Video game lessons learned the hard way

Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]

• don't get greedy for that extra hit or cool finish and end up dead. back up and heal.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut:

• Be very careful regarding what keys you hit. I managed to punch out a previously grateful policeman due to making such a mistake.

Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: Limitless only lets you bypass the restrictions on weapon-specific skills. It doesn't let you ignore the stance requirements on Ronin skills.

Undertale: Don't kill anyone. Also, fuck you Flowey.

edited 18th Oct '15 11:28:48 AM by The_Mattias

The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes

• When dashing, you do not merely stop. You skid to a stop.
• "Totem" takes priority over "pick up bomb" apparently.
• The trick to Moldorm's second phase is to switch around how the totem is arranged every time he's hit. One two-person totem can't actually carry the fight.
• The Gust Jar fires targets at an angle if they aren't directly in front of you. On that note, when firing teammates across chasms with the Gust Jar it's very much a "one at a time" deal.
• Health is shared. Invincibility frames are not.

edited 18th Oct '15 12:57:29 PM by NesClassic

FIFA 16:

• Forget everything about previous FIFAs.
• Stamina regenerates slowly, and is used up quicker. You simply cannot have the sprint button held all game.
• EA decided that a passing game trumps individuals breaking through defences. Unfortunately, the players are as stupid as before, passing to players who are clearly offside, players onside ignoring passes to let them go to offside players, players not managing straightforward, short passes.
• If doing a career with Tottenham, get a pacier striker who can finish - Kane's positioning and finishing needs improvement before you even consider playing him as a lone striker, you need Son out wide, and N'Jie can't finish (so is better out wide). Berahino is the obvious option, but Embolo isn't bad, either. Oh, and sell Fazio.
  • Also, be warned that there is a 60-70% chance that Lloris will tell you that he wants to leave in January in the first season, more likely if you're not top-4. Keep goalkeepers on the shortlist to prepare for this eventuality.
• Any youth prospects are only worth playing once their stamina is at least 70, let alone any other factors. Yes, even if they're supposed to be a second-half sub.
• At times, the game will give you an utterly horrific Champions League group - think PSG, Roma and Chelsea. (I was Valencia). At that point, if you cannot go through, finish fourth and get out of Europe entirely. Your squad fitness will thank you.
• If you don't mind the fact that he is literally the guy everyone goes for, Breel-Donald Embolo is a excellent buy.
• Don't always give your players exactly what they want. Try slightly lower. Even if he gets pissy and decides he wants to leave for elsewhere, giving him what he wants once he cools down will make him sign. (Of course, don't do this if you don't have a lot of time left to make him sign).
• In a Road to Glory, free agents are gods. Even beyond their abilities to bulk up squads, some of these guys are absolutely amazing. And now you can sign them outside transfer windows. If needed, DO SO.
• Don't be afraid to sweat or score rebounds. You might not score against someone rated 80+ otherwise.

edited 20th Oct '15 10:50:50 PM by arcanephoenix

The Legend Of Zelda A Link To The Past:

• The sword actually has a lower range width-wise than its attack sprite would suggest. An enemy has to be pretty much right in front of you for the attack to register, the beginning and end of the sword swing don't do anything.
• Soldiers are stupid. Like, in the "Inflicts a lot of damage by running around erratically and me not being able to hit them" way of stupid.
• Going to the east of Lake Hylia to get the Ice Rod before the first dungeon may be not worth it because of the crabs there which inflict 2 hearts of damage. And you only have 4 at that point.
• You can't rely on the shield to block damage, because it acts like in Zelda 1 and 2 (always active and only against projectiles) instead of how it does in the other games starting with Links Awakening (manual, blocks projectiles and direct attacks).

