What is the most creative level/weapon/gameplay you have ever seen in a video game?

[barackopala]

I forgot the chargeblade guardpoints =P!

[Pony Soldier]

It would have to be the game Folklore. It has one of the most unique gameplay I have ever played and I played a lot of games. Not only the gameplay but the level designs, story, and characters. I loved the combat i that game. Instead of having actual weapons you absorb the monsters you fight and use their attacks as your own and each monster has it's own unique abilites. The story was very interesting. You as two characters a girl named Ellen who is looking for her mother and Keats who is a journalist and they are both drawn to this small village of Doolin which then leads them into investigating the strange things that happened there. So the game is like split in two kinds of gameplay. One part of the game is detective gameplay and then another part has you go through portals to the "Netherworld" which is where you fight cool monsters.

[icausewipes]

Creative - Manhunt
Sound / Voice - Kain series

[Fencers]

Character Progression: Path of Exile
Weapon: Portal Gun from Portal
Gameplay: Path of Exile
Enemies: Guardian Heroes
Bosses: World of Warcraft
Item/crafting system: Runes of Magic
Combat system: Vagrant Story
Setting: The Secret World
Story: Baldur's Gate 2
Aesthetic: Guild Wars 2

[melodramocracy]

The Portal gun is pretty genius in its simplicity.

Always enjoyed one of the UT weapons as well (who's name escapes me right now), you basically fire one round, then have to hit that moving shot again to make it explode.

Levels and gameplay, there's simply too much to choose from.

[Lotus Victoria]

Transistor is pretty original too. Great indie game!

[Ciddy]

I thought the "private action" system in Star Ocean 2 was kinda neat. We've seen more games so similar things since then, but SO2 was one of the first where I remember seeing it.

Basically, when you entered a town, your party would split up. You could then interact with party members wherever they went in the town (one might be drinking in a bar or something, for example). Then you could improve (or worsen) your relationships with party members or even do side quests based on how you interacted with them. It could affect combat (you'd get a slight combat boost if a "friend" went down) and the ending. They only varied slightly, but the game had something like 80 different endings that were determined by choices you made.

[dwightyo39]

Great topic. Games that go way over the top in artistic style or gameplay design are among my favorites.

- Child of Eden. There aren't enough games with timing actions to the music, let alone ones that look as good as this one.

Yeah, this one and its predecessor are really neat. I need to try it with a HD projector and a bag of mushrooms.

[Mechazod]

Live-A-Live on the SNES/Super Famicom had a fairly unique combat style. Combat took place on a grid, but it was not large enough to be considered a tactical RPG, I could almost compare it to maybe a very early version of the kind of combat that Grandia or the Hyperdimension Neptunia games (after the 1st) had. You can level up to learn new abilities and gain stats as per usual, but all of your "special ability" and HP meters are refilled whenever you leave combat. The combat relies much less on standard stats effecting battle and focuses more on learning exactly what each of your moves does, which ones will heal and buff you, the range that certain attacks will hit on the grid (for example one might hit the four blocks to the right of your characters while another can hit anyone in a block in the diagonal corners from where you are standing) and likewise you need to learn the moves and the patterns of your enemies. For example: one of the bosses has a large gatling gun that he is holding. On the battle screen he is just a non-animated sprite, but when he/you moves you need to make sure you are never standing in a position for the gun he is holding would have a clear diagonal firing shot at you. Its rather interesting to play because it ends up not even at times really feeling like a JRPG, in fact I am not even sure exactly what to call it. A sort of turn-based tactical action game of some sort. Plus beyond the game play the story line is really fun with it being separated into different chapters/episodes (that you can do in any order) that take place in different time periods of Earth and also each based on a popular fictional theme.

Likewise from Square is the combat system in the Final Fantasy Legend/SaGa series. Basically instead of the typical short list of abilities per character that most JRPGs have, in the SaGa games each character has a huge list of moves they can use at any time. Along with moves you learn either through leveling or "discovering" in combat (as is the case in SaGa Frontier), your ability screen basically acts like an inventory/equipment menu. When you get something like a gun it would have a limited amount of ammo, but you would "equip" it as an ability and that ammo count would in a sense become the mana type counter for that ability. Likewise you could have a sword that you could only use for so long and then it would break, thus you might have more then one of the same ability equipped for back up. In the Legend games there were also chunks of monster meat or machine parts that enemies would drop that would completely transform whatever character took them into an entirely different species (which were basically the classes of those games) and would mix up the base abilities that character had. It also resulted it just an all around bizarre trio of games where killing a tiger and eating its meat might turn you into an eagle.
Also, while generally disliked by a vast majority of people, Unlimited SaGa on the PS2 played out in an interesting way, having the main trade mark combat system of the series, but mixing traveling and progress in the game into a strange type of board game like experience with random scenarios and traps.

[Halicia]

Fallout 2's 'freedom of choice', where you can usually support any side in a conflict, or occasionally find your own way.

This has been mimicked in future RPGs along the same lines, but sadly hasn't broken into other genres as much as I'd like, especially since the development in tech & software design should find ways to make 'real choice' more viable with less work placed on writing & scripting all possible choices ahead of time.

Oh... and No One Lives Forever. It was the first 3D FPS game I saw that added 'dynamic NPC logic'... if you made a sound in a room, the guard down the hall would head towards your room, if the lights were out, they'd move to switch the light on.

I also remember Blake Stone, as having the first 'NPCs' in a FPS that were friendly... it didn't really change the game MUCH, but I think you had to rescue them while trying to keep them alive or something.

[DarkAmbient]

The paintbrush in Okami.

[DiscoGhost]

half life 2. the gravity gun and any of the sand/desert levels you need to mode boards to get accross. most fun ive ever had.

the combo system from any devil may cry game was also really fun.

[Gallahadd]

Leveling System: Kingdom's of Amalur.
Combat system: Shadow Hearts Covenant.
Weapon: Shadow Hearts Covenant. (although the Torque Bow and Portal Gun get honorable mentions)
Setting: Dark Cloud 2.
Enemies: Shadow Hearts. (it's the one thing it doesn't better than Covenant , the bios for the enemies are just... Wrong)

Honorable Mention: Shining Force series, the promotion system is brilliant and I don't understand why that series flopped like it did .

[Ferocity]

Honorable Mention: Shining Force series, the promotion system is brilliant and I don't understand why that series flopped like it did :(.

Shining series went Action mode sadly :( With many of newer games never being released outside Japan.

[wachimingo]

katamari for gameplay, monster hunter weapons.

[Symphonic]

The Laptop Gun, Perfect Dark, N64.

[Teebone]

Blackfield Asylum on Twisted Metal: Black. It begins with you and 3 others locked up on a cargo hold, after about 2 minutes of combat regardless of fatalities the hold opens up and you are on the deck of the ship and several more opponents. The ship is slowly pulling up to dock at an island, where the Asylum is located and the final four opponents you face. Just never saw anything quite like it.

[Deleted]

Got to be the gravity gun from HL2...can't beat picking up random objects, using them as cannonballs and then carrying them everywhere with you, re-using them along the way.

The GES bio rifle from Unreal is a close contender on my list too. Quite unique in the sense that it can't be used at short range (splash) or long range (too far), only mid-range. And it leaves little proximity mines everywhere that you can blow up from a distance too.

For gameplay mechanics, it has to be the magic system from this ancient RPG - buy the runes and create your own spells, go nuts. Also had some really clever (and difficult) puzzles too.

Always enjoyed one of the UT weapons as well (who's name escapes me right now), you basically fire one round, then have to hit that moving shot again to make it explode.

That would be the ASMD. (never knew what it stood for)