YOU CAN KILL AND EAT THE ANIMALS?! -MGS3.

Yes, past me, you can eat the animals.

Phuctifyno:

Warachia:
Deux Ex is a game that doesn't really read what the player does, it just has certain triggers in certain areas, like the very first area, even if you don't kill everyone, so long as you go through the front door everyone will act as if you were a bloodthirsty killer.

Now that I did not know.

Fuck you, Paul, you're on your own next time.

Best way to solve the hotel dilemma - the moment the agents storm in, hide in the secret cupboard, Paul will go on and kill at least ten enemies, then just let him loose into the lobby and he'll kill most of those guys as well, you'll just pick off the stragglers.

Not exactly the same thing but in FF7 when you need to command an army to defend the mountain with Pheonix on it - I tried about 2-4 times and thought I was doing really well each time but my army kept on getting overwhelmed eventually. I lost all my troops and was just waiting for the enemy army to finish advancing so I'd lose and retry AGAIN when I pressed a button by accident.

I realised you could freeze the battle and pay to bring in more troops. That was a real "YOU CAN DO THAT!?" moment.

So as any sensible person would do, I traded the vast majority of my gil to f*cking SURROUND their army with an infantry three times their size. Probably not the best use of cash but I just wanted to eradictae them violently X)

SonOfMethuselah:

Other than that, I played Star Wars: Battlefront II in first-person mode for a long time before I realized I could change it to third-person. Then I realized I hated playing the game in first-person, so I never changed it again.

YOU CAN PLAY THAT GAME IN FIRST PERSON!? 0.0 WHAT!? It doesn't sound as much fun but I NEVER knew that!

I played through the entirety of FF VIII my first time without knowing you could hit the trigger on Squall's gunblade every attack, dramatically increasing his damage output. They teach you how to do it in the beginning of the game but I must have forgot or just not been paying attention.

Dygen Entreri:
THE CODE IS ON THE CLAW???!!!!

Well don't I feel stupid.

This thread is the first I've heard of this! I thought the clue was the walls too, and I was always frustrated when the combo I tried wouldn't work.

On a side note, when Mercer Fray uses the (concealed) Skeleton Key to get past a Claw Door on your quest with him, it was one of the most infuriating moments of my play through as I had knew he didn't have a claw and couldn't figure out how he did it.

HE used the MASTER KEY

Not a game mechanic but damn now I see it.

I've got two. I didn't know Vincent even existed in Final Fantasy VII, and this was after after beating it TWICE.

In Valkyria Chronicles, I didn't know you could actually save your game mid battle until I was at the final boss. That really could have come in handy for when I was an hour and a half into a fight and made a fatal error.

Edit: Make it three. In Final Fantasy VIII I didn't know how to upgrade my weapons past level 2 (I never drew Leviathan from Norg, that somehow ruined EVERYTHING) so Squall was level 87 at the penultimate boss on the fourth disc taking less than 700 damage per attack. I've never beaten that game because of this.

Zhukov:
YOU CAN PUSH THE LITTLE HOOD BIT UP OFF THE CLI

*ahem*

Planetside 2: YOU CAN STEER THE DROP PODS?!

No more landing on cliff sides. Still haven't managed to land on any enemies though.

I laughed there. I laughed quite a bit.

YOU CAN SPIN THE LOADING SCREEN ICONS?

As a reaction to Skyrim around 20 hours in. A moment that would change the way I saw loading screens in that game forever.

I am playing through Jade Empire again and found out, you can slow time? Was this mentioned anywhere during the game?

Also took me a few play thoughs to figure out what a Harmonic Combo is and how I do it.

I played Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks and there is this puzzle in the second dungeon that involves hitting bells in a correct order with the boomerang. It took me hours before I realized what I had to do and pretty much had a derp moment considering I'm very good at solving puzzles.

GrimHeaper:

Another:
Was playing Metal Gear Rising last week.

The last boss was kicking my ass, when I accidentally pushed a and x at the same time, and discovered that there is a dodge move. WHAT!?!?!? This entire game I had a dodge move!!!!

Don't know how you didn't know. You have to buy the thing.
I'm wondering how you guys manage not to do any of the things listed so far.

