Games/mechanics that make you feel "badass"

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Rather self explanatory. I'd like to see examples of single mechanics, or games in general, that make you feel badass and why.

For example, the quickstep mechanic in Bloodborne. It's the closest I've ever felt like an actual super skilled ninja while playing a game since it enables you to close in on enemies extra fast, dodge blows with pinpoint timing, and change targets quicker than they can keep up. I distinctly remember thinking "Wow, that was badass" when I fought a hunter NPC I'd brought down to the last sliver of health. He made a running attack at me, I sidestepped and shot him while he was still mid animation. It felt genuinely like an anime fight without any scripted event.

Another more recent example came in the form of the Zombie Island DLC for Borderlands 1 which I played again recently. There's a mechanic where if you blow a zombie's head off, their brain will fly out as a collectible item. The DLC has an entire set of side missions where you have to collect hundreds of zombie brains, so inevitably you'll seek out hordes of zombies just to blow their heads off. It's a very satisfying feeling when zombies are rushing at you from all directions and you're blowing their heads off with a single shot left and right. I think this is deliberate, as the hitbox for the average zombie's head seems to be massive in comparison to other enemies in the game, and most zombies come at you rather slowly, with their heads invery clear sight and without much shuffling, so lining up the headshots is extra easy. It feels most gratifying when you have an accurate and powerful revolver so you don't even need to aim down the sights. Just walk casually around going BANG! BANG! BANG! in every direction and watch the brains fly all over. It makes you feel like the lone badass gunman in a zombie apocalypse scenario.

Gimme moar exempelz, puh-leeze.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Yeah i've only done one playthrough of Bloodborne personally but that game is the most anime of not anime games sometimes. Somehow I did Darkbeast Paarl in one try without taking a hit after hearing he was crazy difficult too.

OT: Pick any game done by Platinum Games' A Team, Bayonetta, MGS Rising, Nier Automata and so on. The games are based on looking cool to survive, especially Bayonetta and Nier because Nier is much like Bayonetta with danmaku elements and Bayonetta is still the best game they've ever made, if not the best game in the entire genre.

Speaking of danmaku, the bullet hell Touhou games make you feel like a badass after you somehow dodge all the point blank knives from Sakuya's ZA WARUDO. Embodiment makes you fight Sakuya three times too then the next game gives you Sakuya as a playable character, clearly the dev knows who Based Girl is.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

God of War and the SMT series: Tearing through Gods and demons with your own raw might and mind. Not that it's ever easy to do, and that's why it feels badass. Actually, that would make an interesting crossover...

Most Fighting Games: Super moves where time freezes and your character stops to drop a one-liner before ripping off a huge chunk of the opponent's health. By the same token, lengthy combos in Killer Instinct games (also difficult to pull off). Specifically because of the mechanic where the longer a combo has been going on for, the faster it goes. Gargos' theme, especially the 'danger' version when someone's health is low, fits this perfectly.

 

[Zhukov]

I'm sure I've said this before, but vaulting over objects makes me feel badass. I don't even know why.

Using human shields is another one. It always struck me as a good mechanic for characters who are supposed to be ruthless or pragmatic like Agent 47 or Joal from The Last of Us. TLOU had an especially well implemented human shield mechanic where enemies would cease fire when you grabbed one of their buddies and only resume fire once you did, essentially giving you a free shot or a chance to relocate during the pause. However your shield would frequently struggle, messing with your aim, and break free after a short time.

I like ragdoll physics when they have realistic weight to them. hitting enemies flying hundreds of feet into the air looks silly. But staggering someone into a glass cabinet is awesome. Mirror's Edge Catalyst was great at this. Knocking enemies into each other or sending them careening into walls or over railings was a hoot. (Also, it has vaulting galore. Double points!)

 

[American Tanker]

Whenever games give you a weapon and make it feel genuinely powerful and effective. Whether this be through sound, visuals, the effects enemies have when they get hit, whatever; as long as it actually feels powerful, it makes me feel like a badass.

Also, when you can quickly switch between multiple enemies and take them all out in quick succession. Not talking about systems that automate this like the more recent Splinter Cell games' "Mark & Execute" system, but just getting so good with the game that you can do it on your own without skipping a beat. One of the games that I've been playing a lot where this can happen often is arcade indie flier Sky Rogue on Steam. It's entirely possible for a skilled player to just dive straight in to a roiling furball of 10 or more enemy fighters and just wipe them out in under a minute.

And for me, it's even better when I get these kills with my machine guns. Then again, I don't exactly belong at the controls of a modern supersonic jet fighter with guided missiles... I'm much more the Spitfires & 109s above Dover, Warhawks & Zeroes over Rangoon type.

 

[Irwin126]

A wide variety of useful tools I can use when ever I feel like using them.

Also BFG's are also good.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I like the gun parrying in Bloodborne, and also the weapon transformations mid-combo.

Interesting to note, iPhone doesn't seem to much like using the word "gun". It repeatedly tries to auto-correct to "fun". I suppose the two go together pretty nicely though.

 

[King Billi]

The disarm and destroy move in the Batman Arkham games.
It's already empowering enough to take on a dozen armed thugs all at once but there's just something about taking a baseball bat and breaking it into splinters over your knee or deftly dismantling an assault rifle in 2 seconds in the middle of a fight that really helps make yourself in control of the situation.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Quicksave save-scumming in Xcom. Master of time... Am THE BEST! [small]On easiest difficulty available.[/small]

Slow motion x-ray cam with crunchy human bones of deliciousness. Yum!!!

Dying Light dropkick fully upgraded. Especially if you send a zombie flipping over a metal rail or off a building. But if you miss, you land on your arse looking like a complete idiot as a terminally slow zombie gets a hit or two in. Screw those virals.

