Under Water. I hate those with the burning passion.

For me, it was the Draw mechanic from FF8.

That was one system that was just wrong.

Instead of killing your enemies, you had to draw their magic over and over to max your stats. The more you had, the better the stats. Guess what? If you used the magic yourself you would be gimping your stats, so you were incentivated not to use it and rely on low health and infinite limit breaks. Others were impossible to get from more than one fight, wich would mean that if you used them, you would never be able to replenish them.

Thats the one system i can think of that completely ruined the combat on that game. Drawing constantly was repetitive and boring and not using magic made the combat stale. Its what i can think of when i think of a gameplay mechanic that ruined the whole experience across the board.

Somehow there are people who love that game though. Added to the lame plot twist. I never could understand them... that is until FFXIII and its fans came around. Even worse. xD

i gotta disagree here.

no all gamers have the same skill level.  not all gamers have the same lust for challange. 

what i think is silly is that in this day and age of technology i, as a user, have to pick that level from a list.  there has got to be some solid science on how many times i can die in a row before i become frustrated and start to hate the game.  i would think difficultly level could be silently adjusted behind the scenes to ensure there is just enough dificulty to make the game fun but not frustrating. 

i've always hated FF...

..but i spent an evening watching some friends play FF8.  i mostly remember them sitting on one specific boss fight for what i'll swear was 3 or more hours drawing magic to max out the counter or whatever.  you probably refer to line 1 hear but o.m.g i wanted to slit my eyeballs.  it was even worse than that night we spent warthog jumping.

Random QTEs that come out of nowhere are the bane of my gaming existence.

The worst example I've ever come across was Crysis 2. One stage had you fighting to cross a bridge then it went into a long cut scene at the end. I let my controller rest on my lap for a moment. SUDDENLY YOU'RE FALLING OFF THE BRIDGE! Sudden QTE! How fun! I didn't grab my controller fast enough, failed the QTE, and had to repeat the entire level over. Cast Rage, level 4.

It's even worse when you play on PC. At least Saint's Row has you use WSAD or Space; Far Cry 3, in contrast, had me looking down at my keyboard for keys that I can't reach easily. The C key, for cat's sake? Fucking seriously?

It just absolutely breaks immersion for me, especially the ones that make you spam the key until your hand hurts. I will never understand what developers think it accomplishes.

There is also a rotten place in my heart for cars and vehicles that are way, way weaker than my character is on foot and which explode and kill me before I can climb out. The first Borderlands was horrible for that, I had more car deaths than anything else, but it's not the only one. In a lot of games, I just skip using the vehicles entirely.

Finally, I hate when games make you play really bad mini-games in order to advance. I didn't buy this shiny new FPS so I could play Mario Party, I bought it so I could shoot stuff.

The draw mechanic really isnt that bad, Just get your GF to learn the card refining abilities as the very first thing, and beat up a whole bunch of fish on that first beach(they provide faster points)  Then play alot of the card game as you go along(or spend some time playing aroun the garden, you can get some rare cards).   Hell you can get 100 tornado spells before the seed mission(junctioning this to squalls strength is perfect).   Using magic becomes less of an issue as you can replenish it quickly by refining more cards.  Their are a few higher level spells that cant be refined as easy but that helps the mechanic as its bosses or a strong monster to draw from so you need to be strategic to get as much as you can without getting your ass handed to you.

For me it has to be escort missions that involve an NPC entering and exiting vehicles. Your being shot at from all angles and you dive into the car and then you wait as he walks slowly to the door, standss for 2 seconds and then gets in. Add in random events with high speed police chases(like in gta V) and you can get really frsutrated. im waiting for him to get in, being shot at when a car being chased comes flying through at full speed running the guy about to get in over killing him instantly..

@bold 1: "Limit break command didn't show up? quickly, mash triangle and hold right until it does!" Now that's a combat system with deep strategy.

@bold 2: It didn't take too long for them to show up!

It is rather silly..  with cards -> highlevel magic  to junction and getting items, you can get the lionheart on disc 2.  So When you do the limit break and catch a lionheart finisher you can do 250K damage.  at which point battles become a joke.. and if it doesnt you can always do it again a split second later.  Plus once you get to the big city you can multiply your money infinitely to however much you want and then buy 100 of what you need to refine aura.  then you dont even need to be low health.  lol

Toy story 3 does that, in the opening level anyway. Watching my 4 year old play that, the game kept making it easier until his health bar wasn't depleting at all anymore. Mario 3D world offers the invulnerable upgrade too after a couple of deaths.
Unreal tournament had a cool mode to try to balance multipplayer, by making you thicker every time you kill someone, and thinner when you die.

Many more games could use adaptive difficulty, not everyone is good at everything and it sucks to remember a game by 'that part you got stuck on and almost smashed the controller to bits'

Back on topic, Ice and water levels don't bother me at all. My achilles heel is turrets, I hated Jak 2 and Jak 3 for those unskippable turret sections.