/v/ - Video Games

Undertale

>>13777245

this

>>13777172

You might be a retarded millennial mixed race, but even someone as you deserves a speck of truth sometimes. Majora's Mask was loved because the idea it uses, was ripped off a hugely popular movie. It was like playing a crossover, or spinoff of Zeldo into the twilight zone genre.

Now of course your ritalin addicted nervous system is scrambling, to counter that since you and all your friends don't know this movie, then Majora's popularity cannot be built on such. Well that phenomenon has a name as well, it's called pavlovian training.

YU-NO did this half a decade earlier but it wasn't a Nintendo game that 'everybody' played so who cares amirite boys?

>>13777366

But whenever Link died in MM, he died permanently. He didn't get reset to the begining of the first day. Also Bill Murray became an MD, a classical pianist and learned to speak french in the 30 years he spent in the time loop. Link got a cool mask.

>>13777245

That's not a bad contender, actually. I guess when you do kill enough monsters (or don't) in the in-game battle arenas, other characters outside of battle might start to treat you differently, depending on your actions. [Some may even hate you deeply for killing someone they really cared about.] And with the story's Heavy emphasis on pacifism vs genocide, I guess it does align itself rather nicely with the game's mechanics of inflicting harm or not.

Huh? I never actually thought of Undertale that closely before tbh. Tumblrtards kinda infected the community around it, so I kinda distanced myself away from Undertale after completing it.

Even so, besides Undertale, are there really no more games that synergize gameplay and story as well as these two?

>>13777393

>reliving the same day as bill murray is not the same as reliving the same day as link

double digits IQ revealed

>>13777172

I really hate most of the discussion about videogames being art or not because it's often tards on one side saying videogames are above criticism and tards on the other side saying that "art = pretentious".

In truth, there's an art indeed when it comes to making videogames.

Playing them as well and if you don't think that perfecting rocketjumping\bunnyhoping for maximum speed, footsies in fighting games or micro in RTS isn't art, get the fuck out of here.

The problem is that it's often very easy to mix things and ending up judging another form of art, not the game itself.

One of the best examples I can give you is DMC4, where if you pay attention, the soundtrack syncs with your character's strikes creating an amazing feeling of sinestesia.

A lot of people will judge this on the merit of the music itself and they are evaluating art indeed, but it's music.

Others wil evaluate the coreography of the character and that's art, but it's actually coreography.

The real art here, the art of making vydia, is combining the audio cues with your character's moveset to give you feedback on your actions and get you pumped as you play.

What's more, the rhythm actually speeds up (and so do you) as your style meter increases, making the beginning of a fight somewhat calm but tense while the climax of it is fast, loud and intense.

This mixture of different forms of regular art to give you that amazing feeling of pulling an SSS in Dante Must Die is the actual art of making videogames.

Going back to storytelling, maybe you won't believe me and maybe these aren't as strong a case as MM, but both Deus Ex and Vampire the Maskerade Bloodlines do an amazing job with this.

Deus Ex has you starting fresh of the academy with a small amount of practical skills with an easy plot to follow about being a supercop and doing Unatco proud.

You also have a somewhat limited amount of options at that point but quite a lot already.

As the game progresses, the story unfolds before you and there's a lot in there that gets you thinking. The chalenges you face become harder not because your character's level increased but because you're tangling with very dangerous individuals now.

And even though you keep getting canisters and skill points, they never make things too easy, they just broaden your choice of options, much like the story.

VtMB does this a bit better since the growth of your character from a weak vampire to a murder machine makes sense considering how fresh you are but also the many different situations and people you end up finding.

This was not designed like that, but the fact that there's plenty of social options in the first half of the game but the later forces you into combat drives very well the idea the World of Darkness is indeed dangerous and you'll only be able to talk your way out of danger for a little while.

Your dialogue also changes quite a lot based on your own humanity, which depending on what type of character you're playing, directly reflects on your playstyle, meaning your dialogue never ends up feeling too jarring.

>>13777324

i think cliffy b is a handsome gay power bottom

gay men must find it fun to power pound his ass. i can see cliffy taking 12 inch dicks like a champ.

I can't see him being a male topping anyone though.

>>13777391

Reading on it, it's a visual novel and when it reached the PC, it was censored. Plus, there's the anime anyway so that's likely why it didn't held the same interest as a 3D game for a famous console.

>>13777414

You're being an idiot.

Link gets 3 days, not one.

Bill Murray relives them forcefully and wishes for it to stop. If he dies, he goes back.

Link relieves them on his own accord because it's the only way to save the world. If he doesn't go back, he dies.

Groundhog was about the futility in moralities or getting involved with other people and the metaphor with God.

Majora's Mask was about saving the world and helping people as a means to get there, but eventually it touches you in exactly the reverse of what Groundhog did. Instead of contemplating how absurd it is to care about everyone around you, you still go through with your mission to save everyone because it's not about you, whereas Groundhog was about Bill Murray hooking up with the girl.

>>13777324

>the ominous feeling of the moon about to fall was exciting.

It's better when you think you're doing it for the sake of everyone else too.

Maybe I was lucky in this because the very last "quest" I completed was that long one about reuniting the lovers, something that takes all 3 days in specific occasions to complete, I think.

