Lurker > YoukaiSlayer

Finished up some more anime.

In love with a villainess was pretty good I guess. I feel like the last arc lowered my opinion of Claire a fair bit. Like, she easily could have resolved just about everything multiple times and just doesn't leaving Rae to do all the work fixing things. She complains about not wanting to be a trophy but then she just does nothing to actually stop it. Given how the show was willing to just talk things out rationally earlier in the show, I feel like there was a similar better way to accomplish the same thing this time. Eh, I guess it's a better ending than most yuri (sadly). Certainly better than magical revolution from a few seasons back.

Finished demon sword master which was pretty trash. Possibly worse than berserk of gluttony.

Finished VRMMO life and it too was pretty trash. Up to the last episode it was kind of easy to watch trash but the ending was pretty shit and kinda makes me hope there's no season 2.

adjl posted...

Many stories start out with a goal that ends up changing as you learn more about the world and what's going on, often invalidating the work you put toward the initial goal

I don't think thats really necessary in a lot of these cases and it does depend on how certain the goals are to begin with. If your goal is to go save a town from some impending disaster and then you learn that actually the whole world is in greater danger, theres really no reason to put that reveal before saving the town. You can have your cake and eat it to.

In the cases where you are actively pursing a lie the whole time, ie, the town was never actually in danger and the person who sent you to save it is the actual bad guy that just wants you out of the way to destroy your town, I feel thats almost always pretty contrived. It's very difficult to tell that story as a game very well, because again, I AM the character. What happens if I am smarter than they are letting my character be and I suspect that guy the whole time but theres nothing I can do about it? I try to return to town immediately but my character doesn't let me and gives me some text box "the town in danger isn't that way". That sucks. Tell me that story in a setting where I'm not that character.

Arvan's story would be a bit of a middle ground. After all, my character might know it probably won't work, but Arvan just won't listen and give up. If my character doing the actions knows they are pointless in achieving the goal, it could be fine. If I were to play that same story AS Arvan though, I'd hate that.

adjl posted...

I can think of several JRPGs where a twist like that played a huge role in making the story interesting

I can't think of several jrpgs that even have an interesting story, annoying twist or not. A lot of times much less important gameplay decisions negatively impact the story, like needing to visit every set piece location.

adjl posted...

instead of encountering some stumbling blocks along the way to a grander victory is exceedingly limiting

The stumbling blocks should all be gameplay solvable. Thats why it's a game.

The only jrpg (sort of) that I can think of that has a pretty good story for most of it's run (the last part is pretty nonsensical) is FFT:WotL and it's story hinders the gameplay which also hinders the story. Both are excellent individually but the whole is less than the sum of it's parts. As soon as you get invested in one part, the other part shows up and halts all that momentum. Thats something that really would have just been better as a stand alone story not tied to a video game.

Pakpatiq posted...

Any good isekai realeased lately?

We actually didn't get many actual isekai this season. There's a lot of "jrpg style" fantasy of varying quality. Frieren is definitely the best of those. If VRMMO fantasy anime counts then shangri-la frontier is quite good. And of course, eminence in shadow season 2 is great but you presumably already know about that show.

The beginning of the end of this anime season has finally started. MF Ghost and Berserk of Gluttony (how did I manage to keep watching this) just ended. MF Ghost didn't really end though. Must be a split-core cause it stops mid qualifier. Pretty poor decision IMO but the show was pretty enjoyable. Bit of a slow start though.

Berserk of Gluttony wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be AI generated. Would be cool to have a game with the stat steal+transfer system the main character and his sword has though. That was basically the only unique thing in the entire show.

agesboy posted...

One of my favorite anime is a perfect example of this

Yeah but the story isn't about collecting mcguffins to allow that operation to succeed. If it instead followed a doctor friend as they train for years to be able to do the operation and then it still ended in failure, it'd be a lot more frustrating. The story was never about saving her life to begin with.

