"Wait, I can do that?"

[JohnnyDelRay]

I was playing Deus Ex: Invisible War and came across this closed door. I was out of Multitools and explosives and was trying to bash the thing in with my fists (to no avail) and after 5 minutes I realized I could right click to open doors normally.

Hahaha! I proclaim this hands-down winner of the thread.

For me, it's usually something like:
- Discovering a rolling dodge or something (The Witcher)
- Discovering an enemy's vulnerability after many failed attempts/ragequits
- Discovering the 'winning' mechanics to a racing game (they are *all* different)
- Discovering an aspect of inventory management (storage chest boxes etc)

One of the biggest would probably be Jagged Alliance 2, throwing lightsticks to expose enemy positions during night ops missions was a monumental aspect in my success. As was throwing smoke directly at my squad's feet, firing a shot into the air, and picking off the enemies that come to investigate.

 

[VincentR]

Wait, you can junction.. things.. to stuff.. in Final Fantasy 8? Wot's all this, then!? I think I got to disk 2 before I had to stop because I couldn't beat a certain boss on the floating SeeD base, or something like that - it's been several years. Mayhap I need to go back, now that I've learned to READ, and try the game again.

However, the most recent thing I discovered on my own was when I tried to play Final Fantasy Tactics the other day for the first time. On the first real mission (after the monastery tutorial fight), I lost several times in a row because I didn't realize I could add several more member to the team. I just thought I could move the single guy already up there around the lay-out screen. And in my defense, I swear to god that there was not a tutorial or something saying to press X, or Triangle, or whatever it is, to add more troops.

Confound you Square! Stop making your games complicated!

 

[Erana]

In Arourum Blade, a buttonmasher action/rpg, I was dumping all my money into health potions.
It turns out that having health sapping spells is pretty much necessary for non END-based characters, and I'd been filling all my slots with more attack enchantments.

I'm a little disappointed in the game for that, but it has a sort of rudamentary, old-school charm and its kinda fun to discover little things that make the game so much easier, like a blind run with a NES game.

Wait, you can junction.. things.. to stuff.. in Final Fantasy 8? Wot's all this, then!? I think I got to disk 2 before I had to stop because I couldn't beat a certain boss on the floating SeeD base, or something like that - it's been several years. Mayhap I need to go back, now that I've learned to READ, and try the game again.

You mean This? [http://youtu.be/-YkI5hAN5FU?t=7m]
I've heard of a lot of people giving up at that point in the game. I thought it was one of the coolest parts at the time. :/

But yeah... FF8 is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of game. I prolly had a better experience than you because I was playing collaboratively with my big sis, (We managed to make every game a collaborative experience somehow) and with two people, getting junction magic and devising tactics for characters and stuff was a breeze.

 

[ZehMadScientist]

In the beginning of Skyward Sword, after diving my bird into the ground like an idiot for a few minutes, I realised you had to press the "Down" button on the remote to jump off. I felt pretty stupid, as you might imagine.

 

[Dethenger]

In Majora's Mask, the Goron level on the moon requires you to navigate sharp corners while rolling at full speed. Or, at least, I thought it did. Apparently the 90 degree turns have things at the end you can just bounce off of. You don't even have to hold the stick. It was like 40 minutes of swearing but then I was like, "Oh!" It was a fuckin' breeze after that.

 

[Sleipnir]

admittedly mine is a case of not playing for months and then coming back, but I was playing Twilight Princess, I was supposed to knock a giant bug over and attack all its legs, it was a pain in the backside, I went away, had an epiphany of "sword spin!" then went "wait no, I'm a wolf," until I accidentally used Midna's special ability and facepalmed epic hard.

 

[go-10]

I kept myself in the dark to everything related to Skyrim and sorta went through the game like a mad man granted I sank in over 200 hours and counting but it wasn't until 150 hours in or so I found out the game has fast travel, yeah so I quickly realized that my 200+ hours are easily brought down to 30 hours at most.
No wonder I wasn't liking this game like everyone else

I'm guessing you've never played the Elder Scrolls before?

yeah it was my 1st Elder Scrolls probably my last too the battle system just didn't intrigue me enough to play it anymore/again

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and after nearly 10 hours I only just found out that I can use a shield to deflect bombs back at bomb-knights (not that I've seen too many of those guys but still)

 

[JackyG]

One phrase that shall be burned into my memory forever...

