Games that deliberately troll you.

[Elzair]

Rescuing the girl in Karateka.

You ain't seen shit until you've played it on the 7800.

 

[anus_pounder]

WTF IS THIS SHIT? They destroyed Helghast? Those gasmasked dudes were the only reason I had some semblance of interest in the series.

And speaking of which, is it just me or did Killzone 3 pop out with no fanfare and advertising, at least compare to the 2nd game.

 

[Gragt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDvQGGZzfI

Unrelated: Snake's Jayceedenton impression

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYN1yz5lU8A

Hm, I kinda want to replay the first MGS. I remember having a good time with it despite the "tries too much" parts.

That said, in case it caused confusion, I really talked of Metal Gear 2, not Metal Gear Solid 2 (piece of crap!).

 

[Hamster]

WTF IS THIS SHIT? They destroyed Helghast? Those gasmasked dudes were the only reason I had some semblance of interest in the series.

I stared at the screen for five minutes in fucking disbelief I was like: wuh? wtf? The good guys lost and retardo cliche squad won? I tolerated those dumbfucks only to see more of helghast and devs decided to go Battlefied Earth with them? FUuuuuuuuuuuu!!

 

[Black Cat]

Games that deliberately troll the player?

Demonophobia is definitely one of the worst. The story is about this girl who tried to fool around with demons and did end in hell, and it chronicles her adventures trying to escape. The first thing you notice is that the game is extremely guro, sadistical, and cruel. Then you notice each time the girl finds a horrible new way to be tortured, killed, or both she wakes up at the begining of the level with only vague memories of what happened before, after three days of slow and painful regeneration. So you keep going because you really want to help her escape that horrible place, or at least manage to die once and for all, and because if you are even slightly empathic you feel like shit for her and get really invested in her escape, and because if you have a soul you can't help but be touched by all the horrible shit the game throws at both you and her.

And then you get to the ending...

If you have a heart afterwards you just walk to your bed, drop into it, and cry yourself to sleep.

This is what Black Cat's laugh sounds like

I have been trying to get that kind of super duper obnoxious Noblewoman's Laugh for years, but so far it's not happening.

 

[Gragt]

Is Demonophobia even translated into English? Actually is there any reason to care for the little shit?

 

[Black Cat]

@ Le Petit Furet

It isn't translated, but if you know basic japanese grammar and have a basic grasp of general Japanese vocabulary you can play through it getting all the dialogue with just a few dictionary trips. It is not, however, a good game to practice your grammar and expand your vocabulary given it has pretty little text and a lot of horrible and sick. You are far better with VNs for that.

About playing through it I'll be kind of honest: Do you like grimdark stories about demons or normal and pretty defenseless people trapped in hell or similarly nightmarish places? If you do, go ahead and play through it. If you don't, then skip it. The story is simple but I believe it to be well told, and the game's so incredibly horrible it actually makes you feel for the main character predicament and really try to get her out of it, at least if you are able to identify yourself with a girl trapped in hell for being a total bitch and having it backfire on her. The puzzles are good, and I did found some to be pretty hard mostly because you get so nervous trying to not get horribly tortured again you end up messing up and getting more horrible done to you. And most of the encounters with things have more of a Clock Tower feeling, given you are not precisely Dante turned into an epic and awesome Crusader so if something gets to you it's pretty horrible and bloody torture time.

And it's one of the best demonology gone wrong short stories on videogames, mostly because of how grim and twisted everything is. Religious freaks should start hiring japanese indies to make up their preaching games instead of what they usually improvise, and people would stop liking demons pretty fast.

 

[Gragt]

Well, I played it without knowing anything more than the premise "girl's demonic incantation backfires and she gets trapped in hell".

I do enjoy horror about regular people who going through some abominable ordeal, but in order for me to care about them it better be well-written else they're just cannon fodder, which is what happens 95% of the time. The same pretty much applies to a game, though I could somehow have a bit more empathy for the character I am playing, but in the end I may just want to complete the game instead of getting him to safety.

