Tiny insignificant details in games that really impressed you

[Stewcumber]

Strange first (proper) post for me I guess but Mafia 2 had two small details that only I seem to care about:

Tyres will deform as you drive over bumps to reflect the air moving about in the tyres.

The brake lights in cars will light up unevenly for a fraction of a second and flicker ever so slightly

Also in Stronghold 2, when you launch to the main menu the game says "Welcome, my liege." Except on Christmas day, when it would say "Merry Christmas, my liege!"

 

[BrawlMan]

What I like about NG3: Razor's Edge is that this is the only game where you can counter grabs, and chain them with Steel-On-Bone. Up to four times you can do this, enemies are surrounding you or close-by. In the vanilla version, there was no limit to it once you started. If they ever make another NG game, they have to bring this mechanic back.

Story and character related, I don't mind this Ryu being more emotional. It's obvious Hayashi was trying to bring more elements from the classic NES games. It's not perfect, especially in the vanilla release of 3, but there are parts he got right. Or I did not mind. I still prefer the voice actor from the second game, instead of Troy Baker. Baker is not bad, and does the job, but it would have been cool to keep Josh Keaton put on the more emotional performance. Then again, Ryu's voice for the English dubbing has changed 4 times now, and got a new voice in DOA6. Can't Koei-Tecmo keep one guy and stick with him?!

I found out that beating the game on either Hero, Normal, or Hard unlocks the hardest difficulty. It's much appreciated for those that want to jump in fast on the hardest mode.

 

[BrawlMan]

You can select one of three of Kasumi's hairstyles before staring a stage in Razor's Edge. All of her hair styles are a reference to each Dead or Alive game she's been in. Kasumi is the only character to get this.

 

[gorfias]

Did a new setup in my home office. I have a PS3 in it and threw on Red Dead Redemption to do a sound check. I haven't played in a bit and am surprised by how pixalated it looks next to RDR2 on PS4. Doesn't seem that long ago when I was refusing to buy next gen cuz, really, how much of an improvement could it be? RDR2 may be the most detailed video game of its gen.


EDIT:
Playing the BC version on Xbox 1 X does improve RDR a lot.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Did a new setup in my home office. I have a PS3 in it and threw on Red Dead Redemption to do a sound check. I haven't played in a bit and am surprised by how pixalated it looks next to RDR2 on PS4. Doesn't seem that long ago when I was refusing to buy next gen cuz, really, how much of an improvement could it be? RDR2 may be the most detailed video game of its gen.

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EDIT:
Playing the BC version on Xbox 1 X does improve RDR a lot.

The PS3 version was rather gimped, but “playable” I guess. Apparently the original’s game code was hobbled together with electrical tape and voodoo as it is.

 

[thebobmaster]

Strange first (proper) post for me I guess but Mafia 2 had two small details that only I seem to care about:

Tyres will deform as you drive over bumps to reflect the air moving about in the tyres.

The brake lights in cars will light up unevenly for a fraction of a second and flicker ever so slightly

Also in Stronghold 2, when you launch to the main menu the game says "Welcome, my liege." Except on Christmas day, when it would say "Merry Christmas, my liege!"

This isn't necessarily a small detail, but I love how in Mafia 2, the police WILL go after you for speeding...but if you don't run and pull over, they just give you a ticket. It's not like you were going on a rampage, after all.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Robot Wants It All

In the games you can earn points that unlock more modes and such. One way you earn points is from them dropping out of enemies. If the point drops out of an enemy and falls into something you can't chase it, like acidic vats, it will auto collect for you. Instead of punishing the player for game mechanics they can't control, they say, "Know what? That's our bad. Here you go" and just count it for you anyway. WHY IS THIS NOT A THING IN MORE GAMES?! Why is something so player friendly something I can't remember seeing before outside of this tiny indie game?!

 

[Dalisclock]

Robot Wants It All

In the games you can earn points that unlock more modes and such. One way you earn points is from them dropping out of enemies. If the point drops out of an enemy and falls into something you can't chase it, like acidic vats, it will auto collect for you. Instead of punishing the player for game mechanics they can't control, they say, "Know what? That's our bad. Here you go" and just count it for you anyway. WHY IS THIS NOT A THING IN MORE GAMES?! Why is something so player friendly something I can't remember seeing before outside of this tiny indie game?!

