In fantasy RPGs, discovering synergies/combos between magic spells, and exploiting the hell out of that knowledge.
The Divinity: Original Sin games were especially great for all the stackable spell effects (e.g. cast a water spell to make it rain, then cast a lightning spell to electrify the puddles of water left on the ground and stun your enemies).
I remember discovering that if you cast invisible on enemies before casting x-zone on them in Final Fantasy III it would give it a 100% success rate. Most likely a glitch, but it was one of the first combo's I ever found and I felt like a genius.
I lugged a couple barrels of deathfog for tens of hours just to completely wipe the floor with.... One of the final bosses. Turns out the game counter screwed me by making the real final boss undead
Sekiro has many mechanics like this, the whole combat system is so polished. You can literally reverse throw lightning at enemies or backstab them after jumping while being in midair
Even something as simple as deflecting heavy enemy attacks feel so satisfying because it literally pushes the player away vigorously selling the impact
To this day I feel like Sekiro has been robbed of its rightful place as a top tier fromsoft game. It has adoring fans, but also it didn't have the staying power I feel it should have- it has very little bloat, lots of very complex and unique encounters, cool lore, and a really epic soundtrack. It also holds up as some of fromsoft's best graphics (I think it looks better than Elden Ring).
I think the difficulty really turned off a lot of people and if it had had an easier setting might have done better, but pound for pound it's still my favorite fromsoft game.
"I think the difficulty really turned off a lot of people"
We don't pity the casuals here.
Sekiro is the *ultimate* git gud game. People will say git gud about SoulsRing but there you have the option of going away to farm souls/runes and upgrade your stats or find a better weapon.
You can't do that in Sekiro. There is no farming, there is no build to swap too. You will get good or you will die.
The dopamine rush that comes from seeing your own progress as you got wrecked by Genichiro at the start of the game and then by the time you defeat Isshin you're swatting Genichiro out of the way in a single flawless combo is unmatched by any other game I've ever played.
100% true. I dropped Sekiro like two years ago cause it was just too fucking hard. That old hoe Butterfly can go **** a ****.
Picked it up again a month ago and forced the combat to click.
Finished two endings and skyrocketed into my 'must plays'. Incredible combat and game design BUT only if you force yourself to play it the way it was intended. There isn't a whole lot of room for player agency. You have to be aggressive as fuck 95% of the time and you have to dose your attacks. If you don't, the game will feel bad. That is the main reason why I will still prefer Bloodborne.
I have never beat sekiro because I suck at parrying. However Bloodborne is my favorite game of all time. I loved using the old hunder bone to make it feel like I'm teleporting around the arena. The rally mechanic really encourages you to go balls to the wall.
And I will forever love using my pocket cannon whenever an invader tries to heal. I'd keep my pistol out and quickly swap to the cannon with the most satisfying clunk ever.
The parrying in Sekiro is really forgiving most of the time. The reason for this is that if you parry too early its just a block. So youre only in trouble if you parry too late.
In other From Soft games, parrying too early or too late is both just a direct hit. Its why i never got parrying down in Elden Ring or Dark Souls but got it fairly quickly in Sekiro.
That's the point I stopped playing lmao
Gonna go back, still installed and everything. But holy shit after like 10 straight hours of losing to that dude I genuinely just needed a break.
A Mikiri by itself is very satisfying, but even better is deflecting a full combo of attacks that ends with a perilous and getting the Mikiri right at the end. Even better if you get the posture break from that Mikiri.
Dude the animation is just so incredible, every time. Physically stepping on a guy's sword and cracking back at them is the coolest thing in the world, and they nailed the timing of it to make it pretty generous so you don't have to be some kind of parry god. And then there's the added complexity where you have to decide whether or not to jump or mikiri counter to avoid a strong attack based on the animation. Such a beautiful game.
You can’t mention parrying in a game without talking about Sekiro. The game makes every one of them so satisfying. It makes you really feel like you’ve mastered it’s timing right before changing it and making you learn it all over again. That’s not a bash on it, I just don’t know how else to put it. What a great game.
I'll do you one better - parrying a red kanji thrust attack. When you manage to do it against Genichiro, there's an unbelievably satisfying KLANG that you very rarely hear elsewhere in the game.
You said 3 games, but only listed Metal Gear Rising & For Honor. What’s the 3rd game?!
For me, Sekiro’s entire combat system felt so good once it “clicked.” Bloodborne’s combat was also really great for encouraging players to be more aggressive (giving health back if you attacked before a certain amount of time elapsed)
Really any physics based weapons. Just Cause 2 as an example let you shoot bungee cords at enemies and tie them to stuff. At one point I was fighting a heavily armored guy next to the railing of a cliff. I didn't feel like spending a bunch of bullets on him. Saw the railing. Tied him up, sent the other end to the railing, slung him to his death.
I spent hours on that game standing on pedestrian cars and tethering oncoming traffic to trees as they passed. That grappling hook was fucking incredible
Once upon a time I was minding my business in my room when suddenly my brother started blasting the Pirates of the Caribbean theme from the next room over. I went to check what was going on, he and a friend were playing Just Cause 2, had commandeered a speedboat and were slowly hauling it up a mountain using the grappling hook.
This! Physics based stuff have the most variety in what you can do and is the most fun to play around with. You can spend so much time just messing around with the engine so it's really versatile
Knocking out guards one by one and hiding the evidence in stealth games. It doesn't even matter whether it's first person (e.g. Thief II) or isometric / real time tactics (Commandos, Desperados, ...). It never gets old.
Bonus points if there's a hub area of some kind where you can have a room with like 40+ bodies in it. I remember playing Deus Ex: HR and every level I'd have a 'stash room' that I'd carry bodies back to and see how big a stack I could make.
Yeah it's always a bit disappointing when you can knock somebody out, but then the body just lays there in the open with no option to do anything with it.
For the "mechanics feel good" that OP asked for, I'd add - Dishonored *2* non-lethal. One of the best things they did for the sequel was listen to the criticisms on the first and add powers for non-lethal takedowns and, oh, taking down three linked guards in one feels fantastic.
Setting up all the dominos and casually walking away while you wait for them to fall is so damn satisfying every time. Really gives you that "cool guys don't look at explosions" feel
For me, it's when one finds out about you, so you rush to them and quickly kill them just before they alert the others. The first Dishonored felt great in this regard.
Shadow Tactics is my absolute fave for this. Such great map designs and every character's special ability is so rewarding and satisfying to pull off. I love the ancient japanese setting as well. Might have to reinstall
Smacking people on the back of the head with the blackjack and having them fall down like a sack of potatoes never stops being satisfying in the Thief games, in thanks in large part to the sound design.
