History ScrappyMechanic / FinalFantasy

** Rare steals. First, the chance of a rare steal is less than 4% (5/128, to be exact) and this means using !Steal repeatedly, all while the enemy is trying to kill you. This includes bosses and items that are {{Permanently Missable|Content}}, if one didn't manage to get a rare steal in the first place. And one can only steal 1 item per enemy, so if one got the common steal, the battle will have to be restarted. The one bright spot is the Reset spell, which allows you to restart the battle.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' for the DS has an "adjustment period" after switching a character's job, which results in lowering their stats for a certain number of battles. While it's not so bad if one switches between similar jobs, heading from a magical-based job to a tank can have ''ten'' battles be the adjustment period. This actually discourages players from experimenting with the job system.

** To level up a spell or weapon mastery, a character must use the spell/weapon a total of 100 times. The problem is that the battle system is horribly slow-paced and it could take hours of precise counting to build up either.

** In the SNES version, you can only run on the map if one of your characters has the Sprint ability equipped. This requires some grinding of the Thief class (only a little, to be fair), and is a punishing loss in a game where you only have one changeable ability slot per character (unless they're a Freelancer, when they have... two) and four characters.

** To level up a parameter, the character must perform an action related to this parameter. (Get attacked a lot to raise HP, use magic to improve Magic Power, etc) However, parameters ''decrease'' if they contradict each other, leading to unbalanced parties and encouraging awkward situations of characters attacking their own party members to near death repeatedly just to become stronger.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' for the DS has an "adjustment period" after switching a character's job, which results in lowering their parameters for a certain number of battles. While it's not so bad if one switches between similar jobs, heading from a magical-based job to a tank can have ''ten'' battles be the adjustment period. This actually discourages players from experimenting with the job system.

** After reaching Level 70, attribute bonuses are random. Meaning one could get a decent amount of parameters increased upon leveling up, maybe only one or two points in a specific parameter or even ''decrease'' parameters. Fortunately, the [=DS=] version has this changed to be based on the game's [[PowersAsPrograms Augment Ability]] system, but good luck figuring ''that'' thing out without [[GuideDangIt having a handy guide]].

** Sabin's Blitz is supposed to mimic a fighting game, but the input never has to be mirror-reversed if Sabin is caught in a pincer formation or back-attack. Doing rotation movements is difficult with a D-Pad, and four of his techniques require rotation. And the game [[GuideDangIt never tells you]] that all but two of his techniques run off his initially-low magic parameter.

** The Junction System. You get a certain number of spells and, if you junction a spell to a specific parameter, said parameter will increase. Elemental and status resistance, or elemental attack, can also be junctioned. The elemental attack makes things difficult, due to only a certain percentage of one's attack being elemental. Oh, half the spells didn't make sense, either, as Raise gives 30% defense to all elements. Overall, parameter junctions are impossible to figure out, unless one has [[GuideDangIt a guide on hand]] or a lot of [[TrialAndErrorGameplay trial and error]], as any given spell doesn't raise parameters equally.

** The inevitable [[LevelGrinding drawing as much magic from every enemy one can encounter]], but [[TooAwesomeToUse never actually using it in combat]] and junctioning every spell to your parameters, as monsters [[LevelScaling scale up to your level]]. Since the characters' levels are effectively meaningless, one can easily turn RandomEncounters off, grind Triple Triad and convert any won card into spells, leading to the game being made too easy because of [[DiskOneNuke disc one nukes]].

** Blitzball itself. The first half of the game revolves around it and the player is thrown into a tournament game of Blitzball, with no real preparation, except an in-game manual just beforehand, which is a vague description of what goes on. The player is also immediately pitted against a team that, parameter-wise, is so much better than your team that winning the game is practically luck-based. The only upside is that winning this game is optional, so whether you lose or win makes no difference, except for one minuscule scene. And the game was inevitably soured for most players, especially when one learned that, in order to get Wakka's other [[LimitBreak Overlimits]] or [[InfinityPlusOneSword best weapon]], you have to play ''hours upon hours of Blitzball''.

