Gaming Stages you hate in games that you like

[Magus]

Been a while since I've created a topic.

[u][b]Escorting: Metal Gear Solid 2/3[/b][/u]
Namely MGS2. Escorting E.E is a load of BS. Getting to her is not the issue. Swimming back to the beginning of the strut is where the problem lies. She can't swim by herself nor can she hold her breath as long. Make matters worst is that there are mines in the water and it's easy to get lost in this hellhole of a maze. There've been a couple of times when I was right by the exit and didn't even know it. I will never play this game again, especially knowing that you don't really get much of anything for beating the game on normal, or rather I don't have the patience to continuously escort that heiffer through that crap again and again. MGS3 is nowhere near as bad as MGS2 is when it comes to escorting but, I still just hate the thought of having to escort (babysit) people.

[u][b]Water levels[/b][/u]
I just play horribly for some reason when water is involved. Zelda: OoT's water temple is not bad to cause me to play stupid, it's just extremely tedious. It takes me almost an hour to find 1 key that I would need when I should've found it sooner than that. But whatever.

Ninja Gaiden 2 has quite a few water stages where I just play stupidly on. Fighting the water dragon boss is the main culprit. I've watched videos of people playing it and it looks so simple to beat that thing but I have the hardest of times fighting that thing because Ryu would jump in the water when I don't try to... . And then the flying fish/worm boss itself is just ridiculous. Chapter 9 is terrible especially when you reach the water area where you have to fight off all these missles coming your way. (BULL####) This is all on path of the mentor difficulty by the way.

That's it for now. Edited November 22, 2010 by Phenom

[CaNz]

[quote name='Phenom' date='21 November 2010 - 04:19 PM' timestamp='1290385184' post='702022']

[u][b]Water levels[/b][/u]
I just play horribly for some reason when water is involved. Zelda: OoT's water temple is not bad to cause me to play stupid, it's just extremely tedious. It takes me almost an hour to find 1 key that I would need when I should've found it sooner than that. But whatever.
[/quote]

Is it that friggen one in the room where you [spoiler]beat shadow Link?[/spoiler] I swear i looked for hours in my second and third plays before i finally remembered it.
it was that one and the forest temple key hidden in the tree trunk in the first room (which you don't need until the last few rooms)

[The Tentacle]

I fondly remember a bunch of levels in Battletoads back on the NES.  The one where you're riding those hoverbikes through the tunnel, the one where you had to jump from one giant snake to another and that god-awful swimming level with all the spikes and hammer fish.

And speaking of swimming levels the third stage of the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game (also on the NES) was one of the most frustrating in gaming history.  It won an award in some magazine or another.

Seems like water/swimming levels are all like that.  Continuing the trend I can clearly recall a level called "Poison Pipeline" from Donkey Kong Country 3 - Dixie's Double Trouble.  It was a lot like the other two I mentioned above but the worst part was the fact that the controls were all reversed.  If you pressed forward you went backwards.  Up was down.  It was extrememly frustrating and I wound up holding the controller upside down to finish the thing.

[James]

[font="Palatino Linotype"]I've only just mentioned this in the Sonic Colors topic, but basically, I really disliked the non-Sonic levels in the Sonic Adventure series.

In the first game, I'm referring mostly to the Amy and Big levels. Although I personally thought Big's levels were worse, but that's probably because they were even slower and more awkward.

In the second game, I'm really referring to any levels that didn't involve Sonic or Shadow. It's a bit harder to define here, because I didn't mind the E-102 Gamma stages. At least, they weren't as frustrating as Rouge and Knuckles' levels.

What bothered me the most about these deviations is that they were just so badly designed. It wasn't even so much that they were non-Sonic; if Sonic Team had found a way to create really amazing exploration elements in Sonic, I'd be happy with that. I don't really have such a nostalgic connection that I can't try something new. But they absolutely butchered these levels. And to make matters worse, these stages took up maybe 50% of the game itself.

I'm not entirely sure when Sonic Team became so mediocre, but even with newer games like Sonic Colors - which admittedly was co-developed by DIMPS - you don't have to look far to find platformers that absolutely blow it out of the water. The latest DK game by Retro Studios just seems so many miles ahead, yet it's made by a developer that doesn't even really have much experience in the genre.

