History GuideDangIt / PlatformGames

* ''VideoGame/Rayman2TheGreatEscape'' 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/Shantae2002'': The final dungeon is on top of Mount Pointy, which Sky tells you is to the east. Since this is a 2D side-scroller, logic would dictate that east means right. She also says it's far away, which makes sense since her home town of Oasis Town is as far west as you've explored so far. And [[MetaphoricallyTrue technically, she's not wrong]], since the game world wraps around and if you do go as far to the right as you can, you'll end up at Mount Pointy... at the edge of an impassible cliff. To get to the dungeon, you actually have to go left from Oasis Town and approach the mountain from the other side. What's worse, if you try to explore further left and hit the slippery slope, you'll fall down the other side and get stuck at the far right edge of the world all over again. Hope you've been stocking up on Warp Squids and had the foresight to save four for Oasis Town!

*** There is a room with five Gold Weapons (Bomb Glove, Blaster, Doom Glove, Suck Cannon and Mine Glove) accessible on first playthrough, but not many first-time players will discover this. [[spoiler:It's hidden at top control tower on Gemlik Base near the runway.]] A rather benign example as those Gold Weapons are pricey anyway and second weapon room becomes accessible on Novalis once the game is completed once.

** Some Gold Bolts in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002'' can be this. While the late-game Map-o-matic indicates secret areas, good luck if the Gold Bolt is in the main area but well hidden or if the path to it isn't immediately obvious. Next games point them even in those cases by green point once that item is obtained.

** The [[VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped Third game]] had it worse for one of its truly secret levels, where you had to run into an enemy to get transported to it. A less subtle, ''Crash 2''-esque secret entrance in the game is accessed by knocking down a peculiar road sign in a motorbike level.

* ''VideoGame/Shantae2002'': The final dungeon is on top of Mount Pointy, which Sky tells you is to the east. Since this is a 2D side-scroller, logic would dictate that east means right. She also says it's far away, which makes sense since her home town of Oasis Town is as far west as you've explored so far. And [[FromACertainPointOfView technically, she's not wrong]], since the game world wraps around and if you do go as far to the right as you can, you'll end up at Mount Pointy... at the edge of an impassible cliff. To get to the dungeon, you actually have to go left from Oasis Town and approach the mountain from the other side. What's worse, if you try to explore further left and hit the slippery slope, you'll fall down the other side and get stuck at the far right edge of the world all over again. Hope you've been stocking up on Warp Squids and had the foresight to save four for Oasis Town!

*** 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.

*** 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.

* ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' 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''!

** ''[[VideoGame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack Crash Bandicoot 2]]'' had some secret parts in levels which included jumping into a {{Bottomless Pit}} that doesn't look any different except for three wooden planks which get destroyed once you emerge from the level on a floating platform. Jumping through a fake wall where the only hint of a clue to it is why there are so many [[HairTriggerExplosive Nitro crates]] leading up to a supposed dead end. Or ascending a Nitro staircase which doesn't look any suspicious except the boxes [[FakeTrap don't bounce]]. There were some secret entrances to certain levels, which had to be accessed by feats like bodyslamming a certain enemy on a platform or jumping across crates floating in water to reach an isolated platform.

*** 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's 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.'' Now you need to go back to Shade Man's stage. Once you destroy the pumpkin mini-boss the normal way, you will get to a room with a lone Sniper Joe. 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 Proto Shield. 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]].

** In ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand3'', you need to find a heart star in ''every'' stage of ''every'' level to reassemble the Love-Love Stick and access the true final boss and ending. While some are rather straightforward (such as finding a secret area, avoid stepping on certain flowers who will look sullen if you touch them, finish a stage with a certain animal friend or beat a mini-game at the end of the level), some are way more cryptic (such as having Chuchu at the end of the level and using her ''normal'' attack on a certain NPC) and a few even counterintuitive (in another level you instead have to ''do'' step on flowers which are identical to the ones you have to instead avoid in another level). The ones that are absolute ''hell'' to do without a guide and still tricky with one are Stages 2-5 and 3-6.
*** 2-5 is apparently simple, since in the final screen there is a pink bird which suggests you need to clear the level with Pitch. However, midway through the level there is a screen which is impossible to get through unless you take Kine from a nearby room. Finding Pitch in this level requires finding two different copy abilities in out-of-the-way rooms to break through a certain wall.

*** 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 Mega Broiler 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 Soda Blaster's 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.

*** 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.

** The GBA version makes it better AND worse at the same time. Breakable walls can now be distinguished from regular walls in this port, so if you have an eye for detail you might catch the wall. However, when you get the barrel, you ''better'' jump and hug the wall with it -- if you are standing on the ground after the barrel is broken, ''the victory animation will play and you won't be able to go to the secret room''. If you jump into the wall though, you'll land on the entry and will be able to proceed as usual.

