Gameplay Fetishes

crunch

microfrictions

1 Like

games where you can create, name and dress your own PC. especially if you can also do it for your party. Dragon Quest 9 is a pretty mediocre DQ but i still played it like 3x because you can make your own paper doll party lol…

Games where you can name things in general are good. Thats part of why i like Pokémon so much, but i also like when you can name weapons, vehicles etc. favorite recent example was Etrian Odyssey 3, i named my guild the Unicorns and our ship was the Narwhal :slight_smile:

I prefer games where you can define your character for yourself, but i also like when a game takes a silent protagonist who you can nominally project onto and subtly implies personality, ex.: in Breath of the Wild ive noticed Link’s dialogue choices tend to be more curt/snarky with adults and authority figures and more polite to children; or, late in Earthbound when the game starts explicitly giving Ness thoughts and personality traits to separate him from the player (culminating in the famous last boss, of course)

3 Likes

Yeah, it genuinely looked more exciting than pretty much any game I was hearing about at the time. I definitely think it should be an “SB game,” but I dunno: I guess SB isn’t that into MMO-style experiences.

Speaking of which, is it not considered an MMO? I know there was another Conan MMO, like, a decade ago; but I figured referring to this one as “that Conan MMO” would still be accurate.

It’s more of an MMO than actual MMOs but the gamerterm “MMO” just means “it’s like World of Warcraft” now. The new Conan game right on its own homepage calls itself “an open-world survival game.” That’s the new Minecraft-inspired term, “survival.”

1 Like

Having to hide behind cover before you can jump over it

6 Likes

physical bigness of otherwise normally shaped characters corresponding to power levels / importance

1 Like

being able to pick up and throw people around
being able to style myself and npcs
feeling as though u are chiseling away at the game as an object, not as a narrative
custom soundtracks

8 Likes

Being killed by a boss attack & the controller continues to vibrate on the game over screen

10 Likes

A progression of Protagonist is weak -> Protagonist gets stronger -> Enemies freak their shit when they see the protagonist or when they do something.

Ideally, it’s not just auditory, but also visual and changes how the AI responds.

3 Likes

The voice clips enemies gave in Perfect Dark as they freaked out, their guns jammed, they ran away blew my mind when it came out.

And worried the adults…

2 Likes

I can’t think of any examples of this one. Never played Perfect Dark. It’s possible I haven’t played any games that do this!

one of the Metroid Primes and Zero Mission did this to a degree

The Ace Combat games have usually had this, though I can’t think of any instance where the AI or visuals change. An example from Ace Combat 4, an early and the final mission:

1 Like

One of my favorite parts of Far Cry 2

good catch, though the changed perception of the AI is hardcoded and tied to the mission progress… best example of the series is imho AC5, and the legend of razgriz, where you end up re-enacting the fall and rise of a mythological figure as a squad.

n. b.
i’m not so sure about AC6, where you had this system where you can call upon a squad of friendly fighters, is that leveled up or increased in terms of numbers when you perform well?

I love how the enemies do this over the course of the first three Halo games.

2 Likes

Oh wait, Indivisible technically has this: if enemies are way underpowered to you, you can just kill them with one physical attack instead of a full random battle. And if you’re even higher level they’ll run away. You can see it in the demo.

More of a practicality than an “OMG, I’m epic” thing though.

I often use a moment from FFVII as an example of great gameplay-as-storytelling. There’s that part after leaving Midgar when you have to spend, like, two hours raising chocobos so you can outrun a giant swamp snake and follow Sephiroth. When you pass this hurtle, you see a pre-rendered scene of one of those snakes impaled on a spike, and Cloud says something like, “Only Sephiroth could do this.” It drives home how foolhardy your undertaking is and the growth required of you.

Towards the end of the game, you have the airship and any kind of restrictions on travel or party are gone. It’s that moment that all the Square games of that era have: when the world is your oyster, and you can go around finishing side quests or whatever.

One of the things that’s now simple to do is fly back to Midgar. You can see the shadow of the giant snake in the swamp just like before, and if you touch it, you fight it. However, by that point in the game, you’re able to kill the snake easily.

The designers could have just made the snake invincible or given it absurd stats. But instead it has stats that give you the message, “Yeah, I’m ready to fight Sephiroth.”

7 Likes

most of my gameplay fetishes come from earthbound

1 Like

rolling hp counters
searching trash cans
calling characters on the phone
getting a bike
multi-floor shopping centers
good writing

6 Likes