10 Awesome Video Game Mechanics - That Are Impossible To Pull Off

Innovating and experimenting with awesome new additions to the playstyle is how you make your titles stand out from the crowd

Seems obvious, right? You'd think so. But why do some game studios craft really cool gameplay mechanics that are a struggle to use

How frustrating is it to know how cool a mechanic is, but you just can't bring yourself to get it right

Difficulty is one thing, but over-complication, insane control schemes, demands for your time

these kinds of things make us feel like kids that have been shown a fancy new toy and then told to keep it in its box

I'm CypherWattCulture.com and these are 10 awesome video game mechanics that are impossible to pull off

Number 10, Potion Mixing The Witcher 2 One of the great things about The Witcher games is just how much there is to do that you can totally get through each title and not have experienced everything

Except Gwent. We all played Gwent. Many players never bothered with the potion making and mixing in The Witcher 2 because they'd rather go monster hunting than ingredient gathering

Making a potion is a step-by-step process that requires finding a place to meditate

having read a specific potion formula, holding the ingredients to make whatever quality base you'd like

and then all the ingredients for the specific potion. Potions also use ingredients that can be crafted elsewhere

so it's all too easy to use something that you might need later. Video game material hoarders can attest to this concern

Potions are cool and can have numerous great effects, such as status resistance, a higher chance of parry, or making invisible enemies visible

But if you fail to craft something worthwhile, your concoction would kill you. So, do you really want to risk it? The importance of such things

depends on your difficulty of choice of course, but if you're going for a casual jaunt through

the world of Witcher 2 then you probably won't have much use for potions nor the time spent

putting them together. Number 9 Monster Infighting, Doom. These days it's commonplace for games to

have multiple warring factions that just so happen to both be your enemies. Stumbling into a firefight

between them and staying out of the way, or even using their animosity to instigate one, is a

legitimate strategy. The original Doom did a lot of good things for transforming

the landscape of gaming, but some may not have ever been aware of monster infighting. Not only did many FPS games of the era not give enemies the ability

to hurt each other, they certainly didn't make it possible for their victims to retaliate. Yes, if you can carefully avoid a monster's attack and that stray

bullet hits another foe, the demon in question will get mighty upset about it

and the two will usually wind up having a fight to the death. It's certainly one

way to play conservatively, causing a demon civil war until only the strongest

enemies remain and then picking them off afterwards. It's not for everyone though as it means not just

getting in the line of sight of your opponents but getting out unscathed so you can watch the

carnage from a safe distance. Sometimes dodging shots to try and land them on a target you have

no control over requires too much patience. Number 8. Animation cancelling. League of Legends

Although its origins are hard to trace, if you've ever been part of a community for a fighting game

or watched a tournament you'll have no doubt heard of attack or animation cancelling. It refers to

the ability to stop an animation midway through to get the benefits of something without having to wait for the character to stop moving before you act again It allows for faster play and the ability to swap tactic as the situation changes But it isn just limited to fighting games and is in fact a part of the metagame of the

biggest MOBA there is, League of Legends. While some characters fare better than others, it's champions such as Riven that benefit

the most from animation cancelling. In fact, Riot Games specifically designed Riven to play like a fighting game character

so it's not surprising that she takes so well to the concept. But animation cancelling isn't necessarily easy and it requires pinpoint timing to get right

Looking up Riven combat tutorials to get better at the game will tell you that you need to be able to use animation cancelling to get the best out of her

So if you can't get that input right, you're not getting the Riven that could take out an entire enemy team of five by herself

Number seven, Wave Dashing, Super Smash Bros. Melee. Smash Bros. is a wild and crazy celebration of gaming that is marketed by Nintendo as a party fighter

It's validity as a fighting game has always been a point of contention, depending on who you ask

but the fact of the matter is Melee is the fastest and most challenging game in the series to master

This only got more intense when players realised that small jumps air dodged back towards the ground

created sweeping movements that made the game even speedier. Wave dashing, as it came to be known, changed the face of combat in the Smash Bros. metagame

The discovery and subsequent mastering of wave dashing was what separated casual players

from those who wanted to compete at the highest level, and it wasn't just being able to pull off the technique in isolation

it was finding your spots to use it mid-match and do so to your advantage

Comparing your own gameplay to what tournament-level competitors can do is brain-melting stuff

It's not for everyone and simply getting the basics down is a headache, especially in a game as crazy and intense as Smash Bros

Sometimes it's best to leave the most nimble moves to the masters and just play the game at its most simple

Anyone for a Pokeballs-only match? Number 6. Redstone Minecraft Whether you love or hate Minecraft, you can't deny how successful it is as a creative outlet

Castles, cities and more that are feats of cube-based architectural design are just the tip of the iceberg

Minecraft has transformed through the last decade, and the earliest signs that it can be more than just hunting for gold and hiding from creepers was redstone

A rare ingredient found at the bottom of the earth, redstone essentially can be used to create electrical currents

For the players that invested time into it, the possibilities became endless. Hooray, you've built a secret passage triggered by a Switch

Well done, you. Now take a look at this functional Game Boy built inside of Minecraft that can play Tetris

What makes building with Redstone difficult is twofold. First of all, even if you're following a pre-made guide, it's hard to get right

And just like real wiring, if there's an issue somewhere, it can take an age to identify

