Video game lessons learned the hard way

Fire Emblem: Awakening: If you want to keep Anna alive in paralogue 2, make sure you have at least one unit that can reach her quickly enough because she will get mobbed by enemies she can't fight back against.

Tanto Cuore:

• You have to win for any of your Stars to count.
• The counter in the corner is how many total Stars you need for the next foil card unlock.
• Don't get so wrapped up in utility maids that you forget to pick up VP-scoring maids.
• Some maids have negative VP values.

fire emblem fates: If you're planning to recruit mozu, don't pick the conquest path, she won't be able to get the grinding that she needs there to be a worthy soldier.

Lies of P:

• This isn't a typical Soulslike where blocking is the poor man's answer to dodging. Blocking against anything but Fury Attacks is actually reasonable.
• If you're trying for a Perfect Block, early is preferable to late.
• You can only level up at the Stargazer once. That's what Sophia meant by "its power won't last forever".
• Remember whether you're on the Upper or Lower Belt. Dying because you accidentally used the Grinder instead of the Pulse Cell is not a fun experience.

Lies of P:

• The Puppet String takes obstacles into account. If you try to use it with something in the way, the string will bounce off the interloping object and the Legion is wasted. If you try to drag an enemy to you but there are objects between you and the enemy that the Puppet String passes over, they'll hit the object and the String will disconnect.
  • This does, however, mean you can use the Puppet String to deliberately hit obstacles - for example, it can set off Explosive Barrels or the electric-trap puppets in Elysian Boulevard.
• Unfinished Puppets have a higher resistance to flinching than regular enemies. Wait for them to finish attacking before you launch your own attack.
• Blocking attacks mean you shift position. Perfect Guarding attacks means you don't. This is highly important in areas like the rafters in Chapter IV.
• Standing in fire may not hurt P, but it does build up Overheat.
• Moving around a lot depletes Overheat faster.

Dragon's Dogma II

• Harpies suck
• Harpies especially suck if you try to fight them on the top of a tower. Getting knocked off the edge and falling to your doom classic Castlevania-style is a very non-negligible possibility

Balatro:

• The Hook discards 2 random cards after you play your hand but before it gets scored, so if you've been relying on bonuses granted by unplayed cards, prepare for pain. Similarly, the Arm will drain your hand level before scoring.
• If you think buying the To The Moon Joker will give you interest in a Green Deck run, don't do it. Even if you have money at multiples of 5, the Joker still won't give you interest because the "no interest" clause of the deck overrides it.

Edited by TroperNo9001 on Mar 28th 2024 at 8:42:21 PM

Dungeons of Dredmor:

• The best weapons you find in a run will be weapons you didn't take the skill for.
• All those recipes you're accumulating for the Ingot Press require the Dwarven Ingot Press. The best you can do with the Disposable Ingot Press is omelets.
• Do not expect anything decent from clearing a Monster Zoo or finishing an Inconsequentia sidequest.
• Do not try to clear out a Monster Zoo without a significant stockpile of ranged weaponry.
• Five Fingered Discount doesn't work on shops you already entered before you gained the skill.

Super Smash Bros.Ultimate: Samus Up-B is not the best for recovering, goddammit.

Edited by thescrump on Mar 28th 2024 at 3:38:46 PM

Persona 4 Golden: To get to the True Ending, do not go home on the final day when the game tells you to. There is absolutely zero indication of this in-game, nor what you have to do after that to continue: head to the Food Court one last time to trigger the final dungeon.

Honkai: Star Rail, especially as a 1.0 Genshin player who's been playing near daily.

• As it turns out, I didn't receive the maintenance Stellar Jades from the previous patch drop. Probably because I literally started the story right after it dropped. Damn. Would've been a nice boost before the Aventurine banner comes around.
• Goddamn the title screen music is so pretty.
• Trailblazer is unhinged. It's like Squares if he had a trashcan hyperfixation.
• Taking me some time to remember what each item's 1:1 version in Genshin is, more or less, but I'm getting there. There's also just so much info to digest that I'm sure I'll miss a lot... like Genshin.
• Unlocking the dailies proper and obtaining a healer came surprisingly late in the story, or at least later than I expected.
• I'm sorry, I cannot take that one Underworld song seriously. All I hear is "Nice to meet you, I'm Natasha, an Underworld doctor. Feeling sick?"

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist:

• It took me so long to realize that the game encourages you to level up different stats instead of just focusing on one category. I could’ve done things so much easier.
• Exploring is also encouraged, as not only you can get collectibles to gift to people, allowing for faster friendships/romances, it’s also the only way to get the golden ending.

