And even before King's Field, this is just the way games used to be like. Games couldn't elaborate too much, so your options were:

a) you lucked out and it turns out your brain works exactly like the designer's and the cryptic hint make sense to you,

b) you use a guide/ask a friend/call a hotline,

c) you like the game so much you end up brute forcing your way through all of that stuff,

d) you just ignore that sidequest. I sure hope for you that finishing the main quest doesn't need you to guess something unreasonably obtuse... *COUGH* Legend of Zelda's final dungeon's location *COUGH*