Worst Levels Ever # 46 

It's funny how mini-games can either be the thing you spend 20% of your time in a game, or make you dread going back to them.

I think the reason Parappa (1 at least) is so hard to play is because it was programmed for miserable input delay, which is rarely the case on modern setups or emulated. So, the timing end up very very late-shifted as a result

I'm pretty sure the reason why original Parappa the Rapper is so hard to play is because all of the button prompts are meant to be pressed like a quarter beat after what's shown, probably because they would assume people would press right on when the cursor goes over the associated button, and then the input delay would cause them to be just a bit late. Thankfully I believe this was fixed in Um Jammer Lammy and was definitely fixed in Parappa 2

What I think makes it even worse is that Oracle of Seasons ALSO has a dancing minigame, but the Subrosian Dance is superior for a few reasons: you only have to do it once to get the main reward, it's shorter, you don't have to be totally perfect with the timing, and every part of it is only three actions long so you don't have to memorize that much. So they knew how to make a rhythm minigame less obnoxious already!

So, if you had a gun with two bullets and you were in a room with the dancing Goron, the Mayor from Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, and Urshifu, who would you shoot?

Pretty good video! ... Sorry, I had to do it 🤣 Bless you for real, opening youtube and seeing a new video of yours in the front page has been a constant source of happiness for me for so many years already.

For anyone curious, the reason some rhythm games have weird timing is due to built-in input delay (to account for the old monitors when they were made). Nowadays they let you calibrate and/or input the input delay you want, but it’s still a problem in games that don’t. iirc, the PS4 Parappa port keeps its input delay for some odd reason.

I'd hate to do *that* twice knowing there's not even any audible beat to use as a mental guideline

Me: *see Goron in the thumbnail* "oh huh that's weird I wonder what Zelda thing Git is gonna-" *rhythm games get mentioned in the first second* Me: "OH GOD"

While I never had much trouble with the Goron dance, I will agree that this entire section of Oracle of Ages blows chunks. "Ya know what's cool? Minigames! Annoying ones! That's what people play Zelda games for, right? Let's make a great big maze of minigames that have to be done in specific order, make them annoying, and make them all required to progress the main quest!" What moron was responsible for this section of the game?

Frikin Goron Dancing... The thing that made me dropped the Oracle games as soon as I learned that I needed to do it *TWICE* just to progress the game. Been awhile since that happened and I honestly want to give the Oracle Games a fair shake once more since I did legitimately like those games and want to finish them, but every time I do, I think of the Goron Dancing mini-game and the utter frustration it fills me with. At the cost of needing to replay both games from scratch, might just play the NoS version for the rewind and save time with it like you did in the video. At the very least, this video and the comments with it at least make me feel more comfortable that there are others who despise this mini game and that I have people who understand my pain here with this frikin mini-game.

Fun fact, the trick to Parappa is just mashing a few buttons during bits. Literally, that’s how you obtain “cool” rating, mashing in a way the game seems to like.

the moment the oracle of the ages music started playing I was filled with a rage the likes of which the world have never seen the likes of which. the thing is, I *did it* once, back when the two games came out... and yet, from those playthroughs I only remember the frustration of putting in the code. I re-bought the two games in 2014, and I just couldn't get past this section....

It says something when savestates only make something reasonably easier to do, it was a pain to do when it came out and it was pain to do 20+ later.

The Parappa tangent reminded me of why I enjoy games like Rhythm Heaven or Space Channel 5 more than DDR or Guitar Hero; I much prefer a simple 'hit-or-miss' feedback system rather than stress about hitting it exactly to get more points. It feels like the game's going King Of All Cosmos on me like 'sure you did what we asked, but just do it better next time, sport' But having a rhythm minigame with no music or even an accompanying beat isn't great. At least the 8-bit Goron City remix is cool though

I broke a GBA screen over the goron dance mini game as a kid, I hated it

This very thing was what stopped me from beating Oracle of Ages, and it drove me to create a Zelda OC that should be in every game that does anything of the sort. Name: The Great Silver. A tall, overly stylish, and glittery man with a huge smile, who looks like he stepped out of a 70s disco. Whenever Link is stumped by a minigame or sequence and has trouble getting through it, he shows up and offers to do it for him. The only catch is that he’ll only show up to help Link after he fails a couple times, and he charges a fortune in rupees each time for his services. He’s not a warrior, he only does the minigame sequences, and will never go into battle. His high cost can help deter players from relying on him, but he can ensure Link’s quest doesn’t end in failure due to the stupidest reasons imaginable.

