Yes, this is possible even in Visual Novels, mostly due to nonintuitive choices.
- Ace Attorney:
- In case 3 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, you’re required to present the leftover lunch plates from the Employee Area during Dee Vasquez’s testimony. Phoenix’s argument is that separate plates were found at the studio 2 lot without any leftovers on them, which disproves Vasquez’s claim that she was busy eating lunch at the time of the murder. The trouble is, the Employee Area plate is a completely different piece of evidence that has nothing to do with the plate at the studio lot, meaning the player is supposed to assume that presenting one will count as a close enough substitute for the other.
- In case 3 of Justice For All, you’re asked to point out who it was that hung Max’s cloak on the bust that was used to kill the victim. The intended answer (the victim, Russell Berry) can be difficult to guess, especially since the explanation given is that the event was actually mere happenstance: the impact of the bust being dropped onto the victim dislodged the cloak he was wearing, which got caught on the bust completely by chance.
- At one point in the final case in Justice For All, Edgeworth will give you a report. He says that this is the first part of a two-part report. However, to get that second part, you have to present the first part to him. This is the only time in the series when you have to present evidence to the person who gave you that evidence.
- Occasionally, after pressing a witness, the judge will ask if the line of questioning is relevant to the case. The correct response to this is usually yes... However, in case 2-4, there's one situation during Shelly de Killer's interrogation in which you have to press the witness, and the judge will ask you if the line of questioning is relevant twice. The first time, you have to say it is not important to the case because it absolutely isn't. But afterwards, the witness makes a rather revealing slip, at which juncture the judge will ask again for relevance and you finally say it is indeed important. It's possible to figure this out or stumble across it, but it's terribly counter-intuitive because it's the only time it happens in the first two games.
- In the second case of Trials and Tribulations, there's Luke Atmey's infamous final testimony. You have to prove that Atmey was the one who went to the victim's office and killed him, but by this point in the trial the judge is getting tired of the proceedings, and decides (on the advice of the prosecutor) to impose a new condition: you can't present evidence, and you can only press one statement; if it yields no new evidence, you immediately lose the trial. This isn't the first time the series has penalized you for pressing wrong, and the last case ultimately pulls a similar trick, but there are three things making this testimony particularly dickish: 1) the testimony in question is eleven statements long, making it one of the longest testimonies in the series; 2) the actual contradiction is incredibly easy to overlook (hint: it involves Atmey saying something he shouldn't know, even though it's something the player has known for hours at this point); and 3) for this testimony only, the game decides to throw people trying to Save Scum a nasty curveball. Normally when you successfully point out a contradiction, the music stops and you get unique dialogue; however, in this scene and this scene only, pressing any statement will give you generic dialogue...for the first few lines, at which point if you've pressed right Phoenix will interject with his evidence.
- Apollo Justice is often extremely vague or misleading about what you need to do to progress, and it’s impossible to advance if you don’t do things in a certain order. Perhaps in response to this, the next two games introduce a to-do list that spells out which objectives you still have to do.
- In the second investigation of case 4-2, Apollo will suggest investigating the Meraktis Clinic after you’ve spoken to Alita Tiala at the agency. However, you actually have to go to the detention center and speak to another character before anyone else involved with the case will show up anywhere.
- In case 4-3, you have to present a piece of evidence to Valant Gramarye and hear his thoughts on it before advancing in the investigation. The evidence in question is a video tape that Valant just gave to you, making it very counterintuitive to try presenting it to him, but the investigation will eventually hit a wall unless you do so, with basically no indication of what you missed.
- Another example is from case 3 of Ace Attorney Investigations. The victim of the case is revealed to have been the prime suspect’s long-lost father, and Agent Lang suggests the two of them knew this and used it to plan a kidnapping together. Most players will spend ages trying to prove that they didn’t know, when the actual answer is to present evidence showing the kidnapping wasn’t a two- but a three-person job. The logic itself is sound, but there’s no hint that you’re supposed to be looking at it from this angle, not even by pressing Lang’s statements or consulting with Kay for advice.
