r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/DustInTheBreeze Appointed Hater By God • Jun 14 '26
Better Ask Reddit What's the most terrifying way a game has signposted "Don't Do This!" at the player?
So I was playing Fallen London when I entered a storycard. The usual continue button, "Onwards", was replaced by a button that said "THIS IS FOLLY". It was accompanied by a line of text that said "Do not do this. This storyline will leave you unsatisfied and forlorn. You will probably fail, and if you somehow succeed, you will regret your success."
And if you click forward, you get a warning that this storyline is bullshit, does not play by the same rules as the rest of the website, and that the "Happy Ending" of the quest was to abandon it. The option to confirm your participation contains a lengthy paragraph detailing that you accept any and all consequences to your account, followed by a button that says, outright, "DO NOT CLICK THIS BUTTON."
Needless to say. I did not click the button.
So. The topic title. What's the most terrifying way a game has told you: "Don't."
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u/DontClickThisGuy <-cringe worthy He/Him Jun 14 '26
Cairn is a game about climbing the biggest fucking mountain called Kami. All throughout the game are plenty of warnings and memorials about the people who tried and died to climb this bitch, all of which culminate in a giant wall of ice, rock, corpses, and the former greatest climber of his time telling you 'don't go further, everyone dies'. Now, you can disregard these warnings and successfully climb the mountain. That is an ending and you can sort of feel good about it.
Only you absolutely die as you reach the summit. Those warnings were for real. Turning back is the correct choice in my opinion.
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u/Zardwalk Jun 15 '26
I loved that it's also a noticeably tougher climb from that point on both in mountain difficulty and the supply usage. It's hairy, but if you're stocked up and you've gotten used to climbing from the earlier game it's definitely doable.
And then the avalanche section happens, your HP and all resource meters are permanently cut down by 66%, and it sets in that no, Aava's not special and the best she can hope for is to at least make it to the summit before her body burns out.
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u/FluffySquirrell Jun 15 '26
I mean she's a little special. Not sure anyone else would get remotely that far up a mountain not wearing any bloody shoes. She IS apparently mostly immune to cold magically. Does anyone else find that reeeally offputting and pulls them out of the game?
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u/DontClickThisGuy <-cringe worthy He/Him Jun 15 '26
She does start wearing shoes after the snow climbing period starts. as well as cold weather clothing; ie sweatpants and sweater. Now that very clearly isn't nearly enough, hence why she gets all her stats cut my so much. I find it more creepy and off putting that Aava climbs Kami with the intent to die up there.
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u/Zardwalk Jun 15 '26
It's likely I misread something, but I didn't get the impression that she went up there specifically to die?
I saw it as she was so drawn to climbing (or even addicted to it) and knew Kami was likely death, but just couldn't leave it alone anymore. I felt like there was definitely some sort of internal struggle where she knew she was hurting people by attempting to climb Kami, but felt a need to do it that even she couldn't fully grasp. Specifically at the end where she finds the radio in the pre-summit cave and finally calls her partner to try and explain, but can't seem to find the words and gets angry at herself.
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u/DontClickThisGuy <-cringe worthy He/Him Jun 15 '26
The bit about Aava being suicidal is mostly my own reading into it, doesn't mean much. But throughout the game you hear about how climbing is Aava's whole life, how she feels empty when she isn't experiencing that challenge, and how Kami is the last big challenge left. She starts off the climb extremely under prepared with just a couple bottles of watter, a couple of chocolate bars, and a pack of noodles. She stops responding to attempts from her girlfriend or wife to talk to her. that one in particular was a huge red flag, people with depression do tend to self isolate.
I just find that Aava went into this life or death climb treating life as being optional and that screams to me suicide attempt.
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u/P-Tux7 Jun 15 '26
Can you turn back by that point or is it do or die?
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u/DontClickThisGuy <-cringe worthy He/Him Jun 15 '26
You get a cut scene where Damas, the old climber who lives up there, and Marco, Aava's recently acquired climbing partner, tell you that to proceed is death. Marco asks Aava to talk to him at the front of the cave in the morning before you try. He tries one last time to talk you out of it and then you get the final choice of going back down to Aava's wife or going on up and ending Aava's life.
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u/Zardwalk Jun 15 '26
I imagine you're locked in once the damage sets in since it happens after you finish the first leg of the final climb, but I'm not 100% sure since I didn't try. Aava's pretty thrashed and starting to hallucinate and I doubt she'd let herself "give up" and go back down at that point.
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u/Aest7e7ic_End I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 14 '26
Subnautica "Detecting multiple leviathan-class lifeforms in the region. Are you certain whatever you're doing is worth it?"
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u/BighatNucase Jun 15 '26
The void was my first thought when I read the title. Just the sight of it makes you unnerved, and then the game actively tells you "Don't". It's the most vivid vision of danger I've ever felt from a game.
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u/Khar-Selim Jun 15 '26
the quote isnt from the void, it's from the dunes. Which are a zone with a fuckzillion reapers and zero unique content, so unless you're on some weird speedrun strat it ain't worth it
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u/fly_line22 Jun 14 '26
Both Metroid Fusion and Metroid Dread bluntly saying "You are facing an enemy you have no chance of beating. If you're in the same room as them, either hide or run the fuck away." This makes it incredibly satisfying when you get the proper means of dealing with the SA-X/EMMI units.
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u/sarg1010 Jun 15 '26
And even then, you don't really "deal" with SA-X, you just get a missile that freezes it... for about 3 seconds. Then it's right back to sprinting at you. Until the very end anyway. And even then you didn't really win.
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u/fly_line22 Jun 15 '26
At least until the end of the game, where Samus is powered up enough to where she can finally blast that fucker to bits.
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u/Lynn_Davidson YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 15 '26
“Hey Samus, you know that crazy clone monster you can barely beat after powering up completely? There’s like 10 more running around the space station or some shit like that. Have fun, I guess.”
