Board 8 > Trdl's Top 50 Gaming Moments: The Rankings! (Unmarked Spoilers) (Writeups)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Some moments are so iconic, so moving that they sear themselves into your memory forever. They might make you laugh, cry, or both; they might make you feel like you can take on the world, or they might make you feel cold and soulless. But when you think about the game they're from, these are the moments that first hit your mind, and you can't help but feel a trace of emotion from the memory.

Or maybe not. That definitely applies to me though.

I'll be counting down my top 50 gaming "moments." They could be special levels, boss fights, or just small scenes that make big differences. Whatever they are, they matter.

Be warned -- there will be unmarked spoilers from ALL of the games listed below. If you plan on playing Undert-- I mean, any of them, you might want to look away from the writeups for those games!

A list of games from which the moments will come:
Final Fantasy 6
Final Fantasy 7
Final Fantasy 9
Final Fantasy 10
Metal Gear Solid 3
Metal Gear Solid 4
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Persona 3
Persona 4
Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom
Touhou 8: Imperishable Night
Bastion
Transistor
Portal
Portal 2
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations
Dark Souls
Risk of Rain
Valkyria Chronicles
Life is Strange
Undertale
No More Heroes
Bioshock
Spec Ops: The Line
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Psychonauts
Shadowrun: Dragonfall
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
World of Warcraft (don't want to give it away, but it's pre-Cataclysm)
Guild Wars 2
MadWorld
Devil May Cry 3
Half-Life 2

There's also a predix competition tied to this!

Scoring rubric:
-On the list: 1 point
-Within 10 (+/- 5): 2 points
-Within 4 (+/- 2): 3 points
-Exact call: 5 points
-1 extra point to "within 10/4/1" during the top 5!
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Let's meet our contestants and their lists!

