We’ve all played them. Backtracking, not knowing where to go. Going back and forth. Name some of these games from your memory. I’ll start: Final Fantasy XIII-2, RE1
So many times in GTA V I had no idea how to trigger the next mission. I would probably go back to it and play through if it had some sort of indicator for how to trigger the next campaign mission.
Go to a mission marker on the map?
Some missions are characteristic-specific, but those are labeled too.
It was a while back, but I feel like I remember trying this, switching between characters and going to their various markers on the map but nothing would happen. It was long enough ago that I can’t rule out hitting a bug or missing a required side mission, but I remember not being the only person saying this.
I was never a fan of just driving around the city causing havoc, so even short amounts of time with no missions felt like eternity.
Prince of Persia Warrior Within
I don’t remember that one being too bad. I actually beat that one, unlike Two Thrones
Two thrones is a cake walk compared to WW
Oof yep I feel that one. I love the wheel and spoke moderately open world level design, but if you actually need to move the story it can be very difficult to find where the next bits are.
Many of the early console and PC games were only solvable by finding answers in published magazines. Nintendo was notorious for this - they had their own magazine called Nintendo POWER and a hotline you could call to get tips. A few that come to mind:
Blaster Master / Goonies 2 / Mad Max / The Kings Quest games / The Black Caludron
Kings Quest? I played them on pc. They had stuff you needed the manual for but that was it. Did they change it for Nintendo?
Apologies, I can see how I was confusing. I was listing both Nintendo and PC games that came to mind; Kings Quest and Black Cauldron were PC
Probably just a comment on the moon logic puzzles in some of the games. And yea, Sierra had their own hint line to call. Or write in
On arcades, you’d get fucked by asshole difficulty. At home, you’d get fucked by asshole difficulty and purposeful lack of information. Took me a while to put 2 and 2 together and realize how “predatory games” have been around for a very long time. Can’t sell the game twice, but you can sell information.
Subnautica and Hollow Knight spring to mind
Wait, open world, specific upgrades needed to access new areas and progress the story… I think Subnautica is a secret metroidvania. It’s just most of the upgrades are “you can go deeper now”.
Subnautica’s art direction does give me Metroid Prime vibes.
That’s what a lot of the upgrades boil down to, yeah. Air tanks increase endurance, fins and seaglide increase movement speed, rebreather eliminates an endurance draining effect at depth, seabases and submarines allow you to start your dive from greater than zero depth. Pretty much all of that boils down to “dives to this depth are now practicable.”
Other than that, the knife allows you to harvest plate coral for making computer chips, kelp for making fabric, and seeds for plants. The scanner is required to obtain the blueprints for several other required buildables. The mobile vehicle bay is required to build the Cyclops. The Cyclops is required to make the shield module. A radiation suit…I think speedrunners don’t use it and just tank the damage with medkits, but I consider it a requirement.
There is one straight-up key you have to craft; there are several others for required or optional doors but you only have to craft one to complete the game and two to unlock all doors.
There’s a tool that is like Half-Life 2’s gravity gun, which can be used to move heavy obstacles out of paths, but it’s never outright required for anything. I usually don’t bother with it.
The laser cutter is required, You have to cut through one of two doors in the Aurora to gain access to the Captain’s Cabin.
Chrono Cross. You can accidentally write out all the endings of the game if you try to play without a guide.
Also Mordor 2. Completely procedurally generated world. The game literally can’t tell you where to go, it doesn’t know.
Star Flight. I played it on Genesis, and it’s still one of the greatest games I’ve ever played.
One space ship, 270 solar systems, and 800 planets. The manual included a captain’s log that was sent back in time from the future, but without that you’d just be scouring the stars for clues, interrogating aliens, digging through ancient ruins, and watching slowly as a rash of planet-destroying solar flares spreads through the galaxy.
So fucking good.
Sounds interesting. Reminds me somewhat of Uncharted Waters, which is a naval RPG set around 1560. You could visit ports all over Europe, Middle East and Africa, probably over India and Japan, too, doing trade runs or living a pirate’s life.
A lot of the game is scanning planets, gathering resources, and upgrading your ship. The upgrades allow you to gather more resources, explore further, and get better weapons so you can survive hostile alien encounters.
If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend giving it a try.
Son, you’re talking to a guy who spoke no English when he first played the legend of Zelda for NES. Talk about playing a game that doesn’t tell you where to go next
Pocahontas on Sega Genesis. I don’t even remember the plot, but I got stuck and had to return it to Blockbuster.
This one’s pretty controversial, but if you’ve never played it before,
Half Life 1
It’s really confusing and enemies will pop out of nowhere and kill you instantly. Not really fun imo, but then again I AM playing it for the first time 27 years after it came out 😂
I’m sure Black Mesa is more intuitive though.
Which bits in particular? Because on one hand it’s a fairly linear design, but on the other there are some bits that can loop around themselves and objectives aren’t always obvious.
past the first few chapters it got a bit confusing, but the train trolly thing was like a maze and I kept going in circles for so long 😵💫
Oh I completely get you, on a rail is a famously difficult spot for a lot of people. I think the lack of landmarks and long duration really hurts that chapter. If it’s any consolation it’s mostly a one off situation, and yeah black mesa doesn’t really have an equivalent.
Make sure you listen to the NPCs. They give you clues like being quiet around the big beaky things that one shot you. Also, if it is really big you guns do nothing. Go and find the other way to destroy it.
Beneath a Steel Sky, where literally half the game is going back and talking to everyone you’ve spoken to before for one extra dialog option that advances the plot
Riven
La Mulana for sure! It’s a game where you play as professor Lemeza Kosugi (i.e. Japanese Indiana Jones) exploring an ancient temple. I admit that I did not have the patience for it. The map is huge and exploration is very non-linear. You also have to solve fairly obscure puzzles. If you really wanted to give it a go, I’d keep hand-written or typed notes separate from the in-game notes. They only let you save so much data at once, and you need more notes (or a good memory). I still kind of loved exploring the maps even partially though. It’s pretty huge and ambitious in scope.
The combat and movement are not fantastic though. Not bad, but they feel very limiting compared to typical metroidvanias that let you style on enemies as you get better at the game. The game is not very shy about how it enjoys killing you too! I respect it, but it was tough for me to enjoy.
Came here to say this!
Try Platoon on the NES, you get bombarded by ennemies while you have to find your way through this abomination of a maze!
I had the Old Ninja Gaiden i believe on some Collection for the PS3 growing up. Maybe it was just my age but i could never figure out what the hell i was supposed to do. There were a few games like that in the collection now that i think about it, like Echo the Dolphin and some top down rpg like thing
I remember playing echo the dolphin a lot as a kid. There wasn’t a single moment where i knew what i was supposed to do.
It’s a very confusing game lol. It was fun to swim around though
It feels like such a silly example now that I know the game, but tales of symphonia made me give up for about three years before coming back and beating it. There’s a section where you’re supposed to go to a specific city to progress, but there’s a semi-secret long way around that lets you experience a different character’s story early. Well, I somehow sucked at following directions and went the semi-secret way, and then couldn’t figure out how to get ANYWHERE that let you do anything. I wandered around the same continent for several months (playing a few hours a week) before moving on.
