Agreed. Parts like this create accessibility issues; a player can be enjoying the game up to this point, but then be unable to progress because the game now requires the player to do something they can't do, and that has not otherwise been present in the game.

The boss battle issue really depends on the game. RPGs tend to be good for boss fights, as the gameplay doesn't suddenly change, and the only arbitrary rule changes applied are to prevent status ailments from working on the boss (and not every RPG does this; of the first 6 Final Fantasy games (and at least some of the later ones), the only ones to outright disable enemy-targeted status ailments in boss fights are FF3 and FF4.

Speaking of Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy 4 has a perfect example of this: The Magnetic Cave. Basically, at this point in the game:
* You just lost two primary casters from your party. At this point, your only casters are Cecil, who is a minor spellcaster (think the AD&D Paladin, but without having to wait as long to get spells), and Tellah, who knows powerful spells but has limited MP, so you can't just use magic all the time unless you're willing to use a bunch of Ethers, which are expensive or not yet buyable depending on version. (Both of the twins, who just left, likely had more MP individually than Tellah.) (Also, in 3D versions, using Osmose won't work on any enemies at this point, as even the ones that cast spells have no MP to steal.)
* Inside this dungeon, there is a magnetic field; this paralyzes everyone equipped with metal equipment, limiting your fighting ability. (At least you have the one character who can fight well without a weapon at this point.)

Not being able to use magic regularly is not fun, particularly when the game doesn't provide enough interesting non-magic options. I will often just run away from all normal battles at this point in the game.

Also, one frustrating aspect of the dungeon: If you don't trigger a certain cutscene back in town and reach the boss, the battle will be unwinnable and death is a game over. If in this situation, you have to warp out of the dungeon, trigger the cutscene, and then go back through the dungeon again. (There's also a later dungeon where, because there's a cutscene that happens when you leave, the game won't just let you teleport out, which is annoying.)

When playing the DS version, on New Game +, I would use a Soma Drop (from the previous playthrough) and have Cecil use the Bless augment (restores the party's MP) just to make this part of the game fun rather than tedious. It's much more fun when I can have Tellah cast Meteo and restore his MP without having to use up Ethers. Boss battles aren't necessarily a problem, and as I just said, they generally aren't an issue in RPGs in my experience.

What I don't like is when they change the rules, like in some Ys games where you can't pause and access your inventory (and in Ys Origin, a certain ability that normally heals you slightly doesn't do that during boss fights, except in one or two instances the developer overlooked). Or if the game is like Crystalis, where you can't kill a boss unless your level is higher than what it would naturally be at that point (and in Crystalis, it's a hard rule, as bosses are outright immune to your attacks unless your level is high enough).

Boss battles can be well done, exciting and fun, but in my experience they usually aren't. It's a pet peeve of mine, and I'm well aware that many players seem to view them differently and actually look forward to them, while they can easily ruin the game for me. I'm neither an outstandingly good nor bad player, but I play mostly for the experience and exploration, not for challenge and repetition, so I can't really appreciate if the game comes to a halt because I'm required to overcome a challenge that differs from the rest of the game and leads to lots of repetition, boredom and frustration.

Fights with unique opponents in RPGs I don't really count among those "boss battles", unless they are designed as puzzles, too. I don't play a lot of JRPGs though; in those I played I didn't really like boss battles either, since the bosses tended to be sponges with insane amounts of HP that just made the combat go on and on for ages, and I'm not particularly fond of the turn-based menu-style combat either (which is the main reason why I play so few JRPGs), so I find that boring as well.

I had to stop playing System Shock 1, because I just couldn't deal with those cyberspace elements, way too disorienting for me, and I was afraid I might eventually have to vomit all over my laptop. Might try again some time, but definitely a gameplay element I didn't enjoy.

They aren't really fun, but they are not as difficult as people always say.

You only need to make sure that you distribute power correctly and repair whatever damage you take. Otherwise wait until you have the enemy targeted real good, then give full round of phasers and photon torpedos, and concentrate on taking out a single ship first, and when that is done, choose the next target. If you fire randomly, that will never work.

You are correct though, most people seem to hate those battle parts, and they really don't contribute much to the game.


I believe it is possible to skip those parts when using ScummVM, although I'm not 100% sure, as that game engine is still under development for ScummVM.

I would say for me, that would be hard time limits where it's a rather major part of the gameplay. You know the kind where there is a ticker at the top displaying a countdown. This is because sometimes this makes one lose out on being able to explore the world around, which holds more value for me. Unless they are a part of a separate quest. Like, I didn't mind that there was a hard time limit on the graveyard quest in VTMB. Since there is the rest of the time, where you can check out the area at your leisure.

Sewers (*insert game title*)...nuff said

So you like your games with piss and shit all over the place? :-P

On internet, never think that you've "said enough". There's always someone that can interpret your message in ways that you've never thought about! ;-)

If that's what it takes to get rid of sewer levels...yes! :P

I take that you mean more 'open world' style games that have some corridor-style exploring too. It's not like you actually smell the sewers when they call a certain part "sewers". ;-P

- Obduction. That "Gauntlet" sequence where you have to keep swapping back & forth dozens of times (complete with long load times even on an SSD...) A lot of people didn't finished the game for that.

- The Witness. Sticking a timer on those puzzles in the caves was quite jarring vs the relaxing atmosphere & untimed puzzles of the rest of the game. (Edit: And that extremely bizarre secret ending...)

- In fact, make that "timed puzzles in pretty much every game"...

Did you search for/google the differences? It's worse in some ways, better in other. Draw your own conclusions.

The sudden jerk to a flash minigame in "To The Moon", why did they do that? It wasn't the game people were playing, it wasn't a very good mini-game, didn't bring anything to the story, it was just an indulgent intrusion by the developer to get a different game in there that they'd clearly been trying out.

What I don't like about them is that once you've seen one sewer level you've seen them all: endless, inescapable grey & brown corridors. :P

...and then you add extremely difficult jumps.

That's the only part of Dark Forces I truly hated... took me close to the dark side, it did!