** The gambit system. Unless set up to preform a very specific AFK farm job, it was tedious at best neigh-worthless at worst. Supposed to be programmable AI for your characters as the franchise attempted to switch focus to more action oriented combat, it was instead severally lacking in usefulness. First, the number of gambits you set was limited by your progress in the license grid and still limited once you maxed out the grid. Second, AI could not be programmed until you bought the action from a vendor - in a game where cash doesn't drop and is a huge grind. Third, gambits ran weather in combat or not, meaning if you set up your buffs on gambits your characters would regularly stop to recast them as you tried to traverse the large world. Finally, each action could have only 1 condition. Good luck trying to program a mage to exploit elemental weakness, or use telekinesis to attack flying enemies while equipped with a melee weapon, if you actually wanted to intelligently have your party focus their attacks on a single target (generally the leader's target) and not also randomly attack non-aggressive mobs that you just ran past without intending to attack them.

** The interact button is mapped to the Jump button and there is a lag between the change. This guarantees that when trying to look at an object, Noct will instead jump around ridiculously for a while. This wasn't an issue for Japanese players for having a different controller layout in all their games.

** The interact button is mapped to the Jump button and there is a lag between the change. This guarantees that when trying to look at an object, Noct will instead jump around ridiculously for a while.

** The stealing mechanic can drive players up the wall. Most enemies carry up to 4 items to steal, ranging from common to rare. Bosses, naturally, tend to hold the better items. Even with add-on abilities that increase the success rate of stealing, it still doesn't help a lot. Especially in the fight against Beatrix, as she ends the fight after several turns and, if you haven't managed to successfully steal all items from her, [[PermanentlyMissibleContent rendering the items lost forever.]]

** To level up a parameter, the character must perform an action related to this parameter. (Get attacked a lot to raise HP, use magic to improve Magic Power, etc) However, parameters ''decrease'' if they contradict each other, leading to unbalanced parties and encourages awkward situations of characters attacking their own party members to near death repeatedly, just to become stronger.
** The NES version filed your key items in your hugely limited inventory, where they consume a valuable slot for the whole game. Most expert players will skip picking up the airship pass from the office in the mines in favour of using exploits to cheese their way past the BeefGate instead, because the inventory slot is more valuable.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' for the DS has an 'adjustment period' after switching a character's job, which results in lowering their parameters for a certain number of battles. While it's not so bad if one switches between similar jobs, but heading from a magical-based job to a tank can have ''ten'' battles be the adjustment period. This actually discourages players to experiment with the job system.

** Originally, the inventory only had a limited number of slots and put healing items, equipment and key items into one place. This made inventory management a pain and one had to repeatedly throw items away to make room for new ones or head back to the Fat Chocobo over and over. The [=DS=] version had no inventory capacity.
** Outside of battle, healing magic only restored a set amount of HP, meaning one would require multiple usages of Curaga or Curaja to completely restore the party's HP. Later versions changed the HP-amount to be dependent on the caster's Spirit attribute.
** After reaching Level 70, attribute bonuses were random. Meaning one could get a decent amount of parameters increased upon leveling up, maybe only one or two points in a specific parameter or even ''decrease'' parameters. Fortunately, the [=DS=] version had this changed to be based on the game's new [[PowersAsPrograms Augment Ability]] system, but good luck figuring ''that'' thing out without [[GuideDangIt having a handy guide]].
** Augments themselves, if one finds them and knows how to use them, due to having the capability of rendering the game a complete joke and reducing each party member to 'build-your-own-guy'.
** The process to obtain the best armour in the game (or, in the DS version, continue one of the game's most amusing added sidequests) combines all the most loathed mechanics in the game - you need to get the 1/64 Rare Drop from an ultra-rare monster, in one of the game's many BossInMooksClothing dungeons, the game never giving you the means to defend more than one or two of your party members from the all-party Berserk spell the enemy casts as soon as you encounter it, and the only way to speed up the grind being an item that is... another 1/64 Rare Drop. Even the most ardent fans of ''FFIV'''s (otherwise rock-solid) battle mechanics find this quest too depressing to bother with.

** Rare steals. First, the chance of a rare steal is less than 4% (5/128, to be exact) and this means using !Steal repeatedly, all while the enemy is trying to kill you. This includes bosses and items that are {{Permanently Missable|Content}}, if one didn't manage to get a rare steal in the first place. And one can only steal 1 item per enemy, so if one got the common steal, the battle would have to be restarted. The one bright spot is the Reset spell, which allows you to restart the battle.