** Finding the rainbow drops in ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand2'' might not be so bad, since you're just supposed to find one per world: just sifting through each level will eventually lead a player to find them. Unless you're looking for the one in Cloudy Park, which requires using all three animal friends (and only Rick and Coo are found in the stage, meaning you need to bring Kine in from a different level to even begin the search) and going back and forth between rooms constantly switching copy abilities.
** In ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand3'', you need to find a heart star in ''every'' stage of ''every'' world to reassemble the Rod of Love and access the true final boss and ending. While some are rather straightforward (such as finding a secret area, avoid stepping on certain flowers who will look sullen if you touch them, finish a stage with a certain animal friend or beat a mini-game at the end of the level), some are way more cryptic (such as having Chuchu at the end of the level and using her ''normal'' attack on a certain NPC) and a few even counterintuitive (in another level you instead have to ''do'' step on flowers which are identical to the ones you have to instead avoid in another level). The ones that are absolute ''hell'' to do without a guide and still tricky with one are Levels 2-5 and 3-6.

*** 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.
*** One thing many will never find out on their own unless they randomly dick around is that King Dedede and Meta Knight can be added to your party immediately after defeating them by throwing a Friend Heart in a brief window of opportunity (just after he shrinks back from his Buff self for Dedede, after he lands but before his mask breaks for MK). The small heart symbol that shows they can be recruited does appear on their head...but ''only'' if you're currently in the act of throwing a Friend Heart, which you wouldn't be doing randomly unless you already knew about it.

** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryTropicalFreeze'' has the series-wide roll jump ability, where if you roll off a ledge, you can jump in midair. In the other ''DKC'' games, this move was explained in either the manual or the game itself, but ''Tropical Freeze'' doesn't touch on it in either location.

* ''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. It only becomes accessible after beating the boss of Doom's Temple, the penultimate world, when Frogger decides to "go home and see my friends". In order to access it, you need to talk to Lily, decline her request to hang out with Frogger, and then [[ViolationOfCommonSense go to where you would meet her anyway]]. As to ''where'' that is, the only hint is that if you agree to hang out with Lily, she tells you she'll be waiting in "the regular spot", which is the Practice level by Frogger's house on the world map. Once you go there after turning down Lily, a cutscene plays where Frogger meets Berry (who in the main story of this game has [[TheVoice only appeared as a voice narrating her letters to Frogger]]) and receives the final health upgrade from her (for reference, Lily gives you [[OneUp a revival potion]]).
* From the ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}'' series:

* ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsBartVsTheSpaceMutants'' had several non-intuitive aspects throughout the entire game, but by far the worst is the final plutonium rod in the final level. Each level has an object that the titular space mutants want, and Bart has to either destroy, collect, or obscure them to prevent the aliens from succeeding. For the first four levels, there are more items than what are required, so Bart can afford to miss some on the way towards completing the level. On the final level, they're after plutonium rods at the power plant, and there is one ''less'' than the required number lying around the level. More than one gamer threw controllers in confusion and disgust before learning the solution - [[spoiler: Maggie is using the final rod as a pacifier, and interacting with her after putting the other 15 in place finishes the game. Nothing like this was at all necessary previous in the game, nothing hints that it's even possible, and it also won't work if Bart hasn't put back the other 15 rods first.]]

* In the original ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'', the final dungeon is on top of Mount Pointy, which Sky tells you is to the east. Since this is a 2D side-scroller, logic would dictate that east means right. She also says it's far away, which makes sense since her home town of Oasis Town is as far west as you've explored so far. And [[FromACertainPointOfView technically, she's not wrong]], since the game world wraps around and if you do go as far to the right as you can, you'll end up at Mount Pointy... at the edge of an impassible cliff. To get to the dungeon, you actually have to go left from Oasis Town and approach the mountain from the other side. What's worse, if you try to explore further left and hit the slippery slope, you'll fall down the other side and get stuck at the far right edge of the world all over again. Hope you've been stocking up on Warp Squids and had the foresight to save four for Oasis Town!

** [[ThatOneLevel Tree Tops]] itself has its own far-off island, which is accessible by following a convoluted route which chains together four ramps, and needs you to [[ViolationOfCommonSense run up one of them backwards, which cancels out one level of your supercharge]]. You can see the intended route [[https://youtu.be/0XD3P7lfOlI?t=203 here]]. There is a thief that shows you the way, but it only appears once per level, doesn't respawn even if you die and doesn't wait for you after you set it off. And the first time you reach the starting platform you'll probably be too preoccupied with all the collectables to bother chasing the thief anyway. This leaves most players trying to work out the correct route with no guidance at all, which is borderline impossible. In fact, it was so esoteric that many people stumbled upon an unintended method where you simply jump off the first ramp and pull a hard right to land on the final ramp of the intended route.

