History Main / ScrappyMechanic

* While ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4Remake'' launched to near-universal praise and is seen as ''the'' best Franchise/ResidentEvil entry 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.''

* While ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4Remake'' launched to near-universal praise and is seen as ''the'' best Franchise/ResidentEvil entry alongside giants like the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil4 the original 4]] and [[VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake Remake]], the introduction of PayToWin {{Microtransaction|s}} 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:

* While ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4Remake'' launched to near-universal praise and is seen as ''the'' best Franchise/ResidentEvil entry alongside giants like the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil4 the original 4]] and [[VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake REmake]], the introduction of PayToWin {{Microtransaction|s}} bullshit 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:

** Towards the latter half of ''VideoGame/FatalFrameIIITheTormented'', a door is opened that releases miasma into the rest of the house. In order to dispel it (and be able to see things more clearly), you must light purifying candles. So now, you not only have to worry about random ghost encounters while you're running around this mansion of horrors and trying to progress the storyline, but you've also got to keep an eye on your candle level, because once that candle runs out, the entire setting will change to a grainy black-and-white and [[AdvancingBossOfDoom Reika Kuze]] will show up to [[ImplacableMan relentlessly chase you down]] until you find another candle and top up your light. Those candles are: a) rare (there are only three or four of them in the game, though they respawn during each new Night), b) spread out from each other, and c) finish very quickly. Oh, and that house you're wandering around in? It's ''enormous'' (easily the largest of any single one of the Fatal Frame houses) and very easy to get lost in.
** ''VideoGame/FatalFrameIVMaskOfTheLunarEclipse'' has the piano segments. When playing as Ruka, the player must sometimes play some notes on a piano by pointing the [=WiiMote=] at the correct, lit-up key and press said key, while also not being too fast or slow. The annoyance comes from the fact that it must be done as part of the [[FinalBoss Final Boss Battle]] and the keys are pretty narrow, with the [=WiiMote=] not being all that happy to comply with your trying to play the keys. [[spoiler:And if you fail three times, you must fight Sakuya's ghost again and try the piano another time.]]
** ''[[VideoGame/FatalFrameIICrimsonButterfly Fatal Frame 2: Deep Crimson Butterfly]]'' and ''Fatal Frame 4'' have the player hold the A button, in order to pick up items. In itself not bad, but it includes a long, slow zoom-in on Mio picking the item up. And the same mechanic was added for investigating under things, inside cabinets or peeking into locations. A good hour or two of the game is spent watching this zoom-in, instead of simply letting the player pick up the item with a short press of the A button. ''And then'' you also have the ghost hands that have a random chance of attempting to grab Mio's wrist while trying to pick up an item. Overall, they don't do any damage (except for one fast, darker hand with slash marks on it, but can be easily shaken off) and it's actually minor. But put in conjunction with the entire mechanic and having to re-zoom after avoiding the ghost hand...

* ''VideoGame/Splatoon1'' showed its first-game syndrome signs by sporting a few of these.
** The Splatfest Tee is considered by many to be a source of unnecessary grinding. You are given the shirt up to 1 week beforehand, but it is a three-star shirt with three empty slots -- so it takes the most experience to max out -- and you are expected to level it up from scratch. Granted, the extra abilities are weaker and affected by {{Diminishing Returns|ForBalance}}, but if you wanna be in top form in Splatfest, or even in Ranked Battle, which is the fastest way to level up the shirt (...if you win), then you might want the extra skills. Also, you are forced to use it in Splatfest, and you might not appreciate the Special Saver ability over the abilities on your other clothes. And finally, the shirt is taken away at the end of Splatfest, making all the effort seem wasted.
** Splatfests region and team-lock you for the duration, meaning that the matchmaking pool is much smaller, and it can't shuffle teams if there is a significant imbalance.
** Getting disconnected counts as a loss. Meaning you could be winning and suddenly, because of an unstable connection, lose the match and lose the rank you just acquired. It's supposed to discourage people from {{Rage Quit}}ting, but the game can't tell if someone intentionally disconnected, or just suffered a bad connection.
** Matchmaking in Squad Battles is set up in such a way that if you have even a ''single'' S-rank player on your squad, you'll regularly be put up against squads that are ''all'' S-ranks, even if your own team has only one S-rank player and the rest are B or C rank.
* ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' fixed some of the problems from the first game (ability chunks mean its worth grinding Splatfest Tees, and they arguably have a better main ability in Ability Doubler; disconnections no longer affect your multiplayer rank, etc.), but it has its own problems, too.
** Salmon Run is a popular addition to the game, but it's not available all the time and players have no control over what weapons they get to use for each round.
** Also, ragequits or disconnects in Salmon Run are treated as losses on wave one, no matter what wave you got tossed in. It is entirely possible to lose your rank all because your connection shat itself.

