Thinking back on FF9 made me update my cliche list with one of my most hated traits of RPGs: Nelson's Rule. That is, things in RPGs that appear to have been specifically designed to piss the player off by being entirely unintuitive, just so the developer can belt out "HA HA!" in the player's face. Plenty of games have this bad habit of insulting the player for not reading the developers' minds (a lot of them very, very bad games, I might add), but RPGs take the middle finger approach to whole new levels of childish and petty taunting.
How many times in an RPG have you done what seems to make perfect sense (such as attacking an enemy), and been punished for it (like having that enemy spontaneously belt out a direct counterattack to your attack that comes close to or actually does wipe your entire party out)? How many times in a game have you been given some arbitrary and totally nonsensical task (defeat 10 forms in 10 seconds! - Kingdom Hearts 2), and been punished when this spontaneous bit of nonsense was not completed (couldn't defeat 10 forms in 10 seconds? GAME OVER! Reload! Hope you like re-watching that 20-minute cutscene!)?
That sort of game design, above all else, really tweaks my short hairs, no matter if it's in an RPG, an action game, an adventure game, a puzzle game, or any other genre. Games should not punish you heavily for doing what makes the most sense, nor should they give you out-of-the-blue nonsense goals that punish failure with severe consequences.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