OMG I remember hating this part, I used to play it on my school’s laptop on a emulator and I’ll ALWAYS get stuck in this part, but when it got released on NSO, I abused the rewind mode to cheese it and actually beat the game!

Devil’s advocate here… “pretty good!” isn’t a backhanded compliment for someone who either is apparently new at something or took numerous tries to get it down. Now, is he said it without the exclamation point it could be construed as sarcastic or dismissive… the same if he said you were “okay”, or “not bad…”

HOLY SHIT, EVERHOOD MENTIONED

One thing I hate about this is you could be doing the game right but you still get denied your reward simply because you were "off tempo." Man this mini-game is hard. It just takes so much practice to get down.

Another rhythm mechanic that pissed me off is having multiple in each challenge while trying to get a skill point (cough Secret Agent Clank)

My least favourite rhythm game song is Touhou Spell Bubble's Feast Of The Boundary... on Story Mode. On paper, this is a very meaningful song for Touhou's history: ZUN's not just doing a collab with Taito, the company he used to work for, the final boss theme is a collab with ZUNTATA, the reason he calls himself ZUN. Not to mention being on an actual rhythm game instead of shoehorning it. And indeed, on free matches it's a great song. On Story Mode however, you have to wrestle with Yukari's insane rubber banding. It's hard to imagine how the AI can possibly rubber band when it already hits Perfect on every beat. That's where her spell card comes into play, it opens her signature gap in the middle of your field so you have to do crazy stunts to connect the bubbles you need to trigger the rhythm game parts. And Feast Of The Boundary being *five minutes long* really highlights the problem of Spell Bubble only allowing wins by points. After you eventually beat Yukari she has the gall to accuse you of cheating but the real issue is that you unlock Marisa's version of Story Mode. Here the game abandons all pretenses of playing fair: it gives objectively better Spell Cards to opponents and sets custom rules that greatly benefit their playstyle. And despite Marisa fighting opponents out of order, her final boss is still Yukari with Feast Of The Boundary. Except she's somehow even worse thanks to the custom rule that makes the line you're considered full on bubbles higher making an unavoidable fill a very real possibility. Also she's swapped her Spell Card for one that changes colourless bubbles into the ones she needs. Normally this card is balanced out by giving it a massive cooldown, so naturally Marisa's Story Mode version reduces it on top of the 5 minute timer meaning Yukari can use it a lot. So not only do you have to make perfect chains, you have to make them so well and fast that she can't turn the tides on you. Naturally, this hypocrite still yells that you cheated if you win.

1:00 That's PRECISELY what I've been doing every time I see "this slaps"!

Finally somebody else talked about this stupid minigame. I think it’s the most frustrating quest in any Zelda game, even more so than infamous quests like the Temple of the Ocean King in PH and the Water Temple in OOT. Because at least with those the fundamental control is there. I’m surprised more people having brought up how poorly executed the Goron Dancing game is in OOA. If they ever remake the Oracle games (and I hope they do) they need to make the minigame 1) not mandatory to progress & 2) more intuitive to the core gameplay, if not removed entirely.

Worst than this is when, in Final Fantasy 9, at some part of the story, you MUST win the Quadra Slam card game to advance in the quest (ten thousands worst than Goron dance mini game).

FFX reminds me of the dreadful chocobo Race. I swear i almost cried of anger trying tô do the challenge

The subrosian dance enraged me back then so I’m not confident in beating ages. Why do these mini games lock progression? Oh right! Others are actually competent.

