Points in vidyas that gave you ABSOLUTELY NO help as to how to

Simon's Quest has a lot of these, I think they were explained in the FC version or the manual though.

Star Tropics has the famous submarine where you need to dip a sheet of paper that came with the game in water to reveal it.

>>2794190
to reveal the code to activate it I mean

That's the only one I know of where you actually can't progress the game without a guide if you don't have the physical piece of paper that came with the game

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>>2794187
You know how the game outright tells you to talk to NPCs for info? There's a reason for that. There's a guy who tells you that you need to go to that exact spot for the mirror.

Fucking underages these days, I tell ya.

>>2794191

well you can just try all possible codes, it'd be a hassle but there aren't like 1024 billion of them or anything

>>2794245
It's what I did. It doesn't take too long.

747

>>2794207
Came in to say this. Also there's only like 7 NPCs in any given town.

>>2794207
>>2794329
>I speak to every ghost in moonbridge
>the only mention they give is that "the Mirror of ra has been stolen"
>implying I play rpgs and don't speak to npcs
Yeah fucking kids these days or whatever

Grim Fandango's piston puzzle I was fucking clueless on for a while. It took me off guard cause everything before it was so easy

The Earthbound waterfall thing. How were kids supposed to get that? Were they just more imaginative than I?

>>2794435
A Mr. Saturn in Saturn Valley specifically tells you that the password is to stand still for 3 minutes.

>>2794187
Is that dragon quest 2? Interestingly, apparently they made DQ2 open ended like Ultima but japanese kids thought it was too confusing, so they went back to the more linear design with DQ3 and stayed that way ever since. If 80s japs weren't so casual maybe the entire jrpg genre could have been different because of this.

>>2794187
The Airship in FFI. Have to know the exact tile to use the Levistone on. As a newer-gen gamer it was infuriating because I knew where to look for it but I figured the game would be sophisticated enough to let you just use it in the general area.

>>2794207
I remember an NPC saying that you'd find this item where 4 bridges could be seen. I found this item back in the day.

>>2794435
The piston one is unexplained, yes, but it's not like the wheelbarrow is hidden or anything, and it only moves along one axis. Most people figure it out through basic trial and error.

>>2794612
Don't the remakes just have you auto-use the levistone?

>>2794610
Really? Yes this is DQ2. Its the first DQ game I've ever played and I like it a lot, the world feels very big and I want to explore it all. I didn't mind looking up what to do for the Mirror of ra, I just found it very random, as I never spoke to an npc who hinted as to where it was. Its a shame that all the others are linear, but they're probably very good as well.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is Ultima? Is it similar in any way? Any good?

>>2795296
>what is Ultima?
Very famous RPG series

Final Fantasy 1, everything is well hinted EXCEPT the part where you need to go to the desert to get the airship.

>>2795296
Yes it's good, but you need to step up your game since you don't talk to NPCs enough. You won't beat Ultima if you play like that.

In the 90's text-adventure game Curses there's one point where you have to get past Zeus, who will throw down a lightning bolt and kill you. The way to do this involves flipping a switch which changes the entire rules of the universe from deterministic to probabilistic, and then carry around a lucky four-leaf clover sort of item.

In order to find this room, somewhere in an obscure corridor of a completely unrelated location in the basement of the Victorian mansion you start out in, the room description includes an off-hand remark about a peculiar scent in the air. There's pages and pages of room descriptions for each of the thousands of locations, so something like that would be considered completely ordinary fluff or non-functional decorative flavor text. If you type 'sniff' in this room, not once but twice, you'll find the passage to the universe control room which contains the lever.

>>2795296
It only "opens up" after you get the ship and the third party member, though, and it's still obvious you're meant to visit the locations in a certain order due to all the mcgufins being a requirement and the monsters having a level cap.

>>2794187
This entire thread could just be graphical adventure games.

>>2795384
not sure if we're thinking different gernes, but Lucasfilm Games back then had a very good reputation, that their games could be solved entirely with info within the game, and sane logic. No dead ends, no random guessing.

>>2795391
>sane logic
And then they made Sam & Max.

>>2795402
Which, while being wacky in its story, was so consistent in its logic, I solved the whole thing in a couple of weeks, without a guide.

>>2795406
Like, "use assignment paper on cat". That was perfectly logical.

>>2795407
After you used Max on the agent disguised as a kitty you should know that anything goes. I don't recall the exact situation you mentioned, but I'm quite confident it was logical, even if utterly deranged

"Palm trees and 8"

greentext

>>2795296
>what is Ultima?

