I think this is a common one, but having to sit through all of Cloud's story after you get out of Midgar in Final Fantasy 7 is tedious, especially after you're on your 5th playthrough.

I'll add more later, but...

Persona 4: The whole beginning part. Holy hell, this takes forever! I think my first time through, it took me 2 hours before I got to the first actual battle. Rest of the game is awesome, but no intro section should ever last this long. >.>

In general, I love rpgs, but in a lot of them I HATE talking to people, but I do it anyway out of some masochistic sense of completion.

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is something different altogether, though. I love talking to them. The dialogue is beautifully well crafted. Every NPC has their own life and story, and quite a number of them evolve throughout the game as well. Absolutely genius stuff.

Also inb4 Ocarina of Time's Water Temple and Golden Sun: The Lost Age's Air Rock, even though I never had a problem with them.

Or any of Metal Gear Solid's ridiculously length cutscenes, even though I LOVED ALL OF THEM.

Final Fantasy 7 is tedious

Pretty much. But little bits I've disliked in games I generally enjoy:

Mass Effect
- MAKO travel, especially through highlands
- repetitive and retexutred/uncreative side quests that have no depth or variety

Dragon Age 2
- repetitive and retextured layouts and empty, unliving ambience; if we are going to travel through the game's city 80% of the time, actually make it feel like it's a living city...

Alone in the Dark
- mediocre item creation system

Just some off the top of my head...

Sonic 3&Knuckles: This is going to sound crazy...yea it will but I always hated going through Ice Cap Zone. A zone full of ice, big whoop. I wasn't too fond of it because I don't like ice levels in general and you spent quite a good amount of time in caverns instead of outside and the music was kind of boring.

I though Ice Cap Zone was a great level D:
It's well designed and not just HURR HOLD RIGHT, the music is very atmospheric and fits the level really well.

Final Fantasy 6: Love the game, really do but the Floating Continent can just go burn. Except for maybe the Cave to the Sealed Gate, the World of Balance was pretty easy so the sharp rise in difficulty was a bit annoying to say the least. It had a confusing layout that really wasn't easy on the eyes and it seemed most of the enemies were there to be a major annoyance. And then you have to deal with Atma, who laughs at any other boss in the World of Balance. At least his music was cool.

Atma isn't THAT hard. A bunch of Wall rings will set Atma straight

Also Gau is an amazing boss killer. Just sayin'

Alright, here's some more.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Drawing those bloody glyphs after you kill a boss. Kind of an unnecessary use of the stylus IMO. It was alright at first but the later ones got slightly nuts. And if your touchscreen is out of whack, well you're kind of boned.

Tales of Vesperia
The Shrine of Baction. First off, the two people you most likely use to heal are AWOL, leaving you with just Karol (who moves extremely slow and his healing move has extremely limited range if you haven't been using it). Yuri (the main guy) does gain a healing move (well, a modification of one of his existing moves) in the middle of this dungeon, but it's only good for healing himself as it has an extremely small area of effect. Also, you are limited to 15 (or was it 20 in this one?) of each item at the first play through. However, there is the saving grace that every save point in this dungeon is a healing save point. Second, it's a labyrinth dungeon that spans multiple floors. You are given a map, because you will need it. This place definitely gave me problem when I was doing a speedrun because of this. Third, it's extremely long and tedious. Reference the first point for the problem, especially if get lost and can't find a savepoint. Lastly, the boss is one of the more difficult ones in the game. Also combine that with the first point, and you're in a world of pain (of course, you could always resort to "BLAHBLAHBLAHVIOLENTPAIN", but let's not be cheap here).

Tales of the Abyss
Ridiculous amount of pointless backtracking. "We must go to Daath! Now we must go to Baticul! Now to St. Binah!" *headdesk* They give you quickjump later on, but it's still annoying.

Half-Life
Xen. Just, Xen. People had a hard enough time making non-first person 3D platformers, kthx.

Sonic CD
Wacky Workbench. All of that bouncing around makes it quite irritating to get through.