A gameplay mechanic in an ''otherwise'' fun/enjoyable game that generates a sizable hatedom. Perhaps it's out of character for the game, or the quality of its execution is lower than the rest of the game, or it really exposes the problems in the game.

* The boss battles of ''VideoGame/ClockTower3'' relied on an auto-aim feature that works like this: When you charge an attack you abruptly lock onto the boss's current position but don't track them, while the odds of said boss still being in line with your shot by the time you fire is slim to none in a classic case of StopHelpingMe Notably the battle with Scissorwoman Jemima disables this feature, making her battle the most genuinely satisfying moment in the game.

** 7-9 also featured an even harsher rule: In addition to their money, the last place team must also surrender ''all'' of their possessions, except for their passports and the clothes they were wearing, for the ''remainder'' of the season. Also 7: the team may not beg for money prior to the start of each leg.

** 7-9 also featured an even harsher rule: In addition to their money, the last place team must also surrender ''all'' of their possesions, except for their passports and the clothes they are wearing, for the ''remainder'' of the season. Also 7: the team may not beg for money prior to the start of each leg.

* There are three pre-determined (for legal reasons) non-elimination legs a season on ''Series/TheAmazingRace''. For the first 4 seasons, there was no penalty for the spared team but the penalty from 5-9 is the most reviled aspect of the show’s [[LongRunner almost two decades on the air]]. The last place team had to surrender all of their money and weren’t given any money for the next leg. This put teams in the awkward position of having to beg for things. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad because they were in rich countries like Australia and Japan (9) but sometimes it was painfully bad optics to have Americans competing in a show with a million dollar grand prize have to beg in poor countries like Egypt and The Philippines (5). In 6, there was one in Senegal and the spared team felt so bad about having to beg the locals that they just asked the other teams to help them without even trying. Even in a season with quite a few nasty teams, [[EveryoneHasStandards they all chipped in to help so they didn’t have to beg on the street.]] This mechanic was gone by 10 and another one has been used ever since 12. The only good thing to come of it is the double leg which came from them having planned an NEL in a country where begging is illegal (Hungary) in 6 without realizing it.
* The 12th season of ''Series/MasterchefAustralia'' introduced a "Twist Week" where the judges throws in curveballs in the middle of a challenge to make things extra hard for the contestants. These "twists" include: forcing the teams to switch kitchens (and, by extension, their menu and preparations) during a Service Challenge, taking away the recipes in the final hour of a Pressure Test and forcing the contestants to finish the rest of the dish from instincts and memory, or throwing in extra ingredients that contestants must use halfway through a mystery box challenge (causing several to have to redo their dishes from scratch). It's meant to be an extra hurdle for the aspiring chefs to push them beyond their limits and test their creativity and tenacity in working in the kitchen, but for most viewers, these curveballs come off as overly mean-spirited as they cause unnecessary stress, drama and meltdowns to the chefs, who struggle to adjust to these "twists".

* There are three pre-determined (for legal reasons) non-elimination legs a season on ''Series/TheAmazingRace''. For the first 4 seasons, there was no penalty for the spared team but the penalty from 5-9 is the most reviled aspect of the show’s [[LongRunner almost two decades on the air]]. The last place team had to surrender all of their money and weren’t given any money for the next leg. This put teams in the awkward position of having to beg for things. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad because they were in rich countries like Australia and Japan (9) but sometimes it was painfully bad optics to have Americans competing in a show with a million dollar grand prize have to beg in poor countries like Egypt and The Philippines (5). In 6, there was one in Senegal and the spared team felt so bad about having to beg the locals that they just asked the other teams to help them without even trying. Even in a season with quite a few nasty teams, [[EveryoneHasStandards they all chipped in to help so they didn’t have to beg on the street.]] This mechanic was gone by 10 and another one has been used ever since 12. The only good thing to come of it is the double leg which came from them having planned an NEL in country where begging is illegal (Hungary) in 6 without realizing it.

