Games which actually let you f*ck up

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

So more than 10 years later I was finally able to beat a level in Fire Emblem 10 (Wii) on hard and I have been really enjoying it in the past few weeks. But I think I hit a brick for real: the last level in which you only control the Daein Army and fight Ike (yes, the protagonist) is freaking insane. I tried a hundred different strategies as I only have 6 (out of 13 allowed units) left. I could theoretically manage it if it weren´t for those stupid hawks. They just fly past my units which causes a game over.
I read there is a laguz/beast killing skill (3x damage against beasts) in an early chapter, but I´m not keen on going back 30+ hours and start from scratch. So the game actually allows you to f*ck up.

Which other games do you know that let you do that? I can only think of Pikmin 1 (on Gamecube).

 

[DinohScene]

Games where I can fuck up?
Idk, does death warping/busted warping count?
Duping missions to skip other missions?

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

I mean a game that lets you continue even though it is impossible to win in the end.

 

[FAST6191]

Generally it would be viewed as bad game design to allow you to design a build that fails to allow progress or to finish the game. Some builds might close off avenues of play to you (stealth boy might well have a hard time becoming action man).

The main exceptions being games designed to be played over and over, possibly with an element of randomness. Roguelikes and maybe some text adventures being the ur examples of this one where there is some measure of intent. Roguelikes never really went away but experienced something of a boom a few years ago and thus you have plenty of examples. On the commercial front you have ones for every taste, though if you want a basic old school fantasy for free (but with graphics rather than ASCII art) then I do like http://www.zincland.com/powder/ and that has the added bonus of being available on just about everything. http://www.gearheadrpg.com/ might also be thrown in for fun here.
Dwarf Fortress ( http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ ) is also free and is basically all about the failure whether you are doing civilisation or individual so I don't know if that counts, though it should be noted the learning curve there is more like a learning cliff. If you can get it to click for you though then it will likely scratch your itch.

Still the first system shock and to a lesser extent its sequel are probably some of the more noted examples here. Here you can well spec into things that leave you at a dead end. Its "spiritual" sequels (while most would think Bioshock I would actually join those that look at Deus Ex) had a lesser version of this, but mostly went for pushing you down a path (and maybe a silly boss fight) rather than stopping progress.
I have played a few point and clicks that allow a measure of character selection at the start dead end me as well, which is technically different to a text adventure that might allow me to break a key item.

Roguelikes also went on to spawn both dungeon crawlers (think Diablo) and the likes of original fallout and other games. While most of those adopted the "you can finish if you have enough health potions" approach, or at least you have to go out of your way to make an unplayable build, there are some coming out of Europe that do it.

You can always put yourself at a disadvantage in the long run when playing something like Worms as well but that probably does not count for these purposes.
On not counting then following the roguelikes and dwarf fortress it probably leads us to life sims, my usual go to example being academagia ( https://www.academagia.com/ ).

Roguelike elements was a sadly short lived fad a few years ago, survival games was also a fad but one I was happy enough to see pass for now (I like the concept but so many awful takes). One take that combined the two that I really liked was https://www.thelongdark.com/ . You have two main modes (story and survival, some of which have missions), both of which will allow you to fail horribly and make you think ahead all the time.

If we are talking mods to games then the STALKER series is probably the first port of call here.

 

[Alexander1970]

Hello.

Does this also Count please ?

Every Windows Game,that I have enjoyed in Windows XP.
(And now no longer work under Windows 10 and also not with VM Solutions and that Kind....)

- many of oint and Click and Click Adventures
- most of the Children CD´s like "Bear in the blue House,Teletubbies..." (Yes,I love these Games !)
- some older STAR TREK Games
- some Spongebob Games

Of course, the Games cannot be blamed that they stop working ...
But I never can any of these Game play to the End actual....

Thank you.

 

[BORTZ]

I think I get what the OP is saying. I think he means games that you can mess up a save file.

For example, if you release all your pokemon that know surf while you are on cinnibar island and dump all your money, you would essentially have softlocked yourself. There's tons of other things too. You can get locked in Lorili's room due to Gen 1's Ai and CPU controlled pokemon not having PP limits. Pikasprey's channel has some good ones.

