I remembered a good brainfart of mine and wondered if anyone else had one to share.
Mine is this: I couldn’t figure out how to parry attacks in MGR: Revengence all the way up to Monsoon. I just jumped around a lot and played ultra aggressively and it worked! …Kind of! I just had to make sure I NEVER used heavy attacks. Blade Wolf was a nightmare but I was able to muscle through, but Monsoon? No way in hell.
I still blame the combat tutorial though. “To parry, push the control stick toward the enemy and press the light attack button!” I interpreted that as “just make sure you’re facing the enemy and time the button press right.” when they meant “Push the stick in the direction of the enemy and press attack AT THE SAME TIME.”
Definitely shield dropping in smash bros melee. Seemed like an essentially impossibly difficult skill, and nearly made me stop playing because I don’t have the time to invest into that kind of tech skills just to be competitive. But then I had my eureka moment when I learned that you can get your shield up and not roll if you just have the stick to the right or left when you press shield in the first place. After that it’s just dropping the stick down one notch and you’re dropping like no tomorrow. Bit of practice to get the timing down and now I’ve unlocked an entirely new dimension of my play.
Yet another reason I cannot stop playing melee. Every time I think I’ve figured that game out, it reveals an entirely new level of depth that was invisible before I had the tech to see it.