Games that are easy once you know what you're doing.

[kasperbbs]

Can't really think of anything since i rarely replay my old games and don't bother to get really good at them so i'll go with dishonored, on the first couple of missions i was satisfied with simply killing my targets and bringing down a bunch of guards in the process, but later on once i got familiar with the mechanics i never killed anyone again and finished my missions with low chaos ratings.

 

[RJ 17]

I'd certainly have to hope that any game gets easier once you've beaten it the first time as you can look back on the mistakes that you made and make sure that you don't make them again. Anything that was supposed to come as a surprise you can now be prepared for.

But for specific offenders, I'd say the obvious one (and I'm certain this has to have already been mentioned) but both Portal games. Obviously if you already know the solution to the puzzles then you can quite literally just stroll through the game.

Also, my 2nd playthrough of Darksiders 2 was really easy...not because I already knew all the secrets, but rather because my first playthrough I specialized in the combat talent tree where as the 2nd playthrough I speciallized in the Necromancy talent tree....and the Necromancy talent tree is just obscenely overpowered in every possible way.

I mean with the exception of a game like Dark Souls which is specifically designed to be kick-you-in-the-balls difficult from the very start, pretty much every game gets easier with each playthrough.

 

[excalipoor]

I recently played through Final Fantasy VIII for the umpteenth time, and placed a crapton of restrictions on myself to make it more challenging. No Card Mod, no Draw-Stocking (except for GFs), no GF summoning, no running from battles (except the one time it's required), no Enc-NONE or Enc-HALF, no Limit Breaks, no Recover, Treatment or Revive, and no items during battles.

I wanted a challenge without limiting my options too much, and yet I still ended up with totally overpowered junctions by refining magic from items. Beating Diablos before leaving for Timber was the hardest part of the game. The only way to not break the game is to not use the tools it gives you. Somehow I still had trouble playing through it when I was ten and knew less than fifty words of English.

This goes for most Final Fantasies though, but FFVIII is the one with the biggest leap in difficulty between knowing what to do, and, you know, not.

 

[Auron225]

Pretty much every Zelda game. If you've previously finished and REMEMBER how to a dungeon/temple, there's almost no thinking involved. You just do it. The Wind Waker in particular Ive played one too many times for it to be a challenge.

Even the enemies - you learn quickly what is effective against what and even the combat is routine. Flying enemy? Ice arrow. Skeleton? Bomb. Armored Knight? Wait and Parry.

EDIT: By the way, for those saying "Ha! Every game ever!", I can see the OP's point. Not every game needs to be figured out, and then its simple. For example, most Mario games aren't complicated but that doesn't mean they're not challening.

 

[thesilentman]

Nethack. Even though there's a graphical version of the game, learning what the hell each thing does is a nightmare. After that, it becomes much easier and you then are at the mercy of the Random Number Generator God.

And then there's Guitar Hero/Rock Band. Learn the timing window. Then add hammer-ons. Practice on Hard until you can get above 90%. Then that's it, all challenge in the game then lies in 100 percenting all of the Expert songs.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Arkham Series.

Once you learn the hand to hand combat, and quick-fire buttons FEAR WILL BE YOUR WEAPON!

Runner up: Dishonored...SO...DAMN...MUCH. Even on a No-kill Ghost walkthrough, You will take down people on a rather absurd level.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

I agree with the people who said Dark Souls. When I first played it I had no idea what I was doing, and it took me about 30 hours to reach Anor Londo. Now that I understand the mechanics and the areas properly, it took me only 6 hours to reach the same point on my second playthrough.

 

[snave]

FTL and binding of Isaac for me. I'd stick the Guitar Hero (and Rock Band) series up there too.

I think the reason is that these games are skill-based rather than progression based. In the case of the first two, the skills are both visceral and strategic but non-transferrable. In the case of Guitar Hero (or any rhythm game to be honest), you're simply building up muscle memory. I specifically picked Guitar Hero as the primary example as generally, as a franchise, it was infamous for its terrible lack of expansions and DLC and thus a finite progression curve.

Its a hard concept to really pin down because all games basically fit on a curve between "reasonably fair roguelike" (FTL and Isaac being two great examples, unlike actual Rogue) and uhm, Prince of Persia 2008 (no death, essentially single button gameplay, going through the motions; damn pretty mind you).

I've been assured Recettear is a seminal example by a friend. Apparently if you know a few imbalanced modes in the game and stick to just repeating one of those, its possible to pretty much pay off the debt in a single cycle. The game basically relies on you mixing and matching between all the various game modes. In fact, it could be argued that the tutorial intentionally leads you astray. Most of the gameplay is emergent out of your own mistakes due to following... suboptimal advice.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Pretty much any Pokemon games, (bonus point if you even remembering the nature and EV) heck I'm bored with those tutorial at the start of the game since I know how they all function.

 

[Kiyeri]

Dragon Age: Origins for me. It was my first RPG ever, so I really didn't know what I was doing for a while. I barely beat the final boss since I was kind of an idiot with skill points and attributes. Now I can make it through that game without sweating at all, it was a great game to be my intro to RPGs.

 

[themind]

Contra: Hard Corps on SNES. The game will make you its master for the first while, but once you get used to run and gun, and you refuse to stop for anything, the learning curve sort of takes a nose dive.

