History GuideDangIt / PlatformGames

** Getting the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Z-Saber]] in X3. You have to bring Zero into a specific mini-boss fight in one of the final levels (when you normally can't bring him into boss fights at all) and then let it hit him with its LastDitchMove. This damages Zero, making him unavailable for the rest of the game [[FinalDeath just as if he had died]], but unlike dying anywhere else in the game, this one arbitrary time he'll make sure to talk to X and hand over the Z-Saber first.

* ''GuideDangIt/SuperMarioBros

[[folder:Super Mario Bros.]]
* While most of the ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' games are generally easy, there's always one or two Star Coins per game placed in extremely counterintuitive places that pretty much require the player to either be a psychic or use a walkthrough. Some of the worst ones include:
** Any levels with invisible blocks leading to secret areas. The worst one is probably World 5-1 in ''[[VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2 NSMB2]]'' and its invisible block hidden in a bonus room, which in turn leads to the secret exit and two additional levels.
** Anything hidden behind a fake wall which vanishes when you touch it. To find the ones in a certain underwater level and Wendy's Tower in World 4 of ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'' is basically down to trial and error. Some are even hidden behind a fake wall with breakable blocks in the way, [[FakeDifficulty which make the wall seem solid even when it's not]].
** The second Star Coin of World 1 Tower in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2'', where the coin only appears when a P-Switch pressed in the lower part of the room is active, and the game doesn't even hint at there being an upper portion of the room. What's worse, there are also some temporary coins spawned by the P-Switch, making players think they've already found the room's reward and not think to explore some more.
** The second Star Coin in World 6-5 of ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosU'' is hidden ''above'' the level; you must swing on a chain and jump into the sky in a place where there is no ceiling, which warps you to a bonus room.
** The World 4 Ghost House in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosU'' is one big GuideDangIt. Forget secret exits and Star Coins; this is possibly the only level in any ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' game where you'll need a guide to find the ''regular'' exit.
** In the World 4 Ghost House in the first game, there's a room where four blocks on strings fall from the top of the screen when you activate a ? Switch. In order to get the first Star Coin in the level, you have to jump on one of the blocks and wait for the switch to deactivate, at which point the blocks go back up and warp you to the otherwise-inaccessible upper area of the first room. There is nothing that indicates this will happen if you ride the block upward.
** In the World 5 Ghost House in the first game, the level's secret exit and third Star Coin are in a hidden room which you can only reach if you find a set of three invisible blocks, jump onto the center block, and jump while crouching to hit another invisible block that spawns a vine up to the door.
** Finding secret exits in the ''Mario'' series can be a challenge on its own, but in ''VideoGame/NewSuperLuigiU'', two of them (one in World 1-2 and one in World 2-4) are found by ground pounding completely normal looking ground, because it turns out that ground is actually made of Brick Blocks that are obscuring a fake wall.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'':
** Some stars involve hunting for five "secrets". These secrets include hitting a random [!] Block, standing in a specific spot, and pushing a box. These things do nothing in any other mission in the level, and only by selecting the "Five Secrets" mission will they do anything at all.
** The first slide level in the game actually has ''two'' Stars. The first one you can get just by beating it normally. The second one you can only get [[spoiler:by beating it within 21 seconds]].
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'':
** A strategy guide mentioned that one could get a Warp Whistle by dropping through a floating white block in stage 1-3 and then running behind the ending curtain. Only one problem: The guide didn't specify ''how'' to drop down, and holding down the down button for several seconds isn't something that's immediately obvious.
** The whistle in the first fortress has to be obtained by flying up, over, and around the ceiling, then finding a door in the dark (the camera doesn't follow you over the ceiling, so even though the door is at the very right, you still might miss it).
** The last whistle is in World 2, the desert, and you have to break a rock on the top-right corner of the map that's delicately placed to blend into the background. Without seeing something like ''Film/TheWizard'', your only clue is to TryEverything (because up until that point you aren't told what the Hammer actually ''does'', and there's no penalty for trying the Hammer on every square).
** It's not required for anything useful beyond a few [[OneUp extra lives]], but getting the Treasure Ship to appear (or even knowing that it exists) is not something most people would ever figure out on their own. An unknowing player might even trigger one by accident, unsure of what they even did.[[labelnote:To elaborate:]]One must finish a level in World 1, 3, 5, or 6 with an amount of coins that is a multiple of 11 (not counting zero), as well as having the tens column of their score match said multiple. So, for example, finishing a level with 33 coins and a score of 20,430 points would trigger the Treasure Ship. Note that the Treasure Ship replaces one of the Hammer Bros. on the map, so the ship cannot be triggered if there are none remaining. Also, only one Treasure Ship can be triggered per applicable world.[[/labelnote]]
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'':
** Grandmaster Galaxy is barely mentioned at all, let alone how to unlock it. There's also no hint of where any of the Green Stars are. It's especially infuriating when you can barely hear them but they're just out of sight.
** In the fifth boss galaxy, the second Green Star can only be found by [[spoiler:shooting out of the cannon on the blue and purple sphere planet not toward the next planet, but really far and up to the left]]. The Star is [[spoiler:about 20 seconds away and can only barely be seen by its twinkle]].
** Getting the first episode of Grandmaster Galaxy simply requires getting all the other stars in the game, which is intuitive enough. Getting the second episode requires putting 9999 Star Bits in the bank, which is hardly hinted at all.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' has a few levels where you race against a clone of Mario. The game never hints that there is a speed boost you can get at the start of the races -- kinda like in ''VideoGame/MarioKart'', but with a less intuitive process: start by holding forward, then hold Z when the countdown hits 2, then press A as soon as the countdown finishes. This is practically required in the races against Cosmic Luigi.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' has a big open world with a lot of Power Moons, many of which are insanely tricky to find or obtain. Here are some of the craziest:
** The Moon at the start of the cave section in the Moon Kingdom is really high up on the wall above the pipe, with no obvious way of getting there. You get it by taking a Banzai Bill all the way from the end of the level back to the start, hoping it doesn't run out of steam before you hit that ledge. It also leaves you with basically no room for error.
** Quite a few Moons found by the dogs aren't marked at all until the dog starts digging, and the one with a Moon (rather than a few coins or a heart) can be a completely nondescript patch of land miles from where the dog initially appears.
