Rank the worst puzzle this game has

[TK3600]

This game has some surprisingly well designed puzzle. Some of them are really well polished. I do not mind long puzzles, as long as they are fun. I really enjoyed the one in that steaming cave despite how long it is. However, this thread is dedicated to the worst of puzzles. Prepare for some rants.

 

1. The Beldum puzzle. It is simply a poor design, requiring you to lose to wild pokemon on purpose. Forcing player to play badly is just a bad design, not to mention losing money in the process. And then the true entrance is hidden behind an object. Not half covered which people with good eye can find. It is fully covered. You know, at some point if it is hidden that is impossible to find in normal playthrough without guide, people will use guide. That is basically forcing people to cheat. Not to mention, having access to Beldum that early is a little OP.

 

2. The Pinsir/Heracross puzzle. It takes 30 minutes+ of spraying honey if you know exactly what to do. Chances are you would feel lost and spend way more than that. Not to mention how tedious spraying honey is. If you use repel in the process then good luck, you are going to need a lot. In the end, it doesnt matter. You can access both pinsir and heracross in the nature reserve...

 

3. The puzzle of escaping cult in 7th street. This game's movement system is not good for quick reactions. Yet this puzzle require you to have pixel precise reaction at some part. It feels very out of place of a pokemon game, more like something out of a platformer, which happen to be a genre I dislike personally. Worst part? It is unskippable. It is part of the story. No amount of guide will help you, it is mechanical skill only.

[LeoYT]

1. Route 2 because 100% mandatory = Amethyst is a sadist

 

2. The Route 1/Adventurine Woods puzzle, most of it is optional but doing everything takes around 3 hours

 

3.  Mirage tower puzzle because if your brightness/contrast settings are set high enough you can't actually see the spots on the floor for where the pillars are supposed to go

 

4.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

5.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

6. Radomus Chess puzzle, I actually like this puzzle but moving certain pieces diagonally can cause you to mess up a lot

 

7.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

8 . Magic Square puzzle, not a problem for me but I can understand why people would find this frustrating

 

9.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

10.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

[TK3600]

1 hour ago, LeoYT said:

1. Route 2 because 100% mandatory = Amethyst is a sadist

 

2. The Route 1/Adventurine Woods puzzle, most of it is optional but doing everything takes around 3 hours

 

3.  Mirage tower puzzle because if your brightness/contrast settings are set high enough you can't actually see the spots on the floor for where the pillars are supposed to go

 

4.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

5.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

6. Radomus Chess puzzle, I actually like this puzzle but moving certain pieces diagonally can cause you to mess up a lot

 

7.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

8 . Magic Square puzzle, not a problem for me but I can understand why people would find this frustrating

 

9.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

10.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

I dont recall, what is route 2 puzzle?

[Alistair]

That's interesting because I don't really consider the 3 situations presented in the OP as puzzles. That said, I understand how they can be annoying.

 

The Beldum thing was an exploit that became the actual way to obtain this pokémon. It's pretty fun, but doesn't require much thinking or problem solving skills, you just need to know exactly what to do. That's the main issue with it imo; if you play the game completely blind and don't look anything up, it's too random to be figured out. I agree on this being "bad" design (more than having to lose is).

Btw as of e18 Beldum is available 13 badges into the game, which doesn't seem particularly early to me. It used to be available with 9 badges though.

 

The Pinsir/Heracross part doesn't require you to think much about what you're doing either. You just need to slather honey on the trees, leave, come back, fight the buggo, progress until the next tree, rinse and repeat... it's simply tedious. I guess it's the closest to being a puzzle among these 3 cases, because there's probably an optimal way to progress. But you can't "fail" at this, it just takes time. Either way it is my least favorite part of the game.

 

The cult escape is purely mechanical skill, as pointed out. Little to no thinking there. It never seemed particularly tough to me, but I can understand being frustrated with it. One of the cultists at the end is quite difficult to escape. Your timing needs to be impeccable.

 

I think Ame's good at making puzzles. The few parts of her game that aren't great are mostly convoluted things that feel like puzzles, but aren't even proper puzzles. =p

 

1 minute ago, TK3600 said:

I dont recall, what is route 2 puzzle?