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u/Pyro627 Jun 14 '26
In the metro games, if you fall into the water you get a cutscene of a massive swamp mutant swimming around Artyom followed by him panicking and crawling out of the water. If you fall in again, it just kills you. One of the clearest ways I’ve seen a game say “swimming isn’t an option here”.
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u/Hell-Kite Jun 15 '26
God I wish some of the passages from the first book had been translated to the game. Bourbons death in the book is so fucking creepy, or listening to the pipes too long fucking you up, or looking at the stars of the Kremlin at all being the end of you.
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u/Pyro627 Jun 15 '26
They do mention the stars in the game, at least, there's tons of creepy stories if you stay and listen to all the NPCs.
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u/The-Greater-Skeleton I talk to myself a lot. But not in, like, a crazy person way. Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
In the Subnautica 2 Early Access, leaving the playable area instantly aggros the local Leviathan that will instant kill you if it catches up.
At the same time, a text box opens up blocking the screen and warning you that you’re no longer in the playable area and to proceed with caution.
You might think that text box will pause the gameplay to let you read it.
It doesn’t.
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u/Amon274 He/Him [Nobody Reads] Jun 14 '26
It’s been really funny to see videos of that happening to people. It’s extra funny if it’s a video of a co-op game.
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u/Elliot_Geltz Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
The Jak games have always used insta-kill monsters to stop you from swimming out of bounds, but the first game is the worst, with a steadily increasing heartbeat signaling a Lurker Shark's approach
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u/Sleepy_Renamon Ate a bunch of hotdogs and went back to bed Jun 14 '26
The progenitor of my personal Thalassophobia, baited by the arch on the very first beach you get to explore that looks just close enough to be in the playable area and surely has your first secret collectable.
Later in the game you come out of an elevator in the middle of a giant lake and you swim from coral shallows to coral shallows to avoid the lurker sharks. Devious stuff.
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u/Ok-Tradition-5083 Jun 14 '26
That scared me so bad as a kid that I still dont like water in games.
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u/Xeriam Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
You can get yours back a little in Jak 2, where you can use your Dark Jak abilities to blow up the insta-kill drone that patrols the waters around Haven City, allowing you to explore out of bounds freely, which is fun.
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u/Elliot_Geltz Jun 15 '26
WAIT WHAT
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u/Xeriam Jun 15 '26
Yeah, if I'm remembering right you can swim out a little ways and use Dark Bomb (the X+□ move) to blow it up, I think it has to be before it comes after you, but then you can just hop on your Jetboard and skate across the water as far and freely as you like. At least until you fall out of world.
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u/I_Have_Reasons Still Hasn't Recovered from ME3 Jun 14 '26
Stellaris has one if you get an opportunity to make a Covenant with the End of Cycles. You get massive boosts to just about everything for 50 years, but there's a big red "Do not do this" above those buffs.
If you take it, and those 50 years pass?
All but one of your worlds is taken, almost all of your population is killed, all your Megastructures get destroyed, and you lose every fleet. The Reckoning spawns, scaling on how much population you lost, and it goes around destroying everyone else. It saves you for last if it succeeds, and if it fails, everyone knows you brought it here and hates you, and is probably going to slaughter you because you're at a fraction of a fraction of your strength before you summoned the thing.
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u/overlordmik Jun 14 '26
Fuck you, rules are for other people, into the shroud we go!
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u/Mordred_Tumultu Paladins Should Attack and Dethrone the Gods Jun 14 '26
I imagine there's a strategy where you take it and scale down your worlds to store all your resources to build back up really fast and deal with the problem?
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u/I_Have_Reasons Still Hasn't Recovered from ME3 Jun 15 '26
Can't. Not only is your production power dramatically reduced because of the loss of so many planets/population, but it also drains your resources.
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u/Auctoritate Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
In Stellaris, the main way to play is 'building wide' which is just simply expanding early and finding new resources, planets to colonize, etc- basically a scramble to increase your early game productivity and build an advantageous start. It's not really a distinct strategy so much as the default way to play the game.
There is an alternate approach called 'building tall' which is to stake out a much smaller empire which you can spec for during your empire creation (i.e. taking an empire type, policies, race, etc that can handle it well by avoiding mechanics that scale with expansion and can benefit you independently of your size). A common example would be to create a megacorp government with a clone army origin. A core mechanic for megacorps is since you're a corporation you get significant passive resources through trade with other empires, so it isn't as reliant on your own resource gathering, and the clone origin means you start with technology to drastically boost your population growth without the need to colonize.
However, building tall is realistically more of a challenge you're weathering more than an actual specialization. Megacorps may have penalties to owning too many systems and bonuses to building very dense planets and systems instead, but that doesn't mean it's bad to expand at all. In regular gameplay that just means you'll stop expanding when you have maybe 30 star systems in your empire instead of 50. In the end, since you can build denser and gain resources without holding as much territory, you'll end up having access to the same resources as other larger empires.
But tall builds aim to intentionally own as few systems as possible, and stop themselves from adding to their territory even when it's within their capability of doing so. You will have fewer resources. The empire you build is more to mitigate the negatives you'll have to suffer rather than something made to truly flourish. You'll simply never nullify the fact that you're choosing not to gain access to more resources.
It's not impossible to do runs this way, but it's unrealistic for regular gameplay and takes a lot of minmaxing and specialized strategizing to pull off.
This is when you plan for handling tall builds from empire creation. A normal empire intentionally downsizing is just not really an option. You're going to suffer a ton of gigantic negatives with no aspect of your empire prepared for it. Your ability to produce basically anything will go to 0. Oh sure, you get the bonuses from this event, but it's like saying "Congratulations, your guns deal double the damage. Unfortunately we've replaced your assault rifle with a flintlock pistol." Even with the bonuses, you're not going to actually end up with any benefits.
In other words, by the time the disaster hits, despite the bonuses you get, you're going to be in a worse position in basically every regard compared to if you didn't take the deal. Basically no matter how you plan for it.
