[General Discussion] Have you hit a wall? (noclip FTW)

Quote:

Stephen Totilo, at MTV Games, has hit a gaming wall. At the newly un-flashed Multiplayer site he talks about the bane of gamers everywhere, what developer Jamie Fristrom calls a 'shelf-level event': a gaming wall that makes it hard if not impossible to complete a game. While a lot of gamers can overcome difficulties to reach the end credits, there are some frustrations that can suck all the fun out of play. He cites the bosses from Final Fantasy X and Super Paper Mario as dealbreakers. I personally am playing through God of War again, and the incredibly frustrating spear trap in the 'Paths of Madness' section of the game never fails to provoke hysterics. Have you run into any such obstacles lately? What game obstacles have caused you toss away a controller in frustration and swear off a game entirely?

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl.../02/06/2154237

Interesting article about straws that break the proverbial camel's back. I know I've had a few in my day, one of which I posted in the ensuing discussion on the Slashdot page.

Originally Posted by yours truly

Zone of the Enders 2. Let me start by saying that I played and LOVED the first ZOE, and have finished and LOVE MOST OF the 2nd. Gameplay-wise, the 2nd is a vast improvement, or perhaps refinement, over the first and just plain shines.

Until you reach a certain boss. Those of you who have played the game probably know where I'm going with this.

The boss battle basically consists of fighting against a possessed ally whom you must cure, but CANNOT KILL lest you lose the fight and have to start over. It's essentially a battle of timing, as you have to attack the boss at the same time the boss attacks you, repeat 2-3 times, and then grab hold of it to cure your ally of the virus infecting their ship ("frame" as they're called in the game).

This battle is next to impossible in all but the initial playthrough of the game, and even then it's no picnic. The reason it actually gets harder as you replay the game is that you start over from round 1 with a maxed-out character. This means all special abilities/weapons, max damage, near invulnerability to enemy attacks, etc.

Problem is, when you reach this boss, the boss will die in 2-3 direct hits due to your superpowered ship, yet you're still required to line up the same 9-10 perfectly-timed hits as in the first time through so you can grab the boss and cure the possession. Add to that the fact that the timing required is ridiculously precise and that the game really, truly seems to cheat half the time (properly-timed attacks wind up hurting the boss instead of opening the window to grab) just to get an edge over you, and all semblance of fun and enjoyment go straight out the window. It also merits mentioning that the boss is EXTREMELY talkative and, to my knowledge, there is no way to shut off character voice-overs. Couple the repeated loss of the battle with having to hear the boss constantly taunt your character and the battle gets really old, really fast.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the most fun parts of the game (the 2nd half or a little less), including a couple of amazing battles, are AFTER this maddening boss fight.

I've gotten to the point where I consider the level immediately before the boss (a nifty train chase) to be the de-facto end of the game, and I just turn it off after that. The battle is so horrible it quite effectively ruins--completely and utterly ruins--what is otherwise a great action/adventure title.

So, Viola AI battle for the lose, but has anyone else here experienced an "oh, fuck you" moment that caused them to abandon a game?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Wait, he's having trouble with FINAL FANTASY X? Is he 4? Also, how come he's complaining about Super Paper Mario when that game isn't going to be out for another 6 months, possibly more.

Also, never had an issue with the Viola AI. That entire game was too easy for it's own good. Fun as FUCKING HELL though.

I've had horrendous plot twists ruin games for me before, though (Star Ocean 3 comes to mind), but most of the challenge issues don't really casue me to drop the game and leave it unless it's unfairly difficult as opposed to just being challenging.

Even then, I'd be hard pressed to think of a game off the top of my head that I've abandoned over difficulty instead of just flat out losing general interest.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Entire Mortal Kombat series.

The AI is just retardedly unfair and hasn't changed in years. As much as Ed Boon tries, all of their newer games seem to feature the same rigged, moronic artificial intelligence which causes a player to think "hey, how'd he know I was going to do that?" while playing. This happened with MK1, 2, 3, fuck, all of them. MK1 was the most frustrating I think, special thanks to Kano and Rayden. MK3 would come in second place due to Stryker and Kabal. Fuck Kabal.

I can't believe the guy's complaining about Final Fantasy X. How the fuck can you honestly get stuck on an RPG boss. Go around, level up some more, and come back. Kill it and move on.

