The Witcher treads a lot of common ground when it comes to RPGs, but it does so with a distinct swagger. To illustrate this, here’s a quick story.

Early on in the game, the protagonist Gerlat can accept a quest to deliver a package into a quarantined city. When he finally makes his way in, he’s arrested and his possessions confiscated.

He eventually recovers them all, except for one: the mysterious bundle he was asked to smuggle.

Jethro, the city jailer, non-chalantly informs Geralt that he’s lucky not to be in more trouble. The package contained fisstech, an illegal drug similar in properties to cocaine. It quickly becomes obvious that Jethro himself is an addict and the confiscation wasn’t exactly legal.

Geralt can get his hands on more fisstech by dispatching Salamander troops, henchmen of main antagonist who tend to carry the illegal substance. The drug can then be used to bribe more information out of Jethro, shedding some light on the local crime syndicates.

Eventually it’s revealed that the Salamanders were trying to squeeze out their competition by framing Ramsmeat, a local crime boss, in hopes of Geralt going after him and the two sides weakening or eliminating each other.

Following a clash between the religious Order of the Flaming Rose and the Scoia’tael, a terrorist group (or a freedom-fighter one, depending on how you look at it), the Salamanders expand their operation into the swamps.

Various factions Geralt had dealt with in the past are affected by this: the woodcutters are slaughtered, numerous brickmakers are kidnapped and put into slave labour, and a large Salamander band move into the former Scoia’tael encampment.

When Geralt rescues the brickmakers, he discovers they were made to gather plants for fisstech production. The Salamander’s treasures even contain a book on swamp plants, the very same book Geralt had to have read in order to loot local flora.

Back in Vizima, Jethro requests that Geralt follow a lead on a fisstech pusher under the guise of cleaning up the streets. In reality, the jailer simply wants to secure the source of his addiction by cracking down on its suppliers.

The trail eventually leads Geralt to the sewers and an abandoned crypt where the Salamanders produce fisstech. Among their servants he finds a frightened alchemist who rewards Geralt with a potion-recipe if he promises not to report his slacking.

When the hideout is cleaned out, the crooked jailer and the city guard storm the area in order to secure the contraband. It’s at this time that Geralt bluntly tells Jethro that all the drugs better stay confiscated or he’ll come after the jailer next.

Finally, the documents Geralt retrieves from both the Salamander cells point him to the ultimate stronghold. As Geralt storms the base, a cutscene plays out showing a Salamander leader requesting more money following the group’s recent failures.

All these events make perfect sense from gameplay, plot, and setting perspectives. The slaves need proper skills and instructions, the bad guys require funding for their operations, and powerful factions constantly vie for supremacy.

Every element serves as a gear snugly connected to another, and when the switch is pulled, the machine doesn’t grind to a halt.

What’s more, the game itself is not homogenized. Fisstech doesn’t come across as a bullet point on a worldbuilding checklist that needs to be adhered to at every turn. It’s just part of the tapestry, and there’s a lot more of it to experience.

“An ancient sapphire ring.
It subdues your presence, making it difficult to be detected by enemies.”

The description for the Thief’s Ring in Demon’s Souls is innocuous enough, but it’s one of the most useful items in the game.

When I first obtained it, I scoffed at its effects. I generally tend to be underwhelmed by “ancient and powerful artifacts” that serve as nothing more than marginal stat modifiers. I also wasn’t playing a stealthy character, so it seemed like a fairly useless trinket.

Demon’s Souls is a game where a small boost can have an enormous effect, though, and a few deaths later I quickly discovered the benefits of donning the Thief’s Ring.

There’s nothing magical about it, really — it simply does what it says — but its effects are very deliberately tied into the game world and its design.

Here a few examples:

Isolating Enemies

Unlike many 3rd person brawlers, the enemies in Demon’s Souls do not patiently wait for their turn to attack the player. As a result, it’s often important to draw away individuals from a group to take them on one-on-one.