I also remember I tried to avoid death scenes in that game because they were slow and would take a lot of time to watch before I could restart, not because I didn't want my character to suffer :D

 

[Black Cat]

I do enjoy horror about regular people who going through some abominable ordeal, but in order for me to care about them it better be well-written else they're just cannon fodder, which is what happens 95% of the time.

I personally believe her to be well written, or as well written someone whose personality and character comes through mostly by means of horrible death scenes and torture sequences can be. She comes as much more, say, believable than the girl on The Tairyou Jigoku, who is constantly switching between badass mode and crying for mommy mode, through not as relatable as the characters on Clock Tower or Fatal Frame, given the game is much lighter on characterization and atmosphere, most of the horror being quite in your face and coming from the very graphical elements that are shown and what is implied about what isn't.

The stage...

Spoiler

... with her mother and sister...

... is really sick and you can feel what she's going through, and the ending is truly horrible and despairing, so I guess that's evidence of a character good enough for the player to emotionally link with her, or at least some players. In general the character is loved well enough as for her to be drawn in happy happy colorful fanart, so at least she's got enough depth and character for the fans to relate to her plight and to want to imagine, at least for a while, an alternative reality where she had a happy and fulfilling life instead of, well, what she got herself into.

I can't really comment on the quality of the writing itself as it was one of the first games I did play untranslated and I still have a long way to go before being able to notice writing patterns and stylistic choices on the way Japanese is written.

I also remember I tried to avoid death scenes in that game because they were slow and would take a lot of time to watch before I could restart, not because I didn't want my character to suffer :D

I talked to Gragt. THIS is what I expected. THIS is what I got.

 

[Gragt]

I'll have to take your word on that game because I can't understand Japanese. That also reminds me that I should play Clock Tower one of those days.

Also that's one angry ferret.

 

[kingcomrade]

The Serious Sam games (First and Second Encounter) were not exactly top-of-the-line FPS games, but they were a throwback to the early days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom: Pure mindless fun.

This is wrong and I've said so here on the Codex many many times that I think people who say this have no idea what they're talking about. Serious Sam and Doom are not the same type of FPS. Serious Sam is like Painkiller, not like Doom. There are very few games that are like Doom. Serious Sam and Painkiller put you in a square or otherwise shaped room and enemies spawn until you've killed them all, then you move to the next room and repeat, the room is just scenery. Doom is about map exploration and finding the keys and figuring out the switch puzzles, not killing waves of enemies. Just because all 3 games have large numbers of enemies does not imply that they are the same type of game. ffs

 

[Jick Magger]

Likewise, games that are ludicrously easy for about 95% of the game, only to have the last level or some extra secret bonus level being bone-breakingly hard... just because. I believe this is called "slamming into a wall of difficulty", and games like Cave Story, Trine, Syndicate and Psychonauts are memorable examples of this. This is not trolling, it's just bad game design, most often used to cover up the fact that your game is shit. At least that's the case in Trine.

Pretty sure that's just called a 'difficulty spike'.
Could be also classed as a 'wake up call' boss, in that you could be breezing through the game until you hit a boss that kicks your nuts out through your nose (eg The Butcher in Diablo, Shadow Yukiko in Persona 4, Flamelurker in Demon's Souls).
There's also the problem in which the difficulty fluctuates, which leads to one point being almost insultingly easy, and the next part being mind numbingly hard. A good example of this being in Castlevania: SoTN, when

Spoiler

Dracula's castle is flipped upside down, and you have to go from the castle's top spire to the basement. Yes, it's just as lazy as it sounds.

Since this stage is completely nonlinear, you'll go into a random room on one side of the castle and face a boss that's extremely easy, and then go to the other side and face a boss that'll tear your nuts off and make you wear them as earrings.

 

[Pegultagol]

All racing games with rubber-band AIs.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The Serious Sam games (First and Second Encounter) were not exactly top-of-the-line FPS games, but they were a throwback to the early days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom: Pure mindless fun.