Never played that game but I personally if cash is abundant will just bulk buy my skills without always reading through them as it is generally more useful than not even if I'm not entirely sure about everything I buy so can at least understand how he may have purchased skills he didn't know he had.

Okay my turn now first time playing disgaea had no idea of the effects of reincarnation and the carrying over of stats I just thought it was a way to have a swordsman with magical skills and who the hell would want that

MajorTomServo:
Alternate title: "YOU CAN TONGUE UP?"

Ever play a game so often, and feel like you know it so well, only to discover some major ability you never noticed before?

For example, Mega Man 2 is my number one favorite game. It was the first game I ever played, and I was raging over Air Man before I could read. Just a couple of days ago, I found out that you can shoot Metal Blade in any direction. WHAT? I had no idea. All these years. I thought the main advantage was just the bigger projectile.

Also, to a lesser extent, I was four hours into Fallout 3 before I found out you could jump.

So, how about you?

Yeah, i had the same moment in fallout 3 as well, but i found out when looking through the key bindings seeing if there was a jump button, since there was no other way for me to get to that one pipe leak in magaton and it drove me nuts trying to stack shit and walk up it for.... at least an hour, i can't remember too well because it was a LONG time ago.

One for Dark Souls, which was actually pretty recent
"YOU CAN PARRY THE LIZARD MEN/Havel/the blighttown club giants/arrows/certain weapons/tower knights etc.??!?!!?!?"
Seriously, apparently just about everything in the game that wields a weapon (save for boss monsters) can be parried and most can be riposted. Even guys wielding gigantic weapons (anor londo giants) can be parried (in a way. you take SOME damage but suffer no knockback at all, yet neither does the attacker, so you can catch them in the open end of their swing where you normally would be jogging forward from sliding backwards after blocking a hit from a halberd twice your size)

And then for supreme commander (the old RTS, one of THQ's old properties i think. They at least published it).
BUILDER UNITS CAN SPEED UP FACTORIES' PRODUCTION OF UNITS?!?!?! AND UPGRADES!!!!!!!!!!

really, this changes the whole dynamic of the game since for higher tier units, build times go into several minutes, and even for low tier units this means you can get a guy out every other second at the most extreme. it also speeds up tier upgrades for buildings which again takes 5 or 8 minutes or so for each tier (1-2 is 5 minutes. 2-3 i cannot remember, but i think its 7 or 8). changes the pacing dramatically. now if only land units would move in sync this game would be fuckawesome rather than just awesome.

X|B
----
A|X

YOU CAN PICK UP AN ITEM AT A FROM B?!

Alien 8 was kicking my butt until I figured that out - I was blowing about five lives in the one room.

THE GAZE OF DESPAIR ACCESSORY DRAWS ALL ENEMIES TOWARDS YOU?!

And suddenly all those out-of-body Alfheims in Bayonetta got a crapton easier.

MOST OF NETHACK?!

Someone has already mentioned the artifact naming trick for type IDing, but price-iding the ID scroll was one of the most powerful things I learned in that game.

MrBenSampson:
I played through most of Enter The Matrix before I figured out what the Focus ability was for. That's like playing through Spider-Man 2 without web-swinging.

Hmm, I am coming from the opposite direction, I played through Max Payne 3 and actively decided not to use slow-mo any more.

Okay, I was playing it on PC and the mouse aim's advantages may have unbalanced the gameplay, but I found the inconsistency from the slow-mo to be throwing me off most of the time. I would instead just shoot them in the head. I was only put off by the shoot dodging, especially the lack of moveability when landed on the ground.

Moonlight Butterfly:
Lol jontron <3

YOU CAN SHOOT UP? in Cave Story + I felt like a total idiot ><

OH OH epic story. Went to play Fallout 1 my ex and his best mate where like 'It's a bit pants you can't run' and that's when I found it right there in the settings. They had been doing it by clicking on people and things for like the entire game. xD

Wait... Seriously..? All that time in cave story.. I feel bad now.

xaszatm:

Zhukov:
YOU CAN PUSH THE LITTLE HOOD BIT UP OFF THE CLI

*ahem*

Uh...is it weird that this is the only thing I don't get?

Add a 'T' to the end. It's not a video game thing.

King of Asgaard:
You can hold down the action button in Fallout 3 to continually drink from a receptacle, instead of having to press the button over and over.
My mind was blown when I found out on the forums a few months ago.