** A few more Moons are found on platforms covered by fog in bonus areas, like the one accessed by having Yoshi eat a fruit blocking a pipe in the Mushroom Kingdom. Some give off a tiny glow that's easy to miss, but others are literally "drop down, trust there's ground there".
** The second Goombette Moon in the Sand Kingdom is hard to get. Normally, she'd be on a platform the player has to reach with a Goomba stack, but in this case she's at the very edge of the level far away from anything else. This means that not only is she easy to miss herself, but once you find her location, you have to bring a Goomba all the way from the other side of the level to actually get said Power Moon.
** The Moon hidden in the Cap Kingdom's block-pushing bonus level may be the trickiest one to find in the entire game. It's [[http://twitter.com/ThAshleyChannel/status/924363444744216576 inside a compartment in the back of one of the blocks you jump across]]. Unless you randomly decide to turn back at just the right spot, it's incredibly easy to miss.
** An entire section of the Wooded Kingdom known as the Deep Woods requires jumping off a cliff, which would normally kill you. You can't teleport while in the section, suggesting that it serves as a kind of penalty area, but several moons and transformations are only available there. One of those Moons involves capturing the nearby Coin Coffer and using it to fire 500 coins at a nondescript sapling marked only by five fossilized coins (and you'll likely need more than 500 unless your aim is perfect).
** One of Mario's {{Idle Animation}}s involves sitting down if left on a seat, something you will likely only find by accident. There is one instance in the entire game where this is actually useful: "Bench Friends", the Metro Kingdom sidequest with the depressed man sitting on the bench. Doing this animation rewards a Power Moon. One could spend hundreds of hours and never figure this one.
** Piranha Plants can be Captured by throwing a rock at them so they eat it and can't eat Cappy. The only real hint for this is that Piranha Plants often have rocks near them.
** Good luck finding all the regional (purple) coins. The various hint systems can help with Power Moons, but getting hints for the regional coins requires using a [[BribingYourWayToVictory Bowser]] Toys/{{Amiibo}}.
** The various "Found with (KINGDOM) Art" Moons that require using Hint Art signposts and backtracking to find them. Many of the Hint Art Moons are easy enough to solve, but some of them are so vague that it could take days to figure them out.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'':
** Progressing through the game is itself a little obtuse. In order to get to Corona Mountain, the final world, you have to beat the seventh episode (all Shadow Mario chases) in each world. Unlike ''Super Mario 64'', the ''amount'' of Shine Sprites you have is ultimately irrelevant and getting to the seventh episodes requires only beating the prior six episodes, meaning that the Shine Sprites found in the hub or traded with Blue Coins, as well as the eighth, secret, and 100-coin episodes, are a waste of time to non-completionists[[note]]While other worlds are indeed unlocked by the amount of Shine Sprites you've collected, you can easily collect more than enough by playing through the worlds[[/note]].
** Blue Coins, ten of which equal one Shine Sprite in an exchange with an NPC, tend to be hard to find. While they are not needed to beat the game, they will drive {{Hundred Percent Completion}}ists batty, as they will search every nook and cranny, squirt water at anything that moves or doesn't move, and do all this for every episode in every level.
** One of the secret Shine Sprites in Pianta Village can only be found if you stand on the platform atop the tallest tree, look straight up, and spray water ''at the sun''. After you spray it, a Shine will pop out. A Blue Coin in the same area requires you to find a different spot and spray water at the ''moon''. A villager hints at these (and bear in mind that talking to villagers is optional in the first place), but only obliquely -- she only talks about the moon in Episode 5 and the sun in Episode 8.
** At least two secret Shine Sprites can only be found by spraying normal looking ''sand'' in random places with water.
** Shine Sprites are acquired by collecting 100 coins in each level, including the hub. The game fails to say that not all episodes in a level have 100 coins. You also don't have the added benefit of blue coins equaling five gold coins, since they serve a different purpose entirely in this game.
** The game utterly fails to tell you that you can get goodies if you spray the birds around the levels or eat them with Yoshi; your only hint is that spraying them makes the same distinct sound that plays when you spray other things that have adverse reactions, like Shadow Mario, his Graffiti, and Proto Piranhas. Green birds transform into coins, blue birds transform into Blue Coins, yellow birds transform into Shine Sprites, and red birds transform into Red Coins (but that only happens once). Once you figure out the general pattern, though, you can find the related secrets pretty easily.
** Yoshi can eat the bees that emerge from the beehives in certain levels. This in itself is something that a player is likely to discover. However, you can get a Blue Coin by knocking down the beehive with spray or a stomp and then having Yoshi eat all ''those'' bees as well, which is also something that's not likely to occur to the average player (in part because [[ViolationOfCommonSense knocking down a beehive seems like it would be a bad idea]]).
** In Ricco Harbor, you have to spray a normal-looking solid wall by the lighthouse in order to make a blue Shine Sprite symbol appear, which then yields a blue coin. It is not hinted at, and the only likely way to find it without a guide is by just randomly spraying the wall.
** One Blue Coin in Sirena Beach will pop out when you spray the flower garden at the top right of the hotel's exterior. Another Blue Coin in the same level requires you to ground pound in front of one of the tiny slot machines in the casino, which also causes coins to pop out when done with the other slot machines.
** Sirena Beach's third shine, Mysterious Hotel Delfino, requires getting Yoshi so you can get past enemies Mario can’t defeat. Problem is, he only wants pineapples, which the fruit stand (in)conveniently doesn’t have. In order to find some pineapples, you have to navigate this maze of a hotel by doing some very counterintuitive actions that the guests only give you the vaguest clues about. Just finding the first step in this mission can be hell for a first-timer.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'':
** Unless you have incredibly good skills with the cape, the only way to access the Secret Exit in the Cheese Bridge Area is to have a cape and Yoshi, float ''[[ViolationOfCommonSense underneath]]'' the Level Gate, then dismount and jump upwards on the ''other'' side just as you go off the screen.
** Chocolate Island 2 is a unique example: Unlike any other level in the game, there is a point in which the layout changes based on the time left when the player enters a pipe. Most players who've gone through the game and weren't going for HundredPercentCompletion probably didn't know that there were alternate sections of the level. While the Secret Exit requires you to speed through the first two sections as quickly as possible and get into a pipe with 250 seconds or more on the clock, there are several other rarely-seen sections (like the final non-secret exit one, which has DynamicDifficulty based on how many Dragon Coins were collected in the sections prior to this) that can also trip players up. Your only hint in the game is the message block at the level's start: "Here, the coins you collect or the time remaining can change your progress", which barely explains how it ''works''.
[[/folder]]

** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryTropicalFreeze'' has the series-wide roll jump ability, where if you roll off a ledge, you can jump in midair. The other games this move was in explained it; the original trilogy has Cranky or Wrinkly tell you, while ''Returns'' [[InstructiveLevelDesign has a KONG Letter in a pit in the first stage that can't be collected without this ability]]. This game seems to expect you to remember the move exists from those past games, as it's required to get some of the game's collectibles without using Diddy's jetpack hover or Dixie's ponytail twirl.

** ''Banjo-Tooie'' has several unduly annoying Jiggies.

** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryTropicalFreeze'': During a roll, you can jump even without touching the ground, in a sort of Double Jump. The game will ''never'' tell you this, but it's required to grab a few collectibles without cheesing them with Diddy or Dixie's flight skills.

* ''VideoGame/{{Frogger}} Ancient Shadow'' has four [[HeartContainer health upgrades]] to extend Frogger's health from four hit points to eight, but while the first three are simply bought from Mohan's shop, the fourth one is found in [[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/84363683 a completely unrelated location]] so obtuse that without a guide, you may simply settle for having an incomplete seven health. For starters, it only becomes available after beating the boss of Doom's Temple, the penultimate world; in the cutscene after the boss, Frogger declares that before he helps Igunis in Sealed Heart, "I wanna go home and see my friends", and returns to his front yard outside his house to do just that. From here, you have to talk to Lily, who asks if she can hang out with Frogger before he leaves. If you agree, Lily tells you she'll be waiting in "the regular spot", with no hints as to where the regular spot ''is'' (it's the Practice level right below Frogger's house on the world map). However, if you agree to meet Lily there there, she only gives you [[OneUp a revival potion]] rather than the eighth health piece, so you have to ''decline'' her request to hang out. After saying no to her, though, you have to go to the Practice level anyway; upon doing so, a cutscene plays where Frogger meets Berry in the level instead of Lily, and rather than the revival potion, she gives him the final health upgrade.

