It's the little things

I'm playing through Dragon Quest VIII again and I was reminded of how much I like it when developers make characters moving throughout the three dimensional game world correctly interact with that game world. In DQVIII, whenever Hero is climbing on a ladder, he grabs and steps on every single rung. I also remember in Ni no Kuni when Oliver runs down stairs, he changes the way he runs in a realistic fashion. Small little touches like that just make me like a game more for some reason.

Also, I fucking love the DQVIII overworld theme.

Yeah I appreciate that too, It may not be the most cost effective thing to do but when they can afford to do it and go it well it really helps with immersion.

on the flipside take Wayforward's Ducktales reboot which added voice acting. I found it really jarring that the characters moved appropriately with what they were saying but their mouths did not move at all. I suppose it's not too terribly different than say what Persona does, but Persona had the facial expression stills to go with the conversation boxes which I dunno made it more relatable.

I remember in Tomb Raider: Legend, Lara would look around and blink when you were stationary. This was amazing to me.

I remember seeing Solid Snake with a completely blank, unmoving face in Snake Eater on accident once. It terrified me, and now I always check to see if developers bring the character to life a bit. Again, small and you'll maybe see it once or twice, but it adds so much.

Everything about Max Payne 3 impressed me. All the small details... such as the dive physics + weapon animations... so good. The only other game I know with awesome third person weapon detail is kane and lynch 2.

It was pretty janky in Uncharted 3 but whenever Joel touched stuff while moving through the environment I smiled.

@irvandus: Yeah, that's another one of those things I'm thinking of. It really doesn't have any reason to be there, but I'm it is.