History ScrappyMechanic / PlatformGame

* ''VideoGame/MegaMan'':
** [[TemporaryPlatform The disappearing and reappearing Yoku Blocks]] are not only a ScrappyMechanic, but also a series staple. That's why they're the cover picture to the main article. Further coverage is on their [[TemporaryPlatform own trope page.]] Another annoying element is the lifts in Guts Man's zone in the first game.
** Surprise Boxes (also known as ? Tanks) in ''VideoGame/MegaMan3'', which can be shot open and contain a random power-up, from a small energy/weapon pickup, to an extra life or E-Tank. What makes them so frustrating is the fact that they're always hidden in hard-to-reach places like normal extra lives and E-Tanks are, and don't respawn after they're opened, making them not worth the effort. Fortunately, the idea was refined in ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' with Eddie, who appears in his own dedicated rooms, respawns if the player revisits the room after dying or restarting the level, and can't drop small pickups.
** In ''Mega Man 5'', the Rush Coil, for no apparent reason at all, was changed to something much worse and less intuitive. Instead of just jumping on Rush and being bounced into the air, you jump on Rush, Rush jumps, and then you have to jump off of him manually before he lands. Nobody was happy about this, and by the item's next appearance, it had been changed back.
** ''Mega Man 8'' has an infamous auto-scroller in Frost Man's stage. It eventually goes so fast that you can barely react to the game telling you to jump or slide--worse, you actually have to ''ignore'' one of the "Jump!" prompts if you want to get a bolt.
* In ''VideoGame/JazzJackrabbit'' 1, many jump pads launch Jazz upward much faster than the screen scrolling speed limit, making any attack or evasion in midair purely a matter of luck. Jazz will often, by the time it reappears on the screen, have already suffered a hit from some kind of enemy, spikes, etc.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManX''
** X3 had a fun idea in allowing X to use varying ride armors to navigate through the levels. Unfortunately for X, he needs to get the Chimera armor first before any of them can be used (the Chimera being the base set) and then find the other four hidden well through each area. Compounding this is that (unless the player has no problem killing himself afterwards, the stage he gets that in is home to the Maverick many save for last, making the armors feel like wasted potential.
** Probably to account for the player's likely intent of using the armors when they can, the damage output by the enemies in X3 at the start is pretty damn high. X can find himself being killed very easily. Though for some players, warranting a defensive play style instead of a reckless offense can be an appeal to the game.
** The chip system. Like with armor parts in the games proper, X3 introduces chips that can further your abilities. However, X can only equip one of the four chips for some arbitrary reason that only serves to be a painful choice to the player. What really sucks is that X3 has a sucker-punch secret of which the player can find a chip that enables all four if they never got any chip prior to finding the hidden capsule, which make players wonder 'why bother with the chips?' in the first place.
** In X5, your path to the good ending is luck-based. Despite improving your chances by playing the game proper, that's all you improve: your chance. This is bad enough, but let's also bring attention to the main impact of this, namely: Zero. If Zero survives and the colony's destroyed. Zero's around to endgame. If you fail or he goes Maverick, not only is he gone for good; but any health tanks or weapon upgrades he had goes with him. So, the player is left with two options: Bench Zero and let X get all the pickups to prevent Zero from taking any with him upon which he CantCatchUp, or try to divvy them up between the two characters and hope you prevent him from death.
** In X5 and X6, the armor system requires X to get all the parts of his armor to be able to even use them or their features at all. This meant that on average, the armors you'd get would be useless for exploring the levels unless you needed their perks to reach certain items.
** X6 had a slew of bad mechanics due to a rushed development timeframe and no time being spent to iron out or properly integrate any of their ideas. Some are below:
*** Rescuing Reploids. Notable as it's a feature in a previous game that was sought to be better developed as in X5 was wasted. However, their mortality from Nightmare Virus possession ruins the fun this could have had. This is worsened by the fact that some carry with them parts that may be necessary for you to complete certain objectives, and when they die (due to the Nightmare Virus infecting them - and they may be put very close to those Reploids), so do your chances of obtaining them. It becomes so distracting to the overall gameplay experience that a few people view it as an irritation rather than a feature.
*** The Nightmare Effects. Although comparable to X1's own stage effects, they are far more detrimental here. Special mention goes to Infinity Mijinion's Nightmare Dark, which renders Commander Yammark and Rainy Turtloid's stages near unplayable. A notable runner up is the Yammark nightmare which produces little fireflies that take some immense punishment to get rid of. Zero has no trouble with them; but they love to get in X's way and hinder his shots.
*** Zero's saber being slow while attacking enemies. This is problematic when Zero goes against invulnerable targets, since it can last very long and it cannot be canceled.
*** A specific Zero move, Sentsuizan, is more of an annoyance than a help, given that it's activated pressing UP + Z-Saber button, and it can't be cancelled until Zero lands on the ground again. BottomlessPit below you? Too bad.
*** Getting the parts is a scrappy mechanic of itself; getting the ability to USE a lot of them stinks. You have to essentially collect a ton of nightmare energy just to be able to use two parts and a limited part. To be able to use three or four parts, you have to collect over 5,000 and the maximum 9,999 souls respectively. The souls however only go for one by one in a nightmare infested stage or a paltry 600 per Dynamo encounter. The grind is so tedious and frustrating that many just settle for two parts and a limited upgrade.
** ''Videogame/MegaManX7'' continues the trend of terrible design decisions throughout the series' DorkAge. Three bad mechanics in particular all tie into each other to augment their own awfulness.
*** The first and most obvious one is that ''X himself is not playable'' until you either defeat all 8 Maverick bosses, or rescue enough Reploids that you would've played through most of the stages anyway.
*** The second is that rescuing Reploids is back, and rather than only being killable by one specific enemy type, ''any'' enemy or hazard can kill them.
*** The third is that rescuing certain Reploids provide permanent power-ups that can be permanently allocated to one of the characters you brought into the level - power-ups that ''can't be banked for later use''. If you get them, you ''have'' to use them. This makes ''X's'' late appearance even worse, as unless you know specifically which reploids have those powerups so you can avoid them, X is almost certainly [[CantCatchUp never going to be able to catch up to Zero and Axl.]]

