History ScrappyMechanic / RolePlayingGames

** ''[[VideoGame/{{Persona4}} Persona 4]]'' is significantly better about this, as party members can and will [[TakingTheBullet save your character from taking a mortal blow]]...''but'', only if you're about to be hit by a single target attack. If an attack hits everyone, you're still screwed. Also you can decide to take manual control over the whole party, or often times just the person with the best healing skills. The original ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' are also significantly more lenient, as the main character dying doesn't end the game.

** ''[[VideoGame/{{Persona4}} Persona 4'' is significantly better about this, as party members can and will [[TakingTheBullet save your character from taking a mortal blow]]...''but'', only if you're about to be hit by a single target attack. If an attack hits everyone, you're still screwed. Also you can decide to take manual control over the whole party, or often times just the person with the best healing skills. The original ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' are also significantly more lenient, as the main character dying doesn't end the game.

** ''[[VideoGame/Persona4 Persona 4'' is significantly better about this, as party members can and will [[TakingTheBullet save your character from taking a mortal blow]]...''but'', only if you're about to be hit by a single target attack. If an attack hits everyone, you're still screwed. Also you can decide to take manual control over the whole party, or often times just the person with the best healing skills. The original ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' are also significantly more lenient, as the main character dying doesn't end the game.

** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' is significantly better about this, as party members can and will [[TakingTheBullet save your character from taking a mortal blow]]...''but'', only if you're about to be hit by a single target attack. If an attack hits everyone, you're still screwed. Also you can decide to take manual control over the whole party, or often times just the person with the best healing skills. The original ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' are also significantly more lenient, as the main character dying doesn't end the game.

** Persona 4 is significantly better about this, as party members can and will [[TakingTheBullet save your character from taking a mortal blow]]...''but'', only if you're about to be hit by a single target attack. If an attack hits everyone, you're still screwed. Also you can decide to take manual control over the whole party, or often times just the person with the best healing skills. The original ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' are also significantly more lenient, as the main character dying doesn't end the game.

** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' is significantly better about this, as party members can and will [[TakingTheBullet save your character from taking a mortal blow]]...''but'', only if you're about to be hit by a single target attack. If an attack hits everyone, you're still screwed. Also you can decide to take manual control over the whole party, or often times just the person with the best healing skills. The original ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' are also significantly more lenient, as the main character dying doesn't end the game.

* ''BaldursGate'':

** Unskippable Cutscenes. While such a minor gripe can be seen as nitpicking, the Final Fantasy series is rather notorious for [[BossBonanza throwing one boss fight after another]] with no saves inbetween. So be prepared to not only have to repeat the same boss fights, but also being forced to watch the same cutscenes over and over if you happen to lose.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}: Tale of the Forsaken Land'' the magic leveling system certainly qualifies. You make spells via some combination of two or three monster materials, which randomly drop from appropriate enemies (Thief's Blood from various level Thieves, for example). Fair enough. You can also access a special merchant halfway through the game. Sell him at least one of any material, leave the dungeon, and every time you come back you can buy an infinite quantity of that item. Here's the problem. You need to go to town to fuse materials into spell stones. You need to go to the dungeon to find or buy the materials. It is not unusual for spells to have several dozen levels before they're maxed out with each level barely improving anything individually. You can hold, at most 60 items at a time and more likely about half that number. Run through halls past weak enemies to shop, Transfer Potion to town, repeat with frequent breaks to get more Transfer Potions. Did I mention this game is rather slow paced in general, so each run is taking several minutes? Have fun spending about half your total play time on spell grinding.

