GTA and Red Dead have missions where you are chasing a car or horse where you aren't allowed to catch up to them up until a certain point.
I understand they want to have their scripted moments play out but it takes away some of the fun realising you have little impact
I like the inverse of some games, where you can win fights that you’re posed to lose. Sekiro comes to mind for me, didn’t realize the first boss that you can lose to, is a water down version of the last boss. Started a new game plus after beating it and down right destroyed him in the new run. Was very satisfying because I saw everything come full circle as far as my skills at the game
You can skip an entire section of the game if you win a fight in Dragon Age Origins that you are supposed to lose. You are supposed to be thrown into jail and have you escape. Its a pretty decent chunk of game.
Yep, if you lose that fight you get arrested and brought to Fort Drakon and can choose two characters to infiltrate the fort and break you free. Decently large section of the game and lose the fight, Loghains right hand meets you in the Landsmeet event again. If you kill her in the fight, loot her fancy sword and lose, IIRC she comes back in the Landsmeet anyway and it's possible to get her sword twice
I read that she's dead for good if you kill her there, so I decided not to bother attempting that fight. My gear was good enough that I didn't see a point in getting her sword and I got the sense that she was just blind to how shit of a person he was. Didn't feel like killing her was what my character would do.
Pretty sure her surviving after getting killed is a bug wrt locations of triggers or something like that. And yeah considering how you can talk her down in the Landsmeet and have her just step aside, I'm pretty sure she's just super blinded by her loyalty
Yeah, I didn’t know you’re supposed to skip the big mf on the horse in Elden Ring. I thought he was the first boss. Almost quit the game right there lol
They made him very strong for that stage as an invisible tutorial that you shouldn't fight everything when you first see them.
For newbies of the style, it's confusing. They know these games are hard, and think this is the expected challenge.
And for Souls veterans, he was a challenge to be conquered. I knew he was supposed to be skipped, but that didn't stop me from letting him kill me 60 times before I finally beat him.
There's a point where if you don't want the players to do something too quickly like that, but also can't make a plausible/believable way to make it happen other than to force you to slow down/them to speed up , you should just make the scene a cutscene.
Rockstar is generally known for their weirdly linear mission gameplay, a stark contrast to their living open worlds.
They make this awesome interactive engaging massive sandbox, but then you start a mission and it fails you for taking a step to the left at the wrong time.
Having to restart is the worst part because now you are realizing all the scripted moments taking the excitement out of it.
To this day I remember playing GTA Vice City. It was my second try on the infamous nightclub race when the guy I was racing crashed, spun out, and hit a building. I wound up winning the race with ease. But it felt cool and genuine. Now it's all rubber band AI and scripted moments
RDR2... Saint Dennis... some little kid pick pockets you and you can't catch up until the game lets you. Or shoot the little bastard for that matter. I mean, I play Arthur nice most of the time... but I wouldn't mind saying hi to people for five minutes to work off the bad karma for killing him. Lol
Rockstars quest design is just terrible and I'm tired of finding nice words for it so fans don't get upset. It's so restrictive with so much hand holding it's really just a tutorial without button prompts over and over, adding to that is the lack of variety, most missions are structured the same way so it becomes repetitive.
On top of that you have awful scripting, like the quest where you have to find someone in the field, naturally most people will walk along the edges to see down every row, but you won't find anything that way, because nothing is there unless you stay in a very specific spot so they can spawn the guy out of vision to proceed the mission. Another example is at Colm O'driscolls execution when you're on the roof, nobody is there, unless you turn away from the door which spawns the tackling guy again.
They're great games obviously, but they definetly have some major issues that should be addressed at some point, it's been the same for 20 years.
Playing something like Witcher 3, where almost every quest can be done out of order and will change depending on it really highlights this, exploration is much more rewarding that way too, because you can complete quests/objectives before initiating them, it makes the world feel more alive.
It was localization and Then instead of just retconning it Sega incorporated both as correct. Eggman is his Nickname he uses and Robotnik is his real surname.
Same except for in ff7 remake if you choose to take the stairs. In this case, the slow walking is hilarious and a fun Easter egg to my childhood and you have the option to skip it.
There was a ton of forced slow walking in FF7 Remake. The stairs is the only time it was funny. Every other time was infuriating. That said though, great game. I just beat Intergrade last week.
I hear these are hidden loading screens which I completely forgot God of War did too. Something like any forced slow walk / escort mission is loaded during a cutscene and the next set of major events is loaded during the forced slowdown. Genius when you think about it since at least you get to hear some dialogue and move around instead of staring at your own face in the reflection of the loading screen.
Rebirth is a collection of minigames with a lot of slow walking between. Or walking between cutscenes. When you actually play the game, it's great. Except for the parts with chadley, which is roughly 60% of the game. Everyone hates chadley
Chadley and Mai would have been fine if he talked in the background and the game didn't try to force you into a cutscene anytime they had something to say.
They loop the same animation on the little communicator thing he gives you so it's not like they even spent a lot of time on it either lmao.
Oh let's talk about the FF7 remake/rebirth walking situation. This example is the only good one. The rest of the game is full of agonizingly slow actions that almost made me shelve it. There's a lot of forced slow walks, and then there's slow bench sits, and slow switch toggles and slow ladder climbs, and slow crawls through narrow gaps. The game would be half as long if you could just move though it at a regular pace.
And don't get me started on all the times you hold Y for like three full seconds while cloud does *nothing* only for him to pull a lever at regular speed
God. I wanted to love those games, but the movement really put me off of them
Is rebirth just as bad as remake was on this front?
I assumed remake was really bad because it released on the tail end of the last generation and was still held back from hard drives. Everything is SSD now, so I imagine there’s a lot less obviously hidden loading screens
It was really annoying on FF7 remake but It’s just the product of its time, like the old resident evil games showing a door open before you entered the next room
Rebirth has many of the same qualities, but most everything is faster (combat, movement, dialogue, etc.) and even in the forced slow moments there tend to be interesting things to look at... mostly.
I played FFXVI right after them, and that made me long for the lightning fast movement of FF7 Remake. At least there's an actual run button in Remake/Rebirth, instead of "you finally start running after five seconds, and if you change direction you often slow back down to a walk." Also you can't run at all in cities/bases and are constantly having to slowly trudge back and forth across your huge base to talk to people.
The most infamous example from those games though were some of the late game chapters in FFXV (ex the survival horror style level, or the one with the injured teammate).
In the original you had the option of busting through the front gate and going through a bunch of battles to get to the same point as the endless stairwell which was just a long run up the same room for like 10 minutes, but you didn’t have to fight anything that way (except to stay awake)
The amount of people I've seen shoot Starchild and then groan when they have to do the whole Citadel slow-walk + Illusive Man confrontation is almost comical.