- Some of the deductions you have to make during the Investigations games can also be difficult to recognize—not because they're hard to figure out, but because the conclusions are so obvious that they don't seem to warrant being pointed out. For example, you're required to "deduce" that the pendant a victim is wearing is engraved with a name that isn’t his, and later you have to use a crude drawing to "deduce" that an obviously-bent-out-of-shape spear is indeed bent out of shape.
- In Adrift, it's ridiculously easy to get a bad ending for even relatively "easy" characters like Hinami and Erika, but Minako's path takes the cake — you need to make a completely unintuitive action at the very beginning before you've even talked to her to be able to get any ending other than her sad one.
- Amnesia: Memories has the problem that out of the game's total of 26 possible endings, 16 of those are bad endings. It's easy for the player to end up making an early mistake and ending up on the normal ending path, since the good endings tend to require specific dialogue choices. The absolute worst offender, though, is Ukyo's route because his route has 9 bad endings. Half of the game's bad endings can all be found on his route alone. And his route is particularly bad because a mistake can lead to the player locking themselves into getting nothing but bad endings.
- C14 Dating: One thing that is a little hard to notice or consider to be a possibility without the online guide provided by the creators is that all five of the love interests will gain extra affection points via doing specific activities rather than raising specific stats. Meanwhile, stats only matter over activities if the player is going for the solo ending, which is a secret in itself. This means that in addition to getting as many events as possible with the coveted love interest, Melissa must study a lot to raise affection with Kyler, inquire a lot for Hendrik, game a lot for Shoji, play rugby a lot for Deandre and socialize a lot for Joan. In the game itself, Kyler, Shoji and Hendrik are hinted at via their respective activity having another animation in which they are present that starts being used when Melissa gets sufficiently close to them, while Deandre and Joan are in their respective activity's animation from the very beginning. The activity symbols shown alongside the male love interests in the trailer aren't much help either: those for Deandre and Shoji are correct, but the one associated with Kyler is for working in the cave, while the one associated with Hendrik went on to become the weekend-only activity raising the same stat to the one that needs to be done on weekdays to get his affection.
- CLANNAD: Obtaining Misae's Light Orb. This is because you actually obtain her light orb in Tomoyo's route if and only if you play Tomoyo's route right after clearing Misae's.
- In order to get Kyou's good end, there are a number of choices you have to make correctly, not all of which are obvious, and some of which are downright unintuitive; for example, you have to start dating her sister, Ryou, and then effectively cheat on Ryou with Kyou, while still keeping up appearances by kissing Ryou at a crucial point. Whether or not you have made these choices correctly, you then have to sit through many pages of non-interactive reading before you find out whether you get the good end or the bad end (one such bad end actually being Ryou's good end which you'll automatically get if you remain faithful to her, meaning you'll actually get to see the credits roll even if you weren't able to lock on to the right sister). Furthermore, any choice in which Tomoya decides he ultimately doesn't want to date Ryou until the plot-required moment will result in Kyou becoming angry, Tomoya explaining himself, Kyou admitting he's right, then Tomoya leaving and the player getting a bad ending. That's right, the plot outright requires you to continue dating a character you might have no interest in just to get the correct sister.
- Clannad's ultimate sin in route design is that Fuko and Kotomi's routes require you to take Nagisa's route to different points. As such, Kotomi's route requires you to help her start the club, but not necessarily continue the plot, while Fuko's plot has a heavy emphasis on Nagisa's route, requiring a lot of time investment into the plot of another character before finishing. If you don't do Nagisa's route, Tomoya will unceremoniously return to his house and you'll get a bad ending while you seemingly did nothing wrong.
