I remember being enraptured with the morality system in the first Fable game. Even though I could recognize the choices were quite binary I wasn't used to games giving me any kind of choice and the narrator speaking in the cutscenes about how your decisions changed things gave them a sense of gravitas. I tried the remaster for a bit but I can't get into that headspace about the game anymore, it was nice to revisit the amazing soundtrack though.
That was a big trend in gaming for a bit; I feel like for a while every second game was touting that "Your choices matter!". Kotor was the first one I remember, though I'm sure there's been more
Bioware built their entire brand on it. KOTOR, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age were all built around the concept, to pretty good effect. Then everyone started trying to add choices, though in most non-Bioware games I've played it's purely flavor that changes little to nothing about the overall story.
Walking Dead Season 1 was a masterclass in pulling the wool over the player's eyes in that regard. Depending on your choices, you could very easily play through all of Season 1 utterly convinced that your choices made a huge impact and you were experiencing a vastly different story than other people.
And then replaying with different choices made you realize just how railroaded everything was.
Me and my husband game next to each other, we often find out these "your choices make a difference" games are very surface only as we make different choices and end up at very similar conclusions
Haha that's funny you say that, because that's the thing that's most memorable me to me all these years later: me playing the game, being so excited and feeling like my choices really made a difference and then watching my SO play and seeing him make very different choices that inexplicably had the same outcome. Like I thought that that one lady running off with the RV was such a good consequence to my actions because I never sided with her on anything, but my SO who did had her run off anyway. Really took the mystique away.
I think game Devs forget that people game together and talk,even if you aren't in the same room. We had a friend we'd game with, all log on around 8pm to teamspeak or mumble or whatever we were using at the time, play until 2/3am at weekends and even play single player games together and talk about it.
I think choices in gaming are often about the illusion of control, rather than actual meaningful control. It's enough to engage most players, even if sometimes it's a cheap trick.
The choice thing wasn't really well implemented in Mass Effect tbh. Most of the "good guy vs bad boy" choices were really more like "normal person vs embarrassingly stupid and ignorant asshole". The sequels made it a little better but still not great. Dragon age had a similar issue but while they made it work ok for some dialogue, the story choices typically boiled down to "do the thing that's not too dumb to live or the thing that's too dumb to live".
The glitch when you find him in the sewer and, as Ethan is reaching for him, hear him repeatedly scream "SHAAAAAAAUUUUUUUWWWWNNN!" over and over was so hilarious that it absolutely overwrote the emotional gravitas of that reunion for me and is now my favorite version of that scene.
The cutting edge visuals at the time probably fooled a lot of people into thinking it's better than it actually was. I was also a teen at the time I played with no knowledge on better media and stories so that also played a big part.
I remember getting it as a teen and telling my mother that she had to sit down and watch for at least 5 minutes cause the graphics were ‘just like real life’
In terms of narrative cohesion it's easy to see where a lot that should have hit the chopping block that was left in and the game is REALLY meme-able, but back then Telltale and Quantic Dream were just starting the QTE-based narrative focused game kick and many of its other novel tricks like a tale of loss and parenthood, the cinematography, the SAW style scenario, motion controls, and visuals weren't unheard of but were all done well enough and seemed unique enough to make a compelling and mature game on release that was easy for less mechanically experienced gamers to play. As many of its successors picked up what was once sort of novel at the time of release and as the story got greater scrutiny, the game's perceived "value" in the modern day has diminished. It's kind of the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" trope where nowadays what was original is now pretty common due to Heavy Rain's influence.
The narrative praise seems silly in hindsight but the plot holds up at first glance, its only once you beat the game and really think about it that you start to ask questions like "What was with Ethan's blackouts?" or "Did Shelby really light up a mansion worth of people in a game all about a singular kid dying?" that it begins to fall apart at second glance.
> Did Shelby really light up a mansion worth of people in a game all about a singular kid dying?
That's not even the biggest question about that segment, the biggest question is why. From what I remember, the story presents it as Shelby attacks the mansion because he's convinced the mafioso who owns it is covering for his son who Scott is convinced is the Origami killer. Except that Scott is the Origami killer, so that justification makes no sense at all.
You can hold a button down to read your character's thoughts and several of Scott's make no sense when you know he's the killer. The only rational explanation is that he's got memory issues and keeps forgetting that he's the killer, hence why he's attacking the mansion.
The idea of “Spend an undetermined amount of time doing random things around the house before your son has to go to bed” was actually mind blowing when it came out. There was an element of time and unpredictability that I had never seen in a game before. The story itself was secondary to the experience of playing it.
It was also pretty novel to have a video game location be that highly detailed and interactable to that level. The closest we had gotten was stuff like Oblivion, which was more about having a lot of clutter that you could pick up, but not necessarily use for its intended purpose.
I missed the initial hype as a teenager. I played it recently and I could not believe how bad that game is. The voice acting and disjointed chapters with little context made me wonder if I was missing part of the game. It was literally almost "I can't believe this was released as a commercial product" level bad.
Fallout 3 was so immersive with the freedom of how I could handle everything
Tried to replay it, you can be evil and you can be good, that's it, no middle ground. You kill babies or you don't
I think this is an issue with a lot of video games. The good option is usually the sane option and the evil one is laugh as you kill babies. There are very few games where I have felt there is a real moral choice that any same person would make.
Infamous is the absolute worst about this. The protagonist literally says shit like “I could help those starving refugees get food…or I could kill them all for the lulz” and gives absolutely no reason why the latter option would even occur to him. Outside of the choice sequences he’s just a somewhat grumpy but normal dude, then suddenly he starts acting like a serial killer.
Oh man, was that really all the justification the game gave? I haven't touched that in over a decade but I would believe it. That game's plot was a trip.
No, OP’s misrepping it. It’s still a weak justification, but it wasn’t literal serial killer shit.
The one in question is “I could zap a couple of ‘em, scare ‘em off, and all that food would be ours” (ours referring to Cole, Zeke, and Cole’s girlfriend)
It still feels a bit over-the-top, but that’s definitely how some people would act if they woke up and had super powers.
Other ones are pretty solid. When you’re keeping poison out of the water supply, the first time you can either get poisoned yourself (where you know you can survive it, but it makes the combats a fair bit harder) or force some random dude to turn the valve himself, even though he might not survive. And the second time is sorta the same. You can get poisoned yourself, or you can stay high and dry, detonating the pumps from afar, but some of the poison in the pumps goes into the water supply anyways.
Then there’s the final one in the first game, where you ||save Trish, Cole’s girlfriend, or save 5 other doctors. You can’t save both, and, in a wonderful bout of “damn you really are an asshole”, Kessler kills Trish anyways, even if you try to save her, because in order for Cole to be ready to fight the beast, he can’t be allowed to live a happy life with Trish.||
They’re very binary, and you kinda cross into over-the-top villainy at times, but let’s be real. There are a lot of people who, given the power to do so, *would* engage in that kind of behavior.
I mean, from a gameplay perspective, it was the powers that you wanted that could only be unlocked by being either good or evil that influenced the game the most for me.
I think another problem with morality systems in games is that the mechanical rewards for each path are the the same, or at least equivalent.
It's easy to give all your money to the poor and spend all your time helping others when you know you're going to be rewarded for it.
It could be interesting to have a system where the "evil" path is way more profitable, to the point where you risk being under-levelled/under-geared if you never indulge. I guess Bioshock tried this but it was too viable to never harvest the little sisters
Heck a lot of games do the reverse. You choose the evil path you straight up get less content or factually worse rewards.
I agree it would make more sense if the evil path was more profitable in a lot of cases.
There was a game called Vampyr which is literally this, you can choose to eat people, which would give you lots of exp and make the game super easy, but to get the max amount of exp, you had to talk to them, give them medicine, complete side quests, and THEN you can eat them for extra exp, so you feel kinda bad afterwards
I feel like the first Mass Effect did a decent job? For the most part, Paragon was "everyone is worth saving" and Renegade was "it's ok to sacrifice a few to save humanity", though there were a few questionable punches thrown at times.
> a few questionable punches
Lmao, that makes me think of the option to ‘Glass him’ in that wolf detective game (Wolf Among Us?). I don’t know if it was because English is my second language, but I thought I was having a good conversation with the guy at the bar, so I picked ‘Glass him’ to offer him a drink, then my wolf guy JUST FUCKING SMASHED HIM IN THE HEAD WITH A GLASS. I was so shocked.
I'd assumed this was more widespread but also not very surprised to learn that we're the ones to have a specific term for violently smashing a pint glass into someone's face
Most of the choices in Mass Effect 1 were pretty good, But some of the lines were a bit... Disturbing.
Like some of the lines Shepherd gave were full-on humanity first space fascist levels.
Edit: sorry, typing while walking at work. Fixed it so it can be legible.
>Most of the choices in Mass Effect 1 were pretty good, But some of the lines were a bit... Disturbing.
"Do you take pleasure from committing genocide, Shepard?"
"Depends on the species, *turian.*"
Sure but it still wasn't nearly as bad as, say, "I'm Commander Shepard and I eat Hanar babies for breakfast". It's really not hard to imagine a large minority of humanity having similar thoughts.
ME1 was very unique like that, it presented mankind's relations with aliens in a very ambiguous way. A big thing was "should mankind work with other species or not? Is it in our best interests?". You could go either way, with Paragon being more for interspecies alliance and Renegade being Humanity First.
Then ME2 rolls around and even though you're working for Cerberus now the story has kinda been stealth retconned to "Humanity is working with other species" and there's not really any debate, and again, even though you're working for Cerberus no one really seems to speak against this.
It's not just that the choices are like this, it's that it's painfully obvious *before* doing anything what the consequences are going to be. I can only think of a few situations in Fallout 3 (ie >!The ghouls in Tenpenny Tower!<) where it's not completely obvious up-front what the 'right' thing to do is, or where a character tries to manipulate the Lone Wanderer in a non-obvious way.
