Design rant: Lock’s Quest

There are occasional instances when I get into a state of unfettered rage about some annoyance in a game’s design.  At that point, I typically start cursing its maker and swearing off all of their future products.  Since my wife probably doesn’t want to hear me go on and on about how stupid some specific thing is, I’ve decided to vent my frustrations here.  Oh, and I’ll try to write it up as soon after the experience as possible so I can accurately capture the thoughts going through my mind as I’m in that state of raw hatred.  So, onto our first victim: Lock’s Quest.

I go into the supposed “final battle” more than well prepared, with 40k+ source to build me a monstrosity of a defensive perimeter.  And after three days, my impenetrable fortress (on which I spent at least 60k total) is magically destroyed, leaving me with a piddling 25k to rebuild and take on the arguably hardest boss in the game…  What the hell?!  If the clockworks can instakill entire forts in the blink of an eye, why didn’t they just do that 97 friggin’ days ago and put Antonia out of its misery?  Heck, at least it would have saved Lock a lot of trouble.  Oh, and just to make it more fun, the game decided to autosave shortly after wiping my meticulously planned defenses.  So the source I gained by playing their mind-numbing siege minigame three times in a row was all for nothing.  Thanks.  While we’re at it, let’s make an RPG where, right before the final boss fight, all of your characters’ levels are halved and your entire inventory disappears.  Seriously, did 5th Cell do any focus testing at all?  Did they not note the cries of indignance that erupted at this point in the game?  No wonder the boss is named “Agony.”