Stryder/Strider? I forget which one. The mechanic where you kick ass and make a lot of noise from the button mashing and yelping, which is probably most of the game.

Fallout 4, railway gun. Railway spikes are a mechanic for getting your point across efficiently in that world.

Arkham Knight, leaving a trembling guy or two last, oblivious to their guns deactivated and the gun boxes booby-trapped, so when you walk right into them, they attempt to fire, gun doesn't fire, they run to nearest gun crate and get shocked unconscious as i lean back and sip nonchalantly from a tall glass of Chardonnay. Also...mines and voice synthesiser. Though not sure how they don't kill these people as i set them off in each of their dumb faces.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The skyhook mechanic and gunfights in Bioshock Infinite. Swooping down, machine guns blasting, leap off, knock a chick off the ledge, use that water vigor to pull a bunch of dudes close, throw them off the edge, catch the speeding bullets, throw 'em back, call in Elizabeth to create a rocket turret, throw a fire bomb to trap the Crow, then hand-canon the Handyman in the heart twice. Now pause to have a cigarette.

 

[CaitSeith]

Mass Effect 3 Vanguard's Charge-Shotgun w/fire ammo-Nova combo. All individually are already pretty badass; but combined, they send everyone close by flying out in a fiery explosion.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Mass Effect 3 Vanguard's Charge-Shotgun w/fire ammo-Nova combo. All individually are already pretty badass; but combined, they send everyone close by flying out in a fiery explosion.

This, but just relegate it Charge + Nova. Once fully upgraded you can tear up a whole map full of enemies before your squadmates are able to unload even one shot.

Another one is a specific animation in God of War, when you perform a finisher on the taller dudes with the sword arms brandishing the scythes. You do this move where you stab them in the back with their own weapon and then trip/knock their ass to the ground. And it's that latter bit that makes you feel badass. It's just such a great 'insult to injury' moment.

 

[sXeth]

The skyhook mechanic and gunfights in Bioshock Infinite. Swooping down, machine guns blasting, leap off, knock a chick off the ledge, use that water vigor to pull a bunch of dudes close, throw them off the edge, catch the speeding bullets, throw 'em back, call in Elizabeth to create a rocket turret, throw a fire bomb to trap the Crow, then hand-canon the Handyman in the heart twice. Now pause to have a cigarette.

Man it'd have been a great game if that was actually possible.

My memory's a bit hazy on which individual parts are, but I definitely know that both the vaguely interesting vigors (Water tentacle and bullet catching) were like, in the last half hour of the game. Well after the whole 2 repeats of the Handyman bosses.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I'm a big fan of any grappling hook/swinging mechanic that doesn't limit you to arbitrary anchor points.

Bionic Commando for NES was the first implementation I remember but it felt so badass saving yourself from falling or knocking enemy bullets out of the air.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The skyhook mechanic and gunfights in Bioshock Infinite. Swooping down, machine guns blasting, leap off, knock a chick off the ledge, use that water vigor to pull a bunch of dudes close, throw them off the edge, catch the speeding bullets, throw 'em back, call in Elizabeth to create a rocket turret, throw a fire bomb to trap the Crow, then hand-canon the Handyman in the heart twice. Now pause to have a cigarette.

Man it'd have been a great game if that was actually possible.

My memory's a bit hazy on which individual parts are, but I definitely know that both the vaguely interesting vigors (Water tentacle and bullet catching) were like, in the last half hour of the game. Well after the whole 2 repeats of the Handyman bosses.

What you talkin' 'bout Willis?! I got Return to Sender after you change the world so the Vox are rebelling. And Undertow is in the factory level just after Sender.
I spent like over half the game with them.

 

[09philj]

Gibbing, especially in Brutal Doom. Nothing like reducing your foes to a mess of blood and bits. RIP AND TEAR!

 

[sageoftruth]

Back in Resident Evil 4, shooting dynamite just as an enemy was throwing it at me. Just as the stick left his hand, I'd aim and fire and it would blow up in his face, vaporizing him. I loved how that wouldn't even leave a body behind.

I also love using the Chikage from Bloodborne. It's a katana that you can coat in your blood in order to leave damaging blood streaks wherever you slash. Whenever you do it though, you slowly lose health, so you need to make a practice of transforming, killing the enemy and un-transforming as quickly as you can.

However, you coat the weapon by sliding it into its sheath, and can hit the enemy with a cool unsheathing slice if you attack shortly after coating it. Defeat the enemy and remove the blood buff and essentially, the whole process is: you sheath your sword, slash the enemy, combo him, and flick off the blood. Feels very satisfying.

 

[sageoftruth]

I'm a big fan of any grappling hook/swinging mechanic that doesn't limit you to arbitrary anchor points.

Bionic Commando for NES was the first implementation I remember but it felt so badass saving yourself from falling or knocking enemy bullets out of the air.

Have you ever played Ninja Five-O? It's on Gameboy Advance, and has plenty of Bionic Commando-esque grappling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbjH6KKy358

 

[Saltyk]

I feel most bad ass when I have teams that work incredibly well together. So well that they manage to easily handle genuinely hard content.

Back when I played FFXI, I had a party that was killing enemies fast. Hell, the party leader had me always leave to pull enemies when the enemy was at 10-20% HP. We actually saved a group with a Power Leveler multiple times. All of this was in Garlaige Citadel which some of you may know as Garbage Shitadel.

And in Destiny I had several groups that could handle the Raids with ease. One could almost down Croata in two swords on Hard Mode (the sword carrier was insanely good and could hit Croata 4 times each time he went down). We actually had to be aware of that fact lest we make it impossible to win. Keep in mind, this was when this was when before the second expansion.