The final fight of In Stars And Time, also the Secret Boss, and… also the encounter where you unlock “just attack” if that counts. A lot of that game’s encounters just are Designed To Make You Feel A Way.
I’m not sure I really have any big xenoblade ones which is a somewhat disappointing realization. Though the final fight of XC2-TTGC has a pretty awesome mechanic and really interesting narrative stakes.
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You know i’m on my Like a Dragon kick and those fights always go hard as fuck. The one that sticks out overall is Majima & Saejima in Y7; you know I put that track on repeat whenever i need to get amped up.
The other one that sticks out from when I was a kid was the metaknight fights in old Kirby games. “Grab that sword and let’s go” cooler than it needed to be for the pink puffball vacuum.
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oooh I totally forgot that one since I watched a friend play this one rather than play it myself, but especially if you’ve played the entire series it’s such a huge payoff/fanservice moment
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So much of Outer Wilds being completely optional, and entirely directionless, solidifies it not only as my Favorite Game but also one of the biggest examples to me of what a good videogame story should be like.
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for me def the first big fight in XB1 where you-know-who gets killed, it really sets the tone for the game - the wildly high-quality motion capture, shulk putting his whole shulkussy into his VA performance, etc. also the fight with the betrayer. XC3’s big fight post mio-twist is also a powerful one IMO, mostly because i played it at 10PM and it just kept going for like 4 emotionally exhausting hours lmfao.
@saya great choices, I’m finally back to OT2 so hopefully i get that dopamine hit soon
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I suppose spiritually an “encounter” has to involve combat of some kind but I keep thinking of specific “moments” that don’t necessarily involve a battle
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It does not, I tried to be non-specific for this exact reason! The outer wilds pick that Saya included is a great non-combat example
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Had the same exact experience with that particular XC3 fight hahahaha. I think being mildly sleep deprived and soldiering through all X hours of that sequence is probably the best way to experience that.
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oh on that note i’d also add…basically the entire back-half of Doki Doki Literature Club to the list. i played that whole game in one go until like 3AM and then got four hours of sleep before having to go in for work the next day, it fundamentally changed me as a person i’m pretty sure
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I was thinking of writing something about what writing in videogames means to me after the previous post and DDLC was absolutely one of the titles I thought of as examples
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The entire Gryphon Hunt sequence in Dragon’s Dogma rules. Plenty has been said on that.
anyway if non-combat is okay then uhhhhhhhhhh
Planescape: Torment spoilers (i cannot help but stay on brand)
Two iconic moments in Torment live rent-free in my mind, as The Kids say.
First:
The very first thing that happens in the game is that your immortal amnesiac protagonist (The Nameless One) wakes up in The Mortuary. Your first party member - Morte, a wacky floating skull, your buddy, your pal - reads the tattoos off your scarred back for you. They’re a note to yourself from a previous incarnation, telling you to find someone named Pharod.
10-15 hours later, you’ve assembled a party and tracked down Pharod and you’re running an errand for him, going deep into the crypts underneath the city. At the very bottom, you find an elaborate tomb packed to the brim with arcane traps. The only way to progress is to die repeatedly, which is something only you with your immortal body can do. At its center is a sarcophagus with a number of useful items (once again, left for yourself by a previous self) and stone slabs on the walls, engraved with writings from various past incarnations.
One slab has the same text that’s on your back. The last line says “Don’t trust the skull”.
Second:
At the ground floor of the Mortuary where you start the game is a monument to a woman named Deionarra. When you walk by it, her ghost calls out to you as though you were lovers, though you have no memory of her. She is bitter and resentful, but still loves you. She uses her ethereal vision to give you broad advice about the journey to come, teaches you how to cast Raise Dead. You can promise to one day join her in death’s halls or lie to her face that you remember her.
Much, much later in the game, you visit the Sensorium, run by Sensates who seek to find all experiences in the multiverse. They imbue sensory stones with these experiences and run a kind of museum with them, but the Good Shit is only available to members (and a previous incarnation of you was one, so they let you in). In the private sensorium is a stone labelled “Longing”. It is Deionarra’s stone.
