Hilarious Misconceptions You Had About Video-Games

[Hawkwing]

I remember that in my younger years, I used to have ideas about what I thought most video game franchises where about, only to have my guesses be way off when I actually saw the game for myself. Some of these misconceptions are quite hilarious how off I was, and some may even be good ideas for a videogame in their own right.

I don't know if anyone else has similar experiences, but regardless, I hope this is an entertaining list.

So without further ado:

- I thought that Legend of Zelda was nothing more than a T-rated series of hack and slash games, and that link was an elf wearing a funny hat. Hey, Twilight Princess was the first game I saw of the series!

- For Fire Emblem, I thought that series combined strategy with pseudo fighting/action aspects. The strategy and RPG aspects were the same as in the series proper, but for combat, you actually controlled what actions a unit would use. For example, the player had to insert a combo to activate Marth's sword dance from Super Smash Bros, or hold a button down and then release it at the right time to charge and active the shield breaker attack. More accurate attacks would require precise button pushes, while ones with strength would require button mashing or charges. All the while you could play the game like a normal fighting game if you so wish, with swords being versatile yet weak, lances being accurate but easy to block/dodge, and axes having the most power while having almost no defense.

- Half-Life was a game series about scientists who doubled as soldiers who wore power-armor and wielded exotic and futuristic weaponry why simultaneously repelling alien invasions while doing SCIENCE. I also though the Gordon Freeman was the most bad@$$ soldier/scientist of them all, and had a running gag of having a normal conversation, immediately shutting up the moment trouble occurred, and then continued the conversation afterwards as if nothing had happened.

- I though that the original DOOM was the posterboy for ultra-violent first-person shooter games where you could shut your brain off while playing, and was pleasantly surprised by how tactical and intense the combat was, as well as how active my mind was while playing. The violence is also not as prevalent as I thought it would be, though it's not hard to see why this game stirred up controversy regardless.

-I thought that Metroid and Halo where the same franchise, and both the protagonists were robots.

-Star Fox was a story driven series, and had more open-world than on-rail games. Ironically, the open-world games were much less well received. On a serious note, I actually do want to see a more story-driven Star Fox game with multiple endings (that isn't soap opera fan-fiction like Command), and I think the series could do an open-ended game pretty well (they are mercenaries, after all).

-I thought that both Metal Gear and No More Heroes were T-rated games that took themselves seriously, with a few ridiculous moments. The former came from from a gaming magazines analysis of Snakes moves in Super Smash Bros Brawl, while the latter came from said magazine providing a boss guide for the game in such a PG manner, that I thought the game itself wasn't that violent.

-I misread The Hobbit as "the hobby," which is admittedly a pretty fitting name for an adventure game, and thought that the protagonist would have a "hobby" of adventuring. On the bright side, this game did lead me to finding one of my favorite books of all time.

So, do you have any similar misconceptions about videogames before you tried them?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

-When they first teased SMTxFE, I googled SMT to see what kind of franchise that was. Somehow the result I came to was Persona 4 Arena. So I briefly thought SMT was a fighting game franchise until I did some further research. "Oh, it's pokemon but with demons in an apocalypse scenario". Ding ding, there's the right answer.

-Playing the original Smash Bros. as a child, I read the in-game character bios and concluded Captain Falcon and Samus must hail from the same franchise if they're both bounty hunters. Also Ness probably comes from the Kirby series since I remembered a kid that looked like him when we rented Kirby 64. Similarly, Melee convinced me that Marth and Roy are Legend of Zelda characters since they're unlocked via the Hyrule Temple stage. And finally, when I got my hands on a copy of FE7, I was convinced Eliwood was Roy until probably the day I found this web site.

-The games I played on N64 informed my understanding of physics as a child. With the aid of the neighbor's pool, I practiced the jumps I saw Mario perform and tried to lab out why some jumps take you higher than others and other oddities. I also believed that if I just kept practicing, I would be able to perform the double jump. Just kick as hard as you can downward, ideally at the top of your jump. 

