whats a game that you got significantly far into, only to realize you were doing something wrong or missing a key feature/ability altogether?

As a stupid 7/8 year old I couldn't figure out how to catch pokemon on red/blue. I just figured that if I kept playing the game I'd eventually acquire pokemon(similar to the anime). I wound up playing the entire game with a charizard and nothing else.

It was brutal. Imagine my surprise when my friend showed me his team of 6 pokemon.

I started playing Pokémon Red before I even knew how to read. I had no idea how to save and just assumed I would find a save point eventually like a bunch of other games. I have no idea how many times I dejectedly had to turn off the GameBoy halfway through Mt. Moon. I was convinced the save spot had to be on the other side.

I played Valhiem early in its launch for like two weeks on my own server. Once I finally got my friends to join they were dismayed as to why I had dozens of broken copper pick axes in storage boxes.

I had no idea you could repair things and kept mining barely more copper than was needed to make a copper pickaxe.

The game got a lot easier after that.

I beat the original dark souls without realizing there were different weight thresholds for rolling. I fat rolled the entire game. Also didn't realize boosting vigor was important for hp. I did 99% strength/stamina and only as much dex as required to weild my weapons.

I was playing ESO for some time, finding antiquities by simply trying to find the excavation site by sight. Little did I know that there was a collectible that you can equip that point to its exact location.

Bloodborne.. totally ignored that the gun is there to parry attacks and stun enemies on my first playthrough attempt

This is fairly recent, but I was playing through a good chunk of Zelda TotK after the training area without the glider. I thought going towards the castle was supposed to be towards the end, so I wound up crawling up the great plateau to the old temple of time hoping to find it.

I was trying to play without spoilers, but luckily a friend set me in the right direction

Skyrim. Was well into the game and was walking everywhere instead of using fast travel.

I changed my control scheme in rocket league like 1k hours in. Really needed the ability to boost while jumping among other things. It was a totally brutal transition, but I'm glad I did it.

As an 8 year old without much of a guide at all, I was a very proud Magician on MapleStory... one who dealt violence with her trusty magic wands and staves... physically.

I didn't understand what skills and hotkeys were until several years down the line when reading comprehension and life experience improved.

I played Total War: Warhammer a distressingly long time before I found out you could pause

When I was a kid, I used to "play" Operation Flashpoint. I remember being too dumb to realise that the mouse was used to move the camera so it was basically me moving around with arrow keys and strafing to see a little to the left and right.

I am pretty sure in Witcher 3 I missed like half of the combat features - flasks, signs, rolling lol.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I was almost done with the game before I realized you leveled up in camps and inns. Game went from really hard to pushover easy in 5 minutes.

Path of exile. Had no idea about builds and tried to just play casually lol

2nd character went a lot more smoothly

When I first got Pokémon Red, as a kid, I didn't know you were meant to use Flash to see in I think it was Mt.Moon? I just kept wandering around in the dark thinking it's a puzzle or something. Didn't find out about Flash until I think my third play through, when someone told me or I read it in a guide (I forget which).

I played through a fair amount of Sniper Elite 2 before a friend saw some of my gameplay footage and was like "Damn dude, you don't even zoom your scope in?"

Turns out I'm just bad at reading instructions...

One of the first computer games I've ever played is StarCraft. For context, the game is about human battle with aliens similar to Starship Troopers. The game story has three acts, each from different point of views. It is supposed to start from human pov, and then alien pov, and lastly another alien species. However due to English being my second language, I somehow started with the alien pov first. So my first impression of the game is that I play as a disgusting xenomorph alien species battling mankind. It's not until later that I realized I missed an entire human chapter of the game.

Not a game but some of the stories here remind me of the time I discovered I could draw stuff on the screen with Omicron Basic on my Atari ST and I painstakingly entered every square by hand dozens of times to make squares move across the screen...until days later I discovered the magic of the for loop. I must have been maybe 10 or so at the time.

I played through more than half of Red Dead Redemption 2 before I accidentally discovered there was a thing called dead eye for shooting. For some reason the game just assumes that you know the concept exist, since it isn't featured in the early tutorial missions.

In LOZ: Breath of the Wild, I didn't think to check if you could use the Sheikah Slate on Eventide Isle (where they take away all your items and clothes). I'm proud to say I beat that challenge with ZERO tools!

Jedi: Fallen Order

First whole play through on Jedi Master (hard) difficulty and didn’t collect a single extra stim so just had the two you start with

I played Planetside 2 without realizing you can zoom scopes in and out.

Not me, but a friend's mom, this was back in 97-98 and I had been playing the Diablo demo for hours and knew the mechanics quite good and the two first levels.

So I visited my friend and his mom had bought the game and was playing a lot, and she was quite deep down, I think like 15 levels down.. that's when I asked why she hasn't placed here last level up points.... Turns out, she hadn't placed any point at all 😱🤔🤣.

Played far too much of Prey before realizing you can boost in zero G. I was wondering why people praised those sections so much when they were agonizingly slow.

I didn't realize metal gear rising had a block/parry mechanic. The tutorial talks about countering enemy blows with your own barrage of attacks so I figured I just had to stagger them and steal health regularly. Monsoon is the first fight with no minions to heal off of, so I got stuck and finally checked online.

Mario. Was going left the whole time.

I got all the way to the first boss level in Super Meat Boy without knowing you could sprint.

I still don't understand how to play XCOM correctly and I have at least 50 hours in it. Just losing over and over again. Even Crusader Kings I win occasionally.

I don't quite recall what I did but on my first ever play through of final fantasy 7 I messed up in a way that would never allow me to breed chocoboos, or at least getting the one that allows you to get to the island where you can get knights of the round. I've finished the game without ever knowing what that summon looked like and it annoyed me greatly. I've replayed it years later and used guides to make sure I wouldn't miss out this time

I played factorio for 50 hours without using the circuit network at all

I made it through all of Mass Effect 2 without realising I had the Krogan on my ship frozen. The suicide mission did not go well.

Temple Run. Didn't know there were power ups. Currently playing Nier Automata and I'm certain I'll finish that game and realize I've fucked something up.

Played destiny 2 for a quite a bit without knowing about seasonal artifacts including anti-champion ones

I played Just shapes and beats without knowing how to activate the boost thingy. After failing the tutorial and playing the party mode, I saw that the other people did the boost and I just searched and felt pretty dumb after realizing you can boost.

Dragon Quest 7 on PlayStation, fucked up my vocations, started over 80h in...

There's this game called Arc Rise Fantasia for the Wii that's mechanically interesting with the worst English dub known to the English. I got far enough to where something happens to half the party and they're no longer usable. I had really only been leveling those characters and soft locked myself into a really hard boss fight. I was praying for a force-lose boss but all I got was the game over screen.

Got about halfway through Mass Effect 2 on the PS3 before I realised it's never spent any skill points in upgrades.

Recently played through entirety of the dragon age games on Gamepass. Was pretty excited to finally do this as it had been on my 'list of games to play' for years...

Rushed through and I think I missed a companion in at least two of the games. Maybe all three. Couldn't tell you who offhand, bit was pretty upset when I read about them later and they seemed cool.