We've all played them. Backtracking, not knowing where to go. Going back and forth. Name some of these games from your memory. I'll start: Final Fantasy XIII-2, RE1
Every
Single
Old
Game.
I hate it
this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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I’ve probably played a bunch, but the one that most comes to mind is Antechamber. Super weird FPS puzzle game ala portal but with a lot of mindbending illusions, non-Euclidean geometry, etc.
It’s got a metroidvania structure but without much guidance and a lot of stuff will just loop you back to where you’ve been if you’re not getting things right. At some point I was just completely lost. I couldn’t possibly think of where I haven’t tried to go or do. Worst part if I tried to look up a guide I don’t even know where I’d begin to look.
Unlike the others here, I would argue that this is supposed to be this way - it's a mind bending puzzle after all.
True to some extent, but I think there are limits to how enjoyable it can be to not even be able to find the puzzles in the first place. It also makes coming back to it super confusing.
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Bro nothing will ever beat fucking metroid for the nes.
Main progression literally behind random wall tiles you have to bomb
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Lego Harry Potter
For fucks sake it was obtuse. I had to use a walkthrough to figure out what to do next multiple times just in the first episode
Blue Prince for me right now.
Yeah it's good in a lot of ways but especially early on you can just get stuck with no way to progress in a day due to bad luck. Also, many synergies require a sequence of specific randomly-generated rooms and the resources to use them when they show up (and in viable locations). But there are a number of permanent upgrades that make it much more consistent, and a few of the minor upgrades are fairly common.
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The original Final Fantasy. If you don't have a walk-through open next to you I have no idea how you would naturally beat the game in a respectable time frame.
Everytime this game got ported, I'd retry it. I'd get over the bridge, get into town, fight the pirates, earn the boat... and get completely lost.
I think I managed to get the Earth and Fire Crystals and couldn't figure out how to get to where the Water Crystal was. All of THAT was from literal wandering.
Oh man. For me, Tetris. Every time.
I get past the first dungeon no problems, and find the heart container, but as soon as I meet that old guy with his kite in the tree I'm lost. I think I need to craft a slingshot or something but I've no idea where to get the rubber for an elastic band.
Serious headfuck of a puzzle game.
Glad someone posted this game. It had no right be fucking good lol
Halo ce campaign.
Unreal. I stopped playing when I couldn't find the exit.
Edit: But to be honest that was kind of the norm back then. I hated Half Life for popularising the more linear level design.
I don't know, man, I ran around hugging every wall of deserted Doom and Wolfenstein 3D levels that a) noclip became the default way to play those games, and b) Half-Life felt like an amazing breath of fresh air.
Well, Quake 2 did, I guess. Half-Life felt like the next-gen take on that idea.
My pet theory is that the whole "liminal" trend got triggered by that feeling you get walking around areas of hell you've completely decimated.
Daggerfall
Such a great hangout game. As a kid with a vivid imagination and not enough English understanding to follow the plot I enjoyed my time just roaming around crafting spells and exploring samey dungeons a whole lot.
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Oh snap, time to go back 30 years and get lost in Alone in the Dark again!
it looks like I get to be the one that mentions:
ET on Atari2600
Obviously, you go home.
Can I say half life?
You certainly can say it, but I'm going to have to mostly disagree it's a good example though because I felt Half-Life was very linear. What it did do a good job at was creating a convincing illusion of non-linearity, which I can certainly see some people getting lost in occasionally, but probably briefly (unless you have particularly poor navigation abilities which some people definitely do). It can be especially bad once you get to Xen, which felt deliberately confusing and not really the greatest section of the game for a lot of reasons.
My first playthrough of Half Life 2, I bailed from the boat when it got stuck on the wall in a section with lots of guns. I continued on foot through two more loading zones until I reached a section that required the boat to progress, so I walked all the way back to get it lol
Hard to recall them since I tend to drop them when I get stuck. If I look up a hint and find out it is something that never had any previous hints to figure out I also drop the game because nothing is more frustrating than guesswork.
Legend of dragoon
Metroidvania games can be pretty good for this sometimes. One that really got me was Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. You have to get an ability to progress at a certain point that is a random drop from an enemy. Any game that relies on RNG for progression is going to make me go running in circles. I love the game, but did not love that part.
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Tunic
Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal
Metroid
Silent Hill 2 - dropping canned juice in the laundry shoot. Weirdest mechanic I've ever seen, nothing pointed to do it, just finding the juice was weird, how was I supposed to know to put it down the laundry shoot of all places. My friend who got me to play it watched me wander around the apartment for like 10 - 15 mins, getting more and more confused and frustrated before telling me what to do.
Chute
Thank you, my wife wasn't reading over my shoulder to correct me at that moment.