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Post by anayo on Oct 3, 2018 19:31:40 GMT -5
I even asked for Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Stadium, two N64 games I can see now are pretty brazen cash-ins. Shit all over the card game and the T.V. Show if you want to, but don't you DARE insult Pokemon Snap. Take that back right now! Actually I watched a YouTuber talk about Snap lately. I have to give the game credit for being an original and unique concept. Can't name any other on rails, high score photography games to be honest. I just don't think it's quite a time-transcending classic that would win over people who didn't experience it at the right age. Sorta like Lego Island I guess.
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Post by chibby on Oct 3, 2018 19:37:30 GMT -5
I can't even imagine what people like your father would have thought about Megami Tensei. I mean in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne for example, if you wanted to, you could literally recruit demons, work for Lucifer, and kill Yahweh. I mean, I think you can imagine, he'd just say that the game was demonic, a term that admittedly loses it's cachet when applied to cartoons for children. It seems to me that if you believe in an all powerful (and therefore un-kill-able) god, then any god in a game that can be killed could simply be understood as a fundamentally different god. For example, I imagine that anyone who played Xena: Warrior Princess: Talisman of Fate for the N64 and killed Ares by kicking him repeatedly, would understand that this Ares is fundamentally different from the Ares talked about by Homer or the Mars discussed in Ovid's Metamorphosis. Representational and similar I suppose, but not exact. Therefore, if one were to play Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, it would stand to reason that the in-game Yahweh isn't the Great I Am that Judeo-Christians worship. That being said, I do generally avoid things where the plot culminates in the killing of some monotheistic "Almighty" mostly because I find the idea kind of lame and a bit played out. If the set up is that there's something that is all-powerful and it's my opponent, either the set up is overblown and nonsensical or I'll lose . I get that there's usually some sort of dogmatic loophole involved, but deus ex domga bores me. EDIT: anayo NOW YOU'RE COMING FOR LEGO ISLAND! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!
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Post by Ex on Oct 3, 2018 20:22:11 GMT -5
Can't name any other on rails, high score photography games to be honest. There was a game called Dinosaur Safari on PC back in 1996, that allowed you to do something similar. It wasn't on rails the same way as Pokemon Snap is. You were on a grid of rails that you clicked around on, and tried to take pictures of dinosaurs as you spotted them. In more modern times there have been a slew of Africa-themed safari games where the player takes pictures of African animals. But those tend to not be on rails, so much as the player freely drives a jeep around and takes photos while driving. There's like three or four games that use that concept. The most recent was Afrika on PS3. I bet Pokemon Snap is still funner.
it would stand to reason that the in-game Yahweh isn't the Great I Am that Judeo-Christians worship In Nocturne's case its Yahweh is indeed supposed to be that self-same being. It's just that the Japanese have different feelings about religion than westerners do. You know, what's taboo for one culture isn't necessarily for another. A lot of JRPGs are about killing gods in general, whether said gods are of religious, mythical, or purely fantasy origin.
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Post by chibby on Oct 3, 2018 20:38:05 GMT -5
I guess my point is that people who believe in/worship Yahweh would hold the inability to defeat him as a fundamental truth. So, if you can kill Yahweh in Nocturne, then he is therefore fundamentally not the same god. For a different/lower stakes example let's think about Mario. In some games he is able to swim underwater or fly through outer-space without the need to breath. No one would say that Mario is not underwater or not in outer-space, we instead recognize that the fundamental properties we hold true about water/space do not apply in the world of Mario (well, that or the fundamental truths about being a human aren't true for Mario, or he's simply not human). So it's water, but not the same water that I'm drinking right now, not in water in a true sense. Perhaps that a needless distinction to make, these are all games we're talking about so none of it is "real". I've been listening to philosophy podcasts and they're clearly making me think too hard.
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Post by Ex on Oct 3, 2018 21:02:18 GMT -5
I've been listening to philosophy podcasts and they're clearly making me think too hard. Think about this then... In this game Mario can't drown. But in this one (Galaxy) he can. And now in this game, he can't drown again. But in this one, he can drown again. So maybe Mario only drowns in 3D games, but not in 2D ones right?
