I can do what now?

[Iwata]

So I was watching someone playing Dungeon Keeper 2, and only near the end of the game did he discover one of the most useful and fun features of the game, the Possession spell.

Did this ever happen to you? Either finishing a game and finding out later that you missed one of its best features, or only finding it near the end?

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Yes, it did. Still does even. Dismissing an ability because it doesn't seem useful or isn't effective right off the bat, is a flaw I'm quite prone to.

A recent example. Before, I rarely used tech/biotic powers in Mass Effect 3, preferring to rely on my weapons. Then I saw someone do power combos in the multiplayer to great effect. I tried to do the same, liked it and now my combat style revolves around using lots of powers with a good heavy pistol to balance decent weapon dmg with short recharge times.

And I'm a far more efficient player because of it.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I didn't notice the line thingy that tells you where to go in Dead Space 1 until my second playthrough. I was relying on the second worst map in existance the whole time...

And to one up the other guy I didn't figure out how to change weapons or use powers in ME1 until my second playthrough. Unintentional pistol-only run activate!

And I didn't notice how the Compendium worked in Persona 4 until the three quarters mark. So turns out you don't have to worry about fusing two decent Personae into a failtastic other Persona that won't help your current situation at all because hey, you can grab those two ones you just lost back from the Compendium just by slipping Margaret some bills while Igor isn't looking...

 

[DoPo]

There was a game called Spells of Gold - as normal for an RPG, you could level up your fighting skills, your magic skills and your merchant skills by practising them. The problem is that I never figured out how to get spells at all, so I never ever managed to develop my character's magical abilities. Only after I finished it I found out that when you visit a temple, you can press tab to buy spells. There isn't any button or any explanation of this in game. Maybe it was mentioned in the manual but if so it would have been mentioned in only one or two places outside the section on magic, as there wasn't anything there. Oh, and I found out about the spells after reading a review that criticised the game for not being clear on the matter.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

As I said in a thread discussing this very same topic less than two weeks ago, I was in the middle of the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2 before I realized I could holster my weapon by pressing Back (Xbox 360).

 

[Rumpsteak]

I played Minecraft A LOT but it wasn't until (roughly) 300 hours in that someone pointed out to me that I could shift click on items in my inventory to auto-place them into chests. The Minecraft inventory is not the best in the world but dang did knowing that make things easier.

 

[Altorin]

in Skyrim, my friend and I ignored Ice Form, because we read that damage broke the effect. Then the first time we used it, it made the fight hilariously easy.

Same sort of thing happened with the Ritual stone. We read it's effect as "raise zombie" and didn't really care for it, but then we actually used it, after a long battle, and all the fallen enemies raised without anyone else to kill, and my friend who was actually playing was like "Ok... time to reload and use that ability earlier, cause LOL."