History ScrappyMechanic / RolePlayingGames

* In the first two games of the ''VideoGame/Mother'' series, if someone in your party gets K.O.'ed during battle, they remain that way even after the fight until you revive them. If everyone goes down, you go back to where you last saved, only Ness/Ninten is revived, and everyone loses all their PP to boot. This wouldn't be such a big deal in and of itself, except that most of the time, your methods of reviving anyone are limited. This is especially annoying when you're exploring enemy territory, as opposed to within a town (where you can just walk to a hospital), and would be better off with more people active than unconscious.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound Beginnings}}'', if someone in your party gets K.O.'ed during battle, they remain that way even after the fight until you revive them. If everyone goes down, you go back to where you last saved, only Ness/Ninten is revived, and everyone loses all their PP to boot. This wouldn't be such a big deal in and of itself, except that most of the time, your methods of reviving anyone are limited. This is especially annoying when you're exploring enemy territory, as opposed to within a town (where you can just walk to a hospital), and would be better off with more people active than unconscious.
** The inventory system in both games is pretty bad, especially in ''Earthbound Beginnings'', as not only it is limited to a fixed number of items for every character, but key items also take up inventory slots, which makes it incredibly annoying when trying to stock up on other types of items only to find out that you can't carry anything else with you. Fortunately, ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'' fixed this by giving key items their own separate inventory so they don't take up item slots.

** An infamous mechanic is that dialogue with random [=NPCs=] can sometimes end with them sneezing and giving Ninten the "Cold" status effect, which acts like poison and causes him to lose health over time and which you can only get rid of by a trip to the doctor at a hospital (if there is a hospital nearby, that is) or by using Mouthwash (which you don't get to buy until you reach the town of Snowman during the second half fo the game). This is more common with [=NPCs=] dressed with blue clothes, but is not exclusive to them. The chance of getting a cold heavily discourages talking to the [=NPCs=], which is sad because they usually have interesting and/or funny things to say.

** The "Homesickness" status effect, which causes Ness to start missing home and also causes him to waste turns during battle. There's no telling when it will appear either outside of knowing that a higher level means it occurs less, so pray that it doesn't happen to pop up during a though Boss Battle. On the bright side, you can easily get rid of it by simply calling Ness' mother with a phone... but, same as before, if it happens to appear in an area with no phones available then you are screwed. The only good thing about "Homesickness" is that it adds a layer to Ness characterization, especially considering that he is a SilentProtagonist.
** As is the "Mushroomized" status effect, which is basically Strangeness (confusion) dialed [[UpToEleven up to the point that it's unfair]]. There's no way to cure it outside of visiting specific locations, it can't be cured or prevented with PSI or items, it lingers after battle, it foists an InterfaceScrew on you outside of battle, and it turns every battle with it into a LuckBasedMission where you're one random "whoever is feeling funky" away from [[TotalPartyKill nailing your own party with Rockin or Fire β]]. There's a reason why inflicting this status ailment is the sole reason Shrooom! is ThatOneBoss and why such a status ailment is typically easy to get rid of, because this mechanic is ''frustrating''.

** The running mechanic. While fans were happy to have such a thing, as the slow walking pace of the previous game was an oft-cited flaw, the way it was implemented was quite annoying. Rather than just hold B to run, you had to stop, hold B for a moment to "charge" up, then release B to make your party begin running automatically until you tapped B again to stop or they hit something.
** ''Enemies calling for help''. It was already annoying in the previous two games and is made even worse here.
** "Lucas/Kumatora began to feel feverish!" This means they're about to learn a new PSI, which is a good thing. However, you lose your ability to run until it wears off, which is a bad thing. This serves no purpose other than to slow the game pace down, as it not only forces you to move at the game's ludicrously slow walking pace but also means you can't run past enemies or through weak ones to avoid fights.
** In battles, if you decide to have [[ActionPet Boney]] use food on another party member in order to heal them, there is a chance that he might ''eat'' what was meant to heal that person. While this does not happen very often, it is especially frustrating when a party member is in a critical condition and Boney just eats what was intended for them instead of healing them, double the frustration since out of everyone in Lucas' party, [[FragileSpeedster Boney is the fastest and is usually the first one to attack]], and his lack of special abilities and high-offense powers make him ideal to [[ItemCaddy carry all sorts of items]], but the chance of him eating the food that is not intended for him discourages giving him any healing items.

