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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2020 16:16:52 GMT -5
Being an ardent "retro gamer", I sometimes ask myself if this continued interest in the games of yesteryear is based more in nostalgia, or rather a longing for design ethos that no longer persists.
For me, both and more. For one, playing games I played as a kid does bring back fond memories, and I'm willing to overlook a mediocre game if it transports me back when I didn't know that. But nostalgia isn't everything. I've definitely given up and moved on from games that I enjoyed in the past but no longer enjoy. Just recently I wondered why I ever liked Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. It felt so boring and repetitive. And of course all those Madden games I played on the Super Nintendo? Yeah, not doing that again. So it's clearly more than nostalgia.
But I'm not really in it for the "ethos" either. You might not enjoy ham-fisted metaphors (I hate them too), and really do appreciate subtlety, but making a game difficult in order to "better oneself" is also an agenda I don't need to see pushed. There are far more difficult things in life. For some people, it's being able to save up to play a game in the first place. So there's room at the table for easy and hard.
I do find that there being a challenge can be rewarding, but only if it's something like a puzzle. If I know that it's hard because I haven't mastered the techniques yet, I'm much more likely to enjoy the game even if I'm awful at it at first. But if a game is cheap, I'll sell it in a heartbeat. Difficult for its own sake is ridiculous. You want something difficult? Learn a new language. Go climb a mountain. Push yourself physically. Learn a higher math. Read great literature. Learn counterpoint and compose a fugue. Those are challenging and worthwhile endeavors to me. A game is child's play no matter how difficult it is.
Nah, for me, I play old games because I enjoy them. If a game is too easy, it should make up for that by having a lot of content to explore. If a game is too difficult, it should allow for a player's growth. But I'm also interested in tight gameplay, good level design, fun music. A game first and foremost, to me, should be fun to play. Otherwise I'm wasting my life.
Yeah, I know I say all this and put too many hours into Civ. But that's a different beast altogether and a topic for a different thread.
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2020 16:25:29 GMT -5
Sorry for the double post. I am not indifferent to well told stories, but my background doesn't dispose me to see video gaming as a place to turn for this. I have dabbled in amateur fiction writing since my teens. It is highly unlikely I'll be remembered for that and it doesn't make me some subject matter authority by any stretch of the imagination. I see it like having a musical instrument in my room which I will play sometimes. But practicing this craft has changed the way I view storytelling and it doesn't cast a very flattering light on video game writing. When writing a story, it's important to make a character's dialog sound as though it is coming from the mouth of that character. When a character speaks, you should unconsciously think, "Ah, right, that's exactly the sort of thing he would say." I feel as though every line of dialog ought to be kind of like its own Shibboleth. Games rarely do this. Characters in modern games speak, but the point of what they're saying is often just to proclaim the next objective, ie. "We really need to move or something bad will happen!" The assumption seems to be that if they speak enthusiastically or loudly enough, then that must mean the player has a reason to care about them. But I rarely learn anything new about them. I also find character arcs in most games to be problematic. A character arc is when a character experiences personal growth. It's why people warm up to Han Solo. At first, he's a selfish jerk. By the end of a New Hope, he finds it within himself to risk his neck for the rebellion. Stuff like that is endearing. In video games, character arcs are usually "Shepherd starts off as strong man with a deep voice and a gun. In the end, he is a strong man with a deep voice and a gun." Oh, man, I feel this so hard. I absolutely hate most RPGs. The stories, the writing, the plot points, they are all so terrible. As soon as games started taking themselves seriously, they lost me. I can ignore the zany plots behind FFIV because it never took itself seriously. They knew they were making games for kids. But when I see adults saying that Xenogears is worthy as art because it (badly) makes use of Nietzsche, I laugh. I even had students try to write papers on video games (or comic book movies). At the college level, they're stuck in fifth grade. As a fun, throwaway assignment, sure! As a twenty-page research paper/critical analysis, are you kidding me? People need that growth, too!
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Post by Sarge on May 18, 2020 16:43:33 GMT -5
I liked Xenogears, but it wasn't for the writing, for sure. Same with the Xenosaga games. (I wouldn't say Xenogears is bad, really, but it certainly doesn't match up well with good fiction writing. Xenosaga tries to appear deep, but it's really just lots of terms thrown around to appear highbrow.)
I feel like some of the long-form think pieces on a lot of games are generally there to push an author's pet theory in some other subject, and they're just using the game (or other medium) to advance those ideas even if the links are rather tenuous. It's annoying, quite honestly. Not saying I don't enjoy some good analyses of various media forms, but too often they're either the above, or trying to glean meaning that isn't there.
