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[Mac the KNife]

well, to be fair, basically all games with any sort of tutorial do this.

In 1998? With voice acting?

I found it pretty jarring & memorable. I can't even think of another game where voice actors are calling out specific button prompts. It's usually an on screen prompt or text box.

 

[Maffis]

Going into Team Fortress 2 for the first time years ago when the game didn't have numbers above enemies head declaring how much damage you did to them, there was no fucking way a new player could realise that every weapon in the game dealt significantly less damage at long ranges bar the sniper rifle. I remember going Soldier class and just spamming rockets at people 100 meters away and I kept wondering why they never ever fucking died. Gahh! I'm glad they added the damage numbers.

 

[Easy_D]

Wait, people consider that to be a hard puzzle?

I had no idea what I was doing wrong until I looked up a video. Have you played the game? Just asking, because that part is wonky as fuck in an otherwise fine game.

Googling "Assassin's Creed 2 can't climb tower" yields plenty of results. Surely I'm not the only Gaffer who had this problem :lol?

 

[Skiesofwonder]

Phoenix Wright series - the thread.

Most of what you need to present is pretty obvious, but sometimes I'll get stumped so I'll lookup what to do on a guide and I'll be completely flabbergasted at what the "answer" was. Thank god for the hint system in PWvs.PL, I hate being forced to use a guide.

 

[DoktorEvil]

You mean the one

Spoiler

that you needed the key from Monstro Town for? You had to keep talking to the Thwomp, which kept making him smash the ground, which eventually jarred that one key off of the roof. Then you just make your way back to the Belome statue and give him the key.

YO I had no idea! I could've used some of those goodies when

Spoiler

I had to fight Culex

Thanks for the tip. I'm gonna go back and get that room then.

 

[zruben]

I prefer when tutorial teachers tell you to do a certain attack while text appears telling you how to do that attack. It's kind of weird to hear a character tell you to press a certain button.

yeah, I prefer it too.

In 1998? With voice acting?

I found it pretty jarring & memorable. I can't even think of another game where voice actors are calling out specific button prompts. It's usually an on screen prompt or text box.

I agree that it was kinda "uncommon" for the time, but I didn't find it THAT out of place to consider that the "CD Case" was an analog object; specially because it happens right after they gave you a "Disc" item on the game.

 

[Wenger'sBakedBaguettes]

oh yeah...the FF 12 don't-open-the-wrong-treasure-chests for that zodiac spear bullshit.

 

[Tunesmith]

I don't get it, that looks totally normal. What's different about it?

Watched the vid and looked normal to me. I remember climbing that tower too

I guess he and many others fumbled at the first door, where you have to jump up the wall and then to the side from the alcove and not straight up the door to the lamp like you can do in many other similar places.

 

[Patryn]

I guess he and many others fumbled at the first door, where you have to jump up the wall and then to the side from the alcove and not straight up the door to the lamp like you can do in many other similar places.

Yeah, basically.

Every other lamphanger like that can simply be directly jumped onto without doing the bounce against the wall. So, for instance, if you stand on the ledge and try to jump directly onto it rather than hitting the wall first, your character just falls rather than attempting to grab onto it, which he does in literally everything else in the game.

 

[Frologic]

I don't get it, that looks totally normal. What's different about it?

Watched the vid and looked normal to me. I remember climbing that tower too

It looked so easy there but I remember being really frustrated with this part. I couldn't stick on to it for some reason and there really wasn't any tutorial on how to do that move shown in the video. So players would just continuously attempt the regular wall climb thinking that the post was just bugged (since it worked in other locations) not realizing that there's this other parkour move they need to do.

 

[Auragon67]

But I need to vent.

Just played a ton of South Park: The Stick of Truth over the weekend. I was about 4 hours into it and then played 5 hours Saturday. How the fuck was I supposed to know there is an auto-save bug where your file gets corrupted but the game doesn't tell you. It just keeps showing that icon like it's saving.

Anyways I died for the first time(not even in battle) by walking onto a mouse trap. Lost 5+ hours of game play and said fuck it. Not playing that game anymore.

 

[wrowa]

Why does this come up on every thread? It was fairly easy to figure out if you just jump on the barrel.

Jumping on the barrel is what made it so infuriating. Since it actually moves when you jump on it, you are lead to believe that you need to keep jumping with a specific rhythm until the damn barrel gets high enough. If it wouldn't have reacted at all to your jumping it might have been easier to get that you weren't supposed to jump in the first place...

 

[Buzzbrad]

That one tower in Assassin's Creed 2 that you can't climb if you try to climb it in the most logical way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT66jOop5Nw
Watch this shit

Couldn't agree more. It is the part with the light that took me ages.

 

[Zephyrus]

Couldn't agree more. It is the part with the light that took me ages.

seriously?


I mean... seriously?

 

[Buzzbrad]

seriously?


I mean... seriously?