[Gebby]

Oh boy

-I originally thought that The Elder Scrolls revolved around being a stealth mage. This isn't too bad, however, as my earliest experience with the games were watching my dad play as, you guessed it, a stealth mage.

-I thought Fire Emblem would all be shipping simulators.

-I expected Pokemon to be the tv show.

-I thought CoD was a zombie game.

-I expected Assassin's Creed to be very unrestricted.

Probably more, this is all I can think of now, might edit some more in later.

[Slumber]

Most of my misconceptions come from before around 2004, when I started keeping up with games and researching stuff before I tried it out.

- I thought Devil May Cry was a horror game. My main exposure to Capcom was Resident Evil and Mega Man. Devil May Cry looked a lot more like RE than Mega Man, so I rented it, played with the lights off, and got myself more scared just due to anticipation than due to anything in the game. I returned it being thoroughly disappointed, not really getting what it was about.

- Just... EVERYTHING about Conker's Bad Fur Day. I saw the big fat "M" on the package, but my dumb 10 year old brain went "Nah, this is a Nintendo game. These are the same guys who made Banjo Kazooie. Conker was in Diddy Kong Racing. It must be a joke or something." Cue the game opening with a drunken squirrel walking home and vomiting and pissing on a scarecrow, constant swearing, and all kinds of shit I just wasn't ready for. It wasn't anything worse than you'd see on South Park, which my parents pretty much let me watch from when it started airing, but I just wasn't mentally prepared.

- Final Fantasy Tactics. Being like, 7 years old and knowing Final Fantasy from Final Fantasy 4 and 7, I wasn't expecting grid-based tactics, and I was super confused.

- Drakengard. It being a Square game, I expected something super polished and straight forward. What I got was a lot of fucked up stuff, and a lot of jank. Another game I probably shouldn't have played when I was 12-13.

- Vagrant Story. Again, expected something more straight-forward from Square. But it had a completely unique gameplay style that I really couldn't have predicted. Had a lot more polish than Drakengard.

[Dragoncat]

I thought Link's name was Zelda and he was an elf.

*shot a million times*

And this is actually anime, but I thought Naruto was about perverts for some mysterious reason.

[Von Ithipathachai]

When I was in middle school and generally more stupid I thought all first-person shooters were terrible and Call of Duty was the devil incarnate.

Of course, I actually took the ESRB seriously, unlike most of my peers.

Edited December 8, 2017 by Von Ithipathachai

[LucarioGamer812]

Oh boyo, let's see

Younger me: "The best video games series is Pokemon, the only others ones that exist are Mario, Donkey Kong, and Final Fantasy which everything else is a spin-off of.

Younger me was stupid.

[Rapier]

- Fire Emblem: Don't ask me why, but when I first saw the title screen for FE7 and Lyn's artwork, I thought it was about a chinese tactician traveling around China (don't ask me why my first impression of Lyn was "look, a chinese girl" and why I thought the green dragon on the title screen was an eastern one rather than a western one) helping settle noble disputes in the country.

- Drakengard: I thought it was a RPG with cities, NPCs and all, just like a normal Final Fantasy game. Instead, it is a bootleg Dynasty Warriors with field and aerial missions.

- The Legend of Zelda: I thought the series was mainly about solving puzzles (as in, handing item A to person A to get item B, then using item B for something somewhere, then getting item C to give to person B....) and connecting the dots in the story through them.

- I thought the Megaman X series was about humans using armors in a futuristic setting to combat other humans using armors / robots. ... I was 6.

- I thought Apollo Justice and Phoenix Wright were different series in the same universe, similar to CSI Miami and CSI New York, where AJ had his own office and cracked cases with his assistant, Trucy. I thought that any images and covers with both of them were meant to be special cases where they met and worked together to solve endgame stuff.

- I thought Touhou was an original strategy/boardgame with its own unique style, like Mahjong or chinese chess.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Rapier

[Flee Fleet!]