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Post by Ex on May 18, 2020 17:07:53 GMT -5
making a game difficult in order to "better oneself" is also an agenda I don't need to see pushed Since the late '90s, I have participated in video game forums. In all those years, the one subject that I have seen to be the most divisive and contentious, is the subject of difficulty in video games. It's a concept that everyone seems to have very strong opinions about, one way or another. I've made my case towards my opinion of difficulty in video games on forums on multiple occasions, including HRG. I won't go into it all again, as these arguments erupt inevitably (as most subjective debates do). I will say though, that I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with my point of view. Not at all. If someone believes all video games should be content tourism cakewalks that stroke the player's ego at every given moment, fair enough. If someone believes video games should actively hate their player, and do everything in their power to destroy the player's confidence, fair enough. If someone believes the best approach is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, fair enough as well. I do not believe there's a truly definitive answer which holds true universally concerning video game difficulty. I agree with you. Both flavors of difficulty have a right to exist. Well it's all relative isn't it? Beating a difficult video game is an accomplishment within the realm of its own medium. If you begin extrapolating the concept versus unrelated forms of challenge, then yes the meaning of said accomplishment loses significance in magnitude. I certainly agree someone's own sense of self-worth should come from more than "I beat a lot of hard video games." if they have a well rounded mind. In the sense that most* video games are an entertainment conduit, I agree with you. If a game that is supposed to be fun, is not fun for its given player, it has failed that player right out the gate. *Some video games focus on being an artful experience or learning tool, rather than providing dopamine rushes. In regards to those exceptions, the "fun" factor is less important. I admit these are exceptions though. I absolutely hate most RPGs. The stories, the writing, the plot points, they are all so terrible. As soon as games started taking themselves seriously, they lost me. I feel you on JRPGs in this regard. Most JRPGs do have awful amateur hour writing. Sad but true. I have seen instances of good writing in WRPGs on occasion. I believe the adventure game genre is one's best bet to find quality writing in video games though. Hotel Dusk takes itself seriously, and rightfully so.
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Post by toei on May 18, 2020 17:09:17 GMT -5
Video game writing is its own medium, just as removed from novels and short stories as they are to cinema. In fact, a further degree removed, since you add the visual presentation of cinema and television, and then add interactivity. In that sense, a lot of things that are considered bad writing in other forms, such as blatant exposition, are perfectly fine to me, because I can separate what's there for the game's inside world, and what's there purely to help me as a player, and I don't need to pretend that I'm not playing a video game in order to get into the story. Actually, I'm generally pro-exposition for the same reason (provided it's interesting). I loved Xenogears, and the story was absolutely a big part of it. Not so much its depth, but the sum of its atmosphere and every event that took place in it, every character met, every locale visited. That's what RPGs are good at. People who want to deride RPGs or criticize their writing usually look only at the premise - "a amnesic child defeats a villain to save the world". That's not actually what any RPG I've ever played was about. The premise only exists to set you on an adventure, and the endgame - typically the most boring part, story-wise - is there because the game needs to end at some point. But what matters is what happens along the way. When RPGs started to leave that aspect behind - the Dragon Quest-style, every-town-has-its-story approach - they became less and less interesting, to a point where I couldn't care less about modern RPGs. But I absolutely think that lots of older RPGs have fine writing. Also, character arcs as they are commonly understood are almost always bad writing. People do not just commonly improve remarkably as human beings in some permanent, clear-cut manner as a result of some specific event. That's not how human nature works. I hate having to put up with that contrived nonsense all the time because writers think they're supposed to force it into every story. Character arcs are cheap lies. EDIT - Ex from my point of view, Hotel Dusk was a tepid, milquetoast detective story. I didn't find one exciting idea in there, one truly interesting bit of psychological insight, one moving moment. I wouldn't say it's a bad game. It's okay. I can see how its more grounded tone would be a relief after something like Phoenix Wright and its half-assed zaniness (at least that describes the one I played). But I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how such a banal story could the pinnacle of anything. Maybe I was just disappointed because I was hoping for something a little more hard-boiled, I don't know.