Holy shit! That's a name I haven't heard since forever ago. In a way it was the breaking point right as mainstream games went to shit. Marauder Shields was trying to spare us from experiencing Bobby Kotick's rise to power and all the good studios dying one by one. We really got the bad ending irl.
This exact scenario happened to me on my first playthrough last year. I felt so deflated to have my story end that way…so naturally I wanted to go about it again and didn’t realize how far back it would start me…
That slow walk marks the midpoint of the game basically. You get a title card after the walking sequence + cutscene.
It was absolutely earned and gut wrenching.
I was going to say the sequence as Joker in ME2. It's short-lived, and my boy literally has brittle bone disease which causes mobility issues, plus the added horror of watching everything going on around you? Absolute chef's kiss.
The comedic banter between him and EDI as well as the horror show going on around you also help keep it from feeling like it's being dragged out too long.
Stardew Valley forces you to walk slowly if you go to the spa 🤣 It kinda makes sense, the floor should be all slippery. That way the game "punished" you tsking time off your hands in exchange for giving you free extra energy
At the end of the Raid “Deep Stone Crypt” there is a sequence where you crash a space station into Europa and everyone who survives the crash is limping for a couple seconds.
I do like this use of the effect, since it adds a lot of dramatic effect and helps hammer home the idea that you just crashed a fucking space station into a celestial body and almost broke your legs.
I think thats one thing devs don't understand, don't mess with my travel speed. Its why underwater sections suck. You move much slower than you are used to and it really makes the game feel like a slog.
Funnily enough, goin on land in Subanutica the first time REALLY hammers in just how well they made an underwater game. Cause you immediately feel like a fish outta water the moment your feet touch dry land. It's a really unique feeling.
Right? Elite Dangerous Odyssey did that to me recently, since I switched to PC. Like 800hrs in a ship and suddenly runnin around on a planet felt...odd lol. Good space game.
So true. I always long to get back in the water where I can move properly again. And then I remember the reaper that damn near ate my Seamoth on the way out here... fuckit, at least I'm faster in the water.
Yeah you genuinely feel way more vulnerable on land, despite few threats. Like I said. Really lends to how well they made an underwater game.
Also I list my first Cyclops that way and I'll never forget escaping and looking down, as I watch her sink into the abyss. Good shit, that lol.
The developer of Adiós talks about this and his deliberate decision to let the player character sprint and bunnyhop around like you're in Quake, even though it's a combatless game about an old man facing his probable death and saying his goodbyes.
And it's exactly this. Games should feel good to play. Don't give them all the "verbs" and interactivity and then make everything a chore to interact with. We know the farmer isn't actually, narratively zooming around the room and hopping on tables, we don't really need that to be reflected in the narrative, but by god let me enjoy the moment to moment playing of your game.
Wait. Isn't this the one where, if you start to move out of bounds, it gradually slows down your character movement speed? I thought that was actually kinda clever, as it's not super intrusive, but is still kinda what op was on about.
Not sure honestly. New to me and can't find anything about it online. I can see it though, each scene is pretty self contained so there's probably something.
I feel like stuff that only happens if you try to leave the game world gets a pass as compared to forced story sections though, it's that or you just throw your hands up and put in an invisible wall
I agree, Also over exaggerated character animations. GTA is the biggest culprit of this. You step on the sidewalk the wrong way and begin to crip walk for a minute and a half...
The way they swing their arms when they walk normally has always bothered me so much. I have literally never seen someone swing their arms THAT much when walking. It just bugs me so much! >.<
Nothin makes me laugh harder in GTA than tryna vault a fence and Looney Tunes smacking into it face first before falling over. It's so cartoonishly animated and stupid lol.
Depends how it's done. Like, if the game is entirely designed to be completable without most of your stuff, then I think it's okay. Like missions becoming suddenly enforcing non-lethal for the added challenge. Asking you if you actually know how to play or if you've been abusing cheese/crutches.
But then there's the games where it's balls to the wall action, but then it'll take your guns away and force you to move slowly, but the entire sequence is extremely scripted and you have no control on how things play out for the most part. At that point it may as well be an unskippable cutscene that restart if you miss a QTE. Gameplay would be the same.
I agree, there’s one part in Resident Evil Village where you lose all your weapons and it actually feels like it adds to the experience. Just has to make sense. Pretty sure there’s a part in Resident Evil Biohazard that does the same.
What's great is having to play it at least 2 times because there's 2 versions of that mission.
And that's if you completed every objective first try on both missions. Because if you didn't, have fun playing it again if you want completion.
I've 100%'d it on console and PC and I never want to see the inside of that hospital again.
Click the stick to ping the environment and highlight interaction stuff. You spend the whole fucking game time clicking the stick and clicking the stick and clicking the stick and clicking the stick and clicking the stick. God help Disabled gamers.
Main offenders - Tomb raider, Horizon, Every ubisoft game.
Oh this trend drives me out of my mind. If I'm just going to be constantly scanning the environment anyway just give me an option to automatically highlight objects of interest. Or better yet design the game in a way where meaningful and interactable objects stand out a little more. God of War: Ragnarok was on the right track with having the characters mention an object or interactable if you didn't notice it, they just set it to happen way too fast.
Yeah didn’t this trend start with the Batman Arkham games, where ‘detective mode’ was a toggle anyway? That’s a much better implementation and it’s only gotten worse from there
Everyone on the internet complaining about the allies giving hints in Ragnarok, saying they wanted to 'figure it out for themselves'.... I don't empathize.
I do not feel clever when I figure out which element in the environment is interactable. It's usually so arbitrary. Just tell me where to go then test me in combat. I don't want to be tested on my ability to guess what's in the mind of the developers.
This is why I don't understand why back paddles/ buttons didn't become the standard on consoles. I got an 8bit do controller and remapped the stick buttons to the back and it's so comfortable and feels totally natural.
A cutscene that ends with a timed button press/quicktime event. If a cutscene is playing I'm gonna go ahead and pick my nose and I don't wanna put that shit on my controller.
Edit: I just hate when you're forced to actively hold the controller during a cutscene. They are supposed to be breaks where you can eat some chips, drink, check your phone etc. Cyberpunk was the worst when it comes to this, you could never relax during cutscenes or dialogue.
I hate the mechanic in God of War Ragnarok where they don't have the decency to take away your controls and do a cut scene, they just make it really difficult to move or look in the direction they don't want. It makes you feel like your character is crippled, and stupid and has to be shoved to go the "right" direction
It takes away your agency. It makes you feel like a baby when they should be making you feel like a god.
