Video game lessons learned the hard way

Dungeons of Dredmor:

• You only get a reward for clearing out a Monster Zoo if you do so immediately after having exposed it (while the "X monsters left in zoo" ticker is beneath your minimap). If you change floors before you clear the zoo, you don't get the artifact.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin:

• Yes, some demons in the first dungeon block physical. Yes, this includes normal attacks.

• When spreading rumors, the last rumor you spread about a specific shop will take effect.

• Food wears off after a number of steps, not a number of battles.

• The sweepstakes and casino games roll off Tatsuya's Luck stat. Hope you leveled it!

Pokemon Reforged '97 (rom hack of Pokémon Gold and Silver based on the 1997 Spaceworld beta, currently playing through Gold version):

• This game, being based on the beta versions of GSC, uses a beta type chart made when Game Freak were still figuring out how the Dark and Steel types would interact with the other fifteen. You can change to the official type chart from the options menu, but that's no fun, so here's the lowdown on some of the differences:
  • Dark type moves are strong against Psychic and Ghost types, as usual, but also other Dark types. They're also weak to Normal type moves, which is baffling, I know, and absolutely busted, too.
  • Steel type moves do double damage to Rock types, but not Ice types, and are completely useless against other Steel types. Steel types aren't weak against Fire, Fighting or Ground types, instead taking double damage from Water and Electric moves. They also lose their poison immunity with the Spaceworld type chart.
• You're supposed to take a boat to Teknos City after defeating Bugsy in the Westport City Gym. You can’t do anything about the Slowpoke blocking Route 103 yet.

Spider-Man (PS4):

• this is for any open world type game, really: Don't try to 100% on your first go unless the game is really short (for me this limit is <5 hours) or you really want to do it - if you try to complete for the sake of completing, you will get tired and bored by the end.
• Do street crimes regularly, and don't hesitate to go do a street crime when you approach your destination. It's much less tedious than trying to do them all at the end.
• Firing a trip web at a guy near another guy to knock them both out is hilarious and effective, but try to make sure you've taken out all the solos - it's very easy for the thing to just stick out because you were a couple pixels off, meaning both of them are now alerted.
• Web tricks apart from "webbing-in-the-face" don't work normally on late-game Sable International mooks, so try to use other gadgets.
• Electric webs are never not useful. There are a ton of DLC enemies who just shrug off most web-based gadgets, but electrics still work on them!

Edited by arcanephoenix on Apr 17th 2024 at 9:22:56 PM

Bloodborne:

• When trying to climb the staircase en route to Vicar Amelia, lure the Church Giant down the stairs and destroy it before trying to deal with the gun-toting Church Servant.
• Pebbles are amazingly useful to lure enemies out from the pack. If you can lock onto an enemy, you can hit them with a Pebble.
• Once you kill Vicar Amelia and examine Laurence's skull in her room, consumables get more expensive. Make your purchases with this in mind.
• Don't try to get to Djura through Old Yharnam.

Honkai: Star Rail, especially as a 1.0 Genshin player who's been playing near daily... part 4!

• You can't cancel Ultimates, at all. You gotta commit.
• You also can't open the bag to heal or revive your team. At all. This just means that I gotta think carefully in every battle I do, assuming I don't feel like auto-battling at the moment. I like this, actually, the extra challenge is nice.
• I should be careful when leveling up Traces. I should probably treat this like Talents in Genshin. I don't need to level everything to max (unless I just really like them ig), just whatever works for them best.

League of Legends:

1. Nilah’s E, Slipstream, can only go through units and cannot be cast without a target. Even then it has a whole targeting mechanic that I’ve still haven’t figured out.

2. Nautilus’s Q, which has him throw out his anchor and drag himself towards the player it hits, has a hitbox that is slightly larger than the actual projectile. If you are a few inches away from it, it is still likely to connect.

Bear & Breakfast: Time does not stop when you're talking to someone or a cutscene is happening.

Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop: Some combinations of powerups on the CPU opponents are not worth trying to take on without your own powerups. Unless of course you're already a Puyo master.

Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side (Currently working my way through 2nd Season but these should apply to most of the other games in the series):

• Choosing an activity to do on a weekday (Mon-Sat) locks you into doing that activity for the rest of the week, so long as that week isn't interrupted by any holidays. Doing an activity on a Sunday or a day off only takes up that one day.
• Try to save sleeping for days you have off. Not only is spending an entire school week sleeping both a waste of stats and money (as you don't go to your job on days you spend sleeping), but resting on holidays actually lowers your Stress more than it would during the week. The only time you should sleep during the week is if your stress is obscenely high (as in, 80 or higher).
• Pay close attention to your weekly horoscopes. They determine the success rate and how much your parameters are raised when you do a given activity during the week.
  • Study affects studying, painting, and any club activities that don’t involve sports.
  • Leisure affects reading magazines and playing with your friends.
  • Health affects exercising and doing sports club activities.
  • Love affects dressing up and taking boys on dates.
• Calling a boy and setting up a date with him takes up an entire day off. Try not to arrange dates on days where you know that other events are happening. That's how you accidentally miss out on the seasonal flea market...