Yes seriously, I had to look up a video online to do it.

 

[KHlover]

seriously?


I mean... seriously?

Yes, when the game expects you to use an unintroduced mechanic it might take just a tad longer.

Usually you'd stand on the right railing, directly jump towards that beam and then swing to get on top of it in similar situations in the rest of the game IIRC (and AC1).

In this situation you couldn't jump off the railing at all, you instead had to walk up to the beam and do a standing jump, which after two games of freerunning is a complete logic break and (again) wasn't introduced to you. Not once required earlier in any of the games and iirc only used one more time or so in all of AC2.

Pretty sure I solved that section completely by accident.

 

[HaleStorm]

I had no idea what I was doing wrong until I looked up a video. Have you played the game? Just asking, because that part is wonky as fuck in an otherwise fine game.

Googling "Assassin's Creed 2 can't climb tower" yields plenty of results. Surely I'm not the only Gaffer who had this problem :lol?

Yeah, I have played all of them. I did not run into any problems with completing any of them other than the goofy collecting stuff in the early ones, but that was simply an enjoyment/time equation.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

In Space Quest II, there's a swamp that you walk through. In a small section of the swamp, you start to swim & you need to dive there to find an underwater cavern that contains a crucial item that you'll need to progress later in the game. 'cause you know, diving is always the first thing I think of when in a swamp. And of course, like most old Sierra games of the era, by the time you need the item, it's too late to go back and get it so if you don't have an older save game, you need to start the whole thing over.

 

[rawd]

In Space Quest II, there's a swamp that you walk through. In a small section of the swamp, you start to swim & you need to dive there to find an underwater cavern that contains a crucial item that you'll need to progress later in the game. 'cause you know, diving is always the first thing I think of when in a swamp. And of course, like most old Sierra games of the era, by the time you need the item, it's too late to go back and get it so if you don't have an older save game, you need to start the whole thing over.

Don't forget the diamond ring in the bathroom of Lefty's!

 

[Deified Data]

Metal Gear Solid breaks the 4th wall in the opening seconds of the game. Some of you guys, I swear.

I get where you're going with this, but it's really not the same. Campbell's explanation of the controls is meta, I'll grant you that, but it's several degrees more grounded than telling someone to look on the back of the CD case. Someone is guaranteed to use the controls of the game to complete their objective - not so much the case the game came in. And what if they don't have the case?

 

[KittenMaster]

Wait wait wait...you have to do the crystal cave using AN ITEM? I did it by my own just watching the spores hit the invisible platforms and praying.

Yeah. The actual path you're required to go is fairly straightforward once you realize that it's straightforward.

Only one of the paths requires you to use an item or an attack to work your way through (since glitter doesn't really fall on it), but even that leads to a completely optional item (which is an item you can farm elsewhere in the game.)

Spoiler

I developed technology just for that part: the normally useless except for fun wood carvings are actually infinite-use floor markers for helping you walk on the invisible spiral.

 

[Blood Red Sky]

I got stuck on that tower in AC. I eventually figured it out myself, but dammit.

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers the Movie on Genesis. Overall, a pretty solid beat-em-up, if a little easy (it was for kids, anyway). Anyway, at the end of level 5, there's this endless stream of bad guys, like at least 100. The timer (and by proxy, your life) will run out several times while you figure out wtf to do. Even when they stop, there's still no clear answer what to do. Turns out, there's a rock in the back of the stage you have to beat up, and it opens a door to the next part of the area. There's several other of these rocks that are just background, so why the hell is this not? How am I supposed to know this?

 

[Easy_D]

Couldn't agree more. It is the part with the light that took me ages.

I got stuck on that tower in AC. I eventually figured it out myself, but dammit.

Lmao. Glad I'm not alone in this, at least.

Yeah, I have played all of them. I did not run into any problems with completing any of them other than the goofy collecting stuff in the early ones, but that was simply an enjoyment/time equation.

I envy you. It was a facepalm worthy moment since it wasn't actually hard to pull off in the end.

 

[Slappers Only]

I like The Evil Within, but I'm running into a lot of HtFWIStKT moments. Not a deal breaker, but aggravating.

 

[Septimus Prime]

Does Aria Of Sorrow tells you that

Spoiler

Legion's soul is only guaranteed if you destroy his whole shell? Never really tried to do an all souls run (and I haven't played it in years), so now it looks like I'll need to go fast on a hard difficulty run to get the 100%.

It doesn't. I missed it and had to wait until Hard to get it, too.

 

[Charlouie Jonesman]

I didn't realize they were referring to MGS's actual game case as well, I figured they were talking about the disc you got just seconds earlier.

...and the thing is...just now I've realized that that is probably exactly what they're referring to in-universe.

 

[boredandlazy]

Resonance of Fate.

If you happen to get caught up in a random battle during the short trip between the opening town and the arena where the battle tutorial is.

