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[Willenium]

for better or worse, Majora's Mask and its 3-day time limit really made it the game it was. I thought the mechanic sucked but I guess for a game that was so similar to Ocarina of Time on the surface, it needed something to set it apart.

 

[SunBroDave]

Here's another one: the

Spoiler

environmental puzzles

in The Witness.

 

[Lumination]

Plenty of people will disagree with me, but the Ship stuff in AC: Black Flag

I think a lot of people loved the ship stuff in AC4. Personally, the first few times I ventured out to sea on a next-gen console with the wind on my back and some sea shanties in my ear was an experience I won't forget.

It would be helpful if you could expand on what this "Ship stuff" is and how it elevated the game.

This isn't just to you, but in general. Come on people, not everyone knows everything about your favorite game.

My take was just the actual act of sailing around on the open sea in a modern AAA game. They nailed the atmosphere and feel of it all. You could see the sea roil up in front of you as a storm approached, your men's shouts drowned out by the wind. In calmer times, your crew would break out into cheery songs as you charted a course from island to island, picking up treasure along the way. Ship battles were fun too, emphasizing the difference between front-facing cannons, broadside cannons, etc.

 

[LotusHD]

Personally I thought the hacking mechanic dumbed the game down really hard and became extremely overused. if you didn't want to use it you were left with a character with a severe lack of combat variety compared to the other characters. It's unfortunate to me that as a mechanic it took centre stage for 70% percent of the game. But that's really my only issue with the game.

It's definitely not as cool/exciting as 2B/A2, but I wouldn't say he lacked that much variet, seeing as how he can also control or subjugate machines as well.

That being said, in my 2nd playthrough I learned that this guy is pretty damn good with a spear lol

for better or worse, Majora's Mask and its 3-day time limit really made it the game it was. I thought the mechanic sucked but I guess for a game that was so similar to Ocarina of Time on the surface, it needed something to set it apart.

I still need to play this.

 

[NullPointer]

Active reload in Gears of War.

Was just thinking the other day that I wished the Mad Max game used an Active Reload type meter when firing off the car weapons like the harpoon and thunderpoon. Would have made the car combat 10 times more engaging and tense imho.

And to bring up Mad Max again in relation to the OP's question, I'd say its physics based systems that drive everything. Whether its the upgrades to your car that effect weight and handling and slammability in car combat, or the harpoon when used against cars or for towing/pulling. Avalanche seems to love their physics toys.

 

[WetTreeLeaf]

Weapon degradation system in Breath of the Wild, I just LOVE getting a new sword and never using it in fear I might need it later!

My actual answer would be dodge-rolls in Dark Souls, after I stopped using shields the game completely opened up. Havent used a shield since DS1.

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

Ki Pulse / Flux and the stance system in Nioh.

+1

Best melee combat ever seen in a game.

 

[Raptor]

Weapon degradation system in Breath of the Wild, I just LOVE getting a new sword and never using it in fear I might need it later!

Lol.

+1

Best melee combat ever seen in a game.

For me is either this or Bloodborne.

 

[Dantrist]

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Being able to animate objects.

 

[Penguin]

Splatoon's ink and swim mechanic: you shoot ink to damage enemies, to activate devices, to create paths, to score points, to limit enemy movement...you swim to move around faster, to reload ammo, to regain health, to climb walls, to hide from enemies...The best example I've seen in any game where 1+1>>>>2.

Came to post this

Tying in offense, defense, movement, ammo and specials to a singular mechanic worked wonders

 

[Weltall Zero]

The entire gravity mechanic in Gravity Rush. You basically get to set the point that gravity pulls you to, so by setting that in the direction of the sky, you're essentially flying. Also great for scaling walls and fighting on the undersides of buildings.

The dodge for witch time in Bayonetta. Timing a dodge perfectly does an immediate time slow, which allows you to pile on extra damage.

Combined attacks in Chrono Trigger. Multiple characters can use their action at the same time to combine special attacks, for extra utility or effectiveness. Plus awesome animations.

The merging mechanic in Breath of Fire 2. You could basically fold characters into one another permanently, and create a super enhanced character with a different special skill.