** Sabin's Blitz is supposed to mimic a fighting game, but the input never has to be mirror-reversed, if Sabin is caught in a pincer formation or back-attack. Doing rotation-movements is difficult with a D-Pad and four of his techniques require rotation. And the game [[GuideDangIt never tells you]] that all but two of his techniques run off his initially-low magic parameter.
** Relm's Sketch ability mimics a monster's ability, which would be helpful, if monsters were actually weak to their own attacks [[GameplayAndStorySegregation outside of the one mandatory cutscene, where it actually did something]].
** Cyan's Bushido techniques are some of the best and strongest in the game and make him a really good party member. Except that one needs to let the bar ''charge'' up to the level of technique one wants to use and the player cannot do anything while charging, making the entire party a sitting duck, even if one uses Quick. This was remedied in the [=iOS=] and Steam versions where you pick a technique and the bar charges on its own while you're free to attack with your other party members.

** The original Japanese version only allowed you to manage the Materia of characters currently in your party, except at a couple of story points (e.g. before Cloud's dual with Rufus). This made party member management into the world's dullest FoxChickenGrainPuzzle where you can't even remember who's holding what, especially in the passages of the game where CantDropTheHero means you only get one flexible party slot. Since you could only swap party members at Save Points or on the Overworld, you'd also have to backtrack if you'd accidentally given someone on the bench a spell you need. As a result, the English version and the ''Final Fantasy VII International'' UpdatedRerelease added an extra menu, Exchange, that allowed you see all available characters and what Materia they have equipped, and swap it around freely, even if you were nowhere near a Save Point. Cloud even lampshades this tweak in his tutorial narration, acknowledging the popular demand that led to the menu's addition and advising the player to keep it secret from those playing the vanilla game.
** Summons are cool-looking, but their MP cost is far too high to compensate for what they actually do, being simply strong elemental magic but three times as expensive and [[BladderOfSteel taking fifteen times as long]]. Only four of the Summons in the game have much utility (Choco/Mog, Hades, Phoenix and Knights of the Round), and of those one is only useful in conjunction with a Support Materia.

** The Junction System. You get a certain number of spells and, if you junctioned a spell to a specific parameter, said parameter would increase. Elemental and status resistance, or elemental attack, could also be junctioned. The elemental attack made things difficult, due to only a certain percentage of one's attack being elemental. Oh, half the spells didn't make sense, either, as Raise gives 30% defense to all elements. Overall, parameter junctions were impossible to figure out, unless one had [[GuideDangIt a guide on hand]] or a lot of [[TrialAndErrorGameplay trial and error]], as any given spell didn't raise parameters equally.
** The Random Rule in the Triple Triad minigame was always a killer, [[GuideDangIt unless one card-modded all of their low-level cards and only kept boss or unique cards]], which merely made the rule semi-annoying. And the rules could easily spread from one region to another by mechanics so arcane, it required a decomplier for fans to figure out how it worked.
** The inevitable [[LevelGrinding drawing as much magic from every enemy one could encounter]], but [[TooAwesomeToUse never actually using it in combat]] and junctioning every spell to your parameters, as monsters [[LevelScaling scaled up to your level]]. Since the characters' levels are effectively meaningless, one could easily turn RandomEncounters off, grind Triple Triad and convert any won card into spells, leading to the game being made too easy because of [[DiskOneNuke disc one nukes]].

** The [[LimitBreak Trance]] system, because the gauge tended to be wasted at the end of a random encounter by the computer and the Trances themselves were extremely uneven, with Quina's being mostly useless and Zidane's turning him into a controllable god. And because of how the Trance gauge filled up, one was frequently playing through the game for ''hours'' without hitting Trance mode, unless a story event maxed it out.
** Tetra Master can also be counted. Particularly the first time one played the game and aren't expecting to ''have'' to win a couple of games to complete the storyline.
** The HP in the game being capped at just-below five digits and, even for the lowest-level characters, HP starts at three digits. There are several segments in the game, where one has no access to any character with a healing or revival spell/technique. And if one does have such a character in the party, the spells cannot be accessed due to 'anti-magic fields' in the area or because your healing mage is technically available but [[BreakTheCutie broken]]. And Phoenix Downs in this game only restore ''single-digit'' HP.
** When Garnet goes through a [[HeroicBSOD broken]] phase [[note]][[spoiler:due to suffering several traumatic events that culminated in the death of her mother and destruction of her kingdom, shortly after being made queen]][[/note]], she becomes ''useless'' in battle. She completely loses her ability to go into Trance and has a random chance of ''skipping'' her turn, because she is incapable of focusing. It also doesn't help that the other white mage of the party has gone missing. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Fortunately, you can still use Garnet's magic outside of battles]].
** The stealing mechanic can drive players up the wall. Most enemies carry up to 4 items to steal, ranging from common to rare and bosses, naturally, tend to hold the better items. Even with add-on abilities that increase the success rate of stealing, it still doesn't help a lot. Especially in the fight against Beatrix, as she ends the fight after several turns and, if one has not managed to successfully steal all items from her, rendering the items {{Permanently Missable|Content}}.
** The fact that being killed does not negate the Zombie status. It prevents the character from being revived, until it is removed and Remedy does not work on it.