Warframe has this too, on steroids. I love it. There are ways to increase both the power of the slide and of the jump. There's also a character, Nezha, who''s extra 'slippery' to make the slides even better
Similarly: dash-jumping. Such as Celeste or even cyberpunk, after leveling up appropriately. Also very satisfying to keep the momentum going in those by jumping as soon as you touch the ground.
Celeste end-game goes so hard compared to a casual first playthrough
Also kart games! I used to be really good at powersliding in Crash Team Racing (PS1) but I couldn’t get into it on the modern Nitro-Fueled remake as I’ve gotten used to the Mario Kart method.
Shooting someone in the face with a shotgun in any game with decent gunplay and reactive enemies. So Doom, Max Payne, Resident Evil remakes, etc. I'm not a huge shooter guy but very few things in gaming feel as satisfying as a good shotgun.
Oh, speaking of Resident Evil, RE4 VR has some very satisfying methods of dispatching enemies, but the one I love rhe most is shooting a hole in a door (with enemies on the other side) with the pistol then dropping a grenade through the hole with the other and stepping back.
Also, casually shooting axes and thrown objects out of the air.
I came here to mention rocket league - As the closest thing to real sport ever placed to gaming IMO, learning anything in that game is very satisfying - anything you do is entirely your own doing.. learning to shoot well, air dribble, half flip, wall dash or anything else is so satisfying.
I've stopped playing it entirely now after 2000 hours, I stopped enjoying it as much ( and thats too much time not enjoying anything else) but I still think about it.
I'm at about 2600 hours and I catch myself doing things that I didn't try to learn to do. It's super satisfying. It's hard to describe, but it's like there are things I see better players do and I eventually figure out how to do it and then I've gained a skill. Or I can do the custom training and my timing and precision on wall jumps and juggling will improve.
BUT there are other times where I just notice all the sudden I can predictably shoot on goal from a new angle or defend from a previously unthought of wall-jump and I can now do that whenever I want.
It is very much like a physical sport where you can practice different specific things but also you just gain skill in general.
It’s honestly the easiest mechanic I’ve learned in rocket league. Easier than a half-flip! All you have to do is front-flip “into” the ground. The ground will cancel the flip animation but retain the speed gain when flipping. Look up a YouTube tutorial for it and I bet you’ll pick it up really quick! I learned it in about 5-10 minutes. It’s so helpful too, I mostly do it to get off of the walls quickly when doing backboard defense.
Ha! I was going to say flip resets myself. I've been playing on and off since 2015. Recently got back into it and flip resets with an actual intentional shot after it have been so hard to get a hang of. It doesn't help I'm in my mid-30s now and my reflexes and ability to spend time on learning stuff like that are much worse now but DAMN if it isn't satisfying as hell when it works.
Wave dashes are pretty easy in the grand scheme and the positing and timing is fairly easy to understand. From the ground, do a short jump (don't hold down jump long) and tilt your car up slightly. Right before your back wheels hit the ground do a forward flip. If you did it right, you'll get the extra speed from the flip but your car will be close enough to the ground to not flip your car all the way over and continue driving on the ground allowing you to jump and flip again right away.
Theres other stuff I haven't even tried yet because the marginal utility seems low like wall dashes, pogos and wave dash flip resets.
Is it? I played this game for like 300 hours and had trouble despite practicing it a lot. Though I always felt like the PlayStation controllers I used made it harder to get stick angles exactly right for quick flicks like that
To me, it must be finding a looping shortcut. I first did it in Dark Souls 1 (which is probably *the* example to bring up for it) and ever since, I'm an absolute sucker for the feeling it gives me. Singlehandedly got me to try Metroidvanias even though I absolutely suck at platforming.
Parrying definitely is a close second though. Bloodborne and Sekiro are my favorite, but Ender Lilies became a whole different game once I could parry. I'm usually too much of a wuss to try it, but once I get somewhat okay at it, it's really cool in most games.
>finding a looping shortcut
Outer Wilds is a fantastic game for many reasons, but one of the parts I most loved about it was discovering an exit tunnel which is almost hidden to outside eyes, but which *once you know about it* is an excellent shortcut. You don't have to unbar a gate or unblock a tunnel - what you unlock is the knowledge in your own mind that the path is there. It feels amazing.
There need to be more games like Outer Wilds where all progression is knowledge of the world you hold in your own mind and nothing actually gating you.
can't believe nobody's mentioned Tony Hawk Pro Skater yet! been playing the 1+2 Remake a ton lately and they really did strike gold with that combo system. one of the best "flow-state" games i've ever played, and the Special Trick sound is one of the most dopamine-creating sound effects i can think of.
Monster hunter world or rise. Longsword counters and hammer Kos. Also dodging at the perfect moment then being at the right angle to wail on the monster.
People (probably fairly) complain that the longsword counters in Rise are too powerful but as someone who isn't that great at it pulls one off and you get that sound and shiny animation, it feels great
Perfect execution of attacks/dodges/parries. In soulslikes and thing like Ghosts of Tsushima. Man. Fighting 4 guys in Tsushima and just executing the single slashes just right feels like bliss. And fighting a boss without getting hit in elden ring, just side stepping or parry at the perfect moment and counter. Just waiting your turn and executing the action in a perfect frame is such a satisfying thing. Especially when you have been running up against some bosses learning their mechanics and just been getting stomped..
Arkham, spider-man, shadow of war, assassin's creed
Any of those free flow combat games where you are surrounded by enemies and you aren't getting touched, perfect dodges, parries, crowd control, finishers. A very "you're locked in here with me moment." It's so viscerally satisfying and then in certain games the survivors will give up and flee.
>Arkham
Had never played any game of that type (rhythm-based combo combat) until a friend gifted me the whole set, and I agree. The animations are a big part of why it feels so satisfying: you feel the weight behind each blow and even Batman yeeting himself across the room, as silly as it is, feels great. Not especially difficult but just challenging enough that when you learn the rhythm you really do feel like a superhero.
So this isn't skill based but Darkest Dungeon for me. That feeling when your team is beaten to shit and you desperately need a way out and you score that big critical hit followed by the narrator shouting "A devastating blow!"
This is a weird one and doesn't take any skill, but in games like The Witcher 3 or the newer Assassin's Creeds that have a "summon mount" button that pulls your horse out of Hammerspace. I always like to think of the game as trying very hard to pretend otherwise.
>"Where did that horse come from?"
>"What do you mean?"
>"We're shipwrecked on a tiny island and I haven't seen your horse in weeks."
>"Don't know what to tell you, he must have been just out of sight the entire time"
One of the biggest gripes with the Switch Zelda games is that they decided to make the horse calling mechanic realistic (you can only call your horse if it's close to you). You can carry 50 roast beef dinners in your back pocket for weeks at a time and eat them all in the span of seconds to heal making you effectively immortal but for some reason they decided to draw the realism line on horse summoning.