* VideoGame/BravelyDefault2 and its freaking ''counters''. In the original VideoGame/BravelyDefault and VideoGame/BravelySecond, these were fairly rare, generally limited to a few specific enemies, including bosses whose job skills included counterattacks (notably Kamiizumi and Kikyo). In ''Bravely Default 2'', starting late in the prologue, '' '''every''' boss'' and a fair number of normal enemies can counter you. Their counters do not cost any sort of resource; there is no limit on how often they can trigger per turn; and they can counter everything, and we do mean literally ''anything and everything'' (except Specials), that you can do. Physical or magical attacks? Obviously. Status effects? Yep. Buffs? Oh yeah. Healing magic? Check and double check. ''Defaulting?'' Why not; [[SarcasmMode it's not as if it's one of the main game mechanics or anything]]. There is even one that is literally called "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Counter Any Ability]]", which usually gives the boss free BP when the player uses, well, any ability. Supposedly, the developers implemented such an obnoxious mechanic in order to curb GameBreaker strategies, but it ended up backfiring, feeling more like TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, and actually encouraging the players to [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame cheese bosses]] even ''more'' because trying to fight them fairly just results in eating more counters.

* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'':
** Getting a Legendary-tier item of clothing or weapon can either make or break the player who relies on it, due to randomized mod slots. These slots can range from one-to-four per item, and the fewer the mod slots, the worse (generally) the item will be, particularly in the instance of armor mods, some of which are so unbalanced that they make most of the perks associated with the leveling system / the actual stats of the supposed "Legendary" item worthless in comparison. In cases where the player knows where a Legendary item is, they are generally advised to go SaveScumming until they get the item with four mod slots, at which point they pack on the best mods per game (or swap them out for something better). To say this broke the challenge in the game was an understatement, particularly when CD Projekt stated ''in the patch notes'' for the 1.1 patch that they were looking to take steps to stop players from SaveScumming.
** Making matters worse is that there is a [[https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/patch-1-1-bug-item-randomisation-broken-hotfixed-in-patch-1-11.11075840/page-10#post-12817736 hidden, unlisted]] mod system that counterbalances the number of mods a player gets on an item through a random roll -- what the player doesn't get as an open modslot is filled with a "junk" mod called "Me-Thrill", which has inconsequential stats and can never be removed by the player. As a result, the player could find a "Legendary" item that turns out to be completely worthless if it has only one slot, due to being filled with unseen junk mods that can't be removed by any means (attempting to do so in a save editor causes in-game errors and crashes).

* In the ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series, you can accidentally use up a turn by mistakenly selecting an item that has no use on the battlefield. This is especially bad in a boss fight. It actually takes a turn for the computer to tell you some smart-alec response.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': Cutscenes overriding player's actions. Let's say your cloacked rogue is stalking through the enemy fortress, scouting for the team, and serving as the pointer for your mages who are safely tucked far behind. Then they trigger the cutscene (even something completely inconsequential), and suddenly your entire team is dragged in, stealth is off, a dozen enemies spawn all around you, and you're screwed.

** You must gather your party before venturing forth. You must gather your party before venturing forth. You must- You must- You must gather your party before venturing forth.

* In VideoGame/DigimonWorld2 the level grinding system is a complete time sink because of the games level caps and how you need 2 digimon to combine to raise said level cap. In order to do THAT you need to fire gifts at digimon in order to befriend them. To make matters worse since you start off at level cap 13 you end up with a level 1 rookie digimon which you have to level grind AGAIN to reach the level cap. Don't grind up to the level cap before combining? Your level cap either remains the same or even ''lowers''. You can spend hours grinding levels and then combining only to ''lose progress''

