re: Do you think you could have figured out FF7's golden chocobo without a guide?

While people like to shite on modern games for holding players' hands (which they do), they like to forget that a significant amount of older games intentionally included content so obscure as to nearly force people to buy the game guide. Before the proliferation of home internet, people didn't have a lot of other options if they wanted to see everything a game has to offer. Hell, there's an old game that I can't remember the name of offhand that had some random NPC give you an obscure hint about resting on a cliff, when you were require to stand on some random arse platform (said cliff) for like 30s (because you couldn't actually "rest") before being whisked away in a whirlwind. And if I recall correctly, this wasn't to go to a secret area; it was required to progress in the game