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Razmos

Unshakeable One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
15,890
The Last Guardian.
Every puzzle was just standing there shouting and screaming for Trico to do something, and even when you have the puzzle figured out its a crapshoot on if Trico is actually going to listen to you or not.
I ended up quitting the game when I knew exactly what to do with a puzzle to get to the next area but it just wouldn't happen, I looked up video guides which showed that what I was doing was correct but nothing was happening
 
Oct 28, 2017
1,091
The Last Remnant. I was so pissed after being hyped for a new square RPG on 360. I bought a strategy guide for it because I felt so powerless. Even the fucking strategy guide for combat and bosses boiled down to, "hope your squad AI does this here" constantly because you didn't have direct control. It was maddening on top of looking ugly and running terribly.
Yeah this game unnecessarily difficult. At some point I just used cheats to see the ending, but I was surprised how much hits it still took to defeat enemies despite being roided-out. The game looked and ran good on PC though and the music is great.
 

Tokyo_Funk

Banned
Dec 10, 2018
10,053
I mentioned this in a RPG mechanics thread before, but it still stands: The Last Remnant. I've tried it over and over and never got the hang of the combat system.
 

killuglypop

Member
Jan 9, 2020
976
I've always had trouble with the Phantasy Star series, Etrian Odyssey and anything Shin Megami Tensei. Even with mapping systems I just can't get my head around team combinations and stats :/
 

Forerunner

Resetufologist
The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
14,569
Shadow Empire. People having been hyping this game up like it is the second coming for 4x games.

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julia crawford

Took the red AND the blue pills
Member
Oct 27, 2017
35,157
I don't remember having a lot of trouble with Grim Fandango 🤔 except for that one part where you had to find an exit in a forest after leaving the city. That was beyond me.
 

Misuta

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 31, 2017
929
Germany
Wonderful 101. Absolutely absurd controls and so difficult to wrap your mind around the gameplay that it wasn't any fun for me. Great for those that made it through though, more power to you.
I found the game difficult, too which is a shame because I like the music.

Don't forget, you could even screw yourself over trying to grind because there was a hidden meter battle rank that effected scaling for some reason. Meaning you were sabotaging yourself for the late game. Just astoundingly boneheaded stuff all around.
I wish the game has a normal level system because I loved the battle system and I get punished by the stupid battle rank.
 

Deadceptor

Member
Oct 26, 2017
536
The Last Remnant. I was so pissed after being hyped for a new square RPG on 360. I bought a strategy guide for it because I felt so powerless. Even the fucking strategy guide for combat and bosses boiled down to, "hope your squad AI does this here" constantly because you didn't have direct control. It was maddening on top of looking ugly and running terribly.

Hoo boy, fuck this game. This is always going to be my answer in threads like these.

This game also ran absolutely terribly. I've never had a console game...especially a turn based one have so many massive framerate drops.

It was "Unreal Engine: the Game" back then...it was a major showcase for the engine's biggest flaws.
 

Antony

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,684
PlayStation Home
Monster Hunter, the entire series prior to World.
If you've never heard of kiranico then good luck!
From not knowing how certain quests unlock (or that they're even available to unlock) to not being told what skills actually do to having no indications as to where/how certain materials are found it was all an obtuse mess for many years.
 

TeenageFBI

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,226
Back in the day, I wound up finishing Grim Fandango without a guide. I grew up on bullshit adventure game logic though and I'd advise everyone playing now to check a guide. The game's real strengths are is in its writing, characters, and music.
 
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pbayne

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,340
The Last Remnant. I was so pissed after being hyped for a new square RPG on 360. I bought a strategy guide for it because I felt so powerless. Even the fucking strategy guide for combat and bosses boiled down to, "hope your squad AI does this here" constantly because you didn't have direct control. It was maddening on top of looking ugly and running terribly.

Yep, ive never felt like i had so little control over the outcome in a game
 

alexwise

Member
Nov 3, 2017
358
Motorstorm Pacific Rift.

Rubber band AI makes it almost frustrating and impossible to beat later stages of the festival. You can't rely on your skill much to win as it's mostly luck-based at that point.
 

fourfourfun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,679
England
I remember Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare on SNES making me want to poke my eyes out.