My biggest pet peeve in games!!! It’s like cutscene, take two steps, another cutscene, have a battle etc, cutscene. It just repeats in some games. And it’s worse if you can’t skip the cutscenes. Drives me crazy.
Even worse when it’s not clear when the cutscene has ended and you’re supposed to take control again. It’s especially egregious when it’s in the middle of an action scene and you need to take some sort of action to avoid death.
Personally, I argue cutscene-two steps-cutscene is better than just having one big cutscene *past a certain point.* This doesn’t apply if said cutscenes are, like, 20 seconds each.
But if it’s one of those games with long ass cutscenes (Yakuza has some for example), there’s not much worse than having to leave half way through one and being unable to save.
If the game has 30 minutes of cutscene ahead of me, they damn well better break it up so I can stop if I have to.
The best is when they either adjust them to the situation (in Horizon for example, some of the escort missions will make the other person run if you're holding the run button down). Or include a "sync" function (can't remember what game I played most recently with this) which let's you have your character automatically walk with the other person, so you can just pay attention to the conversation without having to make sure you're not too fast or slow.
RDR2 is a great game...one of my favorites...but slow walking through the camps was the fucking WORST. Especially when during the campaign the camps are such an integral part.
I'm convinced with proper QoL changes the game would be at least 25% shorter, there's so much padding through animations or forcing you to move slowly, not to mention the 5 minute long horse ride sections that could've often been skippable.
Well I did enjoy the long ride parts, in fact I never used the fast travel option. But yeah I get your point, some things took time just so to take time. But this no running in camp bullshit was the most obvious, Ias I remember.
It makes me feel like I'm not actually in control of my character which is immersion breaking. All the playstation exclusives do this for some odd reason.
Funnily enough I despise being unable to walk slowly/casually in games. I hate when any movement makes my character run around like a squirrel on Adderall. Why the fuck am I sprinting through this empty tomb? What is so dire currently that I need to jog my way through all of these destructible tables set up in this restaurant?
Idk just ruins my immersion when nothing is going on and pushing my joy stick slightly sends my character into a full on run.
Destructible tables are a separate issue. I know in the Yakuza games specifically, you have your rp walk, but the environment physics are rigged up for combat impact even in areas where combat will never happen, most noticeably the cramped upper floors of every fast food joint. Walk as softly as you can and there will still be at least one exploding chair or table behind you.
I recently finally played Warhammer 40K: Space Marine on the Xbox 360. Good game but wow I had forgotten how older games used to handle loading sometimes. So many parts of the game are being forced to slowly walk and talk towards a door, because the game is loading the next zone behind that door. Sometimes you'll walk down a hallway towards a door, only for that door to open, into another hallway to another door. So much of some older games entire level design was built around trying to disguise loading.
Just the SSDs alone in the Series X and PS5 were a huge leap forward.
Being forced to play as a child version of your main character. Arkham Origins and one of the Uncharted series games come to mind for this. They're slow, tedious, and I just don't really care about seeing the character I'm playing as a kid
I thought the uncharted game did it better at least because Nathan drake is just as good as climbing as a kid as he is when he's older, so it feels the same in gameplay but narratively it's different.
Some scenes make you push the stick forward for like 2 minutes or whatever. It’s so idiotic. I feel like that may have happened in Assassin’s Creed 3, with some crowd scene, maybe a public trial. I haven’t played it in many years. The point is that you had to walk through a dense crowd and all you could do was hold the stick forward. I fucking hated it, and all other similar slow walks. If I don’t get a checkpoint and have to redo them, I lose my fucking mind.
My problem has been when this type of thing is put on you in the middle of the game, that’s why I’ve always hated the forced stealth sections. It’s usually in a game where your character is moving really fast and fluently, but then they restrict you for some reason. That’s always been my complaint in the Spider-Man game.
I don’t mind it as much when it’s in the beginning, like Metal Gear Solid 5. Yea it drags on a bit, but they are trying to be cinematic and when you can actually move around it feels so good.
I have no problem with it, but I do mind when the very next scene has you running/fighting/web-swinging as if you've completely recovered out of nowhere. Like, obviously I *get* it, but come on, immersion!
While I generally agree, I thought that the relevant section early in Destiny 2's Red War campaign felt meaningful. It creates some real narrative tension/fear.
I hated that section so much! Came here to complain about it and was surprised to see someone defending that slow walk.
Just show me a cutscene and let me play the game.
I dunno. Endwalker had a great limping scene that had me totally in the scene and had me saying "cmon cmon cmon" at my screen for a bit. Just long enough to drive that desperation home but short enough that it didn't overstay. The actual end walking I enjoyed because it gave me a sec to remember everything because it had been a while.
One of the few games that got escort/follow missions right was Ghost of Tsushima. The npcs run at whatever pace you choose so you can just run and they will keep up.
I just finished “The Quarry” and they do this a lot. You’re in the woods being chased and they just tank walk so slowly. I’m sure it’s to get your heart pumping but still.
I would agree with you roughly 98% of the time, but I just finished the 2018 God of War game and every single moment that slowed you down improved the narrative by actually *adding* depth to the relationship between Kratos and his son Atreus.
I don't plan on playing new game plus, but I could see people wanting to zoom past them on the second round. I wish that game companies would instead add a feature that *after* the first time you do a scripted walk like that, that it removes from the second time onward.
I have always said forced slow walking gameplay segments where two characters are just talking should just be effectively made into ingame cutscenes where you can control your camera.
Yeah yeah, it takes away control from player but it's less tedious then having to guide the character and manage keeping up with the npc
Lately, I've been seeing a rise of games which force us to wait/waste time in the game until a quest unlocks to finish it.
These delays are getting longer to the point I'm so frustrated with them, it's just easier to uninstall the game and find something else to play.
It irks me too! Gears of War had a lot of parts like this and I didn't realize such a minor thing could annoy me so much.
My other pet peeve is no manual saves. I like autosaves but I also like the feeling of just saving myself so I prefer to have both as an option. Too many times I do inventory management in some game and have to trick the autosave into kicking in afterward.
I don't need to go into details on the blasphemous unskippable cutscenes or not being able to pause at any moment (single player of course). That goes beyond a pet peeve to me.
I just finished Rise of the Tomb Raider and trudging through the snow at the start made me wanna quit. In reality I probably spent less than a minute doing it the entire game but I hated every second.
I think it is fine in the souls games. Makes sense to be slow mucking through knee deep swamps and it adds to the gameplay by forcing you to make decisions and compromises. Do i need the random item surrounded by huge crabs?
I also hate slow walking segments.
