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Post by retr0gamer on Oct 16, 2021 9:02:44 GMT -5
I think when someone says a triple A game has good writing or story it needs to be followed by 'for a videogame' because it really hasn't evolved past blockbuster movie levels and bad Oscar bait like last of us 2.
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Post by JDarkside on Oct 16, 2021 9:47:57 GMT -5
I don't think that's entirely accurate when you have Hideo Kojima in that space doing weird nonsense or Obsidian throwing out a banger every decade or so (if a buggy banger), but it is for the most part.
I would like to add I wouldn't compare Psychonauts 2 to TLoU or Dad of Son because they have different demographics (though they are ironically all dad games), I'd pick something that exists in a similar space - like Adios, a genuinely brilliant narrative game that's mostly quiet slice of life bits contextualized in the uncomfortable reality that when the conversations ends, one of the two men is going to most likely be dead. It's about a farmer trying to cut ties with the mafia, and the rep he has had a long working relationship with isn't taking no for an answer. The two clearly respect each other and like their company, but everyone knows how this story will end. It's also really clever how it deals with themes of choice.
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Post by dsparil on Oct 16, 2021 11:01:45 GMT -5
Any metaphorical meaning associated with these elements probably did come after the fact. This is exactly what happened because it was originally a much smaller PICO-8 game without a plot. — Personally, I always looked at the plot of Celeste askance. I found Fractured Minds a lot more relatable as it's a very short first person adventure game but also very direct. It's the zero budget short art film take in a sense as it was developed by a 17 year old for a BAFTA competition and only later commercialized for a very low price with a big chunk of the proceeds going to charity. Celeste is ultimately still a commercial product first, and it's treatment of mental illness felt minimizing in order to not be overly off-putting.
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Post by JDarkside on Oct 16, 2021 13:50:37 GMT -5
I think something like Celeste is trying to do is to just convey something for a specific audience, keep it simple enough that others can pick up on it, and that's fine. I think in order for more complicated works to exist, we also need approachable and commercial works that can give players a more base line understanding of topics either they have little personal experience with or are ignorant of. Plus, it's just nice when you do find those games that genuinely make you feel seen, like how a musical RPG I found awhile back called Viola is about a girl who turns pout to have a complex over being mixed race, and how she actually talks honestly about it only after a good amount of time in the adventure, while showing signs of personal frustration.
It was a similar reason I really like SUDA 51's written work, he's really good at humanizing people on the edges of society and using topics like fetishes or non-homogenized personality quirks as both humor and a method to humanize characters. I think even TLoU and Dad of Son style games would be more enjoyable if there was just this sense that they were written by people with life experience and not people who have almost exclusively defined themselves in the game industry or are trying to make big statements without really knowing what they're trying to convey.
TLoU2 in particular reminds me of that film in a film at the start of Sullivan's Travels, where the guy wanted really badly to make a movie about the harsh reality of life and nobody connected to it or liked it. Druckmann seems like the same sort of person where the core of his experiences seems to just be watching other people or the news instead of having experiences to draw from to personalize his work.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Oct 16, 2021 16:30:46 GMT -5
I think when someone says a triple A game has good writing or story it needs to be followed by 'for a videogame' because it really hasn't evolved past blockbuster movie levels and bad Oscar bait like last of us 2. It's completely unfair to write off video game stories as merely being on the level of blockbuster movies or oscar bait. You're forgetting that they can also be C-tier anime plots. Storytelling in video games is still in it's infancy unfortunately and we have a situation where the prominent games pushing the story aspect are the least mature on the market because violent games are what sell. Overall it's just a shame there's so few making content that includes younger players in the first place. Once we get there perhaps they can learn to tell stories with actual nuance and sensitivity. It doesn't sound likely even as I type it. FWIW, I don't really care too much that video game stories are usually not that good. I can find good storytelling in other media and bad story rarely detracts from good gameplay. It's just kind of a shame that the kind of balance Psychonauts strikes (I think, I never played either) just doesn't seem to exist that much anymore. Or perhaps I'm just stupid. Maybe a recent example would be Soul, which is a kid-friendly movie that nonetheless feels very adult in a lot of ways, but even then, that's too Disney (though it's a great movie, as an aside). Have you gotten the 8bit Museum Archives? Xevious and Mappy is available in NES form. It also has the NES only sequels. I didn't get those, but I've been acquiring some NES/FC games this year, so I don't really need it and have been getting acquainted with Nacmo's 8-bit output. It's definitely cool that they would release such a collection, even though splitting it up in two parts for the localisation