Tiny insignificant details in games that really impressed you
- Thread starter laggyteabag
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Yup, this reminds me I’m gonna finally finish FEAR before getting back into Witcher 3.
The FEAR AI was brilliant because of its relative simplicity; it had a few goals- seek cover, flank the player laterally, etc.- that the levels were specifically built to allow it to pursue. Unfortunately things kind of fell apart when the AI fought itself.
It also had the same problem that the rather remarkable AI in Half-Life 2 faced: Trying to use subtle, sound tactics to counter a player character who was a mobile murder machine.
Ikaruga will give you a letter grade at the end of each stage depending on how many points you scored, ranging from 'C' if you survived but barely scored anything to 'S++' if you're a god. If you manage to complete a stage without ever firing a shot, which is possible due to the absorption mechanic, the timing of stage progression and bosses, and the fact that your ship's hitbox can just barely fit through obstacles you're meant to shoot through, you'll receive a special grade of 'DOT EATER'.
DINO stumbles over himself, or over commits on certain attacks. It shows that he is unrefined and still learning. Dante is already skilled and only needs fewer strikes.
One of the boss fights in Persona 5 is against a gangster whose ultimate battle form is basically a human fly. When he transforms, his speech becomes very...well, "pretty fly for a white guy" is the phrase that comes to mind. That's not the insignificant detail I'm referring to, however.
One stage of his boss battle has him fighting using a giant mechanical piggy bank. Its ultimate attack has him basically barrel rolling on top of it while it prepares to charge at and crush your party. He's not simply doing the standard "balance on a rolling barrel" hopping, however. He's doing the Gangnam Style dance.
One stage of his boss battle has him fighting using a giant mechanical piggy bank. Its ultimate attack has him basically barrel rolling on top of it while it prepares to charge at and crush your party. He's not simply doing the standard "balance on a rolling barrel" hopping, however. He's doing the Gangnam Style dance.
I've played through the game three times, and somehow I never noticed this before.
Each boss in Radiant Silvergun is preceded by a data readout of its name and a list of advice for fighting it, under the Engrish heading of 'be attitude for gains'. Most of the advice is written in a similar level of Engrish, so most players just ignore it other than for a quick laugh, but if you think enough about it, the advice actually is (trying to be) helpful.
e.g. Golets, the boss of stage 2-B, advises you to "Be attitude for gains: 1. High speed sight 2. Brave heart 3. Brother love". Throughout the battle, arrows will appear in the background showing that walls are about to appear, and where to move to avoid crashing into them. Since the screen scrolls pretty quickly at this point, 'high speed sight' is needed to spot both the arrows and, in some cases, the even smaller gaps in the areas you need to move into. 'Brave heart' follows from that; don't be afraid of crashing into walls or of chasing down the red Golets unit as it breaks off. 'Brother love' comes into play after you destroy the red unit, because the blue unit, which until then had been content to occasionally bombard you from above, starts attacking you with its own, entirely different pattern.
e.g. Golets, the boss of stage 2-B, advises you to "Be attitude for gains: 1. High speed sight 2. Brave heart 3. Brother love". Throughout the battle, arrows will appear in the background showing that walls are about to appear, and where to move to avoid crashing into them. Since the screen scrolls pretty quickly at this point, 'high speed sight' is needed to spot both the arrows and, in some cases, the even smaller gaps in the areas you need to move into. 'Brave heart' follows from that; don't be afraid of crashing into walls or of chasing down the red Golets unit as it breaks off. 'Brother love' comes into play after you destroy the red unit, because the blue unit, which until then had been content to occasionally bombard you from above, starts attacking you with its own, entirely different pattern.