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair:
- There's one particular puzzle in Case 2 where you have to puzzle out an in-universe Moon Logic Puzzle in order to progress with the class trial. The students are discussing how the "Twilight Syndrome Murder Case" arcade game (actually a retelling of an earlier murder at Hope's Peak) is related to the real-life murder of Mahiru, and of course it comes down to the player character to figure out how the first victim in the game was killed. Here's the setup: there's a broken window nearby, a fish tank full of gravel smashed on the floor, and the girl died from blunt force trauma to the head. What was the murder weapon? The fish tank? No, Gundham points out that it's too heavy. Monokuma hints that the murder weapon is unusual, so perhaps the broken window? Nope. Turns out the killer filled a bathing suit (which had only been offhandedly mentioned earlier in the case, and which the player has been led to believe has a completely different meaning) with gravel from the fish tank, tied it off, and bludgeoned the unconscious victim to death with it. The game mechanics of making this argument don't help — you have to present the swimsuit to agree with Ibuki's statement that the victim was killed with gravel. Oh, and that "Broken Window" Truth Bullet never gets used. To be fair, this particular solution is more obvious to any player who is particularly Genre Savvy, as the "put something into a bag to beat someone" is fairly common and overly used as an 'unconventional weapon' plot twist in murder mystery stories where the victim was beat to death, and the game puts empathise on the murder weapon being unconventional. Particularly when combined with the fourth wall jabs in the same section about the mystery being something they worked hard to set it, this was most likely supposed to be a less than subtle hint to Genre Savvy players. It still doesn't make it anywhere near obvious, though, particularly to players who wouldn't know about this in the first place.
- The second case also has a moment where a vital piece of evidence give you contradicting information. In order to prove that Hiyoko didn't leave a gummy bear behind as evidence, you have to point out that the gummy bear in question is yellow, and that the candy she usually eats has no yellow gummies. The player is expected to read the description of the "Gummy Bag" Truth Bullet and notice that none of the flavours (strawberry, melon, grape, orange) correspond to a yellow piece of candy. The player is also expected to ignore the Truth Bullet's illustration, which has yellow gummy bears on it.
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
- Angie's second Free Time Event is only available once Kaede's lab opens up. The game never gives any hints as to this.
- One part in the second class trial hinges on you figuring out that the killer used a ropeway to get to the crime scene. If you've never heard the term "ropeway", good luck.
- In Daughter for Dessert, the minigame about hacking into the lawyer’s computer is almost impossible if you don’t know something about it going into it.
- The route you decide to take in Divi-Dead mostly hinges on where you decide to go next rather than what you chose to say to people, so in a first play through you'll end up accidently deciding which route you're going down even if you have no idea what that means. The choices are so few between and seemingly random that it's incredibly difficult not to end up with the "bad" ending where nothing is explained to you. It doesn't help that the few guides on the internet are actually incorrect so just working out what you need to do from the guides alone is a puzzle.
- In DRAMAtical Murder, the final choice on Clear's path has tripped up many a player. Basically, you're given two choices that both essentially say the same thing ("It's fine to rest."/"It's better to stop now."). Picking the first choice leads to Clear's bad ending. Picking the second choice... leads to the same bad ending. To add to the stress, the glass eyes encasing these choices will begin to crack and fall apart if you take too long to click on one of them. The trick here is to not make any choice at all and let the eyes shatter completely. Since this is the only choice in the entire game that has a time limit like this and since things shattering tends to have a negative association, this can throw off players who aren't aware of this trick.
- D.Nd: Poisoned, a Death Note fangame, is known for being pretty frustrating. Not only does what you say affect the resulting ending, but also Mello's thoughts, and even going to a specific place, at a specific time, and the place you visited before going to that place. Most players probably got the "Unreachable" ending the first time they played it. Thankfully, the creator made a guide to get all the endings.
- Endless Summer has this happen at the end of the first book, providing you went and found each of the files on the group through paying diamonds. The group has to figure out the password to Everett Rourke’s computer, the clues being to look up the Hadean Zodiac that relate to each of the group minus Lila the tour guide. Solving it leads to a Wham Episode of finding Everett Rourke in a tube. The password is ALCCADSCCUP.
- Book 2 has it happen again providing you find the Catalyst Idols, the puzzle now being to determine which idol translates which letter on the wall. Doing so leads to an even whammier moment in the series. The password is SAVE THEM FROM THEMSELVES.
- Ever17: Good luck not hitting any of the 3 bad endings. Example: In Tsugumi's route, there are not many more affection points available than are required, and a few of the choices are counterintuitive or unclear in how they relate to Tsugumi, resulting in many (perhaps most) people getting the bad ending the first time.