The Legend Of Zelda The Minish Cap:

• Even though the engine seems to be based on the one used for Links Awakening and the Oracle games, the behaviour for falling into bottomless pits is different: you don't get slowly pulled into the middle of the hole that triggers the actual fall (implying that Link is slowly slipping into it instead of tumbling in like a rock), you just fall. Instantly. Without a chance to move against it to save yourself.
• You know that one Piece of Heart you can see in the Palace of Winds underneath that grate with a bottomless pit in front of it? Don't try to jump there, you will fall because of a wall that's obscured by the grate blocking you. Thanks, Capcom.
• When swimming, you can only go on land via shallow water. Even though the graphics make it look like Link could totally reach land everywhere else that doesn't outright look like a cliff. Another stupid change from how the GBC games handled things.

edited 21st Oct '15 12:18:28 AM by Jaryl

whoops... wrong thread.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny:

• Chrono appears to be Difficult, but Awesome. Extra, EXTRA emphasis on "Difficult".
• Some characters are unlocked by clearing story mode, but others are unlocked by going through arcade mode, or by yet other means.

edited 21st Oct '15 10:20:21 AM by EvaUnit01

Downwell

• Don't expect to ever get gem-powered gunboots and gem attractor.
• Expect to get a shotgun early-game to hamper comboing.
• You really get nothing more after a combo of 25 aside from an achievement at 100.
• Expect to have some combos end due to having nothing to jump off of, no charge, and blocks to make a full floor.
• Time voids kill any enemy instantly. Keep that in mind.
• Any health earned in excess of cap will work towards permanent health.
• The gun modules' shape is important to tell whether you'll get a heal or two energy.

MGLN A's Portable: GOD

• Reinforce, like Chrono, is also a bit Difficult, but Awesome. Unlike Chrono, her long-range special moves are much easier to use effectively once you get the hang of them. What I learned the hard way, is that Rein's Battle Aura around some of her melee attacks can make it incredibly difficult/awkward to effectively guage what her actual reach is until you've played around with her for a good number of matches or so.

edited 21st Oct '15 10:19:45 AM by EvaUnit01

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom

• If the game teaches you about items, they probably want you to use them, so you shouldn't save them in case you need them on the NEXT mission. Same with equipment. I managed to beat the mission, but it was WAY harder than it probably should've been.

edited 3rd Nov '15 11:14:44 AM by lalalei2001

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade

• Attempting to cheat in a Hard mode campaign as Tau by using the modder kit to make Kroots invincible does not work against Necron Pariahs. The Maximum HP Reduction passive effect of the Pariah's melee attack is unaffected by invulnerability, nor does it cap out at zero HP. Therefore, if the Pariah is allowed to whale on an invulnerable Kroot for long enough, it will cause the Kroot squad's HP to overflow into the negative and crash the game. Whoops.

So the devs thought of or lucked out on that one. What if you went around it by upping damage so the enemy doesn't last long enough for that?

Nah, that would be too easy. I just wanted to tie up their army until I got my shit together. I did the mission on the second try.

Another lesson for that game: do NOT leave the AI alone and in peace for even a minute. I was forced to fire up the cheat mod again because the Tau have nothing that can face down three Baneblades in a row with full armored support. I lost two thirds of my army to kill even one and the AI instantly replaced it, while the only unit I had that could even hurt it had to take several minutes to trek across the entire map at snail-like speeds. Lesson learned: don't pick a fight with late-game Imperial Guard. Just don't.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Balloon is your best friend, Cure is your second best friend.

One more from Super Smash Bros. 3DS:

• Don't waste your Golden Hammers on the Street Smash achievements before you find out you can get them without Streetpassing someone.

So I should waste them on those challenges AFTER I figure that out?

Yes, you really should just to be safe.

Mega Man Zero 1

• The game is very very strict when it comes to S-ranking a level. For example, 97 points still "only" gives you an A Rank in Hanumachine's ambush of the Resistance Base

Bioshock Infinite: Apparently, it is possible to skyline-strike friendlies. Use caution.