Robazoid:
1. Life is Strange: Sacrifice Chloe
2. Life is Strange: Finding Rachel's body
3. Final Fantasy IX: The end where Garnet rushes out to hug Zidane
4. Final Fantasy VI: When the orphans still loved esper Terra
5. Final Fantasy X: Laughing scene
6. Life is Strange: Choice to euthenize alternate Chloe
7. Half Life 2: Approaching Nova Prospekt with antlions taking out the defenses
8. Bioshock: That whole ride down into Rapture for the first time
9. Final Fantasy IX: Garnet cuts her hair and truly becomes Dagger
10. Final Fantasy VI: Relm shames Ultros into not being a jerk
11. Portal 2: Finding the entrance to the old labs
12. Half Life 2: Entering Ravenholm
13. Persona 3: MC's god mode at the end of the final boss fight
14. Dragonfall: Basically Glory's entire mission, but convincing her lover to switch sides if I have to specify
15. Final Fantasy IX: Zidane learning he isn't alone
16. Portal: Escaping from certain death in the incinerator
17. Final Fantasy X: Tidus watching Yuna's sending in the village Sin attacked
18. Persona 3: When all the background music changes in January
19. Metal Gear Solid 3: Fighting the End
20. Final Fantasy VI: The opera scene
21. Life is Strange: Kate's suicide scene
22. Bioshock: The whole 'a man chooses, a slave obeys' scene with Andrew Ryan
23. Dark Souls: Reaching Anor Londo for the first time
24. Undertale: The whole Omega Flowey boss fight
25. Ace Attorney: Von Karma's breakdown
26. Bioshock: When Andrew Ryan is trying to guess who you are and splicers are trying to break into the room
27. Persona 3: Shinji dying
28. Final Fantasi IX: Alexandria attacked but defended by Eiko and Dagger summoning Alexander
29. Portal 2: Wheatley betraying you for the first time after beating GLADOS
30. Valkyria Chronicles: Isara dying and Rosie singing at her grave
31. Trials and Tribulations: Godot finally giving Phoenix coffee
32. Ace Attorney: Interviewing a parrot
33. Arkham Asylum: That whole sequence at the beginning, entering the asylum with the Joker
34. Undertale: The pacifist end, specifically when you go back to the beginning and find Asriel
35. Dark Souls: Ornstein and Smough boss fight
36. Bioshock: When you finally find that mad doctor and he screams 'You are UGLY!'
37. Persona 3: The whole sequence of events with Itsuki betrays the team and Mitsuru's father dies
38. Persona 4: Nanako 'dies'
39. Metal Gear Solid 3: The salute at the Boss's grave
40. Final Fantasy IX: Lindblum attacked and all those people are sucked out by Atomos
41. Ace Attorney: Mia found dead
42. Dragonfall: When the home city (forget its name) is attacked and Paul dies
43. Arkham Asylum: Scarecrow hallucinations
44. Half Life 2: The end when the Citadel starts exploding and the G-Man stops time
45. Metal Gear Solid 3: Fighting the Sorrow
46. Final Fantasy VI: Celes attempting suicide
47. Portal: Final fight with GLADOS
48. Persona 4: Figuring out who the killer is
49. Portal 2: Shooting the moon, Wheatley to space
50. Transistor: Suicide at the end
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xp1337
1. Undertale: Asriel in the flower patch at the end of True Pacifist
2. Persona 3: March
3. Persona 3: vs. Nyx Avatar and Nyx
4. Persona 4: Final Farewell to the IT + Dojimas
5. MGS3: Confrontation with The Boss
6. FFX: Tidus fades away/farewell to Yuna
7. Life is Strange: The choice over euthanizing Alt. Chloe
8. FFVII: Aerith dies.
9. FFIX: You're Not Alone
10. FFX: Confrontation with Yunalesca
11. MGS4: Snake and Big Boss at the end
12. FFIX: Zidane and Garnet reuniting at the end
13. Life is Strange: Sacrifice Chloe
14. Undertale: Judgment
15. MGS3: Big Boss salutes The Boss's grave at the end
16. FFVI: Final Battle v Kefka
17. Undertale: Confrontation with Asgore
18. Revengeance: vs. Armstrong
19. Undertale: Omega Flowey
20. MGS4: Final Battle against Ocelot
21. Persona 4: Kanji accepting his Shadow
22. Revengeance: vs. RAY
23. Persona 3: Shinjiro's death
24. Bioshock: "A man chooses, a slave obeys"/Confrontation with Ryan
25. MGS4: Ocelot hamming it up over The Guns of the Patriots
26. MGS3: The end of the Virtuous Mission
27. CoD: MW: Aftermath
28. Bioshock: Intro to Rapture
29. MGS4: Microwave Hall
30. MGS3: vs. The End
31. FFVI: Opera Scene
32. FFX: Zanarkand Ruins
33. WoW: Confrontation/Battle with Arthas
34. FFX: Tidus learns that Summoners die
35. Persona 3: Yukari watches the real tape from her dad
36. Revengeance: vs. Blade Wolf
37. WoW: Battle vs. Illidan
38. FFVII: Nibelheim Flashback
39. FFVI: World of Ruin Intro/Celes on the island
40. FFVII: Scaling Shinra HQ and running into "Sephiroth"'s trail of destruction
41. Touhou PCB: vs. Yukari
42. Touhou IN: vs.Mokou
43. Touhou IN: vs. Kaguya
44. Half-Life 2: "We don't go to Ravenholm"
45. Persona 4: Shadow Yosuke
46. FFVII: Cloud realizes the truth about himself and Zack
47. Revengance: Monsoon tries to break Raiden... it doesn't go the way he expected.
48. Persona 4: Shadow Teddie
49. WoW: Wrathgate
50. FFVI: Kefka takes over as the main villain at the Floating Continent
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tag
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KanzarisKelshen
1) - (Life is Strange?)
2) Undertale: Hopes & Dreams/SAVE The World (vs Asriel)
3) Transistor: Final Boss
4) Final Fantasy 10: Jecht and Epilogue
5) Phoenix Wright Trials and Tribulations: Super Objection
6) Metal Gear Solid 3: The Salute
7) Persona 3: Battle for Everyone's Souls (& Great Seal)
8) Undertale: Finale (vs Omega Flowey)
9) Undertale: Toriel's death/Heartache (and rewind to save her)
10) Bastion: Evacuation (after doing Restoration at least once)
11) Metal Gear Rising Revengeance: Final Boss
12) Metal Gear Solid 4: Final Battle vs. Ocelot
13) Persona 3: Shinji's Death
14) - (Life is Strange?)
15) Bastion: Build That Wall
16) Portal 1: Still Alive
17) Spec-Ops The Line: Final Confrontation & Endings
18) - (World of Warcraft?)
19) Undertale: Cooking With Undyne
20) Persona 4: The Genesis (Final Boss)
21) Batman Arkham Asylum: Scarecrow Hallucinations
22) Final Fantasy 7: SPOILERS (Aeris Dies)
23) Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: "I'd like to cross-examine the parrot, your honor"
24) Devil May Cry 3: Last Battle with Vergil/JACKPOT!
25) Madworld: The Black Baron (Stop Starin'!)
26) Final Fantasy 6: Aria de Mezzo Carattere
27) Final Fantasy 9: You're Not Alone!
28) Persona 4: Awakening
29) Valkyria Chronicles: Selvaria's Last Stand
30) MGS4: Return to Shadow Moses
31) Bastion: Jawson Bog
32) - (Shadowrun: Dragonfall?)
33) Touhou IN: PvP Bossfight (vs. Reimu/Marisa)
34) - (Dark Souls?)
35) Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Cornered plays for the first time
36) Spec-Ops The Line: White Phosphorous
37) Half-Life 2: We Don't Go To Ravenholm
38) - (Guild Wars 2?)
39) Psychonauts: Milkman Conspiracy
40) Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth: The Shoggoth
41) - (Life is Strange?)
42) Bioshock: A man Chooses, a slave obeys
43) No More Heroes: We Are Finally Cowboys (Final Boss)
44) CoD4: Nuclear Blast
45) Half-Life 2: Route Kanal/Water Hazard
46) - (Risk of Rain?)
47) - (Portal 2?)
48) Bastion: "They try to knock her off. They try to slow her down. But Weeping Nellie tries harder."
49) Final Fantasy 6: Celes' Decision
50) Touhou PCB: Phantasm Stage
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ProfDEADPOOL
1. Persona 4: Nanako's "death"
2. Arkham Asylum: Scarecrow sequences
3. Portal: The Cake Is A Lie
4. Life Is Strange: the Final choice
5. Portal 2: Escaping
6. Dark Souls: The Final Choice
7. Persona 3: Sacrificing yourself
8. Bastion: The final choice
9. Transistor: When you have the conversation with the final boss
10. Persona 4: When you figure out who killing everyone