** The Chocobo Race minigame. ''No'' player has not raged at the horrible mechanics in this minigame. In the race, one rides a barely-controllable Chocobo and needs to beat the NPC Opponent's time in racing - picking up balloons on the track removes 3 seconds off of your time, whereas being hit by seagulls ''who come right out of nowhere'' adds 3 seconds to your time. And if the player wants [[InfinityPlusOneSword Tidus' best weapon]]? You need to manage a time ''below'' 0:00 seconds! Meaning a preferably perfect run of the race, with only picking up balloons and not getting whomped by a seagull.
** Monster Catching. In order to complete the Monster Catching sidequest, the player needs to catch 10 fiends of every area in the game. Problem is that some encounters are so rare, that the player could spend ''hours'' running around and trying to find this rare monster. Tonberries are notorious, as they reside in the hardest area of the entire game and, without weapons that can break the damage cap or summoning Aeons, one is essentiall screwed. Worst part is that the player needs to have specific weapons equipped for a character to even be ''able'' to catch a monster and needs to do the last hit, for the monster to count as caught.
** Dodging lightning bolts in the Thunder Plains. Getting hit is bad enough, as it throws Tidus back a few paces, and the player can make it through somewhat easily enough by just dodging a few lightning bolts. But if one wants [[InfinityPlusOneSword Lulu's crest to power up her best weapon]], the player needs to dodge ''two-hundred'' (200) lightning bolts. ''Consecutively''. The erratic pattern of the lightning bolts makes this obnoxious enough ''and'' this area has random encounters, so attempting this without a No Encounters weapon is just begging for a hole in the wall. Oh, and don't even think of switching screens, because if you do, your count gets reset and you get to do that whole thing all over again. And no, nothing in the game actually tells you how many bolts you've dodged already.
** Blitzball itself. The first half of the game revolves around it and the player is thrown into a tournament game of Blitzball, with no real preparation, except an in-game manual just beforehand, which is a vague description of what goes on. The player is also immediately pitted against a team that, parameter-wise, is so much better than your team, winning the game is practically luck-based. The only upside is that winning this game is optional, so whether one lost or won made no difference, except for one minuscule scene. And the game was inevitably soured for most players, especially when one learned that, in order to get Wakka's other [[LimitBreak Overlimits]] or [[InfinityPlusOneSword best weapon]], one had to play ''hours upon hours of Blitzball''.
** Lulu's Overdrive mechanic requiring fast rotating of the right analog stick. Any player of the original ''VideoGame/MarioParty'' knows that this resulted in blistered palms and broken controllers. And yes, this was unchanged in the [[UpdatedRerelease [=PS3/PS4=]]] version.
** Unskippable Cutscenes. As amazing as the cutscenes are, the fact that the series is infamous for throwing bosses at the player, with no saving in-between, made this a horrible combination. So be prepared to not only fight the [[ThatOneBoss same boss]] again, but also to watch the very long cutscene leading up to the battle. And this issue was ''not'' fixed in the [=HD=] Remaster, despite it being one of the biggest complaints of the game.

** The treasure chests had some horrible mechanics to it. A specific treasure chest containing an [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Spear]] gets changed to a semi-useless item, if the player [[GuideDangIt opened several normal-looking treasure chests much earlier in the game]].
*** Several of the treasure chests that can contain rare equipment (such as the all-ailment-nullifying Ribbon) have a much higher chance of ''not'' containing said piece of equipment or flat out ''don't even appear''. Players are forced to [[SaveScumming save-scum]], in case this happens.
*** Some treasure chests' amazing items are replaced with crap items, if the player is not ''wearing the right accessory'' when opening the chest. Even if the treasure chest actually spawned, if you don't have the Diamond Armlet equipped, it'll suck to be you.
*** And the opposite holds true, with some treasure chests giving crap ''because'' the player has the Diamond Armlet equipped! So, whenever you see a treasure chest? [[SaveScumming Save the game]], [[GuideDangIt grab the guide and double-triple check what you need to have equipped, in order to get something good]].
** The Loot system, too. The loot itself is not so bad, but the game has a horrible habit of putting sidequest-relevant items into the Loot section of the inventory, rather than Key Items. Let's just hope you didn't sell that thing you needed to solve the quest.

