Stop Helping Me!/Video Games: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

** It's worth noting that Bowser himself gets annoyed at Toadsworth constantly interrupting the battle. One can only imagine how Midbus feels when Fawful keeps breaking in and effectively telling Bowser how to beat him up.

** Bowser getting annoyed at exposition becomes a [[Running Gag]] throughout the third game, especially with Starlow, or should I say 'Chippy'. It helps that for once, Starlow is portrayed as being rather annoying and in-your-face in-game, rather than well-intentioned ineptitude.

* Surprisingly subverted in ''[[Suikoden II]]''. Apple, a returning character from the first game, offers her services as a strategist in your first few early engagements. She does a mediocre job at first, then flat out fails spectacularly at countering the enemy's strategy a couple times later on. The aversion comes when she apologizes, decides she's just not ready yet, and only helps if you explicitly ask her to from then on.

** It helps that, without her, you and everyone else in the fort would be dog meat, and the help she gives later when you ask for it is generally helpful. Really, her only shortcoming is a lack of confidence in herself.

* Angie from ''[[Trauma Center]]: Under the Knife'' is a prime offender. One of the most frustrating games on the face of the earth is made even worse by her constant mewling of "Doctor!" or "What is that?!!" (It's a lung, Angie, you've seen one before). More annoying still is that when she starts talking, you have to stop what you're doing and press the "Call" button to move her monologue along so you can get on with that heart transplant. ''Extremely'' annoying when playing a mission that requires speed. Thankfully, she's a lot less annoying in the Wii remake, ''Second Opinion''.

** She gets worse in ''Under the Knife 2''. Despite having performed the same operation dozens of times before, she feels the need to interrupt your intense concentration with repetitive instructions that don't serve any purpose beyond throwing you off. This is especially prevalent in the last few missions, where a single mistake can lead to immediate death. When your heart is racing and your fingers sore from gripping the stylus so hard, the last thing you need is Angie yelling "USE THE ANTIBIOTIC GEL" to mess up your focus.

* The Cheshire Cat from ''[[American McGee's Alice]]'', while technically an aversion of the trope, is no less irritating. His "advice" consists mainly of cryptic insults, such as "There's a nasty name for those who insist on doing things the hard way." Granted, he only appears when summoned, and as such is less likely to induce homicidal rage in the player...unless the player is really in a bind, and all good ol' Cheshire can say is "Alice, you really suck."

** "''Start'' Helping Me"?

* Likewise, the Hintkeeper in the [[Sierra]] game ''[[Phantasmagoria]]'' could have done with a few lessons in proper social skills.

** Much like she was in the webseries ''[[There Will Be Brawl]]''. And Link tells her what we were ''all'' thinking.

*** Navi and Tatl were both an attempt to give an in-world explanation for the game's targeting system (the fairies would change color because of danger and fly to the source to help Link attack them). The games since then haven't bothered with making this a story element.

*** Ezlo is even more irritating than Navi. His tendency to [[Captain Obvious|point out the obvious over and over again]] makes you wonder if he was related to a certain Owl mentioned below... Also, his voice is ''far'' more annoying than Navi's. Also, the shock upon realizing that {{spoiler|Link has been carrying around what looks like a 99 years old man on his head for most of the game.}}

** You know that Navi's grating has made it when she became a victim of a [[Take That]] in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' of all things.

*** Yeah, but he also acts as a transport sometimes, which is cool. Even helps you reach a Piece of Heart.

**** Yeah, but he also acts as a transport sometimes, which sucks if you fail to sidestep out of his way in time when he offers this. Thanks, I really wanted to walk the entire distance from Castle Town's drawbridge back to Lake Hylia.

*** The Tingle Tuner can even cause the game to crash by being used mid-deku hop.

*** As said before, Tingle's entirely player controlled. If the person with the GBA is sadistic, they'll help you as much as possible because you have to pay for Tingle's services, one of which is a bomb that can be used on the player. It's either this trope or stop hurting me.

*** Parodied in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1NTDmwFAZ0 this video], Fi not only tries too hard, she kinda becomes [[Captain Obvious]], to which Link thinks she may be [[Too Dumb to Live]].

'''Link:''' [Beat] You...can't be this stupid. }}

* Otis from ''[[Dead Rising]]'' always seems to pick the ''worst'' times to call you on the radio to inform you of a new mission that's become available or whatever (like when you're surrounded by zombies or in the middle of a fight with a psychopath). When you answer him, Frank becomes incapable of fighting or even jumping until the call is over, and will also automatically drop any weapon that is too big to store in your inventory. And if you hang up on him, he calls you again, complains "Don't hang up on me like that! That's rude!" and ''restarts his entire speech from the beginning''! ''VG Cats'' [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=204 explains it with style], as does [http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/otis-rising.php Something Awful].

** Otis was made even worse by the 360's controller. If you didn't press the D-pad ''just'' right, you could drop your weapon or bring up an in-game menu. Pressing the D-pad just right is a lot harder than it sounds in the middle of a zombie-infested mob. The annoying controller made the whole thing feel like it was [[Fake Difficulty]].

** That does sound annoying, but to be fair, this is a game based on [[Monty Python]]. It was probably not meant to be taken at all seriously.

* Alia from ''[[Mega Man X]] 5'' as [[Mission Control]] would suddenly start talking about something, and you would immediately have to stop and listen. Even if you were in the middle of a jump over a [[Bottomless Pit]] or spikes.

