Going through a game without knowing about a gameplay element

[Omni]

Originally posted by Pehd
By the time I figured out how combos worked in Xenogears, I was almost through disc 2, and all that was really left were gear battles.

Heh, same thing happened to me. I kept wondering why Citan had all these kickass combos and Fei was using the same dinky move for almost a whole disc. Suffice to say, I kept getting my ass handed to me by Deus because Fei couldn't even get into hyper-mode.

But then I went back and learned some more combos, and showed that motherfucker who's boss. :mega:

[Captain Vegetable]

Oh.

[Tain]

The latest time this happened to me was in Wind Waker, there's a point in some dungeon that you have to use the grappling hook to go over a lava pit, but the place I had to jump to was at a weird angle, and I kept falling into the lava, because I didn't know you could stop, and change your direction. :/

Yep. That happened to me, too.

That's all that I know of. I generally read manuals or go through tutorials fairly early in the game.

[Brisco Bold]

Wait, wait. So, you're telling me you can strafe in DOOM?

[UndeadKing]

I went through nearly 20 hours of Dynasty Warriors 3 with a friend without knowing we could block. It was quite funny really, we would always talk about how the cpu could block and we couldn't. Finally I decided to check the manual and sure enough, you can block. There are many other instances where I went through games completely missing out on a gameplay element but I can't think of what they are. Many of them are due to a language barrier. There are numerous cases of me missing out on a big gameplay element because the game is in Japanese. That DW3 one just sticks out because I feel so stupid about it. I guess that teaches me for not reading manuals because I want to keep them in perfect condition.

Oh, this kind of qualifies, I went through Kingdom Hearts without ever upgrading the Gummi Ship. I knew you could do it, it just seemed like a pain in the ass.

EDIT - Speaking of strafing, despite having owned the game since 1997 or so I just realized you could strafe in Postal while playing it last week.

[FX]

Oh, I know one. I didn't figure out how to do fully powered up super moves in KOF 97 for years.

[Superstition]

Originally posted by MechDeus
Eventually I bought Final Fantasy, playing through, buying all sorts of weapons and armor, but always kind of wondering why my damage dealt never really increased much. After passing the pirates and finally getting my characters out into the world, I ended up lending the game to a friend. He pointed out to me a week later that I hadn't been equipping anything, and was wondering how the hell I had made it that far just punching everything to death.

Ha! I played through most of Final Fantasy with my Blackbelt equiped with a weapon, only to find out near the end that they are much more effective bare handed.

In Zelda WW, I forgot about the dang Z-lock when I'd try to use the Grappeling hook to steal items from monsters.

[Yamcha]

I remember I played Super Mario Bros. for a few months without realizing what the B button did (i.e. run and shoot fireballs).

Usually these days its something in RPGs that I didn't bother to explore till near the end of the game.

[Daisuke Jigen]

Originally posted by Regus
The latest time this happened to me was in Wind Waker, there's a point in some dungeon that you have to use the grappling hook to go over a lava pit, but the place I had to jump to was at a weird angle, and I kept falling into the lava, because I didn't know you could stop, and change your direction. :/

Yeah...same here. After I got the big key or whatever it was, I just saved, quit, and used the cauldron to get back where I needed to.

Didn't figure it out until I got back on the pirate ship, and had to pass the test.

[RoleTroll]

I played a good ways into Ramparts without knowing you could rotate the pieces.