Silent Scope 3

You know, those games where you get to use a sniper rifle for precision shooting? Well, there's one part in the game where you're supposed to shoot 4 bombs planted on a dam to defuse them. Yeah... To defuse them, you need to hit the detonator which is DEAD CENTER on a bomb. If you hit the bomb on the outer edge, it blows up and you FAIL. Now, you're holding a SNIPER RIFLE, so unless you're a freaking cyborg, your arms are going to be shakey. These bombs are tiny so you need to be REALLY close to stable or you'll miss.

Oh, and you only have 30 seconds to do this part or the bombs blow anyway. OMFG YOU GUYS DIDN'T THINK 4 PRECISION SHOTS IN A ROW WAS HARD ENOUGH!?! Oh, and the bombs are randomly placed each time. So you have to locate 4 bombs and perform a precision shot on each one in less than 30 seconds. Not bloody likely mate. If you fail, you have to redo the entire level, which is 5 minutes of work to blow in under 30 seconds.

BUT WAIT, it's not over yet! There's a boss right afterwards! Because, you know, that last part just wasn't hard enough. He's a pain in the ass too. He's not that hard, but he certainly isn't easy either. I can only beat the bomb part once every at least 10 attempts.

Once, after 20 tries and managing 2 successful bomb defusals only to die on the boss, I flipped out. I hyperventilated so hard I almost passed out and then let out a nonstop string of swears including an N-bomb in absolutely no context whatsoever. That actually brought me out of my rage with a "whoa," because I've NEVER used a racial slur as an insult before. Not the hardest game I ever played, but I don't think any other other game has actually pissed me off that bad.

And you might think that using a controller would eliminate human unsteadiness and thus make it easier. Well, the first part is true. However, the (more) analog controller doesn't have the precise movement needed. You try to aim but are too far to the right, so you tap left. Whoops! Too far left! Right! S___! It's right back where it was before! (BOOM!) ARGH!

@ Hukos

Yea I know of all the tricks and trade of FF6. I was just trying to beat him straight up, without using any tactics that'd make the fight easy. Otherwise I'd just Vanish/Doom him!

Oh yes, one more...

Pokemon Gold/Silver/Heart Gold/Soul Silver: Mainly the massive jump in levels between Clair and the Elite Four. Made even tougher because it's a bit tougher to level up for the Elite Four, as opposed to say...Platinum which gave you the VS Seeker to make getting rematches so much easier. That was perhaps the main drag about Gold/Silver.

Now just give me another DS so I can import my Pokemon from Platinum so I can crush Red with ease.

Farenheit/Indigo Prophecy - Stealth section? Really?

Bayonetta - Planet dodging. Pure trial and error on the higher difficulties.

Final Fantasy X - Bliztball can just go DIAF.

Serious Sam - It ended. =(

Sonic 2 Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 - the moving platforms near to the end, and the bit where the megamack starts rising. I could never ever do that when I was younger. Now when I play through it's a doddle, but I still get an irritated feeling when I arrive there, remembering the times when I failed way back when.

@ Hukos

Yea I know of all the tricks and trade of FF6. I was just trying to beat him straight up, without using any tactics that'd make the fight easy. Otherwise I'd just Vanish/Doom him!

It's been a while since I played FF6, do you have access to Vanish/Doom that early in the game? I can't remember.

I've always been opposed to using it myself, but don't have a problem raping bosses with other "Legal" techniques

Zelda: Ocarina of Time - the Water Temple, of course. Not so much because it was difficult, but because it had the wrong kind of difficulty. You know that room in the middle on the level? After you change the water level, that causes the block Link was standing on upon entering the room to float, leaving open a hole this block was covering. It turned out that you had to go down this hole to get one of the keys crucial to beating the level... or at least, crucial to beating it without cheating, that is.