Anyway, I guess even the really great games have frustrating or annoying stages. There were certainly some stages in Super Mario Galaxy that I didn't like, but not because they were bad per se - most likely it was either because I wasn't very good at them [i]or[/i] I just didn't find them terribly interesting. [/font]

[Sangome]

[color="#9932CC"][font="Microsoft Sans Serif"]As a principle, I'm never wildly fond of lava/fire-based or ice-based areas. For fire/lava, it's just being too paranoid that I'm going to fall into flaming hot magma and automatically die, but for ice, they're usually nothing more than slipping around. Pokemon's [i]especially[/i] bad about this, as every gen from Johto onward has had an ice puzzle of some sort, usually consisting of sliding around or walking on ice that can only be stepped on once. It's annoying as heck.

Oh, and warp puzzles. I don't think there's a single person I've met that actually [i]likes[/i] those.

Anyway, as for specific games...

[b]Majora's Mask[/b] has the Great Bay area. Now the area itself is actually my favorite in the game, especially since swimming around with the Zora mask is something every gamer must do at least once, IMO. So you have to rescue Lulu's Zora eggs. First you go to the pirate's fortress, which isn't too bad, but a little bit annoying since you have to play Solid Snake and avoid capture [provided you didn't sequence break and get the Stone Mask]. Then you have to go to Pinnacle Rock to get the last few. You're lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that "Oh, maybe they'll go easy on me in the temple, since I've already done all this much!"

Ha ha [b][size="3"]WRONG.[/size][/b] What follows is one of the most banal and annoying dungeons I've ever played. It's not fun, it doesn't make you think, it's just...annoying.

[b]Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door[/b] has chapter 2, The Great Boggly Tree, which is just taxing. Visually, the chapter is very nice, with black and white backgrounds with the characters in full color, but the second half of the level consists of you parading around a large group of creatures called the Punies, which are no taller than Mario's waist. First you start off with a small handful of them, then it [i]doubles[/i], and you're corralling around 100 of them. Oh, and if you happen to lose one? You have to go alllllll the way back to where it is and get it, because you have to have every last one to proceed. [Thankfully, this is made a bit easier with an item you can obtain that lets your current army stay in one place.] But overall, the chapter's just not a fun one.

But it's also rivaled by chapter 4, For Pigs the Bell Tolls, mainly because you backtrack. A LOT. You go back and forth between Twilight Town and the Creepy Steeple, which are a good several screens away from one another, and you have to do this at least...three or four times in the chapter. The chapter's length easily could have been whittled down and less irritating if they had some way to just warp you back and forth.

In the same series, [b]Super Paper Mario[/b] also has two of them. The first annoying one is, funnily enough, chapter 4 again, Outer Space. It's exactly what it says on the tin. The first and third parts of this chapter consist of you wandering around in space, where it is rather easy to get lost, and just kind of annoying. [Though the third subchapter is made rather entertaining. since it has you get chocolate from a cosmic convenience store]. THEN comes the final act, the Whoa Zone, which is basically this one giant maze in which you go through doors and defy gravity and UGH it's just annoying.

Then near the end of the game, we have chapter 7, The Underwhere. Later on, after getting yourself what is essentially the E-rated version of hell, you go into the E-rated version of heaven. During your time here, Princess Peach eats some sort of apple and falls asleep, and you have to go fetch the correct one to wake her up. Well, unless you have a guide in front of you to tell you which one you need to get, there's about four or five different apple trees you can visit. You can go around and collect one of each apple in one fell swoop, or you can wind up going back and forth between the trees until you find the correct one to wake her up. But the fact that each area looks almost [i]exactly the same[/i] doesn't help matters much, no matter which option you go for.

And...funnily enough, the first game didn't really have any chapters that I inherently disliked. I guess I'd have to pick the third chapter from the first game, if I had to choose one, cause it's not really that exciting.

[b]Super Mario Sunshine[/b] has the Noki Bay. It's a very pretty area, but the area itself just really isn't that fun, not compared to all the others. I guess it's 'cause it's kinda small? I dunno.

And going off James' post, the first [b]Sonic Adventure[/b] had Tails' levels, which, to me, were [i]very[/i] hard to control and just not that fun. And there's one stage in Sonic story mode, near the end, that was just so frustrating that it cost me a handful of lives before I finally finished it. I can't remember what the name of the stage was, though.

And [b]Adventure 2[/b] has Tails [again] and Eggman's stages, which were just...bad. They weren't fun, they were just boring and annoying. Bizarrely, though, I didn't mind Knuckles' and Rouge's stages for the most part.

Lastly, going back to [b]Pokemon[/b], pretty much every cavern. Seriously, Game Freak. Just stop. Nobody likes those. Nobody.[/font][/color]

[Boo]

GTA maps where you [i]have[/i] to be able to properly fly an aircraft. Especially the RC helicopter in Vice City.

