You Ever Beat A Game Despite Not Fully Understanding the Controls or Gameplay?

[shopkins]

I just beat Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard last night. Pretty hard game, not really rewarding enough to be worth it. I looked around for a Let's Play online to see how other people got through parts that seemed nearly impossible and discovered that, oh, you can sprint. There is, if I'm understanding it right, a sprint button. I thought the only way to make him sprint was to point to cover and then automatically sprint to it (more like a slightly hurried walk), so I moved at his leisurely jog pace the entire game while getting shot up by goons, helicopters and one-hit kill sniper rifles. And I still beat it. I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed.

I've done this before with several games, only noticing a gameplay feature that makes my life easier halfway through or near the end, and there are probably other times I've never noticed. I guess I should read the manual.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

[crazyjackcsa]

Happens all the time. The first time was in Phantasy Star 4. I lost the manual and didn't know how to combine spells. Just grind it out and I got there.

In the Splinter Cell series I rarely used the stick cameras and gadgets. In fighting games I never use all the character moves.

[Scissors]

This happened to me with Donkey Kong Country 2...twice.

Back when the game came out, I played through it without knowing about the cartwheel jump. I think there was only one level in the game you had to use it to get through a couple areas unharmed, but I just took the hit and kept playing. I only discovered the cartwheel jump when I went back to try and find all the bonus stages. I needed both Diddy and Dixie to get to a bonus stage in that level, but I always sacrificed one of them to get to that point in the level. I eventually checked the manual to see if there was a move I didn't know about, and there I find the cartwheel jump.

This happened to me a second time earlier this year when I replayed the game for the first time since it came out. I had forgotten about the cartwheel jump and didn't check the manual until I was stuck at the very same spot.

[substantial_snake]

I largely saw CQC as a waist of time and overly complicated in Metal Gear Solid 3 so I never used it. (unless there is some boss fight I'm forgetting where your required to use it)

[kupomogli]

I used to never use status magic on RPGs as I found the spells to be practially worthless. This being that I was a Dragon Quest fan and on the series, most enemies but a few are strong against status effect spells. Status effect spells in that series truly are worthless.

Plus on the original Final Fantasy, the status effect spells also didn't seem to work much, pair this with the fact that back then I didn't know more than a few were glitched to either not work or instead increase enemy status and you can see why. Sleep, bane, etc, practically worthless. Afir, Aice, Alit, etc. How many enemies actually used magic in the game for those to even be of any use? The only ones that I did use as status effect spells were Ruse, Invs, Inv2, and Fog2.

So for years, I rarely ever tried status effect magic on any game. Final Fantasy 4 for example. It wasn't until the release of Chronicles that I tried out status effect spells. After trying them out, I found that slow is the most useful spell in the game, working against almost every single enemy or boss enemy, including the final boss(who also nullifies status effects but can always be cast again.) Playing through the After Years, the slow spell works on pretty much every boss in that game as well. I've never seen it fail, just not effect the enemy(who I'm assuming was strong against it.)

There's still a lot of times I don't bother with status spells, but I'm now more inclined to check them out on occassion. Except on the SMT series. I use them all the time as they work 100% and clearly effect enemies. Stuff like Hama though. No I don't use.


I largely saw CQC as a waist of time and overly complicated in Metal Gear Solid 3 so I never used it. (unless there is some boss fight I'm forgetting where your required to use it)

The last boss.

[skaar]

This actually happened to us with Dance Dance Revolution. I had a copy of Bust a Move (renamed to Bust a Groove) and my friends and I used to beat the hell out of that game. Then someone said "Oh man check out Dance Dance Revolution you'll love it."

This being the era of the PS1 modchip I downloaded a copy and we fired it up. We were completely confused after having "beaten the game" after 3 songs. And it was boring as hell.

Years later I saw a machine in an arcade and figured out what was going on ;)

[BlastProcessing402]

Happens all the time. The first time was in Phantasy Star 4. I lost the manual and didn't know how to combine spells. Just grind it out and I got there.


Reminds me of the time I lent PS2 to a friend, just the cart not the manual, and he didn't know you could push a button to make combat stop running and issue new commands. Yet he somehow managed to make it to (but not defeat) Mother Brain.

[skaar]

Also specifically for Eat Lead - I did the exact same thing ;)

[Sunnyvale]

The worst one I've seen was my neighbor gal. She's a L4D fanatic beats it by herself frequently (not on expert though). First time I played it was with her, and I had to show her the 'shove' attack. She does a lot better now. And on a side note, if you never shove on that game, the bots won't either. No clues from the peanut gallery.

[j_factor]

The first time I played through Final Fantasy Tactics, I missed out on like 1/3 of the jobs. The manual doesn't tell you what the requirements are to unlock each job, and the game doesn't tell you until after at least one character has unlocked it. So it's easy to never unlock certain ones.


Happens all the time. The first time was in Phantasy Star 4. I lost the manual and didn't know how to combine spells. Just grind it out and I got there.

Speaking of Phantasy Star 4, there were some spells that I could never figure out what they did, so I just didn't use them.

[Nebagram]

Final Fantasy 8. The junctioning system confused the hell out of me but I managed to beat the game despite it.

[NE146]

I don't know if it counts but I played a lot of 2600 Moon Patrol before I realized there was music in the game when you flicked a difficulty switch.

[substantial_snake]

I used to never use status magic on RPGs as I found the spells to be practially worthless. This being that I was a Dragon Quest fan and on the series, most enemies but a few are strong against status effect spells. Status effect spells in that series truly are worthless.

Plus on the original Final Fantasy, the status effect spells also didn't seem to work much, pair this with the fact that back then I didn't know more than a few were glitched to either not work or instead increase enemy status and you can see why. Sleep, bane, etc, practically worthless. Afir, Aice, Alit, etc. How many enemies actually used magic in the game for those to even be of any use? The only ones that I did use as status effect spells were Ruse, Invs, Inv2, and Fog2.

