Kung Fu Kid is a 1987 single plane beat-em-up for the Master System that I like a lot, but which is generally pretty unremarkable beyond some 80s SMS oddness and its wall jump mechanic. At the end of stage 5 though, there’s this:
[img]https://i.imgur.com/TklfyAD.png[/img]
This cool dragon picture is unlike anything else in the game. There’s no particular reason it should be where it is, and if it weren’t there nobody would notice its absence, but gosh it’s nice, isn’t it? It makes me think someone on the development team either really cared about this image and wanted to put it in the game, or really cared about the game and wanted to enhance it.
Please show me the little things, the unnecessary details or nice touches that make you think someone cared.
I guess this kind of thing is a tall order, but I have another up my sleeve, the littlest of little things:
[img]https://i.imgur.com/vMx8ZmL.gif[/img]
This is [b]Psychic World[/b], another SMS platformer. For some reason, when you press forward while something is blocking your movement the player character Lucia looks back over her shoulder. When she does, the part in her hair remains on the same side of her head. Sadly, on SMS this doesn’t extend to her other sprites. The walking left sprite is just the walking right sprite mirrored. In the MSX2 original, [b]Psycho World[/b], though:
[img]https://i.imgur.com/bqecUqU.png[/img]
Not only is her part always on the right side of her head, she consistently casts a shadow to the right (when she’s standing, at least).
I do think this is a good topic!! And I have plenty of these, vaguely, it‘s just coming up with the images that’s daunting, ha ha. I'll get one in here eventually!
Here's a little thing for now. in the woods stage of ranger-x there are little red fruits that fall when you shoot them. as far as I know they don't give you any points or serve any function. they're just there, and it's cool. (I also like how it uses the genesis shadow mode or whatever it's called when you get under the treeline... I can never remember what it's actually called)
I’m playing through River City Ransom for the first time after watching Jeff Gerstmann play a bit of it, and I thought it was cute that smiles were free at Merv’s Burger Joint.
@“exodus”#p127746 I was beaming the entire time as I was thinking of Yakuza explicitly. Humble beginnings. It is really lovely to see how much of “now” existed “then”.
@“HyggeState”#p127742 I forget if this is in the Famicom version or it only shows up in later enhanced editions, but I also like that he carries a little shopping basket to the counter in convenience stores.
i feel like the “free smile” thing comes from an actual exant japanese burger chain? or maybe it‘s ex-extant at this point but brb i’m gonna look it up
@“exodus”#p127736 Those’re some good apples, and yeah, getting the images is a sticking point for the thread - I’ve been using ones I already had, so it’ll probably be a while before I have any more.
I remembered another (though I forget where I saw it pointed out): a lot of games have equipment that can only be used by certain characters. Maybe only archers can use bows, or clothing is restricted by gender, or whatever. Yggdra Union is a Sting game, so of course it’s going to do this in a more complicated way than most. For example:
[img]https://i.imgur.com/vHciU5Y.jpg[/img]
Milanor can’t read, so this book is no good to him.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/xMeI2no.jpg[/img]
But why is it that headgear can’t be equipped by Rosary specifically?
When I saw the thread title I thought it was about little things in games and I thought of this and while it isn't what the thread is explicitly about, I would like to post it. Thank you.
In the first Atelier Ryza, there is an inexplicably small barrel in your atelier.
