RPG irritations

[ShadowTiger]

This one bugs me a lot: The king tells me to run an errand for him in some other kingdom, but he won't tell me where it is or how to get there. Instead, I have to talk to every single peon in his castle until some random chef or doorman blurts out the location of the other kingdom. Irritating.

Easily the single most irritating feature of anything I've ever done in a game. "Go get this." "Where is it?" "Go get this." " ... "

I hate party members that leave the party after you've spent the past 25 hours leveling them up and fine tuning their skills. Specially if they keep their equipment.

Sue, from Grandia. Don't bother with her. >_<

I kinda don't like that there is always a save right before something big happens. You walking through a dungeon, you find a door and a save point. "Oh shit, I better prepare" kinda takes the surprise out of it.

Oh, this one, I like. XD Grandia was very nice with this one. I definitely appreciated it. Took a lot of the pressure off.

I hate buying "Teh armor of doom" for 12456330 gil, only to find it in a dungeon's random treasure chest 15 minutes later.

Yup, Tales of Symphonia is ripe with this. >_<

Random battles. So here I am walking through a fairly deserted-looking dungeon, when all of the sudden comes the Giant Skull of DEATH from out of absolutely freakin' nowhere to tear my party a new one right before I can reach the save point. GRRRRR!!!

That's why I've only played FF6. I stopped in the early part of FF7 too, simply because it took too long.


Yes, I hate it when there's a needless delay between areas. Why does it take so long for the screen to transition between map and battle scenes? It really doesn't have to. I'm not talking about loading in new graphics either. Sacrifice the "pretty" for the "GO, NOW!"

[mikeron]

Items without a hint of what they might do (I'm talking about like the difference between potion, salve, etc., not special items).

Spells that are useless later on. I prefer it when status effects can be used strategically later in the game.

[Yoshiman]

Status-Inducing Spells: Okay, why is it whenever you get something like Poison, Confuse, or Slow, it only works on minor enemies? Whenever you fight a boss and need it the most, it never works on them. I mean, who the heck slows a minor enemy?

Random Battles: I hate RPGs with toms of random battles. Breath of Fire 3 has alot in some areas. Sometimes, you just want to get on with the area, but everytime you take 3 steps, a monster attacks you. It's even more annoying when it's a really weak one and you can decimate them in one hit.

Boss Battles: It's not all bosses, it's just those ones with those really devastating attacks. Basically, they have ONE attack that can kill you in one hit, or comes close. And they love to use it when you're taking a turn to heal.

Kill the Revived: Maybe it's just me, but whenever I revive a party member and they have low HP, the enemy loves to kill that same person again before I have a chance to heal them, therefore wasting a Phoenix Down/Ammonia/Life Bottle/ect.

[DarkDragoonX]

Status-Inducing Spells: Okay, why is it whenever you get something like Poison, Confuse, or Slow, it only works on minor enemies? Whenever you fight a boss and need it the most, it never works on them. I mean, who the heck slows a minor enemy?

Yeah, it's a pain in the ass. The Dragon Warrior series is actually very nice about having bosses that have status weaknesses (the dragon guarding the princess in the original comes readily to mind. You can beat that dragon at an insanely low level if you put it to sleep).

[ShadowTiger]

Oh, I'd love such a thing. You're right, Yoshiman & DDX. I so very, very rarely actually see status effects or lowered defenses or stats take place on enemies when you put them in place. Casting the spell or using the item is actually a much, much worse idea than simply using your normal attack under normal conditions than taking the time to lower their stats. It's such a small difference. It's absolutely absurd. And so what if it "stacks." Sometimes it doesn't even stack at all, and the effort to reduce it to that stacked level provides the enemy more than enough of a chance to reduce your own hit points to nil.

[Dark Knight]

RPG's becoming too easy: This is a recent iritation. Apparently, we are making RPGs for mentaly challenged children or really stupid adults. Either way, it pisses me off. When the Max level you can reach is 99 and you beat the game at level 34(I did this with FFIX), there's something wrong. It is coming to the point where you don't really even need to think about what you're doing to beat the game. Square is getting real bad about this.

Godly Characters: This was one of the many bad things wrong with FFX. I was able to reach a godly status far too early in the game. Unless required by the storyline, I never had to use any command other then Attack. That was more then sufficient to obliterate any monster.

Status Changing Spells: This one pisses me off. Why is it that when a monster casts a Status Spell such as Doom, Death, Poison, Herpies, whatever, they have perfect effectivness and yet, when I cast the same spells, they never work and even if they do, it doesn't last long or it's on a feble monster that a gust of wind could kill.

"Destroying the World so I Can Rule It" Syndrome: Wtf is up with this? The main antagonist wants to destroy the world, so he could rule it? What's the god damn point? There'd be nothing left. He'd be all alone, no one to rule over. He'd rule nothing but ash and debri. Big fucking w00t!