-Ace Attorney: I thought the games just focused on trials, had no investigations, and had about 10 cases or something. Boy was I wrong. 

Also, since I played Ace Attorney: Justice for All first, I thought Maya Fey was a hacker until case 2. 

-Danganronpa: I thought it was some survival stealth game where you try to save yourself from getting killed by the others. Again, I was seriously wrong.

-Fire Emblem 3: The Rom for FE3 (which came with the SNES emulator I had) had the name "Hacked by James (J)". I, being the little idiot I was, legit thought that was the game's name. Then I actually started playing it and realized it's not. 

Oh, and I also thought Marth was a girl.

-Fire Emblem 4: I thought that the game would end if you had like only half of the total number of units alive. Later I realized that Sigurd dying was the reason I got a lot of game overs. 

-The World Ends With You: I thought it was a game where you were a kid with superpowers, who later is hired as an agent. Again, I was wrong, except for maybe the superpower part.

-Sonic the Hedgehog 3: I thought Knuckles was the main antagonist of the game. Turns out he just got tricked.

 

[Rex Glacies]

- More an anime thing, but I didn't know Pokemon was a game (and Pikachu's name was Pikachu; I had thought his name was "Pokemon") before I was introduced into the series by my cousin.

-On the same note, I didn't know anything while I watched him play, so I thought Pokemon like Dialga could hatch from an egg.

- I thought Marth was a girl, though I think most everyone thought that at one point.

- I thought Awakening was a tactical battle simulator. I didn't know there was marriage or children until I had already decided to get the game after enjoying the demo. I probably wouldn't have wanted it if I had known about the "shipping" aspect beforehand.

[Anacybele]

I have a few.

The first time I ever saw Sonic the Hedgehog was in the cartoon series Sonic X, so for a long time, I thought Sonic and company originated as TV show characters and did not at all know they had video games.

I once thought Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong were named Kong and Donkey respectively. xP (Don't ask, I have no idea why I thought this)

I'm probably one of the many people that originally thought Samus was a guy, though in my defense I knew near squat about Metroid at the time. I just saw this character in Smash Bros. Melee and that was it.

And this is all I can think of.

[Ertrick36]

Misconceptions? 

I was practically made of misconceptions when I was a kid.  Lemme tell you a few.

• When I saw Marth and Roy in SSB Melee, I thought they just came from an anime.  And of course I thought they both coexisted in the same game.  Same with Ike.
• I still didn't think much of FE when my sister got Awakening for me on Christmas; I thought I'd probably play it the least and spend most of my time playing Smash and Tomodachi Life.  Of the games I initially had for my 3DS, FE wound up being my most played game.
• Even when I played Metroid Prime, I thought Samus was a guy... for some reason?  Or a robot?  It took me seeing her eyes in the reflection of her visor to realize that no, this was neither a man nor a robot.
• Not necessarily a game, but my first real experience with Dragon Ball was with Budokai Tenkaichi 2, so it sorta counts; when I saw Hercule confront Cell for the first time (you actually fight Cell with him in that game), I actually thought he was gonna kick Cell's ass for some reason.  I also thought that Trunks was the protagonist because he had a sword.
• I thought Valkyria Chronicles would just be some... visual novel or something.  I don't know what I thought it'd be, but I definitely wasn't expecting the game it was.
• I thought that Saints Row III was basically GTA but with you having super powers... all because of that stupid in-game commercial of Pierce that you see in the beginning of the game.
• For some reason, when I saw my friends playing Fallout 3 and launching a mini nuke in Rivet City over and over again and again, I thought that the outside world somehow required you to wear a hazmat suit.  I also didn't realize it was a roleplaying game.
• Not a misconception in and of itself, but it definitely gave me some misconceptions about... things; certain throws in Soul Calibur performed by ladies such as Sophitia left me all sorts of confused as a young lad.  Excuse me lady, but why are you shoving your opponent's face into your crotch and riding him like a horse?
• Any game that was rated M probably had boobs, and thus I was always afraid to play them.
• Likewise, I thought the introduction of Snake into Smash would raise the game to M.
• And on the topic of Metal Gear, I first thought that MGS was some bad ass soldier game; when I actually played it through a Jampack demo, I then thought it was a game where you can't actually fight back and that Snake never talked, and I could never get to the elevator in the first part of the game.  Not because I was bad at the game; I was just extremely scared of Snake dying.  I was really young when I tried that demo out.
• I thought Grand Theft Auto was just a game about hiring hookers and then killing them for their money; this is because it was all my stupid classmates would ever talk about with this game, so when my best friend got it for me and I played it, I was so blown away by how much more there actually was to the game.  And to this day, I have yet hire and murder a single prostitute in GTA... at this point, it's mostly to spite my dumb classmates who thought that was the most interesting thing about GTA.
• I thought Sims 2 would be exactly like how it looked in... the Sims Bustin' Out, I think it was that had the fake footage?  I was still blown away by how different it was from Sims 1 and Bustin' Out.
• I chock this up to just pure stupidity and ignorance more than anything, but I thought that in Nintendogs, "donate" meant "cremate", and I swore to never use that option.  I think I felt the same way about the Chao dismissal system in Sonic Adventure 2.  Hell, I still would be reticent to use those options in either of those games, to be honest, even knowing you don't actually kill them.
• Until I started playing PC games, it never occurred to me that most cheats exist to help developers fix bugs and test out certain levels or features.  I just thought they were made solely for our amusement.
• The same goes for glitches; I thought devs deliberately made them.