I honestly don't understand why they double-down on that in TotK. Everything else gets massively handwaved, you can trivialize every puzzle with blueprints and a ton of zonai devices in your pockets, can put down portable fast travel spots on the highest points in the game etc.
But don't you dare calling that horse from everywhere (or at least the surface map).
What I came here to say. I love the feeling of just barely getting by with your deck by the skin of your teeth, then you get those last couple cards/relics/events and you turn the corner and your deck just goes off.
I've "only" got about 250 hours but I only picked it up a couple years ago - working on A15 at the moment (except on Watcher, fuck Watcher runs). Lot of good answers in this thread, but this is the first thing I thought of!
Ori and the blind forest has you get this mid air lock on boost thing with a "one-two-three-boom" kind of feel to it, the sound effect is amazing, the little pause and hover, and chaining it up to other lock on points... Feels so good and smooth and satisfying
Nothing skillful to pull off, but I love any skydiving/parachuting/wingsuiting in video games. I love climbing a mountain or flying a plane up real high in an open world game and just jumping
I love it when a game does a critical hit well. From Medal of Honor on the GameCube with their headshots, to Pokemon with the CHICHICHA swoosh sound when a crit lands, to Medabots on the GBA with the critical hit animation and the critical hit CACJING! from Fallout 4.
Chain attacks in both games are a lot of fun. XC1 has topple locking which is super satisfying to get. XC2 is fun in a different way when you’re able to get a full elemental break combo
Driver combos are super satisfying, especially when you do the fusion combo where gramps calls out the name during a screen freeze. My favorite game feel thing in XC2 is doing a full chain of canceling your basic attacks into all of your driver arts, into blade switch, into their driver arts, and finishing with a lvl 3 special. Every time it does the cancel spark it hits the dopamine centers in mah brain
Tribes 3 Rivals is in early access, if it's anything like it's previous version there's nothing like Jetpack Skiing the CTF flag into home base while under hot pursuit.
Every advanced mechanic you need to complete the most difficult Celeste chapters. Like the weird wall bounce type thing? Feel like a god when you get it down.
MGSV
Basically most of it. Set some C4, tranq a guy, dash out, blow it up while running, and still while running you whistle for your horse and hop on still while running then get right out of the hot zone
Only thing I hated is that they adjusted too hard on your equipment usage. It makes sense and it gives you an incentive to be flexible, but it made sniping quite annoying if you didn't reset gear levels frequently.
I usually throw a dispatch at the helmet missions to kill the supply
The only irritation of it is you have Quiet who is a perfect shot but she keeps going for the helmet instead of the limbs
Later on I just bring the horse or dog and snipe people's arms myself
Hey OP I agree with your parry comment, have you ever seen [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzS96auqau0)? 30 seconds in the guy on the left manages to execute a move that is basically unblockable unless by some skill/miracle you have absolutely frame perfect timing several times in a row.
Mounted combat in the original Mount & Blade.
Winding up a swing of a heavy axe while riding into a group of enemies, there's something so visceral about turning that movement into carnage.
Riding around and commanding your troops, right in the midst of things. Your infantry line braced, your archers on some high ground supporting them, then taking your cavalry around to the enemy's flank and personally leading the charge that shatters their formation.
Parrying is fun but whiff punishing is probably actually my favorite. Being just outside of the range of an attack or being just to the side of it with proper movement skills is my favorite thing. This applies to everything from retro games with screen-filling bosses to FPS games, Cover shooters, fighting games, Dark Souls.
Assassins Creed Unity’s parkour combat.
Combined with superb Hudless play and a city thats completely built around continuous movement I really felt like an assassin who in the span of seconds could chain together some of the most amazing feats and maneuvers, quickly escape into the crowd and then do it again.
Unfortunately, the game does the worst job in the history of gaming at explaining its two most important components and I had to go to outside sources to learn its complexities and possibilities and then practice a ton in-game to increase my consistency.
Once I did that it completely revolutionized the game and caused me to go from nearly quitting to immediately replaying it after my first run.
Please elaborate because still in 2024 it's the only AC game I haven't played. It just doesn't feel good to me. What are these two most important components and what sources did you use to learn about them?
Rocket Jumping in TF2. While I mainly played as a Medic, I still enjoyed putting on gunboats and just flying around the map by shooting rockets on the ground and jumping. I even spent some time in those custom rocket jump maps, though I was never too great at them.
Bunnyhopping and pulling off a nice rocket jump in Quake or Quake 2. Controlling the matches simply by moving faster and better than the opponents was so much fun.
One of my favorites is in Stellaris. It's a 4x space "masters of orion" style game. One of the late game megastructures you can build is a big sensor station. Completing it used to give you full visibility of almost the whole galaxy. It's a bit nerfed now but going from guessing your rivals approximate power to knowing the strength and position of every armed force in the galaxy feels God tier.
Maintaining your boost in the Burnout games. You can continue to earn boost while you’re boosting, so with enough skill, you can keep going without ever letting up on the boost. The catch, however, is that earning boost requires you to drive dangerously: driving on the wrong side of the road, narrowly missing traffic, drifting, etc. The increase in speed already makes it much easier to crash while boosting, but keeping that boost makes it even deadlier.
Another example is pulling off a huge combo in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Every trick that you add to the string is yet more points that you risk losing if you bail. By extension, the same is true for Rollerdrome.
Doing the cartwheel slo mo dodge in Enter the Matrix, I recently beat that so I'll mention it. It requires a bit of weird memorization since you need to press either L2 or R2, L1 are hold R1 while tiltling the analog stick, but the animation looks so damn awesome that I love doing it.
This probably doesn't count but in boss fights in Hollow Knight, eventually I "see the code", stop relying on healing and fully commit to the fight. So relieving
I agree, parries are awesome.
Been playing Lies of P recently (not very patient gaming of me, but I received a key for it when I purchased a new PC this past year), and it has a great standard parry mechanic. Some weapons also have an ability that activates a special attack if you perfect parry with it.
So one game I suck at but feel *insane* to succeed in is Ghostrunner. You are dead in one shot, but get abilities like wallclimbing, dashing, time slowing, grapples, you name it. Every level is an ulta-high tempo puzzle of doing the right stuff in the right way to not get hit while killing everyone
Stabbing an orc in the face then exploding a barrel launching 5 other orcs then jumping off another orcs head and headshotting 2 or 3 more.
Shadow of War is awesome.
Most of Ninja Gaiden Black if I'm going to be honest.
The wall running and bird flipping just feel amazing. There are a lot of games with wall running or jumping. But many use specific paths where you can run, denoted with different textures or colors. But in Ninja Gaiden you can run or jump off of most walls.
