Nier Automata "Brother" interlude scene
SPOILERS AHEAD:
I really like when games incorporate gameplay as tools to deepen the narrative.
This is a really nice short emotional scene/gameplay as you start the 2nd playthrough in Nier Automata:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK7eiKb3-dc
It shows a small robot trying to revive a dead robot with oil.
The robot fills a bucket with oil and pours it on the bigger robot. From the description it doesn't sound like much. And it doesn't really look like much if you see the video.
However, when you play it, it's a diffrent story.
See, usually gamers hate to walk slow and when they need to get to an objective and you can jump, you do because it's just faster and you don't want to waste your time.
In this scene, the robot needs to fill a bucket with oil and bring it back to the bigger robot. Walking is tediously slow. So you jump. BUT when you jump, you spill the oil in the bucket and you need to fill it up again and start from the beginning. Then you do. And now you know you aren't supposed to jump. So you start walking to the bigger robot. BUT the floor is riddled with pipes and if you step on the pipe you trip, fall, and spill the oil and need to start again. (This is not shown in the video because the person playing either figured it out or was lucky enough not to step on the pipe). And now after that you need to refill your bucket and painfully slowly navigate the route around the pipes which is annoying.
The great thing about this scene (at least in my opinion) is that even though it frustrates you on one hand, it emotionally connects you with the little robot trying to help his brother.
That happens because the frustration you experience as the player to get this little guy to his goal makes you appreciate more how he feels and how important it is to him to help the other robot. You can visually see in a non interactive scene how a character falls down and then gets up again to proceed with their objective. But only seeing this non interactively is not the same as controlling the character where it's you who falls.
This short little scene is the thing I remember the most from Neir Automata, that was a great game from when I was playing it years ago.