"For Great Justice!" Syndrome: Ugh. A Hero saving the world because it's the Just thing to do? I get tired of this. Maybe the Hero could have some ambition. It's not like it'll kill the storyline. Perhaps the Hero could have alterior motives for saving the world? maybe he wants to rule it for himself or maybe he wants to simply save the world because HE WANTS to. Not some great justice. The Hero not only endanger his life, but the lives of up to 3 party members justt because it's just? Please, let's try to give our hero a real reason why he wants to defeat the ultimate evil bent on destroying the world, other then it being just.

I have more, but, I'm too lazy to post them at the moment.

[Blonde799]

What bugs me about RPGs? I'll tell you, at the cost of being redundant.

Lack of balance.
RPGs usually tend to be either very difficult or too easy. The former being say, Legaia Duel Saga, and the latter being Final Fantasy VII. Some RPGs also put too much emphasis on numerical pissing. In Legaia Duel Saga, 20,000 damage is a bee sting to the final boss. It wouldn't be so bad, had you not been forced to level up so much, cook like an expert chef and spam your mystic arts every chance you got. In Final Fantasy VII, the limit break system was too flexible, allowing players to get level 3 limits before your party even thinks about leaving Midgar. Not only that, the materia system was broken and the final boss was a punkass. With the right abilities, the weapons were pretty easy as well(there's a video floating around the net of someone beating emerald weapon in less than 2 minutes with two characters).

Recycled plotlines.
I can stand cliches, but damn, there are so many! One of your party members is the key to saving the world, and you go on a quest with them to do so. You save the world just because. There's a love story coming a MILE away. One of your friends will betray you. At this point, I'd rather have a steamy love triangle involving wookies than this stuff.

Hey, I haven't gotten my revenge yet!
I hate having strong characters peg my party, and then by the time I get strong enough to serve them a plate of whoop ass, they either befriend me, or get killed by SOMEONE ELSE!

Development baggage.
Gee, if you're gonna waste time to put a feature in the game, at least make it USEFUL!

Story time.
If you don't allow me to display all the the text in a message( or even worse, make pressing the skipping button close the damn window and/or kill the convo altogether!!!), YOU SHOULD GET HUNG!

I REFUSE to use another weapon!
Every character can only use one type of weapon. No one even tries to use another, even if it's only slightly different from the one they werre using.

Sorry baby, I have to leave you for another woman.
Why is it that attacks earned later overshadow the lesser ones? I'd really like something that makes use of the lesser attacks later in the game.

Status effects 101.
Did enemies get some kind of training to resist status effects? Most of the time, they're only useful on minor enemies that a simple breath from a hamster could kill.

I'm RICH BIATCH!
How can so few people even get to 1/4 of how rich your party is, but your party can get over 90,000 of whatever crazily named currency in a few hours by the end of the game? And where the HELL does 15,000 units of currency come from in a single battle? GOD!?

That's what bothers me.

[Master Ghaleon]

So I've been wondering... what are those traits in RPGs that really bug you? YOu know, little things that just get under your skin when you're playing an RPG?

Mine include:


NPCs that join your party and become far weaker than they were. Likewise, I hate it when you have to fight one of your ex-party members and they mysteriously gain thousands of HP.

Yea, also they only have like 2 spells but when you gotta fight them they have about 10 spells that will kick you in the balls.

[Monica]

I hate...erm...extra stuff. Like for example Inventing in SO3 and building a better ship in Kingdom Hearts, just annoying tasks that the player has to do that aren't even part of the story. Also obscure leveling up things like Talents in SO1. What was even the point of cooking and singing and writing and all those other things? I never could figure them out...

Also, is Collette a cliche'd character? O_O If there is another game with a cute little angel that joins your party and is the star of the game, tell me what the game is, because I've been waiting for that plot FOREVER!

[Carcer]

I personally hate the Heros that never say anything. Ever. Why? It makes me angry. The most you got out of Isaac in Golden Sun was the "yes" or "no" response, which, in most potentially story changing situations, when inputting the "wrong" answer, you got something like - "You don't mean that!" Try again. Or worse, "You don't mean that!" Another character decides.

Those RPGs that follow the tried, tested and eroded, cliched and boring, "collect the elemental crystal" escapades that takes to to get the fire crystal from the Desert/Volcano, the Earth one from the cave/mountain, plant/earth one from the forest/jungle, water one from the remote island, Lightning one from the metallic structure, Ice one from the Ice cave - which is on the same latitude as the volcano/desert, the wind one from the mountain peak, and so on. It is boring and repetitive, and at least in ToS, it gives you a reason before it gets boring.
I agree with the having to solve the town's calamity before being able to progress, and some of the villains... ugh. Big, fat and hairy, they'd do a better job as Homer Simpson that "taking over the world", leaving every open space for you to win right open.
World Maps. Yes, it's easier, but I hate the way that you can get across the whole world in an instant, ebing so huge. Yes, it's a representation, but I fell like I'm missing out. That's a good thing about Pokemon, I thought.
And, I suppose that's all my qualms for now, until I wake up at 3am and think of something else in a dream.