was kinda stupid. It was kinda stupid how much it was criticized at launch, though. Namco's games on the system were quite good and I think the absence of the JP-only stuff like packaging was probably a consequence of taking the game outside Nintendo's platform so not really worth whining about (at least, from what I can tell the JP version was Switch excluive). The couple Namco releases I have for FC have been stand-outs in the library so far. Pac-Man I actually prefer over the arcade since the difficulty slope is a bit more gentle. Galaga is an impressive port, but the squished resolution makes playing with two ships too difficult IMO, so it's a fair bit different from the arcade. Lots of people seem to think the FC version is pretty close to arcade perfect, but after playing the Arcade version a lot recently, the resolution change does affect the game quite a bit. Playing with a single ship is easier than in the arcade though, so it's still fun. Really want to get Xevious on Switch to compare it to the FC version. Still think that the millionth Namco Museum game, coming more than 20 years after the series debut title, should have a better line-up than this though.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2021 22:49:30 GMT -5
I think when someone says a triple A game has good writing or story it needs to be followed by 'for a videogame' because it really hasn't evolved past blockbuster movie levels and bad Oscar bait like last of us 2. It's completely unfair to write off video game stories as merely being on the level of blockbuster movies or oscar bait. You're forgetting that they can also be C-tier anime plots. Storytelling in video games is still in it's infancy unfortunately and we have a situation where the prominent games pushing the story aspect are the least mature on the market because violent games are what sell. Overall it's just a shame there's so few making content that includes younger players in the first place. Once we get there perhaps they can learn to tell stories with actual nuance and sensitivity. It doesn't sound likely even as I type it. FWIW, I don't really care too much that video game stories are usually not that good. I can find good storytelling in other media and bad story rarely detracts from good gameplay. It's just kind of a shame that the kind of balance Psychonauts strikes (I think, I never played either) just doesn't seem to exist that much anymore. Or perhaps I'm just stupid. Maybe a recent example would be Soul, which is a kid-friendly movie that nonetheless feels very adult in a lot of ways, but even then, that's too Disney (though it's a great movie, as an aside). It's not the first thing I'm looking for in the hobby either, but I'm sure you know that. The story matters more in some games than others, but I'm not expecting more than light entertainment for the most part. It's pretty clear though that some devs/pubs will push the video game medium as a storytelling one foremost (I don't subscribe to this idea) and those I think can be met with greater criticism for their handling of the narrative elements. Likewise those that are able to form genuine connections with the player, which I believe are a rarity are worthy of praise. I just feel that praise is being pushed in the wrong direction. As JDarkside says about writers lacking the life experience necessary to really convey what they're looking for a similar statement can likely be made about those judging awards within the industry and that undermines the entire process. Anyway, as you say, it's not what we're looking for and I'm usually quite happy with a game with little to no story. I'll go back to my corner of celebrating Pokemon photography and treasure seeking mushrooms for now. As for Psychonauts; I can't say I've played those either, but my experience with Double Fine games leads me to a point where I'd have to see it to believe it. Anything I have tried of theirs I've found lacking in the gameplay front, so whether I'm likely to agree with the idea of them being an example of fine balance of story and play factors is something of which I have my doubts.
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Post by JDarkside on Oct 17, 2021 6:43:18 GMT -5
The first Psychonauts is definitely lacking gameplay wise. Everything works but the platforming doesn't always work as you'd expect, mainly because of placement of swing bars at points and how Raz latches onto them, the combat is sloppy, and you can break a lot of it with levitation. HOWEVER, the game has a unique flavor because it was made by adventure game devs, so there's a lot of surprisingly clever puzzles. One level has you controlling the pieces on a war game board against Napoleon, another has you using clairvoyance and found items to explore a strange neighborhood with lots of cut off sections reserved for certain "covers," and yet another has you organizing a play to set up the environment so you can perform certain actions to progress the story. The sequel was shocking to me because it's action and platforming focus and just nails everything, the first time I've seen Double Fine make genuinely good gameplay since Costume Quest 2 (though I haven't played Headlander yet). Levitation is nerfed but still very useful, you just can't break platforming with it anymore. Fights have you managing four powers simultaneously with a really smooth set-up and the option to switch powers with a menu that can pop up and go back down in a nanosecond, I encountered no problems with Raz moving from pole to pole, and there's even a new ability you can earn called dive that lets you make longer jumps confidently. Less puzzles, but there's still a ton of optional character dialog to find, and the look of these levels is just ...look at this stuff! (warning: first image has gross teeth stuff due to the first level half being in the mind of a mad scientist dentist and part time brain surgeon)
