Scrappy Mechanic / Beat 'em Up

• Battle Toads:
  • The 2 player mode is cruel enough to force both players to restart a section if either one runs out of lives. Most of the time, the surviving player will be low on lives and be the one to run out next time. The Angry Video Game Nerd and Kyle Justin ranted about this long before reaching the eleventh stage, which has an out-and-out bug that makes it impossible in 2 player.
  • As if the game weren't hard enough already, you can't turn off the friendly fire in the game (though you could in later Battletoads games), making it extremely easy to punch/kick/headbutt your ally in co-op by accident. This really, really sucks in the descending level (level 2), where your toad will turn into a wrecking ball and instantly kill any enemy or friend who is even roughly parallel to him, simply because you pressed the attack button.
• Bayonetta:
  • Out-of-body fights. They're tolerable in the story mode, where you're given tools to whale on angels with and Cereza isn't constantly in danger, but when they're made an Alfheim challenge, you have to leave your body behind to fight; that won't stop the angels from going after it anyway (which will hurt your regular lifebar), unless you waste one of your two accessory slots on an item that forces Angels to attack you... but also makes them stronger. That very mechanic forces you to use a lightpole to fight Affinities while protecting Cereza, since they are not in the same dimension. Not only is the "weapon" painfully slow, it slips out of your hands if you stop to dodge an attack. Granted, you can use Rodin to attack them directly but the thing is not exactly easy to get...
  • The mini-game to send Jubileus into the sun in the final chapter, which is an upscaled version of the lipstick-steering mini game in the penultimate chapter, isn't so bad in Normal mode. In Hard and Climax mode however the planets are much harder to avoid, and failure is counted as a death, which can completely ruin an otherwise perfect score. Considering how long and difficult the final chapter is, especially when compared to the single-verse Boss-Only Level just prior, this is frustrating to say the least. This minigame returns in Bayonetta 2 but is at least more tolerable, and outright absent in 3.
  • Insta-Death Quick Time Events in general, because it's sometimes damn near impossible to know exactly when to push the Square/X/B button, the game only gives you about half a second to react, and each death counts against your score. They were so hated that they were basically removed from the sequel, largely replaced with climax style button mashes that reward quick reflexes, but don't necessarily punish missing them.
  • Side chapters that require you to kill enemies only during Witch Time can get grating really fast. In general, when the game tells you to kill enemies in a specific way, attacking them not using said method will stagger you, cancel your attack and leave you vulnerable for a while. Having to attack enemies during Witch Time not only requires you to wait until the enemy attacks first to activate it (Bayonetta 3 slightly mitigates this via a demon with on-demand Witch Time), but Witch Time can and often will expire in the middle of your combo, which not only saves the enemy from certain death but possibly gets you smacked by said enemy as you are reeling from the stun.
• Comix Zone had the rather infamous quirk that hitting inanimate objects removed a tiny sliver of your health bar...then forced you to break things this way to progress, unless you managed to figure out where every single hidden grenade or pack of dynamite is and use those instead.
• Devil May Cry:
  • There is not much love for the underwater sections in Devil May Cry or Devil May Cry 2. To elaborate, the first game had at least two first-person underwater sections. In these bits you controlled like a tank, can't use Devil Trigger, can only use the needle gun, and the enemies had way better movement than you did. It gets worse on Dante Must Die if you can't kill enemies fast enough. The second game had a lot of Lucia's missions underwater (in 3rd person this time) that played even worse, culminating in one of the missions having a boss battle that's underwater.
  • During the final battle with Arkham in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, you are assisted by Vergil. You can cue Vergil to attack by pressing a button. The problem is that it's mapped to your Style button, meaning you can't use your Style moves at all during this fight. Also, for no good reason, Devil Trigger is disabled during the fight.
  • The Devil Bringer Nero uses in Devil May Cry 4 annoys some fans of the series in that it is overpowered and that combat becomes more of a one-hit God of War button pressing sequence rather than dishing out the combos... but the problem with Nero is that his move list is limited, and he doesn't get new weapons like Dante, thus to deal major damage you usually have to use the Devil Bringer.