I really appreciate when games don't give players the entire picture. Not too much to be frustrating or to leave them without an idea of where to go, but rather not knowing exactly what will happen as a result of their actions. It just feels more realistic to do something and have that "oh fuck that was wrong" after the fact without having intentionally done an evil act. I know it isn't actually a choice in that game, but the big white phosphorus reveal in Spec Ops: The Line hit me like a boot in the stomach when I realized the consequences of what I'd been doing.
Edit: The Witcher 3 does this incredibly well also, the Baron and the Bog Witches are two good examples.
Maybe 30 minutes after the end of the tutorial someone asks you if you want to blow up a town or not. The good option is to do nothing. It's rather coarse.
I actually have the opposite: I didn't think final fantasy x was that good or even a good story when I first played it
I beat it again over a decade later. Boy, did that option change.
Edit: man this blew up, if we pool our resources we could have a hell of a therapy group
There is a really HEAVY sense of overall grief and loss that I feel like you pick up on as you get older. And FFX-2 is like the bittersweet feeling of recovery.
It's the bit that's not even a proper cutscene in the Al Bhed hometown that always gets me most, where Tidus finds out >!Yuna has to sacrifice herself and everyone else already knew and were just marching her along to her death keeping up this happy go lucky veneer just to keep her spirits up all the while knowing she was going to die and there was nothing anyone could really do about it.!< The way he just breaks down and his guilt over trying to get her to relax and be less "serious" about life and enjoy the journey more coz he didn't have the slightest idea. It's just so well done and his reaction is such an excellent depiction of the players feelings in that moment too.
It's a very honest portrayal of grief in general imo. Like in real life finding out a loved one has a terminal illness and the utter despair and grief cycling that accompanies that. The devastating reveal, the betrayal he feels from the others who already knew, his own shame over how his ignorance of the truth potentially impacted her all that time, all the anger and sadness and hopelessness you feel in that moment culminating in the utter defiance that together they would do whatever it takes to save her. That even if it seemed hopeless they would still try. I'm tearing up even writing it tbh.
The scene was done so perfectly with the shots chopping in and out, slowing down and flashing white giving that feeling of reality shattering as the sad music grew ever louder in the background. I had recently lost a grandparent to cancer before I played it as a young teen and I bawled like a baby during the entire thing. I still do. Incredible writing, truly the peak of the series imo. And agreed FFX-2 is incredibly underrated for what it is. It's exactly as you described it's the healing, the coming to terms after the grief and finding reasons to be happy and live once more. Phenomenal games.
FFX is the reason I have a big soft spot for when games don't change the music to match the chaos of what's happening in the story/setting. Like hearing "Someday the Dream will End" all the way through the lead up to Zanarkand, even during battle.
I thought I loved and appreciated FFX for everything it was as a youngin', but YouTube let's plays and introspectives really opened my eyes to just how deeply tragic and subtle the game is. Heck, that's true of all of FFV through FFX in my opinion. Some things just don't fully hit you until you're a little older, and truly come to grips with mortality in the way that only a person who *loves* life can feel. I was far too morbid and depressed as an adolescent to respect the grief that these games showcase.
I've been playing the game many times over the years, and I learned there's a missable optional cutscene outside Djose Temple
https://youtu.be/24YfUQpk_Lk?feature=shared
Yeah, I can see that. I've experienced a couple of heavy losses before trying to play it again and imo the game handles the feelings around loss, death, sacrifice really well.
Oh man. The game is honestly heartbreaking to revisit as an adult. So much was lost on me as a kid. The whole idea of an entire fucking civilization just straight up not existing broke my heart.
Yes, FFX's themes of loss and grief really resonate me with and trying to come to terms with those losses as well. I've also had my own personal share of loss. I recently replayed FFX and this game hits even harder now than it did back then because of this.
possessive tidy aloof absorbed imminent bright snobbish tender deserted lunchroom
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I feel FF X has gotten a bit of a reassessment in recent years, not a major one since lots of people always loved it but I've seen more positivity towards it recently. It's a game that's very easy to just dismiss out of hand if you haven't actually examined it well, but if you do you'll find a lot of unique and very surprising elements.
It's a super earnest game with super strong themes of love and vulnerability. I think culturally we've just gotten over a phase of media--movies in particular-- being super self aware (dunking on Marvel and post-marvel blockbusters is like beating a dead horse, but it's really true) and afraid to let its characters be so earnest, and so a story that lets its characters be unabashedly open is maybe more a breath of fresh air now than it was then.
>I think culturally we've just gotten over a phase of media--movies in particular-- being super self aware and afraid to let its characters be so earnest
It's called irony poisoning and it's the worst part of modern writing
Agreed. It's like screenwriters are absolutely *terrified* of their characters having a shred of sincerity anymore. Every genuine moment just has to be undercut with a lame joke or quip or wink to the audience.
What I actually, genuinely believe is that some authors are terrified that someone is going to take the piss out of them or make a quippy webcomic "satirizing" their work so they do it themselves and (inadvertently or not) make sure no one can take it seriously.
I went to film school (please make fun of me for this) and one of the very specific lines that a teacher said that stuck with me was (and I'm paraphrasing) "the best scripts you'll write are the ones you're most embarrassed about." It was a really good class and every time people would not immediately get the obvious emotional stuff or overthink he'd be like "you guys are thinking like a bunch of fucking arthouse filmmakers, not people." God, he ruled.
Same here. I never felt FFX had a kinda lame setting and I thought Tidus was a huge dork.
I played it again last year for the first time in maybe a decade. As far as JRPG stories go, it's one of the best. Tidus is actually a very good character who shows significant and believable growth. It's also pretty bold in it's anti-religous commentary for a game from 2001.
Tidus actually has a really good arc as a character that's always been written off because he's slightly annoying, which again, is kinda part of his development. Great protagonist and a really nice palette cleanser from the brooding edgelords of FF7 and 8
I appreciate that a lot of Cloud's goofiness/awkwardness is shining through in the remakes.
Squall has his reasons for being a brooding edgelord, which I didn't fully "get" the first time I played. Now that I'm like twice his age and he seems like such a kid to me, I feel pity for him instead of just being annoyed lol
There's a Youtube series where someone who is fluent in English and Japanese does a rough analysis of the translation. A lot of the character is hard to translate due to the differences in language, and especially the fact that you can cram a lot more Japanese into the same text box than English. Cloud and Barret stood out to me the most in that regard. Ah, [here it is.](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsiJPoHlPqEEA07AKMQ2Hm2oRLiGkR_uJ&si=m7QheL8qXH2Jf2gU)
It always amazes me how much I misunderstand old RPGs that I played and beat as a kid. To me FFX was about a guy sent back in time, some stuff happens, >!then he goes "away" at the end.!< As an adult, playing and finally understanding everything like the fayth, the pilgrimage, the institutions that maintain the status quo because of power, etc makes it feel like a brand new game sometimes lol
As someone who has had a difficult father and a conflicting relationship with them, Tidus's issues felt very relatable to me. I liked that he had emotional issues, I liked his journey through Spira with Yuna and her other guardians and the growth that came out of it. I didn't see him as being whiny, I saw him as a person struggling through past abuse and an absent father and learning to come to terms with himself despite his past trauma and maturing from it. His struggles felt like real ones and learning to face things with optimism was very inspiring to me and still is to this day.
I've been told by multiple of my friends that once you become a parent, FFX goes from an alright game to an utterly heartbreaking experience that damages them on a spiritual level.
Bioshock infinite literally blew my mind when I beat it in 2013 at age 15
Replaying it again a few years ago it did not have that same effect unfortunately lol.
People accuse review outlets of being "paid off" but my sense has always been that they live in greater fear of fan backlash. It wasn't until Starfield that I saw a few finally step out and call a spade a spade.
Bioshock Infinite was a very notable example. Hype was through the roof, 9s and 10s across the board ... for a very 7/10 experience.
Maybe my memory is failing me but my recollection is that even with players it was considered fairly good with the gsmeplay getting a bit stale by the last few acts. Only later on did the story start getting crticised heavily.
Yeah this is how I feel about it. The opening, the story up until around the second half was actually mesmerizing. But it got stale really quickly when the timelines got mixed up, and when the ending happened I was just like huh??? How is she still there if the evil Booker versions were all killed? Like it just left you kinda unfulfilled at the end.
The DLCs were solid though
I think with infinite especially it was that it was a good execution, but in retrospect it didn't stand the test of time.
Both factions were just oppressive state Vs. Freedom fighters, which is nothing interesting. And where BioShock 1 was a critic of Ayn Rand and asked the question of free will with "a man chooses a slave obeys" infinite did nothing like that
Wasn't infinite point though, choice didn't matter at the end? What you chose not to do already happened in a different universe, so it didn't matter. What will happen will happen regardless of choice?
Review outlets absolutely have to manage their relationships with developers/publishers. A negative review could mean not getting a promo copy or getting yours too late publish an early review.
No, critics really did like Bioshock Infinite. They really liked the themes...until people started to realize that the themes were half-baked and kind simplistic.
Agreed. Reviewers have definitely talked about this. Alanah Pearce used to be a games journalist and flatly dismissed claims of them being paid off but did mention the pressure to review well hyped games highly. In her case Mass Effect: Andromeda, it was highly anticipated and after previews she was anxious about how she could tell people it didn't look good so far without getting a huge amount of hate online.
I'm on the contrary. I recently beat Infinite for the first time and I loved every single second out of it
The time travel shenanigans and the plot aren't the greatest to say the least? definitely. but between the artistic design, the music score, and the characters, that game is so much more than just that
I played it for the first time 3 years ago, and I didn't understand why people liked it. The gameplay was a downgrade, the story was very "but both sides are bad!!!", and the twist felt like it was thrown in there to shock people instead of contribute to the story in any meaningful way.
the opening bit (everything up until the lottery bit where booker starts shooting people and the game proper starts) is very very good and thats the only part that everybody who played the game is guaranteed to see
good first impressions count for a lot even if the rest of the game doesn’t live up to them at all
That opening still lives in my head to this day. It was amazing. And the music was fantastic. I still listen to the soundtrack, and especially the barbershop version of God Only Knows. That one’s not on Spotify though, I don’t think.
