Current Events > What's the worst game about missables?

(+) Yeah! (+)

First thing that comes to mind is Tales of the Abyss. So many sidequests in locations you would never expect, with tiny windows of accessibility for tons of them. Cecille and Frings is probably the worst offender.

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Tales of Abyss is always the game I think of when it comes to missables. I don't mind the concept of missables, but they need to be logical and shouldn't require you to go places that you logically wouldn't need to be going to at that point of the game.

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FFIX
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Golden Sun: Dark Dawn only had a few, but they were particularly frustrating because there was basically no reason to bar the player from going back to get them.

IIRC, you could still see one of the missible items, but a wall blocked off the part of town it was in.

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There's a point and click game that has missables that you need to beat the game. So you can miss it, keep playing because you don't realize you missed it, but not be able to finish the game because of it.

Can't remember what game though, one of the King's Quests maybe?

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ArchNemo posted...

There's a point and click game that has missables that you need to beat the game. So you can miss it, keep playing because you don't realize you missed it, but not be able to finish the game because of it.

Can't remember what game though, one of the King's Quests maybe?

Quite a few old point and click adventures have this, but Starship Titanic comes to mind.

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A bunch of old Sierra point and clicks can be made completely unwinnable by missing something innocuous several hours earlier in the game.
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ArchNemo posted...

There's a point and click game that has missables that you need to beat the game. So you can miss it, keep playing because you don't realize you missed it, but not be able to finish the game because of it.

Can't remember what game though, one of the King's Quests maybe?

Geez that was multiple of them.

King's Quest 1, 2, 3, Space Quest 1, Leisure Suit Larry 2

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ArchNemo posted...

one of the King's Quests maybe?

KQ5 had a part where a cat chases a mouse through a relatively small area, and if you don't stop the cat, the mouse doesn't save you later. You can't beat the game without throwing a shoe at a cat.

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From a more objective standpoint, FF X-2 springs to mind. But that one didn't bother me personally since I had the player's guide.

The only time missables ever killed my momentum was Dragon Age: Origins. I had just wrapped up the story in some castle town and was finding certain things off-limits while wandering around town, so I decided to check a faq. There were at least three instances of 'in order to get this sword you had to save this NPC from this one room in the castle' or 'you had to find a key in a room that you can't get to anymore;' I'm a fairly thorough explorer, so it was a particular slap to the face that I'd just happened to barely miss every single piece of side content in that area. Totally killed my enthusiasm and I never picked the game up again (though to be fair I was pretty lukewarm about the game up to that point anyway).

It also bears mentioning that the first time I played FF Tactics, I made the mistake of dismissing Mustadio shortly after recruiting him, considering him to be useless combat-wise. It wasn't until I was nearing the end of the game that I learned he was the required catalyst to nearly all the games side content / characters :( It didn't tarnish my love of the game, but I did end up trashing that playthrough on the spot and starting over from scratch.

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I think any long-running mmo would be in the running for sheer volume of event-limited items. Among those, I think Kingdom of Loathing is around the top. Not only is it long running, but the ease with which the creator can introduce content has made for some random, one-time events that lasted for a few hours.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

A bunch of old Sierra point and clicks can be made completely unwinnable by missing something innocuous several hours earlier in the game.

this

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FFX-2 /caps

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FFX-2 is also the first one to come to mind for me too. There is one part where if go through the dialogue normally you miss out on 100%. You have to literally sit there with the dialogue box on yout screen. It is insane.

Tales of the Abyss is definitely up there, along with Vesperia (Definitive Edition).

See Vesperia's here: https://ameblo.jp/koulinovesperia/entry-10347292825.html

It could even be worse.

Final Fantasy XII had a side thing (not a sidequest because nobody ever told you) to get a dope end-game weapon, you had to get very specific chests, ignore other specific chests, and complete specific sidequests in a specific order in order to get the ability to get the weapon from another specific chest, which itself was very hard to actually get any of your characters to actually be able to use due to the weird licensing system.

In Harvest Moon FoMT (and maybe 64?) one of the characters just up and leaves forever if you don't do a certain event, and then explicitly go look for him to trigger another event.

Dingydang166 posted...

FFX-2 is also the first one to come to mind for me too. There is one part where if go through the dialogue normally you miss out on 100%. You have to literally sit there with the dialogue box on yout screen. It is insane.

No, it's not the dialogue. You can button-mash through just text. You have to watch the scenes, which is infuriating, because I love FFX-2's gameplay, but it has the shittiest story of all time, and you're FORCED to watch it.

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It's funny you mention the Tales of series TC because I feel like I have to play Vesperia with a walkthrough open at all times just so I don't miss something because I didn't think to go to some place I had no narrative incentive to visit when the game explicitly told me to go in the opposite direction. And then there's some of the more esoteric secret missions, ugh.
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Tales of Vesperia is definitely the biggest offender that comes to mind for me. The Brionac quest line is so ridiculous. And some of the secret missions are crazy too.

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Proto_Spark posted...

Final Fantasy XII had a side thing (not a sidequest because nobody ever told you) to get a dope end-game weapon, you had to get very specific chests, ignore other specific chests, and complete specific sidequests in a specific order in order to get the ability to get the weapon from another specific chest, which itself was very hard to actually get any of your characters to actually be able to use due to the weird licensing system.

I believe there was also a 1/God-knows-how-many chance of getting that weapon from a chest in a late-game dungeon, but nonetheless having to avoid certain chests to get the guaranteed one was infuriating.