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty1'' has a few minigames that involve rotating the control stick as the main gimmick, and these are consistently the most hated ones. Not only is the mechanic difficult to execute effectively, it can actually be physically painful due to the hard plastic sticks used by the N64.[[note]]While the intent is for players to rotate the stick with just their thumb, most find using the palm of the hand to be much more efficient, especially since the minigames in question require you to be fast.[[/note]] Future games ditched the mechanic for years between its unpopularity and the fact Nintendo almost got sued over it. It's commonly believed to be the reason that this specific ''Mario Party'' never appeared on the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole while its first sequel did.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed'':

* There are three pre-determined (for legal reasons) non-elimination legs a season on ''Series/TheAmazingRace''. For the first 4 seasons, there was no penalty for the spared team but the penalty from 5-9 is the most reviled aspect of the show’s [[LongRunner almost two decades on the air]]. The last place team had to surrender all of their money and weren’t given any money for the next leg. This put teams in the awkward position of having to beg for things. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad because they were in rich countries like Australia and Japan (9) but sometimes it was painfully bad optics to have Americans competing in a show with a million dollar grand prize have to beg in poor countries like Egypt and The Philippines (5). In 6, there was one in Senegal and the spared team felt so bad about having to beg the locals that they just asked the other teams to help them without even trying. Even in a season with quite a few nasty teams, [[EvenEvilHasStandards they all chipped in to help so they didn’t have to beg on the street.]] This mechanic was gone by 10 and another one has been used ever since 12. The only good thing to come of it is the double leg which came from them having planned an NEL in country where begging is illegal (Hungary) in 6 without realizing it.

* The ability to permanently lose 'hints' when talking to [=NPCs=] in ''VideoGame/{{Vampyr}}''. This is based on specific incidences in conversations where an option of three dialogue choices has one that'll get the person to open up more and expand on their backstory, and two that'll make them refuse to ever tell you. There's also no indication whatsoever of which option is which, with there being no consistency about whether you should be nice or mean, blunt or subtle, etc. This would even be much less annoying if the game didn't automatically save as soon as you've made your choice, meaning the option for [[TrialAndErrorGameplay trial and error]] is eliminated. For a game whose strength is its story and worldbuilding, it's just all around irritating.

* The vegetable picking in ''VideoGame/PuttPutt Enters the Race''. First off, it's a puzzle designed like a gigantic maze. What makes it annoying is that some foods take ''ages'' just to get to, and once you make it to them, you have to retrace your steps, so that needlessly doubles the amount of time it takes. Even worse, you have to be right next to the vegetable in order to get it or get ready to [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper be told you can't pick it over and over again.]] It doesn't help at all that the movements cannot be skipped at all, unlike the rest of the game.
* Instead of the classic [[TheManyDeathsOfYou wrong-choices-mean-death approach]], ''VisualNovel/TimeHollow'' makes Game Overs possible with a health meter. It can only be refilled by wandering the game looking for "chrons" and watching an unskippable cutscene each time you find one. But you're unlikely to even need this, as you only lose health for "digging" in the wrong place, and most of the digging puzzles are very simple -- making the whole thing pointless if you're playing through the game normally.
* Despite being a point-and-clicker, ''VideoGame/{{Harvester}}'' has a real-time combat system. It is extremely clunky, hard to aim at a target, and it makes the main character walk in a goofy fashion while wielding a weapon.
* Lucasfilm loves to put fighting minigames in games that are otherwise almost entirely PointAndClick. These include an aggravating fist-fighting system in ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'' and tedious motorcycle jousting in ''VideoGame/FullThrottle''. ''Indy'' lets you skip or cheat past certain fistfights, including a "sucker punch" key [[CopyProtection never mentioned in the game itself]], but you can't even get close to OneHundredPercentCompletion that way. There's no way around ''Full Throttle's'', and the HintBook has the nerve to reassure you the section is "really quite fun"!
** ''VideoGame/EscapeFromMonkeyIsland'' is possibly the worst offender in this regard thanks to the late-game introduction of "MONKEY KOMBAT". The idea is that, by chanting a certain combination of four different monkey sounds, the player adopts one of five different fighting stances, all of which have a 50/50 chance of either winning or losing, like an overly complicated game of Rock Paper Scissors. The Monkey Island series has had its fair share of game-halting "insult swordfighting" sections, but Monkey Kombat takes the cake for worst combat system in a Lucasarts game by virtue of it being entirely unclear which stances beat which, on top of it being a grind to even figure out the stances.