The most recent game I gave up on would be Metal Slug 6, because of the third boss. It's just ridiculous and awkward to control your slug, as well as aim, as well as dodge. Locked cannon sometimes helps, but they don't have that in the arcade and I like to stick to as close as the arcade as possible.

Unless the guy's talking about FFX International's Penance, which he probably isn't, he's an idiot. I just lost interest in FFX after getting back to Zanarkand, but since I recently picked up the International version for cheap I'd like to play through it again.

While I love hard games (like Galuda, Daioujou, God Hand, Mushihime, F-Zero GX) I usually will continue to ply them because I like them. When a game offers you nothing but frustration you might as well quit life. Especially when it comes to being a fucking RPG.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Final Fantasy VII.

Yes, that easy piece of crap of a game.

My characters are horrendously underleveled at the last boss. Level 57? It's been a long time since I popped the game in... Anyway, I just couldn't survive against Safer Sephiroth. That Supernova attack didn't do much, but that wing sure did. T_T

And Grandia II, I might add. Valmar's Core was the biggest bitch in the world. Once again, due to me underleveling my characters... But hell, I managed to get THAT far without freaking out too much.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Colonel Skills

I've had horrendous plot twists ruin games for me before, though (Star Ocean 3 comes to mind)

Y HALO THAR FINAL FANTASY VIII.

"We're all from the same orphange for no explicable or poignant reason LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO"

*drops controller, turns off game, never plays it again.*

I was speaking idiomatically.

This happened to me all the time as a kid (before saving). In not-too-fun, platformer games, there's a level that's really deep in the game that you can never get past. So screw it, you stop trying, because it takes ages to just get there to die. "I'd rather just play Kirby or Streets of Rage again."

As for "walls" in games where you could save, usually Kings-Quest sort of games did it for me, in the days before the internet. "Oh of course I'm stuck three screens from the final scene and Daventry is doomed forever. I didn't click a second time on that nondescript green bush in that cave you can only enter once, back in the first third of the game."

Also, I walled on FF6 in the world of ruin when my emulator started taking away people's powers for no reason. Why can't I runic anymore, Celes?

How ya doing, buddy?

Unfortunate, you probably had her equipped with a sword and/or weapon that didn't allow Runic. There's a bunch of them.

FELIPE NO

Yeah, it happened to a lot of my characters and I thought I tried unequipping everything and running other tests to fix the problem, but it probably was something stupid like that. Just stalled my enthusiasm though. A shame.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

DMC3 was one of the biggest wall, I love dmc games but I kind of suck at them I play mostly on easy yeah I know XD and when it was easy for dmc1, dmc3 even on easy was hard as hell for some bosses XD I still can't figure how I beat the last boss because I can't seem to beat him anymore XD

the other one is the bouncer final boss on the third play through, you have to beat him like 3 time in a row and each time he goes even stronger and there's no way to heal yourself in between fight XD

and zoe2 was pretty easy for me (and no this one I don't play on easy XD)

oh Legend of legaia was pretty hard, well most monster are easy to kill but you get almost no xp and no money so when there's a boss you are generally a little low lv the boss do attack very strong to all the party and you had no money, so you either don't have any healing item left or no good equip at all XD

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Elixir

I can't believe the guy's complaining about Final Fantasy X. How the fuck can you honestly get stuck on an RPG boss. Go around, level up some more, and come back. Kill it and move on.

Some RPG bosses can be difficult, regardless of level. Demi-Fiend from DDS and The Egg from SaGa Frontier 2 come to mind. It's obviously a different story with FF games but it's still a wrong assumption to make.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Colonel Skills

Some RPG bosses can be difficult, regardless of level. Demi-Fiend from DDS and The Egg from SaGa Frontier 2 come to mind. It's obviously a different story with FF games but it's still a wrong assumption to make.

That's why I was talking about FFX, not SaGa Frontier 2.

It's not like there's an overflowing amount of RPGs which have difficult bosses which aren't deliberately overpowered.

How ya doing, buddy?

