Guide Dang It/Video Games/Other Games/Strategy: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* ''[[Star Control]] 2'' has a mild version of this in general, due to the universe going on without the player - indeed, there's a time limit to winning the game - combined with the time-and-fuel-consuming need to gather resources in order to complete the game at all and the fact that many star systems are not worth mining. At least it's mild enough that one can play some "probe" games before trying to take a serious stab at actually winning...

** The free remake/port, The Ur-Quan Masters, suffers from a specialised form of this trope because clues given in the original PC version are missing. For example, because UQM uses the dialogue from the 3DO version, it's missing two key lines of dialogue from the PC version (one about the time limit, the other about where to find a particular race's homeworld).

** ''Thracia 776'' has Chapter 12x. Specifically, there are a bunch of Dancers on the map, and if you let them escape and don't kill '''any''' of them, another will show up on turn 25 with a Knight Proof. You only have about three turns to steal it from her before she makes her escape. And then five turns after that, if you '''did not kill that Dancer''', yet another one will appear, this one with a Warp staff. It's completely arbitrary and there is no way of knowing how this will happen. It doesn't help that the map has darkness that makes it impossible to see them if you're not close enough.

* In [[Advance Wars]], in the original game the Final Battle against the [[Big Bad]] Sturm consists of a 3-on-1 match. The 1st CO is always Andy, but the 2nd and 3rd are seemingly randomized between the other CO's encountered. That is, until you read an online guide and find out the formula for getting the CO's you want. The Blue Moon CO depends on who you used in that first fork in the road at the beginning of the game, ''Max Strikes''; if you used Andy, Olaf shows up to help at the end, whereas if you used Max, it's Grit. The 3rd CO depends on what you did in Green Earth and Yellow Comet; if you completed the three Missions against Sonja (which had requirements to unlock by themselves), Kanbei is your 3rd helper. In the Green Earth Missions, using Andy for all of them nets you Drake in the third position, while using Sami for all of them gets you Eagle (as well as the [[Bonus Boss]] Mission ''Rivals''), both of whom override Kanbei. Doing none of these things results in Sami in the third position. The map is winnable regardless of who your combination is, but certain players do better with certain CO's, and the CO's start with different and somtimes better stuff (for example, Kanbei begins with several tanks and other heavy units while Eagle starts with an air squadron).

** Even worse, $5000 is the exact amount needed to build ''your'' superweapon, which was just unlocked in the mission prior. This does ''not'' mean you can not ever use the superweapon, since if you rush up the tech tree and start building as many nukes as you possibly can, then you'll be fine as long as you do not have $5000 when then enemy's superweapon is ready to fire.

* When a mission is completed in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'', you often get a item that doesn't go into your regular inventory, but can be taken along on a mission, and boosts your entire party's stats in some way. Some missions force you to bring along these items before you can even begin (for example, you'll need to bring along the black thread and magic cloth if your mission is to make a hat for a black mage). Unfortunately, you quickly get more of these items than you can hold, and, while some of them are never used to complete a mission, quite a few of them are used hundreds of missions after you've gotten them. If you delete one of the latter items, they're [[Lost Forever]].

* The game ''[[Vanguard Bandits]]'' has [[Multiple Endings]] based on pivotal decisive moments. One branch of endings was only possible to reach if Bastion was level 8 by the end of the third mission (in other words... the only one to fight in all the battles up to that point, pretty much). Less obscure was a path that showed up after finishing the game at least once, but it was still fairly easy to choose the wrong decision at this point and just continue on the normal branch. The game showed no real sign that these branches exist.

** Even worse, if your team's morale is low, it's impossible to even ''beat'' the game without getting the [[Multiple Endings|bad ending]] where the hero ends up [[Grand Theft Me|possessed]] by the [[Big Bad]]. The worst part about this [[Nonstandard Game Over]] (apart from being forced to kill your comrades) is that your only option once this happens is to ''restart the game from the beginning.''

** You were supposed to kill the Communication Center. Solution courtesy of the demo released prior to the game, which featured an intact (i.e. no <static>) mission briefing.

** That may be true in the demo, but in the full game, you were supposed to blow up the Airstrip, because the mission briefing text has eight asterisks. ('destroy the ````````')

** ''[[Makai Kingdom]]'' is a little more merciful. If you get a different ending, it does have the decency to tell you what you did to get it, so at least you can avoid ''that'' one.

** Speaking of ''Disgaea'', to find Etna's Journal in the [[PlayStation 2]] version, you had to flip two switches there were no indication existed, then examine a random corner with no indication that there was anything special about it -- although all you miss out on by not finding it is a different perspective on the story and a rare item towards the end of the game. The remakes each make it a bit easier to discover, along with making it unlock an alternate storyline once you complete the game -- in the PSP version, a Prinny is added near the corner you have to examine, commenting that there's a draft. The DS version also has the Prinny, and further adds notification balloons when you're near something you can interact with, making it easier to stumble across the switches by chance.

