Where did you get stuck?

[FelixSH]

While writing, I realized that "getting stuck" means something specific to me. I think of getting stuck, when I stop trying to proceed. Like, I might run around in circles in a dungeon, but as long as I still feel like I can find a way forward, I don't feel stuck. Getting stuck means, that I feel like I tried everything, and have no idea what to do, no plan at all. Does that make sense?

Spoilers, of course. For whatever game people want to talk about.

I recently mentioned how I got stuck in Ocarina of Time, when looking for the fourth dude in the gerudo fortress. I was stuck there for a week, actually bringing my obsessed playing to a bit of a halt, because I got bored of just not finding that last door. Felt so good, when I finally got through, being able to continue, just to have a bit of a hard time with the desert. Not getting stuck, just got lost a few times, which is as it should be.

Was so great, to finally get to the last dungeon. Still remember how I had to stop playing, because the next episode of Sailor Moon was starting.

I also mentioned, how I got stuck in Gohmas room, because I didn't get that I had to look up, inside its eye. Even restarted for that.

The only other part that confused me for a bit longer (outside of the temples) was when I had to find the message from Ruto, in the bottle in Lake Hylia. I later realized, how nicely the game guides you, by letting you play the minigame with the Zora, that gives you the scale for diving deeper, which lets you enter the door underwater, which brings you to Lake Hylia, where the bottle is. I do remember, talking with someone in Castle Town, who talks about stuff being at the bottom of the lake, which, I think, led me to actually finding the bottle. I wasn't stuck there long, I think, but long enough to be unsure how to proceed. Maybe half a day?

I don't think I got ever really stuck in a dungeon. I always had some idea what to try, or retry, even in the Water Dungeon. It never got to the point, where I stopped wanting to look around, or going outside to try something else for some time. Out of the dungeon, not turning off the console, of course. What, am I supposed to play outside, or something?

Anyway, I'm sure I have a lot of other games. So, tell me, any instances that really stuck with you, where you got REALLY stuck? Something that maybe made you stop playing th whole game? Where you went to gamefaqs, if you normally don't use guides?

 

[Yimothy]

When I first played Link’s Awakening as a kid, I got stuck in one of the dungeons because I didn’t realise a particular wall could be broken with a bomb. I think it was this one in the sixth dungeon:

I tried everything I could think of and wound up restarting the game, because I was a seasoned Space Quest player and assumed I’d missed something earlier in the game and it was now in an unwinnable state, as happens regularly in those games.

I also remember getting stuck for a while in Tomb Raider, the first full game I got for my Saturn (when I bought it I just had a few demo discs), and so perhaps the first game I ever played with a fully 3D environment. There was a room whose exit was directly below its entrance, and for the life of me I couldn’t find it - I would run around the level looking for places I hadn’t been, but I guess in this room I’d just poke my head in, not see the exit because of where it was, and assume it was a dead end.

Nowadays unless I’m particularly committed to figuring out a game for myself I’ll look up solutions online if I’m stuck for more than a minute or two.

 

[zonetrope]

I first got Crystalis for Christmas when I was around 7 or 8, but I didn't understand the concept of experience points yet, so I literally couldn't damage the first boss and I didn't know why. It took me a few years to come back to the game and play it properly.

 

[Exposition Owl]

I first got Crystalis for Christmas when I was around 7 or 8, but I didn't understand the concept of experience points yet, so I literally couldn't damage the first boss and I didn't know why. It took me a few years to come back to the game and play it properly.

Crystalis was a rental for me but otherwise I did exactly the same thing.

Another memorable one for me was the final boss of the Ascension mod for Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. The mod was developed in part by one of the story designers for the expansion—sort of a “director’s cut.” Anyway, the final boss in the base game isn’t exactly a piece of cake, but the mod makes that fight so much longer and tougher that I put the game down for months out of sheer exhaustion. Every few months I’d pick it up again to beat my head against that brick wall for a couple more hours and then give up again. I finally won by the skin of my teeth more than a year later.

 

[Voncaster]

When I get stuck in a game, I usually end up hating it.

***
Bed of Chaos in Dark Souls.

Walk onto dais and get hit by massive arms for a death. Lesson learned: don't walk on dais. You have to kill orb to left and right of Bed of Chaos and then walk on the dais which reveals a crumbling path under the boss. That never made sense to me; walking on the dais was certain death that the game communicated to the player.

