The GBC Zelda and Other Games were Designed to Cause Pain

[Shrapnel]

(Despite this thread's title, it's really open to any discussion about frustrating games that cause players to commit property damage and/or murder.)

Some musings from an angry gamer:
I have very fond memories of the GBC Legend of Zelda titles (Link's Awakening and both Oracle versions). When I was a kid, I didn't have them, but my friends did, so I'd often borrow the games from them.And I remembered them being fun, enjoyable games. Awakening, in particular, was a particular favorite.

Anyway, fast forward about ten or so years later, and we find that I've recently downloaded onto my 3DS the those same three games. I've been playing them for the past several days, and I've discovered one unfortunate truth: They are as difficult as all out fuck. Seriously, in Oracle of Ages, it is well and truly impossible beat the boss of the second dungeon without having omnipotent and intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the game designers mind. (In other words, I have no fucking clue as to how to beat the damn fucker.)

Zelda games are always playable and enjoyable to a certain point and then become frustratingly un-fucking-possible to beat. Add to this fact that the GBC titles were made by Capcom, which itself also makes really hard games (most notably the Megaman series, although I have an easier time with those ((except Megaman and Bass, which is just. So. Fucking. HARD.)) ), and you get three games that are harder than Nancy Reagan's position on what to say to drugs.

I bring this all up because I just want to know what the fuck was going through the mind of the game designers when they said, "Hey! Let's make a game that will make players wish they could travel all the way to where Fusajiro Yamauchi is buried and piss on his corpse*!"


*I may or may not have seriously thought of doing this.

[Vebyast]

Man, I remember Oracle of Ages. Zelda is one of those series where I refuse to read the walkthroughs until I've beaten the game at least once, and some of those bosses took me days of on-and-off brainstorming before I figured things out. I really enjoyed that game, though.

[Shrapnel]

I've been driven to the ends of despair by the boss of the Wing Dungeon. How, exactly, am I supposed to kill this multi-faced crime against humanity?

The owl statue hints that I should use bombs, but he doesn't say how to use them wisely.

[Avoraciopoctules]

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/The_Legend ... ng_Dungeon

The giant pinata head boss is one of the more challenging fights in Ages. Timing the bomb so it lands inside while the red face is showing can be challenging if you're also trying to avoid taking much damage. It is doable, however.

[Vebyast]

The giant pinata was hard, yeah. The worst one for me, though, was the boss of the Ancient Tomb. The tricks for his third and fourth stage are somewhat non-obvious, and randomly trying everything doesn't work because it's very difficult to get things right accidentally.

[Koumei]

Well, I can't speak for Zelda, as I didn't have a Nintendo product until I was well past the point of caring about the little elf man (no really, I had a PSX before my first Nintendo console, maybe a PS2 even). But as for the subtitle about hard-annoying games...

1. Drawn to Life: I loved the idea of it, and there is still potential in the basic concept (tower defence or strategy games would be my suggestion here. I have the plans), but the game doesn't really take advantage of this, and in playability goes from "not really challenging" to "HAHAHA FUCK YOU" all of a sudden with the second world boss. That fucking tree. I haven't actually beaten that tree.

2. Sure, that fucking level in Battletoads. Someone had to say it, right?

3. Dorf Fortress. Here's the deal: the game itself isn't hard, per se. You know what you have to do, and there aren't great challenges to face until very late game. The problem is the layout and control scheme are so horribly implemented* that playing the game itself is a chore. Now pretend dwarfs are even worth playing a game about (they are not), or that you modded the game to play as goblins**. The game just doesn't want you to actually play it.

Never mind that 99% of games don't end in some cataclysm or victory, but with things just slowly rolling to a stop. Losing isn't inherently fun, it can be fun if it happens in a fun way. The stories you've read on the Internet about it are basically the only instances that's ever happened, it usually is just a slow spiral of people falling into strange moods, not having the right material available because it didn't generate on the map, starving to death, then others getting sad and moody and someone drowns because of a carp. So not only is it hard to play in the sense of "navigating the controls and the visual display", it's hard to actually make interesting things occur. After your first automated noble disposal system, there's not much more left.

4. Etrian Odyssey. Enough said?

*toady will fix these right when he finishes more important things, like making sure sand and grit have different tactile ratings and run speed modifiers.

**Hilariously, modding the game in such ways is actually easier than playing the game.

[Shrapnel]

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/The_Legend ... ng_Dungeon

The giant pinata head boss is one of the more challenging fights in Ages. Timing the bomb so it lands inside while the red face is showing can be challenging if you're also trying to avoid taking much damage. It is doable, however.

The only problem I have is that it's difficult for me to time the bomb throwing correctly because of the odd, platform-style layout of the boss room. If it were the regular layout then I might have an easier time of it.


Moving on to another game...