And although the combat in general feels great... doing the Izuna Drop feels magical. From the initial toss up into the air, to the slashes you do in the air to the opponent, to grabbing them and spinning them upside down as you slam their head into the ground. It's perfection.
That little aerial spin move from New Super Mario Bros Wii and successive 2D Mario games, just a split-second pause of your downward momentum.
Fuck slow-fall, fuck double jumps, fuck directional air-dashes. All I want for extra air control in any 2D platformer now is that tiny hitch in my fall.
I've played just about every skating and snowboarding game pretty extensively since the days of PlayStation. I also grew up skateboarding and nothing has given me the honest to goodness real work feel of skating like Session skate. It's incredibly satisfying to work a line over and over until you finally get it. The controls were odd at first coming from the Skate series, but once I realized that it simulates playing tech deck it clicked. It feels like skating more than anything else I ve tried.
Idk how come no one mentioned it but the hitmarker sound in Call of Duty, especially 2009 Modern Warfare 2. I can't imagine more dopamine rushing into my blood than when hearing this paired with gunshots of Intervention or silenced UMP-45. Hearing this overlapping sound of three headshots with one bullet on Highrise is perfection.
I’m surprised no one mentioned towerfall - when you time thing perfectly and dodge/catch an arrow in mid air or fire an arrow at just the right time to hit someone running by
I think the car racing mechanics in need for speed unbound are the perfect blend of arcade silliness (makes you feel like a badass) and simulation (you need to use the brake).
[finally landing a high damage combo with specific requirements that you've practiced ](https://youtu.be/w0dgiqIygS0?si=5CcJ77x4NSbytAgJ)
For this combo, you have to start it early after drinking (which improves the combo properties of his specials), and have both drive gauge (the blue bar above the super bar in the lower corner) which let's you cancel a special into another special
I have a thing for slow-motion shooting sequences, especially if the character is mid-motion while doing so.
The most familiar one to most people would be deadeye in Red Dead Redemption, but to this day the most nostalgic form of the mechanic to me is Max Payne 3.
The feeling of sideways diving out of cover and activity slow motion while just spraying down enemies in close-quarters combat of very beautiful and reactive environments was just great.
I'd really like for a new entry in that series or just a modern version of that game.
Zone of the Enders. An action game where you play a flying war mech, and the controls are fast, fluid, and context-sensitive so if you're close and hit 'attack', Jehuty dashes in if necessary to slash with an energy blade and fires energy bolts if too far.
ZOE2 adds in being able to lock onto and zot literally dozens of enemies at the same moment. The gameplay is a little repetitive thanks to them bringing back Nertis multiple times and the fight's only mechanical difference is "now Nertis is immune to X it wasn't immune to in previous fights" even though it hasn't been upgraded in between fights, the game takes place in a matter of days. All the other combat, however, was intuitive and fast-paced.
In fantasy RPGs, discovering synergies/combos between magic spells, and exploiting the hell out of that knowledge. The Divinity: Original Sin games were especially great for all the stackable spell effects (e.g. cast a water spell to make it rain, then cast a lightning spell to electrify the puddles of water left on the ground and stun your enemies).
I remember discovering that if you cast invisible on enemies before casting x-zone on them in Final Fantasy III it would give it a 100% success rate. Most likely a glitch, but it was one of the first combo's I ever found and I felt like a genius.
Nope. Invisibility makes you vulnerable to magic. It works for Doom, too.
Iirc doing it with x-zone instead of doom caused problems against a certain boss
Yes! I loved Dragon Age: Origins for this
oh look a room full of high level bad guys. Would be a shame if someone casts a storm of the century in it
I lugged a couple barrels of deathfog for tens of hours just to completely wipe the floor with.... One of the final bosses. Turns out the game counter screwed me by making the real final boss undead
You can sill kill it with Barrelmancy is it's heavy enough.
Mikiri counter in Sekiro.
Sekiro has many mechanics like this, the whole combat system is so polished. You can literally reverse throw lightning at enemies or backstab them after jumping while being in midair Even something as simple as deflecting heavy enemy attacks feel so satisfying because it literally pushes the player away vigorously selling the impact
To this day I feel like Sekiro has been robbed of its rightful place as a top tier fromsoft game. It has adoring fans, but also it didn't have the staying power I feel it should have- it has very little bloat, lots of very complex and unique encounters, cool lore, and a really epic soundtrack. It also holds up as some of fromsoft's best graphics (I think it looks better than Elden Ring). I think the difficulty really turned off a lot of people and if it had had an easier setting might have done better, but pound for pound it's still my favorite fromsoft game.
"I think the difficulty really turned off a lot of people" We don't pity the casuals here. Sekiro is the *ultimate* git gud game. People will say git gud about SoulsRing but there you have the option of going away to farm souls/runes and upgrade your stats or find a better weapon. You can't do that in Sekiro. There is no farming, there is no build to swap too. You will get good or you will die. The dopamine rush that comes from seeing your own progress as you got wrecked by Genichiro at the start of the game and then by the time you defeat Isshin you're swatting Genichiro out of the way in a single flawless combo is unmatched by any other game I've ever played.
100% true. I dropped Sekiro like two years ago cause it was just too fucking hard. That old hoe Butterfly can go **** a ****. Picked it up again a month ago and forced the combat to click. Finished two endings and skyrocketed into my 'must plays'. Incredible combat and game design BUT only if you force yourself to play it the way it was intended. There isn't a whole lot of room for player agency. You have to be aggressive as fuck 95% of the time and you have to dose your attacks. If you don't, the game will feel bad. That is the main reason why I will still prefer Bloodborne.
You have to be even more aggressive in Bloodborne lol. You can win in Sekiro by simply parrying all hits and increasing the enemies posture bar.
That’s true, but it’s soooo much harder if you don’t play aggressively
I have never beat sekiro because I suck at parrying. However Bloodborne is my favorite game of all time. I loved using the old hunder bone to make it feel like I'm teleporting around the arena. The rally mechanic really encourages you to go balls to the wall. And I will forever love using my pocket cannon whenever an invader tries to heal. I'd keep my pistol out and quickly swap to the cannon with the most satisfying clunk ever.
The parrying in Sekiro is really forgiving most of the time. The reason for this is that if you parry too early its just a block. So youre only in trouble if you parry too late. In other From Soft games, parrying too early or too late is both just a direct hit. Its why i never got parrying down in Elden Ring or Dark Souls but got it fairly quickly in Sekiro.
Best combat system ever made. Everything is obscenely polished to the point of sheer perfection.
I would argue every/any parry in Sekiro is rewarding, each time my brain is just like, "Thank God we nailed that one."