I only like mini games if they’re optional. Mini games that interrupt the main story or even worse hide the ultimate equipment are a hard turn off for me.

When I finally beat this as a kid I forgot to save afterwards and had to do it again. And then I forgot to save again after that. I'm impressed I had the willpower to not give up after that.

I unfortunately dropped Oracle of Seasons pretty early on... this isn't putting me in any rush to see if I like Ages better x) 6:57 I love Magic Man's theme from Megaman & Bass. That's game rather underrated, too.

"Because it's a Gameboy Color game, there's only two buttons." The D-Pad: "Am I a joke to you?" Although with the way they executed this rythym mini-game, maybe it's for the better that they forgot about it.

The mini game that used to annoy me when I was a kid was the Barrel mini game from Superstar Saga. It took me a few hours to finally get through it.

It's always fun seeing which parts people like and dislike/are good and bad at. I was actually really good at the goron rhythm minigame, but that bomb dodging one took me ages to finally win, pun not intended.

I can't even get myself to replay Oracle of Ages and it was my favorite of the two Oracle games... All because of the wretched dance minigame. Even now, I harbor a Hate towards rhythm games and I can't seem to shake it. According to friends and family, I seemed to adore rhythm games before I played Oracle of Ages. I can't remember liking them. I guess the Minigame was bad enough that I made myself forget liking rhythm games. I want to give up that hate, but I'm too weak.

Yakuza nails the concept of a non-intrusive minigame for me. If you wanna go all out with the absolute dumptruck of side content per game, you can; it's almost never required though. Even when it is, you tend to only have to do small parts of it, kinda like a showcase. Yak 3 has you play a round of golf with an important senator, but for that story-relevant minigame, you can mulligan every shot and guarantee a win. Going back is when the training gloves come off. Series is full of examples like this, from small gambling moments, to a tutorial for 0's Cabaret Club/Real Estate. (Of course, I'm currently on 3, so will find out if 4-onward pulls something rude... Though I doubt it :3)

4:15 “And I don’t have a positive feeling towards either” The first game somehow feels the worst in terms of button timings, but both sequels (UJL and PtR2) feel much better in terms of actually feeling like hitting buttons actually works.

I am currently playing Linked Ages now so it was quite fitting

the interesting part about lightning dodge in FFX is its actually surprisingly very easy to do 200 via the one lil crater spot that makes the timing very easy. since that spot will always spawn the lightning at the same time every time tidus crosses it in a circle(including if a reset happens.), so that's actually the easiest of them. Blitzballs deff pretty time consuming cuz you want da good players to help get wakka's weapon, which's really painful. Butterflies pretty awkward cuz it deff takes a few tries+knowing the path to get the sigil for Kimahri's weapon but its deff pretty doable within a good amounta tries and another of the easier ones. it deff really doesn't help you have to go all the way back to re-do it. Chocobo racing in FFX's really one of the more awkward ones, cuz aside rng for layout+obstacles, getting 0:00 is actually sometimes legit bad when it comes to getting tidus's sigil for his ultimate weapon, since that forces the player to get a negative time to even get it(possible but still rng), but 0:00 time is deff good if it gets the sun sigil

I sucked at this part of the game, too. Even by cheesing it with rewind feature, I sometimes rewound it back to the wrong spots. What got me even more angry is that it looks so simple. How can someone mess up a mini-game where only two buttons are used? Do I just suck that bad? The thing I can praise the Oracles games for is that they handled the different versions way better than Pokemon did.

I knew you were going to talk about this minigame based on the topic and thmbnail, to be honest the minigame it's too strict with the timing and don't allow too much room to fail, also it gets worse when you aren't playing for the quest because it may require more inputs

Can you do an episode of Best Levels Ever on Fire Emblem Engage’s Paralogues and how they compare to the chapters they were based off of?

