Board 8 > Games that can be made impossible to beat?

(+) Yeah! (+)

What are some games that can be made impossible (or next to impossible) to beat without starting the whole game over? I'm not talking about stuff like the absurdly specific scenarios people have intentionally set up to make Pokemon unwinnable, but games that can be made impossible or nearly impossible to beat just through normal gameplay, either by squandering supplies in games where they are limited, missing an essential item that you can't go back and get, saving in a spot that is impossible to leave, etc. Please try to be as spoiler-free as possible.

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I guess FF7?

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Multiple adventure games
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I don't remember the details but there's a game-breaking glitch in Jak 2 which causes an NPC to not appear which you need to progress, and I don't think it was too difficult to trigger by accident when just playing normally if you didn't know what caused it.

Don't think that's exactly what you're looking for either but that's all I've got.

I imagine most examples would be in the area of old RPG's.
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Lord Bob Bree posted...

Multiple adventure games

I think its one of the king quests games in particular Im thinking of where if you dont save a mouse from a cat when they run across the screen like four hours earlier, you get trapped in the dungeon and cannot progress no matter what.

A lot of those old Sierra adventure games are famous for blocking you for earlier mistakes much later in the game.

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Ocarina of Times Water Temple comes to mind

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Oh also this only prevents a 100% but it's still hilarious--in Donkey Kong 64 there's a golden banana behind a timed mini game that becomes virtually un-obtainable when playing normally after you get a specific upgrade because it causes the game to lag too much. (video with more detail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQspd_6ppO8)
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Most Fire Emblems, though it's not as likely as it seems.

Pikmin 1

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Resident Evil Code Veronica, the game can totally screw you when it switches from Claire to Chris if you leave the wrong items & weapons on the former.

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Resident Evil: Code Veronica, there's limited supplies and you can really mess it up for yourself.

Certain Elder Scrolls games

Edit: Beaten to the punch!

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yeah, a lot of early sierra adventures

the one that comes to mind first is the bridge in KQ2 which, with little warning, collapses if you cross it more than the exact amount of times you need to finish the game. if you mess up and backtrack once it's over.

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Isn't that the premise of "soft locks," or am I misunderstanding?

If we're talking a much larger scope, I know you can do it in FE7's tutorial levels as well, but you have to really go out of your way to make it happen.

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Most old CRPGs, you can sell or drop key items that make the game unwinnable

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pyresword posted...

I don't remember the details but there's a game-breaking glitch in Jak 2 which causes an NPC to not appear which you need to progress, and I don't think it was too difficult to trigger by accident when just playing normally if you didn't know what caused it.

Yup. I remember triggering this one by accident once.

Twilight Princess has a similar glitch tied to saving and quitting in some specific room, too.

It's been brought up, but I couldn't finish my first FE7 playthrough cause I let Athos die somehow and my lords were super weak cause I never used them. No one else could hurt the dragon

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The first thing that came to mind is FFT Wiegraf of course

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pyresword posted...

Oh also this only prevents a 100% but it's still hilarious--in Donkey Kong 64 there's a golden banana behind a timed mini game that becomes virtually un-obtainable when playing normally after you get a specific upgrade because it causes the game to lag too much. (video with more detail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQspd_6ppO8)

I tried watching the video but I had to turn it off before he actually got to the explanation of the glitch because I hated him so much.

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Mass Effect 2 if you spend money like crazy.
Tales of Destiny if you give the sorcerer's ring to a character that leaves.
Fallout 3 can autosave after a glitch that causes you to become stuck.

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Underleveled posted...

I tried watching the video but I had to turn it off before he actually got to the explanation of the glitch because I hated him so much.

I actually just finished watching it, you can still get the banana even with the glitch, but it requires some unorthodox methods like turning off the reticle while the fan blade is spinning or continuing to shoot after the timer goes off

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RikkuAlmighty posted...

I guess FF7?

wallmasterz posted...

Ocarina of Times Water Temple comes to mind

can you elaborate? I know these games pretty well and can't think of where you mean

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As far as I know the OoT Water Temple thing is a myth, you can't get permanently stuck there.

Not sure about FF7.

Pikasprey has a bunch of vids on his channel dedicated to Pokemon softlock ideas and ways to work around them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udHMdyBYNUQ

Steiner posted...

can you elaborate? I know these games pretty well and can't think of where you mean

Iirc you can place the final save point anywhere in the final dungeon, including after the final fight with jenova.