I know that some game allow you to save in really bad spots. In Final Fantasy Tactics you can save between two battles, with no town or time to do anything in between. The second fight is 1v1 (not something I appreciate in tactics games) between your main character and a Zodiac demon. Basically its a known tricky spot, as I found when I googled it. Basically if your main character isn't prepared... YoureGonnaHaveABadTime.jpeg. I was able to create an exploit like the internet suggested. I used the base classes skills to basically stay out of the bosses attack reach while every available turn boosting my speed and attack with tiny buff moves. Eventually I was getting 3 or 4 moves at a time and crushed the boss in a couple of hits.

I think the Impossible Mission game for mirco's was technically unfinished or something. It's literally impossible. Funny enough, I'm pretty sure there is a ROM hack fixing said issue named, yep you guessed it, "Possible Mission".

Paper Mario TTYD did me dirty. I beat most of the game with not too many issues, but the last boss was mathmatically impossible for me due to how I spent my badge points. Like wtf.

I'm sure there's more but that's all I've got right now.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

I think he means games that you can mess up a save file.

Yes, exactly. Thank you for your examples. I am surprised Paper Mario would be a game where this can happen.
Sometimes, games let you continue a mission even though it has already failed (e.g. 007 TWINE on N64), but they usually spell it out to you.

Just now I actually completed the Fire Emblem level and I am sure I can beat the rest (as it has no longer a Daein-only level). The game lets the general give commands to yellow NPC units. Unfortunately, in this particular map many NPC units are useless and stay behind even when the enemy approaches. If I give them the order to move, the snipers leave the ballista posts (which are essential to bringing down the hawks). I had the somewhat smart idea to move everyone to a ballista in the first round and then go back to automated fighting after that. So one flank was protected by the ballista and I took extra care of the other one. Still, it took many tries and lots of luck. However, the game is still one that allows you to ruin your save file (as you can theoretically continue with just 1-3 units).

 

[Deleted User]

Tales of Phantasia remake for the PSX.

With the City of Thor surfaced, you got no other way to leave than to time travel back to the Underground crypt in the present time.
The Boss there has 3 times more hitpoints than in the Snes version.
If you can´t beat him, then it´s game over and you are stuck on the City of Thor.
Probably have to grind for weeks or months to become strong enough to beat the boss.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

I actually started Ocarina of Time over when I thought missed unlocking Epona (I didn´t realize time travel also works backwards).
Obviously I was wrong but I think it´s funny.

 

[Taleweaver]

... Every game using manual saves?

Granted, even those had a way to restart the level, but e.g. starting somewhere midway doom 1 or 2 (original) with just a basic pistol wasn't something you'd recover from. So you better not relied on a single save game back then, because if that happened to be made one microsecond before you got hit by the cyberdemon's bullet you were screwed.

I can also point out that simulation games also had a way of letting you stumble. A game like frostpunk is awesome, but it really only powered up on what earlier sim games implied. Forgot to build that one building that let you gain income? Chances are you were screwed already but you didn't know it until you slowly bled out until all the small mistakes caught up with you (for the record: frostpunk almost literally rubs it in. "oh, so you didn't bother to put heat before anything else? Now THIS poor child is going to horribly starve to a freezing death because YOU thought it was important that they had houses first!!!" ). It's been long, but I'm fairly sure it took me some hours and restarting into sim city 2000 that you DON'T want to build a fire station, police station, power plant, school, university, library, salt water refreshener, trains, highway AND a subway before you build your first zoning districts.

Ahem...but that aside: I immediately thought of final fantasy 8. I've rambled about that monstrosity for some time, but yes, that game f***ks you in the a***se without condom (while contaminated with aids and corona) with an electrified barbed wire fence...figuratively.
Basically: somewhere in th very first CD (or hour) of the game you are introduced to a retarded card game. You can play it with pretty much any NPC, but aside from being boring, completely luck based and having jack shit to do with the actual story, it was at least optional. So I ignored it for something between 4 and a gazzilion hours.
Then, somewhere on the last CD, you are advancing on some evil gothic lair fortress castle of doom and you suddenly lose all that you've gathered. Took me save scrumming to advance because monsters just sneeze you to oblivion (oh, right: another thing I hate that game: monsters level up with you, effectively undercutting the entire leveling system). So then I faced...whomever I was chasing/hunting/challenging, and it went exactly alike. None of that "oh, she accidentally critical hit on every one of her machine gun hits" bullshit either. It was almost insulting that after a couple of attempts I managed to get 1 point of damage through (of about 2000 or something).
So I checked something on that new fad called "the internet". After some browsing I stumbled upon a walkthrough that told me that in order to get to that part, I had better powered up on cards as those gave some skills that apparently weren't taken.