* ''VideoGame/BlossomTalesTheSleepingKing'':
** Unlike most games with RPG elements, [=NPCs=] in ''The Sleeping King'' don't have unique dialogue bound to them unless they're important to the story or want you to run an errand for them. Inconsequential [=NPCs=], on the other hand, spout quotes randomly selected from a text bank assigned to that town. This can be irritating if you talk to everybody: multiple [=NPCs=] might say the exact same thing, or the player can simply cycle through all the possible dialogue by speaking to the same [=NPC=] repeatedly. Yet this tends to be little more than irritating, as the townsfolk that this applies to generally don't have anything particularly important or helpful to say.
** The World Map is only useful for indicating the general area of your next objective, and your position relative to it. The map itself is so low-resolution and lacking in detail (even zoomed in!) that it's mostly useless for planning an actual path, or pinpointing the exact location of, well, almost anything.

* ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'':
** In newer games (for example, ''Tetris DS'') it is possible in single player for a player to keep a piece from locking in place by hammering at a rotation button, or nowadays, shortly delaying the lock. Yes, even the square. ''VideoGame/TetrisWorlds'' was the first to be criticized for it. The rationale is that it helps beginners, but doesn't affect more competitive players.
** The Marathon mode in many modern games such as ''Tetris Friends'', due to the way progression works (without going into Administrivia/WalkthroughMode: clearing more lines at a time gives you a boost in progression towards the end of the game), [[ViolationOfCommonSense actually awards more points for comboing single line clears than for making Tetrises]]. Later ''Tetris'' games junk this and go back to the more conventional and logical "clear 150 lines" format.

* ''VideoGame/TheTuringTest'': One common complaint is that the audio logs are muffled and are difficult to understand, with the additional hindrance that they have no subtitles. The developers have stated that it was an artistic decision, with the idea being that you are eavesdropping on conversations, so it is a deliberate challenge to hear them. Unfortunately, with the only available language being English, it locks out that content for non-English speakers as well as people with hearing or auditory-processing impairments.

** There are times when an item would be perfectly acceptable in a certain place but the game just doesn't accept it; such as leaving certain appliances on the kitchen counter or having various items in drawers.

The Kinect or Eyetoy can be used in 2K15 to scan your face. At least it would, except it does not work period, full stop, that's it, finish, the end. You are supposed to have plenty of lighting but this causes the scan to go haywire, being too far away results in a poor scan, moving closer has it lose track, on the off chance the scan goes well the game will apparently decide it's not fair for everyone else struggling and say it cannot be used, if you do get to where the scan uploads the game will RageQuit and crash, ect, ect, in short it's much easier to use the in game sliders and build a face from scratch than use the camera scan. ''2K17'' replaced this with a phone based program, however if you did not also get the newest phone on the market when the game was released you're out of luck as it will only work for smartphones that are iPhone or Samsung 8 and beyond.
* ''VideoGame/NCAAFootball'' has a despised system for making phone calls to recruits which basically spins a roulette wheel of topics, allowing you the option of pitching your school's merits on that topic or discrediting your rivals on that topic. It's obnoxious enough that you, the head coach, can't choose to pitch whatever you want. This can lead to the bizarre result that the coach of Stanford might never get to sell his school's academics or the coach of Miami can never sell the school's gorgeous campus. However the roulette wheel sometimes stops on topics that you know the player doesn't care about leaving you forced to try and pitch him anyway. This has been removed for ''NCAA 13''.
* ''VideoGame/NHLHockey'' has the goaltender controls which tend to not allow the free range of motion necessary to replicate real life goalie positioning. The worst offender being the hug post command which can frequently make you hug the wrong post and get stuck to it until you release the trigger, which will give the opposing player plenty of time to score on a wide open net.

* The [[PressXToNotDie Mash X To Not Die]] moments from ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis'' are the single most derided aspect of the game, since unlike {{Quick Time Event}}s in other survival horror games they inflict damage even when you succeed (how fast you struggle away determines how much damage you take, but even with an auto fire controller you'll lose some health). Since they also happen to be completely unavoidable they feel more like an unfair toll you have to pay to continue the game rather than something to overcome with skill, and feel ''especially'' unfair as they occur in a game that has finite health pick-ups.

