I like 'tank driving' with two joysticks. Fun times. :D

Transitionless turn-based combat, like in Yakuza : Like a Dragon.

Achievement based cosmetics in multiplayer games. While I appreciate the "cosmetics only" approach of some multiplayer games microtransactions and battlepasses I also really miss the days of showing off the hayabusa armor in Halo 3. Or even in single player games, it was sometimes more engaging to have something to aim towards to unlock a new costume or get the "ultimate" version of an armor set.

Mass Effect 1 is great for its time, good combats and good graphics. Also you could memorize the controls very fast, because it were intuitive and good distributed in the screen (also you had the help of the machine if you were too burned).

I know there a lot of games that have tried to emulate botw's look and style. And that's whatever, but honestly I love the glider so much, I'm cool if as many games as possible want to use that 🙂

YES I GET TO TALK ABOUT GOOP

In NakeyJakey’s The Last of Us 2 video he describes a condition he has called Goopy Goblin Gamer Brain. Having GGGB essentially means that your motivation and interest in games is powered almost purely by moment-to-moment gameplay. Anything that gets in the way of gameplay, like:

• Stealth/Trailing sequences
• Overly long, unskippable cutscenes / game sequences where you just stand around to look at how pretty a -- game is
• Long Tutorials

is a threat to Goopy Goblin Gamer Brain.

I have Goopy Goblin Gamer Brain. A very bad case, if I’m being honest. It’s the reason why I can’t stand games like The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption 2, and other “prestige-type” games. It's the reason why I am a big fan of a lot of Japanese games, which tend to focus very heavily on mechanical systems.

So when I say a game is "goopy," this is what I mean. Maybe the movement system is godlike (Gravity Rush, Infamous 2, hopefully Forspoken). Maybe it has really deep customization mechanics (Bravely Second, Final Fantasy Tactics, Etrian Odyssey). Maybe the pew pews feel good (Apex Legends). Maybe it's a Ys game (Ys).

Turn based gameplay, especially as it's done in classic roguelikes. Also like it in turn-based strategy (XCOM etc), going back to Rebel Star on the Spectrum.

Deckbuilding. I love it in boardgames so it's fun to see it being explored in videogames too.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed the monster catching systems and subsequently the battle system in Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. So much so, that I got the platinum trophy in both the PS3 and PS4 versions. I loved that the battles were technically in real time but with cooldowns for each character and their familiars, and I appreciated that the characters (3 of them) are on the battlefield WITH the familiars rather than either/or. This meant I could deal some damage to exploit enemy weakness using the main characters while some of the familiars tanked damage and all that. It wasn't perfect but it really resonated with me.

I know it sounds silly but if I can pilot a vehicle then walk around in it WHILE IT'S IN MOTION. Man. The game gets a 10/10 from me after that. Outer Wilds, Star Citizen and Subnautica come to mind.

any game that feels good to move around in is instantly better than games with less developed movement systems. games like sm64, source bhop/surf, tf2 rocket jumping, etc. why not make it a joy to get from one place to another instead of just moving in a straight line or fast traveling?

I've played mainly fighting games for years and my fav mechanic is the comeback mechanic ala XFactor in UMVC3, Instinct in the recent Killer Instinct, and the Critical Art in the new Street Fighter 6.

It ain't over till you see the K.O. screen.

• Whatever respects my reaction time is almost automatically a game that I will like. If I die in a game, I want to die knowing that I screwed up and it was not the fault of some clunking movement mechanic or due to some uninterruptible animations. Highlight: DOOM Eternal
• Whatever makes great gun-play. I don't even know how to describe it, it's one of those "you known when you feel it" types of situations. There are extremely few games that get this right. Highlight: Destiny 2, Halo Infinite

If you let me interact with environment in a way that's grindy, it brings me personal joy.

Things like mining ore, picking up herbs, so forth. It brings me back to my Runescape days.

In Everhood, an RPG with rhythm-based battles, you start out only being able to dodge enemy attacks. Much later into the game, your character regains their memories and a new sense of purpose as well as finally gaining the ability to attack.

Then you have to return to the battles you scraped by by dodging and look for opportunities to sneak attacks in. It adds a new level of challenge to an already challenging game.

All time favorite was the feral druid transformations back in the WoW days (Burning Crusade ish I think).

I loved turning into a cat, putting bleeds on some boss, turning into a elf form and popping off a revive/heal, going back to cat to DPS, maybe going bear to pick up and add or two as back up tank. Super fun.

Also flying around in bird form, picking herbs to make potions and just chatting with the guild mates on the headset was very relaxing.

Past that the flying mechanics from City of Heros/Villains were great and I compare any flight mechanics now to those then.

Actraiser. That game was my favorite when it came out. Part Sim part platformer. Blew me away as a kid. I still give it a play through every few years.

This one is a bit hard to describe, but I like a variety of mechanics that acknowledge HP loss as a possible thing that can happen (rather than, say, rewarding you for no-hit runs).

One example is when a game balances between giving you decent ammo, and decent healing items. Sometimes shooting every zombie is the better play because health is scarce. But when ammo is scarce and health is plentiful, it may make sense to run through 3 zombies taking only a few bites.

There's also HP feedback loop systems, where it's still bad to get hurt, and you're better off avoiding it, but when you DO get hurt, you build up some kind of meter that allows you to use that as a comeback. This might include things like a super-attack meter that builds when you're damaged, or faster attacks that only come from low health or broken armor.

Boss fights that are synchronized to the music. Not too many I can think of off the top of my head right now though. There's Violette in One Step From Eden, and I guess you can count the final stage of Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion sorta loosely did this with the final minute transition.

Any good movement mechanics. Shoutout to grappling hooks!

This is really niche, but I love drawing maps manually on first person dungeon crawlers. The Etrian Odyssey series is fhe quintessential example of this, and it in itself is a modern reinvention of the old days when you would use pen and paper to draw the map of a dungeon when games were so unforgiving that they did not give you any map at all.

Etrian Odyssey gives you an on screen map, but you get to mark where certain things are between your runs.

The whole thing gives me the same type of feel as manually keeping score of a baseball game. Kind of a lost art.

optional, well hidden, especially cryptic content. this kind of thing is the BEST. it plays into my simple collectathon loving brain where just finding things for the sake of finding them is where all the fun is.

see: Environmental Station Alpha, Tunic, FEZ...

A really well done survival-craft gameplay loop is sooo addicting. When they get the balance just right it's so satisfying, but when it's off a little bit it can be so frustrating. For example I thought Subnautica had a really great balance of resource gathering and building and exploring. On the other hand, something like Raft has the balance way off and it's really not fun for me at all.

Its a little silly but I do enjoy those little things they add to a game that don't really add much in terms of gameplay, heck you're even able to play the game without making use of them, but are a nice way of sort of just "grounding" yourself in the world for a time, giving you some time to pause and reflect a little on whats been happening.

Stuff like pulling out a guitar with Into the Radius and trying to strum out a lil beat or stopping in at a diner in Shadows of Doubt and having a little coffee and watching the world go by while mulling over a case that you're on. I think that kind of stuff is pretty rad.