Games with useful features/shortcuts/information that is never properly explained to you

[Lcs]

So I've been playing DQ XI on the switch and the loading screens show tips and other trivia about the game.

One of the tips is that if you're on the menu (pressing X) and press Y, it uses handy heal all, which heals your entire party in the most efficient way possible. It's a super useful feature and there is simply no reference on screen for the shortcut when you have the menu open. Had I not seen that tip on the loading screen, which only showed up once in my 60 hour run btw, I would have gone the entire game without knowing about it.

Another tip tells you that characters that come first on the line-up take more damage than the ones on the back. Again, there is no way of knowing this without the tip showing up or reading about it outside the game. The game has no concept of front and back line while in battle, they just stand there in a straight line, so it's not like you could deduce it works like that.

What other games do you know of that hide useful features/information?

 

[Lowrys]

The mission-complete text for board countermeasures in Control says you need to return to a particular save spot for your reward, but in fact you can turn the quest in at any save point.

 

[The Albatross]

Red Dead Redemption 2, the game.

Rockstar has a hard time developing cohesive UX systems in their games, especially as they try to remove the UI and make everything "part of the world." I feel like they start their games off by saying something like, "Let's have no UI -- make everything seamless in the world!" and then sometime throughout development and playtesting they realize, "god damn it's impossible to get through this shit quickly and it's annoying..." and so they introduce a UI or UI shortcuts but then never get to explaining how to do it, or they show it once in the first minute of a game that you're likely playing for 250 hours.

 

[Jimnymebob]

Does Unite Guts (the parry) being a purchasable upgrade and not something you start with or unlock over time on Wonderful 101 count?

I don't think you're ever directed to get this, but it's basically mandatory to get any fun from the battle system.

 

[JoDa]

Despite having a huge tutorial, resonance of fate never tells you you can change the camera angle when planning a hero action during combat.

hero action is this ability that your characters can use that allows them to run from their current position in the battle map to a designated point while letting them attack multiple times, the camera defaults to behind your character when using it but you can actually unlock it and get a free view of the entire battleground(which helps a lot) by pressing a button which I learned by complete accident about 30 hours into my playthrough

 

[Shoozle]

I love when browsing lists, you can sometimes press right/left on the DPad or the bumpers to skip a chunk. Most games seem to not tell you if it's the bumpers that do it, it's common enough now though that I think most people naturally expect it. Dark Souls and Bloodborne use the bumpers IIRC.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

In the NES punchout, you can recharge your health once per match in between rounds by holding down IIRC either select or A or one of those buttons. Maybe it was explained in the manual, but it's never said in-game despite Doc having a lot of text in the game.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

In Final Fantasy games that use Active Time Battle, press L or R when selecting the target of a spell to target all enemies.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

There IS a reason it is called the Noob Bridge.

Super Metroid BTW.

 

[el_galvon]

I only found out that you can zoom the aim of the bow in Demon's Souls with the d-pad after I finished the game.

 

[Kneefoil]

Does Unite Guts (the parry) being a purchasable upgrade and not something you start with or unlock over time on Wonderful 101 count?

I don't think you're ever directed to get this, but it's basically mandatory to get any fun from the battle system.

Click to shrink...

Unite Guts and Unite Spring do have the P-Star recommendation pictures next to them, and those two moves are a lot cheaper than the others, but that's all the direction the game gives you, IIRC. Don't know why Platinum Games didn't think that those moves needed to be a part of your repertoire from the very beginning. They did the same damn thing with the dodge slash move in Metal Gear Rising.

 

[doemaaan]

Borderlands 3. Not knowing you can switch the D-pad button functions back to "quick weapon select" (like in B1&2). It's hiding in the "accessibility" options or something.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Tekken 7

The whole game

 

[TheMango55]

Most Total War games have a bunch of extremely useful keyboard shortcuts, both for unit control and camera control, buried in the keyboard shortcut options or at best some obscure tutorials you would never look for unless you already knew about them.

 

[Fugu]

Bayonetta is essentially this design characteristic in a game. The normal and hard difficulty modes are tutorials designed to introduce you to the mechanics that will get you through the "real" difficulty but it never tells you directly what any of them are. I bet many (most?) of the people who only beat the game on normal never learned that dodge offset was a thing.

Similarly, the rather important parry mechanic is gated behind an item that looks a dime a dozen.

 

[JaseMath]

Bayonetta is essentially this design characteristic in a game. The normal and hard difficulty modes are tutorials designed to introduce you to the mechanics that will get you through the "real" difficulty but it never tells you directly what any of them are. I bet many (most?) of the people who only beat the game on normal never learned that dodge offset was a thing.

Similarly, the rather important parry mechanic is gated behind an item that looks a dime a dozen.

Click to shrink...

Not sure Dodge Offset is properly explained in B2, either.

 

[Narroo]

Bayonetta: Quick Cutscene Skip.

