GSK

The fucking jump attack macro in Smash Ultimate, while probably not actually the worst, is the most frustrating one I've encountered, because it doesn't fucking save what attack you actually used in the buffer. It just goes "Yup, that sure was a jump and an attack, so we'll just take the analog stick input for whenever this leaves the buffer, because that's definitely what the player was looking for."

Focus attack

Fuck Ultimate Tenkaichi's QTE-ass mechanics in particular

Negative penalty and danger time are two mechanics that I just don't understand how anyone enjoys.

I personally hate parries just as much as those other mechanics, because space control and zoning are my favorite part of fighting games. But I totally understand why so many players love them so much

absolutely loathe border escape in swr/soku, like we're talking 'completely ruined the game for me' level

basically if you block something correctly, you can do an input to 'escape' in a direction at the cost of some meter. this turned every single blocking situation into a 50/50 coinflip where you, the aggressor, had to have a plan on what to do if they do escape and if they don't escape, for every single button you press. Just. Absolutely miserable to play.

i have a lot of grumps about that game, but that one ranks as all time garbage for me

This might not count as a fighting game but the way special moves are implemented in God of Rock is absolutely awful. It’s a fighting game played entirely through a 4 key rhythm game, as well as special inputs done with a special button and stick motions. However, each character only has 4 abilities to activate, but they’re split across 3 super-lenient motion input + button and an entirely separate button that further muddled the control scheme. The game has a lot of other problems but it’s particularly frustrating having an arbitrary skill floor for the only way to meaningfully interact with your opponent.

Any of the Wii fighting games that used waggling in any capacity. The Bleach one comes to mind.

Not a single mechanic but it always bugs me when a move LOOKS like you should be able to combo after it but for some reason the game Just Won't Let You. (Looking at you, Vice command throw)

When theres an input shortcut that isnt actually mentioned anywhere super obvious so you dont know why the wrong move keeps coming out

The one-frame no-buffer combo link as seen in SF4. "Whiff moves to get meter" as seen in SF3 series. Unreasonable-amount-of-mashing mechanics that annoy players and break their hands, like Marvel damage mashing and Melty damage reduction mashing. When Shoryu is 33P.

Tardy Cancel - Rival Schools
Regular throws costing meter - SvC Chaos
Button Strength priority systems - Alpha 3, 3s, Killer Instinct, SFV

Focus Attack triggering preblock. Yes hello I would like to prevent my opponent walking backward for no risk.
SF4's renda penalty on lights. Imagine if the game just had FHD chains. What a paradise.
SF Alpha 3 guard bar. Miserable concept with absurd penalties.
Dynamic camera angles on throws etc in a 2D fighter. Gives me morion sickness. Psychic Force is exempt.
GG Strive's weird ass hit properties on cl.S that mean it either launches or doesn't depending on what timing you input the next button, creating tedious finnicky rhythms that make no sense.
Capcom's weird vendetta against sweeps.

Look up Doomsday Warrior/Taiketsu!! Brass Numbers and their awful methods of activating special moves by charge button combinations, along with having a dedicated jump button and that's a special type of hell I put myself through on a Blockbuster rental

I got two from the Soulcalibur series.

1 with a bullet has to be CRITICAL FINISH in SC4. Armor Break was peculiar in that it discouraged turtling heavily and part-based weakpoints aren't new, but having BIG FINISHING MOVE triggered by doing a bunch of slow-ass guard breaks in a game that's significantly slower-paced compared to the games before (and after) it, yeah. At least the PSP "Port" gave you a dedicated guard breaker (that would later come back in SC6).

And speaking of SC6, number 2 is the very first iteration of Reversal Edge. The worst derivative of SF4's Focus Attack essentially (a defensive option alternative to Guard Impact in the series, where instead of repelling an attack you absorb it and it would both fill the Soul Gauge for every absorbed hit, plus it would lead to a sorta QTE where you guess if you're throwing a Horizontal/Vertical/Kick attack AS WELL AS your other options of sidestep/duck and even Guard Impact), the Injustice wager/guessing game minigame would happen whether the RE landed or was blocked, and it slowed the pace of the match to a crawl at times. Sure it's beatable when it's used in an obvious way, and in the long run it wasn't busted (as it was always a vertical move that can be sidestepped and then punished), but it was not fun to engage with at all and at least with the later season updates, said mechanic was better-implemented in a sense (in that the guessing game minigame happens only on hit, it's a bit faster, and a bit more punishable but not entirely useless).

mine's more of a mechanic that isn't in other fighting games. i don't understand why most fighting games don't pinch how For Honor and Fantasy Strike telegraph attack properties. Why do most fighters expect the playerbase to frame count the invuln and armor frames, then expect newbies to have seen the works of the frame counters

Samurai Shodown 3 has a lot of problems with throws.

