Halo ce?

The original Final Fantasy. If you don't have a walk-through open next to you I have no idea how you would naturally beat the game in a respectable time frame.

It feels like such a silly example now that I know the game, but tales of symphonia made me give up for about three years before coming back and beating it. There's a section where you're supposed to go to a specific city to progress, but there's a semi-secret long way around that lets you experience a different character's story early. Well, I somehow sucked at following directions and went the semi-secret way, and then couldn't figure out how to get ANYWHERE that let you do anything. I wandered around the same continent for several months (playing a few hours a week) before moving on.

All of fucking Bloodborne. Fast travel is great. Building into the narrative where you don’t tell the story directly? Fuck that.

Unreal. I stopped playing when I couldn't find the exit.

Edit: But to be honest that was kind of the norm back then. I hated Half Life for popularising the more linear level design.

I’ve probably played a bunch, but the one that most comes to mind is Antechamber. Super weird FPS puzzle game ala portal but with a lot of mindbending illusions, non-Euclidean geometry, etc.

It’s got a metroidvania structure but without much guidance and a lot of stuff will just loop you back to where you’ve been if you’re not getting things right. At some point I was just completely lost. I couldn’t possibly think of where I haven’t tried to go or do. Worst part if I tried to look up a guide I don’t even know where I’d begin to look.

Riven

Myst, sometimes Max Payne, Doom 3, Tomb Raider

Prince of Persia Warrior Within

Daggerfall

The Outer Worlds is a perfect example of this in the best way possible.

Try Platoon on the NES, you get bombarded by ennemies while you have to find your way through this abomination of a maze!

Blue Prince for me right now.

The original Bard's Tale

Me and my best friend literally spent a month of near nightly playing trying to get through the first in-town dungeon

Daggerfall also fits the bill

Atari's ET. Game was bugged. Every 80's kid that bought this was disappointed. It is the worst video game in history and all unsold copies were buried in a landfill only to be rediscovered decades later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game)

The High Score is a great documentary that actually has the guy that developed it. I think he was high when he developed it which explains a lot.

The first 4 Tomb Raider games on PC/PS1

Digimon World on PS1, made worse by the fact that it's a tamagotchi roguelite RPG. I never played DW3, but I heard it can easily become a "where the fuck do I go now?" because of obtuse/asshole time sinking designs here and there

Halo ce campaign.

• Star Trek 25th Anniversary Game
• Star Trek Judgement Rites
• Myst

Lego Harry Potter

For fucks sake it was obtuse. I had to use a walkthrough to figure out what to do next multiple times just in the first episode

Tunic

Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal

Metroid

Zork. God forbid you forget to look mailbox

Can I say half life?

Every

Single

Old

Game.

I hate it