I'm running into this with Grandia III right. I'm getting really sick of their "Bet you can't do this" mentality when it comes to bosses and enemies. I just finished beating a boss that three parts, one two of them had 28 000 HP, and the third had 32 000 HP. The last boss i had faced before then had like 12 000. Not only that, but if both of the two lesser parts decided to use this one spell (which they used waaaaaaay too often) then it could decimate my party in the blink of an eye. Some times this boss would change it's form to a bird that moved around the IP meter at insane rates, attacking twice for every one attack i manged to get in. This boss required me to use every special healing item, and revival item that i had acquired throughout the game, thus decimating my store of emergency use items. I can understand using two or three Revival Elixirs in one boss battle, but nine?

I was probably under leveled, which is stupid, because I was over leveled for the temple before it. This implies that they expect me to get into a weeks worth of battles in between two adjacent plot points. The spike in difficulty is just too great.

I sort of know what this guy was talking about for FFX though. The second time you fight Seymour after he's been killed (or i guess the third time you fight him over all) on Mount Gagazette, i beat him with two KOed characters, and Auron who was still standing, zombified, with 124 HP. I remember it vividly, because it was my 10th time attempting that boss that day, after insane amounts of leveling up days before hand, and i finished him off with just one lask desperate attack from Auron's sword.

I deffinetly would say that there are some parts of many games out there that don't have a story good enough, or graphics pretty enough, or gameplay drawing enough etc. to warrant enough care to beat these intensley hard bosses/puzzles (most games have a spot like this).

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

FFX is too easy the aeon overdrive strategie can be use for almost all hard boss through the story (not talking about optional boss)

even if the boss kill your aeon one shot you always can use one attack before they are killed, you only need to put them all in overdrive and most of the time it kill the boss or it is almost death ... I know it's not "fair" but I use it I think 2-3 time for some boss that are just annoying...

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Final Fantasy VII.

Yes, that easy piece of crap of a game.

My characters are horrendously underleveled at the last boss. Level 57? It's been a long time since I popped the game in... Anyway, I just couldn't survive against Safer Sephiroth. That Supernova attack didn't do much, but that wing sure did. T_T

You're kidding me right? Final Fantasy VII? Level 57 is not underleveled. I beat the game at level 55.

Totilo just sucks balls at games. Difficulty nowadays is nothing compared to what it was years ago. Can't beat Final Fantasy X? I'd like to see you try to beat Final Fantasy I, or hell IV for that matter.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I hit a wall in Jak II: Renegade. There was just one mission that I couldn't complete. No way, no how. I also hit a wall in Timesplitters 2. There were some of the arcade challenges that I couldn't possibly manage to complete. A more recent example would be Star Ocean III. I'm either going to abandon that game or start over, and level more.

The ultimate example of wall-hitting though, would be Ninja Gaiden: Black. I had been progressing in fits and starts for several chapters, but somewhere around about chapter 6 it just got way too hard for me.

How ya doing, buddy?

I hit a wall with Zelda: Majora's Mask.

I was on a quest to get every mask in the game, and the only one I didn't have at this point was the Wedding Mask from the Kafei/Anju storyline.

My first attempt, I got to the last part with the timed puzzles, and utterly failed.

I looked up a walkthrough, bonked myself on the head for being so stupid as to not see how to do it, and tried again.

I did it again, passing with flying colors, and headed back to the inn to wait.

At 3:50 left until the moon crashed, I suddenly heard a fluttering of wings, and the screen was replaced with a frame from the warp animation.

The game had fucking frozen.

I was so pissed I didn't play that game for well over a year, and when I DID, it was only to finally beat the game, screw the god damn questline. Hell, I still haven't replayed it, because I am that annoyed with my piece of shit console that takes a half-hour to start up, blowing on the cartridge and slot old-skool NES style.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

The Jak II is seconded. Seriously, the mission where you had to drive three lurkers from one place to another? Couldn't beat it if my life depended on it

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Kilroy

The Jak II is seconded. Seriously, the mission where you had to drive three lurkers from one place to another? Couldn't beat it if my life depended on it

For me it was the one where you have to blow up five Hellcats without getting killed yourself. It came right on the heels of another really hard mission, and I just couldn't take it. It's a little beyond where you got to, and I agree that's the point at which the game goes from cool to nigh impossible in terms of difficulty.

I might try again, someday. I got stuck earlier in the game for a long time.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Omnislash124

You're kidding me right? Final Fantasy VII? Level 57 is not underleveled. I beat the game at level 55.