The Thief’s Ring facilitates luring enemies by preventing the player from being pelted with projectiles during the approach. What’s more, the combat in Demon’s Souls requires a lot of movement, and the Thief’s Ring makes it less likely to draw the attention of more enemies while battling a solitary opponent.

Avoiding the Dragons

The ramparts of Castle Boletaria are patrolled by hostile dragons that roast anything in their sights. These sections are quite unforgiving, but the Thief’s Ring expands the window of safety between the dragons’ fiery onslaughts.

Slaying the Geckos

Crystal Geckos are timid creatures that are almost impossible to catch with a melee attack. They can spot the player from very far away, and if they do, they skitter back and fade out of existence. The Thief’s Ring slightly dulls their awareness, making it easier to catch them and the large quantities of minerals (used to upgrade armour and weapons) that they drop.

Boss Runs

Chances are that during most everyone’s first playthrough at least a few of the boss battles will not end in victory, but the Thief’s Ring makes it easier to give ‘em another shot. Simply running past enemies is often a valid option, and equipping the ring lowers the duration/distance they’ll take into account when chasing the player.

Backtrack-Farming

Upon defeating a boss, the player can warp back to the boss’ lair from the Nexus hub. This not only provides a shortcut going forward, but it also allows the player to go back through a completed area in order to obtain more items and souls (the game’s equivalent of gold and experience).

What makes this backtracking different from playing through the same area from the start is that enemies tend to face only one direction. Combined with the Thief’s Ring, this makes it quite easy to sneak up on them and unleash a backstab, a special attack that deals extra damage and yields more souls.

Scaling the Shrine of Storms

Equipping the Thief’s Ring is practically the only way to travel up narrow mountain paths without being shredded by flying Storm Beasts.

Defeating the Old Hero

The blind boss of the Adjudicator Archstone is quite a fearsome opponent, but it’s actually quite easy to stay out of his reach with the Thief’s Ring equipped.

Invading Other Worlds

Player vs. Player combat is not greatly affected by the Thief’s Ring, but it does partially obscure the invader. This makes it more likely that the battle might begin with a sneaky backstab.

Even without any significant gameplay mutators, though, it’s still quite unsettling to see a swirling, red aura make a beeline for the player’s character.

Summary

Description: One of the first examples of a climbing game morphing into a single-screen platformer.

Conveniences: Enemies that kill the player are removed from the screen, often making a particularly difficult room easier to traverse.

Annoyances: The order in which the coloured keys are meant to be collected is very specific, creating some scenarios where it’s impossible for the player to proceed.

Standouts: An excellent sense of exploration and cohesion despite severe hardware limitations.

Bits

• Montezuma’s Revenge is a rather nasty title, and its “Spanish Flea” main theme and “La Cucaracha” collectible fanfares are a bit crass, but they helped to create a distinct atmosphere and the game actually proved quite popular in Latin America.

• The title screen features a controllable Panama Joe, two sliding poles, a blinking platform, a conveyor belt, and a climbable chain. This setup allows the player to test out the various interactive objects in complete safety. In addition, the poles serve as a great transition between pyramids with Joe sliding down multiple screens before settling in the “title-screen” section of a new zone.

• The design of each zone follows the rough shape of a pyramid, with only 1 screen at the top but 12+ at the lowest level.
• Individual rooms of the pyramid embody a few basic motifs; many are actually simple corridors that connect the more complex areas and create a varied flow to the exploration.

• Each enemy type has a distinct behaviour, e.g., bouncing around, climbing ladders, etc.
• The original version of the game has an interesting death sequence. Upon dying, a black screen is shown with a bunch of avatars in the center. The left-most one then proceeds to navigate the screen as if it were a real level, walking and climbing in the darkness until he reaches his destination. The map then fades into view, revealing that Panama Joe is now positioned in the room entrance that the player actually used before reaching his untimely end.

• The bottom rooms of pyramids are mostly shrouded in darkness unless the player picks up a torch, but it’s still possible to navigate them without one.