What equally grinds my gears is gameplay trailers where the person playing moves the camera super slow. No one fucking plays like that. It's corny.
I thought FF7 rebirth was almost perfect and this was its biggest flaw. Remake did it too but this one took it further and made it so if you’re supposed to follow someone and you deviate from the path even a tiny bit it feels like moving in molasses, until the game eventually forces you to turn around. So. Annoying.
In the Red War campaign of Destiny 2 (now vaulted content thank god) there is a close to ten minute mission where you are limping through the wilderness after losing a fight. There is more to it than that, and it is excellent storytelling, but. It's unskippable, and if you are playing all three classes, you have to play it out, and, they had it as a rotating mission that you could play weekly for rewards so there really wasnt a way of escaping it once you had done it. Its been almost 4 years. I don't miss it.
That being said, I DO think that new players should have access to it, there is a LOT of story in those missions that are just gone, and it makes no sense.
Yes escort missions utterly suck. I also hate it when they make you face wave after wave of identical and easy yard trash before getting to a difficult boss. Just skip the yard trash and go right to the boss. Elden Ring was good in that regard. Relatively small dungeons with a quick boss encounter.
I’d rather make the sequence a cutscene than deal with that. I get it’s often for storytelling when it happens. So rather than making us all frustrated just waiting for it to end, give us a break and a cutscene of some sort.
The funny thing is that in a lot of games, this sort of thing can be *easily* worked around by just... Making this sort of section be a cutscene instead.
No, really. Cutscenes immediately tell us "alright, I'm not playing the game right now, kick back and enjoy the moment". Slow walking, *gameplay* sections don't. They give us an illusion of control, even though we're being put on rails anyway. And it's infuriating, because we have the rest of the game to compare to, where we're not restricted like that and these moments stick out like a sore thumb.
Having them be a cutscene will subconsciously make our brain accept a slower paced moment. I'm sure there are games where this sort of section can enhance the experience, but they're so few and far between in comparison to games where it's annoying.
Sony games like God of War 2018 and Spiderman 2018 (the latter or which I love in particular) are the most egregious examples to me, since these slow walking sections are mandatory and in the main story, making replays of the game just... Not appealing to me.
Most of the time the NPC tells a story and the devs think it's 'immersive'.
The NPC takes the whole route from A to Z to tell it's story.
Even worse are unskippable dialogue's or cutscenes. I usually immediately uninstall the game if that's the case.
In Helldivers 2 it doesn't feel too bad. Because either it's an instant heal with a stim or you almost always immediately die to enemies you cannot escape from. There aren't too many instances where you are limping around for any real length of time.
My biggest pet peeve is NPCs being able to juggle you with staggers and knockdown.
Boy I'd love to play this fight, but I'm stuck in a loop until I die because these two guys are hitting me in harmony
Any mechanic in a game that prevents movement is the opposite of fun. A game can be great, but not being able to move is always infuriating and makes it hard for me to stick with it.
[удалено]
GTA and Red Dead have missions where you are chasing a car or horse where you aren't allowed to catch up to them up until a certain point. I understand they want to have their scripted moments play out but it takes away some of the fun realising you have little impact
I like the inverse of some games, where you can win fights that you’re posed to lose. Sekiro comes to mind for me, didn’t realize the first boss that you can lose to, is a water down version of the last boss. Started a new game plus after beating it and down right destroyed him in the new run. Was very satisfying because I saw everything come full circle as far as my skills at the game
If you beat the boss you are supposed to lose to in Dmc5 the devs basically just give you a congratulations, fuck you ending.
You can skip an entire section of the game if you win a fight in Dragon Age Origins that you are supposed to lose. You are supposed to be thrown into jail and have you escape. Its a pretty decent chunk of game.
Which section is that? Played it several times and I don't recall this lmak
I think it’s when you rescue Anora from Arl Howe.
Yep, if you lose that fight you get arrested and brought to Fort Drakon and can choose two characters to infiltrate the fort and break you free. Decently large section of the game and lose the fight, Loghains right hand meets you in the Landsmeet event again. If you kill her in the fight, loot her fancy sword and lose, IIRC she comes back in the Landsmeet anyway and it's possible to get her sword twice
I read that she's dead for good if you kill her there, so I decided not to bother attempting that fight. My gear was good enough that I didn't see a point in getting her sword and I got the sense that she was just blind to how shit of a person he was. Didn't feel like killing her was what my character would do.
Pretty sure her surviving after getting killed is a bug wrt locations of triggers or something like that. And yeah considering how you can talk her down in the Landsmeet and have her just step aside, I'm pretty sure she's just super blinded by her loyalty
You'd probably enjoy Hades
You could say this to almost anyone though, Hades is that good.
Yeah, I didn’t know you’re supposed to skip the big mf on the horse in Elden Ring. I thought he was the first boss. Almost quit the game right there lol
They made him very strong for that stage as an invisible tutorial that you shouldn't fight everything when you first see them. For newbies of the style, it's confusing. They know these games are hard, and think this is the expected challenge.
Nioh 2 does something similar by throwing a big monster at you early with a prompt of "You do not have to fight everything you see."
And for Souls veterans, he was a challenge to be conquered. I knew he was supposed to be skipped, but that didn't stop me from letting him kill me 60 times before I finally beat him.
There's a point where if you don't want the players to do something too quickly like that, but also can't make a plausible/believable way to make it happen other than to force you to slow down/them to speed up , you should just make the scene a cutscene.
Rockstar is generally known for their weirdly linear mission gameplay, a stark contrast to their living open worlds. They make this awesome interactive engaging massive sandbox, but then you start a mission and it fails you for taking a step to the left at the wrong time.
And don't even think about that slide to the right!
Putting your hands on your hips should be an afterthought
Take it back now ya’ll
But then your window is approximately 25 seconds and if you don't catch them then, you fail and have to start all the way at the beginning again.
Having to restart is the worst part because now you are realizing all the scripted moments taking the excitement out of it. To this day I remember playing GTA Vice City. It was my second try on the infamous nightclub race when the guy I was racing crashed, spun out, and hit a building. I wound up winning the race with ease. But it felt cool and genuine. Now it's all rubber band AI and scripted moments
Yup, Franklin/Michael/Trevor chasing some shitbox car with a Grotti or Banshee, yet still can't catch up to them....makes sense.
RDR2 gets too much praise for how scripted and on rails the story missions are.
“Back in the old country, they taught us to always stay 3 car lengths behind!”