Snake5555555555
1. Escape from Innsmouth (Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth)
2. Omega Flowey (Undertale)
3. Scarecrow Hallucination (Batman: Arkham Asylum)
4. Meeting Konrad (Spec Ops: The Line)
5. Sacrifice Chloe (Life is Strange)
6. Microwave Hall (Metal Gear Solid 4)
7. Vergil Final Boss (Devil May Cry 3)
8. Yuna Sending (Final Fantasy X)
9. White Phosphorus (Spec Ops: The Line)
10. A man chooses, a slave obeys (BioShock)
11. The Boss boss battle (Metal Gear Solid 3)
12. Walker hallucinates killing Lugo (Spec Ops: The Line)
13. Aftermath (Call of Duty 4)
14. Nanomachines, son/Armstrong boss fight (Metal Gear Rising)
15. Liquid Ocelot boss (Metal Gear Solid 4)
16. Aerith dies (FF7)

NFUN: (Damn it dude, y u do this to me)
1. The design of Yu Yevon (FFX)
2. Fighting the practice Dummy (Asundergrail)
3. Talking to Asriel in the flower patch (Dundertale)
23. SAVE (Blunderpail)
41. Yuna's sphere (FFX)
48. The time is now!/Yunalesca (Final Fantasy 10)
33. A lawyer can't cry, not until it's all over (PW:T&T)
43. von Karma's breakdown (PW)
48. Nuke (Modern Warfare)
50. Thundersnail's tragic death (Thundersnail) -- This didn't even happen
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Tag

Never got around to making many predictions, but interested to see the rankings.