 

[Narroo]

Not sure Dodge Offset is properly explained in B2, either.

Click to shrink...

It's not, but it's not really relevant so much. It was nerfed to hell and back in at least 5 different ways, so it really doesn't help all that much.

 

[Deleted member 3815]

So I've been playing DQ XI on the switch and the loading screens show tips and other trivia about the game.

One of the tips is that if you're on the menu (pressing X) and press Y, it uses handy heal all, which heals your entire party in the most efficient way possible. It's a super useful feature and there is simply no reference on screen for the shortcut when you have the menu open. Had I not seen that tip on the loading screen, which only showed up once in my 60 hour run btw, I would have gone the entire game without knowing about it.

Another tip tells you that characters that come first on the line-up take more damage than the ones on the back. Again, there is no way of knowing this without the tip showing up or reading about it outside the game. The game has no concept of front and back line while in battle, they just stand there in a straight line, so it's not like you could deduce it works like that.

What other games do you know of that hide useful features/information?

Click to shrink...

Dragon Quest XI is horrible at explaining anything to the players and the hints in the loading screens don't cut it, along with its horrible menu base system.

 

[Ruby-Eyed Witch]

In King's Field, I didn't realize until the very end of the game that you could equip a consumable item and use it with one button, without going into the menu.

 

[Omanisat]

Valkyria Chronicles never tells you that you can save mid-mission.

 

[Deleted member 17184]

In The Last of Us, you can hold triangle to grab all nearby items, instead of mashing to get one by one.

 

[klastical]

Borderlands 3. Not knowing you can switch the D-pad button functions back to "quick weapon select" (like in B1&2). It's hiding in the "accessibility" options or something.

Click to shrink...

OMG, thank you! That's been driving me crazy. I think this will genuinely improve my time with the game.



It's been awhile since I've played this game but I believe in the witcher on ps4 you can swipe in different directions on the touchpad to go directly to different menus.

 

[Aegis Renfro]

Octopath Traveler has a fast travel, and not only can you use it to... fast travel to visited towns, but when you look up incomplete side quests, the fast travel will automatically be set to travel to the side quest location.

 

[Lant_War]

Lots of people try to play CTR like if it was Mario Kart and part of it is because they don't explain you shit

 

[predprey]

Despite having a huge tutorial, resonance of fate never tells you you can change the camera angle when planning a hero action during combat.

hero action is this ability that your characters can use that allows them to run from their current position in the battle map to a designated point while letting them attack multiple times, the camera defaults to behind your character when using it but you can actually unlock it and get a free view of the entire battleground(which helps a lot) by pressing a button which I learned by complete accident about 30 hours into my playthrough

Click to shrink...

The tutorial was really just scratching the surface of the system. I remembered going into the game playing it like a typical turn based RPG, until getting wrecked by the first boss. The game really doesn't emphasize enough how important the resonance mechanic is. Had to figure out by trial and error how to unlock the camera and making triangular movements, then the boss fight got really easy.

 

[Zolbrod]

Borderlands 3. Not knowing you can switch the D-pad button functions back to "quick weapon select" (like in B1&2). It's hiding in the "accessibility" options or something.

Click to shrink...

W-what...!?
I'VE BEEN PLAYING THE GAME FOR OVER 30 HOURS CONSTANTLY ANNOYED AT THE LACK OF QUICK-SWAP AND IT WAS IN THE OPTIONS THE WHOLE TIME!?

(Thanks, btw ;) )

 

[Clay]

I'm pretty sure RE5 never tells you that you can reload weapons by combining them in your inventory. You could avoid reloading by combining during an animation, like during a melee attack or while climbing a ladder. I always thought it was really satisfying, especially in Mercenaries where you can empty multiple clips without having to do an attack animation.

 

[doemaaan]

OMG, thank you! That's been driving me crazy. I think this will genuinely improve my time with the game.



It's been awhile since I've played this game but I believe in the witcher on ps4 you can swipe in different directions on the touchpad to go directly to different menus.

Click to shrink...

W-what...!?
I'VE BEEN PLAYING THE GAME FOR OVER 30 HOURS CONSTANTLY ANNOYED AT THE LACK OF QUICK-SWAP AND IT WAS IN THE OPTIONS THE WHOLE TIME!?

(Thanks, btw ;) )

Click to shrink...

Lol, np. I know the feel 🙄.

 

[Catalix]

Snake Eater never properly explains the "stalking" mechanic, which is using the d-pad to slowly move around without making a sound. It is literally the ONLY way (sans special gear) that you can sneak up on an enemy without alerting them.

No matter how lightly you tilt the analog stick, Snake will still make noise when approaching enemies. Even crawling on your belly with analog will ruin your stealth. Only the d-pad will work. It's the most unintuitive thing ever.

It's essential to your basic survival, but if you hadn't read the manual or any tip section, you would have no idea.