So for years, I rarely ever tried status effect magic on any game. Final Fantasy 4 for example. It wasn't until the release of Chronicles that I tried out status effect spells. After trying them out, I found that slow is the most useful spell in the game, working against almost every single enemy or boss enemy, including the final boss(who also nullifies status effects but can always be cast again.) Playing through the After Years, the slow spell works on pretty much every boss in that game as well. I've never seen it fail, just not effect the enemy(who I'm assuming was strong against it.)

There's still a lot of times I don't bother with status spells, but I'm now more inclined to check them out on occassion. Except on the SMT series. I use them all the time as they work 100% and clearly effect enemies. Stuff like Hama though. No I don't use.



The last boss.

LOL. True but I am pretty sure I just used punch-punch-kick then the MK22.

I also agree with you on status effect magic. Final Fantasy pretty much taught me that status effect magic was useless unless the game made it very obvious that X boss or X enemy was weak to it. That in turn made me pretty much shun status effect magic in every game I've played since.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

being that persona 2 was my first entry into the series, i didnt know how important it was that you collect demons and create new ones to exploit elemental weaknesses in harder bosses and demons later on


so i just went the typical rpg route and grinded it out, just using physical attacks and magic through a good chunk of the game until i reached that part where you have to fight that possessed chick from your party i forgot her name


apparently every faq online tells you that this bitch is ridiculously easy provided you have the necessary demons in your collection (which again i never bothered to collect or create) to properly exploit some huge gaping weakness of hers, needless to say i have never beaten that fucking game :(

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, sure. I mean, I do play lots of Japanese games without knowing the language for the most part, so I'm sure there are some aspects I never fully understand. But it's not just imports, I can miss something in American games too since I don't always own the manual or I just don't figure something out. Usually it's nothing of great significance, though.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

i just remembered that back in the ps1 days, i had bootleg japanese copy of dino crisis since i think there was a 7 month window or something before it came out over here, basically the cutscenes were in english but everything else, notes, items, doors etc were in japanese, so basically i had no fucking clue wtf i was doing or how to solve some puzzles and still managed to beat the game

[Cryomancer]

I've just started Chrono Cross recently. Every so often I figure out a small chunk of the battle system but I still don't feel like I UNDERSTAND it. I think turn order in that game will remain an eternal mystery for me.

[skaar]

Oh, the FFX summons. I never used 'em, and when you have to fight them at the end they were a joke ;)

[The 1 2 P]

When I first played the Japanese import version of Silent Hill I missed reading something(the text is in Japanese but the voices were in English) and because of not picking a certain item up I was forced to fight Cybil.

In 007: Quantum of Solace I finished the entire game(on the hardest difficulty) without realizing there was a melee button. This was probably because it wasn't listed in the controls section of the instruction manual or the in game instruction manual. I only learned about it while playing multiplayer when the animation for it happened while I was trying to aim and shoot someone.

[riderpool]

resident evil 2.

First time i played it took me over 13 hours to beat it since i had no idea how it worked.

[Emperor Megas]

This is a pretty good topic. I know that I've done this sort of thing in a few games.

I never used the charge attack in Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny. I used it all the time in the original (which I played the XBOX version of), but I figured they left it out of the sequel, even though the manual mentions it. I figured it was something that they scraped but didn't update the manual because I could never get it to work. I think that it was an analog sort of thing of something, like you had to push the button down hard. I always used an after market controller, so that may have been the reason I could never get it to work. I played it last year though with a stock controller and it worked.

I also never blocked in Silent Hill 3. I'm pretty sure that I forgot that you even could.

I know that there are a bunch more than I can't think of at the moment.

[kedawa]

I finished Terranigma without realizing there was magic, and I never used the spells in Castlevania: SotN.

[Edmond Dantes]

LOL. True but I am pretty sure I just used punch-punch-kick then the MK22.

You can beat the last boss of MGS3 entirely with guns. I managed it and never had to get anywhere near her.

If you're trying to get that special camo she drops though then you have to use CQC.

[VACRMH]

I finished Tales of Symphonia without ever using the Ex gems or whatever they were called. Pretty sure it made the game alot harder due to all the stat boosts you got from them.

[Queen Of The Felines]

Silent Hill Homecoming. I made it halfway through before I realized I could "lock on" the monsters. I just kept swinging wildly and hoped for the best.

[The 1 2 P]

and I never used the spells in Castlevania: SotN.

I don't think the majority of people that played Castlevania: SOTN used spells except for the parts where we had to in order to access certain parts of the castle. Besides that, the only other time I used them(out of the 6+ play thrus I've done over multiple systems) was for the 360 achievements. It was easier beating that game without using spells.

[heybtbm]

I don't think the majority of people that played Castlevania: SOTN used spells except for the parts where we had to in order to access certain parts of the castle. Besides that, the only other time I used them(out of the 6+ play thrus I've done over multiple systems) was for the 360 achievements. It was easier beating that game without using spells.

Same here. I went 10 years without ever touching the spells and finally tried them out to get the achievements on the XBLA version.

I'd say I have no idea how to do 80% of the stuff in any of the Disgaea Series of games. I understand the SRPG nuts-and-bolts of the games, but getting to level 9999, dark council, pirates, advanced item worlds, reincarnation? No clue.

[Johnny_Rock]

Guwange, it was my first shmup other than the really (by the current standards) basic scrolling ones like 1943 and Zaxxon. I didn't really understand the controls at all and beat it by sheer persistence.

[Dire 51]

I finished Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare without knowing about the Dead Eye feature. I've surprised people with that revelation.