The grandfather of all video game RPGs upon which DQ, and subsequently the entire JRPG genre, is built. Just curious, where do you live that you never heard of it?

>>2795407
If you really want to bitch about adventure games having moon-logic puzzles, it's probably best to start with Sierra.
>King's Quest 5: use pie on yeti (it's also possible to eat the pie, and there's a section where you need to eat food to avoid dying of hunger)
>King's Quest 3: better half of the game's a timed puzzle, being caught with almost anything in your inventory or being in the wrong place at the wrong time means instadeath, with no chance for recovery
>King's Quest 1: Rumplestiltskin
>King's Quest 2: use bridle on snake (seriously, fuck you Roberta Williams)
>Police Quest 1: not one, but two hours-long poker games which can only be won by savescumming
>Leisure Suit Larry: same thing, except with slot machines
>Space Quest 1: same fucking shit, along with a piece of broken glass you're never given any description of or imagery for or hints or anything on and you just have to know it exists
>Codename ICEMAN: too many to count, like needing to go through a seemingly optional date at the beginning of the game to find some sort of secret code because the woman's actually a double agent, but what stood out to me is that the game does the force-you-to-play-through-some-gambling-game-in-order-to-proceed bullshit but ALSO has built-in protection against savescumming, so you're allowed to save twice only through the segment
>Police Quest 4 Racist Edition: entire endgame segment is triggered by somehow getting a dog in the middle of a one-time-use park to show up, then giving it an unrelated piece of evidence
>Broken Sword 2: entire fucking game

You know, growing up as a kid I always needed to look through hints or walkthroughs to beat any of these games. I thought I was kind-of an idiot for needing to do this. Looking back I'm not so sure.

>>2795578
JRPGs definitely started from elsewhere. Ultima was more-or-less the grandfather of turn-based sword-and-board WRPG PC games like Might and Magic, Baldur's Gate and the entire Elder Scrolls series from Arena onward, along with the new-fangled third-person WRPGs like the Witcher series, Diablo, Borderlands, Dark Souls and all that shit.

Not sure what JRPGs would look like if they did stem from Ultima, but at some point (probably around Parasite Eve 2) all studios realized that if you put scantily-clad women in FMV cutscenes a bunch of neckbeards will buy your game, and after that point JRPGs have taken a sharp nosedive and have become very inaccessible to all but a very distinct marketing segment.

SMT1
Where the mandatory Four Door gem is

>>2795508
oh boy

>>2795702
>JRPGs definitely started from elsewhere.
Wizardry and Ultima.

>>2794612
FF1 in general is very pissy about this. I especially remember the caravan, fuck that shit. Also, the man who translates the Rosetta Stone. You were expected to have talked to him and remember his name, or to go on a trip around the world.

>>2795702
Ultima Underworld is not representative of the whole series - it's a spinoff. Old JRPGs in general clearly took inspiration from the Ultima games pre-IV, which isn't that surprising given that Dragon Quest was primarily inspired by Ultima.

>>2794190
And in the game of the NES version if you actually paid attention and did everything.

Seriously, damn, kids.

Stop making excuses for your ADD.

>>2794187

>playing composite on an HDTV

How can you even handle that nigga?

>>2796624
If I can tell what's going on without squinting or feeling like my eyes are bleeding, then an approximation is good enough without having to make the effort to recreate exact visual fidelity.

I settle. It's a useful skill for getting through life without ulcers.

>>2794187
Apparently Undertale pacifism route if you have autism

>>2794612

I played on NES and I don't remember anything like that. I thought you just used the FLOATER in the desert, no particular tile... though it's been several years since I last did it so maybe I've just forgotten. I never played any version with a Levistone though. Did they make this harder in a remake, for some reason?

>>2794651
The PS1 remake did not. Idk about the gba or psp ones

>>2795578
America lol, I'm just very young (19) and don't know a lot of video games. I thought I'd heard about this game before, but I wasn't sure if I was thinking of the right game.

>>2794610
>japanese kids thought it was too confusing
The problem wasn't non-linear design though. It was the lack of any sense of what to do later on in the game.
Yuji Hori even admits himself that that was one of the main problems with DW2 and that it was difficult to know where to go.

>>2795656
>Broken Sword 2: entire fucking game
Not Sierra, and they lock you into small areas so it's not too hard to brute force your way through.
When it comes to gen5 stuff, the original Discworld game is way scummier than BS2, with some batshit puzzles, a massive group of areas open to you, some of which have a second state when the game introduces the time travel mechanic, and tons of NPCs to interact with.

