I love Super Mario RPG but when you get to the Moleville part of the map, it feels like the game hits a stalling grind. Like it is to me, the dragging part of the game. Because you got to deal with the annoying enemies and bosses there. I don’t like dealing with Booster. I don’t like Booster’s Tower.
Moleville is just okay but I don’t like reaching this part of the game. At least things pick up afterwards.
Skyrim - intro, but I just use alternate start these days to skip it
Hitman WoA - Colorado
Elden Ring - Godskin Duo, Fire Giant
Dark Souls - most of the game after O&S
Dark Souls III - Irithyll Dungeon
Sekiro - Chained Ogre, Blazing Bull
I love Don’t Starve [Together], but I hate fighting bosses.
Lost Izalith and the Bed of Chaos in Dark Souls.
Everything before acquiring the Lordvessel is some of the tightest and best game design ever seen. The whole late game has problems, but Lost Izalith is by far the worst and most noticeably rushed.
My Kingdom to know a world where DS1 finished cooking
Valheim: I dislike the Mistlands quite a bit. The swamp is kind of a slowdown but it becomes workable once you get established, but the Mistlands I always dread because its a combination of funky mechanics that all merge together poorly. You got poor visibility in a game about exploring (and its critical to find dungeons/giant bones here), lots of lakes/pools in a game without real swimming combat mechanics, annoying enemies likes ticks and the bomber things, and they made the terrain extremely jagged and steep.
Its not the worst thing ever but if I start a new game/server, I’ll usually stop around the Mistlands.
I’ve played Valheim a lot - its one of my favorites. IMO the game kinda “jumps the shark” when you hit the Mistlands. The first few biomes are great and exciting, the meadows are serene home-building paradise, the black forest gets you into some danger, the ocean feels like a real venture into the unknown, the swamps are the spooky scary outing, the plains are the first really tougher enemies, the mountains are a good progression in gear and beautiful… a lot of fun and great homesteading, you get into farming, all of that.
Then the mistlands are mostly annoying. You have to leave your existing base, just walking is a pain, you can’t see shit, and the resource gathering, equipment, and overall vibe get a bit abstract and fantasy-oriented. Though on the first run, the atmosphere of the mist was kinda cool, and I also thought those wandering Overlord things were a cool aspect, it loses its luster on a repeat play through in a way the others don’t.
After that all the biomes seem more and more like another place to get a new round of ever more fantastical resources and kill the next boss. I still enjoy them, but I really love starting a new server with some friends and starting a new world for those first biomes.
Unmodded, the Mistlands are SO frustrating! I do find that even a mod that makes swimming suck less can be a real game-changer. The actual zone is beautiful though.
I second the Mistlands being the least enjoyable part of Valheim.
On top of the things already mentioned the terrain has a lit of elevation changes which makes fighting on a slope more of an issue and it can be easy to fall off a cliff before you make the slow falling cloak.
I used to get to the Shalebridge Cradle in Thief 3 and start a new run. Not because of difficulty, but because young me was scared shitless.
Not exactly an unpopular opinion, but Xen and the final boss of Half-Life are a wholly unpleasant mess of muddy textures and crappy platforming.
The last episode of Quake also sucks.
Factorio is awesome, but all of my planning falls apart around the time I unlock red circuits
Almost always, the intro/tutorial mission. Especially in some RPGs the whole “the game doesn’t get good until 30 hours in” is unacceptable.
This is why dark souls is one of my favorite franchises. Most of them have you fighting stuff in minutes. If you wanna do the zweihander, you’re basically set in 30 minutes.
Elden Ring suffers a bit by being so big, there’s a lot more chores to do to get started.
Elden Ring replays are soooooo much better with mods. Not only are there mods to make Torrent like 2x faster, some mods just lets you skip the tedium of running around the map collecting golden seeds or rebalances the DLC so it doesn’t use scadutree fragments.
Shoutout to The Convergence mod which adds a whole load of content and quality-of-life.
Chapter 1 of RDR2.
I was told that with FFXIV. "No, no, you need the first two expansions and dump money in and spend hours grinding before it gets good.’
No thanks.
but you don’t, theres a free trial that gives you all but the last 2 expansions, hundreds of hours of free play time doing whatever you want
what is “grinding” in a game where nothing is required?
you cannot “grind” ff14 there is nothing to grind
and if you are doing something like achievement farming it is willingly and not a forced grind
You need to grind through the hundred+ fetch quests to progress the main storyline to unlock anything.
Everyone who plays knows those quests suck.
