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READ THE RULES


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I've played enough bullshit games that I have a hard time knowing when to "trust" a game. It's somewhat important because if I don't "trust" a game, then I'll look up a walkthrough online, and spoil the entire game or a sidequest for me. What I mean by "trusting" a game is stuff like:
>It's not going to pull "Sierra Games Bullshit" on me. I think the most infamous example I can think of with this is "Throwing away the spinach dip" (where you have to throw away spinach dip from your inventory way earlier in the story because the story doesn't really tell you that you automatically end up eating it in a lifeboat later in the story because the game doesn't tell you that you died because of botchulism due to the spinach dip.
>I'm not going to get "Bethesda Games Glitched" into a softlock state. E.g., typically in Bethesda games, I'll end up getting a key boss glitched into a wall with no way out and not only softlock myself, but because I can't see the guy, I don't even _know_ I softlocked myself.
>There isn't some hidden timer. E.g., the Excalibur II sidequest in FFIX or not even knowing you could save Shadow in FFVI.
>Oh, you missed an innocent dialog option/missed talking to one guy/etc. and the quest is ruined.
The only times I've known I can trust a game is...well, it only happened once. One of my friends told me, "Dude, you can trust Myst/Riven," and I was able to struggle through it (Riven was a slog, though). How do you know you can trust a game?
Replies: >>306140 >>306153
There has to be a "adventure games you don't need walkthroughs to complete" list somewhere.
Replies: >>306140
Just sleep on it is my rule of thumb. If the answer isn't obvious in the morning you are playing a dishonest game, or you don't have the skill to figure it out by yourself. That being said there will always be dishonest games because "secrets" will always add mystique to a game and encourage second playthroughs.
Replies: >>306140 >>306159
>>306131 (OP) 
*)
P.S. Another class of games are games where they're just plain broken. E.g., the PS4 release of Astroneer or Sonic Boom or Bubsy 3D or Superman 64 or ...
>>306134
Would be nice. But the phenomenon is not limited to adventure games.
>>306138
This sometimes tracks. I'd say Baba Is You is an exception. There are levels in that game I had to sit on for a month before I got them, and I'd've been very disappointed if I hadn't done it.
Also, games that are just plain 'broken' are different from what you're talking about.
But yes, 90% of the time that's a pretty good rule of thumb.
>That being said there will always be dishonest games because "secrets" will always add mystique to a game and encourage second playthroughs.
Back in the day, the reason for being dishonest was simply because it let the gamedevs sell hint lines and paperback walkthroughs.
Replies: >>306143 >>306159
>>306140
>Back in the day, the reason for being dishonest was simply because it let the gamedevs sell hint lines and paperback walkthroughs.

Not to mention extending the length of the game. "Dishonest" games going forward are meant to foster an online community. Hint books aren't as big of a factor in game revenue and are usually licensed by third party companies so the actual game developers aren't incentivised to make games that require them. They are incentivised to market themselves by encouraging people to ask for help online without "spoiling" themselves with a walkthrough. 

Honest games don't have the cultural presence of dishonest games. That doesn't mean it is good for a game to be dishonest but if a big factor (you) of enjoying games is the zeitgeist, you're going to have to get used to dishonest bullshit.
Replies: >>306153
I remember spoiling myself a lot with games like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. While lame, I did manage to avoid some pitfalls: if you want to optmimize your gear, you can accidentally upgrade the wrong weapon(s) with a single use upgrade item, only to later realize/look up the fact 5 hours later. And so on. Not game breaking but annoying.
I guess that if you want to play a long game blind, save in multiple slots and try to look up stuff only when in doubt.
p.s. Shema is a talented kitty
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>>306131 (OP) 
Yes this is why I never play ironman >>306117
>>306143
>Honest games don't have the cultural presence of dishonest games. 
I don’t like this, especially when its more often than not just a circlejerk for redditors.
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>>306140
>But yes, 90% of the time that's a pretty good rule of thumb.
O.k., there is a game I'm playing right now that will remain nameless ftm (because I want to eventually put all of these thoughts in the review thread because I'm pretty sure I'm playing this through to completion) that has reminded me when
>>306138
>Just sleep on it
Isn't wrong, but isn't even right.
They're all along the lines of "You have path A or path B--path A will continue the story and kick you out of the dungeon, and path B you can continue cleaning up the dungeon." The .Hack games had a nasty habit of this, I'd ALMOST 100% a dungeon, but oops, the other path has the Gott statue that forces a cutscene that kicks you out of there!
The more egregious ones are like the game I'm playing currently, where I'm basically fretting thinking, "Is finishing this quest going to lock out all the other sidequests for the rest of the game?" Some examples:
>FFVI You better get everything you want done before the floating island!
>Lagoon, I know it's a bad SNES game, but because there's no backtracking in that game, you can ROYALLY fuck yourself by not getting magic gear before finishing the dungeon off.
I was going to say more, but now that I thinking about it, Final Fantasy games are notorious for having a point midway through the game where you're going to close off a ton of doors without knowing it.
On the one hand, I can't blame these games most of the time for doing this, because there's good story reasons to make sure you have doors suddenly and unexpectedly close off, but I get around this is by having a SHITTON of saves. Which means I kind of ruin the story for myself anyways, and goddam does it make me doubleback to previous saves, waste time, and have me metagaming instead of actually gaming!
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