History ScrappyMechanic / PlatformGame

** There is one in the UsefulNotes/GameBoy ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongLand'' 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.

** The Hit-Rate system in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 games. While it's pretty useful for reminding you not to make mistakes again, it does frustrate most gamers that it could prevent them from completing the game without any mistakes. Even worse is, you could get a DownerEnding if you do a slight mistake.

* ''VideoGame/{{Rascal}}'' has a number of flaws, but in most categories it is somewhere between "okay" and "very good", with its graphics and atmosphere in particular being highly praised. However, one single issue turns it from what would likely have been [[SoOkayItsAverage a decent, if forgettable]] 3D platformer, into what's sometimes regarded as the worst game ever released on the UsefulNotes/PlayStation: ExecutiveMeddling enforced the use of TankControls late in development, despite that control scheme being [[DiscreditedTrope on the way out during its development]], and the entire game having been designed with ''VideoGame/SuperMario64''-style analog directional controls in mind. This causes many of the levels to be almost unplayable, especially when you have to jump on moving platforms with no way to alter your trajectory in mid-air.

* In order to get the GoldenEnding for ''VideoGame/DisneysAladdinInNasirasRevenge'', you'll have to collect a Blue Genie Gem for every possible level, which in turn can only be obtained by collecting three Red Gems in a level and then completing the BonusStage after finishing said level. However, if you fail at the bonus stage, you are unable to simply retry immediately. Instead, you have to replay ''the entire level all over again'' (and collect the three Red Gems again) to get a second chance.

* ''VideoGame/OddworldAbesOddysee'' has the "mimic other Mudokons" mechanic in the prelude areas to Scrabania and Paramonia areas. It gets ''grossly'' overused, to the point these areas could most charitably be described as "{{Simon Says|Minigame}} with occasional boring platforming", it's not interesting or challenging but merely repetitive and time-consuming, and every single one is longer than the last. Worse, is while some of the ones you need to mimic merely force you to try again, others outright kill you for messing up. It's definitely remembered as the lowest point in the game by players ''and'' developers as, unlike every other mechanic from the first game was expanded upon in the sequel, this one was stripped out completely.

** The use of both screens in ''Contra 4''. In a game series where the player character [[OneHitPointWonder can't take much punishment]], the lack of visible space between them (to see incoming enemy bullets) can hinder things a fair bit.

** There is one in the UsefulNotes/GameBoy ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1 Donkey Kong Land]]'' 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.

* ''VideoGame/TheAngryVideoGameNerdAdventures'' has the Death Blocks. These nasty little OneHitKill traps are absolutely everywhere in the game, and getting by them usually requires [[PlatformHell some tight maneuvering.]] One of the game's favorite tricks is putting them in a spot where you have to go, then making them intermittently flicker so that you have to make a carefully-timed jump into the death zone before immediately jumping out. There are probably more screens with them than without them, and they are almost always the number-one cause of death in the game. It's at the point where they make the game's difficulty settings almost cosmetic (the difficulty settings alter your maximum health, but have ''no'' effect on the Death Blocks, which kill you in one hit regardless of difficulty and remain everywhere).

** The control scheme, with which you tilt the Wiimote to tilt the game world, is a divisive affair, with some feeling it lacks the precision of an analog stick.

*** 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]].

* 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. Fortunately, the sequel fixed this up and made most items that are required for a quest or something else spawn indefinitely, while the berries will respawn if you die.