Edited by Pogakure on May 10th 2024 at 6:50:08 AM

i have a lot so i'll try to consolidate them to one post:

• Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
  • Do not take unnecessary risks, and do not try to go for the crit if your character is on low health.
  • Always keep track of your weapon durabilities.
    • Related to the above, if you reset a map, remember what you messed up on.
  • Do not leave out your main lord or Professor. They'll be a good backup.

• Splatoon 3:
  • Some weapons are really only good on Turf War. (i had to learn this lesson because i bought the game during a Splatfest)
  • Learn how to play weapons before buying them. Do not impulse buy.
  • Turn on motion controls. (i still don't have them on)
  • Try to kill campers instead of directly rushing to mid.

• Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler II:
  • Magic-only and Physical-only teams are not good ideas.
  • Concoct is not a first option—it is a last resort.
  • Pay attention to the turn order. (really RPGs in general, but i learned it from these two games)
  • (II only) Prepare yourself if you're going to use EX Skills instead of using them impulsively.
  • Keep your party members alive.
    • Related to the above, keep your healer alive for last.

• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate:
  • One strategy working against 7 CPUs does not mean it will work against real humans.
  • Camping sucks, don't do it.
  • Do not edge-guard unless you are confident in your ability to.

Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side: 2nd Season:

• Hikami Itaru is a stickler for punctuality. To get the most out of dates with him, take him out on Sundays that aren't public holidays, because whenever you go out with him on a public holiday you'll end up being late and he'll always chew you out for it.
• When it comes to the Sports Day races, don't go flicking your stylus at mach speed like it's the Pokeathelon. You'll want to slide the stylus over the arrows slowly so you can hit all of them and maximize your speed.
• If you are not absolutely confident in your ability to keep a steady grip on your Nintendo DS stylus without your hands shaking, then it's probably in your best interest not to attempt the Valentines Day homemade chocolate minigame.

oh boy more stuff i learned just now:

• Splatoon 3:
  • In Salmon Run, do not rely on your teammates. Treat it like a online battle—you're basically on your own until you die.
    • Speaking of dying, if you're a corpse, move towards your teammates.
  • Also in Salmon Run, though it extends to Side Order as well—the small enemies are not there for flair. They are actually dangerous, so try to deal with them.

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe:
  • Just because you're consistently getting first in CPU races does not mean that skill translates online.

• Super Mario Bros. Wonder:
  • Sometimes the solution is right in front of you.

League of Legends

• Tahm Kench’s passive, An Acquired Taste, stacks up to a maximum of three stacks when he basic attacks the same enemy. When reaching max stacks, if he hits them with his Q, they are stunned, and he can swallow them with his ult, meaning you should auto attack as much as possible to ult enemies so you can carry them to your team.

welcome back to another post of "this guy does not know how to play video games":

• Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
  • For Sothis' sake, the weapon triangle does not exist in this game outside of the Breaker skills. Do not take it into account.
  • In Cindered Shadows, you have limited money. You do not in the main game. Remember this.
  • If you don't want to play Classic, don't. No one is forcing you to.
  • Speaking of Classic, remember, your units can PERMANENTLY DIE.

• Persona 5 and Royal:
  • This goes for all RPGs: always remember, SP is far harder to recover than HP.
  • Royal only: finish Maruki and Kasumi's Confidants immediately. Remember, Maruki is only available until November, locking you out of his benefits and, by extension, the entirety of the Third Semester, if you haven't completed it, and if you don't complete Kasumi's by December, you'll be locked out of the later 5 ranks of her Confidant.

