It's the little things...

General and high profile video game topics.
DaHeckIzDat
Posts: 1997
Joined: April 9th, 2015, 1:41 pm

Re: It's the little things...

Postby DaHeckIzDat » March 8th, 2018, 5:19 pm

Not sure if this counts, but in Dark Souls 2 there's an area that you can wander into with a coffin lying around. Go up to it and it'll prompt you to get in. Do so, and it will tell you that "the essence of your being has changed" or something like that. When you get out... you're a woman. Or if you were a woman, you're now a man. There is literally no reason for this, no lore to back it up, so I see it as the developers lightening the mood in a dark and super serious game by pranking their players.

Herschie
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Joined: April 7th, 2015, 11:44 pm

Re: It's the little things...

Postby Herschie » March 12th, 2018, 1:51 pm

Not really super-classic, but in franchise mode in MLB: The Show, the ivy on the wall at Wrigley Field starts out brown in April, and gradually fills in throughout May. And recently, the lighting changes as well. A 1:20 game in June will be mostly played in sunlight, but in September and October, half the field is covered in shadows by the 7th inning. A 7:05 game in June starts out in shadows with some sun out in right field, and that eventually turns from dusk into night. But in October, a 7:05 game starts out with the sky pitch black. The weather is usually appropriate as well.

NHL '94 had some nice little things that made it feel like a hockey game. And in the Taito version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the NES, I liked how some of the cutscenes were nicely detailed and looked as if they came straight from the movie.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: It's the little things...

Postby VideoGameCritic » March 24th, 2018, 10:11 am

When you jump on a platform in Sonic the Hedgehog, it dips a little, as if supporting extra weight. It's a small detail that separates the classics from the cheap knock-offs.

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Matchstick
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Joined: October 26th, 2017, 6:45 am

Re: It's the little things...

Postby Matchstick » July 5th, 2018, 3:20 am

I've been meaning to chime in on this thread for a while now. When I first read it, I thought, "I could contribute to this, but nothing's coming to mind yet." Plus, the longer I waited, the more I read others' responses, and many of the examples here are things I, too, have noticed over the years. The bugs scurrying off the corpse in Super Metroid used to give me the creeps as a kid - I loved it!

Lately, I've been spending [far too much] time with the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection on the Nintendo Switch. I've been having a ball, playing all the classic games with my trusty 8bitdo SNES30 bluetooth controller, ripping off combos and setting high scores like it's the 90's all over again. I am *such* a happy camper with that game, and recommend it, and the 8bitdo controller, to anyone that has a soft spot for the Street Fighter series.

Back on topic, as I've played the games, I've noticed a ton of little details that, while I noticed them years ago, have long been forgotten by yours truly until now. So, here, I present my, "It's the little things... Street Fighter Edition."

In the original Street Fighter II, and all of its upgrades, the battle in E. Honda's stage takes place in a bathhouse. Since Honda is a Sumo wrestler, he has a traditional Sumo ring on the floor, complete with a thick rice rope encircling it. The center of the ring has two traditional lines, markers where the fighters are to stand and assume their starting positions. In the game, the lines are placed in a way that, when the match begins, every character is actually "toeing the line" correctly, lined up and read to go for the start of the round. A very, very small detail, but one that I remember being blown away by, all those years ago.

In Street Fighter Alpha 2, Dhalsim's stage features a woman in the background (his wife?) whose reactions change depending on how he does in the fight. Whenever Dhalsim lands a blow, she smiles and claps her hands. When he gets attacked, she looks away quickly, like she can't bear to watch.

Also in Alpha 2, several of the backgrounds contain characters from other Capcom games. Even when I was younger, I noticed a few of the Darkstalkers in the background of Ken's stage, and even Strider was hanging out back there! Guy's stage features many characters from the Final Fight series, as I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be taking place in Metro City. Too cool!

In Street Fighter Alpha 3, if you play all the way through the arcade mode without losing, and then lose to M. Bison, you *do not* get the chance to continue. Instead, you're forced to watch Bison's ending, while your character of choice is shown as being imprisoned in some sort of storage tank or chamber. At first, I thought this was pretty whack, but as I watched the ending, I laughed, and thought it was a nice touch. It's like getting to game 7 of the NHL Finals, only to lose, and then be forced to watch the other team skate the Stanley Cup around the arena. Great job making it that far... but nope, you still lose.

Street Fighter III has a bevy of little details, but the one the stands out the most to me comes when Ken fights Ryu. While each character has their own pre-fight animations, Ken and Ryu both share a similar one, where they stand at the ready and extend a clenched fist outward, toward their opponent. When they fight each other, they both do the same animation, and appear to be "touching gloves" in a sign of sportsmanship before the match. Being a fan of Street Fighter lore, and knowing the competitive yet friendly backstories of the two fighters makes this a pretty touching moment. Kind of like they're saying to each other, "Good luck. Do your best!"

Oh, and one more bonus, non-SF observation. While I was never the biggest fan of the Metroid Prime series, I did play through all three games, and have replayed two of them more than once. They are crammed full of little details, but the one that stands out to me the most comes from the first game in the series, whenever Samus uses the X-Ray Scope. Sure, it lets you see through doors and objects, but if you aim the arm cannon while using the scope, she'll rest her left hand against the barrel of the gun while she steadies her aim, and you can see all of the bones in her arm, hand, and fingers. When you fire, you can see her right index finger inside her arm cannon pull the trigger. If you're attacked, sometimes her left arm will fly in front of her face, and again, you can see it's full of bones, as it should be.

Looking at the concept art you can unlock while playing the game, you can tell that the designers of the Samus suit and model were very familiar with human anatomy and bone / muscle structure. While I always thought the power suit, itself, looked a little bulky in the Prime series, and the arm cannon was a bit too long, the developers did a great job of constantly reminding you that, yes, there is a living, breathing person inside that suit. It's probably why the suit always looked to massive to me, as it was correctly proportioned to fit someone of Samus's size and build, and provide all her life support systems, weapons, armor, and alien technology that she comes across. That thing must weight a couple tons, and, well, it certainly looks the part!


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