** While opinions of her character may vary, Coco's playable appearances in the games tend to act as a weaker (i.e. less fun) variant of Crash. In ''Warped'' she is limited to a few vehicle levels (the majority of which Crash himself can utilize in this or previous titles), with her actual on foot 'platforming' segments being limited to a slow walk all of five steps towards Pura and the level's exit. In ''Wrath Of Cortex'', she can play through whole levels; however, she has fewer abilities and attacks compared to Crash, making her respective levels somewhat more tedious. Either way, she sadly isn't giving [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Tails]] or [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Luigi]] a run for their money. ''Mind Over Mutant'' improves her, making her an equally efficient skin of Crash and able to work as a multiplayer cooperative. However to activate her in one player mode, a player must activate a second controller and then pull out Crash after she appears. This is a needlessly tedious way just to unlock a variant of Crash, especially since it will still drain the battery life of the one player controller not even being used. However, ''Videogame/CrashBandicootNSaneTrilogy'' finally rectifies this, making Coco playable in ''almost any'' level of the original trilogy, as well as having the same skillset as Crash, including fruit bazooka.
** ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack'' and ''Videogame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'': Nitro Switches detonate every Nitro box in level but the splash effect destroying other boxes doesn't count towards total, meaning you have to destroy every box even next to Nitro one, including those conveniently sandwiched between them. And some levels in ''3'' don't even have them, instead expecting you to destroy every single one by either fruit bazooka or vehicle weapons. Have fun to find out [[GuideDangIt to which levels this applies]] on your first playthrough.
** The Ice Physics in Crash 2 are notoriously twitchy; which means half of the challenge in the snow levels ends up being the player trying his damndest not to slide into the various traps or nitros the game will throw at you.
** ''VideoGame/CrashBandicootTheWrathOfCortex'' has great number of gimmick levels where Crash has to use some kind of vehicle for a part or entirety of the level. While minecart segments might be fun, most of vehicles are larger, slower and have awkward controls, making it easier to get hit because of larger hitbox and decreased evasion. To top it off, most of time (unless the level provides a health bar) they don't have any increased resistance to hazards and enemies. Then there are monkey bar segments, which are way slower than in [[Videogame/CrashBandicoot3Warped previous game]], making them especially obnoxious during time trials.

*** Getting to said chip. You know how you can wall jump but if you pause or get it jump timing wrong, you slide down? Well, the level that contains said chip has a series of walls that close on you and do so quickly. Normally, you would be able to pace yourself and make sure there are proper jumps but these walls seem to be in close proximity to each other and there is no breathing space, so you have to hit buttons slowly and accurately enough that you get high enough to scale each wall in about two or three jumps, but you aren't likely to manage this (and since you haven't the second boot upgrade, you can't fudge the jumps), you're more likely to panic and hit jump quickly enough that it gives you half jumps or you try to jump away from the wall to the next, miss, and slide down. There are ''five'' walls, but this troper never made it past the third without cheating. All because it counts fast jumps as half jumps and the sliding mechanic.

** The way that level loading works. To understand, let's compare it to [=LBP2=]; in that game, you can select the level and press X to start loading it. While it loads, you can read reviews and comments and look at pictures taken in the level. If at any time, you decide that you don't want to play it, you can back out with Circle and look for something else. But in [=LBP3=], if you press X on a level, it will immediately take you to the white loading screen, and if you accidentally pressed X on a level you didn't want to play, no amount of mashing Circle will stop it, meaning that you HAVE to load the level first, then leave the level when it finishes, and then wait for the loading to finish.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Tomba}},'' none of the items regenerate. Not just consumable items like lunch boxes or [[WarpWhistle charity wings]] that you use from your inventory at your leisure, but even the berries strewn about that restore your health. Once you use an item it is LostForever, which renders even the simplest of health pickups to be TooAwesomeToUse.