Bigfoot Hunter:

• Penguins are the Goddamned Bats of this game. They'll freeze your camera with snowballs then pelt you with ice chunks like there's no tomorrow.
• Shoot the snow leopards before any other critter, or else they'll literally Jump Scare you and count towards your misses.
• During an endurance challenge, just mash the shutter and hope for the best, because you won't last very long.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

• What's worse than the normal partner AI? Guest party member AI! At least the former can be micro-managed with various tactics and turning moves on and off. The latter can't be modified at all, which creates situations such as, "Hey, man, you know what'd be great? If you're going to hide behind me, at least Quick Attack? No? Well, I guess that's cool. I'll just solo this enemy." It also creates situations where I'll line everyone up to lure the enemy into a 3v1 situation and then the guest member will move into the square the enemy was supposed to be lure into and then get attacked. The guest member will also get stuck and lose line-of-sight in corridors, and since I can't tell them to wait, unlike my partner. Said guest member will not only wander randomly (and often away from the party as it tries vainly to catch up), but also keep wandering rather than fighting, allowing the enemies that can often 3-shot the guest to get free shots in. Good-bye Reviver Seeds and possibly even the dungeon. I've since learned to carry around at least one Rollcall Orb or Pure Seed (the former better at the job, but since both have randomly limited supply, the latter can let me take advantage of the fact that using the stairs brings everyone back together).
• Late game common enemies are given stupidly powerful stat-boosting abilities. Namely, Speed-boosting abilities. This can let them get as many as four turns in a row. However, this also backfired for them. After nearly dying a couple times, I remembered that I am playing a Pikachu with Agilty and an inventory with a healthy stock of Max Elixirs. Quadruple Speed and Discharge (room-wide nuke) can trivialize some pretty sticky situations.
• Treating dungeon floor progression like a Lufia 2 Ancient Cave speed run is, unsurprisingly going to leave me under-leveled. This is really a no-brainer, but the game didn't really drive the point home until I ended up with a guest party member who was 10 levels higher than me. Thankfully, the main plot of the game has little that can stand up to Agility and status effect item abuse. I just have to be very quick on the draw with said abuse when I can be nearly 2-shot (as can be attested by several close calls and a couple lost Reviver Seeds).
• Bug Bite is a disgustingly stupid move that can steal Reviver Seeds.

Super Mario Maker: There IS a limit on how many iterations from a given element you can introduce in your levels. Unfortunate, I know. I have been able to work around it so far, though.

Elemental Story:

• PvP matches can be very brutal if you are very unlucky. I got hit with piece denials from 2nd turn onwards for a particular match.
• If you get a team with Nut or Arthur, you better pray that their skills doesn't kill your entire party and the surviving character who attacks next has 3x attack multiplier active on all enemies.
• Morrigan, as a trial boss must be killed in 10 turns with only 2 members or it's an automatic continue screen. Oh, she's useless because of her percentage based attack consumes a lot of pieces that even piece switch monsters won't help much.
• Sakuyahime, Hestia and other 5 star "attack and heal" monsters are more valuable than dedicated healers, except Amaterasu. Even then, don't count her to be able to heal your piece switch monster.
• Always check pattern synergies of your team. You want all members of your party to be able to activate their skills together.

Fallout 4

• The Plasma Rifle shoots very powerful bullets, HOWEVER, said bullets are easily blocked by random terrain. You'd often find yourself using a "guaranteed" V.A.T.S. hit (where the screen pans over to the bullet flying towards the enemy) that hits a piece of terrain, wasting the entire attack.
• The above can be completely neutralized by using a Critical. Critical hits are Always Accurate Attacks, even if the enemy is behind cover. Plus, hurting for huge damage is always a big bonus.
• Like 3, keep tapping the V.A.T.S. button to look out for enemies around you. Very useful at saving your skin, allows you to prevent being ambushed by a horde of "sleeping" ghouls.

edited 17th Nov '15 11:57:59 AM by ironcommando