Were you playing the remastered (ps4?) version of Parappa by any chance? It's an unfortunately known fact that the remaster version has wierd timing issues on stage 1 and 4 in particular. the rest of the game runs okay though.

Yeah, while i really like Season, i really hate Ages. I had to take a month break after being trapped in the jabu temple.

Honestly I think the subrosian dance was better than what this looks like (haven't played ages only seasons)

Things like this are why I usually allow save states and save scumming for mandatory minigames(especially for irritating ones like this).

I took my eyes off the screen for a second, and then i hear that music and get flashbaks... the flashing screen followed by Tidus beibg thunderstruck... ugh.

I was stuck on that Goron dance for over a month when I first played Ages back when it came out. When I played it on NSO , I just ysed the rewind feature because I value my time

Doing a rhythm mini game and calling your performance "pretty good" is so evil

This dancing game was the bane of my existence. I failed so many times I wanted to scream and cuss.

...there should've been alternatives to the GG like Seasons offered for the Subrosian Dance.

I don't remember being stonewalled at this point, which I think I would if it had given me a lot of trouble. Which is weird because normally I am ass and a half at anything timing or rhythm-based. I can't imagine I got it first time, but I must not have struggled TOO much? I don't know, it's been anywhere from 15-20 years since I played that game.

My ptsd is coming back after watching this video about the dreaded Goron Dance minigame from Zelda Oracle of Ages!

To be fair, to me the mini games in FFVII are just as annoying (if not more annoying) than the ones in FFX. I guess it's a matter of tastes. But rythm mini-games in a game that is NOT a rythm game... that's just pure evil imo.

I love how you explain things. You are good in my book. Thank you, kindly.

Fun fact: Ralph Baer, the guy who created the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, also created Simon for Milton Bradley. Ironically, by stealing it from and improving it over the same guy that stole the Odyssey idea from him and helped popularize it: Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell. So you have the same two guys to thank for your thing AND blame for your bane. Isn't life wonderful? As for myself, I hate these types of minigames DESPITE being good at them. The actual process of memorization is stressful and ultimately of VERY limited practicality elsewhere. (And it's probably another reason you're not that big on Undertale as it DOES end up important for the usual gameplay there. *flashes eyes* ) The only random pattern memorization game I legitimately love is Clefairy Says from Pokémon Stadium, for the obvious reasons. That and Ekans's Hoop Hurl are my jams. All the same, I think we all need to recognize that Zelda's made to be able to be pretty much whatever the Hell without abandoning its core identity, more so than even Mario. It's certainly not like Sonic where the need for acrobatic speed is legitimately a limiting factor in appropriate variety despite Sega's attempts to push otherwise or God of War where the ultra-dark tone and Kratos's frustrations informing his personality heavily constrain what can work for that series making it all the more impressive that it did successfully change.

To me the zelda part is more a memory timing game than a rhythm one but then again i guess it is themed around dancing

11:32 I’m not your guy, buddy! 😂

I'll do the Goron Dance minigame any day if it means not doing Ages Jabu Jabu. At least the challenge is timing rather than cartography.

Don't ever play the first two entries of Rhythm Heaven. Making even a single mistake can sometimes cause you to fail an entire stage, and you won't know until you've finished it.

I remember when I first (and only) played Oracle of Ages, I really liked it... until that moment, I never managed to get past the first Goron dance. And I learn with this video, you have to win it a second time and then do lots of other mini-games afterwards? No thanks.

2:10 But they are Gorons. Wouldn't that make it "I'd tell them to go ROCK themselves?"

For me, it HAS to be "Did somebody say yoga?" from GTA 5.

Hey whoisthisgit, you've played Breath of Fire 4 right? I've been playing this game recently and I've noticed that there's a considerable amount of minigames which are mandatory. Are there any ones which are particularly annoying in that game like the Goron Dance minigame?

Yep, I have only played the oracles via the 3DS VC releases and I have 0 shame about abusing the save states to cheat the dancing.

