Video game lessons learned the hard way

Mega Man 11

• Remember- no shame in using Speed Gear if you have to! Some sections are WAY harder than others without it.
• Auto-Charge Chip is pretty useful. Except on Torch Man's stage, where charge shots tend to cause firey explosions in your face.
• don't shoot the light source didn't super metroid teach you that one
• Bounce Man, well, bounces when you shoot him with charge shots. Mind the trajectory- you'll either get hit by hitting him at an awkward angle, or get much-needed breathing room by knocking him away from you!

Conan Exiles: Yes you can set off your own gas traps. Explosive jars will almost always fall over if you ignite the fuze manually.

Better Boy 11

• Contrary to what other games have taught you, red is not lethal in Acid Man's stage. Nope, bubbling green's what you want to watch for.
• Acid Barrier doesn't do contact damage; at least not without Power Gear. Please unlearn ramming into enemies with a barrier up thinking it'll kill them.
• As with most weapons, Chain Blast's bombs vanish if you switch weapons. So... don't switch off Chain Blast while trying to kill a Gaboyall that's on the same platform as you.
• Don't stand directly in front of this game's stomper-type enemy when it lands. It, uh, has a nasty surprise for you if you do.
• As tiny as a moving platform may be, try not to facetank everything just to keep your footing. Besides, you have weapons- use them! Not everything's just as easy with the Mega Buster alone.

Nuclear Throne: You can run out of ammo and it will kill you. If you don't have a melee or, by a stroke of dumb luck, find one on the level, it will nigh-guarantee a retry.

Project × Zone You have Skills. use them. They're the only way to beat missions that require you to move quickly.

Puyo Puyo Tetris:

Don't make 4 JP alt voice Sigs play Fusion. The "Shigus" are cute and somewhat hilarious until they make lucky chains every minute or so.

"MUUUUUUSHIIIIII"

Stellaris. New players will likely forget you can build mining stations around a systems power source points to generate energy credits and power stations go on planet tiles.

Hunter Call of the Wild. The Bears are masters at stealth. If you hear something softly moving around you while hunting bear with a "Wounded Fawn Predator Caller" the bear is likely behind you not in front of you in the bushes.

Herds will stampede over your happy ass if you are too close and harvest a game animal.

If it doesn't hit a 50-75% blood loss/health loss rate with a low bleed rate after 6 spots give up it won't bleed out.

It is entirely possible to chase Gold or better trophy animal across the entire map and this will take hours and the wind will seem to almost always be against you.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Oct 13th 2018 at 7:32:34 AM

Fire Emblem Echoes (and any post-Awakening game with a "Casual" mode, as well as any Shining Force-style SRPG with a leader unit and no Final Death): Your allies may be able to recover and return for the next stage if they get defeated in combat, but you still lose the scenario if your leader bites it.

Persona 3 FES

• Since you can't control your teammates actions in battle, be prepared to go to tactics a lot.

• Your teammates will occasionally use the wrong attack when fighting an enemy so be prepared for that as well.

• Always use lots of buffs and debuffs.

• If you're low on HP or SP, sometimes it's best just go back to the first floor and call it a day. I've died several times because I didn't know when to stop.

Touhou

• During Patchouli's nonspells, it's easier to dodge if you're not holding the shift key.

• You can only attract point items if you're at full power.

Warriors Orochi 4 The game, like WO 3, doesn't care how much health you lose during a mission. Heck, the Standby mechanic encourages you to play it risky (a good thing, because you have a jump button instead of a dash / dodge button). This is really only a problem if you're more used to recent Warriors games on Nintendo systems, where health loss is a bigger deal (mostly for ratings on Adventure and Scenario maps).

Just don't get too reckless; your active warrior losing all their health is still a defeat condition, even if your other two team members are still at 100%.

Nuclear Throne:

• By the time you reach Frozen City (actually, Crystal Caves) it's put up or shut up time. If you don't have a good enough weapon to one-shot Snowbots/Crystal Spiders in droves, you might as well not bother.
• Golden Crossbow is perfectly servicable to carry you until the end-game - but you'll be sorry if you don't pick up Trigger Fingers along the way, or replace it with an Auto.
• Once (...if) you do eke out a win against Lil' Hunter, expect a Snowbot to take a sharp 90 degree turn through the ice and clip you into oblivion.
• Horror's fun, but you'll have to learn how to aim your beam if you don't want to waste rads. If nothing else, feel free to use it on big and/or stationary targets like Snipers, Spiderbots or Big Dog.

Frames of Armed Conflict: Never pub an Arbitration Survival mission with any frame but Nekros.

Edited by Reflextion on Oct 27th 2018 at 9:37:10 AM

Nuclear Throne: Don't stand on the carpet in front of the Final Boss, you numpty. Then, once you start freaking out, do keep in mind that Blood weapons take your health if you miss an attack, to a point of killing you if you happen to have 1 HP from the boss's cheeky pre-fight attack.

Edited by FergardStratoavis on Oct 30th 2018 at 8:00:24 PM

Terraria:

• Don’t fight the Destroyer near your town. Also avoid being on the ground when he shows up.

• Same applies to The Twins. You want a skybridge, not a platform arena.

Warriors Orochi 4:

The interface is lying to you, there are only three ranks of weapons. A four-star weapon is simply a three-star with 8 augment slots, and a five-star weapon is a four-star with a golden augment.

Hello from page 174!

This game is quite poorly documented on the English-speaking interwebz, and you are like one of the only two mentions of it on all of TV Tropes.

For me, it's "Oh, it's already been out...for seven years?!"

Also nice to see you're still using the Éclair facepalm avatar, Reflexion. :D

Edited by GlennMagusHarvey on Nov 1st 2018 at 12:56:07 PM

Dark Souls; Do not grow complacent with your ability. Enemies you already wrecked a few times can still surprise and fuck you in the ass, given the circumstances.

Lost 30+ Humanity to a combination of new londo ghosts, falls, and the valley of drakes dragons. Falls included in both areas. (Dark Souls 1 having clunky target-lock mechanics didn't help either. Later games improved this so much, why didn't the remaster?)

Playing Fallout 4 and trying a different character type than I normally play. I learned very quickly to not throw grenades at people shooting you with automatic weapons, especially miniguns.

Skyrim: Don't always rely on autosave, especially if that last house/dungeon/cave you exited from to the world map was about 25 minutes ago.

Bejeweled 3 (Steam version):

• Wait, this game has KEYBOARD controls?!

Stellaris: No matter how curious you are, no matter how much you want to explore, no matter what you think you can gain from it.

Never, ever open the goddamn L-Gate before you can regularly spit multiple fleets each with at least 40 to 50K fleet power.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy: Sunny Flight is a piece of garbage and you shouldn't even bother with it. That guide you found? Chuck it out the window because the last train isn't even there.

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise: If you care even slightly about collectibles and/or related trophies, specifically Death Cries, do NOT get any of the "attack up" upgrades before you're done with your collection. You'll just quickly get too strong for the weaker enemies, especially considering when in the game you unlock them

Edited by Zanreo on Nov 20th 2018 at 9:35:32 PM

Persona 3 FES

• Even in the later parts of the game, you can still wrecked quite easily so have lots of items in stock.

• Try mixing different Persona to have as strong an arsenal as possible.