Top Ten Worst Video Game Cliches

We have all experienced this. You know, you are playing a game and you encounter something. Something you don't like and you hope to dear God that it's not a reoccurring thing. But no, it comes back not just in this game but in many games. So what better way to rant than to create a list about them, the top ten WORST video game cliches.
The Top Ten
1 Escort missions

In games like "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" or "The Walking Dead", escort missions work quite well. This is because they actually give the other person a reason to follow you, and you care about them. In games like "Resident Evil 5" and "Amy" on the other hand, escort missions are ANNOYING! This is the 95% of games, with terrible AI partners who are just there to slow your progress.

I hate these. Usually, the person I'm escoerting is yelling at me to hurry up, when they themselves are barely moving at all. And if I decide to stop and reload, they will suddenly sprint ahead, and get mauled by zombies, Big Daddies, or whatever I happen to be protecting them from.

2 Water levels

Yay. I love going super slow in annoy fun level. These can work but they are inferior to most level themes.

Some are decent, but others are plain garbage like The Water Temple and Labyrinth Zone.

I'm partial to ice levels, but this is a close second.

3 Unoriginal villains

Any villain who wants to either take over the world or destroy it and rebuild it in their own image is unoriginal. Whats worse is of they're as boring as hell and don't seem to pose as a threat

If the villain really wanted to get the main character they would just get them instead of talking about it!

We need more villains like The Joker.

4 Boring boss battles

Cliches are only done on a purpose, so unless a boss is meant to be boring, this really isn't a cliche, Just something annoying.

Its at its worst when the boss looks AWESOME. Because you get a huge disappointement.

Boom boom enough said. It just lulls me to sleep

5 Unskippable tutorials

When I started playing Omega Ruby (Pokemon) I sped through the whole tutorial really quickly as I already played Y. Some of the new features (like sneaking up on a Pokemon) I needed to figure out how to do but for the most part I breezed through it.

Damn, every time I played the rapping level in rhythm tengoku and I make one small mistake and I have to do the tedious tutorial again.

The worst offender of this is most of the pokemon games! Now don't get me wrong I love Pokemon!

6 Unskippable cutscenes

I've always hated stories in video games because of the tedious text crawls and boring expositions, but turning them into fully-voiced, fully-animated TWO-HOUR cutscenes is pushing it! I never tried the Metal Gear series, but I know of 4's excruciating ending. I don't care if Snake wants to commit suicide or his issues with Big Lebowski. When I play games, I wanna press buttons. Move forward, beat down enemies, fire a gun. Not waste two minutes on story or exposition.

These are the worst, especially if you are constantly dying in a certain area. This applies in Bowser's Inside Story (BiS) since there is NO skip button at all. I had to watch going to Dr. Toadley at least 7 times, watch the battle intro for Bowser Memory ML at least 10 times. I wanted to throw the game system across the room!

7 Backtracking to old areas

Call of Duty ghosts is one big backtrack, you leave the house and go back. If I remember right you don't leave the state!

All I have to say Is a good game which used this cliche to death is "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door"!

Metro last light is basically one HUGE backtrack.

8 Ability loss
9 Main character has amnesia

There are instances where this concept is done really well, but most of the time it's just a lazy excuse for a character's backstory or character development.

Many times, there doesn't seem to a reason for the character's amnesia. It's more or less a case of "amnesia for plot convenience."

Well, sometimes it works, and if it works, it works really well. Check out Sonny and Sonny 2 for example.

10 Quick time events

Quick time events aren't bad...unless it's how you defeat the final boss at the end of the game. Then I have a problem with them (just like how you kill Damien in Watch_Dogs).

Maybe this wouldn't be too bad if you at least had some TIME to react, but nope, this isn't the case, as some games like Resident Evil 4 give you a damn NANOSECOND to react!

Two miliseconds to press a button that will save your life. Fail and you die. How unfair is that? Come on game developers!

The Contenders
11 Bosses that heal themselves

YES, I hate this so much. Sometimes it's fine, like if your in an rpg fighting a group of people with only one healer, but if it's a really hard boss with a lot of hp, it's just not fun.

Dreamy Bowser Because of his healing attack He seems like he has the exact same amount of hp as Yiazmat from Final Fantasy XII!

This is why I hate the bug with Birdo head boss from Bowsers Inside Story 3DS.

12 Luck based gameplay

Look at Mario Party 9, it just ruins the game.

Okay guys. Can't we just call this for what it really is? It's RNG, not luck!

To get 3 stars in Mario kart 7 you need luck.

13 Dying by one single hit

This is why I don't like games like Mario. Although easy, it doesn't really feel like I am growing while I am playing through the adventure. In my opinion, games like Zelda does it better because you start off with low hearts at the beginning (still not enough to die in one hit though). But after each boss, you gain an extra heart. If the game is too hard, you can find heart pieces hidden around the world and if the game is too easy, you don't have to get the heart after you beat the boss.

A cheap way for video game opposition to win against the main character. It's annoying as all hell.

14 Blatantly obvious weak spots

It's insulting to the gamer to have a boss to have a bright glowing weak spot, but it's even more insulting if the game flat out tells you that the only way to defeat the boss is to attack the obvious weak spot.

"There's a huge eye with fifty arrows pointing to it, and I can lock on to it. Better check my trusty little guide to see where I should hit the boss! "

Nintendo does this a lot especially in Mario and Zelda games.

15 Cover art that features something the game doesn't

When you see a game, what's the first thing you see? The cover. The cover should represent the game, showing what the game is about, not something to make people buy the game.

Twilight Princess without a magic bar even though it's on the back...

16 Having to repeat missions over and over

It's just a lazy tactic to fill time.

17 Getting knocked back
18 Bad AI

Its either the enemy AI is eagle eyed... Or your buddies never held a gun before...

19 Permanently missable items

Then I have to restart the game to get the fullexperience, and I have to go through all the boring parts again, and then at the end I find out I missed another item, and the process repeats until I'm so darn bored with the game that I just pushover it in the back of the closet and start a new one.

Tales of Vesperia is particularly bad for this. So many items and costumes can be missed because you forgot to go back and talk to x character in a short window of time.

The master ball in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire was the worst. You had to get it rather than getting it given to you.

20 Lava levels
21 Forced to lose as part of the plot

So, you are thrown into an immensely difficult battle with a seemingly unbeatable boss. You give it your best, using up all of your best healing items, weapons, etc, until you inevitably die. Then, after watching a cutscene, you suddenly realize - you were intended to lose the battle. That, and you just wasted all of your best items for nothing.

This cliche is my worst one. It forces you to lose to the boss, which is really annoying. I'm looking at you, Beatrix from Final fantasy IX. And it makes you waste items just for nothing.

22 Everything hurts you

In the Mega Man games everything can kill you with one shot.

In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, everyone is trying to kill you.

23 Jungle levels

This has been done to death no more jungle levels.

While some levels in Jungles are great, like the ones in Donkey Kong Country, Tree Tops in Spyro 1 in the other hand is an abomination

24 Spikes

Serious Sam: Spikes? I hate spikes!

25 Button mashing

So many games I could name... Especially some RPGs like Dungeon Maker.

Ow my fingers. This should be top 3.

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