Current Events > List games that you CAN be stuck at forever because you missed something.

(+) Yeah! (+)

VampYr. Happened to me the other day. You accidentally spend some kind of new shit you don't understand and your game is over. There is no way else to progress.

Does leveling count

Maniac Mansion is insanely easy to do this.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnwinnableByDesign

what happened with Vampyr? it has been a long time since I've played.

Tombs & Treasure
Go into the wrong place at the wrong time, or combine items too early, and the game goes into an unwinnable state.

Solar_Crimson posted...

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnwinnableByDesign

Doesn't even really list games

Most of the Quest games from Seirra. They commonly have unwinnable states based on overlooking something. For instance, in King's Quest VI when you go to the Isle of Mists if you don't pick up everything in the village and leave your game is now unwinnable. If you go back you will get a game over and otherwise you will get stuck down the line.

Adventure games in general, especially ones made by Sierra.

Subnautica

Literally every single playthrough there is one essential scannable component I can't find anywhere and I have to look it up online to see in which biomes it can be found. And every playthrough it's a different thing.

Irony posted...

Doesn't even really list games

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UnwinnableByDesign/VideoGames

idk about missing something. There was a game, maybe it was Max Payne? Maybe it was another game but for some reason I want to say it was that, but it was one where you can have only a certain amount of save files active at a time, so me and my friend on a goof jumped off a ledge headed into a fire and used up every save available intentionally, so all you could do is load up those saves that were always headed for certain death.

Irony posted...

Doesn't even really list games

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/0/5/AANZVmAADZjh.png

Suikoden 4 comes to mind. It gives out very vague details on where to go next, and if you aren't paying attention, your essentially screwed. The whole world opens up very early in the game, so you can literally go anywhere.

RE2/Dino Crisis 1 also come to mind. If you missed a key code, you could be looking forever without a guide.

Umbreon posted...

Adventure games in general, especially ones made by Sierra.

Oh god this. The many years I've spent on Betrayal At Krondor and Betrayal In Antara because I had to poke around aimlessly for an inconspicuous person or thing with only the vaguest clue to go on (if there even was one).

Pre-Internet days, if you didn't have the letter attached to the instruction manual in StarTropics, you could not beat the game. Unless you already knew the code.

Original version of Link's Awakening.

Happened to me as a kid and I learned years later it was a bug or something

Irony posted...

Does leveling count

If you truly can't get pass it and it's essential to completing the game.

All the Sierra point and clicks from the 90s

Cocytus posted...

If you truly can't get pass it and it's essential to completing the game.

I was referring to stuff like Orbonne Monastery

Solar_Crimson posted...

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnwinnableByDesign

"Alone in the Dark:

• In the original game, you need two small mirrors to defeat the Nightgaunts at the top of the stairs and proceed further into the game. If a monster attacks you just once while you are carrying the mirrors, they will shatter and are lost forever. There are only two mirrors in the entire game. Without both of them intact, the game is unwinnable"

I barely remember that. That game was fun but hard like a mother.

Shadow of the Beast had this.

At the start of the game, you can go left (to the "home" tree) or go right to the castle. Well, turns out the end of the home tree give you a key that unlocks a locked door at the end of the castle. Didn't get the key? Game over.

Solar_Crimson posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/0/5/AANZVmAADZjh.png

Oh man Sierra. That takes me back. Fuck those games

Kajagogo posted...

Pre-Internet days, if you didn't have the letter attached to the instruction manual in StarTropics, you could not beat the game. Unless you already knew the code.

That was the standard copy protection from the time. Sierra's section on TVTropes is already about the size of the rest combined, adding that would double it.

Ivany2008 posted...

RE2/Dino Crisis 1 also come to mind. If you missed a key code, you could be looking forever without a guide.

Loved those games. Thank God I never experienced that bug.

Also in Code Veronica you could accidentally leave the fire extinguisher and make the game unbeatable.

g0ldie posted...

what happened with Vampyr? it has been a long time since I've played.

Oh, there's this place mid through the game you get some kind of new resource after beating a boss (I think) that you can spend in the game. BUT, when you first get them at that time, they don't tell you that you SGOULD save them atm and spend them on a story item. Do it the other way and you end up uninstalling the game like me lol ;_;

oh... thought of another series, Deponia. Lord Christ did I have issues trying to figure out how to progress throughout that game.

At the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time if you misuse your small keys you can get stuck.

Basically you're supposed to unlock a door to a series of rooms where you find another. If you backtrack and use the initial key elsewhere you can't get another and you're fricked

SergeantGander posted...

At the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time if you misuse your small keys you can get stuck.

Basically you're supposed to unlock a door to a series of rooms where you find another. If you backtrack and use the initial key elsewhere you can't get another and you're fricked

This isn't true. People just don't find keys that are pretty damn well hidden.

7th Saga. Not so much of missing an item, but at a certain point, you can't backtrack and if you're underleveled, you get mauled.

Baten Kaitos Origins has a similar issue: the disc swap save immediately leads into a boss battle. Hope you prepared beforehand!

Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring. Generally, you have to talk to everyone and gather all items in each area before the game will let you move on. There was one item accidentally omitted from this check in the first major area, and if you miss it (i.e. get everything else first), then you're screwed and you won't realize it until Chapter 4.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text game

if you don't pick up the junk mail at the beginning, you can't get the babel fish and are fucked!

