Topic: Game mechanics you despise

Cut scenes that interrupt gameplay and basically freezing everything while they play e.g. when approaching a boss stopping you from just laying into them such as in Hyrule Warriors (still a great game though). Thought we'd seen the end of that when Half Life came out in 1998 having them occur during gameplay instead to great effect.

Hmm, I guess that's not really a mechanic, but I hate it

Some I don't like:

Knockback. In general, it always seems like this is set way too high in many video games, with the effect being like that of a movie character getting thrown across the room after being shot. Add how many games with it just happen to use platforming mechanics at the same time, and enemies that knock you off platforms due to this... and honestly, it's a mechanic that does nothing but bring frustration.

Air meters. These are no more realistic than just being able to breathe forever (or drowning instantly), yet they're about ten times more frustrating.

Unexpected genre changes in general, especially those involving motion controls. No Nintendo, I don't want to fly some stupid bird around some course with the Wii remote. Or roll some ball with a star in it across a golf course filled with holes. Or chase an ice ghost down a mineshaft on a runaway sleigh with gyro controlled cannons. What happened to the days when one game meant one style of gameplay throughout? When someone wanting say, a platformer or a first person shooter or a fighting game got just that?

Forced tutorials and cutscenes, for the reasons other people have said.

Stealth missions. Especially forced ones, like in the Zelda games. Screw stealth, let me just kick everyone's ass with the sword or something! If someone wants to fight through say, the Gerudo Fortress or Pirate Fortress or Dark Palace Maze or whatever and kill everyone in sight, just leave them to it. And for that matter, stop automatically having you fail if you get seen. At least make it like in Doctor Who where you can solve many problems by running like mad from the hordes of enemies!

Button mashing, especially that from the first Mario Party that involved spinning the control stick as fast as possible.

Escort missions, for obvious reasons.

Major glitches that ruin the game, especially when they should have easily been found by the game testers. Or when gaming companies don't bother to patch them. Like in Mario & Luigi Dream Team, where the gyro controls just fail about 50% of the time (especially in the last two giant boss fights), yet where Nintendo never bothered to release a patch to solve this. Or in Luigi's Mansion 2, where the online has more holes than swiss cheese and seems to disconnect at semi random, yet Nintendo never even tried releasing any bug fixes. Did the Q/A team not even touch the ScareScraper or something?

Luck based mini games. Like this one in Mario Party, which was just ridiculously stupid:

Energy Mechanics that a lot of Smart Phone games have. I should be allowed to play as long as I want, why are you limiting me from playing your game?

Button mashing. Not like in Kingdom Hearts and whatever, but when the game just requires you to press a button as rapidly as possible. I can't do it that fast and I see no reason as to why I should. It is the reason I never beat Star Fox Adventures.

Control stick wiggling by a similar token, but more having to do with how I've been afraid to go too hard on the sticks ever since I did just that on the N64.

Perma-Death. It's what made the old FE games so annoying (I don't hate them though), but thankfully Awakening fixed that.

I also hate In-Game Purchases. Android/Apple Apps are extremely guilty of this, which drives me away from them, as well as some "Free-To-Play" games. I'm perfectly fine with DLC however, for some reason.

The only time rapidly pushing a button has gotten in my way, was Banjo Tooie, where you have to race against Canary Mary. I would have to pause to take a rest.

I am actually perfectly fine with In-App-Purchases as long as it isn't required, or they force you to grind for hours if you don't purchase anything. Like how PvZ2 did it when it first launched.

Stealth sections in non-stealth games. Part of why Windwaker is so hard for me to get through the beginning

Forced tutorials and needless QTEs are also a big no-no

QTE..