this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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We've all played them. Backtracking, not knowing where to go. Going back and forth. Name some of these games from your memory. I'll start: Final Fantasy XIII-2, RE1

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[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I remember the newes jedi game feeling like this a lot, but it was also effectively immersive that you don't instantly know exactly where to go.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 27 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Ecco the Dolphin is literally impossible without a guide.

[–] mudstickmcgee@sh.itjust.works 11 points 16 hours ago

designed that way to make more money on people renting it over and over to try and beat it IIRC

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

That game was like an unforgiving crack rock

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I am not really seeing it. I did finish it without a guide back then. It was the Windows 9x port, but I don't think it changes much.

Really in my case a guide would not help for the hardest parts, which were mostly the crazy moves needed to push those floating things to break rocks and to swim against currents with boulders.

[–] nthavoc 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

Atari's ET. Game was bugged. Every 80's kid that bought this was disappointed. It is the worst video game in history and all unsold copies were buried in a landfill only to be rediscovered decades later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game)

The High Score is a great documentary that actually has the guy that developed it. I think he was high when he developed it which explains a lot.

[–] Aganim@lemmy.world 30 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (7 children)

Morrowind.

Can you find this person whom wandered off into the ashlands? They went east-ish.

I've spent more time than I'd like to admit in the Construction Kit to find out where in Vivec's name I had to go this time. Usually it turned out I just barely missed the person or location I had to go before starting an hourlong search.

But despite that still a game I deeply love.

[–] ArtificialHoldings@lemmy.world 13 points 15 hours ago

The number of times I totally overshot distance based on the quest description and ended up in the Ashlands....

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[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 16 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

You want the absolute "guide damn it" example? Try playing the OG Dragon Quest games. They're nonlinear by nature and there's a spot in 2 (or was it 3) where you need to literally check an unmarked floor for an item. No indicator, save maybe a vague NPC dialogue in another part of the planet that didn't get adequately translated in English so you're truly aimless.

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[–] HollowNaught@lemmy.world 8 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Subnautica and Hollow Knight spring to mind

[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 2 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Wait, open world, specific upgrades needed to access new areas and progress the story... I think Subnautica is a secret metroidvania. It's just most of the upgrades are "you can go deeper now".

[–] stephan262@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

Subnautica's art direction does give me Metroid Prime vibes.

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[–] Tin@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

SNES Jurassic Park. NES Fester's Quest

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 18 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Final Fantasy 7 has a lot of mini versions of this moment because the level art is rarely distinguished from the actual terrain you can interact with so sometimes you kinda get stuck until you realise that this time that little ramp is actually something your supposed to walk up rather than un-interactable scenery like all those previous times.

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[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 10 hours ago

Devil May Cry 4, but I was able to finish it. I couldn't even complete Devil May Cry 3.

[–] simple@lemm.ee 62 points 20 hours ago (5 children)

That's my experience with 99% of old school point and click games. At some point in every one it devolved into me running in circles and trying every item on every object.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Yeah, basically every game that runs on scummvm is a good candidate here: leisure suit Larry, kings quest, police quest, the dig, sam and max, Indiana jones and the fate of Atlantis, all the sierra and lucasarts ones

Myst series is another good one. Journeyman project trilogy. These all ruled when I was like 12 years old

I miss when games were confusing and aimless by default. I know there are still games like this but I feel like the default now is a game that’s like “oh hey, go down this hallway full of locked doors! Except one door is unlocked, that’s a secret area, good for you! But otherwise go down the hallway to the next hallway!”

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[–] Hyphlosion@lemm.ee 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

I was playing Star Wars: Bounty Hunter on Switch today because of the current free trial. At first, running around as Jango Fett in the Gamecube era was fun, but then shortly after getting my jet pack, I get completely turned around while chasing the bounty guy and spend over a half hour being lost. Called it quits after that.

[–] kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 15 hours ago

Animal Well, but that's kinda the point

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 points 10 hours ago

Probably half life. It's kinda intentionally tricky and meant to be some kind of puzzle

[–] kux@lemm.ee 14 points 16 hours ago

Divinity: Original Sin 1. took about eighty odd hours to get to the door that says sorry mate, not enough magic stones

[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

This one's pretty controversial, but if you've never played it before,

Half Life 1

It's really confusing and enemies will pop out of nowhere and kill you instantly. Not really fun imo, but then again I AM playing it for the first time 27 years after it came out 😂

I'm sure Black Mesa is more intuitive though.

[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 4 points 11 hours ago

Which bits in particular? Because on one hand it's a fairly linear design, but on the other there are some bits that can loop around themselves and objectives aren't always obvious.