** Towards the latter half of ''VideoGame/FatalFrameIIITheTormented'', a door is opened that releases miasma into the rest of the house. In order to dispel it (and be able to see things more clearly), you must light purifying candles. So now, you not only have to worry about random ghost encounters while you're running around this mansion of horrors and trying to progress the storyline, but you've also got to keep an eye on your candle level, because once that candle runs out, the entire setting will change to a grainy black-and-white and [[AdvancingBossOfDoom Reika Kuze]] will show up to [[ImplacableMan relentlessly chase you down]] until you find another candle and top up your light. Those candles are: a) rare (there are only three or four of them in the game, though they respawn during each new Night), b) spread out from each other, and c) finish very quickly. Oh, and that house you're wandering around in? Is ''enormous'' (easily the largest of any single one of the Fatal Frame houses) and very easy to get lost in.

* While ''VideoGame/FridayThe13thTheGame'' fairy decent for a licensed game, a few mechanics make it hard to enjoy for reasons:

* ''VideoGame/SilentHillDownpour'' has several moments where you nearly fall to your death and lose all your items. ''All your items''. Yes this includes the guns you got from the [[BribingYourWayToVictory green lockers]] and from doing ThatOneSidequest, your ammo, and even your flashlight. You even lose the first-aid kits you were saving for that upcoming [[ThatOneLevel Void chase]].
* The map system in ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}'', since it doesn't show you where you or your follower are on it. Instead you have to match landmarks on the map (which are named), to your surroundings to locate yourself. Adding to the frustration of this is that every level is either dark or foggy, that the game borders on being a StealthBasedGame where you can die in only a couple of hits, and that most levels are [[EscortMission Escort Missions]], meaning not only is getting your bearings difficult but also puts you and your [[ArtificialStupidity very stupid AI partner]] in constant danger.
* ''VideoGame/{{Vanish}}'': The glow sticks. They're limited in number, last for only fifteen seconds, and only illuminate things in a three foot radius around you.

*** However, characters from LongRunners or shows with multiple seasons tend to fare worse than newcomers. Characters whose popularity doesn't significantly degrade with each year are rare, and the number of series they originate from is in the single digits.

** Similarly, he and Dan didn't like the "[[EliteMooks barfy zombies]]" from ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'' as they don't find them any harder to fight, but simply more annoying since they have increased attack range and can send Chuck into a coughing fit that, in effect, is like taking your controller away for 5 seconds so a zombie can score a cheap shot. Arin explains how the entire appeal of the game is that zombies are easy to kill but [[ZergRush attack in swarms]], thus they constantly remain a threat even though you can tear through them like tissue paper, the game already had a better "harder zombies" mechanic in that zombies get stronger at night, and that the game also already had enemies that were dangerous as individuals in the form of looters, mercenaries and [[{{Boss}} psychopaths]], and thus asks what exactly was the point of adding the new zombies? He feels it's a pointless mechanic as the gas zombies are more annoying to fight than the regular zombies but aren't as hard to fight as looters or mercenaries, thus they simply make the game more irritating to play without adding to the difficulty in any way. When they start over again on a NewGamePlus after beating the game on a stream, they actually spent a solid hour just running around fighting regular zombies noting just how much funner the game is without the gas zombies running around getting in their way.

* ''VideoGame/LegendsOfRuneterra's'' first expansion saw the addition of the pirate-themed Bilgewater region to the game, with their new mechanic Plunder and signature trick, pilfering (drawing cards from your opponent's deck instead of your own). While initially seen as fun, it rapidly became obvious that it was only fun for the Bilgewater player, as the pilfer cards were massively over-efficient, the requirement to trigger Plunder to get most of them to work properly ended up being absolutely trivial, and drawing your opponent's cards actually wasn't worse than drawing your own- it was usually ''better'' (even without deck synergy, nobody plays with ''bad'' cards, and you're depriving your opponent of resources they might desperately need). It regularly reached ridiculous levels in Bilgewater {{Mirror Match}}es where one player would start pilfering their opponent's cards, only to steal all ''their'' pilfer cards and end up drawing half their deck (particularly as the Black Market Merchant not only pilfered a card, but reduced the cost of all stolen cards by 1 for each Merchant, which combined with the absurdly low cost of pilfer cards allowed them to go on doing it ''for free'').

* The entirely random terrain generation and explosive death-causing trap placements (and sometimes player positions) in any ''VideoGame/{{Worms}}'' game can screw players both skilled and unskilled. But mostly just the skilled players.