- Remember11 is also loaded with seemingly innocent choices that lead to one of the game's 30 bad endings, but it's more justified in this case. You also need to see most of them to completely understand the story.
- In Fantasia: Requiem of the Abyss, getting a good ending with Cain is obtusely hard and hinges largely on you buying the right item during the shopping section. The book about demons seems like the most logical choice for Cain's path, considering that Cain is a demon and has confided to you earlier that he wanted to know more about the life cycle of his kind to avoid becoming a mindless Hellbeast, but in fact locks you into getting a bad ending for him no matter what you do after that point. The Curse Removal book isn't much better, either. So what's the item you should buy if you want to get a semi-decent ending for Cain? A painting kit. Yes, that's right, a painting kit. It makes better sense when you see what happens after your purchase, but there's no indication before this that Cain would like painting or that a painting kit would be more useful than a book about demons or curses in the long run, and the one hint you do get about this occurs long after you've made your purchase.
- And that's just for Cain's second-best ending. To get his true ending, you have to know something that you're highly unlikely to figure out without a walkthrough: namely, that buying the Curse Removal book after - and only after - you get Cain's second-best ending causes the merchant to give you a free painting kit and crucial tip about helping Cain. Of course, if you tried buying the Curse Removal book before you got Cain's second-best ending and saw that it led to a normal ending at best, you almost certainly won't have any idea that doing the same thing after seeing a specific ending leads to an entirely different result.
- The Flower Shop, released by Tycoon Games in early 2010, is a stat-driven dating/farming simulation. It's easy to see the characters' events. However, the game does not state the requirements for a good ending. If the player gets the default somewhat sad ending, there is a generic message encouraging the player to try harder. (Thankfully, Tycoon Games' website provides an FAQ.)
- Fate/stay night genuinely rewards you for seeing the Bad Endings. Though most of them are fairly easy to figure out, one of them requires some hoop jumping to get Saber's Relationship Points low enough.
- Getting the good ending in Unlimited Blade Works requires Saber to have 4 or more relationship points and Rin to have less than 8, making it the only Type-Moon ending that needs more than "reload and change the last choice" for the alternate ending.
- One genuine example of Guide Dang It! is in Heaven's Feel: at one point the player is asked by Rin whether or not to remove the Shroud of Martin covering Archer's arm for Shirou to use Projection Magic. Beforehand you are told/shown that removing it would practically cook Shirou's brain. Answering "no" leads to Rin congratulating you on your wise choice to not remove it so easily. Answering "yes" has Rin say that you shouldn't be so keen to sacrifice yourself. They decide not to remove it either way, no matter what you choose. Later in the route the player is given a choice of "Kill Sakura" and "...I can't do that.", unless that is, you answered "no" to Rin's question. Then the choice point is skipped altogether and Shirou automatically tries to stab Sakura, but is killed by Rider. Hmmm...
- Another fairly bad one is near the end of Heaven's Feel where Rider is having a difficult battle against Alter Saber and you are given the option to assist her with your projections. Doing so will block you out of the best ending as you won't have enough projections to reach it by the end. The reason this one stands out is that Shirou has a very specific plan for that fight that, if followed, will work perfectly and lead you to the good ending...but he doesn't tell you, the player, what it is until after you've already successfully completed the plan. Since you are playing AS Shirou, it's like he's hidden his own plan from himself.
- For Frozen Essence, the path that gives players the most trouble is Aurelius's because while it's relatively easy to unlock his path, one of the requirements to getting his good ending is having a high enough relationship with Aysel, which means that unlike for all other paths where the ending is determined solely by the choices you make when you get on that path, it's fully possible to unknowingly lock yourself into Aurelius's bad ending even before you open his path by simply not being nice enough to Aysel at the very beginning of the game, and the most obvious "be nice to Aysel" option (letting her spend time with Aurelius) renders you unable to open Aurelius's path. And even if you get Aysel's affection for you as high as possible in the first half of the game, you still have to say the right things to her on Aurelius's path and the choices involving her are misleadingly vague at times (who'd have thought that asking Aysel about Rune would make her like you more, but that apologizing to her wouldn't?). And even if you do everything right with Aysel, you can still wind up with a Bad End anyway by not reminding Aurelius about Cascade's letter even though it doesn't seem to make a real difference at first!
