Have you ever hit a bad segment in a game you otherwise liked?

Slight horizon zero Dawn spoilers. I've been playing through Horizon Zero Dawn on PC for the first time and have been loving it. After 28 hours in ran into a dungeon segment (Cauldron XI) that I hated.

What made it bad for me was that it was do long and combat heavy in a tight confined space that after room 2-3 I felt done but it felt like it had 8 different rooms of combat.

It blew me away how much I didn't like it and had to stop playing for a bit. I have played a little more after but it's still kinda haunting me.

Had anyone else had an experience like this in a game they really liked?

Dead Space meteor shooting mini game. Out of context for the vibe of the game, and so frustrating I gave up. Eventually went back for Dead Space 2.

I can think of literally dozens of examples but the biggest for me was the Yiga cave in Breath of the Wild. I almost never like stealth in non-stealth games (I do like some stealth-focused games, like Hitman and A Plague Tale: Innocence) and I thought the Yiga stuff was awful. Breath of the Wild is my favorite game but I literally stopped playing for like a month at that part because I found it so frustrating and annoying.

Honorary mention goes to something I blogged about recently.

I tend to dislike many boss battles and can think of a bunch that could go here as well.

I think that most of my favorite games have parts in them that I dislike. It sort of comes with the territory of trying difficult things in game design. Some of it is going to be at the very least polarizing, if not outright disliked by most players.

The Sewers in RE2 Remake. A 5/5 game brought down to a 4 because of that

Loads of them. Most recent was Crocomire in Super Metroid. Just couldn't get him, even after watching and reading multiple guides.

I wasn’t all the way in love with it from the beginning anyway, but by the time I got to the big fight in the giant room with like a thousand enemies in Control, on through to the end of the game, I stopped having a good time playing it and it never recovered for me.

I don't think it hurt the game as much for me, but goddamn ammo seems to become much less plentiful right around the time those G-mutates show up and you really need it.

Any time there is a "Guess which one of these warp panels you have to step on" sequence in any game. Thankfully, no one really does this in games anymore.

Several of the bosses in Metroid dread where a real pain to me, both in the finger gymnastics needed to beat them with my standard joycons controller, and due to their frequency. The game really felt frustrating to me because I’d have such a short amount of time doing the Metroid stuff before yet another boss fight that will take 30 attempts to beat because my fingers can’t fing right on the controller.

The Fade is the primary reason I will likely never play Dragon Age Origins all the way through again. While less of a barrier, since I've willingly suffered through it at least five times now, I also really don't like the rigmarole of quests you need to go through at the beginning of Skyrim to unlock Fus Roh Dah (High Hrothgar, listening to the Greybeards tell you things you already know for half an hour, Helm of Jurgen Windcaller). Ironic that climbing the highest mountain is such a nadir for the game.

Any underwater segment in any mario game, but for me that really extends to lots of other games too.

I mean too many to possibly keep track of. Most games are a collection of common ideas and inevitably I won’t like at least a few of them.

But yeah the quickest way to annoy me is stealth segment in a game that doesn’t have any actual stealth mechanics. Good stealth is a tailored suit it can’t be a one size fits all.

I loved, and am loving again, Red Dead Redemption II, but once the story takes a certain turn it gets harder and harder to ignore just how overlong its story is. The characters and their motivations constantly get re-established while the player character keeps getting diminished in the name of immersion and it really distracts from what to that point is an insanely incredible lifestyle simulator.

Death Stranding is wild chill, until whenever you come across a BT field there's no way to just speed through or loop around, or you realize you really can't get that far away from your truck full of 8 or 9 deliveries to drop a few on foot and lose tons of potential star progress. Thankfully, that's a game all about hitting bad segments while doing things you otherwise love! Metaphor! Allegory!

I'm there right now in Disco Elysium. Day 5, no real tasks to complete (or capable of completing), no obvious new ones to obtain, and seemingly no choice but to sit on a bench one hour at a time. For a game that felt so thorough up to this point (this is the furthest I've gotten, though I've played three or four characters through at least day 3) it's kind of baffling this has happened.

