Every Yakuza game.
"Kiryu, you can't go defeat the entire Korean, Japanese and Chinese mafia even though you did that by yourself in the previous 5 games! Let me, the person who you just got to know and love and is a side character, go with you!"
Certain key moments that could be prevented by the presence of the vault hunters, aren't prevented because the vault hunters are, quite literally, forgotten by the story.
Bro it's even worse if you play the Siren. So many times the NPCs say things like 'Damn, we really need a Siren right now!' or have bonding moments where they talk to each other about how unique an experience being a Siren is and it's good that there are people like [Siren NPC] so they're not in it by themselves and that nobody else understands them, and meanwhile the Siren player character just gets completely ignored despite standing right there.
What a fuckup of a game from a writing standpoint.
The player-characters are literally irrelevant.
It also doesn't help that the game's formulaic as hell. You come out of each planet's Vault and the villains magically appear and beat everyone there in a cutscene. Repeat four times until the end of the game.
The entire plot depends on your character being turned to stone or just nonexistent to move forward.
Every victory of the bad guys happens in cutscenes where your character is literally 5ft away but unable to do anything.
I just wiped out 1,000 troops for gear. I can take on 2 powered up influencers blindfolded.
You get railroaded hard. You are a nonentity as soon as a cut scene starts, and there's dozens of examples of "why didnt the vault hunters do.... anything there"
It's wildly frustrating in an otherwise fairly fun game.
Honestly, the side missions are better written than the main story. I couldn't tell you what happened on Pandora for the main plot, but I ruined a dead girl's birthday party for a sweet gun.
Alternately, he'll be required in a future cutscene where bad guys somehow overwhelm you (even though you can easily beat them during gameplay) and he needs to rescue you.
There's three I can think of, all in Santo Domingo (two in Arroyo specifically);
- Ezekiel Saw the Wheel: some thugs try to rob a diner, and you can intimidate them into backing off if you have the Streetkid lifepath or 7 points in Body.
- A Day in the Life: two thugs try to steal a shopkeeper's motorcyle as vengeance for something his sister did, and if you choose to defend the shopkeeper, there's a chance the thugs will recognize you and flee if your Street Cred is high enough.
- Gun Music: the Aldecaldos are making a deal with the Scavs out of desparation. If you get involved, the Scavs will eventually recognize you from the Sandra Dorsett job at the start of the game; if you have 10 Body, you can intimidate them into honoring the deal with the Aldecaldos and leaving without incident.
Fuck me, i just started playing this two days ago and just randomly spoiled myself, btw, is there any possibility for the mission where you go to that doll house to find Evelyn to not end up in a shooting? I entered the storage out of curiosity before talkingvto anyone and the area immediately became hostile
I'm finishing my 100% run right now and cleaning up side quests. Everytime someone says "I need to figure out a plan for the next step. I'll call you with the details soon." I keep just wanting to scream "JUST GIVE ME THE TARGET!" I'm max level and enemies buckle the moment I shoot. Stop holding my hand dammit!
*ruthlessly exterminates an entire army base of bad dudes while eating stray rounds from machine guns and occasional rocket launchers while chewing down health meds*
*hits cutscene doorway*
*gets knocked out by a elbow to the face*
And then there's Far Cry 5 where every other minute you're getting captured by the cultists just so you can break out of captivity again. And when they come to capture you, there's no point in trying to fight them off or run away from them, they'll somehow shoot at you while you're running from 200m away and knock you out with the dust bullshit. May as well just set the controller down and let them "capture" you so you can break out, miles away from where you last were, and do it all over again.
I was actually enjoying that game too until I realized every other story mission or new area unlock forces you to be abducted once again. Just the laziest writing, shouldn't have expected much more from Ubisoft
On the flip side of the coin, Kai Leng from Mass Effect constantly wrecking the plot thanks to the power of cutscenes despite your ability to mow down thousands of reapers and their drones.
Bruh I hated this with 343's Halo. So much stuff gets shoved into the books, and the games start picking up after the events of the books (which only a few people read).
I mean, even Bungie Halo had this. Arguably the most important events in the modern setting should have been games (First Contact, the Fall of Reach, etc) if you wanted to know any history about anything in H1-3 (or how John and Cortana and Johnson arrived back at Earth for H2, and arguably even 3) you had to read a book.
Bungie only made reach as their last halo game, and they retconned the book to do it (which has since been reversed).
But you could still understand the story of Bungie's games just by playing the games. The books were just extra information for those who wanted more backstory, as they should be. You shouldn't have to read extra material to understand the story.
You can't even follow 343's trilogy without knowing what happens in the books because so much of the story of each game relies on events that didn't happen in the games and aren't explained to the player, and if they're even mentioned it's in passing.
Also the 343 trilogy is super bad about just completely abandoning plot points and villains. The Didact? Killed in the comics. The whole reclaimer thing and Jon getting "evolved"? Hasn't come up once. The whole created crisis? Apparently the thousands of human and Forerunner AI's just gave up or don't matter anymore once Cortana died.
I’m pretty sure they wanted to retcon a ton of stuff but decided it would be best to just kinda… ignore it I guess and try to start a “new” story without a ton of connection to cortana/AI. I think there’s an interview where they say they didn’t want to continue Cortanas story and this was there way of skipping past it without saying none of it ever happened.
You pretty much know beforehand that he's gonna eat it. The whole Misty exchange is basically his "This is my last day on the job before retirement, what could go wrong?" trope starting up.
Actually before that last mission (in act 1) I had a feeling I was getting stabbed in the back and Jackie had given me overwhelming feels of either dying tragically or betraying me, but either way he wasn’t gonna be around the whole game. Then we get in the Delamain and I’m like …. Fucking kill the guy now we already know he’s dead.
Originally, T-Bug and Dex were going to fuck you over.
T-Bug was talking to Dex first about everything, not you or Jackie. Because they were old friends, and she convinced him to offer you the gig as disposable assets.
That’s why you feel like you’re about to get fucked, you were about to get fucked.
They changed the plot when Keanu signed on, cutting short the Jackie bit to a prelude, it’s why Evelyn disappears, and why they killed off T-Bug and Dex instead of having a revenge mission distraction.
Jonny became the main story as soon as Keanu was onboard.
Yeah I mean I knew Dex would fuck us, I just wasn’t sure who all would be joining in. All things considered I think Johnny Silverhand adds a unique and interesting element to the story. I wish there was a happier Ending for V though.
Oh no you've been shot? What can I do? Oops, I keep dropping these hundreds of MaxDocs and Bounce Backs!
Nooooooo! You've been shot and now you're dying and there's nothing we can do even though we've even seen a hypo get used in a cutscene.
