Video game lessons learned the hard way

Ys: The Oath in Felghana:

• The boss of the Quarry exists to see if you found the Ruby. Without it, you're going to do 2 damage per hit - against a boss with 400 HP (on Normal).
• If the attack is shorter than Adol, you can jump over it. If it's taller than Adol, get out of the way.
• The lady at the counter in the blacksmith shop sells equipment.
• Don't waste all your Ravel Ore on your starting equipment.
• There are no healing items, and even if there were, you can't access the menu during a boss fight. Don't get hit.
• If you're playing the Steam version with a Dualshock, the menu button is clicking the right analog stick.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Challenger Pack 9

• It's hard to overstate how slow Pyra is, she's one of the least mobile characters in the game and a lot of her attacks have windup and leave her open after the fact. If you hit someone with her, you'll want to switch to Mythra to catch up before going back to Pyra.
• Prominence Revolt doesn't grab the ledge if Pyra's facing away from it.
• Prominence Revolt's explosion is massive, but it only hits in front of Pyra. If the opponent slips behind you you're going to eat a meaty attack for your trouble.
• Flame Nova does a lot of shield damage at any charge, but it's also unsafe if it doesn't hurt the shield enough to poke.
• Mythra's ability to recover back to the stage is better than Pyra's... but still not good.
• Flashy as the attack is, Photon Edge is horrendously unsafe on block or whiff- only use it if the opponent can't avoid it.
• You can turn Lightning Buster around before the attack starts. Do this to hit opponents when they move behind you, not when you expect them to move behind you.
• Ray of Punishment and Chroma Dust get blocked by platforms a lot, so consider using other out-of-shield options when on stages with platforms.
• Blade Switch which is a cooler name for the attack than Swap to Pyra/Mythra isn't a "get out of disadvantage" card, you're still briefly vulnerable for a moment after swapping characters.

• Azurda's pretty spiteful when he wants to be on the Cloud Sea of Alrest stage. Be mindful of when he's going to move his head!
• The Amalthus spirit battle is exactly as fun as you'd expect a 1v4 against a team of Robins to be.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: If you find a new Quartz in a dungeon, equip it. It's most likely going to be a Quartz you'll need against the upcoming boss.

Octopath Traveler: If you're trying to grind for XP or JP by stacking Bewildering Grace with Aelfric's Blessing, always always always make sure that your party is immune to status ailments and fully healed first.

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl

• Steel is weak to Fighting. Lucario can tank Self-Destruct like a champ, but High Jump Kick from a Mon twenty levels weaker than it? Not so much.
• Poffin-making has a learning curve. If it's not working, you need to draw circles faster.
• Yes, Mime Jr.'s Attack is terrible. Yes, Double Slap is the only attacking move it gets at the levels it's catchable. The only saving grace is that the ones on Route 210 only have to level up once before they can evolve.
• If you're new to RNG manipulation, for the love of Arceus start with one that doesn't require a solid minute of button-mashing per attempt. Definitely don't follow that one up with a further manip that requires walking a specific way.
• When you finish the Cyrus fight at Spear Pillar, save. Don't take so much as a step forward. Heal your team. Then save again.
• The opening super-effective attack on Dialga should be just that: one attack. Regardless of damage ranges or type matchups, if a regular attack did just under half damage, a crit's going to be enough to knock it out.
• The binoculars at the Great Marsh can pull up a picture of the same area more than once per viewing session. Yes, I know Azurill is in Area 5 already; show something else for a change!
• Water/Ground Pokmon may only be weak to one type (Grass), but they take quadruple damage from said type. Stop switching Gastrodon in against Pokémon with Grass moves.

Dragon Quest Tact

• Use the Skip Tickets the game keeps handing you. They allow you to automatically clear any stage you've gotten three medals on - and it counts towards "Complete X stage" missions. This really cuts down on level-grinding and quest-grinding, used judiciously.
• If your team's score is only just higher than the recommended score for a stage, you're going to suffer.
• Frizz resistance and Sizz resistance are different things in this game. Yes, even though they're both fire.
• Unless you're using tickets, don't bother getting monsters out of the gacha one at a time.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Rock gardens are dumb and you shouldn't bother trying to make one.

Fire Emblem Heroes:

• Sometimes the gacha gives you nothing but 3-stars. Sometimes it gives you two final bosses back-to-back. (This actually happened to me - Hel and Surtr. The one downside was that they're both Green.)
• Use Inherit Skill wisely. Giving a character without a Special or a B-rank skill a Special and a B-rank skill is using it properly. Giving a character a skill when they already have a better skill at that rank is wasting the "donor".
• Every combat exchange reduces the timer on a character's Special by 1, regardless of whether they're attacking or defending.
• Rally skills don't give their users experience.
• "Balm" Specials don't increase the total HP healed the way Imbue does.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Infiltrating through the Yiga Clan's Hideout during the Champions' Ballad is a lot harder than in the game's base campaign. You have to enter from the opposite side and return with a heavy ball in your hands. Also, it's a missed chance that they didn't put a rematch against Master Kohga.