Four top tier examples. Bravo, sir. Some of the finest games this medium has to offer, too.

I submit (some might be grasping):
- World rotating in FEZ.
- Plane shifting in Soul Reaver.
- Climbing in Shadow of the Colossus.
- Masks in Majora's Mask (since time rewind was taken).

 

[KimDongHwan]

The weakness mechanic from Persona games.

 

[Twookie]

Ki Pulse / Flux and the stance system in Nioh.

+1

soooo good

 

[Wozman23]

Traversal in Snake Pass
Teleportation in the Velocity franchise
Most of the weapons in Insomniac's games
Independent cymbal for Pro Mode drums in Rock Band
Being able to switch the orientation of the Plasma Cutter in Dead Space
The light mechanics in Alan Wake
The Calibrus (scissors sword combo) in Puppeteer
Drawing stuff that you can put in the world in Tearaway
Rewinding time in Price of Persia
Picture taking (that accounts for velocity and acceleration) in Snapshot
Being limited to the amount of yarn in Yarny's body in Unravel
Conjuring boxes and planks with Amadeus in the Trine franchise

 

[Strangelove77]

The nemesis system in Shadow Of Mordor. It's such an unremarkable game in every facet without it.

 

[correojon]

I love this thread!

A recent one I liked a lot was the map in Has Been Heroes: you can select any destination but if you go through an already visited path you consume one candle. Candles are also used at altars to gain upgrades, but if you run out of them it's game over. Made travelling the map it's own minigame, by having to adapt your route to the contents of every destination (which you can only see when you're next to them), the money you had (getting to a merchant is useless if you don't have enough money to buy anything), the keys you had, current health...A very simple and intelligent system that adds another dimension to the game.

 

[Curufinwe]

+1

Best melee combat ever seen in a game.

I was dumb and didn't realize for a long time that you could unlock the ability to use dodge to ki pulse instead of R1.

Talk about a a game changer.

Edit - Maybe I wasn't dumb. The skill is called Living Water and the description doesn't really make clear what it does.

 

[GermanZepp]

Invations in souls.

No game changer but healing in Horizon was spot on.

Second fire in the old unreal

 

[MetalGearZed]

Here's another one: the

Spoiler

environmental puzzles

in The Witness.

My jaw dropped when I

Spoiler

first discovered these. I felt like a god lol

 

[SciencePilot]

The brave and default system totally made Bravely Default. This system is brilliant and solves a lot of annoyances with other turn-based battle systems. Stuff like being able to revive a party member, heal them up, and buff their defense in a single turn is so great. You have so much freedom it makes the battles feel fair where other games' battles would feel frustrating.

 

[Fata1moose]

Halo being equal starts in multiplayer. Everything has loadouts or asymmetry now.

Not a "mechanic" but Bethesda games modibility is pretty great.

 

[Curufinwe]

Super Cancel in Pro Evolution Soccer.

 

[Shin-Ra]

Non-sticky cover with contextual awareness in The Last of Us. Also running melee attacks. 😈

 

[Wesley-Sigma]

Witch Time & Dodge Offset in Bayonetta.

Yep.

Offsets found their way into other PlatinumGames titles which was really cool. Even in Metal Gear Rising.

 

[Twookie]

I was dumb and didn't realize for a long time that you could unlock the ability to use dodge to ki pulse instead of R1.

Talk about a a game changer.

Edit - Maybe I wasn't dumb. The skill is called Living Water and the description doesn't really make clear what it does.

Nah, you weren't dumb at all. The translation and localization in Nioh was pretty bad. The skill descriptions in particular were extremely vague.

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

Ki Pulse / Flux and the stance system in Nioh.

Came to post this.
Game would be nothing without it, but with it....
Truly a special combat system where attacks have both style and purpose.

 

[llien]

HL2 gravity gun.

 

[Kyuur]

Ori and the Blind Forest's Bash

Metroidvania games are nothing without their traversal mechanics, and they knocked this one out of the fucking park (in combination with several others).

The dodge for witch time in Bayonetta. Timing a dodge perfectly does an immediate time slow, which allows you to pile on extra damage.

This is a really good example too.