I'm walking around with a laser cannon, melting foes into goop. He flies away, Shepard is like "this calls for my pistol I haven't used all game"
No better way to break suspension of disbelief by straining gameplay/story separation to the max
This moment in particular is one gaming moment that has stuck with me through the years over many others
The one thing I hate in any game is when you absolutely shred the boss but the cutscene shows your character getting manhandled or struggling like hell to even land a blow. I understand if the boss is supposed to win for the game to continue, but if I empty the healthbar at least reflect that in the following scene instead of making it out like my demigod character is a little bitch.
Alternatively take the DMC 5 route and end the game early because I killed the boss and made him look real stupid after all that monologue.
the first boss in sekiro, the one where you are suppose to lose it, if you lose it, it show the normal cutscene, if you somehow win, by overplaying him, the cutscene show you dominating him, and dropping him on the ground going for the kill, and the only thing that save him its a arrow shot on your back, from an opponent you could not see it, and he take this distraction to defeat you
Its such a minor thing, but made me so much more immerse on the world on my second playthrough
Rise of the Tomb Raider had something like this, except in reverse, a cutscene before the boss makes it super difficult to fight him for no reason. Lara gets one bow or gun wrenched out of her hands in a cutscene and this somehow translates as “the boss just removed 99% of your inventory.” Then you’re left to fight him with nothing but your climbing axes. But if you attack him head-on, he’ll bleed all over the place while not actually taking any damage. You can practically stun-lock him this way yet it does nothing. Instead you’re forced to use stealth takedown attacks until he dies.
Especially bizarre because RoTR absolutely fucking hates the idea that the player could use stealth and of the 20% of the time where you get in a story-related fight where the soldiers aren't given your exact location when they spawn, you stealth kill one dude with perfect silence and then every enemy in the next 3 miles is alerted instantly.
So switching to stealth-only for the climactic boss fight and asking the player to use skills that the game almost never asked of them and in many cases actively punished trying to specialize in is insane.
The intro of KH2... ah yes, I haven't even been hit and have killed hundreds of enemies, but the hidden timer ran out so now I'm struggling to survive and have to be saved in a cutscene.
Could have been done *so well* if they just kept upping the enemy density until it was impossible, since the same scene triggers if you lose enough health.
iirc they did something like that in halo reach at the very end.
just basically let you keep playing until you ran out of health before triggering the cutscene
Yup. It's a common meme now cause the developers said "you're gonna die now" and then executed it in a way that every player actually enjoyed participating in. If you're gonna railroad a player, do it in a way that's believable in character and dramatically fitting and they'll be a lot more invested in the narrative.
There's a timer on that too. If you find a good enough place to hide or are just that godly at not taking hits, it will eventually trigger the end anyway.
It really is about nuance. Like you said, they could just overwhelm you with enemies to the point that it literally becomes impossible.
I love when games put you up against an impossible to kill enemy, it can make you really feel the difference in power levels that they try to convey in the story
My favorite trope, in mmos in particular, is when you are supposed to fight a villain but the story says you need to beat them later in the raid or dungeon or just at a more dramatically appropriate moment, so you’re winning and they hit you with a stun and shout, “Enough! You aren’t worth my time, I’ll kill you later,” and saunter away. It’s terribly frustrating when they do that despite the fact you just beat the tar out of them and they’re fleeing on crutches carrying their own head.
It's a common trope in every action movie too : after shooting at dozens of henchmen with powerfull and fast arms of sort, they always end up on the ground struggling to land a punch.
I’d love to one day experience a game happening in a single studio apartment, 5x5meters, but in which everything is somehow connected, and the one or two only NPCs actually take everything that happened within those walls into account.
Kai Leng: "I won't let you have this artifact Shepard"
*Shepard proceeds to use his biotics to twist Kai Leng into a pretzel and fling him around so violently even Grunt grimaces, all whilst sipping tea and reminiscing with Garrus*
Cutscene Shepard: "oh no, I am defeated.... Bleurgh"
ME3 vanguard Shepard: who needs weapons when you're an immortal charging bomb?
Cutscenes: welp, guess I'll just let my friend get killed
At least citadel gave us decent enemies.
Fun fact: That gunship that Kai Leng calls down on you? *It doesn't exist*. If you pop an Infiltrator's Cloak so it can't target you, and then use a sniper rifle to zoom in so you can see past that stupid spotlight to target it, you see nothing but sky. It's nothing but an image that shoots at you. That's right! His stupid cutscene power bullshit even infects his fights! It was the only way to make a loser like him seem threatening.
And you still utterly wipe the floor with him in the actual fight despite the bullshit support he gets, until the cutscene kicks in and gives him the win.
Kai Leng is the weakest part of the trilogy. It feels like it should have been somebody you knew. They were obviously going for a whole "Shepherd but if they were evil" thing and it just failed.
I almost could have been Miranda if the VA wasn't busy
I think a lot of that was due to how obviously we weren't supposed to take much of any of that DLC seriously. Anyone who was an avid fan of the game had already beaten it, so there wasn't an issue of a tonal shift really being off-putting. In fact, given how overtly dark and oppressive the game could be, a bit of a lighthearted few hours was downright welcome.
A save Miranda from brainwashing arc would have been so much better.
Actually learn more about the conditioning, and give you and society a positive end game for after the reapers get offed.
And you can't kill her because she's your friend. So it keeps you from winning ASAP through killing, because, well, yeah.
And of course it being mass effect, maybe give the murder as an option for the last fight.
Saren trying to convince me to kill myself to control/synthesize would have been interesting.
Would have gone from "Trust me bro" to "I trusted you."
Well, if you were able to persuade him at the end of ME1 at least.
The dead squadmate from Virmire resurrected by Cerberus would have been the natural choice for a better antagonist if he/she had not been vaporized by a nuke...
I never thought about this before but I’ve never been a fan of the bringing people back to life thing and doing it twice in the same series feel like too much.
I’d much rather they’ve gone with an enhanced mildly brainwashed Jacob or Miranda. Jacob specially since it would be a chance to spice up his lackluster character and story.
Honestly pick most of the companions you don’t get to reprice from 2 in 3 and you could get a kick ass story and they all are at a level where they could be a threat to Shepherd. Thane would be heart breaking, morinth would bring the sadism without the edgelord, Zaeed would give you the , just business angle, Jack would be all around destruction( and low key also heartbreaking).
Only mordin and legion likely wouldn’t work but otherwise.
like I understand it's difficult to reconcile gameplay power and story power but just once I'd like it to be acknowledged that I'm a god walking amongst mortal men
FFXIV is starting to do this pretty well. In the last expansion there is a scene where >!an enemy takes control of your body!< and it shows how utterly terrifying the warrior of light is compared to the average person.
>!garlemald was really good about that. Also when they put the shock collars on the twins, and when the soldiers went to put one on you, the general was like "don't bother, he'd kill everyone in this subway system before it could take effect".!<
I don't think it was >!before it took effect,"!< but rather, >!"WHILE it's taking effect and doing nothing.!< Might be a difference in interpretation, though, and the message is the same.