- Heart of the Woods: Getting the true ending. There are only three decisions in the game, but they don't quite work the same way as in other visual novels. The choices you make for the first two decisions have barely any noticeable impact on their own, but when paired togetherExample(spoilers) determine which options are available to you in the third decision, and that choice will determine your ending. Not only is the third choice seemingly innocuous, since it's just Morgan responding to Madison, but the distinctions between the choices aren't immediately obviousThe choices(MAJOR SPOILERS). See the flowchart of your choices here
. - Kara no Shoujo is loaded with dozens, if not hundreds of choices to make during the game, and the consequences are very random and impossible to connect logically to a choice. There's no rhyme or reason to why you died for going to the park instead of the hospital on a particular day. It is extremely unlikely anyone will get the good ending without a guide, and to top it all off, that's not the end. After getting the good ending, the true ending will be unlocked but it requires starting all over again with a new set of 'correct' choices.
- In Katawa Shoujo, most of the endings are pretty easy to get - if you get it wrong the first time it's generally not that hard to figure out where you went wrong. Even Rin's route, which is much more fiddly and experimental regarding choices than the others, isn't too hardExplanation. However, if you want 100% Completion you're going to need to see every scene in the library. Again, not too hard, except for one specific scene in Act 1 which very few people are likely to get by chance. It's called 'Slow Recovery' and requires you to get as close to Misha and Shizune as you can while still going at it hard in Emi's training. Given that choosing to run faster during practice with Emi is well-known to be the one thing necessary to do to get her route, it's quite unlikely that someone going for Shizune would choose to do it, and vice versa.
- Even then, pursuing Rin's route in the first place can be a case of Guide Dang It!. You may have noticed that there seem to be three pairs of girls; Shizune and Misha, Hanako and Lilly, and Emi and Rin. A lot of the unlocks for Lilly and Hanako are the same, and Misha is Shizune's bad ending, so you would assume that Rin and Emi's paths would cross over in Act 1, right? Nope. Turns out that if you want Rin's route, you not only have to avoid exerting yourself while running (which locks you into Emi's route), but also avoid hooking up with anyone else, or making certain choices that will lock you into the bad ending.
- One factor that makes this harder is that Shizune and Lilly build up "points" during critical conversation moments during the first act. These points reset at a certain moment in the story, and Emi's training activates a value that sets her route. So in order to get to Rin, you have to essentially have zero points after the reset and not train with Emi, and at this point you'll be given the option of going with Rin to the mural, at which point you have to express interest, otherwise the game hard-slams you into the bad ending.
- It's arguably simpler to simply choose to read your book during lunch, at which point it doesn't matter who you support in the argument- you have to have spent lunch with that person and supported her in the argument to get her route (or Hanako, in Lilly's case). Then again, that is hardly obvious at the beginning (especially since it's before you even meet Rin), and it should be pointed out that none of the choices critical to unlocking Rin's route are made in Rin's presence (except for the question about the heart condition, which is only necessary to avoid the bad ending), nor are they obviously related to anything Rin is interested in or any qualities Rin respects.
- One of the development ideas was for Hanako's good ending to be this. In order to reach it, the player would have had to finish Hanako's route once and then play Lilly's route, which would now have the ability to switch to Hanako halfway through. (Elements of this actually made it into the final game - Hanako develops remarkably well during Lilly's route, and arguably has a healthier relationship with Hisao there than when they're trying to be close, but the reasons why aren't obvious to Hisao or the player without going through Hanako's route.)
- Hanako's route contains a moment at which a player must choose to either head into the city and hang out with Hanako, or choose to retire to the dorms with her. Choosing the latter railroads you into, at best, the neutral ending, as no matter what decision is made during the phone conversation, Hisao won't listen (although you won't get the bad ending for at least choosing the right decision), however the good ending is only obtained for choosing the former option. While this is an easily rectified mistake, a first-time run can suddenly end in confusion over a decision that seems benign.
