Dumb things you did in video games as a kid.

Eventually the starter will have at type disadvantage against a Gym or one of the Elite 4.

The "don't go starter only" advice applies more to Gen1-5. Gen 6 makes it very easy to have subs.

(Swampert has a unique trait among water starters where it doesn't need to worry about Electric, so the only other Pokemon needed to be trained is the Fly user that is likely already in the party.)

Coverage moves help a lot. Especially for water types. Although it is preferable to use a team in gen 5.

I wasn't going for A ranks. I didn't even know score contributed to rank back then.

While it isn't impossible for a starter to overcome a bad gym or E4 matchup they would have to grind to the sky. Time that may have been better spent grabbing another mon that covers bad matchups of the starter—taking into account that it takes more experience to level up each time, and I believe older games also have an experience penalty as well for Pokemon above the level of the wild encounter.

Gen V had the first gym basically be a big Fuck You to people who did this

In other games you were fine as long as you didn't pick the fire starters or Chikorita in Gen 2

X items help a lot.

Well, if X Items or any such planning is involved, I would consider starter-only more of a strategy or a Self-Imposed Challenge now; rather than a mistake a kid does in a video game. But yes, that makes the run more possible.

If it's Tepig, given enough levels and evo to Pignite, it can just Tackle or Arm Thrust the Panpour until it faints...

edited 14th Oct '15 9:42:10 PM by Malco

When I first played Earth Bound, wasn't as good at English as I am now, and I initially mistranslated "worthless protoplasm" as "ruthless protoplasm".

Grind mostly starter in Pokemon, use legendaries.

I was so fucking owned when I forgot Steven wasn't the Champion in Emerald.

I remember playing Kingdom Hearts Recoded when I was younger, and had so much trouble defeating the Dark Side my mother had to take the game away from me./ Note that that boss fight has still been pretty much the only time I've majorly used the Dodge Roll ability.

The first time i played RP Gs like Final Fantasy, i didn't realize you had to heal your party after they got low health from a battle. Had i know this first, my party wouldn't have died quickly after fighting the 1st Boss.

I would often not gib my enemies in Quake II. I thought it was cool to see my gruesome handiwork everywhere. ^_^;;

Wait, but if you gib them...

Ah, I guess there's no bloodstains then.

If you gibbed your enemies in Quake II, they would disappear over time. If their bodies were still in one piece, they would not.

I use to make up my own little stories in certain games and play through the levels in different orders in a way that fit those stories. I guess that's one way to add replay value to them but... Yeah.

It took me until the third-last mission to realize I could buy something other than anti-air cannons in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom after capturing a city. (I failed a spot check and totally missed the arrow signs, and accidentally hit Up on the D-pad when checking a city out.)

On the plus side, the fact that I managed to beat almost all of Yugi’s campaign without knowing how to activate those features is kinda cool.

Ah, time to dig deep into my... uh, repressed fond memories.

Normally the Astroboy videogame on the Nintendo Famicom is a straight up platformer, but there's this puzzle level where you need to punch various graves in a cemetery-looking level and for every punch a japanese character comes out, probably spelling out the clue or clues to the solution. Of course, I couldn't read it so I'd just run out of time. The dumb (or stubborn) thing is I kept trying to replay that level in the hopes that I'll chance upon the solution eventually and move on. Because I must have enjoyed that game and didn't want it to end like that. :D

Let's see here...

Insaniquarium: I never finished the game proper, because I always used the pets that looked the best rather than the most useful ones.

Star Control: I always lost one or two ships from my fleet to a Slylandro Probe whenever one came up. Also, I didn't have the patience for mineral mining, I had to Save Scum constantly because I kept landing my probes on planets with a surface temperature of 1000 C, and tectonic and weather hazards level 6 or more, just because said planet had good minerals, and I never learned how to properly fight the Kor-Ah, meaning that I kept dying every time I went into Ur-Quan territory. I also killed off Tanaka every single time, but that's hardly an uncommon failure. Also, I have distinct memories of intentionally picking fights with the Orz, who would otherwise ally with you without any question. And I probably did that because I thought that their dialogue was so funny that I wanted to try all dialogue options....including the ones in which you keep asking them about the Androsynth....