• Although MR isn’t as harsh with collisions as other games of the era, the player has no control over the avatar once he’s airborne. Combined with the fact that Joe can only fall a short distance without dying, this makes some areas that look rudimentary quite tricky to navigate.
• Aside from numerous ports, different versions of the original Atari game were also released. One even features an unbeatable end-game boss — a giant, stomping Montezuma — that was present in a leaked demo.

• The final version of the game uses the collectibles to draw an arrow pointing into a pit. When Joe dives in, he enters a strange, psychadelic realm filled with ropes and more collectibles. After descending a few screens, he eventually latches onto one of the poles and slides into a brand new pyramid.

Extras

• MobyGames Entry
• Interview With the Creator of Montezuma’s Revenge

Whenever an airship boss is defeated in Super Mario Bros. 3, a wand drops from the top of the screen. Picking it up is required to move on to the next world, but doing so in mid-air is not.

Despite this, jumping for the wand is a common behaviour. It’s fun to sync up Mario’s ascent with the wand’s descend, fascilitating a dramatic grab that culminates with Mario falling back down to earth and saving the day.

It’s a very satisfying moment, but there are no gameplay ramifications to simply letting the wand settle on the floor before picking it up. Jumping for it is simply hard to resist.

Let’s take a look at a couple more examples.

Mega Man

In the original Mega Man games, end-level bosses are always prefaced by an empty, single-screen room with two doors. These are a clear indicator that the end is just beyond the next turn, at which point many players choose to jump straight into the boss’ lair.

When Mega Man connects with the door, the action freezes as the entrance opens up and the screen scrolls to reveal the final segment of the map. There’s no reason to jump at the door, but it results in some areal acrobatics that firmly deposit Mega Man in the next area with punctuating, “It’s on!” flair.

Street Fighter III

Many fighting games used to disable collisions or simply cut-off player input whenever a round of combat ended. Street Fighter III was one of the first to buck the trend, enabling the victor to execute a few extra moves following his opponent’s loss. This proved quite satisfying as it allowed the winner to finish off a combo — a naturally stylish string of attacks. Furthermore, it represented a contrast to the rest of the game by providing a short window of time during which some free hits could be scored.

I don’t believe these “bonus shots” increased the super bar meter or affected the end-battle grade, but if they did, the rewards were minimal.

Metroid Prime

Doorways in Metroid Prime are triggered by the player shooting them, at which point they open up after a variable amount of time (usually between 0-6 seconds). The reason for this is to hide data being streamed in the background, which leaves the player largely idle. At this point, concern over whether the shot was registered — and plain frustration — tend to set in, resulting in more blasts bombarding the door.

Unlike the other two examples, this is more of a “get on with it” behaviour that helps to vent frustration rather than being satisfying in itself.

These irresistible actions seem to be largely accidental; as far as the games are concerned, there’s no reason for players to engage in them. They can be quite important to the overall experience, though, and once identified, they often become a defining part of a series or genre.

Are there any “irresistibles” you engage in on a frequent basis?

Summary

Description: An RTS that feels a bit like controlling all four characters in a multiplayer game of Diablo.

Conveniences: The story is largely delivered through voiced text boxes that appear between missions. Although these pop-ups block some of the navigation, they still allow the player to access the inventory and level up individual units.

Annoyances: Pathfinding attempts to automatically position units in cover, and previews their destinations with coloured indicators. However, it also tends to position units on both sides of cover, often leaving parts of the squad completely exposed.

Standouts: A combination of mechanics from various genres help to enhance the single-player RTS template.

Bits

• As the game opens up, the player can choose the order in which to pursue missions, as well as take on optional ones. Ignoring any area for too long, though, causes its “infestation level” to grow, resulting in more Tyranid troops occupying its maps.