My list was posted first. This is a good omen!

Tag
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Tag.
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First writeup goes up at 8 p.m.!
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Tag
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Tagged as well. Hype!
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oh two 48s woops
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#50: Portal 2 -- The Turret Aria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfD1T3iR83k

Those of you who know me know I am an opera junkie. Like "gets tickets to opening night of the Detroit Opera House when they go on sale" junkie. So imagine my delight when the ending to one of my favorite games features the most unexpected place to hear a cute little aria: Aperture Science's turrets, now dispensing notes instead of bullets.

The aria isn't all that much as operatic songs go, and the Italian isn't even very good -- the singer claimed she made it up on the spot, and "Que'lla stimma" was probably trying to be "Que lastima" (Spanish). But the charm is spot-on, and the fact that it's literally sung by GLaDOS's voice actress (she was an opera singer before being a VA) is icing on the cake. The lyrics, rudimentary as they are, seem to reveal a strange, sympathetic side to GLaDOS. Sure, she wanted you dead, and now she wants you gone, but she can't help but feel sad that the most important person in her "life" is now leaving her, on her own, forever to pursue freedom.

Lyrics:

Italian:
Cara bella, cara mia bella!
Mia bambina, oh ciel (Chell)!
Ch'ella stima!
Ch'ella stima!
O cara mia, addio!

La mia bambina cara...
perché non passi lontana?
Sì, lontana da Scienza!
Cara, cara mia bambina...
Ah, mia bella!
Ah, mia cara!
Ah, mia cara!
Ah, mia bambina!
Oh cara, cara mia...

English:
Beautiful dear, my darling beauty!
My child, oh heavens (Chell)!
That she respects! -- This was probably supposed to be "What a pity" -- "Que lastima" in Spanish
That she respects!
Oh my dear, farewell!

My dear child...
Why don't you walk far away?
Yes, far away from Science!
My dear, dear little girl...
Ah, my beloved!
Ah, my dear!
Ah, my dear!
Ah, my little girl!
Oh dear, my dear...

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And then she sends you the Companion Cube as a farewell gift, disheveled but intact. Looks like it survived that euthanization after all. You go, my little cube.
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Even as someone who isn't an opera fan, that is a nice moment. The credits song in Portal was better, though!
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tag
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Want You Gone is the best Portal song tbqh.
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#49: Bioshock -- First Big Daddy Fight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sI8tGnYyME

Bioshock is a game with immersion that I still think is unparalleled to this day. The art direction, the literature references, the music, and even the user interface pull you into a world that's both horribly archaic and horribly futuristic. But nothing puts you in the moment quite like the monster that graces the game's cover: The Big Daddy.

Atlas, your guide thus far, tells you that to get stronger with more plasmids and survive Rapture's ravenous splicers, you'll need ADAM. To get ADAM, you need to harvest (or save, as you discover later) Little Sisters, who go around collecting it from the fallen corpses of splicers. And to get Little Sisters, you have to get through Big Daddies.

You already have one encounter with a Big Daddy before this, when one charges through a door toward an agitator, pins it to a wall, and uses that signature drill to gore through his chest. These things don't fuck around. But as you encounter the first one in the wild, you realize there are rules these things follow. You don't mess with them or the Sister, they don't mess with you. I even used him as a shield for me, and he gutted a splicer who had been spraying at me.

So when I raised that shotgun and squeezed the trigger, I knew it would be big. I knew it would be loud.

I did not know it would be that damn fast.

These aren't lumbering oafs -- when they get serious, they dash faster than anything in the game, drill first. I barely dodged the first pass, but the roar almost paralyzed me as he went for another go and hit dead on. I got slammed into a wall and ducked behind it for a reprieve, reloading frantically. I got whacked again when I popped out, burned my last healthpack, and just kept firing with a shred of life left.

