• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Glass cannon game design is fantastic

If you think about it the majority of videogames are glass cannon-like to some point. Player controlled characters usually have great offensive capabilities but are much more limited in defense than their opponents. Especially in RPGs.
 
guys..
come one.
glass canon usually means you die in 1 hit.

in most games listed here that is not the case.
not even close.
 
Spoiler unlockable character in Bayonetta 2
....Rosa....
is a great example.

Also Ryu Hayabusa rocking 5% health and brandishing the fully realized Unlabored Flawlessness
 
guys..
come one.
glass canon usually means you die in 1 hit.

in most games listed here that is not the case.
not even close.

Lol

Anyway, I played through Fallout 3 again a while ago, this time with a mod that did all kinds of gameplay balancing across the board. The best thing about it, though, was how it upped the global damage multiplier to something like 4x. Enemies died really fast, but so did I. I had died probably hundreds of times by the time I finished the game and tbh, it was the most fun I've had with Fallout 3.

I really wish the same mod was available for NV.
 
CVS2 Shin Akuma, that guy hits like a freaking nuke. I even remember OHKO guile with misogi. But damn, his death is abysmal I think a level 1 super (weakest ingame) could one shot him.
 
It really adds a lot to the fps genre, tension goes up and becomes a very different type of game.
Counter strike
Fallout modded up with realistic damage
Stalker
old Rainbow 6 games
 
DMC Heaven and Hell mode is an example of this being really unfun, honestly. You waste most enemies with basic gunshots. It's really lame.
 
Lol

Anyway, I played through Fallout 3 again a while ago, this time with a mod that did all kinds of gameplay balancing across the board. The best thing about it, though, was how it upped the global damage multiplier to something like 4x. Enemies died really fast, but so did I. I had died probably hundreds of times by the time I finished the game and tbh, it was the most fun I've had with Fallout 3.

I really wish the same mod was available for NV.

There are several mods that edit combat multipliers/ammo scarcity/loot in NV similar to FO3's Wanderer's Edition which is what I'm assuming your talking about, Arwen's realism tweaks + a few modules from project new vegas like bullet time is god tier.
 
I always love playing as a glass cannon. Came to post
Rosa
from Bayonetta 2 but I see I've been beaten to the punch. Still bears repeating though.

Also I haven't used it yet but one of the armors in Shovel Knight seems to fit. At the cost of taking 1.5 damage for each hit you get +50 mana and harvest magic from enemies so you can spam the already-overpowered relics at your leisure.
 
Yep. If you liked KHIIFM's Critical Mode, HoH in DMC4's just the thing you need to try.

Edit: Speaking of DMC:



Granted, MvC3 has a handful of notable glass cannons (Zero, Strider, Phoenix), but Vergil's the first to come to mind.

Phoenix is an unstoppable wall of pain when she gets cooking. I love it when she gets buck wild. Akuma is probably the first most notable glass cannon. More tools and tricks at his disposal than a Swiss Army knife.
 
Or lion xD
You start with like 450 hp, no armor, terrible movement speed, but at lvl 6 you can zap someone into oblivion

Anyone ever played runescape? str pures in that game.
It was so stupid though

So much fun though.

Also erryone talking about Dota so far failed to mention THE glass cannon. E-blade morphling, max agility, durr.
 
World of Tanks has a few.

Can be extremely satisfying when you use them right.

Tier%20VIII%20-%20Rhm.-Borsig%20Waffentr%C3%A4ger%20(1).png
 
Shin Megami Tensei IV is an RPG version of this.

Your play character and party members all have completely customizable movesets from extremely deep pools of abilities, but the game has no such thing as a "Defense" or "Magic Defense" stat. It's all offense, all the time.

You can become extremely powerful and versatile, often taking out enemies in the first couple turns of battle, if not -the- first. But, if you give them the chance, enemies are always going to be hitting you in ways that hurt and can be just as instantly and surprisingly devastating as you can be to them.
 
guys..
come one.
glass canon usually means you die in 1 hit.

in most games listed here that is not the case.
not even close.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit in unnerfed vanilla Diablo 3 Inferno you would definitely die in one hit in late Acts on a glass cannon Demon Hunter lol.
 
Muramasa: The Demon's Blade hard mode was pretty much this right? You leveled up, all your stats increased, but HP would remain at 1, I think.

Fury Mode, yeah, I found this to be way easier than playing on the regular hard mode, funnily enough. You could actually block a lot of the stupid stuff much easier, where on hard mode it would just obliterate all my HP. Amazing game.
 
Pretty sure DmC DE is going to have a configuration like this in Hardcore mode.

Enemies will be doing more damage (and will be more aggressive) but their health isn't going to go up so it's like somewhat of a glass cannon mode.

Of course if you play at Gods Must Die then everything just has a ton of health on top of doing a ton of damage to you plus you have absolutely no healing. That's where you become "glass jaw" instead of "glass cannon".


Vergil DmC DLC is pretty much playing a glass cannon on VMD mode. You die pretty fast from most hits but Vergil's damage output is insane with all his powerful moves. Stuff is dying pretty fast even on the hardest difficulty.
 
The majority of games in the shmup genre all fall under this banner I suppose. And even in the games where you can take a few hits before death, you're pretty fragile compared to your output.

Definitely fun to thread the bullet hell needle, knowing you are one pixel away from destruction at all times.
 
Granted, MvC3 has a handful of notable glass cannons (Zero, Strider, Phoenix), but Vergil's the first to come to mind.
MVC3 as a whole is just an insanely glass cannon game.

Phoenix however is the most glass cannon character out of all of these characters. Vergil is around "average" in the game based on the characters that get played at the high level.
 
The best build in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is to equip a ton of badges that give you massive buffs when your health falls to 5hp or less, and then never upgrade Mario's health past that. You can do around 500 damage per turn (in a game where the toughest enemy has 200 health), but if you take so much as a scratch, it's Game Over.
 
Diablo II. I used to build bow-wielding Amazons with nothing but Dexterity points - very fragile, but very high damage ranged build. Fun times.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Phoenix has very low HP but she can be quite rewarding to play as.
 
Metal Gear Rising on higher difficulties. Everything can annhiliate you pretty much instantly, but the reverse is true, too.

Phoenix in mvc3, of course. The glassiest cannon to ever cannon glass.

Glass Sword in Ultima?
 
Kinda hope this is what Bloodborne is going for. While I like Dark Souls I never felt like I had enough movement options
 
the EDF series does this extremely well, especially with the Wing Diver character class. She'll have a weapon that can nuke a city block, but if it isn't well managed (or mis-aimed even once) you're done.

basically I just love EDF, but I dig what you mean, man.
 
I enjoy it as well. The only problem is in multiplayer gaming. Glass cannons are super hard to balance.

I guess that's just the perennial struggle with specialized archetypes. I love glass cannons and find it hilarious when they go into bulldozer mode but, it feels like there are tons of games where a glass cannon is at the top. Spacies in Smash Bros. Melee, Reiji & Xiaomu in Project X Zone, UMVC3, Dark Knights in Bravely Default, Zato-1 in Guilty Gear
 
Kinda hope this is what Bloodborne is going for. While I like Dark Souls I never felt like I had enough movement options

I think you'll get your wish, I haven't played the game yet, but based on the footage I've seen there's an evasive dash/sidestep move you can use to go backwards, left or right and the dodge roll is still in the game as well.
 
Top Bottom