Favourite weird places in games?

[SquidDied]

@914.44

I was watching some of this series by Any Austin on yt and I was thinking of experiences like this I've had in my own time playing games, places that aren't typically paid attention to or had some kind of specific emotion tied to it.

What comes to mind for me is the part in Twilight Princess just before you enter the blizzard at Snowpeak Summit:

^{*Not my screenshot, taken from SKULLkid Gaming's gameplay footage}

I played this game when it was new and I was still just a kid, although its a fairly obvious place I'd imagine most people don't linger here too long. I remember just letting Link stand there and stare into the fog, I'm not really sure what about this place struck me, its not like its a particularly scenic place to stop or anything.  Mostly I remember that I had Link's bow drawn and was just looking down the arrow and something about that moment made me think about how I/Link was the only thing standing between the world of Hyrule and its destruction, just for some reason the gravity of the game's story just hit me. Like, just this kid from some random village out in the woods who's suddenly responsible for the fate of the world, and all he has is the stuff he found along the way to help him save it. Maybe the bleak colours, maybe the implied chill in the air, maybe the impenetrable wall of snow and the ice wolves just beyond it, just make me feel this weird kind of hopeful melancholy that has stuck in my memory all these years.

I guess it doesn't sound that profound the way I'm recalling it but XD I was only a little dude when I played it.

Anyway i was wondering if anyone else has anything like this, just a weird little emotional moment or a favourite place/detail in a game that goes underappreciated? I'd love for you to share if you do ^^

[inkpistachio]

my favourite weird place in a game is probably those weird rooms in bubble bobble, where if you go through a certain number of levels without dying then a door with flames appears and when you jump into it then you enter a room that says "WELCOME TO SECRET ROOM" and you can collect a ton of gems that give you a ton of points. i know this is a very random selection, i dont play that many video games and the ones i do play are mostly arcade games from the 80s lmao

[Uneuclid]

ey squid havent talked to you in a while

not exactly a "place", but the 'rubble of the first spawn' from No Man's Sky are so foreboding and mysterious. theyre the only space object you can't interact with and theyre kinda menacing especially given the lore behind the first spawn. makes me wonder if theyre hinting at anything

[MrsMoe]

I should probably restrain myself from listing a bunch of Yume Nikki examples (since it's a game comprised of nothing BUT weird places), so my choices are the entirety of black space from Omori, black velvetopia from Psychonauts, and the chalk levels of Ib.





For real though, strange bizarro level designs are one of my favorite things in all of existence. Who needs realism when you've got this?

[Fish]

So its late at night and Im playing some Steep because its just the perfect game to relax with. It got pretty foggy in game but the track I was on wasn't too bad. Anyways out of the fog I start seeing weird shapes and when I get closer I see this



Ig they had some sort of promotion or crossover. This was very jarring to see in a game that otherwise has a pretty normal mountain setting 

[Ved]

I feel like there's a lot of places like that I've discovered in games, but I struggle to point to any concrete ones off the top of my head. I do have one that immediately came to mind!

It's the first few hallways of Asakusa in SMT Nocturne. Nocturne's a game filled with weird places anyway, but I've always been particularly fascinated by this one part. It really stands out to me. You walk under a huge lantern through a torii gate on a path flanked by two rows of closely stacked classical japanese buildings that seem to grow from the rocks surrounding them. On the top rims of these buildings are long flourescent lights like the kind you'd find in bathrooms, which feels very anachronistic. But the really strange part is how unnaturally dark it is. The path is covered by a ceiling (which incidentally doesn't seem to exist in the real life location this is based on), but even then it seems impossible that it would just get pitch black towards the end of the hallway with those aforementioned neon lights and just how bright it is out in the desert. If you step into the darkness, you emerge in a similarly dark hallway. I assume that they needed to cut the path in two for memory reasons, but couldn't logically put a door in the middle, so they did that fade to darkness typically indicating exits in video games and tried to justify it by adding the ceiling. It ends up lending this part of the town a weird feeling ibetween outside and inside (especially on the second half of the hallway without it's connection the the Torii gate, also since this third person free movement camera perspective is usually preserved for dungeons, which are always indoors). Accompanied by the foreboding and subtle bgm (out of character for a town theme, sticks out in comparison with Ginza or Ikebukuro) and the writhing Manekin standing around everywhere, it makes for a very unusual and kind of indescribable atmosphere. Whenever I boot up Nocturne to soak up the vibes, Asakusa is the first place I go.
here's a video of the first arrival and here's one of the transition to the second part of the path without any visible connections to the outside. Please mute these to avoide tuber talk and spoilers and listen to this instead.