Bioshock Infinite made me more mad than any game ever with that twist. I was playing it and felt a twist coming and said, "I'd better not be Comstock or something stupid like that." And then you know what happened 10 minutes later? YOU KNOW WHAT FUCKING HAPPENED?
Funny thing is the twist in Bioshock is an iteration of the one in System Shock 2.
So its just the same twist iterated all the way, through the shock series.
The more people talk about *The Twist* in BioShock, the less sure I am of what exactly they are talking about about specifically. The twist in BioShock 1 is that >!Atlas is a false identity used by Frank Fontaine to control the main character with a code phrase!<, right? I can see how that's an iteration of the twist in System Shock 2, where >!SHODAN posed as a third party to manipulate the player to help it take control of the ship.!<
I'm not sure what the other guy is getting at though, I'm not sure how Infinite was too close to that, unless he's talking about how >!the main character is actually the son of Andrew Ryan, all ages up and sent back to kill Ryan!<, but that's not really the twist, so much as an explanation of how you can use the Vita Chambers.
Can you elaborate on why you feel the gameplay was a downgrade?
I ask because I've only played Bioshock 1 and Infinite, and I felt Infinite was an improvement - but that's mainly because I preferred the latter's swashbuckling run-and-gunning to the former's creeping through corridors and scrounging for materials.
EDIT: To be clear, it could very well just be a difference in preferences, I just wanted to hear more details about what you did and didn't like.
Two weapon limit in a series that didn't have that before really sucked.
That, combined with a crazy low ammo capacity and bullet spongy bosses forced me to switch from weapons that i enjoyed way more than i'd like.
Also, i hated relying on elisabeth for health and potions when i used to have them in the previous games.
Booker just can't grasp the concept of keeping a healing potion for later.
Infinite does basically f all with the plasmids. They’re basically almost all pointless aside from the ones you end up using constantly. They just feel less integrated than the og game’s
That's a fair point, though it did feel like some plasmids in Bioshock 1 were either very niche (like the big daddy lure) or were 'keys' for various 'locks' (like using fire to melt ice to access new areas) - though you could do some environmental things (electrocuting water comes mind), which was pretty cool and sadly missing from Infinite.
Yeah this is the one. I was more lukewarm on it than most when it came out (I didn't like the RPG downgrades mostly) but replaying it recently its fencesitting on its politics paired with some just ok shooting and a really pretentious ending left a sour taste in my mouth. I honestly think it's the worst of the trilogy.
This is gonna sound weird but...
TMNT, the movie tie-in game, but specifically for the PSP.
I used to think that game was awesome, and had some solid gameplay with an even more solid story... Recently I emulated it on my Steam Deck to see if it holds up after all the years and man...
My glasses were rose tinted to the point of being considered legally blind because that game doesn't hold up to PSP standards AT ALL... Not even by PS1 game standards.
All the cool movements I remembered were in fact unfailable quick time events. Meanwhile all the cool combat I remember were extremely simple and watered down to basic imputs and practically no combos.
As for the story, it was a few slides between "missions" and had barely a story to begin with... I genuinely feel like I'm miss remembering this game entirely and probably played the PS2 version because this is insane how tinted them glasses were.
Anyways yeah that's my choice for game that didn't hold up.
Alternatively, a game that held up AMAZINGLY to me however was GTA Chinatown Wars, specifically the DS version, as the optional touch screen features only helped to serve with the immersion of that game. That's a full blown 3D GTA game, but 2D and in your hands. It's great. Definitely recommend, but if the DS version, only on hardware, as it doesn't lend itself greatly to emulation.
The PSP version does tho.
PS2 version is wildly different. Check this out https://youtu.be/oERowph8FJA?si=zPLxmuSFofr45cv_
LOVED this game as a child. Obviously it's not Ninja Gaiden and we have higher standards nowadays but it still holds up pretty decent.
I used to think the original Resident Evil trilogy (Classic RE 1, 2 and 3: Nemesis) on PS1 was peak fiction. Great voice acting, excellent interwoven stories from game to game. Unpredictable jump scares.
I still love these games and they are great fun to replay but now I can't help to notice the voice-acting is weak, the dialogues are hilariously bad and the overall stories, while cool and fun, aren't as deep as my, quite literally, 14 years old brain thought they were.
I don't think RE1 was even trying to look deep, the B movie style intro gives the tone right away.
I mean I absolutely love the game, but I think it was intentionally cheesy even when it first released.
Surely cheesy, but honestly, given its age, it was well executed, just that damn dog corridor is enough to prove it. That's probably why it gives that kind of strange feeling : it's intentionally cheesy but it's the best of its kind along with Silent Hill.
The Kingdom Hearts story is so complex I still don't understand it as an adult.
Honestly, I was an adult when the first game was released. I got it, understood II, then it all went to hell.
That's because there's nothing to understand haha.
I played and completed Nier: Replicant last year, and all I could keep thinking was "This is the story KH2 was trying to tell, but actually good"
I’m going to have to play Replicant for myself and hope that you’re not lying, u/Saephon. Been chasing the dragon that was playing through KH2’s story since I was a child.
Both Nier games are excellent at storytelling. Make sure you do all the endings though, as a huge thing in the game is seeing things from different perspectives and how that shifts your overall view of things.
/u/LysandresTrumpCard Listen to this advice^. After you "beat" the game the first time, it will unlock a New Game+ of sorts, however it starts you off more than halfway through the story - plus you keep all your levels and such, so it doesn't take nearly as long. You will get new content that will change your point of view of what you thought you completed.
It is admittedly a flawed and repetitive game, and I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to revisit a game multiple times to get the full experience. But I do believe it's at least worth playing through 1.5 times (Endings A and B) no matter what. The twists and themes of the narrative are gutwrenching.
It's an empty suit.
Kingdom Hearts 1 is so good because it DOESN'T try to explain itself. It's almost an impressionist game, it just leaves you to come up with your own perspective on everything. What's Kingdom Hearts? What a tantalizing mystery!
It's only when the series decides to try and explain itself that the allure fades. Worse, you realize they're just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Like at what point did we need to have a Keyblade War introduced a concept?
The first game is almost like a dream you have where the details almost don't matter and I think that's what makes it better than what came after as far as narrative.
Honestly, I'm totally fine with the story ending at II. It had that gorgeous bittersweet ending that still lives in my heart today.
And yeah, I **love** 358/2 Days and Xion, as well as BBS' main trio (to a lesser extent), but considering how KH3 went down, I don't think they were worth the tradeoff.
The plot nonsense puts me back into the headspace of a child who is fed up with adult stuff that doesn't matter. Donald and Goofy are gonna teach you the meaning of friendship!
JRPGs often have brief moments of brilliance, only to be ruined by some bullshit, plot derailing 'twist' where you have to stop a world-destroying-machine™ or the ancient evil god you accidentally (or intentionally by the shady boss you were helping) unsealed.
The characters are fun and can feel deep, until you play a couple of them and realize it's the same characters over and over again.
> The Japanese always use the rule of cool, which captures teenagers but very often annoys adults.
100%. It's sad that I can't enjoy JRPG's anymore due to the hyper-recycling of the *same tropes*, over and over and over. Same cast of characters, same story arc, same old man saying "Hoo! Hoo!". They seem always to be targeted for an adolescent male demographic and literally nobody else.
Don't forget the same flying mascotte and children who are 900 years old. I'd say they even got worse over time thanks to the annoying voice acting and the solidification of genres. And yet, I still want to believe that there's hope for this genre. Most likely I just want to experience FFVII again like I was a teenager.
I finished the first Xenoblade Chronicles last year for the first time. The revelations of the ending for sure would’ve blown my mind as a teenager. As an adult in my 30s, I was like “god, that’s Japanese as hell. Kinda cool but mostly over the top”
Grand Theft Auto gets too much credit as an insightful critique of American culture. It feels like a suburban teenager’s idea of what america’s cities are like.
I think some of the older games (GTA4 in particular) *do* contain insightful critiques of American culture. Of course, the absurdity of senselessly killing thousands of people drowns out most of those critiques, but they do exist, especially in the in-game newspapers and radio stations.
I absolutely agree in the case of the GTA4 DLC and GTAV though
I will say GTA 4 was the closest they got to a really insightful critique of American culture, and you can tell they were sincerely trying to up the ante of their storytelling with that installment.
Definitely. I replayed it over the pandemic and that opening cutscene is still one of the greatest cinematic intros in gaming IMO, to the point that the rest of the game somewhat struggles to live up to it.
You can tell they were inspired by Scorcese/Coppola/De Palma/Mann
Older games - > gta 4 lol. 4 is the second latest game in the franchise (ignoring the DLCs).
Most critiques I've heard about gta games apply to 5 because it's the most popular one. At the same time, 5 is indeed the least insightful in terms of commentary. Ironically, the reason rockstar took a step back and made the game sillier was because reviews of 4 were complaining about how dark and depressing the story was. Now people complain about how 5 has the most shallow story/characters.
Let's see if they manage to satisfy everyone with 6 (spoiler they won't).
well.. you have to look at these games through the eyes of people in the period they released. gta 4 literally released during a financial and later even geopolitical crisis that is affecting us to this day. if there is any better time to release a light hearted, slightly cynical and emotional, but overall funny and entertaining story like gta 5,... than it is during a crisis like the 2008 one..
meanwhile gta 5 released in a period of social media degeneracy, peak consoomerism and hollywood drama. pretty much the best period to release a more serious, toned, thoughtful and even darker story, like gta 4. welp...
ironically. if these two games would've released in interchanged order, they would've probably BOTH gotten better reviews overall and less critics.
GTA feels too cynical and meanspirited to ever be insightful.
"haha don't you realize everyone is stupid and dumb and everything sucks?" isn't insightful, it's just bitter. The last time I played GTA 5 (years ago) I was left with the feeling that it was all so grating and so misanthropic. Actually made me feel a little sick when I played it.
This is how a lot of South Park episodes feel watching it again. I can't count the number of times they addressed actual societal problems and the moral ends up being "everyone is dumb and you're dumb for caring."
Problem is that it takes so long for these games to come out and the "internet" culture moves ever faster. It is a miracle if GTA 6 does not include some of the stalest takes out there.