The whole Meat Circus last chapter of the first Psychonauts game drove me mental, but especially this part:
Yeah, such a delightful and whimsical game, and then Bam! From software gets contracted to do the end. Even with the invincibility code it’s nightmarish because of the platforming and weird checkpoints.
Driving the Mako in ME1
My favourite game is minecraft and if I had to pick the least enjoyable bit it’d honestly be doing anything in the nether.
The nether is great for all the stuff you get from it, but actually being there is just hours of building cobblestone bridges while you try to find anything of value, and gathering cobblestone to build bridges with… and then occasionally you get exploded and all your stuff burns in lava.
Totally agree. I do like how much progress was made to make the nether a lot more explorable than in the early days. Because people who did not play minecraft in the early nether days forget that there was nothing but soulsand, netherrack, lava and quartz. That was it.
And the entire area was barren. Couldn’t find anything useful except maybe chests in the fortresses and nether brick.
And while there is a lot more now there to do, there still needs to be more done. Like, give us a few more reasons to travel there. Like more unique items or crafting materials exclusive there.
Hollow Knight is an incredible game, but Godhome sucks. I don’t much enjoy boss rushes. Fortunately it’s optional, but it has kept me from getting completion achievements because that part is just not fun. I try most every time I play through it but I always say fuck this by the fourth pantheon.
I’m with you on that. It’s all fun and games until pantheon 4 and especially pantheon 5. I like the idea but it just takes so long and the fact that you have to repeat 20+ minutes of bosses to take another attempt at the ultra hard bosses at the end… It’s just bad.
Hollow Knight is one of my favorite games ever btw, but Godhome is most definitely not worth the massive time sink it demands from you.
When it comes to FFX, there are many.
- The Lightning Plains lightning dodging minigame for Lulu’s legendary weapon (thankfully, this one can be skipped. Lulu isn’t required for the endgame, and you can Customize decent enough gear for her)
- Blitzball for Wakka’s legendary weapon (arguably a requirement for beating Penance)
- The Macalania Woods butterfly challenge (also skippable. I think this one is for Kimahri’s legendary weapon)
- Chocobo racing mini game for Tidus’s legendary weapon (also arguably required for Penance)
- Capturing 10 of every fiend (required for all endgame content but incredibly dull and tedious)
That laugh scene is cringe the first time through, and heartbreaking every time after that.
He knows he’s never gonna go home again, she knows she’s gonna die.
I vividly remember arriving at the conclusion FFX had next-level storytelling during my second playthrough when this scene hit in a completely different way.
The first time is weird, goofy, corny, cringey, whatever you want to call it; i remember just wanting it to be over. The second time, it’s just fucking tragic. I remember wanting it to last forever just to delay the inevitable.
Final Fantasy 10/10
I tried replaying FFX a few years ago for the first time since back in the day, but quit while doing all that bullshit. Although Blitzball I actually enjoyed. But the other minigames are devised by satan himself and programmed and designed by blind interns. Chocobo racing especially is atrocious.
I actually kinda liked blitzball and recruiting all the different players until I figured out how to quickly and easily cheese every game by scoring one point then swimming behind your own goal to break the enemy AI.
It’s very difficult to commit the time to a legitimate game knowing that option is on the table and has zero downsides
It’s very difficult to commit the time to a legitimate game knowing that option is on the table and has zero downsides
I guess that depends on the reason you play. I just thought Blitzball was kind of fun to play 🤷♀️
Oh great question.
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Mass Effect 1: Unexplored Worlds. Gets boring so fast but you have to do it.
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Mass Effect 2: Horizon. Mostly forced mission which is important story wise but it’s just a slog.
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Mass Effect 3: Javik.
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Halo: The Library
Halo: The Library
Thankfully, Mission Select lets you skip levels you don’t like. Personally, The Library is in my top three, but I get why people hate it.
The level is basically a reverse escort mission; a tough-as-nails autoscroller with few checkpoints and a lore dump for background noise. I used to hate it.
At some point though, I started to love the challenge of playing it on Legendary. Once I got over “the hump” of difficulty, I found the constant onslaught of armed flood, combined with limited weaponry, led to some of the most heart-pounding shooter action on the Xbox, especially if you decide to aggro the sentinels too.
Assault on the Control Room comes close, kinda, but it relies heavily on vehicle sections. I prefer the close-range ground-based scenarios The Library offers.
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Fallout 4 the pre war opening and DIMA’s memories in Far Harbour. Unlike others i don’t dread Kellog’s memories i find it goes by quickly if you just run through without listening.
Dimas memories is one of the most annoying, tedious things I’ve ever experienced in a game I liked. That and the RC airplane in GTA San Andreas.