* The [[NotQuiteFlight bubble gum]] in ''[[VideoGame/TheGreatGianaSisters Giana Sisters DS]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/GianaSistersTwistedDreams Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams]]''. You get to use bubble gum to make a bubble so big that Giana can fit inside it and use it to fly around the level. But the bubble is very difficult to control, popping it will drop you into whatever hazards may be below and, like the P-Balloon, pretty much guarantees death, and it is mandatory in nearly every level that has it.

* Surprise Boxes (also known as ? Tanks) in ''VideoGame/MegaMan3'', which can be shot open and contain a random power-up, from a small energy/weapon pickup, to an extra life or E-Tank. What makes them so frustrating is the fact that they're always hidden in hard-to-reach places like normal extra lives and E-Tanks are, and don't respawn after they're opened, making them not worth the effort. Fortunately, the idea was refined in ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' with Eddie, who appears in his own dedicated rooms, respawns if the player revisits the room after dying or restarting the level, and can't drop small pickups.

** [[TemporaryPlatform The disappearing and reappearing blocks]] are not only a ScrappyMechanic, but also a series staple. That's why they're the cover picture to the main article. Further coverage is on their [[TemporaryPlatform own trope page.]] Another annoying element is the lifts in Guts Man's zone in the first game.

** ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'': The [[AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent 5 new introduced playable characters]] in the game are often criticised by reviewers and fan these days for not being as fun as Spyro and for having downright insane minigames to complete. The most notable one is definitely Bentley the Yeti for not only being the slowest and bulkiest character to control but also because of his [[ThatOneSidequest infamous boxing challenge]] in the "Frozen Altars" level. Even Sparx is not very well received as his levels mainly involve [[AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent top-down shooting parts]].

** There is one in the UsefulNotes/GameBoy ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1 Donkey Kong Land]]''. You know the four KONG letters, which finding four in one level grant you a meager extra life and can be [[NintendoHard so hair-pulling difficult]] to acquire that it's often not worth bothering? Getting all four of those in ''Land'' is ''how you save your game''. This means you're required to track them down as much as possible or forced to trek back to an easy level where you can safely gather them over and over again.

** There is one in ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1 Donkey Kong Land]]'', the UsefulNotes/GameBoy port for the first game. You know the four KONG letters, which finding four in one level grant you a meager extra life and can be [[NintendoHard so hair-pulling difficult]] to acquire that it's often not worth bothering? Getting all four of those in ''Land'' is ''how you save your game''. This means you're required to track them down as much as possible or forced to trek back to an easy level where you can safely gather them over and over again.

* ''Franchise/CrashBandicoot'':

** The chip system. Like with armor parts in the games proper, X3 introduces chips that can further your abilities. However, X can only equip certain chips for some arbitrary reason that only serves to be a painful choice to the player. What really sucks is that X3 has a sucker-punch secret of which the player can find a chip that enables all four if they never got any chip prior to finding the hidden capsule, which make players wonder 'why bother with the chips?' in the first place.

** Starting from X5 and stopped by X8, the armor system requires X to get all the parts of his armor to be able to even use them or their features at all. This meant that on average, the armors you'd get would be useless for exploring the levels unless you needed their perks to reach certain items.

** Rescuing Reploids. Notable as it's a feature in a previous game that was sought to be better developed as in X5 was wasted. However, their mortality from Nightmare Virus possession ruins the fun this could have had. This is worsened by the fact that some carry with them parts that may be necessary for you to complete certain objectives, and when they die (due to the Nightmare Virus infecting them - and they may be put very close to those Reploids), so do your chances of obtaining them. It becomes so distracting to the overall gameplay experience that a few people view it as an irritation rather than a feature.
** The Nightmare Effects. Although comparable to X1's own stage effects, they are far more detrimental here. Special mention goes to Infinity Mijinion's Nightmare Dark, which renders Commander Yammark and Rainy Turtloid's stages near unplayable. A notable runner up is the Yammark nightmare which produces little fireflies that take some immense punishment to get rid of. Zero has no trouble with them; but they love to get in X's way and hinder his shots.
** Zero's saber being slow while attacking enemies. This is problematic when Zero goes against invulnerable targets, since it can last very long and it cannot be canceled.
** Getting the parts is a scrappy mechanic of itself; getting the ability to USE a lot of them stinks. You have to essentially collect a ton of nightmare energy just to be able to use two parts and a limited part. To be able to use three or four parts, you have to collect over 5,000 and the maximum 9,999 souls respectively. The souls however only go for one by one in a nightmare infested stage or a paltry 600 per Dynamo encounter. The grind is so tedious and frustrating that many just settle for two parts and a limited upgrade.

