I am playing Horizon Zero Dawn and haven’t gotten to the first main event, but it gives me this feeling like if I upgrade all my equipment now it might be for nothing. I know that is not the case, I looked it up, but what are some games that are the worst offenders? One I can think of is Aerith in the original FF7.
FFXV’s chapter 13 was infamous forcing the player into a long, arduous solo mission.
Not only that, the players movement speed was reduced, the previously semi-open world experience shifted to quasi-survival horror corridors, and your abilities were restricted heavily.
While I enjoyed the section for what it was, and it only lasted a single chapter, many saw it as frustrating and thought it killed some narrative momentum.
It didn’t help that the game’s narrative had already fallen to pieces by that point, and just kept getting more incoherent as it went on after that.
I have a hard time thinking of another game where I loved the first two acts (ie the open world stuff) but so thoroughly hated the final 10-15 hours to the point that it basically ruined the game for me.
I think the only thing I enjoyed past that point were doing all the optional end game dungeons