Nope... In this 3D game, Mario can't drown. To make things ever more inconsistent, even in games where Mario can not drown while swimming in water, he can still drown if he falls into a pit containing water: So tell me what is going on in Mario's water life? Are these Marios of varying swimming proficiency really all the same guy? If so, why can't he always swim in water without drowning? Or are there actually many different Marios, but only some can swim indefinitely? Or does the water's oxygen concentration have to be a certain percentage, else Mario will drown in it? Or does Nintendo just not care about consistency whatsoever, and thus chooses to allow Mario to drown whenever they feel like it?
Philosophical minds want to know!
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Post by Sarge on Oct 3, 2018 23:22:04 GMT -5
It's more that the portrayal of God would be considered blasphemous to a Christian. I consider it to be so. However, I've come to the point where I expect as much, especially when filtered through a Japanese unbeliever lens, so it bothers me less than you'd think. I mean, I still play the games, and they're definitely playing fast and loose with a whole lot of gods, although for whatever reason they really don't like YHWH.
I still want to play through Nocturne one of these days, but I think it's more likely that I dig into Shadow Hearts well before that.
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Post by chibby on Oct 3, 2018 23:30:26 GMT -5
I think the issue here Ex, is that you're still maintaining a real life expectation of water, namely that water displays the same properties at all times. Once we've accepted that water in Mario games is fundamentally not the water in our world, there's no reason to expect that it is not water in the same way at all times. Also, I feel like I'm accepting taking troll bait here. If I feel trolled, does that automatically make this troll bait? Who decides if something is troll bait or not? The troller? The trollee? Does anything matter? Is the meaninglessness of our existence cause for despair? Should we find ourselves amused by the absurdity of existence? Was Kant or Nietzsche the bigger douchebag? All jokes aside, I'm not super invested in philosophy as a pursuit, but having been homeschooled meant there were/are some pretty large gaps in my education and it occurred to me recently that even I never even got the equivalent of a Philosophy 101. I mention all this because I imagine that a lot of people who banned power rangers and pokemon as being dangerous would absolutely find a number of philosophers to be dangerous too.
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Post by Ex on Oct 4, 2018 0:28:25 GMT -5
I still want to play through Nocturne one of these days For what it's worth, you can also kick Lucifer's ass in the game. You could even do it with a team of archangels if you wanted to! On the real; SMT: Nocturne is my all time favorite PS2 JRPG, but my reasons for loving it have nothing to do with its portrayal of religious or mythical figures. I'd be surprised if you didn't at least enjoy the game. Although you might not enjoy it as much as you did the lighter and more whimsical Covenant, but who knows. I don't know! Once we've accepted that water in Mario games is fundamentally not the water in our world, there's no reason to expect that it is not water in the same way at all times. That is a good point, and well taken. I feel like I'm accepting taking troll bait here. If I feel trolled, does that automatically make this troll bait? Who decides if something is troll bait or not? The troller? The trollee? Does anything matter? Is the meaninglessness of our existence cause for despair? Should we find ourselves amused by the absurdity of existence? In the words of trolliest troll philosopher of all time, Diogenes: "I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance."Kant's douchebaggery is debatable, I'll give you that one. But Nietzsche was no douchebag. It was Nietzsche who said: "In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play." Want to be a happy man? Don't forget to let that child out to play every day.
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Post by chibby on Oct 4, 2018 8:57:42 GMT -5
Kant's douchebaggery is debatable, I'll give you that one. But Nietzsche was no douchebag. It was Nietzsche who said: "In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play." Want to be a happy man? Don't forget to let that child out to play every day. I guess Nietzsche's inner child had one of the tree-houses with a "No Girls Allowed Sign" and that's the child he was letting out to play when he wrote things such as: "What is truth to a woman! From the very first nothing has been more alien, repugnant, inimical to woman than truth – her great art is the lie, her supreme concern is appearance and beauty.” or “One need only look at a woman’s shape to discover that she is not intended for either too much mental or too much physical work." The guy was such a misogynist that Wikipedia had to create an independent page just to talk about his views of women.
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Post by Ex on Oct 4, 2018 9:12:59 GMT -5
The guy was such a misogynist that Wikipedia had to create an independent page just to talk about his views of women. He also had a mental breakdown when he watched a man flog a horse, so at least he believed in animal rights.
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