Have you ever played through a game and completely missed a game play feature?

[Hawkeye21]

Yeah, when I was younger I used to play this old FPS called Blood. There was a certain enemy type that scared the shit out of me because I thought they were instant death. They were animated severed hands, influenced by Ash's hand in Evil Dead 2. I didn't know until years later that you could actually remove the hands from your throat when they attach themselves to you. Suddenly, they don't seem as scary anymore.

Holy shitsnacks! I used to stuff dynamite or molotovs down my pants hoping to kill them without killing myself! Needless to say that didn't always work... Still, never knew that you can just shake them off.

 

[Hunter65416]

It took me ages before I realised you could use stimpacks on individual body parts in fallout 3 :/

 

[Manga_nerd247]

Went through most of Paper Mario: TTYD without the Power Bounce badge from Hooktail Castle (yes, the first dungeon of the game). Didn't realize until my boyfriend came over to watch me play and asked me why I didn't have it equipped *facepalm*

My boyfriend didn't know you could use bombs to blow up Chus in Skyward Sword. Pretty sure I showed him right after he had finished a rant about how annoying they are...

 

[Mystify]

I've had several cases of this. One that comes to mind was double dragon/battletoads for genesis. I had that game for years before figuring out that double tapping a direction was a sprint, and that subsequently you could do a flying kick while sprinting. I know my brothers were amazed when I started doing it.

 

[TheFunPolice]

snape snape severus snape

OT: snip

Apparently you can also buy new armor... In Skyrim it took me 80 hours to figure out I could use perks. Seriously it blew my mind. Now I can actually kill stuff!

WHAT??? Why don't they make this shit obvious? I slaved over that game for so many hours...

 

[Randomologist]

My first run through Skyrim, I didn't use a single magic spell until just before the Sovngarde level, where I found the highly useful Clairvoyance spell tome. Excluding of course shouts.

Ditto potions on my second run, because I noticed the Healing spell, which as a Nord you get straight off; which obsoletes the health potions entirely. Other potions are usually so specific that I never carry them about because its rare I need them.

 

[GamerAddict7796]

Holding A in Fallout 3 & NV allows to drink continuously.

Damn! Ninja'd!

IT took me 3 playthroughs to find that out. I think my mind wandered and I held 'A' too long and carried on drinking. What a revelation!

 

[Scars Unseen]

Not really a "played through" thing, but my first encounter with Final Fantasy Tactics(PSX) was a Blockbuster rental without an included manual. When I returned the game I was remarkably frustrated because I couldn't get past the first mission. Later when I bought the game, I discovered how to add NPCs to my party. The game was much easier then.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

In Final Fantasy IX, you can select multiple targets with Black and White Magic spells by using the shoulder buttons.

I did not know that.

For three. whole. Playthroughs. I did not know that...

 

[loa]

Dark souls.
How to get pyromancy, how to get spells, how to get miracles, how to get the drakesword, how to get to the dragon shrine thing, how to...

This game loves to hide essential stuff from you. Not sure if that is a good thing.

 

[GamerAddict7796]

Holding A in Fallout 3 & NV allows to drink continuously.

Damn! Ninja'd!

IT took me 3 playthroughs to find that out. I think my mind wandered and I held 'A' too long and carried on drinking. What a revelation!

It also took me a little while to realize that holding the reload button allows you to holster your weapon. I used to sit down to do it at first, hah.

I don't even know how you could have missed that. I'm sure there's a tutorial.
Ah Fallout. SO hard to learn all the little things that make you the best.

 

[llew]

halo reach, i completely missed that the bubble shield restored health... didnt notice until i finished legendary and started a LASO mission with a friend who pointed it out... was not happy

 

[bliebblob]

Another skyrim one here! But not the sprint function this time.
It was unlocking/upgrading shouts. I couldn't immediatly figure out how to do it so I assumed the greybeards would teach you at some point.
But when I suddenly found myself standing in front of the final boss and I still hadn't unlocked anything but fus ro dah I was starting to feel some doubt...
Facepalmed pretty hard when I saw it says push R to upgrade right in the friggin UI!

This is impossible. I know because for some reason when you need to trap Odahviing in Whiterun I derped up real bad and forgot I had just gotten Dragonrend and thus it's effect. I stood there for about 20 min. going "wtf do I need to do" while he flew around trolling me. Then I went about reloading my saves to see what was wrong and about 40 min. later I redid getting dragonrend. I then facepalmed.

So you had to have had Dragonrend or you wouldn't have gone piggy back riding on our buddy dragon.

Oh... I figured alduin was the final boss so once I got dragonrend and he immediatly attacks, I thought I was at the end. So I started over with a new character because I wanted to do the main quest "properly" with all the shouts. (was getting tired of my stealthelf anyway) So yeah, if you want to get nitpicky: I also had yol (lvl 1 fire breath), the dash one, the one that clears the weather and dragonrend. Since you straight up get them without unlocking. I was just trying to keep spoilers to a minimum.
Speaking of spoilers: so I get to ride a dragon eh? neat. Makes sense in retrospect, they wouldn't add this huge dragon trap in whiterun if they weren't gonna use it.
Also note that it actually is perfectly possible to do the whole thing without ever unlocking/upgrading a shout since you get all the necessary ones for free, including dragonrend. It's not even that hard since fus ro dah is pretty good.

 

[TacticalAssassin1]

Playing through LA Noire not using intuition. I know it's there, but I don't get why you'd use it and don't understand how it works anyway.

 

[Cerebral Force]

haha, FFX: for me it was that I didn't know you could save at the save spheres. I found out after 4 or 5 restarts before I hit the Unknown Sea save right before Besaid. then realised the blue things ACTUALLY did something. fml.

 

[karmachameleon]

I didn't even know that until now. Thanks!

 

[karmachameleon]

I didn't know you could hold A to continuously drink in Fallout 3 & NV until someone told me on an Escapist thread.

 

[karmachameleon]

I didn't know you could hold A to continuously drink in Fallout 3 & NV until someone told me on an Escapist thread.

 

[karmachameleon]

Triple (Quadruple now!) Post. Crap.