[indigodomino]

Bayonetta

I didn't know you could mix potions and regenerate your energy, boost defense etc or that I could equip different weapons, until I finished the game -_-

[Gorillaz]

i wouldn't call i a game mechanic but DK64...something about getting the last key playing arcade games...took me....awhile to know what they mean and even longer to beat it.

As a kid of course lol.

[Dizzy-4U]

Icewind Dale

I was with my archer, shooting things here and there and suddenly the game became extremely hard. Hordes of enemies in every part of the map, extremely tough bosses, etc. It basically became a game of survival.

Like 30 hours into the game I ran into some dude and he starts talking about my "party". I was like what the hell are you talking about man? I'm the only one here.

I did not know that you had to create the entire party at the beginning of the game. You don't find them out there in the story.

I felt like an idiot but also kinda amazed how I managed to get that far into the game with just one dude.

[polg]

I didn't know you could "quick turn 180" in resident evil 4 until after I finished the game

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

Dodge Offset in Bayonetta. I knew it was there but didn't think it was worth learning.

Learned it on my second playthrough.

It was like playing a completely different game.

[Henry Jones Jr]

Another one for FF8. I didn't know you could junction magic to stats and resistances. I got through the entire game and then kept getting my ass handed to me by the final boss(es). So I spent a bunch of time looking through the menus trying to improve my odds and found that I could drastically increase my stats! And then I also figured out that I could just keep my characters at low health and exploit limit breaks. What a strange game.

[calder]

Red Dead Redemption, I played the whole game not knowing how the quick draw mechanic worked. I know the game tells you during your first duel but I completely forgot and wasn't able to figure it out. There's a few QuickDraw events you have to do but just button mashing worked fine up to a point, but later on it was a huge frustration.

Even more annoying I tried to find the info from the tutorial online but it's not the sort of thing ppl put in FAQs, at least not when the game first comes out.

[gblues]

I am guilty on the following counts:

- I didn't use sprint in Skyrim until I was most of the way through the game.
- Sneaking in OG MGS3 requiring the D-pad.

[Zeitgeister]

Hey guys who don't have the Super metroid manual:

have you heard of this Crystal Flash thing? No, I didn't think so.

[disappeared]

I am guilty on the following counts: - Sneaking in OG MGS3 requiring the D-pad.

That was such a beautiful, and welcome, addition to the game.

[Not a Jellyfish]

Didn't know I could shoot dodge with my bar on empty in Max Payne 3 till the last chapter.

[DeFiBkIlLeR]

Any game that has a lock picking or computer hacking mechanic....never been able to get them, always ends up being a case 'button mashing' and hoping for the best.

[TheMink]

I think the first time I properly figured out how to use the Junction system was actually the fifth or so time I've played though Final Fantasy VIII.

This ^

[Hobbestetrician]

Red Dead - Didn't know about campfire fast-travel until after I had completed the whole game. I never lost a duel but I get the feeling I wasn't doing it the intended way.

Prince of Persia (2008) - Pretty much all the sword combat. I could do all the moves with Elika but any sword stuff (countering and whatnot) was completely lost on me for the entire game.

MGS 2, 3, & 4 - I played on easier difficulties so I have little idea how most of the more intricate mechanics work, especially the CQC

Oblivion - Lockpicking. Broke countless lockpicks because I thought I understood how it worked. Was very relieved to find the unbreakable lockpick.

[Samurai_Heart]

Mass Effect 1 I was shooting the turret on the Mako without knowing it had a first person view option if I pressed the stick in! I only found out near the end... I know I wasn't the only one!

I had a friend who didn't realise that the Mako had a cannon XD, he thought it was such an accomplishment when he killed a thresher maw XD. Cue me and my friend asking why he had such a hard time XD and the laughter ensued after we found out he was shooting everything with a machine gun.

[dralla]

That you could boost in Super Stardust HD. They later added a controls screen that showed it, but when the game first came out I had no idea, and apparently a lot of people didn't notice it either

[Lijik]

I had no idea you could change your Keyblade in Kingdom Hearts II. Was using the default Keyblade for most of the game.

I for some reason forgot Keyblades had different stats in KH1. Played through most of the game with the Pumpkin King blade because Nightmare Before Christmas was my favorite movie at the time. Kept getting my ass handed to me for months in an endgame Riku fight, flipped through some menus and realized "oh, this keyblade is weak as shit".
Swapped to the Olympus one and didnt have a problem for the rest of the game.

