Tiny insignificant details in games that really impressed you

BrawlMan

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At the start of Hi-Fi Rush, main character Chai isn't seen wearing the red scarf that he has in the key art and trailers. However, his right arm is in a red sling. Once it's replaced by a robot one in the game's opening act, the first thing he does is change out of a hospital gown back into his ordinary clothes, and that's when he wears the scarf for the first time - he repurposed the sling, once he no longer needed it for his arm, into the scarf. Probably because he thought it would look really cool (and he's right.)
A hero with a badass scarf is a Mikami and Kamiya staple.
 
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Dancin' Divas (Steam Demo), while inspired by such 4-player co-op brawlers such as Ninja Baseball Batman (its most obvious influence), TMNT, and The Simpsons. The game's main inspiration are Tex Avery cartoons. From the physical comedy, the exaggerated character designs (with a hefty amount of BBWs), wild takes, old-school cartoon violence, and plain insanity! This is a game The Mask would play 24/7.

All 4 of the characters have their own unique move sets and hidden command moves. There's universal charge attacks, running and dashing, downward attacks, and forward specials a la SOR2. Hina and Bahati are the only two have unique finishers on enemies and bosses. Hina can turn them into ash with the googly eyes, and Bahati can squash them flat with either a super move or down attack with her butt. The first boss is the only one not effected by this. She has to turn back to normal in her defeated pose for story reasons, while the other bosses will stay like that, if you defeated them that way when they're at critical/low health.

The game has a path choice system like Guardian Heroes, so it will be interesting to see where it leads in the full game. Each path you take puts the player(s) in a completely different environment with its own theming and unique enemies for the specific stage.

A demo of the game is only available on Steam right now, and it be buggy at times. Hopefully, they'll have all the jank fixed later this year. Still worth a playthrough.
 
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Absent

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The boring one
Driving a convertible in Mafia 3. The driving characters does all the required gestures, letting the wheel go with the right hand to shift gear or break. But also, at some point starts drumming on the wheel with his hands as the radio plays. In rhythym (coincidentally?).

I was impressed and a tad freaked out.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Unless this has some profound impact on the gameplay... so what? Most players will stare at it in awe for about five minutes and then turn it down for higher framerates.
The point is Rockstar in general is sparing no expense on the game’s development, and odds are it’ll only release when it’s ready (unlike the outsourced Collection crap fest) which is more than can be said about any other big AAA developer or publisher. That’s why it will undoubtedly be reflected by another record breaking launch. Not that I’ll contribute though, if rumors hold true about it being always online/live service.


Also, it will be at least a year before PC even sees this game going by their past titles.
 

Absent

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Most players will stare at it in awe for about five minutes and then turn it down for higher framerates.
Yup. But I'm not one of these. I mostly play videogames for their water simulation. 👍

(Especially since Command Ace of the Deep, to be specific. I can appreciate sub sim on many levels, but absolutely all are secondary to how splashy, shiny, wavey, bluey greeney greyey foamey they've made their seas.)
 

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Namco X Capcom is, in a few ways, clearly a stepping stone to what was achieved in the later Project X Zone games, but it has a few things that it does that the sequels don't that, though ultimately pretty minor, help give it its own unique identity. For instance, in missions where you get to select a party to deploy, the units you keep in reserve don't join in on the mission's dialogue; only the characters who are actually there get to comment - but unlike a lot of games, not just the fixed deployments but everyone who deploys gets to join in. And though I don't know exactly how it's done, the scenes feel pretty natural in how they progress with the present party, not like it's just running down a list of everyone and skipping entries.
 
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Terminal Blue

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So, my friend just pointed this out to me the other day. I have no idea if it's some commonly known part of fan discourse or anything.

So in Elden Ring, when you get up close to the Erdtree you realize that only the upper part seems to glow, while the rest looks like mundane wood.



I know I noticed this, thought "huh, that's weird" and just dismissed it. But if you think about it, it's incredibly obvious.

The Erdtree isn't real. It's an illusion created by grace, and only visible to you because you're tarnished. The real erdtree is just a stump.

The most obvious, fundamental feature of Elden Ring's world, the thing that constantly stares you in the face wherever you are on the map is a lie.

Just a weird little example of how this game is extremely well thought through and has actual themes and shit.
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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So, my friend just pointed this out to me the other day. I have no idea if it's some commonly known part of fan discourse or anything.

So in Elden Ring, when you get up close to the Erdtree you realize that only the upper part seems to glow, while the rest looks like mundane wood.



I know I noticed this, thought "huh, that's weird" and just dismissed it. But if you think about it, it's incredibly obvious.

The Erdtree isn't real. It's an illusion created by grace, and only visible to you because you're tarnished. The real erdtree is just a stump.

The most obvious, fundamental feature of Elden Ring's world, the thing that constantly stares you in the face wherever you are on the map is a lie.

Just a weird little example of how this game is extremely well thought through and has actual themes and shit.
If we look at the full symbol on the door -
37F55C9F-C19C-465E-B2C7-678DA0054D8B.png

It shows the Elden Ring at the base, a Greattree above it, and the Erdtree at the top. We also see the in-game Erdtree leaning, which was almost certainly a result of The Shattering.

This video goes into more of the origins of the Erdtree -

There’s some further explanation/theorization in the pinned comment.
 
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Dalisclock

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If we look at the full symbol on the door -

It shows the Elden Ring at the base, a Greattree above it, and the Erdtree at the top. We also see the in-game Erdtree leaning, which was almost certainly a result of The Shattering.

This video goes into more of the origins of the Erdtree -

There’s some further explanation/theorization in the pinned comment.
Goddamnit, now I'm binging Tarnished Archeologist. At least his videos are 30 min or less, which is a bit more digestable then fucking Smoughtown who does 1+ hour videos every damn week.

I've probably said it before but honestly I dig the worldbuilding and intense detail in these games a lot more then I dig the actual game part of FROM games. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy them, but once I've finished exploring and done a NG playthrough it feels like there's not much left for me to go back to unless I just want to boss fights again. OTOH, I'll fucking binge FROM lore and speculation for fucking days because I adore this kind of pedantic investigative worldbulding bullshit.

Which ironically means I'm more likely to play Sekiro again a lot more then Elden Ring, though to be fair I never finished exploring Elden Ring. I finished the game, used save games to see the different endings I had the runes for(so I got to see all of them firsthand except for the poopy boy and the flame endings). I probably should do a NG+ run for the bosses before the DLC comes out to I can get good again. This is the first FROM game I actually beat before the DLC came out. I didn't do the Shunning grounds(well, most of them) or most of the little mini-dungeons, though I did get all the Great Runes.
 
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