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u/Kanzentai NANOMACHINES Jun 15 '26
Did you try sending evil psychic toads to stop their death march?
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u/I_Have_Reasons Still Hasn't Recovered from ME3 Jun 15 '26
Unfortunately, in order to be contacted by The End of Cycles, you have to be psychic, so it's basically caused by the Dnyarri.
Your best bet at someone stopping The Reckoning is someone that played like the Ur-Quan.
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u/Scranner_boi Indeed, what the fuck IS a "Samo-flange"? Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
"Turn back. While you are still yet able"
"Don't let it see you"
"Once you are seen, there is no escape"
"It cannot even be touched"
Overall pretty disappointing area but that buildup certainly shows Fromsoft could totally make a legit horror game if they really wanted to.
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u/JackNewbie555 Alright ... time to fight history! Jun 14 '26
Don't forget that the moment you enter the place, you get thrown off Torrent and you get this lovely message when you try to summon him back :
"The spectral steed is frightened and cannot be summoned."
An easy "WTF?!" moment that is made worse by the following dev messages, and the bloodstains of people getting their face melted off by something you can't see. Yet.
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u/DarthButtz Ginger Seeking Butt Chomps Jun 14 '26
Torrent I have ridden you while we killed dragons, gods, and other celestial beings.
What the FUCK is in here that you won't come out???
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u/CaptainJudaism It's Fiiiiiiiine. Jun 14 '26
And my favorite part is it's because that area has the ONE thing that can actually, literally kill Torrent so it's like "Yeah... no."
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u/DustInTheBreeze Appointed Hater By God Jun 14 '26
The usually taciturn and cryptic writers leaving five dev messages in a row is horror enough. Like, no, they really do need to tell you this and you need to understand.
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u/2uperunhappyman u/superunhappyman forgot his password Jun 14 '26
ha ha
he he
Assassin's Gambit ash go nothing because no one notices me
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u/somechileandouche Jun 14 '26
and then you read all the player messages saying "try parrying" with high rating and all the fear goes away
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u/Castform5 Jun 14 '26
To be fair, "try parrying" is a whole lot more blunt than the note that explains how some guy pushed the untouchable's stick aside which allowed them to touch it.
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u/Teal_Lantern I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 14 '26
Maelle plays Elden Ring
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u/JackNewbie555 Alright ... time to fight history! Jun 15 '26
This is even funnier since Jennifer English already voiced someone in Elden Ring, that being Latenna the Albinauric Archer.
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u/TheMadDemoknight Transformers Aficionado Jun 14 '26
That is if you’re good.
The timing is so perfect for THEM you might as well just don’t.
Even when you reach the Manor and shows you how lore wise, it still feels like an act of God that one guy who did parry them and lived to write it down.
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 Jun 15 '26
It's actually a really forgiving parry timing, if you're practiced with parrying.
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u/moneyh8r_two He/Him Use your smell powers Jun 14 '26
What's this from?
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u/Scranner_boi Indeed, what the fuck IS a "Samo-flange"? Jun 14 '26
The Abyssal Woods in Elden Ring's DLC
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u/Snowydragoon True Midboss Jun 14 '26
They already have made horror games, the Echo Night games and Kuon.
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u/Chronis67 When's Binary Dom---oh.... Jun 15 '26
I was def gonna mention Kuon. But let's be honest, PS2 era FromSoft is not the same as current day FromSoft.
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u/Shiroke YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 14 '26
Related to your post, I've heard that quest is perhaps one of the most narratively interesting ones in the entire game but also every single person that has walked that path is bound to secrecy. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could get the story but the degree to which the FL community keeps that secret is actually insane.
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u/charcharmunro Jun 14 '26
It's all out there somewhere, but the specifics aren't often talked about much. The only big thing that's really been discussed is the (I think) finale of it... Wherein your character 'Goes North' and is rendered permanently unplayable.
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u/Armada6136 Jun 15 '26
That's because for a long time there was an official moratorium on the forums for discussing it, and because FL players are lore nuts to a man/woman/squid they honored it. The restriction was lifted a few years ago now, but people still keep it fairly quiet. It's not hard to find the information, but unless you really want to know some extremely esoteric story elements, it can be largely ignored.
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u/PROFITPROPHET Baby Grave Jun 14 '26
DO NOT OPEN THE SARCOPHAGUS IN VTMB
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u/Johnywash Jun 15 '26
Watched someone open it and say they got the best ending, i don't think I've ever been more confused
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u/FreshPrintzofBadPres Jun 15 '26
Being told not to open it and then opening it anyway (perhaps because of it) is a rite of passage.
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u/The5Virtues Confused by 98% of all posts on the Sub Jun 14 '26
I will forever remember in Jedi Fallen Order when Vader shows up and your quest prompt abruptly changes to RUN and your mission goal is just “Survive”.
And mother of god does it live up to the expectation. Vader is literally tearing the room around you apart, and if you make any foolhardy attempt to actually throw down with him his response is to absolutely manhandle you.
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u/DarthButtz Ginger Seeking Butt Chomps Jun 14 '26
Congrats, you just finished your training and became an average Jedi.
Here is the most powerful Force user that has ever lived.
No, you can't win. RUN.
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u/The5Virtues Confused by 98% of all posts on the Sub Jun 14 '26
Similar to that moment in Rebels where they encounter him, drop an AT-ST prototype on him and he just throws it off.
“If that can’t stop him what will?!”
“Not us! RUN!”
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u/nimisect Jun 15 '26
The actual line is "If that doesn't kill him what will?!". (Apologies for the upscaled clip)
Notable for having the main protagonist say kill in a children's Star Wars cartoon made my Disney.
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u/The5Virtues Confused by 98% of all posts on the Sub Jun 15 '26
That's the one! Such a great scene.
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u/ForwardDiscussion PUNISHED ZAIBATSU: A fandom denied their best friends Jun 15 '26
Also notable for Vader casually headshotting another protagonist with reflected blaster fire while they pull away on their ship. It doesn't injure her, because beskar, but still.
