For me it is opening credits sequence in Nier Automata, Shadowlord’s castle in Nier Replicant and AI reveal in MGS2. All these three games are masterclass in storytelling.
the story reveals in Horizon: Zero Dawn. it’s hard to say much of anything without spoilers, but that game had me absolutely riveted.
also HL: Alyx had some stunning moments. I haven’t been much of a VR fan but that game is fantastic.
I need to figure out how spoilers work in Lemmy haha. hard to talk about.
the story reveals in Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Agreed, they did it brilliantly I thought, very patient with revealing bits of info, building the story piece by piece. It was an amazing experience first time round.
The story in Horizon Forbidden West is pretty good too. There’s a whole bit in the dlc about Ted Faro that I did not see coming, but it makes me think a lot of the tech bros running things today.
I’ve yet to play Alyx, but I have a similar experience with most of VR gaming. It’s an interesting experience, but the controller UX gets really annoying very quickly, IMHO. I’ve had quite some fun playing Elite Dangerous until I got bored. The only VR game I play with some semi regularity is Beat Saber, especially when a good pack comes out…
Get Pistol Whip. The whole idea was to make hybrid between Beat Saber and SUPERHOT and it’s so much more than the sum of its parts. And it’s still getting updated. A new (free) expansion just dropped yesterday. And then there are the custom songs that are only just getting started…
Oh my god, that game looks indeed pretty awesome hahaha. Thanks for the recommendation.
I’ve been playing it daily for years now. Definitely my favourite VR game.
yeah my vr rig is just a dedicated beat saber machine these days.
KotOR. Just the whole thing basically but especially the story turning points.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
If you played the “evil” plotline, there is a point where Mission (the Twi’lek girl) is telling you how horrible you are and one of your options is to get her best friend Zaalbar (a wookie) to kill her. By this point he owes you a life debt and is honor bound to do what you say. For as terrible as “evil” plotlines tend to be in games, that was an amazingly well done moment.
Gotta say, the opening of Nier Automata is something I tell people how much I hated! It’s a great story, but it’s bad game design.
It’s a mix of cutscenes and gameplay that takes about 40 mins to get through, there’s no saving possible at any time, and if you die then you go right back to the beginning.
And I did die, twice. So yeah, that was a slog, and by the third time round I’m not enjoying the storytelling anymore.
If you are actually good and didn’t die, I can see why you had a different and more enjoyable experience :)
This was my experience too, except after dying at the boss I got a Steam refund. Just too frustrating.
I really enjoyed begining of Automata, action, music and artstyle, but the neat thing is … That opening credits are placed 20+ hours later in the game. And by that time i was really invested in the story and characters.
I also agree that there should be some savepoint in the begining of a game, I died once or twice and it was annoying to replay everything from the start.
Hard agree. I played through the opening twice in my first sitting. Died both times. Put it down for a year and a half.
Finally decided to try again and picked it back up. Passed the opening sequence and got into the game proper. And, I can say that I had a pretty good time—excepting a key, bullshit timed mission that I barely passed.
They really did not need to gatekeep the game behind the poor design of the opening.
Any dialogue instance whatsoever between Aveline and Isabella in Dragon Age II. Here’s one of my (many) favorites:
Aveline: You’re right.
Isabela: About?
Aveline: About knowing who you are.
Aveline: I’m the captain of the guard. I’m loyal, strong, and I don’t look too bad naked.
Isabela: Exactly. And if I called you a mannish, awkward, ball-crushing do-gooder, you’d say…?
Aveline: Shut up, whore.
Isabela: That’s my girl.
Chrono Trigger. The Magus Fight. The music.
FF6. Magitech Factory. Also music.
Metal Gear Solid. Psycho Mantis. Late at night. Tired.
Eternal Sonata. Last Fight. Intro line.
Hades. Final boss. Extreme measures 4.
NES Tetris. Crashing.
For me, in Chrono Trigger, the most exciting moment was Frog splitting the rock with Masamune. I was shivering with excitement when I saw that.
Burning fields in FarCry 3 jamming to skrillax.