Outer Wilds is probably the most relevant. Gravity puzzles I just didn't have the focus for coupled with a big void full of massive, ugly fish that want to eat you? No thanks, but thanks for the good time up to this point game! Bye!

@nodima: While I can't say for sure in your case because that game can be pretty wildly different for everyone, I can say that I think you maybe just haven't accessed some area or talked to some person in Disco. I never used the bench at all and never ran out of tasks to do or new dialogues, and I wrapped the case around day 5 or 6 (it can go up to 10, I think, not totally sure.) The only thing that I you absolutely have to wait for is the bridge lowing on day 3, I think. Again, maybe you really have hit a wall considering you may have just done a lot more than I had by day 5, I was rather inefficient with my time management in it.

Bed of Chaos.

Need I say more?

@tartyron: Love for a clue if it's here, I haven't looked anywhere for sake of spoilers. I gave up on finding more hints about the body late in Day 4 so I sent it off in the morning on Day 5. I've been in the church and failed some skill checks, I've mailed off the contract, I've accepted but can't commit to communism, have various threads to tie with the ravers that all seem tied to said church progressing, and need to prove my authority to the union.

Right now the only two open tasks I can surmise from available dialogue and my task journal are getting the serial on the armor, which I progressed slow so will happen in the morning on Day 6, and getting my gun which is 12 hours on from where my save is now. Hence why I kinda just fell off of this save, I don't want to sit on that damn bench 12 times.

I cannot even begin to list the number of JRPGs and CRPGs I have played that I otherwise enjoyed outside of their minigame levels or sequences.

That tank battle in MGS5… *shudder*

Any souls game where an entire area is dark and you have to walk around with a torch.

I didn't mind the Yiga cave in Breath of The Wild that much. I had been using stealth techniques for much of the open world and I was familiar with how it worked. I also had some upgraded stealth armor and that made it a lot easier.

Usually I hate when a game introduces stealth sections when the core game isn't about stealth. I'm not sure why this didn't trigger that reflex.

Forcing me to walk slowly or simulating serious injuries pulls me right out of a game. It's why I couldn't get into Metal Gear Solid V. The opening sequence in the hospital isn't tense or immersive, it's boring and tedious. I don't know who thought that was a good idea.

I felt Control became a bit of a grind towards the end. I know people love the Ashtray Maze but the combat was too much for me, by then.

And y'know, Zen is a terrible way to end Half-Life.

I have a little oddball. Tetris Effect.

When I play it's great, but menus of that game are making me mad. They are so slow and cumbersome. You have to click through so many screens to get to play and even on SSD the whole process is so slow. Then when I finish quick play i cannot just change the theme/song, no. I have to go through that 'part of the game' again.

It's so bad oh my god.

The third act (I guess?) of Inscryption is really killing me, to the point I would call it a bad segment. I've opened the game up, played it for 30 minutes, then got bored and closed it multiple times now. I'm talking about the act where you've finished the Game Boy Color-esque part with deck building, and now you're in P03's game world in a metal escape room with the robot cards/mechanics. The cards are more mechanically dense, but the mechanics are honestly just kinda fiddly without being interesting, it doesn't feel like you're modifying the cards very much or in interesting ways, and I think the map/game board sucks pretty bad since you make little-to-no choices and just wander to all corners of it. Also there's no gameplay tension since you just respawn at a waypoint if you die instead of starting a run over. It's overall not as creepy as the cabin with Leshy, just kinda dull and robotic. Also in Act 1 if you make a bad deck you die and lose the deck, and in Act 2 you're constantly reconfiguring your deck and failure means nothing so if you make a bad deck then whatever (just change the deck), but in Act 3 if you make a bad deck there is neither a way to die and start over nor a way to reconfigure your whole deck, and from a playtesting perspective I wonder if someone could make an unwinnably bad deck and be stuck with it forever in an unfinishable Act 3.

Otherwise, the game has been rad as hell so far, and the earlier 2 acts were much more compelling.

Edit: writing this motivated me to go back and finish the game, and I stand by my earlier statements. Act 3 is a drag, but it does eventually finish strong, in spite of the dull aspects in the early goings.

