Have you ever played through a game and completely missed a game play feature?

[z121231211]

Not sure if this is broad enough to count, but playing through FFX when I was younger I could never ever figure out how to do Lulu's Overdrive. For anyone who hasn't played Final Fantasy 10, essentially when characters do or take enough damage, their overdrive bar fills, allowing them to use a very strong ability.

Activating these abilities generally required you hit the correct buttons on your ps2 controller or have very precise timing. In the case of Lulu, her overdrive required you spin the right analog stick enough times to build up power.

As a child, I could never figure it out. Went through the whole game being unable to use Lulu's overdrive, and with her being the prime magic damage dealer in the group, I missed out on quite a fair bit of damage.

How you played through the entire game without being able to read is the most impressive part.

"Rotate the right analog stick round and round!"

That comes up EVERYTIME you use the overdrive at the top of the screen.

Just adding insult to injury.

 

[ADDmuse]

I went through Riven in one shot until the last puzzle; which I didn't get because it was 2 AM and I was horribly sleep deprived. Quit the game, and in the morning my dad told me there was a save function. I went through the entire game without knowing there was a menu.

 

[Reaper195]

I knew fuck-all about Fallout 3 when I got it. Was thirty hours through the game when "VATS....? The fuck is this?" And about four or so years later, I discovered that when you hold down the drink button, you continue to drink instead of having top keep tapping it and taking ages to get rads for Moira's quest.

 

[Thanatos5150]

Holding A in Fallout 3 & NV allows to drink continuously.

And this just blew my mind. After hundreds of hours in both games, I never knew you could do that until right now. o_0

Well, at least this'll make getting irradiated for Moira in Fallout 3 go a bit faster from now on...

Wow.
Just Wow.
How did I not know that.
I'm going to go and rethink my life.

I am also duly shocked that this is a possibility.

 

[The Pinray]

In Kingdom Hearts I never knew that you could switch weapons. I beat the game using all defaults. I even beat Lance Bass.

In Final Fantasy X I didn't know about the sphere grid or until near the end of the game.

I went through most of Dragon Age: Origins without choosing any specializations.

I never knew you could taunt in Devil May Cry 3. Didn't know about swapping weapons and styles either.

In Fable III I completely forgot about buying property until I was about ten million gold in debt. Needless to say I was ever so slightly pissed.

I beat InFamous without knowing that you could switch which arm you shoot with by hitting an analogue stick. Not too useful, sure, but still a feature I missed.

I didn't know I could issue orders in Mass Effect.

And I didn't know about upgrading in the first few Ratchet titles.

There are more, but my memory isn't what it used to be.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Holding A in Fallout 3 & NV allows to drink continuously.

WHAT?! I've spent forever getting myc character to neck drink after drink of radioactive toilet water just to get my HP up, and now I learn this?

RRRAAARRRGGGHHH!!!

 

[regalphantom]

It wasn't until halfway through my second playthrough of Tales of Symphonia that I realized that you could change which character you controlled during battles. Admittedly about half an hour after figuring it out I switched back to Lloyd and never changed it since Lloyd plays like a Ferrari and every other character is like a bus, but still, it would have been nice to know. Also, I still have no idea what the titles do in Tales games. I know they have to do something, but I never figured it out ingame and I've never cared enough to look it up online.

 

[Tilted_Logic]

Not sure if this is broad enough to count, but playing through FFX when I was younger I could never ever figure out how to do Lulu's Overdrive. For anyone who hasn't played Final Fantasy 10, essentially when characters do or take enough damage, their overdrive bar fills, allowing them to use a very strong ability.

Activating these abilities generally required you hit the correct buttons on your ps2 controller or have very precise timing. In the case of Lulu, her overdrive required you spin the right analog stick enough times to build up power.

As a child, I could never figure it out. Went through the whole game being unable to use Lulu's overdrive, and with her being the prime magic damage dealer in the group, I missed out on quite a fair bit of damage.

How you played through the entire game without being able to read is the most impressive part.

"Rotate the right analog stick round and round!"

That comes up EVERYTIME you use the overdrive at the top of the screen.

Just adding insult to injury.