Tropico: I otherwise made Tropico into a peaceful paradise to live in....but I executed every single political opponent who showed up in the elections, because my stepdad (who was the one to introduce me to video games in the first place) had told me that if they won the elections, the game would end, and that I could always stop them with that. Now, this wasn't so disadvantageous in the game itself, but all the way to the third grade I thought that this was how politics actually worked in my homeland. Hilarity Ensues when a classmate of mine had asked the teacher what makes the president...the president. So, she explained away how elections work, and so on, and I raised my hand, and told them that the president can have his opponents executed if he doesn't want to give up being president yet.

Then, I had Age of Mythology. In which I always built mostly only the big, awesome mythical creatures, and was then surprised on how the opposing AI has a sizeable army of infantry, archers and cavalry alike, while I have something like three Battle Boars and a couple measly trolls. And I never did too well in the campaign missions, since: first, I didn't like playing as the Greeks, second, I used the same tactic as always: myth unit-based army beats opponent with brute strength, and third, since the resources were often too scarce for me to get up to Mythic Age (for maximum variety of mythical creatures) and build these very expensive myth units....you get the idea.

edited 5th Jan '16 4:24:35 AM by ArilouLaLeeLay

I got to the Light World's final boss in Zelda: The Adventures of Link - his name was Agahnim or something like that, some sort of powerful sorcerer. I was having trouble getting my attacks to work, and in my inventory was a bee in a jar (you can catch them or buy them from shops, for whatever reason), so I let it out to see if it would sting him.

I can't remember whether it did or not, though I'm pretty sure it wasn't enough to do any serious damage anyway. (And I was mostly doing this for the lulz as opposed to thinking it would actually work.)

A friend and I also liked to enter purposely scrambled or incorrect codes on the NES Game Genie to see what would happen. Once we were playing the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridge, and my friend hit the flag at the end of one of the levels and suddenly the Duck Hunt title screen came up.

I think everyone who has had a Game Genie (or something similar) has done that. Myself included.

Ever try putting the code "IKAAAE" into Super Mario Bros?

I don't remember doing that specifically, though I do remember some scrambled codes that produced those sorts of graphical anomalies (i.e. numbers or letters appearing in place of Mario's head or something like that).

I used to rent Banjo Kazooie on the N64 from a local video shop like fifteen years ago. Every time I'd start up the game I thought I was playing the opening preview clips of all the worlds lol.

• I beat Emerald with a Lv. 92 Swampert.
• I thought Pokerus was BAD.
• I never input the codes in Animal Crossing due to the disturbing music.
• I thought Kairi would turn into a 4-Legged Monster due to her falling down and whatnot.
• For a bit, I never got past the first part of the game due to the bosses.
• I thought Coo was simultaneously a bird and a porcupine. I also never knew the names of the characters other than Kirby's name.

— In my first run of Pokémon Red back in 1999, I would always delete moves that didn't do damage. I also taught my starter Cut (then again, I did get that Charizard to level 100 so it's not like it mattered too much).

— I fruitlessly tried unlocking all sorts of things subject to Urban Legend of Zelda types of rumors: not only did I fall for the classic Triforce and Mew wild goose chases, I also tried (and failed) to unlock Nitros Oxide in Crash Team Racing only to find out he's not a playable character.

— Not as dumb per se, but there was a time when I would go out of my way to avoid using weapons like the rocket launcher and the BFG in Doom for anything short of Cyberdemons, Spider Masterminds, and certain other enemies (because Too Awesome to Use), only to realize later that that is not really the most effective way to play

edited 25th Jan '16 10:03:35 PM by gnomon

I remember I had an inordinate amount of fun messing around with the Ganondorf fight in Ocarina of Time. i discovered, among other things, that you can use the Megaton Hammer to reflect his shots, using the hammer on the falling blocks will make the one you're standing on collapse, and if you're unlucky enough to have a block hit you on the head you get the 'Link falls into a pit' noise and the whole fight restarts.

edited 29th Mar '16 5:07:11 PM by lalalei2001

My first game console I ever owned was the Nintendo 64 and the games I remember screwing around on were Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64, and Star Fox 64. The former of which I've always died while bouncing on the lava, mostly because of how Mario says Bahaha-hahahahaaaaa. On Pilotwings, I've always crashed the vehicles, because I never knew how to land. In Star Fox, I had no excuse, I just turned the Arwing to its side, and kept going on the ground until I died.