How scoring works in all versions of Turtles in Time/Hyperstone Heist. Each enemy is only worth 1 point, including bosses in the arcade original. In the SNES version, 1 mook killed with normal attacks = 1 point, ragdoll slamming a Foot Soldier = 2 points, and throwing them at the screen = 3 points. You get extra lives every 200 points in this version. Hyperstone Heist works a bit differently. Since the throw at the screen move is missing, everything is worth 1 point, but more enemies are thrown at you. You get extra lives every odd number. Ex: 100 --> 300 --> 500, etc. In both console versions, bosses are worth 5 points, and any remaining life bar the player(s) is added to their score at the end of each level.
Unique to HH, Super Shredder has a unique fall animation after beating him. TiT (SNES), they just take his sprite and flip it upside down, and he falls off-screen. Kinda weak.
Unique to HH, Super Shredder has a unique fall animation after beating him. TiT (SNES), they just take his sprite and flip it upside down, and he falls off-screen. Kinda weak.
In Spiderweb Software's recent game Queen's Wish 2, almost any occupied base you go into actually has bathrooms that you can find. Usually a small two by two room with two pots with a puddle underneath to indicate it. The company often has such places in their other games, which is a nice touch you don't see elsewhere in fantasy RPGs.
Shiver, Frye, and Big Man are not available to play your children's card game during a 2 day long concert
While basic by the standards of the 90s/2000s, it's amazing all of the details the original Final Fight has. The large sprites, enemy types with completely different attack patterns, and how they interact with the environment. The amount moves Haggar, Guy, and Cody can do and play completely differently from each other was unique for the time. Contrasted with games like Double Dragon and its clones, where the players were usually playing the same character, but a different colored sprite. A neat little story detail is the game takes place over the course of a single day and early morning.
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When RTS games have 'realistic' vehicle handling. It bugs me when a wheeled vehicle just rotates, but I really like it when the devs put in the extra effort to make wheeled vehicles move forward then turn to face a direction. The Warthog in Halo Wars does this really well, same with the vehicles in Homeworld Deserts of Kharak, but the first time I really noticed this being well done was C&C Generals.
So I just watched a playthrough of a game called "Crying is not Enough", and the game isn't good, but I thought they did some interesting stuff with audiologs.
Sometimes the logs would be super realistic and interesting - one dude just repeats "god help us" over and over for about thirty seconds. I thought that was pretty cool. Audio logs in games always kind of bugged me because they don't make any sense for how humans actually use note taking devices.
Nobody records audio letters like a lot of video games treat it - "dear Frank, remember to do these three things and by the way the safe combo is 1234 and all our money is in it" - and then the guy leaves it on a desk, because that makes more sense than just talking to Frank or giving him a procedure on a piece of paper. Or the ones that are just like 2 minutes of gloating about the research that doomed the world or whatever, failing to realize that scientists are so miserly about their work that they would never do this before the thesis was published.
The idea of audiologs that are actually just people having breakdowns or saying their goodbyes to family or trying to record a last minute will is way more interesting and worldbuilding than just treating a recorder like an expensive pen and paper.
On the other hand if all the audiologs were like that I would probably stop listening since I can see most stuff getting kind of depressing or repetitive.
Sometimes the logs would be super realistic and interesting - one dude just repeats "god help us" over and over for about thirty seconds. I thought that was pretty cool. Audio logs in games always kind of bugged me because they don't make any sense for how humans actually use note taking devices.
Nobody records audio letters like a lot of video games treat it - "dear Frank, remember to do these three things and by the way the safe combo is 1234 and all our money is in it" - and then the guy leaves it on a desk, because that makes more sense than just talking to Frank or giving him a procedure on a piece of paper. Or the ones that are just like 2 minutes of gloating about the research that doomed the world or whatever, failing to realize that scientists are so miserly about their work that they would never do this before the thesis was published.
The idea of audiologs that are actually just people having breakdowns or saying their goodbyes to family or trying to record a last minute will is way more interesting and worldbuilding than just treating a recorder like an expensive pen and paper.
On the other hand if all the audiologs were like that I would probably stop listening since I can see most stuff getting kind of depressing or repetitive.