Most frustrating/least satisfying games

[Thalzon]

Mass Effect 1 ended up feeling very empty to me. The ending rang a little hollow because all those choices and interactions really didn't add up to anything. Maybe it would've been different had I played 2 and then 3, but with the uproar over the endings I probably won't ever bother.

Incidentally, Folklore, while fun, offers almost no incentive to level up your mons other than 100 percent completion. They do get stronger, but better ones become available seemingly with each new map to travel into, and the final boss has a fixed strategy like any other boss, so having every single Id is made even MORE pointless. Fun, but... yeah.

[Tables]

Metroid Prime Hunters - Just a huge waste of time all around. There's a right way and a wrong way to do backtracking, they found the wrong one. And the game overall, just wasn't very fun. Shame, the new hunters were a neat idea and all, but... no. And that final boss, what?

Oh, and a fun anecdote about Angry Birds. First I went through all the levels normally, just trying to complete them. Then I thought it'd be fun to go through and get 3 stars on all the levels. I do so on the first chapter, my reward is... a friggin sound test? Not even a new level? And then I uninstalled Angry Birds forever

[Nonamer]

Megaman: Battle Network 5 Double Team DS. I got a headache just saying the name, and then I got stuck. As in, lost in a world full of ninja enemies...

Do you know if there was any significant difference between the GBA Battle Network 5 games and the DS Double Team game?

And yes, while I LOVE the Mega Man Battle Network (MMBN) series to death, MMBN5 was my least favorite/most frustrating of the franchise. It just felt so slow, the battles were not as fun, and when you lose MegaMan to get ProtoMan/Colonel for one section could have been executed better.

Speaking of frustrating games, MMBN4 Red Sun/Blue Moon is really slow in the first half of the game (especially if you lose your save file accidentally), but it picks up a little more after you can travel to other countries.

I'm playing MMBN6 Cybeast Gregar on an emulator, and that game thus far is SO much better than 4 and 5. Music is borderline-good, but the gameplay is excellent.

[jnWake]

Football Manager has its frustrating moments, like losing a league when you had a 7 point advantage or managing big clubs and losing against small ones...

Yoshi's Story was indeed ver unsatisfying, especially when compared with the amazaing Yoshi Island.

I remember being very frustrated with some minigames in Banjo Kazooie/Tooie and Donkey Kong 64 when I was a kid.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Okami is the only game I've ever had to abandon halfway through. What a beautiful, entertaining game... great for me and my 7 year old son both... but those digging challenges are a pain in the ass due to the instability of the wiimote when drawing lines and patterns. Halfway through the game, there is a digging challenge you must pass to continue the story (the "Kaguya" challenge). I tried it fifty hundred times with the most miserable failure. I've tried to teach my son about not screaming in frustration at a video game. Had to stop trying this challenge... I wasn't being a good role model anymore.

I find it interesting how video games can unleash the animal within even the most calm people.

[Zerothemaster]

Okami is the only game I've ever had to abandon halfway through. What a beautiful, entertaining game... great for me and my 7 year old son both... but those digging challenges are a pain in the ass due to the instability of the wiimote when drawing lines and patterns. Halfway through the game, there is a digging challenge you must pass to continue the story (the "Kaguya" challenge). I tried it fifty hundred times with the most miserable failure. I've tried to teach my son about not screaming in frustration at a video game. Had to stop trying this challenge... I wasn't being a good role model anymore.

I must admit I chuckled.

I hope your son wasn't scarred and became one of those kids who scream in their microphones in CoD

[PROTO·DOME]

Sports have a painfully gradual learning curve with physical fitness and coordination as a prerequisite.

Plus you need friends to play.

[Phonetic Hero]

Sports have a painfully gradual learning curve with physical fitness and coordination as a prerequisite.

Plus you need friends to play.

i c wut u did thar <3

[Unstable Hamster]

Since we are on about frustrating games, and the fact that megaman has been talked about. I'm just gonna say I'm frustrated at Capcom. They have been doing all sorts of mean things to the stuff I love. Part of my soul died when they canceled Megaman Legends 3, I questioned the fact that you still have to pay for two DLC character's with Ultimate MvC3 and the on disk DLC for SFxT hasn't been well with me. Capcom within a year went to my favorite third person developers to where I stare at their decisions and hope they take them all back.

aaand I'm done venting... At least Dragon's Dogma looks good, please Capcom don't screw that up too...