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2020 17:52:19 GMT -5
In the sense that most* video games are an entertainment conduit, I agree with you. If a game that is supposed to be fun, is not fun for its given player, it has failed that player right out the gate. I think as long as everyone agrees on this and refuses to demonize the other camp, we're all good. If a game is too easy, it might be said to be "not fun." If it is too difficult, the same is applied. Personally, I like a solvable challenge that relies on my abilities, but I also know that, which I realized ever since I started working in the psychological testing field, some people will never have that ability. People are just hard-wired differently. So if From Games, to use a belligerent example, thinks they can make more money by including an easy mode, why should I care? If I felt like the newer games were too easy, then I can complain and try to rectify that as well. But this is more or less hypothetical. I don't play new games. Video game writing is its own medium, just as removed from novels and short stories as they are to cinema. In fact, a further degree removed, since you add the visual presentation of cinema and television, and then add interactivity. In that sense, a lot of things that are considered bad writing in other forms, such as blatant exposition, are perfectly fine to me, because I can separate what's there for the game's inside world, and what's there purely to help me as a player, and I don't need to pretend that I'm not playing a video game in order to get into the story. Actually, I'm generally pro-exposition for the same reason (provided it's interesting). I loved Xenogears, and the story was absolutely a big part of it. Not so much its depth, but the sum of its atmosphere and every event that took place in it, every character met, every locale visited. That's what RPGs are good at. People who want to deride RPGs or criticize their writing usually look only at the premise - "a amnesic child defeats a villain to save the world". That's not actually what any RPG I've ever played was about. The premise only exists to set you on an adventure, and the endgame - typically the most boring part, story-wise - is there because the game needs to end at some point. But what matters is what happens along the way. When RPGs started to leave that aspect behind - the Dragon Quest-style, every-town-has-its-story approach - they became less and less interesting, to a point where I couldn't care less about modern RPGs. But I absolutely think that lots of older RPGs have fine writing. I don't disagree with you, but I think our timelines are off. I have no problem with hilariously bad dialogue in e.g. Final Fantasy II. It's cute to the point of endearing. Or Secret of Mana. Or Ogre Battle, or even Legend of Dragoon, to give a PS1 example. But I'm not talking about the premise. I'm talking about taking that "atmosphere" to ridiculous lengths, or it's all about tedious "resource management." The battle mechanics of most RPGs are pretty lackluster. But I like action games a lot more. Now that I spell this out, I'm pretty sure I only play RPGs (JRPG, thanks Ex for the clarification) for the nostalgia. ARPGs are so much better in every way. But sometimes I do want to play the equivalent of a young teen novel, knowing that's exactly what it is. The best reason in reflection that I came up with is that because they were cool when I was a kid, I might want to share them with my kids, too. This is largely the case, but not always. It's all in the implementation. Growth is good, but bad writers make it a caricature reality rather than a fictional representation thereof.
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Post by Sarge on May 18, 2020 17:52:29 GMT -5
It depends on my mood, but I like grounded stories at times, zany at others. While I wouldn't hold them up as anything amazing, the Jake Hunter games do a decent job getting the "hard-boiled detective" thing right.
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Post by toei on May 18, 2020 18:02:07 GMT -5
@opwuaioc If we're sticking to the old-school, ARPGs (usually) lack both the party and world-traveling aspect of turn-based RPGs. Their stories and worlds tend to be more "zoomed in", ie, one protagonist in one town and the surrounding area, or maybe two or three towns. Some of them make up for it partially with recurrent NPCs playing a major part in the story (the older Ys games are a good example of this). I love action RPGs (like Soul Blazer, which I've seen you mention in another thread), but they can't provide what a great turn-based RPG provides. And I'd put it as character growth can be good, but it's not necessary. More often that not, I prefer stories that just let their characters be themselves. Isn't it more interesting to discover the depths of a character's personality, and see how they react to changing circumstances? Why would they always need to change as well? Sarge I like both, too. But the one Phoenix Wright I played (I think it was the second DS entry) was never zany in a surprising way - it was all tame, predictable stuff. Then there's whole problem with how the courtroom parts proceed - sometimes it's completely obvious what argument you need to make, and you have the piece of evidence handy, but it won't let you do it until you've gone through the specific, convoluted process the game's laid out for you. You end up trying to figure out what the game wants you to do instead of figuring out who comitted the crime or which witness is lying.
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Post by Sarge on May 18, 2020 18:29:50 GMT -5
Sarge I like both, too. But the one Phoenix Wright I played (I think it was the second DS entry) was never zany in a surprising way - it was all tame, predictable stuff. Then there's whole problem with how the courtroom parts proceed - sometimes it's completely obvious what argument you need to make, and you have the piece of evidence handy, but it won't let you do it until you've gone through the specific, convoluted process the game's laid out for you. You end up trying to figure out what the game wants you to do instead of figuring out who comitted the crime or which witness is lying. Yeah, I definitely ran into that as well. I knew exactly what I needed to do, and my mind had already made the necessary leap, but it needed me to step through extra steps to get there.
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Post by Xeogred on May 18, 2020 19:14:25 GMT -5
I think Japanese media may just have a different style of storytelling, old games and new... and well it often resonates with me quite strongly with games like Xenogears, or when things moved to cutscenes and voice acting in newer generations with Metal Gear Solid(s), Xenosaga's, Yakuza, more recently Nier Automata, etc. Who knows, but Xenogears is a super ME game in practically every aspect, haha. I can see how most of this stuff I just listed isn't going to be for everyone but I definitely eat it up.
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