>>2794207
this board is full of underage faggots unfortunately

>>2797087
admittedly, underage on /vr/ means anybody younger than 30

FIND THE WHITE S.E.E.D SHIP.

>>2797090
or 15

>>2794432
I'm pretty sure I remember them saying it was in the swamp

>>2795656
>Police Quest 1: not one, but two hours-long poker games which can only be won by savescumming


Wow, really? Do they at least explain how to play poker?

>>2797087
I only consider youngsters who act like stupid faggots as underage. Otherwise, they're wise beyond their years, which is a-ok by me.

>>2794432
He literally says something about the mirror and a big swamp, weren't you paying attention?

>>2796530
>And in the game of the NES version if you actually paid attention and did everything.
Throwing every single item at every single pixel does not constitute "playing the game".

>>2796826
Bullshit, you are outright told what you missed by Flowey if you choose to spare him in the final battle.

>>2794610
dq2s worst part is finding out how to open the water gate

>>2798082
This has absolutely nothing on the original.

>>2797238
There's a quick 'here's the button you press if you want to fold' sort of tutorial card, and if you're really good at poker I guess you could theoretically get through it without savescumming, but it's five-card draw which tends to be a lot more luck-based than the more modern Texas hold'em everyone knows today, and they expect you to clear our three other players, twice, with a fairly large amount of money and a low max bet so even if you're cheating (the clearly unintended debug code 'rats ass' will give you any hand you want) that's a lot of hands you have to win in a row before proceeding with the game.

In the context of the game, winning these two card games while wearing a comical pimp cane / white suit, which the game gives you directly, is all you need to infiltrate the main drug ring while undercover and gain enough of the ringleader's trust enough to have him invite you into his apartment - unescorted!

>>2794435
In Earthbound's case, the game was SOLD with the strategy guide. You couldn't get the game without it unless you bought it used. You had all the answers.

>>2795656
>>King's Quest 5: use pie on yeti (it's also possible to eat the pie, and there's a section where you need to eat food to avoid dying of hunger)
One of the bigger dick moves in graphical adventures. Return to Zork also had some nasty shit.
>Plant on first screen in game
>You have multiple options for removing and taking plant with you, all but one kill plant
>Way later in the game you need plant or you are stuck
>If you figured out how to fast-travel(I didn't see any clue), you can return to the first area and get a live plant(hopefully you figured out the right way this time)
>At one point you have to cross a river by ferry
>You figure you need to pay a coin to cross, so you give ferryman(grim reaper) a coin
>You cross, continue game
>At end game you need every possible item at that point to access final area
>You were supposed to SHOW the coin to him, not give it, HOPE YOU HAVE A SAVE FROM BEFORE THAT POINT ASSHOLE
Not that the original Zork was bullshit free by any means. Many text adventure and graphical adventure games were exercises in "Try every item on everything till you find the solution".
Now I think TMNT on the NES deserves special mention for the final level.
>Hallway before miniboss right before Shredder
>Cramped, can't dodge, enemies fly right at you, jetpack guys shoot lasers which shave off 1/4th health
>Only way to survive even with full health on all 4 turtles is to abuse enemies scrolling themselves off screen and vanishing
>You wouldn't know this unless you stumbled on it at random, or was told how to do it
I'm glad I never got past level 3 as a child, I might have thrown my Advantage at the TV.

>>2795391
>he's never played any other dev's bullshit entries in the genre

>>2795346
That's awesome.

>>2795702
The line from Ultima to the earliest JRPGs is so direct that this isn't even up for debate. Ultima practically invented the genre.

>>2799281

I'm not sure why he would, except for maybe some of the stuff done by Sierra. If you're going to explore a genre (and aren't a diehard fan of it), why not go straight to the top?

>>2797091
ugh... It wasn't dificult, but it was really boring

>>2796530
Simon's Quest was one of my favorite games as a kid but come on, nothing at all in game indicates that you're supposed to select the right crystal and kneel at the right spot to get the lake to lower. Paying attention has nothing to do with it.

