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Best Moments in Video Games

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous Conjectures' started by Keileon, Feb 4, 2017.

  1. We have a huge gamer base on this forum (probably because of the nature of roleplaying). I know we've had a best game bosses thread but this can encompass more than just bosses. Put spoilertastic moments in spoilers with the name of the game visible or as the title and feel free to list off as many as you want.

    And I guess VN-style games count. I dunno. I'll leave that for people who've played/read VNs more than I have. *cough*fate/staynight*cough*

    I'll start!

    The fifth level of Gladsheim and the battle against M.I.K.E., hands down.

    Throughout EOU:TMG you learn to trust and even love M.I.K.E. as being incredibly helpful and Frederica's tie to her home time. Gladsheim has a fantastic aesthetic and atmosphere and M.I.K.E. is a pretty likeable character. Up until he turns on you near the end of the game, wanting to blow up Etria to get rid of some eldritch horror I can't actually remember the name of right now.

    What makes this part of the game so good is that the fifth level of Gladsheim is on a timer. You have a limited number of turns- I think 50?- to get to M.I.K.E. and defeat him. Getting to him isn't hard if you know what you're doing and there are no random encounters on the floor, but there are FOEs blocking the path and fighting too many will just delay you. And the timer doesn't stop when you enter battle, either. You let that timer run out, and it's Game Over for you.

    The atmosphere of this entire thing is phenomenal. The normal Gladsheim area theme is sped up, with a couple added instruments, most notably one that sounds almost exactly like a bomb's clock ticking. It creates a heart-racing sence of urgency- you have to get to M.I.K.E. now or you and everyone you care for is dead.

    Once you reach M.I.K.E., you enter a fairly stressful boss fight with an amazing boss theme. Like seriously Decisive Battle - The End of the World is one of my favorite boss themes in the history of ever. It even includes a remix of part of the Gladsheim theme- or maybe Labyrinth - Gladsheim - Pulse of Time has the opening riff of The End of the World? I don't know, I never paid attention until now.

    M.I.K.E. is a difficult and stress-inducing boss if you play on Standard or Expert (partially because EOU:TMG was only balanced with Standard in mind, meaning Expert is inordinately hard). I forget exactly what his AI pattern was, but if you're not careful you can definitely Game Over on him before the timer is done.

    And not only that, but in-character, you're essentially killing Frederica's best friend. Post-battle things get sad and almost tearjerking (I say almost because there have been games that made me tear up and this wasn't one of them) as M.I.K.E. dies. You can't bring him back, even if he is a machine.

    Nobody else here has played Pokemon Uranium so this'll be lost on everyone, but the climax of the game has an actual timer for you to reach the boss. I don't mean an arbitrary in-character timer like in the next example, or a turn counter in the previous- Pokemon Uranium's final area has an actual *real-time* time limit of 5 minutes for you to navigate through a maze-like facility that has wild encounters and reach the boss, CURIE. Thankfully the timer stops when you reach her and the battle isn't timed, but if you fuck up on the way there the nuclear reactor blows up and you get an instant game over. In a Pokemon game.

    CURIE's team mostly isn't too hard. She does have Nucleon, an Eeveelution that's basically a fast Sylveon that has a Hyper Voice SE on everything except Steel and Nuclear, but the real threat on her team is Gamma Urayne. Which one-shot all but two of my Pokemon when I fought her. God that battle was difficult.

    I could honestly list everything between Brine Cave and the credits, because the entire lategame was amazing. The dungeons were fantastically atmospheric with their music and the boss battles are pretty iconic of the series as a whole. Hidden Highlands has one of my favorite dungeon themes in the game and the thematics of Temporal Tower were pretty immersive and fitting.

    If I had to narrow it down to one moment in the main game, it'd be Grovyle's sacrifice after beating Dusknoir at the end of Hidden Highlands, but it only narrowly beats the player saying goodbye to the partner and the actual fight against Primal Dialga (which has such an iconic battle theme that you'll remember it for years after playing the game. But Grovyle's sacrifice has one of my favorite "event" themes in the entire series, Through the Sea of Time (which we actually knew as Grovyle's Sacrifice prior to Explorers of Sky's introduction of the Sky Jukebox) and my favorite quote in all of the games I've played so far:

    "Though the parting hurts... the rest is in your hands!"