*** In a rare moment of payback, the Navigators in ''X8'' can be unlocked as playable characters. Though they cannot receive any "help" at all. (Hell, when you play as one, all cutscenes are skipped. Then again, you have to beat the game first to unlock them.)

*** To be more fair, you can go through ''X8'' without Navis at all.

** "Remember the last time we went on a dig? I wasn't used to being a spotter and you got trapped underground for three days." She goes off on this while you need to run (or jump) across platforms that break real easily and if you end up falling you have to do a U-turn and start over. I do admit I did enjoy listening to this tidbit as I was running to get the last security key but still...

** And then there's Data, the 'helpful' little cyborg monkey who ''can't be killed''. ''Ever''. You can unload the ultimate weapon in his face and he just... ''keeps... dancing''. In fact, at the end, he turns up planetside after everyone else has gotten trapped on Elysium, despite being up there with you at the end. It's somewhat satisfying to imagine the others trusted to his invincibility when they sent him back down, assumedly by punting him off Elysium and letting him deal with re-entry and the inevitable high-speed landing on his own.

* Sparks, your [[Mission Control|operator]] in ''Enter [[The Matrix]]'', has a habit of sending totally irrelevant IMs in critical moments... and to make things even more frustrating, when his IM screen is visible, you don't heal or restore focus.

* Several of the CODEC contacts in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' act like this, but 99% of the time you're allowed to ignore them if it's not vitally plot-related. Unfortunately, it usually ''is''. ''Damn'' you, Meryl!

*** The ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' cast usually lets you do what you want without interruption, except for Otacon. Not only is his advice spewed out at regular intervals, but his messages aren't relegated to CODEC calls anymore; they play over the regular gameplay. THAT'S RIGHT, YOU CAN'T SKIP THEM. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

** ''[[Awesome Series|Metal Gear Awesome]]'' gave us the following exchange:

'''Snake''': ''(rips off ear and throws it to the ground)'' SHUT UP FOR CHRISSAKE I KNOW HOW TO CLIMB A LADDER JESUS OW MY EAR. }}

** SHUT UP ROSE GODDAMN IT I JUST WANTED TO SAVE MY GAME I DON'T CARE ABOUT HOW JACK DECORATES HIS ROOM AND I FIGURED OUT IT WAS YOUR ANNIVERSARY THE FIRST TIME YOU DROPPED THAT FIRST [[Anvilicious]] HINT ABOUT IT SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!

*** You can tranq her, though, and she'll start moaning in her sleep about... things. "Fido... that feels so good..." Yeah, okay. Oh, and if you don't tranq her, she can shoot people.

*** Therein lies the very problem with tranquilizing her to make her shut up: ''she fucking doesn't.'' The best solution to actually make her be quiet is beating her over the face with the M32 to render her unconscious, a bludgeoning she's very well earned by that point in the game. Of course, given that this trope makes you want to shoot her with the gun instead of club her, it's a limited success.

** Sticking him underneath a weight that drops at preset intervals, and watching the little bastard groan and stagger to his feet just in time to have the weight fall on him again was one of the most ''deeply'' satisfying portions of the game.

** And in ''Sonic Adventure 2'', picking up Omochao and throwing him at bosses to be an incredibly easy way to finish off anything remotely annoying. He deals damage to enemies on contact!

** Apparently as a reaction to peoples' negative opinions on Omochao, he appears in ''[[Sonic Advance]] 3'', though you have to press up on the D-pad to pick him up and get his hints (he also stops time, but if your partner is nearby, his/her sprite still animates even though they can't move otherwise).

** Keep in mind that later games paired you up with other main characters, so this concept ended up making Tails and Knuckles a lot more annoying than they needed to be. At least you could ''choose'' whether or not to bump into Omochao or Tikal most of the time.

** Sega was nice enough to provide a gun in ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' that let you fire Omachao's severed head at enemies. Once it was upgraded, the head would bounce off of walls and could easily take out a room full of baddies if applied properly.

** The Bioware spin-off ''[[Sonic Chronicles]]: The Dark Brotherhood'' mostly plays this straight by making Tails the designated tutorial exposition character. It also subverts it by allowing the player to shut him up, with some dialogue options that make Sonic sound like a total A-hole.

*** On the other hand, if Player 2 takes control of Tails, he has the potential to be a [[Game Breaker]]. However, he's a nuisance in ''Sonic 2'''s special stages, if there isn't a second player.

*** He also tags along in the ''Adventure'' games, picking up things you don't want (like animals that you can take into the Chao Gardens, if you're only looking for specific ones to give to your Chao so that they take on only the traits of those specific animals) and just being annoying in general.

*** And there's also the floating help tvs in the Chao Gardens, which use the button that's normally used for attack/pick up/put down as "tell me info I probably know already" if you're near them. This can cause such things as trying to put down the animal you're holding, only to be stuck standing there reading "Welcome to the Chao Races" or some such just long enough for a Chao to come over and grab the animal, thus altering its stats, appearance and behaviour in ways you didn't want it to.

*** For the final boss of Generations, all your friends will warn you about the homing shot. It's so bad that it will drown out the one line of dialogue that is actually ''useful!''

* The role of Squawks the Parrot in the original ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]'' is a variation on this theme. Appearing only in the darkness "Torchlight Trouble" level, his role is to illuminate a small portion of the screen... And to shine his little flashlight in the player's eyes whenever your character turns around. Stupid bird.

