Ugh...Nintendo...I love Luigi's mansion but...wt-heck?
I'm at the Secret Mine Level D-1 "Cold Case". I've been walking around it for about half-an hour since I last made progress and I'm absolutely stumped.
I know Luigi's Mansion is kind of an adventure game, and that due to design and software problems most adventure games are difficult to get through even with a walk-through (Still Life 2 being a prime example, where you can follow the step by step walkthrough without deviation and still not be able to complete the game), but that's not a good thing...
...it's not an intended generic convention, it's just a broken game.
Equally, when you make the answer to your puzzle for progress completely invisible (much less indecipherable) outside of the context of "Adventure Game"...at that point...you're making the way forward through your game an easter egg, and I'm pretty sure that can't be considered good game design.
I really don't like checking online walkthroughs...case in point...I'd rather sit here typing this than try and find the solution on the internet.
That was my main frustration with Link to the Past...that it was a game who's structure primarily consisted of easter eggs designed to get you to call the Nintendo Hotline...this just feels like that all over again.
I'm seriously so averse to checking online walkthroughs that I'm going to have to wait a couple of weeks to see if I can affordably pick up a strategy guide.
I got through ALttP without a guide when I was about 12 years old, long before I had home internet, and before you could just browse what you wanted to on school computers. The only easter egg in it that I ever knew of was the secret Nintendo Power contest winner's room filled with rupees, everything else was just the game as far as I'm concerned.
But back on LM, maybe if you don't want to look up a guide, just put the game down for a while so you can pick it back up with a fresh perspective. Or you could always just suck it up and look it up online, it's not hurting anyone, it's akin to asking friends in the schoolyard if they knew the fatalities in Mortal Kombat, or what have you. Your aversion is nonsensical and seems to only be causing you strife, so think about it.
I'd like to think that if all I had to play when I was twelve were the handheld zeldas, or ghost babel for that matter or Ocarina of Time, I could have complete them all, eventually (although I'd like to see someone actually map the potential options, from everything a person can think of to try, and the random walk, and work out the real probabilities of that). These days, if I didn't collapse from them sucking all of the will to live out of me, I probably could at least give it a fair try, if I really set my mind to it (unfortunately I collapse from frustration and boredom way before I can figure out through basic trial and error whether they're actually solvable without outside help. My instinct is that there's an extremely slim chance of that being an enjoyable proposition for anybody, let alone even possible to begin with)...but obviously that's just speaking from my own experience.
I've just come to view stuff like ghost babel and the zelda handhelds and to a certain extent Link to the Past as circulatory systems for queuing up callers for the hints line. They're needlessly difficult and convoluted, in my opinion and it looks to me deliberately so by design as part of an overall business model. I just find it to be really exploitative and I wouldn't want to engage with it and it frustrates me when I see more of it in the more modern games, especially when it's a barrier to my progress. I don't like walking around in circles trying every single possibility I can possibly think of trying to preempt Nintendo's propitiatory solution.
Also, I don't view Dark Moon as simply an adventure game but while I do enjoy the adventure game aspects of it, I think impassable sections with no clear solution that require a walk-through and are often ultimately based completely on faulty logic are one aspect of the adventure genre I'd really hope would have been left behind by now.
@SuperPaperLuigi I had little to no problems with Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, except for the gems, which are extra collectibles for those inclined anyway.
When games introduce puzzles, there's always a chance you won't be able to figure it out, and that's just the nature of puzzles in general. And if I recall correctly, Dark Moon was pretty good about giving hints to the user, whether it be teaching you the mechanic early or with visual cues. And can't you call E. Gadd when you're stuck?
I understand why you could be having an issue with it, but players really clamor for stuff like this. They want gameplay to be more difficult, and get upset when games like Pokemon have to be easy to appease the younger audience, myself included. On top of that, players really like feeling part of the game world, and streamlined instructions tend to ruin that. I remember people getting really upset that Dark Moon was split into levels rather than allowing you exploring the entire mansion at your own pace.
I would have never guessed Weezing was so useful until I played a HeartGold Nuzlocke! My YouTube Channel! Video game related, of course! My Pushmo Levels
@MasterWario I guess so...I'm not going to pretend I'm not in a minority when it comes to this stuff but I really do find it frustrating to hit walls like this. I'd be happy with most games, including Dark Moon if I could just play through them with no roadblocks. For me the ideal game is easy, obvious and entertaining...just a lot of fun to play with no frustration and definitely doesn't have to be an arbitrary forty hours long to qualify as worth playing, especially not if that's due to having to repeatedly replay frustrating sections and/or just having to walk in circles trying to figure out the way forward.
I've been hopping in and out of Dark Moon due to other commitments and I totally forgot I could call e-gadd (have no recollection that the player could do that). I'll give that a try.
Basically, for me it's like trying to get the Maiamai things down from the tops of the trees in Link Between Worlds, or a better example, getting the kid down from the top of the tree in the Gamecube Windwaker (I'm yet to play the HD remake so can't speak as to that) but I tried everything...stomped around the tree in the boots, hit the tree with the hammer...everything I could think of including flying into the kid with the decu leaf and flying a seagull into the kid (basically just to cover all of the angles I could possibly come up with (I think I even tried to land on the tree to talk to the kid)) and just none of it worked. Realistically all of that stuff should have been enough to knock the kid off of the top of the tree (and it's not like a kid in the top of a tree was particularly easy to find in the first place) but there's just one way to do it, and for the majority of the audience I'd imagine it definitely means checking a walk-through or asking someone.
