A lot of us are gamers, and a lot of us also play games casually for fun. But there are times when some games can get overwhelming or even near rage inducing. Now, I’m not talking about game plots where it’s like “oh this story is dumb, why bother with it?”. I’m more so curious if anyone has ever played a game that just flat out had a moment in the midst of gameplay or something that sparked some serious anger and you were like “NOPE I’m done!!”
I like playing JRPGs, FPS, and certain Hack and Slash games… but there was one game I’ve played in the past that I thoroughly enjoyed! Up until I got to the end… An unfamiliar series to a lot known as Drakengard in which there are three games in the series… AND Drakengard ties into the MORE recently popular NIER games. But that aside, I’m focusing on DG3 in this conversation. The gameplay overall is hack and slash, there are certain parts of the game that can also function like a rail shooter as well which is also pretty fun. I won’t get into the finer details of the game, but I will explain what was triggering about the end. Essentially, the “final boss” of the game switches the gameplay IN ITS ENTIRETY to that of a rhythm game, and you are tasked as the dragon character, Mikhail, for surviving for nearly 8 minutes while defending yourself from… I guess I’d call them “song notes” in this case, AND if you miss just one, you have to restart the entire song from scratch. What makes it so infuriating is the fact that you have to time it with juuuuuuust such precision or else you fail, AND the camera isn’t always on you, so you have to guess when the notes arrive AT you. To put the icing on the cake as well at the end of the song the screen fades to black and starts to slow down, so the game puts your guard down making you think you won! BZZZZZT wrong! They launch two notes at you during the black screen that you have to also time correctly and defend against, otherwise, you restart the whole song.
That I think was my biggest trigger in any video game to exist thus far to the point that I had to sync up a timing counter just to bypass it and finish out the story with the ending cutscene, after almost 50 failed attempts and me getting so mad that I refused to ever touch the game again afterward… The SONG itself is actually pretty nice, but just switching up the gameplay from hack and slash to something else on a different plane of existence is purely bad game development in my eyes. The rest of the game was fine, and if you wish to look up this part I’m talking about, you’d want to look for Drag-on Dragoon 3: Final Song.
So I’ve shared that on my end, has anyone else ever played something that has caused a lot of annoyance like that?
I understand where you’re coming from when you say video games can be difficult, and sometimes even unfair.
I personally appreciate that level of difficulty in video games and dislike a lot of the hand-holding that occurs in more recent titles.
Zelda Breath of the Wild is a great example of how to properly guide a player towards an objective. It did have quest objective pins – which I turned off via a mod – I like the idea of figuring out where the place is by manually scanning the map and talking with villagers.
Yet – it didn’t shove reminders or people flat out telling you where to go. There are a handful of other games that are like that. I prefer them.
Just because something is difficult or might cause stress, doesn’t really mean it’s a trigger. In my opinion that’s just part of life and we all must learn how to properly deal with stressful situations.
Kingdom Hearts II. The beginning when you do those minigames. The garbage-related one, I believe. I was playing with my friend and he said that was like the first time he heard me swear. And the second, and the third, and…
I play a lite-mil-sim called Squad. I’m a designated medic class, so a lot of my job in the game is risking my butt to save people who got downed.
40-60% of the time, just as a sprint across a firefight to revive someone, they’ll give up and go to the menu. IT’S SO INFURIATING. It’s a team based game and I’m taking risks to save someone and save the team tickets, and they just ignore that to go respawn like 3-5 seconds faster.
Yes, but I’m really only remembering times in the past.
First of all, it sounds really annoying that you have to deal with a gameplay style switch that demands perfection or else. That isn’t very fun.
I’ve gotten enraged before in games. When I was younger, I remember that I pretty much flipped out at the Frankenstein boss in Glover, because I was attempting to do it in a way that probably is impossible–I probably was supposed to do it a different way. I also remember the gravity blocks puzzle at the end of Crazy Gadget in Sonic Adventure 2. Let’s just say, the Sonic stages are meant to be action and platforming, but much like you found with Drakengard 3, the frustrating part was at the gameplay style switch.
Interestingly enough, there are actually two solutions to the puzzle, one of which is probably not intentional. I let myself get too upset, but the Internet helped me find the easier, unintentional solution.
And I’ll just say, I do like puzzle games, but a difficult puzzle on a game and even stage that’s primarily platforming, really doesn’t work.
BLEGHHHHHHHHH. I remember both that boss in Glover and Crazy Gadget (although in Glover for me it was actually figuring out how the heck the final boss worked which kind of got on my nerves >_<). It was thanks to Crazy Gadget though that I couldn’t complete Sonic Adventure 2 for years, then one day my friend showed me how to PROPERLY clear the stage, and here I find out that the way I’ve been clearing the Tetris block part was not the intended way of doing it XD
Oh yeah I’m sure Sleet. I COULD beat Undyne the Undying on Genocide, I actually had a lot of fun with that fight because it tested my reflexes out to the max. But fighting Sans is just on another plane entirely >_<
That game was fun! I have no idea how good it was in retrospect or if I just had no taste because I was a child. But I always thought some of the worlds had a bizarre majesty to them.
the Hind-D in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
and the boss that kept on running around in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
and the swamp maze in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
and… maybe I’m just bad at Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
That one was really fun!