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Is there a site where I can check if a game has multiple endings or missable stuff without spoilers?
I mean, the simplest answer would be to ask around in forums, but I wanted to know if there's a site where that information is compiled.
(wikis typically don't care about spoilers)
I sometimes check in on Before I Play which gives general tips on starting out in some games. The advice leans toward stuff that can come back to bite you later — whether that’s missable stuff, building a character wrong, locking yourself out of choices, etc.
It’s a neat little resource, but unfortunately it’s got limited information. I think it deserves more attention and contributions.
The other thing you can do is check the game’s Steam guides (assuming the target games are available on Steam) for a “beginner’s” or “starting” guide. These generally avoid spoilers as a best practice.
I checked out some games on that site, most notably the Deus Ex series. It's not a good sign when a "starter guide" that's supposed to get someone on the right path basically says "here are three different exploits you can use, none of which are necessary to actually play the game," as well as giving very opinionated advice on how to play in a game that's supposed to be open-ended about that sort of thing.
On the flip side - if I had read these three things, I might have played more than 20 minutes of this series. It's been years, but all I recall is that I found the game immensely frustrating, mostly because I couldn't do any of the things I wanted to do. The advice on Deus Ex probably would have let me do the things I wanted to do, so I don't think it's a particularly bad sign.
I checked out Pathfinder: Kingmaker on that site, and if I had followed their advice, I wouldn't have fucked my game and stopped playing.
It’s a public wiki, so it’s definitely a YMMV type of situation since pretty much anyone can contribute anything.
That said, I’ve overall found it more useful than not. I feel like most of the contributions are from people trying to be helpful.
I'm sending off an email to the owner to see if maybe I can get an account and edit that. Seems like overkill for just a single game, but may as well.
The entire site is made up of passionate people editing games they know well. I don’t think it’s overkill — I think it’s 100% in the spirit of the site. Kudos to you for wanting to contribute!
That's a very interesting website. I loathe missables. Just the idea of it makes me want to play according to a guide. It's almost a compulsion and it doesn't make games better.
It's mainly because I tend to play games once, so anything I miss just seems like a waste.
That was exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
I didn't knew that site existed! Thanks! Also of note: Just checked and there's a DuckDuckGo Bang for it, "!beforeiplay"
So you say miserable stuff, if you mean things that could be upsetting or triggering, Does the Dog Die does have video games. Not sure if multiple endings is one of the options to look for
*missable stuff, not miserable (don't worry, I too misread it as miserable). /noise
Oops. Well, still useful for other folks
I use DDD for movies, I didn't know they also have videogames in there.
I just learned today too! I looked through BotW as an example and it was pretty good I think.
Much smaller sample of games than shows or movies
Do you have specific games in mind? And what do you not want to be spoiled about? To me that something is missable is itself a spoiler.
I asked because I'm currently playing Yakuza: Like a Dragon, normally I don't care much for spoilers, but since Yakuza is story-heavy, spoilers would affect the experience.
The Yakuza games have a Premium Adventure mode that unlocks after completing the game that lets you load your file and replay stuff you missed. Like you can toggle weather to catch missions that are time specific for instance. I'm not sure about achievements if you're chasing full completion on that for like a dragon specifically, but in 0-3 none were locked to specific chapters and you could do a full 100% on that post game file.
I played all of the mainline Yakuza games, and none of them have multiple endings. The main story is highly linear, the choices and flexibility happen in the numerous side quests. The franchise has big "you won't be able to return" confirmation promps before locking out side quests so you can tie up lose ends. Everything is unlocked again after you finish the main story anyway.
I have not played that one, but in the case of rpgs I would recommend following any 100% walkthrough and try not to read ahead too much (although in my experience most guides tend to concentrate on the mechanics and don't talk too much about the story).
Some jrpg have fairly obtuse missables or are not designed to easily 100% in a single playthrough. If you are not ok with missing content I would use a guide. I used to use gamefaqs back in the day, but I'm sure any search engine can give you lots of good walkthroughs.
Y’know, this seems like an ideal use case for ChatGPT type tools.
I asked:
And it told me
Plus a link to the source where it got that info.
Considering Google's Gemini just lied to me again today, I'm not sure you'd want to trust the link or the answer. You might be fine, but you might not
Yeah, it's meeting the most intelligent person in the world that knows every topic, but it's also a compulsive liar, so you can't trust it without searching further details.
And it's loud and answers first so even when you know better you sort of default to listening to it because it's YELLING IN YOUR FACE.
It literally gave me the opposite of the correct answer (answer was 30%, I got 70%) because it's actually stupid.
Another vote for chat agents here. I would personally use Perplexity for this task.
Example query: does gta5 have multiple endings? please tell me without spoilers
Example answer:
Yes, Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) does have multiple endings. The game offers players a choice between three different conclusions to the story[1][3][4]. These endings are determined by a decision the player must make near the end of the main storyline.
Without going into spoiler territory, the three endings offer different outcomes for the main characters and the overall narrative. Each ending provides a unique resolution to the game's plot, allowing players to shape the final moments of the story based on their preferences or playstyle[3][4].
It's worth noting that while players can choose their preferred ending, there is one ending that is considered more aligned with the characters' development throughout the game[3]. However, players are ultimately free to select whichever conclusion they feel is most appropriate for their playthrough[3].
I think reddit is pretty good for this. Just google something like "[game] reddit beginners tips".
Keyword 'Google'. I was confused for the longest time why DuckDuckGo wouldn't have any Reddit results for anything recent, until I learned about how they updated their robots.txt.
What did they do?
It's straight up empty. Basically, they realized Reddit is an incredibly valuable source of training data, so they decided to make it so you have to pay them to access it. A side effect of that is that Reddit is no longer indexed by any search engine but Google, cuz they're paying them.