** The fact that TransformationIsAFreeAction not being observed by the characters in-battle. The first time your party switches Paradigms in a fight, the camera zooms upon each of them and they strike a pose, while the enemy is still fighting. Better make sure to switch to healing ''before'' you desperately need it.
** For the first time in the series, [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou the party loses, if the leader gets [=KOed=]]]. So if any battle has all the enemy decide to focus on your main character, make sure to keep them at full HP or retry the battle.
** The Quake spell is the only offensive spell in the game that requires a consumable gauge (the TP gauge), which is better saved for things like Libra or summong Eidolons. But Quake is the ''only'' way to deal Earth-elemental damage in the entire game, outside of summons. Fortunately, most enemies are not weak to Earth to begin with, but the ones that are, are often DemonicSpiders. And making use of (elemental) weaknesses makes up a big part of the staggering mechanic, which lets the party deal tons of damage. Fortunately, the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2 sequel]] removed the Earth element entirely.
** Customization earned quite some flak for three reasons. First, money is exceptionally hard to obtain, as battles do not drop Gil and the best drops to sell are usually held by really strong monsters, making Weapon customization difficult to do, as it requires a lot of money. Second, its system of balancing [=EXP=] Multiplier and points is convoluted. Third, [[GuideDangIt nothing in the game hints at the target time for battles being lowered, the higher upgraded your weapon is]]. So the player can inadverdently shoot themselves in the foot by making great weapons, but not finishing battles soon enough to get 5 Stars, which results in better upgrade material being dropped.

** While this game fixed a lot of the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII previous]] game's mechanics in the battle system, the added monster catching aspect has become a new scrappy mechanic itself. It's basically a LuckBasedMission on whether the player gets a Monster Crystal from fighting a monster. Sometimes, the RandomNumberGod is kind and lets one get a crystal after one or two fights, other times it will force the player to fight the same enemy at least a dozen times.
** The casino's slot-machine is based on ''actual'' luck. No matter what you do, nothing really influences the chance of getting [=777=] and a nice pay-off, meaning the player could spend ''hours upon hours'' of dropping coins into the thing, just to get a big enough pay-out to get [[ThatOneSidequest the Lucky Coin fragment]]. And using the Auto-Play option for the slot-machine doesn't help much, either. Tie a rubber-band to it, go away for a few hours and check to see if you got lucky.

** Synthesizing and upgrading Abilities. The higher an Ability's level is, the more damage it does, so one would want to increase their strength, especially against [[EliteMook Chocobo-Eaters and Earth-Eaters]]. Downside, synthesizing means one needs to have multiple of the same Ability to merge them, raising their points enough so that it's ready to be leveled up. So the player needs to grind monsters for the same Ability over and over, to get enough multiples to merge. Worst offender is Elementaga, the highest tier of the four-elemental spell, which is only dropped by the FinalBoss. On Hard Mode.
** The spawning of the Rare Forge, a travelling NPC, who sells some of the best garbs in the game. He spawns randomly ''each hour'', in any of the four locales - with five spawn points per locale - and he cannot spawn in the locale the player's currently at. Looking for this guy on purpose will waste the limited time the game gives, so one can only hope to honestly just stumble over him at one point. And it's not uncommon to go an entire playthrough, without ever knowing he ''exists''.

** The Crown upgrade system. The only way to learn new abilities, is by upgrading the crowns with gems and those are only dropped by monsters. Every Level 2 upgrade requires an Amethyst (which only has a limited supply in the first half of the game) and Level 3 upgrades requires a Diamond (which cannot be found until the last third of the game). And if you upgrade a crown, only the character that did so will benefit from it.

