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[Erdrick]

Taking some fur from the cat to make the cat cookie, then crumbling it up in the stolen porridge was one way of getting rid of the wizard guy in 3. I can't remember the other ways.

I DO remember the cat being on the stairs going down to the library; you could trip over it and die.

I played KQIII when I was like... 9 on my father's Commodore Amiga...

And now I know of a way to finally kick that wizard's ass some nearly 20 years later.

Seriously, I would get so nervous playing that game. When I'd be sneaking around and then all of a sudden, Mannahan would appear or whatever his name was with the music and the puff of smoke...

And that accursed cat... I would just type "Kick cat." to vent my rage at it.

Space Quest I was also like that with the damned Sariens. "You think you hear footsteps!!!"

Me: "!!!!!!"

As a stupid puzzle, how about Space Quest II? There is a point where you have to navigate a little maze of this creature's tentacles, and as with most Sierra games, you touched them within a pixel, and you were dead. Now try doing that using only the arrow keys on a KB.

Long before RE and S Horror games, there were games like this that made me edgy.

Honestly though, when I saw this thread, my first thought was the RE games. They are not so hard, but just so ridiculous in concept, as CVFreak stated earlier using RE:O2 as an example.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

holy shit I forgot about that puzzle! never beat the game due to that.

 

[jman2050]

I also second the 'reset' the genesis' trick. When I was 8/9 years old, I perfected that game. Could get through the first five levels with relative ease (and believe me, X-Men is by no means an easy Genesis game) but I would always get mad because I had no freaking clue what to do at the end of the fifth level. I did everything possible but to no avail. The only way I was able to proceed was to use the level skip code (also one of the more unorthodox 'codes' I've ever seen).

I didn't find out that you had to reset your Genesis until a few months ago. I tore my hair out at such a sucky solution. And you know what the worst part was: It actually made sense >_<

 

[Panajev2001a]

Syberia II: the best way to wake a pilot hung by his parachute in a not too talll nearby tree ? But find from his broken plane the frequency of this radio, find a radio tower, change the direction of the parabolic transmitter and TALK to HIM through the radio. Not to mention how to use the ejecting seat of the airplane to make you land close to the train...I would have strangled the game designers right there.

 

[FortNinety]

"LOOK ON THE BACK OF THE PACKAGE!"
-- MGS:TTS, GameCube

I recall the same puzzle existed for the PSone version. Very cute, but if you rented the game from Blockbusters, which never gives you the original game's case, I'd imagine you'd be fucked.

 

[Drey1082]

Played this one yesterday: you have to

Spoiler

eat the revival pill

after

Spoiler

the sorrow kills you

and get the

Spoiler

game over screen

. How should anybody know withou trying a thousand times or using a gameguide?

Thank you Mr.

Spoiler

Kojima

I actually thought this one was kinda clever. And like the other guy said, the codec gave you a lot of clues....

If any puzzle was messed up in the MGS series it was the

Spoiler

Psycho Mantis fight. How the hell did anyone figure that out without asking the codec about 30 times, at which I remember they just told you what to do.

(does that even deserve spoiler quotes anymore?)

 

[LakeEarth]

King's Quest VI was annoying if only for the hours my friend and I spent trying to get the alternate ending that involved doing a rain dance of some sort. Damn, those games were unforgiving, but quite special at the same time.

That was the alternate ending? I always thought the "sneak into the castle with maid's clothes" was the alternate ending. Hell with that ending you don't even get to use half the items you get in the game.

 

[Soul4ger]

Just wanna throw in that I remember the Rumplestiltskin puzzle VIVIDLY, which I can't say about many things I played more than three years ago. My friend and I were playing that at his house, and we were stuck for the longest time. We kept trying to just put the name in backwards. Finally figured it out after putzing around for a while.

 

[El_Victor]

FUCK.OFF

 

[Soul4ger]

All of the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time.

I loved the Water Temple. It took me a while, but I never had much trouble, and fighting shadow Link in that watery room, and the music... I thought it was wonderful.

This is a great thread. Good job, whoever started it. ::thumbs up::

 

[Squirrel Killer]

The infamous disguise puzzle in Gabriel Knight 3.