This is wrong and I've said so here on the Codex many many times that I think people who say this have no idea what they're talking about. Serious Sam and Doom are not the same type of FPS. Serious Sam is like Painkiller, not like Doom. There are very few games that are like Doom. Serious Sam and Painkiller put you in a square or otherwise shaped room and enemies spawn until you've killed them all, then you move to the next room and repeat, the room is just scenery. Doom is about map exploration and finding the keys and figuring out the switch puzzles, not killing waves of enemies. Just because all 3 games have large numbers of enemies does not imply that they are the same type of game. ffs

You're propably troll-fishing here, but since you are mostly wrong I'll correct you.

# Painkiller came after Serious Sam. Therefore it is wrong to say that SSam is like Painkiller, when it is actually the other way around.

# Read the quoted text again. Does it say Serious Sam = Doom? No. I said that it was a throwback to Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, that it sought inspiration from those games, instead of what FPS games had evolved into in 2001. SSam was welcomed as a fresh breath of air in the FPS genre when it was released, which should give you an idea what the other games were like.

# Your argument that Doom was about map exploration, finding keys and solving simple switch puzzles while SSam was not, is weak at best. SSam has rooms that are exactly what you say: Closed boxes where you do nothing but kill waves of enemies. But so does Doom. Just not as much (and not as for long) as SSam does. And not all of SSam is like that. There are parts where you must explore the map, find the keys and solve the simple switch puzzles. Just like Doom. I'll happily admit that SSam simplified the process to the point of :consoletard:, but it doesn't change the facts: You're wrong.

 

[bert]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwVPfF8Ir1g

 

[Medic]

WTF IS THIS SHIT? They destroyed Helghast? Those gasmasked dudes were the only reason I had some semblance of interest in the series.

I stared at the screen for five minutes in fucking disbelief I was like: wuh? wtf? The good guys lost and retardo cliche squad won? I tolerated those dumbfucks only to see more of helghast and devs decided to go Battlefied Earth with them? FUuuuuuuuuuuu!!

What? didn't you guys wait until the middle of credits? but yea, that ending so fuckin retarded it's one of the biggest trolls I've seen.

 

[Hamster]

WTF IS THIS SHIT? They destroyed Helghast? Those gasmasked dudes were the only reason I had some semblance of interest in the series.

I stared at the screen for five minutes in fucking disbelief I was like: wuh? wtf? The good guys lost and retardo cliche squad won? I tolerated those dumbfucks only to see more of helghast and devs decided to go Battlefied Earth with them? FUuuuuuuuuuuu!!

What? didn't you guys wait until the middle of credits?

I did. But it didn't make me feel any better about retardation of the ending.

 

[anus_pounder]

WTF IS THIS SHIT? They destroyed Helghast? Those gasmasked dudes were the only reason I had some semblance of interest in the series.

I stared at the screen for five minutes in fucking disbelief I was like: wuh? wtf? The good guys lost and retardo cliche squad won? I tolerated those dumbfucks only to see more of helghast and devs decided to go Battlefied Earth with them? FUuuuuuuuuuuu!!

What? didn't you guys wait until the middle of credits?

I did. But it didn't make me feel any better about retardation of the ending.

 

[Jasede]

Hey Black Cat, how about a Let's Play of Demonophobia?

By the way, why'd you do that nya gimmick at some time? You're a strange dude! (Don't deny!)

But anyone who likes Progear is my bro.

 

[Black Cat]

Hey Black Cat, how about a Let's Play of Demonophobia?

I'm kind of absent from internet right now because I'm spending most of my free time finishing my japanese studies, but I had the idea of going to LP obscure, weird, and unique japanese games once I can actually translate in a way that's nice to read, instead of in a way that allows me to read through the game but would be awful as writing goes, as it would be nice practice. I was thinking mostly of things like C&C heavy japan only VNs and obscure as all hell games like Hungry Ghosts and the like, but sure, Demonophobia is shortish and has little text so it would be a good one to begin with to notice just how much time do I really need to write the updates when translating.