* One of the main reasons the sequel to ''Videogame/FuzionFrenzy'' failed was because it tried to implement a card system that could significantly alter the point rewards of a round significantly (using multiplier cards, multiplier steal cards, and others). This system was widely criticized by players as making winning a round far too luck-based, as even people who consistently did poorly in minigames could win a planet if they played their cards right.

* ''VideoGame/TheWitness'':
** The self-disabling panels. Many panels in the game are connected via wires that indicate the power flowing from one to another. A lot of these panels disable themselves when a wrong solution is entered, forcing you to return to the previous panel and reenter the correct solution. Theoretically, this serves to discourage the player from brute forcing puzzles, but there are two problems with this. The first is that this feature appears in more complex puzzles that have many possible solutions and are therefore unlikely to be brute forced; the self-disablement here just serves to unnecessarily punish players for making a mistake. The second is that with some of these puzzles, the previous panel still shows the right solution, making it easy to reenter; the self-disablement here doesn't discourage brute force so much as slightly prolong it.
** The desert puzzles revolve around reflection of light on the panels to reveal the correct paths drawn on them. The basement of the desert temple contains puzzles based on water reflection -- the principle is the same, but this time you have to arrange the water level of a pool below the panels to reflect at the right angles to see the solutions. While this puzzle is hard enough since the water reflects the solutions upside-down, the really annoying thing is that the water cannot be paused between its highest and lowest points; if you don't get the solution, you'll have to wait for the pool level to rise or lower completely before you can try again. This is especially bad because the speed at which the water level changes is super slow.

* ''VideoGame/TheTuringTest'': One common complaint is that the audio logs are muffled and are difficult to understand, with the additional hindrance that they have no subtitles. The developers have stated that it was an artistic decision, with the idea being that you are eavesdropping on conversations, so it is a deliberate challenge to hear them. Unfortunately, with the only available language being English, it locks out that content for non-English speakers as well as people with hearing or auditory-processing impairments.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wipeout}}'':
** Eliminator mode in the various games is almost universally imbalanced, requiring mostly luck to get the right weapons and not so much player skill. The weapons were balanced for regular racing, so many didn't even do damage or very little, and some were grossly overpowered in a game mode where you didn't have to bother with speed. Wip3out was the worst offender since almost nothing did any noticable damage except for Energy Drain and Plasma Bolt, both a one-hit kill. It got better in later titles, but then participating in this mode became required to beat the game.
** Shooting a competing ship in the first ''Wipeout'' game would cause it to stall and you to crash into it. This was changed in the sequel so that shooting a ship would flip it up, enabling you to pass underneath. The frustration factor was cranked up again in the [[{{Sequelitis}} degraded sequel]] ''Wip3out'' which reduced the flip duration so you would probably collide with the target anyway unless you fired at point blank range. And on a killing blow the disintegrating ship would stay at ground level and grind to a halt, bringing you to a very frustrating stop if you were unable to move out of the way quickly. And there was the [[SomeKindOfForceField Force Wall]] weapon which covered half of the track ahead of you and bounced opponents backwards... [[PinballProjectile in your face]], catapulting you back at high speed. Add to this the chance to blow yourself up if the target deployed a [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard last second]] Reflector and it becomes clear that using weapons on opponents you don't particularly care about (ie. everyone but the opponent in first place) was more likely to hurt you than to help you.
* ''VideoGame/InitialDArcadeStage 4'' sets arbitrary "speed limits" on turns. If you go over this speed limit, depending on whether you're playing version 1.2 or 1.5, then either your steering will lock up, causing you to crash into the outer wall unless you execute a "brake cancel" technique, or you will oversteer like hell. And if you hit a wall or suffer said understeer, your acceleration is permanently gimped and can only be fixed with brake cancelling. Which is done on a ''straightaway''. But that's not where the problems end. To get to the tuning shop, you have to eject your card three times. Not continue three times, you have to pick "NO" at the continue screen for it to count. This means that if you're playing several rounds in a row, then you'll be wasting chances to tune up your car if you continue each time--you have to spend about 2-3 minutes between sessions ejecting your card, putting it back in, and going through all the menus. These sorts of mechanics are contributing to the downfall of the IDAS scene.