 

[Link316]

Shadowgate, you check something out, you die, the whole damn game was trial & error

 

[Vlad]

The piano puzzle in Silent Hill.

"Look on the back of the CD." Why can't I find the fucking CD? I've searched the entire fucking base. I borrowed the damn game from a friend and he didn't give me the case.

It's been years since I played SH, but the only piano puzzle that I remember in the game is the one in the school, and there was some poem or something nearby that gave you clues as to which keys to push.

 

[Drey1082]

All of the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time.

That temple is pretty brutal. Whenever I replay that game, i still have the most problems with that level. I lot of my non-gamer friends made it to that level and just gave up.

 

[Soul4ger]

The infamous disguise puzzle in Gabriel Knight 3.

:lol I used to talk to this guy that was OBSESSED with the Gabriel Knight games. Too funny.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

If any puzzle was messed up in the MGS series it was the

Spoiler

Psycho Mantis fight. How the hell did anyone figure that out without asking the codec about 30 times, at which I remember they just told you what to do.

Agreed. Breaking the 4th wall was cute, but the clues/solution were waaaay lame.

 

[Vlad]

The bath area in PoP:SoT. While the puzzle itself wasn't necessarily bad (heck, it was practically identical to the Lost Woods puzzle from OoT), I still got majorly stuck on it simply because there wasn't any indication that you were supposed to be following the faint sound of the water, and it seemed generally out of place compared to the rest of the game. I actually did the first floor of that room by going through every single combination of doors until I found the right one. When I saw that there was even more of the same, I went to GameFAQs out of frustration.

 

[Leatherface]

The puzzle I most recall pissing me off to no end was in the PC game "Sanitarium". In one of the levels you're in this town. There's this event you have to trigger in the level to proceed to the next part that involves getting a church bell to ring. After hours of talking to absolutely everyone in town and clicking on every object I could find, it turns out there is one random stone on the ground that you can click on to pick up and throw at the bell. I almost broke my keyboard in half when I finally figured it out (by random chance btw). :lol

 

[=W=]

Syberia II: the best way to wake a pilot hung by his parachute in a not too talll nearby tree ? But find from his broken plane the frequency of this radio, find a radio tower, change the direction of the parabolic transmitter and TALK to HIM through the radio. Not to mention how to use the ejecting seat of the airplane to make you land close to the train...I would have strangled the game designers right there.

:lol Yes! Unfortunately, that was the only somewhat difficult puzzle in the game. Loved it anyway though.

 

[radios shipping overview]

Played this one yesterday: you have to

Spoiler

eat the revival pill

after

Spoiler

the sorrow kills you

and get the

Spoiler

game over screen

. How should anybody know withou trying a thousand times or using a gameguide?

Thank you Mr.

Spoiler

Kojima

This pissed me off pretty well when it happened to me. I thought I had done something wrong during the fight, so I tried again a few times, only to find out that he offs you every time no matter what. That was my least favorite sequence in the game, so repeating it was .

 

[wandering goat]

I'll second what other people have said and say just about anything in the King's Quest series. My god. . . I got through 5 with a hint book (remember when those were popular?) For non-adventure, out of what I've played, I'd have to say the Psycho Mantis thing in MGS. How could anyone have guessed the solution to that? As if the Hideo thing wasn't enough.

And the piano puzzle in Silent Hill is awesome. That is all.

 

[darscot]

The Water Temple with it's damn Wrath of Khan 3D puzzle had me stuck for a long fricken time.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

throwing the pie at the yeti in KQV.

what the hellll roberta

Shit, on my first playthrough, I ate the damn pie.

 

[Vlad]

I have no idea what you're talking about and I've played that game like 2-3 times.

It's near the end of the game...

Spoiler

After you get to the hourglass the first time and the Prince hesitates to use the dagger on it and gets blown away by the Vizier. You end up in some underground area where you go down this huge spiral pathway into a big room with a ton of doors everywhere. You have to go through a bunch of the doors in a certain order, or else you get bumped back to the beginning of the room to start over. The only way you know which door is the correct one is by listening for the faint sound of water splashing when you're in front of it.