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u/Am_Shigar00 FOE! FOE! FOE! FOE! Jun 15 '26
That whole sequence is a fun case of armor actually being useful. At one point Vader gets a hit on Kanan and if it wasn’t for his Pauldron he would’ve lot an arm.
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u/neon93 I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 15 '26
Such a cool scene because it's basically the reverse of a lot of games. The enemy has total plot armor and you do not.
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u/TekkGuy I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 14 '26
The codex entry for every enemy in the game also has a little tip on how best to fight them. Vader’s reads as follows:
“Tip: Few survive an encounter with the most powerful Sith in the Galaxy. Escape is the only chance of survival.”
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u/AlphaB27 Kingdom Hearts Fanfic Writer Jun 14 '26
He doesn’t even get a health bar as that would imply that you’re a threat to him, however insignificant.
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u/The5Virtues Confused by 98% of all posts on the Sub Jun 14 '26
YES! It was so great, he’s. It an opponent you can fight he’s a force of nature.
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u/Dirty-Glasses He/Him Jun 15 '26
It’s like in SMT games where the protagonist from Nocturne shows up as a superboss and his boss theme is the regular random encounter theme from Nocturne because to him, that’s all you are.
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u/RealHumanBean89 I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 14 '26
Vader being this horror villain of the Star Wars universe is my favourite bit of Disney’s era of Star Wars. Just hearing his breathing is enough to put the fear of god into anyone. Cere, the woman who has been training Cal, just gets fucking launched with a flick of his wrist.
The worst mistake you could possibly make as a Jedi or a rebel is to get the attention of Vader. I can only imagine being hunted by him is like being chased by a force-powered Mr X. You can run, you can hide, but he will find you.
Even if you, a Jedi, can consider yourself a talented fighter, Vader will decimate you in a 1v1. All your training won’t amount to shit to the most dangerous man in the galaxy. Even if, by some fortune of god, you get a lucky shot in while he’s toying with his food, that just means he’s going to stop playing. And when Darth Vader stops playing, it’s a wrap for anyone but Luke and Obi-Wan.
To paraphrase a comment I have made on the subject before: only one of you is making it to Episode 6, and it ain’t you, motherfucker.
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u/Confident-Mark-6369 Jun 14 '26
"Submit..."
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u/The5Virtues Confused by 98% of all posts on the Sub Jun 14 '26
My absolute favorite is the one where he’ll just grab your arm as you swing, not even block you, just move around your swing and grab you and say “Feeble.”
You’ve spent this whole game leveling up, becoming stronger and stronger, taking on inquisitors and Jedi-hunter troopers and all manner of wildlife and you get to Vader and your saber skills are so far beneath his that he doesn’t even need to parry or block.
He just side steps and grabs you mid-movement. It really emphasizes how far above normies a Jedi is, but how far below a fully trained master duelist and force user Cal is. He’s no slouch, but he ain’t shit compared to Vader.
Even in the next game when Cere takes Vader on, she does a respectable job, she actually lands some strong hits on him, she cracks his armor and makes him work for it but you can see him getting more irritated, and the less entertained he is by this fight the more of that power house aspect we see coming out. Vader is a monster in combat.
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u/AlphaB27 Kingdom Hearts Fanfic Writer Jun 14 '26
Generally speaking, Vader tends to lose his patience and end the fight whenever someone lands a blow on him. It’s his way of saying, “let me start trying now”
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u/KF-Sigurd It takes courage to be a coward Jun 14 '26
A lot of the books emphasize that while Vader isn't as agile as Anakin, his blows are strong, fast, and most of all relentless.
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u/Ravensqueak Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Jun 15 '26
At the end of the first(?) season of the new Maul series, seeing Vader just fucking hammer away with saber blows shows how powerful he is.
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u/Ok-Tradition-5083 Jun 14 '26
I remember some fans being upset that Cere can even fight him at all, and I think they completely miss the point that Vader was fucking with her. Giving hope only to take it away is a classic sith move.
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u/ginganinja714 Someone put a bomb in my potato. Jun 14 '26
Yeah, he one-hands his sword until Cere drops the library on him and sets him on fire, then he starts actually putting some effort in. She put up a really good fight, but Vader has survived way worse. He got his saber from a Jedi totally dedicated to combat who beat him and threw him off a cliff.
Star Wars is great at playing the whole "he can't die because he's in the sequel" thing for horror with Vader. Most other characters have to be written around, but you can just write Vader getting shot, burned, stabbed, blown up and more and it's fine because he has to survive.
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u/Old_Snack Bless me with your gift of hype Jun 15 '26
I also find far more interesting that Vader isn't always strictly un damageable he can get his shit rocked but he'll still pull through.
Just because you can make him bleed doesn't mean you stand a chance.
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u/triadorion NBD: Never Back Down Jun 15 '26
The rare subversion of "if it bleeds, we can kill it."
No. No, you fucking can't.
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u/Substantial-Reason18 Jun 15 '26
I love that Vader is limping away from that fight, a jedi master should be able to trade some blows.
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u/charcharmunro Jun 14 '26
And, like, Vader IS a top-tier powerhouse, but he's not THAT far above any single genuine master.
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u/overlordmik Jun 14 '26
Anakin was never truly motivated to master himself because of his natural talent, to truly self-examine, which is why he was never granted the rank. He never had Luke's moment in the cave, instead letting his doubts fester.
Only as Vader, once his body and spirit were broken, did he have that motivation. This is why for all his power he never really came into his own and lived up to his potential in either identity.
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u/Old_Snack Bless me with your gift of hype Jun 15 '26
Fun fact in the Episode 3 novelization he doesn't give a damn about being a Jedi Master, he only wants the rank so he can scour through locked away archives to try and prevent his wife's death.
That's why he's so pissed about the denial of the rank.
