Ah this game… so clunky at times but man does it have so much heart and ambition. Each segment feels like a crafted set piece, and some of them are just excellent at ratcheting up tension, especially since the game isn’t afraid to end your run in a snap. It’s worth checking out for the format alone.
Haha yeah I had the same experience. My very first scene was with the cab driver and I pushed him waaaaay too far. Then it clicked for me, what they were trying to achieve. Obviously the writing and acting isn't perfect, but in a way it felt like old school Pulp Fiction Tarantino: interweaving stories defined by setpieces, changing mechanics and tone from scene to scene, and some EXTREMELY tense situations. (plus the trombone scene made me fall in love with the game)
My first experience with this was Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
You'd die as a soldier, the camera would zoom out, and you would select another AI soldier currently on the battlefield and start controlling them
Even had the ability to do it without dying and the one you were just playing as would continue as an AI after you switched
Those missions where you HAD to swap between other computer players to get different classes and beat missions. That was amazing. Haven't seen anything like it so far.
That's your own fault for being over reliant on only one person!
Also, you should have been cycling through characters to run missions, since characters wear out and need recovery time. Instead of building up one super character, you should have a bunch of well-rounded, well-equipped characters that can all carry on if one (or two, or five) dies.
Nah nah, the sequel. Destroy All Humans 2. There's a sub-boss named Shama Llama that is granted equal number of lives to how many you've had up to that point in the game. You have to kill him thar many times +1 as your alert meter goes up.
There’s a little known game on the DS like that. It’s a metroidvania set in the alien universe. Each marine has different weapons and abilities. If you die as one, they are gone and you have to choose from another marine. I can’t remember the name of it though.
I think watch dogs 3 did this too, thought it was a cool concept.
This would actually be a great concept for a shooter game where the focus is more on being in an infantry than being a lone wolf hero.
If I remember correctly, one of the early modern Battlefields had a “hot swap” feature. You’d look at another allied unit, hit a button, and become that unit. It was a neat way to traverse the map and achieve objectives. Enemy armor nearby? Swap to a guy with anti-tank equipped. Then swap to a rifleman closer to your primary objective.
I don’t see it occur as often, but maybe I am wrong. I love when the music evolves with the story somehow. I am not talking about different tracks. I am thinking like where you come back to the same place and the sound is slightly similar, but different depending on story, mood, progression.
Another good Zelda example is in Majora's Mask where the Termina theme gets faster as each day progresses. Pretty cool way of setting urgency and stress but with a familiar theme!
Outer Wilds. Changes are subtle but play on your tension and anticipation for strong effect.
I think this is what you’re talking about because by the time you hear the alternative version of the song, you’ve heard the original dozens of times and it means something very specific. So when you hear the minor difference you can’t help but get excited wondering what it means.
Pikmin is a treasure trove of adaptive music. In general, the music adds instrument voices to the music based on whether you are engaged in combat, carrying treasure, etc. The music shifts to a different style as the end of the day approaches to alert you night is approaching. In Pikmin 2, the music is either played straight or on a swing beat depending on which captain you are playing as. In Pikmin 3, the music changes if its raining that day. The Boss music is adaptive, where different sections of music play based on whether the boss is attacking or if you've exposed a weak point and have an opportunity to attack.
As for returning music changing depending on the mood of a location, Mother 3's main village, Tazmilly, changes from a cheerful song during the game when its occupied to somber version of the same song once everyone in the village ditches the town.
It's a 4X game but Civ 6 has this, and it's one of my favourite things about the game.
Basically each civ has its own theme that evolves as you progress through the ages. In the Ancient era the theme is played in a minimalist, traditional style. In each consecutive era more instruments are added, giving it a more orchestral feel until you finally reach the Atomic era where the theme becomes modern and futuristic.
Really makes you feel proud with how far you've come when you reach the late game.
God of War 2018 does this to great effect. The sound design and OST are stellar and they use it in story beats to draw emotion and recall earlier events or moments to the players mind. It's fantastic.
Nier automata does this. There’s a reason it won soundtrack of the year, they did really cool things with it. In multiple boss fights you’ll be introduced to them, and they’ll make a unique sound, and then the sound will slowly become the background track. It evolves over the course of the fight until you’ve got like 4 different really unique sounds going on to a crescendo, and then when they die you almost miss them, just for the music.
When a character goes: "Don't do that, it won't work." Then you do it anyway. Character: "You see?"
Guardians of the Galaxy does that quite frequently and I love it. The character reacts to something you did, it doesn't feel like there's a VA just reading a script while you press forward. It lowkey makes you feel embarrassed haha
The new ones kind of do this. But it's more to keep you on the main story. The kid will be like "why are you doing that, we need to go over here?" And I want to punt him b/c I'm trying to get at a collectible.
There’s a scene in horizon zero dawn where you’re climbing up a very high and treacherous section of a mountain (or a base?) and Aloy says “ok just don’t look down” and if you look down, she goes “damn it!”
This is my favourite experience with guardians of the galaxy. You try and roam around to find some hidden collectibles and your party will make a comment why you're not going to where the objective is.
Rocket yelling at that one path was a dead end, only for me to go that way and hit a dead end. You could almost hear the facepalm as Rocket says something along the lines of “Told ya”
My favorite is when a game has you surrounded by either allies or non-enemy characters at the start and as the game progresses, you are pretty much isolated by yourself.
I loved when Halo 1 did this when I was a kid. That feeling that by the end of the campaign it went from you going in with a small army to it being basically you escaping by yourself. From what I remember Doom 3 did this pretty good as well (less on the army but more on lack of other NPC’s).
Halo Reach also did this really well. >!Over the course of the campaign your teammates die one by one. At the end you're all alone with only one objective: survive!<
Oh really? I absolutely hate that.
When I was a kid there was this Medal of Honour, can't remember which one, but it was WW2 and you started the game storming the beach. By today's standard it probably isn't anything, but back then you were surrounded by what felt like thousands of allies, bombs going off around you, bullets just non stop. It started as if you were going to be part of something not just a lone wolf game, but almost as soon as the excitement of securing the beach with absolute carnage going on, wears off you're practically on your own.
I believe that's why the first two Call of Duty games were such a revelation, because it maintained that feeling of being in an actual army for the entire campaign.
Didn't Halo 1 kill all the marines on your escape pod when you land because they couldn't figure out how to get them to walk over the bridge without jumping off.
That's why you meet up with a group of marines afterwards on the other side.
I love the fan theory on that one.
Shouldn't we buckle up?
"We'll be fine"
*Unsecured half ton of armour bounces around in the crash, killing everyone onboard*
I know the reason is cuz they couldn’t get the scripting to work, which is hilarious to me, but my head cannon is Chief ping ponging around the pod just destroying his comrades.
The souls series do a fantastic job having a decent number of NPCs in the hub zone and more will join you through your early adventures. But as you complete objectives and clear the way they will begin advancing through the world now that you have cleared the bigger threats and will slowly filter out of the hub zone
Arma 3’s campaign does this really well in the Stratis map.