 

[Currygan]

took me the LONGEST time

 

[CoffeeExpress]

They tell you this in the game. If you call Campbell or Naomi over and over again they will explicitly tell you to look on the back of the game box. And I think if you STILL keep calling them, they will tell you the actual code itself.

... Now what to do if you were renting this game? I guess this was their attempt at anti-piracy or anti-rental. I think we all had dial up internet at the time, it would've been a pain in the ass to look this up online.


My vote would be Super Metroid. I never played that game as a kid, just as an adult. It seems like the strategy for that game is "put bombs everywhere, scan everything, shoot missiles at everything". I did not enjoy wandering around too much in that game.

you do what I did... and call every codec, one digit at a time.

 

[GorillaJu]

Dark Souls 1 crystal cave transparent walkways of doom beat it, absolutely ridiculous, if you are not reading all the item descriptions, there is no way you will know thats what the item is for, also by the time you get there you dont really have enough for the whole level.

Or you can just look at the falling snow flakes to see where they land.

 

[GorillaJu]

I don't think that was anywhere near as bad. In the caves you at least know you're supposed to get to the other side and that there's something up, I didn't even know there was an item for it, I always used the crystals falling.

By the time you get to that point in DaS2, you're already accustomed to the terrible boss designs so you think the poison is just another BS way to make it harder. I was using a dex build, so I had low health and the fight was basically impossible because if I tried to heal with less than half health I'd die from poison before I finished drinking the flask. I hadn't even walked by that windmill since the first time since the checkpoint is after it.

One of the major tenants of Dark Souls that people like is that it lets the player community figure out the really cryptic parts on their own, in the vein of old Nintendo games where solutions to mysteries were passed around by word of mouth. There's a reason why messages between players is an integrated system.

And I won't go saying the windmill thing was obvious because it wasn't, but "I didn't even walk by it" whose fucking fault is that? Why play a game that rewards you for meticulous exploration and then blame "terrible boss design" for you not fully exploring the preceding area? I never even knew what the windmill actually did the first time I played it because I was exploring like you're supposed to do, I found access to the windmill and thought that was curious, tried breaking it, read a message that said "torch required ahead", and problem solved before I even knew what I was solving.

 

[HeelPower]

Or you can just look at the falling snow flakes to see where they land.

very inconspicuous.

Especially the final walkway is hard to detect,though I think the developers left a message there so even if you play offline there is some clue as to where the bridge is.

 

[WarpathDC]

/thread

Also the new Shadowgate isn't as much puzzle solving as WTF do I need to click on screen now.

 

[Conan-san]

I've never played an old-school Sonic before, but let me guess: the "obstacle" is actually part of the background and you could just drop there?

You need to go on the barrel and press up and down. The game does nothing to telegraph the need to do so.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

One of the major tenants of Dark Souls that people like is that it lets the player community figure out the really cryptic parts on their own, in the vein of old Nintendo games where solutions to mysteries were passed around by word of mouth. There's a reason why messages between players is an integrated system.

And I won't go saying the windmill thing was obvious because it wasn't, but "I didn't even walk by it" whose fucking fault is that? Why play a game that rewards you for meticulous exploration and then blame "terrible boss design" for you not fully exploring the preceding area? I never even knew what the windmill actually did the first time I played it because I was exploring like you're supposed to do, I found access to the windmill and thought that was curious, tried breaking it, read a message that said "torch required ahead", and problem solved before I even knew what I was solving.

Yup, same. I burned it, said "cool", had no idea the poison remained if you didn't, haha. Those messages helped me find the Great Hollow too, and told me to kill Yurt right there in Latria.

 

[Ataxia]

That one tower in Assassin's Creed 2 that you can't climb if you try to climb it in the most logical way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT66jOop5Nw
Watch this shit

I don't get it

what's wrong with that? I don't recall ever having trouble with it

 

[FalsettoVibe]

"Don't open this, this and that treasure chest in the first 10 minutes of the game if you want the best weapon at the end of the game."

...............WTF FFXII....

This was such crap.

 

[kungfuian]

Too lazy to read through all of these but if no one said it then the stupid piano puzzle in Silent Hill 1, and if someone did mention it I second that notion!

Also anyone remember if there were multiple difficulties/solutions based on difficulty. I know later Silent Hills had multiple puzzle difficulties but did Silent Hill 1?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Too lazy to read through all of these but if no one said it then the stupid piano puzzle in Silent Hill 1, and if someone did mention it I second that notion!

You were "supposed to know" by, well, understanding the clues. Once you know the solution and how it fits with the clues it's actually a really clever puzzle with a "duhhhhh" facepalm moment. Probably one of the best I've seen in any game, honestly.

Also anyone remember if there were multiple difficulties/solutions based on difficulty. I know later Silent Hills had multiple puzzle difficulties but did Silent Hill 1?

It did not. I think the puzzle difficulty modes started with SH3. SH2 just had modes for the whole game right?