What are your biggest "I'm an idiot" revelations in games?

There is a moment in Super Mario RPG where you have to open a door by running into it at the same time as an NPC that is trying to break it down.

Young me was stuck in this room for hours.

When playing Mass Effect, it took me until about 25-30 hours in to realise the mako had a cannon. Before then I'd been fighting turrets and vehicles with the machine gun and bemoaning the unfair difficulty.

@cogzwell: I had a similar issue with MGR:R where I didn't realize that you adjust the angle of your sword with the right stick during Blade Mode. It wasn't until the fight on the roof against *whoever the fuck* while being shot by a helicopter pretty close to the end of the game. The only way I figured it out was after being stuck on that fight for several hours, a friend of mine was watching me play over Steam broadcast and notice that I was never changing my angle....after that I beat it on my first try and finished the game an hour later.

In The Legend of Zelda : Oracle of Seasons there is a square from which 3 of the 4 direction lead you into the same square again, a common trope in Zelda games. Well, the two hints to get through it were the order of directions you had to go in and something to the effect of "make sure it gets warmer every time". By this moment in the game you can freely change the season whenever you are on one of those tree stumps so this should not have been a problem.

Sadly, at the time I just couldn't figure out how to make it warmer 4 times, the required number of screen changes. I started with winter, the coldest season and then went spring, summer and fall respectively. Obviously fall isn't warmer than summer and the game never let me past that screen. In fact, because of this I've never seen the end of the game. What I did do was play from the beginning over and over again.

Only recently has a friend told me the, in retrospect, obvious solution. You can advance the seasons more than once between screen changes. The correct order is winter, spring, fall, summer. Sadly, by now the battery in the cardridge has drained and I still haven't finished the game I spend so much time on.

-Figuring out what an SRK motion really was when looking at the notation in in-game move lists.

-It took until my second play through of the original Kingdom Hearts to learn that special moves (Ars Arcanum, Sonic Rave) had multiple hits if you kept pressing the command.

I didn't know you could lock on to enemies in demons souls. Beating the first boss without that knowledge was a pain in the ass.

@dukeofthebump:

The trouble with the Sonic 3 platform is that before the "difficult" one, there are one or two easier ones that can be passed with well-timed rhythmic jumps. So there's no reason to learn that this one type of platform is influenced by pressing up and down, and, well, I got stuck there too. Would have been okay if there was a signpost or something with up/down arrows, or a cutscene with Knuckles going up and down without jumping, or maybe a modern-style d-pad overlay the first time you stand on one of those platforms, but games didn't tutorialize like that very much back then...

For sure! I played through one of the Lego games with a friend, and there were so many "this shouldn't be so difficult" moments with head-slap-worthy solutions... Still fun though.

In Link's Awakening I was stuck on the quest to retrieve the golden leaves for Richard for far too long. Was able to get four of the five leaves from the castle without trouble, but couldn't get past the door to the room with the fifth. I tried looking for switches under the nearby jars, without luck. Bombing the door didn't open it, though I didn't expect it to, as it wasn't cracked. There were no enemies to kill that might trigger the door to open, so I backtracked and killed every enemy in the castle (except the one in the room I couldn't get to) but of course that didn't do anything. I tried pressing on walls but didn't find any false ones. Bombing every wall in the castle didn't work either - had a lot of free time back then! I left the castle and talked to every character in the game I had found up to that point, but nobody provided any clues. At some point I returned to Richard's Villa and sat there, staring at the screen, trying to think of other possibilities, then got creeped out when Totaka's Song started to play...

After probably a few more dead-ends I can't remember, I eventually got so angry that I threw one of the jars at the door. Which promptly opened.

On the one hand I should have tried this sooner, as there was nothing available except the door and the jars. On the other, I think this was the first example of opening a door with jars in the Zelda series and I don't recall any hints that it might do anything. Plus it's silly that a door can be opened with smashed pottery but not with explosives... Though I guess it was semi-shortly followed up by OoT's burnable-yet-uncuttable cobwebs (which for whatever reason never bothered me, but they're silly too).

Good times.

Every 5 mins in The Talos Principle. Multiple times in a single puzzle.

I just played about 50 hours of Fallout 4 before remembering how to properly hack computer terminals. Specifically, I forgot the part about hidden attempt resets and word eliminators. Was this explained in the game? I'm usually not one to skip tutorials.