* The ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' has had a run-in with a lot of scrappy mechanics over the years, many of which contribute to the games' overall uneven quality:
** The [[SpikesOfDoom spike]] "bug" in early revisions of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1'', which is actually deliberate: you don't get MercyInvincibility when hitting spikes until you land on solid ground, meaning that if you fall onto a particularly long bed of spikes, it's likely you'll bounce back onto the spikes a second time and die without a chance to recover. Later revisions and all subsequent games remove this "bug".
** Speed Booster objects are a particularly infamous example, as they went from being an rare or sometimes occasional gimmick to a common feature mostly used by the level designers for cheap thrills and [[NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom to railroad players into a certain path.]] It's especially bad as when speed boosters were used in the Genesis games, they usually looked visually different in a way that matched the stage setting, and usually worked in different ways. Ever since the 3D games (and the 2D games as well, starting with ''Advance''), however, speed boosters can be seen in any level with the same simple designs and functions, irregardless of context. On top of that, they often result in irritating sections that contain more pits than ground the player could walk around on.
** Grinding rails are also seen in a similar light to speed boosters, and have garnered similar complaints. Similar to the speed boosters, their implementations in the games became more stale over time; early 3D titles include certain mechanics that were needed to stay on the rails and increased the player's speed when grinding, which were simplified and eventually scrapped in later games. Switching between rails in ''Adventure 2'' and ''Heroes'' were also notorious for refusing to function half of the time. Players are intended to quickly switch between rows of rails by tilting the stick towards a rail on the left or right and then tapping the jump button to switch; but this could frequently result in the game simply throwing you off the chains of rails completely, leaving the character to plummet into a bottomless pit.
** The methods required to access Special Stages in certain games can also get absolutely frustrating, namely ones that require obtaining collectible items before the end of the level; with ''Heroes'' and ''Advance 2'' being among the most infamous examples. The former has golden keys that turn playthroughs into [[NoDamageRun no damage runs]] (getting hit without a shield or dying results in the key being lost permanently, and each stage has ''only one key per level''); while the latter having seven medals that require strategy guide-level plannings for playthroughs in order for them all to be collected in one go (the game's heavily streamlined focus for speed puts easy exploration in levels and slower-paced gameplay at the bottom of the priority list, and this is in addition to the medals themselves placed in obscure locations).
** Time traveling in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD''. First, you need to find a relevant time travel post. Then, you need to build up enough speed so that Sonic generates sparks. And then you have to maintain that speed until the time travel cutscene happens; if your speed drops after you've started making sparks, your time travel token will be used up, and since posts are single-use only, you'll have to find another one. And if you ''don't'' want to time travel, you're screwed if you're somewhere with a lot of speed boosters. Oh, and "Past" and "Future" posts only let you travel forward or backward one time period at a time (you need two Past posts to go from either Future to the Past, and two Future posts to go from the Past to either Future), which means being sent to a Bad Future almost ensures you can't make it to the Past to destroy the enemy transporter, and rarely will you see Good Futures for the first and second Zones of a given Round due to the amount of time traveling needed (Present -> Past -> Present -> Good Future)[[note]]Zone 3 just takes you to straight to Good Future if you got [=GF=]s for the first two zones, Bad Future otherwise[[/note]]. Also, very few of the levels in the game are designed in a way that allowed the player to travel between time zones easily; some levels actually seemed to be actively ''working against'' the player in regards to accessibility. It's not uncommon in the game to get a time travel post and start building enough speed needed to travel through time, only for a random platform, wall, or badnik to appear and force you to a halt, effectively wasting the time travel post you just gained.
*** The special stage minigame in which you can just get all the Time Stones and thus ensure Good Futures for all zones without having to deal with the hassle of time-traveling are noted to be little better, as they task players with destroying 2D enemies on a 3D plane where it's nearly impossible to properly judge the distance of a 2D sprite. For this reason, they are considered by many to be the absolute worst special stages of the entire series, so any attempt to achieve the good ending is a chore.
** There are several moments in the Genesis games with two springs/bumpers that bounce you back and forth. You can usually get out with a single jump, but you must time it so that you don't go flying backwards. Naturally, this is not a popular mechanic... except in ''CD'', where they serve as convenient "time machines" for the aforementioned time travel mechanic.
** [[VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles Carnival Night Zone's]] [[GuideDangIt Barrel of Doom]], anyone? In order to use them, players have to alternate between holding up and down in a rhythm, but sadly it isn't an intuitive mechanic. One funny thing is that Casino Paradise in ''VideoGame/SonicAdvance'' also features the barrels, but they ''do not work the same way they did in Sonic 3.'' If you played ''Advance'' before ''Sonic 3'', you'll be ''even more screwed'' when you reach CNZ. They also appear in Circus Park in ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' and are completely automatic, which could screw you up even further.
** Hunting and fishing in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' (''especially'' fishing, which is made even worse if you're going for all the emblems).
** ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'':
*** Emerald hunting is more frustrating than in the first game, since the "radar" now only shows the pieces in order (meaning you could be standing right next to the last piece on the list, but if you don't have the first two, you won't know it), and the locations are randomized every time except for the Hard Mode missions, where they are in 3 specific locations that usually require the Mystic Melody and/or the Sunglasses/Spy Scope upgrades to access. The final stage for Knuckles, a giant level called Meteor Herd, can easily take over 30 minutes with a bad combination (In addition, [[GoddamnedBats meteors are flying at you constantly]] [[ThatOneLevel throughout the level).]] His 4th stage, Death Chamber, also has a lot of timed doors and walls he needs to crawl through, and in Story Mode, it's followed by 2 boss fights, the 1st of which can take a long time.
*** Also, you have the safes in Rouge's 3rd stage, Security Hall. Some can be opened by default but for many, you have to make them available via switches way up at the very top of the stage. And each switch opens up a different block of safes. And the hints don't always make it clear which safes you need, so good luck if an emerald is in a closed safe. And the first mission has a 5-minute time limit (the time trial mission cuts this down to 3 and a half). You either get an A rank or you don't complete the level. And just for good measure, her final stage, Mad Space, is also huge, and reverses the hints: they're either written backwards OR tell you the exact opposite of where you need to look, plus there's a giant bottomless pit at the lower part of the stage, which is not in Meteor Herd.