** [[ThatOneLevel Tree Tops]] itself has its own far-off island, which is accessible by following a convoluted route which chains together four ramps, and needs you to [[ViolationOfCommonSense run up one of them backwards, which cancels out one level of your supercharge]]. You can see the intended route [[https://youtu.be/0XD3P7lfOlI?t=203 here]]. There is a thief that shows you the way, but it only appears once per level, doesn't respawn even if you die and doesn't wait for you after you set it off. And the first time you reach the starting platform you'll probably be too preoccupied with all the collectables to bother chasing the thief anyway. This leaves most players trying to work out the correct route with no guidance at all, which is borderline impossible. In fact, it was so esoteric that many people stumbled an unintended method where you simply jump off the first ramp and pull a hard right to land on the final ramp of the intended route.

* ''VideoGame/Spyro2RiptosRage'' and ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'' have Skill Points, hidden objectives you can complete in various levels that unlock an extra WhereAreTheyNow entry in the Guidebook / Atlas if you collect them all. Unlike every other collectable in the game there is ''no'' hint that these are a thing, no entry in the pause menu, and they don't count for OneHundredPercentCompletion, and as they are very esoteric actions (like destroy all the seaweed in [[VideoGame/Spyro2RiptosRage Aquaria Towers]] or burn all the trees in [[VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon Sunny Villa]]) most players likely won't even know they're a thing, while players who happen to stumble across them will have no hints at all where to find the rest of them, or how many they've even completed. Even players following a walkthrough will have to keep track of which ones they've completed all on their own as there's ''no'' in-game way of knowing if you've completed a Skill Point challenge. The ''VideoGame/SpyroReignitedTrilogy'' remakes do have a list of Skill Points accessible from the pause menu, but the descriptions are vague enough to make hunting for them a chore anyway.

* ''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. If you talk to Lily, she asks if she can hang out with Frogger before he leaves. Agreeing has Lily tell you she'll be waiting in "the regular spot", which is the only hint you're getting as to where to go (it's the Practice level right below Frogger's house on the world map). However, Lily only gives you [[OneUp a revival potion]] if you meet her there, so you have to ''decline'' her request to hang out, but then 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 ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', there is a small room in the labyrinth with a wide gap between the entrance and exit. When the player enters, [[TheProfessor Professor Booster]] is suddenly teleported into the room in midair and falls offscreen. If you go down to talk to him, he gives you the the Booster v0.8, a jetpack that allows you to easily reach the next room, and dies. However, getting the [[MultipleEndings good ending]] hinges ''entirely'' on ''not'' talking to him, and instead making the difficult jump across the gap on the first try; if you fall, [[UnwinnableByMistake you can't get back up without the Booster]] (unless you happen to have gotten and fully leveled the [[MoreDakka Machine Gun]]). This is made somewhat easier by a subtle mark on the ground at the spot you have to jump from, but it's easy to miss. If you make the jump and leave the professor to his (apparent) death, a Tow Rope will appear in the Core Room, allowing you to pick up Curly Brace after the battle with the Core and save her life (although several more steps are required for a full recovery); later on in the game, Professor Booster somehow appears in perfect health at Arthur's House, where he hands you the Booster v2.0. It turns out that the professor, having '''not'' given you the Booster yet, finds the strength to make it to the broken teleporter at the bottom of the room, repair it, escape, make a full recovery, and finish work on a much more powerful version of the Booster. The only clues given for this puzzle are a note found in a prefab shack right before the final boss, and inspecting the broken teleporter to learn "a sufficiently skilled electrician might be able to fix this". How this causes a piece of rope found at the bottom of a room several stages away to disappear is not explained, but this saves the player the trouble of going through the rest of the steps to reach the true final area only to find it nearly impossible without the Booster v2.0, and makes it slightly more obvious that something was missed. Altogether, this all [[GuideDangIt makes getting the good ending (or even knowing of its existence) without consulting a wiki nigh impossible except by accident]].

* The UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis version of ''[[VideoGame/XMen1993 X-Men]]'' had a ''very'' devious example of this. In the second to last stage, Mojo's Future Crunch, you're meant to hunt down and destroy a console panel at the end of the stage. However, when you do so, ''nothing happens''. What makes this worse is that you're on a time limit, so either you sit there and die or you decide that the game is broken and shut off the game. What no one tells you is that ''you have to soft reset the game''. That's right, you have to lightly hit the reset button and continue on! To make matters worse, you can accidentally reset the game '''for real''' if you hold the reset button too long, and on at least one version of the Genesis console (the Nomad, a portable Genesis unit) the level is UnwinnableByMistake due to the Nomad having ''no reset button''.

[[caption-width-right:350:One of these blocks has to be the right one...]]

*** 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.]]

* Getting all Emblems in ''VideoGame/LuminousAvengerIx'' is simple enough if you just thoroughly scour every stage... except for one specific Emblem that 99% of the players will only find by accident without looking it up. It's in Data Center Beta. To get it, you have to have Anchor Nexus active in a specific corner at a dead end to reveal an invisible enemy that's drops it when destroyed. There is the only Emblem in the entire game that drops from an enemy and nowhere in the game do you ever use Anchor Nexus to reveal invisible enemies.