Also, some from Amiga days. Hacker, but that was kind of the point. And then Liberation on the CD32. I never got the point of that game... it was billed as having a lifetime of content, but I ended up doing the same thing over and over and over again, with seemingly no traction. Would love to hear any Liberation experiences from other players and if they had a better time than me!
 

JusDoIt

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
34,647
South Central Los Angeles
Most, if not all, modern fighting games.

I love them but the logic that they operate on at high level play generally doesn't make intuitive sense with reality. Some games embrace this fact and just go full stylish (anime fighters) but the mechanics of Street Fighter and even Mortal Kombat (which is markedly more accessible) tend not to make sense to most people I know.

It's all built on a canon of pro players digging really deep into analysis on frame data and other stuff that's not obvious or explainable to the naked eye and takes a lot more thinking and understanding of under-the-hood game systems than most fighting game acclimated players tend to think about anymore. It's a very hard sell to anyone that hasn't picked up that kind of thought processing from other video games already or grew up as fighting games matured organically from the player base digging deep into them in the arcade days.

Trying to explain to someone that it's a game about fighting one another, but then trying to explain the logic of something like meaties is kinda mind-bending to them, because meaties is entirely video game logic where a move is actively harmful in states that don't exactly look like they carry the kind of momentum to be harmful. "His arm is just hanging there, therefore it will hurt" is not what most people think of when they think of fighting. On the other hand, footsies is kinda easy to explain in a realistic manner, but there's a whole lot of stuff like meaties and hurtboxes and frame data that's much more obtuse and complicated to puzzle together, especially at the breakneck pace that pro players will interpret and weave all of these concepts together in mere milliseconds.

Meaties and footsies have legit been an aspect of fighting games since SFII.
 

FooF

One Winged Slayer
Member
Mar 24, 2020
686
trying to get into any live service game after it's been going on for years.
 

werezompire

Zeboyd Games
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
11,319
Siren 1 is the king here IMO. It's like they took a difficult point & click adventure game and combined it with a difficult horror/stealth game AND it's drastically longer than games in either genre tend to be. The game is genius, but good luck beating it without having a guide. Thankfully, Siren 2 & Siren: Blood Curse are both a lot more accessible.
 

Mass One

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,116
The gunplay in Mafia III is the best thing about it.
Was Gonna say that too lol. So smooth and visceral. Literally everything else sucked ass.

For the thread topic, I'll say fighting games. I still remember trying to practice combos online and just being frustrated by different terminologies. Like having to convert 41236 + hk to actual controller buttons.
 

Starlatine

533.489 paid youtubers cant be wrong
Member
Oct 28, 2017
30,372
I have a hard time seeing that any game can compete with Myst in this category

How is Myst obtuse? All the puzzles have a very defined logic behind them, to a fault in many cases (hello Riven). Unless you find puzzles by themselves obtuse and in which case why are you playing a puzzle game.
 

Okii

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,189
can't imagine being new to destiny 2 in 2020. "where's the story, what do these different materials do, where do i go, what guns are good, how do i do the raids i've heard about, why are there three different colors of hive, why do i have to go to the tower for bounties instead of a menu, is there a story" and so on and so on and so on
Yeah this is a good answer, I genuinely felt embarrassed trying to attempt to explain how Destiny 2 works to my girlfriend, like I didn't even believe my own bullshit I was saying, it feels like a nonsense sci-fi mad lib at all the time.
 
May 19, 2020
4,828
Yeah this is a good answer, I genuinely felt embarrassed trying to attempt to explain how Destiny 2 works to my girlfriend, like I didn't even believe my own bullshit I was saying, it feels like a nonsense sci-fi mad lib at all the time.
destiny 2 in its current state is like those cones of dunshire scenes in parks and recreation but in this case destiny 2 has actual real people that apologize for its dopey obtuse structure and rules lol
 

FTF

Member
Oct 28, 2017
28,360
New York
What's that game with the guy in the pot and a hammer or pickaxe and you have to climb up? Yeah whatever that is.
 