*** E-102-Gamma's shooting levels are relatively inoffensive and quick romps in the first ''Adventure''. Not so with ''Adventure 2'', upon which they are changed into rather frustrating affairs, due to sloppier controls, slower movement, and their levels having a higher emphasis on platforming and shooting enemies. In addition, these levels are given to not just Dr. Eggman, but ''Tails'' as well--effectively robbing him of his platforming levels in which he races Sonic to the goal from the previous game. While Tails piloting machines [[GadgeteerGenius isn't out of character]], many feel that actually sticking him in one on the gameplay side of things is taking things too far.
*** Fans also complain about [[ThatOneLevel the kart driving levels]] that Tails and Rouge have, namely for their stiff, sensitive controls, their tendency to crash and stall for a few seconds if you just ''brush up'' against a wall, and their [[TimedMission surprisingly strict time limits]] that demand the player to reach their target goal in time.
*** The spinning drums from Final Chase can also get on players' last nerves. If you thought the gravity sections in Crazy Gadget and Mad Space were bad...you'd be right, but this would be a strong contender. The drums have their own selective gravity and oftentimes require precise platforming just to be able to traverse, meaning you could easily die near the end of the stage and have to start all over again. And to top it all off, sometimes you'll just outright not make it onto the drums and fall to your death because they didn't react well enough to you trying to Homing Attack them to keep from dying. [[FromBadToWorse And then Hard Mode has you using these in conjunction with narrow rails which require precise jumps on their own.]]
*** ''Sonic Adventure 2's'' Finalhazard, a FinalBoss fight with completely unexplained controls. Getting hit by anything blows you all the way to where you started, and you can switch between Sonic and Shadow, but only by flying past the boss, making it only marginally less difficult than actually hitting it in the first place. And if you do switch manually, you'll be missing however many rings you had before you switched, so unless you're suicidal you'll only switch when you're almost out of rings. And if you get hit before you switch out...well, hopefully you have an extra life.
*** The controls are not only unexplained, they're completely unwieldy. Unlike the rest of the game, you are floating in a 3D plane but some reason SEGA thought moving back and forth was more important than up and down making approaching the target often impossible.
** In ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'':
*** The characters' abilities are all mapped to one button, say the B button in the Gamecube version. All of them. Each of them has a specific timing and means to activate it, but multiple timings can occur simultaneously with the Speed characters. When you approach a bottomless pit with a trail of rings, one of two things can happen: either your light speed dash will kick in and you'll fly through the path of rings, or your somersault will kick in and careen your Speed character down a pit. You can also stop what you're doing and cycle through abilities to make sure you have the right one selected, unless you're doing a time attack or another stage where you don't have that luxury. It can make those stages a pain.
*** The pinball sections of Casino Park can be very frustrating to navigate through, as your movement is very unpredictable. What's even ''more'' frustrating is that there is a TimedMission.
*** Life meters for {{mook}}s. Although this adds to the power characters' usefulness (they can one-shot regular Egg Pawns at level zero), and you can of course level up your speed and fly characters to deal out more damage, a portion of fans feel having to hit normal enemies multiple times to destroy them slows things down too much (it's a ''Sonic'' game after all). And to make matters worse, ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' and ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' are also guilty of this. The Werehog stages in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' had these as well, but at least those have the excuse of having a beat-em-up style of gameplay.
** The Homing Attack was also weirdly programmed in both ''Sonic Heroes'' and especially ''Shadow the Hedgehog'', for some odd reason. They don't always hit the closest target and instead function as a standard jump dash, resulting in occasional events where you can try and attack an enemy, only for the player to end shooting themselves off into a different direction. It's especially bad as (par the course for 3D Sonic games) there are many bottomless pits in the game, so players can end up unintentionally end up throwing themselves into a pit.
** Mach Speed sections in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'', in which Sonic runs uncontrollably fast and has to veer around hundreds of obstacles and can't stop. He can easily get caught on scenery and die instantly because the controls are so loose and it's so difficult to see anything coming. To expand, a mere tapping of the stick will veer him way too far in the intended direction, he can't correct himself in midair after he jumps, and if he trips on something, he'll lose all his rings and be unable to react, and in the process will likely careen head-on into another obstacle. It's frustratingly easy to get stuck on an InsurmountableWaistHighFence, which can even make Sonic ''fall sideways to his death''. It makes Sonic's levels the most annoying of the lot.
** The ''VideoGame/SonicStorybookSeries'' on the Wii are notorious for being designed exclusively around [[{{Waggle}} Wii Remote control schemes]] and for being entirely on-rails (so Sonic is forced to run forward by default on pre-determined paths), and are unsurprisingly cited by many as among the worst Sonic games purely on a gameplay/controls standpoint.
*** ''Sonic and Secret Rings'' requires ''basic movement'' controlled through tilting and shaking the Wii Remote (held sideways)--including making Sonic move left and right, move backwards, switch rails, and using the Homing Attack/air dash function in mid-air. It's not uncommon to see people claim ''Secret Rings[='=]'' controls are outright broken or unplayable.
*** ''Sonic and the Black Knight'' is a bit better by allowing Sonic to be controlled with an analog stick (via the Nunchuk), but ''also'' has the [[MemeticMutation memetic]] addition of a ''sword'' to Sonic's moveset, which is naturally controlled with swinging the Wii Remote (held vertically) attack with the sword. And if that wasn't enough, there is an obvious delay between when the player swings the Wii Remote, and when Sonic swings his sword in-game; so the player's actions aren't allowed to be parallel with the gameplay in regards to timing.
** ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'':
*** The "toll" system is the bane of many players, forcing gamers to run up and down the {{hub level}}s and other missions to retrieve medals until they have enough to progress to the next level and complete the story[[note]]The toll system is not present in the [=PS2=]/Wii version of the game, which is the primary reason it is generally looked upon more favorably despite being graphically inferior to the [=PS3/X360=] version[[/note]]. Obviously a tactic to prolong the game's playtime, it was never used again after the negative feedback from fans.
*** The nighttime Werehog levels, for the same reason (extending the game's length) but in a more {{egregious}} fashion, as they switch the gameplay from the high-speed on-rails design of the daytime levels to a slower-paced beat-'em-up platformer that involves Sonic frequently fighting enemies. The game pretty much changes into a ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' [[FollowTheLeader clone]] every time the sun disappears.
