nekromancerxiv

all of life's mistakes at once

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tokusatsu, games and other cringe


Voxandra
@Voxandra

I have this Top 100 Games list that I update twice a month both as a fun exercise and so I can constantly make jokes like "oh that's my 46th favorite game!" while pulling up the list on stream. What this has forced me to do is to put more thought in how much I "love" a video game compared to another, and naturally the big thing that stares me in the face now is "why?" The reasons I love SaGa Frontier, Legend of Mana, beatmania IIDX, and Mega Man X2 are completely different.

SaGa Frontier is an extremely interesting setting with incredibly fun mechanics, stellar music, and multiple stories with some being quite moving. Legend of Mana gives a surreal experience with action RPG gameplay that is both easy and what I'd affectionately call "loose," but most importantly explores love and all of its various forms. Beatmania IIDX is an arcade rhythm game with incredibly strict timing, keysounding, fantastic and varied music, and a skill ceiling with no actual ceiling that will test your limits forever. Mega Man X2 has you jump and shoot and it feels really good when you push the buttons and X jumps and shoots.

As you can see, these examples I've plucked from my top 10 are all wildly different and I love them for completely different reasons. Some get me emotional, some are an experience no other medium can give me, and some are just....fun. Absolutely no emotional profound statement, just fun. So when ranking these things, what ends up mattering more? Which aspects mean more to me, and how do I rank them among each other? You can argue its a pointless exercise, and I mean it is one I just do for fun, but it got me thinking away from the "Top 100" and just in general: what do I care about in a video game?


Void Stranger kinda shook me. It's a game that, as my little video talked about, I was ready to drop out of frustration early on but ended up doing a massive 180. When I was done, I saw someone I know streaming some AAA game and I was thinking to myself, "this isn't anything. This shit is nothing! It's just some thing you do and makes you feel nothing! What's the point!" While making myself laugh with sarcastic pretentiousness is fun, it really had me wondering why I cared about Void Stranger so much and why it was having such a profound effect. I've played plenty of games that I fell in love with, but something else was happening here. ASTLIBRA completely captivated me, but not in this specific way. Touhou became a hyper-fixation, but for equally valuable yet different reasons.

I think it's the struggle I had early on with VS, and my changing attitude towards "general consensus on good and bad game design." You know, that crap like "lives and continues are bad game design" and "games overs are a failure of design" and "platformers should all have x amount of coyote time" and "Alma from va11-halla is straight." I don't care anymore. A game giving me an unfair challenge is sometimes just fun. Being forced to start over from the beginning is sometimes a challenge to enjoy and the experience the creator wants to make. Not everything needs to be beaten by yourself with zero outside help what-so-ever, and everything doesn't need to effectively be a movie or book but you have a controller in your hand. If anything, that's exactly what I don't want! Void Stranger kicked my ass left and right in ways some people absolutely can't stand and would call "objectively bad game design" but I just. didn't. care. It made me feel something in a way that changed my viewpoint.

Here's where Signalis comes in, and to be blatantly transparent I'm using it so it's not just Void Stranger alone I'm talking about because it's been two months and I won't shut up. They both made me feel something. They were absolutely video games where I push the buttons and do the mechanics and the brain chemicals go "yes, good" but they used this to tell a story they wouldn't be able to tell as well as a book or movie or stage play or person sitting at a campfire. Both these games are very wildly different, not really comparable, but they both did one thing that caused them to stick with me: they were both unapologetically sincere. In their own different ways, the creators wanted to bare their souls for the world to see in their form of art. Both are examples of it resonating with me, sticking with me, making me feel something. Making me think about my own different emotions, how I feel about the world. I had an experience.

It's making me a pretentious bitch. There's a lot of games I look at now and I think to myself, are you trying to tell me a story, have me experience something, kill time, challenge me, or sell me a product? Which is it? I already didn't care about AAA projects with tons of money and committees of people deciding what is what and how it goes, but holy shit is there no room left in my heart for them at all. So many people now are making wildly different kinds of games and truly nailing an experience nothing like what's been seen before. Reaching people in new ways, reaching the hearts of others in a world where it can feel difficult to do so.

Let me be clear though, my point isn't that there's no room for anything else. Not everything is gonna knock me on my ass and give me a Big Think. Sometimes I play a new game and it's like Mega Man X2: I push the buttons, the cool things happen, and I have fun and it just feels good. It's an experience, too. Something someone crafted and hoped others would enjoy. They're completely, wildly different but just as valuable despite impossible to compare. I think my point is that more things are coming out that are knocking my heart on its ass while having the secondary effect of making me not care about games fitting tight boxes of what's "good" and "bad." The idea of "community consensus" on game design is pointless and will only hold people back from creating the art they want to make.

This post went off the rails into a ramble, and the truth why is a bit embarrassing. The thing hidden away here is this: as time goes on, I value sincerity more and more. I have a difficult time bearing my heart without cutting it with a joke, and it pains me to always feel the need to be so guarded. So when a game has devs bearing their souls in a sincere way that moves me, it really sticks with me in a way that brings me to tears. It kicks my heart's ass in a way I need, in a way that makes me feel alive.

Honestly...there isn't a final takeaway or point I'm making. I think I just needed to keep typing until that last paragraph came out of me. Thank you for listening.


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in reply to @Voxandra's post:

For reals, Vox, that was a beautiful read. As someone with basically 0 context in the games talked about (even MegaMan X2), I still understood exactly what you meant (even if it's a collection of ideas).

  • Sometimes all something needs to do to become one of your faves forever is to have unapologetic sincerity in what it does and what it means.
  • Sometimes a game can be an engaging and fulfilling experience without needing to tug at your heartstrings like the aforementioned bullet. Sometimes games that are either super simple or that are unrelentingly difficult can still become a favorite thanks to the experience they give, regardless of mass market appeal.
  • AAA games without soul are consistently less fulfilling than indie games with a lotta heart /hj

Again, a fantastic read and a subject that I think I should reflect upon myself more often.