In several attempts at the Water Temple, I always found I was 1 key short of having enough to beat the level with, and it never occurred to me why until I eventually found it out through a walkthrough. They made ability to complete the level absolutely dependent on noticing the hole being uncovered based on 2 seconds' worth of seeing it happen, AND on assuming that it was a hole Link was supposed to jump into. (Instead of the idea that you were supposed to avoid it, which was kind of apparent by it being black when uncovered?) That's an awfully cheap kind of difficulty if you ask me. The game, and even the water temple itself, are mostly good, I just hate that aspect of it.

I might mention more later on, but that was the most obvious one to come to mind.

@ Hukos...again

Yea, you get access to Vanish and Doom after the Magitek Factory. It's quite easy to abuse that trick to go to Triangle Island and use Doom on the invisible Intagirs for magic points galore!

+

=

GOOD TIMES FOR ALL

They do hit you with Meteo but if your hp is at a decent level, you can survive it.

iirc Intagir was an awesome rage for Gau.

Skies of Arcadia- Sailing through South Ocean and the Yumatofian dungeon/boss

Banjo Kazoie- The Engine Room in Rusty Bucket Bay

The final boss you face when you choose any of the paths that put you up against the Legion in Fallout:New Vegas. It might've been so difficult for me since my level wasn't maxed out and I could've used better weapons and armor. (I think I was using the Combat Armor mk. 2 and the Displacer Glove at lv. 24 or so with 70 points in the unarmed skill.) But fighting him felt was fighting a Tank armed with nothing but a razor. His Damage Threshold was so high (it's like armor... if your weapons attack power doesn't exceed it the weapon only does a very small amount of damage.) nothing I had really did anything. It was like my punches were just nicking him. Plus he has, like, the highest health of anything in the game so... yeah... be sure to bring something pretty powerful with you. >_<

And on top of that he hits like a bus full of fat people. It seems like he cripples you every two hits (But, then again, I was probably under-leveled) which stuns you and lets him keep slashing you to death or almost near it. And staying away from him and shooting isn't that much better since he's pretty fast and can catch up to you easily. I was able to take a few chunks off his life with a magnum while he was fighting the Securitron (or one of my companions; but they were the equivalent of wet toilet paper to him since I didn't know you could give them armor too) that came with me to the Dam. But once he finished off the Securitron he turned his attention back to me and promptly lopped my head off.

It wouldn't have even been THAT BAD (still pretty bad; but manageable) if he didn't come after having to fight your way through all of those Legionaries and Centurions to get to him. (Though this can be fixed with Food and/or Stimpaks. Though they don't work on the extra companion you get with you for the dam so they'll probably die during the fight.) And some more Centurions rush in after the dialogue you have with him and make the fight even worse by ganging up on you and keeping your companions from helping you while they fight them. X_X

I only beat him by being cheap and using the Ranger takedown, which knocks down any opponent and wailing on him when he was down... then doing it again when he got up. And again ad infinitum until he was dead. Apparently he had one more trick up his sleeve before he died since he started running towards some sort of wagon that had a REALLY big gun in it when I got his health down to a certain point. Fortunately, I caught up to him and knocked him down (probably for the millionth time) and killed him before he could get to his last resort.

It was really satisfying once you did beat him, though.<3 I'll post more later if anything to occurs to me.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time - the Water Temple, of course. Not so much because it was difficult, but because it had the wrong kind of difficulty.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA CALLED IT |D

Skies of Arcadia Legends
The enhanced re-make of Skies gave us additional content, some of which could be humongously controller-throwingly annoying. I'll start, however, with what was already in there.

South Ocean.
As mentioned above, South Ocean is a real git of an area very early in the game. For one thing, your forward movement is hindered by a strong wind that howls through the whole ocean, so your progress through it is very slow. To make this even worse, you can randomly encounter creatures called Gravers, which are basically an upgraded version of a monster from before (the game does recycle a good few monster models). However, they're unique in the sense that this is the only version of this monster that, of all things, can cast Eternum, the most powerful Silver Magic death spell in the entire freaking game. God help you if you've been neglecting Aika and not gotten her Delta Shield (although if you haven't by now then something is clearly wrong), because it's the only move that you will have at this early stage that will stop it.