On 12/10/2017 at 2:00 AM, Flee Fleet! said:

-Sonic the Hedgehog 3: I thought Knuckles was the main antagonist of the game. Turns out he just got tricked.

I know, what a... shock for Knuckles when he finally realized who the real villain was.  That joke was too easy...  I prefer joking about how he got de-knuckled, and so has to go by the name "Knuckle" from that point on.

On 12/10/2017 at 2:00 AM, Flee Fleet! said:

-Fire Emblem 3: The Rom for FE3 (which came with the SNES emulator I had) had the name "Hacked by James (J)". I, being the little idiot I was, legit thought that was the game's name. Then I actually started playing it and realized it's not. 

Ah yes, "Hacked by James (J)".  That is my favorite franchise.

Who could ever forget the opening crawl for that game?

This is a fan hack that was created by James from GBATemp.
Credits also to Vin for importing the cartridge, and Steelcold98 for lending me his computer.
Also, shoutouts to Simpleflips.
P.S. My mom and dad won't stop fighting.

Sends chills down your spine, doesn't it?

On 12/8/2017 at 5:29 PM, Rapier said:

- Fire Emblem: Don't ask me why, but when I first saw the title screen for FE7 and Lyn's artwork, I thought it was about a chinese tactician traveling around China (don't ask me why my first impression of Lyn was "look, a chinese girl" and why I thought the green dragon on the title screen was an eastern one rather than a western one) helping settle noble disputes in the country.

Okay, for some reason, when I saw Lyn in Smash, I thought she was actually wearing tight pants; I didn't realize those were her bare legs until I started joking with my sister and panned the camera below her in the trophy screen.  My sister was continuing with the joke nonchalantly, but I just felt awkward for having just panned a camera up a lady's dress, even if that lady was just virtual.

I think I also got that Chinese girl vibe from her.

[Ercdouken]

