What Small Details In Videogames Do You Love?

[Lawless_Llama]

Developers of our favorite games, in every single generation, have found ways to immerse gamers in the world's that they have created with engaging quest lines, fights, and unique game mechanics. Game developers have been well known to include easter eggs, alternate endings, and more in their games, but I think small details are some of the most fun to discover. These could range anywhere from changes in questlines due to past decisions being made, to smaller triumphs of environment building such as the proper modeling of waves beating a shoreline or realistic swimming movement. Overall, small details are pretty special, and they enhance our favorite games.

 

So, the question is, what is one of your favorite small details in your favorite video game? What caught your eye or was a silly inclusion that made you laugh?

 

For example, one of the coolest details that had me snicker during my time with Uncharted 4 was watching Nathan make faces/pose in the mirror of his home in Chapter 4 of the game. It's easy to miss if you are just passing through the chapter, but the game is full of similar details which provides more of a reason for me to love the game/game series.

 

Here's a video for reference (credit to Welmosca):

 

[Crazy]

One really cool one that I remember are Sucker Punch's platinum reactions they put in Infamous Second Son and First Light.  
 

 

 

[Redgrave]

Off the top of my head there are only a few games I can think of at the moment. I guess these aren't really funny but more like just really good attention to detail or the devs thinking ahead of the player.

 

In Metal Gear Solid 1, if you get an alert before going inside Shadow Moses and get the cutscene where the two guards are talking, they will mention that there is a possible intruder whereas if you don't get an alert they won't mention it. Later on when you're supposed to identify who Meryl is and she sees you, if you run to the bathroom fast enough she will just be in her underwear. Then of course there's all the fourth wall breaking stuff like Mantis knowing how often you've saved and will make different comments on it. There's loads more in the series as a whole but these stuck out to me for the first game.

 

In Devil May Cry 3 when you fight the Doppelganger boss, Dante won't have a shadow throughout the whole fight. Also when you use the Doppelganger Style he won't have his shadow while it's activated.

 

In The Witcher 3, if you let Hjalmar take credit for slaying an ice giant, NPC's around will talk as if he really was the one that killed it.

 

I also liked how in most if not all the GTA games you can listen to the radio and hear about the Missions you've done and how nobody can seem to identify who you are.

[theSpirae]

Subtle cultural references, mainly to classics literature. Having masters in English Lit might have something to do with that

[eigen-space]

I study historical sword fighting and various martial arts so I'm always really happy when I see characters using legitimate stances and techniques rather than flashy stage-fighting techniques.

 

These are just general things that devs/writers do rather than anything specific...

--References to past games in the series or other games by the same dev. The Tales Of series does an awesome job with this.

--Having each NPC have unique thoughts that change throughout the game depending on what's going on with the plot.

--Taking the time to create a wide array of enemies rather than just reusing the same models with a different skin... also making similar-style monsters have different attacks so it's not predictable.

--Character hair/clothing movement/placement... I love when these things follow the laws of physics and also don't "disappear" when interacting with objects, surroundings, other characters.

 

 

 

[Zanreo]

When music-themed levels make sound when you step on or otherwise interact with the instruments :3

[Melty]

When you see sides of characters after doing silly things. Like how 2B smacks the camera away if you look up her skirt.

 

 

[Lava_Yuki]

In Lightning Returns, how the NPC's comment on your wear, especially the sexier ones like the Miqo'te dress when you run through Yusnuun.

In FFX-2, the way Rikku keeps bobbing up and down on her heels in the Airship.

In the Tales series where item and weapon names, Mabo curry, the wonder chef and other little easter eggs from previous games crop up throughout the series.

Final Fantasy's Summons (Aeons, Eidolons, Espers etc.) cultural and religious references for name and design, in particular Shiva (Hinduism), Ifrit (Arabic) and Leviathan (Christianity)

Steins Gate, how most of the story has life references with a twist, like John Titor and the IBM computer. 

The World Ends With you, how they changed Shibuya 109 to 104, and Tower Records to Towa Records.

In FF15, the real life brands Coleman camp sets that Noctis and co used, and Luna's Vera Wang wedding dress. 

When the avatar of your character in battle winces when they take damage or are in low health, like in Tales games. 