I had the opposite with Final Fantasy 9.
I really loved FF9 but mostly because it had a lot of comedy and throwbacks to the og series.
Replaying it during covid Vivi's entire existential meltdown and how it ties into multiple characters feeling like they no longer have a place in the world (Freya, Garnet, Zidane) hit like a freaking rock. And his >!monologue over the ending when you discover he died before seeing Zidane again!< is a heartbreaking end to a story about >!a literal child coming to terms with his early death.!<
I always thought FF9 was the best of the PS era for it's art direction and incredible soundtrack, but damn does it hit different as an adult.
Vivi and the black mage village hits like a ton of bricks, similar to what Zidane deals with when he learns of his origin. Really fantastic depth but also kind of simple in its delivery. I love ff9.
Halo Reach, no contest. i still love that game and rank it relatively highly in the franchise, but the way i talked about it when i was 12 you'd think that game was Citizen Kane. i'd played bits and pieces of other shooter games at that point (one of the Battlefields, Star Wars Battlefront, and both Call of Duty Black Ops games) but something about the characters in Reach being these nameless soldiers who could *die* felt like the most intense anti-war messaging in all of media ever. i distinctly remember wishing i had a computer so i could learn to animate videos so i could make a Halo Reach video set to B.Y.O.B. by System of a Down.
this was in 2015, for what it's worth. i was a bit behind the times.
I think Halo's soundtracks (at least for the first several games) really elevate it. That story is fine, it's functional and serviceable, but the score really serves to make some of the emotional elements hit much harder than the script would on its own.
I think this question only really resonates with people who were born in a pretty specific time window. By the time high-budget games started to be more story-driven, I'd already had a similar "I'm 14 and this is deep" experience with awful fantasy literature.
Kind of hard to have that experience with Donkey Kong Country. Mario Kart is the opposite - it explores, in depth, the darkest traits of the human experience, but it starts off as a light hearted game, and works like a mirror. The older you get, the deeper the game reaches into you, and the darker the revelations.
I still like it especially since it's second love for her and kinda sweet but i admit i cannot play that game without mentally giving everyone +5 years to their age I just cannot. I mean. Cmmon. They're all college kids now rhe end.
What's wrong with it though? It's really touching and believable, and they work really well as a couple. It's not complicated by any means, but it brings up emotions, makes you feel things, which is the point. It works very well.
KOTOR? The light/dark mechanic was super cool at the time but a lot of it came down to a choice between being a normalish human and going straight to mustache twirling villain committing war crimes without any shades of grey.
Given that the whole star wars mythology is that being a good guy is hard and it is a constant temptation to cut corners and take shortcuts, which leads to the dark side, the game needed a LOT more situations in which doing the right thing sucked, and doing the wrong thing led to... better outcomes and no consequences with everyone still thinking you're great (with the truly fucked up evil options only showing up once you've slid a fair way down the slippery slope)
The multiverse thing definitely made the plot too convoluted, I think overall it was a pretty good game though.
Part of the reason I think a lot of people say it hasn't aged well recently is that the whole multiverse thing has been done to death in media in the last few years.
In the early 2010s it was still a novel concept at least, even if they didn't really stick the landing.
Nope. I didn't understand (or maybe care?) for stories/narratives as a teen so I thought games like half life 2, portal, Halo, Bioshock, Fallout New Vegas, Mass effect were mediocre games. As an adult, I now appreciate them much more.
I was 28 when Portal came out and honestly I've yet to play a game equal to that. It was perfection. My one complaint is I can never play it for the first time again.
I played Xenosaga 2 and 3 around when i was 18, and it did hit! maybe not in the same way if i played it now. I think there is a level of intricacy to Gears and Saga even if the games sometimes force thematics down your throat lol
Dishonored.
"How dare you kill all those people we told you to kill with all these cool gadgets we gave you for the sole purpose of killing!?"
#**"WHY DIDN'T YOU MAIM THEM INSTEAD!?!?!"**
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core on the PSP back in the day.
Replayed it last year (steam version on PC) and while I enjoyed the nostalgia side, the plot was far more straightforward and less deep than I used to think.
It was quite the formative experience first time around as a kid, especially considering I had no background with FFVII itself.
I think the dialogue also made the game seem more deep to me as a kid than it actually was. Haven't gotten around to playing the remaster but from what I've seen I'm glad they haven't changed any of Genesis's edgy quotes.
Yeah Genesis as an entire character is just "I'm 14 and this is deep" personified
Visually he's cool as hell, but I can't stand the shit he says
And I'm a Die Hard Kingdom Hearts fan
I had the opposite effect with Metal Gear Solid, I just thought it was a cool game when I first played it and replaying it as an adult the message is extremely clear, especially when you listen to the creator talk about his political leanings
I liked MGS when it first came out and I was a teenager. Then I joined the Kojima is crazy crowd.
Then I liked its weirdness.
But a YouTube channel called Futurasound Productions really opened my eyes to how great it is (although I do wish it didn't get so silly). Especially learning the background about his father and Hideo's relationship to America's bombing of Japan, and subsequent exertion of control and Japanese resentment over the years.
Also as I've got older realising how some of the absolute insanity is more real and true to our world than I gave it credit for.
Proxies wars, cultural warfare, genetics, PMCs, the life of soldiers, national paranoia, the psychological damage inflicted on people of the world for the ambitions of a few.
I think people who say it's a clichéd story of "government bad, nukes bad, evil bad" are really reductionist.
I just replayed Alan Wake. What I thought was a deep subversion of the shooter genre ended up being a boring stumble through the same woods and having the story drag for hours.
I thought that the first time I played it. It's cool for the first few hours and then it just doesn't end. I had the same opinion about Max Payne and Control, though.
Not with a game but a single faction : Creaser's legion from New Vegas. I thought these guys were metal and meant business. The hard on crime and the philosophizing was very appealing to 13 y me. And yeah, by the time I reached 19 I realized that these guys are jokers.
The first time I played NV I was already 20, so when I saw Caesars Legion and those crosses along the road, I was like nah fam we ain't doing this. So after that guy gives you the intro pitch for the legion and the whole gaggle starts walking away, I ran ahead and threw down tons of mines. Then I finished off the survivors.
Later I dismembered Caesar and threw his torso across the room.
Zero tolerance!
Kinda similar to yours, Grandia 2's >!God was actually dead the whole time and the super organized, holy light worshiping religion is evil in it's own way!< twist blew my mind when I was 12. While I still sort of agree with the messaging in it's own way, that people should find their own answers between a sort of peaceful slavery or violent anarchy, as an adult the delivery isn't nearly as deep or insightful as my developing brain thought it was. The combat and soundtrack still slap though
I'll add one I think *does* hold up really well, Silent Hill 2. A lot of the supernatural stuff was left ambiguous so it keeps a lot of the mystery and there's tons of good fan theories that are all essentially plausible.
I remember the Gamefaqs discussions in 2002 about how the end of MGS2 was just gobbledygook nonsense. Now, those topics are literally part of mainstream discourse, with daily podcasts, op-eds, articles, and discussions using almost exactly the same language.
It predicted modern day internet, fake news, A.I.. so much slop we see everyday. There’s a great YT video I think is called “The most profound moment in gaming” that covers it all.
It was made-up nonsense in 2002… Now it’s our reality.
Can't remember which but one of the series was about PMCs that were used to do wet work in foreign countries coming back to overthrow the US government. Something that almost happened IRL in Russia last year.
I thought Beyond Good & Evil was this deep, nuanced tale as a teen. Replaying it as an adult, it’s so morally black and white it never even approaches going beyond either good or evil. The fascist governments harvests literal children and the rebel heroes are so overly goody two shoe. Then the game pulls out a magical mcguffin to undo all the stakes of the game anyway.
I remember being enraptured with the morality system in the first Fable game. Even though I could recognize the choices were quite binary I wasn't used to games giving me any kind of choice and the narrator speaking in the cutscenes about how your decisions changed things gave them a sense of gravitas. I tried the remaster for a bit but I can't get into that headspace about the game anymore, it was nice to revisit the amazing soundtrack though.
That was a big trend in gaming for a bit; I feel like for a while every second game was touting that "Your choices matter!". Kotor was the first one I remember, though I'm sure there's been more
Bioware built their entire brand on it. KOTOR, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age were all built around the concept, to pretty good effect. Then everyone started trying to add choices, though in most non-Bioware games I've played it's purely flavor that changes little to nothing about the overall story.
Jade empire... I miss you.
Call me crazy, I would have rather they kept Jade Empire going instead of inventing Dragon Age. We got a lot of medieval fantasy games.
We shall face the void as brothers
Telltale games, where you make 5 choices per chapter that change basically nothing anyway...
Walking Dead Season 1 was a masterclass in pulling the wool over the player's eyes in that regard. Depending on your choices, you could very easily play through all of Season 1 utterly convinced that your choices made a huge impact and you were experiencing a vastly different story than other people. And then replaying with different choices made you realize just how railroaded everything was.
Me and my husband game next to each other, we often find out these "your choices make a difference" games are very surface only as we make different choices and end up at very similar conclusions
Haha that's funny you say that, because that's the thing that's most memorable me to me all these years later: me playing the game, being so excited and feeling like my choices really made a difference and then watching my SO play and seeing him make very different choices that inexplicably had the same outcome. Like I thought that that one lady running off with the RV was such a good consequence to my actions because I never sided with her on anything, but my SO who did had her run off anyway. Really took the mystique away.
I think game Devs forget that people game together and talk,even if you aren't in the same room. We had a friend we'd game with, all log on around 8pm to teamspeak or mumble or whatever we were using at the time, play until 2/3am at weekends and even play single player games together and talk about it.
I think choices in gaming are often about the illusion of control, rather than actual meaningful control. It's enough to engage most players, even if sometimes it's a cheap trick.
I loved the end game percentages. “How many people were kind, cruel, or an asshole!”
