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Game Trope: A Mechanic becomes a key story point
Cantido
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm trying to think of examples of a certain Trope I don't see on a certain website with a collection of Tropes.
It could be considered the opposite of Gameplay/Story Segregation. Instead of all gameplay mechanics and player skill being tossed out the window to kill a character off or set up an event (*cough* Fallout 3 *cough*), a gameplay mechanic gets upgraded to a key story point. Usually something to kill a last boss.
Examples I've thought of so far.
Mechassault 2: A key gameplay gimmick was the power armor that could latch onto the body of a mech, hack into it and force the pilot to eject so you could jack it. The last boss is a new, ancient mech that is crawling on it's hands because it's incomplete. You have no mech and the situation looks bleak. The only way to kill it is, yes! Latch onto it and hack it to it reveals a weakpoint.
Devil May Cry 4: Nero, not Dante, is the main character of this one. One key feature of his gameplay is his
claw, the Devil Bringer. You kill the final boss exclusively with it.
My arm is an arm which crushes the Not-Catholics!
Shinobi (PS2): Your sword, Akujiki, will kill you unless you satisfy it's hunger for souls. At the end of the game, the homosexual-looking wizard reveals his true goals all along. Turn everyone in Japan into demons, set you loose against them, and steal the cursed sword once it's full. Oh, wait. You can use the Tate system you've been using the whole time to kill him instantly.
Triggerheart Exelica: This shump gives the main character Exelica a weapon called the Anchor, which lets her latch on to enemies and throw them. The last boss's objective is to take it.
There's more, and I know there's more. I just can't think of them right now. What are your favorite examples.
It could be considered the opposite of Gameplay/Story Segregation. Instead of all gameplay mechanics and player skill being tossed out the window to kill a character off or set up an event (*cough* Fallout 3 *cough*), a gameplay mechanic gets upgraded to a key story point. Usually something to kill a last boss.
Examples I've thought of so far.
Mechassault 2: A key gameplay gimmick was the power armor that could latch onto the body of a mech, hack into it and force the pilot to eject so you could jack it. The last boss is a new, ancient mech that is crawling on it's hands because it's incomplete. You have no mech and the situation looks bleak. The only way to kill it is, yes! Latch onto it and hack it to it reveals a weakpoint.
Devil May Cry 4: Nero, not Dante, is the main character of this one. One key feature of his gameplay is his
claw, the Devil Bringer. You kill the final boss exclusively with it.
My arm is an arm which crushes the Not-Catholics!
Shinobi (PS2): Your sword, Akujiki, will kill you unless you satisfy it's hunger for souls. At the end of the game, the homosexual-looking wizard reveals his true goals all along. Turn everyone in Japan into demons, set you loose against them, and steal the cursed sword once it's full. Oh, wait. You can use the Tate system you've been using the whole time to kill him instantly.
Triggerheart Exelica: This shump gives the main character Exelica a weapon called the Anchor, which lets her latch on to enemies and throw them. The last boss's objective is to take it.
There's more, and I know there's more. I just can't think of them right now. What are your favorite examples.
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No, but seriously. Can you really call it a trope when you need to use a gameplay mechanic to finish the game? Isn't it always like that? I'd probably find it harder to think of a game where the opposite is true.
Or maybe I'm just missing what you're saying, I do that a lot.
Especially since the OP seems to be a terrible example of what the OP is about...
Do not engage the Watermelons.
This.
That Moogle went into a Trance?! I'm going to use lolscience to Trance myself and totally blow up my planet! Quick! Kick the shit out of me! *Mwahahahaha*
Well there is no name or link. From what I gather from the OP, he thinks this should be a trope, but isn't officially so.
Oh. I missed that word. Still, I have a hard time seeing 'thing you've learned becomes useful' as any particular trope to games. I think they have something about a specific thing being useful only once.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
Yeah, it's not, and I think it should be one. I think it's a corny but cool thing that some games have.
What is? I don't understand what the references even refer to. (What the hell does '*cough* Fallout 3 *cough*' mean to those of us who haven't played it? Let alone the other two examples...) I mean, it looks like you're talking about how you might be playing a game and during that playthrough, you learn a skill or tactic that becomes relevant later on.
Which sounds like 99% of all games made, ever.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
Final boss.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
YES.
You got a funny way of talking... Pierre.
I don't remember much, so someone else will have to elaborate.
Anyway, I liked that. Usually save points are just weird objects hanging around without explanation that everyone else ignores.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Hahah...that was awesome. It's called Junction, and is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. I actually wanted Squall to have more of a reaction when first seeing Griever and her using Junction.
Actually, JRPGs use this a lot. I just don't play a lot of those.
And Metal Gear Solid uses it all the fucking time.
If you die too much, continuing fasts forwards time by 30 minutes. If dawn breaks the game is over (the objective is to beat the crap out of whoever stole the moon out of the sky). Well you see the real last boss by not losing all your lives, she boasts "I have the power to manipulate eternity." Then after beating her, she gets real pissed when she realizes the player's character is responsible for slowing down time, and dishes out some crazy final attacks, and each time you get hit, instead of dying, time fasts forward by 30 minutes. All players go OH CRAP when they see this the first time.
She's trying to beat you by eating your continues.
Chekhov's Skill
Aaaand there goes the rest of my day. Thank you for finding it. Look how blank it is for video games!
I could have SWORN that Paula's Pray command was attached to that trope somewhere, but I couldn't find it when I first read the thread yesterday.
Those examples listed throughout (this thread) in which it's the badguy pulling it off are my favorite. (Kuja from FF9, Ultimecia in FF8, and my favorite, Kaguya from Imperishable Night is a massive WTF moment.)