Rule: If I need to go to GameFAQs to fully experience your game...

[SimuLord]

then your game sucks.

Over the past, oh, about three or four months or so, I've been playing Dragon Quest IV on the DS. I keep the DS on my nightstand because JRPGs are the sorts of games I can't play for more than an hour without my eyes getting heavy, which is perfect for my chronic insomnia.

And one thing I've noticed as I've gone through the game is that unless you stumble into the right path (especially during the game's fifth "true meat of the game" chapter), you're pretty much flying blind with nobody in the game making any effort to make clear where you're supposed to be going and what you're supposed to be doing. If you lose the trail, you're pretty much forced to go to GameFAQs and Ctrl-F whatever the last thing is you found so you know what to do after that. (TVTropes calls it a "Guide Dang It".)

I'm old enough to remember when most games were like this, but there is absolutely no excuse for not modernizing a game like DQ4 if you're going to release it for a current-gen handheld, and most JRPGs even now seem to operate on the principle that you'd damn well better either buy the strategy guide at Gamespot or keep GameFAQs open at all times in order to enjoy it.

Contrast, say, Fallout 3, where I completed easily 95% of the content just by using cues in the game itself before finally going onto the Vault wiki just to see if there was anything I'd missed...and the only things I missed were VERY minor things.

So it's simple. If I need to go to GameFAQs to fully experience your game...then your game sucks.

 

[Comic Sans]

I found DQ4 pretty linear as far as DQ games go. It usually tells you where you need to go. I thought it was a weak game because of it. I beat it pretty damn fast compared to other DQ games, and the short little chapters, except for the last, usually have only a few possible locations to go. Sometimes you have to work and wander a bit, but usually it's really easy to see where you need to go next. You may just have to dig around a bit.

If you think this was hard try DQ8 on the PS2. DAMN good game, one of my favorites, but it could be hard to figure out exactly what you needed to do at times.

 

[NeutralDrow]

If you need to go to GameFAQS to fully experience your game, you're probably not that good a player.

Unless you're just totally rejecting the idea of getting help from another source while playing a game.

 

[Aidinthel]

I agree with the OP. It isn't lazy to want to play the actual game part of the game without needing to search for the content, and going around and talking to every npc in the game to try and find out what's going on simply isn't an enjoyable experience.

 

[Avaholic03]

I can't say I've ever consulted GameFAQs. Then again, I've never obsessed over 100%-ing a game. As long as I enjoy the parts of the games I do experience, then all is well. I won't stress over the possibility that I missed some cool secret....if it was that cool the developers wouldn't let anyone miss it because they would want to show it off.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Plenty of people figured out all that crap without strategy guides or gamefaqs (The following sounds arrogant, but theres no other way to put it). You've most likely become spoiled by the incessant hand-holding of mainstream gaming. Quest markers, objective compasses, item shimmer, these were created to make gaming more accessible to people with microscopic attention spans.

Try playing the old Tomb Raider games without using a FAQ. Unless you actually LIKE wandering around ridiculously huge levels while given almost no indication of where to go or what to do, you'll resort to keeping an FAQ open next to you at all times.

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

GameFAQs in general has ruined it all. Like that spear in FF12 or whatever that everyone whines about. It's a secret, an easteregg a nifty little thing that had it not been for the internet no one would know about except for a few lucky people who would talk about it with their friends and be like "Look what I got!" and the mystery would be there and it would be cool. But thanks to the internet everyone freaks out about how unfair it is that they can't open chests or they'll miss that one non-crucial item and blah de bloo bloo waaahhh.

Yep. In FFIX stiener's best weapon required speedrunning to the end. No one really bitched about that.

Not to mention you can counter the whole "CAN'T OPEN CHESTS! WAH!" with the fact most (if not all) chest loot was shit.

Of course, a person running through the game the first time around wouldn't really know that. They'd open every chest just in case there is just that one with a good item in it. Or just because by now it's ingrained in their gaming heads that treasure chests are meant to be opened. If I knew I was going to get the god weapon of the game if I don't open chests for a few hours, then it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that I don't know that such a god weapon even exists and that the requirements are so arbitrarily stupid. I make a rule not to look at a faq until I'm earnestly stuck or I've beaten the game and want to see what I've missed out on.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Tomb Raider games

Tomb Raider was about exploration. You're in a tomb, theres something there, now explore. If you don't like that, don't play it. Unless you were one of those pathetic individuals who succumbed to peer pressure and played it just so you wouldn't feel left out.

There's exploring, and then there's making you scour an entire level for some teeny tiny trinket you missed that's hard to see because it blends in with the environment. Then you're supposed to somehow know exactly where you have to go in these giant mazes where every room looks the same, just so you can open a door on the opposite end of a level so you can repeat the process. You may be some magical god-like being who was somehow able to keep track of all this shit, but believe me I KNOW I wasn't the only one who felt like a FAQ was practically required. I've even read reviews that recommend doing so.

Incidentally, I never finished the game. Shouldn't be hard to figure out why. I'm not sure if the game just always sucked, or if it's hopelessly outdated.

 

[DeeJayTee]

Adventure games from the 90s are the serious offenders here. Since progressing through the game required the ability to match the exact "rational" reasoning the developers held, I'm honestly surprised the genre lasted so long, especially since GameFAQs wasn't the beast it is today.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Adventure games from the 90s are the serious offenders here. Since progressing through the game required the ability to match the exact "rational" reasoning the developers held, I'm honestly surprised the genre lasted so long, especially since GameFAQs wasn't the beast it is today.

I'm not sure how anyone managed it either. Whenever I get stuck on one of those and feel the need to look up what to do next, my reaction is almost always "I never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever would have thought of doing that. Thank god for the internet or I would have been forced to use every item on every object in the entire game before I would have gotten that by myself.

*insert condescending bullshit here*

Good god man, do you enjoy being an elitist prick or do you just want attention?

 

[Arcticflame]

This rule doesn't really hold true to many puzzle games where some find it a breeze, others find it mind bendingly difficult.

Braid for example, I only got stuck once or twice, and I figured it out within a short time all the same anyway. I have other friends who got stuck and never managed to finish it.

Is it Braids fault that we are different people? That my friends found that particular way of thinking harder than I did?
No it isn't. And if Braid was made easier to play to appease a common denominator I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much.

This isn't to say that adventure games (such as many of the ones already mentioned) which force you to haphazardly whack bits of junk together until you find what particular brand of crazy the developer was thinking about that day are considered more difficult.
A game where you simply have to spend more time on it does not make it a harder game, it makes it a more monotonous one. And in those cases there are problems.

Plenty of people figured out all that crap without strategy guides or gamefaqs (The following sounds arrogant, but theres no other way to put it). You've most likely become spoiled by the incessant hand-holding of mainstream gaming. Quest markers, objective compasses, item shimmer, these were created to make gaming more accessible to people with microscopic attention spans.

I agree and disagree. People should have more patience in general yes.

However forcing you to go on a completely arbitrarily random quest of running around in a vain hope you find the exact combination required that a developer aribitraily decreed with the gamer receiving no help, has nothing to do with attention spans, nothing to do with hands being held.
It's completely and utterly poor game design, and a terrible way to extend the half baked crap the developer has released.

I realise people enjoy the sense of accomplishment of finding and completing quests on their own, but I myself find it horribly manipulative to expect a player to invest multiple hours simply finding the next progression of the game in order to finish the emotional investment. By all means make it difficult to get to a person, wade through enemies, or provide a difficult puzzle, but I draw the line at quests which state "Find " and no clear way to find them, basically relying upon process of elimination.