Double Dragon II: A lot of people will disagree because this game can still whip your ass if you don't play it smart all the time, but once you master the jumping spin kick and can do it over and over and over again, the game is miraculously easier.

Tony Hawk Series: Maybe not being a skateboarder myself, I found this game brutally difficult to learn, but once you get a good flow going and master the manual (the move, not the instruction manual) you can string together million point combos no problemo.

Dragon Warrior NES: The first RPG I ever played, and boy did it take me a long time to figure out not to stray too far away on the world map. You can fight 90 blobs with you have some medical herbs, but run into one warlock or gold golem and you have zero chance of survival. Realizing that you have to take it slow, always have plenty of herbs, and don't be afraid to run to town if you're almost dead. The first game where patience and levelling up was the key to success.

Shadowgate/Deja Vu NES: Point and click mystery games. Impossible (it seems) to figure out, but figure it all out once, and you know it for life.

Punch-Out: With the exception of Mr. Dream/Mike Tyson who is damn near impossible every time you fight him, if you figure out the strategy for each individual boxer, the game becomes a cakewalk.

If I think of some more, I'll edit this post.

 

[xplosive59]

Almost every fighting game, once you know how to block effectively and pull off combos and specials on a whim you are unstoppable apart from online and tournaments.

 

[Psycomantis777]

The Prince of Persia games. You know, the good ones, Sands of Time and the other two, they can be quite challenging the first time around, but you tend to remember everything the second time through.

 

[Raika]

My beloved Final Fantasy X-2 comes immediately to mind. The battle system is very nuanced and intricate, but once you know what you're doing you can just Heaven's Cataract > Darkness > Stash: Mega-Potion all damn day until you get to the harder stuff like the Via Infinito and Angra Mainyu.

 

[Jodan]

for me it was ffx. once i figured out status eefects and timing i got soo bored i couldnt finish it.

 

[BrotherRool]

This one might be a bit of a cheat, but Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, was a LotoR RPG (a pretty bad one too, best thing about it was Ian MacKellans voice over, worst thing was the plot, never played an non-film based LOTOR game with a plot that engaged me actually). The bosses had crud loads of health and the enemies auto-levelled with you so grinding was impossible. It was possible to get pretty stuck at points really

...however the game was broken. In terms of easiness this might win the thread because once you'd discovered this trick it becomes literally impossible to lose with patience. There was a spell that the mage could cast on anyone that meant that if they died they were autmatically resurrected with full health, full mana and an immediate turn

... a spell that you could cast on the mage...

So at the beginning of the battle you cast it on the mage, if she dies she gets instantly resurrected and you use the new turn and the full mana to recast the spell on her. As long as you do this it's physically impossible to die in any battle in the game.

What's more, she can learn an ability that when cast allows her to immediately use two spells. So when she resurrects, she can protect herself and also blast an enemy with her most powerful spell. Her dieing is actually beneficial because it brings her turn forward and recharges the MP.


The only reason why this wouldn't win the thread is it's pretty easy to spot on the first playthrough and it's more of a result of ridiculously bad playtesting and game design than genuine skill. A bit of an exploit (although I have a theory that they let it slide maybe so that they didn't have to balance the end game)

 

[darmey]

Dead Rising.

I went into it not knowing anything about how the game worked and didn't realise you should be restarting the campaign with all your experience from your last effort (for some reason I didn't understand the menu options after I died and kept restarting from scratch). Also found it really frustrating getting my arse handed to me by my first boss encounters as well as weapons breaking after a few uses.

However, when I understood it more, ignored the story to level up a bit first and generally got into the workings of the game, I ended up having a blast.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Oh yes. The first time I played Knights of the Old Republic, I had no idea what I was doing. That *might* have been my first stat-based RPG aside from Pokemon, so I was dumping points into useless attributes as well as never taking advantage of good force powers, letting other party members do their thing with little to no intervention, wasting items, and who knows what. I was constantly dying, and it took me 70-80 hours to finish it. Now I can finish it in about 30 hours without ever seeing the game over screen once. And I'm probably playing on a harder difficulty then I used to.

Since Skyrim was my first foray into the Elder Scroll games, I've started taking a look at the rest of the series starting with the original, Arena. This game is infamous for being really hard at the beginning, if the various wiki's are to be believed then a lot of players give up before they even finish the first dungeon. Even the lead designer for Morrowind has been quoted saying he's only ever made it out of there once, after starting over like 20 times.

I'll agree, I had difficulties at first. But...geez, it's not impossible by any means. As a level 11 Ranger, this is almost starting to get too easy. I've poured a lot into strength and agility, so my attacks are generally successful. Money is ridiculously easy to come by, as some of the useless equipment I've sold have fetched prices well over 15,000 gold. Once you have that much, you just need to buy a large stockpile of health potions and you'll be good to go for most of the harder encounters.

Or at least...so far in my playthrough.

 

[Easton Dark]

Mount and Blade

The first time is like "Wow why are the bandits so tough, I never have enough money, my troops keep starving, ow, this kingdom wont stop attacking my town"

Then you learn not to start the game in the Sarranid Sultanate, you purchase businesses in towns, you stock food wherever you go, and you have to let a few towns be sacked once in awhile while you build up your army. An army of nothing but Swadian Knights, Rhodok Marksmen, and Nord Huscarls, because all other units are useless in comparison.