[psychowolf]

Okami is the only game I've ever had to abandon halfway through. What a beautiful, entertaining game... great for me and my 7 year old son both... but those digging challenges are a pain in the ass due to the instability of the wiimote when drawing lines and patterns. Halfway through the game, there is a digging challenge you must pass to continue the story (the "Kaguya" challenge). I tried it fifty hundred times with the most miserable failure. I've tried to teach my son about not screaming in frustration at a video game. Had to stop trying this challenge... I wasn't being a good role model anymore.

I am so disappoint D: okami is a wonderful game, although i do remember that challenge being tough on the ps2 version, i hope you retry this game again one day..

[HoboKa]

Least satisfying experience for me was actually Wild Arms 2 (though Tales of the Abyss and Metroid: the other M were close contenders).

Wild Arms 2 pulled a total 180' from the original plot of WA 1, broke the battle system, made enemies and bosses ridiculously weak and employed the typical JRPG cut&paste storyline - just bleh.

To quote the Angry Video Game Nerd:

"I'd rather eat the rotten asshole of a road-killed skunk and down it with beer..."

...than play that steamer of a game again q.q

[StreetFlare]

Oh, and another for Most Frustrating (well, not really. More most likely to get Microsoft employees killed by hardcore fans) would be the MechAssault series. Wasn't bad, but...urgh, once they introduced hacking in the second game, I got annoyed. Not too pissed off, because at the time I was a more casual gamer (still am, compared to most) because it meant I could hijack my cousin's mech in multiplayer (or simply use it to steal a lift in capture the flag), but when I got the DS version.... AARGH! Mechassault: Phantom War is probably the worst DS game I own. For a Battletech fan, it was torture, and the fact that the hacking was even harder than MechAssault on Xbox didn't make it any better for me....

So glad Piranha Games is making MechWarrior Online.

[Xarnax42]

I thought that was pretty much the perfect balance of BT difficulty and variety, myself. It's not NEARLY as balls-crushingly difficult as the NES iteration, yet it still manages to capture the variety style gameplay. I could actually beat the SNES version legit, but I can't even come CLOSE to doing so on the NES version. Fuck, I can't even beat the NES version with save states (that Whirlbird deathtrap level... cheating gets you nowhere on that one).

I actually managed to do that a couple months ago. I assume you're referring to the level where that Energy Orb is following you? Yeah, that is nasty. If you nail a turn just right you actually gain a little bit of ground. After several hundred times, you get a feel for whether you executed a single turn well enough. If you do, pause, save state, and continue. Still took a few hours to get through. I think I actually had more trouble racing the rat to the bomb at the bottom of the level before. Frustrating is an understatement. At least the game can be fun, though.

Hydlide, on the other hand, in my experience, cannot.

[The Derrit]

Okami is the only game I've ever had to abandon halfway through. What a beautiful, entertaining game... great for me and my 7 year old son both... but those digging challenges are a pain in the ass due to the instability of the wiimote when drawing lines and patterns. Halfway through the game, there is a digging challenge you must pass to continue the story (the "Kaguya" challenge). I tried it fifty hundred times with the most miserable failure. I've tried to teach my son about not screaming in frustration at a video game. Had to stop trying this challenge... I wasn't being a good role model anymore.

but seriously. i didn't even make it much through the first world because it was just completely impossible to make marks actually show up with the brush in the right way.

after about half an hour of trying to draw a straight 'cut' line and succeeding about 5 times total i was like 'look i know this game is good but fuck it's completely unplayable like this'

someone make it for a system i can still play it on please. i have no ps2 and the wii version kills it

Sports have a painfully gradual learning curve with physical fitness and coordination as a prerequisite.

Plus you need friends to play.

the only time when this really becomes a huge issue is when you haven't used your body for anything physical or coordination-related in the past 15 years

wait this is a video game forum what am i saying of course it's a problem

[noTuX]

Space Channel 5.

I rented that game thinking it would be something like Bust A Groove. But, it wasn't...at all.

[Nonamer]

after about half an hour of trying to draw a straight 'cut' line and succeeding about 5 times total i was like 'look i know this game is good but fuck it's completely unplayable like this'

I JUST found out that if you draw while holding the Z button it should draw a straight line.

EDIT: Thank you, rBrn!

[FenixDown]

A few months back, I dug out my old top-loader NES and played Battletoads and after a few playthroughs, I can now beat the game legit from start to finish without using warps or continues. I still haven't, and probably never will, have a playthrough in which I never die once.