• There’s no way to immediately replay a map — the player needs to wait for a mission to appear in each section in order to go into the field — although it’s possible to replay a mission if it’s failed or the player manually exits it. Abandoning or failing a mission let’s the player keep all the gear and experience, but it also increases the game-clock (and consequently the infestation levels).
• Most maps contain landmarks that — if captured — increase the use of three different abilities: temporary invincibility, turret deployment, and orbital bombardment. It’s a bit annoying that only one landmark can be secured in a single mission even if there are more on the map itself, but these locations also grant bonuses to mission scores; a high enough score allows for more mission deployments in a single turn/day.

• Unlike most RTS titles, there’s no building or resource gathering.
• The player is limited to controlling 4 different “squads,” each one composed of 1-4 identical units that specialize in unique abilities: stealth, teleportation, concentrated fire, etc.
• Most squads automatically recover health, although items need to be used in order to repair turrets and largely mechanical units.

• Downed squads can be rejuvenated by walking up to them or using an item while in close proximity. Only the leaders of the squads are brought back, though, and the remaining units have to be replenished at checkpoints or through a limited ability acquired late in the game.
• Virtually all cover is destructible, and some of the bigger squads can’t take advantage of it as they simply break it.
• Buildings can be entered and used as cover as well, but it’s still possible for squads to die within buildings — this makes it rather difficult to rejuvenate them manually. If a building is destroyed all the units within die as well, and evacuating a building causes all the contained squads to exit it simultaneously.

• Suppression fire causes units to move and react at a greatly reduced pace, although various abilities can guard against or dispel this state.
• Unlike the original DoW, morale only seems to apply to AI units. Breaking morale causes them to panic and run away from battle.
• Usable items such as grenades and medkits have a limited amount of uses, but generic supply packs replenish them for all available squads.

• Enemies — especially bosses — drop random gear. Much like a typical loot-driven game, these items are colour-coded, contain minimum level/class requirements, and provide numerous benefits. If the loot is not desired, most of it can be traded in for extra experience in-between missions.

Extras

• MobyGames Entry
• Wikia Section
• The Lexicanum
• Warhammer 40k Wiki
• A History of Warhammer Fiction

Summary

Description: A fun tower defense variant on the often-ignored DSiWare Store.

Conveniences: Falling health powerups are spawned on the top screen, giving the player plenty of time to spot them and get ready to grab ‘em as they descend.

Annoyances: Occasionally an entirely new enemy type will be inserted into the list of oncoming waves, largely invalidating all the weapons that were set up to deal with the previous enemies.

Standouts: A graph paper aesthetic captures the typical starship doodles that often seemed to materialize during math class.

Bits

• The top screen shows a decent amount of enemy waves that the player must repel, helping to formulate both short and long term strategies.
• Each wave descends in a different pattern similar to the enemy groupings in Galaga. These paths are previewed with a series of dots that allow the player to pick the best positions for his weapons.

• Some of the artillery possess adjustable cones-of-vision. This lets the player dynamically tilt them in order to cover as many enemies as possible (an added interaction-bonus in the largely passive tower defense genre).
• Grayed-out enemies represent stealth units that suffer area-of-effect damage but can only be targeted directly by specific weapons.
• Every stage ends with a boss, a special enemy with a large health bar. Unlike the other units, bosses don’t simply sweep through the level and leave if they’re not destroyed. Instead, they continuously circle around the two screens until defeated, pausing briefly at the top screen to give the player some time to re-arm his arsenal.

• Each node on the world-map shows how many enemies have escaped from the stage, facilitating a completionist urge to get a “Perfect” in each level.
• Randomly occurring asteroids fields and solar flares help add variety to the levels.

Extras

Summary

Description: Resident Evil 4 in hell.

Conveniences: The outline of the healthbar begins to flash and drain while exposed to darkness, giving the player a clear indication of when the real damage will begin.

Annoyances: Poorly balanced one-hit-kill sequences; various game breaking/crashing bugs.

Standouts: A juvenile but often humourous Grindhouse vibe.

Bits

• Much like Alan Wake, Shadows of the Damned places light and darkness at the core of its gameplay. Darkness can damage the player and make enemies invulnerable, but venturing deep within is often required to hit switches, expose enemy weak spots, or simply progress through the level.