"Convert to Omni-Gel?"

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

I went through most of the Riddler object challenge...thingies in Arkham City without even realizing that you can activate some of the buttons with exploding gel.

 

[TheFinalFantasyWolf]

Kingdom Hearts 2

My laziness got in the way, and when I was going through the tutorial, I just said to myself, fuck it, and skipped all the bits explaining how to upgrade and summon. I literally went through the entire game, and never once upgraded (or summoned for that matter). I defeated everything with nothing but the first basic attack. It was only on my second play through that I realised I could upgrade my strength, defence, and moves.

I felt both stupid and proud. It was a pretty neat accomplishment, at least to me.

 

[SoulSalmon]

Radiant Historia...
Being able to restore your HP/MP at an inn is a bit of an obvious staple in RPGs, dunno why I didn't try it sooner...

 

[redisforever]

Forgetting I can run in Super Meat Boy. Doing the first boss was torture. Took me about 103 deaths, but then I did it, and felt so proud! Then I remembered that I could run. I did in 2 tries...

 

[RustlessPotato]

This was my friend actually, but he played through the entirety of Dead Space without knowing about stasis.

But aren't there a couple of puzzles that require you to uses stasis? I can't really remember.

O.T Fallout 3, i didn't realize you could have followers.

 

[tmande2nd]

I typically explore mechanics like I have OCD so I dont run into it that much.

However my sister did get through 3/4 of Dragon Age without finding the camp ever.
She did not even think there was a camp. She just thought it was a one time thing and never went back.

 

[MysticToast]

This was my friend actually, but he played through the entirety of Dead Space without knowing about stasis.

But aren't there a couple of puzzles that require you to uses stasis? I can't really remember.

O.T Fallout 3, i didn't realize you could have followers.

That's what I thought at first, so I'm not sure. Looking back though, I think it's all doable without stasis.

 

[Bloodtrozorx]

I recently walked up to my brother who was playing Fallout: NV (Xbox) and noticed he was selling all of his ECP and was manually scrolling up to the max and it was taking awhile. So I asked him why he didn't use RT to jump by 25%. 3 clicks and he'd be at max. He had gone through 5 Fallout 3 characters and Fallout: NV characters without knowing this was possible.

 

[renegade7]

EVE Online. The first 7 months of my career, I didn't know that you were supposed to sustain an active tank for PVE. ...I was strapping on loads of buffer and speed tanking through Sleeper sites and the L4s that I could run with a buffer tank and a faction Afterburner...in a Cyclone Battlecruiser.

 

[Manji187]

I love playing JRPGs. For those of you who remember FF8 and FF9 and the like, probably remember the tutorials for weapons and equipment, various powerups and gems used to do this or that...And I remember when I was 12 when I got my first console. I got Final Fantasy 8 and barely paid any attention to the instructions, partially because I was impatient, partially because I didn't really get it (mostly because I wasn't willing to take the time to consider the meaning of the words I was reading), and partially because I didn't think it was important (12 year olds, think they know everything).

Imagine my surprise when I'd come up to a boss I couldn't defeat and I didn't understand why. Hmmm maybe it's the fact that you haven't upgraded weapons or powers dumbass. So imagine my further surprise when a few years later I'd replay FF8 and find that it's actually quite simple if you just read the tutorial and pay a sliver of attention.

Why are you describing me at age 12? XD

Got FF8 for full price (almost a year's worth of saving) a few weeks after release, didn't read the manual, didn't read the stuff in Squall's desk terminal, must have skipped Quistis' mini-tutorial at the gates. Got out of Balamb Garden, started fighting bugs, giant caterpillars and whatnot, wondering all the time why I could only attack and use items. Yeah, Day 1 was spent in confusion. Good times.

Did you by any chance also manage to attack FF7's robotic scorpion boss while its tail was up?

 

[RustlessPotato]

This was my friend actually, but he played through the entirety of Dead Space without knowing about stasis.

But aren't there a couple of puzzles that require you to uses stasis? I can't really remember.

O.T Fallout 3, i didn't realize you could have followers.

That's what I thought at first, so I'm not sure. Looking back though, I think it's all doable without stasis.

If that's true I think I might do a non-stasis run