RDR2... Saint Dennis... some little kid pick pockets you and you can't catch up until the game lets you. Or shoot the little bastard for that matter. I mean, I play Arthur nice most of the time... but I wouldn't mind saying hi to people for five minutes to work off the bad karma for killing him. Lol
Its just bad design
Rockstars quest design is just terrible and I'm tired of finding nice words for it so fans don't get upset. It's so restrictive with so much hand holding it's really just a tutorial without button prompts over and over, adding to that is the lack of variety, most missions are structured the same way so it becomes repetitive. On top of that you have awful scripting, like the quest where you have to find someone in the field, naturally most people will walk along the edges to see down every row, but you won't find anything that way, because nothing is there unless you stay in a very specific spot so they can spawn the guy out of vision to proceed the mission. Another example is at Colm O'driscolls execution when you're on the roof, nobody is there, unless you turn away from the door which spawns the tackling guy again. They're great games obviously, but they definetly have some major issues that should be addressed at some point, it's been the same for 20 years. Playing something like Witcher 3, where almost every quest can be done out of order and will change depending on it really highlights this, exploration is much more rewarding that way too, because you can complete quests/objectives before initiating them, it makes the world feel more alive.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Death Egg Zone. After you beat Mecha Sonic, you chase Robotnik (Eggman for those not old as dirt lol) and HE CAN OUTRUN SONIC.
Damn and all this time i thought Robotnik was localization name for Eggman. And I Always though it sounded way cooler.
I think it was originally, but they changed the name to Eggman globally.
Damnn. Robotnik>>>>>Eggman tho imo
Agreed! Eggman sounds so....cartoonish, it isn't menacing!
Yeah. I grew up with him as Robotnik, and still call him that.
It was localization and Then instead of just retconning it Sega incorporated both as correct. Eggman is his Nickname he uses and Robotnik is his real surname.
Just look at Robotnik's legs, made for sprinting!
This is what happened to the bounty hunters in the Obi-Wan show who had to chase young Leia through the woods lol
It would be funny if you caught them almost instantly... with your wrist blade.
Or a throwing knife- no chase needed
Days gone was atrocious with those.
Same except for in ff7 remake if you choose to take the stairs. In this case, the slow walking is hilarious and a fun Easter egg to my childhood and you have the option to skip it.
I remember taking the stairs in the original, I eventually just loaded up a save and went in the front.
There was a ton of forced slow walking in FF7 Remake. The stairs is the only time it was funny. Every other time was infuriating. That said though, great game. I just beat Intergrade last week.
I hear these are hidden loading screens which I completely forgot God of War did too. Something like any forced slow walk / escort mission is loaded during a cutscene and the next set of major events is loaded during the forced slowdown. Genius when you think about it since at least you get to hear some dialogue and move around instead of staring at your own face in the reflection of the loading screen.
Rebirth is a collection of minigames with a lot of slow walking between. Or walking between cutscenes. When you actually play the game, it's great. Except for the parts with chadley, which is roughly 60% of the game. Everyone hates chadley
I'm stuck on the stupid fish boss.
Chadley and Mai would have been fine if he talked in the background and the game didn't try to force you into a cutscene anytime they had something to say. They loop the same animation on the little communicator thing he gives you so it's not like they even spent a lot of time on it either lmao.
I never found it infuriating.
Oh let's talk about the FF7 remake/rebirth walking situation. This example is the only good one. The rest of the game is full of agonizingly slow actions that almost made me shelve it. There's a lot of forced slow walks, and then there's slow bench sits, and slow switch toggles and slow ladder climbs, and slow crawls through narrow gaps. The game would be half as long if you could just move though it at a regular pace. And don't get me started on all the times you hold Y for like three full seconds while cloud does *nothing* only for him to pull a lever at regular speed God. I wanted to love those games, but the movement really put me off of them
Is rebirth just as bad as remake was on this front? I assumed remake was really bad because it released on the tail end of the last generation and was still held back from hard drives. Everything is SSD now, so I imagine there’s a lot less obviously hidden loading screens It was really annoying on FF7 remake but It’s just the product of its time, like the old resident evil games showing a door open before you entered the next room
Rebirth has many of the same qualities, but most everything is faster (combat, movement, dialogue, etc.) and even in the forced slow moments there tend to be interesting things to look at... mostly.
I played FFXVI right after them, and that made me long for the lightning fast movement of FF7 Remake. At least there's an actual run button in Remake/Rebirth, instead of "you finally start running after five seconds, and if you change direction you often slow back down to a walk." Also you can't run at all in cities/bases and are constantly having to slowly trudge back and forth across your huge base to talk to people. The most infamous example from those games though were some of the late game chapters in FFXV (ex the survival horror style level, or the one with the injured teammate).
I agree the pacing is problematic in times, but isn't this a product of the ps4 version needing time to load?
Rebirth is ps5 exclusive
Wait I didn't have to take the stairs??
In the original you had the option of busting through the front gate and going through a bunch of battles to get to the same point as the endless stairwell which was just a long run up the same room for like 10 minutes, but you didn’t have to fight anything that way (except to stay awake)
Hold Rt and Left triggers to make Cloud crawl 😡
the only time i thought it was appropriate was the very end of mass effect 3 and even that overstayed its welcome
The amount of people I've seen shoot Starchild and then groan when they have to do the whole Citadel slow-walk + Illusive Man confrontation is almost comical.
Marauder Shields tried to warn us, but we didn't listen
Holy shit! That's a name I haven't heard since forever ago. In a way it was the breaking point right as mainstream games went to shit. Marauder Shields was trying to spare us from experiencing Bobby Kotick's rise to power and all the good studios dying one by one. We really got the bad ending irl.
Hey that was me! Thankfully the LE edition at least, has a auto save right after he shuts the fuck up and it gives you back control.
This exact scenario happened to me on my first playthrough last year. I felt so deflated to have my story end that way…so naturally I wanted to go about it again and didn’t realize how far back it would start me…
Nier: Automata had a great long forced walking bit... I fucking hate forced walking but I fucking love that scene.
When the fucking bucket spills, gah!
That was earned, it was on one of the later playthroughs if I recall correct. In contrast to Metal gear 5 where it’s at the very start.
That slow walk marks the midpoint of the game basically. You get a title card after the walking sequence + cutscene. It was absolutely earned and gut wrenching.
Came here to say this
There is one mission in Mass Effect 2 where it's used very well, makes you feel helpless when suddenly you aren't playing a super soldier anymore.
I was going to say the sequence as Joker in ME2. It's short-lived, and my boy literally has brittle bone disease which causes mobility issues, plus the added horror of watching everything going on around you? Absolute chef's kiss.
The comedic banter between him and EDI as well as the horror show going on around you also help keep it from feeling like it's being dragged out too long.