How kind of you to say.

http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=How+to+do+Lulu%27s+Overdrive

I'm not the only one. FFX was the only game I played for the ps2, and that was maybe once every 2 weeks. None of the other overdrives required you read the text to understand how to do them, so when it came to Lulu's I always overlooked that. Didn't play the game often enough to get it, and even if I was rotating the stick, at that age it wasn't fast enough to realize that's what I had to do.

But please feel free to bash me some more. My 11 year old self is pouting.

 

[Kayevcee]

Oh, I had a friend who also had no idea about the critical strikes in Super Mario RPG...somehow. He had a really hard time with the game.

Ohhh... somebody skipped Toad's tutorial. The silly sausage.

I didn't send a single Squad Command in Mass Effect 1 or 2. I knew how to do it- it just seemed like too much of a faff. ME1 in particular has so many other controls already and I found my chaps got on fine on their own so I just left them to it.

I ignored the "survival" food crafting in Fallout New Vegas, just because I wanted to level up the quest-relevant stats (science, medicine etc) as quickly as possible. Now I'm at level 30 and I wouldn't last 48 hours without room service.

-Nick

 

[Gasaraki]

It took me nearly all of my first play through of the first Assassins Creed to figure out how to sprint/freerun (I played on PC), I thought the space bar was just for jumping.

Assassin's creed had absolutely terrible controls on PC. I could understand the modifier-based system on consoles, where you don't really have that many buttons on the controller. But with a keyboard? Jesus christ no.

 

[SuperiorityComplex]

Mass Effect 1 on the PC. I didn't realise for far too damned long, if you have the HUD up, you can right mouse click to move the camera.

I discovered this on Christmas Day a couple of years back, because I was trying to convince my (rather drunk, though he denies it) father that yes, the game *is* playable on the PC. It was definitely fart more of a Eureka moment than it ever should've been.

 

[z121231211]

But please feel free to bash me some more. My 11 year old self is pouting.

I guess I was the only nerd in elementary school who actually read everything that came up in that game. Yes that was my ~10 year old self telling your ~10 year old self to actually read things on the screen when they come up.

...all that really did was make me realize how old I am.

 

[snekadid]

#1 I both missed that i could target individual body parts and that you can zoom with the sniper rifle with the right bumper in Crackdown. I went through the whole game thinking pistols suck and wondering how i was supposed to sniper anyone with that small boost scoping did.

#2 Dungeon siege 3, wouldnt tell me how to save, I even stood on the save point and went into my menu trying to save, after my first death 1/4 of the way through the game and having to start over i raged and found out online you need to hit the use key while exactly on the point....

 

[Tilted_Logic]

I guess I was the only nerd in elementary school who actually read everything that came up in that game. Yes that was my ~10 year old self telling your ~10 year old self to actually read things on the screen when they come up.

...all that really did was make me realize how old I am.

At that age I went through most games oblivious to instruction, if I couldn't figure it out on my own I just didn't bother. Games were secondary for me at that age, and I didn't play them much. So while I appreciate your viewpoint, and how foolish it was of me not to simply grasp the concept of rotating the stick, at that age I just didn't have the mind for it.

 

[hobohazard]

Somehow, (I have no idea) it took me 3 days to figure out that holding down left mouse button in minecraft dug blocks. And another week after that to figure out crafting.

 

[lionsprey]

I can't remember how long it was but when i first started playing pokemon (i think it was yellow) some guy "stole" my Picachu later i found out this guy was the day care man and the reason i could't get him back was because i always showed up with 6 mons in my party.

 

[Woodsey]

Missed the fact that there were actually hotkeys in Skyrim for my first 100 or so hours of play.

 

[Broady Brio]

In Fallout: New Vegas, I missed out on Caravan until my second playthrough.

Then I found out it's the biggest pile of shit, so never mind.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

Never accidentally missed anything, but I do sometimes deliberately not use certain things. For instance I've never been to Falkreach in Skyrim, or ever used the carriages to fast travel to a new hold.

 

[edgecult]

Suikioden 2 on my first play through.. i missed the gloriousness that was the Cook-offs! after I learned of their existance (by complete accident on my 2nd play through) I made sure to wander into my castles kitchen every time I left the castle just to make sure I could keep doing it >.>