Shoving Crustles into holes and jumping over them.

 

Not to be that guy but I actually like Route 2, Magic Square and Chess puzzles

[TK3600]

Same. I liked the Route 2 puzzle and chess one is among my favorite.

[Azeria]

I don't mind route 2.

nowadays.

 

back in E12, it used to be quite a bit longer, laggier and a lot more annoying lmfao.

 

Kinda like all non route 1 puzzles, route 1 is more of a maze than a puzzle tho so, shrug.

[Candy]

funny thing is I was lazy af to do the route 2 puzzle, so my first ever Reborn run is to this day on halt just before I have to go searching for Hardy lol

but after learning wtf to do, I actually like this puzzle - I'm prolly in the minority but it's one of my favorites

I don't like the Adventurine Forest puzzle because it takes a lot of time, but I think it's a cool design

I dislike the magic squares puzzle because Idk wtf how to solve it and I haven't tried to either xD

[Scyl]

The Aventurine Forest puzzle is the source of all despair.

 

The things I do for stickers.

[Zane0144]

Amaria's gym is easily the worst puzzle. Even if it is a metaphor it definitely hit home making me feel completely lost and frustrated.

[kithas]

4 hours ago, Zane0144 said:

Amaria's gym is easily the worst puzzle. Even if it is a metaphor it definitely hit home making me feel completely lost and frustrated.

The first time I did it I didnt even know about how to know if I was near her or not (the thing about the lights, I'm not even sure it happens in both branches) so I just had to find Amaria with no clue, which was even more frustrating. 

[Maqqy]

It was the Beldum puzzle. Hassling and really something you wouldn’t figure out unless you checked a guide. Then the Magic Square puzzle, kinda love that one for giving me multiple headaches.

[gingerbreadman]

1) Aventurine (honey timer, the need to refresh tauros/bouffalant)

2) Hardy's gym (awesome theme, but horrible)

3) Mirage Tower (fully supportive of this level of annoying)

4) Scrapyard (endurance)

5) Totodile (not so much hard as pissed me off)

 

But that's just me, probably because I made myself do all of those for pride - I'd never have worked out Beldum, Jangmo-o and others without wussing them out and looking them up. Very keen chess player myself, so Radomus was just awesome. To be honest, I'm just glad (astonished/nervously anticipating) that Ame hasn't replicated the water currents in RSE, there's more potential places to use that narratively speaking than the portal mazes in Devon Corp. Still remember the frustration flashbacks over being too cack-minded to find the Regi diving spot, although I still contend that the whole puzzle is THE most Reborn-worthy from the main series games, with Wailord and Relicanth and HMs et al.

 

Hang on. If you're surfing in a cave with level 100 pokemon (say... Victory Road) then that'd be a good way to punish missteps, repel's not saving you. Particularly if they're fast enough to whittle your team. Like Starmie. Or Crobat. Or Sharpedo. Combine that with the need to use all the HMs. Or league officials who take away your bag beforehand like in the RSE Battle Pyramid.

 

I'm CERTAIN, however, that Reborn's Victory Road will be more faultlessly brutal than I can theorycraft; I'd like that - I mean, it's Victory fecking Road, epic is mandatory. Hell, I'd like it to be as hard and as long as all the worst puzzles COMBINED. Maybe it'll have been designed by Lin - after all, she's the one that wants us in agony and yet also wants us to thread the needle.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

The closest to impossible for me personally are the Radomus chess puzzles, since I don't know anything about chess. Elias's explanation doesn't help because it's too much info for my brain to process at once. I just look up Lostelle's solution video for it. 

 

My learning process with games goes something like: I read how things work and retain a little of it (maybe 5-10%), and the rest I either gradually learn over time or look up something specific if I'm confused on how it works. It's easier for me to learn by actually doing something than by reading about it, because I'm a visual learner.

 

Ame once said if she knew how many people hadn't played chess before, she wouldn't have used the chess puzzles at all, but that she had assumed almost everyone has played it. But since she redesigned Serra's gym in E15 to have puzzles where it didn't before, I don't see why Radomus's gym can't be redesigned to have a different puzzle or no puzzle for that reason. I guess it's not that big a deal anyway since Lostelle's videos exist. 