* You wouldn't think ''[[Viva Pinata]]'' could be heart-attack-inducing, being essentially a farming game with a bunch of cute animals. Enter Leafos. She's your guide throughout the game, and starts out as being quite useful, giving you the tools you need to work the garden. As you level up, she congratulates you on your "improvement" in the way a nursery school teacher might praise a three-year-old's fingerpainting. Slightly annoying... in the "What right have ''you'' to comment, you were cowering in the house when thugs showed up and trashed your father's life's work" way. However, mild irritation isn't the last of it. Several species of pinata will fight if put in the same garden together. One solution, other than selling one of the warring parties or moving them to a different garden, is to build a fence. Which will probably need a gate. Which Leafos will wander through in her meanderings around the garden and ''leave open.'' The first you'll probably know of this is when the battle music alerts you to the fact that two of your pinata are kicking the living daylights out of each other. Call yourself an expert, Leafos? Any farmer or riding school instructor would ''kill'' you for leaving a gate open!

** The icing on the cake? Leafos has a tendancy to ''lie''. Considering that some of the rarer or more exotic pinatas require more [[Guide Dang It|obscure]] and/or bizarre methods to obtain, unless forewarned a statement like "I heard you can turn a Pretztail into a Mallowolf if it eats a Doenut" can sound legtimate, when it's nothing but a bloody lie.

*** Which makes me wonder why I cannot hire farmhands armed with shotguns to patrol the property and (should an intruder not excuse themself when given fair warning) pop a load of buckshot into Dastardos. Oh, right, must rember, [[Lighter and Softer]], [[Lighter and Softer]]...

*** Dastardos is invulnerable to everything except a certain shovelhead anyway...buckshot would go right through the guy!

* The [[King of All Cosmos]] in ''[[Katamari Damacy]]''; no, thanks, really, I can clearly see how big my little sphere of proto-star is, right now, you don't need to comment on it ''every five minutes''.

** Some of this is actually a disguised loading screen, to let the game reshape the world once your Katamari is big enough to go new places.

** It's much, much deeper than this with Crystal and Clem. You can (and should) interact repeatedly with every NPC in this game, as their dialogue is different in each area, and can change after being spoken to repeatedly. If pressed for more and more cheers, Crystal will eventually break down into tears, admitting that she is a godawful cheerleader and her life is a sham. They can also be seen mixing poison in glass vials they will hide behind their backs if the player gets near. It's pretty heavily implied that they're both extremely suicidal and cannot even stand themselves.

** The sequel has one memorable occasion. You're deep undercover in the drow city, with only a flimsy illusion and some very careful acting to keep you from getting detected. If anyone finds out you're not drow, the whole city will turn on you. And at one point Phaere, a psycho bitch matriarch daughter who is considered [[Ax Crazy]] even by drow standards, order you to go and slaughter some deep gnomes just to remind the gnomes who's boss. If you're good-aligned, you probably figure there's some way to do this the good way, so just kiss the psycho's boots and go do it, right? But if you have Aerie or Keldorn in your party, she will interrupt the conversation to point out in no uncertain terms that ''you can't kill innocent gnomes because that would be EVIL''. Thanks, Aerie, that never occurred to me before. Since you're still with us, I think we've established where my moral compass points, and incidently, why did you say something so patently ''un-drow-like'' in front of the psycho who would carve our hearts out with ''spoons'' if she even suspected there was something odd about us? (Fortunately for your survival, Phaere dismisses that sentiment as odd, but not suspicious). This is hardly the only situation in which party members weigh in on the ethics of a certain decision, but this is one case in which it is not a good idea.

** Most notably, Sector X. Depending on which route you take, Peppy may end up with enemies chasing him ''twice'', and if you don't make it through the warp gate, Slippy jumps in shortly after the boss hits half of maximum HP and immediately gets knocked flying into the desert planet unless you can take out that other half ''really'' quickly. On the "positive" side, the necessity of this plot point means you get Slippy ''back'' at the end of the level if you lost him on Katina/Fortuna or earlier in Sector X.

'''Fox:''' Aren't you guys thinking of something else? }}

** Try going for a medal on ''Star Fox 64'''s Sector Z, where your wingmen will attempt to destroy the missiles for you; each of the six missiles is a major source of points, at 11 points each, and you don't get credit for missiles that are destroyed by your wingmen. If it weren't for the requirement that all of your wingmen be alive to get the medal, you'd be wishing for them to be dead.

** ''Your own wingmen'' say something along the lines of this when you kill enemies they're after. Especially Falco.

** This is subverted in ''Assault'', where Fox gives Wolf advice, only to be snubbed.

** Also, when you DO end up picking some up, Flik sometimes yells, "ENOUGH with the red berries!"

* Farah in ''[[Prince of Persia]] - The Sands of Time''. She attacks with a weak bow that only inconveniences the majority of your foes, has an absolutely criminal firing rate, and is extremely liable to shoot you in the back (and when that happens, the arrows take out a significant chunk of your health bar). Lampshaded in dialog by the Prince:

'''Prince:''' Please don't. You're liable to hit me. }}

** Also, in the opening, where she shouts "useful" tips that replay, after one time:

'''Farah:''' No, I didn't! }}

** The Epilogue DLC for the 2008 game has a boss you have to push into a throne. You know this because the Prince ''will not stop saying'' "Elika! The throne! Elika! The throne! [[Most Annoying Sound|Elika! The throne!]]"

** At least you can turn it off in ''[[Battlefield 2142]]''. But you still have to contend with your teammates' voice commands ruining your sneaking raid.