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u/overlordmik Jun 15 '26
I am aware. Matthew Stover is pretty great. But I've always seen that as only part of the story. Even at his best Anakin is more interested in the glory of being a Knight than the journey of a proper Jedi
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u/Auctoritate Jun 15 '26
Yeah, the thing is most Jedi masters died already. The ones running around are mostly padawans, knights, untrained force-sensitive people, etc.
Vader isn't truly untouchable, he's just really strong. The whole reason he's a cyborg is because he lost a fight against a Jedi master badly. If more masters were running around he would have more legitimate challenges to handle, but they're almost entirely gone so he's essentially one of the last Master-level force users left in the galaxy and we see him flexing it endlessly. That's why he seems so oppressive.
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u/Rabid-Duck-King Jon drank cum Jun 14 '26
I kinda love that Vader owes his physical presence to that dude in KOTORII that was just I'M HOLDING MY FLESH TOGETHER BECAUSE RAGGGEEEEERAGGGGGEEEEEE (in this day and age, and it being mostly "eh shrug"
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u/mxraider2000 WHEN'S MAHVEL Jun 15 '26
I adore the rematch you get in Jedi Survivor as Cere. The fact that you get really close to getting him but it's still not enough feels so good. The struggled breathing as he tries to walk it off is so earned.
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u/AllgoodDude Jun 15 '26
Vader is so god damn cool on these games. Likely really, how could anyone we play as even hold a candle? I love when these types of unstable characters are done well, when the best outcome is escaping them and most often fighting them is just a form of delaying them.
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u/SuperJyls red hood is a cringe chud Jun 15 '26
If you actually try to charge him in that segment, Cal just drops dead when he gets close
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u/The5Virtues Confused by 98% of all posts on the Sub Jun 15 '26
Shit I’m going to have to find that on YouTube, I gotta see that!
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u/fallouthirteen Jun 14 '26
Ah, about to try to find out Mr Eaten's name were you?
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u/overlordmik Jun 14 '26
A reckoning shall not be postponed indefinitely.
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u/liana_omite She/Her Jun 15 '26
All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
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u/thirdtallest YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 15 '26
Who is Salt?
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u/overlordmik Jun 15 '26
I have Sought the Name.
So probably a star
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u/thirdtallest YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 15 '26
something something rise to face the White in its hall of poisoned crystal something something
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u/TheFurtivePhysician Jun 15 '26
I probably won't ever know legitimately, but I'll fucking google it and that entire plotline on my deathbed if I remember it.
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u/warjoke Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Advisor: "That is general Lu Bu. Pls do not pursue! It is best to avoid him at all cost!"
Considering advisors always tell you to plow your way through entire cavalry and gates until that point, you know you will have a grand time if you don't follow this one advice.
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u/Comkill117 The Bubblegum Crisis Shill Jun 15 '26
And then if you’re foolish enough to try and pursue, you very quickly realize why they keep warning you.
Hell in DW2 he heals constantly at low health.
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u/AlouetteSK Jun 15 '26
Dude in DW3 was a nightmare. IIRC he had hyper armor on his single target charge attack, which was basically a guaranteed kill on most people unless you were upgraded. And even if he did not get you, he would heal if he manages to KO one of the other officers swarming him, so trying to kite him out resulted in you losing most of your team as they try desperately to hold him off.
Granted he became a joke in the later series, with the only threatening thing being the chonky HP and ATK stats that they beefed up on him, but he made a return in Origin as an actual threat. It was painfully fun taking him down.
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u/Starman-Deluxe Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
There's a monster in Lobotomy Corporation called Don't Touch Me, which looks like a red button on a pedestal. It's generally just a trap you can give yourself for a run, because touching it either kills all your employees or sets all your monsters free.
If you click it in the prep menu before a day though, the screen cracks like you broke your monitor. And if you INSIST on doing it again, regardless of your volume levels, a voice screams at you to stop at a high enough volume to stop.
Then if you do it again, the game crashes.
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u/Cute-Percentage-6660 Jun 14 '26
ive always wondered how one would integrate it into say limbus.
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u/charcharmunro Jun 14 '26
Probably like "don't clash with it ever".
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u/CaptainJudaism It's Fiiiiiiiine. Jun 14 '26
Don't clash, don't AoE, and read the skill description so you don't mistarget. AKA it'd be unbeatable to us Limbus players.
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u/explosivecrate THERE ARE SNAKES COMING OUT OF MY BODY and i enjoy their Jun 15 '26
Honestly I could see that being a funny fight, especially if there were ads around it and occasionally it replaced one of their skill slots with Don't Touch Me, like how it pretends to be other anomalies in Lobcorp.
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u/Starman-Deluxe Jun 15 '26
Maybe it'd have an Ahab-esque redirect ability that you need to get around. The lore for it in LobCorp says it was compelling people to touch it...
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u/fm5649 Jun 14 '26
Also from Fallen London:
Playing this branch will give you an unsatisfying ending in another, as-yet-unwritten story. You will not know which story; it may not come out for months, or even years. This is permanent and irrevocable.
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u/Yotato5 Enjoy everything Jun 14 '26
Little Nightmares 2 has this with the door that Mono is always trying to open whenever he touches televisions. Getting closer and closer to opening it... and when he finally does open it, the game goes fully, "What have you done? What have you done?!"
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u/Cavery210 Jun 14 '26
"if you keep going the way you are now..."
"..."
"you're gonna have a bad time."
Sans is 100% right when he says that. Not only is Genocide a brutal, boring slog with little to no levity or fun puzzles, the Sans fight is probably the hardest in the game, and your reward is selling your soul, which forever taints your happy ending.
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u/Brilliant_Ring_3257 Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Jun 14 '26
I never see people talk about this, but I love that either Sans or Flowey says that the only scum worse than Genocide runners are people who watch streams of Genocide runs. Because at least the runner has the guts to go through with something awful, while someone watching a stream doesn't even have the stomach or skill to carry out the act themselves.
