As I've said elsewhere, "JRPGs" are their own tradition, and the only interesting branch from the root they share with the old "RPGs". I do not hate the letters R, P, and G. I hate boring mechanical contrivance with boring stock fiction layered on top of it.
I have no opinion about the Halo stuff but no way are you getting away with saying you like JRPGs because you want to
avoid "boring mechanical contrivance with boring stock fiction layered on top of it".
hahaha. Excellent.
Have you played Final Fantasy 7 recently? The original one? More particularly the first act, where they loaded up the work they were most proud of?
The bad stereotype of JRPGs is that you spend 500 hours standing in a line using a menu to punch monsters, but in the first 8 odd hours which comprise the first act of Final Fantasy 7, how much time do you actually spend in
JRPG Combat? The game's
boring mechanical contrivance state? And how do those situations arise? Almost every instance of
combat in the first act of Final Fantasy 7 is deeply embedded within some kind of rich context with care paid to how the greater sequence flows. Random encounters occur in a few select environments to serve as both a familiar grounding element of form, and to shape the tone and pace of progress. At some points the random encounters are very embedded within the context, like guards attempting to stop you during the initial terrorist raid. Others deliberately play off of the absurdity of the form, offering some relief and novelty during a kind of designated
downtime moment (being attacked by a
crazy house in a junkyard). As it's used, the mechanical contrivance is implemented in a very interested and expressive manner. They do a lot with what was once meant to serve as
the point of a game. They find ways to bend and elevate this idea towards complimenting a far more advanced experience.
You're doing
so much in this first act, mechanically, experiencing such an amazingly varied spread of things which somehow manages to feel bound within this form of "JRPG". By the end of act 1 can we say that JRPG is a boring mechanical contrivance with boring stock fiction layered on top of it? It's treated more like a challenge. To take a few quaint formal elements of old "video games" and incorporate them into cutting edge multimedia. To take lining up guys to punch a monster one at a time and turn that into something that will shock the entire world.
Halo is a more visual work than it is a game
/End thread
If people will keep indulging me we might be just getting started.
All games are visual works.
YES. YES THEY ARE. You may have always
known this, but have you ever stated it before? We can go to so many interesting places from here. You might just become human.
But the valuable ones are also games first.
The truly good ones use gameplay to tie it all together into something greater,
Sure, if it's there make interesting use of it. But what does "games first" mean? Does it mean anything?
for example a survival horror uses gameplay to increase the stakes and create tension, which has a far reaching effect of increasing fear, immersion, atmosphere, EVEN THE STORY is enhanced this way.
Your point being..?
A game disregarding gameplay is pure retardation and a disgrace to the medium.
But what does it mean to
disregard gameplay? Is it possible for someone to respect "gameplay" (by which in the context of a discussion of Halo, I suppose we mean pure player input driving and being the point at all times) by assigning it a less than prime place in a greater work?
You're apparently a survival horror aficionado. Seen all the finest video essays I'm sure. How do you feel about Silent Hill? A "survival horror" (lol) game which was made
after Resident Evil and has
less complex gameplay? These people were obviously aware of Resident Evil, they freely took
elements of it. But
pared down from a
more complex form which contained more
gameplay? Would you consider Silent hill to be a
degeneration of Resident Evil? Silent Hill looked at a game with a novel form of
gameplay and
made that gameplay simpler to serve a greater vision. Gameplay was undeniably disprivileged in the production of Silent Hill to facilitate engagement with its other media elements. They were not gameplay maximalists. They would not privilege
gameplay at the cost of any other element of the work.
And then
they made more Silent Hill games, and if anything
they got simpler.
Now we have constructed a Norwood Dilemma. Silent Hill, an essential
prestige gaming institution, is guilty of a
hardcore gaming sin? What do we do now? Did something good come from the disregard of
gameplay?
Especially when, just like Halo does, it still includes gameplay but it is largely retarded, pointless & unengaging, so it is just a waste of time. This is why you don't respect gameplay, you grew up with this worthless trash with time-wasting gameplay and unsurprisingly fail to see the value.
Ah, here's our brilliant cerebral answer perhaps. That Silent Hill was not "retarded, pointless & unengaging" (was Halo also shallow and pedantic?). There's no discussion to be had here, you just pile synonyms for
bad on things you don't like and act like you're exercising discernment. Don't think I'm the only one making this judgement.
And I actually had Duke Nukem 64 before Halo. In that game I'd load into bot matches and just wander around appreciating how rich the levels were in detail. Playing it sort of like an adventure game in an empty liminal world. I had a great time. I had never heard the term "first person shooter" at the time of course, so I didn't know I was enjoying myself wrong.
Even disregarding this synergistic effect of gameplay for a moment, video games should still have a degree of respectable engaging gameplay, period.
Or what? Are you going to call the police? Or your high school English teacher? I might start calling Visual Novels "video games" whenever I'm on this site now.
If not, you're in the wrong medium as a developer or player. It puts the controller in your hand and presents you with many multiple hours of game time. It is not respecting your time nor your intelligence if it doesn't make it engaging.
This statement is meaningless when "engaging" is a qualifier you arbitrarily bestow upon things you already like.
Muh taste > Ur taste: The Thread.
The staple of the Codex.
I am clearly not making arguments based on taste. You're either too dumb to know the difference, or you're trying to play peacemaker and act like this thread is devolving into
wacky lol internet le random chaos to diffuse attention and draw people away from concluding that your oldfag friend is getting intellectually pummeled to death right in front of you in the first thing resembling real discourse to take place on this site since topdrunkee left.
I'm testing myself against you people.
Ash is pretty unique, that's why we love him
He's depressingly common.
And everyone, enough with the COWCH sentimentality. Appeal to COWCH is for rapemeat like Phil Fish. Halo does not need your le comfy childhood friend modifier to be worthwhile. It did have that going for it, but this is not that discussion.