''"Medic!" "Medic!" "Man down! Man down!"'' }}

** Carries a different meaning when you're in the middle of dying quietly, and some random medic decides he wants to [[Magical Defibrillator|revive you]]. Fine, except that the mook who killed you now has two targets in his sights. Or, is carrying the detonator for the pack of C4 he hid under your body. Bonus points if the medic and the killer are working together just to pad their stats.

** [[Most Annoying Sound]]: Worshipers Need Food. Worshipers Need Food. Worshipers Need Food. Worshipers Need Food. Worshipers Need Food. WorshipersNeedFood. WorshipersNeedFood. WorshipersNeedFood. WorshipersNeedFood. WORSHIPERSNEEDFOOD. WORSHIPERSNEEDFOOD. WORSHIPERSNEEDFOOD. WORSHIPERSNEEDFOOD. WORSHIPERSNEEDFOOD. '''WORSHIPERSNEEDFOOD. WORSHIPERSNEEDFOOD. WORSHIPERSNEEDFOOD.''' We must have homes! ... Worshipers Need Food.

** The sequel and its expansion pack don't improve on this one at all, especially since the voice of your conscience just has to reply to every looped comment by the antagonist in Battle of the Gods. "The undead are coming!" ...and remain completely harmless, just like the last twenty-five times.

** Making things worse is the fact that the battle commentator doesn't actually say anything useful. Due to the massive scale of a number of the battles, you'll hear him say that you've destroyed half the enemy force UP TO 3 TIMES!

* Bottles and his relatives from the [[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo games]] are something of an in-world example. Aside for the skippable tutorials at the beginning of each game, they only show up to the teach the bear and bird duo new movements; if they have collected the correct number of notes, of course. However, this doesn't quite stop the moles from being threated by Kazooie, who mocks and insults them on a regular basis.

* An out-of-game example: Some games which bundle all localized versions onto one disk don't let you to chose your language, but auto-select it via looking at the system settings of your computer. This is the opposite of for people who want to play the (usually much better) original version of a game.

** Stupid Youtube did this to me. Good luck changing the language when ''everything is in Chinese''.

*** Protip: Look for 語 as this means "language", and choose 英語 as this means English.

** Or Pey'j asking you to give him a PA-1 (extra hit point) when a) it's more efficient to give your sidekick a lot of Starkos (each healing one hit point) and keep PA-1s and K-Bups (healing all hit points) for yourself, and b) he'll soon get captured anyway.

* Your reasonably hot AI-ally from ''[[Sin]] Episodes'' had a rather annoying habit of finding more mooks to shoot at her, and then drawing attention to you, the [[Friendly Fireproof|not-invulnerable player]].

* Cedric the owl from ''[[King's Quest V]]'' is a particularly infuriating example. Not only are most of his warnings about really obvious dangers ("No, Graham! Don't!"), they are generally given only when it's already too late to stop yourself. If you knew there was a hole in the boat, why didn't you tell me before I set off to sea on it, you little... For extra annoyance, you actually have to go rescue him a few times to continue on in the game - and he never does something remotely useful himself.

* ''[[Fable]]'' "Try to get your combat multiplier EVEN HIGHER!" "Hero, your health is low... do you have any potions? Or food?" "Your Will energy is low, Hero. Watch that."

** The comments during jobs in ''[[Fable]] II''. SHUT UP AND LET ME WORK DAMN IT!

** "The Anvil doesn't need forging!" Look, I'm an evil hero who can single handedly wipe out this entire town between breaths and I am currently holding a hammer and a red-hot shortsword. Either shut up or run.

** At least the dialogue isn't too terrible in ''Legend''. In ''Chronicles'' Zip is pure [[Ethnic Scrappy]].

* ''[[Ultima]] VII'' part 1 and 2 are notorious for the fact that your party members are unable to feed themselves, unlike in the previous games. Even if their backpack contains plenty of food, they will start whining about how hungry they are constantly.

** Mercifully, it's possible to dump the annoying useless guy and come back only when you actually need him to get past some point in the game.

* ''[[Descent]] 2'' has the guidebot, which has a tendency to pelt you with (mildly damaging) flares whenever you're near a door that it tries to open. Thankfully, you can order him to stay away indefinitely, and he does.

** In ''Descent 3'', hurting him has its own pitfalls, because when he's damaged enough he'll retreat to your ship. By ''smashing into you at full speed'' and taking half an orb's worth off your shield.

* Minnie Mouse in ''[[Mickey Mousecapade]]''. Remember Tails from ''Sonic 2''? Imagine if Tails died, you died. You get the picture.

** The announcements may be obvious to you, the Warrior, but as Gauntlet was designed around being played with three other people, they're a good way to inform the other players that you should get first dibs on the next healing item that appears. Whether or not this actually works, well...

*** [[Memetic Mutation|SOMEONE SHOT THE FOOD.]]

* In ''[[Kirby]] and the Amazing Mirror'', you get three other little vacuum blobs to "help" you out. In reality, they are [[Too Dumb to Live]].

* In the "Getaway Driver" missions in ''[[Driver]]'', your passengers are prone to shout things like "Do something! We got us a tail!" when up to three police cars are slamming into you from all directions. Thanks, guy. It wasn't quite obvious enough.

** ''Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom'', the same basic idea but [[Recycled in Space|in China]], was better, but it had a habit of randomly "forgetting" to tell you important events (building collapse, lack of food) while the popups for, yes, lack of population would get spammed.