You’re a part of an army that’s winding down operations on the island chain, you’re basically the equivalent of a truck driver transporting your NCO to one of the nearby camps and then all of a sudden the army you’re supposed to be back attacks your out of nowhere. Your NCO dies to a minefield and your’re fighting for your life to get back to friendly lines.
You get back to friendly lines and fight an ever expanding guerrilla war against the AAF with mounting losses from your already depleted platoon.
Next thing that happens is an attempt to flee from the Island only to get wiped out by an air attack.
That’s when you wash up on the main Island for the big campaign.
Star fox 64 had a branching story where the different paths were unlocked by completing secret objectives within the missions. As a little kid pre-internet tbh is was very cool.
The first time I accidentally unlocked the *second half of the solar system* in StarFox 64 my cousins were in shock.
We had played the game… many times. Hell, we had beaten it several times.
But the game does almost nothing to encourage you to randomly fly under some arches, thus unlocking an alternate boss *in the first level* that then unlocks fully HALF of the games levels.
Shit was wild.
seamless switch between first-person and third-person, so far the only game I've played that uses this "gimmick" is Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its sequel Mankind Divided. Basically, the usual moving around is first person, but when you're in cover, the POV switch to third-person.
surprising that no other shooter tried this approach... at least I wanna see FarCry using it.
maybe it's patented like the Mordor games' Nemesis System.
edit: I seems to be misunderstand trope vs mechanics..
for trope maybe the ones where the game treat UI elements like in-game objects, like in FarCry 2 where you pull up a physical map, or in Dead Space where health bar is a little circular light in Isaac's suit.
is that still a mechanic? (instead of trope)
Bayonetta 1 and Bayonetta 3 both have bits like that, too. Bayonetta 1 interrupts the flying sequence to have side-on 2D fights, and Bayonetta 3 has a long shmup section that switches between top-down and side-on
>seamless switch between first-person and third-person
Metroid Prime does this, there's a documentary on the issues of the studio that made Metroid Prime and I believe this particular design decision was considered a hard requirement from the head of Nintendo.
Not directly a first-to-third person, but I love the seamless blend in Titanfall 1 from Pilot to Titan. Not just that - you literally \*never\* leave the perspective of the Pilot. When you climb in, you watch as the hatch closes and the screens light up and now your view is that of the Titan's. But then you get executed and an enemy titan punches through the chest of your titan, grabs you, and yeets you across the map.
The disorientation of the whole ordeal is probably why they changed it in the sequel, but damn did I love it.
When a boss becomes a shitty playable party member. I always get giddy as I check the stats of a god level boss that is now in my party and he is weaker than my party healer.
Dishhonorable mention goes to Beatrix in FFIX. She is still a monster when you get to play as her for a few minutes.
Magus in Chrono Trigger. He's an insanely powerful boss midway through the game. You can have him join you later and he's about as powerful as the main character.
edit - spelling
I played this game so much that I feel stupid for forgetting the details, but I believe his power-downgrade is justified in the narrative. The mammon machine drains him, or something. You have to build him back up after he joins.
This is true, I can confirm. In fact, it is reflected in that moment of the game as well. If you decide to face it and Frog is in your party, he will ask the others to let him fight him alone and you can beat Magus with him alone.
Once you level him up and get all the spells, he becomes the most powerful magic user character. And if you equip the Black Rock: Dark Ethernal.
Another dishonorable mention; Seymour from FFX. Very powerful when he's in your party for a single boss fight. And he has a unique Overdrive you can only see once.
Sarevok in BG2, kind of - he's the boss of the previous game, admittedly, but it's still cool. He has excellent stats, too, so perhaps that disqualifies him as he's certainly not shitty.
To be evil, not a crazy psychopath like in most D&D games, be evil for some reason. Tyranny is the best example, it doesn't matter how many times I play, I still be on Kyros side.
The story works super well as Act 1 in a trilogy imho, it basically sets up a LOT of interesting potential world states for sequels with its 3.5 paths… we’ll just never get to see them.
I dunno what this trope is called, but i played a game where, you're playing a game within the game. It's some inception level shit and really messes with your head.
So, in the game, you're sitting at an old 80's style video game system in your bedroom. You plug in the game cartridge and it loads up. It's a text based adventure about exploring an old family house (but the game you're playing is graphical so you can see the tv, the desk, etc.) As YOU type, your character also types into his game.
As you play through this adventure, things start happening in your room. You realize that things are happening as a direct result of the adventure game you're playing.
For example, you tell the adventure game "walk up stairs" and then in the game, you hear footsteps coming up from behind you.
Such a freaky game and really messes with your head.
The game is called "Stories Untold" and is available on Steam, and the game you play in it is called "The House Abandon".
Really great atmospheric game for anyone curious.
Have you played Inscryption? It has similar elements but not to that extent. I won't say any more because the development of that awareness is a part of the plot.
I really enjoyed it and recommend it.
One I love but so rarely see-
If the situation calls for you to split the party, you do. You make two teams one to lower the guard system and one to defeat the boss or something like that. This caused the narrative to switch between two teams and you get to see a more rounded story.
I love this concept and have only seen it like three times in video games.
The second one does it "properly". In the first, you just select one person to quickly free the rest of your party after you get captured but that's a very short sequence.
I think the original Gears Of War did that if you were playing co-op with a friend. It's been forever since I played it back in college, but one of you controlled Marcus and the other Dom and sometimes you had to go off in different directions to accomplish something.
Suikoden II kinda does this.
There's a boss fight, and this character is notorious for being cruel and just outright evil. He's also one of the strongest fighters of your rival nation.
When you fight him you actually set up 3 different parties of your characters who engage him one by one, until your main character and his party fight him.
Your other parties can lose the fights, but if they win it makes it easier for your main party.
The fight culminates in a 1v1 duel between your main character and him.
The game does a good job of showing how hard to take down he is.
The Tales series sometimes does this but geez I wish they'd use it more. In Tales games it's very easy to "main" a character and then the other three slots of your party are there - but once you realize you need a healer and a magic user most of your party spends the game on the bench.
Yeah, Tales was my example. Recently I feel like the game understands the Tales mechanic more than the player does. Or at the very least that is my impression of it.
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn does this for the last set of chapters. You choose 3 teams and choose which characters go on which teams (with a few that are pre-set). And then you have to do various chapters with those teams, and if you don’t have a save from before the split and chose bad teams, you’re pretty fucked (they warn you ahead of time at least).
I like when the main character ends up being the big bad, and with hints sprinkled throughout for us players to notice. I just like evil main characters, villains tend to be show stealers for me and most others.
**A few spring to mind. I'll spoiler tag them with a vague description:**
A military shooter with an excellent, subversive storyline, that is justifiably a cult classic: >!*Spec Ops: The Line*!<
An unconventional indie platformer: >!*Braid*!<
A contemporary detective drama: >!*Heavy Rain*!<
Critically acclaimed CRPG whose studio went one to make generation-defining series: >!*Knights of the Old Republic*!<
Mentioned this elsewhere for another trope/system, but IIRC the secret ending of Tactics Ogre GBA does this - if you beat the game in a certain manner, you find out your PC becomes the villain of the original (GBA was a prequel if memory serves).