** Thanks to the incompetence of the dev team, we have the "stop on a dime every time" no inertia physics engine of ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog4 Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode I]]''. Among other things (like being able to continuously "walk" up slopes without slipping), the moment you let go of the D-Pad while in motion, you immediately come to a stop. While this could be a good thing when trying to avoid flying into a pit, the problem is that ''it works even while you're in the air'', meaning that if you don't manually keep Sonic moving in the direction a spring or a jump takes him, he'll suddenly stop in midair and drop like a stone as if he just slammed into an InvisibleWall. Considering that most Sonic games in the past had never had this issue[[note]]A fair amount of ''Sonic 4'' 's physics oddities can actually be seen in ''[[VideoGame/SonicRushSeries Sonic Rush]]'', but that game is designed more around the boost, so it doesn't really matter there[[/note]], this can make the game nigh-unplayable for a multitude of Sonic fans, and is in fact one of the most complained-about parts of the game. ''Episode II'' addresses this somewhat by adding inertia, so Sonic no longer stops on a dime once the player releases the D-Pad.
*** What really makes this bad is that it robs you of the ability to curl into a ball and safely coast through levels, in addition to making it impossible to build up momentum on slopes to let the game treat you to a high speed section. You can hold down the D-pad while rolling to maintain some momentum, but having to do this all the time taxes the thumbs and can make the game ''physically painful'' to play.
*** Another loud complaint regarding ''Episode I'' is the addition of "uncurling"--anytime Sonic rolls off a slope (a frequent occurrence with the 2D Sonic games), he automatically ''uncurls out of his ball form'', which leaves himself open to attack by an incoming enemy--something which had never been done in ''any'' of the previous games up to this point. The only way the player can ''not'' allow Sonic to get hit is to use the newly-installed Homing Attack function. This mechanic was removed in ''Episode II'' in response to heavy criticism.
*** Lost Labyrinth Act 3 has two spots where Sonic falls into a small underwater room and the player has to tip it to the right to slide a block off the wall and allow the water to flood out with Sonic. The problem is that this setpiece takes an awfully long time to finish. The second time even places a set of spikes on the right wall so the player can't just push Sonic against it.
*** Mad Gear Act 3 has a similar gimmick in which the player must tilt sets of bars to the correct side to prevent Sonic from rolling into spikes. It's a cool idea, but Sonic moves very unnaturally on them, such that the player can tilt a bar all the way to the left and Sonic will keep rolling to the right anyway.
** ''VideoGame/SonicColors''[='=]s GameplayGrading, in theory, is meant to reward a good performance, not just speeding through the Act like in other modern ''Sonic'' games with grading. In practice, not only does the grading require [[ScoreMilking farming points in one area]], but also having a very high Ring count, and getting hit will cause you to lose ''all'' of your Rings, not just a fraction of them. All while making sure you don't stay around too long, or else "TIME'S UP" will appear, robbing you of any further points--including end-of-Act bonuses. The game gives you no indication how long you have to play an Act before you get a TIME'S UP.
** The co-op system in ''Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II'' sparked a lot of complaints, as the game's levels are designed in a way that demands the use of various co-op moves (i.e. Sonic has to use Tails to fly up to unreachable higher ground or over bottomless pits, use the Rolling Combo to destroy unbreakable walls, etc.), and also consequently means that both Sonic and Tails can't be playable by themselves. Many see this as a step back from older Sonic games, which offer co-op as an entirely optional feature to the single-player experience.
** ''VideoGame/SonicFreeRiders'' was panned across the board for its [[UsefulNotes/Xbox360 Kinect-designed]] [[{{Waggle}} control scheme]], which required the player moving their arms, legs, and body around for both gameplay actions during races and menu navigation. As with the Storybook games, the game offered no alternative control schemes, making the Kinect functionality the only way to play the game (whereas previous ''Riders'' titles were designed around traditional controllers and control schemes). [[FranchiseKiller No further Sonic Riders games have come out since then.]]
** ''VideoGame/SonicLostWorld'' is notorious for several:
*** Holding down the run button forces you to run up walls that you don't want to. This isn't so bad in 3D sections, but in 2D sections, it gets aggravating when the game forces you to go at walking speed just because you don't want to run up a wall.
*** Many of the Wisps in this game are controlled by specific gyroscope movements or touchscreen controls, instead of the more intuitive, simple schemes used in ''VideoGame/SonicColors'' (traditional analog stick and button controls, or basic shaking with the Wii Remote). Complaints got so great that eventually Sega fixed this with a update to the game a couple of weeks after its initial release, which allowed you to control with the analog stick and buttons just like in ''Colors''.
*** When the game was originally released, collecting 100 rings wouldn't give you an extra life as it had in previous games. This was incredibly jarring, as due to the game's rather unforgiving design, players saw themselves frequently getting game overs (''Colors'' also lacks this feature, but it's significantly easier so few people complain). Loud complaints about this change prompted Sega to change it in the aforementioned Wisp update, which allowed players to earn lives through collecting 100 rings again.
*** Holding down the run button on ice makes Sonic skate similar to ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy''. Unfortunately, jumping while skating gives you a fixed momentum that you can't change, making you jump into obstacles, enemies, or [[BottomlessPit bottomless pits]] a lot of the time. Like the automatic parkour with the run button, being forced to go at a snail's pace just to have better jump control can be aggravating. You can't even Spin Dash on ice (in the Wii U version, anyways). Trying to do so will result in Sonic traveling almost no distance while spinning in place.
*** The homing attack was retooled to include a new "lock on" reticle system--reticles could appear on an enemy multiple times, upon which the player can execute a more powerful homing attack. Not bad in itself, but the game suffers from wonky programming when Sonic is near one or multiple enemies--sometimes it locks on multiple times, sometimes it only locks-on once, other times it even refuses to activate. Moreover, certain badniks and even certain bosses (namely the ones featuring [[ThatOneBoss Zavok]]) can't be defeated without having the reticles lock on several times, [[GuideDangIt which the game doesn't do a good job of teaching]].
*** Sonic is given a new kick attack ability which stuns enemies for a bit. Similar to the reticle system, the game doesn't explain their use very well, and introduces enemies that have to be disabled by this move first (which even included [[DamnYouMuscleMemory returning badniks from past games]], such as the crab and snail enemies). This typically resulted in players defeating one enemy with a standard homing attack or jump, only to get hurt trying to do the same thing to another.