** ''VideoGame/CrashBandicootTheWrathOfCortex'' has a great number of gimmick levels where Crash has to use some kind of vehicle for a part or entirety of the level. While the minecart segments might be fun, most of the others are larger, slower and have awkward controls, making it easier to get hit because of their larger hitboxs and decreased evasion. To top it off, most of the time (unless the level provides a health bar) they don't have any increased resistance to hazards and enemies. Then there are the monkey bar segments, which are ''way'' slower than in [[Videogame/CrashBandicoot3Warped previous game]], making them especially obnoxious during time trials.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''
** General/ Multiple games:
*** The Multi-Man modes in ''Melee'' and ''Brawl'' have items. While items like Poké Balls are helpful, many players view the biggest challenge of the modes is not trying to defeat all of the enemies (100-Man) or trying to survive (15-Minute), but hoping that a rogue Bob-omb or explosive doesn't spawn next to you and ruin that glorious victory. Alleviated in the fourth game, where items in the mode spawn on top of a floating platform that appears every couple seconds.
*** In the games where you can play with a UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube controller, mashing the C-stick is a very useful way to easily perform smash or aerial attacks, unless you're playing ''Melee'''s single-player modes, where the C-stick zooms the camera in and out. Since the default camera placement already gives you the best view of everything, this feature serves no purpose but to restrict your view and to make many techniques much harder.
*** The replay feature. First introduced in ''Brawl'', replays don't record video footage of matches. What's really being recorded are the button inputs and instances of [[RandomNumberGod RNG]][[note]]e.g., the precise spawn spots of items, the value of Mr. G&W's Judge attack, the type of turnip Peach pulls out, etc.[[/note]] from start to finish and the "replay" of any given match just plays back that sequential recorded data in real time. Unfortunately, there's also a very small chance that a replay will desync and won't play back the way it's supposed to, which is usually irreversible. Also, replays in ''Brawl'' can only last up until 3 minutes. If there were any memorable matches that last 3 minutes and ''1 second'' or more, you won't be able to record it.
** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl''
*** Tripping. Whenever a player breaks into a run, they may, by completely random chance, trip over and leave themselves vulnerable. The mechanic doesn't go away in Sudden Death. Even though tripping gives you invincibility frames, you could do the same thing but better with sidestepping. It's supposed to be to limit overuse of dashing, but casual and [[TournamentPlay competitive]] players alike agree that this mechanic has no good reason to exist. Fortunately, random tripping has been removed in the next installment.
*** For the [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Pokémon Trainer]], the stamina mechanic which punishes you for trying to rely on one of the {{Mons}} by reducing your stats when you use one specific one for too long (and to a lesser degree how the current mon automatically switches when you get [=KOed=]). You can tell when this happens when your Pokemon starts to act tired in their idle animation and move around more sluggishly. This despite the fact that Sheik/Zelda never needed any handicap on multiple forms besides lacking a Down-B move. The mechanic was completely axed when Trainer returned in ''Ultimate'', much to the relief of fans.
*** The Pokémon Trainer's Pokemon are also affected by [[ElementalRockPaperScissors Type Effectiveness]], meaning certain types of attacks do a bit more damage and knock a particular Pokémon further away than usual. This ends up making the Trainer's Ivysaur, a Grass-Type, susceptible to attacks from over half of ''Brawl''[='s=] roster due to the abundance of characters that innately use fire-based attacks, making Ivysaur less durable than it should be. Squirtle and ''especially'' Charizard had an easier time with this. Both this and the stamina mechanic mentioned above were introduced to emulate the mechanics of the main ''Pokémon'' games[[note]]Stamina was meant to bring focus to the Trainer's entire team, rather than just one Pokémon.[[/note]], which only sounded good on paper in the end. It should be noted that ''only'' the Pokémon Trainer's team are affected by these mechanics, so the standalone Pokémon such as Pikachu play like the other characters in ''Brawl''[='s=] roster. Fortunately, just like the stamina mechanic, Type Effectiveness was axed for ''Ultimate''.