Multi-tech attacks in Chrono Trigger

In the past I would probably agree with this but then I played I Am Setsuna, which has the same mechanic and.. it just didn't click. I think the dual and triple techs were just part of what was good about Chrono Trigger, they didn't elevate it on their own.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain : Vampiric abilities (blood consumption + animal transformations which it did before SotN and better)
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver : Spectral realm
Nioh: Ki pulse + Stances, absolute genius
Demon's Souls : Invasions of other players' games
Panzer Dragoon Saga : On-the-fly dragon morphing + the combat positioning system mixed with ATB made it truly unique
Suikoden : HQ with NPC recruitment

 

[psyfi]

Limitations are freeing - only hold two weapons in Halo

I was so pissed at having a two weapon limit at first, but I quickly realized how much creativity and strategy it enforced. A subtly genius decision.

Ori and the Blind Forest's Bash

Metroidvania games are nothing without their traversal mechanics, and they knocked this one out of the fucking park (in combination with several others).

Yessss, another good one

 

[disappeared]

Would the messages to other players introduced in Demon's Souls count? I thought that was a pretty crazy feature that both helped players and added a dash of comedy to an otherwise fairly grim game.

 

[Septimus Prime]

I just like to parry, give me something to parry and ill be fine!

I'm with you on this. It always makes the game better.

 

[SuperOrez]

Well they might not be so unique anymore since they've had so many sequels but I nominate Super Smash Bros and Pokemon.

Both of these games essentially digitized old playground games and turned them into competitive esports which is pretty awesome. You have paper rock scissors and king of the hill. Good stuff Nintendo.

 

[sublimit]

The online features of Demon's Souls.Messages,bloodstains,phantoms appearing briefly and the concept of invasions blew my mind back in 2009 and made the game so much more engaging and unique.

 

[SunBroDave]

The Souls games have a number of unique and interesting mechanics, but I think the most important one is the "drop your souls when you die, and you have to retrieve them in one life or they're gone forever" mechanic. It adds this whole stessful risk factor, where you need to decide between moving forward and facing what's around the next corner (in the hope of finding the next checkpoint), or retreating back to the previous checkpoint and spending your souls on levels or items.

It causes this adrenaline rush that makes the first playthrough of any Souls game such a fantastically exciting experience.

 

[Wood Man]

Been playing Mario RPG with my daughter. I realized the "Timed Hits" elevated it from an otherwise basic introductory RPG to something that required a little skill for advanced players. Sometimes she has problems with the timed hits or forgets to do them.

Mega Man series with picking your level/boss and introducing a "Rock,Paper,Scissors" element to defeating bosses.

 

[Retro]

Limitations are freeing - only hold two weapons in Halo

Especially when you consider shooters at the time had become positively bloated with players lugging dozens of different weapons around at once.

Came to post this

Tying in offense, defense, movement, ammo and specials to a singular mechanic worked wonders

The stealth component is super important too, don't forget that. Splatoon really is nifty, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy knowing there's people still making games like that.

 

[Adaren]

+1 for Dodge Offset in Bayonetta.

Because of how crucial the mechanic was to the combat, Platinum actually put in several types of advanced Offsets as well (Panther, Crow, Accessory, and Taunt) that all work off of the same principle.

 

[Syril]

Encounter chaining in The World Ends With You. Early on you get the ability to queue up to four encounters at once (and up to 16 at once in the postgame). Normally a single battle is fairly trivial since you get healed after each one, but in a chain your status gets carried over between each round, turning normal battles into endurance runs and forcing to consider your use of resources over the long term. Suddenly limited use pins and fusion moves taking longer to charge back up every time you use them become significant factors, and enemies get stronger every round. But you also get all your drop rates for the entire battle multiplied by the number of encounters you chain, and every round you take on after the first increases all the pin EXP you get from the whole battle by 10%.

There's also another mechanic where you can lower your level at will, getting another drop rate multiplier equal to the number of levels you lower yourself by, and this is multiplied by the number of encounters you chain. Basically The World Ends With You has the best systems ever for making trash encounters not trash, and everything should rip it off.