For anyone who doesn't know, you look for <> or [] in the code. There can also be text in between, such as [$3G7]. If you can highlight the whole thing, clicking it will remove one incorrect word.

I spent way too long in the second Cloister of Trials in FFX because I didn't spot the sphere abscess on the exit door.

Wait, what is the Phoenix Down thing?

I also "got" Ash Ketchum at the same time as Dan.

@heycalvero: The Phoenix Down refers to the Down meaning the feathers of a phoenix and not that the phoenix is down.

I didn't know this until somebody mentioned it on the podcast. I don't recall a single prompt or line of text that ever explained this feature in any of the Fallout games.

Nobody should ever feel bad for not getting the Miles Per Hour pun or the checkered cylinder of doom. Both were dumb, meanie jerks.

100 hours into MGSV I realized you can just go back to the ACC from the menu instead of having to call in, run to, and wait for a helicopter.

@CastroCasper: Discovered a lot of people don't know/forgot to upgrade their helicopter. The best chassis usually has the helicopter get to the LZ before I can get there.

@kasaioni: Huh, I dont think I knew it upgraded the speed. I think I just assumed it was more armor and ignored it since I rarely used the heli in a combat situation.

@CastroCasper: It has separate upgrades for armour. Chassis mainly has to do with speed.

@papercut: ....goddamnit. I get it now.

I get this all the time with abbreviations and acronyms. I had been playing videogames for years before I realised that HP stood for "health points". There's lots of stuff like that. Like how "mob" is short for "Monster or beast" and "rat" is short for "pirates".

Where did you hear these from?

@beachthunder: Uh from other people I guess. "Rats" is a common Eve Online phrase, and the Mob thing is apparently a Backronym, the original abbreviation is actually "mobile" as the phrase was coined to describe enemies that were actually moving about in MUD1 in 1978.

well thanks bud, you just gave me my moment. I finished the game, and was TOTALLY unaware of that the entire duration of the game.

Heheh. I'm sure we aren't the only ones. I don't think I had any of those rings equipped right for a long time.

@sunstalker_solaire: Oh, I was totally oblivious to that meaning of the word "Down". I'm not a native english speaker, so that's cleared up!

Thanks!

I spend at least 5 minutes in the first room in Bloodborne mashing the X button to open a door... only to realize I was not holding an XB1 controller.

Holy shit! I thought this was just me! I had the exact same thought process. 10 year old me was such an idiot! It's pretty funny that in the newer versions (HeartGold and SoulSilver) they changed the scene slightly so ??? drops his Trainer Card instead of saying "My name is ???" so I guess we weren't the only ones.

I think I knew this back when I played FFX on the PS2, but then forgot between then and more recently when I've been replaying it. I have just been re-enlightened....and will continue with FFX

@thelastgunslinger: I have a Fallout 4 one. I thought that every level you should get one point to put into your SPECIAL numbers and one for the skill type perks, not one or the other. So I became convinced that it was some kind of bug - I was about to report it to Bethesda when I realized it was working as intended - this was around level 8 and many hours into the game.

When playing through Guacamelee on the PC before starting the game I immediately went to the steam workshop and seen that there was a custom skin to make you look like The Tick which caught my eye so I picked it up and started my game and beat the whole thing using that suit, feeling quite happy due to the difficulty of certain sections. It wasn't until after i finished the game that I went back to look at other costumes I had unlocked throughout the game just to see what they were that I noticed that the other costumes gave you certain bonuses and perks that would of made the game easier in parts to say the least lol!! I face-palmed and said a couple dirty words and then just laughed cause what else can you do......

But hey least i can say i beat the game without any special perks or powers lol, essentially playing it on hard mode without knowing!!!

SPOOOOOON!!!!!

I did the exact same thing but did kill it after about 30 minutes. I kept dying but instead of looking around the Church area I went right back down to the fight. From there I kept fighting and killing guys going through the early areas wondering why I wasn't getting a weapon. I eventually died and they had them on display for me had I bothered to look around at all.

More I was being stubborn than "missing" it. I just thought I would share. :)

Wait...are you sure you can heal all in FFX by pressing right? I knew you could do it in other FF games, but I don't feel like X was one of them. If that's the case, I'm a goddamned idiot.