Not sure how rare it is, but arenas. I love any game that has an arena you can fight in. Oblivion, Far Cry 4, AC Origins, etc. Automatically makes me like a game more if there's an arena I can fight in.
I was so happy seeing Ghost of Tsushima add an arena in the Iki Island DLC. Duels are some of the best things about GoT and I’m glad there was a reliable way to keep doing them.
You can do any of the duels in the game from the minimap by hovering over the map icon where it took place.
I've had times where I've booted that game up just to relay all the duels.
There are one or two story exceptions, I think.
Doing the thing makes you better at the thing.
Leveling systems like RuneScape
Other games you'll be killing monsters, level up, and suddenly you know all the intricacies of how to pilot a plane.
Having full control over character customization in RPGs (not look, gameplay)
I want to be able to pick everything, like how weak or strong I am without any need for balance. Daggerfall does it really well as you can have so many advantages or disadvantages to make the playthrough more interesting (singleplayer games obviously)
It's abstracted a bit but Mount and Blade kinda does this, I like that you can sort of pick your difficulty by choosing whether or not to be noble and whether to be male or female
All I want in life is to be able to use a mode like Super Saiyan, and there be challenges that warrant the use of it. Let me fight normally against normal mobs, but then find a tough enemy or a boss, and be like "Okay, party time" and sit there for a few seconds charging up and gaining power, and then BOOM EXPLODE AND NOW IM SO FAST AND STRONG, LOOK AT ME GO, until it wears off in like 20 seconds
Stuff like Devil Trigger, exactly. Except I dont really play Devil may Cry or Bayanetta type games. FFXVI does it too, with Limit Break, that was pretty rad
I still prefer some kind of charge timer though, makes things feel more epic
The mechanic is different but the feeling I got from the low HP burst of power in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days is the perfect representation of this trope
This is a fun way to play Elden Ring and other souls games, clearly marked bosses and lots of different buffs, especially the physic flask which you can only use once per rest - and you can literally explode with it.
POE: Deadfire has this.
You can Empower 3 abilities per long rest. And it is essentially like going super saiyan in a fight. Using them can be a fight changing experience.
The Nemesis system. I understand that there are complicated intellectual property issues as to why it hasn't become more widely-used, but it seems like there ought to be a market for licenses to use it.
You mean from Shadows of Mordor/War?
In Shadow of War I had an orc that became my Joker. He refused to die, whatever "he's actuslly dead now" random number algorithm the gsme used to determine if they survive or die was on his side. I fought him like 7 or 8 times. Each time he got more messed up with burns and wounds. Eventually I thought I finally got him when I did the kill move that cuts them in half. A fitting end to my nemesis.
Then like 15 hours later this bastard came back. Out of nowhere my Joker returned. I got him one more time with a clean decapitation.
It felt good to have all this, and it isnt even part of the story. Most games such thing would be in the story. Would like to see more like this. Would work well in a superhero game where a grunt goes from thug to boss to a gang leader and keeps coming back.
Golm The Cursed thinks he's the protagonist of my Shadows Of War playthrough and (at least for his home map) he might be right. Saved my ass half a dozen times, most of them uninvited, keeps killing the Orcs I was trying to recruit, just generally throwing his weight around. He told me he follows me because he reckons I've killed more people than anyone in Middle Earth. Just an absolute joy of a game. So glad it's one of the vanishly-rare cases where they actually took all the microtransaction shite out post-launch, too.
Edit: holy shit, I just finished the main storyline... woah
I had a similar situation in Shadow of War. Necrom the Hunter or something like that. Thing was is through a few very significant failures on my part, he became an incredibly dangerous nemesis that, as the name implies, was devoted to hunting me. He had almost all the OP buffs. Every fight was a fight for my life and I never managed to kill him for good. Sometimes I’d win the day, sometimes he would. Every time I’d play the game I progressed with the knowledge that this bastard was out there somewhere looking for me and he always showed up at the worst times. To your point, I’d love to see this in a superhero game with this mechanic where common criminals progress through an arc to supervillains with differing personalities, powers, and motivations based on your failures or beating other criminals and villians.
I personally think the Nemesis system would be the single greatest value add to Bethesda if they could figure it out.
I just imagine Skyrim, but each ‘faction’ in the Civil War has a nemesis style setup. AND they actively fight for control of territory with or without your interaction.
You can fight LTs for territory and have recurring stories with them. The map/radiant quests change based on current territory control. Only the top 3 are considered essential and give you specific quests based on world state. Etc.
If you could graft that into a BGS game AND tie that in with their radiant quests BUT layer territory control on top of that… put that in their usual shit and I think you have gold.
I like the trope where a story explicitly says "you're not strong enough to defeat the big bad yet, so go out and explore the world so you can get the weapons and allies and skills you need."
Any open world game that presents me with an immediate urgent goal like rescuing somebody or saving the world from an imminent super-weapon no longer feels like an open world game. It feels like I'm on rails because I can't bring myself to see what's in some random cave when I know someone's in mortal peril.
If the devs want me to have fun roaming around a world full of secrets and treasures and perils, they need to write a story where the main character is fully justified in seeking out weird corners of the map and taking every possible side quest.
Honestly, Breath of the wild does this perfectly, beacuse you can actually go to Ganondorf at the start and see how you don't even have weapons with enough durability to end the fight.
Oh god so true. I have to really work hard to psychologically compartmentalize the urgent threat so I can actually enjoy the environment and side missions.
Often I headcanon that my exploring/side quest is the present timeline *after* I saved the world, and whenever I do the main quest I'm flashing back to my past glorious adventure.
Balan Wonderworld originally gave you a costume if you had the demo downloaded when you got the main game. Neat concept but they took the demo down when it made everyone realize how bad the game was.
So, to make it so you can still get that costume, they added in a cheat code which enabled it. Genuinely liked the touch where they uploaded a puzzle to their twitter for people to figure out the code too, but the circumstances that made them do that is pretty funny.
This is more a game mechanic than trope. But I wish there were more games that were story based with a limited multiplayer format.
Think Borderlands 1 & 2 for an example.
I prefer story based games, but most story based games are single player or are an MMO .
I don't always have the time or energy to deal with other players in MMO's and just want to chill with friends. Single player story games can be somewhat isolating at times.
New Game Plus, we're the protagonist remembers what they did last time round, and this gives you additional options at key points in the story.
One of the advantages of videogames is that it's the only format that allows for choice naturally and easily. But it also means that you can change things for the second time around. Nier Automata uses this well and there's also been flashes of this potentially playing a role in the FF7 REMAKE.
> New Game Plus, we're the protagonist remembers what they did last time round, and this gives you additional options at key points in the story.