The Souls games will give you the drop from an enemy if it falls off a cliff where you can't retrieve it. The drop will just appear in your inventory automatically. Quite nice if you lured an enemy to an elevator shaft and baited them into falling down it, thus instantly killing them.

 

[thebobmaster]

The Souls games will give you the drop from an enemy if it falls off a cliff where you can't retrieve it. The drop will just appear in your inventory automatically. Quite nice if you lured an enemy to an elevator shaft and baited them into falling down it, thus instantly killing them.

Or if this happens.

 

[BrawlMan]

WHY IS THIS NOT A THING IN MORE GAMES?

A lot of single player action games have this feature. DMC4 has red orbs automatically go to your character, if you bought an upgrade. DmC had it so that no matter how you killed a demon, the red and white orbs would instantly be collected. What's annoying is that DMC5 made it an upgrade again. It sucks, but at least the option is there. That said, waste of an upgrade that became a default in the last game. Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II had essence and essence charging. In II's case you could have it collect to Ryu automatically or manually. Auto is exactly what it says it does. Manual you could get b charging the Heavy Attack (Ultimate Technique), and while you would lose the overall essence, collecting it this way would boost your UT faster and do more damage. The old God of War games had orbs automatically travel to Kratos when killing an enemy or opening a chest. V-coins would instantly pop towards Joe, and a similar feature was added to Bayonetta for Halos.

 

[BrawlMan]

Ninja Gaiden II/Sigma 2 - The further you get into the underworld, more demonic enemies appear. This starts off just before you get to Mount Fuji, where the ninja dogs become ninja demon dogs. They have a silver look to them and have spikes going out of their back. The ninjas that you have been fighting, turn up into straight up Fiends (the game's equivalent of demons). The same guys you've been fighting throughout most of the game barely look even human anymore and get new colors and variants on their attacks. The atmosphere just gets increasingly creepy and is actually effective.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The Souls games will give you the drop from an enemy if it falls off a cliff where you can't retrieve it. The drop will just appear in your inventory automatically. Quite nice if you lured an enemy to an elevator shaft and baited them into falling down it, thus instantly killing them.

I'll never forget during my first run of DS1, I was fighting the Stray Demon hoping to get the Titanite Slab he drops. After about a dozen tries, we ended up killing each other at the same time, so I ran from the bonfire back to his room to get the slab, and it had despawned. I was pissed. Ended up having to farm the Skeletors in New Londo to get a Slab. Took forever, but at least it happened.

EDIT: Oh, yeah! Also the first time I beat Smough first, in the second phase of the fight, Ornstein and I killed each other simultaneously as well, and I was similarly denied his Leo Ring drop.

 

[Dreiko]

So in Guilty Gear Xrd you have this character Johnny who uses coins to enhance his moves, but he has a limited amount of them, and he has this super move where if he lands it he steals his opponent's "treasure" and that acts as restock of his coins, it has the same properties mechanically as his regular coins do but each character gives him a different treasure item and the details in those items are incredible flavor components for each character. Like for example Sol's treasure is a Queen album which is his favorite band in the lore, also hinting at his name being Freddy, or Answer's item is a soda drink very reminiscent of a red bull in shape and color scheme, which matches his overly speedy ninja nature. Everyone gets stuff like that.

The best part about this is that they didn't have to do all this, they could have just made the super give him his own coins back, but they're cool like that.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

In the final part of Live A Live, the seven protagonists are all brought together, and various steps are required to recruit whichever one you didn't choose to be the party leader. If you didn't take the futuristic robot Cube, then you have to find a missing part somewhere and take it back to the deactivated Cube to install it. However:
-Prehistoric caveman Pogo won't recognize it as anything at all, and it's listed in the inventory as '???'
-The ancient Chinese kung fu master, late-Edo ninja Oboromaru, and the cowboy Sundown Kid know it's a 'Metal Box', but no more than that.
-Modern-day martial artist Masaru figures it's a 'Mechanical Part' of some kind.
-Near-future biker Akira recognizes it fully as a 'Battery'.

There's a couple of other instances like this, but I won't go into them because that would involve direct spoilers. I know it's a nearly-30-year-old game, but with the remake coming out sometime this year I think, and it still being worth playing. (As long as you have a walkthrough. Hopefully they fix that.)

