On one hand it rewards exploration and makes the backgrounds feel less lifeless, but on the other you end up autistically checking every square tile in the whole fucking game. Where do you draw the line?Personally I'm ok with jars and fireplaces but not boxes or random walls. And obviously if there's some one-off statue or something it's fair game for a hidden item. The good RPGs make it obvious that it's limited to certain objects, but some are just all over the place.
>>12760254There's a hidden door in the cultist's tower in FFVI that can only be activated by pressing a hidden switch on a wall in one of the rooms, fucking utter bullshit.
>>12760254I like them, I feel like the make the world more interactive.I like the sensation of having a back and forth with a map designer where they hide stuff in clever spaces and dare me to find it.But really important key items should definitely stay in chests. I don't want to get stuck because I didn't think to look in the big statue's right nostril or whatever.
>>12760269>the big statue's right nostril or whatever.To be fair you'd have to be insane and/or retarded not to check statues in an RPG, assuming there aren't millions of them.
there's never been a hidden item in a mainstream game that was required to beat ityou can just play the game without humping every sprite you come across
>>12760332>he doesn't check jarsWe've got a real heretic here.
>>12760360>dude another potion I'm never going to use anyways!
>>12760254Secret walls and passageways are great, always support a good invisible wall
secrets are all or nothing... why even bother if you're not going to 100% it... and you're not going to 100% it without using a guide...
>>12760409A fellow wall pusher. I thought I was the only one. All walls must be pushed against at least once.
>>12760416>and you're not going to 100% it without using a guide...It depends on the game. Before internet I pressed A against every single tile in Lunar 1 on Sega CD and wrote my own guide in a notebook for all hidden items. Years later I checked the guides online and none of them were any better than mine.
>>12760416>why even bother if you're not going to 100% itwhy even look for secrets if you dont find all the secrets? Is that what youre asking? How dumb are you?
>>12760254just give me an ability that alerts me if a worthwhile item is hidden on the screen I'm on.
>>12760716something like pokemon's dowsing rod would be nice.king's field 3 (JP) gave you a hidden room locator item, but it's at the very end of the game, and all the items inside them are completely useless by that point.
Hello.I heard you dislike the idea of having to search every godamn square tile in the game, so we hid a hundred clown coins through the game that you need to collect in order to receive the ultimate weapon.
>pours one out for all the 8-yr-olds who bombed every wall and burned every tree in Zelda because they were too proud to cheat with Nintendo Power Issue #1.
>>12760254you're supposed to half-ass it while your friends do too and then you tell each other what you found
>>12760910>but it's at the very end of the game, and all the items inside them are completely useless by that point.At least you'll know where they are if you ever replay it.>>12760960It's 2026 no one has friends.
>>12760910not even that, just have a character in the party, like a thief or something, automatically say "I sense treasure here" whenever you enter a screen with a worthwhile hidden item somewhere.
>>12760985Some game designer would take that idea and randomize it to make it more "gamey", so you end up having to exit and re-enter every screen a hundred times to see if the dialogue triggers.
>>12760985how about just have secrets something you can discover? Wow what a concept, a secret thats a secret???
In Ultima games the wall would have one tiny pixel out of place so you could notice the hidden door. IIRC Shadowgate was like this, EOB and Dungeon Master, too.
>>12760995Enjoy pressing A on 10,000 tiles.
>Tactics Ogre / FFT / most JTRPGs>have to destroy a piece of scenery, perhaps with the correct type of element, maybe with the correct calendar date or phase of the moon or blood type of party member, in order to reveal the secretThis is bullshit. Usually no clue or hint is given, you merely have to stumble on this shit or, I guess the idea was back in the day, buy the licensed guide.
>>12760998you literally dont have to do that, you can hit A on titles where you think there might be a secret and you dont have to search every tile. Again what a concept. You dont need to collect all the secrets.
>>12760254I've started to hate checking jars. Especially in 3D games where there's usually an animation that goes with it. Just miss me with that shit
>>12761003How about when you have to go to some random arbitrary tile in the middle of battle that can only be reached with one character and you have to be facing the right direction to get the "Look here" option to appear? Hate that shit.
>>12760981>It's 2026 no one has friends.True, I meant historically. You can't really expect that with older games unless there is a retro gaming version of a book club.
>>12760409Based invisible wall appreciators. My favourite was the first one I ever discovered by accident, in Phantasy Star. Think it was right at the start of the dungeon. Expected a chest at the end of the corridor it hid - instead it was a bloody red dragon. Hard as nails, beating it felt like an achievement, and it gave me a lightsabre. Blew my mind that the game might be casually hiding random secret rooms, with crazy monsters guarding cool stuff. Best of times.
SUBVERTED
>>12761017It's clear that they were just selling guides with this stuff.
>>12761207There's a secret weapon early in the game that pretty much makes every battle last 1 or 2 seconds.
>>12760686He's right though. In fact, I'd take it a step further, why 100% a game if there's not an achievement linked to your online account for you to show off to strangers on the internet?
>>12761397>think you 100% achieved a game>ten years later some person discovers some glitch or weird edge case near the start>can't 100% achieve without starting nearly overWhat's even the point? Who does this? Show yourselves.
>>12761424>she thinks that 100%ing a game and glitches are even in the same categorylollmao
I would be fine with it if it at least had some visual clue that there was something hidden. I mean it should be extremely subtle but still be there to those paying attention.
>>12761436Some things the guides don't even cover, are they off limits? What's a glitch and what's a goof or shortcut?
>>12760985I think the fairy in Adventures of Elliot does just that
>>12761457>durr what's a glitchgtfo
>>12760254Hidden items are a good thing in moderation. As you said in the OP, they're best kept to objects that would feasibly contain an item, or something so conspicuous that checking it feels natural. It feels rewarding to recognize where someone would put a secret and find it, but feels like bullshit to mash A on a nondescript wall and find a super powerful item.Hidden passageways and the like are something that can be good too if the dungeon/map design adequately allows the player to intuit where they are or there's some kind of subtle graphical tell. Not a huge fan of situations where the game only has one or two hidden passages and finding them is practically impossible without a miracle or a guide, because then even if you did somehow stumble upon it you'll be paranoid for the rest of the game and be trying to ram into every wall in vain.
I love this game but it might be the worst offender since you find items in barrels, boxes, fireplaces and wells (could be more but that's what I checked) and you have to be precisely aligned otherwise you won't find anything, and aligning yourself is a bitch unless you're playing with the 3D controller.I'm close to the end of the game and have found:>22 large Mithril>8 Small Mithril>3 Dark Matter>about a dozen Potions and random weaponsMostly from boxes and barrels. There are also random items in arbitrary locations on the battle maps that you just have to stumble upon, and one false wall early in the game that's made me suspicious of all walls.