Edited by MyFinalEdits on Mar 16th 2021 at 3:38:26 PM

Code Vein:

• Don't button-mash. It'll get you locked into an attack animation at exactly the wrong time.
• Levels are less important than knowing which Blood Code to use when.
• Learn to parry.
• Use the AI to your advantage, but don't rely on it.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout: You have to learn to accept that you have a limited amount of control over whether you win or lose. Your bean may decide to fall flat on its face basically whenever. You might be grabbed by a knob wearing a Big Bad Wolf hat and plummet to your doom basically whenever. You might get end up on a team more interested in picking their boogers than winning. You might end up on a competent team that'll get inexplicably double-teamed by other teams.

...the lesson is to try and really not to let it get to you. You're ultimately playing a game about silly beans falling on their faces. Well, unless you get disconnected and lose everything basically whenever.

Point being, try not to get too heated up when things don't go your way.

Monster Train:

• Check which enemies have Sweep.
• Check which enemies have Sweep.
• Check. which. enemies. have. Sweep!!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

• You weren't supposed to jump off the Great Plateau Tower, silly! You ought to climb down through the hole in the center.

• Focus on dodging the Lynel's attacks and collecting his arrows rather than fighting him head-on before dealing with Vah Ruta; he's way out of your league.

I think literally everyone jumps off the Great Plateau tower their first time. And on replays, since they're used to the paraglider, they'll do it again

Slay the Spire: If you think you can be cute and get around Time Eater's Time Warp with Distilled Chaos, you've got another thing coming. (obligatory "fuck the Time Eater" comment goes here)

Edited by FergardStratoavis on Mar 20th 2021 at 4:01:20 PM

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth: The seven demon lord Digimon each take a different philosophy to Bonus Boss design. You'll probably need a different team for each, though some members could be on multiple teams.

Incidentally, with how inefficient it is to raise even one Digimon to that level, I don't think I'll be bothering.

I beat the demon lords and the other bonus bosses but STILL can't beat the single Venom Myotismon bonus boss in Hacker's Memory.

Huh, I didn't have a problem with him. But then, Mastemon's percent damage attack and Alphamon Ouryuken's extra strong defense-piercing attack tend to shred anything not built with those in mind.

Though, yeah, I noticed he stacked buffs in such a way that if you don't beat him fast, you're in for a bad time.

Incidentally, after beating him he opened a bonus dungeon, and he mentioned another Bonus Boss, GranDracmon.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Mar 21st 2021 at 5:21:31 AM

The Binding of Isaac Rebirth:

• Either learn what items look like or pause the game and pull up the wiki. There's no excuse for taking Anti-Gravity three runs in a row.
• Bigger is worse.
• Cards > pills.

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2

• So, apparently, when starting off the game on a fresh slate, editing your Skill Battle team right out of the gate, there's nothing stopping you from using any of the DLC characters. Notably, Ragnus's first skill is a fricken 14 line Assemble, which you can equip right away and there's nothing stopping you... except realizing that your level 1 team doesn't even have the MP to use it, BUT a few Medium boss raids later will let you use it no problem one you have the MP to do so, and now he, O, and Ess are my main Skill Battle team for Adventure mode.^note At least until I get Ally to replace O as the medic.

Hand of Fate

• Lizardmen have shields. Open with a stunning attack or counter, or else you're just wasting button presses.
• Don't underestimate Warlord difficulty.
• You only get one try per pull on Goblin King's Halls III.
• The curse that gives you extra curses for every item you buy does not count food purchases.

Getting involved in a land war in Asia (Civilization series)

Even if you’re Genghis Khan?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons: If you accidentally box yourself in somewhere on your island and your pockets are either full or have only one spot left, make sure you haven't boxed yourself in among a bunch of flowers, because for some reason your character seems to prioritize picking the flowers they are standing in over picking up the item that is trapping you, taking up the one spot you intended for the item you trapped yourself behind.

Yeeeeeeeah, I ended up having to use the Rescue Service for the first time since I started playing the game. 😅

Octopath Traveler:

Steorra - you cannot remove Celestial Intervention (Enemy) by using other buffs. You have to wait until it expires naturally.

- Spamming Sealctige's Seduction on a Cleric that uses Reflective Veil is an easy way to cheese the fight. In my third attempt Steorra broke her own shields many times.

- You need lots of BP. Bring Alfyn (preferably as a Hunter for Leghold Trap, Merchant is redundant) and lots of Essence of Pomegranate and Purifying Dust.

- Physical Reflection is removed when you Break Steorra's shields for the first time. This means you can use physical attacks to hit her weaknesses for the duration of the fight.

Dreisang

- Dreisang is essentially Steorra with much more power behind the elemental attacks. Same strategy as above applies re: reflecting.

- You cannot use Celestial Intervention (Ally) to clear the Celestial Intervention (Enemy) effect from Divine Majesty. You can, however, use it to clear the attack debuffs that come with it.

Both of the above have progressively more dangerous phases. You can cheese these by using the Reflect strategy as mentioned in Steorra's section and these bosses will not go into their next phases for whatever reason.