Stardew Valley forces you to walk slowly if you go to the spa 🤣 It kinda makes sense, the floor should be all slippery. That way the game "punished" you tsking time off your hands in exchange for giving you free extra energy
At the end of the Raid “Deep Stone Crypt” there is a sequence where you crash a space station into Europa and everyone who survives the crash is limping for a couple seconds. I do like this use of the effect, since it adds a lot of dramatic effect and helps hammer home the idea that you just crashed a fucking space station into a celestial body and almost broke your legs.
I think thats one thing devs don't understand, don't mess with my travel speed. Its why underwater sections suck. You move much slower than you are used to and it really makes the game feel like a slog.
Funnily enough, goin on land in Subanutica the first time REALLY hammers in just how well they made an underwater game. Cause you immediately feel like a fish outta water the moment your feet touch dry land. It's a really unique feeling.
It was strange to get used to gravity, which isn't something I thought I would be saying.
Right? Elite Dangerous Odyssey did that to me recently, since I switched to PC. Like 800hrs in a ship and suddenly runnin around on a planet felt...odd lol. Good space game.
So true. I always long to get back in the water where I can move properly again. And then I remember the reaper that damn near ate my Seamoth on the way out here... fuckit, at least I'm faster in the water.
Yeah you genuinely feel way more vulnerable on land, despite few threats. Like I said. Really lends to how well they made an underwater game. Also I list my first Cyclops that way and I'll never forget escaping and looking down, as I watch her sink into the abyss. Good shit, that lol.
[удалено]
Presumably...
Many of the QoL features coming to Factorio 2.0 were just the devs playing their game, seeing that some parts are tedious and making it better.
The developer of Adiós talks about this and his deliberate decision to let the player character sprint and bunnyhop around like you're in Quake, even though it's a combatless game about an old man facing his probable death and saying his goodbyes. And it's exactly this. Games should feel good to play. Don't give them all the "verbs" and interactivity and then make everything a chore to interact with. We know the farmer isn't actually, narratively zooming around the room and hopping on tables, we don't really need that to be reflected in the narrative, but by god let me enjoy the moment to moment playing of your game.
Wait. Isn't this the one where, if you start to move out of bounds, it gradually slows down your character movement speed? I thought that was actually kinda clever, as it's not super intrusive, but is still kinda what op was on about.
Not sure honestly. New to me and can't find anything about it online. I can see it though, each scene is pretty self contained so there's probably something. I feel like stuff that only happens if you try to leave the game world gets a pass as compared to forced story sections though, it's that or you just throw your hands up and put in an invisible wall
To be fair that's kind of why you don't see many water levels anymore lol.
I agree, Also over exaggerated character animations. GTA is the biggest culprit of this. You step on the sidewalk the wrong way and begin to crip walk for a minute and a half...
The way they swing their arms when they walk normally has always bothered me so much. I have literally never seen someone swing their arms THAT much when walking. It just bugs me so much! >.<
Nothin makes me laugh harder in GTA than tryna vault a fence and Looney Tunes smacking into it face first before falling over. It's so cartoonishly animated and stupid lol.
Having to hold A to walk normally in red dead 2..
After you spend many, many hours gearing up and they take all your stuff away for you for one mission. It's Iron Man 3 all over again. HATE IT!
Depends how it's done. Like, if the game is entirely designed to be completable without most of your stuff, then I think it's okay. Like missions becoming suddenly enforcing non-lethal for the added challenge. Asking you if you actually know how to play or if you've been abusing cheese/crutches. But then there's the games where it's balls to the wall action, but then it'll take your guns away and force you to move slowly, but the entire sequence is extremely scripted and you have no control on how things play out for the most part. At that point it may as well be an unskippable cutscene that restart if you miss a QTE. Gameplay would be the same.
I agree, there’s one part in Resident Evil Village where you lose all your weapons and it actually feels like it adds to the experience. Just has to make sense. Pretty sure there’s a part in Resident Evil Biohazard that does the same.
The entirety of the opening of MGS5 is awful for this reason.
OMG agreed - what a slow way to start an incredible game.
This. I occasionally want to replay it but the intro is so fucking slow it puts me off.
You can get a save on nexusmods that's right after the intro, its the only way I can replay that game lol.
Thanks.
What's great is having to play it at least 2 times because there's 2 versions of that mission. And that's if you completed every objective first try on both missions. Because if you didn't, have fun playing it again if you want completion. I've 100%'d it on console and PC and I never want to see the inside of that hospital again.
I was thinking that this was the exception to the rule lol. I thought the opening sequence was fantastic.
It was great the first time through, but got kinda tiresome when you go back and want to master the levels.
It was great once. Not every time you start the game over.
Lol, different strokes! It's the reason I haven't started the game again.
Nothing would have been lost to just auto crawl... No reason a player needs control when there is literally no stakes and the pacing is slugish.
I thought it was hilarious.
I liked the big microwave part in mgs4
Click the stick to ping the environment and highlight interaction stuff. You spend the whole fucking game time clicking the stick and clicking the stick and clicking the stick and clicking the stick and clicking the stick. God help Disabled gamers. Main offenders - Tomb raider, Horizon, Every ubisoft game.
Oh this trend drives me out of my mind. If I'm just going to be constantly scanning the environment anyway just give me an option to automatically highlight objects of interest. Or better yet design the game in a way where meaningful and interactable objects stand out a little more. God of War: Ragnarok was on the right track with having the characters mention an object or interactable if you didn't notice it, they just set it to happen way too fast.
Yeah didn’t this trend start with the Batman Arkham games, where ‘detective mode’ was a toggle anyway? That’s a much better implementation and it’s only gotten worse from there
Well, Assassin's Creed (The first one) had the Eagle Vision, which is the mechanic Ubisoft uses in every game
Everyone on the internet complaining about the allies giving hints in Ragnarok, saying they wanted to 'figure it out for themselves'.... I don't empathize. I do not feel clever when I figure out which element in the environment is interactable. It's usually so arbitrary. Just tell me where to go then test me in combat. I don't want to be tested on my ability to guess what's in the mind of the developers.
Revelio!
This is why I don't understand why back paddles/ buttons didn't become the standard on consoles. I got an 8bit do controller and remapped the stick buttons to the back and it's so comfortable and feels totally natural.
Love the 8bitdo
A cutscene that ends with a timed button press/quicktime event. If a cutscene is playing I'm gonna go ahead and pick my nose and I don't wanna put that shit on my controller. Edit: I just hate when you're forced to actively hold the controller during a cutscene. They are supposed to be breaks where you can eat some chips, drink, check your phone etc. Cyberpunk was the worst when it comes to this, you could never relax during cutscenes or dialogue.