*** In 3-6, meanwhile, you need to scour a dungeon (which has [[PointOfNoReturn points of no return]]) for all the pieces of [[VideoGame/RoboticOperatingBuddy R.O.B.]]. To access the rooms where said pieces are located, you also need to use Kine and Coo, which maneuver awkwardly to say the least in the cramped spaces, including using a secondary ability of Kine with the Spark ability [[spoiler: (revealing invisible elements to identify the correct door to enter)]] which is never hinted at and not used in any other stage in the game.
** In ''[[VideoGame/KirbyStarAllies Star Allies]]'', many nuances of how certain elemental abilities affect bosses may get overlooked (or never discovered) even after finishing the game. Some, such as putting out Flamberge's cannon's fuse with Ice, Wind or Water or instantly killing Whispy Woods by dealing uninterrupted Fire damage are pretty obvious and might even be done by accident, but would you expect that using the Ice ability on Kracko's rain attack for several seconds would ''freeze'' him entirely, especially since for the first few seconds he doesn't even take damage from it? Or that using a Fire ability on Francisca's icicles will net you healing items, and [[ElectrifiedBathtub using Spark on her water stream]] will damage and eventually stun her? Even though the story mode's bosses are rather easy, these strategies are invaluable in [[BossRush the Ultimate Choice]] at higher difficulties or to speedrun Guest Star mode.

* ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' does this too. The game makes a point of notifying you when your upgrades are authorized, and trying to use chargeables before that time - even to save your life - just causes the charge meter to rubberband. A late boss fight requires you to deduce that you can now use one of them, or die in five seconds if you don't. The problem is that the notification that the item is available for use doesn't come until ''after the ending credits''!

* ''Banjo-Tooie'' has several unduly annoying Jiggies. The worst and most infamous of these is Canary Mary's race in the final level, Cloud Cuckooland. It's a button-mashing race. The Guide Dang It part? ''You're not actually supposed to mash the buttons.'' Canary Mary has RubberBandAI, and if you speed up, she speeds up proportionally -- meaning that if you get too fast, she becomes impossible to beat. Making this even ''more'' fun is that you raced her before in an earlier level, where you could mash your way to victory somewhat easily.
** Although [[LetsPlay/NintendoCapriSun some]] [[LetsPlay/{{Cypheron48}} people]] have managed to beat her through sheer mashing on the last race.
** What may be worst about this is that Mary's finish line is actually before yours, meaning that if the race ends with you ahead of her, it's still entirely possible for you to have lost.
** The Xbox Live Arcade port added a new Guide Dang It: Stop 'n' Swop II. The first four objectives are simple enough: hatch all of the original Stop 'n' Swop eggs and collect the Bronze, Silver, and Gold eggs. However, for the remaining three objectives, you need to beat every boss under a total of 15 minutes, become each and every one of Humba Wumba's transformations, and finally, kill yourself 40 times during boss battles.
** Many players also have trouble with the Jinjo in Spiral Mountain under the waterfall. Most players wouldn't even think to look in Spiral Mountain for the final Jinjo.
** Also, Grunty Industries is an entire world of this trope. Just for some perspective, when you first enter the world, you find yourself outside the factory with the main door sealed shut. An uncrossable marsh surrounds you, all you can reach is a handful of pickups, an unkillable battery enemy, and a switch to add the world to the inter-level train network. That's right, not even a hint on how to get into the level proper! [[spoiler: Tip: That train station isn't outside, either.]]
* ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'':
** In order to get to Rusty Bucket Bay, you need to transform into a pumpkin and go under a gate in the graveyard room where you enter a building which results in other things happening, but the gate doesn't look like it has a hole.
** Speaking of Rusty Bucket Bay, you never get a clue that you can actually break some of the windows of the ship, or that there's a hole in a wall underwater in Snacker's pool leading to a warehouse with an empty honeycomb piece. The only slight hint for the windows is that some of them reflect light differently than the others, and these are the breakable ones.
** There's also the pink Jinjo in Rusty Bucket Bay, who is found deep underwater underneath a grate. Considering how the polluted water functions in Rusty Bucket Bay, many people tend to ''avoid'' the water as much as possible.
** How to get the colored mystery eggs and the ice key. Yes, they're in there. Yes, you can do it. But how? The whole point was this trope: You weren't supposed to know unless you'd managed to get clues from the next game. When Nintendo stepped in and changed the hardware, implicitly telling Rare they couldn't do it the way they wanted (it's a long story), this idea was scrapped as far as the sequel went... but it didn't change what was already put into the first game. Not that these items actually ''do'' anything,[[note]]Not only would the next game tell you how to find them, it would also be the only place you could use any of them[[/note]] but it's still been one of the longest-standing brainteasers in gaming history.

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** One of the secret Shine Sprites in Pianta Village can only be found if you stand on the platform atop the tallest tree, look straight up, and spray water ''at the sun''. After you spray it, a Shine will pop out. Another mission in the same area requires you to find a different spot and spray water at the ''moon''. A villager hints at these (and bear in mind that talking to villagers is optional in the first place), but only obliquely -- she only talks about the moon in Episode 5 and the sun in Episode 8.

