Back in the day, games relied on the language of game design to explain objectives and rules. Players who walked into an arcade could simply look at the screens and immediately know what they were supposed to do and what caused a game over. However, as games became more complex, further assistance was needed. For a long time, instruction manuals were a means to learn about a game before they were displaced by in-game tutorials.
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As necessary as they are, tutorials have gotten a lot of flack over the years for being either too hand-holdy or failing to adequately explain their core mechanics. The following titles are clear-cut examples of how not to start a game.
10 Elder Scrolls V Skyrim's Beginning Has Been Frequently Modded Out
Bethesda's games have been repeatedly criticized for their slow openings that make subsequent playthroughs a chore to start. Fallout 3's opening had players control their avatar literally from birth to their escape from the vault, and Oblivion had them put into prison for committing some unknown crime. It's not uncommon for fans to just mod the beginnings out of their games so they can get on with the adventuring. Despite years of complaints, the fifth installment of the Elder Scrolls franchise starts with players being arrested and riding with other prisoners on the way to their executions. Predictably, dragons swoop in and kill everyone before the player's head gets chopped.
9 Mega Man X5 Bombards Players With Needless Text
If there's one series where players don't need to be bombarded with un-skippable text and instructions, it's Capcom's run and gun franchise Mega Man. While the X titles made some changes to the formula, it's still a basic platforming shooting affair. Granted, accommodating uninitiated players isn't entirely without merit, but was it really necessary for the game to constantly interrupt the action with superfluous dialogue?
Considering that players already had to sit through a bunch of still images and text before the level properly started, allowing them to stretch those mechanical legs without interruption would've been preferable.
8 Ride To Hell Retribution Starts As It Intends To Go On
The utterly abysmal Ride to Hell Retribution immediately places starts in medas res and puts players behind a turret. Following that comes a series of quick-time events and cutscenes that depict what appears to be the hero riding his bike and gunning down some unknown character. Not only is it completely jarring, but it also doesn't even represent the rest of the game, which is a hastily cobbled together melee action title with brief racing sections in between. It's not until 20 minutes into the game that players learn the crucial power slide move that's needed to progress certain motorcycle sections.
7 Kingdom Hearts 2's Twilight Town Is a Slog
In what seems to be a reoccurring theme with modern Square Enix titles, Kingdom Hearts 2's beginning is largely regarded as a slog. Putting aside the fact that this is a sequel and fans who didn't play the Game Boy Advance Spinoff Chain of Memories might be taken aback by the game starting out with a character other than Sora, the opening chapter of Twilight Town is paced terribly and lacks any genuine stakes. It's just a bunch of boring kids trying to save enough money to leave a town. If all that wasn't enough, the game also has to ruin a beloved character from Final Fantasy VI – the gambling lothario Setzer.
6 The Start Of Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess Keeps Players From Adventuring
After Wind Waker, it seemed that every subsequent Legend of Zelda title would put less of an emphasis on exploration and discovery to slow the adventure down with lots of cutscenes and needless exposition. Twilight Princess is often cited as the game that started the series' glacially paced openings seen in other titles such as Skyward Sword. The intention is to portray Link's leisurely life as a farmer before he's thrust into adventure, but it takes far too long to get the plot started and wastes the player's time with stupid objectives like catching a fish so that a cat will follow them to a shop.
5 Fallout 2's Tutorial Was The Result Of Executive Meddling
Fallout 2 was regarded as a substantial improvement over the original. This included quality of life refinements to the mechanics, subversions of familiar factions such as the Super Mutants, and even adding new factions such as the NCR and the Enclave. However, as much as players gush about how much of a classic RPG Fallout 2 is, very few are as glowing towards its beginning, which tasks players with traversing a temple filled with hazards and no firearms to help them out. Tim Cain expressed his displeasure towards the temple, claiming its existence was solely because higher-ups at Interplay mandated a tutorial section for the game.
4 Jet Set Radio's Tutorial Fails Players For The Smallest Mistake
The only thing worse than a tutorial that can't be skipped is one that fails players should they make a simple mistake and force them to do it again. In contrast to the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, which let players jump in and figure out the skating for themselves, Jet Set Radio for the Dreamcast forces players to undergo several trials that test their abilities to pull off basic moves such as grinding and spraying. If players take too long or go skate somewhere the game won't allow them to, they're instantly failed and forced to restart from the top.
3 The Witcher 2's Tutorial Is Needlessly Cryptic And Difficult
Critics of in-game tutorials tend to complain that they make the game less organic and prefer to have players learn the mechanics naturally throughout the main campaign. Conversely, Witcher 2's tutorial has been lambasted for being needlessly difficult and cryptic. Granted, the game was a PC exclusive in its initial release, and CD Project Red probably figured that if their audience had the technical prowess and know-how to build a machine that could run Witcher 2, they could figure out the game themselves. It doesn't help that the game recommends players who end up dying repeatedly to try changing the difficulty to easy.
2 Driver Gives Players A List And A Minute To Get Out Of the Garage
At least with the case of Jet Set Radio, players are tasked with performing moves in individual trials before immediately given a demonstration. Driver for the PlayStation just puts players in a garage, gives them a list of tasks, and a minute to pull off all the moves without angering the passenger. Don't know what a slalom or a reverse 180° is? Then get comfortable in that garage, because the rest of the game is inaccessible otherwise. Driver is one of the few cases where the very first task is widely regarded as the hardest part of the game.
1 Final Fantasy XIII Is A Textbook Example On How Not To Start A Game
Arguably one of the worst starts to any video game ever, Final Fantasy XIII just thrusts players in the middle of the story without any explanation as to who they're controlling, what world they inhabit, or the goal they're trying to accomplish. Gamers expecting some exploration in their JRPG will be out of luck since they're immediately bombarded with cutscenes and subsequently tasked with walking down a linear corridor. Even towards the end of the game, it's still tutorializing players on different mechanics. Defenders have countered that the game gets better as it goes on, but why bother when even its 8 and 16-bit forefathers got straight to the point?