History CuttingTheKnot / VideoGames

*** Early on in the fifth dungeon, you have to deal with ice by aiming stationary cannons with hidden cannonballs at it, carefully avoiding it, and so on. Later on, you can pull out your Ball and Chain and go to town smashing it.

*** The Myahm Agana Shrine features a rather challenging ball-rolling maze similar to the Rollgoal minigame of ''Twilight Princess'', but controlled entirely with the motion controls of the Wii U [=GamePad=] or the Switch's control options. Naturally, you can turn the whole maze over by flipping your controller upside-down, and letting the ball roll on the flat underside. That, or tilt the maze so that when the ball respawns, it's dropped into the final stretch rather than the start.
*** Setting foot on Eventide Island starts a challenge where Link is [[NoGearLevel stripped of all his equipment (including materials and food)]] and pits him against all sorts of monsters, including a [[GiantMook Hinox]], in a quest to recover three orbs and drop them onto pedestals. You can partially subvert the no-gear part simply by dropping your stuff on your raft you used to get there before you touch the shore, and then pick them up again when the challenge commences. However, upon completing the challenge, whatever you found on the island is lost, [[NoFairCheating including your own equipment that you "scavenged"]] (although you could just drop them again before you put the last orb in the hole).

''(Ratchet pulls back his wrench to smash the glass)''\\
'''Clank:''' Hold on. ''(looks at a smaller glass case with a rock inside)'' This one says, "Use rock to break glass to get wrench [[TheKeyIsBehindTheLock to break glass to get rock]]." Oooh! I love logic puzzles! Let's see, if you break the glass with the-\\
'''''*SMASH*'''''\\
'''Ratchet:''' ''(has broken open the wrench's case with his own wrench)'' Solved it!\\
''(victory music plays)''

* In the ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' DLC ''Old World Blues'', a challenge/experiment involves securing a document without being spotted by patrolling robots. One solution is to destroy the robots, then start the test. Likewise, a later part of the test involves getting past tripwires in the same test. You can disable those before (or during) the test then walk right through them. The latter two portions of the test can't be cheated, though. For extended knot cutting, if you have a high enough lockpick skill, you can bypass the test entirely, and just get in the final room through the back stairs. Or get to the observation deck above, blast the force field with upgraded Sonic Emitter and drop in the final room below.

** In Survival, the default game mode, there are [[RuinsForRuinsSake temples just sort of lying around in the jungle]], with an elaborate series of levers connected to the treasure room. You're supposed to solve a puzzle involving the order in which you pull them, but provided you know how the traps are arranged, and with some care even if you don't, it's much faster to tunnel down to the treasure room and get at the goods. And then break down the traps and steal their materials to make your own.

** The boss Wrexsoul can be rather annoying to defeat; he possesses a random party member at the start of the fight, and you're intend to kill your characters one by one until he reappears so you can attack him. Or, you can just cast Banish on his minions that he leaves behind. Those minions are ''supposed'' to respawn endlessly, but Banish delays their revival script one turn, so if it takes on both of them at once, they die and take a turn longer to revive; the game reads the enemy party as all being dead and you win. Notably, this still works in the Game Boy Advance version of the game; while that version fixed numerous bugs (like Vanish/Doom, and the evade bug), this alternate method of defeating Wrexsoul was left in. As winning the battle in the knot-cutting manner does not give the player loot or experience from the battle (but still allows Cyan to unlock his full potential in Bushido), it's a bit of a trade-off.
** Number 024. He appears soon after you get magic, and he [[BarrierChangeBoss changes weaknesses at will]], giving the idea he's a test of how good you are at magic. The thing is he lacks the same insane physical defense that everything else in that dungeon possesses, so you can just beat the tar out of him with your weapons until he goes down. To make him even weaker, you can demonstrate your understanding of ''status'' magic and cast Imp on him leaving him only able to do physical attacks.
** There is also its PaletteSwap, Magic Master. Due to his location, you can ''only'' use magic, and you're supposed to use your strongest magic to beat him, and he's also a BarrierChangeBoss. Or you can just cast Berserk on him so he can only do physical attacks, which you have any number of ways to neuter to render him entirely incompetent. Also, when he dies he casts [[FantasticNuke Ultima]] on the party. You're supposed to use Reraise to let him kill you and then automatically revive, or you can use Rasp to drain his MP so he can't cast it. Oh, and if you don't wanna worry about his elemental shifting, don't; by this point your party can easily all have access to Flare, which is non-elemental and out-damages most elemental spells anyway.

* The final boss fight in the optional "Me and My Nemesis" sidequest in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' is preceded by a rather brutal stepping stone puzzle situated directly in the [[ConvectionSchmonvection heart of a volcano]]. Getting stuck will prompt you to "Swim Back to Shore," and will cost you a decent amount of health points each time this option is taken. Doing so enough times [[AntiFrustrationFeatures will eventually reveal a new prompt,]] labelled "Skip this Bastard Maze."