[SquidDied]

@371.64

my favourite weird place in a game is probably those weird rooms in bubble bobble, where if you go through a certain number of levels without dying ... you enter a room that says "WELCOME TO SECRET ROOM"

Hell yeah secret/bonus rooms always have an odd vibe to me, theyre always so out of place to me, especially if its dressed up as a specific treasure room as you say haha. They always have a fun buried treasure vibe, but it makes me wonder who its for in universe lol.

--

not exactly a "place", but the 'rubble of the first spawn' from No Man's Sky are so foreboding and mysterious. theyre the only space object you can't interact with and theyre kinda menacing especially given the lore behind the first spawn. makes me wonder if theyre hinting at anything

Hey Uneuclid, good to see u ^^

Iv not played the game so idk what lore is attached to this object but yeah that looks real ominous lol, like something that really isn't supposed to be here given how its all cracked and broken like that, some kind of lost monument or idol. Interesting to speculate about haha.

I should probably restrain myself from listing a bunch of Yume Nikki examples (since it's a game comprised of nothing BUT weird places), so my choices are the entirety of black space from Omori, black velvetopia from Psychonauts, and the chalk levels of Ib.

For real though, strange bizarro level designs are one of my favorite things in all of existence. Who needs realism when you've got this?

Ah dont worry i was expecting someone to mention Yume Nikki or LSD Dream Emulator at some point lol, i very much do vibe with those games. RPGMaker games seem to have a knack for cultivating the weirdness! You did unlock Psychonauts from my memory though, i really loved the look of Black Velvetopia! I remember spending so much time just appreciating it haha. I gotta play the new one.

But yea games pushing for hyper realism all the time makes me so tired, its cool sometimes but im always more impressed by something more imaginative.

So its late at night and Im playing some Steep because its just the perfect game to relax with. It got pretty foggy in game but the track I was on wasn't too bad. Anyways out of the fog I start seeing weird shapes and when I get closer I see this

Ig they had some sort of promotion or crossover. This was very jarring to see in a game that otherwise has a pretty normal mountain setting 

Oh wow, yea finding something unexpected in a game while ur alone at night always feels way spookier/exciting for me haha, what a cool way to do a crossover!

I feel like there's a lot of places like that I've discovered in games, but I struggle to point to any concrete ones off the top of my head. I do have one that immediately came to mind!

It's the first few hallways of Asakusa in SMT Nocturne. Nocturne's a game filled with weird places anyway, but I've always been particularly fascinated by this one part. It really stands out to me. You walk under a huge lantern through a torii gate on a path flanked by two rows of closely stacked classical japanese buildings that seem to grow from the rocks surrounding them. On the top rims of these buildings are long flourescent lights like the kind you'd find in bathrooms, which feels very anachronistic. But the really strange part is how unnaturally dark it is. The path is covered by a ceiling (which incidentally doesn't seem to exist in the real life location this is based on), but even then it seems impossible that it would just get pitch black towards the end of the hallway with those aforementioned neon lights and just how bright it is out in the desert. If you step into the darkness, you emerge in a similarly dark hallway. I assume that they needed to cut the path in two for memory reasons, but couldn't logically put a door in the middle, so they did that fade to darkness typically indicating exits in video games and tried to justify it by adding the ceiling. It ends up lending this part of the town a weird feeling ibetween outside and inside (especially on the second half of the hallway without it's connection the the Torii gate, also since this third person free movement camera perspective is usually preserved for dungeons, which are always indoors). Accompanied by the foreboding and subtle bgm (out of character for a town theme, sticks out in comparison with Ginza or Ikebukuro) and the writhing Manekin standing around everywhere, it makes for a very unusual and kind of indescribable atmosphere. Whenever I boot up Nocturne to soak up the vibes, Asakusa is the first place I go.

Ah yeah great explanation, you totally captured what I was going for on this thread! Iv never played this game but this def describes the weird kind of unusual or foreboding feeling i had in mind, particularly in areas where that vibe doesn't necessarily belong or that the devs didnt intend, i love it. Those dark hallway transitions always kind of freaked me out too, but here with the lights and dungeon like game elements like u say, it just compounds the strangeness even more!

You've got me interested to check this title out now lol

[WynnDawnstrider]

Oh I think one of my favorites off the top of my head has to be the gizmo shop in KH1

KH1 has a lot of weird spaces in it that were never really in any other Kingdom Hearts games...
Also shout out to the entire End of the World section but especially this one room with a bunch of weird trees and ruins!

[SquidDied]

Oh I think one of my favorites off the top of my head has to be the gizmo shop in KH1

KH1 has a lot of weird spaces in it that were never really in any other Kingdom Hearts games...
Also shout out to the entire End of the World section but especially this one room with a bunch of weird trees and ruins!

ooh iv never played a KH game but the emptiness of that gizmo shop feels so odd haha, nice pick here ^^

also yeah always gotta love the spooky trees and ruins wherever they pop up