• Before playing Fire Emblem, I read online that Eliwood could marry Lyn, Ninian, and Fiora, I thought that you pick his marriage option at the end, not through supports.
• Speaking of which, I thought Florina was one of Eliwood's options for some reason. Note that I didn't remember the names of Eliwood's spouse options aside from Lyn.
• I originally thought Ys was a series that had completely different casts in each game. Doesn't help that Origin was my first Ys game.
• When I was a kid, I thought video games had no age rating at all, and didn't know what the ESRB label was for. I only found out what the ESRB was when I saw the commercial for Pokemon Stadium, when the narrator said "E for Everyone" at the end. Later I took a look at some of my games, realizing some of the games I have played were Mature rated. lol
• I thought Jin Kazama and Kazuya Mishima were brothers.
• I also thought Jin was in all the Tekken games (Including 1 and 2), was always the main character, and thought he almost always needed to be unlocked for some reason.
• And I thought Tekken 4 took place 20 years after Tekken 3. I blame Tekken 4's intro, and the limited knowledge I had of the series back then.
• I thought Touhou was some visual novel series at first, and then thought it was some Puzzle series.
• A video I saw online showed various game clips from Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, and one of the clips made me believe that Velvet had the ability to change her gender at first, and then later thought maybe Cornelius had shapeshifting abilities. Of course, I was wrong about both.
• I thought the live action Super Mario Bros. movie was canon to the Mario games lol
• I thought Bomberman was a Nintendo owned character
• I thought sending letters to game companies about game ideas would guarantee that the games with those ideas would be made.

[John Denver Fan]

For me I thought that most Fire Emblem games where based off of China and that Fates was based off of Vietnam. When I read the Fire Emblem Wikia and Wikipedia's article of the series. I found out that it was all set in Japan.

[Acacia Sgt]

Maybe more amusing than hilarious, but back when I first saw it, I thought Kingdom Hearts was more connected to Final Fantasy X beyond the "It's a crossover game so it has FF characters". Reason was because I saw KH first, and while being told it was a crossover game, I was never told exactly that the FF characters were alternate versions of themselves, even taking the crossover angle into account. So I didn't thought much of seeing Tidus and Wakka as young teenagers in the tropical Destiny Islands. I just knew they came from the same game (thanks to Jiminy's Journal), and that was it.

Until some time later, when I saw for the first time FFX's box art. With an older looking Tidus. And a tropical island behind him. So yeah. First thought that came to me was that KH was a prequel side-story to FFX (well, it was a crossover work to begin with). And Besaid was just one more of the so called Destiny Islands.

I found out the truth soon enough, though. But well, it was still amusing to me looking at it in hindsight. And I was like only around 10 at the time when I came to that wrong conclusion, anyway.

[Ercdouken]

Got another one

• I thought Blood Falcon was Captain Falcon's evil twin brother for a few years until I read Blood Falcon's bio in GX where it states that he's a clone.

[Tamanoir]

• Ace Attorney : I thought it was more action oriented, and that you had to shout out "OBJECTION!" at the right time during trials. I was afraid of playing it for a long time because of this.
• More misremembering than misconceptions, but I remembered FF6 Opening Scene as being inside a castle, hall, fighting against knights.
• For Fire Emblem, I thought Lucius was Nils daughter. Am I really the only one in that case?
• I didn't understood characters could have different names depending of language. Like, for example, I had no Idea Lance was Peter in Pokémon.

[TheGoodHoms]

When I was little...

I thought Pokemon was originally a card game before it was a video game.

I though that the Final Fantasy characters were originally from Kingdom Hearts.

I thought Ganondorf in smash bros was a zombie.

I thought Prince of Persia was a movie franchise.

Edited December 20, 2017 by TheGoodHoms

[Von Ithipathachai]

6 minutes ago, TheGoodHoms said:

When I was little...

I thought Pokemon was originally a card game before it was a video game.

At least you didn't think the games were based on the anime, like I did.

Wait a minute...  I don't know whether you thought the anime or the card game came first...

Whoops.

Edited December 20, 2017 by Von Ithipathachai

[Ertrick36]

7 hours ago, TheGoodHoms said:

I thought Prince of Persia was a movie franchise.

You know, I've always associated my early reticence towards rated M games with that franchise for some reason.

I was fine with Sands of Time and Warrior Within, but I think the third game had nudity labeled on the ESRB rating label, and I was only, like, twelve years old when I played through the game.  I legitimately had to wait until my sister played through a bit until I could do the same because of that; it was a rule my parents set, if I recall.

The worst thing about that is she eventually just stopped playing, and that meant that I had to stop as well.  To this day, I've never finished Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones.  I don't even know what "nude" content was in it.