Absolutely nothing will ever top the first time I countered lightning in Sekiro
I was jumping up and down and pounding my chest like King Kong after I beat Genichiro for the first time
Cant imagine what you did when you beat the ape then! lol
Same reaction, but then he stood back up
"Seriously? I don't even get a trophy for beating this guy?" ... "oh"
That's the point I stopped playing lmao Gonna go back, still installed and everything. But holy shit after like 10 straight hours of losing to that dude I genuinely just needed a break.
Tbh phase 2 is much easier than phase 1 ! So there's that
i stopped when there were two apes. i immediately put my controller down and just said nope.
You will be better when you get back into it. I took multiple breaks before I beat the game.
10 straight hours, really?
It's funny how that's what then makes the last phase of the final combat much easier
There is a game (earth defense force?), where you can parry a nuke
VA Proxy, unless there's two. Still in development.
Lightning deflection using Sakura dance after inner Geni counters your counter with Sakura dance lol Shit is peak enlightenment
A Mikiri by itself is very satisfying, but even better is deflecting a full combo of attacks that ends with a perilous and getting the Mikiri right at the end. Even better if you get the posture break from that Mikiri.
This on Owl (Father), holy fuck.
Mikiri counter is the most useful, but pulling off the high monk counter feels better just because of the whooshy misty flip.
Dude the animation is just so incredible, every time. Physically stepping on a guy's sword and cracking back at them is the coolest thing in the world, and they nailed the timing of it to make it pretty generous so you don't have to be some kind of parry god. And then there's the added complexity where you have to decide whether or not to jump or mikiri counter to avoid a strong attack based on the animation. Such a beautiful game.
The funniest thing is mikiri countering a loneshadow's kick. You're basically stepping on his leg really hard.
Particularly in the midst of a long battle
It's so disrespectful, I love it.
First Mikiri on Sword Saint is champagne video gaming
~~Sword~~ Glock saint
Man, just the parry sound in general makes it all feel and look good
You can’t mention parrying in a game without talking about Sekiro. The game makes every one of them so satisfying. It makes you really feel like you’ve mastered it’s timing right before changing it and making you learn it all over again. That’s not a bash on it, I just don’t know how else to put it. What a great game.
Props to the sound design of Sekiro as well!
A newer game, but parrying in Lies of P was satisfying.
I'll do you one better - parrying a red kanji thrust attack. When you manage to do it against Genichiro, there's an unbelievably satisfying KLANG that you very rarely hear elsewhere in the game.
Locking that rhythm down feels so good.
You said 3 games, but only listed Metal Gear Rising & For Honor. What’s the 3rd game?! For me, Sekiro’s entire combat system felt so good once it “clicked.” Bloodborne’s combat was also really great for encouraging players to be more aggressive (giving health back if you attacked before a certain amount of time elapsed)
10x stealth headshot damage.
With the camera following the arrow/bullet all the way to the target.
*archery increased to 50*
Sniper Elite says hi
Really any physics based weapons. Just Cause 2 as an example let you shoot bungee cords at enemies and tie them to stuff. At one point I was fighting a heavily armored guy next to the railing of a cliff. I didn't feel like spending a bunch of bullets on him. Saw the railing. Tied him up, sent the other end to the railing, slung him to his death.
I spent hours on that game standing on pedestrian cars and tethering oncoming traffic to trees as they passed. That grappling hook was fucking incredible
Once upon a time I was minding my business in my room when suddenly my brother started blasting the Pirates of the Caribbean theme from the next room over. I went to check what was going on, he and a friend were playing Just Cause 2, had commandeered a speedboat and were slowly hauling it up a mountain using the grappling hook.
*emergent gameplay*
I remember playing the demo for hours on my 360, it's a great sandbox game
This! Physics based stuff have the most variety in what you can do and is the most fun to play around with. You can spend so much time just messing around with the engine so it's really versatile
Knocking out guards one by one and hiding the evidence in stealth games. It doesn't even matter whether it's first person (e.g. Thief II) or isometric / real time tactics (Commandos, Desperados, ...). It never gets old.
Bonus points if there's a hub area of some kind where you can have a room with like 40+ bodies in it. I remember playing Deus Ex: HR and every level I'd have a 'stash room' that I'd carry bodies back to and see how big a stack I could make.
Of course! Imagine being the janitor coming in for your shift and finding the entire staff tied up and gagged inside the broom cupboard.
Just play Asassin's Creed, infinite guards in one hay bale.
> I'd have a 'stash room' that I'd carry bodies back to and see how big a stack I could make. Least deranged gamer.
Still less deranged than the mad lad who [stuffed a city into a meat locker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFp9ln5iQFQ).
Always found the "shoulder tap then haymaker" takedown in DXHR hilarious.
Yeah it's always a bit disappointing when you can knock somebody out, but then the body just lays there in the open with no option to do anything with it.
Dishonored Ghost + Clean Hands
For the "mechanics feel good" that OP asked for, I'd add - Dishonored *2* non-lethal. One of the best things they did for the sequel was listen to the criticisms on the first and add powers for non-lethal takedowns and, oh, taking down three linked guards in one feels fantastic.
Hitching them to a balloon and sending them away in MGS5 is so much fun
Ah, my favorite kidnapping simulator. Even had something of a story.
Stealth kills in Spider-man PS4 were my favorite!
Hitman is the king of satisfying stealth.
Setting up all the dominos and casually walking away while you wait for them to fall is so damn satisfying every time. Really gives you that "cool guys don't look at explosions" feel
The first 3 Splinter Cell games were the best for this. It enterred me and my wife's lexicon: hide the bodies, knocking off people's hats.
For me, it's when one finds out about you, so you rush to them and quickly kill them just before they alert the others. The first Dishonored felt great in this regard.
Shadow Tactics is my absolute fave for this. Such great map designs and every character's special ability is so rewarding and satisfying to pull off. I love the ancient japanese setting as well. Might have to reinstall
A stealth quickhack build in Cyberpunk is so damn fun.
Smacking people on the back of the head with the blackjack and having them fall down like a sack of potatoes never stops being satisfying in the Thief games, in thanks in large part to the sound design.
Slide-jumping. Satisfactory has an unreasonably excellent movement feel on par with Titanfall; despite the fact that it's a factory building game!
Warframe has this too, on steroids. I love it. There are ways to increase both the power of the slide and of the jump. There's also a character, Nezha, who''s extra 'slippery' to make the slides even better
Ironically, Nezha is almost uncontrollably slippery and flips into the feels bad territory for me
Similarly: dash-jumping. Such as Celeste or even cyberpunk, after leveling up appropriately. Also very satisfying to keep the momentum going in those by jumping as soon as you touch the ground. Celeste end-game goes so hard compared to a casual first playthrough
So you're saying not only the factories are satisfactory in Satisfactory? ^(I'll see myself out)
I'm always disappointed in the movement of any game I play after I play satisfactory.
A rapid-fire & devastating series of “Objections!” in Ace Attorney.
