I really enjoyed playing Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time. I'm not much of a hardcore console gamer, but I found the difficulty and the battle system that's based on pressing buttons at just the right moment to attack and dodge to be perfectly balanced and fun. Also, the levels were challenging and long, but not tedious in any way. It was a great game.

Until the Shroob mothership at the end of the game. It's clear that the developers suddenly realized their game would be finished in less than 15 hours so they had to make the last area as time consuming and tedious as possible. No big deal, I can get through it and I wanted to complete the game I had enjoyed so much. I finally make it to the end boss, but because this is a typical RPG, the boss has three distinct phases, one more difficult than the last.

Oh yeah, and you can't save between each phase so it's a total endurance fight that never seems to end. By the time I got to the final form, my items were almost depleted and the difficulty had ramped up to such a degree as to make it impossible to beat with my current levels. So rather than grind for hours to level up or attempt the 90 minute long boss fight again, I threw the game down in disgust.

I fucking hate games that suddenly ramp up the difficulty for no reason or basically impose a minimum level for success. Frustration and grinding is NOT FUN.