Obvious Things You Missed in Games

[Moonface]

So today I learned about something obvious about a particular thing in TotK that I would have never realized without reading about it, and it got me thinking of other times I've just missed something really obvious in a game and didn't realize until later (either after being successful with a different approach or just being stuck until I figure out what I'm supposed to be doing because I'm stupid).

In Breath of the Wild for example, the boss fight against Vah Ruta involves a phase where it tosses ice blocks at you. The intended way to deal with these is to use Cryonis to destroy them as that ability can create and break ice blocks. Instead, I shot every single block with arrows to stop them which used up dozens upon dozens of my arrows. I didn't even consider using Cryonis until I saw someone saying to use that ability on a Reddit post where lots of other people were saying they used arrows for that fight instead of the ability.

A worse one for me though is not knowing the R key is an instant restart in Binding of Isaac. I had put in a couple hundred hours into that game not knowing that feature existed, and every time I wanted to reset a run I would pause, go to the main menu, go back into the character select screen, pick the character I was using and start a new run. I don't want to imagine how many hours I wasted restarting with that method before learning again, via Reddit, that the R key is the intended way to quickly do that.

[Maniakkid25]

In Dark Cloud 2, before looking up how to do it, I would get to the fourth chapter, and get stuck. See, one of the characters that is absolutely necessary for the chapter to be completed (Claire -- who is annoying as hell to get, by the way) will not move into her new home without "a night light". I knew that there was a Luna Stone Light in this section of the game, but you don't unlock it until after the critical point that you need her at, meaning I thought the game was glitched, and I was stuck. So, the solution to my dilemma? There was an item called a "Pot Torch" I could build. Just put that next to the house, and she goes in there. I am an absolute idiot.

[Mr EliteL]

Believe I've mentioned it before somewhere but the only instance I remember that was seemingly obvious was not to talk to Mimi at a certain point in Chapter 2 of Super Paper Mario or the game freezes, making me think it's a problem with the disc I purchased, tried again but go the same so I returned the game and purchased it a second time from a different store. Then next time I came across that moment in the game I realised I needed to do something else, but really the game shouldn't just freeze like that or at least Game Over you to tell you did something wrong. So just me missing what I had to do to progress.

[Moonface]

In Dark Cloud 2, before looking up how to do it, I would get to the fourth chapter, and get stuck. See, one of the characters that is absolutely necessary for the chapter to be completed (Claire -- who is annoying as hell to get, by the way) will not move into her new home without "a night light". I knew that there was a Luna Stone Light in this section of the game, but you don't unlock it until after the critical point that you need her at, meaning I thought the game was glitched, and I was stuck. So, the solution to my dilemma? There was an item called a "Pot Torch" I could build. Just put that next to the house, and she goes in there. I am an absolute idiot.

Heh, reminds me of my experience with Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. Despite having a guidebook, I somehow kept getting to a point in the game where Lara wouldn't be strong enough to move something out of her way. I'd scour the entire level retracing my steps to find what I missed, and would never have any luck. Assuming I had missed something in an earlier chapter, I restarted the game only to have it happen again. Now I assume the copy I have is busted so I exchange it for another copy. The save is still having the problem so I figure hey, maybe the save is bugged from the buggy copy. Restart the game again. Happens again. At this point I gave up and assumed the game was just a steaming pile of shit (which it is, but not for the reason I had) and just got my money back on it.
Years later, I discover EL's sister has beaten the game and I asked how the heck she did it. She said she just did with no trouble, so I wondered what bad luck I had.

Earlier this year, I decided to randomly look at an online copy of the guidebook I had (it was the official Prima guide). I look at the part where I was stuck, aiming to show @ShiraNoMai that the guide was garbage and didn't contain the thing I had seen in gameplay footage prior to this endeavor. Low and behold, the guide had it written there the whole time and I had just missed that I was standing next to the thing Lara needed to get stronger every time I had been stuck. No idea how I missed it so much and even missed the guide telling me to do it, but there we go.

Believe I've mentioned it before somewhere but the only instance I remember that was seemingly obvious was not to talk to Mimi at a certain point in Chapter 2 of Super Paper Mario or the game freezes, making me think it's a problem with the disc I purchased, tried again but go the same so I returned the game and purchased it a second time from a different store. Then next time I came across that moment in the game I realised I needed to do something else, but really the game shouldn't just freeze like that or at least Game Over you to tell you did something wrong. So just me missing what I had to do to progress.

Eh, I don't feel like it's fair to blame yourself on missing something "obvious" when it's more just don't do a thing you would think you can do because the games have a bug in them that causes a freeze. I recently watched a retrospective review of Silent Bomber and discovered from that video that initial PAL copies of the game were bugged on Chapter 12 and will cause a black screen, and that the solution is to skip the intro cutscene to that chapter so the end of the chapter doesn't crash when you reach it. I just figured my copy was simply scratched or whatever and exchanged it, and happened to get a newer copy that had the bug fixed. As silly as I found it to learn about that I don't really blame myself because how are you supposed to know? Even if I did find a workaround like you did for SPM, I'd still think my copy is broken and that it needs to be swapped for one that isn't. (Which is true but I'm saying this from the perspective that only my copy is busted and it wasn't a widespread print issue.)