** The process to obtain the best armour in the game (or, in the DS version, continue one of the game's most amusing added sidequests) combines all the most loathed mechanics in the game - you need to get the 1/64 Rare Drop from an ultra-rare monster, in one of the game's many BossInMooksClothing dungeons, the game never giving you the means to defend more than one or two of your party members from the all-party Berserk spell the enemy casts as soon as you encounter it, and the only way to speed up the grind being an item that is... another 1/64 Rare Drop. Even the most ardent fans of ''FFIV'''s (otherwise rock-solid) battle mechanics find this quest a depressing affair.

** The original Japanese version only allowed you to manage the Materia of current party members, with the exception of a couple of story points (e.g. before Cloud's dual with Rufus). This made party member management into the world's dullest FoxChickenGrainPuzzle where you can't even remember who's holding what. Both the English version and the ''Final Fantasy VII International'' UpdatedRerelease added an extra menu, Exchange, that allowed you see all party members and what Materia they have equipped. Cloud even lampshades this tweak in his tutorial narration, acknowledging the popular demand that led to the menu's addition and advising the player to keep it secret from those playing the vanilla game.

** The original Japanese version only allowed you to manage the Materia of current party members, with the exception of a couple of story points (e.g. before Cloud's dual with Rufus). This made party member management into the world's dullest FoxChickenGrain puzzle where you can't even remember who's holding what. Both the English version and the ''Final Fantasy VII International'' ExpandedRerelease added an extra menu, Exchange, that allowed you see all party members and what Materia they have equipped. Cloud even lampshades this tweak in his tutorial narration, acknowledging the popular demand that led to the menu's addition and advising the player to keep it secret from those playing the vanilla game.
** Summons are cool-looking, but their MP cost is far too high to compensate for what they actually do, being simply strong elemental magic but three times as expensive and [[BladderOfSteel fifteen times as long]]. Only four of the Summons in the game have much utility (Choco/Mog, Hades, Phoenix and Knights of the Round), and of those one is only useful in conjunction with a Support Materia.

** Rare steals. First, the chance of a rare steal is less than 4% (5/128, to be exact) and this means using !Steal repeatedly, all while the enemy is trying to kill you. This includes bosses and items that are LostForever, if one didn't manage to get a rare steal in the first place. And one can only steal 1 item per enemy, so if one got the common steal, the battle would have to be restarted. The one bright spot is the Reset spell, which allows you to restart the battle.
** Rare drops are just as bad. Couple the above less-than-4% chance of obtaining it, with LostForever and apply this to a post-battle drop, which is a one-chance thing. You didn't get it, you need to restart the battle.

** The stealing mechanic can drive players up the wall. Most enemies carry up to 4 items to steal, ranging from common to rare and bosses, naturally, tend to hold the better items. Even with add-on abilities that increase the success rate of stealing, it still doesn't help a lot. Especially in the fight against Beatrix, as she ends the fight after several turns and, if one has not managed to successfully steal all items from her, rendering the items LostForever.

** Sabin's Blitz is supposed to mimic a fighting game, but the input never has to be mirror-reversed, if Sabin is caught in a pincer formation or back-attack. Doing rotation-movements is difficult with a D-Pad and four of his techniques require rotation. And the game [[GuideDangIt never tells you]] that two of his techniques run off his initially-low magic parameter.

** Cyan's Bushido techniques are some of the best and strongest in the game and make him a really good party member. Except that one needs to let the bar ''charge'' up to the level of technique one wants to use and the player cannot do anything while charging, making the entire party a sitting duck, even if one uses Quick.

** The spawning of the Rare Forge, a travelling NPC, who sells some of the best garbs in the game. He spawns randomly ''each hour'', in any of the multiple locations he can be in - with even one city having multiple spawn points - and he cannot spawn in the city the player is currently at. Looking for this guy on purpose will waste the limited time the game gives, so one can only hope to honestly just stumble over him at one point. And it's not uncommon to go an entire playthrough, without ever knowing he ''exists''.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' has an 'adjustment period' after switching a character's job, which results in lowering their parameters for a certain number of battles. While it's not so bad if one switches between similar jobs, but heading from a magical-based job to a tank can have ''ten'' battles be the adjustment period. This actually discourages players to experiment with the job system.

** Rare steals. First, the chance of a rare steal is less than 4% (5/128, to be exact) and this means using !Steal repeatedly, all while the enemy is trying to kill you. This includes bosses and items that are LostForever, if one didn't manage to get a rare steal in the first place. And one can only steal 1 item per enemy, so if one got the common steal, the battle would have to be restarted.