Thankfully, much less dangerous at least. Secondly, if you're playing on the traditional survival mode

you'll have to farm like crazy to get everything you need. It's a time-intensive affair. Bless that one friend on the server who can outfit everybody with automated defense turrets

because some of us just don have the brains for it Number five parry Dark Souls You can tell if a mechanic is hard to pull off if a game community is separated into those who can do it and everyone else From Software reputation is

games that are notoriously difficult in nearly every regard, but people flock to them because

of their high quality. They're not just cheap for cheap's sake, and overcoming challenges and the

likes of the Dark Souls series is one of the biggest rushes of serotonin modern gaming has

to offer. What makes parrying attacks in Dark Souls so tough is just how precise you have to be

with the right frames of animation. Mastering one parry is something special

and truly feels like out-thinking your opponent. Trying to apply that same knowledge to another enemy is fruitless, however

as everything has its own timing. Becoming a counter-attack machine is therefore such a game-changer

that only the most intensely talented players can brag about it. Dark Souls in general is a game about playing carefully

and the combat centers around knowing when to duck and when to dive to avoid damage

But if you've had enough watching your player avatar roll from pillar to post and want to risk standing your ground

then prepare to get splattered a great many times along the way if you don't master that parry

Number 4. Shine Spark Super Metroid A staple of the Metroid series is Samus equipping herself

with all of her classic sidearms throughout her journey until she's all kitted up and ready to take on the final boss

It's a feeling of power every time to have a new ability on your side, as well as opening up new traversal options to delve deeper into the game's world

Super Metroid introduced the Shine Spark. After equipping the speed booster, Samus can store the energy it creates by crouching

Following this, if players quickly get into position, they can unleash the shine spark by propelling Samus' body like a rocket

Thankfully, this ability is optional, and unless you're going for 100% completion

you never need to use it to beat the game's story. Why? Because it's incredibly difficult

The timing is a kicker, not just on storing the energy, but getting into the right place to make it worthwhile

On top of this, Samus can shine spark horizontally, vertically, or even diagonally

if you can pull it off right. Largely the Shine Spark is used to grab hard to reach items and speedrunners make excellent use of the technique in getting through the game as safe and as unharmed as possible

For us regular scrubs however it's something that has eluded a great number of us no matter how many times we've played this classic title

Number three Pro Guitar Rock Band 3 Rock Band brought the rhythm genre to its next logical step when it introduced the guitar gameplay to bass, drums and karaoke vocals

Despite being the leader of the pack however it was still riding a wave that was sure to crash

In order to keep things lively, Rock Band 3 introduced a few new instruments

Whilst the keyboard was fairly straightforward, it was the pro guitar that really threw many for a loop

There were two peripherals associated with it. One was essentially a tricked-out real guitar

but the other was a classic rock band plastic instrument with 102 buttons all down its fretboard

In ways, pro guitar is an excellent teaching tool, but after years of honing our chops on expert mode

it's a real reminder that those skills of nailing a red, green, yellow, blue and orange guitar solo doesn't transfer

The learning curve is steep to a degree that almost like learning a musical instrument You know because it is Whilst genuine guitarists can fare better on the thing it still a clunky and bizarre controller that takes some getting used to no matter what The game strange and confusing

way of tracking notation and chords on screen certainly doesn't help. Using a video game to

teach yourself guitar is awesome, but we expect this feature went largely unused at your everyday

house party. Number two, the controls. Getting over it with Bennett Foddy. Browser-based

physics nightmare QWOP was a sensation because of just how different it was to the mainstream

gaming space in 2008. On the cusp of the indie game revolution it was a simple yet wildly

addictive puzzle and test of tolerance. Developer Bennett Foddy went viral again in 2017 when he

dropped Getting Over It that seemed like an extension of the same core concepts. Instead

of trying to alternate four keys to make a sprinter actually run rather than faceplant at

the start line, Getting Over It asks players to climb a mountain with only a sledgehammer

As such, the controls for the game are really the only mechanic it has, lining up that hammer

to propel yourself forward, hoping to high heaven with each movement that it won't backfire

The controls are of course intentionally tough, and you'll know within minutes if this game

is for you. You'll either quit out immediately, or prepare yourself for the long haul of toughing

it out to the end. The highs in overcoming a spot you've been stuck in for 15 minutes

are unmatched, but the game will not make it easy for you. With no checkpoint system

mistakes can be so bad that even the chillest gamers will find out what rage quit really means

Number one, Fatality Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat is known as the game that was so violent it

basically birthed the need for video game rating boards. At the centre of all the controversy was

the Fatality System, a character-specific kill animation that is gratuitous and wonderfully

deranged. It says it all that even 30 years into the franchise, the Fatality remains one of its

most important and beloved aspects with each new title offering new twisted ways to add insult to

injury when you beat your opponent. Pulling off one of these however requires you to be more than

just a casual player. We've all been there you pick up Mortal Kombat with very little experience

and if you manage to successfully put down your enemy the match ends somewhat unceremoniously with

your opponent wiggling in place for a moment before collapsing. You weren't going to button

bash your way into the fatality. Perhaps more than any other fighter Mortal Kombat rewards players for

picking a character and learning every combination of button inputs including and especially their

coup de grace. Even when you think you've got it memorised that small window of opportunity puts

the pressure on and you'll still crack and mess it up. Sure you might win a fight in Mortal Kombat

but it doesn't really feel like winning if your opponent's body is still in one piece now does it

And that's the list. Let us know what you thought of this video down in the comments below as well

as any other video game mechanics that you thought were awesome but just way too hard to pull off

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I've been CypherWattCulture and have a good week