** Shine Sprites are acquired by collecting 100 coins in each level, including the hub. The game fails to say that not all episodes in a level have 100 coins. You also don't have the added benefit of blue coins equalling five gold coins, since they serve a different purpose entirely in this game.

** In ''VideoGame/MegaMan7'', the locations of every important item you can get with Rush Search can qualify. But the Energy Equalizer takes the cake. While the rest of the items can be found by just using Rush Search on every different ladder, to get the Energy Equalizer you need to defeat the Shade Man miniboss in a specific way (by attacking the outher shell). There's no indication to make it appear you're making any damage other than the eyes of the pumpkin flashing. Once you defeat it, without touching the inner core, the boss will explode on the right side of the screen revealing an entire new section for the level. Once there you will need to scan the entire new section to find the Energy Equalizer... or you can use Rush Search under Dr Wily portrait to find it.
*** Getting the Proto Shield is even worse. First you need to find Proto Man in Cloud Man's stage. No big deal, just use Rush Coil to get to the suspicious stair you otherwise can't reach. Proto Man will give you an entirely redundant and irrelevant hint (Use the flame weapon in the woods). Nice, I guess? Except you don't have a flame weapon... yet. Until this point, you could think it's the same as ''VideoGame/MegaMan6'' where Proto Man only gets a cameo to give you the Energy Equalizer except this time he didn't give you crap. Here comes the guide dang it part: You need to find Proto Man again on Turbo Man's stage. To find him you need to go through a fake wall at the top of the Hyper Rocket Buster room. This time, there's absolutely no indication of the fake wall existence so you kinda need to stumble there. Once again, he gives you a totally irrelevant tip (you can't slide while using the Super Adapter, something you can easily know as soon as you get the Adapter). AND YOU'RE NOT DONE YET. No, now you need to go back to Shade Man stage. Once you destroy the pumpkin mini-boss the normal way, you will get to a room with a lone Sniper Joe in there. You kill him and then you proceed through another fake wall to a new room where you will finally fight against Proto Man and once you defeat him you get the Protoshield. And unlike the Energy Equalizer and the other items in the game, you can't buy it at Auto's store. All of this for [[PowerupLetdown a quite mediocre reward that gimps your offensive skills]].

* The NES/Famicom PortingDisaster of SNK's ''VideoGame/{{Athena}}'' has a very nasty example. After beating the boss of the fourth stage, you get a seemingly useless inventory item and move on to the fifth stage, the [[MeaningfulName World of Hell]]. [[ThatOneLevel This stage is very easy to die in]], with constant RespawningEnemies and {{Bottomless Pit}}s abound. After much strife, you may eventually reach the boss, only to notice that [[DamageSpongeBoss no matter how much damage that you pump into it, it just won't go down]], no matter how many times you may try. As it turns out, the item the boss of the fourth stage dropped is what gives you the ability to actually damage it. However, if at any point you die in the fifth stage (this includes at the boss!), it's ''gone'', enforcing a no-death run. And since you can't revisit previous stages, ''[[UnwinnableByDesign there's no way to get it back]]'', making the only remedy to [[ContinuingIsPainful reset the game and start from square one]] to give it another try.