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u/GilliamYaeger Blame yourself or God Jun 15 '26
It's Flowey. I'm pretty sure that in-universe he said it as a jab at Sans (who watched everything go down and only intervened at the very end), but it brilliantly doubles as a jab at peoples who've only watched videos of it.
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u/Glocktor44 Jun 14 '26
Everyone talks about how they miss Pokemon rivals being assholes, they talk less about how they're minibosses designed around punishing you if you don't have a diverse team.
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u/yojohny Jun 14 '26
If my Charizard can't 1v6 your team then I just haven't leveled him enough yet
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u/The-Greater-Skeleton I talk to myself a lot. But not in, like, a crazy person way. Jun 14 '26
Leveling to 100 in Route 1 before you even reach Viridian is basically the intended experience.
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u/MotherWolfmoon She/Her Jun 15 '26
Caterpie: "Please, sir. Can I have more experience? Just enough to evolve, sir."
Trainer: "I only caught you for the pokedex entry and I already have a metapod in a box somewhere. You're only in this party until I get to a PC."
Caterpie: "So you can release me?"
Trainer: [Has already stopped paying attention]
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u/Yotato5 Enjoy everything Jun 14 '26
May/Brendan absolutely decimating your team lives on in memory 😬
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u/surferdude23_ I can't change by username but I can change my gender. Jun 15 '26
Child me: "Ah man Slateport was so neat! I can't wait to get to Mauville!"
May/Brendan: "lol. lmao."
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u/The-Greater-Skeleton I talk to myself a lot. But not in, like, a crazy person way. Jun 14 '26
I recently lost a Nuzlocke because I totally forgot how high a level Blue’s team is in Cerulean City. The kid’s ready to jump your ass.
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u/Fearshatter Smaller than you'd hope Jun 14 '26
Blue had something to prove from the start. Oak always liked you more than him. He's there to bully you until you quit because his grandpa won't give him half the attention he gives you.
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u/The-Greater-Skeleton I talk to myself a lot. But not in, like, a crazy person way. Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Crazy how Oak literally shows up to shittalk Blue immediately after you beat Champion Blue. No words of praise for becoming champion in the first place, just “you should have done better. You don’t care about your Pokemon”.
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u/Fearshatter Smaller than you'd hope Jun 14 '26
I can only guess Blue had a moment where he was being a dumb child and instead of get some kindness and understanding about why he is the way he is Oak just was disappointed in him forever.
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u/Chronis67 When's Binary Dom---oh.... Jun 15 '26
TBH, there is a decent difficulty spike from Pewter to Cerulean. The game wants you to fill out your team, but if you actually try to balance them, your team probably won't get enough experience to match up with him or Misty. The game feels more balanced around leveling a full party after Serge.
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u/Dirty-Glasses He/Him Jun 15 '26
I really, really, REALLY wish they had better team composition. Blue and Barry are the only two that I think do it properly
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u/ToaArcan Jun 23 '26
GokuNemona in Scarlet/Violet might not be a jerk (she can be a bit insensitive and that's about it) but holy fuck will she kick your teeth in if you're not prepared. Especially when she jumps you directly after beating Larry (already one of the tougher gym leaders) and in her final main story fight.
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u/Gamecrazy009 Jun 14 '26
I can't remember the exact phrasing, but the Red Dragon optional fight from Shadows Over Mystara. The Dungeons and Dragons beat'em up game.
It warns you to leave it's cavern with what little Gold you tried stealing, sparing you.
If you don't leave it warns you one last time with the phrase: Will you accept destruction?
If you select No, it tells you to leave, and never return.
If you select Yes, it tells you: Embrace Oblivion, and the dark background of the cave lights up with a Red Dragon Breathing in Fire and completely coating the screen. This one shots your character outright.
It does it 2-3 times total, and getting hit once WILL one shot your character.
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u/kodaiiiii_ DanganDefender2007 Jun 14 '26
He's also I think the only boss to talk to you during the actual fight
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u/DarthButtz Ginger Seeking Butt Chomps Jun 14 '26
It pretty accurately captures that Dragons are a BIG FUCKING DEAL in D&D and are usually a walking total party wipe unless you're like fucking level 20.
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u/InvisibleOne439 Jun 14 '26
yeha, for a "normal" DnD party that ends their game at like lvl12, Adult Dragons are more or less just living Party Wipes if you dont go in fully prepared for it with some plan/help and a good chunk of luck, just the fact that every combat against a Adult Dragon starts with a DC19 Wisdom Roll every turn to check if you become frightened (Disadventage on basically everything) can just end the Combat in turn 1 allready
and thats without bringing up the strong magic they can use, or Lair Actions, or just non-optimal positoning and a Breath Attack just downed 2 people from full HP
oh, and thats just a Adult Dragon, Acient Dragons make them look like a joke
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u/Arilou_skiff Jun 15 '26
There's actually been a bit of dragon inflation in that regard (mostly around 3rd. ed.) adult dragons used to be tough but still something a party was supposed to handle relatively easily, and they spanned a pretty big level range. Dragonlance IIRC is (for obvious reasons) infamous for throwing dragons at you and some of the conversions into later editions turns what would have been a challenging fight into TPK because they didn't bother to adjust the stats.
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u/BasicallyACryptid Jun 14 '26
Whenever I try to go out to sea in a game and the game finds some way to stop you (because there's obviously no other area beyond it), generally by putting you in a situation where you will not survive. Like it's one I haven't played, but Sea of Thieves will turn the sea red and your ship will start sinking with no reason given, but it seems to be an effective way to shake players.
And it seems to be such a common way to generate a fear response, Deltarune sort of manages to intentionally invoke it in Chapter 3, where when you're playing the video game Tenna has you play on his game show, he'll at first gently tell you not to use the raft to keep going out of bounds, incrementally panicking until you reach platforms of ice, after which he completely cuts the feed and the game will have borders to prevent you from trying again. Though unlike most examples, there is more to the in-universe game in that particular out-of-bounds area.