Also, in the fan-made translation by Aeon Genesis, every section has a unique font for character speech. The menu font is always the same, but in the final section, all the characters speak with their own fonts as I recall.

 

[Dalisclock]

So I've been looking at the Elden RIng itself as we see it in the game(notably in the title screen) and honestly, it's kinda cool how it all fits together. This thread has some discussion about it but one thing I noticed is that Marika(Crucified) if actually at the top of the ring, all of the demigod runes are below her, and the rune arc is at the bottom, with the lattice at the back being associated with radagon(based on his statue in Lyndell). Or put it another way, Markia is the godhead, the demigods are in the middle with radagon behind them, and the rune arc(which I think represents humans and normal life) is down at the bottom and "Receives the blessings of the Elden Ring").

And honestly, I need to do more research, but for some reason it reminds me of the Sefirot in Kabbalah, where the godhead(Keter) is up there at the top, the ones further down are aspects of that, and the one at the bottom Malkuth which apparently represents creation rather then god. It might be a coincidence and it might not but I find it super interesting. I suspect looking at the great runes for the demigods might also yield clues, since the demi-gods have their own attributes(such as Melania being a goddess of rot while her twin Miquella is a god of abundance, which are opposites that are tied to each other). Radahn is a War god, Rykard is a god of Blasphemy, Morgott is essentially a god of order while his twin Mohg is a god of blood and chaos.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

So I've been looking at the Elden RIng itself as we see it in the game(notably in the title screen) and honestly, it's kinda cool how it all fits together. This thread has some discussion about it but one thing I noticed is that Marika(Crucified) if actually at the top of the ring, all of the demigod runes are below her, and the rune arc is at the bottom, with the lattice at the back being associated with radagon(based on his statue in Lyndell). Or put it another way, Markia is the godhead, the demigods are in the middle with radagon behind them, and the rune arc(which I think represents humans and normal life) is down at the bottom and "Recieves the blessings elden ring").

And honestly, I need to do more research, but for some reason it reminds me of the Sefirot in Kabbalah, where the godhead(Keter) is up there at the top, the ones further down are aspects of that, and the one at the bottom Malkuth which apparently represents creation rather then god. It might be a coincidence and it might not but I find it super interesting. I suspect looking at the great runes for the demigods might also yield clues, since the demi-gods have their own attributes(such as Melania being a goddess of rot while her twin Miquella is a god of abundance, which are opposites that are tied to each other). Radahn is a War god, Rykard is a god of Blasphemy, Morgott is essentially a god of order while his twin Mohg is a god of blood and chaos.

What I find kinda funny is Godrick (considered the game’s weakest, most pathetic shard bearer) possesses the anchor portion, which typically denotes strength, stability and security. One can only presume there are other factors in play in ER’s case, but a general takeaway here would seem to be it looks weakened because he simply isn’t worthy of its symbolic nature. Really though, none of them probably are.

Also I posted a response to one of the replies that asked why runes need to be powered back up -

https://screenrant.com/elden-ring-dead-two-fingers-divine-tower-lore/

4:25 marker if it doesn’t automatically skip to it.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

 

[Dalisclock]

So I was recently watching a rather long video Essay on the Red Dead games and it was pointed out to me that RDR2 takes place almost completely over the course of a year and there's a thematic resonance to where the seasons fall.

Spoiler: RDR2 spoilers

Winter: The game starts in the dead of winter where the gang has hit their lowest point after the Blackwater disaster and are couped up in the snow just hoping to survive till spring. Because of the snows, the game is very closed off with only the camp you're all huddled up in and some close by missions to generally get everyone secured and fed, which incidentally allows the game to slowly introduce you to the gang and the gameplay basics.

Spring: The Gang leaves the mountains and goes to horseshoe overlook in the heartlands. The world opens up, the gang feels much more at ease, there's a sense of everyone getting back on their feet after the long exile in the mountains and everyone is very optimistic that things are gonna be fine and they're gonna get through this. Money starts coming back in again and in general life is pretty good all around.