Dead Space is the one that comes to mind. The asteroid shooting sequence sucked ass.

In general, I have always disliked the mandatory vehicle segments in shooters. I never finished Crysis because of bad autosaves during a vehicle segment near the end. When it comes to vehicle segments during shooters on the PC, I sometimes use a controller just for those segments.

I play a lot of MMOs, and the thing I consistently hate is jumping puzzles. I feel like the controls in an MMO are never designed to facilitate jumping puzzles. Guild Wars 2 is especially bad with this.

Oddly, I have always loved Mass Effect's Mako.

Bayonetta 1 & 2 and Wonderful 101. Those space harrier and afterburner levels, dear god they can't resist putting garbage gimmicky levels into otherwise fantastic games. It's like an itch they need to scratch or something.

Another more recent one is Persona 5 (non-royal). That part with the airlocks in space was so fucking infuriating back when I played it at launch I had to put it down and come back in a week. So bad. That whole dungeon and arc with Morgana is just rancid.

The Library.

I’m glad I’m not alone with my Dead Space turret section, that I’ve complained about here before. It was very easy after I came back to it weeks before Dead Space 2 released and watched a video on how to do it, but originally it made me quit playing.

Yiga Hideout was something I also really hated and kinda like with Dead Space, it was very easy to get through after I watched a video and followed it as closely as possible.

The RTS parts of Brutal Legend, nuff said.

The whole Lost Izalith area of Dark Souls is just bad and sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise fantastic game.

Honestly, Brutal Legend was a great game up until it became an RTS.

@bladeofcreation: Mako rules. There are dozens of us. Dozens!

The nightmare and drug sequences in the first Max Payne, navigating the maze and walking on those thin red lines in complete darkness all the while the only sounds are a baby crying and screams... It pretty much just sucks and you can easily get lost and spend way too long in there.

Probably Blitzball.

Hey you know that story about a gigantic whale monster that's murdering everyone and the quest to stop it through a repetitious cycle of human sacrifice overseen by a hypocritical and morally bankrupt religion? Yeah, hold that thought - because now we're going to stop the narrative to spend an hour playing underwater soccer with shitty controls, obtuse rules, and set of statistics where success is almost entirely based on luck. Have fun!"

Absolutely the asteroid minigame in Dead Space one. I get why they put it in there, but it felt like they forgot to playtest it first.

Other than that, my gut reaction was the ladder-climbing sequence in Metal Gear Solid 3. I know, I know. It's a classic moment in an otherwise great segment. But man did it take me out of the action.

Yakuza 7 - *that* difficulty spike in Chapter 12. The game was pretty easy up to that point, where it seems they expect you to complete the battle arena stuff before continuing the story. I don't care for battle arenas, so I ran headfirst into the Majima/Saejima fight unprepared. I managed to win, despite being quite underpowered, but it just totally crushed my desire to continue the game. I *do not* like being challenged. That happened in April 2021, and I made it to Chapter 14 in June, and I haven't touched the game since.

I'm really sad about it, because Yakuza has been one of my favourite series for years, but I'm used to just setting it on easy mode and breezing through the story. Yakuza 7 doesn't have easy mode, and they want me to grind before I can finish the story. No thanks...

@ohverture: Brutal Legend was an okay slasher until it became a great RTS. I am joking. However, taking third person control of every unit, every one of which had a unique trait is a great idea that literally no one has done before, or since Brutal Legend. Man, I am still not over my feelings for Brutal Legend I guess.

Anyway, I was really, really into Wasteland 2 until you got to that camp midway through the game, and no one would allow you in unless you did some really extraneous tasks. I didn't feel like going through the hoop, so I stopped playing the game.

Also, every stupid dungeon in Skyrim. The open world of that game is amazing, but man the dungeons suck.

I have been going through the Crash N. Sane Triology, and I grew up with Crash 2 and 3 as a kid. Any level that is not normal platforming is just not great. The riding the animals, the vehicle levels, and the underwater levels are all the weakest part of the serious with great platforming.

P.S. The Winnie the Pooh levels and minigames in Kingdom Hearts also has no business being there.

