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Most Gratifying Sound Effects in Games

I keep reading the title as "grating".

To answer the OP, the sound of stepping on snow that I heard in the AC3 gameplay demonstration. Amazing stuff. I'm always a fan of accurate stepping sounds.
 
Pokemon has some utterly brilliant sound effects and little tunes which make everything so gratifying, the amount they got out of the little gameboy sound chip was incredible. Something as simple as running away in that game is captured perfectly by the little rushing sound effect that accompanies it. The super effective sound is brilliant as is the kind of dull, limp sound of the move being not very effective.

I honestly think the sound design in these games, from the pokemon cries to the level up jingle are just the work of brilliance.
 
A lot of Diablo mentioned, but I'll specifically call out the waypoint activation sound from Diablo III. That, combined with the visual effect, and you can almost feel the ground rumble. All about the details.
 
The critical hit sound in Dragon Quest games and the "SMAAAASH!!" sound in Earthbound.


PiPlq.gif
 
The sort of zooming swooshy sound you hear in Burnout 3: Takedown when the slo-mo camera caresses the ruin of the car you just trashed.
 
decoyplatypus said:
The recruitment jingle in Suikoden.
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Yup, this is one I wouldn't have thought of, but am always glad to hear.

Plus Props to the mentions of Smash Bro's Smash Bat. It's basically the sound of winning with a Shun Goku Satsu / Raging Demon as well.

--

Pipe SMASH effect from Streets of Rage series.
Smashing Knee / Heavy Hit in Double Dragon 2.
Any Guard + Kick "SWOOSH! + Impact" move in Virtua Fighter.
The Art of Fighitng "Kohhh!" Final hit sound.
The Sound of Nicole's Largest smiley crushing an opponent in Guardian Heroes.
A Clean Heavy Slash in Samurai Shodown series.

I always like the heavy "bodyshaking" hit + Momentary freeze that comes along with most of these moves.
 
Many of the answers I would have picked are posted.


This thread delivers.

I will add the punching and knockout sounds in Batman Arkham City. Makes beating people to within an inch of death oh so satisfying.
 
Everquest's ding!

City of Heroes' level-up and mission complete fanfares, especially if they're together.

Quake 3's hit chirp.
 
First post nails it yet again Neogaf!

funny enough i dont know why other games dont follow EPIC's Gears of War Headshot sounds and animations, it makes it so much more fun when you pull off the headshot.
 
Killing Floor headshots are enjoyable in a sick kind of way, so it's not just Gears. Killzone's is mentioned frequently.

It's probably an odd one to mention but Blops has a nice ceramic ping or chirp sound on a head hit.
 
Exploding a specimen's head in Killing Floor never gets old. Even when you get around 200 of these per game.

Actually you could also include the sounds most of the weapons in this game make as well, they are (almost) all absolutely awesome (excluding the chainsaw, which is terribad). Firing a shotgun (whether it's a double-barreled, pump-action or automatic -dat AA12- shotgun) has never been so satisfying.
 
RedSwirl said:
I'm in the middle of playing the Game Boy Donkey Kong game right now, and I forgot how much classic Donkey Kong's sound design added to it. The little effect the game adds whenever you jump over an enemy or obstacle almost by itself makes the whole game worth playing.

The same goes for that feel when you headshot a boomer in Gears with the boomshot and get both the headshot noise and the "cha-ching" noise, or when you hit something with a shell in pretty much any Mario game.
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The "chirp" in Killzone2 multiplayer is drugs.
 
The hit effects in Garou Mark of the Wolves are great; when you hit with a hard attack or special move it's like two rocks slamming each other.

King of the Potato People said:
The FF fanfare, I guess SE didn't think it was appropriate for XIII and XIII-2, for some reason.
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Actually FF13-2's victory themes resemble the classic victory fanfare to me.
...and they don't really have to use the same theme in every game.
 
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