By the way, why'd you do that nya gimmick at some time? You're a strange dude! (Don't deny!)

I'm usually am a kind of uptight bitch in my normal everyday life but my BF was of the idea me being an emo and angry bitch going on about manners and proper behaviour was kind of unbearable even for him, so I was trying my best to be casual and friendly and cute and sweety pie. In my quest to be like that I took a long set of verbal ticks, things like switching words for that so-and-so thing or stuff, adapting the , like, and totally components to my patterns of speak, or at least their spanish equivalents, stealing some shit from kawai and moe moe anime characters (the nya, the chan and kun overload, switching most people's names to cute and kind of ridiculous aliases), steal some shit from other girls I know and who are really, you know, pink loving, etc. It wasn't so terrible, really, but then some jerks here decided to give me a hard time about it, and then I noticed that given it was completely impossible for people here to link me with the real me I was able to do whatever I wanted with no risk of it ever going back to bit me in the ass, so I decided to see how much I could overdo it before I no longer was able to stand myself, and a bit also because it was pretty funny to troll people just by being overly sweet and kawai. Later my BF decided he really did not like me trying so hard to be kawaii and friendly and cute and funny, and that it was really kind of creepy, so I stoped it altogether and went back to being angry and emo, and both my family and all of my friends started liking me again.

But anyone who likes Progear is my bro.

 

[Damned Registrations]

There was a difficulty spike in Cave Story?... Where? Unless you're talking about Hell, which isn't really part of the normal game anyways.

Also, SotN pretty much lost all of it's difficulty as soon as you learn Soul Steal. You can easily finish the game naked thanks to that bullshit. The only quasi difficult parts in it in the second castle are the first time you encounter nova skeletons (Which are a joke once you realize they are slow and predictable), and Galamoth, since you're not terribly likely to have the lightning circlet. I can't think of anything else in the game that did significant damage or had durability in the second castle. The clock tower medusas were more annoying than that shit anyways.

 

[garren]

Chaotic Lulz3r already mentioned zork games but I can't help but post this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiZRihPTH2M

Some of those deaths are just pure, evil, unabashed trolling, and that FUCKING LAUGH...

Though return to zork also contains one of the greatest moments in gaming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHKKq7kMF8w

 

[Gragt]

I feel like replaying the first Metal Gear Solid now. Then maybe go for Jack and Rose. Those crazy japs …

Also on the subject of trolling games, what about Osmos? Starts simple and relaxing but then you get some hardcore shit that will likely take you 3 months to clear. I approve of this good hardcore shit but given that the game was marketted as serene, it was surprising.

 

[Jick Magger]

Here's another one;
The newer Shin Megami Tensei games (all the ones starting after Nocturne) in regards to combat.
Most of them are based around exploiting enemies weaknesses, which gives you an additional turn to do as you please. The enemies, however, can also do this, and they can usually do far more damage than you can. Which means you can potentially run into about five enemies who all use a spell that you're currently weak against, and they'll just spend each and every opportunity to use that spell to utterly wreck your shit.
This is even worse in the fucking Persona games, where if the protag dies, it's an automatic game over, and there are enemies that cast instant-death spells. The thing that makes this hair-tearingly frustrating is that since most of these games are dungeon crawlers, save points are very, very far and inbetween, and so you'll often get into situations where you go through a good forty to fifty minutes of pure grinding and progression, only to die because you run into one guy who spends all his turns exploiting your ice weakness.
This isn't even going in to the enemies who have really, really obscure weaknesses. You'll run into at least one enemy per game that looks like he's weak to one spell, only to be completely unaffected by it. Like an enemy that has a ice motif that's actually weak to wind.
And then there are the fucking bosses...

 

[Trash]

Death Wish 3 on the MSX. After weeks of gaming I finally manage to find and kill all the gang leaders in the city. Game just gives me a small message saying that 'it is quiet in town, but for how long?' and respawns them a few minutes later.

Thought it was brilliant actually.


Oh, and how about those other countless other 80's and early 90's games that just dumped you back to level 1 or the starter screen after completion?