Jul -- Gaming: How did people actually figure this stuff out?

Higsby

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Posted on 08-02-10 03:48:31 AM

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The Anchor Rod in 3D Dot Game Heroes is hidden in a ridiculously dumb location. In order to find it you have to walk on a specific 16x16 tile that looks exactly the same as almost every other tile that is on the screen, plus the location of the area with this tile isn't even on the main path and if you miss it the first time (which there's about a 99.99% chance that you will) then there is a very low chance that you will ever return to this area under the assumption that you missed something in it.

I love hidden items but any item that requires you to step in a specific and unmarked place in order to obtain it isn't fun to find, it's just annoying.

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Posted on 08-02-10 04:01:44 AM (last edited by Reimu at 08-02-10 01:18 AM)

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At least until I can do something better...

Originally posted by Terra
As for other games, I used the NES Game Atlas to enter Level 7 of Zelda 1. How were you supposed to know to blow the whistle, which usually warps you?

I think the hints were actually useful and got lost in translation.

And then there's Feebas. Which you won't know what area does it even live and only know of its existence from an empty pokedex slot before an strong pokemon. Where does it live? In seven random tiles in a river. And you have to manually fish for it and won't always come out. What.

Then again, nobody plays pokemon games without a guide becouse they are full of shit like this. But doing so makes some things outright impossible.

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Posted on 08-02-10 10:12:48 AM

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Originally posted by Terra
Is there anything in a game that's so obscure and/or difficult that you don't know how people figured it out when the game was new?

As for other games, I used the NES Game Atlas to enter Level 7 of Zelda 1. How were you supposed to know to blow the whistle, which usually warps you? The 2nd quest is much worse, with entrances in really bizarre, random locations. Sure, bomb across a river at just the right square and use the ladder to reach the entrance. Sheesh. Also, I probably never would have found SMB3's first 2 warp whistles on my own.

There was a paper distributed with the game that had a map on it (with the upper corners/rows blanked out). The position of those levels was hinted at with a "?" — the fact there was no fairy in the obvious Fairy pond was another big hint.

Originally posted by Higsby
The Anchor Rod in 3D Dot Game Heroes is hidden in a ridiculously dumb location. In order to find it you have to walk on a specific 16x16 tile that looks exactly the same as almost every other tile that is on the screen, plus the location of the area with this tile isn't even on the main path and if you miss it the first time (which there's about a 99.99% chance that you will) then there is a very low chance that you will ever return to this area under the assumption that you missed something in it.

I love hidden items but any item that requires you to step in a specific and unmarked place in order to obtain it isn't fun to find, it's just annoying.

Actually, if you look at the map, it pretty clearly indicates there's a teleport tile at that position.

It's obscure, yes, but it's not "unmarked" by a long shot

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Posted on 08-02-10 10:19:58 AM

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08-02-10 05:19:58 AM
Post #3486

The Missingno glitch. Seems like the kind of thing you'd stumble across once by accident and then have no idea how you did it.

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why not?

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Posted on 08-02-10 10:22:55 AM

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If you want a real mind-bender, Valkyrie no Bouken's got a good one. To get to the third continent, you have to not kill a giant monster on the map, stand next to it until the day/night cycle passes and morning comes, then walk over the rainbow bridge that appears.

Of course, if you kill the monster, well, [trope=Unwinnable]better copy down that password[/trope].

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Posted on 08-02-10 11:35:25 AM

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If you bump up the difficulty of Silent Hill 2's puzzles to Hard, it seems like some of the puzzles you get are specifically designed to force you to buy the Strategy Guide or call the Konami hint line. Unless you just want to spend hours trying hundreds of different lock combinations.

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Posted on 08-02-10 02:08:58 PM

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The Energy Cells from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Some of them you find in game, but there is one in Bryyo where you have to travel between two areas and do all sorts of stuff just to open the path to find it.

Oh, and Link's Awakening. I found most of the keys and key holes randomly

Are hints given for the keys?

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Higsby

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Posted on 08-02-10 05:23:33 PM

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Originally posted by Xkeeper
Originally posted by Higsby
The Anchor Rod in 3D Dot Game Heroes is hidden in a ridiculously dumb location. In order to find it you have to walk on a specific 16x16 tile that looks exactly the same as almost every other tile that is on the screen, plus the location of the area with this tile isn't even on the main path and if you miss it the first time (which there's about a 99.99% chance that you will) then there is a very low chance that you will ever return to this area under the assumption that you missed something in it.

I love hidden items but any item that requires you to step in a specific and unmarked place in order to obtain it isn't fun to find, it's just annoying.

Actually, if you look at the map, it pretty clearly indicates there's a teleport tile at that position.

It's obscure, yes, but it's not "unmarked" by a long shot

On my low def TV the map appears somewhat blurry so trying to see a specific pixel on the map is pretty much impossible. Nobody cares about people like me with 10 year old TVs anymore

(probably because I'm the only person on earth who is still using one

).

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Posted on 08-02-10 05:51:58 PM

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Originally posted by Xkeeper
There was a paper distributed with the game that had a map on it (with the upper corners/rows blanked out). The position of those levels was hinted at with a "?" — the fact there was no fairy in the obvious Fairy pond was another big hint.

OK. We got Zelda 1 used, like with most of our NES games, and it didn't come with the manual or anything else but the cartridge.

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Posted on 08-02-10 08:48:13 PM

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The entire game of Simon's Quest is trial and error unless you stumble upon everything by accident.

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Posted on 08-02-10 09:50:48 PM

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Sometimes I wonder how I found the Twin Sword in Equinox's last dungeon on my own, but somehow I did. The weird thing is that I always forget where it is on replays and have to go searching for it.

