What's the Point of Critical Hits?

The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/designdoc04211

Fun fact: Earthbound’s critical hit (known as smash attacks) don’t increase damage output, but instead they ignore the defense stat of the enemy.

Because it makes my dopamine go crazy when I see big numbers.

I find it funny how you talked about TFC's headshots and TF2's backstabs, but not the random crits that are extremely notorious in TF2

Goliath to david : what you gonna do? Kill me in one hit?

Super Mario RPG has an item critical system. There's a chance that every item used in battle will be a freebie, so you get the effect but keep the item for another use.

In wargroove, crits are based on unit specifics. For example: pikeman crit when they stand next to eachother, archers crit if they don't move this turn, mages crit when standing on mountains, knights when they move in a straight line ... Adds alot to the strategy.

I really enjoy seeing additional effects on crits (status, self-heal, etc.). Makes them feel more "special" and rewards speccing into critical hit chance with more than just large numbers.

The simple answer: so we can hear Frederick shout "Pick a god and pray" before sending someone to the afterlife.

Darkest dungeon: "Critical hits are meant to make the player suffer even further."

Design Doc and GMTK, united in Persona 5 thumbnails for game design videos.

When you're showing clips of games on screen, would you mind adding a small label to one of the corners to let us know what the game is?

Damn this channel is what Extra Credits used to be in it's prime

Nothing better then hitting an enemy with Null in SMT4 and then seeing the enemy smirk and critical hit you into oblivion.

The point of critical hits is to make me rage at Fire Emblem. I assume.

one of my favorite example of crits, which I'm a bit surprised didn't at least get mentioned, is in Dead Cells. It's a roguelike, where you rebuild your character each run, similar to Hades. Only in Dead Cells, crits are rarely, if not, never random. Instead, most weapons have different conditions for dealing guaranteed crits. Some examples might include a slow greatsword that rewards you for pulling off full combos by making the last few hits in one crits, a bow that deals crits if you fire from far away, and even some more interesting ones, like a hammer that crits enemies that are frozen, a spear that deals crits when you pin an enemy with a wall to it, a sword that deals crits when your health is low enough, or a double ended blade that deals crits for a few seconds after killing several enemies in quick succession. While it might not be any sort of x-factor, since you know exactly how to get guaranteed crits, what it does is encourage you to build your loadouts and play differently each run, more than just having different weapon types would. For example, if you find the aforementioned hammer, you might start to prioritize weapons and bombs that can freeze your enemies easily in order to profit. If you're using that bow I talked about, you might prioritize traps instead to keep the enemies at bay. Or if you're using that double-ended blade I mentioned, And you're picking a new perk in between zones, you might go for perks that that also reward you for being in constant, close quarters combat. The way the game handles crits is really unique I've found, and is part of what makes the game so replayable imo, even for a metroidvania.

in bad rpgs crits only change the strategy from “always attack, but heal if you’re real low on hp” to “always attack, but heal if you’re moderately low on hp”

Something that I really like about Pokemon Crits is that, on top of the bonus damage, the attack ignores certain defense boosts and attack debuffs - like how a hit to a critical point would ignore most defensive boosts.

Fun fact about Crypt Of The Necrodancer: It DOES actually have critical hits, but only with certain weapon types. The gold weapons cause you to deal a massive amount of damage if you hit someone the turn after you pick up money, meaning there's actually some strategy to it as well.

I kind of wish he mentioned the “1 more” mechanic in Persona where you get an opportunity to attack again after hitting a weak spot or critical