It contains the moment a previous incarnation sealed her fate. In it you experience her genuine love for you, her faith that you will stay by her side forever, her longing to join you in your quest to the Fortress of Regrets. Her resolve to die on your behalf, should it come to that.
Simultaneously, you experience your previous incarnation. His annoyance at this tart begging for his attention. His calculated manipulation, word by word. His scheme to create a dutiful servant existing between planes coming to fruition.
You can only watch history play out, trapped between these two sensations. It nearly tears The Nameless One apart. No matter how good or evil you’ve been playing, he breaks down in sobs. You can’t stop Deionarra, can’t tell her to stop believing his lies, your own lies you told her in a life you can’t remember. She didn’t deserve this and you can only feel your own satisfaction at plunging that proverbial dagger into her heart, helpless to stop it.
Your Sensate party member comforts you. “That is the nature of longing.”
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Definitely, those moments kick ass, but I was under the same impression as Iro that this had to somehow incorporate them doing a cool thing in combat/gameplay. Though I thought of a couple other examples from xc3fr: the kids vs dads fight, the end of chapter 4 where Matthew is just calling N an emo piss baby, and especially the Final Blow.
SAME I hit “it’s good to keep a record” at like 1:30 in the morning and I had work the next day but there was no way I could just end it there lmao I ended up staying up til like 4 and the whole next day I was still shook about it. My body was working at Chipotle but my mind was still in the jail cell
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Planescape! There’s a couple that stayed with me, one more spoilerful than the other. The first act of the game is heavily involved in you looking for Ravel, a mysterious, almost mythical figure that has been wrecking havoc across the planes. It has been hinted that someone as powerful as her might be the one to have cursed The Nameless One with immortality, or at least had a hand on it. Through the investigation you hear tales of woe, how she has betwitched, cursed, and generally terrified folks.
Ravel
Until you finally manage to meet her and…its just utterily disappointing. Ravel used to be a great witch, but her legend has lasted far longer than her capabilities. What you meet is an aged, senile woman, that can barely hold a conversation. She speaks in riddles, but less out of malice and evasiveness and more like a verbal tic or a compulsion she cannot contain. And while you do get some answers, and some directions on where to go next, the lasting effect of the meeting is more of an emptyness and regret from this sad, lonely, and broken woman and how time spares no one.
Another one is meeting with “Adam”. The planes are entirely based on Faith Magic; if enough people believe in something, then it happens. Early on you’re tasked with bringing a small tree back to life by wishing it were healthier, and each of your party members can aid by wishing together (unless you ask the pyromaniac to help). Through the game The Nameless One often gets the opportunity to lie about his origins and introduce himself as Adam to strangers. Do that enough times and when heading to one of the game’s taverns you end up meeting yourself…or rather Adam, the figure the manifested from people’s beliefs on the lie you’ve told them. Its a rather minor detour, but one that helps boost the weirdness of the planes.
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Seven Force is a GREAT pick
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wait I hadn’t seen this thread and it rules. I wish I had a better array memory 
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give us yours
One that sticks in my head is the Owl Father fight in Sekiro. I spent a week off and on trying at it before I finally got it down and just… the dance of that fight, the flow of it, just sublime. That game as whole just has such a good rhythm to combat in a way few others games did for me.
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does the end fight/‘fight’ in Disco Elysium count? because oh my god… Man.
I WOULD IF I COULD REMEMBER EVER HAVING PLAYED A VIDEO GAME IN MY LIFE
some off the top of my head:
- Sans Undertale
- Malboro fight in FFXV
- Kratos v Lloyd title fight in Tales of Symphonia
- Gideon Ofnir near the end of Elden Ring
- Ludwig and Orphan in the Bloodborne DLC, but especially the former
- maggot Solaire and Anor Londo Lautrec invasion in Dark Souls both good. also Artorias from the DLC obv
- Rubicante in FFIV
- MGS2 final boss
- MGS3 final boss
- MGS4 final boss…
list is getting too long now I’ll shut up LMAO
ETA: oh I also go hard for Hell House particularly in FFVII Remake, I yelled out loud I won’t lie.
and the Red/Gold fight is iconic ofc
and every single boss fight in Revengeance sorry sorry I’m going
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