Video game lessons learned the hard way

Psychonauts: In Fred Bonaparte's stage, there is ONE figment that is inexplicably outside the wooden fence that lines the area. You have to seemingly go outside the boundaries of the level, then go AROUND A DAM to find it. Last Lousy Point indeed.

Fire Emblem series: Do not always rely on the Lords to kill everything, otherwise everybody else will fall behind in later chapters. (although Awakening renders this moot with Second Seals and Master Seals.)

Paper Mario 1 and 2: FP and BP are your friends. Also, use items when you don't have enough Star Power to save you.

Mario Kart series: Red Shells can be just as annoying as Spiny Shells.

Gates to Infinity:

Fuck the Forest of Shadows. Fuck Monster Houses. Fuck Krokoroks. Fuck the slow-ass text speed and the lack of option to speed it up so you have to wait almost a full minute to start playing again when you get KOd. Fuck everything.

edited 7th Dec '14 11:27:54 AM by Midna

Frozen Synapse: Just as you can set your characters' movement and attack orders, you can also try to predict your enemy's movement patterns, but 77.77% of the time, they won't do what you want (obviously). Still, it's a good thing to do in order to plan for worst-case scenarios.

Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends: You'll have a much easier time in Ambition Mode if you power up your characters in Legend/Story Mode first.

Mount and Blade Warband: Reinforcements aren't everything as I got my army slaughtered multiple times.

Pokémon Omega Ruby

The 10 Level difference between Mega-Rayquaza and Deoxys is absolutely irrelevant. ANYTHING you command Mega-Rayquaza to use is going to slaughter Deoxys to hell and back, so just use the Master Ball for this.

I'm going to offer the inverse, which shows much the same thing...

In Omega Ruby, it doesn't matter if you have a 20-level advantage on Steven Stone's Mega Metagross. He will remove your ass, shred it into confetti, and hand your ass-confetti back to you unless you go in with a way to rip through his defenses and take a shot yourself (so far as I can tell, the ways to go are Bisharp, Empoleon, Jellicent, Chandelure, Aegislash, or Steelix - and I'm not so sure about Jellicent, Chandelure, or Empoleon).

I found that Mega Swampert could tank his Mega Metagross pretty well. Then again, it depends on which starter you picked, and it was Mudkip for me.

Oh, on a slightly more humorous note...

Nintendo does not like you making fun of their censorship policies; therefore, the word "Censor" is not allowed when naming Pokemon (the only other word I've tripped across as setting off the filter is "Strata" - interestingly enough, I was allowed to name a Grimer "Backwards").

Super Smash Bros 4 Wii U

- Learn to avoid any and all grabs your opponent can throw at you. Don't and prepare to gain at least 30% damage quick

- Learn to fight Diddy Kong. You'll be seeing him in nearly all matches now...

- Zero Suit Samus has no way of hitting dodge-dancing opponents as far as I know. This is both a good thing (when you fight her) and a bad thing (when you are fighting as her).

- Robin also doesn't have a Down-Smash that hits both sides of him/her. Again, not sure what to do with a dodge dancer when playing Robin.

- Avoid Smashboards

- Do not stand directly below an airborne Pac-Man if there is no Fire Hydrants on the stage. Wish I wouldn't fall for that one all the time...

- All of Pikachu's projectiles count as energy projectiles.

edited 8th Dec '14 2:34:27 PM by Mudkipz

No More Heroes: Yes, you've owned this game for several years. No, you still aren't any better at the baseball mini-games.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

• Never underestimate the usefulness of grenades, especially EMP variants. Just tap-throwing them can stun larger enemies and bosses enough to let you get a good combo in.
• Don't be stingy with Ripper Mode. Fuel Cells are easy to replenish, and you'll save yourself a lot of pain if you pull out all stops against larger UG's like the Mastiffs before they can overwhelm you.
• Ninja Kills are good for more than just style. Sometimes, taking out an enemy or two before the rest notice you can even the odds enough to get you through the harder fights, to say nothing of the free Zandatsu. This is especially true in the Japanese Garden segment — three samurai mooks and two Mastiffs are not something you wanna take on all at once.
• Be wary of when you use heavy attacks in your combos against more aggressive enemies. You can pretty much parry whenever during light-attack combos, but heavy attacks can get you overcommitted and unable to do anything about an incoming attack.
• Tying into the above, Defensive Offense is essential, and not just for unblockable attacks. Remember that you can continue a combo uninterrupted after a dodge, which is indispensable for pulling off the longer ones.
• Don't neglect the secondary weapons. Except for Dystopia. Cheap-ass combo-less piece of shit.
• There's no shame in using as many repair nanopaste units as you need to clear a boss.
• When using Zandatsu, remember that you can use the left analog to move your slash, as well as angling. This is particularly useful in cases like the segment of the Armstrong fight where he throws giant debris at you, since the starting position of your blade is too off-center to get all the cut-points in one strike, meaning you have to move it manually.
• Always make RPG troopers, flying units and Dwarf Geckos your priority. The rest can wait.
• Parrying isn't a cure-all. Watch your windows of opportunity and don't parry too early, or you'll eat a face-full of sword.
• VR Missions can eat a virtual dick.