*** For a large group of players (read: those who don't play in tournaments), this applies to ''every'' kind of "dashing" (except running) and "canceling" technique in ''Melee'', the previous game. The fact that they were nearly completely removed in ''Brawl'' was seen as a breath of fresh air for some of those who didn't base their playstyles on physics exploits nor intentional advanced techniques. On the other hand, their removal was a huge cause to the very BrokenBase, especially since many already-nerfed characters were nerfed even more as a result.
*** ''Brawl'''s random multiplayer. You're pitted against 1-3 anonymous opponents, and when someone quits, they're taken over by a CPU. Without notifying you. Most annoyingly, this feature was even touted on the official website. Unless you know the AI well enough, you'll never know whether your match was spent entirely with living, breathing humans or that awesome finish you pulled off in the final moments of the match was against the CPU.
*** ''Brawl's'' [[LimitBreak Final Smashes]] have also contributed heavily to its BrokenBase. If items are in play, there's a chance of a Smash Ball appearing, and if you break it, you can unleash a super attack that will knock out enemies instantly. The main problem is that while you ''can'' dodge the super moves in some way, most of the time, you won't be able to (especially if the level is tiny and hard to maneuver around) and thus the user practically gets a free kill or two. What's also worse are [[ComebackMechanic "Pity" Final Smashes]] that occur when a player is severely lagging behind in points and respawns with a Final Smash already in standby. However, ''Super Smash Bros. for Wii U'' and ''3DS'' {{Nerf}}ed the Final Smashes, heavily toning them down in damage and launch power, so that for the most part, opponents have to be heavily damaged already to be knocked out.
** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU''
*** Collecting custom attacks. It's a LuckBasedMission, only available through single player modes or the rare chance of having a bag spawn in a Smash match. The problem lied in how custom moves are lumped in with general equipment like stat buffers or even Mii costumes, so even after getting a guaranteed five custom parts after a Classic Mode match you have no idea if any of them are going to be full moves for your main or new hats for the Mii fighters until the match is over. Even worse is that it's possible to get repeats of both custom moves and other equipment, meaning that the item pool to draw from does not lower over time.
*** There is a time limit for replays in both versions of the 4th ''Smash'' installment. It lasts for some time beyond 10 minutes and any reasonable match will end long before that. However, replays will become unplayable once you've downloaded the latest update patch, which has happened at least ''9'' times. All because the damage output and mechanics for several characters have been altered, which would mess up live playbacks for outdated versions of the game. To avoid this before updating, the Wii U version has an option for uploading video recorded matches to Website/YouTube and Miiverse, but these replays can't exceed 3 minutes. As for the 3DS version, your only options are a capture device or an off-screen recording with a camera. And because that's not enough, while the Wii U version appears to save as much replays as you want depending on the console's memory, the 3DS version isn't so lucky. Did you just have an [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments epic]] or [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments hilarious]] match and want a replay of it? Well, if you've already reach the limit of 64 saved replays, the game almost tauntingly displays the message "You cannot save any more replays.", regardless of how much space you have in your SD card. At that point during the Results screen, there is no option to delete an old replay to save a new one.
** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate''
*** ''Ultimate''[='=]s matchmaking lets you tweak your preferences so that the game favors giving you matches with a particular ruleset (timed battle, stock battle, 1-on-1, team battle, items on/off, etc.) While it's understandable that the game won't always give you a match with the exact rules you want (it would likely take ''hours'' to give you a match otherwise), it's still entirely possible to, say, put down that you want 1v1's with no items and no gimmick stages and still end up in a 4-player free-for-all with everything on, or vice versa, with no option to review the rules you'll be put under and the option to subsequently back out without penalty.
*** Every character in ''Ultimate'' mode is playable in Classic Mode... ''except'' for the Mii Fighters. Are you a Mii Gunner, Mii Swordfighter, or Mii Brawler main who feels like playing Classic Mode? You're out of luck.

** ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal'': The Hacker segments, the most unholy example of {{Padding}} in history of gaming. In previous games hacking segments that opened next door/activated something were either a puzzle (Tresspasser, Infiltrator) or required precisely timed actions for a brief period of time (Electrolyzer). Hacker is essentially a shooter segment where you grab green blobs by a harpoon, shoot red blobs with a gun, and you must prevent red blob from reaching your end. The green blobs are much scarcer than their red counterpart, you may need to grab 10-25 green blobs before given stage of the segment ends, and the segments for doors in last levels usually have 4 stages. This essentially means you can wipe an army guarding the door in a minute with your weapons only to take 5 minutes by unlocking the door itself, needlessly breaking action.

** ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal'': The Hacker segments, the most unholy example of {{Padding}} in history of gaming. In previous games hacking segments that opened next door/activated something were either a puzzle (Tresspasser, Infiltrator) or required precisely timed actions for a brief period of time (Electrolyzer). Hacker is essentially a shooter segment where you grab green blobs by a harpoon, shoot red blobs with a gun, an you must prevent red blob from reaching your end. The green blobs are much scarcer than red, you may need to grab 10-25 green blobs before given stage of the segment ends, and the segments for doors in last levels usually have 4 stages. This essentially means you can wipe an army guarding the door in a minute with your weapons only to take 5 minutes by unlocking the door itself, needlessly breaking action.

** ''Videogame/RachetAndClank2002'' had a very weird and impractical way of handling strafing. To even be able to do it, you needed to acquire Thurster Pack for clank, and then you could only strafe while hovering mode was active. The later games thankfully scrapped this away - Ratchet just strafes on his own when corresponding button is pressed, and it can be combined with lock-on mode if your current weapon has it.
** ''Videogame/RachetAndClankGoingCommando'': starship battles may count due to clunky controls which were at their worst during optional space races against Ace Bunyon, which also involved PassThroughTheRings challenge and you couldn't miss a single one if you wanted Titanium bolt at the end of race.
** ''Videogame/RachetAndClankUpYourArsenal'': The Hacker segments, the most unholy example of {{Padding}} in history of gaming. In previous games hacking segments that opened next door/activated something were either a puzzle (Tresspasser, Infiltrator) or required precisely timed actions for a brief period of time (Electrolyzer). Hacker is essentially a shooter segment where you grab green blobs by a harpoon, shoot red blobs with a gun, an you must prevent red blob from reaching your end. The green blobs are much scarcer than red, you may need to grab 10-25 green blobs before given stage of the segment ends, and the segments for doors in last levels usually have 4 stages. This essentially means you can wipe an army guarding the door in a minute with your weapons only to take 5 minutes by unlocking the door itself, needlessly breaking action.

*** The game has really in-depth and ''really'' picky CopyProtection, explained in great detail [[https://web.archive.org/web/20150611154736/http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3030/keeping_the_pirates_at_bay.php in an article]] by one of the developers for those who are interested in such things. The issue is it's notoriously easy to trip these ''even on a legit copy'' if the lens in your console is a bit dirty, the disc has a scratch, if there's a gust of wind outside... As this game's anti-piracy measures are subtle but rather cruel (gone into in great depths under CopyProtection, and [[https://tcrf.net/Spyro:_Year_of_the_Dragon#Anti-Piracy this website]]), it's left many innocent gamers frustrated and wondering why they can't finish the game or where their save files have gone. It's even worse on the ''Greatest Hits'' edition where the developers fixed the "Terminated Console" bypass... without bothering to fix any of the things that would trigger the anti-piracy measures on legitimate copies.

** Across all the games the Bounce Crates, the ones that you can jump on multiple times for Wumpa Fruit before they break, are disliked by most players. At best they just slow the game down, making you stop dead in your tracks and bounce on them for the fruit inside as spinning them yields nothing, and at worst they will appear as parts of bridges forcing you to meticulously count out how many bounces each one can take in order to bust them all and still get through. It's pretty telling that, if you watch ''any'' LetsPlay or walkthrough online, the players tend to sacrifice the reward in them by spinning them just because it's not worth wasting the time it takes to bounce on them.

** ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack'' and ''Videogame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'': Nitro Switches detonate every [[HairTriggerExplosive Nitro Crate]] in the level, but the splash effect destroying other boxes doesn't count towards your total, meaning you have to destroy every box ''ever so carefully'', including those conveniently sandwiched between Nitros. And some levels in ''3'' don't even have the Nitro Switch, instead expecting you to destroy every single one manually with your Wumpa Fruit Bazooka or vehicle weapons. Have fun finding out [[GuideDangIt which levels this applies to]] 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 damnedest not to slide into the various traps or Nitros the game will throw at you.