** Especially considering that two elements of enemy have strictly OHKO attacks that both go from targeting one to multiple to all party members AND gain a higher chance of being effective as the game goes on. You can eventually develop Personas to make you immune to these attacks, but the first 3/4 of the game is spent in fear of a lucky shot taking out the protagonist and erasing a good chunk of progress with it. Combine this with the fact that the dungeon levels are randomly generated and thus give only random chances to go back to the save point until you get a special spell to do it whenever you like, and one cheap shot can take out an ''hour'' of grinding. Or, on an alternate path, there's a random chance of finding a special area with [[MetalSlime enemies that give huge rewards if you can kill them before they run]], some of which are necessary to complete quests, and if you get that ''one'' spell while you're scrambling back to save, well...did we mention this is a Scrappy? Yeah, it's a Scrappy. Lotta controllers gnawed in half, there.

** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar'' has a lot of these. ''All'' moves you can perform on the battlefield are done with stickers. Stickers come in a ''finite'' quantity (over the course of the game, you can eventually reach 120 max capacity), and most of the more powerful ones [[InventoryManagementPuzzle take up more space in the Sticker Album]]. If you run out of stickers during battle, however unlikely it may seem, [[{{Unwinnable}} you might as well reload your last saved game]]. There is also ''no'' level or stat system at all; you can increase your HP with special items, but the game has no experience points of any kind; all enemy battles give you no rewards other than coins, making frequent combat rather pointless. But the worst offender ''has'' to be [[ForMassiveDamage the boss weakness system]]. The bosses (except perhaps the first) have so much HP and defense, you ''need'' to use the right sticker at the right time to have any hope of defeating any of them. What sticker and what time that is, more often than not, is quite a GuideDangIt, and even if you ''do'' figure out partway through the battle what you need, it will most likely be too late anyway; what are the chances of having that particular sticker already in your album ready to use at that moment, given that most of the weaknesses are of the aforementioned "requires extra inventory space" type? The final boss takes this [[UpToEleven to its ultimate]] [[FromBadToWorse and horrible conclusion]], with a '''[[MarathonBoss FIVE-PART]]''' boss battle, ''each'' of which requires specific stickers to complete. Did we mention that Sticker Star is considered to be a huge BaseBreaker, and generally [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks not in a good way]]?
*** To make matters worse, if you do manage to beat a boss without exploiting its weakness, or simply want to fight it normally, the game has your helper insult you for not doing what it wanted.

To make it worse, the 'key-as-an-item-drop' mechanic comes up a ''lot'' more in the NewGamePlus. The player will be missing most of the new areas because the right enemies weren't killed in order for the drop to occur. Or, you know, the player just wasn't lucky enough to have the drop occur even when s/he did things right. And even if you do manage to find keys, the game ''will be '''damned''''' if it tells you where to go to use them.

* WildArms4: The Hex system. The battle grid consists of six hexes where characters move around and attack. Particularly scrappy is the fact that you have to ''choose''' between whether you can move ''or'' attack during your turn. Considering the use of Combination attacks where several party members have to be in the same hex, and "Ley Points", hexes which give you your elemental attacks, you have to choose between giving your enemy a free hit on you or using less effective attacks. Except [[GameBreaker]] Raquel, the only character who can move ''and'' attack on her turn. This unbalance, fortunately, was remedied in WildArms5, where everyone can move and attack on their turn.

* Besides being an incomplete game put on the shelves just before Xmas, KnightsOfTheOldRepublic 2 had several other points it was disliked for. On infamous example would be leading the [[ArtificialStupidity dumbest]] person in the galaxy out of an underground military base. The follow mechanic was so badly scripted, it would take at least ten minutes to reach the exit, while continuously going back, and occasionally talking to him a few more times, trying to get him to move.
** Unless you go into Solo Mode. Apparently, your party members block his view of you, and he won't follow them even though they're clearly following you.

* Besides being an incomplete game put on the shelves just before Xmas, KnightsOfTheOldRepublic 2 had several other points it was disliked for. On infamous example would be leading the [[ArtificialStupidity dumbest]] person in the galaxy out of an underground military base. The follow mechanic was so badly scripted, it would take at least ten minutes to reach the exit, while continously going back, and occasionally talking to him a few more times, trying to get him to move.