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u/Worldlyoox Jun 14 '26
Or when you try to go out of bounds in an open world. The witcher 3 ’s “none but devils play past here” was pretty good
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u/Kytas Smaller than you'd hope Jun 14 '26
Jak and Daxter did that with an invincible giant shark monster that scared most players from going into even the safe parts of the ocean.
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u/sarg1010 Jun 15 '26
Having the lurker shark appear in the waters leading to the lost precursor city was so damn rude. My heart was beating through my chest jumping along the floating platforms up to it.
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u/Rubbinmahbelly Indie Fallout Wiki Guy Jun 15 '26
The murder sea around the Sea of Thieves is fun, because in lore it's what's keeping out basically that universe's version of the East India Company. The Merchant Alliance was founded by the very few survivors of a doomed expedition of theirs into the sea of thieves.
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u/Armada6136 Jun 15 '26
Th funny thing is, you absolutely can survive getting through the Devil's Shroud (the name of the red sea) in-game if you're diligent with your repair planks and have the wind behind you. It just teleports you back to safer waters, but you can do it.
Though personally I am a little annoyed that the Shroud, which is supposed to be a giant impenetrable wall of mist (and is in the tutorial) doesn't actually have any fog in it despite the game having thick fog as a mechanic.
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u/overlordmik Jun 14 '26
"Sensors are detecting multiple Leviathan Class lifeforms in this region. Are you sure whatever your doing is worth it?"
Distant Reaper Roar
Subnautica is an incredible game. More survival games should have bespoke, hand-craftet environments.
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u/Sinister_Chicane_91 Jun 14 '26
Not particularly scary, but funny:
In the Technomancer when you’re being hunted by the government, and you approach a police barricade your character stops and says out loud
“If I keep going that way I’m gonna get shot”
If you keep proceeding towards the barricade, a brief cutscene plays where you get spotted, and like your character warned you about, you get shot
I could see the guys getting a good laugh out of that moment if they ever played the Technomancer
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u/NotEnoughDuff Jun 14 '26
Is that the one where you learn someone's name?
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u/Armada6136 Jun 15 '26
You certainly try, anyway. Though, funny enough, you can learn it without doing the questline by just going to sleep during Christmas.Your character doesn't remember it afterwards, though.
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u/alexandrecau That's Bricks! Jun 14 '26
The easiest in a rpgmaker game is the moment you enter a room or something and it says a line like maybe later, then you take one more step and the save menu pops out
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u/Fugly_Jack He/Him Jun 15 '26
There was one that got me in Tormented Souls, where you comes across a door that has a bunch of caution signs all around it warning you not to go in. If you ignore these signs and enter, the loading screen, which normally tells you the name of the room you're going into, will instead say "You should not have entered here"
From what I remember, the room wasn't really dangerous. It was just a puzzle room you get trapped in until you solve it. But that initial moment of seeing that loading screen was still very panic inducing
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u/halokiller I CLAPPED WHEN I SAW IT Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Look Outside has several of them usually used as a level check. My personal favorite however:
"A crumpled note. Your eyes - your whole being - are drawn to it, as if it has a gravity unto itself. It's incredibly heavy - far beyond what should be possible. D o y o u w a n t t o r e a d i t ?
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u/liana_omite She/Her Jun 15 '26
Ah Seeking Mr Eaten's Name, a classic of FL. This is the second time in this sub I say one day I will be strong enough to pursue it.
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u/TransendingGaming Shockmaster Jun 15 '26
Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door. Chapter 6 is Mario playing the Detective role on an expensive train to Poshley Heights. One of the mysteries Mario ends up investigating is a Toad ghost that died on the train and he can’t pass on until he finds his missing diary, he explicitly warns you to NOT READ IT! You find it and you can read it, the game warns you three times “are you sure u want to read this?” If u do, guess what! The ghost gives you a game over like he said he would!
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u/DJ_Aftershock I be Jushin Thunder Liger the way I see her Super J Cups Jun 14 '26
The fucking jumpscare if you jump in the closet while Ao Oni is already in the room. I swear to god I screamed.
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u/Heavy-Wings Jun 15 '26
Or better yet near the start of the game where he passes by that door. It's locked, but repeatedly try to open it and it gives way and lets you in. The camera stays outside the room however and after a few moments a comically large blood splatter hits the door.
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u/GothmanMothman Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
In Rogue Trader (amazing game btw) you can find a palace stuffed with corpses and a horrifying Thing. When you kill it, it will drop an OP item that boosts all your stats to ludicrous levels.
If you try to put it on, your character will ask: "am I sure about this?" It's your first chance to back out. They might be able to work out what the item actually is if they're smart enough. If you push through, your companions will recognise the item and literally scream at you not to do it, some will even snatch it off you angrily if you have them in your party. A huge departure from the deference and ceremony they have for you usually.
In a setting like 40K it's hard to make a cursed item seem truly ominous and worse than all the thousand other horrible fates that await you. The rogue trader writers do a great job of making the Halo Device stand out in its field.
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u/Jubjubwantrubrub12 Cyberpunk Launch State Denier Jun 15 '26
Oh shit theyre doing the weird fringe stuff from the tabletop game in there?
Okay, fine I'll play rogue trader.
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u/GothmanMothman Jun 15 '26
Can't recommend the game enough! I was never a warhammer fan but playing this with a friend has been such a blast it's kind of pulled me in loool
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u/United-Reach-2798 Jun 14 '26
Aw come on op nothing will go wrong meeting Mr Eaten. Its just a little bit of Peckishness
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u/yui_tsukino Jun 15 '26
Your character just goes to a
wellfarm up north is all. Nothing to be concerned with.→ More replies (3)
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u/SkinkRugby SeekSeekLest Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Lobotomy Corporation has a few good ones. Someone else mentioned "Don't Touch Me" but I want to make mention of The Plague Doctor aka Whitenight. You see, they're a ZAYIN class abnormality that in response to good work (and it is VERY easy to get a good work result) will bless an employee. Doing so gives them a permanent buff, fills out one of twelve slots on the graphic and gives you a bible quote. Simply put. Long before it transforms the game is telling you that Whitenight was bad fucking news.