[lilyawaka]

On 11/10/2018 at 8:45 AM, LeoYT said:

1. Route 2 because 100% mandatory = Amethyst is a sadist

 

2. The Route 1/Adventurine Woods puzzle, most of it is optional but doing everything takes around 3 hours

 

3.  Mirage tower puzzle because if your brightness/contrast settings are set high enough you can't actually see the spots on the floor for where the pillars are supposed to go

 

4.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

5.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

6. Radomus Chess puzzle, I actually like this puzzle but moving certain pieces diagonally can cause you to mess up a lot

 

7.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

8 . Magic Square puzzle, not a problem for me but I can understand why people would find this frustrating

 

9.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

 

10.  Route 2 because Amethyst is a sadist

I still have dreams about that Route 2 puzzle sometimes. shudders 

[DemICE]

Someone mentioned the Amaria "puzzle"  and i'm inclined to agree.

[Abyssreaper99]

Here's the top 3 most frustrating puzzles for me:

1. The magic square puzzle
2. Amaria's gym puzzle
3. Chrysolia Wall puzzles

[Des Teto]

1. Amaria because it's pure memorizing

2. Torchic because it's impossible to know where to go next (same as Beldum but Beldum is a meme to me)

3. Iolia Valley (sorry not sorry if I spelled it wrong). Because it's tedious.

 

I like Route 2 because we can jump in rythm with the music. Little guilty pleasures ^^

[Alisae]

I actually dislike the Tanzan Mountain puzzles with the warps a lot. Granted you can still brute force it but its still somewhat annoying.

I kinda just hate that whole part of the game in general though.

I don't really want to do the Magic Square puzzle ever again also tbh finding that thing was a puzzle all on its own.

I also spent a few hours running around Tanzan Mountain looking for the oasises and that shit was annoying too. Thats not really a puzzle though.

 

[LeoYT]

I forgot about Amarias gym puzzle

Why does everyone hate the magic square puzzle? that one took me the lowest amount of time to do compared to route 1

[kithas]

2 hours ago, LeoYT said:

I forgot about Amarias gym puzzle

Why does everyone hate the magic square puzzle? that one took me the lowest amount of time to do compared to route 1

I think it's bc route 1 puzzle is a whole route, you can grind, go back, search other paths for items, etc... While magic square puzzle is just a math puzzle in a meteor basement without anesthesia. I think. 

[Lord Drakyle]

On 11/11/2018 at 8:23 PM, gingerbreadman said:

1) Aventurine (honey timer, the need to refresh tauros/bouffalant)

2) Hardy's gym (awesome theme, but horrible)

3) Mirage Tower (fully supportive of this level of annoying)

4) Scrapyard (endurance)

5) Totodile (not so much hard as pissed me off)

 

But that's just me, probably because I made myself do all of those for pride - I'd never have worked out Beldum, Jangmo-o and others without wussing them out and looking them up. Very keen chess player myself, so Radomus was just awesome. To be honest, I'm just glad (astonished/nervously anticipating) that Ame hasn't replicated the water currents in RSE, there's more potential places to use that narratively speaking than the portal mazes in Devon Corp. Still remember the frustration flashbacks over being too cack-minded to find the Regi diving spot, although I still contend that the whole puzzle is THE most Reborn-worthy from the main series games, with Wailord and Relicanth and HMs et al.

 

Hang on. If you're surfing in a cave with level 100 pokemon (say... Victory Road) then that'd be a good way to punish missteps, repel's not saving you. Particularly if they're fast enough to whittle your team. Like Starmie. Or Crobat. Or Sharpedo. Combine that with the need to use all the HMs. Or league officials who take away your bag beforehand like in the RSE Battle Pyramid.

