The game mechanics you never get bored of

johnny_ultimate

I recently played an old SNES game called Wild Guns for the first time, and was extremely impressed at how delightful the basic dodge mechanic was. Hit the buttons and your character does a dramatic bullet dodge dive left or right. It’s great, fundamental ‘game feel’, and got me thinking about those other basic mechanics that are endlessly satisfying, no matter how long you play the game. Where the mix of sound, visual, control and even things like a simple rumble can really hit hard every single time.

I’m thinking things like:

Super Mario Galaxy’s star shake / planet hop. Especially with motion controls, the simple flick of the wrist sends you hurtling through space.

Bayonetta’s dodge, which triggers witch time. A giddy burst of power as a reward for elegantly dodging an attack. The generous timing helps, and then the instant rush of being gloriously overpowered.

The Sekiro parry, which is simply perfect and ruins other games’ parry mechanics.

The active reload from Gears of War, which is beautifully simple.

Breath of the Wild’s stamina bar, and how it balances risk and reward.

Threes - the immense satisfaction of simply melding the pieces together, especially with bigger numbers.

Any favourites?

J. Marston

A platformer lives and dies on its double jump.

It needs to feel just right, like Hollow Knight and not like Crash 3's which slows you down.

skerry

Final Fantasy XII's Gambit system. Seems kind of like auto pilot at first but there's great satisfaction to be had once it opens up and you program your team for a certain battle and let them rip.

Also like how Dragon's Dogma handles wandering around in the darkness. Your torch goes out and thats it, pitch black and you have to feel your way to the next area.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2's break, topple system. Very satisfying once you get the hang of it. Found the implementation of it was better in 2 as you had more control over it with your own blades vs relying on team AI

YoshiSays

I think most of Mario's move set has been honed to perfection. Always a joy to control. Standard jump, multiplier jump, ground pound, wall jump, backward summersault, sidewards summersault, running in a circle, climbing a tree, summersault off top of tree, ... firing a fireball, ...

Thecageyone

Almost every fighting game has some form of special move connected to down, circle forward and up + punch, love that. Jump straight into any 1v1 fight game and you know you at least got that one move ready to go Your second move will usually pull back to block

KungPao

I quite like “mash buttons” for FIFA when celebrating a goal.

Used that technique a lot too back when playing Tony Hawk. Some outrageous moves but no idea how I did them.

McFly85

Powersliding/drifting. Any game that gets the feeling of control while speeding around a corner at full pelt is alright by me. RR Type 4 absolutely nailed it.

Penn

A good deflect/parry system. The one that isn't too easy to pull off and requires focus and timing to pull off with any consistency. But once you do and you get that CLANG and the opening for a counterattack, it always feels awesome.

Also a great traversal system. So many open world games suffer because its such a pain to traipse back and forth, back and forth, and just makes you want to fast travel everywhere as much as possible. Spider-Man is an obvious highlight because of how brilliant the swinging is, but I'll also shout out Infamous Second Son. I really loved the movement powers in it, enabling you to zip to the top of a building through an air vent, speedrun with the neon power, or shoot yourself through the air from a satellite dish. It looked and felt incredible.

Retr0gamer

Ninja Gaiden's Ultimate technique. Having a tough fight then you see an opening, charge up and just before you get hit again you unleash hell.

A meaty Id software shotgun. Nobody does shotguns better.

As mentioned before, a ridiculous power slide mechanic. Why bother with realistic boring racers when you can drive a car sideways?

Revengeance's Zandatsu mode.

Etrian Odysseys map on the second DS screen. Transforms one a dead genre into the best RPG series of the last 15 years.

YoshiSays

I think Control's mechanic where you can just **** everything including the kitchen sink at the enemy is immensely satisfying. And stuff stays smashed up. Think they could do a great Control 2. There is a lot of scope there.

Sephiroth_dude

Open world bloat

dreamers75

Dodge

shtpEdthePlum

Ragdoll physics. We used play those early games where it was literally just "people" falling for hours. How far things have come since those halcyion days.

Iguarantee

The shotgun from Doom and the super shotgun from Doom 2.

No other video game weapon is as satisfying, in my opinion.

gizmo

The power slide in Vanquish felt immensely satisfying, whether you were using it to engage or disengage directly into/out of combat or moving from cover to cover, it felt like someone took the satisfyingly hefty feel of the roadie run for Gears of War and completely inverted it, making it equally fun but ferociously quick.