 

In FF, how the developers base in game locations off real world places. A few examples are:

FF15 Insomnia= Shibuya Japan, Noctis's palace based on the Tokyo Governmental building. Altissa based of Venice, Lestallum based of Morocco and Malaysia.

FFX based of SE Asia.

 

[Lawless_Llama]

5 hours ago, Lava_Yuki said:

In Lightning Returns, how the NPC's comment on your wear, especially the sexier ones like the Miqo'te dress when you run through Yusnuun.

In FFX-2, the way Rikku keeps bobbing up and down on her heels in the Airship.

In the Tales series where item and weapon names, Mabo curry, the wonder chef and other little easter eggs from previous games crop up throughout the series.

Final Fantasy's Summons (Aeons, Eidolons, Espers etc.) cultural and religious references for name and design, in particular Shiva (Hinduism), Ifrit (Arabic) and Leviathan (Christianity)

Steins Gate, how most of the story has life references with a twist, like John Titor and the IBM computer. 

The World Ends With you, how they changed Shibuya 109 to 104, and Tower Records to Towa Records.

In FF15, the real life brands Coleman camp sets that Noctis and co used, and Luna's Vera Wang wedding dress. 

When the avatar of your character in battle winces when they take damage or are in low health, like in Tales games. 

 

In FF, how the developers base in game locations off real world places. A few examples are:

FF15 Insomnia= Shibuya Japan, Noctis's palace based on the Tokyo Governmental building. Altissa based of Venice, Lestallum based of Morocco and Malaysia.

FFX based of SE Asia.

 

 

Wow, what a great list! I'm a big fan of the Final Fantasy games, so it definitely is cool to learn about some new small details from your post! Thanks for sharing! ?

Amazing how detailed developers can be!

On 10/27/2017 at 1:22 PM, Melty said:

When you see sides of characters after doing silly things. Like how 2B smacks the camera away if you look up her skirt.

 

 

 

That really is clever for the developers to include!? A bit like Lollipop Chainsaw, as I know that the character will react if you try to do the same thing.

[OhTheSilence]

I'm very partial to small details and efforts made in a clean UI. The most recent example is the shop menus in Persona 5 that always flow together with the shopkeeper in the background doing different animations depending on the menu you are in. 

[RabbiAndy]

Particularly in fighting games when there are unique quotes/dialogue between characters depending on who you pick.

[Nemmy_Wemmy]

4 hours ago, RabbiAndy said:

Particularly in fighting games when there are unique quotes/dialogue between characters depending on who you pick.

This ^ except any game, like when you are idle and get unique dialog or in games where you do or go to special places and get unique quotes as well

[RevengeancePrime]

On 10/30/2017 at 3:08 PM, RabbiAndy said:

Particularly in fighting games when there are unique quotes/dialogue between characters depending on who you pick.

This is one of my favourite parts of the Injustice series and MKX. It makes fights feel more unique and I really appreciate it when I compare it to other fighting games that lack it like SFV (although it does have unique victory quotes).

 

I also really like when games include small references to other media. One of my favourites is the Steins;Gate reference in the Talos Principle. 

[starcrunch061]

I like when a game notices that you've broken its system, and comments on it. For example, I was playing Diablo 3. I used a seasonal character, which meant that everything had been unlocked early on. In particular, I had met the scoundrel, the enchantress and the templar already. I put the scoundrel in my party during the main campaign, and sure enough, when I met the scoundrel there, they talked to each other about how good looking they were.

 

Getting back to unique dialogue, Valkyrie Profile 2 had this awesome character recruiting system where you would find heroes of the past and recruit them to your part.  Often, the characters you got were random, but occasionally, the people knew one another, and if you brought them in battle together, they would start conversing about the old times. My favorite guy to use was Khanon, because everyone who knew him hated his guts, and constantly spewed bile at him before battle.

Edited November 2, 2017 by starcrunch061

[Dreakon13]

Any time a game breaks the forth wall (in an intelligent or amusing way).

 

I was enamored by a game called The Stanley Parable on Steam because it was basically the embodiment of defying gaming convention.  Everything you do is commented on by the narrator, and the less you follow his direction, the smarter and more fascinating the game gets.  It goes so far as to have geometrical glitches built-in (not particularly easy to find or get to either) with the intent of gamers finding them and again... being commented on and sending the "story" in a new direction.  Hell, even opening the debug console and playing around with known Source engine commands will reveal some humorous stuff.  It took about 3-4 hours of messing with the narrator to see probably 95% of the endings the game had to offer, but it was an experience.  Highly, highly recommended for anyone into that sort of thing.