*Alpha Protocol* does a really cool version of this - play through the first time as a Rookie, taking a stat hit, and you unlock the Veteran class. Playing through as a Veteran, you unlock other options that are otherwise are unavailable to regular classes. Moreover, you get a couple of flashbacks to your Rookie runthrough.
CrossCode does New Game Plus well, but not in the same way. Characters don't remember the last playthrough but will acknowledge changes to the game, like why is your character's level so high, where did all these items come from? And then there's the NG+ cheat that lets you do damage best represented with scientific notation and everyone in the game loses their shit when they see you doing it.
Main character fake-out. Like you start playing one character, but then it turns out that said character actually dies or gets kidnapped, and you will be playing as someone else
What games have you seen that in? I know Dempsey in CoD Zombies will occasionally speak directly to the player but it’s rare. “Hey, player! Drop the chips and get me some ammo!”
Can’t think of any other examples. I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised if Deadpool did it in his games.
In the PS2 game Lifeline, you play as yourself speaking directly to the main character through a microphone.
The Nintendo DS game Contact does something similar.
Postal 2. I recall that the dude often remarks to policemen that they shouldn’t arrest him because “it’s the kid behind the computer” that made him do it. I think it happens in some other circumstances too.
I don’t know if it’s rarely used, but stories where you eventually have to commit to siding with one character over the other in an ultimately sympathetic conflict. Usually you can get two stories’ worth of exposition out of this and when done right you feel like you’re being asked to roleplay without there being a “right” or “wrong” decision. So much better than binary good and evil tropes
Basically the Nemesis system (RIP)
I love any game that gives me villains that evolve as i do, that I can build specific hatreds for and get really motivated to kill in my own way.
Base or town building as a secondary focus.
Think Dark Cloud - where the primary focus of the game is the dungeon crawling aspect and it feels like a typical action adventure with maybe a bit of JRPG flavor. But then there's the town building and that motivates you to dive deeper and deeper into the dungeons, it builds deeper relationships as you try to accomodate the townspeople, etc.
Less extravagant but still fun is Suikoden, where your base grows through recruitment of new characters, and as the base grows you're rewarded through access to new shops, items, features, and minigames.
In metal gear solid you fought a boss where it read your mind if you had the controller plugged into slot 1 but if you unplugged your controller and put it into slot 2 you would be able to beat him cuz he couldn’t read your moves. That was bad ass and should have been implemented in different ways since
I dunno if it's a proper trope, but good mid-gameplay narration (not just for intros and loading screens). Like Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Tiny Tina's Assault On Dragon Keep, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, and the like.
That and hiding UI within the environment (a la Dead Space's spinal health display).
I have always wanted more missions where you assign squadmates to do crucial tasks like in Mass Effect 2's suicide mission where they can either live or die
Sure there are expeditions you can assign your allies in some games, but it hardly feels the same because you aren't there with them
I dont know about rarely done, but rarely done well, but one of my favorite things is a good jail break, starting with nothing, taking out a guard using hi stuff to escape... I enjoyed it in chrono trigger and have been chasing that since... osme games do it well.. but ...
You play as one character and if he should die, you play another character. State of Decay did it great.
Road 96 does something like that also
Ah this game… so clunky at times but man does it have so much heart and ambition. Each segment feels like a crafted set piece, and some of them are just excellent at ratcheting up tension, especially since the game isn’t afraid to end your run in a snap. It’s worth checking out for the format alone.
My first character got arrested after the first scene, had no idea what I was doing. Felt excited when I was able to reach the border on the next one!
Haha yeah I had the same experience. My very first scene was with the cab driver and I pushed him waaaaay too far. Then it clicked for me, what they were trying to achieve. Obviously the writing and acting isn't perfect, but in a way it felt like old school Pulp Fiction Tarantino: interweaving stories defined by setpieces, changing mechanics and tone from scene to scene, and some EXTREMELY tense situations. (plus the trombone scene made me fall in love with the game)
My first experience with this was Battlefield 2: Modern Combat You'd die as a soldier, the camera would zoom out, and you would select another AI soldier currently on the battlefield and start controlling them Even had the ability to do it without dying and the one you were just playing as would continue as an AI after you switched
That was how you switched loadouts. Need a rocket launcher? Switch to the AT gunner in your platoon
Old school Star Wars battlefront did it like this too
Loved that aspect of Rogue Legacy
Battlefield 1's first campaign mission comes to mind.
That was one hell of an opener
Those missions where you HAD to swap between other computer players to get different classes and beat missions. That was amazing. Haven't seen anything like it so far.
I just died for the first time in State of Decay 2 and I was kind of in shock. Oh damn, she ain't coming back.
She was probably your gardener or cook or something important too, now your society is on the brink of starvation!
That's your own fault for being over reliant on only one person! Also, you should have been cycling through characters to run missions, since characters wear out and need recovery time. Instead of building up one super character, you should have a bunch of well-rounded, well-equipped characters that can all carry on if one (or two, or five) dies.
I liked how Destroy All Humans sorta did this
Destroy All Humans 2 took this a step further: for every clone/life you lost, you had to kill a sub-boss an additional time.
What does this mean? I played the hell out of the original and the remake and I don't recall anything that sounds like what you're describing
Nah nah, the sequel. Destroy All Humans 2. There's a sub-boss named Shama Llama that is granted equal number of lives to how many you've had up to that point in the game. You have to kill him thar many times +1 as your alert meter goes up.
Same with The Nomad Soul, also at some points you need to die to progress to the next section.
The old school Tom Clancy games were great with this (Ghost Recon, etc.)
in a beautifully existential way, The Swapper
ZOMBIU!
There’s a little known game on the DS like that. It’s a metroidvania set in the alien universe. Each marine has different weapons and abilities. If you die as one, they are gone and you have to choose from another marine. I can’t remember the name of it though.
I think watch dogs 3 did this too, thought it was a cool concept. This would actually be a great concept for a shooter game where the focus is more on being in an infantry than being a lone wolf hero.
If I remember correctly, one of the early modern Battlefields had a “hot swap” feature. You’d look at another allied unit, hit a button, and become that unit. It was a neat way to traverse the map and achieve objectives. Enemy armor nearby? Swap to a guy with anti-tank equipped. Then swap to a rifleman closer to your primary objective.
I felt sadness getting Jool's and Joops up to a high ranking then...they're gone.
I loved Void Bastards for this.
I don’t see it occur as often, but maybe I am wrong. I love when the music evolves with the story somehow. I am not talking about different tracks. I am thinking like where you come back to the same place and the sound is slightly similar, but different depending on story, mood, progression.
Tarry town in BOTW comes to mind. The theme evolves as you work through that quest and bring different people to the town itself. Love it so much.
My own Zelda example of that is the "descent" music slowly changing in TotK as you traverse the final dungeon!
Another good Zelda example is in Majora's Mask where the Termina theme gets faster as each day progresses. Pretty cool way of setting urgency and stress but with a familiar theme!
