Most Intolerable Game Flaw

[WhiteShark]

I fired up an indie game today that placed several 'do I really want to play this?' hurdles before me in a row. The first was shoddy faux-anime art, but I continued. The second was random ambiguously melanin-rich characters in a European medieval fantasy world, but I endured. The third was poor diction and a spelling error in the opening dialogue, and here my motivation failed me.

Upon reflection, I think even absent the first two I would have stumbled at the third. In a game with written dialogue I can think of nothing more intolerable than poor writing in the most basic, technical sense. Spelling errors are the worst sort of reminder that I am not adventuring in a fantasy world but sitting at my desk interacting with another human's flawed creation. Repetitive word choice is not quite so egregious but it still interrupts my mental flow in a similar, highly undesirable way.

Normally I consider myself to have a gameplay first attitude, but if reading is a large part of a game, as it is in many RPGs, then this aspect may actually be the most important to not botch. At the very least, if I have to read before even getting to gameplay, it had better not look like a middle schooler wrote it lest I quit on the spot.

For you, which is the straw that would break the camel's back even by itself?

[Acrux]

Bad UI and/or controls. I just don't have patience for it anymore. Especially PC games that don't have any mouse controls.

Art direction that look like multiple styles were jammed together is becoming one for me recently. I don't mean a bad style, necessarily. I can put up with crappy looking graphics. But if it looks like you're taking art bundles from different sources that don't mesh, I'm going to dismiss you.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

An irritating issue that keeps pipping up in recent JRPGs: boss fights where you can win but then your gameplay victory is ignored in the following cutscene and your characters lose in story. Especially when this happens multiple times across the game (or even franchise!), so you wind up beating the same character in gameplay over and over but then the last time the writers arbitrarily decide that this time your gameplay victory counts and your characters actually beat that guy in the cutscene.



Padded writing/too much text. It just wastes time and dilutes the story. I see this happen the often in games that do not commit to full voice acting. Games that do tend to commit to full voice acting tend to have tighter scripts and flow better because the writers are incentivized to trim the fat and get to the stuff that really matters due to the expense of voice acting. It seems that brevity has become a lost art.

Normal game
"That looks like a really beautiful city."
"Yeah, you're right. We have to find X though."

Trails JRPGs
"The city of Y...."
"Wow...so much amazing..."
"Yeah, this is the greatest bla bla bla of the entire kingdom of Something and it's primary function is to create steel for heavy machinery."
"You can even see the great bridge of WhoCares, one of the most modern and remarkable ones and a proff of the knowledge people in this town have on bridges!"
"Oh yeah, my awesome dad always talked about it when I was young, I'm such a dummy for not remembering!"
"You sure are Estelle. By the way, we should keep moving forward into that direction over there. We've got a mission to find X, remember?"
"Oh yeah, it was that building over there, after we cross the bridge right?"
"Right. I heard the man living in that house is a bit of a loner though, we should watch our manners when we speak to him."
"Okay Joshua. Let's go!"

[rusty_shackleford]

An irritating issue that keeps pipping up in recent JRPGs: boss fights where you can win but then your gameplay victory is ignored in the following cutscene and your characters lose in story. Especially when this happens multiple times across the game (or even franchise!), so you wind up beating the same character in gameplay over and over but then the last time the writers arbitrarily decide that this time your gameplay victory counts and your characters actually beat that guy in the cutscene.

This is just typical jrpg design tho, one of the main things that sets them apart is how linear they are.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This is just typical jrpg design tho

Disagree. In older JRPGs (ie Romancing Saga 2, or even FF12) you usually fight a boss once and you kill him right then and there, or you defeat him and don't have to fight him again.

[WhiteShark]

An irritating issue that keeps pipping up in recent JRPGs: boss fights where you can win but then your gameplay victory is ignored in the following cutscene and your characters lose in story. Especially when this happens multiple times across the game (or even franchise!), so you wind up beating the same character in gameplay over and over but then the last time the writers arbitrarily decide that this time your gameplay victory counts and your characters actually beat that guy in the cutscene.