Normal throws are frame 14 (except Zankuro is 9 and Genjuro is 8). They have varying recovery (a lot, generally). The range isn't fantastic either, so you can sometimes walk back during a throw's startup to avoid it.

Command throws are frame 3 (except Gaira is 5). For some reason, command throws can connect during blockstun. This means a non-recoiling normal can be canceled to force a command grab (i.e. Genjuro cl.B), or a fireball (Hanzo qcb+Slash). You can't set this up into normal throws.

vsav’s awful pushblock requirements.

Also this one feels like cheating because it's multiple factors, but I'm so glad we seem to be past games having air block but not universal air throws.

Cyberbots feels like a big offender of this, shame because the game is cool as hell, but I know most people do not want to chip away at something flying in the upper corner of the screen.

Double Dragon (NeoGeo) does an interesting thing where normals deal chip on air block specifically, so it's a lot easier to beat air block (also, that game's got TODs on the ground anyway) (and only Cheng-Fu, Eddie, Duke, and Shuko lack air throws, which might be pure oversight)

tekken3-6.0 era low parry, which would on successful parry push the opp to the side the limb is from (but not the direction the limb came from), and force them into crouch with kicks being like -16 and punches being -9? or something.

this means many lows lead to launch into full combos....

or would if the parry didn't also throw the opponent off axis in the direction their limb was pushed to, which lead to many formerly stable combos needing to be changed for low parry only versions....

except there's also a good handful of launchers that do not launch crouchers....

many tekken players (especially in the T7 era) have complained REALLY LOUDLY about combo damage and carry to wall shit but seem to have completely forgotten about T5 era launch into dash jab to wall or Goofy Oki Setup off of the same lows when talking about The Good Ol' Days

Probably preaching to the choir here but SNK Heroines' 'you have to finish the opponent with a super' mechanic. Just drags out an already-kinda-dull fighter for no real reason. One session of that game with a friend was enough.

Also while not strictly a mechanic, the fatalities in Samurai Shodown Sen are more disturbing than you expect, they're so jarring (they work similar to how they did in older games, land the final blow with a specific type of hit and you'll get one, but here the camera gets really close-in on it and it's less abstract, for want of a better word, than previous games) and uncomfortable to watch.

Asura Buster has a Last Stand mechanic where once per match each player player can hit A+B+C when they lose a round to come back with a tiny slither of health and 10 seconds on the clock. Here's the problem:

1. You have so little to work with it usually doesnt change the outcome
2. There's absolutely no reason not to use it if you have it on your last round

The vast majority of the time it's a button you can press to ruin the flow of the match and waste time, and on the off chance someone does manage to steal a round it feels HORRIBLE

Biggest reason i never passively feel like playing asura buster

i just want to give a quick shoutout to @pattheflip for being in the trenches defending all the bullshit blazing

There are a lot of mechanics in games I like that I really hate, but I still play those games so they can't be that bad.

God I hated the original implementation of Skullgirl's IPS to the point it made me not play. It was one of the few games that made me feel like I was memorizing arbitrary button presses rather than intuitively understanding moves and how they go together. It felt like a real programmers solution to something that wasn't even a real problem and then I had to deal with Mike Z yelling at me that "The Infinite Prevention System isn't for preventing infinities!!" which like lol I get what he means but it's still such an absurd sentence.

The modern version seems much simpler, shorter, and better. I still don't think I'd like it but more in a "Not for me" way rather than a "UGGGGGGH" way.

Bio FREAKS dismemberment system. Hey if you are losing wouldn't it be funny if we took away your punches and maybe your projectiles? So you lose harder? Lol fuck you.

can't believe I forgot to mention mk vs dc's clash mechanic.

psasbr had the foundations of a solid platform fighter and a functional netcode in an era where the genre was still known as smash clones but by god i wish they had chosen the default win condition for these games instead of making supers how you score points

Despite the fact that I've played it for years, I don't like Vsav pushblock. I understand how it works, and that it's not as bad as most folks outside the community make it, but having RNG for a defensive kinda sucks. vsav pushblock works for vsav and the community, but I think there's a reason another game hasn't implented that system since.

block button