THAT PURPLE PIPE. I got my friend to play through FF7 and watched what he did in that area and he got stuck too until I had to eventually tell him. I'm glad he quit before I had to help him catch that swinging pole on the way up to the Shinra building.

I stand corrected and went and looked it up. From some final fantasy wiki:

Final Fantasy X

The only spells that may be group cast are the "Nul" spells like NulBlaze, as well as Ultima, Demi, Hastega, and Slowga, and specific Ronso Rages. All other spells only affect single targets.

Final Fantasy X-2

Most spells from the Black Mage and White Magedresspheres can be group-cast on either the enemy or player party, at the cost of reduced potency. Some spells, such as Shell and Protect, are unable to be cast on a single character

Well that's a let down. At least they fixed the RNG and audio issues that plagued the PS4 version.

~DRESSPHERES~

@gorkamorkaorka: Well it gives me satisfaction knowing at least I wasn't the only one. Had no problems after, save being underleveled in the Temple of the Ancients xD

On the startup menu for Final Fantasy there was a box at the bottom that said something like Refresh rate or something with a 1 next to it.

Played the game for ages before finally realizing you could hit left or right on the d-pad to increase the number. That number changed the battle speed and without increasing it, the text scroll / animations were ponderously slow.

That said, that probably instilled in me the patience to play through Daggerfall on a 486 with a 1x cd rom drive on the minimum install. Oh the heady days of starting a map load then doing 5 minutes of homework before it finished loading.

I thought of another one:

During my entire 1st playthrough of Skyrim, I completely failed to notice that the sequence to open the doors accessed by the dragon claws was carved into the bottom of the claw itself. I would look around the room for clues (halfheartedly after the first few doors), figure I must be missing something and then eventually find the combination through trial and error.

During today's stream, I think it was Jeff that talked about the MYSTERIES of Myst, and I never got that until right that moment. Having never played it, I just had kinda assumed that the island was misty and they were spelling it weird for copyright reasons.

Played almost 150 hours of Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion before realizing there was fast travel.

@cale: Nice one. Don't worry. You probably also have a slick hair style now too, am I right?

Nothing to memorable for me, but just today after 100+ hours, I realized you can quickly bring up the scoreboard in Battlefield 4 by holding the menu button on Xbox.

I was playing Link's Awakening on the GBC and got stuck on a particular puzzle. I was so dumbstruck by the puzzle that I thought that maybe if I go ahead and beat the next dungeon, (got the item from the dungeon I was stuck on dungeon), that maybe I could get an item that would beat that dungeon. The puzzle I was stuck on asked me to beat a Pols Voice and the Stalfos in order. I had no idea what that meant. I thought it was a hidden door or that I missed something in the dungeon. Even after going to the next dungeon and trying to use a key from it I still couldn't get passed it. One day I turn the game on again and go to that same spot in that dungeon and just kill the enemies like I usually do except I killed them in a particular order and the key appears. My 5th grade self felt like a moron.

I never realized you could run in Mario up until a few years ago. I always tried picking up Super Mario World and trying to get into it but coming away from it feeling disappointed. I'm an idiot.

In my defense, I totally think that the run button in a Mario game would be better suited for one of the triggers instead of having to use your thumb awkwardly to hold both buttons down.

The Witness .... played by the witless.

A little off topic but as a kid I could never beat the first stage in Bomb Jack. I vagualy remember just running and jumping and not understanding what my goal was or how to do anything. I refuse to go back and play it again because I know I'll find out it was super easy and validate that I am indeed, an idiot.

@illuminatijones: If it's just Bomb Jack then yes, but Mighty Bomb Jack...not so much, if I remember right.

I did not know what a memory card was until Ridge Racer prompted me for one, despite owning a Playstation for years at that point. I just simply thought you did the same three courses on Destruction Derby over and over again like in an arcade.

This. I'm like a animal trying to get a treat out of a encased glass case.

@error52: Bomb Jack was the arcade version so you're right, it would have been Mighty Bomb Jack. I just remember it being super confusing to my wee baby brain.

I didn't know you had to strum in Guitar Hero to hit the notes.

@supermonkey122: close the thread we're done here

Edit: Also, just remembered that I couldn't play Cave Story for a while because I couldn't figure out how to open doors.