[General Discussion] Playing with a walkthrough

Rarely will I use a walkthrough, although lately I have been more often than I probably should. I like being able to go through the game without knowing what's coming up next and to solve the puzzles myself, unless it's something annoying that I should be able to figure out on my own but can't for whatever reason (for example, it took me a while to solve that "charge up your spin attack to cut all the ropes at once" puzzle in Wind Waker because I NEVER needed to actually use it throughout the course of the game up until then and completely forgot about it). Otherwise it sometimes takes the fun and satisfaction out of completing something by yourself.

However some games practically REQUIRE walkthroughs. I have no idea how anyone could've gotten through Ecco: Defender of the Future without constantly refering to a guide of some kind. Even when you know what to do, the puzzles are STILL difficult, so how they expect people to figure out the solution and execute it without any help is beyond me. So for those, I'll use a walkthrough when I need to, since some of those games are actually MORE fun when you know how to get through the sections and can concetrate on actually doing it.

Lately I've needed to use guides to get by a specific part in a game, but unfortunately I find that once I start using one I get "hooked" and start looking ahead in it, because I'll develop this obsession to need to get 100% of everything from then on after I read about all these cool things that the guide says you can get, even the useless little secrets that don't actually help you.

I don't mind using a guide to find secret things afterwords though. Like I used the walkthrough for Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando almost religiously after I beat the game to get all the bolts, upgrades, and skill points. Some of that stuff I never would've gotten had I simply looked for it, so I didn't mind using a guide for it. Oh, and I also prefer NOT having games that "lock you out" of doing something once you reach a certain point. RPGs are notorious for that, like if you miss some super useful item in the first dungeon you're totally screwed out of it forever or something. As long as you can go back and get pretty much anything, I prefer not using a walkthrough unless I'm super-stuck or already beat the game.

Oh, and 95% of the walkthroughs I get from Gamefaqs. The only ones I buy are the ones I get for like $2-$3 on clearance, and even then it's mostly for the art and such.

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