Ollie Reynolds, Staff Writer
Anyone who knows me knows just how much I adore Resident Evil 4; both the 2005 original and the 2023 remake. With the original, however, there’s one section that is completely devoid of tension, thrills, or anything that made the game such a bonafide classic, and it’s when you take control of Ashley in Salazar’s castle.
Now I’ve got nothing against Ashley as a character; considering she was meant to be somewhat of a damsel in distress, she was actually incredibly adept and I always appreciated how reliant she was when it came to following and supporting Leon during escort scenarios. When she’s left to her own devices, however, the gameplay falls completely short of what players come to expect from Capcom’s masterpiece.
Instead of precision aiming and satisfying quick-time events, Ashley is relegated to crawling around under tables and automatically chucking lanterns at enemies without a shred of effort required from the player. To top it off, her section contains an egregious sliding puzzle that, if you’re not familiar with the solution, can be mind-numbingly frustrating. The only saving grace for this section was that it was mercifully short.
Alana Hagues, Deputy Editor
In my heart, Banjo-Kazooie is perfect. It has some of my favourite video game music, level design, and writing, and I’ve played it to death. I probably know the game inside out. However, whenever I hop back into the bear and bird’s first adventure, there’s always one section I dread: Rusty Bucket Bay’s propeller Jiggy. Oh, good lord, I hate this Jiggy so much.
Hiding behind a propeller at the base of the ship, you need to turn off the propeller and then swim in and get the Jiggy before it reactivates. That’s already hard enough when you consider there’s a short time limit, but Rare made this Jiggy a gauntlet of tricks and traps that make this just a bit too tight for my liking.
The pipes rotate extremely fast and are slippery, forcing Banjo to careen into the bottomless pit below. Sometimes, enemies will push you off the edge. Or you might backflip at a weird angle and send the bear to his untimely end. Or perhaps you manage to turn off the engine but you can’t get back to the propeller in time, meaning you get to the propeller only to have it slice you in two as it reactivates. Oh, and don’t forget that your oxygen depletes quicker in the oil-polluted water.
I could’ve put Banjo-Tooie‘s equally infuriating Canary Mary race in Cloud Cuckooland here, but as soon as you know her AI rubber bands, it’s not too bad. Anyway, Banjo-Kazooie is almost a perfect game, if it weren’t for that meddling propeller.
Gavin Lane, Editor
If Alana hadn’t chosen that Rusty Bucket propeller Jiggy, I would have taken that. I’ve never been a speedrunner, but I used to be able to blitz through Banjo at a fair pace, around the 4hr/4hr 30m mark if I remember correctly (I’d have to check my OG cart again for my best time) and that bloody Jiggy could make or break a run.
Anyway, I’m going to go with Mario Kart for this one — specifically online races where you’re given a vote before it goes to a random roulette system to decide which course you race on. I can’t stand this system. Whatever track I picked, 90% of the time it doesn’t go my way and I end up starting the race in a bad mood. There’s got to be a better way than this, right? It’s a little thing, and it’s tough to have a bad time playing Mario Kart, regardless of the course, but that initial pang of disappointment colours my entire opinion of the online component.
My solution to this problem? I… don’t have one. Look, I’m not a game developer! All I know is that those opening moments — before the race has even begun — frequently take the shine off the experience and make me avoid playing online at all. I’m probably alone on this one, but hey, the Mario Kart games are great, and this is definitely the worst part of them for me.
Jim Norman, Staff Writer
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about bad parts of good games is Ocarina of Time‘s Water Temple, right? It’s the low-hanging fruit in this category, except, truth be told, I actually like the Water Temple, so I had to turn my thoughts elsewhere.
I’m on something of a Layton kick at the moment (shock, horror) and despite my absolute, undying love for that silly little man in his silly big hat, there is something about that series that never fails to grind my gears. It’s the sheer number of those darn ‘unblock’ sliding block puzzles — or, to use their official name, Klotski (I have learned this fact just today).
I’ll keep this tied to a specific game — I’m looking at you, The Curious Village — but the whole series is guilty of it. I hate these puzzles. The objective of getting item A to point B but there’s a shedload of slidable blocks blocking your way just isn’t fun. It’s not bad design, as such, but what is bad is the sheer number of them. The Curious Village has four versions of ‘Get the Ball Out!’ and oh, let’s just ignore the fact that ‘Queen’s Escape’, ‘Red and Blue 1’ (and 2), and probably more that I’m forgetting are the exact same puzzle just in a different, shinier box.
Chuck me a Hint Coin, I’m out.
Kate Gray, Contributor
I’m just going to pick one of my favourite games because it’s been a while since I’ve sat down and organised them into an order that satisfies me, and that game is — if you’ll let me bend the rules a little — the Ace Attorney Trilogy. Given that it was a game that wasn’t intended to be a series, let alone expected to be popular, I can forgive it for being rough around the edges. It really hits its stride in Trials and Tribulations, the third entry in the trilogy, and smooths out a lot of that roughness… but my chosen peeve with Ace Attorney persists throughout every game in the series.
That peeve is that sometimes, you’re too smart for the game. It’s a delicate balance, and as a narrative designer myself, I don’t envy them the task of trying to keep the story twisty and turny without being more obvious than an Agatha Christie novel read backward. And it doesn’t happen much, she says, desperately trying to debate her own argument. But occasionally, you’ll know the answer to a question, the evidence that turns a case on its head, or you’ll have figured out the real culprit… before the game wants you to. Usually, this comes about because you — a competent lawyer — have actually examined the evidence up close, and found a telltale bloodstain or the culprit’s fingerprint on the murder weapon, but the game thinks you’re a silly billy who doesn’t prod and poke at everything, and expects you to walk the slow path that it has laid out before you.
Sometimes it’s fun to know whodunnit ahead of time, but what’s not fun is having to go through the motions of pretending you don’t because the game needs you to present a different piece of evidence to this particular statement. It feels like being forced to prove that you know the alphabet before being allowed to read Shakespeare. Just lemme at ’em already! He’s the murderer!!! His name is “Stabsalot Murderguy”!!! Come on!!!!!!
Gonçalo Lopes, Contributor
Despite the passage of time, there is one constant in my life: F-Zero GX is among at the top of my favourite games of all time list. I could go on and on about the reasons for this but I am sure anyone familiar with the game knows exactly why; despite being two decades old nothing comes close to the sheer perfection of those insane races.
And then you try to clear Story Mode… Sure, it eases you with the first training mission but it pushes the dial up to eleven from there onwards. Racing Samurai Goroh in Red Canyon, fighting off the Bloody Chain gang, rescuing Jody, and the eventual final race against Skull (which is actually a staff ghost). Every chapter requires you to master some particular skill, mostly memorisation of the courses and events so that you can clear them. At the tiniest mistake, you’re done and back to the starting line. Often it is easy to place the blame on the player, but to this day I highly suspect the CPU drivers cheat with infinite boost power.
I found Story Mode to be an exercise of profound frustration for the unaware player. It took me the entire month of January 2004 to complete it and I can’t even recall how many times I had to replay Jody’s rescue chapter until I managed to clear it. The hurdle in the end was worth it for the custom machine pieces but I am quite certain I would not be able to pull this off again due to my current middle-aged person reflexes.
I often smile when people complain about the “Souls” series being hard and unfair. I quickly reply with “You never played F-Zero GX Story Mode, have you?”.
So there you have it folks, those are just a few of the ‘worst moments’ in our favourite games. We still love them, though. So now it’s your turn. Let us know how some of your favourite games managed to slip up from time to time with a comment down below.