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The gist of the problem is pretty much what I said anyways--the upgrade adds lag to the game when you go into first-person mode which slows down the speed of the game itself but not the speed of the timer, making it impossible without going out of your way to mitigate the issue. I think the reason is that the sniper scope upgrade causes items to load from further away meaning more items are loaded at once, but I'm not sure about that. There's probably better videos going into how the lag works, etc--that just happened to be the one I was aware of that I could pull up in 5 seconds.

BetrayedTangy posted...

I actually just finished watching it, you can still get the banana even with the glitch, but it requires some unorthodox methods like turning off the reticle while the fan blade is spinning or continuing to shoot after the timer goes off

Yeah this is why I said "when playing normally". It's still possible but it's not something you'd ever think of unless you specifically knew what the problem was.
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The original Paper Mario.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MClCaFkhRt0

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I am one who hates the water temple and gets lost everytime. Theres always someone who says its no big deal

but yea, theres ALWAYS enough keys, theres ALWAYS a way out. its just a matter of you missing one single thing the N64 version doesn't make alot of things obvious

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Punnyz posted...

I am one who hates the water temple and gets lost everytime. Theres always someone who says its no big deal

I'll be that guy here, because I feel obligated to mention this every time the Water Temple is mentioned.

I did it on my first time playing OoT without the blue tunic because I forgot to bring blue fire out of the Ice Cavern, was too lazy to go back, and didn't have the rupees to buy the thing. Made the Temple way more fun, at least for me, as every underwater trip was under a time limit.

Who knows if it was actually "impossible" to beat, but my friend and I eventually gave up on the last boss of FFX when we were kids. Pretty sure it was after a point-of-no-return, so there was no way to backtrack and get supplies / level-up more.

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OH speaking of FF (again)

There is a point in Cyan's side quest where you go to Doma Kingdom and you fight a boss, I think his name is Wrex or something

There is a point where you cannot leave Cyan's subconscious to level up or get supplies so if you accidentally stumble into this sidequest and go in too far, you'll be stuck

He is actually vulnerable to X Zone IIRC, and whats remarkable is this weakness remained intact even in later ports of the game, including the Mobile version. So thats a way out, but you won't get the item for beating him this way. but if you don't have that attack then you'll truly be stuck

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MZero posted...

It's been brought up, but I couldn't finish my first FE7 playthrough cause I let Athos die somehow and my lords were super weak cause I never used them. No one else could hurt the dragon

This is not possible. There's no way to get Athos killed and not be able to get him back because he only joins for the final chapter so there's no saving after the first chance you have to get him killed. You can always just play the chapter again

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tyder21 posted...

Who knows if it was actually "impossible" to beat, but my friend and I eventually gave up on the last boss of FFX when we were kids. Pretty sure it was after a point-of-no-return, so there was no way to backtrack and get supplies / level-up more.

The last save in FFX is before the point of no return, you can't get stuck there. (Also the actual final boss is unlosable lol)

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In Morrowind theres the infamous the thread of prophecy has been severed message if you kill certain story-critical NPCs, though some of those NPCs arent actually story-critical and the game can still be beaten, and others dont have that message but WILL make the main story unbeatable. However, there is a secret back path to beating the game which only requires one NPC to be alive, and actually requires you to kill one of the essential NPCs.

That said, there are technically still ways to beat the game without that guy alive either, but it requires extensive potion-making and enchanting workarounds that no casual player would likely even know are possible.

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andylt posted...

The last save in FFX is before the point of no return, you can't get stuck there. (Also the actual final boss is unlosable lol)

Ah, I was worried I was mistaken about my childhood memories of this. Guess this means we were just too demotivated to backtrack and grind some levels out lol.

And yeah, was talking about BFA, definitely not YY.

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Underleveled posted...

I tried watching the video but I had to turn it off before he actually got to the explanation of the glitch because I hated him so much.

I don't blame you, I had trouble getting through the video too.

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Murphiroth posted...

Pikasprey has a bunch of vids on his channel dedicated to Pokemon softlock ideas and ways to work around them.

I did mention this in the OP. These are super specific things that would, in all likelihood, never ever happen to someone not explicitly trying to set them up. I'm talking about things that a first time player could accidentally get themselves into just playing normally.

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Lord Bob Bree posted...

Multiple adventure games

If I recall correctly in the Hitchhiker's Guide game:

You're given a time limit in the beginning as Arthur to escape before Earth is blown up. During this time you can also collect things in your house. Late into the game, the ship breaks down and you'll need something to repair it. You need to have every item you could have collected in the beginning, otherwise you'll be asked for an item you don't have and the game will be unwinnable.

