Useful features you didn't realize where in a game?

[axlryder]

Megaman 7

It wasn't until years after I'd first played and beaten the game that I realized there was a shop in it. Seriously, you'd think they would have pointed it out a bit better, rather than presuming you'd have the manual or just happen to press the select key on the stage select screen.

 

[saintdane05]

Sonic Advanced 2: I could press "R" and up to do a high jump.
THis is mandatory in some areas. And you are NEVER TOLD ABOUT IT!

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Kingdom Hearts 2. I went through the whole game with no abilities added on Sora, Donald and Goofy. The whole damn game. I do not know how on earth I missed such a huge feature of the game. I just do not know. But hey, I made it through the whole game on normal difficulty like that, so that counts for something right?

I don't think you can make it through the game without abilities like glide and such.

That's Kingdom Hearts 1, KH2 has no required abilities to my knowledge

 

[hazabaza1]

Another one from Dark Souls

Did you know you can zoom in with the camera when using the bow or binoculars?

I didn't.

Explain thineself.

OT: Can't think of much, I tend to explore most mechanics fairly well.
I suppose the throwing trick in Disgaea 2 and above (don't know if it was in 1) but I think that was meant to be obscure.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

playing fallout 3 for 12 months and then discovering you can simply hold down a button to continually drink rather than having to constantly press it over and over

WHAT!? I've had that game since day one and didn't know about that...

---

There are a ton of games that have online-only multiplayer. I know I'm not the only person who can't connect any of my consoles to the internet. A lack of local or, bot-matches means that I have a pretty large portion of such games cut off from me. Also I never really saw the point of Forge mode in Halo whatever but this going back to the internet issue.

 

[The White Hunter]

It took me about 30 hours on Skyrim before I realise how to set quick select on spells and weapons using left and right on the d-pad.

Final Fantasy X: didn't know how to open the menu until I got Ixion. No instructions and nothing had ever been triangle to open before.

WHAT??!! How... what??!! You NSG'd up to Ixion on your first run?! How did you manage to not die on like, Sinspawn Gui?

I have no idea, blind luck and and a gigantic pile of healing items :S I remember a few bosses taking hours to kill.

Haha, I can imagine. Let me guess; Chocobo Eater pushed you off the cliff, you cursed every time Bombs and Garudas appeared and Lord Ochu was a nightmare? (if you even bothered to fight him). I bet you felt the difference once you realised what to do with those sphere levels though.

I killed Lord Ochu, dunno how I managedm and yeah the chocobo eater threw me off, but to be fair he did that sometimes anyway just by being a prick. The scorpion-esque sin spawn was hard as fucking nails! I did realise the difference when I could actually level up xD decimated everything for the next ten hours or so!

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

CONTROL AND SPACE AND MOUNT AND BLADE WARBAND.

Holy shit, for those who don't know it speeds the entire game up by like 6 times or something, it's ridiculously useful for not getting bored, and is supposed to be in the game - not considered cheating cause everything speeds up with you (gotta be careful about enemy troops a lot more now).

yeah this, i put in like 60 hours before i figured this out on one campaign...i was soooo mad about that.

I played a few hundred hours of TF2 before I figured out how to Rocket Jump... :/

I still can't fucking do it for shit, which bugs me because I love playing the soldier class. oh well, back to pyro class where I make it my personal goal in life that day to ruin every spy's game.

OT: this isn't HUGE, but it's a feature I would've loved to know how to do off the bat, saw a friend do it and i was like "WTF IS THAT! CHEATINGGGGGG!" but it's just an awesome feature:


"gliding" in brawl

 

[sunsetspawn]

In Dragon Age 2 on the 360, after I beat the big giant rock monster I checked a youtube video for an easier way to do it because it was unreasonably difficult and I was only on Hard, not Nightmare. Lo and behold, you can move your guys around like it's a PC game with the upper left icon in the pause wheel. Holy fucking balls, that's made things much easier, especially considering the combat just keeps getting harder in the second act.

Was that feature available in Origins? Did I play all of Origins and Awakenings on Hard without knowing about that? I'll admit that Origins was easy enough without it that it didn't matter much, but am I really that oblivious?

 

[Mojo]

I didn't realize the Mako has rockets until the Prothean ruins.

You mean the little jump jet things? Or does it have actual "BOOM" rockets?

I mean to say the Mako shoots rockets.

Also, I'll say that Rooster Teeth's Geoff completed Crackdown without realizing you could lock onto enemies.

ok, seriously, do you mean he main gun cannon? Hitting the right bumper? Because if somehow I missed "Mako Has Rockets" in my 10-20 full playthroughs of Mass Effect 1, I may just have to kill myself out of sheer stupidity

It has actual boom rockets from the main gun. Its the right mouse button on the PC. That thing one-shots most Geth ground forces.

OT:
Sprinting in Skyrim and that you can hold the heal spell in Skyrim.

 

[shadyh8er]

I will never forget the time I learned about "priming" in Tekken 6. Basically you hold down one button in preparation to press two buttons at the same time.

It helped me with a mix-up with Alisa where you do a move using Back+Square, then another one which is Diagonal Forward+Square+Triangle.

It also helped me predict what kind of throws people would go for depending on what moves they did. Like if I see someone throwing left punches, I can predict they're going for the throw where the left hand reaches out, and this allows me to break them.

 

[kasperbbs]

I was half way through the first island in Farcry 3 before i noticed that spots where i can find different types of animals were marked on the map. That made the game a lot easier since i could craft some bags for ammo and carry 4 weapons at once.
Running out of ammo every 5 minutes was beginning to annoy me.

Captcha: 'call me maybe', really?

 

[corneth]

Save points, for the first half of Shadow of the Colossus

 

[wabbbit]

In Chaos Theory I didn't realise you could hack wirelessly till like 50% through the game - even then I didn't bother, which made my playthrough a lot harder! (but worth it)

 

[syaoran728]

I played all of Valkyria Chronicles without realizing that the weapon upgrades went beyond the first three. For some reason it never occurred to me to scroll down.

 

[teebeeohh]

I don't know how to parry in dark souls.
And I never knew the drinking thing in Fallout but I never felt the need to drink a lot so I may have already forgotten this by the time I replay it.
It took me three years to figure out you can bind camera positions in the original starcraft

 

[magicaxis]

I didn't realise you could throw grenades in Crysis 2 until my third playthrough

enchantments in oblivion

There were enchantments?

Yeah, apparently you could make your weapons set fire to things, or do more damage, etc

 

[Satan]

I finished red dead redemption not knowing of fast travel.

 

[That One Guy]

Yeah, apparently you could make your weapons set fire to things, or do more damage, etc

Oh yeah, you had to use the sigle stones you got from closing oblivion portals. That's probably why I had a pile in a desk in my Lyawiin house.