The Dark Rift.
Oh my gosh. Finding your way through this thing for the first time is a bloody nightmare and a half. You can literally be stuck in there for days - and to make matters all the more fun, there are only two save points! And one of them is behind the dungeon's boss! And the boss can hide from you during the fight! And... yeah, I'll just stop there. At least in the re-make, it's mildly easier to get through, because the various portals throughout have a slight tinge of colour to them: blue ones lead toward the way out, red ones will throw you right back to the start. Oh, one other tiny dick move the developers made with this: there's a really easy to miss Discovery right in the centre of the whole mess. It's easy to miss because your compass doesn't work in there, and your compass is what you use to notice Discoveries. And right after this, more or less, we have...

Tortigar, Guardian of the Blue Moon Crystal.
OH MY FREAKING GOSH. This boss is so incredibly dickish it's not true. It will not surprise fans of fighting games to learn that this boss is a turtle - and I mean this in every sense of the word. His signature move is a move called Steelskin. It pretty much does as it says on the tin, which is to say it turns him into a metallised version of himself and makes him literally completely invincible and invulnerable.It also always goes first, unless you use a move with higher priority. There are only two of these, Prophecy and Blue Rogues - the two attacks you can only trigger with a full SP meter. To be fair, either one of those will do colossal damage to Tortigar - but, unless you're extremely over-levelled, they won't insta-kill him. Which brings us to the other key annoyance with this boss - he's the only non-optional boss I can think of that knows and will use Sacrulen, the most powerful healing magic in the game. It completely restores your health. And then he might just spam Steelskin over and over, and... yeah, you get the point.

Soltis.
I hate the beginning of this dungeon immensely. It's a freaking maze and the map is essentially little to no help. This would be less annoying were it not for Skies' notoriously high random encounter rate.

The Giant Looper.
A Looper, but on a huge scale. And yes, that includes running away if given half a chance. So much more annoying because this is a Giant Creature battle done with your ship, so you waste so much more time on fighting the blasted thing before it scarpers.

Wanted Battles.
These were brought in in Legends, and they do make a nice addition to the game. I don't hate all of these - a good number of them are actually pretty good fun, but a select few are intensely annoying due to them being horrendously difficult regardless of if you have a good strategy or not.
Loose Cannon Lapen is the example that immediately springs to my mind. This is because there's not just him on his machine to contend with, but also the little minions it spits out. At any one time there can be up to three of the little buggers, and they've all got a pretty generous amount of health. To make matters worse, whichever character one of them attacks, the other two will follow. If you don't have, for example, a Defensive Aura equipped on Fina, she can die very quickly if they all target her, or if she wasn't guarding. Which she often won't be because you'll have to be using her to heal everyone, because those damned minions will be walloping everyone. This is before you also factor in Lapen himself, who has a good variety of strong attacks, and also a special attack that has a good chance of inflicting instant death on you. This is quite possibly one of the only bosses more ridiculous than Tortigar.
Lord Zivilyn Bane is the chief example, however, of a really annoying Wanted Battle. Like a lot of the others, doing this battle is optional - and, like the other times you've fought Zivilyn Bane, he's an optional boss that you may encounter when raiding a treasure chest. No surprise then that the very last Wanted Battle is this guy, and he's by far and away the most difficult. The chief factor making him a pain in the ass is that he can summon other bosses to the fight - specifically, other Zivilyn Banes. The regular Zivilyn Bane was already an optional boss you'd find in other dungeons, so RPG fans will already know what this means in terms of his difficulty. The Lord can summon a good number of these. Factor in that their Lord also has an extra powerful version of the regular "Burst" attack (essentially a small grenade, in his case a huge freaking bomb), has a move that can take off all your buffs, and also has a huge amount of health and high attack power... yeah. You can see why this is a really nasty one.

That's about all that comes to mind for Skies. Moving on...