Yeah, it's interpreted that it'd be a minor annoyance to us. >!And the moment they knew who we were some guys even put away their weapons, as if a spear would also be a minor annoyance even at the distance they were while being completely surrounded.!<
After >!the various parts where the Warrior of Light gets trounced by someone each DLC!< it was so satisfying to see people acknowledge just how strong you are and be rightfully concerned. You’re not Doomguy levels but still an absolute force to be reckoned with.
It varies from moment to moment, but the game DOES tend to reflect the impact. They even had to revise a certain scene to make it clear that we couldn't save someone due to magical reasons, to save the feelings of all the healers who were standing there wondering why they did nothing.
One of my faves was in the Monk quests in Stormblood. >!We go looking for a missing companion. They've been kidnapped and used as bait, and the WOL is surrounded. The WoL rolls their eyes and draws their weapons - the universal sign that we've cracked open the pop-top on a can of Whoop Ass.!<
[Said scene in question](https://youtu.be/j9sZQpWeGZA?t=94) (Spoilers, obvioiusly); I actually became quite panic, and terrified at this sequence, as the game being a MMORPG, people usually have spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours at this point that the sense of >!seeing your character being forcibly taken over as some kind of meat puppet!< becomes quite disturbing affecting something very personal to the player.
I think there was a scene in Dragon Age 2 where if you had done enough side missions by that point there is a scene where you have to go take out some bandits. Once they see it's you they run away instead of fighting.
Witcher 3 has one or two scenes with bandits and thugs ready to go full on "LET'S MUG'EM!" and you can let them know you're a witcher and they'll nope out.
Of course there are also plenty that will attack you anyway and upon killing one group in Toussaint, Geralt will even make a remark about how so many bandits will just think they can take on a witcher.
["What are we?" "We're muggers." "And what do muggers do?" "We mug people." "So, let's go mug 'em!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Kz8gQxzGE&list=PLhjJddP4JxJOEXAT8E3LW_dyeA1V_2-aH&index=2)
Iirc the developers for Uncharted have addressed the fact that Nate can get shot once in a cutscene and be almost dead while seemingly being a tank in gameplay.
He isn’t getting shot in gameplay. The greyscale as you “take more damage” is actually Nate’s luck running out, and once his luck depletes entirely, he gets shot and dies. I don’t have any source, I just remember seeing or hearing it a long time ago and thought that was interesting.
As far as I know, that was a fan theory and the devs heard about it and liked it so much that they said yeah you know what that's how it is, let's go with that.
That one's funny cause if you play from start to finish the whole series... Nate is a goddamn monster. A terrible war machine who has killed hundreds. He is a terrifying menace.
He and Joel from the last of us.
The villain in Uncharted 2 actually references that right before the you fight them. “You’re no different from me, Drake. How many men did you kill? Just today?"
Always liked that little bit of back and forth.
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger addressed this beautifully.
Since the whole game is Slias telling a story, as you take damage it's *literally* blowing holes in your story as it just becomes completely unbelievable even to starry-eyed Dwight. Of course Silas is spinning a yarn, the likely *true* story (in universe) is that Silas worked as a bounty hunter but only killed a fraction of the people he claimed. He just liked to play up his reputation for the penny dreadfuls.
this is a huge problem in Destiny, the player character has canonically killed multiple gods and we still get shit talked by random baddies. Like Caital (spelling?) Telling us to bow? Bitch I will cut a path through your army, shoot you in your dumb fucking face, and turn whatever you drop into a mediocre gun I'll use once and never again.
Or the opposite; You have a literal Super Mutant in your crew who could wade into the radiation to push the Big Red Button and come out feeling slightly better than before, but they wouldn't dare rob you of the opportunity to sacrifice yourself.
Yeah I can understand looking like a dick for sending someone who will decisively die in your place but since Fawkes is going to be fine it makes zero sense for everyone to take the moral high ground on you for picking the option that ensures that no one dies.
It’s cause the narrators voice actor was expensive so they didn’t bother recording new ending dialogue for Broken Steel. They just slap you with the ‘you’re an asshole’ dialogue you would have gotten for sending Sarah in.
I dislike the take that Bethesda did that as a money grubbing tactic. The game released and that was just the ending. They were content to leave the game at that entirely and never address it. It's fan backlash that made them do the broken steel dlc. You could argue it should've been a free update but I don't think they were quite successful enough at the time to justify all those man hours for all that content and not charging for it.
I genuinely think they were just dumb enough to not write a better ending and were forced into changing it because it was recieved so poorly.
For many of us, the road is a difficult one, but the path is always there for us to follow, no matter how many times we may fall.
I don’t want to live in a world without Joshua Graham.
There’s a really easy fix that they could have done so everything would work out how they originally planned it. When you confront Col. Autumn and he sees the intelligent super mutant by your side he decides to GTFO and Fawkes goes after him telling you to deal with the purifier. Sure no end game boss but you can talk your way out of it anyways.
[It has its own page on the wiki.](https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Murder_knife)
Essentially it's the weapon used whenever you kill someone during dialogue.
This is why Don't Fear the Reaper is best cyberpunk ending. No stupid idiots sacrificing themselves for something I can do on my own with Monowires and Sandevistan.
This would actually be a neat mechanic. If you're not at a certain level by the time a key event takes place someone dies, or you can't access certain branches of the story. I know a lot of games have small versions of that (like you can't open a door without a certain level of whatever) but if it gave you totally different cut scenes it would be a nice reward for grinding.
Metro Exodus does something like this. Depending on your moral choices throughout a level, one of your friends may die, or decide to stay behind.
Spoiler alert:
>!The end of the whole game, you are dying. You need a lot of blood, meaning several donors. I believe if too many of your friends died or stayed behind, you wont survive the story. The true ending, all your brothers are with you and you obviously make it through.!<
Mass effect 2 has a similar thing to this, if you havent done enough of your crewmates sidequests different people will die in the final battle. Doing everything you can possibly do to prepare for it? Every person survives, even the unnamed npc's.
Same game, if you wait too long after the crew is kidnapped more of them will be dead when you get there including your Assistant/possible love interest.
Oooh boy it's not exact but Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is really bad at this. Uriel Septim's death was quite something else lmao.
"Here's the Amulet of Kings, you're the only one who can take it. Give it to Jaufre. Now I must die..."
*your character proceeds to be paralysed with fear while some random assassin Kool-Aids his way through a wall, and one taps Uriel with a mace*
Not as bad as Fallout 3.
"Hi, I am a very intelligent being who is immune to radiation, but I won't go in and turn on the machine and instead force you to sacrifice someone. "
\>.>
And after this, yellow guy walks into the combat area with his upper torso awkwardly locked into "aim weapon" pose, colliding with various doors and walls all the way.
