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Favorite puzzle solutions?
- Thread starter zMiiChy-
- Start date
the one in phantom hourglass where you have to close the DS to imprint something from the top screen to the map on the bottom screen
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Papapishu!
The one I was thinking of. I was stuck for a little while, then it dawned on me. "It can't be, right..."
This might sound dumb, but that part in Full Throttle when you put the lock on the gate and climb up the chain.
I was playing this game with my best- fiend at the time and we tried over and over, and over to try to get to the gate before it closed after holding on to that chain.
We felt like such dummies when we finally figured it out.
Also, probably something I can't remember in The Witness. I never finished it, but the beginning of that game was just like repeated situations where I felt like a genius again and again. I should go back and finish that game...
I was playing this game with my best- fiend at the time and we tried over and over, and over to try to get to the gate before it closed after holding on to that chain.
We felt like such dummies when we finally figured it out.
Also, probably something I can't remember in The Witness. I never finished it, but the beginning of that game was just like repeated situations where I felt like a genius again and again. I should go back and finish that game...
The Earth Temple in Wind Waker when you have to line up the mirrors
After you solve the first the rest of it flows like poetry
After you solve the first the rest of it flows like poetry
That's nearly a two hour video! What am I looking for? I played it 20 years ago and don't remember.
I'm sure I can think of something better but since opening the thread my mind has been fixed on the bit towards of the end of Twilight Princess' city in the sky dungeon where you need to clawshot onto something in the central room but it's just completely out of reach, the solution involves you having to use the second clawshot to lower yourself from some mesh in the room above, back down into the central chamber which leaves you dangling at the right range to clawshot the target.
It's probably the most stumped to AHA moment I've had in the entire series.
So you actually have to then leave the world, go to one of the other stations in the game and take the train in, you can then open the front entrance from inside for future use.
It's probably the most stumped to AHA moment I've had in the entire series.
The front entrance to the factory and essentially the entire level is shut, all you can find around the outside is a switch that opens the world's train station which is in the interior.
So you actually have to then leave the world, go to one of the other stations in the game and take the train in, you can then open the front entrance from inside for future use.
Light Crusader on the Genesis had a few good puzzles. The one I remember most involves a music box you find where you have to listen to the song and you have to transcribe the song onto giant tuning forks. When you successfully complete it the game says "switch on!" and you can retrieve your prize.
In Tenchu Shadow Assassins, your first target - the boss of world 1, more or less - is constantly being attended by winebearers. You could go into the buildings, walk over the rafters and assassinate him from above, but you can also just pour poison into the wine and wait until his winebearers kill him.
Theres a puzzle in the last guardian where you're in a pond and theres a ladder high up that you cant reach, after a minute or two of swimming around wondering what to do i look and see trico standing on a ledge and i said "...ohh i know what to do", i called for trico and he jumped in the water and the wave carried me to the ladder.
Ongyo-Ki in Shin Megami Tensei III has this neat little trick where if you fight him during Full Kagutsuchi he has a shadow underneath him and his illusions do not.
Granted I don't wanna prop this up too much, like the Psycho Mantis fight I don't think there's actually any reason to assume this would work and is probably mostly random but it comes close to being the kind of cool puzzle bosses that I like.
Granted I don't wanna prop this up too much, like the Psycho Mantis fight I don't think there's actually any reason to assume this would work and is probably mostly random but it comes close to being the kind of cool puzzle bosses that I like.
Just played through The Last Guardian yesterday and I must have spent an hour on this part. Ended up finding the solution by complete accident. That game is full of some brilliant systems-driven puzzles that must have been a nightmare to implement.
Ooh, a stealth classic point and click adventure game? Can do!
Day of the Tentacle
Problem: Laverne is stuck in a horrible future ruled by tentacles! She needs a disguise to move freely.
Full Throttle
Problem: Minefield.
The Curse of Monkey Island
Problem: You have to win a banjo duel.
Day of the Tentacle
Problem: Laverne is stuck in a horrible future ruled by tentacles! She needs a disguise to move freely.
In the past, change the original design of the Stars and Stripes into a windsock with holes in it using the Tentacle Anatomy Chart from the future. Then send the American Tentacle Flag to the future for her.
It's one of the puzzles where you have to think in all three eras to make it work, and those really make the game shine. Also the post-credits callback to this is just perfect.
It's one of the puzzles where you have to think in all three eras to make it work, and those really make the game shine. Also the post-credits callback to this is just perfect.
Full Throttle
Problem: Minefield.
Wind-up Bunnies! To the tune of Ride of the Valkyries, no less.
It's a little unreliable, since the bunnies don't always make it across. but that's why you pick up the individual bunnies and finish the path through one bunny at a time later.
It's a little unreliable, since the bunnies don't always make it across. but that's why you pick up the individual bunnies and finish the path through one bunny at a time later.
The Curse of Monkey Island
Problem: You have to win a banjo duel.
Shoot the other guy's banjo.
The twist being that originally, the duel is a pistols duel, but you can close the box with the gun and pick the banjo behind it. However, after being outplayed in the banjo duel, you can grab the gun and shoot the banjo.
The twist being that originally, the duel is a pistols duel, but you can close the box with the gun and pick the banjo behind it. However, after being outplayed in the banjo duel, you can grab the gun and shoot the banjo.
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This shrine from BotW is a little tricky because it doesn't telegraph the solution like most do. The shrine starts with a simple puzzle where you need to use stasis on the seesaw so you can run up without it tilting over. As the name says "Halt the Tilt." Then you get a slightly more complex version of the same puzzle where you can either halt the seesaw tilted in one direction or the other. One direction gets you an optional treasure chest and the other lets you progress.