[Pineconn]

Obviously it isn't an important game mechanic, but I realized after 80 hours of playing Xenoblade that you can give collectables as "presents" to your party members. Giving the right items will increase the affinity between the two party members, which can be useful if you don't use them together often.

[Senator Soufflé]

I remember renting a Worms game on the PS1 for a week and not finding out you could change from bazooka until the day it had to go back. I think it was Select or some weird button to open the inventory and at that age I was an idiot.

[MNC]

THIS MOTHERFUCKER

Ammo box at the back!

It's not really a case of "not knowing a mechanic" but more of a "what the fuck, that's there?"

[Sol1dus]

THIS MOTHERFUCKER

Still stuck at that part. -_-"

[ffdgh]

crash bandicoot the warth of cortex....i never realized the tip toe power was supposed to be used to walk on nitro boxes until years later >_>

[MNC]

I actually meant THE AMMO BOX AT THE BACK!!!:OOOOO

[hao chi]

I didn't learn how to do the power swing in Skyrim until 80 hours into the game, but since that's Skyrim, I wasn't (and still aren't) anywhere near the end of the game.

- Sneaking in OG MGS3 requiring the D-pad.

I beat the original version of MGS3 and had no idea about that.

Though pretty early on I decided the camera angles was going to make using stealth far more trouble than I was interested in, so I spent most of the game in full alert mode being shot in the ass and somersaulting into any guards that were in the way.

[Sol1dus]

In Demon Souls, I didn't know you could run in the 5-2 swamp. When you press circle your character just does a strange animation. I just walked the entire time with a regan shield so I didn't lose health fast enough from the poison. After doing this for the ~15th time I finally held circle by accident and ran. I wasn't pleased.

I feel so bad for you. :( That must have been brutal going though 1-2 on the bridge with the red dragon.

[DemonNite]

Diablo II

Me and my friend played it together as co-op from start to finish and never played public games. However, when we defeated diablo in normal level... we kept grinding the last act in normal difficulty.

We knew about Nightmare level and above but we didn't know it would have a different loot table or would be better for levelling up faster! we thought it was just more difficult... no joke.

[Sol1dus]

When I had my PS1 I played Crash Bandicoot 2. I didn't know much that much English so I didn't understand that you had to step on the middle platform to go up into the other levels. About a year later, I talked to one of my dad's friends who told me what I had to do.

[Platy]

Finaly understood the gang/area mechanic of San Andreas literaly right before the last mission of the game.

Never really cared about the rpg stats of that game, so not sure if it counts.


Still my favorite GTA

[Madao]

the shield in Zelda Skyward Sword.

i never bothered to learn to stun enemies properly with it since i could beat anything with the sword alone most of the time. cue the final boss where you get brutalized if you don't shield block correctly and i got a hard wake up call. had to learn some blocking to survive.

[Wasp]

The original Rayman on PS1, I didn't know this was a map screen and I had to walk to the right to start the next set of levels. So I just kept playing the first world over and over again trying to work out how to play the next levels.

[Rodney McKay]

After my first playthrough of Fallout 3 I remembered that you can heal by sleeping for an hour.

It actually made my play through much more survival focused because I was constantly spending my money on Stimpaks which didn't leave me any money for ammo.

[PBalfredo]

I had a friend who didn't realise that the Mako had a cannon XD, he thought it was such an accomplishment when he killed a thresher maw XD. Cue me and my friend asking why he had such a hard time XD and the laughter ensued after we found out he was shooting everything with a machine gun.

This happened to me too. Why they put the Mako's secondary weapon on RT, I have no idea!

Hey guys who don't have the Super metroid manual: have you heard of this Crystal Flash thing? No, I didn't think so.

I had the strategy guide for the game and still couldn't pull that off.

[M3d10n]

Back when TF2 was released, we started playing it exclusively in LAN mode at work. We played for a full week without any of us knowing the sentry gun could be upgraded.

I will forever remember the reaction my friends at Blu had when they stormed point C in Gravel Pit and were wiped out by it for the first time.

[NSQuote]

THIS MOTHERFUCKER Ammo box at the back! It's not really a case of "not knowing a mechanic" but more of a "what the fuck, that's there?"