* ''[[Dungeon Keeper]]'': "Your minions are falling in battle! Your minions are winning the battle! You need a bigger treasure room!"

* Fiona Taylor. She was okay in the first ''[[Mercenaries]]'' game, but in the sequel, it gets to the point where you're [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|blowing up her car every time you walk out of the base, just to annoy her as much as she annoys you.]]

* The first puzzle in ''[[Myst]] IV'' has Atrus constantly telling you how to solve it. There is not ''one second'' of continuous silence from Atrus until you have solved it. His repertoire of helpful advice isn't particularly long, and it gets very old ''very'' quickly.

'''Player:''' ''*grumbles under breath*'' }}

* In the ''Brain Age 100'' math problems exercise, an attention shattering noise occurs after solving a set number of problems.

*** Actually, if you've been gunning it the entire level (particularly, the areas where sections of platforms get destroyed), you've got a good chance of falling to your death.

** Sgt. Johnson, would you kindly stop shooting instant-death lasers into the area where I'm fighting?

** And if given any consumables such as healing items, they'll gulp them as soon as anyone takes as much as a scratch.

** Or Virgil wasting all his Fatigue trying (and failing) to heal your high tech-aptitude character with his magic.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', where [[Donald Duck]] would heal you at the slightest thing instead of saving it for when you're properly injured.

*** Contrast that to in ''2'' where he would heal Goofy who had a little health gone but NEVER heal Sora. There was also Riku who would heal you literally a second before you'd just cast curaga. Thanks for making me waste my MP you bastard.

** "GET UP ON THE HYDRA'S BACK!"

** The fight with Hades. Yes, thank you, I already ''know'' to use aura sphere, you've already told me ten thousand times and you're blocking the gorram health bar so I can't see how much damage I'm doing!

* Kinda stretching it, but in the climax of ''[[Crash Bandicoot]] 3'', Aku Aku holds Uka Uka off while you take on Cortex. Only problem? Aku Aku helps form half the danger of the fight thanks to Friendly Fire.

* In ''[[Devil May Cry]] 3'', when you get one of the later bosses to half health, your brother, Virgil, shows up to help you beat the boss. At this point, the battle becomes ten times harder, since they mapped the button you use to control Virgil (which is useless anyway since he mirrors your moves for the most part) to your style button, depriving you of many of your more powerful moves, which far outweighs Virgil's meager contribution.

** He actually does make note of the waterpipes around the arena.

*** He makes note of them ''once''. Not that the waterpipes are hard to spot, since the buttons to operate them are clearly marked. But he never mentions how to ''get the spider to the pipes'', which would be a useful hint. He then inanely repeats the same useless line about getting the spider down from the wall until you figure it out yourself.

** There's also Estelle's "someone protect me while I'm casting!" meanwhile I'm using RITA to block as many attacks as I can so the bitch can heal us. Stop trying to give me advice Estelle because if you were smart and didn't try casting in front of enemies you could see I AM ALREADY FOLLOWING IT.

*** As someone else pointed out below, you could've edited her settings so she'd start and stay as far away from the enemies as possible. You could've even taken control of her, yourself, and manually moved her away from enemies. Also, why the hell were you using ''Rita'' of all people to protect Estelle?! Unless your other (two) fighter(s) is(are) dead or near dead, then Rita, while actually having some physical attacks, is a ''terrible'' choice to be using given her abysmal defense.

** "I don't think going back is such a good idea." "Oops, made a wrong turn!" "We shouldn't be going this way." "Are you sure it's this way?"

*** To clarify, the game outright refuses to allow you to continue traveling too far off in a given direction on the overworld map if you're not supposed to be in that area yet. Hell, sometimes it even happens when you've already been to a place (or in specific locations within the game), though normally only when either your current task needs to be completed immediately or you're being pursued. This usually only happens earlier in the game, though.

*** ...just like in Kingdom Hearts, you ''can'' alter that behavior, there are many options like "save" (always leaves at least 75% TP) and stuff... at least for the offensive spells.

*** Which doesn't actually help, as then they'll just bum rush the enemy at 75% instead of zero.

*** You've obviously never tried using the "Spells/Techs Only" strategy setting. This prevents them from using melee attacks when they run out of TP.

* The three paladins that escort Princess Lachesis during her introductory chapter in ''[[Fire Emblem]] 4''. ''Stop killing yourselves when you try protect her before Sigurd reaches for her, morons''.

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]''. *PAUSE* You have struck Microcline! ''I know already!''

** Thankfully, in the 2010 versions it no longer pauses the game, and you even have the option to remove the announcement log spam entirely (which you'll want to, once you hit the caverns.<ref>Remove D_D next to STRUCK_MINERAL and STRUCK_ECONOMIC_MINERAL in init/announcements.txt.</ref>)

* Linu in ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' has a particularly frustrating form of this. It's called the "Harm" spell, and it's used to [[Revive Kills Zombie|heal undead]]. Does Linu realise it doesn't seriously hurt undead? [[Artificial Stupidity|No. No she doesn't]].

** Speaking of giant bosses, when it comes to fighting one, your AI allies idea of attacking one is to run face-first into said boss and hit it with only basic moves, usually getting their [[Curb Stomp Battle|ass handed to them]]. This is particularly bad in missions where some ignoramus of a mission designer decided it was a good idea to make the mission fail if said ally dies.

