Bad Hints Are Worse Than No Hints | Semi-Ramblomatic

I think it was fixed in a patch. At least when I tried to walk into mirror, a bunch of sparkly effects appeared above Mina to indicate that something is indeed happening.

Haven’t even seen the video yet, but I mean, we’ve known this for ages. The very first Angry Video Game Nerd episode, the video that launched thousands of wannabe game reviewers, was on Simon’s Quest. Where NPCs hint, but they outright lie because they’re scared of Dracula’s minions.

I got to the last generator only because of your review

When you brought up the fact there's a second example and that it won't be wiped from history, I knew it was going to be the stupid Carnival Night barrel.

It’s interesting that Tunic does the same mechanic, holding X to teleport to the fast travel hub, but having to hold to interact is INTENDED to hide the ability from you. You later find a manual page promoting you to try holding to interact and it feels more like this ability has been unlocked to you, even though you could have done it from the start. Same mechanic, different intentions, opposite reactions.

Absolutely a good point on the mirrors there. I only figured it out at some point mid-to-late-game because I walked into the mirror just enough that Mina's reflection started distorting, which made me go "...wait, what?" Before that, the orphan in the one house pretty much spells out that there is something in the mirrors, but I just assumed some mirror man would eventually come to force me into their mirror world. This assumption was strengthened by me finding out I can look into the mirror and make funny faces at it, making me positive that the game would eventually jumpscare me with the mirror man (kinda disappointed that didn't happen).

"Bad hints are worse than no hints" *Castlevania II: Simon's Curse has entered the chat*

I feel like I heard an urban legend about the barrel thing from Sonic 3, where supposedly Sega had a helpline you could call that just had a canned voice that said "press up and down on the D-pad to move the barrel" before you ever got connected to a human.

My associated pet peeve: Very Important Mechanic Only Ever Explained In A Random Loading Screen Hint

I replayed Super Metroid the other day. There's an ability that shows you ALL secrets in a room... except for a single invisible wall late in the game which you need to progress. When I pointed the X-Ray scope at it and it said it was a normal wall, I turned around and investigated other places, leading me to be stuck for hours, solely because the game had trained me that the X-Ray Scope was never wrong.

Supposedly the Sonic 3 barrel confused so many people, Sega's phone helpline started off with a prerecorded message telling you about it.

I agree with the mirror thing, but I never saw the NPC enter the mirror. I did find a house in town where a kid says her sister vanished into the mirror she was always staring at though

Even after being told I had to walk into the mirror, I still didn't figure it out immediately. You have to really keep walking into it in order to activate it. I initially thought I was using the wrong mirror.

Newspaper Hints: GO EAST 😊 Mina: Weast 🤔?

And to expound on the Sonic 3 barrel, the incorrect positive feedback you mention is particularly bad because you can get what seems to be SO CLOSE to getting low enough through jumping. Hell it might actually be possible with just the right jump, though I never managed it. But it reinforces the "surely I just need to do this just a *little* more!"

I was once stuck on a puzzle, the hint was "there must be a puzzle to solve"

Another example. In Mega Man Battle Network 5, there's a locked door you need to get into to progress the game. The person in charge of the door forgot the password, but they remember the mnemonic device they use to remember the password. The problem is that the mnemonic device relies on goroawase, a type of Japanese wordplay where certain words can be substituted for a string of numbers or symbols, which does not translate into English, period. For the North American release of the game, rather than come up with a new clue (which the game's various PAL releases actually did), they tried to force the old clue to work in English, which changes this from a brain-dead 30-second puzzle into "buy the strategy guide or you don't beat the videogame!"

"It's like a murder mystery where the killer turned out to be someone the author forgot to mention" [The Nonary Games nervously glances back and forth]

I had already seen your video before I started the game so I went in knowing about them (thanks for that). But can honestly admit when I saw the look at yourself gimmick, my first thought was "there's going to be a moment where I'm looking over my shoulder and _something_ is hanging behind me."

1:35 - Dark Souls gave us many valuable things. The "git gud" response was not one of them.