[James]

[quote name='Boo' date='23 November 2010 - 07:50 AM' timestamp='1290462658' post='702050']
Especially the RC helicopter in Vice City.
[/quote]

[font=palatino linotype]Oh man.. *eye twitches*

Most painfully annoying mission ever! I hate it when great games do stuff that [i]could[/i] be fun, but just ends up becoming incredibly annoying.[/font]

[Inuyasha Fandom]

OMG! I can't agree more with the flying levels of the gta games. I can't fly worth a damn in ANYTHING!

[James]

[font="Palatino Linotype"]Funnily enough though, I really loved the planes and choppers in San Andreas. I even loved that you could parachute out of the plane and stuff.

But I really didn't like the RC 'copter stuff in Vice City - it just felt really awkward, in terms of controls. Yuck.[/font]

[CaNz]

I don't think I have ever raged harder then when I was playing Mario 64 and I had to race against a penguin.
The first race wasn't so bad, but the rematch was just the worst. That Fat assed bird would knock you off just by touching you, and it took up half the freaken slide! words cannot express my hate for this bird.

[Magus]

[quote name='CaNz' date='21 November 2010 - 08:22 PM' timestamp='1290388959' post='702024']
Is it that friggen one in the room where you [spoiler]beat shadow Link?[/spoiler] I swear i looked for hours in my second and third plays before i finally remembered it.
it was that one and the forest temple key hidden in the tree trunk in the first room (which you don't need until the last few rooms)
[/quote]
That would be the one.

God of War has a lot of platforming near the end of the game that I can't stand doing either.

Atlantica in Kingdom Hearts 2. Honestly, that's like a huge waste of time there.

Oh, I just know there is something on both FF7 and FF8 that I can't stand doing, but I can't think of them at the moment. Edited November 24, 2010 by Phenom

[Sangome]

[quote name='Phenom' date='24 November 2010 - 12:50 PM' timestamp='1290624651' post='702124']
Atlantica in Kingdom Hearts 2. Honestly, that's like a huge waste of time there.[/quote]

[color="#9932CC"][font="Microsoft Sans Serif"]Which is why it's optional. I can understand why people hate it, but when you can completely skip it and still finish the game, I find a lot of the anger kind of silly.[/font][/color]

[Magus]

[quote name='Sangome' date='24 November 2010 - 03:29 PM' timestamp='1290630545' post='702130']
[color="#9932CC"][font="Microsoft Sans Serif"]Which is why it's optional. I can understand why people hate it, but when you can completely skip it and still finish the game, I find a lot of the anger kind of silly.[/font][/color]
[/quote]
Item collecting. (At least I think you get something for doing all those songs... It's been song long) I'm not a completionist by any means but I believe I was doing some collecting the last time I played.

[James]

[font="Palatino Linotype"]I'm not a Kingdom Hearts fan at all, but I think you could also make this point: why should a player need to skip a level, in the first place?

I mean, by all means, skip it if you don't like it...but if you're skipping it for any other reason (i.e. it's badly designed, or unbalanced in some way) then I think that's the developer's fault.

Speaking of item collecting, I wasn't a huge fan of the Triforce pieces bit at the end of The Wind Waker. And that was frustrating in large part because it felt cheap - especially compared to the rest of the game. It almost felt like Rare had taken over development of this part of TWW. [/font]

[CaNz]

[quote name='James' date='24 November 2010 - 03:07 PM' timestamp='1290640072' post='702148']
[font="Palatino Linotype"]I'm not a Kingdom Hearts fan at all, but I think you could also make this point: why should a player need to skip a level, in the first place?

I mean, by all means, skip it if you don't like it...but if you're skipping it for any other reason (i.e. it's badly designed, or unbalanced in some way) then I think that's the developer's fault.
[/font]
[/quote]
its bad because it is like a failed minigame(but its supposed to be a level)... I am sure most people skipped it (i did, one song and I was out)
some people may have liked it though... who knows. as far as kingdom hearts goes... why are some of the boss fights ridiculously hard? I am not talking about the white haired optional ones... I mean like the fight with heartless jumpsuit Riku in the first one,.. that kinda stuff was driving me insane.

[Roronoa Zoro]

I'm a big fan of timed escort water missions myself. Don't see all the hate for them.

[Lyndy]

In all Kingdom Hearts games, I dislike the Colosseum/Hercules place. I always get really angry when doing the tourny thing. I even broke my controller while playing the first KH while at the Colosseum because I was getting very angry from always dieing... >> ...and then I realized I didn't even have to do the tourny to move on. ._. You had to in KH2 and another game, I think. And I played KH2 before the first KH, so I thought I would have to do the same for the first... Turns out I was wrong. :V