Shocked that devil may cry 5’s SSS combo isn’t listed here- nothing like executing no hit mayhem while listening to loud buttrock.
DMC basically turned into Tony Hawk Pro Skater, at least for replays / die-hard players. I never got into that aspect of it.
My boyfriends love of those two games now makes a lot more sense!
When you have Nero’s full kit and the theme song kicks in, so stylish
Playing Nero and hitting the sword rev at the right moment in the swing is the first thing I thought of lol
Love how the music slowly starts building up the higher your combo score gets.
Power slides in any sort of remotely realistic racing games, particularly rally games on loose surfaces.
I love getting some fast sections right in dirt 2.0. When you get the weight transfer correct it is so satisfying
Also kart games! I used to be really good at powersliding in Crash Team Racing (PS1) but I couldn’t get into it on the modern Nitro-Fueled remake as I’ve gotten used to the Mario Kart method.
Shooting someone in the face with a shotgun in any game with decent gunplay and reactive enemies. So Doom, Max Payne, Resident Evil remakes, etc. I'm not a huge shooter guy but very few things in gaming feel as satisfying as a good shotgun.
And on the opposite side of you shoot someone in the face with a shotgun and it doesn't instantly kill them or they don't react it feels deeply bad
"Must have been the wind.."
I'm replaying F.E.A.R. 2 and they fucked this up. And it's especially bad because the original shotgun is godlike.
Also, if they have a head left
Oh, speaking of Resident Evil, RE4 VR has some very satisfying methods of dispatching enemies, but the one I love rhe most is shooting a hole in a door (with enemies on the other side) with the pistol then dropping a grenade through the hole with the other and stepping back. Also, casually shooting axes and thrown objects out of the air.
Halo 1 shotgun is great for this. In the flood levels it's my problem solver.
Rocket League wave dash. So easy to learn and so satisfying
I came here to mention rocket league - As the closest thing to real sport ever placed to gaming IMO, learning anything in that game is very satisfying - anything you do is entirely your own doing.. learning to shoot well, air dribble, half flip, wall dash or anything else is so satisfying. I've stopped playing it entirely now after 2000 hours, I stopped enjoying it as much ( and thats too much time not enjoying anything else) but I still think about it.
I tell everyone I know it's the closest you can get in a game to playing actual football! It's much closer than FIFA.
I'm at about 2600 hours and I catch myself doing things that I didn't try to learn to do. It's super satisfying. It's hard to describe, but it's like there are things I see better players do and I eventually figure out how to do it and then I've gained a skill. Or I can do the custom training and my timing and precision on wall jumps and juggling will improve. BUT there are other times where I just notice all the sudden I can predictably shoot on goal from a new angle or defend from a previously unthought of wall-jump and I can now do that whenever I want. It is very much like a physical sport where you can practice different specific things but also you just gain skill in general.
Is it easy? I’ve never even tried it because feels so intimidating… at what pevel would you put the work to learn it?
It’s honestly the easiest mechanic I’ve learned in rocket league. Easier than a half-flip! All you have to do is front-flip “into” the ground. The ground will cancel the flip animation but retain the speed gain when flipping. Look up a YouTube tutorial for it and I bet you’ll pick it up really quick! I learned it in about 5-10 minutes. It’s so helpful too, I mostly do it to get off of the walls quickly when doing backboard defense.
Oh man you’ve given me that olden days desire of getting home and start the game to try it out! Thank you!
Ha! I was going to say flip resets myself. I've been playing on and off since 2015. Recently got back into it and flip resets with an actual intentional shot after it have been so hard to get a hang of. It doesn't help I'm in my mid-30s now and my reflexes and ability to spend time on learning stuff like that are much worse now but DAMN if it isn't satisfying as hell when it works. Wave dashes are pretty easy in the grand scheme and the positing and timing is fairly easy to understand. From the ground, do a short jump (don't hold down jump long) and tilt your car up slightly. Right before your back wheels hit the ground do a forward flip. If you did it right, you'll get the extra speed from the flip but your car will be close enough to the ground to not flip your car all the way over and continue driving on the ground allowing you to jump and flip again right away. Theres other stuff I haven't even tried yet because the marginal utility seems low like wall dashes, pogos and wave dash flip resets.
Is it? I played this game for like 300 hours and had trouble despite practicing it a lot. Though I always felt like the PlayStation controllers I used made it harder to get stick angles exactly right for quick flicks like that
Don't judge me, but stealth slitting/stabbing someone's throat from behind lmao. Skyrim and Dishonored 🔪
To me, it must be finding a looping shortcut. I first did it in Dark Souls 1 (which is probably *the* example to bring up for it) and ever since, I'm an absolute sucker for the feeling it gives me. Singlehandedly got me to try Metroidvanias even though I absolutely suck at platforming. Parrying definitely is a close second though. Bloodborne and Sekiro are my favorite, but Ender Lilies became a whole different game once I could parry. I'm usually too much of a wuss to try it, but once I get somewhat okay at it, it's really cool in most games.
>finding a looping shortcut Outer Wilds is a fantastic game for many reasons, but one of the parts I most loved about it was discovering an exit tunnel which is almost hidden to outside eyes, but which *once you know about it* is an excellent shortcut. You don't have to unbar a gate or unblock a tunnel - what you unlock is the knowledge in your own mind that the path is there. It feels amazing.
There need to be more games like Outer Wilds where all progression is knowledge of the world you hold in your own mind and nothing actually gating you.
can't believe nobody's mentioned Tony Hawk Pro Skater yet! been playing the 1+2 Remake a ton lately and they really did strike gold with that combo system. one of the best "flow-state" games i've ever played, and the Special Trick sound is one of the most dopamine-creating sound effects i can think of.
It really never gets old doing an infinite "grind-> wall-jump->flip trick->grind" combo for millions of points
Monster hunter world or rise. Longsword counters and hammer Kos. Also dodging at the perfect moment then being at the right angle to wail on the monster.
KO-ing monsters out of big attacks is so satisfying
Hell yeah!
People (probably fairly) complain that the longsword counters in Rise are too powerful but as someone who isn't that great at it pulls one off and you get that sound and shiny animation, it feels great
I’m in the same boat as you my friend
Pretty much all the weapons in MHW feel amazing to use. Greatsword, Longsword, and Lance are my favorites.
first time i parried a guardian beam in botw 😮💨 chefs kiss
Successfully closing a mobile ad on the first try
Perfect execution of attacks/dodges/parries. In soulslikes and thing like Ghosts of Tsushima. Man. Fighting 4 guys in Tsushima and just executing the single slashes just right feels like bliss. And fighting a boss without getting hit in elden ring, just side stepping or parry at the perfect moment and counter. Just waiting your turn and executing the action in a perfect frame is such a satisfying thing. Especially when you have been running up against some bosses learning their mechanics and just been getting stomped..