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[–] lonesomeCat@lemmy.ml 7 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Prince of Persia Warrior Within

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[–] hank_the_tank66@lemmy.world 38 points 20 hours ago (5 children)

Zelda: Link's Awakening on the GameBoy Color in the mid-90s. I got to the second temple, and was totally stuck - to progress I needed to learn to jump, which I inferred was in this temple, but I just couldn't figure out where it was.

Wandered all over the available map, which of course was constrained due to lacking the jump skill and other story-driven tools. Nothing.

Finally bought a game guide, which explained to me that I needed to bomb a wall in one room in the second temple to progress. It was indicated by a small crack, a staple in Zelda games but invisible to me in my first experience with the series.

The cherry on top was that by that point, I didn't have any bombs to break the wall, and I recall that I didn't have the ability to buy or acquire any and had to restart the game to progress past the point where I was stuck.

After that point, Zelda: Links Awakening became one of my favorite games of my childhood. It is hilarious how much frustration it caused me before that realization.

[–] naticus@lemmy.world 21 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

Some games really do depend on learned conventions from previous games which can feel a bit unfair to the uninitiated. It's a double edged sword of avoiding too much tutorializing vs alienating newcomers.

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[–] ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago
[–] xorollo@leminal.space 3 points 12 hours ago

Pocahontas on Sega Genesis. I don't even remember the plot, but I got stuck and had to return it to Blockbuster.

[–] Delta_V@lemmy.world 24 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

still need to get around to beating doom 2. It just got so repetitive I had to take a break

[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 hours ago

Don't feel too bad about it, the best bits are the first half or so I'd argue.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 15 points 18 hours ago

Myst.

Riven.

Myst III Exile

[–] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 17 points 19 hours ago

every Metroid or Castlevania game, to the point metroidvania is a genre.

[–] rustyfish@lemmy.world 19 points 20 hours ago

I actually like those a lot. Just listing some in no particular order:

  • Metroid Prime Series
  • Dark Souls Series half the time
  • Resident Evil 1, 2 and maybe 8
  • Hollow Knight
  • Castlevania Symphony of the Night
  • Outer Wilds
[–] HiTekRedNek@lemm.ee 5 points 15 hours ago

Zork. God forbid you forget to look mailbox

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 10 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I'm gonna have to go super old school on this, because I think gradually games have gotten progressively better about this as the art form advanced. The absolute worst for this that I know of for this has to be "Below The Root" which, despite this point of criticism was a mind-blowingly advanced game for its time, arguably the first real open world CRPG. I have no idea how anyone could've legitimately completed the game without either using a guide or playing it over and over for years to learn every possible route of progress. I think the confusing nature of the world was in fact simply because nothing of that scale had ever really been attempted before and there was absolutely no precedent for how to adequately guide players through it.

The world was, for its time, truly immense and sprawling with a multiple screen interiors for most buildings, a full cave system hidden underground, ladders and secret platforms aplenty. You could converse and trade with various NPCs in houses and wandering around on many of the screens. And when I say "screens" you have to keep in mind I'm talking about something this size. That is not a lot of context to work with for navigation.

It's also full of secrets and hidden things, and like many games of the time you will need to find and use pretty much all of them, in pretty much a specific order, to actually complete the game. I can't even describe how insane the sequence of events you need to do to actually complete the game is, this guy uses a guide and save states but I think it illustrates the general lack of clear guidance in almost all cases. Combine that with the fact that you "die" easily, your inventory is extremely limited capacity, and did I mention you're on a time limit? Because the "goal" of the game is to rescue a guy and if you take too long, he dies and you can't win anymore!

Many naive players (myself included) weren't even convinced it HAD an ending and just kind of played it endlessly like it was some early version of The Sims.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 5 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (5 children)

Every

Single

Old

Game.

I hate it

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

If you can't figure out Super Mario Bros then gaming just isn't for you.

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[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 13 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

Fallout 1: If you play it going in blind and don't look up help, a first playthrough can be stressful early on if you don't know how much progress you are making on the time limited main quest.

Kenshi: The game doesn't have quests or main goals, so it is up to the player to figure out what they want and how to get it. Certain game areas are lethally dangerous, factions can be angered if you don't figure out their customs, and even in less lethal areas being beaten and crippled by bandits is a real problem.

[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 2 points 12 hours ago

hell yeah kenshi mentioned. Honestly the game feels like 'slop', but is fun as hell also in an old-school RuneScape type of way

excited for the 2nd game on unreal engine (but small dev team, might take couple more years)

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

The Gang Gets Abducted by Religious Slavers for Not Joining The Book Readings.

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