Game design choices you just can't stand?

[Zanreo]

Mechanics, level types ect. you can't stand in games. LET'S COMPLAIN.

- Unskippable cutscenes, the longer they are the worse. I can accept it if it's just the first time it's shown as I'll probably watch it anyway (though it would still be nice to have the option if I'm doing a second playthrough or just am not interested), but when I have to watch it over and over again every time before, say, a boss battle I can't beat? That just gets annoying (looking at you, Ouendan 1 last level...) and after a while I'll probably just sarcastically quote the dialogue along with the characters.
- Long tutorials. Short tutorial levels are good and often necessary (hey, who actually reads the digital-only manuals), but sometimes they just drag on too much for too long.
- Hours and hours of grinding. Some training is fine, but having to beat thousands of the same kinds of weaker enemies you already beat hundreds of times before, just so you have a chance against the next boss, is NOT FUN.
- When a game autosaves at a later point in the level AND also makes you lose all the items/powerups you already got if you die. So you have to start from a further point in the level without anything, sometimes without any nearby powerups/item shops either... at a part where it's really hard to get through without the powerups. Even worse, when there's a specific powerup ect. you NEED to progress - or even just to access a bonus part of the level - but this is a limited-use pickup (which you of course lost everything of before dying) and suddenly you can't get any further or access that bonus part with exclusive collectibles (hey, I'm a collector/completionist)
- Long, long levels without any checkpoints or save opportunities. Sometimes I want to take a break, for some games I don't always feel like playing for 1-2 hours just because otherwise I'd have to start all over. This is the main problem with De Blob - it's a fun game but ugggh the levels are about 1 hour each and there are no checkpoints/mid-level saving, and these levels suddenly gets less fun when it's the same thing for one hour straight, Would be better to either split it up into several shorter levels or add some kind of mid-level save system...
- Escort missions, I've never played one I liked. Especially if the other character is really slow and/or tends to run away and get themselves killed when you're not there - last one was my main problem with them in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, where you'd have to guide another Pokémon through a dungeon - often a much weaker one on the higher-rank missions - but sometimes they'd just run off in another direction and get into a fight they instantly lost before I could reach them again. This would probably also extend to "protect this thing for x amount of time while enemies attack it" where you can't heal/recover, though I can't remember playing anything like that myself.
-No/limited saving between levels and having to do stuff you already beat over and over again just to reach the level you're struggling with (Why I haven't gotten very far in the original DKC games yet - maybe it will get better when I can use savestates on Wii U). Mostly see this in older games, and I guess that started from the limitations of the time, but that doesn't make it any better. Why would I need to redo something I already finished? I already beat that, that's not the level i'm struggling with... Having to do those over again just feels like a waste of time I could have used to practise beating the level I can't beat.
- Super Hard for the sake of Hard alone. I don't mind a challenge, but sometimes it just seems like they focused on CHALLENGE CHALLENGE HARD GIT GUD over everything else. Levels should also be fun with an interesting design, and I just don't find brutally hard games with little else going for them fun. In general, if "brutal difficulty" is one of the game's main selling points, it really needs a lot more going for it.
- Most "flying" type levels, like Fluzzard levels in Galaxy. Never found them fun, the gameplay is just kinda confusing to me.

[Golem]

[Zanreo]

[fantanoice]

Quick time events in any game that isn't in the horror genre can seriously get effed

[Sky-Fox]

Superhero League of Hoboken just brought this to mind, though I see it all over the place. When my choices are limited because they need to follow a pre-defined puzzle script. I think everyone was vocal about it in the podcast, but being forced to defuse a Limburger bomb by getting specific Limburger-bomb eating microbes rips you right out of the game. It's makes it more like an amusement park and less like a world. "Hey, buddy. You can't do that here, stick to the script"

I'll also throw out: Any sort of global measurement for player morality. Fallout 3 and Fable come to mind as being especially terrible in their handling of it, where a player can adjust their rating with what amount to meaningless actions. Giving water bottles to a homeless man, and eating tofu respectively. Player action needs to be tracked on a much more granular level than that.

[Zanreo]

Collectibles with no way to keep track of them (as in which ones you already got, what level you found them in ect.). One game I've been playing (Superdimension Neptune vs Sega Hard Girls) lists how many you have in key items... but not where you got them. Extra "points" for having an achievement for getting all of them...