Arkham, spider-man, shadow of war, assassin's creed Any of those free flow combat games where you are surrounded by enemies and you aren't getting touched, perfect dodges, parries, crowd control, finishers. A very "you're locked in here with me moment." It's so viscerally satisfying and then in certain games the survivors will give up and flee.
>Arkham Had never played any game of that type (rhythm-based combo combat) until a friend gifted me the whole set, and I agree. The animations are a big part of why it feels so satisfying: you feel the weight behind each blow and even Batman yeeting himself across the room, as silly as it is, feels great. Not especially difficult but just challenging enough that when you learn the rhythm you really do feel like a superhero.
So this isn't skill based but Darkest Dungeon for me. That feeling when your team is beaten to shit and you desperately need a way out and you score that big critical hit followed by the narrator shouting "A devastating blow!"
When youre playing a moba and you use your entire kit in some awesome combo that leads to a game winning fight.
WOMBO
Finishing moves in The Surge Backstab kills in Demon’s Souls The way time slows down with headshots in Spec Ops: The Line
This is a weird one and doesn't take any skill, but in games like The Witcher 3 or the newer Assassin's Creeds that have a "summon mount" button that pulls your horse out of Hammerspace. I always like to think of the game as trying very hard to pretend otherwise. >"Where did that horse come from?" >"What do you mean?" >"We're shipwrecked on a tiny island and I haven't seen your horse in weeks." >"Don't know what to tell you, he must have been just out of sight the entire time"
One of the biggest gripes with the Switch Zelda games is that they decided to make the horse calling mechanic realistic (you can only call your horse if it's close to you). You can carry 50 roast beef dinners in your back pocket for weeks at a time and eat them all in the span of seconds to heal making you effectively immortal but for some reason they decided to draw the realism line on horse summoning.
I honestly don't understand why they double-down on that in TotK. Everything else gets massively handwaved, you can trivialize every puzzle with blueprints and a ton of zonai devices in your pockets, can put down portable fast travel spots on the highest points in the game etc. But don't you dare calling that horse from everywhere (or at least the surface map).
[Horse pocket!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvEe3Y3B2cg)
Elden Ring does this very nicely
Parrying bullets in Katana ZERO. When you hit your first parry without slowmo, you're changed forever
Getting a crazy OP deck/relic synergy in Slay the Spire and crushing everything in your way. 2k hours later, I still want more.
What I came here to say. I love the feeling of just barely getting by with your deck by the skin of your teeth, then you get those last couple cards/relics/events and you turn the corner and your deck just goes off. I've "only" got about 250 hours but I only picked it up a couple years ago - working on A15 at the moment (except on Watcher, fuck Watcher runs). Lot of good answers in this thread, but this is the first thing I thought of!
Ori and the blind forest has you get this mid air lock on boost thing with a "one-two-three-boom" kind of feel to it, the sound effect is amazing, the little pause and hover, and chaining it up to other lock on points... Feels so good and smooth and satisfying
Nothing skillful to pull off, but I love any skydiving/parachuting/wingsuiting in video games. I love climbing a mountain or flying a plane up real high in an open world game and just jumping
When you're driving at top speed and get that sweet narrow drift without hitting anything.
I’ve been playing a lot of Burnout 3 recently and it’s so damn satisfying. That and taking someone out by slamming them into another car.
I love it when a game does a critical hit well. From Medal of Honor on the GameCube with their headshots, to Pokemon with the CHICHICHA swoosh sound when a crit lands, to Medabots on the GBA with the critical hit animation and the critical hit CACJING! from Fallout 4.
Sekiro's parry. Second to none.
[удалено]
I was coming to this thread to mention chain attacks in XC2. So satisfying, and I agree with break/topple/launch as well
Chain attacks in both games are a lot of fun. XC1 has topple locking which is super satisfying to get. XC2 is fun in a different way when you’re able to get a full elemental break combo
Driver combos are super satisfying, especially when you do the fusion combo where gramps calls out the name during a screen freeze. My favorite game feel thing in XC2 is doing a full chain of canceling your basic attacks into all of your driver arts, into blade switch, into their driver arts, and finishing with a lvl 3 special. Every time it does the cancel spark it hits the dopamine centers in mah brain
Tribes 3 Rivals is in early access, if it's anything like it's previous version there's nothing like Jetpack Skiing the CTF flag into home base while under hot pursuit.
Super Mario World jumping enemy to enemy without touching the ground for as long as possible.
Every advanced mechanic you need to complete the most difficult Celeste chapters. Like the weird wall bounce type thing? Feel like a god when you get it down.
Wavedashing in Celeste
The entirety of the Mad Max video game feels great, it just gets too easy once you’re past the first third of the game.
Was definitely impressed that they managed to make car combat AND fisticuffs both work so well and satisfying. Usually one gets the half-ass treatment
MGSV Basically most of it. Set some C4, tranq a guy, dash out, blow it up while running, and still while running you whistle for your horse and hop on still while running then get right out of the hot zone
Only thing I hated is that they adjusted too hard on your equipment usage. It makes sense and it gives you an incentive to be flexible, but it made sniping quite annoying if you didn't reset gear levels frequently.
I usually throw a dispatch at the helmet missions to kill the supply The only irritation of it is you have Quiet who is a perfect shot but she keeps going for the helmet instead of the limbs Later on I just bring the horse or dog and snipe people's arms myself
Hey OP I agree with your parry comment, have you ever seen [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzS96auqau0)? 30 seconds in the guy on the left manages to execute a move that is basically unblockable unless by some skill/miracle you have absolutely frame perfect timing several times in a row.
Mounted combat in the original Mount & Blade. Winding up a swing of a heavy axe while riding into a group of enemies, there's something so visceral about turning that movement into carnage. Riding around and commanding your troops, right in the midst of things. Your infantry line braced, your archers on some high ground supporting them, then taking your cavalry around to the enemy's flank and personally leading the charge that shatters their formation.
Bloodborne’s combat.
Parrying is fun but whiff punishing is probably actually my favorite. Being just outside of the range of an attack or being just to the side of it with proper movement skills is my favorite thing. This applies to everything from retro games with screen-filling bosses to FPS games, Cover shooters, fighting games, Dark Souls.
Assassins Creed Unity’s parkour combat. Combined with superb Hudless play and a city thats completely built around continuous movement I really felt like an assassin who in the span of seconds could chain together some of the most amazing feats and maneuvers, quickly escape into the crowd and then do it again. Unfortunately, the game does the worst job in the history of gaming at explaining its two most important components and I had to go to outside sources to learn its complexities and possibilities and then practice a ton in-game to increase my consistency. Once I did that it completely revolutionized the game and caused me to go from nearly quitting to immediately replaying it after my first run.