** Allies in pretty much any ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' game are generally good examples of this trope. It got particularly frustrating in 2, where enemy officers could recover health or get temporary power-ups when knocked down... which is what just about any fully-executed combo will do to them (and the only one which doesn't stuns them, meaning any ''subsequent'' hit will knock them down). When fighting alone, this could be avoided. When fighting with allies around... yeah, good luck with getting a quick win there.

*** Fortunately, these popups can be turned off in the options menu.

** The AI leaders can do this, too. They can repeat their trade proposals every few turns despite being rejected each time.

* In ''[[Resident Evil]] 5'', you may have set up this lovely minefield to blow any zombies that come along into little chunks. Then, you turn your back for one second, and discover that your AI-controlled partner Sheva ''picked up every single mine you laid down thinking they were discarded items''.

** [[Zero Punctuation|Yahtzee]] complained that she would often use full healing items on him whenever he had taken a scrap of damage. He noted that this caused him to flee in terror ''from her'' harder than from any of the enemies.

* The ''[[Resident Evil]]'' series all-time [[Sarcasm Mode|champion helper]] is one Steve Burnside, from ''Code Veronica''. In his spectacular [[Let's Play]], The Dark Id takes Steve to task, noting that the game is made significantly longer and harder due to his screwing up repeatedly:

** When Claire actually finds the guns, it causes her and Steve to be dropped into the [[Big Bad]]'s trap. Steve then takes the guns and shoots about ten zombies, ''a wall'', {{spoiler|and his zombie dad.}} He doesn't give you the automatic guns, and the Gold Lugers he does give you have no ammo.

** After all that, Steve turns into a huge monster and tries to kill Claire, forcing her to use ammo and/or herbs to get away from him {{spoiler|which really should be used by Chris instead, since he's the one that has to kill the final boss.}}

* In the old text-based game for ''[[The Hobbit]]'', Gandalf and Thorin are necessary to help Bilbo out of certain traps (you're too short to escape on your own); [[Escort Mission|Thorin also has to survive until the party reaches Smaug's lair so that he can use the key to the side door.]] And Bard must be waiting at the Long Lake to shoot Smaug when he arrives. However, all these characters are prone to wandering off, telling you "No" when you ask for help (even in time-critical situations), and being killed or captured by wandering enemies. (Played with in that one of the most annoying things they do is abandon you for no reason.)

** A player-caused example: It's common, especially in the setup period, for the classes to spam some of their dialogue, especially that relating to where Engineers should put their structures. It can be pretty easy to hear nothing but "NEED A DISPENSAH HEAH" from all the Scouts in the area.

** Also, every one who's ever played as a Spy knows the horror of having your cover blown by an <s>idiot</s> hilarious Medic who heals you in full-view of the other team.

* Oddly enough, in ''[[Ghostbusters the Video Game]]'', the entire movie cast has moments of this. The 'busters never truly die if at least one is still standing and are capable of reviving each other if need be. Unfortunately, your teammates are incompetent and take their sweet time to walk over and save anyone, meaning that ''you'' will be forced to spend most of your time in tough missions running around and reviving everyone or risk quick death.

** The shouted advice can be nifty at times if you haven't already checked Tobin's or used your PKE meter/goggles, but damn does it get annoying to hear the same advice being shouted to you when you've already been making use of that same advice for some time or already thought of it long before they started hollering it to you. Or when the [[Big Bad]] is spewing slime or other dangerous substances at you and you simply ''can't'' stand around in one place for too long lest you die. Particularly egregious when Rookie is the only one who can fight the level boss because the boys are either taking a break, or trapped several floors up.

'''Transportation Advisor:''' No one is using the bus station, why did you think it was a good idea to build it? }}

** [[Truth in Television]] then, considering this the exact role of advisors in nearly every form of government. Probably why being a totalitarian dictator is so popular.

** ''[[Video Game Cruelty Potential|I'm hit]]! Mayday!''

* In early builds of ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'', AI characters could heal you with their health packs, which would freeze you in place for several seconds. When they pull this stunt during the last sprint to the rescue vehicle, it can easily get you killed. Valve thankfully patched it so you could cancel the healing.

** Except that the only way to make them stop trying to heal you is by holding out your pills or first aid kit, which means you have no gun to use unless you swap out. Also, the AI will gleefully toss you pain pills while you are low on health, but they will usually do so while you are shooting and you will likely down the pills without even trying. [[Sarcasm Mode|Thankfully, this is still present in the sequel]].

*** When being healed, you cannot move, as stated above. The sequel has a Charger, which will plow through you and the Spitter, who can spit acid on the floor and damage anyone standing in it. It can become quite common for an AI survivor to try to heal you and you see a Charger running towards you or a Spitter spits on you as you are being healed, forcing you to take damage until the AI either finishes healing you or is also hit by the spit and forces them to move.

* Thankfully, the developers of ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe|The Gungan Frontier]]'' realized some players would react this way, so you can tell your [[Ninja Butterfly]] to "take a nap" indefinitely. Given that said Ninja Butterfly is [[The Scrappy|Jar-Jar Binks]], you'll probably do so very quickly.

* ''[[Zone of the Enders]]: The Second Runner''. You will hear, "I suggest using (subweapon the game ''thinks'' is useful)," and "Damage level exceeding 50/75%," and, "Use Dash to move out of the way of enemy attack and then counter attack," so often that not having to hear it anymore will be your motivation for finishing the level after long enough.

** Actually, you can press the joystick buttons to answer the AI, the Left one saying yes and switching you to that subweapon quicker. Whereas the Right one has answers more along the line of "Stop bothering me!". You can do this with most things that are said, even if its just tossing out a one liner when she's saying the [[Wave Motion Gun|Vector Cannon]] is charged.

