6. Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
Getting the Biggoron Sword in Ocarina of Time is truly worth your time and effort (it’s actually stronger than the Master Sword). However, that doesn’t mean the process of obtaining it is enjoyable!
To get the Biggoron Sword, you will find yourself swiftly traversing Hyrule while exchanging items with various characters. The Zelda series is no stranger to long and intricate side quests, but this particular task is the longest and most complex.
The journey begins with the Pocket Egg, which you can find in Kakariko Village. From there, you will find yourself traveling across Hyrule multiple times, often in tight time constraints. You will exchange a series of items between people, like the Eyeball Frog to make Eye Drops, and the Poacher’s Saw that you will give to the carpenter. The final step is to give the Eye Drops to the Giant Goron named Biggoron, who is suffering from eye irritation due to a nearby volcanic eruption.
After this long series of steps, where you will get to know every corner of Hyrule, you will finally obtain the Biggoron Sword.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to lay down just thinking about going through this journey again!
5. Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage
Who hasn’t raised their hand and wanted to throw their controller at the screen every time that bird says “Trouble with the trolley, eh?” after failing this mission for the fiftieth time?
If you’ve played Spyro 2 before and went for collecting all the gems, you’ve surely encountered this dreadful mission. During this mission, Spyro is put on a peculiar track in a wooden trolley equipped with a cannon, and tasked with collecting 50 gears.
The problem lies in the extremely poor control of the trolley. Jumping is uncomfortable, and you need to switch sides on the track, with many places that can lead to immediate death, forcing you to restart the entire mission. And if you fail, you’ll hear “Trouble with the trolley, eh?” multiple times until you’re on the verge of crying in a corner.
In the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, the developers Toys For Bob were fully aware of how much everyone hated the Trouble with the Trolley mission, so they added a sarcastic award/achievement called Trouble No More, as a direct nod to the memes and feelings players had towards this annoying mission.
4. Hollow Knight
“Hey, can you take this delicate flower with you? Take it to the depths of the earth and make sure not to touch it or expose it to anything on the way, it’s very delicate!”
Ready for a frustrating challenge? Try the hidden Delicate Flower mission in Hollow Knight! In this mission, you literally have to transport a flower from the top of the map to near the bottom without using fast travel, without using benches for rest, and without getting hit even once. It requires precise knowledge of the Hollow Knight world and how to avoid enemies or attack them without getting hurt. It’s an extremely frustrating task – one of those missions that may either make you give up from frustration or keep trying until you become a master in Hollow Knight.
You might think that at the end of such a difficult task there would be a great reward waiting for you, right? No. The reward here is just a Mask Shard (and you need three of them to increase your health points by only one) and an award/achievement displaying what you have accomplished.
Fortunately, almost everything else in Hollow Knight is exceptionally great, so we’ll forgive them for this oversight.
3. Fable 2
What’s everyone’s favorite thing to do? Of course, work! It seems like Peter Molyneux knows this well, so he made getting gold in Fable 2 as tedious as possible. How did he achieve this? Well, he added a set of repetitive mini-games that require you to perform mundane tasks like making pies or hitting the hammer repeatedly on a piece of metal as a blacksmith.
To be able to purchase properties and progress in Fable 2, you have to do these repetitive mini-games for long hours. It’s boring, tedious, and almost brings the game to a halt in a fantastic fantasy world.
I guess he was trying to simulate real-life in some way, but every time I remember the hours I spent pressing the A button to hit the metal, I feel angry. Can’t I just open some treasure chests? Please, Peter, no more pies. Please!
2. Batman: Arkham Knight
We’re talking here about a long build-up to a story that ended extremely disappointingly. Many players were looking forward to finally seeing Arkham Knight deliver the Hush storyline that was slowly built up through the previous games. The first hints appeared in Arkham Asylum through a riddle, then Hush appeared in Arkham City as a mysterious figure resembling Bruce Wayne committing a series of brutal crimes.
After tracking him down, the story ended in Arkham City with Batman promising to pursue him another day, making players expect a big showdown in Arkham Knight.
But what we got was a completely pointless part where “Bruce Wayne” shows up at Wayne Tower. Of course, this is not Bruce but Hush. Batman reaches the tower, and simply drops Hush with one move by pushing him across a desk, and that’s the end of it.
For a character that was a significant part of storylines in the Batman world, and with all the build-up Rocksteady provided in the previous game, this ending was extremely disappointing.
Where was the epic boss battle? Where was the creepy hideout of Hush? Where was anything of value? Oh, Rocksteady, you were better than this.
1. Metal Gear Solid V
This mission is particularly painful because it was a major letdown to all those who were eagerly waiting to play Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
For most of the game, MGSV is an excellent game. It evolved the MGS formula significantly, offered players numerous fun tools and great missions. But unfortunately, all of that suddenly stops when you reach about 80% of the game.
Instead of wrapping up the story decently, Metal Gear Solid V presents you with a set of side missions that you probably have done earlier. These missions become slightly harder than before, but you have to complete them all before unlocking the final mission in the game (which is also just a repetition of a previous mission).
Playing it for the first time, the experience was extremely weird. And since its release, we have discovered that there was a significant dispute between the game director Hideo Kojima and the publisher Konami, which led to the game not being completed as planned. This in turn was the reason for presenting all this nonsense of side missions at the end of the game.
It’s hard not to feel a huge sense of disappointment from this situation, especially for fans of the MGS series known for its complex and detail-rich storylines.