 

Granted, most games don't take it quite that far... even something like the game or the character acknowledging me going the wrong way, or me cowardly running away from a situation instead of going the intended path towards danger.  There's another game called The Park, basically a first person narrative horror game where you go through a theme park and this chilling backstory unravels as you explore and ride the rides... but if you walk away instead of going into the park in the opening minutes of the game, you get an achievement calling you out.  That's enough to amuse me a little at least.

Edited November 2, 2017 by Dreakon13

[YemmytheFerret]

When hair actually looks normal, seriously there aren't many games you can say the hair doesn't look like plastic.  

[Guest]

I'm a audiophile, I love it when games go the extra mile to put in detail sounds. Especially horror genre games. 7.1 FTW!

[Deluziion90]

First thing that comes to my mind it standing idle

Lots of characters do silly things when you are not moving them

for example Crash bandicoot trilogy. Crash and Aku playing volleyball with a wumpa fruit, coco just chilling on her laptop or her phone that explodes.

 

 

 

[Tesla_Rules]

An ending to a game that was totally unexpected.  I try not to read any walkthroughs before I play through the game at least 1 time.  I like to be surprised or really moved by the ending.

 

I'd say the ending that really affected me was crossing over the threshold with another companion at the end of Journey.  Another player (you normally don't know who you are playing with) was waiting for me so we could cross over together.  I found myself crying (WTF!) 

 

Having a game affect me like that (thanks to the developers) was awesome.

[Double-0-Zero]

"Can I do this?" scenarios and pretty much setting up an Atmosphere - Having everything co-response with the way it looks, sounds, and feels. A place can be beautiful and overwhelming but; setting up a scene is required. Having that soundtrack, the correct audio cues, living environments and a story behind the picture.

 

List of the greatest details.

 

• Living Environments - When nature is reacting to your movements, people are walking around doing their tasks, and animals hunting for food.
• Soundtrack and Audio - Grass, Wind, Rocks, Walking, Swimming, and nature. Also brilliant soundtracks that links the theme of the game.
• An Environmental Story - enriching the player by showing that there's more than just directly telling. Examples of this is; facial expression, clean, dirty, damaged environments, and objects. Alongside subliminal messages.

 

 

Edited November 5, 2017 by Double-0-Zero

[Dreakon13]

Another one is how characters react to the geometry around them.  I think the first game I personally noticed doing this, is Uncharted (on the PS3)... where Nathan will position his hand onto nearby walls as you stand/walk/run by them.

 

It's a little hard to explain since I don't really know how to describe why someone near a wall might place their hand on it, whether it's for balance, or to get a feel for your distance from the wall, etc... but it's realistic.  That's something a real person would do.  Lots of games do it nowadays, but it's little details like that, that I always appreciate when I see it.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Dreakon13

[Kittet3]

The first thing that came to mind is that there was this PS4 game I watched my brother play. Some first-person zombie game, I don't remember the name, BUT I do remember the watch that the main character was wearing because it actually had a readable time on it. 3 years later and I still remember that watch and how it blew me away. (It was also a fairly good TV and one of my first times watching PS4 game footage, so I think the graphical clarity also had a decent part to it since I didn't even have my PS3 hooked up via HDMI at this point)

[SnowxSakura]

36 minutes ago, Kittet3 said:

The first thing that came to mind is that there was this PS4 game I watched my brother play. Some first-person zombie game, I don't remember the name, BUT I do remember the watch that the main character was wearing because it actually had a readable time on it. 3 years later and I still remember that watch and how it blew me away. (It was also a fairly good TV and one of my first times watching PS4 game footage, so I think the graphical clarity also had a decent part to it since I didn't even have my PS3 hooked up via HDMI at this point)

Sounds like dying light

[Kittet3]

8 minutes ago, SnowxSakura said:

Sounds like dying light

I can't find a screenshot with the watch but I believe that's it!

[SnowxSakura]

51 minutes ago, Kittet3 said:

I can't find a screenshot with the watch but I believe that's it!

Here you go