecake protagonist and eye-rolling story doesn't help.

I think if the controls were smoother I'd have gotten past most of this- I mean like most of us I can forget a lot of stuff around the gameplay if it looks and feels good to play but it didn't really. And when I beat the first boss and did not get a save spot, exploring the next area for a while and losing all that progress and having to repeat that boss, I was done.

A lot of Bloodstained, and most of its adjacent 8-bit spin-offs I do not like at all. The only exceptions is Gal Gurdians: Demon Purge. And that game is basically Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 3, but in 16-Bit SNES style, and a much better character switching mechanics and combat.

Beating Rushing Beat Ran on Hard does nothing, but give you the full credits and see every selectable character's "Where are they now?" photo. With Rick's always being the last. What a lame use of an ending, when you've probably already seen everyone's from previous Easy or Nomal playthroughs. I am never playing this game on Hard ever again.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Normal arcade game name entry screen: Push the stick left and right to select a letter, push the primary action button to select a letter, and after the third letter you can press 'END" if it doesn't automatically to confirm your initials for the high scores.

Virtua Fighter 2's name entry screen: Hold down Guard and push the stick left and right to lock onto a letter. Manually run up to that letter and perform a knockdown move on it to add that letter to your name (just hitting it isn't enough). You will have to run past all the other letters in the way in the process. And by the way, you still only have 40 seconds to enter your initials, so if you're spending a lot of time running back and forth or trying to confirm which letter you currently have selected, you're likely to just run out of time.

There's no reason at all to do it this way, not even to show off the limits of your new hardware; the game itself already did that far more effectively than this abomination of a name entry screen.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Normal arcade game name entry screen: Push the stick left and right to select a letter, push the primary action button to select a letter, and after the third letter you can press 'END" if it doesn't automatically to confirm your initials for the high scores.

Virtua Fighter 2's name entry screen: Hold down Guard and push the stick left and right to lock onto a letter. Manually run up to that letter and perform a knockdown move on it to add that letter to your name (just hitting it isn't enough). You will have to run past all the other letters in the way in the process. And by the way, you still only have 40 seconds to enter your initials, so if you're spending a lot of time running back and forth or trying to confirm which letter you currently have selected, you're likely to just run out of time.

There's no reason at all to do it this way, not even to show off the limits of your new hardware; the game itself already did that far more effectively than this abomination of a name entry screen.

Look, if you aren't good enough to be able enter your initials with your fists you don't deserve to have them on the high score list.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

in animal crossing, sir professor turnips the turnip seller who is the only source of turnips in the game's mini background economy of turnip prices I was told only appeared on sundays, and for weeks I roamed the island on that holy day of rest helplessly shouting "turnips?! I can't...professor turnips?? I've no turnips could I please buy some turnips?!? hellooo???" with nary a glimmer of success. after many a week and season of despair the last resort was an internet search in case something was missed. and there was. 2nd lieutenant turnips apparently only turnips up before 12 noon on a Sunday! that's just, I'm sorry, but that ain't happun bro. it's outside my jurisdiction. the elusive turnip economy must remain forever out of grasp, like popular fancy christmas presents for kids stuck in poverty

 

[Drathnoxis]

in animal crossing, sir professor turnips the turnip seller who is the only source of turnips in the game's mini background economy of turnip prices I was told only appeared on sundays, and for weeks I roamed the island on that holy day of rest helplessly shouting "turnips?! I can't...professor turnips?? I've no turnips could I please buy some turnips?!? hellooo???" with nary a glimmer of success. after many a week and season of despair the last resort was an internet search in case something was missed. and there was. 2nd lieutenant turnips apparently only turnips up before 12 noon on a Sunday! that's just, I'm sorry, but that ain't happun bro. it's outside my jurisdiction. the elusive turnip economy must remain forever out of grasp, like popular fancy christmas presents for kids stuck in poverty

So back in the day we had a little trick called "changing the system clock." I'm assuming this is still possible on a modern console, maybe if you disconnect the wifi?