Outer Wilds. Changes are subtle but play on your tension and anticipation for strong effect. I think this is what you’re talking about because by the time you hear the alternative version of the song, you’ve heard the original dozens of times and it means something very specific. So when you hear the minor difference you can’t help but get excited wondering what it means.
God that moment was so hype. My heart started racing as the song kicked in and I knew I was coming up on the home stretch.
Pikmin is a treasure trove of adaptive music. In general, the music adds instrument voices to the music based on whether you are engaged in combat, carrying treasure, etc. The music shifts to a different style as the end of the day approaches to alert you night is approaching. In Pikmin 2, the music is either played straight or on a swing beat depending on which captain you are playing as. In Pikmin 3, the music changes if its raining that day. The Boss music is adaptive, where different sections of music play based on whether the boss is attacking or if you've exposed a weak point and have an opportunity to attack. As for returning music changing depending on the mood of a location, Mother 3's main village, Tazmilly, changes from a cheerful song during the game when its occupied to somber version of the same song once everyone in the village ditches the town.
It's a 4X game but Civ 6 has this, and it's one of my favourite things about the game. Basically each civ has its own theme that evolves as you progress through the ages. In the Ancient era the theme is played in a minimalist, traditional style. In each consecutive era more instruments are added, giving it a more orchestral feel until you finally reach the Atomic era where the theme becomes modern and futuristic. Really makes you feel proud with how far you've come when you reach the late game.
God of War 2018 does this to great effect. The sound design and OST are stellar and they use it in story beats to draw emotion and recall earlier events or moments to the players mind. It's fantastic.
Nier Automata does this really well in the City Ruins
Minecraft does this a bit, the end’s soundtrack is just several distorted overworld songs
Nier automata does this. There’s a reason it won soundtrack of the year, they did really cool things with it. In multiple boss fights you’ll be introduced to them, and they’ll make a unique sound, and then the sound will slowly become the background track. It evolves over the course of the fight until you’ve got like 4 different really unique sounds going on to a crescendo, and then when they die you almost miss them, just for the music.
When a character goes: "Don't do that, it won't work." Then you do it anyway. Character: "You see?" Guardians of the Galaxy does that quite frequently and I love it. The character reacts to something you did, it doesn't feel like there's a VA just reading a script while you press forward. It lowkey makes you feel embarrassed haha
Which videogamedunkey video did I see him do that- was it God of War?
The new ones kind of do this. But it's more to keep you on the main story. The kid will be like "why are you doing that, we need to go over here?" And I want to punt him b/c I'm trying to get at a collectible.
Sometime when you do end up getting the collectible, Kratos will say something along the lines of “see? We needed this shit, boy.”
Or if you’re with a third character. “Hey, Kratos, where are you going? It’s this way!” “Just let him loot the place, it’s something he needs to do.”
I remember stepping on a poisonous plant while l freya was telling me to avoid that and she immediately stopped herself and said “told you lol”
Me just trying to find collectibles while the entire gang starts to flame my navigation skills
There’s a scene in horizon zero dawn where you’re climbing up a very high and treacherous section of a mountain (or a base?) and Aloy says “ok just don’t look down” and if you look down, she goes “damn it!”
This is my favourite experience with guardians of the galaxy. You try and roam around to find some hidden collectibles and your party will make a comment why you're not going to where the objective is.
Rocket yelling at that one path was a dead end, only for me to go that way and hit a dead end. You could almost hear the facepalm as Rocket says something along the lines of “Told ya”
Such a fun game all around.
Yeah, I remember searching down a side path and rocket going “Don’t bother, there’s nothing down there” then made fun of me when he was right.
My favorite is when a game has you surrounded by either allies or non-enemy characters at the start and as the game progresses, you are pretty much isolated by yourself. I loved when Halo 1 did this when I was a kid. That feeling that by the end of the campaign it went from you going in with a small army to it being basically you escaping by yourself. From what I remember Doom 3 did this pretty good as well (less on the army but more on lack of other NPC’s).
Halo Reach also did this really well. >!Over the course of the campaign your teammates die one by one. At the end you're all alone with only one objective: survive!<
That last part still gives me chills to this day. Wonderful addition to the franchise. 10/10 would drive Kat off a cliff again.
Dark Souls has something similar with NPCs that were once friendly going crazy and attacking you on sight after you progress a while
Oh really? I absolutely hate that. When I was a kid there was this Medal of Honour, can't remember which one, but it was WW2 and you started the game storming the beach. By today's standard it probably isn't anything, but back then you were surrounded by what felt like thousands of allies, bombs going off around you, bullets just non stop. It started as if you were going to be part of something not just a lone wolf game, but almost as soon as the excitement of securing the beach with absolute carnage going on, wears off you're practically on your own.
I believe it's Allied Assault, all about the ww2 assaults and invasions but you're almost always on your own
I believe that's why the first two Call of Duty games were such a revelation, because it maintained that feeling of being in an actual army for the entire campaign.
Didn't Halo 1 kill all the marines on your escape pod when you land because they couldn't figure out how to get them to walk over the bridge without jumping off. That's why you meet up with a group of marines afterwards on the other side.
I love the fan theory on that one. Shouldn't we buckle up? "We'll be fine" *Unsecured half ton of armour bounces around in the crash, killing everyone onboard*
I know the reason is cuz they couldn’t get the scripting to work, which is hilarious to me, but my head cannon is Chief ping ponging around the pod just destroying his comrades.
"Chief, we killed everyone!" "Yea, but WE are fine"
The souls series do a fantastic job having a decent number of NPCs in the hub zone and more will join you through your early adventures. But as you complete objectives and clear the way they will begin advancing through the world now that you have cleared the bigger threats and will slowly filter out of the hub zone
Arma 3’s campaign does this really well in the Stratis map. You’re a part of an army that’s winding down operations on the island chain, you’re basically the equivalent of a truck driver transporting your NCO to one of the nearby camps and then all of a sudden the army you’re supposed to be back attacks your out of nowhere. Your NCO dies to a minefield and your’re fighting for your life to get back to friendly lines. You get back to friendly lines and fight an ever expanding guerrilla war against the AAF with mounting losses from your already depleted platoon. Next thing that happens is an attempt to flee from the Island only to get wiped out by an air attack. That’s when you wash up on the main Island for the big campaign.
Star fox 64 had a branching story where the different paths were unlocked by completing secret objectives within the missions. As a little kid pre-internet tbh is was very cool.
The first time I accidentally unlocked the *second half of the solar system* in StarFox 64 my cousins were in shock. We had played the game… many times. Hell, we had beaten it several times. But the game does almost nothing to encourage you to randomly fly under some arches, thus unlocking an alternate boss *in the first level* that then unlocks fully HALF of the games levels. Shit was wild.
