The final test isn’t that hard. In the Law class you should pay attention instead of flirting with your RO and you get the full notes. Just read them before the exam and you’d get an A.
In the team battle thing focus on your strongest stat, if you have high Whoosh or Thud protect the Hedonist and if you have high Paw or Zap go attack Downfall.
Then when she is about to attack Tress pick the opposite option of what you picked before, attack her if you protected the Hedonist or defend if you attacked her (this has no stat checks). This way you’d get a good grade in both attack (breaking) and defense.
The ORPHEUS Ruse. I remember mentioning this book in the worst ending commiseration thread, but if only it was the ending that I felt bad about. But it was all bad. Not just difficult, but thanklessly difficult. As if the game kept punishing my MC for being naïve/trusting/generous. It had some interesting moments, but on the whole - not worth my time (or money).
The Choice of Star Captain. Oh boy, what a pain. (What a waste). The plot. The NPC’s. The premise. None of those did it for me. I think the only thing I enjoyed about the game was the MC’s snarky personality. But that was it. I hated the ship’s computer, I hated the MC’s superiors, I hated the ending I got, I was disappointed with lazy design of the aliens…
The Sea Eternal was not frustrating as much as depressing. Bleak. And not in a fascinating way.
Same goes for Neighbourhood Necromancer. It tries to lure you in with humorous moments here and there, but… Nope. Not buying it. Though maaaybe I’m just being a stick-in-the-mud about the whole thing. The game starts with a bunch of teens committing murder and an unintentional second-hand parenticide on MC’s part, after all. Isn’t it fun?
I always get frustrated dealing with resource management in games where I don’t believe resource management should be present. So… pretty much any CoG or HG with such mechanics))
And let’s not forget the Heroes Rise and Hero Project series…
This game gave me the best “bad” ending ever… literally a minute after I started playing (and I got to take the computer down with me ) I enjoyed it so much I never actually bothered playing the game again for a “good” ending.
You need to choose the option of let them rotate your affection everyday … like Monday Maria, Tuesday Carrie…Wednesday Maria…etc , Both Maria and Carrie agree and they settle with a toss of coin to determine who start fist In the end, i chose to become Governor of Mexico so that both Maria and Carrie follow me there, it was mention it took a miracle for them to willing to do such act… It was the happiest ending, if i choose to marry Maria, it was told the wedding with Maria is like a fairy tale and we rule her district together, Carrie knows only one true love of her life… she carry on as vigilante herself , if anyone bad mouthing me she will ensure that person never live to regret it . If i choose to marry Carrie, it is going to be Carrie’s happiest day of her life… Maria had learn what is true love and maintain a truthful friend with me .
Fielder’s Choice frustrated me, was like no matter what stats you had in a specific pitching style, 30% or 80% you’d have like a 38% chance of a strike or a 44% chance of a strike, the chances of actually striking someone out were so miniscule. And it never really felt like you actually had a ~40% chance, 90% of my game was letting people walk cause you fouled out.
There are some CoG’s I stopped playing due to the writing quality being a bit… disappointing, but the only time I’ve ever dropped a CoG due to frustration I think was the lost heir trilogy.
I think I just got frustrated with unclear mechanics on the second game and constantly feeling like no matter what my character was good at I would fail a good ~75% of the stat checks within the game.
That said, that might’ve just been positive confirmation bias, so I can’t really say for sure if I just felt that way, or it really was that way in the coding itself. Or maybe I was just plain awful at the game. Either way I got fed up with always being told I had failed a stat check, and ended up dropping the game.
This thing some games do like Pendragon Rising and Saga of the North Wind where every choice increases one stat and decreases another by the same amount (and this is fairmath we’re talking about, so it’s diminishing returns) is stupid and needs to die forever.
I’ve seen it a number of times but the attunement system drives me crazy in SoH due to my perfectionism and as such I literally can’t finish the first game never mind carry on to the rest.
It’s a real shame as from what I’ve read in the first game it is very well written with a compelling story, but ah well, that’s life
One was in Life of Wizard, when I got to the Abyss. No matter what I do, I never seem able to raise my party members to the required level to beat all the challenges. Maybe it’s something I could manage with a bit more focus on what they need. But I get there and it’s a dead end every time. And no option to attempt to defeat these obstacles by any of my own skills.Almost every other obstacle in the game seems to have multiple solutions, so you have options. In the Abyss, nope. Play a very specific way, or lose.
