Gaming cliches and features I'm tired of, annoyed with and pissed at.

[midnight_hawk]

(I've seen most of these done well, I've just seen them done so many times they make me groan.)

• "I am your father's brother's cousin's former roommate." Big bad bosses with ridiculously tenuous connections to the main character: e.g. "I'm going to kill you because your mother looked funny at me once!"

• "You killed me, but you have to fight me again and now I'm even stronger." Unless there's a plot point explaining why big bads can come back to life, why? WHY? Make sense or stay dead, please (not including bosses that you beat without killing them, of course)

• "And now you must fight yourself/a simulacrum of yourself" Deeply significant or really lazy plot device?

• Unskippable dream sequences.

• "You are the last of your kind." The bad guys can effectively wipe out an entire race but they can't kill that pesky last survivor. Elves/spirit monks/god spawn are just like roaches, apparently.

• "Go kill X rats and I'll give you X currency pieces." Every RPG anywhere has rats in it somewhere (if you know of any exceptions please tell me, I hate rat killing).

• Gimmick weapons that don't actually do anything useful: Frying pans, rubber chickens, cow exploding spells ect. Especially annoying if they are cheesy joke weapons in a game which isn't supposed to be funny.

• A dumb and slightly annoying teenage boy with a sword is the world's only hope. JRPGs are especially guilty of this.

• "..." "...!" "...?" 'Nuff said.

• Improbable ninja: Bright purple hair and hot-pants while throwing a bright yellow shuriken while yelling "SUPER SPECIAL STEALTH HURRICANE ATTACK!" Real stealthy that.

• Lovable rogues.

• "Bikinis of doom!" Not saying that all armour needs to be realistic, because full plate is pretty boring, but chain-mail bikinis and snow don't mix.

• "The annoying girl character". They are usually young, often are  orphans and/or thieves and wear very skimpy outfits and seem to suffer from A.D.D. I don't find all characters that fit this stereotype annoying, I just get tired of seeing them in games.

• Sanctimonious Paladins/White Mages/Holy Whatnots. I don't care about your goddamn morals, sacred ground and/or holy crusade, go jump in a swamp.

• Racial stereotype characters, especially in fantasy worlds where the countries aren't the same as ours (even though so many rpg worlds seem to made up of "European continent" and "Asian continent").

• "Why yes, we are a religious charitable organisation. Give us tonnes of money and we'll put in a good word for you with our god/the law/raise your reputation."

• "Oh yes all your choices will affect your character's alignment and party, but nothing you do ultimately matters as you can't affect the outcome of the game in any way." Fuck you, Obsidian.

• "I am a party member/character you trusted but I am totally working for the bad guy/am the real bad guy and am going to kill you /kick your puppy now!" After the first time this happened in one game, I'm not surprised by betrayals in any game anymore, I just get annoyed by seeing a really obvious twist coming up.
  

• "Oh you spent ages levelling me up, too bad, I have to die permanently in a scripted event, Hkrh-blrkh!" Sometimes mandatory death of party members can be cool, sometimes it's just annoying, sometimes it's just ridiculously overused (Final Fantasy IV, I am looking at you).

• "I'm a completely useless and vulnerable companion character trapped in a monster-filled area. I need you to protect my worthless ass otherwise you lose the game, even though I'll probably be killed later anyway. I have chopsticks in my hair, I am kooky that way."

• "Thanks for escorting my vulnerable companion ass all the way out of the monster-filled area. Oops, I left my completely worthless plot item behind, please retrace your steps through the monster-filled area to get it back for me. It's probably locked in a safe and no, I don't know the combination."

• "I'm the main character's love interest. I'm horribly insecure and will bitch you out constantly. I also have mommy/daddy issues."

• "I'm also the main character's love interest. I will turn into a horrible bitch and say really OOC things if you display interest in the other love interest."

• "I'm a lesbian love interest. No-one ever remembers me. And where are my boobs?"

• "I'm a gay male love interest. Uh...where am I?"

• "Who are you? Oh, some random adventurer that wandered into my private home. Please feel free to rifle through all my personal belongings and take whatever you what. It's not like I can notice or object, even though I only own two chests and a bed." Games that do have A.I. that acknowledge theft are awesome, when it works well.

• "Hey, you moved my ceramic urn two centimeters! GUARDS! GUARDS! ARREST THIS FELON IMMEDIATELY!"  I can jump on your table and kick all your fruit on the floor and you don't mind, but if I manually drag an object, I must be a thief.
  

• Psychic Guards. How can they see you through a wall, two stories above ground, hiding inside a barrel?

• Cam Clarke. Please stop hiring him.

Stuff that I will always find awesome despite hating the cliches they help perpetuate.

• Fran from Final Fantasy XII: On first glance she seems like nothing more than fan-service (metal bikini on a bunny girl, buh?) but her personality is such that there's no denying she kicks monumental ass, even if her own is always hanging out.

• Sarevok from Baldur's Gate: Especially when he talks about worrying about his weight and having dimples.

• Rikku from Final Fantasy X: She ought to annoy me, but I love her. Don't know why.

• Romancing SaGa III: Your story is a completely incomprehensible and cliche ridden mess as well as having an extremely hard, frustrating and unforgiving combat system, and yet you are so much fun.

• Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. You are guilty of so many bad design choices, bugs and cliches, but you scare the shit out of me, so that makes you cool.

• Romances in games, even the really badly written and sentimental ones.

• On a similiar note, any cutscene/FMV where the romance characters finally get to smooch.

• Jail busting sequences.

• Fleece from Summoner, a lovable rogue that also betrays the main character, but more than makes up for it.

The ultimate RPG cliche list, which I am merely poorly imitating.