It was Donkey Kong Country (SNES) for me

This is why I couldn't take the Ready Player One movie seriously. Gamers would've figured that shit out in a few hours

Yep. Also gotta check under every stairwell and waterfall. And if a NPC is telling you to hurry, it means it's time to check every nook and cranny to make sure you haven't missed some loot.

This mentality has mutated into a principle of doing anything other than main quest in open world games for me. In the latest zelda game I spent way too long trying to figure out how to unlock the map by traveling to different vantage points, climbing towers etc, before deciding to do a little bit of the main quest and the map is almost the first thing you do.

Thats not OCD. OCD is a debilitating condition.

That secret entrance behind a waterfall in the original Legend of Zelda meant that I've been checking every waterfall in every game I've ever played since 1986.

You go left to find a secret. I go left because games can't tell me what to do.

Same with smashing against the back wall of every waterfall in every game ever.

The beginning of every Far Cry game I have to sit there and not do anything and see if I "beat" the game.

Image Transcription:

A 3-panel CTRL+ALT+DEL comic by Tim Buckley.

The first panel shows a blond man wearing a green sleeveless shirt, long brown pants, sturdy brown boots, brown bracers, and a belt and sash, standing against a forested backdrop with a signpost to his right reading "START".

The second panel shows the START signpost is far to the right edge of the panel and the blond man has turned and walked directly into a rock wall with an onomatopoeic WHUMP!

The last panel shows a brown-haired, bearded man in green shirt, blue pants and glasses, sitting on a cream-coloured couch next to a blond-haired boy wearing a blue shirt and black shorts. The man is holding a controller for a video game console. The boy says "Why do you always start every level in every game by turning around and running backwards?". The man replies "because one time a game hid a secret behind the start position and my OCD decided I have to suffer for the rest of my life."

[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]

Morrowind made me jump and look into every tree stump in every elder scrolls game because of one god damn axe.

The Chainsaw in Doom 2

Super Mario Bros 2 World 6-3

B^ U

Some Rayman levels are like this

In Another World/Out of This World you needed to go left from start to escape the black panther-like thing iirc

The only other game besides DKC I know of with something like that is in 1-1 on Demon's Souls. Turn around from where the Archstone takes you, and there is an item behind some rubble toward the wall/gate. It's not as cool as a secret as the banana hoard tho.

I bet it's much more common in newer 2D platformer games just because of that, though. I don't really play those myself.

I had no idea that Tim Buckley was still alive

Original armored core had one of the best weapons hidden like this

Crash Bandicoot

DK Country on SNES is one of my all-time favorite games that I continually go back and play. I remember the bliss I felt when I finally beat it, which seemed impossible to 4yo me.

I'm pretty sure I can farm lives on the first level with my eyes closed with how many times I've ran it

A CAD comic that's not terrible?

That one serious Sam level where you'd actually have to just hold S because there wasn't even time to turn around. The level would start and you'd immediately hear a big stone door closing.

One time my friend was playing some shitty 3D platformer made for kids that was distributed with cornflakes or some other shit and when he turned around and gone forward he just fell through the floor to limbo, lol.

Final Fantasy III/6: Always wait until the very last second to complete a timed escape objective.

Limbo

It's even an achievement

I'm looking at you donkey Kong !

This will also yield benefits in Dead Cells iirc.

Donkey Kong Country (GBC) and Abe’s Oddysee/Exoddus (PS1) for me! It’s a habit that carries through and helps even in modern games though.

Mega Man X6, Inifnity Mijinion's second part of the stage, also hid an armor piece and the heart tank by "going left" instead of right. Found that by complete accident one day, rubbing a cloth on the controller and dashing left