  • While revving Nero's sword up to power up his strikes has no downside and revving it in time with his attacks automatically powers up the next attack instead of having to rev it 3 times, it's a Scrappy Mechanic to a degree in case you're not a fan of hitting one of the shoulder buttons in time with every attack, especially since revved attacks have different timing and thus require you learn both of them if you wish to master EX-Acting and MAX-Acting all attacks. If you don't, your variety of attacks will be a lot more limited.
  • Although gold orbs are nothing new to the DMC series, the fifth game's design unfortunately showers the player with the things, whether they want them or not. Since gold orbs let you instantly revive once downed - with full health, devil trigger, and magazine no less - and leave bosses still just as injured.... and can be used infinitely, even on Dante Must Die difficulty... the player always has the option of simply brute-forcing their way through any fight effortlessly, which blunts the sense of accomplishment from winning a difficult battle. The player doesn't have to use gold orbs, but it's more or less impossible to run out, and the alternative involves sitting through several loading screens to restart the mission.
• DmC: Devil May Cry:
  • The removal of certain iconic moves such as taunting and, most importantly, a hard lock-on function. The latter makes the aim for guns, grapples and dash attacks a bit dodgy. This also makes dash attacks like Stinger harder to execute, as you have to tap the left stick in a direction twice instead of simply holding it towards the enemy you're locked on.
  • Special weapons are split into two classes. Several enemy types are immune to one class or the other, which some players felt limited their weapon options in combat.
  • The rating system rewards you for the damage you make rather than the variety from your combos, although the length of time a style grade remained before disappearing or lowering was significantly shortened in a patch.
  • The Devil Trigger was significantly buffed, with some seeing it as a Game-Breaker, due its use of Bullet Time and a tendency to throw any non-boss enemy helplessly into the air. Others dislike it because it only serves a single function instead of adding variety to combat like in the previous games in form of additional attacks and because filling the gauge to use it takes so long that you can only use it 1-2 times per level at most.
  • The platforming sequences are sometimes seen as unnecessary, too easy, or Padding when replaying missions for points.
  • Restarting a checkpoint counts as a death, but it's also a hot topic when the game is compared to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (another Stylish Action game released near DmC) where restarting a checkpoint in that game does not count as dying. In DmC, dying negatively affects your overall Style Ranking post-mission. This is a source of frustration when going for a no death run on the hardest difficulty, more so on the "Gods Must Die" and Hardcore Mode of the Definitive Edition.
  • Collectibles such as the Lost Souls and Hidden Keys for Secret Missions counts towards your end of level rank. If you want the best and highest possible rank you need to get 100% collectibles. This is worse in the vanilla version, as there two different key types and each one works for its respective door color. This was alleviated in the Definitive Edition, as you only needed one type of key, and it would work on any Secret Mission door. Another problem is that you can't backtrack to most areas, unlike past entries. Once you go past a certain point or enter a new area, you are locked out. The only way to grab the collectibles you missed are either restart, or repeat the stage on a later run. While this is not as bad as Devil May Cry 4's Red Orb count, it still annoying as not much skill is involved on the player's part, and is just padding for score. It's telling, as any missions or boss only levels automatically gives a SSS for items found, because there are none in those specific stages. The only other positive is once you gotten the collectible(s), you never have to find them again and are permanently saved.
• In the initial arcade release of Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone, items in the in-game shops cost real world money. Complaints about this feature caused it to be later removed from the Japanese version.
• Dynasty Warriors 6:
  • It introduced a new combat engine, Renbu (which means "Endless Dance"), which no longer limited attacks to a simple string of striking attacks as they could go on infinitely at any time (Including the newly implemented string of charge attacks). As your Renbu level increased, more attacks (striking and charge) are added to your attack string. However, the only way to increase your Renbu level is by constantly attacking enemies (raising your chain counter), but that's not the worst of it. Your Renbu gauge can decrease by either not raising (or starting) your chain counter (Making this very frustrating in escort missions) or by taking heavy damage from enemy attacks.