EDIT: Just linking to a gallery, I can't get all images in one spoiler tag for some reason and they're large
A little context: 1) A trick to get an evil dentist to reveal his employee with an office construct goes wrong 2) Casino hospital 3) 70s cooking game show that doubles as a metaphor for the subject's severe fear of judgment by their peers where the food is the audience and wants to be chopped up, poiled, and blended 4) A brain that has been dead for twenty years being put into a body and having a sensory overload mixed with their past obsessions with progressive and psychedelic rock 5) The mind of a writer 6) Double Fine Said Gay Rights (one of the couple is voiced by Jack Black)
7) Don't even want to spoil minor context
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2021 8:43:02 GMT -5
I don't want you to think I'm attacking your post, because I really appreciate the passion you bring, but I don't have context to go into your post as a whole. There is just one line that would be a concern for me in approaching this game however:
6) Double Fine Said Gay Rights (one of the couple is voiced by Jack Black)
So the question I would ask, because Jack Black has never identified gay or bisexual as far as I know - is the actor playing the other role in the couple gay? Is the writer behind their dialogue? The Director perhaps? Unfortunately there is a history of gay roles being created without the inclusion of gay people within the creative process. These portrayals ordinarily sidestep gay lifestyles and cultures resulting in a straightwashed representation that is disappointing at best and offensive at worst. Organisation's paying lip service to the cause in order to portray an image of support, whilst simultaneously doing nothing active is also extremely common. Of course, I again don't have full context to make a judgement here, but I would be cautious about it. At the end of the day saying gay rights is easy, but supporting gay rights means empowering gay voices and creating employment opportunities for gay workers in the industry.
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Post by ZenithianHero on Oct 17, 2021 11:07:48 GMT -5
I didn't get those, but I've been acquiring some NES/FC games this year, so I don't really need it and have been getting acquainted with Nacmo's 8-bit output. It's definitely cool that they would release such a collection, even though splitting it up in two parts for the localisation was kinda stupid. It was kinda stupid how much it was criticized at launch, though. Namco's games on the system were quite good and I think the absence of the JP-only stuff like packaging was probably a consequence of taking the game outside Nintendo's platform so not really worth whining about (at least, from what I can tell the JP version was Switch excluive). The couple Namco releases I have for FC have been stand-outs in the library so far. Pac-Man I actually prefer over the arcade since the difficulty slope is a bit more gentle. Galaga is an impressive port, but the squished resolution makes playing with two ships too difficult IMO, so it's a fair bit different from the arcade. Lots of people seem to think the FC version is pretty close to arcade perfect, but after playing the Arcade version a lot recently, the resolution change does affect the game quite a bit. Playing with a single ship is easier than in the arcade though, so it's still fun. Really want to get Xevious on Switch to compare it to the FC version. Still think that the millionth Namco Museum game, coming more than 20 years after the series debut title, should have a better line-up than this though. These ports turned out better than I thought. Way better than, say, SNK's NES ports of games. Rolling Thunder looks odd though but slightly easier thanks to less enemies on screen. You do have Pac Man Championship edition backported to NES (and it is awesome!) also Gaplus in the other volume. They go down to about $5 on their Namco sales. Very much worth picking up for the bonus games alone. The Japanese edition was kinda cool looking. Had a bedroom shelf menu to it and can buy games a la carte. We missed a few games unfortunately. Would been good opportunity to translate the Valkyrie game or Megami Tensei.
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Post by JDarkside on Oct 17, 2021 11:27:12 GMT -5
So the question I would ask, because Jack Black has never identified gay or bisexual as far as I know - is the actor playing the other role in the couple gay? Is the writer behind their dialogue? The Director perhaps? Unfortunately there is a history of gay roles being created without the inclusion of gay people within the creative process. These portrayals ordinarily sidestep gay lifestyles and cultures resulting in a straightwashed representation that is disappointing at best and offensive at worst. Organisation's paying lip service to the cause in order to portray an image of support, whilst simultaneously doing nothing active is also extremely common. Of course, I again don't have full context to make a judgement here, but I would be cautious about it. At the end of the day saying gay rights is easy, but supporting gay rights means empowering gay voices and creating employment opportunities for gay workers in the industry. Couldn't say for sure, but I can say that the game is really diverse in a lot of ways and it's well handled. A general improvement over the first game that had a slight ableism streak due to an attempt at dark humor with a few of the campers, they aren't present in this game and the new teen characters Raz has to make friends with are more fleshed out and interesting.
Sam might be the only exception, the game does straddle the line a bit with her portrayal but it never feelslike her not being neuro-typical is part of the joke, more her harsh personality quirks instead.