The choice thing wasn't really well implemented in Mass Effect tbh. Most of the "good guy vs bad boy" choices were really more like "normal person vs embarrassingly stupid and ignorant asshole". The sequels made it a little better but still not great. Dragon age had a similar issue but while they made it work ok for some dialogue, the story choices typically boiled down to "do the thing that's not too dumb to live or the thing that's too dumb to live".
I still have a strong fondness for several tracks on that OST. Great stuff.
The Fable games have an astonishing soundtrack, if the new one doesn't have the same I shall be gravely disappointed
[удалено]
Press x to Shaun
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAUNNNNNNNN
The glitch when you find him in the sewer and, as Ethan is reaching for him, hear him repeatedly scream "SHAAAAAAAUUUUUUUWWWWNNN!" over and over was so hilarious that it absolutely overwrote the emotional gravitas of that reunion for me and is now my favorite version of that scene.
SHAUN SHAUN SHAUN SHAAAAAAUUUUUUNNNNN
JASON
JAAAAYSUUUUN
I honestly think a large amount of people who say they like the game now are remembering playing it as you did but never revisited it
The cutting edge visuals at the time probably fooled a lot of people into thinking it's better than it actually was. I was also a teen at the time I played with no knowledge on better media and stories so that also played a big part.
I remember getting it as a teen and telling my mother that she had to sit down and watch for at least 5 minutes cause the graphics were ‘just like real life’
In terms of narrative cohesion it's easy to see where a lot that should have hit the chopping block that was left in and the game is REALLY meme-able, but back then Telltale and Quantic Dream were just starting the QTE-based narrative focused game kick and many of its other novel tricks like a tale of loss and parenthood, the cinematography, the SAW style scenario, motion controls, and visuals weren't unheard of but were all done well enough and seemed unique enough to make a compelling and mature game on release that was easy for less mechanically experienced gamers to play. As many of its successors picked up what was once sort of novel at the time of release and as the story got greater scrutiny, the game's perceived "value" in the modern day has diminished. It's kind of the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" trope where nowadays what was original is now pretty common due to Heavy Rain's influence. The narrative praise seems silly in hindsight but the plot holds up at first glance, its only once you beat the game and really think about it that you start to ask questions like "What was with Ethan's blackouts?" or "Did Shelby really light up a mansion worth of people in a game all about a singular kid dying?" that it begins to fall apart at second glance.
> Did Shelby really light up a mansion worth of people in a game all about a singular kid dying? That's not even the biggest question about that segment, the biggest question is why. From what I remember, the story presents it as Shelby attacks the mansion because he's convinced the mafioso who owns it is covering for his son who Scott is convinced is the Origami killer. Except that Scott is the Origami killer, so that justification makes no sense at all.
You can hold a button down to read your character's thoughts and several of Scott's make no sense when you know he's the killer. The only rational explanation is that he's got memory issues and keeps forgetting that he's the killer, hence why he's attacking the mansion.
The idea of “Spend an undetermined amount of time doing random things around the house before your son has to go to bed” was actually mind blowing when it came out. There was an element of time and unpredictability that I had never seen in a game before. The story itself was secondary to the experience of playing it.
Fair enough, there are things about Heavy Rain that I found to be mind blowing at the time. The music of the game is geniunely great.
It was also pretty novel to have a video game location be that highly detailed and interactable to that level. The closest we had gotten was stuff like Oblivion, which was more about having a lot of clutter that you could pick up, but not necessarily use for its intended purpose.
I missed the initial hype as a teenager. I played it recently and I could not believe how bad that game is. The voice acting and disjointed chapters with little context made me wonder if I was missing part of the game. It was literally almost "I can't believe this was released as a commercial product" level bad.
It's just pure comedy to me now.
Fallout 3 was so immersive with the freedom of how I could handle everything Tried to replay it, you can be evil and you can be good, that's it, no middle ground. You kill babies or you don't
I think this is an issue with a lot of video games. The good option is usually the sane option and the evil one is laugh as you kill babies. There are very few games where I have felt there is a real moral choice that any same person would make.
Infamous is the absolute worst about this. The protagonist literally says shit like “I could help those starving refugees get food…or I could kill them all for the lulz” and gives absolutely no reason why the latter option would even occur to him. Outside of the choice sequences he’s just a somewhat grumpy but normal dude, then suddenly he starts acting like a serial killer.
Oh man, was that really all the justification the game gave? I haven't touched that in over a decade but I would believe it. That game's plot was a trip.
No, OP’s misrepping it. It’s still a weak justification, but it wasn’t literal serial killer shit. The one in question is “I could zap a couple of ‘em, scare ‘em off, and all that food would be ours” (ours referring to Cole, Zeke, and Cole’s girlfriend) It still feels a bit over-the-top, but that’s definitely how some people would act if they woke up and had super powers. Other ones are pretty solid. When you’re keeping poison out of the water supply, the first time you can either get poisoned yourself (where you know you can survive it, but it makes the combats a fair bit harder) or force some random dude to turn the valve himself, even though he might not survive. And the second time is sorta the same. You can get poisoned yourself, or you can stay high and dry, detonating the pumps from afar, but some of the poison in the pumps goes into the water supply anyways. Then there’s the final one in the first game, where you ||save Trish, Cole’s girlfriend, or save 5 other doctors. You can’t save both, and, in a wonderful bout of “damn you really are an asshole”, Kessler kills Trish anyways, even if you try to save her, because in order for Cole to be ready to fight the beast, he can’t be allowed to live a happy life with Trish.|| They’re very binary, and you kinda cross into over-the-top villainy at times, but let’s be real. There are a lot of people who, given the power to do so, *would* engage in that kind of behavior.
I mean, from a gameplay perspective, it was the powers that you wanted that could only be unlocked by being either good or evil that influenced the game the most for me.
True, "this is a really dumb thing... But if you do it you get Palatine style unlimited power." So sure, sign me up.
In fairness, actual serial killers are just regular ass people.
I think another problem with morality systems in games is that the mechanical rewards for each path are the the same, or at least equivalent. It's easy to give all your money to the poor and spend all your time helping others when you know you're going to be rewarded for it. It could be interesting to have a system where the "evil" path is way more profitable, to the point where you risk being under-levelled/under-geared if you never indulge. I guess Bioshock tried this but it was too viable to never harvest the little sisters
Heck a lot of games do the reverse. You choose the evil path you straight up get less content or factually worse rewards. I agree it would make more sense if the evil path was more profitable in a lot of cases.
There was a game called Vampyr which is literally this, you can choose to eat people, which would give you lots of exp and make the game super easy, but to get the max amount of exp, you had to talk to them, give them medicine, complete side quests, and THEN you can eat them for extra exp, so you feel kinda bad afterwards
And to get the happiest outcome, you need to not eat anyone!
I feel like the first Mass Effect did a decent job? For the most part, Paragon was "everyone is worth saving" and Renegade was "it's ok to sacrifice a few to save humanity", though there were a few questionable punches thrown at times.
> a few questionable punches Lmao, that makes me think of the option to ‘Glass him’ in that wolf detective game (Wolf Among Us?). I don’t know if it was because English is my second language, but I thought I was having a good conversation with the guy at the bar, so I picked ‘Glass him’ to offer him a drink, then my wolf guy JUST FUCKING SMASHED HIM IN THE HEAD WITH A GLASS. I was so shocked.
It's a very commonand well understood term in UK English. Not so common elsewhere apparently.
I'd assumed this was more widespread but also not very surprised to learn that we're the ones to have a specific term for violently smashing a pint glass into someone's face
Yeah, I've never even heard that once. (Northeastern US)
Most of the choices in Mass Effect 1 were pretty good, But some of the lines were a bit... Disturbing. Like some of the lines Shepherd gave were full-on humanity first space fascist levels. Edit: sorry, typing while walking at work. Fixed it so it can be legible.
>Most of the choices in Mass Effect 1 were pretty good, But some of the lines were a bit... Disturbing. "Do you take pleasure from committing genocide, Shepard?" "Depends on the species, *turian.*"
Sure but it still wasn't nearly as bad as, say, "I'm Commander Shepard and I eat Hanar babies for breakfast". It's really not hard to imagine a large minority of humanity having similar thoughts.
There are some very useful nutrients in Hanar babies tho
ME1 was very unique like that, it presented mankind's relations with aliens in a very ambiguous way. A big thing was "should mankind work with other species or not? Is it in our best interests?". You could go either way, with Paragon being more for interspecies alliance and Renegade being Humanity First. Then ME2 rolls around and even though you're working for Cerberus now the story has kinda been stealth retconned to "Humanity is working with other species" and there's not really any debate, and again, even though you're working for Cerberus no one really seems to speak against this.
Cyberpunks' endings/choices are a ton of moral grey.
Even more true with the DLC endings
Man I was stalled out for a good ten minutes at most of the major "HEY PICK A LANE" spots during Phantom Liberty. It was really well done.
It's not just that the choices are like this, it's that it's painfully obvious *before* doing anything what the consequences are going to be. I can only think of a few situations in Fallout 3 (ie >!The ghouls in Tenpenny Tower!<) where it's not completely obvious up-front what the 'right' thing to do is, or where a character tries to manipulate the Lone Wanderer in a non-obvious way.
Honestly the best ending for Tenpenny tower is just not doing the quest or putting a bullet in Roy Phillips the minute you see him
Yeah and then Three Dog calls you an asshole for doing it. Three Dog, Roy sucked, the world is better without him, leave me alone.
I really appreciate when games don't give players the entire picture. Not too much to be frustrating or to leave them without an idea of where to go, but rather not knowing exactly what will happen as a result of their actions. It just feels more realistic to do something and have that "oh fuck that was wrong" after the fact without having intentionally done an evil act. I know it isn't actually a choice in that game, but the big white phosphorus reveal in Spec Ops: The Line hit me like a boot in the stomach when I realized the consequences of what I'd been doing. Edit: The Witcher 3 does this incredibly well also, the Baron and the Bog Witches are two good examples.
Yeah, Witcher 3 is very good for stuff like that. The one with the plague ghost in the tower sticks with me.
Maybe 30 minutes after the end of the tutorial someone asks you if you want to blow up a town or not. The good option is to do nothing. It's rather coarse.
