One thing that occasionally annoys me when it comes to video games is when a game presents you with a specific objective, but then proceeds to throw more and more roadblocks to be cleared before you can finish said objective. I think the level of annoyance probably relates to how entertaining if find the roadblocks, or perhaps how specific they are, or how well they flow with the game. I described one example annoying roadblocks previously, so that gives you some idea what I'm talking about. Just scroll to the "Gripes", and that first paragraph about cookies, and landmark stones, yeah that's a pretty fair summation.
Well, I eventually traded that game in (more out of frustration with boss battles you were specifically not supposed to win, but which you couldn't lose too quickly), but I've been confronted with a similar scenario in DragonQuest 8. My little ka-tet (if I may borrow from Stephen King) has been chasing this evil wizard, to remove a curse from a kingdom. The evil wizard has ventured into a cave filled with an unnatural darkness. To go in and find him, we need to find a special mirror which will reflect the sun's light in such a way as to dispel the darkness. OK, that's not so bad. We even have some idea where to start looking for said mirror. Super! We land on the continent in question (though we have to land at the opposite end from the kingdom in question and hike through many skirmishes, as one is wont to do is these sorts of games), and reach the kingdom. The king tells us that if we want the mirror, we have to help his son through a rite of passage, where he travels to the royal hunting grounds, kills a large lizard, and takes its heart. Sure, that seems fair. Not like we could expect to get a magic mirror for nothing, right?
We help* the prince pass the test, though he still stupidly buys a larger (probably fake) heart to impress his father with (not realizing the King saw him do that, and not realizing his father didn't care about the size of it), and so we get the mirror. Except, it has no magic in it, it's just an ordinary mirror, not really helpful for the problem at hand. Well, the old court wizard lives a ways off, perhaps he could help, and off we go, more skirmishes until we reach the wizard, who tells us sorry, there's nothing he can do. However, there's a dragon that lives in the sea near a natural bridge that likes to blind its enemies with a flash of light.
Yeah, now I've got to go fight this dragon, but have one character hold the mirror, and hope the dragon deigns to try and blind me with light**, so I can catch the light and have a functional magic mirror. I haven't really played since I talked to the wizard, because I found that a bit disheartening. I was really hoping the wizard would be the answer to the problem, but nope, sorry, the princess is in the next castle and all that. I shudder at what else might suddenly impede my progress once I get the mirror up and running.
I would be inclined to simply chalk this up to as just part of the RPG style, much like racing games and first-person shooters have their own quirks, but I know I've played a couple of other RPGs that didn't have these sorts of dilemmas (or if they did, I don't remember them). I think the difference was that those games might not offer a specific solution, preferring to let me roam through the surrounding area and find the solution myself. it might take a while, but since I was piecing together what exactly I needed to do, it didn't feel as though the game was leading me on.
* By that I mean we do all the work, because the prince is a lazy slob, and has an extremely limited reserve of courage.
* As opposed to using science, I suppose.
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