First attempt at Oblivion I contracted vampirism but didn't realize it. Went to the trouble of figuring out how to get rid of it and realized the quest to cure myself would take longer than it would to just restart with a new character, which was a major bummer. I know some people liked the whole vampire angle but I literally caught it just after leaving the starter dungeon and it wasn't something I was ready to mess around with. Sadly, had I realized I was infected I could have done a much easier cure so long as I had taken care of it within the first day or so.

That's also why Chrono Trigger > Chrono Cross.

Not as bad, but I have been working on getting all my characters in Lost Odyssee to learn every skill not knowing that I have to collect 99 stupid seeds scattered in pots and chests all over the land in order to get a accessory that give me a skill. Time wasted, and 4 achievements I will not be getting.

Yeah, i know everything still will be available. What gets me is i know I'm going to end up with one seed sitting around. I will say that I have been on the last section of the game for 2 weeks, but keep finding other things to do everytime I turn the game on.

"Tonight I beat Lost Odyssey... or wait Keolon King! Lets fight him"

Why is the decision "wrong"? Decisions made in the present influence the future in ways you cannot predict (without a FAQ, obviously) -- that seems about right.

I knew a guy who started playing WoW on our recommendation. He was having a blast, and after we'd given him a few pointers on how to play, said he'd like to figure out the rest on his own. Skip a bit, and he's level 30 (and very quickly, which wasn't as easy back in the day). We party with him, and notice that he has some odd gear. Also, he's not really using many abilities. We ask him about the gear, and he says "it keeps breaking, so I get new stuff." Similarly, when asked about his play-style, he said "these are the powers I've had from the beginning!"

Upshot: he didn't know he could repair gear, upgrade his abilities or purchase new ones, and talent points were a closed door to him.

I can't imagine how annoying WoW must have been for him. I do know that after we set him straight, he was almost delirious with how much fun the game had suddenly become.

I had this same problem come up but it was a bit worse. I was a lot further along in the game and I ended up accidentally selling one of the items you need to complete the quest and I couldn't remember who I sold it to. As it turns out, the item can be sold despite being critical to the quest. And since creating another one required more time than I had before the curse overtook me, I ended up using a console code to spawn the item I needed. I even tried playing as a full Vampire for a bit but it makes the game exceedingly difficult and slow. The whole vamparism idea was neat but it was frustrating that they didn't tell you when you'd caught it (it only happened some of the times a Vampire hit you) considering that you had limited time to cure it and it would completely change the game if you didn't cure it.

Does anyone remember the old Infocom "HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy" text adventure game?

(I consider this so old that this is not a spoiler.)
Near the start of the game there is a pile of junk mail on your doorstep as you leave the house. If you don't pick it up and keep it you can't finish the game. But you won't find that out until nearly half done the dang game. Of course, you have to restart because no one in their right mind makes a save point that close to the start anyway.

Similar grumbling with items in Sierra adventure games too.

Edit: Wow someone beat me to the Hitchhiker point as I was typing.

I had a problem like this with King's Quest VI. There was an item you had to pick up early on in the game but you didn't need it until much later and eventually, you would reach a point where the original area that contained the item would close off to you, making you unable to proceed. This wouldn't have been so bad if you didn't learn this until you were about 85% complete. I never ended up finishing the game.

Gah, there was one of the Space Quest games where you started on a ship that was self-destructing, and unbeknownst to you had to get a set of coordinates from a computer that had nothing to do with your primary goal of getting off the ship before it blew up, and if you didn't get them you couldn't get past a bit of the game a couple of hours later. I threw my toys at that point and played something else.

Not that I'm still bitter about it.

*twitch*

Part of the joy of Chrono Cross was taking different routes and seeing the different characters that end up with you. By the end it was 100% personal preference of who you wanted with Serge. Every character becomes powerful. Except Radish. He was terrible.

The very first time I played FFVII (on a rented PS1, so no memory card) I got to the very first Reno fight. He put the player in a pyramid. I didn't know that you had to hit the character to break it. That was maybe 3-4 hours of gameplay only to lose and have to start from the beginning. I got back to that point 4 times and died each time before I had to return the game and system. *Sigh* So young.

Does there exist anywhere an "avoid these game-ruining traps" FAQ for old adventure games like these?

There's a bunch - like all of the old Sierra games - which are on my "how did I never play these?" list. I'd like to play them, but I don't want to deal with dead ends. And obviously I don't want to just follow a full-blown walkthrough and not figure ANYTHING out. Just enough of a hand-hold to avoid the major trap scenarios.

You have to get the clone of him from the game at the fair, so that when you go back you can replace him right before he dies. I'm almost certain I'm remembering this correctly.