* ''[[VideoGame/SegaSuperstars Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing]]'' allows the race leader to get Missiles, which act like the Red Shell in the Mario Kart Series (homing attack against the racer ahead). However, not only are the missiles far more precise, when the leader gets one, he can shoot it backwards and it will lock on the second racer! That means if you are trying to reach the leader, you'll have to focus on the hazards of the track, avoid the mines dropped by the leader and pray that, if he gets a missile, the next item box gives you a shield, a KO Glove, or another missile. Oh, the leader will also get Speed Shoes every now and then.

* One of the biggest downgrades of ''[[Videogame/DaytonaUSA Daytona Championship USA]]'' from past arcade versions is changing the series-traditional 4-position shifter to a simplified up/down shifter. Given that many powersliding techniques rely on shifting down two or three gears at once (and in fact many console ports allow the player to assign buttons for each gear), this is basically a screw-you to well-versed ''Daytona USA'' players.
* The DX version of the ''VideoGame/KingOfRoute66'' arcade game has a nitro boost that, unlike the non-DX version where it's engaged by pressing the start button, is engaged through speech recognition: to activate it, you need to grab your CB radio mike and yell "Nitro!". If you're a native English speaker, you won't have any problems with it, because it's well implemented and reliable... but outside of the English speaking world, people tend to pronounce it as something more like "Neetroh!", and become frustrated as the nitro refuses to engage because they're not correctly pronouncing the word in proper English.

** While the on-foot mechanics is a divisive feature among fans and critics, ''Tony Hawk's American Wasteland'' added Parkour to it, which is universally disliked. In theory, a good idea; in practice, a '''bailproof''' way to add another 500 points and at least another three numbers to your multiplier.

* ''VideoGame/NCAAFootball'' has a despised system for making phone calls to recruits which basically spins a roulette wheel of topics, allowing you the option of pitching your school's merits on that topic or discrediting your rivals on that topic. It's obnoxious enough that you, the head coach, can't choose to pitch whatever you want. This can lead to the bizarre result that the coach of Stanford might never get to sell his school's academics or the coach of Miami can never sell the school's gorgeous campus. However the roulette wheel sometimes stops on topics that you know the player doesn't care about leaving you forced to try and pitch him anyway. This has been removed for ''NCAA 13''.
* ''VideoGame/NHLHockey'' has the goaltender controls which tend to not allow the free range of motion necessary to replicate real life goalie positioning. The worst offender being the hug post command which can frequently make you hug the wrong post and get stuck to it until you release the trigger, which will give the opposing player plenty of time to score on a wide open net.
* Besides the play mentioned above, ''VideoGame/MaddenNFL'' has had a few:
** The mobile version of Madden 12 has a mechanic that makes an open receiver on a go route virtually impossible to tackle if you're playing man coverage. It can be especially annoying if your opponent keeps throwing 80 touchdown passes.
** ''Madden 06'' had the infamous "QB cone". Basically, your quarterback had a vision cone extending outwards from their bodies, and they could only throw accurately to receivers in that cone. The size of the cone was determined by the QB's awareness stat: top-tier quarterbacks like Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady had huge cones, whereas backups had tiny slivers. It was frustrating to use and in some ways counterproductive, since a smaller vision cone could be used to fake defenders off of a receiver you actually wanted to pass to. The feature was gone by Madden 08.
** The QB cone made the game damn near unplayable on the PC version. Previous installments had the player aim with the mouse and throw by left clicking while using standard WSAD keys (and those directly around them) for moving the QB. However, once the vision cone was implemented, you still aimed with the mouse but needed to press a separate key on the keyboard in order to actually throw the pass to that receiver. Trying to do that while moving your QB away from pressure seemingly required a 3rd hand. It's little wonder that the PC version of the game stopped being made shortly thereafter...(The PC version would make a comeback for ''Madden 19'', long after the QB cone mechanic had been retired.)
* ''ESPN MLB [=2K5=]'' had a gimmick mechanic called Slam Zone; if a pitcher screwed up badly in delivering a pitch or a batter guessed location and pitch correctly, the game would break into a mini-game in which the pitcher and batter tapped the buttons as fast as possible, while the pitch was zoomed in on in slow motion. If the batter won the duel, he would uncork a home run. Not only did it break the immersive TV-like presentation, but was also very much un-sim for a baseball simulation. It wasn't brought back after the one-year experiment.
* ''NBA [=2K14=]'': The game giving you a technical foul for swearing when your X-Box One's Kinect or your Playstation 4's Camera recognizes the word or words said. That's ''when'' it recognizes the word or words said, it can be a little spotty about it. This means that the game gives a free throw to the opponent for the player swearing in the comfort of their own home. Thankfully, it can be turned off by disabling voice commands. Youtube user randomfrankp [[https://youtu.be/Q5okb9Vc8SY does not take it well]].\\
The Kinect or Eyetoy can be used in 2K15 to scan your face. At least it would, except it does not work period, full stop, that's it, finish, the end. You are supposed to have plenty of lighting but this causes the scan to go haywire, being too far away results in a poor scan, moving closer has it lose track, on the off chance the scan goes well the game will apparently decide it's not fair for everyone else struggling and say it cannot be used, if you do get to where the scan uploads the game will RageQuit and crash, ect, ect, in short it's much easier to use the in game sliders and build a face from scratch than use the camera scan. ''2K17'' replaced this with a phone based program, however if you did not also get the newest phone on the market when the game was released you're out of luck as it will only work for smartphones that are iPhone or Samsung 8 and beyond.