As for the two gay characters I can't go into massive detail because they're both pretty big spoilers (not because they're gay but because of who they are specifically) but it is handled incredibly well. Jack Black was all in on the role and played it with a lot of fun and heart, while that scene is in the mind level of the other character, which might be my favorite in the game. It deals with his struggles with alcoholism exacerbated by various tragedies in his life and Raz helping him make the first step to dealing with his drama and connecting with other people. Their relationship is just portrayed as every other romance in the game is, arguably more loving, and it works because both characters are very likable and relatable in their own ways.
The entire game is interested in dealing with themes of trauma, learning to cope with it and not let it control you, and arguing people deserve a second chance (assuming they actually show an ability to grow) but not necessarily that they should be forgiven, hitting that delicate balance of recognizing the pain of victims and the complex realities of how tragedies can occur.
And before anyone asks, no, there is no bury your gays - in fact, the back story initially states this is the case and then Raz gets to help reverse it in a really cool way.
Also Also, the first non-tutorial level really impressed me in how it explained the importance of consent to a younger audience without using any sort of sexual images or themes, but by laying out the concept through the whole psychic powers stuff.
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Post by windfisch on Oct 17, 2021 12:03:08 GMT -5
Mature storytelling: "Someone is going on a long and mysterious path of ripping heads off and pissing on corpses, occasionally doing a poorly coordinated victory dance, emotions ensue. And then the dog dies. More emotions. The end." Also, when has any gamer ever had issues with mental illness?! So why would anyone want to play such silly nonsense? Oh, windfisch; I never thought you'd be the type for a Rom-Com. On Celeste, from my own experience only, playing through the game as someone who deals with these issues as a part of life, I found every theme within the gameplay to mirror the symptomatic feelings I would go through. Not only that, but I was able to reexperience these feelings in a more controlled environment and find kinship with the character, which is something I find rare. By the end of the game I was able to take a shared experience with Madeline and look back at past times in a more positive light, and I think that is something to be commended. That is not to make light of anyone else's time with the game, and I know that I'm not the only one who deals with these kind of issues. I would say though that Celeste's biggest issue is that people who don't share the experiences of the character are likely to miss the story to a great extent. Whereas of course anyone can relate to the fulfilment of pissing on a headless corpse. Yeah, I admit to being a hopeless softie. And I almost feel bad for criticizing Celeste, because everything it does, it does really well. You bring up a good point about experiencing certain feelings in a way that only hints at the real thing. This might be an odd example, but Metroid Prime 2's dark world sections to me feel way too close to heavy depression, with their oppressive droning and humming audio and very similar-looking shades of purple and black. In contrast to the variety offered by the light sections, every dark version feels the same adding to the feeling of repetition. I'm sure the developers were just aiming for slightly unsettling, but to me it feels highly unpleasant. Celeste, on the other hand, may have similarly nightmarish sections, but it also makes sure to lift the player up a little afterwards. And while they may not be quite as universally relatable as cadaver-urination, depression and anxiety are probably extremely common. Though not everyone suffering from these might be aware of this. The way most "modern" societies are structured, people are bound to become mentally ill. dsparilI wouldn't hold the fact that Celeste started out without much of a story against it, though. Coming up with either the form or the content first are equally valid approaches. I just feel that there is only so much you can do with this specific genre story-wise and Celeste is probably close to reaching those limits. Fractured Minds looks pretty interesting and impressive, given the circumstances of develoment. However, if I were to hold it up to the same standards as Celeste (which would be rather unfair), the floating-head-camera could potentially be an issue for me. I feel similarly about other “walking simulators” (and Half-Life era FPS, for that matter). Oftentimes there is little to no effort put into the actual walking movement, even though a lot could be conveyed through that.
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Post by retr0gamer on Oct 17, 2021 13:01:06 GMT -5
I think when someone says a triple A game has good writing or story it needs to be followed by 'for a videogame' because it really hasn't evolved past blockbuster movie levels and bad Oscar bait like last of us 2. It's completely unfair to write off video game stories as merely being on the level of blockbuster movies or oscar bait. You're forgetting that they can also be C-tier anime plots. Not going to lie, you had me going there for a second.
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Post by JDarkside on Oct 17, 2021 16:26:43 GMT -5
About to start playing this game
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Post by dsparil on Oct 17, 2021 16:56:42 GMT -5
Drowned God is pretty good, and I remember spending some time tracking it down. The end is pretty rushed though. And um, maybe don't look into creator.
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Post by JDarkside on Oct 17, 2021 20:45:07 GMT -5
How do you think I found out about the game
Can say this, game has vibes for days and also benefits from having puzzles that aren't absurdly obtuse, which is more then I can say for its peers.
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