It finally fell on my last shot as it was going for lethal.

My heart rate was going. I was breathing heavy. At the time, that was the most intense boss fight I'd ever experienced. I was used to turn-based RPGs and platformers; even shooters I played had nothing like this. And it was awesome. It was just friggin' awesome.
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Tag
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tag

#48: Metal Gear Solid 3 -- "It's a blank!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLalB1CeXXA

I love Revolver Ocelot. Everything about this character is so goddamn awesome. His cleverness, his backstabbing, his terrifyingly fast learning curves, his obsession/mancrush with Snake (both of them), his bizarre methods of showing respect and "honor." Sometimes he does things just to see if he can, and it's impossible to tell if he's trolling to learn something, to further himself, or purely for the lulz. The dude is a riddle wrapped in an enigma with a dash of mystery on the side, and he always seems to be one step ahead, even in defeat. Maybe nothing captures that quite like his "final showdown" over the lake with Naked Snake.

First, he commandeers a hovercraft just to get onto the plane with Snake, meaning he *knew what he needed way ahead of time.* Then he throws away Snake's arms belt to force Snake into CQC so he can show off just how much he learned from simply observing Snake in the field. You see, Ocelot doesn't respect almost anyone but himself, yet Snake has kindled something in him. That hand gesture he does is, as you know, his own way of showing respect to an opponent, and he doesn't do it toward anyone the way he does it toward Snake. This is about both pride and, in his own sinister way, honor.

He doesn't even go for his gun until he's proven himself as nearly an equal, then makes a grandiose gesture as he goes for the kill-

Click. Just kidding. He was fucking with you, Snake. No bullets in either gun.

In fact, he only pulls out one round for a dramatic final "showdown," does his trademark revolver-juggling to hide which has the bullet, then goes into a Western showdown (dude even wears heel spurs because of his obsession!) with you. You draw, he draws, and even though you *can* win the showdown, it's much better if you lose. You hear the BANG, get ready to load your saved game...

http://imgur.com/gallery/xn4cYl4

"It's a blank!"

With satisfaction at his deception, he makes a pleasant farewell to his best frenemy, then jumps into the lake. Nothing was accomplished. Nothing changed. He caused all that drama -- almost crashing the plane, ruining a hovercraft, minutes of fighting -- because he felt like it. Because he had something to prove, both to John and to himself. Because he wanted to be in Snake's mind the way Snake is in his.
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That's all for tonight! We'll see how much we get done tomorrow.
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Good thing Ocelot's character wasn't damaged by a really bad portrayal of him in MGSV.
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Anagram posted...

Good thing Ocelot's character wasn't damaged by a really bad portrayal of him in MGSV.

We don't talk about that.
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I missed MGS5, what was so bad about its Ocelot characterization?
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

I missed MGS5, what was so bad about its Ocelot characterization?

It's really everyone, but Ocelot in particular gets it the worst. He's just a generic cowboy guy with none of the crazy or torture stuff you expect from him. He doesn't even use the revolver he has in every other game. Also he gains a Texan accent for no reason.
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Yeah, MGS5 Ocelot just... isn't Ocelot. There's no depth to him anymore, he's just a loyal underling dude. I feel like Kojima was having that as a cover for him to do something crazy toward the end of the game, but, well...
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Right, he got Konami'd. Man, rip MGS5, coulda been such a good game with a longer development time.
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trdl23 posted...

Yeah, MGS5 Ocelot just... isn't Ocelot. There's no depth to him anymore, he's just a loyal underling dude. I feel like Kojima was having that as a cover for him to do something crazy toward the end of the game, but, well...

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Right, he got Konami'd. Man, rip MGS5, coulda been such a good game with a longer development time.

In complete fairness to the game, Ocelot does have a crazy convoluted plan that displays his undying love for Big Boss, and he does torture one person, but it's just not presented the same way.. The really frustrating thing about the game is that it has a ton of really good aspects, but screws up so royally on characterization, cutscenes, and story.
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No joke, I didn't remember that moment from MGS3. Been too long since I played it, I guess!

