History ScrappyMechanic / ResidentEvil

The jewelry-setting mechanic lets you choose combinations of gemstones that add on to the treasure's value and even multiply it. The problem is that even if you loot every possible treasure and gemstone in the game, the number of objects that need rectangular gems is always much higher than the number of rectangular gems available to find, with most of what you'll get coming at the mercy of incredibly stingy Rare Random Drops, leaving you with an excess of half-completed treasures and round gemstones until you finally say "screw it" and offload them for a lesser windfall.

* In order to provide some realism, ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' was programmed so that Leon cannot hold his gun completely still. As a result, if the player takes too long to shoot, Leon will shake slightly and lose his aim. While this isn't much of a problem against slow or static enemies, it can lead to FakeDifficulty when handling enemies that constantly move around.
* This game introduces real-time reloading, meaning you can't reload your gun by combining it with its ammunition on the inventory screen like in previous entries. Instead, the player must trigger an animation where Leon manually inserts the bullets into his equipped weapon, which leaves him vulnerable and unable to run for its entire duration. Predictably, the stronger the gun, the longer its reloading animation is.
* The absence of item boxes forces the player to carefully manage their inventories, since not even the largest Attache Case can hold every weapon in the game. As a result, once the inventory starts to get cloggy, the player has no choice but to either discard some of their equipment or sell them to the merchant. Either way, the items will be lost forever. Sure, you can re-buy any guns from the Merchant if you change your mind, but any upgrades you bought for them before are lost to the ether.
* The ActionCommands penalize the player for dropping their guard during cutscenes, as almost all of them come without warning and result in a Game Over. Made even worse during the infamous Leon vs. Krauser knife duel, in which you must do several QTE's (which can be unresponsive even if you press the right buttons) spread over one long unskippable cutscene. And if you lose then it's instant game over and you must redo the entire scene from the start.
* While ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4Remake'' launched to near-universal praise and is seen as one of ''the'' best Franchise/ResidentEvil entries alongside giants like the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil4 the original 4]] and [[VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake Remake]], the introduction of PayToWin {{Microtransactions}} where you can spend real money to upgrade your weapons in the single-player Mercenaries minigame has been hit with near-universal scorn. Even videos praising the remake as the penultimate example of what ''all'' remakes should be criticize this move:
--> '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egI6kOBrJcA Ruby Of Blue]]:''' Unfortunately The Mercenaries patch also saw the release of a fucking MICROTRANSACTION STORE! Letting you buy upgrade tickets for the in-game weapons with ''real money''. Pay-to-win DLC for a ''single-player game''. To the corporate executive dipshit who forced the devs to tack this clown shit onto an otherwise great game: ''this is why your mother doesn't love you.''

* Unlike nearly every other game in the series, ''6'' refuses to let you wear the costumes you unlock in The Mercenaries in the main game. The Switch version would eventually let players wear these alternate costumes, but people who play the game on the original hardware or the ports for the PS4 and Xbox One are out of luck.

[[folder:Resident Evil 4]]

* The dodge mechanic, while NotCompletelyUseless, can be a bit clumsy and random, as there's no guarantee it'll actually work. Not helping is the fact that the mechanic is only [[AllThereInTheManual mentioned in supplementary material and not the actual game itself]], and can require a lot of practice to get right. Against many non-zombie enemies, it's surprisingly easy to dodge by complete accident, as it's done with the same button used for shooting. For Hunters this can be an absolute nightmare, as the insanely drawn out rolling animation you get locked in will give them plenty of time to catch up and hit you anyway. In the 2020 remake, the dodge mechanic was greatly improved from its original incarnation, and was played up in pre-release marketing, to a ''much'' warmer reception.

* The ''One-Shot'' demo only allowed players up to 30 minutes of playtime, though you could reach the end of the demo before time was up. Many hated the limitation at its release, as it was too strict and discouraged the player from exploring. As such, some found [[GoodBadBugs a way to reset/freeze the timer]] so that they could play as long as they wanted. Capcom later released an altered version of the demo called the ''R.P.D. Demo'', which removes the time limit, and for the later release of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil8Village'', a demo with a time limit was released (also with 30 minutes) that had a much-stricter focus -- ''and'' an alternate demo that allowed players to explore a different area at their own pace, effectively being the best of both worlds.

* The very core mechanic of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'', the two-person team, was barely tolerated at best and outright despised at worst. Sheva (or Chris in the NewGamePlus) has such [[ArtificialStupidity abysmally stupid AI]] that, between blowing ammo that ''you'' could use to effectively take out enemies, wasting [[TooAwesomeToUse first-aid sprays]] on papercuts, running gleefully into the blades of the [[DemonicSpider Chain Saw Majini]], and giving you a GameOver after getting her head immediately sawed off as a result, and as numerous "[[GameMod solo-mode mods]]" have proven, the game is ''actually easier'' without her "[[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper helping]]" you. She only becomes a welcome addition to the team if you manage to beat the game and unlock the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Longbow]], which has unlimited ammo and high damage at the cost of lacking an aiming reticle (which has no effect on an AI partner), which means she's actually able to carry her weight.
* The fact that your AI-Partner could ''say no'' when you needed an item or issued an order. You don't get full control over item management like you did in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'': this time around if your partner has an item you want you need to ask for it, and the partner can actually refuse, leaving you in a tight spot if you really need those shotgun shells but Sheva for some reason decides she can do better with them. What was meant to add to the game's immersion and make you feel like you truly are part of a team instead only added an unnecessary annoyance factor, made only worse by some dodgy game mechanics that would sometimes make an item request impossible because the game thought you were too far apart to do it.