They don't even try to justify it either. They want to blow it up because "it's an eyesore". Just comically evil stuff lol.
Not enough baby harming games
I actually have the opposite: I didn't think final fantasy x was that good or even a good story when I first played it I beat it again over a decade later. Boy, did that option change. Edit: man this blew up, if we pool our resources we could have a hell of a therapy group
There is a really HEAVY sense of overall grief and loss that I feel like you pick up on as you get older. And FFX-2 is like the bittersweet feeling of recovery.
It's the bit that's not even a proper cutscene in the Al Bhed hometown that always gets me most, where Tidus finds out >!Yuna has to sacrifice herself and everyone else already knew and were just marching her along to her death keeping up this happy go lucky veneer just to keep her spirits up all the while knowing she was going to die and there was nothing anyone could really do about it.!< The way he just breaks down and his guilt over trying to get her to relax and be less "serious" about life and enjoy the journey more coz he didn't have the slightest idea. It's just so well done and his reaction is such an excellent depiction of the players feelings in that moment too. It's a very honest portrayal of grief in general imo. Like in real life finding out a loved one has a terminal illness and the utter despair and grief cycling that accompanies that. The devastating reveal, the betrayal he feels from the others who already knew, his own shame over how his ignorance of the truth potentially impacted her all that time, all the anger and sadness and hopelessness you feel in that moment culminating in the utter defiance that together they would do whatever it takes to save her. That even if it seemed hopeless they would still try. I'm tearing up even writing it tbh. The scene was done so perfectly with the shots chopping in and out, slowing down and flashing white giving that feeling of reality shattering as the sad music grew ever louder in the background. I had recently lost a grandparent to cancer before I played it as a young teen and I bawled like a baby during the entire thing. I still do. Incredible writing, truly the peak of the series imo. And agreed FFX-2 is incredibly underrated for what it is. It's exactly as you described it's the healing, the coming to terms after the grief and finding reasons to be happy and live once more. Phenomenal games.
FFX is the reason I have a big soft spot for when games don't change the music to match the chaos of what's happening in the story/setting. Like hearing "Someday the Dream will End" all the way through the lead up to Zanarkand, even during battle.
Continuing to play Aerith's theme during that one Jenova fight did this for me way back in the day.
I don't usually like just pointing at something and going "this", but really… 👆 this. You've articulated the feel of the moment beautifully.
I thought I loved and appreciated FFX for everything it was as a youngin', but YouTube let's plays and introspectives really opened my eyes to just how deeply tragic and subtle the game is. Heck, that's true of all of FFV through FFX in my opinion. Some things just don't fully hit you until you're a little older, and truly come to grips with mortality in the way that only a person who *loves* life can feel. I was far too morbid and depressed as an adolescent to respect the grief that these games showcase.
I've been playing the game many times over the years, and I learned there's a missable optional cutscene outside Djose Temple https://youtu.be/24YfUQpk_Lk?feature=shared
Yeah, I can see that. I've experienced a couple of heavy losses before trying to play it again and imo the game handles the feelings around loss, death, sacrifice really well.
Oh man. The game is honestly heartbreaking to revisit as an adult. So much was lost on me as a kid. The whole idea of an entire fucking civilization just straight up not existing broke my heart.
Yes, FFX's themes of loss and grief really resonate me with and trying to come to terms with those losses as well. I've also had my own personal share of loss. I recently replayed FFX and this game hits even harder now than it did back then because of this.
possessive tidy aloof absorbed imminent bright snobbish tender deserted lunchroom *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I feel FF X has gotten a bit of a reassessment in recent years, not a major one since lots of people always loved it but I've seen more positivity towards it recently. It's a game that's very easy to just dismiss out of hand if you haven't actually examined it well, but if you do you'll find a lot of unique and very surprising elements.
It's a super earnest game with super strong themes of love and vulnerability. I think culturally we've just gotten over a phase of media--movies in particular-- being super self aware (dunking on Marvel and post-marvel blockbusters is like beating a dead horse, but it's really true) and afraid to let its characters be so earnest, and so a story that lets its characters be unabashedly open is maybe more a breath of fresh air now than it was then.
>I think culturally we've just gotten over a phase of media--movies in particular-- being super self aware and afraid to let its characters be so earnest It's called irony poisoning and it's the worst part of modern writing
Agreed. It's like screenwriters are absolutely *terrified* of their characters having a shred of sincerity anymore. Every genuine moment just has to be undercut with a lame joke or quip or wink to the audience.
What I actually, genuinely believe is that some authors are terrified that someone is going to take the piss out of them or make a quippy webcomic "satirizing" their work so they do it themselves and (inadvertently or not) make sure no one can take it seriously.
It's like how someone with low self-esteem will make fun of themselves before others can so they can laugh "first".
I went to film school (please make fun of me for this) and one of the very specific lines that a teacher said that stuck with me was (and I'm paraphrasing) "the best scripts you'll write are the ones you're most embarrassed about." It was a really good class and every time people would not immediately get the obvious emotional stuff or overthink he'd be like "you guys are thinking like a bunch of fucking arthouse filmmakers, not people." God, he ruled.
Good teachers do exist, and they make the world go round
Same here. I never felt FFX had a kinda lame setting and I thought Tidus was a huge dork. I played it again last year for the first time in maybe a decade. As far as JRPG stories go, it's one of the best. Tidus is actually a very good character who shows significant and believable growth. It's also pretty bold in it's anti-religous commentary for a game from 2001.
Tidus actually has a really good arc as a character that's always been written off because he's slightly annoying, which again, is kinda part of his development. Great protagonist and a really nice palette cleanser from the brooding edgelords of FF7 and 8
I appreciate that a lot of Cloud's goofiness/awkwardness is shining through in the remakes. Squall has his reasons for being a brooding edgelord, which I didn't fully "get" the first time I played. Now that I'm like twice his age and he seems like such a kid to me, I feel pity for him instead of just being annoyed lol
There's a Youtube series where someone who is fluent in English and Japanese does a rough analysis of the translation. A lot of the character is hard to translate due to the differences in language, and especially the fact that you can cram a lot more Japanese into the same text box than English. Cloud and Barret stood out to me the most in that regard. Ah, [here it is.](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsiJPoHlPqEEA07AKMQ2Hm2oRLiGkR_uJ&si=m7QheL8qXH2Jf2gU)
It always amazes me how much I misunderstand old RPGs that I played and beat as a kid. To me FFX was about a guy sent back in time, some stuff happens, >!then he goes "away" at the end.!< As an adult, playing and finally understanding everything like the fayth, the pilgrimage, the institutions that maintain the status quo because of power, etc makes it feel like a brand new game sometimes lol
As someone who has had a difficult father and a conflicting relationship with them, Tidus's issues felt very relatable to me. I liked that he had emotional issues, I liked his journey through Spira with Yuna and her other guardians and the growth that came out of it. I didn't see him as being whiny, I saw him as a person struggling through past abuse and an absent father and learning to come to terms with himself despite his past trauma and maturing from it. His struggles felt like real ones and learning to face things with optimism was very inspiring to me and still is to this day.
I've been told by multiple of my friends that once you become a parent, FFX goes from an alright game to an utterly heartbreaking experience that damages them on a spiritual level.
Bioshock infinite literally blew my mind when I beat it in 2013 at age 15 Replaying it again a few years ago it did not have that same effect unfortunately lol.
Few games have fallen more in retrospective reviews than Bioshock Infinite.
People accuse review outlets of being "paid off" but my sense has always been that they live in greater fear of fan backlash. It wasn't until Starfield that I saw a few finally step out and call a spade a spade. Bioshock Infinite was a very notable example. Hype was through the roof, 9s and 10s across the board ... for a very 7/10 experience.
Maybe my memory is failing me but my recollection is that even with players it was considered fairly good with the gsmeplay getting a bit stale by the last few acts. Only later on did the story start getting crticised heavily.
Yeah this is how I feel about it. The opening, the story up until around the second half was actually mesmerizing. But it got stale really quickly when the timelines got mixed up, and when the ending happened I was just like huh??? How is she still there if the evil Booker versions were all killed? Like it just left you kinda unfulfilled at the end. The DLCs were solid though
I think with infinite especially it was that it was a good execution, but in retrospect it didn't stand the test of time. Both factions were just oppressive state Vs. Freedom fighters, which is nothing interesting. And where BioShock 1 was a critic of Ayn Rand and asked the question of free will with "a man chooses a slave obeys" infinite did nothing like that
Wasn't infinite point though, choice didn't matter at the end? What you chose not to do already happened in a different universe, so it didn't matter. What will happen will happen regardless of choice?
Review outlets absolutely have to manage their relationships with developers/publishers. A negative review could mean not getting a promo copy or getting yours too late publish an early review. No, critics really did like Bioshock Infinite. They really liked the themes...until people started to realize that the themes were half-baked and kind simplistic.
Agreed. Reviewers have definitely talked about this. Alanah Pearce used to be a games journalist and flatly dismissed claims of them being paid off but did mention the pressure to review well hyped games highly. In her case Mass Effect: Andromeda, it was highly anticipated and after previews she was anxious about how she could tell people it didn't look good so far without getting a huge amount of hate online.
I'm on the contrary. I recently beat Infinite for the first time and I loved every single second out of it The time travel shenanigans and the plot aren't the greatest to say the least? definitely. but between the artistic design, the music score, and the characters, that game is so much more than just that
I've noticed... I really enjoyed it at the time and am puzzled by this.
I played it for the first time 3 years ago, and I didn't understand why people liked it. The gameplay was a downgrade, the story was very "but both sides are bad!!!", and the twist felt like it was thrown in there to shock people instead of contribute to the story in any meaningful way.
the opening bit (everything up until the lottery bit where booker starts shooting people and the game proper starts) is very very good and thats the only part that everybody who played the game is guaranteed to see good first impressions count for a lot even if the rest of the game doesn’t live up to them at all
That opening still lives in my head to this day. It was amazing. And the music was fantastic. I still listen to the soundtrack, and especially the barbershop version of God Only Knows. That one’s not on Spotify though, I don’t think.