I can agree about the first Big Daddy fight, though. Those were always intense, I don't know why I always made a point of aggravating them even when I no longer needed any more ADAM
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I might be stuck at work late tonight, we'll see.
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Let's see if we can knock one out at least.

#47: Final Fantasy IX -- Beatrix Fights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOsMXrM6Br0

Beatrix, as any of my mercs buddies might have guessed by now, was my first ever video-game-character crush / waifu. This woman is presented to you as a relentless badass and delivers in spades, and when you combine that with her beauty (at least by PS1 standards), 11-year-old Trdl starts feeling kinda funny. I've always had a thing for awesome women by any standard, and man does Beatrix hit that.

When you square off against Beatrix, she taunts you about how you are in no way on her level, even 4v1. She then proceeds to demonstrate that you are in no way on her level, even 4v1. She doesn't have little tricks like many of the earlier bosses. The stakes are simple: Tough out the fight, or be buried under her might. It's a brutal battle, and if you're leveled up about where Square expected you to be, Beatrix will beat the hell out of your dudes, one-shotting with Shock and tanking everything you throw at her. You have to start putting people on Phoenix Down duty, and eventually you just start thinking "how much more do I have to do to this woman?!"

When you first play FF9, you aren't given any indication that this is a "supposed to lose" encounter (I didn't even know those existed since this was my first FF), so it is quite a shock when she decides to stop fucking around and one-shots your entire party. And then she just walks off with her queen like it was nothing. Because to her, it was nothing. Just another victory among countless.

And then she does this two more times throughout the game because fuck you. Not only does she canonically cause TPW, she does it three times when nobody else bar Kuja -- the biggest bad -- in the game does.

But THEN you get to play with her in your party... and oh lord does her OPness deliver. It's total EZ modo, but there's something so satisfying to get to drive the very vehicle that ran you over three times.

I could get into how much I like her as a character and her compelling growth throughout the game, or how she saves your ass multiple times in true Big Damn Heroes fashion, but this is about my favorite moments, not overall characters. And the Beatrix fights -- hopeless against her, unstoppable with her -- will always be among my favorite memories.

How the hell did Steiner end up with her? Lucky dog...
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I'm pretty sure on my most recent playthrough of FFIX, the fight where I was closest to dying was one of the ones where you control Beatrix. I can't even remember how it happened but it was pretty frustrating. (For the record this was the one where you have just Freya and Beatrix against the two dogs)
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Seriously ? Even on my most recent run it felt like a power trip.
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Im not a fan of unwinnable battles so I mostly remember Beatrix for the love letter shenanigans but being able to control her was fun! She should have been a permanent party member
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Well from what I do remember it was some rather bizarre series of circumstances that led to it. I don't explicitly remember doing this, but I also suspect I made a decision at some point during that to say "oh well I've got Beatrix there's no way I need to heal for this fight right?" And then I ended up with one of them dead and the other at super low health or something.
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Work y u do this

Why did Honda delay our meeting for an hour
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I'll try to write another tonight
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Nope
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Tag.

I'm currently working my way through Bioshock on the hardest difficulty. The Big Daddies are a f***ing nightmare indeed.
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#46: Transistor -- "Who gets to go first? How about... me."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1UZ6x20XKY

Transistor is a fantastic game that is criminally underplayed. It's by the same people as Bastion, so of course, the voice acting is absolutely stellar. And the VA quality is probably what made Royce Bracket from what could have been a mediocre character into something phenomenal.