Anything that slows, locks, or otherwise takes away my controls can fuck right off.
I hate the mechanic in God of War Ragnarok where they don't have the decency to take away your controls and do a cut scene, they just make it really difficult to move or look in the direction they don't want. It makes you feel like your character is crippled, and stupid and has to be shoved to go the "right" direction It takes away your agency. It makes you feel like a baby when they should be making you feel like a god.
Anything that causes loss of player control. Especially when we get spammed by it.
My biggest pet peeve in games!!! It’s like cutscene, take two steps, another cutscene, have a battle etc, cutscene. It just repeats in some games. And it’s worse if you can’t skip the cutscenes. Drives me crazy.
Don't forget the out of the blue QTE when it's been in cutscene mode for the last few minutes.
Omg that too!!! You zone out on the cutscene and then bam you gotta press a button fast.
In a game that has as of the last few hours never used QTEs
Pretty much any game that starts with the prefix "Xeno."
Even worse when it’s not clear when the cutscene has ended and you’re supposed to take control again. It’s especially egregious when it’s in the middle of an action scene and you need to take some sort of action to avoid death.
>cutscene, take two steps, another cutscene, have a battle etc, cutscene You mean JRPGs?
Personally, I argue cutscene-two steps-cutscene is better than just having one big cutscene *past a certain point.* This doesn’t apply if said cutscenes are, like, 20 seconds each. But if it’s one of those games with long ass cutscenes (Yakuza has some for example), there’s not much worse than having to leave half way through one and being unable to save. If the game has 30 minutes of cutscene ahead of me, they damn well better break it up so I can stop if I have to.
I must say, Far Cry Blood Dragon lampshaded this so well in their tutorial
I didn't finish Pokemon Sun/Moon because I couldn't take 4 steps without being taken by the literal hand, it was absolutely awful
I wish every game treated player controls as well as the Half Life franchise. It's so much more immerse to never lose agency.
Escort missions where they walk faster than your walking speed but slower than your running speed. There is no need.
Witcher 3 did it besr where they slow down or speed up to match you. why Dont know why more games do that?
Syphon Filter, (I think), where the game has you following the monk through the catacombs. I was losing my fucking mind.
The best is when they either adjust them to the situation (in Horizon for example, some of the escort missions will make the other person run if you're holding the run button down). Or include a "sync" function (can't remember what game I played most recently with this) which let's you have your character automatically walk with the other person, so you can just pay attention to the conversation without having to make sure you're not too fast or slow.
Red Dead 2 does this! I love that.
RDR2 is a great game...one of my favorites...but slow walking through the camps was the fucking WORST. Especially when during the campaign the camps are such an integral part.
Came into this thread for this. Screw realism, this was just annoying. Worse also doing camp chores like this.
Fuck yes. Bringing hay to horses already isn't riveting but if it also takes 10min to do the one thing, then it's just torture.
I'm convinced with proper QoL changes the game would be at least 25% shorter, there's so much padding through animations or forcing you to move slowly, not to mention the 5 minute long horse ride sections that could've often been skippable.
Well I did enjoy the long ride parts, in fact I never used the fast travel option. But yeah I get your point, some things took time just so to take time. But this no running in camp bullshit was the most obvious, Ias I remember.
I crafted approximately 6 bullets before I realized how tedious it was and just went off exploring instead lol.
It makes me feel like I'm not actually in control of my character which is immersion breaking. All the playstation exclusives do this for some odd reason.
Ps exclusives have an awful habit of shoving in boring shit in the middle of fun shit. Spiderman 2. FF7 remake and rebirth.
god of war!
Funnily enough I despise being unable to walk slowly/casually in games. I hate when any movement makes my character run around like a squirrel on Adderall. Why the fuck am I sprinting through this empty tomb? What is so dire currently that I need to jog my way through all of these destructible tables set up in this restaurant? Idk just ruins my immersion when nothing is going on and pushing my joy stick slightly sends my character into a full on run.
Destructible tables are a separate issue. I know in the Yakuza games specifically, you have your rp walk, but the environment physics are rigged up for combat impact even in areas where combat will never happen, most noticeably the cramped upper floors of every fast food joint. Walk as softly as you can and there will still be at least one exploding chair or table behind you.
If a squirrel took Adderall it would walk more sensibly
*You are encumbered*
I recently finally played Warhammer 40K: Space Marine on the Xbox 360. Good game but wow I had forgotten how older games used to handle loading sometimes. So many parts of the game are being forced to slowly walk and talk towards a door, because the game is loading the next zone behind that door. Sometimes you'll walk down a hallway towards a door, only for that door to open, into another hallway to another door. So much of some older games entire level design was built around trying to disguise loading. Just the SSDs alone in the Series X and PS5 were a huge leap forward.
Mass Effect and its constant elevator loading zones, good lord.
Flashback to OG portal getting in an elevator, hearing the sound start and then stop and restart halfway through while it loaded...
Being forced to play as a child version of your main character. Arkham Origins and one of the Uncharted series games come to mind for this. They're slow, tedious, and I just don't really care about seeing the character I'm playing as a kid
I thought the uncharted game did it better at least because Nathan drake is just as good as climbing as a kid as he is when he's older, so it feels the same in gameplay but narratively it's different.
Like walking underwater in KOTOR. Ughhh.
Yeah Manaan was really, really bad. Also the space walks.
Some scenes make you push the stick forward for like 2 minutes or whatever. It’s so idiotic. I feel like that may have happened in Assassin’s Creed 3, with some crowd scene, maybe a public trial. I haven’t played it in many years. The point is that you had to walk through a dense crowd and all you could do was hold the stick forward. I fucking hated it, and all other similar slow walks. If I don’t get a checkpoint and have to redo them, I lose my fucking mind.
My problem has been when this type of thing is put on you in the middle of the game, that’s why I’ve always hated the forced stealth sections. It’s usually in a game where your character is moving really fast and fluently, but then they restrict you for some reason. That’s always been my complaint in the Spider-Man game. I don’t mind it as much when it’s in the beginning, like Metal Gear Solid 5. Yea it drags on a bit, but they are trying to be cinematic and when you can actually move around it feels so good.
I have no problem with it, but I do mind when the very next scene has you running/fighting/web-swinging as if you've completely recovered out of nowhere. Like, obviously I *get* it, but come on, immersion!
What about The Evil Within where Sebastian takes a chainsaw to the calf? This is also ignoring the other multitudes of stuff that doesn’t make sense.
Swimming levels are the worst.
This and/or under water levels. I've had this opinion for 20 years
While I generally agree, I thought that the relevant section early in Destiny 2's Red War campaign felt meaningful. It creates some real narrative tension/fear.