As some one who cleared this on a Game Boy Color, I have this to to say for modern players. Thank goodness for 3-DS and Switch Restore Points!

Even though the Mushroom Derby in Super Mario RPG is optional, I STILL detest the original version of the Mushroom Derby far more. OOA's Goron Dancing is something I could adjust to especially in my confusion about the Oracle games' 100% Completion notion, particularly the Ring collection. The memorization for the Goron Dancing was more like a Memory game than needing to be God damned psychic for a first try (LOOKING AT YOU, BATTLETOADS STAGES), even if the timing did like to be sketch. But Mushroom Derby doesn't even give you ANYTHING to work with in the original, and even in the remaster, it just boils down to alternating between A and B with at best laughable deviation in timing or anything. People aren't happy with that even in the SMRPG remaster, which at least has me feel vindicated after the trolls were saying I suck at games because I showed outrage about the original's version.

oh god the goron dance... i hated it. Thank god i replayed it on the wiiu with the option to make a savegame so it was more bearable than back then on my gameboy color.

Parappa The Rapper 2 shows you if you're early or late, you should try it and maybe you'll like it better!

Yep i remember that thunder plains bs. Got to like 50+ before giving up. Still my fave ff and ost.

Uh, oh. As somebody who recently completed the Oracle games, I know exactly where this discussion is going... In all seriousness, the duology could have done without the dancing mini-games. They felt like unnecessary obstacles to an otherwise great experience that took dozens of hours to beat.

what's even worse is if u want the Bomber's Ring... u have to beat this minigamein Platinum difficulty with a perfect score...(even if u beat it there's a chance it will be a different ring) to this day i haven't aquired it and gave up..

About Final Fantasy X, I never liked the Chocobo racing with a bird with drunk controls while dodging demonic homing seagulls that would give Hitchcock a run for his money of all things

I had the same problem with PaRappa. A friend of mine actually told me that the game's prompts themselves are actually a fraction of a second off. I don't know what well-designed rhythm game would have that problem

wahoo!

This piece of shit is the reason I only played Oracle of Ages once. I also hated that stupid flying bear you have to use to get over pits, but his mash rhythm is nearly impossible. Fuck this game.

God I hate this mini game so much it’s one reason I never play theses games ever again

Omg, you've played Everhood! Can we get a Creepy Bad Endings on that game?!

11:31 He's not your guy, buddy!

This minigame made me quit the game

I HATED the dam dance games with the heat of 10,000 suns. WHY was that MANDATORY, to progress.

Why do you have to do it twice? It's like the shittiest and most basic minigame in history and yet apparently they were so proud of it that they feel the need to put it twice as if it were fun, once was more than enough. It kind of reminds me of the goron race in Majora's Mask where you have to come first place to win, it's very strict and unfunny, plus playing a strict and frustrating racing game is not the reason you play Zelda in the first place.

Nobody tell Git about El Bailador.

Speaking of rhythm games, I’m surprised Sega and Capcom haven’t made games for Sonic and Mega Man, respectively.

I love parappa the rapper because of its charm. I have never played a parappa game.

EVERHOOD MENTIONED

This was a pretty good episode

You hate "pretty good" like how Palutena hates "ma'am".

Not my fuckenn tempo!

11:31 eyyy south park reference-

The dance minigame is very strict on the timing.

what's the game with the green troll in the intro?

I love.. rhythm...

if anything i'd prefer to play the mini game inside norstein bekklers tent in chrono trigger where you get the crono doll

I hate that part! I quit because of that

Seems like early rhythm games had some teething issues to iron out. I doubt less antiquated rhythm games, such as Rhythm Fever, had such problems with registering inputs with correct timing, right?

This level could be certainly a Difficult One Kind of.

Wow my man Git is frustrated so much by these mfers amphibians frog or whatever, that he swears a lot here. I really can feel his frustration too when a hard thing need to be done and HAS to be done. I get it man, it is insane indeed

Magic Man

Renzo menzo