"Wait, THAT'S how they wanted me to play?"

[MCerberus]

According to many, the concept of spending half of my turns in Fire Emblem in what I dubbed "The shipping ball" arranged in precise order to maximize support gains was incorrect.

Other, wiser people made fun of my inefficient shipping.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

Spyro: the last dragon for the PS2.

The short lived gritty reboot had quite a few things going for it. It was a third person hack and slash where you could dodge an parry every enemy attack + you hadd four fighting styles depending on which of the four elements you are affiliate with.

Like in dark souls, if you had propper timing, it was possible to avoid all damage, so when I was splatten in to mush by enemies repeatedly, I nevertheless felt like it was my fault. I really enjoyed it because of the difficulty and the breathtaking enviorents. It took me a good while, but I've beat the game and started New Game+

I encountered one of those orange cristals that I've though to be just a part of the enviorment. It turns out that the powder you get from them is actually upgrade points.

So, it turns out that the game wasn't designe to have such a difficulty curve, I just never realized that you could upgrade your abulities and health. After being taken to the upgrade screen, I instantly maxed out all of the stats and returned to the level and proceeded to clean rooms by doing a single special attack. I took out the first boss in seven secods because of how overleveled the character was.

I quit the game shortly after the first area, since all the stakes were lost.

Now I imagine some guy unintentionally beating dark souls using nothing but fists.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night I would always get the wolf form and continue up through the clock tower because it is the next area you come to. It involved some tricky jumps and using the wolf run on the stairs to jump higher to reach a high ledge in the tower. This being the item I just found and the area you are next presented with I kind of just assumed it was the way you were supposed to go.

Turns out you are supposed to go grab the magic gem thing from the library and then go WAAAAAAAY over to the west side of the castle to open up the church area. Let me tell you, going through that place for the first time from the TOP down is way easier. Especially with all those birds and the guys on the stairs lol.

 

[FrozenLaughs]

Literally any game that has abilities that grant you temporary upgraded stats or buffs.

Seriously, I have never bothered with those elements in games. Repeatedly shooting/hacking/beating/blasting things has served me pretty well so far. So when I get stuck on a level or in an area in such games, its usually because I didn't use some buff/debuff or I didn't level it up high enough.

Seriously, this. Why would I waste a turn casting a buff that gives me +25% damage for 3 turns... I've traded 100% of a single hit for 75% of one spread across 3 turns. Why waste an attack by lowering the enemies defense, if the extra damage gained only equates to the single attack you lost? I've always hated that mechanic if it's not actually thought about.

 

[zombiejoe]

Undertale. For some reason the game wanted me to play the game either as if I were a genocidal murderer or a tree-hugging hippie, with no middle ground at all.

But the middle ground routes have some of the most diverse endings.

 

[aozgolo]

In most JRPGs instead of progressing the normal way of the slope or the curve, my progression would look like a staircase, that is to say I would grind in an area for a really long time and get insanely powerful and strong, then I would rush through the content, defeating bosses left and right, and I'd keep going and going until finally hitting a wall, something that I couldn't defeat... then I'd repeat the process over. So it'd look like this

Grind > Grind > Grind > Grind > Grind > Progress > Progress > Progress > Progress > Progress > Repeat

Whereas I feel most JRPGs intend you to alternate a little more often:

Grind > Progress > Grind > Progress > Grind > Progress > Grind > Progress > Grind > Progress > Repeat

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Undertale. For some reason the game wanted me to play the game either as if I were a genocidal murderer or a tree-hugging hippie, with no middle ground at all.

But the middle ground routes have some of the most diverse endings.

I didn't get to the end at all. One of the most repetitive games I've played recently.

 

[Auron225]

When I say "they", I don't even think "they" means the studio as a whole, but rather whoever had the job to deciding how Ranking works in Valkyria Chronicles...

You're awarded a rank at the end of each operation, based SOLELY on how many turns it took you to finish. Not on how many enemies you took out, not on how few of your own got killed - ONLY on how many turns it took. The ranking system actually discourages you from playing it safely and would sooner you just scout-rush everything without a care for your troops, leaving them exposed wherever you may leave them, and only using the soldiers labelled as Scouts. I honestly can't imagine that was the intention at other stages of development - but whoever came up with the ranking system clearly wasn't in communication with... anyone else at the office.

 

[Angelblaze]

Bloodborne.

What do you mean there's a quest I can do to make this boss easier? I literally spent 4 hours now grinding to kill this sunova -- screw it. Wait...what? Some enemies...have weaknesses? Wait wtf is a viseral attack and how do I do it?

Yeah, yours truly beat the Caster Beast first time, as their first boss, on the first try, not knowing he was optional.

 

[maninahat]

I remember when I was playing bayonetta for the first time my friend was getting annoyed with me because I would just casually walk around enemies shooting them from a distance. I was rarely getting injured for the longest time in the game and it drove him insane.

I was similar - in a game where you have four guns attached to your limbs, it seems intuitive that you should be shooting everything, not kicking them.

