Wow.
No offense, guys, but a lot of the stuff in this thread is pretty sad.
"I didn't know what button to press for this and didn't try pressing them all."
"I never tried interacting with an object, I just assumed I can't out of laziness."
"I didn't try using the item I got right before this boss against it."
Anyone saying stuff like that REALLY needs to watch the Sequelitis "Megaman CLassic vs Megaman X" video in the second post. I mean REALLY. Doesn't he look mentally braindead when he's sitting there drooling and saying "I don't know what to do?" Doesn't his example of refusal to press buttons come across as utterly ridiculous? Indeed. Do you want to be like that?
Now, there's extremes and exceptions to every rule. For example, triple clicking (because who the hell does that) or annoying combinations of buttons (I can't think of any examples worse than L1/R1/Square off the top of my head) But single buttons should always ALL be pressed to see what they do. And that's not even getting into pushing against an object in a top-down view (Oh no, I'm swinging my sword at this door and it's not opening! I don't want to run face first into it and hurt myself, so I'll try shooting arrows at it from a distance!)
I apologize if I sound condescending, but I've been gaming for 20 years, and I never had any issues learning all that kind of stuff. It's pretty natural. I mean, take a Mario game. Pipes have open ends to them. Hmm, might it be possible to ENTER them? A lot of the stuff in this thread is basically the equivalent of "How was I supposed to know he enters pipes" and getting stuck at world 1-2 in SMB when the START of world 1-2 shows him going into a pipe by walking into it.
Here's a few examples of times the player is justified in WTFing at the developpers:
Hotel Dusk: A "close the DS" puzzle. You first need to use the touch screen to put a jigsaw puzzle together. You then need to close the DS screen. The puzzle gets flipped over onto it's back, so you can see the message written on the back. I mean seriously. Were they expecting people to be stuck there so long that they'd close the DS? Most people I know flat out turn it off when they stop, to save battery power.
Record of Agarest War: You have an alignment bar. A very wide area for dark and light, and a narrow area for Neutral. Now, this is because your party is being monitored by a god of sorts, so it determines the outcome of the ending. Naturally, you'd assume "light" is the good ending, but no, it's actually that tiny neutral zone. Your choices often make no logical sense on the bar ("Let's help them" might make it go more dark simply for being the reckless option, for example) Now, the problem is, event flags. You actually don't get that many choices in the main story. Most of your alignment shifts are through optional and missable side scenes that are only available if you're at the right alignment and with the right friendship levels. How do you know exactly which string of choices to pick throughout the entire game? You don't. Someone who wants to protect their people might object to taking the shortcut for no real reason, boom, closeness level fallen. Someone who wants to be left alone might approve of being pestered and nagged for company. Like seriously. You LITERALLY need a guide to get the true ending, making a very specific series of choices through the ENTIRE game, and once you're locked into it, you have to fight a series of level 300 bosses, when the "normal" last boss is level 90. Oh, and there's a boss fight you can win in one turn, but you have to wait until turn 7, as a true end requirement. The hell!?
Dark Souls: Now, Demon's Souls was fair but harsh. Careful advancement made all traps visible, and if you died, it was your fault. Dark Souls was literally a cheap death generator. In the TUTORIAL AREA, there's a flight of stairs. It's very dark, you can't really see. BOOM, you`re bowled over by a rolling ball trap, with absolutely ZERO way of knowing. The Demon`s souls equivalent had daylight behind the ball, so you could see up the stairs and know it was coming. Dark Souls is just full of cheap ambushes and traps, and literally the only way to know how to advance is to learn through memorization.
White Knight Chronicles 2: Damage values. Attacks are divided up like +1. +2, +3, etc. A +1 attack is a basic, 0 MP strike, while a +4 is your high tier, 20 MP attack that oes 244% of the damage of a +1. Yes. 244%. That's not that much more, considering. Some +4 (and even +3) strikes are actually so slow that you're literally better off spamming +1-+3 attacks, in terms of damage per second AND MP efficiency. The problem is the game itself makes NO indication of the power difference, and 90% of the players just spam the +4s all day. Especially longsword users; the entire weapon class as a whole has a bad rep for it's low damage output via spamming it's slow ass +4 slash combo, but the skill tree has a skill that boosts their action gauge speed - meaning that the entire weapon is actually well suited to very quick, efficient attacks that easily outdamage the +4s (which waste time, since the gauge is full for a bit even during the animation of the +4). BUT NOOOOOO, literally EVERY longsword user I EVER play with does NOTHING but spam Deadly Fang all day long, and then has the nerve to turn around and mock my "low damage" despite me hitting 700x3 in the time they hit 1500x1 IT'S INFURIATING!
I'll list mote examples later.