Yeah, this one sucks. I remember being pleased that the 'unbeatable' fight near the end of the first Trails in the Sky was actually beatable and the game recognized my beating it, even if it didn't change much.

[Tweed]

Nothing shuts down interest in something faster than bad spelling and punctuation. People will assume you're a low-watt bulb if your work is full of spelling errors.

[2factorauth]

I fired up an indie game today that placed several 'do I really want to play this?' hurdles before me in a row. The first was shoddy faux-anime art, but I continued.

literally stopped reading here
im not even joking

[Emphyrio]

I'm not even going to give a game a chance if the characters are N's with THAT haircut, so that one.

[MadPreacher]

When the descriptions of weather and the clothes characters are wearing don't fit. Like saying it's the winter time and everyone is running around in summer clothes.

[rusty_shackleford]

Intrusive tutorials are definitely near the top for me.

Having the option to disable tutorials is useless because you might actually need a tutorial for certain features that aren't obvious.

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

Overlong dialogue is one thing, but overlong animations are something I can't tolerate. It's an issue present in 3d zeldas before breath of the wild, modern Sony games, and most 3d jrpgs that I know of. When they're self-absorbed and ''cinematic'' to the point that they interrupt gameplay, then they're a major detriment from beginning to end.

Action girls are cringe, and it's high time we admit that. Unless it's a puzzle or adventure game, I'm not interested in playing as a chick, especially if the game wants to take itself seriously. No, having a high fantasy or sci-fi setting doesn't remedy this.

[WhiteShark]

Action girls are cringe, and it's high time we admit that. Unless it's a puzzle or adventure game, I'm not interested in playing as a chick, especially if the game wants to take itself seriously. No, having a high fantasy or sci-fi setting doesn't remedy this.

This is a huge plausibility issue for me. I posted before that I just want writers to give me a reason that a girl can keep up—and no, just being exceptional doesn't cut it—but they rarely do.

[Emphyrio]

Action girls are as old as the Illiad so it's not going away, but it's definitely way overdone lately.

[Fedora Master]

*******.

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

Action girls are cringe, and it's high time we admit that. Unless it's a puzzle or adventure game, I'm not interested in playing as a chick, especially if the game wants to take itself seriously. No, having a high fantasy or sci-fi setting doesn't remedy this.

This is a huge plausibility issue for me. I posted before that I just want writers to give me a reason that a girl can keep up—and no, just being exceptional doesn't cut it—but they rarely do.

True, but like I said, even when it's a very fantastical setting and the plausibility can be brushed off with teh majic, it still looks stupid. I just don't like the sight of women doing men's work in their stead, it's a very gay fantasy to indulge in.

The one time I can let it slide is when it's both a very camp game, and the woman is secondary to the men. RA3's Natasha and Tanya and RE4's chinese dress girl are good examples of this. RA2's Tanya a little less so, since it's not as overtly lulzy.

I give major props to Rise of the Reds for keeping the amount of femoids to a reasonable limit, and all are within the previously established standards. Well, barring the Berkut, but that's a forgivable mistake in a mod of such magnitude.

[GhostCow]

When the descriptions of weather and the clothes characters are wearing don't fit. Like saying it's the winter time and everyone is running around in summer clothes.

You don't want to see bikini girls running around in the snow? Weird.

[MadPreacher]

When the descriptions of weather and the clothes characters are wearing don't fit. Like saying it's the winter time and everyone is running around in summer clothes.

You don't want to see bikini girls running around in the snow? Weird.

Nope, because if the temperature is as cold as most games say it is they'd have frostbite in no time. This is for games using a real world setting, so fantasy doesn't apply here.

[Tweed]

I despise games where the single player is just a glorified tutorial for a multiplayer mode I'll never touch.

[J1M]

Time-to-gameplay greater than 10 minutes. Which I define as the time it takes after clicking new game for the game to provide an element of challenge.

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

I despise games where the single player is just a glorified tutorial for a multiplayer mode I'll never touch.

Tying onto that, there's a hallmark of bad RTS campaign design which goes hand in hand with your complaint.

