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

[Altorin]

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.

In Kingdom hearts i purposefully use the default weapon until i get a worse one (such as "Sweet Memories" in KH2)

and someone else made a similar comment about Finak Fantasy 10 and i still can't understand how you actually managed to get that far through the game. I can understand missing out on the sphere grid, its got a stupidly long and boring tutorial 20 minutes in that i remember blindly pressing 'x' to skip through. But i had difficulty with some of the bosses and I did use the sphere grid. I can't see how someone can get through the game with level 1 characters... Unless they were purposefully trying to? (http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs/16203). I suppose I am more congratulating you though for such persistence! some of those bosses must have been a right ***** and you'd have never realised why until you discovered the sphere grid.

Speaking of Ratchet and Clank, I've never actually gotten the RHINO weapons... -_- the shame

It is very possible to play through Final Fantasy X without using the Sphere Grid, it's just really freaking hard, and most people that do it, do it on purpose because otherwise the game is too easy for them. It's meant as a Challenge. I've seen people who beat the game using only Tidus (killing off the other characters) and not levelling him up at all. The only more challenging thing would be No Sphere Grid, No Aeon, Yuna Only challenge. Play the game only with pitiful attacks, items and Cure

I'm sure someones done it though, people do crazy things in FFX.

I beat Final Fantasy Tactics (the first one) using only Ramza, and actually found it EASIER then controlling a whole army, except for a couple fights.

 

[ADDmuse]

This almost happened to me today. I was playing Curse of Monkey Island (while my dad watched) when he tells me I should save. To which I reply, "There's a save function?"
It's amazing how I completely miss this sort of thing with old games.

 

[Altorin]

For skyrim I didn't realize that if you blocked with the shield at the right time it would deflect the blow and do no damage to you, I thought you could just hold it and take less damage or try to dodge out of the way entirely. I know next Patton over here.

Lol, really? I'm a block Advocate (My first major character was a Block Specialist and it was awesome) and I didn't know that

 

[KefkaCultist]

Playing Skyrim for at least 100 hours when I finally figured out that I could have used all these saved up Dragon Souls to unlock all my shouts. I assumed that I wasn't able to use them because I hadn't really done anything of the main quest. I face palmed pretty hard.

 

[Altorin]

If we're counting Intentional things, I played through all of Dead Space 1 without using any weapons except the starting gun. I never once used any other gun, not because I didn't know how to, it was just that the starting gun did everything I needed a gun in that game to do, and when I saw videos of it prior to playing it, I said to myself "I hope you get that gun early, cause that's actually pretty neat". It was the first gun. I was happy with it, never even considered upgrading.

I got the "Use the first gun only" achievement basically by accident. I didn't even know the achievement was there until I got it at the end of the game. I haven't played the game again, so to this day, I've not yet fired any other weapon in that game.

 

[soes757]

I completely forgot about the concept of enemy cards in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I went through nearly the entire game without those. It wasn't very easy.

Oh, thank you for pointing that out, playing through that again and almost spaced.

Fast travel in any Bethesda game, I missed it in Fallout 3 and got used to walking, New Vegas and Skyrim roll around and I forget about them all the time.

 

[Tony2077]

Oh, I know one, the Hacking in Fallout 3/NV. I played through both games 3-4 times each before learning that in the hacking mini game if you find [] {} () brackets, you can get duds removed and get your tries back.

yeah same here I never learned how to hack in fallout 3 or NV

i used the save and pray method myself

 

[Neotericity]

I didn't realize the rocket launcher in HL2 as laser guided somehow made it to the Strider rooftop battle spent a good couple hours firing rockets and immediately running downstairs... I also was not aware of the right bumper cannon for the Mako in ME1. Now that I think about it I do this all the time...

 

[Neotericity]

Oh, I know one, the Hacking in Fallout 3/NV. I played through both games 3-4 times each before learning that in the hacking mini game if you find [] {} () brackets, you can get duds removed and get your tries back.

yeah same here I never learned how to hack in fallout 3 or NV

^^ I just now learned how to hack in fallout.

 

[spaceinvaderj]

Assassin's Creed 2.
I learned that I had a poison blade and money on my third playthrough.
It's not major, but it's certainly a pair of funny and useful features I could have used.
Hee hee, silly flailing guards...

 

[Hosker]

I played through about 3/4 of Dark Souls without realising I could kindle bonfires. Coupled with the fact that I ate the first three Fire Keeper souls made for a very difficult time.

 

[Teshi]

Found out after finishing LA Noire that you can fire a shot to scare a fleeing suspect into stopping. That would have made some of those chases a lot easier.

 

[F4LL3N]

150 hours into Skyrim before I realized you can run. Naturally, I face palmed.

 

[lysanderprophet]

Well, this isn't so much "feature" as it is "fundamental concept upon which all gameplay hinges", but: when I first played Final Fantasy VII, I missed?-which is to say, failed to grasp entirely--the idea of leveling.

...look, give me a break, all right? I was eight years old, I'd only ever played games like Crash Bandicoot and Battle Arena Toshinden before, and I failed to see the purpose in enduring tedious random battles when I could just run away and advance the storyline faster.

I think I was about level 30 when I fought Sephiroth.

It remains one of my greatest videogame accomplishments to date.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Fallout New Vegas's mods for weapons, ammo and stuff. Still haven't done it, I have no fucking clue how

 

[foxlovingfreak]

In tekken 6 story mode I didn't relaize the customiztion options for your charecter outfits affect your overall stats. It was only after trying to beat the nightmare train level and looking for hints on the internet did I relaize this.

 

[yamy]

This isn't a game, but I've used Chrome for 3 years without knowing that you can close tabs by clicking the tab with the middle mouse button (or two-finger tab on my laptop).
Ah well, finding the tiny cross to close tabs was kinda fun, I guess?

Returning to the OT, um...in Super Mario World I didn't know that there was a backdoor to beat Browser. I always thought that the extra mini castle and door were just cosmetic.

I'm surprised how many people didn't know about holding the button to drink in Fallout 3. I thought it was obvious.

 

[replingham153]

I had the SAME problem. The carriages, not the save deletion.

 

[Zyquux]

I didn't discover the Shepard's bathroom in ME2 until after my first playthrough. Not crucial, but still.

While browsing the Mass Effect wiki, I discovered the Phoenix armor (the awful looking one with rather dismal stats a.k.a. Ashley's default) passively regenerates health. GEE THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN NICE TO KNOW. I also didn't figure out until the end game that the "hardening" armor mods increased protection from biotic and tech attacks. I only found this out by reading some of the flavor text.

Wow, Mass Effect is notorious for "hidden" stuff I guess.

A non-ME one I guess: I didn't figure out until SoulSilver (specifically the Battle Frontier) that the stat-reducing attacks (Growl, Tail Whip, etc.) actually were very useful. I've been playing since Silver and always immediately deleted those in favor of damage. (To be fair, I still do, but debuffing in the Battle Frontier is invaluable.)

EDIT: Also, some people need to read the manual and/or pay attention to tutorials.