Tales Of Symphonia
I'll keep it shorter on this one, but key things I hate in this.
The optional bosses. Sword Dancer 3 and Abyssion? Screw you. Just, screw you, seriously.
The zero-g maze section of Dherris-Kharlan. WHY.
Getting all the recipes. ARGH.
Naming all the dogs. Or more specifically, trying to figure out if you missed one.

Sonic 1, 8-bit
The freaking teleporter puzzle in Scrap Brain for getting the Emerald.
Scrap Brain Act 3's door maze, for that matter.

Sonic 2, 8-bit
Green Hills boss. Or more specifically, the entire pit hazard chain leading to it.
PIPE MAZES OH GOD.

Sonic Chaos
MORE PIPE MAZES WHYYYY.
Also the final boss that can insta-kill you even when you have rings.

Empire of Steel
THAT SODDING FINAL BOSS.

Phantasy Star Online
That one mission with the scientist where you had to protect him, and if he died you failed. And they make him accompany you, alive, to the De Rol Le fight. SERIOUSLY WHAT. I was relieved to find they fixed this in Episode I & II on the GC by making him play dead. Made it infinitely less frustrating.
Also, Dark Falz final form. D:

Mega Man II
HEATMAN'S LEVEL. YOU KNOW THE BIT I MEAN.

Guild Wars: Eye of the North
DO NOT SPEAK OF CYNDR THE MOUNTAIN HEART. JUST DON'T.

Mario Kart: Wii
Two words: Blue Shells.

...and that's all I can think of for now. There will probably be more later.

Banjo Kazoie- The Engine Room in Rusty Bucket Bay

I have to agree. In addition to the rest of that level. Ugh, definitely my least favorite part in that game.

Phantasy Star Online
That one mission with the scientist where you had to protect him, and if he died you failed. And they make him accompany you, alive, to the De Rol Le fight. SERIOUSLY WHAT. I was relieved to find they fixed this in Episode I & II on the GC by making him play dead. Made it infinitely less frustrating.
Also, Dark Falz final form. D:

Dark Falz final form = meh, even on Ultimate.

Mome, however, can burn in a fiery pit for all eternity.

And more...

Tales of Symphonia
"I won't let you pass because my mommy is sick and needs Ymir fruit." Nevermind that one of your party members has wings and should be able to fly up the tree and grab the damn thing, you have to go through a stupidly convoluted puzzle where the fruit drops down, and you have to direct it to an area where you're supposed to grab it while making sure a fish doesn't eat it. RAGE. =/

Super Mario Bros. 3
Screw you, moving sun. >.>

Super Mario Bros. 3
Screw you, moving sun. >.>

Ah, thank goodness for the P-wings!

I must be the only person to never have any issue with those barrels. 😛

You aren't. Me and my brother figured it out because we saw the very first one in the level and after jumping up and down on it, I started to press up and down on it to see if you could control it that way. Voila! Forced scrolling was the bane of my childhood, not the barrel thankfully.

Oh and I'm going to have to third the Moving Sun level. That really freaked me out the first time I played it. That and learning if you turn your back, the Boos chase you. Darn the Boos...

Driver: The President's Run. This game had plenty of hard missions, but the last one just came out of nowhere and punched you square in the nuts. Okay, so up until now, your pursuers have never been able to match you at full speed. There was some rubber-band difficulty to let them keep you in sight, but it wouldn't let them pass you. Not here! Now they are faster than you so you can't outrun them. Their respawn rate is RIDICULOUS. It's raining so the streets are slippery. And the level quickly darkens so it's harder to see. Did I mention some of your pursuers drive black cars too? It's a long haul for you.

OMFG. This mission is likely to constantly set new records for Shortest Attempt Ever. If you get hung up, spun out, or slowed down, get ready to be gangbanged by 5 cars and quite possibly flipped for an instant FAIL. You'd think it's a GOOD thing when one of your pursuers wrecks. But he'll be replaced in 5 seconds. At least they were behind you. Now you better hope the replacement doesn't appear in FRONT of you for a kamikazee run.