However, a couple weeks ago, I downloaded an emulator and the Battletoads ROM with the hopes of recording my gameplay for youtube as an LP, but the ROM controls are a lot clunkier and sporaticly misinterprets my commands. I managed to make it to Clinger Winger (stage with the Hypno Orb chasing you) but I have to remap the controls from my USB NES controller to the keyboard to even make moderate progress in that level. So, I love Battletoads, but the ROM is frustrating.

[Chimpazilla]

I JUST found out that if you draw while holding the C button it should draw a straight line.

Did this work for you? It didn't for me.

My son keeps asking for us to go back to Okami... and I just can't... it's terrible to be stuck at that point. It would be different if the game could continue without doing this challenge, heck we got halfway through even with the difficulties. Up until this point, those digging challenges were optional, and I succeeded one time and vowed not to do them again. Then we get to Kaguya, and it is mandatory. Crap!

[rebrained]

I JUST found out that if you draw while holding the C button it should draw a straight line.

It's the Z-button, actually. Close, but not quite.

[Darklink42]

On an aside, my New Vegas character was DOLEMITE, and he would only do things DOLEMITE would do, which he

- would get with all the foxy ladies

-would never take shit from a honky (this is hard because like every faction in the game is a low-down honky)

-wouldn't cop out when danger's all about

-would spout rhyming one-liners at every no-business born-insecure honky motherfucker that got in his way

My character in both games was the Headless Horseman of the wastelands. He went hoping around the terrain, lopping off heads wherever he found them. And when he was feeling particularly cruel, at least in 3, he'd bust out the love cannon and use teddy bears for the decapitation process. Those were dark times in the post-apocalyptic world.

But on the subject of Bethesda games that I found disappointing, I may be the only one of my friends who couldn't get into Morrowind/Oblivion when they came out. The same complaint that they level on Fallout was the one that made me not want to play Elder Scrolls: it was so open ended and oddly slow at the beginning that I just couldn't get into it. I don't disagree about them being good games, but after all the hype, running around wildly flailing a sword at crabs and wolves and getting busted for rummaging through people's bookshelves just wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. Haven't tried Skyrim yet. Might not be too late to change my mind.

[Modus]

Space Channel 5.

I rented that game thinking it would be something like Bust A Groove. But, it wasn't...at all.

Love that game. My brother found my Fraps recordings of all the music numbers and made me promise I wouldn't delete them, cause they're fun to watch.

[noTuX]

Playing Super Mario Brothers Wii with three other people that don't know what the hell they are doing just makes me sad.

Ratchet and Clank All 4 One is a little disappointing for me as well. It is not nearly as tough as the previous titles. I understand that they needed to make it easier since its more about multiplayer teamwork, but come on!

Random game freezes in pretty much every game made by Bethesda. It almost always happens when I'm just finishing a very difficult mission, or I find some cool secrets. I really enjoy their games, but when stuff like that happens it makes me want to punch my PS3 in the face.

[Hyperion5182]

Real Life. Yeah. I went there. Today is one of those fucking days.

[Soul Splint]

Frustrating: Donkey Kong 64 was hella fun until the end and you need those two coins to trigger the final boss. The Rare coin wasn't too bad (you had to get something like 15,000 points in Jetpac) but the Nintendo coin...you had to beat the original Donkey Kong. Twice. And the second playthrough was a significantly harder re-design.

To get all the way to the end of a fun game to be interuppted by a two-hour retro rage fest was like a bucket of ice water to the face.

[noTuX]

But on the subject of Bethesda games that I found disappointing, I may be the only one of my friends who couldn't get into Morrowind/Oblivion when they came out. The same complaint that they level on Fallout was the one that made me not want to play Elder Scrolls: it was so open ended and oddly slow at the beginning that I just couldn't get into it. I don't disagree about them being good games, but after all the hype, running around wildly flailing a sword at crabs and wolves and getting busted for rummaging through people's bookshelves just wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. Haven't tried Skyrim yet. Might not be too late to change my mind.

Well, Skyrim is just as open ended as the others. It sure doesn't start off slow though.

I was playing it continuously for a while. There were nights where I didn't even go to sleep because I was having so much fun exploring and stealing stuff, but then, it just suddenly wore off. I'm not even interested in finishing the game anymore. Don't get me wrong, I like it and enjoy the story, but it's a little slow for my taste.