    But there's a reason I cited Explorers of Sky instead of Darkness or Time. And that's because Darkness and Time don't have the Special Episodes.

    Just as the fight vs Primal Dialga is one of my favorite moments in the main game, so is it my favorite moment in any of the Special Episodes (in this case, In The Future Of Darkness). In fact I'd say that this moment beats out the same moment in the main game- purely because of atmosphere. In the main game, you're not struck with quite the same sense of urgency. You scale the tower and the only real danger is that if you don't beat Dialga within an indeterminate timeframe the future is going to go to shit.

    In the Special Episode, though, you actually have a stricter in-character time limit because you're trying to keep Dialga from getting to the Passage of Time, because once he gets through he's probably out of your reach. And so you climb an icy mountain to epic music, and once you reach the peak, the sun slowly starts to climb into view after years and years of eternal night, and you square off against Primal Dialga as everyone begins to disappear, the future changed by events in the past. You face your final enemy at the same time the player and partner do. Even after the battle, the story goes from urgent and epic to sentimental and almost heartbreaking for a moment.

    I have many more in mind and Shadow is going to be disappointed I didn't mention Pokemon Sun and Moon but this post is long enough.
     
    CerberusLycan likes this.
  2. hahhahehuiwqi A Video Game Moments Thread, tysm.

    • The Mz. Ruby battle was a fun change in gameplay, 10/10, fun and nice.
    • The truce towards the end of Thievius Raccoonus!
    • Beating the final boss of the first game, that was stupid hard! All because of those rings.
    • The section where you have to play as Bentley in Sly 2 for plot reasons.
    • Really everything on the last level! That was such an interesting location and every mission was incredibly fun.
    • Not a fun moment, but the thing that happens at the end of the final boss got me right there, right there in my heart.
    • Panda King and Dmitri coming back in Sly 3.
    • That whole section where suddenly we're pirates.
    • The fencing part with Penelope.
    • The Wink™
    • Moving on to Sly 4: the boss fight with El Jefe was actually really fun.
    • Tennessee is such a good character, I love his voice. Meeting Tennessee should count as A Moment, just because he's an A+ guy.
    • The Grizz battle. Not as fun as Mz. Ruby's, which also had that genre's mechanics, but still fun.
    • The first section inside the cave, especially the part with the guy.
    • Lara's first kill, poignant and pivotal.
    • Climbing the radio tower.
    • Grim was badass. Then the other Grim moment, oof.
    • The monastery section, holy hell, I love the monastery section.
      • The sort-of callback to the start of the game, in terms of situation.
      • Getting the shotgun.
      • Maneuvering outside of the monastery.
      • That part where you're running because of [REDACTED] and things are falling apart and the hallway thing fucking tilts onto it's side, that was amazing.
    • ROTH.
    • The blood pond.
    • Meeting Meche and Glottis, although basically everything with Meche and/or Glottis is good.
    • Eva, A+ dialogue.
    • The Robert Frost balloon. ("Run you pigeons, it's Robert Frost!")
    • The car!
    • Overdramatic Glottis in the woods doing something, ah... overdramatic... that results in a small fetch quest.
    • Glottis with the piano!
    • Glottis and the cat track / lounge.
    • Olivia's name-drop poem.
    • Membrillo, basically everything Membrillo says.
    • First off, the music for this game is sick and I love it.
    • Second, one of the main parts of this game is learning about people, really getting to know more about them— and it's also sick.
    • Getting into Don's room.
    • Nearing the climax, Paulo is [REDACTED].
    • Don talking to the hidden figure.
    • Everyone's backstory is unique and poignant, but particularly uncovering more about Quella, Darryl, and Gwen.
    • Particularly poignant because she's a great character and I love her: when you help Gwen move past her problems. (Also the, to paraphrase, "you look like [REDACTED]" line from Gwen. Hit me right in the heart.)
    • The climax. Being put at the helm— you've got the pieces, now do something with it. Every ending is amazing, each in it's own way. (From one of the bad endings, "Acta est fabula. Plaudite.")
     

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