 

I'm CERTAIN, however, that Reborn's Victory Road will be more faultlessly brutal than I can theorycraft; I'd like that - I mean, it's Victory fecking Road, epic is mandatory. Hell, I'd like it to be as hard and as long as all the worst puzzles COMBINED. Maybe it'll have been designed by Lin - after all, she's the one that wants us in agony and yet also wants us to thread the needle.

don't forget EVERY trainer having a full team of 6 level 100 pokemon  and plenty Sturdy mons, shadow taggers and counter/mirror coat shenanigans when they aren't using the field to destroy you...also probably a bunch of different sections with different field effects. Probably will have every cavern type field effect and a few others that she can muster (Crystal, Dark Crystal, Cave, Icy Cave, Dragon, Super Heated) with maybe some of the annoying atmosphere effects like Steam or floors like slippy floor or heck a maze of diving spots, hell even more frustrating would be a longer and more difficult version of the mysidia cave (with the puzzle being go through the correct sequence of entries or start again in order to reach the end with the answers likely scattered throughout the cave and probably on the trainers themselves, each room probably would have a trainer or trainers and hell, mercy on your soul if you need certain field effects combined with the correct path to proceed (example North = Incorrect, North + Crystal Cave = Correct) but would probably be far too difficult and would be easier to simply make certain routes only able to be used if certain field effects are in play.

[gingerbreadman]

9 minutes ago, Lord Drakyle said:

don't forget EVERY trainer having a full team of 6 level 100 pokemon  and plenty Sturdy mons, shadow taggers and counter/mirror coat shenanigans when they aren't using the field to destroy you...also probably a bunch of different sections with different field effects. Probably will have every cavern type field effect and a few others that she can muster (Crystal, Dark Crystal, Cave, Icy Cave, Dragon, Super Heated) with maybe some of the annoying atmosphere effects like Steam or floors like slippy floor or heck a maze of diving spots, hell even more frustrating would be a longer and more difficult version of the mysidia cave (with the puzzle being go through the correct sequence of entries or start again in order to reach the end with the answers likely scattered throughout the cave and probably on the trainers themselves, each room probably would have a trainer or trainers and hell, mercy on your soul if you need certain field effects combined with the correct path to proceed (example North = Incorrect, North + Crystal Cave = Correct) but would probably be far too difficult and would be easier to simply make certain routes only able to be used if certain field effects are in play.

 

This. Although IMO Reborn's Victory Road could never be described as 'far too difficult'.

 

Also, add in the Savage, waiting somewhere. Although that might be more of a war story from the original Reborn league than full foreSHADOWing.

[Egzample]

Definitely Aventurine Woods is the worst. There is just too many little things that make you waste time, go in circles, wait to refresh... maybe without the need to wait for the bugs to appear after we spread honey would make it better - instead of going in circles, the screen goes dark with something like ''Now let's wait...'' dialogue box and then heracross/pinsir fight is next to us.

 

Ah, and a little tweak to Mirage Tower due to contrast/brightness issues would do a lot of good work, I didn't know what to do when I first entered there. The rest is more (Subseven Sanctum escape, I liked it, something unusual) or less (Iolia Valley) cool.

[Sr.F]

1) Turtwig Puzzle: Two years to make that. 

 

2) Timburr Puzzle: Same reasons.

 

3) Magic Square: ... 

[Guest Relinquished]

RADOMUS CHESS

 

Me not good at chess. Puzzle hard, post 1st/2nd room. Not that hard, though, but still...

 

LATE CIRCUS PANELS

 

Timburr and Turtwig... Do i need say more?

 

LAKE DIVING

 

Lots of backtracking, extremely hard to locate points of entry, lots of hidden items/underwater rooms.

 

HUGE CAVES SYSTEM (citrine/ametrine/celestine)

 

A real mess. Nicely designed, seemingly simplistic environment architecture, a real labyrinth nonetheless. Add in the almost invisible black "doors" underwater and there you have it, a real fine, chaotic mess!

 

DEVON CORP PANELS

 

Mostly, the sliding ones, those that remind you of Team Rocket's Celadon base. Electrocution ones still bugging, although not as much...

 

THE NEW SUPER HARD RIDDLE (with the special presentation and the chances to solve thing)

 

Although i haven't reached that part yet, i have spoiled myself ahead and i already hate it. And did i ever say, that i really hate it?