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No in-game maps
No in-game tips
No tips or maps in local gaming magazines (I'm an eurofag and LotW was never released here)
No instruction manual
No internets to look for FAQs when I got this game either
No fucking clue on where you are supposed to go or what you are supposed to do in the first place, this game doesn't even have a brief summary of it's story or purpose if you let it sit on the title screen like many games do
Random exploration only
FINAL DESTINATION

Has anyone beaten this motherfucker legitimately without any kind of help? I sure didn't...
Also I double fucking dare anyone thinking that the first Zelda game is cryptic or impossible to beat without guides to try this game out.

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I'm suppose to be able to get through this, what are all these symbols? Manual? reading is for faggots. Oh to be 5 again.

>>2799791
Didn't Arino handle himself pretty well in this game with only occasional tips from the ADs? I'm pretty sure he had no map or anything, but I haven't watched that episode in eons.

>>2798891

I got past that part in TMNT as a kid, and I don't think I figured out any special trick involving despawning. There are other ways. It's a stupidly difficult challenge that needs toning down, but it's not one of these things where you just can't progress without outside help.

>>2798085

This. Especially when trying to find the entrance to Ridley's Hideout. The floor in the first connecter hallway in the game was pretty much a dead giveaway that it was the entrance to Kraid's Hideout, but good luck figuring out which floor tiles to bomb to find Ridley. Not to mention finding all of the power ups and expansions throughout Norfair.

>>2799791

I bet most players not only failed to beat it, but also failed to accomplish ANYTHING in it. I know that's what happened to me.

>>2799869
I fucking hated that bullshit game. How did you even know what rooms the items go in?

>>2794187
You just complained about the only part of DQ2 that ISNT bullshit

Good job. Talk to NPCs and enjoy the crest hunting you fucker.

Kind of related.
When I first played MGS1 I had hired it from the local video store where they used their own cases and printouts for covers. Got to the part where you need to call Meryl and tells me to look on the back of the case which didnt have the original art.

I ended up just going through and calling each frequency until I reached her.

>>2800427
bet you feel stupid now, knowing that her frequency gets added to your list automatically when you call Campbell a few times.

>>2798891
>Zork
Never played these games but heard theres a ridiculous puzzle where you have to know the rules of baseball in the second one

>>2795346
What else does the lever change in the game other than the part with Zeus? Can you play the whole game with it activated?

Not impossible, but it's still a total dick move. In the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" text adventure game, there's a part early on where the Earth is being destroyed and a device falls to your feet. This device is the hitchhiker's teleporter (the one that looks like a fist with a thumb sticking out), and you're supposed to know to PRESS the green button on it to progress.

But! Once you have the device, you have to immediately press the green button and nothing else. Even if you LOOK at the device to know that it even has a green button to PRESS, the Earth is obliterated and you have to start all over.

Of course, that's all after LYING THE FUCK DOWN.

I think I remember reading somewhere that there was this text adventure game back in the day that was so cryptic it took people years to figure out the right combination, and of course it was something nobody would ever think of except the guy who made the game. I suppose this applies to most of these games though. Wish I could remember the name of this one.

>>2800528
As far as I know, it changes nothing else. The in-game text even states
>Ca-clunk. Probably nothing changed.
>Ca-clunk. Definitely nothing has changed.

If you fiddle with any other knobs, you're given a pithy Stephen Hawking quote about how delicate the laws of physics are in terms of mankind's existence (there are tons of quotes from famous authors in the game) and you end up unraveling space and time.

And that's not even the hardest puzzle in the game, but definitely one of the most unfair - the game revolves around the history of your ancestors and how they all in one way or another just-quite failed to live up to their dreams and ambitions. So you spend a lot of the game searching through an old family history almanac dating to the 10th century. At one point you'll read about an 18th century engineer and his wife. There's an entry for the wife but not a lot of details, just that she's kind-of bookish and reserved. There's a few other hints toward this that I can't remember but none of them are really explicit.

The bottom line is that you need to 1) figure out that she was a well-known poet of her time and used an anagram of her full name as a pseudonym to avoid her husband's disapproval, 2) figure out what the anagram is and look it up in the family almanac, without any sort of prompting or hint that you're on the right track. At this point the book mentions something about her secret poetry nook, which unlocks a new wing of the manor.

Yeah this game's pretty fucking amazing, and I don't regret my experience with it, but my FUCKING GOD was anyone expected to get through it end-to-end without a walkthrough?
There's only two in-game hint systems in the game (angel and devil), finding one of them is a fuckhard puzzle in and of itself, the devil is often useless and always explicitly lies to you, and you're technically only allowed three questions each (though savescumming is allowed).