* The fact that this game is a further step toward ActionizedSequel is one thing that divides the fanbase. The fact that ammo drops are generally random and players are very often to be understocked is another thing, especially how the game has large amount of mandatory combat sequences.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'':
** The very core mechanic of the game, the two-person team, was barely tolerated at best and outright despised at worst. Sheva (or Chris in the NewGamePlus) has such [[ArtificialStupidity abysmally stupid AI]] that, between blowing ammo that ''you'' could use to effectively take out enemies, wasting [[TooAwesomeToUse first-aid sprays]] on papercuts, running gleefully into the blades of the [[DemonicSpider Chain Saw Majini]], and giving you a GameOver after getting her head immediately sawed off as a result, and as numerous "[[GameMod solo-mode mods]]" have proven, the game is ''actually easier'' without her "[[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper helping]]" you. She only becomes a welcome addition to the team if you manage to beat the game and unlock the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Longbow]], which has unlimited ammo and high damage at the cost of lacking an aiming reticle (which has no effect on an AI partner), which means she's actually able to carry her weight.
** The fact that your AI-Partner could ''say no'' when you needed an item or issued an order. You don't get full control over item management like you did in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'': this time around if your partner has an item you want you need to ask for it, and the partner can actually refuse, leaving you in a tight spot if you really need those shotgun shells but Sheva for some reason decides she can do better with them. What was meant to add to the game's immersion and make you feel like you truly are part of a team instead only added an unnecessary annoyance factor, made only worse by some dodgy game mechanics that would sometimes make an item request impossible because the game thought you were too far apart to do it.

* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'', your main source of ammunition in the game is gunpowder, together with the reloading tool. The bottles come in three varieties, A, B and C (and the last one is only available after already mixing the first two together). This can be a huge pain in the ass to manage -- not only do you have to do more inventory shuffling than before, keeping track of the combination mixes, but the game randomizes the location of pick-ups. You can find yourself easily screwed over if the game decides to be stingy and not give you any gunpowder needed for magnum ammo. What's more, the game does not allow you to combine double or triple A and B powders together to make double or triple C, even though the number of ingredients is exactly the same. You always have to combine single A and B together to make C and then combine those. One last annoyance is that crafting ammo gives you experience that eventually allows the creation of advanced ammo - but for some reason, combined powders give the same amount of experience as just one, so combining a bunch of A's and B's to save space will screw you over! Thankfully, the advanced ammo is totally unnecessary, as the upgraded pistol and shotgun serve the same purpose (and can only be loaded with the basic ammo, anyway!). ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Remake'' fortunately makes the gunpowder mechanic ''much'' more simplified and provides actual ammo drops for players to use.

* The absence of item boxes forces the player to carefully manage their inventories, since not even the largest Attache Case can hold every weapon in the game. As a result, once the inventory starts to get cloggy, the player has no choice but to either discard some of their equipment or sell them to the merchant. Either way, the items will be lost forever.

* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'', your main source of ammunition in the game is gunpowder, together with the reloading tool. The bottles come in three varieties, A, B and C (and the last one is only available after already mixing the first two together). This can be a huge pain in the ass to manage -- not only do you have to do more inventory shuffling than before, keeping track of the combination mixes, but the game randomizes the location of pick-ups. You can find yourself easily screwed over if the game decides to be stingy and not give you any gunpowder needed for magnum ammo. What's more, the game does not allow you to combine double or triple A and B powders together to make double or triple C, even though the number of ingredients is exactly the same. You always have to combine single A and B together to make C and then combine those. ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Remake'' fortunately makes the gunpowder mechanic ''much'' more simplified and provides actual ammo drops for players to use.
* The dodge mechanic, while NotCompletelyUseless, can be a bit clumsy and random, as there's no guarantee it'll actually work. Not helping is the fact that the mechanic is only [[AllThereInTheManual mentioned in supplementary material and not the actual game itself]], and can require a lot of practice to get right. In the 2020 remake, the dodge mechanic was greatly improved from its original incarnation, and was played up in pre-release marketing, to a ''much'' warmer reception.

* The D.I.J. Diary in the Battle Game. It's a [[JokeItem nonsensical document]] hidden in a slot machine that replaces a special weapon or ammo for each character. Usually, this is just a minor "haha, very funny" type of annoyance, but you can still find the stupid thing when playing as the knife-only Wesker, who ''[[UnwinnableByMistake cannot kill the final boss]]'' without the Magnum he's supposed to find there instead. And this slot machine turns up shortly after the halfway point in the Battle Game, meaning you've already wasted a lot of time and effort on a very challenging mode before you get to find out whether or not the game thought it'd be funny to completely screw you over.

* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'', your main source of ammunition in the game is gunpowder, together with the reloading tool. The bottles come in three varieties, A, B and C (and the last one is only available after already mixing the first two together). This can be a huge pain in the ass to manage -- not only do you have to do more inventory shuffling than before, keeping track of the combination mixes, but the game randomizes the location of pick-ups. You can find yourself easily screwed over if the game decides to be stingy and not give you any gunpowder needed for magnum ammo. What's more, the game does not allow you to combine double or triple A and B powders together to make double or triple C, even though the number of ingredients is exactly the same. You always have to combine single A and B together to make C and then combine those.
* The dodge mechanic, while NotCompletelyUseless, can be a bit clumsy and random, as there's no guarantee it'll actually work. Not helping is the fact that the mechanic is only [[AllThereInTheManual mentioned in supplementary material and not the actual game itself]], and can require a lot of practice to get right. In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Remake'', the dodge mechanic was greatly improved from its original incarnation, and was played up in pre-release marketing, to a ''much'' warmer reception.