After owning the game since 1999, I actually just recently beat the mission without cheating for the first (and possibly last) time. I got close another time: one block away and a glitch made me clip a building and get hung up. Doing so made me realize the truth: it's all dumb luck. You WILL get hit. There's just no way to avoid it. You just have to hope that you don't get hit at the wrong time. You gotta hope you don't have any other cars in your way as you try to recover from being rear-ended. You gotta pray the enemies aren't close enough when you have to slow down for the inevitable turn you have to make at some point. If they set up a roadblock, there better be a way around.

Made for an AWESOME replay though. Again, one block away, while going around a roadblock that was CONVENIENTLY situated by an outcropping building with a lamp post resulting in a ridiculously small gap... I of course f___ed up and hit the post. I was then nailed in the rear by a pursuing car. The impact somehow sent me forward, miraculously BETWEEN the objects, with my rear wheels in the air. Meanwhile, the rest of my pursuers plowed into the roadblock while I struggled to keep my car on the road. They caught up with me right at the target. I cranked a right into the target (THANK GOD IT WAS OUTSIDE THE GARAGE) and touched it right before being rammed into the wall and ricocheting into the garage.

So as me and my friend were playing Resident Evil 5, we found we had to go around a level, collecting pieces of an artifact (3/4) in order to open a door and continue our progress. But what really bugged me about it was that the door wasn't even that large and it wasn't improbable for the characters to simply scale over the wall and carry on that way.

It's not just a problem of Resident Evil 5, tons upon tons of games do this. It just came back to my attention couple of days ago. o.o

Zelda: Ocarina of Time - the Water Temple, of course. Not so much because it was difficult, but because it had the wrong kind of difficulty.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA CALLED IT |D

Well, it's not like it's that hard to predict. o.o

Zelda: Ocarina of Time - the Water Temple, of course. Not so much because it was difficult, but because it had the wrong kind of difficulty.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA CALLED IT |D

Well, it's not like it's that hard to predict. o.o

I never said it was o.o Hence why I said inb4, because it was obviously gonna be mentioned by someone. o.o

The Dragon Feeding game in Chrono Cross. Now I love CC (ib4haters) but I always hated that game.

only masochists do the 100 feeding
you only need to do the 10 to progress
wat's the problem again?

If that's fair game, than I suppose lightning dodging in FFX is on-topic here too... oh wait, no one loves FFX lol

only masochists do the 100 feeding
you only need to do the 10 to progress
wat's the problem again?

If that's fair game, than I suppose lightning dodging in FFX is on-topic here too... oh wait, no one loves FFX lol

I wanted that Recover-All. 😐

actually you're right, that recoverall is the only party heal you get for some time, pretty useful early on (if you can get it lol)

Which is precisely why I hate that Dragon Feeding game. 40 times is hell as it is. I have no clue how any sane man can do 100 times.

Grandia: This game was known for having some large and confusing dungeons but Dom Ruins and the Underground Ruins of Zil Padon stand out. The problem is that they're confusing (Dom) or just super huge (Underground) so it feels like you're stuck in there forever. I expect this from the bonus dungeons (Conquered all of them except the Tower of Temptation. One day) but from ones I have to go through? Ugh. Really love ya Grandia but too many of those dungeons just lasted forever.

Tower of Temptation is AGES worse than Zil Padon. Zil Padon really isin't that big once you get past the whole Feena wakey wakey part. I just hate Brain bats -.-..I will agree, for that early in the game, Dom is a HUUUGE leap, but I think that's why I love it so so much, it was such a LARGE game. But back to my inital rant. OMFG HAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE Temptation. I've beaten it, but I

ALWAYS.

ALWAYS.

Go there after I grab Liete and THEN Level til she's as competent as the rest of my team, and usually then we're on lvl 43? THEN I'll try the damn tower. If I can't beat the ground level, I'm not going in. They're bastards; Dragon raping paralyzing wolf fire spitting anger inducing bastards. Not to mention you can't carry a DAMN thing in there since there are just WAY too many items to pick up. Good job Game Arts, making a backwards ass super dungeon like that x_x

And the worst part is that every battle in the secret dungeons gives you little to no money and just as little experience. Just pouring salt in the wounds!

