5 Toughest Video Game Tutorials

There are three types of games, I’d say. The first type will go out and find some training wheels for you. They will hold your hand and guide you through sharp turns. There's no way you're going to trip and fall when they're right next to you. When they believe you have everything you need, they open the bird cage and let you fly out of the bird's nest. You'll be just fine, they say. The second type has no problem plunging you into a shark-infested sea. It could even be a Dark Souls-style game. But the developers believe that tutorials are unnecessary. You need to figure it out on your own and somehow navigate your way through the chaos.

Then there’s the third type. This one doesn’t give you training wheels, no. They give you a mountain bike. Are you even tall enough to ride a mountain bike? They don't give a damn. If you fall too many times, you lose count. Or if you come back with cuts and bruises all over, they don’t care. All it will take is a whole lot of back and forth to figure out how the pedals work. And that’s if you don’t quit first. For the many decades that video games have been a thing, here are the five toughest video game tutorials that have no problem taking the third route.

5. Witcher 2

Dragons are ruthless. And the many dragon adaptations so far prove just as much. Fighting a real one, I imagine, could take a whole army. Factor dragon fire into the equation, and it could take forever to defeat one. That doesn’t mean that it’s the kind of fight we’re looking to have in a game. Otherwise, it’ll be all work and no play. 

But Witcher 2 still went and took the dragon fire concept too literally. In 2011, PC gamers had their work cut out for them as early as the tutorial for The Witcher 2. It was so brutal that developers had to fix it in the next patch update. Still, you can’t forget the many tries you had to put in. Even after dedicating hours to it, you’d come out having barely scratched the surface of Act 1.

The Witcher 1 was pretty realistic. But once Witcher 2 brought in the formidable dragon in the tutorial, that was it. There was the dragon fire raining down on you, the streams of soldiers coming at you that you had to take down, all while trying to master the game’s new fighting mechanics. It just shouldn’t ever be this hard. 

4. Flight School

Again. Flying a plane is damn hard. But it shouldn’t be taken literally in a game. Especially when games are notorious for wanting to incorporate at least a few wild stunts. Flight School was a nightmare for PC gamers to learn. 

Particularly because they had to perform wild stunts on a keyboard. With the gamepad, gaming is much easier. But back in the day, it would take forever to tweak the controls so they worked in your favor. In the end, most gamers just gave up on completing the quest.

3. Final Fantasy XIII

It’s funny. When you go into a video game tutorial, you have the expectation that it’s just going to take a few minutes to learn the ropes. But Final Fantasy XIII said, no. A few minutes isn’t enough. We think you’ll need just a few dozen hours. 

It took nearly 20 hours to get by the Final Fantasy XIII tutorial. It didn’t help, either, that the whole thing is linear, throughout. With each step into the tutorial, the game reveals a new gameplay element, up until we gradually finished learning all 12 gameplay elements for the new game. You couldn’t even break free and explore on your own, or switch our party members, as any kind of freedom is limited.

Running across a linear corridor should take a few seconds. Not hours upon hours in the same environment, over and over. You just can’t help screaming, “Make it stop!” can you? It’s sad because Final Fantasy XIII ended up being a pretty decent game. But the sheer amount of time it took to get to the meat of the story is just disappointing and completely uncalled for.

2. Jet Set Radio

You know when you take a trial test in school and then the teacher says, “No, that was actually the real test?” It’s by far the worst thing you could do: punish players for making a small mistake in a tutorial and then force them to do the task all over again.

Jet Set Radio’s tutorial asked gamers to perform several skating moves. They’d do that while grinding or spraying somewhere. But in case you took too long or decided to branch off someplace else, the game instantly gives you a zero and forces you to restart from the top.

1. Driver

Imagine going on a road trip through a desert. What could go wrong? A flat tire? An engine problem? A brake squeak? Just thinking about it gives me anxiety. Now imagine the same thing happening in a game you just spent a decent amount of cash on. It’s not funny. It’s disappointing. You can’t exactly go into the game and start to make repairs. Hashtag “Ready Player One.” 

Driver’s tutorial started with a car problem that you had no idea how to fix. There is no manual. No guide, or hint, somewhere. Nothing. It’s just you, a list, and a minute to get out of the garage. Even though this frustrating event happened in the ‘90s, it’s still pretty memorable, especially when not knowing how to complete the first level was all it took to quit the game. Well, unless you knew someone who could show you. Or had some magazine somewhere with the clue. Most gamers had no choice but to fly in blind.

So, what’s your take? Do you agree with our five toughest video game tutorials? Are there tough video game tutorials we should know about? Let us know down in the comments or over on our socials here.