Wait, that's actually a thing?

:O

[YoshiRider123]

Obviously it isn't an important game mechanic, but I realized after 80 hours of playing Xenoblade that you can give collectables as "presents" to your party members. Giving the right items will increase the affinity between the two party members, which can be useful if you don't use them together often.

This happened with me as well, except I learned of it after my first playthrough, which lasted a little over 100 hours.

To be fair, Xenoblade Chronicles doesn't go out of its way to mention this feature at all even in the manual, and it doesn't help that there's almost no practical incentive to bother looking at your item inventory aside from making use of your Art Manuals.

[arit]

Sprint button in Skyrim, you had a relatively fast normal walking speed, and a slow one. Who would have thought that there was a third speed. Though the horse was rather slow with the default speed I must admit.

Travel between different maps in Xenoblade.

That damn Horse in SotC and the bridge. I tried jumping of it several times to get over the gap, which worked, but bridge. Yeah this time it was intended to just walk up to the gap with the horse, the same horse which decided not to jump over several small gaps or climb the smallest slopes in the world.

[M3d10n]

I love that this moment was ubiquitous in the childhood of Sega kids. Before the age of the internet, when many of us were just little kids, we were all facing this damn spinning block and had no idea what to do. I originally thought it was some sort of jump-timing puzzles, so I spent a lot of time trying to get past it by jumping. What were you thinking, Sonic Team? Also why did you make it so hard to input the level select code?

Odd, I remember figuring it out pretty quickly. I was almost shocked to find so many posters had problems with it.

[H_Prestige]

I literally just found out about the darksign in dark souls. Up until now I thought it was so bizarre there was no way to turn back to hollow.

[Orca]

I think it was an old TMNT game, there was a one-block gap that I could never jump. I sat there for an hour, constantly edging farther out before jumping. Every time, I'd hit my head and fall through the gap.

Then my little sister takes the controller and just runs across the gap. Mind. Blown.

[Santerestil]

I actually meant THE AMMO BOX AT THE BACK!!!:OOOOO

This has a better place in the SHOCKING VIDEOGAMES SECRETS thread than in this: almost all players were too much preoccupied to ran out here at the maximum speed possible instead of check the car.

And I'm sure almost all HL2 players thinked "what you mean the rocket is controlled by the laser?!?"

[cooljeanius]

In Xenoblade Chronicles, I couldn't figure out how to do Unison Attacks until the final dungeon. So I made some early boss fights extremely difficult for myself.

Didn't you need to be able to do those to beat Xord though?

[subversus]

THIS MOTHERFUCKER Ammo box at the back! It's not really a case of "not knowing a mechanic" but more of a "what the fuck, that's there?"

oh damn.... never knew that.

[Cipherr]

Breath of Fire 3, that final dragon rune combination. I didnt know you had to use the failure rune or whatever.

[Kagami]

Ys 6 (Windows version)

Didn't realize you could switch weapons directly using the control pad instead of opening the menu, until the last boss of the game where you have to use all three weapons to beat him (can't open the menu during boss fights).

[cooljeanius]

Obviously it isn't an important game mechanic, but I realized after 80 hours of playing Xenoblade that you can give collectables as "presents" to your party members. Giving the right items will increase the affinity between the two party members, which can be useful if you don't use them together often.

I've heard about this mechanic but still haven't figured out how to do it. I looked in my inventory but didn't see anything, what am I missing?

[BurnOutBrighter]

Also, how the fuck are you supposed to disable those wall mines in Deus Ex Human Revolution

Crouch and move toward them very slowly. Once you're in "use" range, you can disable them, and pick them up if you need to.

Or just shoot them lol

[subversus]

oh, my friend couldn't figure out that slow time bar in Max Payne 3 doesn't deplete when you jump. He spent the first half of the game behind the cover playing it like a tactical shooter.

[jred250]

Didn't realize you could discard cards in Baten Kaitos: Origins until about 2/3 through the game.

[Y2Kev]

This is like super obvious for me. Dodge Offset in Bayonetta. I didn't even know it was in the game until I accidentally got an achievement.

[Randdalf]

Took me a good year or two after the release of TF2 to realise that you could rotate the blueprints before placing a building as Engineer, using right-click.