Tales of Symphonia
"I won't let you pass because my mommy is sick and needs Ymir fruit." Nevermind that one of your party members has wings and should be able to fly up the tree and grab the damn thing, you have to go through a stupidly convoluted puzzle where the fruit drops down, and you have to direct it to an area where you're supposed to grab it while making sure a fish doesn't eat it. RAGE. =/

I wanted to murder that child! Or rather, I wanted to murder whoever came up with such a convoluted reason for that convoluted puzzle.

Mome, however, can burn in a fiery pit for all eternity.

AMEN, BROTHER!

I love Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. What I don't love is chao raising. On the Dreamcast I had trouble getting all the emblems in both games because of those chao minigames, I'm not even sure if I did without cheating (download chao save file on VMU) because I just couldn't raise one that could win enough races before DYING!! You spend days and days raising an uber chao, just to see it win you one emblem and before you can do it again it just dies and you have to start over again. Ummmm, no thanks.

But then the Gamecube version of SA2 came out and it was easier if you had Sonic Advance and just linked it to the Gamecube, since the chao never died in the pocket garden or whatever it was called. In fact I'm pretty sure I bought the GBA to Gamecube adaptor purely for that purpose only, as I don't recall ever using that peripheral ever again.

I love Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. What I don't love is chao raising.

You and me, bro. I NEVER bothered to do anything Chao related in either game until I actually got all the other emblems in SA2. Thank god for the Drive/animal (mostly the animal since that one could just be spammed like crazy) glitch. I'd just do that for as long as I could until I messed up the trick, then try a race. Then I got to the intelligence and luck races, which if I'm not mistaken are not raisable in-game, so I just had to keep doping my Chao until it could haul enough ass to compensate for being completely retarded. Still never touched SA1's gardens.

Spyro the Dragon - love the game, but I hate, hate, hate Treetops. I cringe every time I need to clear Beast Makers.

Parts of games I love: Starting act.
Parts of games I don't: The ending stretch.

There are too many Rpgs out there where the game starts off cool, interesting and exciting... and then starts to drag just when it should be building up for the game's great climax. A lot of this has to do with developers filling the game's 2nd half with a ton of fetch quests in order to balloon the playtime in lieu of actual content (Chrono Cross's Dragon Relics, Wind Waker's Triforce Hunt). Or you start off with a concise, linear game model that keeps you busy... and then by the time you acquire an airship or equivalent transportation the game totally opens up and suddenly you're unsure where or what you should do next (hello World of Ruin!). In fact, all too often that right there is the number one reason why I stop playing and move on: too many choices.

I have nothing against sidequests, when done well they not only garner you precious exp, money and rare equips; but also have the dual purpose of developing your party's individual stories further (Chrono Trigger). But too often they're just there to waste your time doing menial tasks in the hopes of gathering whatever it is you need to forge stronger than average weapons you'll never need (Final Fantasy XIII can be completed without ever using the weapon upgrade system).

Persona 3 Portable. Like the game, but I HATED traversing through Tartarus. ALL. THE. TIME.
Alternatively, I recently beat "The Answer" on P3FES. I don't play many RPG's, but I do prefer direct control over party members.
Last one off the top my head, Persona 4: Final Boss on True Ending path took two tries to beat thanks to killing my main character with lightning. It didn't help that the Persona I had him equipped with was weak to that element.

Totally agree with Psxphile. I could make a huge list of RPGs I never finished because of all the end game quests that open up in the third part of the game (FFXIII was actually one of them too).

It's funny because not long ago I played Phantasy Star IV End of Millenium again, and I noted how few side quests it had, but the story flowed really nicely and I never got bored and played it right to the end without getting distracted or losing interest. I think for most people who play RPGs we want to be complesionist, so when we know we have to find and kill all these special monsters like in FFXII or there's weapons to grind like in FFXIII, we can't move on till we do so. And that's where it becomes monotonous, and it feels more like work than fun.