** During an early prep mission of the online Doomsday Heist, you are required to obtain an Ambulance. While you can travel to a hospital and take one from the parking lot, or get lucky in finding one randomly on the road, there's always the option of simply calling for an ambulance to come right to your location.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', there is a point in which Wheatley must "hack" open a door. He tells you to turn around, then smashes the window, allowing Chell to portal herself into there. He does the same thing when attempting a "manual override" on a wall.

** Relatedly, ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany'' and ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'' allow this by way of the Frostbite engine, especially in multiplayer; you can either force your way into the building housing an M-COM station, set it to detonate, and keep the other side away until it blows up, ''or'' you can shoot at the walls around it with a tank or RPG until the entire building collapses and takes it out.

* In one mission of ''VideoGame/{{SWAT 4}}'', you can choose to enter a building through the back door. However, the door has metal bars on it to prevent its use. Instead of removing the screws, bolts, or whatever held it together, the team simply attaches a hook and rope to a car and the metal bars and have it pulled away from the weak bricks. This is probably TruthInTelevision given the amount of research and realism the company put into that game.

* ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'':
** In [[VideoGame/{{PAYDAY 2}} the sequel]], Bain usually has a "Plan B" for any heist that can be stealthed, which usually involves having their chopper pilot dropping you a thermal drill or some other explosives to breach the door to the safe. There are also several doors that can be blown with C4 or just flat out have their locks shot. You can also either slowly lockpick each and every deposit box...or bring a high powered saw and blaze through them in a matter of seconds. The same goes for mission critical civilians; you can either shout at them to get them to cower and tie them up, move them to a place that can't be seen and then get the item, or you can just shoot them and bag the body (and, in some cases, just flat out shoot them into the water where no one will see their corpses).

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' invokes this in the "Tiny Tina" DLC. Tina (as the GM of a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''-style tabletop game) creates a Rubix Cube type puzzle for the players. You can either attempt to solve it (by pressing the buttons in the reverse order of when they activated when you first enter the room), or you can simply punch the puzzle. Solving the puzzle however unlocks a door where a loot chest is hidden.

* In keeping with the phantom thief theme of ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'', all of the major boss battles bar the fifth and seventh ones involve the player performing "special orders" that serve to debilitate the boss in a more efficient manner. A good idea in practice, but some brute force render the orders virtually useless for the second and third bosses, while the orders for first, fourth, and final bosses are not optional at all. To elaborate on the former two:

** ''VideoGame/Dishonored2'' gives us the Dust District, in which you're tasked with breaking into a mansion secured with a supposedly unsolvable puzzle lock. In order to learn the solution to the lock, you have to get involved in the complicated politics in the Dust District, either taking sides in an ongoing gang war or playing both sides against each other. But in reality, the puzzle is merely ''difficult'', not actually unsolveable, and there's nothing stopping you from solving the puzzle, waltzing straight in, and skipping 90% of the level.

** Steve? is an unlockable character in the NintendoHard ''Super VideoGame/MeatBoy'' and can make most levels extremely easy because he can literally mine through the level to the end.

* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'': Dante, while trying to return to town in his section of the fourth game, comes across a board game/puzzle that Nero had to stay and waste his time with previously in the Cathedral's basement. A statue of Dante and the die appear prompting him to play through with it to leave the room. Deciding not to waste his time while poison gas slips through the room, Dante slices the die in two, ending (and somehow winning) the game prematurely.

* All the minibosses in the Run N' Gun levels of ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' can just be dashed through with the Smoke Bomb upgrade or, if they're spawn animation is slow, you can run right past before they appear. Not only does this save you having to actually fight them, but it's also the only way of getting the Pacifist rating in these levels.

* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' features a mission where CJ must quickly gather boxes of explosives, with a time limit indicating when the man at the detonator will set them off. Alternatively, CJ can just kill the man, which makes the timer disappear.
** In a later mission, as part of CJ's preparation for the Caligula's Palace heist, he needs to obtain a keycard held by a female croupier. The standard approach is to date the croupier and going through the standard and time consuming raising of RelationshipValues until she gives him the card...or CJ can just kill her, take the keys to her house and get the card there.

** In the ending of ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellPandoraTomorrow Pandora Tomorrow]]'' [[spoiler:Sam encounters a TimeBomb that will spread smallpox throughout the ventilation system of Los Angeles International Airport when it goes off, and he doesn't have the time to defuse it or get it far enough away from people to not endanger lives. He ultimately just takes it and leaves it in the main terminal building, knowing the bomb squad will show up with the proper gear and training to contain it for him (which they do)]].
** In ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellChaosTheory Chaos Theory]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellDoubleAgent Double Agent]]'', locks can either be slowly but quietly unlocked, or Sam can cut through them with his blade. This makes a lot of noise, and enemies are smart enough to know when doors have been tampered with.
** In the same game, in the "Displace" level, Sam has to get codes from a laptop by accessing it wirelessly. This would require Sam to stalk the men carrying the laptop. Or he could just use his gadgets to take them down by force.