..... you can what now?

WHY HAS NOBODY TOLD ME THIS!!!?!?!?!?!

I must be the only person on Earth who could finish Jade Empire without realizing that there was a "slow time" ability. AND a ground attack move. Imagine my face on the new game plus, at the beginning, when I kind of accidentally discovered those things. Apparently, I should get back to reading the manual first and play the game after that from now on.

YOU CAN SMASH IN MARIO SMASH BROS.

Yes. I am that stupid.
And i always thought HOW the fuck did my friends manage to get opponents so easily out of the ring.

derpderp im dumb :p

Auron225:

SonOfMethuselah:

Other than that, I played Star Wars: Battlefront II in first-person mode for a long time before I realized I could change it to third-person. Then I realized I hated playing the game in first-person, so I never changed it again.

YOU CAN PLAY THAT GAME IN FIRST PERSON!? 0.0 WHAT!? It doesn't sound as much fun but I NEVER knew that!

Hahaha, not nearly as fun. I think my younger brother tooled around with the settings for the PC version when we first got it, which is why it was set that way. Learning that I could make it third person changed my opinion of the game immensely.

The first time I played Pokémon (Sapphire if you care) I didn't know you could change the order of Pokémon outside of the box system. Because of this I had a stupidly over-leveled Mudkip and all of my other Pokémon were really weak by the time I got to the first gym. I thought you had to keep switching in battle to give the other Pokémon EXP. Blew my mind when I found out.

Warachia:
Mass Effect, I beat the game at least once before I found out how to fire the Mako's canon.

Like this, but I never figured out how to fire the co-axial machinegun. You can rebind the cannon's key/mouse button, but not the one for the co-ax machinegun. First time around, I immediately rebound the cannon to the machinegun's mouse button. >_<

Of course, once I figured out it did, in fact, have a machinegun, the Codex description made a hell of a lot more sense.

Half Life: "YOU CAN CROUCH JUMP?"

Not a major ability, but it's required to get through certain parts of the game. I spent an hour roaming the halls of Black Mesa for a secret vent or tunnel or something when all I had to do was crouch jump over a box.

And then Civilization 2: "YOUR UNITS CAN MOVE DIAGONALLY?"

Once I realized this, I discovered that my little island I had set up shop on was actually a massive continent. Whoops.

The only one that really springs to mind is the holding down the button to drink in Fallout 3/NV. I know there have been others, but somehow that innocuous interaction is the most memorable.

My biggest one was Dragon quest IX, I walked straight past the party recruit person.
Only found out where to get party members after struggling with a boss, not the first boss after the city you can recruit from, but a couple down the line.
I had assumed as they hadn't made it so you can't miss it, that I hadn't found the right place yet, but oooooh no.

"I CAN RUN?" - Resident Evil 4... after 4 deaths by getting surrounded by zombies while swearing at Leon because he was such an idiot for now using his freaking legs when in danger of being stabbed or eaten to death ¬¬.

What? you can control the Magic Missile in Terraria by holding your mouse?

Though if you shoot it multiple times, you can only control the most recent Missile.

I played all the way through Fallout 3 and and halfway through New Vegas before I figured out I could pick up and move objects around by clicking the analog stick.

the stasis function in Dead Space, when I used on an enemy again.

"Oh right, I have that too."

Jorec:
I CAN GET UP ON THE HYDRA'S BACK?!

Ok no I kid.

I CAN USE THE WAVE BEAM TO KNOCK CLOAKED SPACE PIRATES OUT OF STEALTH?!

When I first figured this out in Metroid Prime it kind of blew my mind. I'm sure that was explained somewhere in the game but hey I was like 13, I didn't read the instruction manuals at that time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3pfPaoHteY

OT: The OP spin jump in Super Mario World. If I didn't watch Proton Jon and AzureBlade I would have never learned that. It makes the game so much easier.

BloodWriter:
This whole thread could be about Deus Ex with every new find on subsequent playthroughs.

My first was "YOU CAN KILL

Spoiler: Click to ViewPHA+QU5OQSBOQVZBUlJFIElOIFRIRSBBSVJQTEFORT8hPC9wPg==

"

Oh my God, this. And I love that the game even acknowledges it, when you talk to Alex and Gunther.