What's The Worst Element You've Put Up With To Enjoy The Rest Of Something You Love?

Let's say there's a book, movie or game that you really enjoy. It scratches itches for you in wonderful ways and for that you are thrilled and thankful. But at the same time, there are some things about it that you just hate. Or maybe just one thing that you just have to put up with and set your rage aside to ignore so you can enjoy the parts you love.

This question comes to mind because I recently started playing Two Worlds again on my Xbox 360. It's an open world fantasy RPG that came out a year or so after Oblivion. The graphics are pretty ugly, the voice acting is super flat (I think the Dev team did the voice work or something) and the frame rate is often choppy. The game also tends to freeze up my 360 about 1 in 3 play sessions.

BUT...

The looting and progression is SOOOOO satisfying, the customization and upgrade options are diverse, crafting is cool, combat is fun, exploring is exciting and load times are short, with transition in and out of buildings requiring no load screen at all!

It does so many things right that I like, but does other things so poorly that I just have to adjust my expectations.

Although the WORST elements I have to endure to enjoy something I love would have to be the story, characters and dialogue in Shadow Hearts: From The New World, all of which make me cringe and want to tear out my eyes and jam hot pokers in my ears until I can get back to the awesome game play.

Trophies that require you to collect everything it's so annoying even with a guide

I've been thinking about this for days, and I still don't have a good answer.

I mean I'll put up with something for a time, but eventually I get fed up. Bernard Cornwell mocking faith, George RR Martin or SM Stirling's portrayal of sex, for example, but eventually I just say "alright, that's enough: it isn't worth it."

Maybe I should go with stiff acting, second rate writing, and poor special effects ala Warehouse 13, Eureka!, and The Librarians... I keep going back to that style of show and having a good time.
Or the horrendous matchmaking algorithm of World of Tanks where you are much more likely to get a 15-3 blowout than a 15-14 close game.
Or how about the friend who talks constantly about stuff you just don't care about.

And don't get me started on my wife...

mikel.withers wrote:And don't get me started on my wife...

lol! I guess she doesn't read these forums, huh? (You'd better hope not!)

Ha, you think she doesn't have a list on me?
I guarantee she does.
But no, I don't think she'd read the forums... it is much more like: "oh is that some more of your geek stuff?"

I'm not sure what the actual worst thing i've ever put up with was. At present, i'm reminded of Destiny, which i started playing a couple weeks ago. Beautiful game, and i've been having a lot of fun with it, despite the lack of characterization and spiderweb-thin story.

I'm not sure if this counts because I do avoid it when I can but I HATE the Atlantica world in Kingdom Hearts

Morfinwen wrote: i've been having a lot of fun with it, despite the lack of characterization and spiderweb-thin story.

I've heard that about Destiny. Is story usually an important element for you in games?

Rickster wrote:I'm not sure if this counts because I do avoid it when I can but I HATE the Atlantica world  in Kingdom Hearts

Do tell! I know nothing about the game. What's so annoying about Atlantica?

Paeter wrote:

Rickster wrote:I'm not sure if this counts because I do avoid it when I can but I HATE the Atlantica world  in Kingdom Hearts

Do tell! I know nothing about the game. What's so annoying about Atlantica?

It's the Little Mermaid world and the swimming controls are bad and gets really annoying during combat. They brought the world back in Kingdom Hearts 2, with better swimming controls but no combat instead they made it a DDR type minigame world.

Paeter wrote:I've heard that about Destiny. Is story usually an important element for you in games?

Yeah, it is. Even if it wasn't, there are commercials with more story to them than Destiny, which i imagine makes it obnoxious even to people who don't value story as much as i do.

I think I need to add "difficulty" to my list.

I felt ready for some more God Of War and Far Cry 4. So far so good again with FC4, although historically I go in and out of playing those games because the story missions can be VERY annoying and require you to suddenly play the game very differently from the way you've been playing in the open world side quests. (Timed missions, stealth "insta-fail" when spotted, escort/protection missions, etc.)

And now and then God Of War games have a boss or a bit of platforming that requires repeated deaths and retries for me to get through. (Repeating material in games because of death is my MOST HATED ELEMENT IN ALL OF VIDEO GAMIIIIIIING!!!!!!!) Anyone who remembers the underwater "pushing walls of death" from God Of War 1 can possibly imagine why I'm taking a break from it at the moment. I've even beaten the game before and it's still punishing the second time through. laaaaaame...

And yet I LOVE the action and the feelings of brutal rage that GoW expresses so well. I love the setting and visuals (minus the occasional objectified female) and the whole sword and sorcery meets "300" vibe.


In the Far Cry games I love the exploration and environments. I love the feeling of accomplishment when you take out a bad guy or an entire outpost. I love the chance to simulate being out in nature, which I love in my heart but hate in the reality of bugs and wild animals. But CRAP those story missions...

Paeter wrote:I think I need to add "difficulty" to my list.

And now and then God Of War games have a boss or a bit of platforming that requires repeated deaths and retries for me to get through. (Repeating material in games because of death is my MOST HATED ELEMENT IN ALL OF VIDEO GAMIIIIIIING!!!!!!!) Anyone who remembers the underwater "pushing walls of death" from God Of War 1 can possibly imagine why I'm taking a break from it at the moment. I've even beaten the game before and it's still punishing the second time through. laaaaaame...

I think it was at that part that I was thinking Paeter who said he has terrible hand eye coordination beat this? lol There was one part of the game where that I was stuck on and I eventually had to cheat and used a trick move to beat it.

You probably don't know this but if you start god of war on a higher difficulty and there is a spot where you keep dying eventually the game will ask if you want it to change the difficulty to easy.

Rickster wrote:
You probably don't know this but if you start god of war on a higher difficulty and there is a spot where you keep dying eventually the game will ask if you want it to change the difficulty to easy.

That's cool! But sometimes I need a message to pop up that says: Do you want to try this again on "person-with-no-thumbs-mode?"

The deadpool game had a part where you have to use stealth and for some reason I was stuck on it so eventually the game just skipped me ahead

Rickster wrote:The deadpool game had a part where you have to use stealth and for some reason I was stuck on it so eventually the game just skipped me ahead

Dude, yes!! ALL games should have that feature!

The one positive thing I hope will be gained from games being always online or checking in with home servers to report player data is better understanding by big developers of what players do and do not enjoy or what they find frustrating. Sadly, I'm guessing this is low on the list of reasons they use those types of connections.