- Most of the Little Busters! routes are pretty straightforward, and even two of the bonus CGs (which involve playing routes over again after the game is finished) are intuitive enough, but if you want to see the Sasami miniroute and CG you'll pretty much need to pick up a guide. The choices towards it are utterly arbitrary, involving a strange and very specific combination of being nice in some scenes and then dismissive in others, very few of which have anything at all to do with Sasami. Not only that, but the CG involves Kud as well so it's sorted with her CGs, meaning that if you don't know the miniroute exists (likely, as it's never hinted in the game) you'll probably see the gap and just assume it's a Kud bonus CG gettable by playing her route in the right way.
- Long Live the Queen has a lot of skill checks and random events that you will have no way to see coming without using a walkthrough, and getting certain bonus achievements and romantic paths (Briony's route and the "Save the Day with the Power of Music" achievement come to mind) is impossible unless you plan your route from Day 1. This may be intentional, as the game's trailer prominently features multiple ways the main character can be killed suddenly.
- In Matches and Matrimony, the Golden Ending with Mr. Darcy is the toughest one to get. Even if you have foreknowledge of Pride and Prejudice, which causes many seemingly counterintuitive choices on his path to make perfect sense (e.g. refusing to dance with Darcy even when he's clearly willing to do so), you still have to follow an extremely specific route of choices and stat-raising to avoid running into one of the many dead ends littering his path — and unlike for all other paths in which you can get away with missing one or two chances to raise your love interest's affection, you cannot afford to screw up at any point with Darcy or any of the other multiple characters you'll need to be in the good (or even bad) graces of to further his plot. Did you miss getting any one of Darcy's affection points? Have too little Kindness when talking to Lady Lucas? Have too much Propriety when talking to Lady Catherine? Pick the wrong dialogue option when talking to Charlotte in the very first choice of the game, before you've even talked to Darcy? Have fun getting an unavoidable Bad End much later on in the game!
- Colonel Brandon is a fairly easy and obvious character to get. What probably won't be nearly as obvious is that there are actually two separate paths to get his ending and that the longer and much more satisfying path requires you to pursue a completely different suitor for most of the game while still keeping Brandon's affection level high enough. Since the game typically punishes you for courting more than one man in all other paths and Brandon's shorter (and more boring) path adheres to the usual "focus on just one guy" adage, chances are that you'll miss out on the best parts of Brandon's story the first time around even if you're familiar with Marianne's subplot from Sense and Sensibility.
- Minotaur Hotel: Getting the main route is easy so long as you treat Asterion with kindness and avoid any Kick the Dog moments. At the same time, getting the Ruthless route is also easy if you make Asterion distrust you and abuse him, though the game will make you feel really bad about doing that. However, there's also the "Lukewarm" route, which you can only get if you perform just one specific Kick the Dog action before treating him as best as you could from then on. Most players wouldn't know this route even exists, much less play through it, unless they looked at a guide (or at this page...). Justified, as it's more of something a player can accidentally run into than anything else.
- Mystic Messenger makes it clear early on that a sparkling heart appears on screen whenever you make a choice that increases a character's affection for you with the heart color indicating which character it is. What it doesn't make nearly as clear is that once you get on a character's route, you can get identical-looking hearts for making choices that lead to bad endings for that character. In some cases, the characters' reactions to these choices still make it pretty obvious that they weren't the right ones, but in other cases they don't.
- The storyline of My Harem Heaven is Yandere Hell doesn't progress unless the player acts 'in character' for Yuuya. It also won't progress if the player makes obviously suicidal or unwise decisions...unless such decisions are in-character. And Yuuya is a Wide-Eyed Idealist whose sense of chivalry often makes him walk into the antagonists' traps. So basically, you must be stupid enough to get kidnapped, publicly defy a crazed murderer, and later lead said murderer into a school full of potential victims (all things that are supposed to happen on a canon route)...but being stupid in any other way gets you a bad ending.