Bullet Time and Shootdodge in Max Payne. I will never ever get tired of them.

The weapon swap in Assault Android Cactus...



Not only does it look great but it also acted as a dodge mechanic, giving you a few frames of invincibility as you weaved through enemies and fire.

NoviGlitzko

Turn based combat in RPG's and fighting games. With the former, FFXII's combat system was flawless.

CastorTroy

Great movement where it just feels like you're doing great and nothing's stopping you as you're running and jumping and running along walls, like the Prince of Persia Sands trilogy or Titanfall 2.
Speaking of Titanfall 2, Effect and Cause. Maybe more of a gimmick than a mechanic but just brilliant.
Mario games and their traversal.
The Infamous games and their movesets, whether throwing grenades, running/climbing/hovering across the city or just doing a ground slam from up high.

I like levelling up when enemies don't level with you. If I get stronger, I want to be able to go back to earlier areas where I might've struggled when I first got there and get through no problem, especially when there's a lot of backtracking. The Metroid games are a good example of this. It just makes it feel worthwhile and you've achieved something. If enemies level up with you, then why bother levelling at all?

johnny_ultimate

Two from Tony Hawks Pro Skater:

The revert. I played a lot of THPS2 back in the day, and I still find it hard to imagine there was a time when THPS games didn’t have the revert. Perhaps there was a particular thrill to booting up THPS3 on launch day and figuring out how this new move was the final piece to complete the puzzle. But even now I still appreciate how elegant and natural it feels to revert to manual.

The special move. That triumphant ‘thunk’ noise sells it every goddamn time, even when you’re combo-ing a half dozen special grinds in a row.

Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device

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Melanchthon

Iguarantee wrote: »

The shotgun from Doom and the super shotgun from Doom 2.

No other video game weapon is as satisfying, in my opinion.

The Quake Nail Gun! Super Nail gun was much better to play with but didn't sound as good.

Glico Man

Everything about the Persona combat system. Its turn based RPG done right, and done well.

Each iteration of the game builds on the previous game's strengths and with the confidant abilities being unlocked as time goes on to help and change things up, Persona 5 Royal's combat is just chef kiss perfection.

Retr0gamer

Turn based combat for me when done right.

Having to analyse the playfield and choose actions is so much more satisfying than mashing x and throwing out the odd spell now and again.

Anyone that says turn based sucks, go play XCom.

johnny_ultimate

Glico Man wrote: »

Everything about the Persona combat system. Its turn based RPG done right, and done well.

Each iteration of the game builds on the previous game's strengths and with the confidant abilities being unlocked as time goes on to help and change things up, Persona 5 Royal's combat is just chef kiss perfection.

A particular aspect of that is the victory fanfare. You see that strut and hear that jazzy Meguro drop hundreds of times throughout P5 and it still hits every time.

Ditto the classic Final Fantasy victory fanfare.

Penn

Vergil's Concentration mechanic in DMC4/5, where instead of Dante/Nero where you're meant to run in and smash everything, with Vergil you build up meter by being more methodical and patient, stalking around your enemies, dodging slightly, then striking surgically for maximum damage. It really gives playing as Vergil a completely unique feel compared to the others and completely fits his characters and moveset.

Mr Crispy

I loved the AI Director in Left 4 Dead. Varying the special infected spawns, mob frequency, ammo and health locations, and even the music in such a way that no two games were the same. If Back 4 Blood can't do something similar, it will fail imo.

Kilboor

Good physics

BeerWolf

RPGs where you invest into talent/skill trees.

Azza

Being plus on block with M.Bison...never gets old.

Zero-Cool

You can't bate a good QTE :pac:

Death Stranding - Traversing the environment. I can't explain why it feels so good but it just does. Makes other open world games look and feel so dated when you're just pressing up and the character on the screen bursts into a moving animation of moving forward on a piece of flat code, very immersion breaking.

tommyombomb

NoviGlitzko wrote: »

Turn based combat in RPG's and fighting games. With the former, FFXII's combat system was flawless.

Thank you for thia kind sir. Love final fantasy games until they dumped turn based combat. I gave up on the franchise too quickly i suspect and as a very casual gamer i didnt realise turn based came back. Definately be downloading and playing this in the near future

Corvo

What a lovely thread. I’m smiling reading everyone’s replies and it reminds me of why I love gaming.

For me it’s lots of things. It’ll be one thing this month / year. Something else after it. Recently, it was the “meatiness” of Ghost of Tsushima’s combat.