 

[echoshifting]

X-Men for the Genesis and King's Quest III are the best answers, I think. That fucking reset puzzle....GOD. I never did figure it out by myself, finally heard or read about the strategy somewhere....man, I was sweating bullets when I reset the system. Pretty cool effect, though, honestly.

King's Quest III just because you could totally fuck yourself over if you didn't have everything you needed when you sailed away from the first section of the game. I played all the King's Quest's at least once (except the travesty that was KQVIII), and I don't remember any of the others being as big of a mindfuck as KQIII. I know you can kill your game in most of the others, if not all of them, but I'm not sure if you could do it as thoroughly as in that one.

 

[conker]

Actually, Blockbuster types out Merril's (Meryl's? I forget how it's spelled) codec frequency on the labels they used for the games. At least the Blockbuster near my house was smart enough tnot to ruin shit.

(Yes, I was curious about that, so I checked the next time I was in a blockbuster)

 

[Shard]

The fishbone puzzle in The Dig was the stuff of nightmares.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

People had trouble "fiquring* out the Mantis fight in MGS1?! They give you the answer man!! Heck you can beat him without the control switch if you really wanted to try.

 

[pollo]

OMG yes..

Figuring out how the fuck you could blow the dam in Monkey Island I. I knew that you had to blow the rocks, and I had put the powder i found from Herman Toothrots encapment, but I had no way to intensify the suns rays. You dont know how many times I put "use telescope on gunpowder." For I think 3 months I was stuck, nagging my dad to call Lucas Arts and to buy the Walkthrough so I could get passed this godforsaken part. The walkthrough cost about 25 bucks btw -- and so three weeks later it finally came.

So I look it up and what does it say?

open telescope.

wt...f......AWERWKOEAHTRKAWHETRAWKNERAWKLNASKDLFAWEIORWEOR...FUCASKDFAWERWAERAWRAWERW.aWERWAER>!@#!@$>$@

god damnit. Oh those were the pre internet days.

 

[Suikoguy]

god damnit. Oh those were the pre internet days.

Wait, you mean the internet did not always exist with amazing sites like gamefaqs and uhshints?

 

[pollo]

oh yea TTNMKQR

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

People had trouble "fiquring* out the Mantis fight in MGS1?! They give you the answer man!!

That's my problem with it. He taunts you a few times, in a vague way, then they tell you how to do it. Completely unsatisfying.

 

[pollo]

Wait, you mean the internet did not always exist with amazing sites like gamefaqs and uhshints?

maybe it did, but I went on nick.com at age 8 =(

 

[Dsal]

"LOOK ON THE BACK OF THE PACKAGE!"
-- MGS:TTS, GameCube

What was the Reset the System puzzle, again?

When I was first playing MGS1 I was playing the import version. I'm not always 100% sure of my translations, but this one translated as "Look on the back of the box." So I spent an inordinate amount of time inside the cardboard boxes in first person mode, looking for clues. I checked the item description 1000 times. I thought that somehow I was missing some unknown subtle hidden meaning in Japanese or something :lol

OMG the reset puzzle.... I remember I got so frustrated with trying to find out what to do at that part of Xmen after several dozen minutes of flailing around trying to attack the computer in the background. Finally I just reset the game in disgust, thinking I had to start it over, and to my surprise the game suddenly restarted past the part where I left off. "That's funny, must've been a bug or something. Yay for me." It wasn't until years later that I figured out that that was indeed what you were supposed to do when I heard someone else online complaining about it.

 

[Cookie Monster]

The fishbone puzzle in The Dig was the stuff of nightmares.

Totally. I played through The Dig with a friend in college and we were stumped for a day or two on that one.

And reading about the Xmen reset trick now makes me want to track that game down just to beat it. I never knew that was what they meant

 

[SpoonyBard]

The fishbone puzzle in The Dig was the stuff of nightmares.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's where I stopped playing the game, and I still haven't finished it. The only Lucasarts adventure game (after Indy 3) I haven't finished.

 

[slayn]

in shivers, there is one a them, 'hear a tune, now reproduce it on the piano' except that, if you played the correct song, it didn't actually work. You had to play the whole song flat, and I never remember finding any sort of clue about that.

also in shivers was the infamous 'pinball puzzle.' That was a rubix cube like nightmare that drove me insane.