EDIT: the first time I tried a Diablo (or a Diablo clone, I can't remember), I instinctively ignored the enemies and ran full pelt through the dungeon. It might have worked to, had my pack mule not got log-jammed amongst the ever growing Benny Hill parade of monsters chasing after me.

 

[maninahat]

Literally any game that has abilities that grant you temporary upgraded stats or buffs.

Seriously, I have never bothered with those elements in games. Repeatedly shooting/hacking/beating/blasting things has served me pretty well so far. So when I get stuck on a level or in an area in such games, its usually because I didn't use some buff/debuff or I didn't level it up high enough.

I hate buffs too. They are tedious to manage, and they take a lot of the mysticism out of magic, potions etc. Oh, there is a magic elixir I can buy that makes my attacks 17% stronger for exactly 27 seconds? What a peculiarly specific thing for a medieval magician to sell. Buffs in their most simplest, non-mathematical, non-intrusive iteration I can just about manage. Everything else though is just boring resource juggling.

 

[Jandau]

I love Europa Universalis 4. I used to think I was pretty good at that game. Then I went and watched DDRJake's playthroughs, showing how the game is actually played. Then I went and cried in a corner for a few hours. Basically, I was writing diplomacy off as a stopgap measure at best, when it's in fact the most powerful tool in the game, allowing you to win against seemingly impossible odds.

 

[votemarvel]

The Batman Arkham games always irritated me a little. I stealthed though most of the games but then you are forced into straight up fights.

I'm the goddamn Batman, there is always another way.

 

[Saulkar]

Command and conquer red alert 2.

I replayed it recently and as it turns out making more buildings of the same type makes building units faster.

OH, MY, GAWD!!! How did I never figure this out myself?! I had put at least 200 hours into that game back in 2004 and never once realised!

How the hell do you make a mechanic like this and not explain it once in the entire game? Jesus christ.

I know, right?!

Literally any game that has abilities that grant you temporary upgraded stats or buffs.

Seriously, I have never bothered with those elements in games. Repeatedly shooting/hacking/beating/blasting things has served me pretty well so far. So when I get stuck on a level or in an area in such games, its usually because I didn't use some buff/debuff or I didn't level it up high enough.

Same, this is one thing I could never micromanage. I would just grind it out rather than min/max and track every single buff and debuff in order to "play" the way I was supposed to.

 

[Guffe]

I mustbe doing something wrong in Xenoblade Chromnicles X since I am on mission 10 and yesterday clocked 100 hours...
I don't think it's supposed to take that long?

 

[Wolf Hagen]

Nothing that happened to myself.... but a good friend of mine, once beated Psycho Mantis with the Controller in it's usual place.

Wasted almost all of his Ammo on the guy, before getting his knife out and knifedance him to death, just because he didn't get, that the Controller was supposed to go to slot 2. XD

 

[Zen Bard]

Command and conquer red alert 2.

I replayed it recently and as it turns out making more buildings of the same type makes building units faster.

I found this out after beating it countless times over the years, it was one of the games from my childhood that I absolutely loved and it confuses me that I had the patience to wait for the extraordinary long build times to get the forces together to destroy the ai. It just blows my mind how easy the game gets when you know this. You no longer have to be very very careful on what you build and how you use them, instead you could just zerg rush the enemy. I dont know whether i should be happy or embarrassed that i bet it on the hardest difficulty not knowing that, I put it down to a misspent youth..

Yup. I discovered that when I accidentally I clicked on the wrong facility and built a second barracks by mistake. But my soldier production doubled!

I also learned the hard way that my strategy wa all wrong. I used to methodically build up my base and my forces, then send them in search of the enemy locations. Seemed to make sense to me.

But when I'd play co-op with a buddy of mine, the first thing he'd do is build a barracks and send four soldiers out in each compass direction. He always discovered my locations first and brought the hammer down before my defenses were adequate.

Turns out this is a fairly common strategy.

 

[DoPo]

I also learned the hard way that my strategy wa all wrong. I used to methodically build up my base and my forces, then send them in search of the enemy locations. Seemed to make sense to me.

But when I'd play co-op with a buddy of mine, the first thing he'd do is build a barracks and send four soldiers out in each compass direction. He always discovered my locations first and brought the hammer down before my defenses were adequate.

Turns out this is a fairly common strategy.

Yeah, it is. You always start out with units, as well, at the very least, it's 1 tank and you can send that one scouting. Very rarely do they have anything else to really do - at most, on some maps, they can break a bridge, thus severing access to you but on most maps, I'd just let them scout. The Soviet tanks suck in that regard, since they are really slow, however, at least every race would have dogs and you can always build barracks then dogs - they are fast and have really good sight radius. After they find what you're looking for, you can use them to fetch crates and protect against spies, paradrops as well as enemy infantry rushes.

 

[Pyrian]

Then I got to the final battle against Malak and he is pretty much immune against a strategy that works in every single battle beforehand.

Wasn't his apprentice also basically immune to normal stun? Anyway, if you save up your thermal detonators you can stunlock Malak with them, build more-or-less irrelevant.