* ''Franchise/CrashBandicoot'': While opinions of her character may vary, Coco's playable appearances in the games tend to act as a weaker (i.e. less fun) variant of Crash. In ''Warped'' she is limited to a few vehicle levels (the majority of which Crash himself can utilize in this or previous titles), with her actual on foot 'platforming' segments being limited to a slow walk all of five steps towards Pura and the level's exit. In ''Wrath Of Cortex'', she can play through whole levels; however, she has fewer abilities and attacks compared to Crash, making her respective levels somewhat more tedious. Either way, she sadly isn't giving [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Tails]] or [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Luigi]] a run for their money. ''Mind Over Mutant'' improves her, making her an equally efficient skin of Crash and able to work as a multiplayer cooperative. However to activate her in one player mode, a player must activate a second controller and then pull out Crash after she appears. This is a needlessly tedious way just to unlock a variant of Crash, especially since it will still drain the battery life of the one player controller not even being used. However, ''Videogame/CrashBandicootNSaneTrilogy'' finally rectifies this, making Coco playable in ''almost any'' level of the original trilogy, as well as having the same skillset as Crash, including fruit bazooka.

* ''SuperMonkeyBall Banana Blitz'':

* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'': Attacks that knock the ability out of you. It's been a mainstay for most games and can lead to a pretty bad cycle of getting hit over and over trying to recover the star, only for it to get knocked back out. Made worse by the fact that there's never actually any indication as to what will or will not, as even basic enemies can do it with contact damage occasionally. How often Kirby loses his ability from attacks varies by game. Lter games have many different enemy and boss attacks programmed to always knock out Kirby's ability, and in ''VideoGame/KirbysAdventure'', ''[[VideoGame/KirbyAndTheAmazingMirror Amazing Mirror]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/KirbySqueakSquad Squeak Squad]]'', '''every''' means of taking damage will make Kirby drop his ability. This can get truly aggravating when going for the fastest possible times in BossRush modes as you can't afford to get hit too much or you'll waste time.