There was also the terrible terrible idea of forcing the player to have to beat that chinese solitare game to be able to proceed. Hwere the balls are aligned in a cross and you have to jump em until there is only one left in the middle.

 

[SantaC]

kneeling infront of a wall in Simons Quest.

 

[Dr_Cogent]

The thing that really sucked about some of those Sierra games was the fact that you could actually do things that would make it so you could not complete the game as a result. That's just bad design.

Although, I have to confess, I had a ton of fun playing them over the years when I was younger.

 

[IAmtheFMan]

GET SATCHEL
GET TOWEL
TAKE OFF GOWN
HANG GOWN ON HOOK
PUT TOWEL OVER DRAIN
PUT SATCHEL IN FRONT OF PANEL
PUT MAIL ON SATCHEL
PUSH BUTTON


Grrrr.....

 

[Musashi Wins!]

I thought this thread was going to be about Capcom.

 

[Unison]

in shivers, there is one a them, 'hear a tune, now reproduce it on the piano' except that, if you played the correct song, it didn't actually work. You had to play the whole song flat, and I never remember finding any sort of clue about that.

also in shivers was the infamous 'pinball puzzle.' That was a rubix cube like nightmare that drove me insane.

There was also the terrible terrible idea of forcing the player to have to beat that chinese solitare game to be able to proceed. Hwere the balls are aligned in a cross and you have to jump em until there is only one left in the middle.

Don't speak ill about Shivers. That game rocked.

I solved all of those puzzles without a hintbook at all, but it took months.

 

[SantaC]

Although, I have to confess, I had a ton of fun playing them over the years when I was younger.

agreed. It was the charm of it.

 

[Unison]

The thing that really sucked about some of those Sierra games was the fact that you could actually do things that would make it so you could not complete the game as a result. That's just bad design.

Although, I have to confess, I had a ton of fun playing them over the years when I was younger.

Yeah, it's true that they were badly designed, but I was a kid then and had all the time in the world. :lol

I remember that with the earlier ones, I hadn't discovered the Internet yet, so I had to either figure out each puzzle on my own or wait until I could go to the mall (which was only every month or two) so i could look in the guides at the bookstore.

 

[SantaC]

Yeah, it's true that they were badly designed, but I was a kid then and had all the time in the world. :lol

I remember that with the earlier ones, I hadn't discovered the Internet yet, so I had to either figure out each puzzle on my own or wait until I could go to the mall (which was only every month or two) so i could look in the guides at the bookstore.

games before internet was definitley more challenging.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

My feeble mind could never handle those type of adventure games, I would go insane with frustration. Well thank goodness for the internet nowadays!!!

 

[slayn]

Don't speak ill about Shivers. That game rocked.

I solved all of those puzzles without a hintbook at all, but it took months.

I really liked shivers, but I love it because of my hatred for it =P

THe only one thats really *bad* is the piano one. I just mentioned the others because they pissed me off endlessly.

 

[borghe]

I've seen it mentioned a few times, but Monkey Island 2 has the hardest puzzles I ever came across. anyone who beat that game without a hint of any sort did so by exhausting EVERY SINGLE LAST point and click option. as in just randomly pointing and clicking at shit on the screen and SCUMM UI

 

[ghostlyjoe]

It's near the end of the game...

Spoiler

After you get to the hourglass the first time and the Prince hesitates to use the dagger on it and gets blown away by the Vizier. You end up in some underground area where you go down this huge spiral pathway into a big room with a ton of doors everywhere. You have to go through a bunch of the doors in a certain order, or else you get bumped back to the beginning of the room to start over. The only way you know which door is the correct one is by listening for the faint sound of water splashing when you're in front of it.

I remember that puzzle being annoying, but not terribly difficult. You could solve it through simple trial and error in about 10 minutes (less if you got lucky).

 

[iapetus]

GET SATCHEL
GET TOWEL
TAKE OFF GOWN
TIE SLEEVES TOGETHER
HANG GOWN ON HOOK
PUT TOWEL OVER DRAIN
PUT SATCHEL IN FRONT OF PANEL
PUT MAIL ON SATCHEL
PUSH BUTTON

Huzzah!

Fixed.