Finally you get to the last puzzle which has two seesaws; one flat seesaw suspended above the other. You have to freeze the lower seesaw at an angle so you can run up to the higher flat one and run across it to get to the goal. Just like the shrine has taught you. When I did that however, the higher flat seesaw tilted from my weight and I fell down. I got stumped on this one for quite awhile. You can't freeze more than one thing at once with stasis so regardless of which seesaw I froze, I couldn't get up there.
Well, remember that optional treasure chest? It's not so optional. It's made of metal which means you can lift it with magnesis. So you run back and grab the treasure chest and use it as a counterweight on the higher seesaw so it doesn't tilt when you run on it. I really like the solution because it makes you think outside the box. Normally treasure chests you find in shrines are just treasure chests. You're too preoccupied with what's in the chest to think about how it can be used. Even the name of the shrine "Halt the Tilt" misleads you into thinking it's all about halting the tilt with stasis but you discover there is more than one way to do that.
That's not all. There's an actual optional treasure chest just near the goal. It's too high to reach normally but if you take the treasure chest from before, lift it high above the seesaw while you're standing on one end and drop it on the opposite end, you get launched into the air. Just the pure physics of the game engine letting you fling yourself towards the extra treasure.
That's not all. There's an actual optional treasure chest just near the goal. It's too high to reach normally but if you take the treasure chest from before, lift it high above the seesaw while you're standing on one end and drop it on the opposite end, you get launched into the air. Just the pure physics of the game engine letting you fling yourself towards the extra treasure.
This one gets me almost every playthrough. I drop down from that hole and see the room I was in earlier and I'm like "Oh a shortcut back to the beginning!" and let go of the clawshot. Then I realize what I did and have to run all the way back up to that room.
Was about to say this one. It's even cleverly hinted at much earlier on, where you convince Trico to jump into a similar pond using a food barrel, and his splash makes a gigantic wave.
I love the elevator puzzle of sorts in the Alchemy Laboratory in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Complete the puzzle, and you get the Basilard a bit early. You've got an elevator that rises when something stands on a switch nearby, as well as a Blood Skeleton moving back and forth on the platform on which the switch resides. I generally use Summon Spirit (though the timing is difficult) to hit the Blood Skeleton while it's standing on the switch, but it's really funny to see new players (or even some players who've played the game before) struggle with the puzzle due to how erratic the Blood Skeleton's movement is.
Nice to see another Light Crusader fan. That game has such a huge variety of puzzles.
Nice to see another Light Crusader fan. That game has such a huge variety of puzzles.
Eh. Any puzzle that needs knowledge outside of what is available in-game I can't consider a good puzzle. If you aren't familiar with Shakespeare works, the library puzzle makes no sense.
Nah this method is still trash because you still need to flip it off at the end which is really awkward with the gyro controls.
The actual solution is to throw the ball off and then rotate 90 degrees anti-clockwise so the ball spawns in right at the end of the maze. And you have guard rails so you can build up speed at the end and do the little flick you require to bounce the ball to the exit.
And even then it still feels awkward due to the gyros not quite be right with this game anyway.
Now to talk about an actual good game...
The solution to this puzzle is a great one.
Weirdly, one of my favorite puzzles comes from one of Era's least favorite games: Paper Mario Sticker Star.
The game is more like a traditional point and click adventure game than it's like an RPG since you're collecting items (stickers) and trying to figure out how to use them throughout the world and encounters to solve puzzles.
But one in particular was really clever.
The game is more like a traditional point and click adventure game than it's like an RPG since you're collecting items (stickers) and trying to figure out how to use them throughout the world and encounters to solve puzzles.
But one in particular was really clever.
There's a chain chomp enemy who you can't get past, and if I remember right you can't actually kill them in battle. I was stuck on it for a while, but then I decided to try something I'd never done before and see if it worked.
I used a sleep item/move on the enemy which out them to sleep, and then I exited the battle and the Chain Chimp was still asleep in the game world which let me get past them.
I used a sleep item/move on the enemy which out them to sleep, and then I exited the battle and the Chain Chimp was still asleep in the game world which let me get past them.
This puzzle probably had me more lost than any other in my life. I think I remember being horribly overleveled by the time I figured it out and could progress, and the only reason I "figured it out" was because I randomly did the correct thing. Like a monkey banging on a typewriter for eternity finally producing a single legible sentence. Those times before the ubiquity of the internet really were different for gaming as a kid.
Oh I know. It's certainly only a personal preference. I just loved how broad the puzzles were and having to sit down and really try to figure them out.
I'd be reluctant to count this because this isn't the solution to the puzzle - it's perfectly doable the expected way - but it *is* a really nice workaround.
I have a post from times gone by about my favourite puzzles, I'll dig it out:
...recently I've been getting into puzzle hunts outside the context of games, in particular Puzzle Boat. There's a lot of great solutions in that; at some point I'll get around to putting together the non-game non-riddle puzzle thread I've got bouncing around my head. As a hopefully-more-accessible example of the art, here's one of last year's Twelve Days of Puzzlemas from a friend of mine that I think is a decent introduction to the type of puzzle we could be looking at - as a quick primer you can ignore the scroll and the decorations on the border, they're not relevant to this, and your final goal is to get to a single word or phrase.
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My 11-year-old mind was blown back then. I love this series.
Came in here to post this! There's a similar puzzle in Hotel Dusk for DS, a really fun noir style VN. Of course, the last puzzle in 999 is also legendary! Some great puzzle games on DS