The last night, when you can finnaly get them together, you get this amazing scene of them enjoying "their last minutes on earth" with the sound of the bells and the light of the moon outside.

So when you climb that tower to defeat Skull Kid and save the day, you're doing it for that couple as well since they are the only ones you managed to save in this time line. You're doing it to protect that pure innocent love. And it's the best feeling ever.

>liking a video game

LIKINGAVIDEOGAME

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GET THE FUCK OUT

>>13777245

Absolute fucking bullshit, and I really liked Undertale. The gameplay had some interesting elements, but they didn't really interact with the story in any interesting way. It was essentially a three-way branch of "kill everything", "kill nothing", or "kill everything", with small variation based on who you killed and whether you had killed everything before. Other than that, sparing things and doing other ACT things got really samey really fast other than bosses. Most of the "story" is just dumped on you at the beginning and end of the game, and then again in the real end of the game in video tapes, which can hardly be called good synergy. That and the SAVE fuckery that should have been cool but then only is ever talked about, again, at the very beginning and end of the game.

Again, I liked the game a lot, but the incorporation of story into gameplay was one of the weakest parts of the whole game. Not even close to how well Majora's Mask did it.

>>13777627

Well, I've always been aware of Deus Ex's massive critical acclaim. Especially because this one youtuber I respect (Razorfist) seems to consider it as one of his all-time favs. Funnily enough, for VtMB, I only heard about it recently because that same youtuber did a livestream of it a while back.

I've yet to play these two myself, but I'll take your word on how good they are and go check em out.

Although, one thing that's been on my mind lately is Morality systems in video games. You know, games where you "do good things" and you'll be treated as a Good guy. Or "do bad things" and you'll be treated as a Bad guy. Do you think games such as those might be, well, *expected* to combine gameplay and story together?

Majora's Mask seemingly mixes the two without ever having to do the whole Good/Evil routes. And then there are games that have a Morality system (like Undertale) that are, well, Built to affect the story via gameplay. Undertale might have done Morality system the best (actually allowing you to go full pacifist), but then are also games like Infamous that do the same schtick to a lesser degree.

>>13777391

Tbh, the only VN I've ever played was Steins;Gate. Found it enjoyable, but I personally know I'm just not a VN type of guy.

>>>13777172

>This constant abandonment of failed timelines only serves to make the player feel more uneasy, adding feelings of dread and hopelessness onto the game's story of impending apocalypse.

Holy fuck speak for yourself. My response is ,"lol, the apocalypse can't happen because I literally have eternity to fix it."

>>13777910

>this one youtuber I respect (Razorfist)

Wew

>>13777453

Wait, there was time travel in that show?

>>13777749

The combat shows off both a RPG's UI and a Touhou inspired dodging sequence. Rather than engaging the complexities of either in a serious way gameplay-wise, (with a few brief exceptions) the two are combined to give the game an outlet to define or flesh out ideas. Each dodging sequence tells you something, obvious or not, about the character, and each ACT gives you a window into their personality (however vapid).

Events are juxtaposed over your simple RPGmaker grid, and control is taken away or given to the player at will, allowing for more ways to integrate plot-points into the game.

It would be wrong to say that Undertale delivered an impressive or even vaguely innovative plot, but it isn't wrong to say that the way the game and story interact is interesting.

What you're referring to is emergent changes to the story based on gameplay, which Majora's Mask did very well. What that other anon is referring to, albeit for bait purposes, is emergent changes in gameplay mechanics based on the story, which Undertale did reasonably well, and Majora's Mask didn't do much at all.

I think a game that integrates both to great effect would be Okami, and this may help explain some of its staying power.

>>13777955

One area where Majora's Mask runs into trouble is that it wasn't definitive enough. Players go in expecting to save the day, so even when presented with something as insurmountable as the goddamn moon falling from the sky, they're instantly like "ok where are the dungeons", rather than "I guess I better make the most of it", which is (generally) the desired emotional response.

That's okay because the game feels more fun if you get both a morbid atmosphere and hope to save the day, but it does limit how bad it can fuck with people's heads.

>>13778261

What's wrong with Razorfist? He's occasionally a faggot like in his new vegas review but I don't see much wrong with him besides that tbh

>>13778590

This is actually indirectly explained in Breath of the Wild. Basically Fresh Water Zoras were forced to evolve in the floods while Salt Water Zoras remained. That's why you see both Ruto and Zora together in BotW

>>13777172

Pathologic? I mean, it's not like games that you don't know about automatically don't exist.

>>13777659

I thought Cucky B just liked to watch his wife get fucked.

>>13778695

He's an edgelord contrarian faggot.

>>13777664

>Majora's Mask was about saving the world and helping people as a means to get there, but eventually it touches you in exactly the reverse of what Groundhog did. Instead of contemplating how absurd it is to care about everyone around you, you still go through with your mission to save everyone because it's not about you, whereas Groundhog was about Bill Murray hooking up with the girl.

Nigga what? Did you watch the same movie everyone else did? The whole reason Bill Murray was allowed to wake up the next day was because he learned to be unselfish and care about other people, thereby enabling him to also get the girl. It has exactly the same point as Majora's Mask

>>13777453

>A game can't be inspired by more than one thing

>Nobody in Japan liked Groundhog Day

So much underage