** Take the helicoptor jump for example. You've just gained it, put up with (skipping) all the dialogue, and are ready to go. You start spinning and approach the first cliff. Guess what happens?

** In addition, Ruby will speak up about anything else you encounter and drop a hint about it, including: enemies, simple boss fights, obvious plot points, and puzzles. That's right, the game won't even let you solve its own puzzles without trying to help you ''even before you even start solving it!''

* ''[[Half-Life]]'': "Don't forget to reload, Doctor Freeman!" No really, Sherlock, because ''that [[Sarcasm Mode|wouldn't be what I'm doing right now at all.]]'' Or better yet, when I've got like half a clip left and they're still telling me to reload, or when I'm using the crossbow which I CAN'T manually reload...

** Naturally, ''[[Concerned]]'' mocks the hell out of this, with Barney educating a group of citizens on the finer points of urban warfare, such as politeness, ignoring personal space and giving useless hints to the person most experienced with combat.

'''Gordon ''Froh''man:''' He's using his frigging crowbar! }}

** Intentionally averted in ''[[Half-Life]] 2: Episode One'' with Alyx. Originally she was to frequently tell Gordon (and thus the player) to hurry up/go faster/something similar, but when the developers realised that if players didn't like Alyx they wouldn't like the game, as she spends [[Exposition Fairy|almost all of the game following the player]], this was removed.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles]]'' has that little furry Moogle that's supposed to help you out in single player mode. Thing is, he gets tired easily (every ten minutes to be exact!) and starts to lag heavily behind, even though he's carrying your sole protection from the miasma. The last thing you want to hear is "I'm tired, kupo! It's your turn!" when you've got two Flan and three Goblins after you, with two hearts left.

* ''[[Okami]]'': Yes, Issun, I ''know'' that that's an exorcism arrow. You really don't need to repeat every plot-related hint three times in {{color|red|BRIGHT RED TEXT}}, you know.

** At least Pommy has [[Evolutionary Levels]] that make him more useful.

* In ''[[Wii Sports]]'' and ''Wii Sports Resort'', the game feels the need to explain every minigame to you every time you play it and occasionally tells you to take a break and do something else. However, these are skippable. The really annoying thing is the mandatory three minute video that plays every time you put ''Wii Sports Resort'' into a new Wii. It tells you how to connect Wii Motion Plus... and how to disconnect it... and how to connect the nunchuck.

* Your allies in ''[[Blast Corps]]'' every time you try to destroy a building in a way you're not supposed to, usually by ramming it to death if you are not in the Ramdozer. "Try something else!" "Is this such a good idea?" Screw you! I got this giant missile on a truck riding down the tracks and--[[Earthshattering Kaboom|*NUCLEAR EXPLOSION*]]

* Obscure turn-based strategy game ''[[Deadlock]] 2'' defaults to giving you a status report every turn filled with absolutely useless information. And whenever a status report appears, your advisor springs up and says useful things like "Everything is going fine", or "Something happened", or "Hey, look at this", or a thousand of similarly useless messages. Mercifully, an option is available to restrict status reports to appear when something actually worth of note happens, which reduces them drastically, but when they do appear the advisor is still there.

* The tutorial instructors in ''[[Call of Duty]]'' "Switch to your other weapon, it's faster than reloading!" Particularly annoying if you're trying repeatedly to get the achievement.

* The [[Standard Status Ailments]] in ''[[Dawn of Mana]]'' are bad enough, but your [[Fairy Companion]] will very unhelpfully ask "are you okay?" ''every damn time'' you shake one off.

* ''[[Ridge Racer]]'': "Hey! Somebody's right on your tail!"

** Likewise in ''[[Daytona USA]] 2'': "Hey! Someone's drafting you!"

** This is referenced in [[The Nameless Mod]] where a character called Beeblequix exists purely to interrupt your platforming attempts with his inane comments about his favourite soaps, anecdotes about his dead rat, and even a long piece of music. He even lampshades how annoying this sort of thing was in ''Deus Ex''. Fortunately you can turn down his help beforehand and kill him (and his cat) for revenge if you feel like it.

** It's even lampshaded in the original game itself. After Tracer Tong drones on and on through the infolink about the Illuminati and the clues you've uncovered that point to them - all while you are desperately trying to escape both hordes of enemies and numerous environmental hazards - J.C. (your character) berates him for it when they meet face to face. Tong seems blissfully unaware that he has done anything wrong.

* In ''[[Dragon Age]]'', city guards and other neutral characters whom one might expect to help out if a fight breaks out in their vicinity often do. This help is usually un-needed but not specifically unwelcome. However, you better hope there aren't any neutral mages nearby when you start a fight. Their idea of help consists of throwing a fireball into the middle of the battle and then repeating it as many times as necessary.

** "Collateral damage? That's a good thing, right? The more the better."

'''Cesar:''' Yeah, but they're using ''bikes'', CJ, and they're going ''cross-country''! }}

::You can then choose to either go after them or not, and given how far away you have to drive to get them, a lot of players don't find the monetary award worth it, so these calls become especially annoying.

* Less plot and more AI. In ''[[Saints Row]]'' it's great when your followers pick up better guns...unless it's a rocket launcher and they try to shoot the car that's next to you.

* Dogmeat in ''[[Fallout 3]]'' doesn't have any tactics beyond "stay here and don't move" and "immediately attack anything within range." This frequently leads to him leaping between the Exile and an enemy ... just as you're unloading several shotgun shells in that direction.