I've played enough games and enough adventure games (I used to buy, sell and trade them on game trading zone) to know the tropes and the conventions but that also extends to knowing when I've hit diminishing returns with regard the probability of solving a problem.
When it comes to the old style P.C. adventure games the probability of getting through any of them without consulting the internet is basically nil since there are very very few that don't just simply have game-breaking technical issues that'd see you walking in circles without ever solving the puzzles. I'm so use to that, that now the stuff like the kid in the tree in Windwaker just feel like design flaws...it falls into that category of the probability of solving it being beyond the point of diminishing returns.
It might be fun to see Nintendo make a physics based Zelda, albeit with fuzzy/wooly physics but with physics nonetheless, rather than the standard turn-key type puzzle solutions.
But yeah, and this is just an example, I'm not really looking for help, I'll pick up a guide when the cash's available...this is just an example...
...where I am with Dark Moon: I thought I'd found the solution when I found the invisible pick that flew off into the wall. I thought it was going to somehow break the mirror but it flew into a wall and released a stream of mice into the room...do I follow the mice? Are they a red herring? Do I go on to investigate the mouse holes? Was it put there purely to frustrate me in the event that I'm shining my black-light on everything to try and find a solution?
The pick axe on the opposite side of the room just spins but I was expecting it to effect the lamp next to it, which it didn't do, so as to potentially give me a fire-source or to render the mirror (potentially a two way mirror) transparent so as to reveal a clue (I've already come back to find it draped with a false perspective which I removed to reveal the hint that there's a ghost in the barrel (and really at this point it seems, just from the design, that the game is playing a game of frustrating me by giving me potential ways forward that turn out not to be)....it's not fun...it's like Nintendo are playing keep-away with the solution, and for the player, that's just not fun.
It gives me the option to try and cross the rope bridge but I keep falling off...or am I getting blown off by the wind? Do I need to find some way of stopping the wind or some way of combating it to cross the rope bridge as though its a tightrope? Is it a clue? Am I just not adept enough at finding the required circle-pad sweet spot to get across as was an issue previously? Should I assume that's the case and give up looking for other solutions? Is it just there to muddy the waters with regards what the answer might be and/or to just frustrate me?
I can get across the ravine behind the building easily enough but when I get there everything's frozen and I have no apparent heat source. So surely there must be a heat source at the opposite end that I don't have access to.
I could get across the ravine to the left of the building if only I could activate the pulley system but the light-receptor is too far away from my torch to affect it from this side. If I could affect it from this side why would I need the rope bridge? Is the rope bridge just a short cut or is the pulley system the short cut, or neither, or both?
Each one of these things is like the boy at the top of the tree in Windwaker...you need to find the exact prescribed solution in order to move on and the probability is that the answer will be totally illogical and outside the bounds of normal physics, which is okay, as long as you lead them to the solution and as long as you're not just relying on people's common sense for their finding of the solutions...because basic common sense doesn't apply to the situations being presented.
...there's a specific solution to this...I don't have it...I can't find it...it's been suggested to me I call e-gadd, maybe that's it. I thought I had to get toad to one of those screens but maybe there's another way for him to be transported back to the bunker...who knows. I'll try calling e-gadd.
@SuperPaperLuigi Yeah, I see what you're saying; that issue of only one solution has definitely annoyed me in the past. It's too bad it takes so much development time to address multiple solutions...games that try and do that tend to be really short because of it.
Also for the tightrope part you have to use gyro controls, right? And generally gyroscope sections are THE way to go.
I would have never guessed Weezing was so useful until I played a HeartGold Nuzlocke! My YouTube Channel! Video game related, of course! My Pushmo Levels
@MasterWario Thanks, I had no idea. It must have been dumb luck that I got past those parts of the previous level. Thanks, I'll take another look at it.
It reminds me of Red Dead Redemption when I was trying to figure out why I suddenly couldn't break any of the horses. I checked extensively on line only to find people with the same question and the same answer being given over and over again: you have to use the right stick...
...it turned out the right stick was the wrong stick and the left stick was the right stick.
But yeah...stuff like the kid falling out of the tree, I guess they could use the same animation for a range of solutions (i.e. just the kid falling out of the tree) but I see what you mean...why a new Dragons Lair game true to the original concept will probably never be achievable...you'd need an animation studio the size of the original Disney studios to produce enough unique content for each part :0/
The mission system is definitely the weakest aspect of the game for me.
You start every time at an area you explored before (Probably a form of padding since the original was so short) and the lack of a quicksave feature is very annoying when a mission can take up to 30 min. to complete.
Not that I don't like it but the original was much better to me.
This blue eye perceives all things conjoined. The past, the future, and the present. Everything flows and all is connected. This eye is not merely seen reality. It is touching the truth. Open the eye of truth... There is nothing to fear.
@Dreamliner: Luigi's Mansion hardly even plays like a Mario game; it's more of an action/puzzle game with some quirky elements thrown in. There is the occasional Boo in the game, but there are other types of ghosts as well. Plus, if you like exploration (while the game isn't exactly nonlinear), you will be rewarded for it.
If you're unsure, find some YouTube footage and judge whether or not the game is for you from that.
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Topic: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
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