- Nicole: the game gives you hints, called Tip of the Day, that can help you, but things are still impossible to figure out, unless one attempts things through several trial and error playthroughs or has a guide.
- Which parameter goes with which guy. You need to increase that parameter to get the guy, but nothing in the game actually tells you which parameter the guy is associated with. This isn't so bad, as there are only four guys and four parameters, so you can figure it out with a bit of logic; like the hardworking, serious Ted liking Diligence. Gets more complicated with Jeff and Darren, both rather academic guys, so which one of them prefers Wit?
- How to properly get a guy. The in-game tips tell you that you need to get the guy's associated parameter above 900 to get a good ending with them, aside from having a good relationship with them, of course. This can seem difficult, but is impossible to do in one playthrough, unless the player knows that the game needs to be played with DumpStats and by Min-Maxing.
- Speaking of increasing the guy's affection — getting their affection to 100. Just some scenes, pick the correct answer and done, right? Nope! Even if one unlocks all the scenes with the guys, their affection maxes out at 30-35. The rest needs to be obtained by giving them gifts...
- And the gifts themselves are guide-dang-its, too. You have several items to choose from, but each guy only likes five of the items and nothing really hints at what item they like. Either you try-and-fail, since they won't accept a gift they don't like note , try to use logic based on their personality and dialogue or just use a guide to know what to give.
- Getting the True endings for each guy. This requires Nicole to have 900+ in the guy's parameter and have the mystery figured out, meaning you need 999 in Clues. It's an absolute balance game you play at this point, since you need to increase the guy's parameter, pick the correct options, give them the right gifts and proceed to investigate the disappearances. And the mystery scenes take some time to unlock, so you must make sure to increase your Clues parameter with ample amount of time, before the end of the game. And then you find out that you can't even unlock the True ending, unless you got the regular ending first, which is nowhere mentioned in the game.
- An OELVN called "The Loop". The titular "Groundhog Day" Loop and dreamlike scenarios make ludicrous puzzles part of the plot and they do make a twisted kind of sense... after you solve them. On the hardest difficulty level, you're required to die once in a highly specific and non-intuitive way. It's a really nice story with lots of creepy moments and ideas, but good luck figuring out anything on your own.
- The spiritual successor, "The Madness", is even more difficult. Good luck solving the puzzles without the help of the hint guide, or peeking through the source code (at the risk of potentially spoiling yourself).
- In Gakuensai no Oujisama, one of The Prince of Tennis dating sims, some of the guys are horribly hard to hook up with. Genichirou Sanada is especially difficult. And about some guys who are supposed to be easier catches, like Choutarou Ohtori and Takeshi Momoshiro... well, talk to another male at the wrong place and time, get caught by either of them, and watch your love meter with him/them completely go POOF out of jealousy. Oi.
- Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair
- Saving Kotoba. There are three prompts in which you have to pick the correct one out of four choices to reach him in time, so there's technically 64 possible combinations and only one that works. In practice, some of the less than ideal choices have Raiko admit that it's the wrong answer, but others are less obvious about it. The right answer for the first choice is to yell at the others to stop, so that Raiko can guide them to a shortcut.
- Unlocking Kamen's Diary Entry B. Not only do you need to get the good ending, but you have to choose the nicest possible things to say to Kamen, two of which are at an optional dialogue point in the first investigation, and one of which is at the end of the game. In hindsight, the link between the two isn't too hard to guess, but it isn't immediately obvious that any of your non-case-related dialogue options have any impact on the game.
- While Spirit Hunter: Death Mark is generally thorough (if esoteric) in explaining what item has to be used where to beat the boss, Spirit Hunter: NG is a little laxer in its explanations, and it's entirely possible to face a boss without having all the items required to beat it. This is especially apparent in the Urashima Woman case; the way to beat her is to show her a calligraphy contest poster that proves her child is alive. The problem is that said item is easily missed (it spawns in the starting area that the player has already looked over multiple times already), the woman's name is only given once, so the familial connection can be easy to miss, and all the evidence up to that point seemed to indicate that the child died in stillbirth - but convincing the Woman of that leads to the Bad End where Kaoru dies.