• Splatoon 3 (wow i must be learning a lot):
  • Catalogs might be limited, but you pretty much have three entire months to complete them. Even if you have spare time, please don't spend all that time grinding the catalog. It might not even be worth it to you.
  • Do not hit ZR if you accidentally get Sheldon rambling again. He will go through every single weapon, including locked ones. Mash through it instead. ZR is only effective for when you level up.
  • In Return of the Mammalians, your Hero Shot will be painfully inaccurate, but that's not inherently a bad thing.
  • After Alterna will be unfair as shit, so do not hesitate to abuse the game's relatively bad AI. Especially on the waves of Elite Octolings.
  • In Side Order, if you are not going to use the Low-Hacks Eight's Palette badge on your Splashtag, just don't go for it. It might look nice, and you might be a completionist, but you're not going to use it, and that run is painful.
  • Also in Side Order, if you're willingly getting every Color Chip, and getting every comment on all of them, focus on the weapon-locked chips first. Specifically, Extra Dodge Roll on Pearl's, No-Launch Brella and Brella Cooldown on Marina's, and Splatling Barrage and Midfire Charge on Octavio's.
    • Remember to turn off your Pearl Drone hacks if you're not getting every Drone Chip this run.
    • Also remember to turn off Color-Chip Bias if the Color Chips you're looking for are not the common tones.
    • No, missing Color Chips is not your fault. If you don't find what you need in time, you might as well just give up the run, since it's luck-based.
      • Unless you have Risky Rewards on. If you have that hack on, finish the run.
  • For both RotM and SO: remember to revisit Alterna and the Spire everyday to pay the Shel-drone and to buy from Cipher. There's a 10% chance they can give you money, which is very useful.

• Luigi's Mansion 3:
  • There's no harm in searching up a guide.

• Mario Party Superstars:
  • The CPUs will always use a Chomp Call when the time is right.
  • Master CPUs will pretty much cheat on mashing minigames, but try anyways.

Dungeons of Dredmor:

• Diggle God blessings don't wear off over time.
• If there's a lot of noise, keep an eye on your HP meter - you may very well miss an "Your health is critical!" warning and stumble into Yet Another Stupid Death.

• Sonic CD:
  • Unless you're collecting those Time Stones, if you don't thoroughly check every single level for Past signs, and then the robot generator machines, and destroy them every single time, you will screw yourself out of the good ending of the game from Level 1!
  • The Bad Futures… are genuinely terrifying.
  • The Metal Sonic race requires you to jump all the damn time. You are not Sonic The Hedgehog in this race, you are Jumpman.

Moonlight Pulse:

• EVERYONE is squishy, even on default difficulty; you can expect to take maybe five hits at most with any given character at full health, and a significant number of attacks can even kill in two hits! Oh, and remember, the game runs on Resonance of Fate rules about what happens when ANYONE's HP hits zero.
  • If someone ends up Taking the Bullet, the saved character still suffers HP to One, so you'll have to be extra-cautious if you switch them back in.
• Do NOT get complacent with a single character out of your group; certain enemies or plot twists may force you into using someone else, one way or another.
• Those floating enemies that release homing projectiles when you hit them? You CANNOT swat them out of the air with anyone, all you can do is dodge or take cover, and they release one of those projectiles every time they're hit and they're not bubbled by Laguna's charge shot. ALWAYS BUBBLE THEM FIRST.
• ALWAYS keep Laguna's charge shot active when venturing into unknown areas - the bubble might just incapacitate a very annoying foe out of a group and make dealing with the rest that much easier. Especially when you get ambushed.
• Charlotte's B/Circle move is to whip up to high ledges; Laguna's move on the same button is to plummet downward in a bubble, potentially to bounce off of objects. Make sure your character selection is on point.
  • Not screwing up the above is not optional, as there are parts of Scute Peak where you need to rapidly switch between both of them for their respective B/Circle abilities to proceed.
• Charlotte's whip can hit through walls, EXCEPT for those pesky parasites that block off passages and vessels - they don't want to make Sequence Breaking too easy!
  • The same applies to Clyde's flamethrower, but you're probably expecting that by that point in the game anyway.
• If you ever get stuck with seemingly nowhere to go, remember that unlike every other Metroidvania, you have to factor in not just contiguous rooms, but the blood vessel fast travel paths. Think about how to open up the vessels whenever you get stuck, and you'll figure out the way forward.

Edited by NamelessFragger on May 6th 2024 at 6:18:41 AM

Sailing Era:

• Do not try going across the Indian Ocean horizontally. Hug its coastlines like your mother and bring at least three ships of supplies with you.
• You don't need any items that aren't provisions or trade goods. Wait until you have a lot of money to buy them.
• One piece of treasure can pay for two ships. Do not ignore treasure.