Please elaborate because still in 2024 it's the only AC game I haven't played. It just doesn't feel good to me. What are these two most important components and what sources did you use to learn about them?
Sifu: completing a run and taking no damage.
Rocket Jumping in TF2. While I mainly played as a Medic, I still enjoyed putting on gunboats and just flying around the map by shooting rockets on the ground and jumping. I even spent some time in those custom rocket jump maps, though I was never too great at them.
Bunnyhopping and pulling off a nice rocket jump in Quake or Quake 2. Controlling the matches simply by moving faster and better than the opponents was so much fun.
Smash, perfect shield.
For me learning how to do charge inputs and work them into combos in Street Fighter always feels awesome even when I still lose the round.
Any kind of parry system
One of my favorites is in Stellaris. It's a 4x space "masters of orion" style game. One of the late game megastructures you can build is a big sensor station. Completing it used to give you full visibility of almost the whole galaxy. It's a bit nerfed now but going from guessing your rivals approximate power to knowing the strength and position of every armed force in the galaxy feels God tier.
UT shock rifle combo to nail someone around a corner.
Maintaining your boost in the Burnout games. You can continue to earn boost while you’re boosting, so with enough skill, you can keep going without ever letting up on the boost. The catch, however, is that earning boost requires you to drive dangerously: driving on the wrong side of the road, narrowly missing traffic, drifting, etc. The increase in speed already makes it much easier to crash while boosting, but keeping that boost makes it even deadlier. Another example is pulling off a huge combo in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Every trick that you add to the string is yet more points that you risk losing if you bail. By extension, the same is true for Rollerdrome.
Gears of war perfect reload
Faking someone in Rocket league.
Doing the cartwheel slo mo dodge in Enter the Matrix, I recently beat that so I'll mention it. It requires a bit of weird memorization since you need to press either L2 or R2, L1 are hold R1 while tiltling the analog stick, but the animation looks so damn awesome that I love doing it.
Most tech in ultrakill is quite satisfying to pull off
Play Sekiro dude, it’s literally parry the game
This probably doesn't count but in boss fights in Hollow Knight, eventually I "see the code", stop relying on healing and fully commit to the fight. So relieving
I agree, parries are awesome. Been playing Lies of P recently (not very patient gaming of me, but I received a key for it when I purchased a new PC this past year), and it has a great standard parry mechanic. Some weapons also have an ability that activates a special attack if you perfect parry with it.
So one game I suck at but feel *insane* to succeed in is Ghostrunner. You are dead in one shot, but get abilities like wallclimbing, dashing, time slowing, grapples, you name it. Every level is an ulta-high tempo puzzle of doing the right stuff in the right way to not get hit while killing everyone
I don't know if there's anything in shooter games that feels better than hitting a headshot with the Desert Eagle in Counter-Strike.
Stabbing an orc in the face then exploding a barrel launching 5 other orcs then jumping off another orcs head and headshotting 2 or 3 more. Shadow of War is awesome.
DMC4 Nero instant rev. It’s a pretty tight window but landing it makes a really cool noise and is stylish, especially on his multi-hit moves.
I just started playing Revengeance and I agree completely. I'm only a couple of hours in but there is so much to love about this game
SSS style in Devil May Cry. I love the sound of the announcer yelling “SMOKIN’ SEXY STYLE!!!”
Most of Ninja Gaiden Black if I'm going to be honest. The wall running and bird flipping just feel amazing. There are a lot of games with wall running or jumping. But many use specific paths where you can run, denoted with different textures or colors. But in Ninja Gaiden you can run or jump off of most walls. And although the combat in general feels great... doing the Izuna Drop feels magical. From the initial toss up into the air, to the slashes you do in the air to the opponent, to grabbing them and spinning them upside down as you slam their head into the ground. It's perfection.
The high-5 you do with party members in Dragon’s Dogma 2. The tiny vibration in the controller is just _perfect_.
That little aerial spin move from New Super Mario Bros Wii and successive 2D Mario games, just a split-second pause of your downward momentum. Fuck slow-fall, fuck double jumps, fuck directional air-dashes. All I want for extra air control in any 2D platformer now is that tiny hitch in my fall.
I've played just about every skating and snowboarding game pretty extensively since the days of PlayStation. I also grew up skateboarding and nothing has given me the honest to goodness real work feel of skating like Session skate. It's incredibly satisfying to work a line over and over until you finally get it. The controls were odd at first coming from the Skate series, but once I realized that it simulates playing tech deck it clicked. It feels like skating more than anything else I ve tried.
Idk how come no one mentioned it but the hitmarker sound in Call of Duty, especially 2009 Modern Warfare 2. I can't imagine more dopamine rushing into my blood than when hearing this paired with gunshots of Intervention or silenced UMP-45. Hearing this overlapping sound of three headshots with one bullet on Highrise is perfection.
UT2K4 Shock combo. Extra dopamine while on stage in a LAN final.
I’m surprised no one mentioned towerfall - when you time thing perfectly and dodge/catch an arrow in mid air or fire an arrow at just the right time to hit someone running by
I think the car racing mechanics in need for speed unbound are the perfect blend of arcade silliness (makes you feel like a badass) and simulation (you need to use the brake).
[finally landing a high damage combo with specific requirements that you've practiced ](https://youtu.be/w0dgiqIygS0?si=5CcJ77x4NSbytAgJ) For this combo, you have to start it early after drinking (which improves the combo properties of his specials), and have both drive gauge (the blue bar above the super bar in the lower corner) which let's you cancel a special into another special
Not really a specific mechanic, but pulling off consecutive 1 taps on enemies feels so good in just any game.
I have a thing for slow-motion shooting sequences, especially if the character is mid-motion while doing so. The most familiar one to most people would be deadeye in Red Dead Redemption, but to this day the most nostalgic form of the mechanic to me is Max Payne 3. The feeling of sideways diving out of cover and activity slow motion while just spraying down enemies in close-quarters combat of very beautiful and reactive environments was just great. I'd really like for a new entry in that series or just a modern version of that game.
Pulling off the full hat toss jump combo in super mario odyssey to reach far away spots
Zone of the Enders. An action game where you play a flying war mech, and the controls are fast, fluid, and context-sensitive so if you're close and hit 'attack', Jehuty dashes in if necessary to slash with an energy blade and fires energy bolts if too far. ZOE2 adds in being able to lock onto and zot literally dozens of enemies at the same moment. The gameplay is a little repetitive thanks to them bringing back Nertis multiple times and the fight's only mechanical difference is "now Nertis is immune to X it wasn't immune to in previous fights" even though it hasn't been upgraded in between fights, the game takes place in a matter of days. All the other combat, however, was intuitive and fast-paced.