I finally looked up the solution on the internet, which I never do. Usually when I look up a solution to a game, I'm done with it. I finished Dark Souls and beat Bed of Chaos, but I was thoroughly stuck on that boss. To this day, that boss battle colors my opinion of the game. I have no desire to ever replay Dark Souls.

(I think I would have been stuck at the end of Elden Ring as well, but allowing players to summon help got me to the ending. So I enjoyed Elden Ring slightly more because of design decision. You may be able to summon help in Dark Souls, but for whatever reason I did not do it. I soloed Demon's Souls and was determined to do the same in Dark Souls IIRC.)

***
Darkest Dungeon. I reached the final dungeon in Darkest Dungeon. And the dungeon would permanently kill my party. To proceed, the game wants you to level a new party and try again. I would not re-level a new party to take additional tries at it.

I put hours and hours into Darkest Dungeon and I feel like the final dungeon is exponentially more difficult than anything that came before. At the time I quit the game something like 1.5% of players on Steam saw its ending.

I was stuck in this game and I will never return to it. I will never play another game by Red Hook and I wish I had the hours back that I put into the game.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Right now in FTL. I wasn't stuck necessarily but I've been playing this game for a long time with the goal of getting all the ship and earning the ship achievements. Most I didn't need advice and am happy to muscle through but in Ancestry, a Rock cruiser-based achievement, I need to stumble onto a mission. Look, I love this game but I don't want to keep grinding through missions to hope I get this one, especially since knowing how to do it isn't enough. Luck is still a big part of it. So frankly, I didn't mind looking up how to get through. (plus I looked up how to get Slug ships. Seems like a bit much).

 

[Becksworth]

When I first played Link’s Awakening as a kid, I got stuck in one of the dungeons because I didn’t realise a particular wall could be broken with a bomb. I think it was this one in the sixth dungeon:

I was similarly stuck on Link's Awakening as a kid around the 5th or 6th dungeon, except probably even dumber because I remember the wall that needed bombing had a line of different color tiles leading up to it.

 

[JBear]

This is going to sound like a humble-brag, but I don't really get stuck as an adult? I don't know if I just vibe well with game designers or what, or if it's more about how I engage with games (maybe it's impossible to ever really feel stuck with the right mindset?), or I'm just impossibly patient and stubborn, but even when I go back and play reputedly unfair/obtuse games blind (and I refuse to fuck with FAQs/spoilers), or come to famous roadblock puzzles/bosses, I don't really get stuck. If it happened, I probably wouldn't enjoy playing games as much as I do!

That said, this definitely did used to happen to me as a child. My first playthrough of Phantasy Star as a kid stalled on Dezoris, where I got impossibly lost in a seemingly endless maze of ice caves full of ice dragons (these days I could finish Dezoris with my eyes closed). Most notably, I remember a specific puzzle in the original Wild Arms that completely stumped me and my cousin. You had to put three coloured statues in the right order on some pedestals or some such, but there were four statues. We were sure we had it solved correctly, but the game disagreed. We stayed up all night bashing our heads against that puzzle, when finally, at about 3AM with my cousin having fallen asleep beside me, I was literally just fucking around out of frustration, running around the room dropping bombs randomly, when *bam*, one of the statues blew up. It turns out that you had to place the three statues correctly and then destroy the remaining one. I haven't revisited the game since, so I don't know if this is perhaps clued in some way or if there's precedent for it, but at the time it felt like the most bullshit thing I'd ever seen.

 

[SabreCat]

TLoZ: Twilight Princess. Some mandatory quest where I needed to run around collecting widgets to proceed. I think they were even marked on the map? But I could not for the life of me figure out how to reach the last couple of them. I would have looked up a guide, but it took the wind out of my sails so badly I never bothered, and thus never progressed beyond that point.

Dark Souls: Not the poison swamp itself, but the boss thereof. It was particularly infuriating because I had defeated that boss in just a few tries on a previous playthrough, but couldn't clear it with the build I was attempting. I was on a spellcaster, when before I'd gone with big two-handed melee beatsticks. Triple infuriating when since then I've frequently heard people say that going with a magic build for DS is easy mode.

 

[ShakeWell]

Is this the same as being in an unwinnable situation? I guess not exactly, there's a difference between "I can't figure this out" vs. "I've literally softlocked myself and there simply isn't a way to proceed."

I decided I was going to do a RE3make Nightmare run without any of the bonus weapons, and I got stuck on the final Nemesis battle for the better part of a week (you can take two hits from some attacks, only one from a couple, and your dodge timing has to basically be perfect).