[[folder:Sonic the Hedgehog]]
* ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'' has a puzzle [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom appropriately]] known [[FanNickname to fans]] as the "[[http://info.sonicretro.org/Carnival_Night_Zone#Barrel_of_Doom Barrel of Doom]]". It's found in Carnival Night Zone Act 2, and it's so infamous that series creator Yuji Naka [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XeBgeN5uG8 publicly apologized for it]] in 2011 and an UrbanLegendOfZelda suggests that calling Sega's help line at the time would give you an automated message telling you how to get past it. All it takes is standing on the barrel and alternating between pressing up and down on the D-pad, in sync with the barrel's bobbing motion, to shift its weight. Except nobody could figure it out because:
** You encounter other barrels in the game, every one of which is passable just by jumping on it. They're all even ''skippable'', and this is the only one that isn't (unless you're playing as Knuckles). Jumping on ''this'' barrel will move it, just like with all the other ones, and if you jump on it enough, you can ''theoretically'' spin-dash under it when it pops back up (but this is really hard to do, and it usually doesn't leave you enough time to finish the level), so players would assume that this is what you have to do -- and get frustrated when they ''almost'' pull it off, thinking they're on the right track but just not doing well enough. In fact, jumping on the barrel is the only thing that's guaranteed to give instantaneous feedback, and veteran ''Sonic'' players are conditioned to expect that feedback to show the way forward.
** While the Down button has a few select uses, primarily the Down+Jump combo to initiate the Spin Dash, the Up button has little to no use elsewhere in the game ''or'' in the [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1 previous]] [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 Sonic]] games. Even pressing it while on the barrel while it's stationary doesn't make it move, so no feedback there. Pressing up or down doesn't even make Sonic look up or duck down like he does elsewhere. The only way you'd figure out that it ''does'' do something is by desperately mashing buttons and hoping something happens. And just standing on the barrel causes Sonic to spin around vertically, suggesting that he can't even be controlled unless you jump off it.
** The barrel wasn't even ''designed'' to be a puzzle. It was simply one of many obstacles designed to slow you down and [[MarathonLevel eat up your precious time]]. The developers failed to consider that figuring out how to get past the barrel would even be an issue. This might be why the game's manual mentions Dr. Robotnik's "diabolical traps" that were designed to be inescapable except for letting time run out; while most people thought it referred to the Barrel of Doom, it did so in the context of being one of many things (some of them [[HandWave glitches]]) that would slow you down, not something that you had to solve. This conception of the Barrel was {{lampshaded}} in the [[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics Archie comics]], where [[KillerRobot Omega]] encounters the Barrel and decides to [[CuttingTheKnot just blow it up]].
* ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'':
** The first game has a few Adventure Field emblems that can be tricky to find:
*** One in the Mystic Ruins requires flying over a large, seemingly empty space as Knuckles -- and the emblem itself won't show up because of the draw distance until you're actually close to it, so you wouldn't even think about jumping and gliding across that super large bottomless pit unless you somehow knew the emblem was there.
*** One in the Egg Carrier requires you to fly on top of the giant spinning contraption at the back end of the ship's outside area as Tails. However, the emblem is only collectible when the ship is in ''wings out'' mode that separates the front and back ends of the ship and allows you to enter the Sky Deck stage. You change the ship around by pressing a big red switch on the ground located in the control room near the giant spinning thing. Every time you come back to the Egg Carrier after it's landed in the sea, the ship is always set to ''wings in'' mode by default. It's so obscure that even if you went up there the first time with the ship in ''wings in'' mode and found no emblem up there, then you'd likely think that particular emblem was located somewhere else, leaving you stumped until you finally looked up and found you have to transform the ship to make the emblem appear.
** Most of the secret optional powerups and upgrades for all the characters, despite not being explained or shown in the manual, are not that difficult to find if you take time to explore the Adventure Fields (except for one upgrade for Big that is actually found in a secret area of Ice Cap). However Amy's Long Hammer upgrade is the big exception. In order to obtain it, you have to play the Hedgehog Hammer minigame again and get a certain high score. However, you have to do it in the Adventure Field after getting the Warrior Feather (doing it in Trial mode in the Games menu won't work), and you have to do it after the Egg Carrier has landed in the ocean. This requires you to think to go back there either immediately after Tails drops you off in Station Square (by taking the boat) or after killing Zero. Nothing in the game ever hints at giving the Hedgehog Hammer another go after the Egg Carrier crashes, so many would have seen no point in playing the game again other then to get the emblem for it in Trial mode.
** During the final boss fight of ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', it's possible to [[spoiler:switch characters by flying past the [=FinalHazard=]]]. The game doesn't tell you how to do this, which can be real problematic [[spoiler:if you're running out of rings but can't land a hit]].
** In general, Amy has an unusual control feel; she's pigeon-toed with an overlapping gait, which causes her to run a lot slower than she would otherwise. The way to get her grade A emblems is by getting her to take the biggest leaps possible as you move through her stages. Nothing in the game tells you anything about this.
** [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure Both]] ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Adventure|2}}'' games feature Chao, cute little critters that you can breed and raise. The games are not very forthcoming with how you go about doing that and what else you can do with them:
*** You can only see a Chao's stats, give them a name, and access the different types of fruits -- but only if you transferred them into your VMU via the machine located in each garden. Neither game explains this, not even in the manuals. The first game has a monitor in the Station Square garden hinting that different fruits have different effects on each Chao, but it doesn't explain how to obtain them.
*** Chao have two invisible stats, Luck and Intelligence. Nothing in either game tells you how to increase these states, or what they do, leaving many gamers baffled. They're important, though -- Luck prevents Chao from tripping (useful when racing them), and Intelligence helps them solve puzzles. In the second game, a Chao's Luck and Intelligence stats can only be raised through the VMU -- Luck through a minigame, and Intelligence by feeding the Chao a special fruit only obtainable on the VMU. Not only is this not explained to you, but you wouldn't be able to raise these important stats if you didn't have a VMU.
*** In the first game, a Tikal hint orb will tell the plays that animals can change a Chao's appearance, but it won't tell you that the also affect a Chao's stats.
*** A Chao's stats are randomly determined at birth. If it has an E ranking in a stat you wanted to raise, no matter how much you give it it will raise extremely slowly and weakly, and always be weaker than a Chao with the same level of a higher rank. You can gradually raise the ranks by training them in the weaker stats until they evolve or reincarnate, but the game does not tell you this.
* In ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', there is at least one point (Extra Mission for BINGO Highway) with Team Chaotix where you have to use Leaf Swirl to turn Espio invisible so he can pass some lasers. At no point in the game is it mentioned that turning Espio invisible makes him able to pass through lasers.
* Like most ''Sonic'' games, ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Advance|Trilogy}} 2'''s true ending can only be seen if you collect all seven Chaos Emeralds. However, to get to the Special Stage to even attempt to get a Chaos Emerald, you have to collect all seven of the Special Rings hidden in any given level. Unfortunately, as a later ''Sonic'' game, it wasn't really known for its exploration, and most players would end up running right past them. It doesn't help that backtracking is pretty much impossible, and players would either have to memorize an entire level to get them or get the game guide with the detailed maps. And you lose the rings you got if you die.
* ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' has Space Gadget. The Hero mission is just the Neutral mission on a five minute time limit. If you want to get to Cosmic Fall from this level by clearing the Neutral mission, you have to let the clock run past five minutes; otherwise, the game will count getting to the goal as passing the Hero mission and sending you to Final Haunt. Manually selecting the Hero or Neutral mission in the pause menu does nothing to change which mission the game says you've cleared. This is the only stage where something like this happens.
* ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Rush|Series}} Adventure'': As opposed to nearly every other hidden island, where shallow water will hint at its location, there are two that require scouring the entire sea map to find. They're at the very top of the map, far from any other island, and there's no sign that they're up there.
* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' had many omissions in the game manual; the game was [[ChristmasRushed severely rushed]], so several of the things in the manual weren't actually in the game. But sometimes there are things you ''can'' do that you would have no idea was even possible. Rouge's bomb-planting move is the most infamous, as it's not mentioned anywhere in the game (and it's necessary to clear one section of Shadow's Kingdom Valley, as you have to find one of the three keys by bombing a stained-glass window).
* In ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD'', to reach the Robotizer in Zone 1 of Wacky Workbench, you must stand on a block that looks like a [[SmashingHallwayTrapsOfDoom crusher]] and let it slam you against the ceiling. Rather than crush you, it drops you into a secret area (although it looks very similar to the ''real'' SmashingHallwayTrapsOfDoom found later in Metallic Madness). Considering there is no way in game to know beforehand that the "crusher" is actually a transporter, let alone one that would take you to the Robotizer, the only way you could have found this out without looking it up would be [[LuckBasedMission sheer dumb luck]].
[[/folder]]