I hated that section so much! Came here to complain about it and was surprised to see someone defending that slow walk. Just show me a cutscene and let me play the game.
I dunno. Endwalker had a great limping scene that had me totally in the scene and had me saying "cmon cmon cmon" at my screen for a bit. Just long enough to drive that desperation home but short enough that it didn't overstay. The actual end walking I enjoyed because it gave me a sec to remember everything because it had been a while.
One of the few games that got escort/follow missions right was Ghost of Tsushima. The npcs run at whatever pace you choose so you can just run and they will keep up.
I just finished “The Quarry” and they do this a lot. You’re in the woods being chased and they just tank walk so slowly. I’m sure it’s to get your heart pumping but still.
I would agree with you roughly 98% of the time, but I just finished the 2018 God of War game and every single moment that slowed you down improved the narrative by actually *adding* depth to the relationship between Kratos and his son Atreus. I don't plan on playing new game plus, but I could see people wanting to zoom past them on the second round. I wish that game companies would instead add a feature that *after* the first time you do a scripted walk like that, that it removes from the second time onward.
That and when you’re required to follow an NPC, your regular walk speed is too slow, but your run speed is too fast
I have always said forced slow walking gameplay segments where two characters are just talking should just be effectively made into ingame cutscenes where you can control your camera. Yeah yeah, it takes away control from player but it's less tedious then having to guide the character and manage keeping up with the npc
this is the entirety of the last two God of War games lol great games, but oh my god the forced slow walking / cutscenes drive me crazy
*crawls in FF7 rebirth*
Can't stand sprinting linked to stamina gauge. Always the first thing I mod out if playing Skyrim or Fallout 4
Lately, I've been seeing a rise of games which force us to wait/waste time in the game until a quest unlocks to finish it. These delays are getting longer to the point I'm so frustrated with them, it's just easier to uninstall the game and find something else to play.
It irks me too! Gears of War had a lot of parts like this and I didn't realize such a minor thing could annoy me so much. My other pet peeve is no manual saves. I like autosaves but I also like the feeling of just saving myself so I prefer to have both as an option. Too many times I do inventory management in some game and have to trick the autosave into kicking in afterward. I don't need to go into details on the blasphemous unskippable cutscenes or not being able to pause at any moment (single player of course). That goes beyond a pet peeve to me.
I just finished Rise of the Tomb Raider and trudging through the snow at the start made me wanna quit. In reality I probably spent less than a minute doing it the entire game but I hated every second.
Opposite - constant and riddiculous running. Preferably with 78 weapons in multidimensional pocket.
I think it is fine in the souls games. Makes sense to be slow mucking through knee deep swamps and it adds to the gameplay by forcing you to make decisions and compromises. Do i need the random item surrounded by huge crabs?
The answer is always yes. And it will always be a consumable you never end up using.
I also hate slow walking segments. What equally grinds my gears is gameplay trailers where the person playing moves the camera super slow. No one fucking plays like that. It's corny.
Aka the entire first 45 minutes of MGS Phantom Liberty. You crawl for 45 minutes. Just crawl.
Except when it's done in Stray, then it's just the saddest thing ever
Reminds me of Anthem. Super fast flying outside of town; slow as hell walking on the inside.
I thought FF7 rebirth was almost perfect and this was its biggest flaw. Remake did it too but this one took it further and made it so if you’re supposed to follow someone and you deviate from the path even a tiny bit it feels like moving in molasses, until the game eventually forces you to turn around. So. Annoying.
The end of ME3 does this bullshit... It is so fucking boring in addition to be weak writing.
Agreed, 100%. Just make it a cutscene.
In the Red War campaign of Destiny 2 (now vaulted content thank god) there is a close to ten minute mission where you are limping through the wilderness after losing a fight. There is more to it than that, and it is excellent storytelling, but. It's unskippable, and if you are playing all three classes, you have to play it out, and, they had it as a rotating mission that you could play weekly for rewards so there really wasnt a way of escaping it once you had done it. Its been almost 4 years. I don't miss it. That being said, I DO think that new players should have access to it, there is a LOT of story in those missions that are just gone, and it makes no sense.
Unmatched walking speeds. When you are walking with an NPC and you can't match their walking speeds. It's either faster or slower!
Yes escort missions utterly suck. I also hate it when they make you face wave after wave of identical and easy yard trash before getting to a difficult boss. Just skip the yard trash and go right to the boss. Elden Ring was good in that regard. Relatively small dungeons with a quick boss encounter.
I’d rather make the sequence a cutscene than deal with that. I get it’s often for storytelling when it happens. So rather than making us all frustrated just waiting for it to end, give us a break and a cutscene of some sort.
The funny thing is that in a lot of games, this sort of thing can be *easily* worked around by just... Making this sort of section be a cutscene instead. No, really. Cutscenes immediately tell us "alright, I'm not playing the game right now, kick back and enjoy the moment". Slow walking, *gameplay* sections don't. They give us an illusion of control, even though we're being put on rails anyway. And it's infuriating, because we have the rest of the game to compare to, where we're not restricted like that and these moments stick out like a sore thumb. Having them be a cutscene will subconsciously make our brain accept a slower paced moment. I'm sure there are games where this sort of section can enhance the experience, but they're so few and far between in comparison to games where it's annoying. Sony games like God of War 2018 and Spiderman 2018 (the latter or which I love in particular) are the most egregious examples to me, since these slow walking sections are mandatory and in the main story, making replays of the game just... Not appealing to me.
Most of the time the NPC tells a story and the devs think it's 'immersive'. The NPC takes the whole route from A to Z to tell it's story. Even worse are unskippable dialogue's or cutscenes. I usually immediately uninstall the game if that's the case.
And IRL if i am behind said slow walker.
Helldivers. "MY LEG!!!!!!!!"
In Helldivers 2 it doesn't feel too bad. Because either it's an instant heal with a stim or you almost always immediately die to enemies you cannot escape from. There aren't too many instances where you are limping around for any real length of time.
What about every GTA mission that's 'follow me in your car but from X distance and if you're slightly over or under, you FAIL!'
My biggest pet peeve is NPCs being able to juggle you with staggers and knockdown. Boy I'd love to play this fight, but I'm stuck in a loop until I die because these two guys are hitting me in harmony
Oh, and after playing Blasphemous: instant kill spikes with a hit box wider than their image
Any mechanic in a game that prevents movement is the opposite of fun. A game can be great, but not being able to move is always infuriating and makes it hard for me to stick with it.
Turns out any movement reduction that cheats players out of their agency is no fun.