Every “Huddle Up Guys!” and Sliding Sequence in Guardians of the Galaxy

@ohverture: @glots: I'm fairly convinced that I may be the only person on Earth who enjoyed the RTS parts of Brutal Legend. Like a consoleized take on Sacrifice.

That dungeon in Persona 4 where you keep teleporting back to the begining if you turn down the wrong looks-the-same-as-every-other-randomly-generated-grey-brick-hallway can fuck-right-the-Hell-off.

The boat from Resident Evil 7 is a pretty classic example of this from a recent game and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned. It's not the first time this series has gone from moody horror to generic shooter towards the end, but this certainly is the most egregious example of that. And because it locks you out of your inventory your weapon choices leading up to that point don't matter so there is no variation in how you can kill the monsters, and ammo management is a non-factor too. It's a segment that goes on for far, far too long without anything interesting or challenging happening. And if I'm being honest the finale isn't much better but at least you're out of the boat. If you play this game a couple of times for the achievements you will really grow to resent that part.

here's been innumerable disappointing sections in otherwise excellent games throughout my experience. still great games, though.

at the risk of courting controversy- i think the last bit of Outer Wilds DLC Echoes of the Eye overdoes a thing and creates a win/fail element i was DONE WITH by the end.

Any section from Doom Eternal where they have you wade through that sticky mud which prevents you from jumping! No bueno!

I can't think of a single water temple I've ever liked. The most aggregious is probably in megaman legends 2 where you can fall for like 10 seconds, get hit by an enemy, and then proceed to fall with no ability to control for however many more seconds till you finally hit the ground.

There's a bunch of points in Yakuza 4 and 5 where you have to chase people down and either throw bottles at them to lower their health or where you have to shoulder barge them whenever you get close, and every single time it's an absolute drag because there's no real challenge to those sections but they can also take a minute or so to complete. For a series that generally manages to make each disparate part feel fun, those were always such a buzzkill.

Tortollan world quests in Battle For Azeroth. Eurgh.

@bondfish: honestly, Winnie the Pooh wasn't too bad in kingdom hearts. But what gives me chills are the singing segments during Atlantis in kingdom hearts 2.

Just awful.

The Water Temple is fine. Other than the fact that I can't remember what the music sounded like, in a game with some of the most memorable music ever. Weird.

Let's talk about Mario 64. I finished the original on Switch for the first time ever last year (as a kid, I only rented it and couldn't deal). It holds up well and is still a great game, despite being challenging to the point of frustration very often. According to a recent YouTube video which presented the results of a survey, Rainbow Ride is considered the worst (full) level in the game, and I understand that because riding on the carpets feels like dying of old age. It's one of the worst levels and I nearly gave up on some of the stars. But Shifting Sand Land is the real deal.

A surface very near the platforms that kills you almost immediately when you land on it, with virtually no chance of escape, is bad enough. To then have a pyramid surrounded by this shit, whose sides are as slippery as ice and usually dump you right into the death sand, AND is guarded by enemies that shoot fire at you specifically to make you fall, is not just bad design but a sign of contempt towards the player.

(Yes, you can use the Wing Cap, but it's not that much easier because you crash into the side and die anyway.)

My pet theory is that the section inside the pyramid, which is actually good, is all people remember about the level if they haven't played it for a long time.

I didn't have super large problems with the Yiga Clan Hideout in botw but the escort sequence for the goron boy was just... absolute torture. I am not normally big on open world games to start with but botw did a lot of charming me and I didn't want to give up on it.

In FFXIV, the only videogame I play for the next (x) months, there's a dungeon called Stone Vigil(Hard) that just has a bunch of weird finicky setpiece bosses where normal combat mechanics don't work and they take forever and kind of suck to play, genuinely what I'd call the worst duty in the game. I was forced to revisit this a lil while ago and gee golly jesus I am not an easily tilted person but that made me feel like leaving even with a bunch of very chill folks.

Also nearly all seige fights in monster hunter games can suck an egg. They're not challenging they're just so boring. I can't really do monhun anymore with my RSI the past while, but rampage in the new one actually seemed to be half decent when I got the hang of it, at least.