>>2800561
This is pretty fair considering that you're pretty quickly vaporized if you don't go through the correct sequence of steps, and anyone loosely following the books would know roughly what to do. What would be a real dick move is if the game required you to do some other stuff toward the very beginning of the game, and then -didn't- tell you that you've made the game un-winnable until near the very end on multiple fucking occasions.

The Babel fish is just the tip of the iceberg, HHGTTG is a cruel, cruel fucking game.

Actually a lot of Infocom games were like that. Infidel straight-up requires you to die at the end of the game to win. In response someone created 'Inhumane' which requires you to die in as many ways as possible.

One of the best puzzles I remember in a text adventure is in 'Spider and Web' by Andrew Plotkin. The puzzle basically spans the entire game and it's a definite high point if you manage to figure it out without a walkthrough.

Basically you play as a spy who's being held prisoner and being forced to mentally retrace your steps while wired up to a mind-reading torture device. Your captors want to know how you broke in and what sort of espionage you were able to pull off before being caught.

You start the game walking around the streets outside as a tourist. Then you're given an electrical shock, your captors force you to do it over, and suddenly you're an agent for a foreign nation.

You're unable to penetrate the door to the enemy compound, so you turn around and walk away. Another jolt, and now you have a full range of cool tech gear.

Once you're in the building you start searching through it corridor by corridor. You're forced to replay each section until you get it right and are able to advance past the enemy guards. In one section there's a nook above a grate which you need to grab a brown package from. Whenever you try to open the package, you get a message, 'It's not yet time', in italics, which is kind-of weird.

At some point you've used up most of your gear and are captured. At that point they're able to figure out where you've stashed it, and they bring it into the interrogation room. But if you look very closely at the table, you'll notice that there's something missing.
You're supposed to establish that you've been subconsciously deceiving them all along. You've anticipated being captured, you're familiar with their interrogation techniques and set up a trap in the room using some of your gear. There never was any brown package, if you look in the grate you'll find a gun which wasn't in your gear before.

>>2794190
MGS has you check a screenshot on the case for Meryl's frequency. But anyone who's played a Metal gear before knows to check 140.75 anyways

>>2800969
That is actually pretty cool

>>2800948
Labyrinth was a graphical text adventure on the C64... Written by Douglas Adams.

You cna pick up a towel in the bathroom at the beginning of teh game. This towel can serve as a "get out of EVERYTHING free" item. It has a believable effect on everything. But there's ONLY one, and you can ONLY use it once.

It is the only item that can defeat Jareth.

>>2797589
That's what we used to do.
Bombing every wall. Burning every bush. Checking every barrel, pot, dresser, and cabinet.

That goddamn piano puzzle in Silent Hill 1

>>2802343

The bloody note downstairs tells you exactly what is required for the puzzle. There's only twelve keys to press, and of those, five keys play a different sound to tell you that they are the puzzle keys. The birds in the poem are either black or white and fly "higher" than other birds. It's a simple logic puzzle after that, not difficult.

That's not to say there aren't esoteric puzzles in that game. Case in point, the two keys not in the back of the police car at the beginning of the game. At no point is there any indication you have to walk a fucking plank off the edge of a pit behind a house. Not to mention the open gate that was part of a flat alley wall texture.

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This damn game....

I honestly was never able to figure out how to get past this point as a kid
>Be like 24
>Playing emulators for a few years at that point
>Remember I could never beat this
>Look up walkthrough online
>Realize how easy it was....
>FFFUUUUUU

>>2794612

It's in the manual. The manual pretty much tells you exactly what to do up until you get the airship

>>2798082
Bullshit. How do you get stuck on this, but you knew to blow open the wall in the elevator room above brinstar with super missiles in order to get to kraid?

>>2795578
In my opinion, Ultima was only popular between people who were into RPGs in the 80s.
I've only heard of it because a friend of mine talked about Spoony reviews of it.
If you aren't american and was born in the 90s, the chances that you know it are pretty low.

>>2794612
I don't think you do. Using it in the desert area makes it come out.

>>2806175
FUCK!

There's no indication prior to this point that d-pad input can impact the behavior of environmental gimmicks. I ran the timer down trying to time jumps PERFECTLY on this thing AT LEAST once. I remember being in like 5th grade and calling the friend I borrowed Sonic 3 from just to ask how the hell to do that part.

>>2799909
arino did have a map (of sorts) -- basically, a 4x16 spreadsheet with few words written on it.

the ADs did write the location of the crowns and which character was needed. so, more than nothing, less than a full map.