  Occasional hand statues can be (somewhat roughly) deactivated to prevent them from spewing out the inky blackness, while firework stations can be used to temporarily light up the area. Goat heads can get rid of the darkness permanently, but some enemies and bosses can still shroud them, creating a back-and-forth dynamic where the player keeps lighting up the goat candelabras.

  Finally, even in lit up areas enemies can be shrouded in darkness, requiring the player to hit them with a “light shot”, a melee torch attack, or an explosive “light barrel” to remove their invincibility.

• The melee attack doesn’t seem to break fragile objects or damage enemies (at least while un-upgraded). This is especially odd as it’s somewhat easy to run out of ammo early on in the game. In fact, the player can actually be left completely helpless, unable to combat enemies or destroy the crates that might hold more ammo.
• Enemies’ limbs can be shot off, forcing them to crawl towards the player. This makes for a fun execution event where the player unleashes a comical flurry of head-stomps that result in collectibles spilling out. Unlike most other games’ executions, this doesn’t leave the player invulnerable, and the duration of the execution is based on the remaining health of the enemy.

• The default gun can be upgraded to fire a sticky bomb that emanates a glowing radius which represents its range. The bomb can be shot manually to damage enemies and knock off their armour, and to destroy certain obstacles. A few areas even require a chain reaction of bomb explosions, which are helpfully indicated by magnifying circles that only appear when the player is aiming the bomb shot.

• In a playful take on glowing weak spots, bosses have large, translucent sacks of human blood attached to them that are explained to serve as their sources of power.

• Virtually every level tries to introduce some new mechanic to add variety to the gameplay. While this keeps things interesting, some of the minigames — like the 2D side-scrolling shooter — are a bit on the clunky slide.
• Throughout the game Garcia stumbles upon his kidnapped girlfriend who ends up possessed and mutilated right in front of him. There’s no way to prevent these segments, but they do a good job of driving the game forward.

• The close camera and linear levels make hell feel a little small, but various posters and books add flavour to the setting. Reading these prevents the player from doing anything else, which is a bit annoying with the lengthy storybooks, but they’re humourously narrated and commented on by both Garcia and his sidekick.

Extras

Summary

Description: Stephen King in Twin Peaks with a gun and a flashlight.

Conveniences: Next checkpoint indicator alleviates the lack of maps; glowing arrows hint at secret ammo stashes.

Annoyances: Constantly losing equipment during chapter transitions; no way to automatically read the pages of the novel as they’re collected.

Standouts: Fantastic visualization of “the darkness” and the Pacific North-West.

Bits

• Combat relies on illuminating opponents to dispel shrouds of darkness; once the shrouds are gone, the enemies can be shot with mundane weapons. Dissolving these shrouds is typically done by “focusing” Alan’s flashlight, which quickly drains its energy. The flashlight is always on and never completely runs out of juice, but the focusing mechanic requires a steady supply of batteries (especially during prolonged combat sequences).

• None of the enemies drop any items, so the player is stuck with statically placed collectibles for replenishing his arsenal. This is fine for the most part, but some sections contain optional or infinitely-spawning enemies that can trick the player into wasting ammo and leaving him defenseless.
• Seemingly random slowdowns take place as enemies appear or are dispatched. These “breathers” help the player dodge attacks and quickly swivel around to analyze the battlefield, but they’re too infrequent to be a reliable tool.

• The enemies’ vulnerability to light creates some interesting scenarios that play on typical shooter conventions, e.g., flares stun apparitions (although they also make it more difficult to spot and shoot them), exploding gas tanks create a flash that disintegrates the darkness, spotlights behave like machine gun turrets, etc.
• In addition to a handful of human enemy types, the ubiquitous darkness can also possess inanimate objects and fling them at the player. This is actually a neat way of adding variety without having to create a slew of new animations, but it’s used rather sparingly and with too few objects types.