Oh and you know what else I remembered I hate? Tutorials! Specifically, bad ones. My prime example: Sonic Unleashed Wii/PS2 (and Secret Rings for that matter). Do we really need one mission to learn how to press A to jump? We've been pressing the A button to jump since the 80's, I think every gamer, casual or not knows how to jump. We have intuition SEGA! Just trust us!

Parts of games I love: Starting act.
Parts of games I don't: The ending stretch.

There are too many Rpgs out there where the game starts off cool, interesting and exciting... and then starts to drag just when it should be building up for the game's great climax. A lot of this has to do with developers filling the game's 2nd half with a ton of fetch quests in order to balloon the playtime in lieu of actual content (Chrono Cross's Dragon Relics, Wind Waker's Triforce Hunt). Or you start off with a concise, linear game model that keeps you busy... and then by the time you acquire an airship or equivalent transportation the game totally opens up and suddenly you're unsure where or what you should do next (hello World of Ruin!). In fact, all too often that right there is the number one reason why I stop playing and move on: too many choices.

I have nothing against sidequests, when done well they not only garner you precious exp, money and rare equips; but also have the dual purpose of developing your party's individual stories further (Chrono Trigger). But too often they're just there to waste your time doing menial tasks in the hopes of gathering whatever it is you need to forge stronger than average weapons you'll never need (Final Fantasy XIII can be completed without ever using the weapon upgrade system).

Totally agree with this. Every single sentence. I remember being daunted in Golden Sun: The Lost Age when you're given the ship because you have no idea where to go first.

Only game in recent memory that I was happy with the sidequest setup was Trails in the Sky because it introduced the side quests gradually, never overloading you with ridiculous numbers at a time. And, plus, the fact that they were actually fun and rewarding enough to accomplish. Incredible game.

Well, these parts I actually don't hate, although I know I did the first time I played. Now I'm better at it and know how to prepare. I'm talking about the parts where you have to use sniper rifles in Metal Gear Solid, The Twin Snakes, and Sons Of Liberty.

Once again, I had problems with a part involving keeping a rifle steady. This time I'm not the problem. Pentazamine is practically required for these parts. Without it, Snake (and Raiden) will randomly shake like he needs a fix. No seriously, the scope doesn't just shake, it freaking QUAKES. It moves so much that you can have a person dead-center in the crosshairs and when the rifle jerks the person isn't even IN THE SCOPE ANYMORE. And of course, Murphy's Law dictates the scope will probably decide to jerk right before you pull the trigger. I hope you have a supply of Pentazamine on hand, because I know I didn't when I first dueled Wolf and also when I had to pick off those Sons Of Liberty troopers. Let me tell you, sniping without drugs is an exercise in frustration. Supposedly smoking also helps to a lesser extent but I didn't notice.

Then I thought... I'm Snake, Son Of The Greatest Soldier Who Ever Lived, who's supposed to be a legendary soldier, yet he can't manage to go more than 5 consequetive seconds without horribly jerking around a rifle? Are you s___ing me? I've actually used a scoped rifle before, once, and let me tell you, it wasn't that hard to keep the crosshairs somewhat steady.

Yeah but you didn't have to do it whilst in the butt-freezing cold whilst being shot at by one of the world's best snipers ever like Snake did, eh? |D

Yeah but you didn't have to do it whilst in the butt-freezing cold whilst being shot at by one of the world's best snipers ever like Snake did, eh? |D

Well, he did have that anti-freezing peptide and he still did it indoors too. Thankfully he apparently got steadier nerves when he aged. His body was too stiff to move much I guess. So THAT'S why old guys make awesome snipers!

ADD: Although I DID play Silent Scope when my room actually did get pretty cold in the winter. Turns out my window is busted and the top part falls down every so often. So there.

ADDITIONAL ADD: I just checked my window and it indeed fell open again. I should probably get that fixed.