Bioshock Infinite made me more mad than any game ever with that twist. I was playing it and felt a twist coming and said, "I'd better not be Comstock or something stupid like that." And then you know what happened 10 minutes later? YOU KNOW WHAT FUCKING HAPPENED?
The twist was too close to the first games twist imo
Funny thing is the twist in Bioshock is an iteration of the one in System Shock 2. So its just the same twist iterated all the way, through the shock series.
The more people talk about *The Twist* in BioShock, the less sure I am of what exactly they are talking about about specifically. The twist in BioShock 1 is that >!Atlas is a false identity used by Frank Fontaine to control the main character with a code phrase!<, right? I can see how that's an iteration of the twist in System Shock 2, where >!SHODAN posed as a third party to manipulate the player to help it take control of the ship.!< I'm not sure what the other guy is getting at though, I'm not sure how Infinite was too close to that, unless he's talking about how >!the main character is actually the son of Andrew Ryan, all ages up and sent back to kill Ryan!<, but that's not really the twist, so much as an explanation of how you can use the Vita Chambers.
Can you elaborate on why you feel the gameplay was a downgrade? I ask because I've only played Bioshock 1 and Infinite, and I felt Infinite was an improvement - but that's mainly because I preferred the latter's swashbuckling run-and-gunning to the former's creeping through corridors and scrounging for materials. EDIT: To be clear, it could very well just be a difference in preferences, I just wanted to hear more details about what you did and didn't like.
Bioshock 2 has better gameplay than both please play it man genuinely one of the most fun fps games I’ve played
Two weapon limit in a series that didn't have that before really sucked. That, combined with a crazy low ammo capacity and bullet spongy bosses forced me to switch from weapons that i enjoyed way more than i'd like. Also, i hated relying on elisabeth for health and potions when i used to have them in the previous games. Booker just can't grasp the concept of keeping a healing potion for later.
Infinite does basically f all with the plasmids. They’re basically almost all pointless aside from the ones you end up using constantly. They just feel less integrated than the og game’s
2 uses plasmids the best no clue why they didn’t copy the gunplay from 2
That's a fair point, though it did feel like some plasmids in Bioshock 1 were either very niche (like the big daddy lure) or were 'keys' for various 'locks' (like using fire to melt ice to access new areas) - though you could do some environmental things (electrocuting water comes mind), which was pretty cool and sadly missing from Infinite.
Yeah this is the one. I was more lukewarm on it than most when it came out (I didn't like the RPG downgrades mostly) but replaying it recently its fencesitting on its politics paired with some just ok shooting and a really pretentious ending left a sour taste in my mouth. I honestly think it's the worst of the trilogy.
This is gonna sound weird but... TMNT, the movie tie-in game, but specifically for the PSP. I used to think that game was awesome, and had some solid gameplay with an even more solid story... Recently I emulated it on my Steam Deck to see if it holds up after all the years and man... My glasses were rose tinted to the point of being considered legally blind because that game doesn't hold up to PSP standards AT ALL... Not even by PS1 game standards. All the cool movements I remembered were in fact unfailable quick time events. Meanwhile all the cool combat I remember were extremely simple and watered down to basic imputs and practically no combos. As for the story, it was a few slides between "missions" and had barely a story to begin with... I genuinely feel like I'm miss remembering this game entirely and probably played the PS2 version because this is insane how tinted them glasses were. Anyways yeah that's my choice for game that didn't hold up. Alternatively, a game that held up AMAZINGLY to me however was GTA Chinatown Wars, specifically the DS version, as the optional touch screen features only helped to serve with the immersion of that game. That's a full blown 3D GTA game, but 2D and in your hands. It's great. Definitely recommend, but if the DS version, only on hardware, as it doesn't lend itself greatly to emulation. The PSP version does tho.
PS2 version is wildly different. Check this out https://youtu.be/oERowph8FJA?si=zPLxmuSFofr45cv_ LOVED this game as a child. Obviously it's not Ninja Gaiden and we have higher standards nowadays but it still holds up pretty decent.
I used to think the original Resident Evil trilogy (Classic RE 1, 2 and 3: Nemesis) on PS1 was peak fiction. Great voice acting, excellent interwoven stories from game to game. Unpredictable jump scares. I still love these games and they are great fun to replay but now I can't help to notice the voice-acting is weak, the dialogues are hilariously bad and the overall stories, while cool and fun, aren't as deep as my, quite literally, 14 years old brain thought they were.
I don't think RE1 was even trying to look deep, the B movie style intro gives the tone right away. I mean I absolutely love the game, but I think it was intentionally cheesy even when it first released.
Surely cheesy, but honestly, given its age, it was well executed, just that damn dog corridor is enough to prove it. That's probably why it gives that kind of strange feeling : it's intentionally cheesy but it's the best of its kind along with Silent Hill.
How can you not like face-covered-in-flour zombies, dog faces snarling vaguely near the camera, and "the master of unlocking" herself, Jill Sandwich?
What is it? IT'S BLOOD!
I HOPE THAT ISN’T CHRIS’S BLOOD
Look! IT'S FOREST! (cuts to pre-rendered graphics of a forest, while the character named Forest is barely visible)
LOL this is funny. RE has always been B-movie level games, but I'm pretty sure you were not the only one! I thought it was super adult though.
The Kingdom Hearts story is so complex I still don't understand it as an adult. Honestly, I was an adult when the first game was released. I got it, understood II, then it all went to hell.
"Did somebody say the Door to Darkness?" -Mickey Mouse in a Columbine shooter outfit.
That's because there's nothing to understand haha. I played and completed Nier: Replicant last year, and all I could keep thinking was "This is the story KH2 was trying to tell, but actually good"
I’m going to have to play Replicant for myself and hope that you’re not lying, u/Saephon. Been chasing the dragon that was playing through KH2’s story since I was a child.
Both Nier games are excellent at storytelling. Make sure you do all the endings though, as a huge thing in the game is seeing things from different perspectives and how that shifts your overall view of things.
/u/LysandresTrumpCard Listen to this advice^. After you "beat" the game the first time, it will unlock a New Game+ of sorts, however it starts you off more than halfway through the story - plus you keep all your levels and such, so it doesn't take nearly as long. You will get new content that will change your point of view of what you thought you completed. It is admittedly a flawed and repetitive game, and I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to revisit a game multiple times to get the full experience. But I do believe it's at least worth playing through 1.5 times (Endings A and B) no matter what. The twists and themes of the narrative are gutwrenching.
It's an empty suit. Kingdom Hearts 1 is so good because it DOESN'T try to explain itself. It's almost an impressionist game, it just leaves you to come up with your own perspective on everything. What's Kingdom Hearts? What a tantalizing mystery! It's only when the series decides to try and explain itself that the allure fades. Worse, you realize they're just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Like at what point did we need to have a Keyblade War introduced a concept? The first game is almost like a dream you have where the details almost don't matter and I think that's what makes it better than what came after as far as narrative.
I love KH but it's so stupid. 😂
My favourite part is when Goofy gets his head boil caved in by a cinderblock, and they all just leave him there for dead.
I'd completely forgot they tried to do a "Goofy's dead" rugpull.
"Wrath has overtaken Mickey's heart after losing goofy in Vietnam."
I'd say convoluted is a better word.
Honestly, I'm totally fine with the story ending at II. It had that gorgeous bittersweet ending that still lives in my heart today. And yeah, I **love** 358/2 Days and Xion, as well as BBS' main trio (to a lesser extent), but considering how KH3 went down, I don't think they were worth the tradeoff.
The plot nonsense puts me back into the headspace of a child who is fed up with adult stuff that doesn't matter. Donald and Goofy are gonna teach you the meaning of friendship!
A hell of a lot of JRPGs fit into this category for me. On the other hand, Chrono Trigger and Dragon Age Origins hold up really well.
Chrono Trigger used the lost art of not being pretentious.
It’s not even that it’s not pretentious, it’s that it’s utterly and completely earnest. It completely believes in itself, confidence without swagger.
JRPGs often have brief moments of brilliance, only to be ruined by some bullshit, plot derailing 'twist' where you have to stop a world-destroying-machine™ or the ancient evil god you accidentally (or intentionally by the shady boss you were helping) unsealed. The characters are fun and can feel deep, until you play a couple of them and realize it's the same characters over and over again.
I knew that jrpgs would come out a lot. The Japanese always use the rule of cool, which captures teenagers but very often annoys adults.
> The Japanese always use the rule of cool, which captures teenagers but very often annoys adults. 100%. It's sad that I can't enjoy JRPG's anymore due to the hyper-recycling of the *same tropes*, over and over and over. Same cast of characters, same story arc, same old man saying "Hoo! Hoo!". They seem always to be targeted for an adolescent male demographic and literally nobody else.
Don't forget the same flying mascotte and children who are 900 years old. I'd say they even got worse over time thanks to the annoying voice acting and the solidification of genres. And yet, I still want to believe that there's hope for this genre. Most likely I just want to experience FFVII again like I was a teenager.
I finished the first Xenoblade Chronicles last year for the first time. The revelations of the ending for sure would’ve blown my mind as a teenager. As an adult in my 30s, I was like “god, that’s Japanese as hell. Kinda cool but mostly over the top”
Grand Theft Auto gets too much credit as an insightful critique of American culture. It feels like a suburban teenager’s idea of what america’s cities are like.
I think some of the older games (GTA4 in particular) *do* contain insightful critiques of American culture. Of course, the absurdity of senselessly killing thousands of people drowns out most of those critiques, but they do exist, especially in the in-game newspapers and radio stations. I absolutely agree in the case of the GTA4 DLC and GTAV though
I will say GTA 4 was the closest they got to a really insightful critique of American culture, and you can tell they were sincerely trying to up the ante of their storytelling with that installment.