• SIGNALIS:
  • Combine repair sprays and repair patches for repair spray+.
  • Use thermite for enemies in central corridors or any areas you will go through multiple times. You can use thermite like stun sticks.
  • Picking up an object does not stop time. You are vulnerable to damage while doing so.
  • The flare launcher doubles as a grenade launcher for the grenade ammo you find in the final area. You have to combine grenade/flare ammo with an EMPTY launcher for it to change to that mode - the game doesn't automatically pick whatever is in your inventory, and you cannot unload loaded ammo without firing it.
  • There are two types of yellow "locked" doors: doors that open from the other side (shortcuts, basically), and doors locked with keys. Do not assume that just because a door is marked in yellow means it cannot be opened till later - you may have a key to do so.
  • Use the flare ammo in the final area liberally. Frankly, just use both flare gun ammo types as much as you want there - it's not super useful in the final fight, and this section has some nasty corridors you can finish off quickly with grenades.
  • As cool as the reload animations are, you can get an instant reload if you use the inventory menu. This is notable because the game doesn't have auto-reload (you don't automatically reload if you try to fire your gun while it is empty and you have ammo).
  • As you proceed through the final area, picking up progression-critical items will often lead to the rooms they're in being closed off for...plot-related reasons. Keep this in mind if you're thinking of picking stuff up later.
  • Leave one inventory slot free before fighting the final boss. You will need it.
  • Other final boss tips:
    • You only get pistol ammo and healing patches during the fight, so know that bringing, say, the rifle to the fight means you will simply run out at some point. That's okay (I used the rifle and i functionally ended a couple phases super quickly) but do bring a pistol so you can deal some damage once you run out.
    • You can (and probably will) run out of ammo by the time you hit her final phase. That's okay. Just dodge everything she throws at you and pick up her spear and she will automatically collapse eventually. You don't have to deal damage.

Edited by arcanephoenix on May 9th 2024 at 9:21:30 PM

Final batch of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life tips because I finished the main plot and I've been wanting to play more I Was a Teenage Exocolonist for a year at this point:

• Blues hybrids can also be made with fruit, so don't wait for those to show up in a request to get them.
• Chris gives a quest for an extra outfit with enough friendship.
• Tei is the one who needs to be befriended to get the best milker and despite the old family photo coming up in the conversation, the fact that the child doesn't look like Rock isn't addressed.
• Pui will also blow his money on something else than his trip the second time.
• Even picking up a feterlized egg clearly produced by the female duck while inside the coop and directly putting it in the incubator will result in a chicken chick. Reminder that I never got a rooster.
• Your friendship with villagers affects the number of photos involving them in the end credits, with one photo by default and three if you enter the red zone of friendship. This includes the animals and Harvest Sprites.

Edited by Nazetrime on May 10th 2024 at 1:51:47 PM

Balatro:

• Hands are scored in the ascending order regardless of anything, i.e. if you have a Four-of-a-kind in your Flush, you will score Four-of-a-kind but you won't score Two Pair.
• Card position in a hand matters! You can freely shuffle cards before you play them, and it can really make a difference between clearing the Blind or being left stranded (i.e. play your 4's and 10's first if you have a Walkie-Talkie).
• Before you start grabbing all xmult cards, you need some +mults first. Some chips wouldn't be amiss either, though mult is overall better.
• Pareidolia sounds good on paper until you The Plant whaps you over the head.
• Adding playing cards might not seem that good, but that's one of the best ways of getting Special Edition and Seal cards. Speaking of which, these two things don't count as enhancements for cards. (hi, Vampire)

Well, well, my first year and a half back on Vertumna IV was already quite instructive:

• Skill gain boosts only affect the primary skill gained via the job/class.
• If your game plan to pair up with Tammy boils down to "work with Cal, chill with Tammy and keeping her dad from dying might be nice also", you need the stat boost from the favorite childhood toy in Persuasion much more than you need it in Biology. You're going to be getting plenty of Biology points "passively" if you're relying on Life Sciences classes to keep enough Reasoning to enter the Science Fair and Xenobotany to build Organization. Meanwhile, getting enough Persuasion from scratch means cramming eight Humanities classes into the first two years (it would have been only five classes with the right favorite childhood toy).
• Maybe don't try things that require complex planning after a literal year-long break from a game, period. You probably don't remember how things work as much as you think you do.

Edited by Nazetrime on May 11th 2024 at 4:22:36 PM

Wildfrost: Your cards can affect either your team or the enemy field, and the game doesn't prevent you from accidentally pulling a friendly fire on the former or boosting the latter. In other words, be sure to read them carefully before playing them.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet:

• Own Tempo Rockruff is classified as a separate entity from regular Rockruff. Own Tempo is not a hidden ability, and giving a normal Rockruff an Ability Capsule will only give it Steadfast instead.
• As a neat little Anti-Frustration Feature for people looking to raise Dusk Form Lycanroc, Own Tempo Rockruff is only capable of evolving at all during dusk, a roughly three-minute window of time in-game where the sky begins to turn orange.