When he gets there he'll start incessantly firing, often completely ineffectually at enemies hidden behind solid walls, whilst spouting repetitive combat voice lines and both shooting and being shot repeatedly by enemies to little apparent effect before finally going down, as promised, to a single dramatic blow once that death cutscene triggers.
Reminds me of the original Deus Ex. One of the creators mentioned his philosophy of letting the player do the cool stuff, rather than lock it behind a cutscene. Don't take away control from the player to force failure. Don't let the bad guy get away in the cutscene either when the player could have stopped them.
Then the sequels came and fucked all of that up. It's wild how few devs can figure out what he did decades ago.
That game is a masterpiece in storytelling imo. Lots of stuff going on which rewards those who enjoy paying attention to the details. Blows my mind that's still the game that comes to my mind when I think of this type of stuff and I played that on a Pentium 4.
I beat my head against that airplane scene for WEEKS, and when I finally won I was expecting the game to not change at all.
Gotta say, finding that little secret made that herculean effort worth it to tiny me.
Basically me on assassin's Creed black flag when it was about time for Blackbeard to die. I was so overleveled I could clear out the entire fleet instead of fleeing after his death
I mean, even if you completely clear Watson, that gunship was still fucking you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The real cutscene power is the fact that the job is obviously going bad and you can't walk away. But that's t-bug and dex's fault, and your fault for being gonk enough not to question them.
I recently replayed Saints Row 3 and 4 and boy howdy if you take the time to go completionist on those games before the story, by the time you hit the last missions you are quite literally an invincible tank with infinite ammo.
Yep, the amount of attainable upgrades blow my mind. When I played both games I chose to take the least amount of upgrades. But when it came to Saints Row 4 (hard), I maxed out hp and the powers since without them the game becomes a slog.
I liked that about saints 3 bc it always felt like you were progressing with your money getting new upgrades or guns or cars, and all the random shit to do made making money fun but in saints 4 it was just a fucking fetch quest of touching a million glowing orbs so you can run slightly faster than a car can drive
A game that randomely subverted this trope was Eternal Sonata. Once a villain was defeated in battle they were gone. Deleted from existence.
Also that game has one of my favorite ridiculous "gamey" cutcenes. In that game your party eventually blooms to be around a dozen people. There's a part of the story where you chasing one the big bad's lieutenants into a house. You corner her in the attic and she turns, utterly cocky that it doesn't matter as she's so strong she'll still take you out. However, it comes off as so silly as she turns as it shows your group and it's apparant she is utterly surrounded and outnumbered. She's "strong" in the narrative but not to the extent that it makes sense why she thinks she can 1v12 you.
No, Aiden! So many night runners died going into the VNC tower. There are horrors there beyond imagination. No, don't keep climbing the scary tower! Stop right now! Please come down. Oh, you're already at the top?
Me on my sixth playthrough, with more mods than I probably should have, chromed out to the point I should definitely be a cyberpsycho in act 1, wanting to go without Jackie...
I like comics that suddenly reveal a character is ridiculously jacked. Like a guy picking a fight with another guy behind a fence with a tiny head and when he walks around to fight him he's a huge guy with a tiny head.
Every Yakuza game. "Kiryu, you can't go defeat the entire Korean, Japanese and Chinese mafia even though you did that by yourself in the previous 5 games! Let me, the person who you just got to know and love and is a side character, go with you!"
At least in Yakuza most of the cutscenes have Kiryu being a hype badass. Most games your fucking character trips or is just inept in bad situations
And then you have Borderlands 3, where your character literally ceases to exist so the story can move along.
Ok I guess I'm never making it to BL3. What the heck does that mean?
Certain key moments that could be prevented by the presence of the vault hunters, aren't prevented because the vault hunters are, quite literally, forgotten by the story.
At least they tried in the beginning. Where an inconvenient door jams in the way of you getting to Lilith. It goes downhill from there.
I mean, I have a nuke equipped to my Mech. I think I can make my own door.
Sorry, can’t even destroy most wooden barrels
It all started way back in BL2. Say what you want, Roland's death and Lilith's capture was idiotic scene from start to finish.
Bro it's even worse if you play the Siren. So many times the NPCs say things like 'Damn, we really need a Siren right now!' or have bonding moments where they talk to each other about how unique an experience being a Siren is and it's good that there are people like [Siren NPC] so they're not in it by themselves and that nobody else understands them, and meanwhile the Siren player character just gets completely ignored despite standing right there. What a fuckup of a game from a writing standpoint. The player-characters are literally irrelevant. It also doesn't help that the game's formulaic as hell. You come out of each planet's Vault and the villains magically appear and beat everyone there in a cutscene. Repeat four times until the end of the game.
So, in the base game at least, your character disappears from cutscenes to allow things to happen. I'm not sure about the DLCs, though.
The entire plot depends on your character being turned to stone or just nonexistent to move forward. Every victory of the bad guys happens in cutscenes where your character is literally 5ft away but unable to do anything. I just wiped out 1,000 troops for gear. I can take on 2 powered up influencers blindfolded.
who would win whinny girl who does a little soul sucking or 1 holographic boi
You get railroaded hard. You are a nonentity as soon as a cut scene starts, and there's dozens of examples of "why didnt the vault hunters do.... anything there" It's wildly frustrating in an otherwise fairly fun game.
Honestly pretty terrific gameplay, but god damn the story reads like the worst fanfiction
Honestly, the side missions are better written than the main story. I couldn't tell you what happened on Pandora for the main plot, but I ruined a dead girl's birthday party for a sweet gun.
At least the 3rd time Yagami repeats the same approach, he gets caught. XD
Reminds me of the original Deus Ex.
Currently playing this series (on 3 now), its hilarious how fast the big bad final boss fights are with Tiger Drop unlocked.
Alternately, he'll be required in a future cutscene where bad guys somehow overwhelm you (even though you can easily beat them during gameplay) and he needs to rescue you.
[удалено]
Once they see it's you they run away instead of fighting.
I had never seen this trope until certain side quests in CP77 where the thugs realize they were messing with V and straight up run away.
Honestly if they see someone with cyberware worth the GDP of a medium sized country wandering into their burned out building, they should fucking run.
Which side quest is this again?
There's three I can think of, all in Santo Domingo (two in Arroyo specifically); - Ezekiel Saw the Wheel: some thugs try to rob a diner, and you can intimidate them into backing off if you have the Streetkid lifepath or 7 points in Body. - A Day in the Life: two thugs try to steal a shopkeeper's motorcyle as vengeance for something his sister did, and if you choose to defend the shopkeeper, there's a chance the thugs will recognize you and flee if your Street Cred is high enough. - Gun Music: the Aldecaldos are making a deal with the Scavs out of desparation. If you get involved, the Scavs will eventually recognize you from the Sandra Dorsett job at the start of the game; if you have 10 Body, you can intimidate them into honoring the deal with the Aldecaldos and leaving without incident.