* Several of the implementation systems in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. [[BlatantLies The manual told you Terra's Morph lasted longer with every use, when it lasts longer with enemies killed but can be depleted.]] Mog's Dance and Gau's Rage make them uncontrollable, and Gau's Rages often make no sense. (A squirrel can open a hole in the ground? Okay. The mighty Intangir has a penchant for suicide? Fine. A housecat has the best physical attack in the game? Sure.) Sabin's Blitz is supposed to mimic a fighting game, but you don't need to reverse the button inputs if you get a pincer or a back attack that causes Sabin to stand on the left side of the screen, unlike in a fighting game. Also, the rotating can be tough on a D-pad; it's used for [[FourIsDeath four]] of the moves. It also doesn't help that the game [[GuideDangIt doesn't bother to tell you]] that all but two Blitzes run off of Sabin's initially low magic stat. Relm's Sketch mimics a monster's ability, which would be good if monsters were weak against their own abilities in this game, or if not for the fact that monsters' stats (which she of course uses) suck and they have massive HP. Sketch is effective at one thing, though - introducing {{Game Breaking Bug}}s. It might give you thousands of copies of the game's best equipment, but it might also erase all your save files. But Cyan's Bushido is the worst; you have to let it charge to get access to stronger moves, and you can't do anything else while it's charging. Even if you use Quick so that you're not losing time by doing this, it's just tedious to use.

** The simple act of ''running'' is AwesomeButImpractical since it drains health.
** You can't choose who your party attacks in fights.

* Several of the implementation systems in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. [[BlatantLies The manual told you Terra's Morph lasted longer with every use, when it lasts longer with enemies killed but can be depleted.]] Mog's Dance and Gau's Rage make them uncontrollable, and Gau's Rages often make no sense. (A squirrel can open a hole in the ground? Okay. The mighty Intangir has a penchant for suicide? Fine. A housecat has the best physical attack in the game? Sure.) Sabin's Blitz is supposed to mimic a fighting game, but you don't flip the sequence, unlike a fighting game. Also, the rotating can be tough on a D-pad; it's used for [[FourIsDeath four]] of the moves. It also doesn't help that the game [[GuideDangIt doesn't bother to tell you]] that all but two Blitzes run off of Sabin's initially low magic stat. Relm's Sketch mimics a monster's ability, which would be good if monsters were weak against their own abilities in this game, or if not for the fact that monsters' stats (which she of course uses) suck and they have massive HP. Sketch is effective at one thing, though - introducing {{Game Breaking Bug}}s. It might give you thousands of copies of the game's best equipment, but it might also erase all your save files. But Cyan's Bushido is the worst; you have to let it charge to get access to stronger moves, and you can't do anything else while it's charging. Even if you use Quick so that you're not losing time by doing this, it's just tedious to use.

*** Fortunately, the party AI is still pretty good. Occasional bouts of ArtificialStupidity aside (like Mitsuru's love for {{Useless Useful Spell}}s,) they can recognize when their attacks aren't working and switch attack types until they find a weakness (and immediately start exploiting any weaknesses they can when it's finally found,) and throw out healing spells when someone's in trouble. There's also numerous AI modes that they can can switched to on the fly.

** Yes, spells get more powerful, except for Life. Life never gets stronger, just costs more MP. Bah. Good thing the Life spell tome is available fairly early in the game and is relatively cheap, so you can just trash the spell and learn it again to reset the MP cost to 1.
** Let's not forget the sadistic [[Series/LetsMakeADeal Monty Hall]] game that the game plays with you; in most dungeons, you will find a series of doors. Pick the right one, and you can proceed with your quest; pick a wrong one, and you'll not only end up in an empty dead-end room, you'll end up right in ''the middle of the room'' instead of by the door, and since you have no choice but to walk a few steps to the door and since the random encounter rate in these rooms is often pretty high, you'll end up getting attacked by monsters as you leave. Lovely.