Dystopia is dead useful. The thing is basically an infinite-use EMP Grenade.

And it has great range.

Eh, maybe I oughta give it another shot.

Anything Nintendo:

Never have the name Conner, or you will have to live the rest of your life referring to yourself on Nintendo consoles as 'Connor'.

The name Conner is considered inappropriate by Nintendo. I was just going to have my name online be Conner, but I had to change it to Connor.

It was sorta in response to an above post, should've clarified better.

Yes.

edited 9th Dec '14 2:11:42 AM by the8thdigidestined

...?

I'm confused.

I'm guessing it's the Nintendo censors kicking in.

Valkyria Chronicles II

• You can get the dud mine potential simply by parking your tank/APC just close enough to a mine that it holds it down, letting your character run on and off it as you please.
• Spec Techs trade the ability to use grenades and mines for the ability to shut down interception fire in a pretty wide range. Handy, but keep in mind that you lose a lot of demolition power for it.
• Do not promote everybody into a side class the moment you can. There are things the base class can do that the side class can't, and you WILL need those abilities
  • Shocktroopers excluded: They're pretty much identical to gunners in all abilities, and both types of weapon function mostly the same in battle. It's the next tier that gives you variety.
• The odds of a hidden potential activating is related to the amount of CP you've expended this battle. You can't, however, unlock it unless you've spent at least 15 CP on the character in this class across all battles.
• Don't even try to unlock Phoenix until you've unlocked a Medic. Just save yourself the trouble.
• Bunkers are One-Hit KO'd by flamethrowers. But that doesn't help if you can't get in range of the bunker in the first place.
• Tanks are armoured everywhere but the radiator. APCs are only armoured on the front, bullets to the sides can still deal scratch damage.
• Don't make a sniper your second in command. They should be spending as little time on the field as possible.
• Unlock as much as you can on Cosette before the June story mission. She unlocks a truly terrible potential, and you want to give it as little time as possible punishing you, since it'll be a while before she gets rid of it.
• Enemies don't care if it's a sniper shot from across the map in the middle of the night: a shot to the front or side always has a chance to dodge.
• Anthem Corps are seriously useful, always try to have one when you can. A buffed engineer can take even a lancer shot from the front and shrug it off.
  • Do not let Maulers end their turn close to you. Even someone under the effects of an Anthem Corps, crouching behind sandbags, in their own base, is going to take a lot of damage from that. As in, if they're still standing an engineer can waltz up to them and kill them.
• Rather than spend lots of CP panicking and rush killing maps to stay out of Audrey's rocket barrages, simply rush to where Audrey is and kill her.
• Tanks are immune to mortar fire. They aren't immune to lightning bolts (without the lightning rod, anyway).

Far Cry 3 - don't go into this game thinking the controls will work in the same way that Far Cry 4's do, particularly if you have spent dozens of hours playing it. Or else you will be doomed to character death due to muscle memory insisting that you hit the wrong key to heal in combat.

Risk of Rain:

• You know the cremator's attack to shoot artillery? It will hit you well before its meeting with the crosshair. Worry about the shot more than the crosshair!
• Be careful when using the artifact that speeds you up when you are at low life. It goes for the enemies as well.

Need for Speed Underground 2:

• If it's a remotely inconvenient location, there will be a traffic car there. Junctions, bottlenecks, they'll even drive into you like you're not there.
• Camber changes are perfectly capable of spinning you out.

Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden:

• You probably would be exploiting Gain and Luck anyway, but you really, really, really want/need to in this game, especially early on (fcking Banpresto Original bosses....). Once the Xabungle plot starts, it isn't as huge of a concern, but you still want to abuse the crap out of Tetsuya's Gain spirit command.
• You may not need a unit that can replenish lost ammo/energy, but you probably do want a unit that can repair HP damage.

Hammerwatch

• There is no mercy invulnerability. This means enemies can be "shotgunned" down with multi-projectile abilities. Unfortunately, this also applies to the player and these attacks are more readily available to enemies.
• The Thief barely lives up to his name, as not only can he not do jack about the various traps in the game, but the guy in full plate has better initial mobility (and still mostly keeps up, even after the Thief does learn his mobility skill).

Lego Racers:

• You remembered the last couple of circuits being difficult. You remembered correctly.
• You remembered the last race being nigh-impossible. You remembered wrong.

And I thought doing the last race in first-person mode was gonna be hard. :/ *sigh* That game is so spoilingly easy. All that's left to do is beat it holding the "look backward" key and then blind. Even the build-a-car thing isn't that great, as stupid as the boundaries are to where you can put stuff. I should've given the sequel another try; I couldn't figure out how to get numpad inputs on my computer, so I gave up on its car builder, and got stuck on some mission or other and gave up on the game. Think I sold it or something; no idea.

Valkyria Chronicles 2

• Dirk Gassernarl isn't going to be beaten by you hitting him with giant swords or exploding hammers. Dirk Gassernarl is going to be beaten by you stunning him with a flash bang, and then taking his head off with a sniper bullet.