• Mines, lumber mills, junkyards, energy plants, and many other locations make the town of Bright Falls feel like a real place. There’s still plenty of nonsensical spots where firearms can be found, but Alan actually acknowledges this issue by insinuating that the darkness is the ’cause of electricians carrying flashbangs and many other oddities.

• Various in-game TVs can be used to watch shorts originally filmed to promote the game. It’s a neat idea, but the live-action videos — especially those featuring Alan — tend to break the suspension of disbelief.
• Chase scenes through forests littered with bear traps, driving segments, battles featuring friendly companions, Alamo standoffs, and numerous other scenarios help keep the gameplay varied.

• Finding scattered pages is a great motif that’s tied into the game’s story. The pages tell of future events, making them a bit spoiler-ish, but reading their contents is optional.

Extras

• MobyGames Entry
• Wikia Section

Summary

Description: A hodge-podge of action-adventure/RPG conventions that was a bit ahead of its time.

Conveniences: Lots, surprisingly. It’s easy to grind for money/levels, healing items are automatically used when health reaches 0, NPC’s are very direct with their hints, etc.

Annoyances: Having to constantly hit the Start button in order to assign different actions to the A and B buttons.

Standouts: The time-travel mechanic

Bits

• The party members are quite varied, featuring a genie, a living pumpkin, a robot, and more. They’re not fountains of personality, but they’re a far leap ahead of the blank slates common in RPGs at the time. They also come equipped with unique spells and abilities, e.g., escaping from battles (including boss encounters!) and translating long-lost languages.

• Random battles only occur during screen transitions and are limited to 3 characters. Before the battle begins, the player chooses 2 combatants to accompany the hero, and all of party’s HP/MP restoring items are split among the trio. Just like in the overworld, these items are used automatically and they don’t even waste a turn!
• Status effects on enemies are accompanied by distinct albeit abstract visuals, e.g., a “frozen” opponent that can’t use physical attacks is represented by a clam shell looking sprite with googly eyes.

• Additional soldiers can be recruited to aid the party in random battles. These take up 4 custom slots and serve as cannon fodder, absorbing the enemies’ initial onslaught while dishing some out extra damage themselves. These troops are easily to kill, but the player can purchase up to a hundred of them and they automatically max out the 4 slots at the beginning of every battle.
• Party members can combine at the start of battle to launch a massive special attack. These combinations are unique to different characters and are taught at universities located in various towns.

• It costs a bit of money to enroll in universities, but they reward the player with extra items, plot related spells, and formations for new combination attacks. These last “courses” even culminate in a quick, multiple-choice quiz.
• It’s actually possible to attack townspeople, at which point they resort to one-line quips for all conversations.
• The player’s fairy sidekick automatically chimes in whenever there’s a secret located on the current screen. If the player chooses to cast a special spell in these locations, stairways appear that lead him to extra areas.

• Bartering can decrease the cost of items, although it turns the shopkeeper’s image into a sad expression. Pushing him too far will also make him irate, at which point his avatar will turn into a crazed visage and he’ll kick the player out of the store while (somehow) taking 10 gold pieces from his inventory.
• The ability to travel back in time is fairly limited but still pretty neat. Areas are topographically remixed, and the player can recruit allies from the past while performing extra tasks such as planting trees that end up sprouting cash in the future.

• Boss fights are action based and take place in unique arenas where the player is stuck at the bottom of the screen.
• Alarat solar eclipses happen periodically over time, and add another fun layer to the game. They darken the palette, buff up the hero, make it easier to win at roulette minigames, enable the planting of the aforemention money-trees, and allow the player to cast “Great Magic.”

• Great spells are one-time use magical abilities obtained from sages sprinkled throughout the game. Casting these spells has large-scale effects on the game and its world, e.g., bringing rain to a desert land or filling up the player’s purse and all usable items.

Extras

• MobyGames Entry
• Hardcore Gaming 101 Article
• Fan Shrine
• Strategy Wiki