
The best part of the original Actraiser, in my opinion, was the town simulator. You essentially act as a god and fill the needs of your people by destroying monsters and clearing out areas for them to build by using magic and entering dungeons which lead to a side scrolling action game. The combination of sim/action is great because the action sequences have a lot of "Everything on the screen wants you dead!" moments which leads to frustration which leads to controller throwing which ends in having a bad time. With Actraiser 2, take out the break and replace it with extra frustration. Even the first level is overly difficult on Easy difficulty.


Playing Zelda 2, I just found myself more frustrated then anything else. The palaces were great, but the never ending knockbacks on hits and need to perform awkward jump/duck attacks (see Iron Knuckles) felt tedious and broken. Finding a dungeon and knowing your way back was a feeling of accomplishment in Zelda 1, where dying in a palace in Zelda 2 and having to walk all the way back (sometimes through other dungeons!) just to get there and die again felt very repetitive and boring. I've seen the inside of that starting room in Zelda 2 more then I care to remember.

The last game I'll talk about is Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. This wasn't as much of a sequel as it was a spin off, but it didn't change the fact that as soon as you popped this game into your SNES you couldn't help but ask... "What the hell is this?!".
First of all, you can jump...which for a Final Fantasy game at that time was already very strange. Add in the quirky sounds (and sound track), confusing character interactions, very odd, almost arcade-like fighting style and you have a lot of disappointed Final Fantasy fans. The game let you save anywhere too which was very which was just ridiculous. You could literally save right in front of a boss before you when into the fight. What made the game even more ridiculously easy, was the fact you could retry a fight! You could die and simply try again right from the start of the fight, no penalties or consequence. It made the whole game feel pretty pointless. There was never really any risk if you could save anywhere and just retry the fight if you die anyway.
The lack of difficulty and just plain goofy characters and game-play was very off putting and is still till this day one of the of few blacksheeps of the Final Fantasy franchise . I do revisit this game time to time for it's nostalgic value, but a game like this would never have been purchased if games before it hadn't set such a standard in the RPG world.
Unfortunately, this trend continues in the gaming industry today, but luckily gamers have the tools to avoid these poor purchases now. Let history teach us a lesson and use the tools available to hold the gaming industry to a higher standard than in the past and get out monies worth when giving them our $60.
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