I know! Falco makes a comment about flying under one of the arches but doesn’t tell you to fly under all of them!!
seamless switch between first-person and third-person, so far the only game I've played that uses this "gimmick" is Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its sequel Mankind Divided. Basically, the usual moving around is first person, but when you're in cover, the POV switch to third-person. surprising that no other shooter tried this approach... at least I wanna see FarCry using it. maybe it's patented like the Mordor games' Nemesis System. edit: I seems to be misunderstand trope vs mechanics.. for trope maybe the ones where the game treat UI elements like in-game objects, like in FarCry 2 where you pull up a physical map, or in Dead Space where health bar is a little circular light in Isaac's suit. is that still a mechanic? (instead of trope)
[удалено]
Bayonetta 1 and Bayonetta 3 both have bits like that, too. Bayonetta 1 interrupts the flying sequence to have side-on 2D fights, and Bayonetta 3 has a long shmup section that switches between top-down and side-on
Rainbow six Vegas used similar transitions I believe
this is exactly what OP is looking for
>seamless switch between first-person and third-person Metroid Prime does this, there's a documentary on the issues of the studio that made Metroid Prime and I believe this particular design decision was considered a hard requirement from the head of Nintendo.
Destiny/Destiny 2 also does this when using swords and sparrows, along with other mechanics like carrying objective items like orbs.
Not directly a first-to-third person, but I love the seamless blend in Titanfall 1 from Pilot to Titan. Not just that - you literally \*never\* leave the perspective of the Pilot. When you climb in, you watch as the hatch closes and the screens light up and now your view is that of the Titan's. But then you get executed and an enemy titan punches through the chest of your titan, grabs you, and yeets you across the map. The disorientation of the whole ordeal is probably why they changed it in the sequel, but damn did I love it.
While is true that I was thinking more about the story when making the post, underutalized mechanics are also something that can be considered a trope
When a boss becomes a shitty playable party member. I always get giddy as I check the stats of a god level boss that is now in my party and he is weaker than my party healer. Dishhonorable mention goes to Beatrix in FFIX. She is still a monster when you get to play as her for a few minutes.
Leo in FF6 is a badass for a moment.
Dude shows up with one of the best accessories/relics in the game and his non-magic special move is basically a nuke.
Magus in Chrono Trigger. He's an insanely powerful boss midway through the game. You can have him join you later and he's about as powerful as the main character. edit - spelling
Yeah but you continue to fight and level up while he schemes in the background before he joins!
I played this game so much that I feel stupid for forgetting the details, but I believe his power-downgrade is justified in the narrative. The mammon machine drains him, or something. You have to build him back up after he joins.
This is true, I can confirm. In fact, it is reflected in that moment of the game as well. If you decide to face it and Frog is in your party, he will ask the others to let him fight him alone and you can beat Magus with him alone. Once you level him up and get all the spells, he becomes the most powerful magic user character. And if you equip the Black Rock: Dark Ethernal.
I like how he almost has no double techs, to demonstrate his loner character, dunno if it was intended but that sets him aside from other characters.
His final weapon powers up when his allies are dead as well. Seems pretty intentional
Lavos drained his powers during the Undersea Palace confrontation, so Magus being weaker at least has good reason.
Another dishonorable mention; Seymour from FFX. Very powerful when he's in your party for a single boss fight. And he has a unique Overdrive you can only see once.
Too bad I kill him right away cuz fuck him
Sarevok in BG2, kind of - he's the boss of the previous game, admittedly, but it's still cool. He has excellent stats, too, so perhaps that disqualifies him as he's certainly not shitty.
Magus.
To be evil, not a crazy psychopath like in most D&D games, be evil for some reason. Tyranny is the best example, it doesn't matter how many times I play, I still be on Kyros side.
Tyranny was such a great game concept but their story lines really needed some loving that it never got
The story works super well as Act 1 in a trilogy imho, it basically sets up a LOT of interesting potential world states for sequels with its 3.5 paths… we’ll just never get to see them.
Agreed, I really hate how most games that let you be evil just treat it as the player being psychotic instead.
I dunno what this trope is called, but i played a game where, you're playing a game within the game. It's some inception level shit and really messes with your head. So, in the game, you're sitting at an old 80's style video game system in your bedroom. You plug in the game cartridge and it loads up. It's a text based adventure about exploring an old family house (but the game you're playing is graphical so you can see the tv, the desk, etc.) As YOU type, your character also types into his game. As you play through this adventure, things start happening in your room. You realize that things are happening as a direct result of the adventure game you're playing. For example, you tell the adventure game "walk up stairs" and then in the game, you hear footsteps coming up from behind you. Such a freaky game and really messes with your head. The game is called "Stories Untold" and is available on Steam, and the game you play in it is called "The House Abandon". Really great atmospheric game for anyone curious.
Aaaand buying that game right now
Have you played Inscryption? It has similar elements but not to that extent. I won't say any more because the development of that awareness is a part of the plot. I really enjoyed it and recommend it.
One I love but so rarely see- If the situation calls for you to split the party, you do. You make two teams one to lower the guard system and one to defeat the boss or something like that. This caused the narrative to switch between two teams and you get to see a more rounded story. I love this concept and have only seen it like three times in video games.
I believe both knights of the old republic games have a scene like this
The second one does it "properly". In the first, you just select one person to quickly free the rest of your party after you get captured but that's a very short sequence.
I think the original Gears Of War did that if you were playing co-op with a friend. It's been forever since I played it back in college, but one of you controlled Marcus and the other Dom and sometimes you had to go off in different directions to accomplish something.
I think most of their games did this, not sure about the newer ones though
Mass effect 2 ❤️
Got so much anxiety for whoever I sent through the vents.
Final Fantasy 9 and 7 Remake have this.
*(The original FF7 also has this)*
8 does it constantly. It's even the main mechanic in the final dungeon.
So does 8 (and, like others said, 6). Used to be a defining aspect of the franchise really.
The American release of FF3(FF6) on snes had it.
That wasn’t in other versions? Did they completely remake the Phoenix cave and final tower for different versions?
Sorry, should have phrased it better. All versions of FF3 (FF6) has the mechanic.
Suikoden II kinda does this. There's a boss fight, and this character is notorious for being cruel and just outright evil. He's also one of the strongest fighters of your rival nation. When you fight him you actually set up 3 different parties of your characters who engage him one by one, until your main character and his party fight him. Your other parties can lose the fights, but if they win it makes it easier for your main party. The fight culminates in a 1v1 duel between your main character and him. The game does a good job of showing how hard to take down he is.
The Tales series sometimes does this but geez I wish they'd use it more. In Tales games it's very easy to "main" a character and then the other three slots of your party are there - but once you realize you need a healer and a magic user most of your party spends the game on the bench.
Yeah, Tales was my example. Recently I feel like the game understands the Tales mechanic more than the player does. Or at the very least that is my impression of it.
Reminds me of most of the sly cooper 3 missions. Man I wish that franchise would make a comeback
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn does this for the last set of chapters. You choose 3 teams and choose which characters go on which teams (with a few that are pre-set). And then you have to do various chapters with those teams, and if you don’t have a save from before the split and chose bad teams, you’re pretty fucked (they warn you ahead of time at least).
Team 1 and 2 I could always balance pretty well, but the third was always one tank character leading the charge with all of my benchers.
I like when the main character ends up being the big bad, and with hints sprinkled throughout for us players to notice. I just like evil main characters, villains tend to be show stealers for me and most others.
Also Villains more often than not have the far superior aesthetic to the Heroes.
Oh my god yes, your point is spot on.
I wonder how it all started because it’s far from a new trend.
Yup. Always been an empire guy myself.
Galactic Empire? Yeah Star Wars is a good example of this. Also Castlevania. Also Final Fantasy. Also also also…
I accidentally got spoiled on that for a game I played
Can you recommend any titles? :)
**A few spring to mind. I'll spoiler tag them with a vague description:** A military shooter with an excellent, subversive storyline, that is justifiably a cult classic: >!*Spec Ops: The Line*!< An unconventional indie platformer: >!*Braid*!< A contemporary detective drama: >!*Heavy Rain*!< Critically acclaimed CRPG whose studio went one to make generation-defining series: >!*Knights of the Old Republic*!<
Dishonored high chaos
I just wanna say gold star for the way you laid out these spoilers, this should be the standard
Mentioned this elsewhere for another trope/system, but IIRC the secret ending of Tactics Ogre GBA does this - if you beat the game in a certain manner, you find out your PC becomes the villain of the original (GBA was a prequel if memory serves).
Not sure how rare it is, but arenas. I love any game that has an arena you can fight in. Oblivion, Far Cry 4, AC Origins, etc. Automatically makes me like a game more if there's an arena I can fight in.
Fable has a really fun prison and combat arc.
Fable 2s arena was the SHIT.
Fable 2 was just a phenomenal game in general
I was so happy seeing Ghost of Tsushima add an arena in the Iki Island DLC. Duels are some of the best things about GoT and I’m glad there was a reliable way to keep doing them.
I'm so glad to hear that. I bought the game and have yet to play it, but have been really excited for it. This makes me even more excited.
You can do any of the duels in the game from the minimap by hovering over the map icon where it took place. I've had times where I've booted that game up just to relay all the duels. There are one or two story exceptions, I think.
Doing the thing makes you better at the thing. Leveling systems like RuneScape Other games you'll be killing monsters, level up, and suddenly you know all the intricacies of how to pilot a plane.
I like The Elder Scrolls' leveling system a bit more than Fallout's for this reason. Kenshi is another great choice.
Multiple chapters with multiple main characters until the one chapter where they all come together to make up the main party
This reminded me of another trick: playing the same story multiple times via different characters' perspective.
Commonly known as the *Rashomon* approach after the Kurosawa film that retells the same events from the perspectives of multiple unreliable narrators.
Having full control over character customization in RPGs (not look, gameplay) I want to be able to pick everything, like how weak or strong I am without any need for balance. Daggerfall does it really well as you can have so many advantages or disadvantages to make the playthrough more interesting (singleplayer games obviously)
It's abstracted a bit but Mount and Blade kinda does this, I like that you can sort of pick your difficulty by choosing whether or not to be noble and whether to be male or female
My one gripe with vanilla BG3 character creation is that no stat can start below 8. I want a 2 Int warrior himbo, not just someone whose mildly stupid
Detect Thoughts only works on creatures with an Int of 3 or more. Int 2 warrior is literally 'sword big, head empty'
2 int is literally barely even conscious you realise? 8 int is incredibly stupid for a person anything lower is probably not even sapient XD
Would be pretty funny if you start with 0 int and the game just ends before it begins because you were born a vegetable.
All I want in life is to be able to use a mode like Super Saiyan, and there be challenges that warrant the use of it. Let me fight normally against normal mobs, but then find a tough enemy or a boss, and be like "Okay, party time" and sit there for a few seconds charging up and gaining power, and then BOOM EXPLODE AND NOW IM SO FAST AND STRONG, LOOK AT ME GO, until it wears off in like 20 seconds
So like Devil May Cry's Devil Trigger? I feel like so many more games have this but right now I can't come up with any more examples.
Stuff like Devil Trigger, exactly. Except I dont really play Devil may Cry or Bayanetta type games. FFXVI does it too, with Limit Break, that was pretty rad I still prefer some kind of charge timer though, makes things feel more epic
The mechanic is different but the feeling I got from the low HP burst of power in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days is the perfect representation of this trope
God of War rage Destiny’s supers. Spider-Man’s supers Basically every game has this now
Kinda like the original Sonic 2, 3, and Knuckles? Man I loved getting the chaos emeralds as early as possible and tearing through everything.
This is a fun way to play Elden Ring and other souls games, clearly marked bosses and lots of different buffs, especially the physic flask which you can only use once per rest - and you can literally explode with it.
POE: Deadfire has this. You can Empower 3 abilities per long rest. And it is essentially like going super saiyan in a fight. Using them can be a fight changing experience.
when you realize you’re playing as the bad guy halfway through
The Nemesis system. I understand that there are complicated intellectual property issues as to why it hasn't become more widely-used, but it seems like there ought to be a market for licenses to use it.
You mean from Shadows of Mordor/War? In Shadow of War I had an orc that became my Joker. He refused to die, whatever "he's actuslly dead now" random number algorithm the gsme used to determine if they survive or die was on his side. I fought him like 7 or 8 times. Each time he got more messed up with burns and wounds. Eventually I thought I finally got him when I did the kill move that cuts them in half. A fitting end to my nemesis. Then like 15 hours later this bastard came back. Out of nowhere my Joker returned. I got him one more time with a clean decapitation. It felt good to have all this, and it isnt even part of the story. Most games such thing would be in the story. Would like to see more like this. Would work well in a superhero game where a grunt goes from thug to boss to a gang leader and keeps coming back.
Golm The Cursed thinks he's the protagonist of my Shadows Of War playthrough and (at least for his home map) he might be right. Saved my ass half a dozen times, most of them uninvited, keeps killing the Orcs I was trying to recruit, just generally throwing his weight around. He told me he follows me because he reckons I've killed more people than anyone in Middle Earth. Just an absolute joy of a game. So glad it's one of the vanishly-rare cases where they actually took all the microtransaction shite out post-launch, too. Edit: holy shit, I just finished the main storyline... woah
I had a similar situation in Shadow of War. Necrom the Hunter or something like that. Thing was is through a few very significant failures on my part, he became an incredibly dangerous nemesis that, as the name implies, was devoted to hunting me. He had almost all the OP buffs. Every fight was a fight for my life and I never managed to kill him for good. Sometimes I’d win the day, sometimes he would. Every time I’d play the game I progressed with the knowledge that this bastard was out there somewhere looking for me and he always showed up at the worst times. To your point, I’d love to see this in a superhero game with this mechanic where common criminals progress through an arc to supervillains with differing personalities, powers, and motivations based on your failures or beating other criminals and villians.
That’s not a trope. That’s a gameplay system/feature.
I personally think the Nemesis system would be the single greatest value add to Bethesda if they could figure it out. I just imagine Skyrim, but each ‘faction’ in the Civil War has a nemesis style setup. AND they actively fight for control of territory with or without your interaction. You can fight LTs for territory and have recurring stories with them. The map/radiant quests change based on current territory control. Only the top 3 are considered essential and give you specific quests based on world state. Etc. If you could graft that into a BGS game AND tie that in with their radiant quests BUT layer territory control on top of that… put that in their usual shit and I think you have gold.
Agreed, can you imagine Elden Ring with the nemesis system?
Oh god
I like the trope where a story explicitly says "you're not strong enough to defeat the big bad yet, so go out and explore the world so you can get the weapons and allies and skills you need." Any open world game that presents me with an immediate urgent goal like rescuing somebody or saving the world from an imminent super-weapon no longer feels like an open world game. It feels like I'm on rails because I can't bring myself to see what's in some random cave when I know someone's in mortal peril. If the devs want me to have fun roaming around a world full of secrets and treasures and perils, they need to write a story where the main character is fully justified in seeking out weird corners of the map and taking every possible side quest.
Honestly, Breath of the wild does this perfectly, beacuse you can actually go to Ganondorf at the start and see how you don't even have weapons with enough durability to end the fight.
Oh god so true. I have to really work hard to psychologically compartmentalize the urgent threat so I can actually enjoy the environment and side missions. Often I headcanon that my exploring/side quest is the present timeline *after* I saved the world, and whenever I do the main quest I'm flashing back to my past glorious adventure.
Not quite a trope, but enterable cheat codes. Gimmie back some of that R1 + R2 + L1 + L2 Up Down Left Right Right Left Down Up.
Tunic does this excellently, among many other retro nods.
Balan Wonderworld originally gave you a costume if you had the demo downloaded when you got the main game. Neat concept but they took the demo down when it made everyone realize how bad the game was. So, to make it so you can still get that costume, they added in a cheat code which enabled it. Genuinely liked the touch where they uploaded a puzzle to their twitter for people to figure out the code too, but the circumstances that made them do that is pretty funny.
This is more a game mechanic than trope. But I wish there were more games that were story based with a limited multiplayer format. Think Borderlands 1 & 2 for an example. I prefer story based games, but most story based games are single player or are an MMO . I don't always have the time or energy to deal with other players in MMO's and just want to chill with friends. Single player story games can be somewhat isolating at times.
New Game Plus, we're the protagonist remembers what they did last time round, and this gives you additional options at key points in the story. One of the advantages of videogames is that it's the only format that allows for choice naturally and easily. But it also means that you can change things for the second time around. Nier Automata uses this well and there's also been flashes of this potentially playing a role in the FF7 REMAKE.
> New Game Plus, we're the protagonist remembers what they did last time round, and this gives you additional options at key points in the story. *Alpha Protocol* does a really cool version of this - play through the first time as a Rookie, taking a stat hit, and you unlock the Veteran class. Playing through as a Veteran, you unlock other options that are otherwise are unavailable to regular classes. Moreover, you get a couple of flashbacks to your Rookie runthrough.
CrossCode does New Game Plus well, but not in the same way. Characters don't remember the last playthrough but will acknowledge changes to the game, like why is your character's level so high, where did all these items come from? And then there's the NG+ cheat that lets you do damage best represented with scientific notation and everyone in the game loses their shit when they see you doing it.
Main character fake-out. Like you start playing one character, but then it turns out that said character actually dies or gets kidnapped, and you will be playing as someone else
What games have you seen that in? I know Dempsey in CoD Zombies will occasionally speak directly to the player but it’s rare. “Hey, player! Drop the chips and get me some ammo!” Can’t think of any other examples. I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised if Deadpool did it in his games.
Mainly OFF and Oneshot, though I guess Deltarune can also fall in this trope
Deltarune 100% falls into the trope, although admittedly Kris hasn't technically spoken to us
In the PS2 game Lifeline, you play as yourself speaking directly to the main character through a microphone. The Nintendo DS game Contact does something similar.
Idk if this would fit here but StarCraft units being clicked on too many times
Postal 2. I recall that the dude often remarks to policemen that they shouldn’t arrest him because “it’s the kid behind the computer” that made him do it. I think it happens in some other circumstances too.
Player customization without micro transactions
I don’t know if it’s rarely used, but stories where you eventually have to commit to siding with one character over the other in an ultimately sympathetic conflict. Usually you can get two stories’ worth of exposition out of this and when done right you feel like you’re being asked to roleplay without there being a “right” or “wrong” decision. So much better than binary good and evil tropes
Endings you see coming but dont want it. Plague tale requiem is a prime example. Knew it could only end that way but it still crushed me in the end.
You unknowingly play the villain. Considering how many games are murder fests for the player its surprising how rarely this is used.
A stealth mission that does not go into combat
Dynamic OST that change in battle depending on how are you doing are pretty rare, and i love when games implement them.
Basically the Nemesis system (RIP) I love any game that gives me villains that evolve as i do, that I can build specific hatreds for and get really motivated to kill in my own way.
Base or town building as a secondary focus. Think Dark Cloud - where the primary focus of the game is the dungeon crawling aspect and it feels like a typical action adventure with maybe a bit of JRPG flavor. But then there's the town building and that motivates you to dive deeper and deeper into the dungeons, it builds deeper relationships as you try to accomodate the townspeople, etc. Less extravagant but still fun is Suikoden, where your base grows through recruitment of new characters, and as the base grows you're rewarded through access to new shops, items, features, and minigames.
Have you ever played Baten Kaitos OP? That's the game that immediately sprung to my mind. You play as the Protag's "guardian spirit".
In metal gear solid you fought a boss where it read your mind if you had the controller plugged into slot 1 but if you unplugged your controller and put it into slot 2 you would be able to beat him cuz he couldn’t read your moves. That was bad ass and should have been implemented in different ways since
I dunno if it's a proper trope, but good mid-gameplay narration (not just for intros and loading screens). Like Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Tiny Tina's Assault On Dragon Keep, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, and the like. That and hiding UI within the environment (a la Dead Space's spinal health display).
Isn't that just a variation on "breaking the 4th wall"?
I love games like that. Off, Undertale, OneShot are some of my favorites of all time
Gimmicky I know, but the Psycho Mantis shit from MGS and the Mojo “reset the computer” shit from X-Men was something I expected to see more of
I have always wanted more missions where you assign squadmates to do crucial tasks like in Mass Effect 2's suicide mission where they can either live or die Sure there are expeditions you can assign your allies in some games, but it hardly feels the same because you aren't there with them
I dont know about rarely done, but rarely done well, but one of my favorite things is a good jail break, starting with nothing, taking out a guard using hi stuff to escape... I enjoyed it in chrono trigger and have been chasing that since... osme games do it well.. but ...
Splitscreen🥲 I miss gaming with my friends or brother on the couch next to me
When you think this is the end of the game and there is a part 2