He's a member of the Camerata, the four-person cabal that tries to assassinate Red at the very start of the game. However, you two end up as begrudging allies as the Process, robotic entities that have annihilated the city and almost everyone in it, are about to bear down on you both. While the final sections of the game are a bit of a plot dump as Royce explains things and his plan to stop the Process, his character quirks -- social awkwardness, engineering lingo, grasping for words at some points, and admittance that he could be wrong -- make it an enjoyable, uh, process. *rimshot*

But his plan goes a bit awry, and I think he genuinely didn't expect it. The Process is pacified, but the aftershock of using the Transistor to stop it draws the people in its vicinity -- both Red and him -- into a kind of purgatory. A purgatory among a digital graveyard of the fallen persons (whom were absorbed when the Camerata controlled the Transistor) that give the Transistor its powers. He has his own copy in this plane, and as he understands it, there's only one way out, and it's "unpleasant." So as you prep for battle with a mirror boss, the only fight that's going to abuse the same rules you've abused all game, he wonders, bemused:

"Who gets to go first? How about...

me."

And I feel a chill go down my spine as he immediately freezes time and activates Turn(), landing of a full combo on me while I'm helpless, then retreating as his Turn() recharges.

In other words, the exact thing I've done to survive all game.

It's a tough fight since he has access to every trick as you, but he also shares his insights. He wants the Transistor back so he can control the city, build it however he'd like, experiment with it. He's simply in a creative awe of the possibilities before him, and even though he wanted to work with his allies to craft a perfect city that would endure the whims of the masses, he doesn't want some floozy jazz singer to ruin his chance to salvage what he can and shape his world.

Anyway, the characterization, voice acting, and my particular love of mirror bosses made this a top-notch moment, even though the fight itself doesn't hold up after the first time you play (it's pretty easy to cheese). If you haven't played Transistor, shame on you, go get it now.
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I don't remember that battle being too hard. Maybe I managed to cheese it the first time through, I dunno. It was a neat moment to be sure, though!

trdl23 posted...

the Transistor to stop it draws the people in its vicinity -- both Red and him -- into a kind of purgatory.

...This is what happened? Man, I did not understand Transistor at all I guess. I thought that was them getting kicked out of the simulation and waking up in the real world
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trdl23 posted...

#46: Transistor -- "Who gets to go first? How about... me."

NOPE

NOT READING

NOT SPOILING MYSELF

SRY TRDL
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I'm pretty sure the "real world" doesn't have a digital graveyard of all the people who were absorbed into the transistor (you can compare them to the files describing all of them in the function pages). It also doesn't have like 5 Transistors in the background.

The first time you fight, it's tough because Royce operates on a completely different playing field than any other enemy in the game. After that, though, it's not that bad.
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trdl23 posted...

I'm pretty sure the "real world" doesn't have a digital graveyard of all the people who were absorbed into the transistor (you can compare them to the files describing all of them in the function pages). It also doesn't have like 5 Transistors in the background.

I thought the graves were holding the people hooked up to the simulation, like in The Matrix.
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#45: Metal Gear Solid 4 -- The Microwave Hall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdjLBYxAcUI

I honestly can't do too much of a writeup on this. The video just says it all. But I'll try.

The stakes are set. Everything is going to hell in a handbasket. The good guys are getting invaded and overwhelmed. We see characters we love fighting for their lives, getting wounded, falling. The guns of the Patriots are charging. But we don't hear any of that.

We see and hear an exhausted Snake, who has endured pain and torture like nothing we can imagine, slowly move through a hallway.

A hallway that cooks him alive.

His gear starts sizzling and popping. His health bar is draining as he stumbles. He's surrounded by smoke from his suit, his gadgets, and likely his own body. And he falls. He falls, he should die, and the world should be fucked. Nobody could ever blame him if this were the end of his mission.

*But it refused.

So he crawls. First on his knees. Then he falls again. Then on his belly, like his namesake. Then he falls again. So many times, he just shouldn't get back up and let oblivion take him.

But he keeps. Getting. Up.

I don't think I can say anything more.
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#44: Guild Wars 2 -- Tybalt's Sacrifice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gp5Npk_JI0

This moment isn't very impressive on its own. Yeah, some dude goes to sacrifice himself against a horde of zombies to save everyone else. If this were all that was to it, Bill from Left4Dead would be in this slot, not Tybalt.

But once you understand the context, Tybalt Leftpaw's sacrifice hits you like a sack of bricks.