Summer: After getting complacent in Valentine, the gang is cornered and chased South down to Rhodes. The new camp is still quite lovely and new opportunities await in the new South, but along with the heat of the summer comes the tension of the law once again on their trail and trying to play the two sides of the town against each other. The heat rises noticeably when the two families that run Rhodes get wise to their con and the gang's position becomes untenable, but not before one of the family's plantation is literally burned to the ground.
From there the gang flees to a decrepit mansion in the middle of a swamp and finds themselves dealing with the organized law enforcement and crime of St Denis, and while they are still able to pull some big scores and prosperity, the good times are pretty much over by the time the summer ends with the dual disaster of the trolley station and the St. Denis Bank.

Autumn: The gang is beginning to fall apart. The bank job in St. Denis left a number of them dead, almost no money to show for it and the gang scattered for quite a while before eventually managing to join up again and relocate to Beaver Hollow as the winter begins to approach. The mood in the camp is dismal, people begin to leave, Arthur finds out he has a terminal illness and Dutch is not only clearly losing his mind but also has stopped pretending to care about anyone other then himself and his sycophants. Even worse, he's trying to pick a fight with the fucking US ARMY of all things. As the Autumn comes to a close Arthur is dead, the remaining gang members have either been killed or fled to start new lives elsewhere and the Van Der Linde gang is no more.

It's not a perfect match but honestly it's fairly close and I honestly kinda dig how well it works.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

So I was recently watching a rather long video Essay on the Red Dead games and it was pointed out to me that RDR2 takes place almost completely over the course of a year and there's a thematic resonance to where the seasons fall.

Spoiler: RDR2 spoilers

Winter: The game starts in the dead of winter where the gang has hit their lowest point after the Blackwater disaster and are couped up in the snow just hoping to survive till spring. Because of the snows, the game is very closed off with only the camp you're all huddled up in and some close by missions to generally get everyone secured and fed, which incidentally allows the game to slowly introduce you to the gang and the gameplay basics.

Spring: The Gang leaves the mountains and goes to horseshoe overlook in the heartlands. The world opens up, the gang feels much more at ease, there's a sense of everyone getting back on their feet after the long exile in the mountains and everyone is very optimistic that things are gonna be fine and they're gonna get through this. Money starts coming back in again and in general life is pretty good all around.

Summer: After getting complacent in Valentine, the gang is cornered and chased South down to Rhodes. The new camp is still quite lovely and new opportunities await in the new South, but along with the heat of the summer comes the tension of the law once again on their trail and trying to play the two sides of the town against each other. The heat rises noticeably when the two families that run Rhodes get wise to their con and the gang's position becomes untenable, but not before one of the family's plantation is literally burned to the ground.
From there the gang flees to a decrepit mansion in the middle of a swamp and finds themselves dealing with the organized law enforcement and crime of St Denis, and while they are still able to pull some big scores and prosperity, the good times are pretty much over by the time the summer ends with the dual disaster of the trolley station and the St. Denis Bank.

Autumn: The gang is beginning to fall apart. The bank job in St. Denis left a number of them dead, almost no money to show for it and the gang scattered for quite a while before eventually managing to join up again and relocate to Beaver Hollow as the winter begins to approach. The mood in the camp is dismal, people begin to leave, Arthur finds out he has a terminal illness and Dutch is not only clearly losing his mind but also has stopped pretending to care about anyone other then himself and his sycophants. Even worse, he's trying to pick a fight with the fucking US ARMY of all things. As the Autumn comes to a close Arthur is dead, the remaining gang members have either been killed or fled to start new lives elsewhere and the Van Der Linde gang is no more.

It's not a perfect match but honestly it's fairly close and I honestly kinda dig how well it works.

It kinda reminds me of TLoU (which by contrast is rather on the nose with seasons being chapter markers) in that respect but thematically it seems to work better in RDR2 for sure.

 

[BrawlMan]

Everything in Asura's Wrath! The story, the soundtrack, the animations, art style, and graphics! All this was done on 7th generation hardware. This game pushed the 360 and PS3 to their limits! AW has the best QTEs in the entire gaming sphere. Nothing else has been able to match it. Aside from maybe the later Ultimate Ninja Storm games, but not in terms of high spectacle and being super over-the-top.

The game gives you several clues who's really behind the constant spawning of the Ghoma. They all disappear in gold like fashion. The same thing happens to heavenly deities. All the mantra is returning to its creator: The Golden Spider/Chakravartan. Another aspect of the game I love, is when you unlock different gauges that gives Asura different stats. These you have to unlock by getting 3 A ranks or higher per each part. Some of the rest are DLC though, but they're not worth it.