  • With the right abilities, renbu gague loss was mitigated. The real problem with renbu was that it was a fine idea on paper but not in play on higher difficulties. On higher difficulty levels, it's not uncommon for one of the fifteen or twenty mooks to hit you during a combo, breaking your momentum. Some characters could easily recover; but other characters' movesets (such as Dian Wei and Xiahou Dun) felt so uncomfortable to play with on higher difficulty settings that they were outright unusable.
  • The reception for this was so bad Renbu was removed completely from the Empires Expansion Pack in favor of upgrading the weapons themselves to give more elaborate combos. Simplifying of the upgrade system is common for the Empires side games in order to allow more focus on the kingdom management aspects, but this is the first time a core battlefield mechanic was completely excised between a numbered release and the expansion.
  • Dynasty Warriors 2 had some enemy generals gaining powerups after standing back up from being knocked down. The battles were still winnable, but this really dragged some of them out, particularly when Liu Bei or Cao Cao was the commander. He could literally be the last man standing, with hostile forces swarming around him, and it'd still take 6 minutes to finish him off. No surprise Koei dropped this like a bad habit.
• Final Vendetta: All the bonus modes or hardest difficulty have to be unlocked with specific characters. Training Mode has to be unlocked by completing the game. Compared to Final Vendetta's contemporaries, and most games of the past, training mode is usually something unlocked from the start, or added in later as free update. Survival Mode has to be unlocked by beating the game as Duke. Boss Rush Mode has to unlocked by beating the game as Claire. To unlock Ultra Difficulty, the game has to be beaten with Miller on Hard Mode. Miller is by far the most difficult and worse character to use, before the patch update. Even after the update, it's just false padding to extend replay value.
• Hyrule Warriors:
  • Any level where a Cucco will appear and follow the player around, as it seems to exist solely to discourage the use of wide attacks. Or, for that matter, any attacks if you don't know exactly where the chicken last moved to. The general consensus is that it's not a question of if you'll hit it enough to trigger its rage, but when. Some of the other Cucco events (guiding a baby Cucco to its mother and two Cuccos fighting in a keep) are also hated, but the one that follows the player is particularly hated.
  • To a lesser extent, the missions that don't have an Element Affinity, as it means all the defense badges you've grinded for are now completely useless (making getting an A-Rank all that more difficult).
  • During co-op play, enemy groups are severely cut to make up for the strain of having two characters in the same mission. This can make racking up KOs exceptionally difficult due to enemies not spawning fast enough; in fact, you could be only halfway through claiming a keep and have it completely devoid of enemies for several seconds. However, this may have been an intentional design flaw, since it discourages players from abusing co-op mode to A-Rank a mission with a character other than who the mission was intended for (although it also discourages playing the game with friends, as well).
  • Some Ganon's Fury missions have Zant and Ghirahim show up and then get attacked, prompting you to save them. While the consequences of not saving them aren't particularly dire, this is made annoying by how Ganon's size is so vast that it is nearly impossible to make contact with their green circles to restore their health without pushing them into a wall first.
• Lollipop Chainsaw: The Chainsaw Blaster's auto targeting takes a lot of flak for jerking the camera around where ever the closest zombie is near you. This is remedied though since you can go into options menu anytime to switch to manual aim (which works way better). Some of the mini games count too, and failing them will make you lose a life, ruining your no death run. The mini-game that practically everyone hates is Zombie Baseball, due to three reasons:
  • 1. It's a glorified escort mission that involves getting Nick around the baseball diamond three times. Nick goes somewhat at a snails pace and wastes time celebrating EVERY TIME he makes it to a base.
  • 2. Nick is a Glass Cannon and can only take about 4 or 5 hits at most.