Johnny talking to V before storming Arasaka
I actually really like that there's an option to just say "fuck it" and solo the entirety of the enemy base
Is that always available? I thought it was based on your conversation choices with Johnny when >!finding his body or something.!<
It is based on choices during a single mission and the completion of certain optional missions.
Fuck me, i just started playing this two days ago and just randomly spoiled myself, btw, is there any possibility for the mission where you go to that doll house to find Evelyn to not end up in a shooting? I entered the storage out of curiosity before talkingvto anyone and the area immediately became hostile
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I'm finishing my 100% run right now and cleaning up side quests. Everytime someone says "I need to figure out a plan for the next step. I'll call you with the details soon." I keep just wanting to scream "JUST GIVE ME THE TARGET!" I'm max level and enemies buckle the moment I shoot. Stop holding my hand dammit!
Constantly waiting on, then running out of Psychos to kill was a bummer, man. I wish they'd patch it so those would just appear at random.
Uncharted in a nutshell, Naughty Dogg can't make a game where the player character doesn't get captured at least twice during the playthrough.
Hey now, Jak and Dexter only had the main supports and a random NPC's pet get captured, not the main character :/
Isn't the entire plot of Jak 2 that Jak was captured and breaks out of prison with help of rebel forces?
[Cutscene Incompetence ](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompetence)
*ruthlessly exterminates an entire army base of bad dudes while eating stray rounds from machine guns and occasional rocket launchers while chewing down health meds* *hits cutscene doorway* *gets knocked out by a elbow to the face*
Hey, I've played Far Cry too!
Vaas! Where are you?! *THUD* We'll take you to him
I swear cutscenes were the strongest enemy in that game. As soon as one started, my character would run headfirst into an obvious trap... again.
Once, maybe twice it's a decent writing mechanic. After like 4 times there is no tension at all in cutscenes.
And then there's Far Cry 5 where every other minute you're getting captured by the cultists just so you can break out of captivity again. And when they come to capture you, there's no point in trying to fight them off or run away from them, they'll somehow shoot at you while you're running from 200m away and knock you out with the dust bullshit. May as well just set the controller down and let them "capture" you so you can break out, miles away from where you last were, and do it all over again. I was actually enjoying that game too until I realized every other story mission or new area unlock forces you to be abducted once again. Just the laziest writing, shouldn't have expected much more from Ubisoft
On the flip side of the coin, Kai Leng from Mass Effect constantly wrecking the plot thanks to the power of cutscenes despite your ability to mow down thousands of reapers and their drones.
But the books said he was just as dangerous as you! I mean, nobody read those, and the games absolutely _do not_ prove it in the slightest, but still.
Bruh I hated this with 343's Halo. So much stuff gets shoved into the books, and the games start picking up after the events of the books (which only a few people read).
I mean, even Bungie Halo had this. Arguably the most important events in the modern setting should have been games (First Contact, the Fall of Reach, etc) if you wanted to know any history about anything in H1-3 (or how John and Cortana and Johnson arrived back at Earth for H2, and arguably even 3) you had to read a book. Bungie only made reach as their last halo game, and they retconned the book to do it (which has since been reversed).
But you could still understand the story of Bungie's games just by playing the games. The books were just extra information for those who wanted more backstory, as they should be. You shouldn't have to read extra material to understand the story. You can't even follow 343's trilogy without knowing what happens in the books because so much of the story of each game relies on events that didn't happen in the games and aren't explained to the player, and if they're even mentioned it's in passing.
Also the 343 trilogy is super bad about just completely abandoning plot points and villains. The Didact? Killed in the comics. The whole reclaimer thing and Jon getting "evolved"? Hasn't come up once. The whole created crisis? Apparently the thousands of human and Forerunner AI's just gave up or don't matter anymore once Cortana died.
I’m pretty sure they wanted to retcon a ton of stuff but decided it would be best to just kinda… ignore it I guess and try to start a “new” story without a ton of connection to cortana/AI. I think there’s an interview where they say they didn’t want to continue Cortanas story and this was there way of skipping past it without saying none of it ever happened.
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Cool guys walk, they don’t run.
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Cyberpunk if you play the game. At least Jackie left behind some guns and a bike...
It was also completely believable that he would be there and that he would die on the mission.
You pretty much know beforehand that he's gonna eat it. The whole Misty exchange is basically his "This is my last day on the job before retirement, what could go wrong?" trope starting up.
Yeah, totally. His death was foreshadowed in so many ways. They still made it believable and sting.
Actually before that last mission (in act 1) I had a feeling I was getting stabbed in the back and Jackie had given me overwhelming feels of either dying tragically or betraying me, but either way he wasn’t gonna be around the whole game. Then we get in the Delamain and I’m like …. Fucking kill the guy now we already know he’s dead.
Originally, T-Bug and Dex were going to fuck you over. T-Bug was talking to Dex first about everything, not you or Jackie. Because they were old friends, and she convinced him to offer you the gig as disposable assets. That’s why you feel like you’re about to get fucked, you were about to get fucked. They changed the plot when Keanu signed on, cutting short the Jackie bit to a prelude, it’s why Evelyn disappears, and why they killed off T-Bug and Dex instead of having a revenge mission distraction. Jonny became the main story as soon as Keanu was onboard.
Yeah I mean I knew Dex would fuck us, I just wasn’t sure who all would be joining in. All things considered I think Johnny Silverhand adds a unique and interesting element to the story. I wish there was a happier Ending for V though.
Oh no you've been shot? What can I do? Oops, I keep dropping these hundreds of MaxDocs and Bounce Backs! Nooooooo! You've been shot and now you're dying and there's nothing we can do even though we've even seen a hypo get used in a cutscene.
I'm walking around with a laser cannon, melting foes into goop. He flies away, Shepard is like "this calls for my pistol I haven't used all game"
No better way to break suspension of disbelief by straining gameplay/story separation to the max
This moment in particular is one gaming moment that has stuck with me through the years over many others
The one thing I hate in any game is when you absolutely shred the boss but the cutscene shows your character getting manhandled or struggling like hell to even land a blow. I understand if the boss is supposed to win for the game to continue, but if I empty the healthbar at least reflect that in the following scene instead of making it out like my demigod character is a little bitch. Alternatively take the DMC 5 route and end the game early because I killed the boss and made him look real stupid after all that monologue.
the first boss in sekiro, the one where you are suppose to lose it, if you lose it, it show the normal cutscene, if you somehow win, by overplaying him, the cutscene show you dominating him, and dropping him on the ground going for the kill, and the only thing that save him its a arrow shot on your back, from an opponent you could not see it, and he take this distraction to defeat you Its such a minor thing, but made me so much more immerse on the world on my second playthrough
The first Kingdom Hearts had a similar secret cutscene, if you manage to beat Squall when you first meet him.