Also... I guess it isn't really "stuck" since I could proceed, but I got hung up in one of the "find all five hidden coins" levels in Mario Wonder and couldn't let it go. After like a full period of an NHL game we were watching, running around this one room, I just looked up the answer for the location of the last coin.

And, I mean, I guess that's really the crux of how I play games now. I guess I'm the opposite of JBear, but there are too many videogames. If some puzzle or hidden doodad has me hung up for too long, I'm just going to look it up. Because if I don't, I'll just move on to something else. There's too much stuff out there to waste my time banging my head against some obtuse puzzle (looking at you, six-pack of juice puzzle in Silent Hill 2) that's just poorly designed or way out there on purpose.

 

[Yimothy]

I don't know if I just vibe well with game designers or what

I definitely do not vibe well with game designers. I got stuck in Soec Ops: The Line at a sequence where you had to sit in a turret and shoot a bunch of guys and I didn’t realise you could hold down one of the shoulder buttons to aim better. Actually I get stuck pretty often on turret sequences, even if I do know how the controls work. There’s one near the end of Dead Space where you have to shoot down a bunch of asteroids that almost ended my time with that game. I don’t remember specifically others, but I’m sure there have been a few games where all of a sudden you have to do some mini game to proceed that’s totally different to the rest of the game and I get stuck.

I also don’t always vibe well with FAQ writers. Again I don’t remember specifics but a few times I’ve been unable to like use an item or open a door or whatever and I look it up and their solution is “okay so use the item” or whatever. Tell me how!

 

[FelixSH]

Why was Spec Ops: The Line so hard? I got stuck at a turret part, too. Plus the first time where you lose your partners. Kinda ruined that game for me. I could make it through, after a break, but more out of spite, and the whole mood was ruined for me.

Easiest difficulty, I might add.

 

[jpfriction]

This is going to sound like a humble-brag, but I don't really get stuck as an adult? I don't know if I just vibe well with game designers or what, or if it's more about how I engage with games (maybe it's impossible to ever really feel stuck with the right mindset?), or I'm just impossibly patient and stubborn, but even when I go back and play reputedly unfair/obtuse games blind (and I refuse to fuck with FAQs/spoilers), or come to famous roadblock puzzles/bosses, I don't really get stuck. If it happened, I probably wouldn't enjoy playing games as much as I do!

That said, this definitely did used to happen to me as a child. My first playthrough of Phantasy Star as a kid stalled on Dezoris, where I got impossibly lost in a seemingly endless maze of ice caves full of ice dragons (these days I could finish Dezoris with my eyes closed). Most notably, I remember a specific puzzle in the original Wild Arms that completely stumped me and my cousin. You had to put three coloured statues in the right order on some pedestals or some such, but there were four statues. We were sure we had it solved correctly, but the game disagreed. We stayed up all night bashing our heads against that puzzle, when finally, at about 3AM with my cousin having fallen asleep beside me, I was literally just fucking around out of frustration, running around the room dropping bombs randomly, when *bam*, one of the statues blew up. It turns out that you had to place the three statues correctly and then destroy the remaining one. I haven't revisited the game since, so I don't know if this is perhaps clued in some way or if there's precedent for it, but at the time it felt like the most bullshit thing I'd ever seen.

Hah, I remember solving that puzzle the exact same way. Just accidentally blowing up a statue and going “ohhhh”.

 

[lincolnic]

If some puzzle or hidden doodad has me hung up for too long, I'm just going to look it up.

I'm the same way. My gaming time is so limited now that I just want to get back to the fun part. I looked up the solutions to all of those "find the hidden things" levels in Mario Wonder because I play Mario games to run and jump, not to solve puzzles.

 

[Voncaster]

Another stuck memory...

King's Quest 3. You have to make a potion to turn an evil wizard into a cat. The potion requires cat hair and there is a cat in the house you are locked in.

My brother and I typed "Pick up cat." The game would state that the cat scratches you and runs away. We tried looking all over the house for other sources of cat hair to no avail. We were stuck we didn't see how else to get the cat hair.

We convinced my parents that we were totally stuck in the game and had to call the hint line. The solution: Type in "Pick up cat" multiple times. Eventually the cat will allow you to pick him up and then you can get hair off of him.

If that is not a puzzle designed to get you stuck and spend money on the hint line I don't know what is.

I have a warm spot in my heart for Sierra adventure games and the KQ series in particular. But that puzzle felt unfair.