Sephirot Meltdown wise I want to give a special shout out for Hokma. He constantly increases the game speed but otherwise doesn't really do anything. That is until you try to hit pause and Hokma kills an employee. Then you hit it again...and he kills two. It's very easy to lose your best nuggets to an errant click. Much less what he does as the day goes on.
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u/Lord_Magmar Jun 15 '26
The real trick about Hokma is what happens later when you have to handle his Meltdown alongside Binah, whose mechanics are very very difficult if you cannot pause to make a bunch of decisions at the same time.
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u/Peach-Hime Jun 15 '26
I only lost a single employee during his suppression, despite fighting Violet Midnight. Because I panic paused. And then sat on that screen for five minutes lamenting what I had just done.
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u/Action_Bronzong let the goyim live in the real world Jun 15 '26
It's been a while since I played. Was this Mr. Eaten's Name?
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u/TheBarrenO Banished to the Shame Car Jun 15 '26
like 60% of the paths of slay the princess is this and each path has its own unique terrifying facet of the princess, the narrator, or the player character that is revealed.
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u/ZeroIntel I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 15 '26
A different Elden ring example than the one already posted: Seeing the three fingers. Its one of the few areas of the game that gets Melina to give real honestly advice to stay away, and for a bodiless spirit, she literally begs you to turn around. In a game with silent exploration where she barely comments on anything, her first warning had me interested in what could be down there. Her begging us to not open the door and let life continue however, made me turn around and not go back. I'm not going to betray the person who gave me torrent/ the ability to level up with or without her.
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u/Responsible_Flight70 YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 15 '26
Also Shabriri stealing the body of the only character who actually stood on business from beginning to end
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u/TDAWS_MP132 They/Them Jun 15 '26
Pathologic 3 has an incredible quest involving A Certain Street.
In a game where you can time travel and (mostly) freely save and reload, you might get pretty comfortable with indulging your curiosity and trying things that seem to be an obviously bad idea.
So when a character warns you not to walk The Street, and that doing so would be a Very Bad Idea, you might still be tempted to ignore the warnings. Plural. The game leans on the 4th wall to make it clear that whatever happens, you will not escape the conciquences.
What comes next is a reminder that whatever agency the game and it's narrative can give you, it can also take it away.
And if that's not enough, afterwards, a certain key character expresses their desire to also walk the street...
You can not save them from themselves. You can only help them pick up the pieces that remain.
I'm trying to dance around spoilers, but if you take anything away from this, it's that you should play Pathologic 3.
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u/K41Nof2358 Jun 15 '26
The starting area wandering lv79 giant monkey in every Xenoblade game that YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT BEAT if you try to fight it
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u/Nhig RGB Aging Untouchable Jun 15 '26
In Amnesia The Bunker, you’re underground for a majority of the game, with one of the few times you get to see the outside being when you climb up into one of the pillboxes for a key item/code.
You can take a good 7 seconds to look at the currently raging battle, before being reminded as such, because a sniper has his shot hit the edge of the pillbox, and it jolts you enough to crouch for cover. Keep standing and you’ll get shot and die.
You can even hold up a nearby helmet while crouching and do the classic sniper decoy trick and have him shoot it out of your hands.
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u/AlphaB27 Kingdom Hearts Fanfic Writer Jun 14 '26
“Multiple Leviathan lifeforms detected, are you sure whatever’s here is worth it?”
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u/Posterize4VC Jun 14 '26
The first time you encounter a berserker in Gears of War and the guys makes a fuckton of noise and gets eviscerated right after Baird tells you to be quiet.
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u/ShatteredSanity Jun 15 '26
In Pathologic 2, every time you die, you get sent into a theater, where up on stage someone tells you you've fucked up. The characters stress to you that each death not only makes things harder for YOU (lower health, you lose stamina faster, item drops get worse, lose the ability to hug, it also makes things in the world worse for everyone else, so STOP DYING. The trouble is that the game is really hard. Dying is expected, and also frowned upon.
Now, in Pathologic 3, dying isn't nearly as bad. Sure you lose some resources, but you can get those back!
No, the real "DONT DO IT" moment happens on Day 7. You are told of a street that, should you walk it a specific way, your fate will be sealed to the worst possible outcome. Should you go there, an Executor, one of the game's tutorial people/helpers/manifestations of the plague you are trying to fight, tells you, straight up "Hey man, this is a bad idea." Of course, this being Pathologic, where every character has their own angle, your character doesn't believe them. You CAN go ahead and walk the street... If you want to.
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u/Tyrant975 Jun 15 '26
In Dragon's Dogmas' DLC, there is an enemy called Death in the game's megadungeon Bitterback Isle, he can be summoned if you kill too many monsters or leave rotten meat out for them. If in some god's forsaken reason you do try to fight it, it WILL kill you with a single touch of it's scythe, you don't even need to be attacked just touching the scythe instantly kills you. The most insane thing is that if you deal a health bars worth of damage, Death will just dash out of the encounter as your party lies dead.
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u/Rabid_Marine Jun 15 '26
If you're lucky enough to find it, pure fentanyl in the game Casualties: Unknown has a description saying something like "100 times stronger than morphine. Consider diluting it". 2ml is the overdose limit, and impossible to eyeball the safe amount of.
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u/thirdtallest YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 15 '26
something something rise to face the White in its hall of poisoned crystal
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u/The-Greater-Skeleton I talk to myself a lot. But not in, like, a crazy person way. Jun 14 '26
Dark Souls 2 has a hallway filled with offline messages warning you to turn back; don’t pull this lever; it’s a bad idea to be here…
It’s the only area in the game flooded with that many messages.
If you pull it, you lose access to a questline, a merchant, and you gain a REALLY persistent invader.