* The Metroidvania BulletHell ''Rabi-Ribi'' has its fair share of weird achievements that can easily go unnoticed by players. Most are sequence-breaks, ranging from simply getting to the second boss before the first to [[NintendoHard doing a series of complex maneuvers in order to reach post-game content while still in the main story.]] [[spoiler:Blowing Cicini's computer room up with a Cocoa Bomb]] is a pretty good candidate for this as well.

* ''VideoGame/MilonsSecretCastle'' on the NES is so cryptic that Nintendo Power Magazine included an article for it in their cheats section (where normally, things like the famous Contra 30 lives code get published)... The title of the article? "Getting Started"! WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd made a [[http://cinemassacre.com/2009/01/27/milons-secret-castle-2/ video]] about it. The main difficulty comes from the existence of blocks that need to be pushed, allowing you to proceed further... but even if you find these blocks, which look no different from every other block in the game, it's very hard to even figure out that Milon ''can'' push blocks, since it's not mentioned in the manual, he lacks a "pushing" animation, and even if you do stumble into one by mistake, it takes about a full second of Milon running into it for it to start moving. There's also a lot of "puzzles" that require you to shoot empty air.

** The barrel wasn't even ''designed'' to be a puzzle. It was simply one of many obstacles designed to slow you down and [[MarathonLevel eat up your precious time]]. The developers failed to consider that figuring out how to get past the barrel would even be an issue. This might be why the game's manual mentions Dr. Robotnik's "diabolical traps" that were designed to be inescapable except for letting time run out; while most people thought it referred to the Barrel of Doom, it did so in the context of being one of many things (some of them [[HandWave glitches]]) that would slow you down, not something that you had to solve. This conception of the Barrel was {{lampshaded}} in the [[ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog Archie comics]], where [[KillerRobot Omega]] encounters the Barrel and decides to [[CuttingTheKnot just blow it up]].

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/{{Invictus}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gpw.png]]]]

* The Metroidvania BulletHell ''Rabi-Ribi'' has it's fair share of weird achievements that can easily go unnoticed by players. Most are sequence-breaks, ranging from simply getting to the second boss before the first to [[NintendoHard doing a series of complex maneuvers in order to reach post-game content while still in the main story.]] [[spoiler:Blowing Cicini's computer room up with a Cocoa Bomb]] is a pretty good candidate for this as well.