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Posted on 08-02-10 10:58:24 PM

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Originally posted by Higsby
Originally posted by Xkeeper
Originally posted by Higsby
The Anchor Rod in 3D Dot Game Heroes is hidden in a ridiculously dumb location. In order to find it you have to walk on a specific 16x16 tile that looks exactly the same as almost every other tile that is on the screen, plus the location of the area with this tile isn't even on the main path and if you miss it the first time (which there's about a 99.99% chance that you will) then there is a very low chance that you will ever return to this area under the assumption that you missed something in it.

I love hidden items but any item that requires you to step in a specific and unmarked place in order to obtain it isn't fun to find, it's just annoying.

Actually, if you look at the map, it pretty clearly indicates there's a teleport tile at that position.

It's obscure, yes, but it's not "unmarked" by a long shot
On my low def TV the map appears somewhat blurry so trying to see a specific pixel on the map is pretty much impossible. Nobody cares about people like me with 10 year old TVs anymore (probably because I'm the only person on earth who is still using one ).

You have like a million games, surely you can hawk a few for an HDTV

It's totally worth it, especially for the PStrip

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Posted on 08-02-10 11:50:08 PM (last edited by Xkeeper at 08-02-10 08:51 PM)

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Originally posted by Zero One
The Energy Cells from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Some of them you find in game, but there is one in Bryyo where you have to travel between two areas and do all sorts of stuff just to open the path to find it.

Oh, and Link's Awakening. I found most of the keys and key holes randomly Are hints given for the keys?

Yes. By that goddamn owl after every fucking dungeon.

(Assuming you meant the dungeon keys, that is)

If you bump up the difficulty of Silent Hill 2's puzzles to Hard, it seems like some of the puzzles you get are specifically designed to force you to buy the Strategy Guide or call the Konami hint line. Unless you just want to spend hours trying hundreds of different lock combinations.

They're still solvable, just with a lot of thinking and logic involved. There is at least one FAQ that explains exactly how you can get the solution out of the riddle (and of course the solution itself) somewhere.

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Zero One
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Posted on 08-03-10 12:03:43 AM

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Originally posted by Xkeeper
Originally posted by Zero One
The Energy Cells from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Some of them you find in game, but there is one in Bryyo where you have to travel between two areas and do all sorts of stuff just to open the path to find it.

Oh, and Link's Awakening. I found most of the keys and key holes randomly Are hints given for the keys?

Yes. By that goddamn owl after every fucking dungeon.

(Assuming you meant the dungeon keys, that is)

I did, but I got the Face Key without that fugging owl giving me a hint...

Why did Nintendo put him in OoT!?

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Posted on 08-03-10 12:06:37 AM (last edited by Xkeeper at 08-02-10 09:07 PM)

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Originally posted by Zero One
I did, but I got the Face Key without that fugging owl giving me a hint...

Are you sure? I find it kind of hard to believe, given that he shows up on a screen you must cross to get to it, and he tells you to go to that place first ... and the fact the boss is also guarding the thing he mentions certainly helps too.

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Zero One
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Posted on 08-03-10 12:08:02 AM (last edited by Zero One at 08-02-10 09:08 PM)

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Originally posted by Xkeeper
Originally posted by Zero One
I did, but I got the Face Key without that fugging owl giving me a hint...

Are you sure? I find it kind of hard to believe, given that he shows up on a screen you must cross to get to it, and he tells you to go to that place first ... and the fact the boss is also guarding the thing he mentions certainly helps too.

Hmm... maybe I managed to grab the key early? In any case, some of the dungeons were annoying. I got lost SO many times in Level 8 ¬¬

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Posted on 08-03-10 12:22:54 AM

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Originally posted by Xkeeper

If you bump up the difficulty of Silent Hill 2's puzzles to Hard, it seems like some of the puzzles you get are specifically designed to force you to buy the Strategy Guide or call the Konami hint line. Unless you just want to spend hours trying hundreds of different lock combinations.

They're still solvable, just with a lot of thinking and logic involved. There is at least one FAQ that explains exactly how you can get the solution out of the riddle (and of course the solution itself) somewhere.

Here's the problem I had with the Hospital Patient Wing Lock Puzzle on Hard:

You're told that the combination for this month is "T" and that it's a four-digit combination. It's easy enough to figure out you have to draw a "T" on this number pad to get the answer. The problem is... there are numerous ways you could possibly draw a "T" here, such as:

So, not only do you have to figure out which "T" formation is correct, but also what order those four numbers will go in. And one possibility includes a fifth number that you'd have to exclude.

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Posted on 08-03-10 01:01:23 AM

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The Special Treatment Room is locked, so check out the patient wing

double doors by the stairwell. The doors are locked and a keypad pops up

when you examine them. Remembering earlier, the Doctor's Lounge whiteboard

told you the code, which is 7335 on Easy and Normal Riddle Level and a

"T" on Hard and Extra. Looking for a "T" combination, 1328 turns up being

the resulting code.



If you find yourself a bit confused as to why the code on Hard and Extra

is 1328, look at it this way: to draw a "T" we start from the left at the

top and cross over to the right, and then we start at the top middle and

move down to the bottom. Thinking of it on the keypad, to make the top of

the "T", we start at 1 and cross over to 3, stopping there. To create the

bottom part of the "T" we start at 2 and move down to 8, stopping there.

This makes 1328. Therefore, other seemingly fitting combinations (1238,

3218, 3128, etc.) are eliminated here. Anyway, once you enter the correct

code corresponding to your riddle level, the doors will unlock.

A bit obtuse, but it makes sense when explained.

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