 

[Olli]

It's been a long time, but I got annoyed by SMT: Strange Journey and the Ouroboros fight and didn't find a way past it. Before that, the game had been occasionally tough but generally fair - you could find or fuse the necessary demons to provide suitable attacks and resistances to beat each boss roughly in the same area. Not so here (as I learned after the fact). With Ouroboros, there's no custom solution you can come across "in play" - you need to get a very specific set of demons from their native locations to grind and fuse them to have very specific skills. It's not so much a question of "find a weakness and exploit it to the maximum extent" but "find the internal data of the game to be able to execute a plan (that includes winning several random dice rolls) to get access to the undocumented path of gathering the necessary resources to building a team...".

 

[Issun]

I have a warm spot in my heart for Sierra adventure games and the KQ series in particular. But that puzzle felt unfair.

Well if someone who's willing to give 30 to 40 year old point-and-click adventure games a lot of leeway for unfairness thinks a puzzle was unfair, then it was probably absolute bullshit.

 

[gogglebob]

Most infamous in my memory: My 10/10, this-game-is-the-best-thing-ever Super Metroid had me stuck at the whole "use a power bomb to blow up the tube in Meridia" chokepoint. I harnessed the brain power of every one of my contemporary nerds in fifth grade, and was not able to make any progress. I had to (convince my grandma to) order the Nintendo Power strategy guide to get over that hurdle. In the meanwhile, I dedicated my free time to every other corner of Zebes, to the point that I think I have every pre-Meridia section of Super Metroid committed to memory in a way that is more vivid than my own mother's face.

Also from that time period, in Secret of Mana, I was somehow unable to identify a switch in the Grand Palace (one of the final dungeons) and could not make any progress. Because you can leave that dungeon at will, I assumed the issue was somewhere in one of the other Mana Palaces across the world, and practically replayed the game before returning and smacking an innocuous switch. I am moderately certain I believed I had done something in my world tour that allowed that switch to appear, and dreaded the double-playthrough of ever replaying the game again. (I did get over it, though).

And not my stuck, but related to the previous game, Final Fantasy Adventure has a BS puzzle maybe 40% of the way in where you have to perform a figure 8 around some random palms in the desert. If memory serves, Nintendo Power spoiled this solution around its release. My friend did not have Nintendo Power, but he did have Final Fantasy Adventure. He was stuck on that area, and, before I showed him the solution, he just wandered around the desert killing things, and basically maxed out his stats (like Moses). So once "we" got past the palm puzzle, his hero was a tank unleashed upon a helpless populous of cowering monsters.

 

[Voncaster]

Most infamous in my memory: My 10/10, this-game-is-the-best-thing-ever Super Metroid had me stuck at the whole "use a power bomb to blow up the tube in Meridia" chokepoint. I harnessed the brain power of every one of my contemporary nerds in fifth grade, and was not able to make any progress. I had to (convince my grandma to) order the Nintendo Power strategy guide to get over that hurdle. In the meanwhile, I dedicated my free time to every other corner of Zebes, to the point that I think I have every pre-Meridia section of Super Metroid committed to memory in a way that is more vivid than my own mother's face.

I will never have the love of Super Metroid that most people have. I finished it and its a great game, but my experience with the game colors my opinion of it.

I would progress through Super Metroid like this:
Go to the boss and lose to it.
Explore some more and upgrade Samus.
Replay boss and beat it.

I did the same thing with Mother Brain, except once you go in her chamber you can't get out. I must have saved in her area. I went into her with not enough missiles and she was literally unbeatable. I had to replay the entire game to see the ending.

I liked the game enough to finish it. But having to replay the entire game just to be Mother Brain because the designers don't allow you to exit feels like a design oversight.

 

[FelixSH]

I will never have the love of Super Metroid that most people have. I finished it and its a great game, but my experience with the game colors my opinion of it.

I would progress through Super Metroid like this:
Go to the boss and lose to it.
Explore some more and upgrade Samus.
Replay boss and beat it.

I did the same thing with Mother Brain, except once you go in her chamber you can't get out. I must have saved in her area. I went into her with not enough missiles and she was literally unbeatable. I had to replay the entire game to see the ending.

I liked the game enough to finish it. But having to replay the entire game just to be Mother Brain because the designers don't allow you to exit feels like a design oversight.

I can't imagine this not being an oversight. It's just really weird, that this exploration-based game, that wants you to explore the whole map in detail, would lock you in at the very end. But yeah, I get it, this must have been really obnoxious. I'd probably have stopped, and come back months later for another playthrough.