* ''VideoGame/AloneInTheDark'': The inventory system in [[VideoGame/AloneInTheDark2008 the reboot]]. Trying to find the right items while being attacked? Have fun trying to navigate the unintuitive and difficult to use inventory system that will end with you never picking what you need.
** Driving was flaky, hard to control, and added a lot of FakeDifficulty to the game.
** ''The New Nightmare'' has RespawningEnemies that refill every room any time you leave and come back. This being a SurvivalHorror game, health and ammunition pickups never self replenish. Infinite bad guys, finite supplies; you do the math.
* The boss battles of ''VideoGame/ClockTower3'' relied on an auto-aim feature that works like this: When you charge an attack you abruptly lock onto the boss's current position but don't track them, while the odds of said boss still being in line with your shot by the time you fire is slim to none in a classic case of StopHelpingMe Notably the battle with Scissorwoman Jemima disables this feature, making her battle the most genuinely satisfying moment in the game.
* The [[PressXToNotDie Mash X To Not Die]] moments from ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis'' are the single most derided aspect of the game, since unlike {{Quick Time Event}}s in other survival horror games they inflict damage even when you succeed (how fast you struggle away determines how much damage you take, but even with an auto fire controller you'll lose some health). Since they also happen to be completely unavoidable they feel more like an unfair toll you have to pay to continue the game rather than something to overcome with skill, and feel ''especially'' unfair as they occur in a game that has finite health pick-ups.
* ''{{VideoGame/Vanish}}'': The glow sticks. They're limited in number, last for only fifteen seconds, and only illuminate things in a three foot radius around you.

* ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' is generally considered a solid multi-player game, but some features are considered these to different parts of the player base, while others are fine with it due to the fact that it simply makes the game different from other shooting games.
** An example would be the fact that unlike other shooters, the shots you fire aren't instant and actually travel through the air, and home in on the opponent. Some weapons have more homing than others, and you can use powers to make the shots ''invisible and pass through walls''.
** Others hate the weapon value system, forcing people to spend hours fusing weapons to do exactly what they want and nothing more, lest their weapon becomes more valuable and makes them a greater burden to their team when they lose. Others feel that the game is based much more on skill so a person with a higher value weapon is fine as long as they have the skill to match.
** The game just isn't designed for left-handed players. You can map the four face buttons to movement, but this causes problems as the game differentiates between "flick" directional movements and slower tilt movements. You can use a Circle Pad Pro or a New Nintendo 3DS so that you have a Circle Pad on the right, but the former is an additional $20 investment and the latter's right pad isn't as precise as the left pad.
* ''VideoGame/StarFoxCommand''[='=]s online multiplayer would terminate matches if a single player disconnected. Not just for the quitter, but ''everyone else in the match''. As such, ragequitters became the collective target of murderous hatred for everyone who just wanted to have a complete match.

** Lip tricks are by far the worst type of tricks on the first era of Tony Hawk's game (and the HD remake). They give little points, only works when you're straight as an arrow, and can ruin combos when they're accidentally performed. Until ''[=THPS3=]'', it also had no way to balance it out and the skater would always bail if you kept holding for more than 4 seconds. It's less terrible in the modern games, but there's still some problems. For example, there's a goal on ''American Wasteland'' when you have to lip trick through '''an entire rotation of Santa Monica's Giant Wheel''' (thankfully only on Sick difficulty).