League of Legends:

• Moving and Attacking are two different mouse buttons. I was dumb, okay?

Balatro:

• If you're down to your last hand, it's an excellent one but it falls short of the target score, but have the Mystic Summit and some spare discards, you can use them all just to activate it and give you that +15 mult to push you to the goal. I was so overconfident in one of my runs that I fell around a thousand chips short of the 7th Boss Blind because I forgot about that joker.
• A corollary to the above: be sure to manually calculate your final hand before playing it. The order of operations is: from left to right, the chip and mult bonuses directly from your played cards + any direct effects on them from jokers before the next scoring card + held card abilities + additional joker effects, also from left to right, unless otherwise stated.

Edited by TroperNo9001 on Apr 4th 2024 at 8:06:58 PM

Dungeons of Dredmor:

• Those recipes that show a dark blue armor piece are Encrusting recipes.
• The game was built with Permadeath in mind, like any good roguelike. Turn it off and it's not entirely sure what it's doing.

Honkai: Star Rail, especially as a 1.0 Genshin player who's been playing near daily... part 2!

• Man, Aventurine went from "hot gambler I wanna pull for" to literally being my favorite character in the game, no contest.
• Also, using him in the story mode? He is really fun to play as. That banner can't come soon enough.
• They also made me care about the guy literally named Dr. Ratio.
• I have no idea what is happening in Penacony's plot anymore. I know I pretty much marathoned through the entire game's main story in a week, so there's a lot that went over my head. I'll still catch the cliffnotes later.
• Yup, boss material drops are still an abysmal amount. Wait, I can convert this stuff to other boss materials? Man, this would be nice in Genshin.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life:

• If you're a quality over quantity person, be aware that skipping on petting and speaking to your cows and goat will do a number on the pace at which the quality of their products rises.
• The best possible farming tools have two requirements. The first is to have purchased the gold version. The second is to have maxed out friendship with one of the non-marriageable characters, a different one for each tool. Who are they? Well, considering I know only because I befriended Romana to get a farm cat and gave money to Pui just because the dearth of content made his crowdfunding sidequest stand out like a sore thumb... And have been able to rule out three people already...
• If your main side gig for money is archeology rather than fishing, it's going to take an inordinate amount of time to see the gold fishing rod at Van's shop. A your-kid-will-reach-adulthood-before-that-happens amount of time.

Edited by Nazetrime on Apr 11th 2024 at 8:53:44 PM

Balatro: Once you play a hand, all the card bonuses will already be set, and you can't rearrange them while your hand's being scored. Technically you can move them around, but the bonuses will already be calculated before the scoring animation plays. Keep this in mind if you're relying on the card positions to maximize bonuses.

Dungeons of Dredmor:

• Keep a considerable stock of non-physical-damage sources on hand. The further you get into the dungeon, the more often you'll run into enemies who resist physical damage.
• Wands require gems to craft.
• Even when they're open, chests block projectiles.

Honkai: Star Rail, especially as a 1.0 Genshin player who's been playing near daily... part 3!

• Hey, maybe I should've done Topaz's and Ratio's quests before starting Penacony, cuz doing them after made me go like, "oh... do they know? They do not know." They didn't count as Trailblaze missions, so that's why I didn't do them. The only reason I even did them at all was cuz I liked Dr. Ratio as a character and Aventurine shows up in audio form at the end of the Topaz quest.
• One of Dr. Ratio's statues' poses does a hand heart. Imma be real, Idk how I've never seen that before starting this game, and now it's one of the best things about him that I adore. I never figured Ratio would be the kinda guy to do that, but now I see him for the Comically Serious man that he is.

Guilty Gear -STRIVE-:

Wild Assaults can have surprisingly good vertical reach.

Edited by SirCleric on Apr 11th 2024 at 1:47:31 PM

Bloodborne:

• The Cleric Beast can be staggered if you hit it directly in the face with a Molotov. Getting the trajectory right is the problem.
• Even if you use the cheese strategy against Father Gascoigne, you can still be hit by the shockwave when he changes forms.
• Never underestimate small, fast enemies.

Subnautica: If you're playing Hardcore Mode, always, always bring water with you. I was exploring the Lost River in my Prawn Suit, started dying of dehydration, hustled all the way back to my cyclops in the Mushroom Forest, and died literally a foot away from the marblemelon growbed.

Baba is You: HIDE is a keyword.

Persona 4:

• The fog shows up as clouds on the weather forecast.
• The boss of Yukiko's dungeon is on the EIGHTH floor, not the tenth one like the guide said.

Puzzle & Dragons Story: It's typically better to make more smaller links than few bigger links.