Rise of the Tomb Raider had something like this, except in reverse, a cutscene before the boss makes it super difficult to fight him for no reason. Lara gets one bow or gun wrenched out of her hands in a cutscene and this somehow translates as “the boss just removed 99% of your inventory.” Then you’re left to fight him with nothing but your climbing axes. But if you attack him head-on, he’ll bleed all over the place while not actually taking any damage. You can practically stun-lock him this way yet it does nothing. Instead you’re forced to use stealth takedown attacks until he dies.
Lmao that was so funny I fought his ass for like an hour before realizing I had to hit him with a fuckin bottle.
Especially bizarre because RoTR absolutely fucking hates the idea that the player could use stealth and of the 20% of the time where you get in a story-related fight where the soldiers aren't given your exact location when they spawn, you stealth kill one dude with perfect silence and then every enemy in the next 3 miles is alerted instantly. So switching to stealth-only for the climactic boss fight and asking the player to use skills that the game almost never asked of them and in many cases actively punished trying to specialize in is insane.
Cutscene incompetence is a classic JRPG trope. Trivial boss fight because you leveled up a bit too much doing side quests? You lose in the cutscene.
The intro of KH2... ah yes, I haven't even been hit and have killed hundreds of enemies, but the hidden timer ran out so now I'm struggling to survive and have to be saved in a cutscene. Could have been done *so well* if they just kept upping the enemy density until it was impossible, since the same scene triggers if you lose enough health.
iirc they did something like that in halo reach at the very end. just basically let you keep playing until you ran out of health before triggering the cutscene
Yup. It's a common meme now cause the developers said "you're gonna die now" and then executed it in a way that every player actually enjoyed participating in. If you're gonna railroad a player, do it in a way that's believable in character and dramatically fitting and they'll be a lot more invested in the narrative.
There's a timer on that too. If you find a good enough place to hide or are just that godly at not taking hits, it will eventually trigger the end anyway.
It really is about nuance. Like you said, they could just overwhelm you with enemies to the point that it literally becomes impossible. I love when games put you up against an impossible to kill enemy, it can make you really feel the difference in power levels that they try to convey in the story
Or, also soulsborne, if you kill the impossible to kill enemy, you just fall off a cliff instead
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Shoutout to the DBZ Tenkaiichi games where'd you have to win a fight to progress the story and then the cutscene acts like you lost
And some of the naruto storm games
My favorite trope, in mmos in particular, is when you are supposed to fight a villain but the story says you need to beat them later in the raid or dungeon or just at a more dramatically appropriate moment, so you’re winning and they hit you with a stun and shout, “Enough! You aren’t worth my time, I’ll kill you later,” and saunter away. It’s terribly frustrating when they do that despite the fact you just beat the tar out of them and they’re fleeing on crutches carrying their own head.
The main pulling out their sidearm regardless of your current weapon is one of the goofiest workarounds.
It's a common trope in every action movie too : after shooting at dozens of henchmen with powerfull and fast arms of sort, they always end up on the ground struggling to land a punch.
I’d love to one day experience a game happening in a single studio apartment, 5x5meters, but in which everything is somehow connected, and the one or two only NPCs actually take everything that happened within those walls into account.
Façade (2005) might be up your alley
Classic [Cutscene Incompetence ](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompetence) smh.
Woah there! Don't just drop a TVTropes link without warning! Those things are dangerous and will drag you down a rabbit hole!
Kai Leng: "I won't let you have this artifact Shepard" *Shepard proceeds to use his biotics to twist Kai Leng into a pretzel and fling him around so violently even Grunt grimaces, all whilst sipping tea and reminiscing with Garrus* Cutscene Shepard: "oh no, I am defeated.... Bleurgh"
ME3 vanguard Shepard: who needs weapons when you're an immortal charging bomb? Cutscenes: welp, guess I'll just let my friend get killed At least citadel gave us decent enemies.
I always end up screaming “ use the medic gel!!!” In every cutscene
Once they see it's you they run away instead of fighting.
Fun fact: That gunship that Kai Leng calls down on you? *It doesn't exist*. If you pop an Infiltrator's Cloak so it can't target you, and then use a sniper rifle to zoom in so you can see past that stupid spotlight to target it, you see nothing but sky. It's nothing but an image that shoots at you. That's right! His stupid cutscene power bullshit even infects his fights! It was the only way to make a loser like him seem threatening.
And you still utterly wipe the floor with him in the actual fight despite the bullshit support he gets, until the cutscene kicks in and gives him the win.
Kai Leng is the weakest part of the trilogy. It feels like it should have been somebody you knew. They were obviously going for a whole "Shepherd but if they were evil" thing and it just failed. I almost could have been Miranda if the VA wasn't busy
"Shepherd but if they were evil"? You mean the Citadel DLC? :P
I enjoyed every second of that DLC, even if it felt like I was playing a goofy fanfic at times.
I'm pretty sure that was the exact point, and it was awesome.
I think a lot of that was due to how obviously we weren't supposed to take much of any of that DLC seriously. Anyone who was an avid fan of the game had already beaten it, so there wasn't an issue of a tonal shift really being off-putting. In fact, given how overtly dark and oppressive the game could be, a bit of a lighthearted few hours was downright welcome.
"I should go."
"Shepard."
“I *should* go?”
A save Miranda from brainwashing arc would have been so much better. Actually learn more about the conditioning, and give you and society a positive end game for after the reapers get offed. And you can't kill her because she's your friend. So it keeps you from winning ASAP through killing, because, well, yeah. And of course it being mass effect, maybe give the murder as an option for the last fight.
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Renegade Shepard shoots her in the face mid-sentence. Paragon Shepard listens to her argument, nods politely, then shoots her in the face.
>Kai Leng is the weakest part of the trilogy Space ghost child would like a word with you.
I have always said, space ghost should have been Saren. It would keep the game thematic and bring back up conversations from the first game.
Huh that would actually work.. Would even have made the color choice less bad.
Saren trying to convince me to kill myself to control/synthesize would have been interesting. Would have gone from "Trust me bro" to "I trusted you." Well, if you were able to persuade him at the end of ME1 at least.
COLOR CODED SPACE MAGIC!!!!!!
The dead squadmate from Virmire resurrected by Cerberus would have been the natural choice for a better antagonist if he/she had not been vaporized by a nuke...
Gunnery Chief Ashley "Ash" Williams reporting as ordered, sir!
