How are you supposed to figure everything out?

So I've played FFVII ,VIII and X so far and it always eluded me how are you supposed to figure out all the games secrets. I'm talking about stuff like 'get below 0 time in Chocobo Catcher to get Sun Sigil, which is reauired for Tidus' Celestial weapon' or 'Breed you chocobos like such and such to get Knights of the Round' or 'Loose these cards to the queen of cards to get these from her when she goes home'. I mean, if I lost a rare card to anyone I just reload the game...

And there's lots more, these are just some stuff from the top of my head. Without the Internet, it seem impossible, especially if you wanted to beat some superbosses.

So?

I guess it's supposed to come up accidentally if you're devoted to a mini-game enough? :monster:

Find me one person who accidentally got a sub 0 result in the chocobo catcher and I shall crown you the king of England.

Or the guy who decided to dodge 200 consecutive lightnings.

Or the guy who figured out all this crazy hidden stuff that exists without a clue in all the ff games.

Technically, the game does tell you there's a reward for dodging lightning, and I think that if the chocobo woman says that the lower score you get, the better, a completionist will try to get the score that low. And the Sigil is the rewRd for such people.

But both are awful,annoying and time consuming. If you don't know what lies at the end of the grind, would you still do it? The only reason why I have Caladbolg is because I play on an emulator and there you can save game state.

I just don't see anyone going: ,,Well this chocobo game is terrible, let's spend a day getting it down to 0,maybe it's worth it. "

You don't know how low can it get, you don't know what the reward is, what's the incentive?

I mean, not every annoying minigame awards an ultimate weapon in FF.

Because, oh, I don't know, someone might actually enjoy it? Or at least take joy in acing everything a game has to offer? People's approach to gaming may vary wildly from person to person.

I think by that point they were just assuming everyone was using a guide.

That is one thing I miss, post games where you could just play the game and get stuff without having to look all the sub-quests up in details. Nowadays half the time there is a crafting system which not only is unintuitive, but actively screws you over if you don't do it in the exact right way.

I'd say it really is more "You like the chocobo race enough to play it to perfection -> You get rewarded with Tidus' Sigil" rather than "You want Tidus' ultimate weapon -> You have to play the chocobo race to perfection". Or at least that's my interpretation of the intent behind it. It's not like getting (all) the ultimate weapons is required for anything, so it's just something some people will get and others will not.

Of course the prospect of guides and completionism breaks that system in half so it never worked out well. Especially FFXII I'd say suffered strongly from this at times.

If I have to be honest, I am fairly lost without a guide when playing video games. I tend to play games a while after release just so I'm not hopelessly lost when playing :p

Honestly it's just playing the game enough times to really experiment. Nowadays and even to a point around the PS2 era, I feel they designed it knowing you would be using a strategy guide/internet but back in the day it really came down to just playing the game enough to try out new things. Probably one of the reasons why games like FFVI and Chrono Trigger are so close to my heart because I barely used guides to get through those games and discovered there many secrets just by goofing around.

The same way we found where all nine levels were in The Legend of Zelda, we explored until we found them.
The same way we found all the different warp pipes in Super Mario Bros., we went down every one to see where they went.
The same way we found Erdrick's Armor in Dragon Warrior, an NPC told us what town it was in and we hit the search option on every single tile until we found it.
The same way we figured out which key card opened which door in Metal Gear, when we found a new one we went to every single locked door to check if it would open now.

How old were you while doing this? Such design doesn't seem to be aimed at adults who have day jobs.

FF is aimed at around high school-aged kids.

There are a few things that I probably would never have found without a guide but the majority give you clues.

FFX does say you get rewards for dodging lightning. People are bound to keep trying to see what is the maximum reward. Below '0' on Chocobo racing would be similar as well. People will want to try and get the best times. Also, the chocobo sage in FFVII tells you how to get an Ocean-Crossing Chocobo (once you've jogged his memory enough). Once you have it, a tad more exploring leads you to KOTR materia.

I agree that not everyone is good/patient enough to do all these things. I always use a guide on my second playthrough of a FF game to get all the things that I missed.