Megaman and Bass is extremely difficult, especially the fortress stages. The boss of the first part of King's fortress is particularly annoying:



Basically, the monkey on top is invincible, and throws bombs at you all the while. The real target is the pod thing, which normally is lying on the far right platform. What you have to do is jump on the left platform and lift up the pod until it gets high enough for a little head thing to pop out, which is what your supposed to shoot. The problem, though, is that in order for the pod to get high enough to shoot you have to stay on the platform until it is almost touching the insta-kill lava, at which point you have to jump so as not to die. However, jumping off the platform lowers the pod, leaving you a very limited window in which you can damage it. It doesn't help that that fucking monkey keeps on throwing bombs at you while you do this.

And as another "fuck you" to players: If you don't leap off the platform when you make the final hit against the pod, you'll plunge with the platform into the lava, and no, it doesn’t count as a victory even if you defeat the pod before dying.

[Chamomile]

Okay, yes, Dwarf Fortress rant: I love these city-management games and I think the idea of using a barebones graphics to free up all of the processing power for absurdly detailed simulation is a good idea. But the dude needs to stop concentrating everything on ever greater levels of simulation and free some of his time up to make actual gameplay entertaining. You need reliable access to materials that don't spawn on the map. And you need there to be like events or something so that the game is actually fun after you figure out its maddeningly obtuse control scheme. And you need a less maddeningly obtuse control scheme. And you need some kind of tutorial so that people know how to feed their dwarves. Some kind of campaign might be a good idea.

This is ignoring things that are not vital to making the game actually consistently fun, but which I think would be neat. Like, I think more species to interact with would be neat. And I think some way of expanding past your first fortress to start an empire would be neat. And I think some standard D&D things like powerful wizards kicking around mucking with things would be neat. But really, I just think that would be cool, and Dwarf Fortress doesn't need those to be awesome. What it does need is stuff that's been Game Design 101 since like 1990.

[name_here]

I think the Caravan Arc is due in soonish, actually, which is designed to fix the materials access problem.

Anyways, my contribution is high-difficulty Fire Emblem games, specifically ones with the Confirmed Most Baneful Fire Emblem Mechanic, enemy reinforcements spawning in before the start of the enemy turn, so they can attack the turn they appear.

Especially annoying with Pegasus Knights.

[Shrapnel]

Dead Money (one of the FO:NV DLC's) had a great story, but was a pain in the ass. Fucking bomb collars and stupid raidos...

[name_here]

I hate that place so much. I blatantly cheated on both my runthroughs and feel not the slightest bit sorry. It was still a huge bitch.

[Meikle641]

Same. Story was good but hated the gameplay. Ended up cheating to steal ALL the gold after the original exploits to get it failed. Made a massive pile of bullion in my Apocalypse Safehouse along with stacks of old cash. It was pimpin'.

[icyshadowlord]

I remember that part of Megaman and Bass pictured above. That image fills me with rage.

Also, I cleared Oracle of Seasons long ago, but never got to the end of A Link to the Past for some reason.

[Ravengm]

Megaman and Bass monkey boss

The monkey may be invincible, but I remember being able to make him stop throwing bombs for a short amount of time by shooting him a few times. Then he slaps his ass and leaps away for a bit.

Also playing as Megaman is like 10x harder than playing as Bass. The double-jump alone makes the game soooo much easier.

[Shrapnel]

Shooting it does interrupt it's attack pattern, but only for a very short time.

... I really fucking hate that monkey. If there was ever a reason to hate an entire species, it would be that goddamn ass-slappin' primate.

[Shrapnel]

I've been thinking, and I've realized that their are a lot of terrifyingly difficult games out there. Anyone have any horror stories?

Also, FUCK Onox. Fucking, fucking fuckhole.

[Darth Rabbitt]

The Original Ninja Gaiden and the NES Battletoads, 'nuff said.

Mortal Kombat II:

So your second-to-last opponent in that game is Kintaro.

Throwing in this game is freakishly overpowered, because of its large hitbox and high priority.

Kintaro's are literally broken, having higher priority than any other move in the game, so he can literally grab you while you're using a flying kick or something and throw you to the ground.

If you try to fight him at a distance, he'll simply teleport and stomp you.

He has a taunt, but because of his broken-ass throws it's obscenely risky to try and attack him during it since if he ends his taunt before you land a hit, he throws you or stomps you.

The only time he's truly vulnerable is when he's in the air, as he has no air attacks.

But this really isn't enough; I've owned the game since I was seven and I've never beaten him without cheats.

[Whipstitch]

Kintaro was pretty stupid, yeah. He was actually much worse in certain arcade revisions. The console Kintaros you could beat by staying at a very specific range and punishing him--he was really more like something out of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out than a fighting game character.