* [[https://www.sonicstadium.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/CarnivalNightZone11.jpg The former page]] image is from ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'', and it shows a puzzle [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom appropriately]] known [[FanNickname to fans]] as the "[[http://info.sonicretro.org/Carnival_Night_Zone#Barrel_of_Doom Barrel of Doom]]". It's found in Carnival Night Zone Act 2, and it's so infamous that series creator Yuji Naka [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XeBgeN5uG8 publicly apologized for it]] in 2011 and an UrbanLegendOfZelda suggests that calling Sega's help line at the time would give you an automated message telling you how to get past it. All it takes is standing on the barrel and alternating between pressing up and down on the D-pad, in sync with the barrel's bobbing motion, to shift its weight. Except nobody could figure it out because:

* ''VideoGame/Rayman2'' has a number of collectibles called "Lums" to find, but if you want to find all of them, you'll have to break the rules somewhat. Most of the collectibles are in hard-to-reach places, but they're almost always immediately noticeable as you play the level or explore a little. Unfortunately, in the original versions of the game on the Playstation and Nintendo 64, the very last Lum of the game can only be found by jumping through a solid wall in the "Tomb of the Ancients" level. Nothing else in the game indicates that this is something you can do, and it's only able to be performed in that level. The remake of the game for [=PS2=] eventually gave up on this little-known secret and placed it in a chest you can access at the end of the course.

* ''VideoGame/LaMulana'' is infamous for its cryptic puzzles. Almost all of the hints found on tablets throughout the ruins are worded as riddles, and you ''will'' need to write notes down if you're hardcore and aren't using a guide. An example: One room very early on in the game has a locked chest, a seal and a tablet which reads "Offer three lights to the heavens". The solution is to [[spoiler: obtain the Flare Gun and Conception Seal and break the seal with the latter item, which reveals an alcove above with three enemies which you must shoot with the Flare Gun]]. Only then will the chest unlock. How are you supposed to figure that out from "Offer three lights to the heavens"? It's about as helpful as "[[VideoGame/TheLegendofZelda Eastmost penninsula is the secret]]". And that's just the beginning...

** Pressing up on the D-pad has little to no use elsewhere in the game. Even pressing it while on the barrel while it's stationary doesn't make it move, so no feedback there. Pressing up or down doesn't even make Sonic look up or duck down like he does elsewhere. The only way you'd figure out that it ''does'' do something is by desperately mashing buttons and hoping something happens. And just standing on the barrel causes Sonic to spin around vertically, suggesting that he can't even be controlled unless you jump off it.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gpw.png]]

[[[[VideoGame/Invictus quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gpw.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gpw.png]]

* ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' has Space Gadget. The Hero mission is just the Neutral mission on a five minute time limit. If you want to get to Cosmic Fall from this level by clearing the Neutral mission, you have to let the clock run past five minutes; otherwise, the game will count getting to the goal as passing the Hero mission and sending you to Final Haunt. Manually selecting the Hero or Neutral mission in the pause menu does nothing to change which mission the game says you've cleared. This is the only stage where something like this happens.
* The former page image is from ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'', and it shows a puzzle [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom appropriately]] known [[FanNickname to fans]] as the "[[http://info.sonicretro.org/Carnival_Night_Zone#Barrel_of_Doom Barrel of Doom]]". It's found in Carnival Night Zone Act 2, and it's so infamous that series creator Yuji Naka [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XeBgeN5uG8 publicly apologized for it]] in 2011 and an UrbanLegendOfZelda suggests that calling Sega's help line at the time would give you an automated message telling you how to get past it. All it takes is standing on the barrel and alternating between pressing up and down on the D-pad, in sync with the barrel's bobbing motion, to shift its weight. Except nobody could figure it out because:

** During the final boss fight of ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', it's possible to [[spoiler:switch characters by flying past the Finalhazard]]. The game doesn't tell you how to do this, which can be real problematic [[spoiler:if you're running out of rings but can't land a hit]].

** [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure Both]] ''[[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Sonic Adventure]]'' games feature Chao, cute little critters that you can breed and raise. The games are not very forthcoming with how you go about doing that and what else you can do with them:

* Like most Sonic games, ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Advance|Trilogy}} 2'''s true ending can only be seen if you collect all seven Chaos Emeralds. However, to get to the Special Stage to even attempt to get a Chaos Emerald, you have to collect all seven of the Special Rings hidden in any given level. Unfortunately, as a later ''Sonic'' game, it wasn't really known for its exploration, and most players would end up running right past them. It doesn't help that backtracking is pretty much impossible, and players would either have to memorize an entire level to get them or get the game guide with the detailed maps. And you lose the rings you got if you die.

* The page image is from ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'', and it shows a puzzle [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom appropriately]] known as the "[[http://info.sonicretro.org/Carnival_Night_Zone#Barrel_of_Doom Barrel of Doom]]". It's found in Carnival Night Zone Act 2, and it's so infamous that series creator Yuji Naka [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XeBgeN5uG8 publicly apologized for it]] in 2011 and an UrbanLegendOfZelda suggests that calling Sega's help line at the time would give you an automated message telling you how to get past it. All it takes is standing on the barrel and alternating between pressing up and down on the D-pad, in sync with the barrel's bobbing motion, to shift its weight. Except nobody could figure it out because: