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[SolVanderlyn]

Life is really all about the little things. Whether it be a gameplay mechanic, a small design detail, an element of the UI that you appreciate, or what have you, a game, while more than the sum of its parts, still has parts worth appreciating.

I'll go for one of my favorite games first: The power-up noise from the eco vents in Jak and Daxter. I can't onomatopoeia it. It's like a triumphant hum.

You can see it here.

And from another well regarded platformer, I love the water/boxes on the file select screen from Super Mario 64 DS.

IIRC, the water splashes when you touch it with the stylus. I always thought that was really nice, and fit well with the soothing file select music.

What's something people don't usually talk about or vocally appreciate from a game you love?

 

[Drillary Clinton]

The multiple voices for "Kid Mode" selection on spider-man ps1

edit

 

[mindsale]

The haduken from Mega Man X.

 

[JusDoIt]

In GTA: San Andreas, if you wear lots of expensive suits, CJ will randomly shout "I'm a well-dressed maniac!" when you shoot somebody.

It's my favorite ad-lib in video games.

 

[oni-link]

The bar music vocal tracks in Steamworld Heist

 

[Lumpy Onion]

In Final Fantasy XIII if you moved the camera close to a character's face you could move their eyeballs around with the camera. Attention to detail in this game still blows my mind.

Also if you move any of the characters around the screen in a jerky manner they will do a unique annoyance animation.

And finally, if you take Lightning with you during the fight against that air platform thing you fight outside Hope's house and manually use a regular attack she will use her gunblade as a kind of rifle attack. Pretty sure that's the only fight you ever can. I imagine many miss it since in autobattle she won't use it.

 

[Lux R7]

You can play the pig toss game with pawns in Dragon's Dogma:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8E_hQYXmag

 

[Aizen.S.Kennedy]

In tactics when you get confused and the characters raise their hands up and down repeatedly.

 

[Pomo]

At the main menu of Metal Gear Solid 2, pressing the L2 button triggers a satisfying flash and gunshot/thunder noise. That's all it does, and I have no idea why. It feels pretty good, though.

 

[lasthed]

the name

 

[Altazor]

That this part in K. Rool's theme in DKC2 is pretty much a variation of the Crocodile Isle Map theme

Everyone (justly) raves about FUCKING DAVID WISE's music on this game (esp. Stickerbush Symphony, Mining Melancholy and Hot-Head Bop), but I always loved that small detail.

 

[Geno Breaker]

The analog shields in Melee. Such a smart use of the triggers that has a substantial impact on the game.

 

[jchap]

My favorite part about final fantasy is the save screen music

 

[giggaman]

Keep talking and no one explodes (VR) lets you shoot yourself to end the mission.

 

[Dynomutt]

The recipes in Odin's Sphere are awesome!

 

[Upinsmoke]

Shining your torch in Ellie's face in tlou and having her squint and turn away

 

[UnemployedVillain]

I don't know if it's obscure, but I always loved in Pokemon R/S there was a specific route you could go to that had puddles and you could actually see the clouds floating across the sky reflected in them and the water. It was always really cool to me

 

[True Fire]

Spoilers

NieR Automata: after

Spoiler

Pascal's robot children kill themselves

, if you

Spoiler

choose to erase Pascal's memories

you can go back to the village and

Spoiler

he'll sell you the body parts of the children he doesn't remember

 

[protonion]

GTAV

I love the subtle screen flash when you kill an enemy.

 

[CannonFodder52]

The Psi-Bears in Psychonauts

-

Spoiler

Grecotch

in Deadly Premonition

the name

Love Obscure too.

 

[luckygodzilla]

In World in Conflict, idle vehicle crews can be heard having discussions in their native languages ranging from the most inane topics to entire other theaters of the war not covered in the main campaign.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

 

[The_Joker1721]

If I'm remembering correctly that horror game obscure has a character called Stan who couldn't solve a puzzle even if you put in the correct solution because he was dumb.

 

[Drazgul]

In Fallout 2, there's a town called The Den that has a bunch of kids stationed next to all store doors. Impossible to avoid going past them and when you do, they'll try and pickpocket you, grabbing some random item from your inventory.

So it's only right that I pickpocketed them in return and planted some dynamite with a triggered timer on and soon after got to watch as the tiny chunks of flesh went up in the air.

Good times.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

Drakengard 3: the loading screens. They have a very simple yet striking design, they've got multi-layered visual metaphors going on, and as you progress through the story, you learn things that shift the tone of them. And the music is fucking beautiful.

 

[lucebuce12]

In Bloody Roar 3, you can pause the game then select "go into training mode" from the pause menu then pick a stage then pick Player 1 and 2 THEN have the loading screen start and you're immediately where you want to be.

In practically every other game, you pause then go to the main menu. Then you go to training mode. Then you choose the characters then you choose the stage.

Just a small but very handy QoL feature that I've seen so few fighting games implement.

 

[Luigi87]

The ending of the first Kingdom Hearts. When Mickey appears his ears are actually linked separately from his head. They are set to always face the camera, so even when Mickey turns his head, just like in Mickey Mouse cartoons, he always maintains his famous silhouette.

 

[ForsakenLotus]

In Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn dragons are immune to magic, but if you cast the priest spell that gives you (I think) 40% magic resistance (meant to be a buff) on the dragon you can then cast spells on it - including casting magic defense lowering spells.

 

[PSqueak]

The ending of the first Kingdom Hearts. When Mickey appears his ears are actually linked separately from his head. They are set to always face the camera, so even when Mickey turns his head, just like in Mickey Mouse cartoons, he always maintains his famous silhouette.

I remember when epic mickey was being made the devs explained they had to do this too because it was a mandate by disney, a pretty interesting piece of trivia.


Anyways! my personal obscure thing about games: The silly and meta descriptions of the characters in Time Splitters 2 and TS: Future Perfect.

 

[Tye The Czar]

Of all the praise I've heard about System Shock 2, I've never heard about the way it does class selection at the start.

Instead of a couple of static screens where you pick a class and some skills, it gives you a tutorial-like sequence where you sign up for different military jobs which determine your skills.

 

[eXistor]

I love the shimmering of ice in 3DS games with 3D on.

 

[DukeLongfellow]

Kingdom Hearts 2 with absolutely beautiful combat menus that adopt in style to the world you visit.

Hell, even the intro sequences to the worlds are at times just pure sex.

 

[Übermatik]

There's something about empty TF2 servers... or maybe just empty game servers in general, perhaps Overwatch is the same.

There's something about the hum of ambient noise in TF2. The environments and how they're styled, the sound design. I dunno, it's hard to place. You also get to look around with greater attention than normal. The TF2 Halloween maps are great for this.

 

[Kthulhu]

In Fallout 2, there's a town called The Den that has a bunch of kids stationed next to all store doors. Impossible to avoid going past them and when you do, they'll try and pickpocket you, grabbing some random item from your inventory.

So it's only right that I pickpocketed them in return and planted some dynamite with a triggered timer on and soon after got to watch as the tiny chunks of flesh went up in the air.

Good times.

 

[DunpealD]

Dragoneer's Aria defense system: Can neutralize 100% damage depending on your own skill.

Last Rebellion makes grunt battles painless after solving the attack sequence:

 

[nkarafo]

Did you know that Link in Ocarina of time had lots of different idle animations depending on the area he is or the equipment he holds?

Well, this. Later Zelda games don't have the same attention to detail unfortunately (in general, not just idle animations), although i haven't played BotW yet.

 

[chrono01]

Petting and/or fist-bumping Pod 042/Pod 153 in Nier Automata (via the PS4's touchpad).

Also, in the same game, 2B pushing the camera away when you try to position the camera for an up-skirt shot.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Did you know that Link in Ocarina of time had lots of different idle animations depending on the area he is or the equipment he holds?

Well, this. Later Zelda games don't have the same attention to detail unfortunately (in general, not just idle animations), although i haven't played BotW yet.

This isn't true at all. Pretty sure there was even a large thread of all the small details in Zelda games

 

[guyssorry]

SMT: Nocturne---the sound-effect of the MC punching an enemy. The game oozes with incredible aesthetics.

 

[His Majesty]

The music that plays when you complete a quest or objective in Prey

 

[cwistofu]

L3 on the Dualshock 2 controller is also assigned to X in Dragon Quest 8. Such a small stupid thing, but it makes opening doors and chests in that large world that much more convenient.

 

[-hadouken]

Unica 6 easter egg reload in Battlefield 4

 

[Gorilla Shark]

Inventory Management in RE4

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

In Super Mario 64 and Sunshine, you can do a mid air power slide right after a cartwheel that makes it look Mario is flying. I hope they keep this in Odyssey.

 

[Paradicia]

CTE system in SC: Chaos Theory.

 

[Shift Breaker]

In Final Fantasy XIII if you moved the camera close to a character's face you could move their eyeballs around with the camera. Attention to detail in this game still blows my mind.

Also if you move any of the characters around the screen in a jerky manner they will do a unique annoyance animation.

And finally, if you take Lightning with you during the fight against that air platform thing you fight outside Hope's house and manually use a regular attack she will use her gunblade as a kind of rifle attack. Pretty sure that's the only fight you ever can. I imagine many miss it since in autobattle she won't use it.

The last part of this was especially interesting, because they made an alternative attack for Lightning against enemies that were aerial only rather than close range and limited it to one enemy in the main story, maybe others later. Considering that there are pages based on best teams based on milliseconds of attack speeds (Did you know that in post-game, Snow is the most efficient spellcaster?) it could have been a potential gamechanger if it was more utilised.

And speaking of that battle, the seamless transition between cutscene and boss fight is still something I particularly adored when it was used in XIII, and wasn't replicated in its lower budget sequels. Those moments felt like the real next-gen leap for me more than anything else back then. I mean, look at this. Smooth as anything.

 

[Rickenslacker]

Being able to use a fire extinguisher to bypass laser tripwires in Deus Ex.

 

[shortsoptional]

TLoU - motif

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=895799

 

[lome88]

Inventory Management in RE4

I'm still waiting for attache case REMASTERED HD.

 

[VenomousCoffee]

It's not obscure, but I always thought the real-time map in Far Cry 2 was one of the best game play devices of that generation.