** When Garnet goes through a [[HeroicBSOD broken]] phase [[note]][[spoiler: due to suffering several traumatic events that culminated in the death of her mother and destruction of her kingdom, shortly after being made queen]][[/note]], she becomes ''useless'' in battle. She completely loses her ability to go into Trance and has a random chance of ''skipping'' her turn, because she is incapable of focusing. It also doesn't help that the other white mage of the party has gone missing. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Fortunately, you can still use Garnet's magic outside of battles]].

** Monster Catching. In order to complete the Monster Catching sidequest, the player needs to catch 10 of every fiend in the game. Problem is that some encounters are so rare, that the player could spend ''hours'' running around and trying to find this rare monster. Tonberries are notorious, as they reside in the hardest area of the entire game and, without weapons that can break the damage cap or summoning Aeons, one is essentiall screwed. Worst part is that the player needs to have specific weapons equipped for a character to even be ''able'' to catch a monster and needs to do the last hit, for the monster to count as caught.

** Blitzball itself. The first half of the game revolves around it and the player is thrown into a tournament game of Blitzball, with no real preparation, except an in-game manual just beforehand, which is a vague description of what goes on. The player is also immediately pitted against a team that, parameter-wise, is so better than your team, winning the game is practically luck-based. The only upside is that winning this game is optional, so whether one lost or won made no difference, except for one miunscule scene. And the game was inevitably soured for most players, especially when one learned that, in order to get Wakka's other [[LimitBreak Overlimits]] or [[InfinityPlusOneSword best weapon]], one had to play ''hours upon hours of Blitzball''.

** The battle system lets you control ''what'' action your characters take, but not which ''target'' it will be done to. Do you want to gang up on a Cowpel with physical and magical attacks? Sorry, you can't. Physical attacks always go for the left-most and magic the right-most enemy. Want your White Mage to heal your half-dead tank? They will only hear the one with the least HP, even if said character has barely a scratch on them.

** Customization earned quite some flak for three reasons. First, money is exceptionally hard to obtain, as battles do not drop Gil and the best drops to sell are usually held by really strong monsters, making Weapon customization difficult to do, as it requires a lot of money. Second, its system of balancing [=EXP=] Multiplier and points is convoluted. Third, [[GuideDangIt nothing in the game hints at the target time for battles being lowered, the higher upgraded your weapon is]]. So the player can inadvertendly shoot themselves in the foot by making great weapons, but not finishing battles soon enough to get 5 Stars, which results in better upgrade material being dropped.

*** Several of the treasure chests that can contain are equipment (such as the all-ailment-nullifying Ribbon) have a much higher chance of ''not'' containing said piece of equipment or flat out ''don't even appear''. Players are forced to [[SaveScumming save-scum]], in case this happens.

** The inevitable [[LevelGrinding drawin as much magic from every enemy one could encounter]], but [[TooAwesomeToUse never actually using it in combat]] and junctioning every spell to your parameters, as monsters [[LevelScaling scaled up to your level]]. Since the characters' levels are effectively meaningless, one could easily turn RandomEncounters off, grind Triple Triad and convert any won card into spells, leading to the game being made too easy because of [[DiskOneNuke disc one nukes]].

** Monster Catching. In order to complete the Monster Catching sidequest, the player needs to catch 10 of every fiend in the game. Problem is that some encounters are so rare, that the player could spend ''hours'' running around and trying to find this rare monster. Tonberries are notorious, as they reside in the hardest area of the entire game and, without weapons that can break the damage cap or summoning Aeons, one is essentiall screwed. Worst part is that the player needs to have specific weapons equipped for a character to even be ''able'' to catch a monster.

** Lulu's Overdrive mechanic requiring fast rotating of the right analog stick. Any player of the original ''VideoGame/MarioParty'' knows that this resulted in blistered palms and broken controllers. And yes, this was unchanged in the [[UpdatedRerelease [=PS3/PS4=] version.

** The Junction System. You get a certain number of spells and, if you junctioned a spell to a specific parameter, said parameter would increase. Elemental and status resistance, or elemental attack, could also be junctioned. The elemental attack made things difficult, due to only a certain percentage of one's attack being elemental. Oh, half the spells didn't make sense, either, as Raise gives 30% defense to all elements. Overall, parameter junctions were impossible to figure out [[GuideDangIt a guide on hand]] or a lot of [[TrialAndErrorGameplay trial and error]], as any given spell didn't raise parameters equally.