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Oh, and it's not necessarily a missable, but some of the weapons in Vesperia have branching synthesis results, so you end up having to buy multiple copies of a particular weapon, and sometimes that weapon can only be bought in a specific town that you may or may not have access to for plot reasons, and by the time you realize you need another copy of a synthable weapon you're already at a temporary point of no return. And the knowledge that there are some skills that I can't learn until a later point than I should have been able to because I'm not a fortune teller really sits in the back of my mind and aggravates me until I can get back to that specific town.
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Xavier_On_High posted...

I believe there was also a 1/God-knows-how-many chance of getting that weapon from a chest in a late-game dungeon, but nonetheless having to avoid certain chests to get the guaranteed one was infuriating.

1/10,000 rings a bell, possibly 1/1,000.

A few years after release, an exploit that made it a guaranteed drop was found. I remember a French guy spent thousands of hours grinding loads of Zodiac Spears (and many other items like Danjuro), then that happened lol.

Vesperia and FF9

FF9 iirc, you had to pause your tetra master tourney, to run halfway across a continent to grab a cup of coffee or some dumb shit

Garioshi posted...

First thing that comes to mind is Tales of the Abyss. So many sidequests in locations you would never expect, with tiny windows of accessibility for tons of them. Cecille and Frings is probably the worst offender.

Its things like this that force me to checkout a guide/walkthrough before i start a new game

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Missables are for repeat playthroughs anyway. Discover the game blind on first try.

I used to let missables stress me out a lot when I was younger and dropped games when it was clear I missed some huge side-quest. But now I go in with the strategy of:

• First playthrough - No walkthrough, no guides, no looking anything up, totally natural playthrough
• Second playthrough - Look EVERYTHING up. 100% everything. Get every missable. Do every side-quest. Min-max it all. Hardest difficulty if available.

Satisfies all my itches without ruining the base game for me. Only problem is it means I might spend a long time with a single game if it's a long RPG. But sometimes New Game + makes that digestible enough.

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ff9
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dragon's dogma has some bullshit timed based stuff

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Stick of Truth
SO4

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insert tales game here

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Trails series, particularly Trails in the Sky.

Oh, you didn't talk to this one guy twice when you walked in the building and you walked out? Hope you didn't want the strongest weapon in the game!

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If there's something like a new game plus or ability to backtrack later, it's fine.

If not, "missables" are lazy shitty game design in 2021.
Devs know about the issue; players have made it clear it's an issue for decades...

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The first time I played Dragon Age 2 I somehow missed meeting Isabela and having her join my party

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Illusion of Gaia
You can't backtrack much at all so it's incredibly easy to miss a lot of shit

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There are a number of quests in Witcher 3 that are really easy to miss. I played the game three times consecutively, totaling 400+ hours and there are STILL quests that I discover I missed. Im waiting for the free PS5 upgrade before playing it again.

Ogre Battle 64 is really terrible for this. Like, you 100% need a guide, because there are entire chains that require you to go to specific places at specific times, and there's only minimal direction as to where to go and what to do.
Angel Knight is particularly spiteful, because you can get the base weapon normally, but you're locked out of the class entirely unless you get the specific Angel's Needle from the bazaar in Dardanelles(you have to go on a specific day of the month) and THEN you have to get your prospective Angel Knight killed, but it's random if she turns after each battle or just stays dead and she can still just turn into a zombie anyway, so, yeah. Hope you like save-scumming!
Oh, and did I mention you have a reputation score that influences everything from which characters will even join you right up to your ending? Naturally, this is a hidden value, even though it wasn't in the first one.

I agree with FF X-2 and FF12, awful design.

Also, in games like the first Yakuza, where you had the complete all the side missions before advancing the story to the next chapter, because otherwise they'll be gone then, eventhough all the chapters are in the same location.
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Irony posted...

Stick of Truth
SO4

Stick of Truth is a good one. You miss an achievement if you don't talk to one of the kids in the first chapter, and if you miss him you literally can't 100% the game.

I can't say it's the worst, but Super Mario RPG and that one hidden box you can only get at one point in the game before you know about hidden boxes, and even when you know where it is, it's still a bit of a trick to get it. All for one generic item.

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FF9 without a doubt. You have to buy like 40-60 of some random armors (Chain Mail) to be able to craft stuff 20 hours after that, and there is no way to get those items again.

You have to do this with 10-20 different items. It's the dumbest shit.

Jiek_Fafn posted...

Illusion of Gaia
You can't backtrack much at all so it's incredibly easy to miss a lot of shit

Yeah, that did annoy me a bit. I remember there were (invisible) collectibles distributed in random places all over the world (that unlocked a few things). I explored thoroughly and didn't come close to finding them all.

Final Fantasy 12 Zodiac Spear. Don't open certain chests, get it much later in the game. Without a guide it was impossible to do. They changed it on every version after the first so it isn't so awful.

Metroid Prime games with boss scans.

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oh, the surge 2. awesome game, but every boss and certain enemies have missable rewards for cutting off certain parts, but don't respawn, and some bosses even have multiple unique parts that you can't even sever in just one fight

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Robot2600 posted...

FF9 without a doubt. You have to buy like 40-60 of some random armors (Chain Mail) to be able to craft stuff 20 hours after that, and there is no way to get those items again.

You have to do this with 10-20 different items. It's the dumbest shit.

How about also speedrunning to get an weapon that vanishes after 12 hrs ingame time
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Super Mario RPG might not be the worst game about missables but the first hidden chest is certainly one of the dumbest missables in video game history

You can only access it by jumping on Toad's head as he's walking through the manor in Mushroom Kingdom at the beginning of the game. He won't be in that spot ever again
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masterpug53 posted...

From a more objective standpoint, FF X-2 springs to mind.

there's countless times where it can screw up especially on percentages. even to the part where kim gives the trainer dressphere but you had to answer the multiple choice question correctly in a previous episode. invested so much hours into the 100%. really enjoyed the bonus content after finishing the game.
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