*** The "toll" system is the bane of many players, forcing gamers to run up and down the {{hub level}}s and other missions to retrieve medals until they have enough to progress to the next level and complete the story[[note]]The toll system is not present in the PS2/Wii version of the game, which is the primary reason it is generally looked upon more favorably despite being graphically inferior to the PS3/X360 version[[/note]]. Obviously a tactic to prolong the game's playtime, it was never used again after the negative feedback from fans.

*** Grinding rails are also seen in a similar light to speed boosters, and have garnered similar complaints. Similar to the speed boosters, their implementations in the games became more stale over time; early 3D titles include certain mechanics that were needed to stay on the rails and increased the player's speed when grinding, which were simplified and eventually scrapped in later games. Switching between rails in ''Adventure 2'' and ''Heroes'' were also notorious for refusing to function half of the time. Players are intended to quickly switch between rows of rails by tilting the stick towards a rail on the left or right and then tapping the jump button to switch; but this could frequently result in the game simply throwing you off the chains of rails completely, leaving the character to plummet into a bottomless pit.

** The Homing Attack in Shadow the Hedgehog, for some odd reason, is incredibly weird in its function in this game. Events where you can try and attack an enemy, only for Shadow to shoot himself off into a different direction aren't exactly uncommon. It's especially bad as (par the course for 3D Sonic games) there are many bottomless pits in the game, so Shadow can end up throwing himself into a pit.

** Speed Booster objects are a particularly infamous example, as they went from being an occasional gimmick to a common feature mostly used by the level designers for cheap thrills and [[NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom to railroad players into a certain path.]] The grinding mechanic introduced in ''Adventure 2'' is seen in a similar light. It's especially bad as when speed boosters and rails were used in earlier games, they usually looked visually different in a way that matched the stage setting, and usually worked in different ways. Ever since ''Heroes'', however, speed boosters and rails can be seen in any level with the same simple designs and functions regardless of context. On top of that, they often result in irritating sections that contain more pits than ground the player could walk around on.
** Time traveling in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD''. First, you need to find a relevant time travel post. Then, you need to build up enough speed so that Sonic generates sparks. And then you have to maintain that speed until the time travel cutscene happens; if your speed drops after you've started making sparks, your time travel token will be used up, and since posts are single-use only, you'll have to find another one. And if you ''don't'' want to time travel, you're screwed if you're somewhere with a lot of speed boosters. Oh, and "Past" and "Future" posts only let you travel forward or backward one time period at a time (you need two Past posts to go from either Future to the Past, and two Future posts to go from the Past to either Future), which means being sent to a Bad Future almost ensures you can't make it to the Past to destroy the enemy transporter, and rarely will you see Good Futures for the first and second Zones of a given Round due to the amount of time traveling needed (Present -> Past -> Present -> Good Future)[[note]]Zone 3 just takes you to straight to Good Future if you got [=GF=]s for the first two zones, Bad Future otherwise[[/note]]. Also, very few of the levels in the game are designed in a way that allowed the player to travel between time zones easily; some levels actually seemed to be actively ''working against'' the player in regards to accessibility. It's not uncommon in the game to get a time travel post and start building enough speed needed to travel through time, only for a random platform, wall, or badnik to appear and force you to a halt, effectively wasting the time travel post you just gained. The special stage minigame in which you can just get all the Time Stones and thus ensure Good Futures for all zones without having to deal with the hassle of time-traveling are noted to be little better, as they task players with destroying 2D enemies on a 3D plane where it's nearly impossible to properly judge the distance of a 2D sprite. For this reason, they are considered by many to be the absolute worst special stages of the entire series, so any attempt to achieve the good ending is a chore.

*** E-102-Gamma's shooting levels are relatively inoffensive and quicks romps in the first ''Adventure''. Not so with ''Adventure 2'', upon which they are changed into rather frustrating affairs, due to sloppier controls, slower movement, and their levels having a higher emphasis on platforming. In addition, these levels are given to not just Dr. Eggman, but ''Tails'' as well--effectively robbing him of his platforming levels in which he races Sonic to the goal from the previous game. While Tails piloting machines [[GadgeteerGenius isn't out of character]], many feel that actually sticking him in one on the gameplay side of things is taking things too far.

*** Life meters for {{mook}}s. Although this adds to the power characters' usefulness (they can one-shot regular Egg Pawns at level zero), and you can of course level up your speed and fly characters to deal out more damage, a portion of fans feel having to hit normal enemies multiple times to destroy them slows things down too much (it's a ''Sonic'' game after all). And to make matters worse, ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' and ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' are also guilty of this. The Werehog stages in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' had these as well, but at least those have the excuse of having a beat-em-up style of gameplay. And Speaking of ''06''...

** ''VideoGame/SpyroAHerosTail'': Blink's levels, without question. Its bad enough that you have to play them twice in order to get one f the most important collectables (Light Gems) but his levels are filled to the brim with awkward platforming and annoying enemies, plus his levels tend to drag on. Blink is not very good to control as his jumps tend to be floaty making the platforming even more frustrating.