...

So yeah, I was pissed. I had thought I had bought a "next gen" game with duelling gunblades and Gregorian chanting on the background, but as it turned out I had ACTUALLY bought a card game with some turn based combat thrown in for good measure.

 

[Kwyjor]

TVTropes has multiple categories for this sort of thing.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unwinnable

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

The FF8 example is kind of funny. And yeah, all games that allow manual saving at any point could create this problem.

 

[zeroultima6]

Does the Tales series count? Xillia is the only thing I can think of that has that one boss.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

Can you be more specific? Does the Tales series not have grinding? With grinding you could theoretically progress, I assume (?)

 

[Deleted User]

skyrim lol, when you save just before you're about to get killed by something

i actually can't think of any serious examples, i know there was something i played recently where i built badly and did like no damage to a certain enemy, not letting me progress unless i wiped

 

[zeroultima6]

Can you be more specific? Does the Tales series not have grinding? With grinding you could theoretically progress, I assume (?)

It does have grinding, I'm talking about certain bosses that very hard to beat but not required story-wise, barring optional fights.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Congratulations on beating fire emblem. I never really gave it a honest try since I found it more intimidating to play through. I'm more of the guy who prefer not having a 15 minute battle on the same map with large groups of enemies in a tactical manner. So I guess people could say I'm just not good at these games. (Even though I think shining force is a bit easier to play) For the record, there is more reasons than it's gameplay that doesn't excite me enough to play it. But that's for another time I guess.

Honestly, i feel like this problem happens often when I Play rpg games (And if you think I'm bad at that too, not all of them, but some) Perhaps is more of a me problem than a developer problem. But i prefer to think of it as "I played it such a unique way that only I had this problem with the game, that developers didn't account for when creating" If it sounds like a bad excuse for me being bad at the game, well It can be, but it's more like "Devs didn't count on me doing this did they"

Though the only time I really encountered such a problem was final fantasy tactics, for reasons I didn't understand when playing it. Similar things happen in Final Fantasy 8 as well. Part of the reason why I don't like Most RPG games is because it doesn't feel like it was designed for the way I play them or "want to play" them. It's meant for people to play it the way it was designed to play which if that's the only way to play it, and it's not a fun way to play it then it not a good game cause I can't do anything about that. (Does that make sense?)

For a real example that no one mentioned yet, Phantasy star's CLASSIC series has problems. (These existed before the online one)

If you're ever going to experience the very first one, you're best bet is to do it with the "SEGA AGES" edition of the game. Not only does it make the pacing faster than the original (which is mostly why I dislike RPG) this version of the game includes a manual that flatout says "original game issues"

Instead of fixing them, they just tell you what they are, and oh boy....

THREE SOFT LOCKS! This game had some oversights or just was rushed. Not good. Though it doesn't stop there since the other games in the series do have some softlocks even if it's not the same situations as this one.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

I discovered that you can actually defeat any number of guards in Skyrim or Oblivion (or both) at a very low level if you abuse the loading screen. It takes a moment for a guard to react after a loading screen is finished: attack and repeat... I "had to" do it when I had saved at the wrong time (and didn´t have other recent safe files).

 

[Kwyjor]

So I checked something on that new fad called "the internet". After some browsing I stumbled upon a walkthrough that told me that in order to get to that part, I had better powered up on cards as those gave some skills that apparently weren't taken.

Nah, cards make some things easier, but they are absolutely not necessary to finish FF8. I definitely agree there are a couple of things in the game that you really don't have much of a chance of finding without a guide – but most of Square's games are like that.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

"Devs didn't count on me doing this did they"

I also have the urge to do these things. I guess that´s why I like the hitman series. In the predecessor of Fire Emblem 10, i.e. Path or Radiance, I just let almost everyone die (using most units as human shields without weapons) and it made the playthrough on hard pretty easy. I just had a 4-men (or so) superhuman army. But this does not work in FE10 anymore. It is designed differently.