[shadzar]

I bring this all up because I just want to know what the fuck was going through the mind of the game designers when

just being stupid and trying to make a game that is both for younger audiences and for the smart people too. since they can't release 2 or 3 versions of console games, they release only one, and only a percentage or people get all the content in the games at the full price to everyone for them. this is where GameShark and all those other devices came from. people got tired of paying so much and getting only part of the game. of course game makers thought this "cheating" was bad, but failed to understand that not everyone thinks it is fun to disarm the bomb on the train in FFVIII with a timer hanging over your head and the last save point was 1 hour of play prior.

i think it really is that design is still following the arcade method where in order to get past these parts you had to feed more quarters into it, which is what made arcade games worth so much money, but a console game you purchase and now own a copy of, the only one getting more money is the electric company yet they still want to design from an archaic arcade center model to have these parts in them. either that or they watched Fred Savage in The Wizard one too many times and thinks there really is some video game player profession that enough people really give a damn about to find all this nonsense instead of the masses just wanting the visual novel which most of these cRPGs are.

any video game that requires knowledge of its predecessor is also just plain dumb. .hack//, Xenosaga, and FFX-2 to name a few sort of needed you to play all the games in the line to know anything. FFx-2 i don't recall needing save/clear data from previous games to be able to play, but the others sure did. sure you could play without it, but you were in for a tough time both in terms of power and knowledge. i am pretty sure Star OCean: Til the End of Time also had some prior connection to other games, but it was so all over the place i doubt anyone had any idea what as going on with it.

i would wager it occurs most in games with sequels, which means MGS also probably had lots of info needed form previous games. don't remember RE that much to know if each game was standalone set in the same universe, but i would wager there it probably helped to have played previuos version in order to have an idea of what was going on.

it works great where that is the case for those games mentioned like Xenosaga and .hack// so you get a very long story out of it, but the problem ies in the fact that 5 years later when someone gets the first chance to pick up episode 4 or whatever, they might not be able to afford or even purchase episode 1~3 to know what they are expected to know.


FF is also famous with its Ultimate Weapons and such just laying around for no reason.

[shau]

Mortal Kombat II:

So your second-to-last opponent in that game is Kintaro.

Throwing in this game is freakishly overpowered, because of its large hitbox and high priority.

Kintaro's are literally broken, having higher priority than any other move in the game, so he can literally grab you while you're using a flying kick or something and throw you to the ground.

If you try to fight him at a distance, he'll simply teleport and stomp you.

He has a taunt, but because of his broken-ass throws it's obscenely risky to try and attack him during it since if he ends his taunt before you land a hit, he throws you or stomps you.

The only time he's truly vulnerable is when he's in the air, as he has no air attacks.

But this really isn't enough; I've owned the game since I was seven and I've never beaten him without cheats.

I remember that. Baraka has a move he seems blind to, so you can beat him with it. It's the one where Baraka crouches down and just waves his blades around. Baraka became my favorite character for that alone.

[Surgo]

When I was a kid, there was a rather infamous level in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 that was next to impossible to beat. Not in the sense of difficulty that the games here have -- but in a mechanic that was completely unintuitive and nonsensical. Did you play that game as a child? If so, you may remember exactly the point I was talking about: the barrel in the carnival zone.

Hmm, I own the game as part of a Sega Genesis collection for the Xbox 360. I think that, knowing now how to beat it, I should go back and do just that.

[Darth Rabbitt]

@shau: Will have to try that move on Kintaro; I never thought of using it on him, since it seems like it'd leave Baraka open too long.

@Surgo: I remember the barrel well; it took a long time to figure out what you were supposed to do with it, but it took even longer to figure out how to beat the boss of 3-2 (Robotnik w/drill) using Tails alone.

So by the carnival level I was used to crazy counter-intuitive bullshit in that game (actually, I found the final boss of Sonic 2 harder than anything and everything in 3, since its pattern was long and you had no rings.)

Funny part is that Sonic 3 (esp. Sonic 3 and Knuckles) is by far my favorite Sonic game (although pretty much everything from Dreamcast onward has been shit.)

[Surgo]

Hey now, Sonic Adventure 2 was for the Dreamcast and that game was amazing.

Sonic 2 endgame boss wasn't particularly tough as far as I remember, mostly because he was slooooow. Just took a while.

[Darth Rabbitt]

The boss of Sonic 2 was indeed as slow as balls but if you fucked up at all you were dead.

The Adventure series was alright; I especially liked playing the robot in the first game, so I'll amend my statement to "the Sonic series became shit after the two Adventure games."

[Koumei]

I was only around 12 or so when I played MK2, and spoiler here, I was shit at it. Loved the games, but was no good. I imagine it's still the case. IIRC, what the guide suggested was "play as Shang Tsung for most of the game, then when Kintaro beats you, switch to Katana and do the Fan Lift + Flying Punch combo." And for Shao Khan, high kick beats his charge attack. Which is one of his two moves that isn't a taunt.

I enjoyed Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I could beat S&K with Knuckles (with Sonic, I never managed to get past the level with... the boss was Robotnik with gravity-shifting pods and explosives and rotating shields). I could beat Sonic 3 with Sonic (I think), but not with Knuckles. I think the "hovering with fire thrusters and a grabber claw" boss stumped me.

I can't actually remember the barrel in the carnival zone. What was it?