I think I was too jaded towards games at that point in my life, especially the AAA scene
When I have a perfectly flat four row stack and the 4x1 tile appears.
So many great moments. One that comes to mind is
Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.
Yes!! Mordin’s arc is beautiful <3
The factory level in Titanfall 2, where you’re trying to escape
Fuck so good, peak single player FPS. Still blows my mind that they used the Source engine.
They used the Source engine???
Wow that blows my mind too.
And yeah perhaps the most riveting SP FPS I’ve played. Just as you got used to one new gameplay mechanic, they’d throw a new one at you. Story was simple yet badass, tieing it all together
Hmm maybe it’s time for a replay
Would you kindly?
And the realisation that I not only have no choice if I want to progress the plot, but that at no point to now could I have progressed the plot had I not ‘kindly’ done as requested.
It was such a clever device to put in the story. Innocuous or obvious requests at first until it reached a point where you are forced to kill a guy. Or stop playing. It’s the most original and mind-blowing concept I’ve seen put into a game. I still think of it whenever someone asks me to ‘kindly’ do something.
(In case anyone doesn’t know, though I probably just spoiled one of its biggest moments if you don’t)
“A man chooses. A slave obeys.”
The moment early in Fez when you receive your titular hat, hit me at just the right time and place in my life. I was ready for exactly that kind of cheeky, childish, wonderment
Discussing God and freedom with Morpheus AI in original Deus Ex. It’s just excellently done. The damn thing makes good points, and there’s this soft piano (?) music setting the tone
Blew my mind when I was a kid. That game is filled with moments.
The ending of SOMA. I sometimes watch it on youtube just to enjoy it again. Note: the ending won’t mean anything to you if you don’t already know the story.
Ahhh I wanted to love it, it’s one of my favourite scifi concepts explored really well, but I wish the big plot points at the end were told in the opposite order. Feel like it would have hit way harder, for me anyway
I kinda bounced off. I was super into the identity stuff that started too be hinted at, fully bought in to the fantasy, but after a point didn’t want to go through another room where all I did was avoid monsters.
Maybe I need to turn down the difficulty and just get through it.
Yeah, definitely more about the tone and narrative for me, so I’d go with that plan and see it through!
In Monster Hunter World’s iceborne expansion there’s a monster called Brachydios. It’s a giant blue monster that attacks by spreading explosive slime all over the arena and punching it to blow it up. In the postgame you can eventually fight a variant known as Raging Brachydios which is about twice as big and three times as agressive. For the most part it’s almost the same as the normal Brachy fight, just significantly more intense. That is, until near the end of the fight.
It should be noted that Monster Hunter games are hard. The base game is difficult. The expansions are even harder. The expansion post games? Brutal. Raging Brachydios is one of the most difficult fights I’ve ever had in a video game, only topped by the monsters that follow it in the same game. (soloing Fatalis is probably my greatest video game achievement of all time.)
So you’ve been stuck with this beast for about 20 minutes now, slowly wearing it down. You’re probably on your last life and you’ve burned through enough healing items to last you the entire base game. Finally this thing runs away, and you can tell you’re nearing the end. You sharpen your weapon one last time and follow the monster into that volcanic cavern.
Suddenly, it lets out a bellowing roar and starts rapidly punching the ground! Slime is flying everywhere and the entire room seems to heat up. You notice a message on the side of your screen: “Oh no! The entrance has been blocked off! Looks like you can’t use certain items!”. the Brachydios has sealed off your exits and disabled your traps and fast travel items. There is no running away. There is no capturing this thing. Neither of you are leaving this room until one of you is dead. You can tell Brachydios is getting desperate. It’s flailing wildly, throwing slime everywhere with none of the precision and technique it had before. It has recognized you as a serious threat and it does not want to die.
Eventually however, you triumph! The beast belts out one final roar and falls over dead. Exhausted, you take a moment to recover from that grueling fight and from its corpse you tear your well earned prize! Two ebonshell and a warhead. Looks like you’re gonna have to murder another couple dozen of these things for that immortal reactor. Happy hunting!
Gotta be the final fight in Metal Gear Solid 4. So ridiculously dramatic