** Dwarf Fortress can't, however, be included here for definitions of Guide Dang It that presume that it should be possible to beat a game. Because it doesn't have any victory conditions. Remember, Losing is Fun!

* ''[[Battalion Wars]] 2'' - in the mission Enemies Undone, if you didn't bother with the Xylvanians (most likely because they can't doing anything to you once you jump to the HQ) but wiped out all of the other enemies, you still won't get 100% in Power because you missed 8 infantry. Tip: they're all Xylvanians. However, a search reveals only 7 Grunts--still one short of the 100% in Power. It seems you get the 8th one by {{spoiler|blowing up the 3 digging machines by shooting the explosive canisters near them, something suggested in-game by Vlad responding to that by warning Frontier's commander that this helps invite Xylvania to retaliate one day with their full wrath}}. What makes this more fun is that in other missions, some enemies won't necessarily count for Power ''at all'', but you have to destroy all of the enemies that ''do'' count for Power if you want 100% in it.

* ''[[Front Mission]] 3'' has two completely different story arcs. How do you choose between one or the other? You choose to either go or not go with a character to a location. This happens right after the games first mission. The kick? One arc leads to the bad ending, the other to the good, and I believe one is MUCH more difficult than the other.

* ''[[Nintendo Wars|Game Boy Wars 3]]'' has a few medals as this. Granted, the game gives you no hints as to how to obtain any of them, but these are the ones that definitely fall into the trope:

** There is actually a pattern to it but figuring it out still requires a lot of trial and error. Each faction color has it own unique ship designs. For purposes of the quiz each color is associated with a race and each race has appropriate names for their ships. For instance the bird aliens have ships named "Falcon" or "Warbird". Since the quiz is multiple choice a person who knows the pattern stands a chance of answering correctly within three tries. Keeping track of the correct and incorrect answers is almost required though.

* ''[[Agarest Senki]]'' as a whole is just ''insane'' to complete without a guide. Good luck finding the right answers to properly raise the affections of the three heroines of the generation you are on without looking at the wiki. Or better yet, try unlocking the True Ending without a guide. It will absolutely tear your hair off.

** Recruting the fifth generation characters as a whole are a [[Guide Dang It]] by themselves.

*** Recruiting one character {{spoiler|who by all rights betrayed you}} is pretty damn hard if you didn't know that you're not supposed to {{spoiler|kill him but instead save him.}} Nowhere does the conversation or the game tell you to {{spoiler|not kill Vashtor.}} You didn't get him? Say goodbye to your True Ending.

** As for specific missions that are Guide Dang Its:

*** Chapter 5. The mission starts out normally, until you reach the enemy camp, upon which {{spoiler|a big tank piloted by one of the enemy's main generals appears, forcing you into the game's first boss fight.}} Hope you didn't leave your {{spoiler|anti-tank}} units behind!

*** Chapter 16 is pretty much pure [[Guide Dang It]] incarnate. You have to lure a giant land battleship into a minefield planted by your army. There are several problems: firstly, anyone hit by the battleship is [[Final Death|killed instantly, with no chance of calling a medic.]] Fine, all you have to do it stay out of its direct path, right? Actually, its 'hitbox' actually extends to ''everything to the left or right of it as well'', meaning the only way to stay safe is to keep running forward. Unfortunately, doing so will take you directly into a minefield (see above). But it turns out this ''isn't'' the minefield you have to lure it into! There's actually ''another half of the map to go'', which you won't know about until you try to scroll the map. Oh, and there's {{spoiler|a hidden Shocktrooper perfectly positioned to gun down your engineer while you're clearing the mines.}} Once you DO know all these things, the mission is really, REALLY easy though.

*** Chapter 17. You have to take down {{spoiler|Jeager}}'s tank. Simple. What they didn't tell you, is that its covered in armoured plating, [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|even over its weak point!]] You have to blow the armor off, then destroy the tank itself. But there's another catch: if the tank reaches one of the camps, ''it regenerates its armor.'' Meaning, while the goal of the mission is to destroy the tank, that's near impossible without capturing all the camps first. If you maxed out on anti-armor and forgot to bring your Scouts, you're screwed. [[Running Gag|Again.]]

** And then there's unlocking the [[Optional Party Member|Optional Party Members]]. While Musaad {{spoiler|start a [[New Game+]]}} and Audry {{spoiler|get 10 meadals}} could be reasonably stumbled upon without a guide, Lynn and Emile both require you to unlock a specific character's hidden potential, then ''let them be KO'd'' (thankfully not killed, you are allowed to rescue them with the medic. In case you're wondering, the characters are {{spoiler|Karl and Oscar}} respectively.) and Knute requires you to {{spoiler|enter the command room with 1,000,000 in cash on hand.}} All these conditions make perfect sense once you find out the unlockee's personality, {{spoiler|Lynn is Karl's lover, Elime is Oscar's brother, and Knute is a [[Miser Advisor]]}}) which you won't know that until ''after'' you unlock them.

 

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