SwampBastard

The Fallen
Nov 1, 2017
11,014
can't imagine being new to destiny 2 in 2020. "where's the story, what do these different materials do, where do i go, what guns are good, how do i do the raids i've heard about, why are there three different colors of hive, why do i have to go to the tower for bounties instead of a menu, is there a story" and so on and so on and so on
This is me. I started playing it when Stadia launched last year and while I enjoy the gunplay and have completed all of the campaign stuff that I have access to, I have no idea how almost anything works within the game's economy.
 

Ralemont

Member
Jan 3, 2018
4,508
I'd have to agree with Siren 1. I tried to play it for Halloween this year and just couldn't figure it out.
 

Bear

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,861
Souls games. I'll pop into the Demon's Souls thread and find people almost speaking another language. I've only really put time into Bloodborne (which I dropped at Vicar Amelia) but I'm sure I missed a ton of super important stuff that I wouldn't be able to find without using a guide. It's great that people love this kind of obscurity but it's just not for me.
 

tripleg

Alt Account
Banned
Jul 30, 2020
1,132
I find fighting game lingo incredibly unintuitive too. What the fuck does the word "meaty" have to do with a move you do when someone else is waking up? I'm not even sure if I have that definition right.

Then there are street names for certain moves that only passed by word of mouth. Or notation that uses move names instead of inputs.

That's usually what happens when a game hits sub-culture levels. It's weird that we're focusing only on Fighting games for this, I'm a huge novice when it comes to rhythm games, but they have some crazy terms as well. Novice when it comes to fortnite and I think I know what 'pulling a 90' is.

I think separating 'fighting game lingo' with the point that fighting games at upper levels (which is the post you quoted) is obtuse is probably ideal to have a reasonable discussion.

I also disagree with the poster, Fighting games aren't anymore obscure than any other game genre. At high levels of play in any genre, you'll have your group of people talking about systems and mechanics like you would in FGs. Take a look at the speedrunning community, the dark souls communities talking about iframes, etc.
 

thenexus6

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,308
UK
Obduction having to travel between different areas for two seconds then jumping back. The game has overly long loading times between the two, and it's just annoying and not fun.
 

B00T

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,650
I'm surprised no one mentioned the original Digimon World yet.
 

AzVal

Member
May 7, 2018
1,873
I beat the original Demon's Souls, they probably won't get another dime from me.
 

EarlGreyHot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,376
Those old point and click games like Day of the Tentacle and Space Quest were almost impossible to figure out. I couldn't do it without a guide.

Myst is another one. I don't think I ever made any headway in that game.
 

oldzac

Member
Jan 22, 2020
186
I've resigned to using a guide for Grim Fandango.

Use the baster for dirty water..
Move the ashtray..

Is all so random.
They didn't really think about how the means would make sense to accomplish the end.

The story is funny, the characters are charming and the actors and great. But the mechanics are trash.

Imo nothing is really lost by playing Grim Fandango with a guide. The story and characters are what make the game great, not the puzzles.
 

BumbleChump

Member
Aug 19, 2018
535
Monster Hunter.

I can't lock onto targets, I can't see anything when big monsters are close because it covers the whole screen, weapons can be very slow to start and recover, getting dizzy sometimes becomes a game over, sometimes I never find the monster, the menus are unbelievably confusing, figuring out how to play online with a friend is confusing, my god this game.

That being said, I love everything else Capcom makes. I just can't understand the appeal of Monster Hunter.
 

PKrockin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,260
I can't tell if 2D fighting games are intentionally obtuse because the playerbase is too invested in them or if the devs just can't be assed to change. It's hard to imagine how one could think it's a good idea to continue using these complex motions and combine it with shitty delay-based netcode, especially with so much of the player base on wifi. Jesus Christ, how could you not immediately see this as a recipe for frustration.
 

Jaded Alyx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
35,351
I've finished Black Mesa / Half-Life yesterday and I won't touch another HL game. Repetitive puzzles, shitty boss fights, awful platforming, often I was wondering what to do because shit didn't make any sense. Fuck Interloper, the most frustrating level I've ever played.
Half-Life 2, the Episodes, and Alyx are nothing like the first game in that and many other regards.
 

dtcm83

Member
Oct 28, 2017
533
Surprised nobody has mentioned Ecco the Dolphin. I had no idea what I was doing in that game back when it first came out, and trying it a couple times later on in life when I have much more gaming experience yielded the same results. For me, that was my first big "wtf" game.