I was too good of a kid sometimes...

 

Also, when I saw the cover of Final Fantasy X at one of my dad's friends houses, I thought it was just a fishing game.  I mean...

To my credit, Tidus is standing in water here, and his outfit does look akin to fishing waders or something.

I don't know what I thought of the sword, though...

I played Final Fantasy IX and the original Final Fantasy well after trying this one.

That's right, X was my first Final Fantasy game.  This:

was my first experience with Final Fantasy.

And while I knew the FF X characters, I thought Cloud and the others were actually from KH.  I even thought that they might be secret endgame bosses or something.

[Magical CC]

On 12/8/2017 at 11:46 PM, Hawkwing said:

 

- I though that the original DOOM was the posterboy for ultra-violent first-person shooter games where you could shut your brain off while playing, and was pleasantly surprised by how tactical and intense the combat was, as well as how active my mind was while playing. The violence is also not as prevalent as I thought it would be, though it's not hard to see why this game stirred up controversy regardless.

 

Unless Doom 1&2 are different from Doom 3&4, it's exactly what it is about, violent bloody gory FPS you can just turn your brain off playing. Unless you count switching weapon to suit certain enemies and dodging enemies attack are tactical. Or you misunderstood the term "turn one brain off".

Edited December 22, 2017 by Magical CC

[Hawkwing]

7 hours ago, Magical CC said:

Unless Doom 1&2 are different from Doom 3&4, it's exactly what it is about, violent bloody gory FPS you can just turn your brain off playing. Unless you count switching weapon to suit certain enemies and dodging enemies attack are tactical. Or you misunderstood the term "turn one brain off".

I've only played an online demo of the first game (which I'm told is actually really good, simply because the only chapter you're allowed access to is the best one in the game), but I found the violence to be strangely subdued. Yeah, there's blood, but your enemies just fall over and die. They don't turn into giblets, or have graphic deaths, like some later "Doom Clones" have done in an attempt to make them stand out. The worst it gets is that explosions turn your foes into animal carcassas, which aren't pleasant to look at, though its more annoying than disgusting to see those littered about some of the levels.

I have "turn ones brain off" as games where I need to put minimal though into my next move, and/or where I having a deep, philoshopical thoughts running through my mind rather than paying attention to the game at hand. Yeah, Doom may not be the most strategic or tactical of games, but it is one where you need to both think and react fast to each encounter and situation, and on higher difficulties, the game really does become tactical as any encounter could be your last, so knowing when to fight and when to retreat is the difference between life and death. I guess my mind more awake than strategical when playing this game, which still means that my brain is active and far from "turned off."

[Tamanoir]

On 21/12/2017 at 6:20 AM, Ertrick36 said:

And while I knew the FF X characters, I thought Cloud and the others were actually from KH.  I even thought that they might be secret endgame bosses or something.

Oh yeah. FFX. I thought it was actually a good game.

Something similar happened actually. I played through the GBA FF I (and II) remake, and as such, I though Gilgamesh (and all the other bosses from the secret dungeons) first appeared on FF I.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Tamanoir

[John Denver Fan]

Here's a misconception that is pretty popular back when Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released and I also believed. It was that Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the final game in the Super Smash Bros. series. It wasn't until Smash 4 that the misconception was squashed.

[Dragoncat]

Nobody's going to relate to this but ANYWAY

I had the demo disk for Spyro the Dragon before I got the actual full Spyro games because the playstation was a hand me down from my uncle and all he had was that demo disk and NO MEMORY CARDS. Yeah, pretty sucky way to start me off. Because it was a demo, only three levels were in it and if you put the controller down long enough, it would exit out and take you back to the menu where you picked what you wanted to play. But I played the crap out of it for awhile there. The balloonist that takes you to other worlds in the full game was in the demo, and he said "The other worlds are very exciting. I'll take you there in September."

I went back and talked to him in September and wondered why he still said that instead of taking me to other worlds.