Also from that time period, in Secret of Mana, I was somehow unable to identify a switch in the Grand Palace (one of the final dungeons) and could not make any progress. Because you can leave that dungeon at will, I assumed the issue was somewhere in one of the other Mana Palaces across the world, and practically replayed the game before returning and smacking an innocuous switch. I am moderately certain I believed I had done something in my world tour that allowed that switch to appear, and dreaded the double-playthrough of ever replaying the game again. (I did get over it, though).

To this day, I have never beaten this game. I played to the very end, up to the final boss, and couldn't beat it. My english was probably still not good enough to understand what the guide said (I think you need to cast a spell on your weapons, or something?). I tried to fight the boss, doing very low damage while still surviving a long time. Didn't work, of course.

It's not that this soured me on the game, I just accepted it. But whenever I tried to replay it, I realize that I don't like it that much, so I never corrected me not beating SoM.

And not my stuck, but related to the previous game, Final Fantasy Adventure has a BS puzzle maybe 40% of the way in where you have to perform a figure 8 around some random palms in the desert. If memory serves, Nintendo Power spoiled this solution around its release. My friend did not have Nintendo Power, but he did have Final Fantasy Adventure. He was stuck on that area, and, before I showed him the solution, he just wandered around the desert killing things, and basically maxed out his stats (like Moses). So once "we" got past the palm puzzle, his hero was a tank unleashed upon a helpless populous of cowering monsters.

And this is the very same puzzle where me and my older sister, who played this game in a separate save slot (I think, had this game separate save slots?), got stuck. I swear, I even tried to walk around those two palm trees, and it didn't work. Tried some other trees, which did nothing, of course. We had borrowed this game from a friend of my brother, no idea why we didn't just ask him.

In any case, I didn't grind forever, but tried the thing I swear I had already tried again, and it worked. My battery was nearly gone, so I saved, and turned of the game, putting in new batteries. When turning it back on, I saw that the entrance was gone again.

I have no idea, why I didn't keep going. Maybe I tried again, and once more it wouldn't work? I did play through this game years later, though, and beat it. Still think that it's one of the best games the system has to offer.

 

[Issun]

And not my stuck, but related to the previous game, Final Fantasy Adventure has a BS puzzle maybe 40% of the way in where you have to perform a figure 8 around some random palms in the desert. If memory serves, Nintendo Power spoiled this solution around its release. My friend did not have Nintendo Power, but he did have Final Fantasy Adventure. He was stuck on that area, and, before I showed him the solution, he just wandered around the desert killing things, and basically maxed out his stats (like Moses). So once "we" got past the palm puzzle, his hero was a tank unleashed upon a helpless populous of cowering monsters.

I have seen people literally say this game is better than Secret of Mana and I would really like to know their reasoning. FFA I barely got through without giving up in frustration even with a guide but I got through Secret of Mana with only minimal hints.

 

[JBear]

I played FFA for the first time when it hit Switch a year or two ago, having never played it before, and made it the whole way through without any outside assistance or even much difficulty, IIRC. I don't even recall the palm tree thing, so I must have blown right past it.

I'm not interested in arguing whether it or SoM is better, but as someone who had never played it before I found it delightful as a kind of evolutionary half-step or missing link between FF & SoM. There are so many thing in SoM that are callbacks to a game I'd never played!

 

[Issun]

I played FFA for the first time when it hit Switch a year or two ago, having never played it before, and made it the whole way through without any outside assistance or even much difficulty, IIRC. I don't even recall the palm tree thing, so I must have blown right past it.

I'm not interested in arguing whether it or SoM is better, but as someone who had never played it before I found it delightful as a kind of evolutionary half-step or missing link between FF & SoM. There are so many thing in SoM that are callbacks to a game I'd never played!

Okay but I am interested. Like, you (not JBear, other people that posted in the JRPG thread 8 years ago) like this game with the most inscrutable map of all time over a colorful, playable game. Like, what is the motivation here? Why do you you choose that game over the other?

 

[Issun]

I honestly think Dragon Quest 2 NES is a more approachable game than FFA. It's an absolute mess and I want to understand how anyone thinks it's a fun time.

 

[Tato]

I can recall calling hint lines only a couple of times, normally I could find universal hint stuff on AOL but at times I was totally stumped. I called the Nintendo hotline of all things trying to get advice on King's Quest V (which I had on PC). I couldn't figure out how to get the Princess to talk to me and they said I needed the locket from the birds nest. Except I hadn't noticed the one shiny pixel flashing during that TIMED sequence and had since saved my game, so I had to restart KQV from the beginning AGAIN and make sure to pick it up.