Another time was in Pendragon Rising. After a while, it felt like the game was just punishing me for trying to be honest. I got to a point where some special sword ended up in the bag of one of my companions, and I immediately turned it in, saying I have no idea how it got there. I figured honesty in this case had to mean, yeah, accusations will happen, but then I’ll be given the chance to investigate and find the real thief. Nope. For being honest and trying to do the right thing, I just got kicked out and insulted. At that point I just rage quit the game and reset it. And still have not gone back.
I don’t really have a right to complain since I’ve never written a game before but by far my worst experience had to be choice of the cat given it was just set up your basic stats then guess like hell which of the choices coincided with your stat locked cat. But again I don’t really have a right to complain and maybe the story just wasn’t for me.
Talking about poorly-written choices, my favourite (that is: worst) example would be a choice between “charge into battle” and “do something clever”. As a mage, I naturally assumed that “do something clever” was the correct choice, but this led to a further choice between “talk them down” and “shoot from the bushes”. I chose “shoot from the bushes” on the grounds that a mage should be able to do something like this… and the game pointed out that I had no ranged weapon (despite, you know, the MC being a literal ranged weapon), so I charged with my knife… (This, of course, meant I failed the encounter, and couldn’t get any rewards, and… well, I gave up on the game at that point…)
In the Hero Project game I tried to do the right thing and talk to the Hero who might have mental problems…i tried to talk to him in private in the restrooms but I guess they had cameras in there so I accidentally exposed him. Cue monologue by my character about being a sellout…as if I meant for that stuff to happen rather than it being an unexpected plot twist. That was the only time I refunded a game on steam that I can recall
In my experience that was Choice of the Rockstar (but I haven’t read Kendrickstone) Definitely something I was excited about, but ended up not getting much out of… and I’m disappointed inasmuch as I expect that makes it much less likely there’ll be a future, better example of the genre…
Well, technically it’s an HG venture I’m talking about, but I figured out it’ll do, as there’s no thread dedicated to HG for this issue.
The first CoG ( HG actually) story I read was The Great Tournament, and it was Great. It’s still one of my personal favorites, as is for many fellow forum members, I’m sure. But the sequel, well, was unexpected, given the ending of TGT was just perfect.
But then again, there was the sequel, there was anticipation, and there was… absolute disappointment… which is not surprising given the inherent heritage of sequels to great movies dabbling in the box office.
The MC getting weakened and struggling, being forced to use other skills than combat…that was a promising start. But then everything went to be a repetitive, boring mess. Even the dearly loved characters didn’t have a good build up to their already rich background. It was very clear that this project was more of a random thought than any actual effort that is needed to carry forward a story with great potential. I don’t blame the author for this, because I hear that he was actually pestered by the fans for the sequel.
Well, some people actually defended it by saying that there are a lot of replayability. Yes, there are, a lot of them, each competing the others for the ‘most poorly organised script’. None of them had a particularly attractive, fleshed out story. Why should I care about how many times I can play a story when none of them are actually good in the first place? And guess what? Yes, just like the sensible lad I am meant to be, I didn’t care. Just played through the path of the Knight and the Prince once each, and didn’t bother to complete the other paths. Coming to think of it, I actually played through the same path scores of times in the original TGT, that says it all…
) I enjoyed it so much I never actually bothered playing the game again for a “good” ending. 
In the end, i chose to become Governor of Mexico so that both Maria and Carrie follow me there, it was mention it took a miracle for them to willing to do such act… It was the happiest ending, if i choose to marry Maria, it was told the wedding with Maria is like a fairy tale and we rule her district together, Carrie knows only one true love of her life… she carry on as vigilante herself , if anyone bad mouthing me she will ensure that person never live to regret it . If i choose to marry Carrie, it is going to be Carrie’s happiest day of her life… Maria had learn what is true love and maintain a truthful friend with me . 
I chose “shoot from the bushes” on the grounds that a mage should be able to do something like this… and the game pointed out that I had no ranged weapon (despite, you know, the MC being a literal ranged weapon), so I charged with my knife… 
(This, of course, meant I failed the encounter, and couldn’t get any rewards, and… well, I gave up on the game at that point…)
Definitely something I was excited about, but ended up not getting much out of… and I’m disappointed inasmuch as I expect that makes it much less likely there’ll be a future, better example of the genre…