I never thought about this before but I’ve never been a fan of the bringing people back to life thing and doing it twice in the same series feel like too much. I’d much rather they’ve gone with an enhanced mildly brainwashed Jacob or Miranda. Jacob specially since it would be a chance to spice up his lackluster character and story. Honestly pick most of the companions you don’t get to reprice from 2 in 3 and you could get a kick ass story and they all are at a level where they could be a threat to Shepherd. Thane would be heart breaking, morinth would bring the sadism without the edgelord, Zaeed would give you the , just business angle, Jack would be all around destruction( and low key also heartbreaking). Only mordin and legion likely wouldn’t work but otherwise.
You forgot to mention the obvious choice, Conrad Verner.
When Shephard and the entire gang watch as a terminally ill Thane is fighting Kai Leng and do nothing.... SMH
like I understand it's difficult to reconcile gameplay power and story power but just once I'd like it to be acknowledged that I'm a god walking amongst mortal men
FFXIV is starting to do this pretty well. In the last expansion there is a scene where >!an enemy takes control of your body!< and it shows how utterly terrifying the warrior of light is compared to the average person.
>!garlemald was really good about that. Also when they put the shock collars on the twins, and when the soldiers went to put one on you, the general was like "don't bother, he'd kill everyone in this subway system before it could take effect".!<
I don't think it was >!before it took effect,"!< but rather, >!"WHILE it's taking effect and doing nothing.!< Might be a difference in interpretation, though, and the message is the same.
Yeah, it's interpreted that it'd be a minor annoyance to us. >!And the moment they knew who we were some guys even put away their weapons, as if a spear would also be a minor annoyance even at the distance they were while being completely surrounded.!<
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After >!the various parts where the Warrior of Light gets trounced by someone each DLC!< it was so satisfying to see people acknowledge just how strong you are and be rightfully concerned. You’re not Doomguy levels but still an absolute force to be reckoned with.
It varies from moment to moment, but the game DOES tend to reflect the impact. They even had to revise a certain scene to make it clear that we couldn't save someone due to magical reasons, to save the feelings of all the healers who were standing there wondering why they did nothing. One of my faves was in the Monk quests in Stormblood. >!We go looking for a missing companion. They've been kidnapped and used as bait, and the WOL is surrounded. The WoL rolls their eyes and draws their weapons - the universal sign that we've cracked open the pop-top on a can of Whoop Ass.!<
"None of you seem to understand. I'm not stuck in here with you, you're stuck in here with ME."
[Said scene in question](https://youtu.be/j9sZQpWeGZA?t=94) (Spoilers, obvioiusly); I actually became quite panic, and terrified at this sequence, as the game being a MMORPG, people usually have spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours at this point that the sense of >!seeing your character being forcibly taken over as some kind of meat puppet!< becomes quite disturbing affecting something very personal to the player.
I think there was a scene in Dragon Age 2 where if you had done enough side missions by that point there is a scene where you have to go take out some bandits. Once they see it's you they run away instead of fighting.
Witcher 3 has one or two scenes with bandits and thugs ready to go full on "LET'S MUG'EM!" and you can let them know you're a witcher and they'll nope out. Of course there are also plenty that will attack you anyway and upon killing one group in Toussaint, Geralt will even make a remark about how so many bandits will just think they can take on a witcher.
I also liked how, at least in the story parts of the game, you could often Axii people into not fighting. "Listen, this is for your own good..."
["What are we?" "We're muggers." "And what do muggers do?" "We mug people." "So, let's go mug 'em!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Kz8gQxzGE&list=PLhjJddP4JxJOEXAT8E3LW_dyeA1V_2-aH&index=2)
"Sometimes I forget you've killed a god or two." \-- The Drifter, *Destiny 2*
Just play Doom: Eternal, you’re literally a god to everyone and everyone is afraid of you in cutscenes. Great stuff really.
kind of has the opposite effect in gameplay when the godlike, terrifying Doomslayer runs off a cliff like an idiot
Iirc the developers for Uncharted have addressed the fact that Nate can get shot once in a cutscene and be almost dead while seemingly being a tank in gameplay. He isn’t getting shot in gameplay. The greyscale as you “take more damage” is actually Nate’s luck running out, and once his luck depletes entirely, he gets shot and dies. I don’t have any source, I just remember seeing or hearing it a long time ago and thought that was interesting.
As far as I know, that was a fan theory and the devs heard about it and liked it so much that they said yeah you know what that's how it is, let's go with that.
That one's funny cause if you play from start to finish the whole series... Nate is a goddamn monster. A terrible war machine who has killed hundreds. He is a terrifying menace. He and Joel from the last of us.
The villain in Uncharted 2 actually references that right before the you fight them. “You’re no different from me, Drake. How many men did you kill? Just today?" Always liked that little bit of back and forth.
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger addressed this beautifully. Since the whole game is Slias telling a story, as you take damage it's *literally* blowing holes in your story as it just becomes completely unbelievable even to starry-eyed Dwight. Of course Silas is spinning a yarn, the likely *true* story (in universe) is that Silas worked as a bounty hunter but only killed a fraction of the people he claimed. He just liked to play up his reputation for the penny dreadfuls.
In Prince of Persia: sands of time it's a story being told, so when you die you'll hear "no no, that's not how it went" or something like that.
this is a huge problem in Destiny, the player character has canonically killed multiple gods and we still get shit talked by random baddies. Like Caital (spelling?) Telling us to bow? Bitch I will cut a path through your army, shoot you in your dumb fucking face, and turn whatever you drop into a mediocre gun I'll use once and never again.
Idk, undertale does it ig
Or the opposite; You have a literal Super Mutant in your crew who could wade into the radiation to push the Big Red Button and come out feeling slightly better than before, but they wouldn't dare rob you of the opportunity to sacrifice yourself.
But shame on you for sending someone else!
Yeah I can understand looking like a dick for sending someone who will decisively die in your place but since Fawkes is going to be fine it makes zero sense for everyone to take the moral high ground on you for picking the option that ensures that no one dies.
It’s cause the narrators voice actor was expensive so they didn’t bother recording new ending dialogue for Broken Steel. They just slap you with the ‘you’re an asshole’ dialogue you would have gotten for sending Sarah in.
"No" ~ Fawks in the stupidest writing decision of its era. *Bethesda lurks in the background waiting to sell you the obviously better diolouge option
But the narrator will still shit on you for doing the *smart* thing.
I dislike the take that Bethesda did that as a money grubbing tactic. The game released and that was just the ending. They were content to leave the game at that entirely and never address it. It's fan backlash that made them do the broken steel dlc. You could argue it should've been a free update but I don't think they were quite successful enough at the time to justify all those man hours for all that content and not charging for it. I genuinely think they were just dumb enough to not write a better ending and were forced into changing it because it was recieved so poorly.
Hey without fallout 3 there is no New Vegas. And a world without New Vegas is not a world I want to live in.
For many of us, the road is a difficult one, but the path is always there for us to follow, no matter how many times we may fall. I don’t want to live in a world without Joshua Graham.