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In Final Fantasy Legend 1 for the gameboy you can save anywhere, and if you save after entering the last boss floor, you can't leave without teleport. If your party sucks too much you'll just never win. (It's also pretty easy to get a party that sucks in that game)

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Brayze_II posted...

In Final Fantasy Legend 1 for the gameboy you can save anywhere, and if you save after entering the last boss floor, you can't leave without teleport. If your party sucks too much you'll just never win. (It's also pretty easy to get a party that sucks in that game)

yeah this, and I think the final boss's script is set in stone so it's not like you can try to get lucky or manipulate him at all.

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VintageGin posted...

If I recall correctly in the Hitchhiker's Guide game:

You're given a time limit in the beginning as Arthur to escape before Earth is blown up. During this time you can also collect things in your house. Late into the game, the ship breaks down and you'll need something to repair it. You need to have every item you could have collected in the beginning, otherwise you'll be asked for an item you don't have and the game will be unwinnable.

thats some fucking horse shit

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Over halfway through the first Skylanders game, I stumbled upon a glitch that prevents an area from opening up to continue the game. I reset a bunch of times but it wouldnt open, so I had to start a new save file.
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Cannon Room glitch in Zelda Twilight Princess is one that hasn't been mentioned yet. Basically you save and quit in the room with the cannon that takes you to the 6th dungeon, and you won't be able to progress when you reload. I think that's how it works, although I've never done it.

One that has happened to me was in Fallout 4, I saved, then immediately got hit with a mini nuke. Fortunately I had backup saves, but every time I loaded the current one, there was no way to avoid the nuke.

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Final Fantasy yet again ( I need to expand my horizons)

I don't know why I didn't t hink of this, I've actually made a topic about this before and even made videos

AND its a known glitch

In the Junon bay, there is a glitched magic pixel in the docking port where if you get off the sub on it, the sub gets permanently stuck on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2aLIWvYEBM

there IS a point in the game where you don't need the sub anymore, but this is only after you get the key of the ancients in the sea. If you get your sub stuck before then though, its over.

I even discovered another glitch where you can pick up the sub with a Gold Chocobo. I thought this was so crazy I could make it work again but there is no place you can safely place the sub on without you being able to get off the chocobo to get in it and drive away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyJigP2oUo0


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Punnyz posted...

In the Junon bay, there is a glitched magic pixel in the docking port where if you get off the sub on it, the sub gets permanently stuck on it.

similar, in ff8, ragnarok can get stuck at the edge of a forest on an island and you can't leave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxPUpDh67eQ

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Steiner posted...

can you elaborate? I know these games pretty well and can't think of where you mean

For FF7 it's a glitch related to the storyline weapon on the world map and isn't easily triggered. You have to open the menu as you trigger the fight (like as the battle splash screen triggers), save the game and then quit. Once you reload it's no longer on the map and the events triggered in the aftermath of that battle are not triggered.

Edit: I guess there was another too

A version of SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters DS has a glitch where an unavoidable battle will fail to load. There's no real workaround you just need to hope you don't have that version of the cart (you can tell which one you have by the physical appearance of the cart).

You used to be able to send the defective cart to SNK for a swap but they won't do it anymore due to the game being like 15 years old.

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Kings Quest sounds like dogshit

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I can't find it online so maybe it's not widely reported but I had a game ending bug happen to me in Broken Sword 2 as a kid.

At one point you have to give a cat a quill to get some feathers I think. I did that but didn't pick up the feathers immediately. I then either zoned or saved and loaded and the feathers were gone forever. I spent hours trying to work out what I was supposed to do and when I looked it up online later I realized I was missing the item I needed to progress with no way to obtain it.

I never did finish it because it made me mad. A quick Google search says that happens a little over halfway through the game. Apparently it's not a long game but it certainly felt longer when I was a kid

https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/4skrxm/a_detailed_explanation_of_the_permanently_stuck/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

well I learned something new today.

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this takes the fun out of this topic but heres the TV tropes page

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unwinnable

it links to 4 other pages, but yea they're fun reads

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It can become impossible to 100% Grand Theft Auto III if you complete certain missions before other missions. This happens a few times.

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VintageGin posted...

If I recall correctly in the Hitchhiker's Guide game:

You're given a time limit in the beginning as Arthur to escape before Earth is blown up. During this time you can also collect things in your house. Late into the game, the ship breaks down and you'll need something to repair it. You need to have every item you could have collected in the beginning, otherwise you'll be asked for an item you don't have and the game will be unwinnable.

Yep, the game will ask for a random item that you dont have. You have to have every single one and it will never tell you which ones are necessary other than one

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