  • 3. If you left the auto aim on, this section becomes a Luck-Based Mission. As mentioned earlier, the scrappyness is reduced somewhat since you can turn off auto aim anytime. Though many first time players did not know about manual or auto aim.
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance:
  • Unique weapons replacing the High Frequency Blade's heavy attack when equipped instead of having their own dedicated button.
  • The inability to swap between sub-weapons on the fly. Trying to do a No-Damage Run after hitting a checkpoint with the wrong weapon equipped means spending precious seconds standing still to swap the weapon out, potentially ruining your chances before you can even start. This was fixed in a later patch; you can now change weapons while running, but not in the middle of Combos. (Apparently this is mostly due to the memory-intensive procedural cutting engine: there simply isn't enough RAM available on either console to run it with all 3 secondary weapons being usable at the same time.)
  • The use of an auto save (instead of the manual save found in the Metal Gear Solid games). Getting hit right before a checkpoint during a perfect run or missing a collectible often means having to restart the entire level to get back to it.
  • The camera system, as it can feel sluggish, is awkwardly positioned in Blade Mode, and in certain instances re-positions itself while you're attempting to perform a parry or see an enemy.
  • Sam's VR Missions from the Jetstream Sam Downloadable Content campaign can only be accessed from terminals you find in the levels themselves, and not from a separate VR menu like Raiden's.
• No More Heroes:
  • It has Dark Side Mode, which is randomly activated by uncontrollable spinning slots that appear after killing enemies. Of course, it has a tendency to trigger after you've already finished killing all of the enemies in a room... and it cancels when you open doors/gates to proceed to the next one. Only one of these is stored for later use when the player chooses, as it instantly kills all enemies on screen... but because it awards extra money for not using it when you beat the level, it's even scrappier, as most players simply leave it and take the money. The PS3 port, Heroes' Paradise, fixes this by having them stored automatically after the wheel is spun until the player activates them manually.
  • The entry fees, and by extension, the job and assassination minigames in the first game also count, even if they are justified when you find out that Sylvia was a con artist and was manipulating almost every assassin in the game. The player basically has to grind large amounts of money to unlock the next rank match, and therefore advance the story, and the repetition was the single-biggest complaint about the first game. People were glad when they ditched the whole concept in Desperate Struggle - only to be dejected when they were inexplicably brought back in III.
  • No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle also readjusts the Dark Side Mode - now it comes up a lot more often, and even if your luck is bad, there's an extra, manually-activated version if you can avoid getting hit too often.
  • No More Heroes III makes the slot machine pay out much more often, usually every other combo or so, and adds a lot more jackpots that give out cash or items, but decided to make the graphics for a jackpot take up most of the screen, meaning you have to spend not-insignificant amounts of time in battle with the middle of the screen taken up by the game letting you know you won some WESN again and again.
• Streets of Rage 3 gives you a star every 40,000 points, up to 3 stars. Each star powers up your "blitz" attack. However, 40,000 points is a very non-trivial amount of points, and if you die, you lose a star. Expect to never see a single star if you can't last very long on each life. There's an alternative way to perform any level "blitz" attack with a specific input, but it requires a 6-button controller to do.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time the arcade version had throwing. In the SNES port that came later, you could choose a type of throw: rag doll slam or throwing the enemy at the screen. Throwing relies on Random Number God in the arcade version, which means you could not choose your type of throw. This makes you wonder why Konami thought it was a good idea at the time during the arcade release.
• In Killer is Dead, your attacks start out very slow, but pick up speed as you build combos. Problem is, most enemies are too weak to survive a very long combo, coupled with the possibility of getting hit or the combo counter timing out means your attacks will often stay very slow.
• In the obscure PS2 Way of the Samurai spin off Samurai Western, you have a fury mode which makes your combos infinite, great against normal enemies who stand in one spot, borderline useless on bosses, who are all too happy to block your never-ending onslaught like you were throwing mean insults at them and not slashing them with a sword.

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