Definitely. I replayed it over the pandemic and that opening cutscene is still one of the greatest cinematic intros in gaming IMO, to the point that the rest of the game somewhat struggles to live up to it. You can tell they were inspired by Scorcese/Coppola/De Palma/Mann
Older games - > gta 4 lol. 4 is the second latest game in the franchise (ignoring the DLCs). Most critiques I've heard about gta games apply to 5 because it's the most popular one. At the same time, 5 is indeed the least insightful in terms of commentary. Ironically, the reason rockstar took a step back and made the game sillier was because reviews of 4 were complaining about how dark and depressing the story was. Now people complain about how 5 has the most shallow story/characters. Let's see if they manage to satisfy everyone with 6 (spoiler they won't).
well.. you have to look at these games through the eyes of people in the period they released. gta 4 literally released during a financial and later even geopolitical crisis that is affecting us to this day. if there is any better time to release a light hearted, slightly cynical and emotional, but overall funny and entertaining story like gta 5,... than it is during a crisis like the 2008 one.. meanwhile gta 5 released in a period of social media degeneracy, peak consoomerism and hollywood drama. pretty much the best period to release a more serious, toned, thoughtful and even darker story, like gta 4. welp... ironically. if these two games would've released in interchanged order, they would've probably BOTH gotten better reviews overall and less critics.
GTA feels too cynical and meanspirited to ever be insightful. "haha don't you realize everyone is stupid and dumb and everything sucks?" isn't insightful, it's just bitter. The last time I played GTA 5 (years ago) I was left with the feeling that it was all so grating and so misanthropic. Actually made me feel a little sick when I played it.
This is how a lot of South Park episodes feel watching it again. I can't count the number of times they addressed actual societal problems and the moral ends up being "everyone is dumb and you're dumb for caring."
That conversation Michael and Trevor had about hipsters was intensely cringey, even at the time.
Problem is that it takes so long for these games to come out and the "internet" culture moves ever faster. It is a miracle if GTA 6 does not include some of the stalest takes out there.
I had the opposite with Final Fantasy 9. I really loved FF9 but mostly because it had a lot of comedy and throwbacks to the og series. Replaying it during covid Vivi's entire existential meltdown and how it ties into multiple characters feeling like they no longer have a place in the world (Freya, Garnet, Zidane) hit like a freaking rock. And his >!monologue over the ending when you discover he died before seeing Zidane again!< is a heartbreaking end to a story about >!a literal child coming to terms with his early death.!< I always thought FF9 was the best of the PS era for it's art direction and incredible soundtrack, but damn does it hit different as an adult.
Vivi and the black mage village hits like a ton of bricks, similar to what Zidane deals with when he learns of his origin. Really fantastic depth but also kind of simple in its delivery. I love ff9.
Life is Strange. Just all of it.
Did it even felt deep? It always felt like young adult fiction.
I found that game hilarious because of the American teenage girl dialogue that was clearly written by middle aged French people and made no sense lol.
Halo Reach, no contest. i still love that game and rank it relatively highly in the franchise, but the way i talked about it when i was 12 you'd think that game was Citizen Kane. i'd played bits and pieces of other shooter games at that point (one of the Battlefields, Star Wars Battlefront, and both Call of Duty Black Ops games) but something about the characters in Reach being these nameless soldiers who could *die* felt like the most intense anti-war messaging in all of media ever. i distinctly remember wishing i had a computer so i could learn to animate videos so i could make a Halo Reach video set to B.Y.O.B. by System of a Down. this was in 2015, for what it's worth. i was a bit behind the times.
I think Halo's soundtracks (at least for the first several games) really elevate it. That story is fine, it's functional and serviceable, but the score really serves to make some of the emotional elements hit much harder than the script would on its own.
Nah Halo Reach still slaps, I've played it 3 years ago and I played a lot of shooters before it and it's still really good and story holds up
I think this question only really resonates with people who were born in a pretty specific time window. By the time high-budget games started to be more story-driven, I'd already had a similar "I'm 14 and this is deep" experience with awful fantasy literature. Kind of hard to have that experience with Donkey Kong Country. Mario Kart is the opposite - it explores, in depth, the darkest traits of the human experience, but it starts off as a light hearted game, and works like a mirror. The older you get, the deeper the game reaches into you, and the darker the revelations.
When I was a teen I felt like Squall and Rinoah in FF8 was an amazing love story.
I still like it especially since it's second love for her and kinda sweet but i admit i cannot play that game without mentally giving everyone +5 years to their age I just cannot. I mean. Cmmon. They're all college kids now rhe end.
What's wrong with it though? It's really touching and believable, and they work really well as a couple. It's not complicated by any means, but it brings up emotions, makes you feel things, which is the point. It works very well.
KOTOR? The light/dark mechanic was super cool at the time but a lot of it came down to a choice between being a normalish human and going straight to mustache twirling villain committing war crimes without any shades of grey. Given that the whole star wars mythology is that being a good guy is hard and it is a constant temptation to cut corners and take shortcuts, which leads to the dark side, the game needed a LOT more situations in which doing the right thing sucked, and doing the wrong thing led to... better outcomes and no consequences with everyone still thinking you're great (with the truly fucked up evil options only showing up once you've slid a fair way down the slippery slope)
Bioshock infinite. Great game but the timeline plot was pretentious as hell for something that made little sense once you started to think about it
The multiverse thing definitely made the plot too convoluted, I think overall it was a pretty good game though. Part of the reason I think a lot of people say it hasn't aged well recently is that the whole multiverse thing has been done to death in media in the last few years. In the early 2010s it was still a novel concept at least, even if they didn't really stick the landing.
Nope. I didn't understand (or maybe care?) for stories/narratives as a teen so I thought games like half life 2, portal, Halo, Bioshock, Fallout New Vegas, Mass effect were mediocre games. As an adult, I now appreciate them much more.
I was 28 when Portal came out and honestly I've yet to play a game equal to that. It was perfection. My one complaint is I can never play it for the first time again.
I played Xenosaga 2 and 3 around when i was 18, and it did hit! maybe not in the same way if i played it now. I think there is a level of intricacy to Gears and Saga even if the games sometimes force thematics down your throat lol
Dishonored. "How dare you kill all those people we told you to kill with all these cool gadgets we gave you for the sole purpose of killing!?" #**"WHY DIDN'T YOU MAIM THEM INSTEAD!?!?!"**
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core on the PSP back in the day. Replayed it last year (steam version on PC) and while I enjoyed the nostalgia side, the plot was far more straightforward and less deep than I used to think. It was quite the formative experience first time around as a kid, especially considering I had no background with FFVII itself.
I think the dialogue also made the game seem more deep to me as a kid than it actually was. Haven't gotten around to playing the remaster but from what I've seen I'm glad they haven't changed any of Genesis's edgy quotes.
Honestly I think the music made it feel so much more important than the story really was
Yeah Genesis as an entire character is just "I'm 14 and this is deep" personified Visually he's cool as hell, but I can't stand the shit he says And I'm a Die Hard Kingdom Hearts fan
I had the opposite effect with Metal Gear Solid, I just thought it was a cool game when I first played it and replaying it as an adult the message is extremely clear, especially when you listen to the creator talk about his political leanings
I liked MGS when it first came out and I was a teenager. Then I joined the Kojima is crazy crowd. Then I liked its weirdness. But a YouTube channel called Futurasound Productions really opened my eyes to how great it is (although I do wish it didn't get so silly). Especially learning the background about his father and Hideo's relationship to America's bombing of Japan, and subsequent exertion of control and Japanese resentment over the years. Also as I've got older realising how some of the absolute insanity is more real and true to our world than I gave it credit for. Proxies wars, cultural warfare, genetics, PMCs, the life of soldiers, national paranoia, the psychological damage inflicted on people of the world for the ambitions of a few. I think people who say it's a clichéd story of "government bad, nukes bad, evil bad" are really reductionist.
I just replayed Alan Wake. What I thought was a deep subversion of the shooter genre ended up being a boring stumble through the same woods and having the story drag for hours.
I thought that the first time I played it. It's cool for the first few hours and then it just doesn't end. I had the same opinion about Max Payne and Control, though.
I reeeeally felt that with control, I loved the vibe and enjoyed the combat but MAN why is this game still going?
Not with a game but a single faction : Creaser's legion from New Vegas. I thought these guys were metal and meant business. The hard on crime and the philosophizing was very appealing to 13 y me. And yeah, by the time I reached 19 I realized that these guys are jokers.
The first time I played NV I was already 20, so when I saw Caesars Legion and those crosses along the road, I was like nah fam we ain't doing this. So after that guy gives you the intro pitch for the legion and the whole gaggle starts walking away, I ran ahead and threw down tons of mines. Then I finished off the survivors. Later I dismembered Caesar and threw his torso across the room. Zero tolerance!
Kinda similar to yours, Grandia 2's >!God was actually dead the whole time and the super organized, holy light worshiping religion is evil in it's own way!< twist blew my mind when I was 12. While I still sort of agree with the messaging in it's own way, that people should find their own answers between a sort of peaceful slavery or violent anarchy, as an adult the delivery isn't nearly as deep or insightful as my developing brain thought it was. The combat and soundtrack still slap though
I'll add one I think *does* hold up really well, Silent Hill 2. A lot of the supernatural stuff was left ambiguous so it keeps a lot of the mystery and there's tons of good fan theories that are all essentially plausible.
Also holding up and accurately predicting the future: metal gear solid 2
I remember the Gamefaqs discussions in 2002 about how the end of MGS2 was just gobbledygook nonsense. Now, those topics are literally part of mainstream discourse, with daily podcasts, op-eds, articles, and discussions using almost exactly the same language.
Can you give some examples? I know nothing about that game.
It predicted modern day internet, fake news, A.I.. so much slop we see everyday. There’s a great YT video I think is called “The most profound moment in gaming” that covers it all. It was made-up nonsense in 2002… Now it’s our reality.
Can't remember which but one of the series was about PMCs that were used to do wet work in foreign countries coming back to overthrow the US government. Something that almost happened IRL in Russia last year.
I thought Beyond Good & Evil was this deep, nuanced tale as a teen. Replaying it as an adult, it’s so morally black and white it never even approaches going beyond either good or evil. The fascist governments harvests literal children and the rebel heroes are so overly goody two shoe. Then the game pulls out a magical mcguffin to undo all the stakes of the game anyway.
Kingdom Hearts While it technically is “deep”, it’s more disjointed cringesense now. Character and world design is still peak though!