- Tales from the Borderlands has you calling on other Vault Hunters for help near the end of Episode 5. Which ones can actually help you are based on the choices you make, and for the most part, they're straightforward... except for Zer0, who will only help you if Fiona tells Mordecai in Episode 3 that she's an up-and-coming Vault Hunter. There is no indication that this one-off dialogue choice will lock you out of a character that doesn't show up at all in that episode.
- It's also possible to screw yourself out of Claptrap by killing Felix and not hoarding every dollar you get up to this point.
- In the case of True Love Junai Monogatari, you might very easily lose out on Ryoko Shimazaki's path because, unlike the other girls, you need to unlock and follow a very precise chain of events and encounters (instead of raising one or two parameters), and the first two are really easy to miss. Additionally, one of the girls (Yumi-sensei) won't have her path unlocked unless you pursue another first (Mayumi). Not to mention, there's one girl who isn't even human ( the aforementioned Anze ) and as said above her path can't be unlocked unless you have a certain item which is very expensive and is sold only in July
- Tsukihime: just try to get the second Shakes and Shivers Animal Land Bad End without someone telling you how. note Bonus points because the staff needed a flowchart to get it, as said in Kagetsu Tohya.
- Getting the final endings to Wonderful Everyday requires simply selecting a single choice partway through the final arc. Seems simple, but the final arc is divided into three chapters, and the choice is placed in the first of those three. Bear in mind, this is the only time in the game where making a certain choice will affect things outside of that chapter, and the story still changes inside said chapter in such a way that you're likely not going to realise the larger meaning behind that decision. Oh, and after you get those two endings, you have to go back a third time to select a new option that's suddenly available, something which is never remotely hinted at even existing.
- The secret ending where you get together with Adam in spite of him initially not appearing to be a romance option in Yearning: A Gay Story proved to be so difficult to get that the creator had to update the game to make it easier to attain in Easy Mode. To get it, you need to spend as much time as possible with an entirely different character without having him become romantically interested in you by avoiding four specific scenes with him (that you will probably not know of unless you consult a walkthrough) so that he comes out to you and Adam much earlier than normal, plus get near-maximum affection with the actual romance option of that ending which is easier said than done as your dialogue options with him are so numerous and varied that it's more than likely you'll unknowingly mess up on at least a few of them.
- For Yo-Jin-Bo, it's fairly obvious which choices get you on which paths. What probably won't be nearly as obvious at first is that the two choices you make before getting into the main part of the game, in spite of appearing to be unimportant But Thou Must! decisions, actually affect whether or not you're able to progress down specific characters' paths. Did you take the pendant instead of trying to leave it alone (and then being forced to do so anyway)? Better not go after Yo or Monmon, or you'll get a very sudden Game Over for absolutely no reason that could be remotely connected to that fateful first decision!
- Yume Miru Kusuri, while being a pretty good utsuge, is notorious because every choice counts, and not all of them look important or distinctive enough. If you don't have a guide handy, you're in for a long session of Trial-and-Error Gameplay; and given the nature of the Bad Ends... The worst of these has to be a choice during a sex scene with Mizuki: "Give in" and the good ending is still open to you; "Hold out" and she later winds up dead.
- In Zero Time Dilemma, after completing the Pod Room escape room, the player is presented with a Decision Game where, due to Eric going mad from Mira's death, the player has to answer the question of who killed Mira within twenty seconds or Eric will shoot Sean with a shotgun acquired in the Pod Room. While the player would likely be inclined to pick some obvious answers like Zero, Eric himself, or Mira herself, none of these choices will advance the story past a Game Over screen. Rather, the correct answer to the question is to not respond and wait the timer out.note While this is not the only Decision Game where the player has to wait out the timer, this one in particular gives no indication that doing nothing is the correct answer.
- Winning over Ruri in Season of the Sakura requires making very specific choices to be made in the game and missing even one of the choices could potentially keep you two from getting together.
- Getting Aki as a viable choice at the end is largely dependent on a scene that could be easily missed if you don't do every choice given in a particular scene.
