5. Escort Missions
One of the main laws of video games is that the AI is stupid. Not slow, or slightly thick but head smashing against the wall stupid. If you're fighting against the AI of course you might as well be trying to compete with Einstein himself, but as soon as the AI switches over to your side it loses quite a few brain cells and its IQ drops a good 100 points. It's not just the AI that's the problem though, the entire game mechanics decide to give you the finger in your mission. Is the AI character running? Best run as well to keep up with them - oh sorry you're going too fast, might be best if you walk; which of course is slower than the AIs walk. For an escort mission it seems the AI is much happier to be as far away from you as possible. The game doesn't wait for you to have some powerful gear on you, no no no. Have you only got a wooden sword and no shield? Might be an idea to help this pony limp through a fire-breathing goblin infest field. Does the pony at least wait for you or try to creep the goblins? Please, why would life be so easy? The ponies already run off straight towards the goblins to let them know all about his daisy collection. I recall there was one mission in Final Fantasy Tactics that involved protecting a character called Rafa who was trying to rescue her brother. Faced against 3 extremely powerful adversaries, what does the weak little Rafa try to do? Run away? Cower in fear? Oh god no, she decides to leave the safety of my party and attack the enemies head-on, they don't even need to have a turn to wipe her out, their counter-attacks alone kill her. Even if you do manage to take out the enemies and protect the character, they'll probably walk into a lamppost or get stuck on a fence and spend the next 20 minutes looking sheepishly around whilst you bang your head against a wall in a rage.