* [[Mission Control]] in ''[[Crackdown]]'' repeats various gameplay hints forever. Yes, I know the purple lights are road races, you don't need to say it every time I pass one. It still repeats the hints even when they're no longer relevant, such as explaining how to increase skills that are ''already at maximum''.

'''Halcyon:''' Guns, Maverick. Save your missiles for important targets. }}

* In a team-based MOBA, like ''[[Defense of the Ancients|Dota]]'' and ''[[League of Legends]]'', weaker players on your team can end up hurting you more than your enemies and are often worse than having an outright leaver because they feed kills to the enemy team making them stronger.

* ''[[Golden Sun]]'' is completely free of this...except for one section. [[Shifting Sand Land|Lamekan Desert.]] It introduces a dehydration mechanic requiring you to find oases to keep from getting heatstroke and taking about a third of your health in damage. Which would be tolerable, except your party members constantly complain about the heat.

* In the game ''[[Kinectimals]]'' there's Bumbles. He's the guide of the game and will tell you every single time what to do no matter how far you get in the game! I know how to JUMP! You don't have to show me!

* ''[[The Suffering]]''. The game encourages the player to help the other survivors they find on the prison island. Shame the other survivors tend to crazily wound the player while trying to destroy monsters. Only one apologizes.

* Damn you, [[Pokémon|Fennel!]]. She pops up to give you a tutorial in the Pokemon Dream World...''every time'' you reset your computer's cookies. Just cleaned out your PC? Switched computers? Cue Fennel blabbering on about how to plants seeds/water your garden/use the share shelf...even though your garden is ready to harvest and your share shelf is full. Oh, and did we mention you only have access to the Dream World for an hour, after which it boots you off until exactly a day later? If you then rush to the Tree of Dreams to collect the Pokemon you want to download, you'll be stalled by Fennel telling you how magnificent the tree is, and how to make a wish. Which may cost you the Pokemon if the time runs out, especially if you have your internet connection tends to lag.

** Similarly, the original Pokemon TCG video game for the Game Boy made you sit through the long, detailed and complicated tutorial with every new character. No skip option. In fact, [http://tasvideos.org/1637M.html if you beat the game as fast as physically possible for the game], it eats up half the play time.

* In ''[[The Sims]] 2'', the nanny NPC can be like this. She usually has two extremes. Not taking care of your children at all: Instead she will bake cakes (and ignore them if the baby starts crying, thus causing a fire) or watch TV. Or, she will pay too much attention to the baby, waking them up to feed and bathe them, and then putting them on the floor instead of in a crib.

** [http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Nanny This page details exactly how unbelievably annoying nannies can be.]

* The voice of your [[Mission Control]] in ''[[Persona 3]]'', who insists upon giving you by-the-action updates of how many enemies are left, whether or not they are knocked down by, or got killed by, or survived your latest attack, and whether or not an attack you've used against that foe a bajillion times already is super-effective or no, and your status effects, and so on and so on, all of which is already ''clearly visible to you on the screen right in front of you and also painfully obvious.''

** An example: at the start of one particular boss fight, on a floor which has no random enemies and a clearly visible and unique boss creature sitting in the middle of it (a setup you've encountered many times already, and which you've already been warned about on each floor on the way here), [[Mission Control]]'s advice at the start of the battle is "I don't think this is a random fight. It seems to be guarding this area!" Yes, thank you Fuuka, I'm glad you're here to tell us these things...

** And it returns in ''[[Persona 4]]''. Rise calls you Senpai ''every five seconds''. It's as if they wanted to compensate for the fact that her voice acting is a million times better than Fuuka's by having her ''talk a million times more.'' Though her predecessor, Teddie, can be plenty annoying in his own right, since both of them are, like Fuuka, repeating information you already have on the screen (and unlike Fuuka, they don't know anything more about the enemy's strengths and weaknesses than what you've learned by trial and error).

* Followers in [[The Elder Scrolls IV]]: Oblivion have a bad habit of rushing any enemy they see. This can have one of 2 effects: (1. They rush an enemy that's way too strong for them or (2. They run in between you and the enemy just as you're using a power strike, killing or seriously injuring them. If their survival was important to the quest you need to restart from the last save now. Hitting your partner also has a tendency to cause them to attack you, meaning you have to yield to them to get them to stop. Thank the nine for "Essential" partners (who can't be killed, only knocked unconcious).

** One horse, Shadowmere, is marked as Essential. She also has a bad habit of rushing every enemy in sight, meaning you need to worry about the above issue with your freaking horse, which is much easier to accidentally hit and isn't a very good fighter. While she won't turn hostile on you, hitting her sometimes counts as "Assaulting a Guild Mate" which will get you kicked out of 3 of the 4 guilds (you can no longer get kicked out of the Dark Brotherhood after the mission you get Shadowmere in).

* [[The Elder Scrolls]] series in general has the starting chargen sequences. They are really helpful on your first playthrough, since they double as tutorials and introduce the game's plot. On your second playthrough, you start to hate the sequences. Mods abound that speed up chargen by removing the tutorials and plotplotplot events.

* The ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' series makes extensive use of [[Puzzle Pan]] during platform-jumping sequences. The trouble is that in some places, the camera tries to be a bit too helpful in angling itself to show you the intended pathway forward; as the directional controls are relative to the camera, not the character, it can very easily result in missed jumps.