I also called the Sierra On-Line hotline for hints on Rise of the Dragon, I couldn't figure out how to safely rescue your girlfriend. Turns out you have to grab a random pile of cables out of a janitor's closet and put it on her lap and somehow this allows you to disconnect her from the death machine safely? I dunno.

The biggest thing I got stuck on as a kid was Castlevania II. I only started subscribing to Nintendo Power around issue 3 or 4 so I didn't have the guide and it wasn't mentioned in any other magazines I had. I believe I was stuck until I rented a video game hints VHS and it happened to show you what to do with the Blue and Red Crystals. I do remember being very, very pissed off as a kid and thinking the kneeling with the crystal bit was one of the stupidest, most impossible to figure out things ever made.

 

[MetManMas]

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Got stuck at an ice dungeon because I didn't realize I could use my oft-unused jump to platform across the ice pillars

Skyward Sword: Spent like an hour or two stuck at the entrance to the first dungeon because I drew circles with the tip of my sword too fast for the door eyeball watching it

Those are the two I remember most clearly.

 

[Voncaster]

This thread is making the stuck areas in my mind flow like water!

Demon's Souls. I love this game but I could not figure this early part out: After you beat the first boss someone asks you to speak with the monumental in the Nexus.

There is a giant stone statue of a woman in the middle of the Nexus. Surely I thought this giant woman is the monumental. I just need to figure out at what vantage point in the Nexus I can speak with her. After an hour or two of extreme frustration (She is right here! Why can't I talk to her!), I gave in an looked up the solution.

I was probably too early in the game to fully realize how helpful the player hints could be. Additionally, if you are lucky enough to hit it early, there is an image of the Monumental on the loading screen. But that one is more luck of the draw; as there are numerous characters on the Demon's Souls load screen that cycle at random.

 

[Kirin]

My memory is too crappy to remember where I got stuck in games as a kid, but my current example is... well, a pretty bad example, since (A) it's a matter of execution rather than figuring out what to do at all and (B) it's totally unnecessary. But my much-belated playthrough of BotW is currently stalled out because I'm a dumb-ass who decided to go for full shrine completion before heading into endgame, and, well, there's Eventide Isle over there. And I'm sure I can probably do it but every time I've tried something has gone dreadfully wrong along the way, and as a modern lazy gamer just straight-up losing over an hour of progress to one mishap stings so much that I just set the game back down and don't get back around to it for months, lol.

 

[FelixSH]

Okay but I am interested. Like, you (not JBear, other people that posted in the JRPG thread 8 years ago) like this game with the most inscrutable map of all time over a colorful, playable game. Like, what is the motivation here? Why do you you choose that game over the other?

Personally, I never got to terms with the combat in SoM. Something about having to wait, before being able to hit again, despite being able to hit again, just for basically no damage, doesn't work for me. No idea why, but it's just how it is. I also think FFA looks very nice, and have no memory of maps being bad in any way. It also plays well, you just have to deal with a bit of jank, as you do with old games. Like, having to make sure that you always have pickaxes, or sometimes having a button on the ground that would be more finicky than necessary, sure, but nothing that was outside of how games of that time could be.

I mean, I don't care which is better, whatever that even means. But, aside from that one puzzle, I never had trouble with the game as an 8-year old kid. On the contrary, I loved playing it. I honestly don't understand how you find it not approachable, or what you find so much more messy about this one, than about other games of the time. I can only say, that I enjoyed it enough, that it was stuck strongly in my memory for years, before being able to play it again way later.

Another game that I should really replay, thinking about it.

 

[Beowulf]

I always had Nintendo Power (like, since before I owned a Game Boy I was getting the magazine) and I discovered GameFAQs very early, so I can't come up with any instances where getting stuck on something obtuse stopped me from finishing a game. I do recall a couple of fanhacks (Chrono Trigger Crimson Echoes, and more than one ALttP hack) where I needed to watch a video playthrough on Youtube and find the place I was at because I couldn't figure out what they wanted me to do next.

Oh, and I recently replayed Crystalis (actually, the retranslated God Slayer, which is really great actually) and had to go looking up how to fight Emperor Draygon, because nothing in the game tells you that you need a certain ring equipped AND you need to use level-3 Thunder AND his chest needs to be exposed in order to damage him at all.

I've never gotten stuck in FFA, but I've always been vaguely terrified of it, ever since I realized that doors re-lock when you save and re-start. So in every playthrough I'm always overloaded with Keys and, until I get the Morningstar, Mattocks too.