* And only in ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'' is the character's [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy absurdly low accuracy]]. You start the game with a paltry 33% accuracy, meaning you'll be missing most of your attacks and taking a ''lot'' of unfair hits from enemies who wouldn't have had the chance to land an attack had the RandomNumberGod not given you the middle finger, and it doesn't raise from there. Even at level 30, where you're strong enough to comfortably ''beat the FinalBoss'', and with the Jade Disk that boosts accuracy, you'll still only have about 45% accuracy and will miss very frequently. This would be annoying on its own, but as you need to wait between each attack so the Attack Gauge will fill (as discussed prior), this can turn what should be an easy fight with a spider who will squash in one hit into a frustrating {{Luck Based|Mission}} [[HitAndRunTactics Hit And Run Battle]] where you walk away poisoned and with about 60 less hitpoints. Pretty much your only reasonable alternative is to keep spamming the Speed formula, which boosts accuracy, but since it costs wax (used by [[GameBreaker Crush]] and [[WhiteMagic Heal]]), it's ''really'' not something you can afford to waste on every random enemy.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls2'' decided to base multiplayer on a mechanic called Soul Memory (rather than using Soul Level like the previous game), which is a tally of every soul you've ever picked up, whether you've spent it wisely, poorly or ''lost it due to mistakes''. This means that highly proficient players who are experienced with the game, and spent their souls carefully would be on the same level as inexperienced players who were experimenting on how to spend souls and/or may have lost chunks of their soul-value to tactical mistakes. The ''Scholar of the First Sin'' edition fixed this to a degree with the Agape Ring, which allows you to stop increasing your Soul Memory.

** The "Homesickness" status effect, which causes Ness to start missing home and also causes him to waste turns during battle. There's no telling when it will appear either, so pray that it doesn't happen to pop up during a though Boss Battle. On the bright side, you can easily get rid of it by simply calling Ness' mother with a phone... but, same as before, if it happens to appear in an area with no phones available then you are screwed. The only good thing about "Homesickness" is that it adds a layer to Ness characterization, especially considering that he is a SilentProtagonist.

* ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'' has two, both relating to running around, which seem to have been coded in for the express purpose of [[TrollingCreator screwing with the player]]:

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'':
*** Like ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', the original Kingdom Hearts was criticized for having unskippable cutscenes, which was especially irritating when they came before a difficult boss fight, forcing players to rewatch the scene each time they lost. Fortunately, unlike Final Fantasy X, the option to skip cutscenes was added in the game's re-release as ''Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix.''
*** The first game's Gummi ship sections were widely hated for being slow-paced and boring, which the developers [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap thankfully fixed]] by revamping the Gummi sections entirely for the sequel.
*** The camera has been jokingly referred to as an "anti-camera." A player might spend as much time trying to see what it is they're fighting as they spend actually fighting it. Locking onto a target helps somewhat, but not by much.
*** Atlantica's controls allow Sora and company to move around in 3-D space, but only by pressing buttons to swim up or down. It was hard enough just getting to where you wanted Sora and company to go. Neverland had similar mechanics with flight, but outside of one BonusBoss, flying wasn't a requirement since a player could still land and fight on the ground.
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''
*** The Demyx fight. It's an otherwise enjoyable little battle until you have a small amount of time to defeat some spawned enemies. And not doing it in time is an instant game over. And there's only two viable tactics which can take them out, which might be completely unavailable to you if you've just used certain combat options. Two things that make this really bad is that 1) the final version of this attack requires you to kill all the enemies in TEN SECONDS, which is nigh impossible unless you can set up the context-special attack, and 2)there's no real reason why you should lose the fight for not killing all the spawned enemies. They aren't threatening to kill you within the time limit, they just kind of hang around. But nope, not killing them all soon enough makes you lose arbitrarily.
*** The [[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1994 Atlantica]] level, whose three-dimensional control scheme was so annoying that the developers decided to do something completely different with Atlantica in the sequel... by turning it into a rhythm game. This might not have been so bad, but the original songs for the game are of noticeably lower quality than those of Disney's original movie. At least Atlantica is optional... in theory, seeing as you have to beat Atlantica to get the best ending, the best Thunder spell, and some extra gear.
** The 3D control scheme was also featured partially in Neverland when you gain the power of flight, but you get it at the end and it's not necessary to progress, per se. The fact that you can lock onto enemies, chests, and key items and automatically swim to their location made it moderately more tolerable. Then, in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 358/2 Days]]'', they bring the 3D mechanic back [[DamnYouMuscleMemory with messed up buttons]] but don't retain the lock-on shortcut - making fighting in mid-air incredibly irritating at best (and building a chain damn near impossible), considering how often flying enemies change their positions.
** 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, THEY STILL SEE YOU.
** 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.
** In ''Birth by Sleep'', the commands and the command deck itself are seen as this. While the command deck allows the player to use a bunch of different attacks, some of these attacks are really slow and most of these attacks often leave A LOT of room for enemies to attack you. This added with lengthy command cooldowns can sometimes lead to the player not being able to use any of their commands (after having attempted to use them and failing) for quite some time. Not only that, but because of the command deck, the developers put very few physical combos in the game.
** Birth By Sleep's movement was also very slow compared to the console games. While Terra, Ventus, and Aqua moved across fields pretty slowly, enemies would often be much faster. Combine that your slow attack movements, and you can easily fall into trouble.
** Most critics claim the Drop system in,''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance Dream Drop Distance]]'' to be be this. The system was designed so that players could easily experience both stories at the same time by having one character 'drop' to the other when the Drop Gauge empties. The problem critics are complaining about this though is that it can drop during battles, including boss battles, forcing players out of important battles. This can be somewhat averted however by manually dropping with the other character or buying a consumable item that increases the drop gauge, so it's subjective.
** Dream Drop Distance also has the absolute WORST means of learning abilities. Every ability is learned through Dream Eaters. This can bite the player in the ass in many ways:
*** Each dream eater had many different abilities, and it's not clear at first glance who has what ability to teach your character. Many of the abilities are also stuck and assigned to the dream eaters, such as [element] screen/boost, meaning that if the dream eater leaves the party, Sora and Riku go without those passive benefits.
*** They all take an ungodly amount of DP to learn new abilities, but each enemy regardless of strength only gains one DP, and the minigames aren't much better or faster at it.
*** Dispositions. Each Dream Eater has a disposition that it can randomly change to in order to teach or learn new abilities. These change randomly and may or may not be the one you need to learn new abilities. It will be frustrating petting them or painting them or feeding them to change their attitudes, and then you have to hope its the correct disposition or you wasted your time and Munny.
** If you change anything in the Command Deck menu, it resets EVERY command's time gauge. While it makes perfect sense to make any newly installed commands have to start charging from the beginning to prevent abuse, there's no reason why it should affect every command you're currently using. And worse, even if all you do is ''rearrange'' the order the commands are listed, it will still reset all of them. This makes the Drop system even more annoying, since if you want to refill the Drop meter you need to use an item. There's no reason to always have that item take up a command slot, but every time you switch it in, you'll end up resetting all of your gauges.
** How about something that lasts throughout the entire series? The party mechanic. They can either be good or just suck, mainly because they die a lot! Now in regular fights or boss battles, as long as you gave them good weapons and items to equip they can be tolerable and don't die as often. But it's much more noticeable in Kingdom Hearts II, where the boss fights specifically, are more dynamic, and use the reaction commands and strategies more often. That's when the party member AI is starting to get a little broken. You can heal them and they can back up, yes, until two seconds. Not that there are any consequences to the party members dying anyways. It's almost as if the Party mechanic is completely useless. Look at some boss battle footage (specifically Final Mix). You can make a counting game for this.
** Another problem with the party mechanic is not knowing when your allies will use their magic. The most common scenario is when you're about to heal yourself after taking a huge hit only to discover too late that Donald or Goofy has already done so. If the combined healing is more than your hit points would allow, this becomes a waste of magic. Worse still, you won't hear the character calling for Sora if you're too far away.
** You have to defeat bosses through completed combos, no exceptions. While this can be annoying if the bosses only have 1HP left, just remember that you can equip skills that increase the length of your combos... and you can be attacked during these attacks.
** The [[LastChanceHitPoint Second Chance and Once More]] abilities have been criticized by some fans as crutches on the game's design, as many [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]] and even regular bosses in the later games are balanced with those abilities in mind to the point that they are practically [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome mandatory]], as the enemies deal so much damage that your regular Defense and Max HP stats [[ArmorIsUseless do nothing to stop you]] from getting [[OneHitKill one-hit-killed]] anyway. This also turns situations where you can't obtain [=Second Chance/Once More=] (like ''[=Kingdom Hearts 2 FM+=]'' with [[LowLevelRun Zero Experience enabled]]) into a de facto NoDamageRun on top of everything else.
** The card battle system in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories.'' It drastically limits your combat freedom. It's not so bad when you fight normal enemies, but boss fights require a little more strategy. Sometimes, you'll run out of useful attack cards and would have to rely on Pluto to help you get more. It's even worse on Riku's story mode. His deck can't be customized like Sora's, so if you have a weak deck, you're stuck with it for the rest of the world. Unlike Sora, Pluto cards don't help him when he runs out. You can pretty much be stuck in a boss battle where your only reloadable card is a 1.
** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', failing at the cooking minigame costs you all the dish's ingredients, which gets infuriating when you consider that some ingredients can only be obtained from Flantastic 7 or Hundred Acre Wood minigames.