The game is there for you to play it, not use a walkthrough all the way. Sure you might not get everything on the first try but if you like the game and play it enough, you'll find stuff out. Before the internet was around people played the games blind where only some walkthroughs were even made. With FFVII I got the gold chocobo without a guide. I figured there must be a place to breed the fastest chocobo. To my amaze, one of the chocobos was green! From there I kept at it.

So yes it is true now n days using a guide nets you 100% everything almost every time. It's good to look up some 1 time only items too. However it is really fun just to wing it and play the game yourself. Using a guide doesn't give you half the sense of accomplishment as playing on your own. If anything play the game on your own, if you really like it and want everything in it consult a walkthrough. If you just want to play it 1 time to get everything, I fear walkthrough is the only way.

I think their intent is that the secrets will either be found by other people (even if it's 1 in 100,000 by sheer accident) and then the info will spread. Or you'll end up finding out from the guide.Of course there's some stuff that then stays hidden for years in spite of that, like the sidequest at the end of FF9.

I don't think any of this is a problem. It gives games a realistic feel of depth. It creates an important distinction between a world that's revolving around you as a player and a world that you just happen to be exploring.

A reviewer once said something that really stuck in my head: The greatest fictional worlds are those that feel like they existed long before you were there, and will continue to do so long after you've left.

(P.S go and play FF9)

I can see your points. I can understand that the game wasn't exactly aimed at someone like me who has got a job that takes up half his life, so my patience isn't sufficient. Perhaps you can find all, or most the stuff with a silly amount of trial and error.

BUT

I still don't see how anyone can beat Penance without a guide. If you played the game through completely blind and killed the big bad Penance, please comment on how you did it.

I mean, I've been capturing monsters and grinding Blitzball for days now and I'm still nowhere near beating the guy. The grind it takes to get him is unbelievable, but it's not a dumb grind either! You can't just grind XP until you are level 100 and can challenge him... you need to get the celestials, get all the monsters, grind a ton of AP (or use the AP trick), rare items to customise your armor, then grind the spheres and THEN you can fight Penance.

Perhaps I'm just not nerdy enough,but I don't see anyone figuring all this out by themselves and actually doing it, completely blind.

But please correct me if I'm wrong.

Can you Yojimbo him? I learned pretty early on that Yojimbo and a lot of luck ($$$) solves most problems in FFX. <.<

You're not supposed to figure it out. You're supposed to buy the guide.

Of course, that all fell apart when the internet became a thing.

You also chatted with your friends about it in the lunch room. I remember trading tips and secrets with friends about some of the classic RPGs.

i had a binder full of random tips and rumours i had heard, organized by game and how legit they sounded

I just used the official strategy guides, but I really only had them because I liked looking at the pictures and just owning more things related to FF. You can get enjoyment from the games without the use of guides, and the main stories were easy to get through without a guide, I've always seen that extra stuff more as things that add replay value. If you love the game enough, you'll start trying to explore more of the world on other playthroughs or try new things. With the super bosses it becomes more trial and error maybe of figuring out what works and what doesn't, but they are still possible to beat. We just live where all of this stuff is easily accessible online so there's no reason not to do everything you possibly can on a first play through with a guide unless you really want to experience everything fresh and without help when playing for the first time.

There still is some bulltrout in some games like the chest system in XII where you could miss out on the Zodiac Spear or whatever the weapon was called unless you didn't open specific chests, and there was no way to do that without a guide unless you were lucky or didn't bother with chests most of the game. That's the only instance I can think of off the top of my head where you absolutely need a guide because you can screw that up right from the beginning of the game without any kind of warning.

5
5
11
13

It also helps that these were spread out over time, with years between the games as we grew up, instead of getting to jump from one to the other in succession.

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Originally Posted by Vajrajina

How old were you while doing this? Such design doesn't seem to be aimed at adults who have day jobs.

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I don't really get this argument. School + homework easily takes up as much time as a full time job. Lots of adults don't have less time than they did when they were in school. They just prioritize differently.

I easily spend over 40 hours a week between in-class time and homework.

I love my FFVII guide. I rarely use it on playthroughs but it is annotated to all hell. Corrections, boss strategies, enemy skill locations. You name it.