** On the first game's Insanity difficulty, and Hardcore to a lesser extent, all organic enemies that did not use biotics had the immunity ability to reduce all damage they took by eighty percent. Wrex or Liara had to be pretty much stapled into the part for such cases and it's a large part of what kills the Mako's usefulness on higher difficulties.

** Yes, spells get more powerful, except for Life. Life never gets stronger, just costs more MP. Bah.Good thing the Life spelltome is available fairly early in the game and is relatively cheap, so you can just trash the spell and learn it again to reset the MP cost to 1.

** In earlier versions of the game, all weapons came with a penalty to the intelligence and spirit stats. [[GuideDangIt There is nothing indicating this]]. [[MagicStaff Staves]] and daggers had the smallest penalty at five percent. Most other weapons had a penalty of forty or fifty percent. Bows, the default weapon of the intended BlackMage, had a whopping ''seventy percent'' penalty. This mechanic was thankfully removed from the Game Boy Advance and all subsequent versions.

** ANY RPG game where [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou the game ends if the main character bites it]], but the party has the means to make you [[BuffySpeak un-bite it.]] This goes for Baldur's Gate and Persona 3 and 4, as mentioned above. [[spoiler: Baldur's Gate and Persona 3 have story justifications, but]] Anyone willing to sacrifice an AntiFrustrationFeature for the microscopic pinch of story flavor/immersion doesn't deserve to be in their pretentious clique.

** In the first instalment, you need to heal everyone before going to sleep, because resting recuperate very little [[HitPoints HP]]. This can be frustrating when you have many injured in your party, since you'll have to remanage your healers' memorized spells and pay multiple times for a room at the inn. This was fixed in the sequel where you only need to rest once and everyone is healed.

** The stealth missions in ''Days'', just the stealth missions. When following Pete, you have to ensure that he remains in your field of vision, while you avoid going into his (which are ColorCodedForYourConvenience). This would be fine if a) [[CameraScrew the camera didn't hate you with a vengeance]] and b) if your partner didn't stand aimlessly so that he could get caught. Also, when segments of this mechanic are implanted into Beast's Castle, it gets rather tedious when you have to avoid being caught by either Lumière or Cogsworth. What really puts the cherry on top of this massive disaster is that even if you try to glide over them, [[{{Facepalm}} THEY STILL SEE YOU]].
*** Don't forget that your "field of vision" has no connection with whether you can actually see your target. Instead of using the camera lock-on system, the game defines your field of vision as a short cone-shaped area directly in front of your character. That's right -- the game completely ignores the mechanism that keeps your eye on a target for a mini-game involving keeping your eye on a target. So if you try to circle-strafe, the target leaves your vision area because the cone area turns sideways. You fail the mission because the game says you lost sight of your target, despite the fact they're 10 feet away and the camera has perfect vision of them.

* Item combination in ''{{Arcuz}} II''. To enchant equipment or enhance enchantments, you need two elemental gems, a special stone and your weapon. Each enchant level has a failure chance (10% from level 1 to 2, 25% from 2 to 3, 50% from 3 to 4). If enchanting fails, not only does it consume all the gems used, but is also removes all existing enchantments on the equipment. And a further kick in the face is that the game saves after you combine/enchant any items, regardless of success, so no refreshing your window to cheat!

** The Mako was replaced by the (DLC-only) Hammerhead Hover Tank, which still gets insulted by some players for being a ReplacementScrappy. The game refuses to let you save when driving the tank (and you're only allowed to exit the vehicle when you arrive at your destination), and its levels seem like more of a arcade-based shoot-em-up. Nothing like having to restart a level because of a mistimed jump. The Overlord DLC partially addresses this, by having the Hammerhead "recover" to its last safe position, should you accidentally drive it off a cliff, into magma or whatever.