:|

Let's just say I give in too easily.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

ICO. There's that one part with the piston that's just incredibly hard, I can't get up to the ledge no matter what I try. I just gave up playing it alltogether it was so hard.


Nah, I'm actually just kidding, anyone can finish that game without help.


For me, I more often stop playing a game because of my extremely short attention span rather than anything overly frustrating, but for me the one wall I can remember is Fire Leo in Viewtiful Joe. To this day, I haven't gotten past him on Adults difficulty.

I got so frustrated I restarted the whole game on Kids difficulty and danced through the game without using a single continue, much to my horrified surprise. The gap between Kids and Adults was even more severe than I expected.

I've had my share of problems with each boss in Viewtiful Joe. I first thought the first helicopter simply can't be done, but going back against it a few levels later it proved to be a breeze. But Fire Leo is just impossible for me.

If I were to start from the Leo fight when I select continue, I might eventually be able to defeat him, but having to go through harder versions of the game's previous bosses (excluding Alastor) first every time proved too much of an obstacle for my patience. Four boss marathon? Fine, did that. Difficult boss? Fine. Multiple, multiple health bars? Fine. Extreme rise in boss difficulty towards the end of the battle? Fine. All these combined? No, I'm simply not good or lucky enough, nor am I patient enough to get good enough. If I could restart from the start of the Leo match every time, I just might be able to get good enough, but from the very beginning? Aaargh.

It was a hilarious thought though that there's two more difficulties after Adults

I'm not saying the game is unfair though, I simply don't have the patience. VJ, along with Gradius V, Super Monkey Ball and a few others are some of the few games that play hard but fair. When you lose, you know exactly why, and you have no one else to blame but yourself. And my lack of tenacity in this case~

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I remember fighting the Valmar parts in G2. I seem to recall having more trouble with Valmar's Eye than with his Core, but the battles were all bastards. Thing is, they were (for the most part) fair, so I couldn't just accuse the game of cheating. Though what DID seem like cheating (and what incidentally led me to a post-endgame wall in G2) were the demons you fight in the Raul Hills who have the nuke-you-ler asplosion spell that effectively lays out your whole party with no way to defend or recover.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I hit a wall while playing Unlimited Saga. I put the game in, watched the intro, saw the setup and vowed never to put it in my PS2 ever again. I generally beat all of my games. I agree that Donkey Kong Country 64 was difficult, but only because it was so incredibly boring. What a crap game.

The hardest games I've played are Contra III and Bionic Commando and I can beat them easily. Games are getting easier and game players are getting whinier. (I can't beat the boss.) Boofuckinghoo. Pipe down Sylvester, not everyone was born with a silver spoon in their socket you mangy turd. Just because you can't beat a game doesn't mean you should whine about it a ruin it for those who actually know what a challenge is and are willing to rise up to meet it. You are a failure at life. Thats all there is to it. Go start a rock collection and name them after the girlfriends you will never have because that is all you are going to amount to. (I am not speaking to anyone in particular)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by RainMan

I hit a wall while playing Unlimited Saga. I put the game in, watched the intro, saw the setup and vowed never to put it in my PS2 ever again.

That's not hitting a wall, that's just avoiding bad games.

I did the same with Shadow Hearts.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by CelticWhisper

I remember fighting the Valmar parts in G2. I seem to recall having more trouble with Valmar's Eye than with his Core, but the battles were all bastards.

That was my first wall before that one I posted about the Core.... That eye battle is so unfair. It's pretty much 7 vs. 4, and the eyes alone were a bitch and a half.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Elixir

That's not hitting a wall, that's just avoiding bad games.

I did the same with Shadow Hearts.

Shadow Hearts is one of the few console RPG's I've played all the way through in the past 4 years actually.

Anyhow... the only game I've gotten "stuck" on in recent years is Grand Theft Auto for PS2. If I had it for PC it wouldn't be a problem, but I've reached the mission where you are supposed to use the sniper rifle, and I'm just not quick enough using a console controller to do FPS sniping...

I second the opinion about games needing to be fun to have merit regardless of difficulty. I recently decided Gradius V wasn't for me, while on the same day I cracked open R-type Final and even though it's also ridiculously difficult the gameplay and graphics have completely sucked me in...

Jam it back in, in the dark.