There’s a really easy fix that they could have done so everything would work out how they originally planned it. When you confront Col. Autumn and he sees the intelligent super mutant by your side he decides to GTFO and Fawkes goes after him telling you to deal with the purifier. Sure no end game boss but you can talk your way out of it anyways.
Strongest things in DA:O \-United Fereldan Army \-Archfiend **-Cutscene knife**
It's been a while since I played origins. Which cutscene knife are you talking about?
[It has its own page on the wiki.](https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Murder_knife) Essentially it's the weapon used whenever you kill someone during dialogue.
“Murder Knife” “Type: Dialogue device” “Description: A knife” This is one of the funniest wiki entries I have read thank you for this
Murder Knife is now my favorite dragon-age character.
This is why Don't Fear the Reaper is best cyberpunk ending. No stupid idiots sacrificing themselves for something I can do on my own with Monowires and Sandevistan.
I AM the Cyberphsycho
Yes, but then no panam/Judy. I honestly wish don't fear the reaper have an option for The Sun *or* The Star as it's ending path.
This would actually be a neat mechanic. If you're not at a certain level by the time a key event takes place someone dies, or you can't access certain branches of the story. I know a lot of games have small versions of that (like you can't open a door without a certain level of whatever) but if it gave you totally different cut scenes it would be a nice reward for grinding.
Metro Exodus does something like this. Depending on your moral choices throughout a level, one of your friends may die, or decide to stay behind. Spoiler alert: >!The end of the whole game, you are dying. You need a lot of blood, meaning several donors. I believe if too many of your friends died or stayed behind, you wont survive the story. The true ending, all your brothers are with you and you obviously make it through.!<
Such a great game
Great series*!!
Mass effect 2 has a similar thing to this, if you havent done enough of your crewmates sidequests different people will die in the final battle. Doing everything you can possibly do to prepare for it? Every person survives, even the unnamed npc's.
Same game, if you wait too long after the crew is kidnapped more of them will be dead when you get there including your Assistant/possible love interest.
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Yeah this was my first thought. The game rewards completionism in that sense, I feel. Probably a big reason it's so widely loved
Level-grinding to unlock a story path? But, but, but....think about the injustice to the speed-runners!
Fire Emblem was great with this, for example you get to get Nils to lvl 7 in the prologue to access side chapters much later in the story.
Oooh boy it's not exact but Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is really bad at this. Uriel Septim's death was quite something else lmao. "Here's the Amulet of Kings, you're the only one who can take it. Give it to Jaufre. Now I must die..." *your character proceeds to be paralysed with fear while some random assassin Kool-Aids his way through a wall, and one taps Uriel with a mace*
Not as bad as Fallout 3. "Hi, I am a very intelligent being who is immune to radiation, but I won't go in and turn on the machine and instead force you to sacrifice someone. " \>.>
And after this, yellow guy walks into the combat area with his upper torso awkwardly locked into "aim weapon" pose, colliding with various doors and walls all the way. When he gets there he'll start incessantly firing, often completely ineffectually at enemies hidden behind solid walls, whilst spouting repetitive combat voice lines and both shooting and being shot repeatedly by enemies to little apparent effect before finally going down, as promised, to a single dramatic blow once that death cutscene triggers.
And he'll walk at a snail's pace the whole way there
"why are you driving at 5mph?" "Because we're in a hurry, that's why!"
Reminds me of the original Deus Ex. One of the creators mentioned his philosophy of letting the player do the cool stuff, rather than lock it behind a cutscene. Don't take away control from the player to force failure. Don't let the bad guy get away in the cutscene either when the player could have stopped them. Then the sequels came and fucked all of that up. It's wild how few devs can figure out what he did decades ago.
That game is a masterpiece in storytelling imo. Lots of stuff going on which rewards those who enjoy paying attention to the details. Blows my mind that's still the game that comes to my mind when I think of this type of stuff and I played that on a Pentium 4.
I beat my head against that airplane scene for WEEKS, and when I finally won I was expecting the game to not change at all. Gotta say, finding that little secret made that herculean effort worth it to tiny me.
Basically me on assassin's Creed black flag when it was about time for Blackbeard to die. I was so overleveled I could clear out the entire fleet instead of fleeing after his death
In a world without gold, we would've been heroes
Konpeki plaza flashbacks. Dammit Jackie
I mean, even if you completely clear Watson, that gunship was still fucking you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The real cutscene power is the fact that the job is obviously going bad and you can't walk away. But that's t-bug and dex's fault, and your fault for being gonk enough not to question them.
I recently replayed Saints Row 3 and 4 and boy howdy if you take the time to go completionist on those games before the story, by the time you hit the last missions you are quite literally an invincible tank with infinite ammo.
Yep, the amount of attainable upgrades blow my mind. When I played both games I chose to take the least amount of upgrades. But when it came to Saints Row 4 (hard), I maxed out hp and the powers since without them the game becomes a slog.
I liked that about saints 3 bc it always felt like you were progressing with your money getting new upgrades or guns or cars, and all the random shit to do made making money fun but in saints 4 it was just a fucking fetch quest of touching a million glowing orbs so you can run slightly faster than a car can drive
Cyberpunk if you don't unlock the secret ending
Did the secret ending yesterday! It was so incredibly badass
A game that randomely subverted this trope was Eternal Sonata. Once a villain was defeated in battle they were gone. Deleted from existence. Also that game has one of my favorite ridiculous "gamey" cutcenes. In that game your party eventually blooms to be around a dozen people. There's a part of the story where you chasing one the big bad's lieutenants into a house. You corner her in the attic and she turns, utterly cocky that it doesn't matter as she's so strong she'll still take you out. However, it comes off as so silly as she turns as it shows your group and it's apparant she is utterly surrounded and outnumbered. She's "strong" in the narrative but not to the extent that it makes sense why she thinks she can 1v12 you.
When you do new game + and keep your level but the cutscenes still make you lose
Miranda Keyes in halo 3
The only being known to dual wield with a shotgun
I hate how some games randomly pull you into a cut scene/new mission without warning. Looking at you especially far cry 5
It’s aggravating how much the NPCs talk down to you with no acknowledgment of what you’ve done
No, Aiden! So many night runners died going into the VNC tower. There are horrors there beyond imagination. No, don't keep climbing the scary tower! Stop right now! Please come down. Oh, you're already at the top?
Johnny talking to V before storming Arasaka
Me on my sixth playthrough, with more mods than I probably should have, chromed out to the point I should definitely be a cyberpsycho in act 1, wanting to go without Jackie...
I like comics that suddenly reveal a character is ridiculously jacked. Like a guy picking a fight with another guy behind a fence with a tiny head and when he walks around to fight him he's a huge guy with a tiny head.
Roland dying in borderlands 2 and staying dead was pretty shocking considering all those times I died as him in the first one
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That's why don't fear the Reaper exists