Tybalt is a Charr, a race of humanoid cats with a penchant for might and valor in bitter feuds with splinters of its dark history and unstoppable Elder Dragons harrying the entire world. Tybalt, however, has neither of these. He was just an engineer with a strange fondness for apples, and while that's all fine in Charr society, he didn't really stand out. Once he lost his right hand in an accident, his nervousness compounded, and he was basically outcast from society. "Nobody wants a shaky engineer."

Instead, he joined the Order of Whispers, the world's mostly-benevolent international spy syndicate. Without all the pressure from his fellow Charr, he finally got a chance to shine. He created intricate devices and clandestine structures to aid the Order's shadow wars against forces threatening the unity of the world against the dragons. But he never lost the chip on his shoulder. He never got a chance to prove his valor.

Until he met the player character and began field exercises with them. Until he got out of the lab and got to feel excitement for maybe the first time in his life. Until he ousted dragon operatives, got drunk with ruthless pirates, and finally got to live.

And when everything is on the line -- when the world's beacon of hope, Lion's Arch, is threatened by the dragons' undead forces and skeleton fleet -- Tybalt finally gets to show the courage he learned alongside me. Tybalt knows his turrets will buy the heroes enough time to warn the city.

He didn't live bravely. Hell, until his last few months, he didn't really live at all. But with the best friend he ever had counting on him, with the world itself watching... Tybalt Leftpaw died that way.
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#43: Life is Strange -- Nightmare Sequence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1S-TrGW3Ss

(That is really long, sorry. No way around it really.)

Man, do I love a good nightmare sequence. When they're done right, they are a wonderful place to fuck with the audience. Perspective (and thus positions in space) can shift with camera angles, macabre images can replace banal ones, and even benign choices can come back to haunt.

It's also a great way of recapping just how much shit the characters have been through, and that is where Life is Strange's nightmare sequence truly shines. The very nature of Max's powers and their possible repercussions are unknown, and that adds to the uneasiness. There's no way this can be real... but given how much else has been fucked up so far... maybe...?

I don't really have a big writeup for this since it would take two full posts, and even then I'd miss stuff, but there are a few more points. I like that it isn't just focused on Max -- you also have to see through the eyes of other significant characters who Max has affected for better or worse. Chloe, Victoria, kinda-sorta Kate... The strength of the characters in the game as a whole carries this pretty darn well.

Not all of the jabs land since trying to shame people for every decision is pretty heavy-handed. Much better to acknowledge a "good" decision to give the player a hope spot for a reprieve before crushing them with something else. Still, all in all, this was a 9/10 execution of a trope that is tricky to wield. Bravo.

The last thing I want to say is that one of the most important parts of a nightmare sequence is the resolution, and the "face yourself" aspect of that gave me some fuzzy Persona vibes.

(Unfortunately, this also leads to the rather flaccid and cheap-shot endings, or else this could have ranked much higher.)
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#42: Call of Duty 4 -- Aftermath

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQqzzPhlBjE

Call of Duty gets a lot of shit nowadays from the types that frequent Board 8, and the series deserves every piece of it. It wasn't always this way, though. It's easy to forget that CoD 4 completely redefined the entire FPS genre, for better or worse, though it was certainly "better" at the time.

It's also easy to forget just how much production value went into CoD 4's campaign mode. It is seriously compelling even today, not to mention it has one of the greatest introduction scenes in gaming history (which nearly made the list itself!). Aftermath perfectly shows why.

Call of Duty has always been a power trip series. It's hand-in-hand with the genre. And the mission just before this is a great example, where you rescue a downed pilot against all odds and get her to abscond with you and your crew despite a hail of opposing gunfire. I almost wanted to high-five my digital squadmates on a great job done.

And then this happens.

The power trip is over. No weapons to wield. No enemies to defeat. All I could do is crawl out of the splintered aircraft and gaze upon the ruins of the city I had just associated with victory. There's no salvation or glory to find. The city went out with a bang, and now, I was forced to go out with a whimper.
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