History YMMV / GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas

* The mission, High Noon, can get extremely infuriating. You have to chase down and kill [[spoiler: Pulaski]] in a car that is prone to spinning out and/or flipping over very easily while the target drives a fast car that can take a ton of bullets before exploding. Naturally, the mission fails if the target gets away. Should you bring the target's car to near explosion? He will bail out but shoot you with a desert eagle, which can be enough to blow up your car that is most likely heavily damaged from crashing and being shot at.

* Highjack is a bit of a pain, just because Cesar [[MostAnnoyingSound won't shut up]]. You have to ride along side a truck at just the right speed, and be RIGHT NEXT TO IT, and it's timed. Have fun.

* Office Tenpenny is actually an interesting case. You could make an argument he's a CompleteMonster but there's also plenty of room to contend that he's no worse than CJ. Los Santos' criminals ''are'' completely out of control and playing them against one another may be the only way to keep the violence down.

* AlasPoorVillain: "When I'm gone, everyone's gonna remember my name...BIG SMOKE!"

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Mike Toreno. Helped by the fact that he's played by ''James Woods'', and gets some of the best and best delivered lines in the whole game. Woozie and Ryder also have a lot of fans.

** There's an early level where you have to impress a girl by dancing on the beach (read: playing a button-timing mini-game). Since this game pre-dated ''{{Guitar Hero}}'', the concept of [=HDTV=] lag hadn't really hit the public consciousness yet. A lot of early adopters couldn't beat that mission.

* LawfulEvil: Officer Tenpenny.

** A mission where you need to save [[spoiler:Madd Dogg from killing himself]] would have him jump before you can save him (at the very beginning of the mission), and players literally would have to start over and hope the glitch didn't happen again. Contrary to popular belief, its not random. It only happens if you use pedestrian model altering cheats.

** For some, "Freefall" is frustrating beyond all comprehension. You have to fly a plane and position it at ''exactly'' the right angle above and behind the bad guys plane so you can fly through the ring, and they're jet is flying in the opposite direction that you're flying, so in order to get in said position, you have to turn the jet around at ''exactly'' the right moment and fly through the ring while struggling with the very frustrating controls(well they're frustrating in the PC version anyways) and if you miss, then you're completely screwed, if you suceed, then you have to kill all the bad guys on the plane very quickly as they can kill you pretty fast due to the close quarters, and then you have to actually land the plane, which isn't really hard, but by that point you desperately want the mission to be over so you can save and relax. The only way to make that mission easier is to enter the "perfect handling" cheat so you can have an easier time sterring the plane, and even then it's still pretty frustrating to do.

** There's an early level where you have to impress a girl by dancing on the beach (read: playing a button-timing mini-game). But since this game pre-dated ''{{Guitar Hero}}'' the concept of [=HDTV=] lag hadn't really hit the public consciousness yet, but no excuse with Bemani games been around long ago. A lot of early adopters couldn't beat that mission.
** "Tanker Commander". It's actually a fairly simple mission - steal a tanker truck and take it to a man who will buy it. However, you have two guys in a car chasing and shooting at you, the tanker can't take that much damage, and it's quite easy to make too sharp a turn and disconnect the tank, which means mission failure. One can't help but wonder if the reason why "Tanker Commander" is the nearest mission when you first join up with Catalina is so you can get it over with. Uhm, [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim just get out of the truck and shoot them.]] Works for almost every mission where you're being chased
** "OG Loc" Annoying motorcycle chase, the guy being chased being immune to damage. Thankfully at the end of the chase, you can kill him.
** "Learning to Fly" appear to be the particular nemesis (and often game-enders) for a lot of players.

** There's an early level where you have to impress a girl by dancing on the beach (read: playing a button-timing mini-game). But since this game pre-dated ''{{Guitar Hero}}'' the concept of [=HDTV=] lag hadn't really hit the public consciousness yet. A lot of early adopters couldn't beat that mission.

* AcceptableReligiousTargets: [[ChurchOfHappyology A certain real-life religious movement]] gets this with the Epsilon Program, which also has elements of the Rael cult thrown in. Tell you what, take the weight of your nodes and I'll tell you all about it, Uncle-Brother!

* AcceptableReligiousTargets: [[ChurchOfHappyology A certain real-life religious movement]] gets this with the Epsilon Program, which also has elements of the Rael cult thrown in.

** "Tanker Commander". It's actually a fairly simple mission - steal a tanker truck and take it to a man who will buy it. However, you have two guys in a car chasing and shooting at you, the tanker can't take that much damage, and it's quite easy to make too sharp a turn and disconnect the tank, which means mission failure. One can't help but wonder if the reason why "Tanker Commander" is the nearest mission when you first join up with Catalina is so you can get it over with.
*** Uhm, [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim just get out of the truck and shoot them.]] Works for almost every mission where you're being chased

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Is CJ a good person? Some people consider his PetTheDog moments (such as his love for his sister, his friendships with various characters, his desire to clean up the streets from drugs and his general tendency to help people in need) to be enough to make him a good person doing bad things. Others find his reprehensible acts (he kills people for a living, he ruined Madd Dogg's life to help his asshole friend) too much.

* MostAnnoyingSound: Just about anything Zero says during [[ThatOneLevel his missions]]. And [[ThatOneLevel "All you had to do was follow the damn train, CJ!"]]

* WallBanger:
** The [[HotCoffeeMinigame Hot Coffee]] scandal, mainly due to the stupidity of the politicians and such.
** In-game example: Almost all of the OG Loc missions. One of them has you slitting the throat of several innocent mansion security just to steal some piece of paper and learning stealth kill.
*** He isn't immune to damage, just take a shortcut and kill them with an AK as he goes past.

* FridgeBrilliance: the mission where you rob the Caligula's Palace Casino is the reason behind Salvatore Leone's [[GrandTheftAutoIII paranoia]] regarding his subordinates