*** The [[Disney/TheLittleMermaid Atlantica]] level, whose three-dimensional control scheme was so annoying that the developers decided to do something completely different with Atlantica in the sequel... by turning it into a rhythm game. This might not have been so bad, but the original songs for the game are of noticeably lower quality than those of Disney's original movie. At least Atlantica is optional... in theory, seeing as you have to beat Atlantica to get the best ending, the best Thunder spell, and some extra gear.

* In DigimonWorld2 the level grinding system is a complete time sink because of the games level caps and how you need 2 digimon to combine to raise said level cap. In order to do THAT you need to fire gifts at digimon in order to befriend them. To make matters worse since you start off at level cap 13 you end up with a level 1 rookie digimon which you have to level grind AGAIN to reach the level cap. Don't grind up to the level cap before combining? Your level cap either remains the same or even ''lowers''. You can spend hours grinding levels and then combining only to ''lose progress''

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' and its sequels have the matchmaking system. Unlike a lot of multiplayer games which use a dedicated server for the players to play on, this one uses a peer-to-peer (or P2P) connection, which can badly hurt players who face frequent internet connection issues. It's also not unheard of to spend a good half hour or even more trying to search for one of your friends who are in the same area and level range, and NOT being able to summon them at all, despite having met all the requirements to summon one another.

** The game's core mechanic of actively tying spells and stats to equipped Djinn effectively renders nearly them and the accompanying summons as AwesomeButImpractical barring rare circumstances. Using a Djinn puts it into standby which basically unequips it from a character, and any stat boosts, psynergy, or class changes that came with it get flushed right down the drain for a few turns. Since you tend to be fairly reliant on the stat boosts and psynergy gains, especially if going for one of the more esoteric classes in the game (like Ninja or Samurai), there is very rarely a scenario where you can afford to use them.

* Some players feel this way about the platforming segments in ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm''. They’re a nice bit of variety, and they don’t appear too often, but the UsefulNotesRPGMaker XP engine really wasn’t made for platformers, resulting in awkward controls and some minor issues with collision detection. A few maps also have enemies that follow you around and get in the way of your jumps, adding a stressful element to something that was already hard enough to begin with.

* Some players feel this way about the platforming segments in ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm''. They’re a nice bit of variety, and they don’t appear too often, but the [[VideoGame/RPGMaker RPG Maker XP]] engine really wasn’t made for platformers, resulting in awkward controls and some minor issues with collision detection. A few maps also have enemies that follow you around and get in the way of your jumps, adding a stressful element to something that was already hard enough to begin with.

* ''VideoGame/RPGMaker FES'' has a few restrictions that can be really annoying:

* ''Any'' JRPG where you have the option of attempting to escape from battle, but it has a chance of failure, wasting the action you used to attempt it. The only times you're going to attempt to escape are when you can't be bothered fighting the battle because it's not worth your time (in which case, failure only manages to waste ''more'' of your time), or when you're in very serious danger of losing if you don't get out now (in which case, failing only ''[[UnstableEquilibrium punishes you more]]'' because not only are you still stuck in the battle, you just wasted an action accomplishing jack-squat and are now even closer to getting wiped out). In both cases, the possibility of failing to escape is frustrating at best, ''game-ruining'' at worst, with ''no'' upside.