 

[QisTopTier]

I just like to parry, give me something to parry and ill be fine!

Look into Ys Seven, Ys Celceta and Ys 8

 

[sublimit]

The Souls games have a number of unique and interesting mechanics, but I think the most important one is the "drop your souls when you die, and you have to retrieve them in one life or they're gone forever" mechanic. It adds this whole stessful risk factor, where you need to decide between moving forward and facing what's around the next corner (in the hope of finding the next checkpoint), or retreating back to the previous checkpoint and spending your souls on levels or items.

It causes this adrenaline rush that makes the first playthrough of any Souls game such a fantastically exciting experience.

Yup that one too although with so many bonfires placed conveniently in the later games that feeling is not the same as it was back in Demon's.

 

[Syril]

The Souls games have a number of unique and interesting mechanics, but I think the most important one is the "drop your souls when you die, and you have to retrieve them in one life or they're gone forever" mechanic. It adds this whole stessful risk factor, where you need to decide between moving forward and facing what's around the next corner (in the hope of finding the next checkpoint), or retreating back to the previous checkpoint and spending your souls on levels or items.

It causes this adrenaline rush that makes the first playthrough of any Souls game such a fantastically exciting experience.

I'm not really a fan of the Souls games but I'll give From so much credit for essentially making a way for corpse runs to not be total bullshit.

 

[atr0cious]

Splatoon's utilization of ink is probably the most refreshing base mechanic for a shooter in years. Turf War is an example of master class game design.

 

[Exentryk]

Brave mechanic in Bravely Default games. Being able to use up to 16 moves in a single turn (!) and having all those moves have meaningful interactions with each other really sets this game's gameplay above every other turn-based RPG.

Ori and the Blind Forest's Bash

Metroidvania games are nothing without their traversal mechanics, and they knocked this one out of the fucking park (in combination with several others).

Agreed! You're essentially flying through the world at the end, and it feels amazing!

Surprised this hasn't come up yet: Gambits from Final Fantasy XII. That level of micro control is just excellent for that kind of game (a more real-time turn-based game), and it boggles me that no one's ripped it wholesale before. Everything else after still is the same, crummy "Depend on ally AI". I don't want to depend on AI - I want to preset all my commands, conditions of activation, and priority settings, because why would I not?

Welp, this too.

 

[crabhammer]

'Bind' in the Etrian Odyssey games. It runs through the whole combat system, with the PCs, enemies, FOEs and bosses all vulnerable to it.
Bound legs? Can't use 'charge' attacks, can't flee.
Bound head? No breath weapons, no shouts, roars or spells.
Bound arms? No skills (special weapon attacks).
On top of that, some classes have skills that inflict more damage against bound enemies, or gain extra attacks, or are more likely to stack even more debuffs on them.

It's a great system that takes what would be a mundane status effect for a few rounds elsewhere, and uses it to expand the combat mechanics across the board.

In addition to this, mapping in Etrian Odyssey is a far more engaging and fun mechanic than it may present itself as at face value.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Putting/removing scopes and silencers on any weapon you carry on the fly in Crysis. While you are invisible.

 

[Zeta Oni]

Shield + Health Combo (as well as a 2 gun carry limit) in Halo: Combat Evolved

Gave you just enough leeway to feel powerful yet not invincible, and the 2 gun set up forced tactical decisions at all times during gameplay.

Parrying in Street Fighter III: New Generation and its follow ups Double Impact and Third Strike

Tetris Inventory in Resident Evil 4

Made inventory management a fun mini game rather than a mundane task.

 

[Paltheos]

Surprised this hasn't come up yet: Gambits from Final Fantasy XII. That level of micro control is just excellent for that kind of game (a more real-time turn-based game), and it boggles me that no one's ripped it wholesale before. Everything else after still is the same, crummy "Depend on ally AI". I don't want to depend on AI - I want to preset all my commands, conditions of activation, and priority settings, because why would I not?

 

[jon bones]

TitanFall 2

Mission: Effect & Cause

 

[LiQuid!]

Spider-Man 2's swinging mechanics made the simple act of traversing in this game an absolute joy. Lost so many hours to this game just swinging around and wallrunning all over the city.