"Commander, you have been authorized to build (new unit). (New unit) will allow you to (solve current mission objective). It is the pride of our federation." (I'm looking at you, RA3)

[aweigh]

When a game never builds a power curve and remains so easy there's no point in utilizing resources or mechanics.

[Element]

An irritating issue that keeps pipping up in recent JRPGs: boss fights where you can win but then your gameplay victory is ignored in the following cutscene and your characters lose in story. Especially when this happens multiple times across the game (or even franchise!), so you wind up beating the same character in gameplay over and over but then the last time the writers arbitrarily decide that this time your gameplay victory counts and your characters actually beat that guy in the cutscene.



Padded writing/too much text. It just wastes time and dilutes the story. I see this happen the often in games that do not commit to full voice acting. Games that do tend to commit to full voice acting tend to have tighter scripts and flow better because the writers are incentivized to trim the fat and get to the stuff that really matters due to the expense of voice acting. It seems that brevity has become a lost art.

Normal game
"That looks like a really beautiful city."
"Yeah, you're right. We have to find X though."

Trails JRPGs
"The city of Y...."
"Wow...so much amazing..."
"Yeah, this is the greatest bla bla bla of the entire kingdom of Something and it's primary function is to create steel for heavy machinery."
"You can even see the great bridge of WhoCares, one of the most modern and remarkable ones and a proff of the knowledge people in this town have on bridges!"
"Oh yeah, my awesome dad always talked about it when I was young, I'm such a dummy for not remembering!"
"You sure are Estelle. By the way, we should keep moving forward into that direction over there. We've got a mission to find X, remember?"
"Oh yeah, it was that building over there, after we cross the bridge right?"
"Right. I heard the man living in that house is a bit of a loner though, we should watch our manners when we speak to him."
"Okay Joshua. Let's go!"

That's more of a failure of the dialogue system if we're talking of RPGs. Mentioning the steel production, the bridge, the loner in the mansion can all be made important if they tie into the quests. The best approach would be to have a robust dialogue tree that lets the player determine what information he needs, and make sure that the info is pertinent to the narrative.

[rusty_shackleford]

Intrusive tutorials are definitely near the top for me.

Having the option to disable tutorials is useless because you might actually need a tutorial for certain features that aren't obvious.

Its been 10 years since this and things have only gotten worse.

[maidenhaver]

I can't imagine being so high stringed, that spelling errors could brake my immersion. Don't fantasy people spell thing wrong? Anyway, I suppose if other **** was bothering, me I might blame it on the writing so I don't sound racist too myself.

[Lich]

Fantasy people spelling and saying things wrong because they are fantasy people can be very annoying. Example:

Ha! A new string and beans, an I'm ken. Latched and keyed in the bright shine o' the deadland afore this'n. He be a thing o' fire and bronze, an' the node appreciates his grit. "A cnight of old, clade in shining steel, leading the hoste onward to glorie," as 'twere. This'n finds him an apt one to give rede. To command in battle, that's t'yark.

[J1M]

Another: games that run at 30 fps or lower. Halted me from buying the recent Zelda game. I suppose it's fine that they chose a hideous visual aesthetic to get a decent draw distance, but if the game won't run at 60 fps it should be delayed until new hardware is released.

[Lich]

I can adjust to lower framerates, as long as they are consistent. They become bothersome when they fluctuate.

[Element]

If the game is good enough, I let it slide. Bloodborne ran at 30, and dipped to 10 in the lower floor of the Lecture Hall level, but it didn't bother me. The rest of it was too engrossing.

[Norfleet]

Action girls are cringe, and it's high time we admit that. Unless it's a puzzle or adventure game, I'm not interested in playing as a chick, especially if the game wants to take itself seriously. No, having a high fantasy or sci-fi setting doesn't remedy this.

This is a huge plausibility issue for me. I posted before that I just want writers to give me a reason that a girl can keep up—and no, just being exceptional doesn't cut it—but they rarely do.

It's a perfect reason to make the game hard. What if we just DON'T give a her reason she can keep up? What if her stats just plain suck about as much as you'd expect and the only reason she's keeps up is because of the skills represented by you, the player, without which she will get bitchslapped across the room?