Wild Arms XF
Capcom vs SNK Fighters if you got the wrong type from the store, it was bugged and you couldnt progress past the first elevator

Doesn't count as 'missing something,' but in Super Mario Bros. 2 you can dig yourself into a sand pit and be stuck forever (since it's the only SMB game of that era without a timer).

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for NES. Marian comes at some point and takes Blinkin away. And if he is equipped with a certain item it's gone forever.

SergeantGander posted...

At the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time if you misuse your small keys you can get stuck.

Basically you're supposed to unlock a door to a series of rooms where you find another. If you backtrack and use the initial key elsewhere you can't get another and you're fricked

This is very false.

TheHoldSteady posted...

Maniac Mansion is insanely easy to do this.

With what team? I've never had that issue

I think the only issue in Maniac Mansion is if one of your team dies while carrying needed items. Or if you get two of your three-person team killed.

You can get stuck HARD in certain points of FFT if you save between those locations that have multiple battles without going back to the main map between them.

Not physically impossible but might as well be.

I almost got stuck there on my first playthrough lol.

Anything Ken and Roberta Williams made

Hayame Zero posted...

Anything Ken and Roberta Williams made

Can't get stuck in Mixed Up Mother Goose.

In GTA Vice City, most people think they finished the game after a certain mission because no new missions appear on the map. You have to do side missions and basically buy every business and complete its missions (some of which are not fun) and it also takes forever to get enough money. They also dont tell you that you need to do this. Then when you finally own all of the property, the game continues.

SergeantGander posted...

At the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time if you misuse your small keys you can get stuck.

Basically you're supposed to unlock a door to a series of rooms where you find another. If you backtrack and use the initial key elsewhere you can't get another and you're fricked

As other people have said, this is incorrect. Also, maybe it's just me but I never found the Water Temple to be that difficult even on my first time. Maybe a bit tedious having to change the water levels but not difficult.

ellis123 posted...

Most of the Quest games from Seirra. They commonly have unwinnable states based on overlooking something. For instance, in King's Quest VI when you go to the Isle of Mists if you don't pick up everything in the village and leave your game is now unwinnable. If you go back you will get a game over and otherwise you will get stuck down the line.

'Member in KQV, that moment where a cat chases a rat across part of the screen, and quickly disappears? If you don't throw a boot at that cat, you are 100% fucked.

Pretty much every Point n Click game before Monkey Island had some form of "you must pick up an item or press a switch in a room that you will not be able to return to, or else you will get stuck near the end of the game with no clue of what you missed to do".
Most Zeldas have places where you get stuck if you save at the wrong place. The game will either not load something that it is supposed to load, or you can mess up your item inventory and delete an item that you need to complete the game.

Heartomaton posted...

'Member in KQV, that moment where a cat chases a rat across part of the screen, and quickly disappears? If you don't throw a boot at that cat, you are 100% fucked.

That one pissed me off so much. It was extremely precise and happened pretty fast (IIRC the way I got it to work was by throwing the boot ahead of the cat more than at it).

That said after KQIII can anything from any other game truly count as maddening? That game really was a league of its own in all respects.

RetroGamer68 posted...

Most Zeldas have places where you get stuck if you save at the wrong place. The game will either not load something that it is supposed to load, or you can mess up your item inventory and delete an item that you need to complete the game.

About the only thing I can think of that fits this mold is if you use the bottle glitch in OOT and turn your ocarina into a bottle or something like that. Certainly is not "most zeldas" lol

WaterLink posted...

About the only thing I can think of that fits this mold is if you use the bottle glitch in OOT and turn your ocarina into a bottle or something like that. Certainly is not "most zeldas" lol

Generally they require active doing by the player (as in, having to actively work towards getting stuck a bit more than just overlooking things), but it is quite possible to do it in most of them, yeah. In Zelda II you can skip the first palace and go to a palace that has falling tiles, use Fairy and fly to a glitched palace, and then beat the palace. This causes the game to destroy the palace you were in (as if it was beaten) and give you credit for the first palace. Any save after this is unwinnable. In LttP there are several locations where you can bomb jump across a pit and unlock a door with a small key. Something that because you are doing it out of order causes you to run out of Small Keys before you are able to finish the dungeon. In LA you can jump to the fourth dungeon without the ability to swim, permanently locking you on that side of the water and unable to continue. In OoA if you max out the water in Jabu-Jabu's belly without grabbing all of the keys you will get stuck. In TP you can save when you find the Sky Cannon (before using it), and then quitting out will cause the NPC you need to talk to to teleport away and leave you stuck. In PH you can enter the Goron Temple early and get stuck because you aren't an honorary Goron to leave. In SS you can talk to a character too many times and cause the Song of the Hero quest to lock. In BotW you can glitch yourself out of the final battle, and if you save then you are permanently stuck.

So yeah, basically all of the Zelda games have unwinnable states (most of which really don't rely on glitches). In this line LttP, LA, OoA, TP, and PH all are games that are pretty reasonable to actually accidentally screw yourself over.

Cocytus posted...

"Alone in the Dark:
* In the original game, you need two small mirrors to defeat the Nightgaunts at the top of the stairs and proceed further into the game. If a monster attacks you just once while you are carrying the mirrors, they will shatter and are lost forever. There are only two mirrors in the entire game. Without both of them intact, the game is unwinnable"
I barely remember that. That game was fun but hard like a mother.

All I remember was the preserved tapeworms in the jars.