I don't wanna watch someone struggle to do something for the majority of the screen time in the anime and then fail or worse just have it be irrelevant. You COULD tell a powerful story that way, but it's going to make me hate the author for doing that to me, especially as there are many ways to tell powerful stories that don't leave me bitter and frustrated.

Although perhaps I'm really just bitter about poor execution. Edgerunners has a virtually pointless journey but I loved it. They effectively established that the path taken was reasonable which I feel like most stories don't do without feeling contrived. When characters make mistakes, they are actually supposed to be mistakes, and it's believable they'd make them. The character motivations and the setting both lined up correctly for a tragic ending, something I honestly didn't expect from trigger who I generally see as all style, no substance.

adjl posted...

And it's that other 10% that shakes things up

But you don't need to shake things up with the story. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

adjl posted...

It was good as a long-running side quest (which is kind of how all three "Roads" were framed, actually), but if you gave me a game where the entire main plot was "Meet dude, find out dude's dog is sick, collect items to cure dog," I'm not going to praise that game for having a good story (and not just because sad dogs are often a really lazy way to add emotional impact to a story). It's a compelling side plot and he and his dad's backstory made for interesting characters and world-building, but it's just too limited to be good as a main story.

I disagree. I think it could have been a fine main story. Obviously the scope of that game would be shorter but thats fine. I would have been very pissed if my getting the sandwiches ultimately made no difference in the dogs health. Hell, I'd be pissed watching that in an anime. Don't waste my time on story beats that ultimately come to nothing. Reminds me of katanagatari, a show where 95% of the anime might as well not have happened because both parties actually started the show with all the tools they needed to win. The journey was entirely invalidated.

To shift it again though, how do you feel about freiren airing right now? That's a show that realistically has no need for the characters to ever fail a combat encounter and it has quite a good story. I think it's even rated #1 on MAL right now, largely because of the emotional story. There's far more ways to tell a good story than just following the classic heroes journey. Hell, iyashikei anime has proven people can enjoy a story with no conflict whatsoever, internal or external. Just pure pleasant escapism. Something fantasy rpg video games are even more suited to.

Finally nearing the end of the season. Getting a little worried about s-rank daughter because I don't see how they can possibly wrap up whats going on in just the one episode they have left, but it's also not enough to make another season out of just that. Feel like it's gonna end up either rushed or ending on a cliffhanger just as things heat up.

Been too sick for games today so I think I might catch up on some of the shows I fell behind on this season like undead unluck.

adjl posted...

Right. So test yourself with the game and be rewarded with the story.

The game isn't just the gameplay, it's the story too. Anyway we are going in circles in about this.

adjl posted...

Assuming it is indeed as bad as you're describing and you didn't just miss plot points that made it more justifiable (which seems unlikely because I don't think justifying that final boss nonsense is even possible), it sounds like that was an example of scripted losses done poorly and I'd likely share your frustration in your position.

I'm leaving out a little bit but not enough to make a difference. Specifically, you are going around to various temples getting the blessings left by the gods that were killed by the pope 10 years prior with the understanding you'll be able to defeat him and stop genocide when you get them all. You gather the blessings, beat the pope, but then find out the pope was being gifted his power by the guardian of one of the temples that secretly rebelled, You fight him (a dark dragon) and win in the gameplay and then lose in the cutscene and then the gods descend, revived by you having all the blessings finally (he was guarding the last one) and effortlessly obliterate the dark dragon after talking about how bad he was for trying to hatch this plan for thousands of years. They explain that they let themselves be killed (resulting in genocide and cruel human experiments), so that you could later revive them and they could beat the dark dragon they could already beat 10 years ago, Something about wanting to leave things to the newer generation, except then they didn't do that at all and beat the bad guy themselves which was their plan all along so they just allowed him to commit genocide for 10 years killing almost an entire race as well as hundreds of innocent humans to accomplish nothing.

adjl posted...

A story in which nothing ever goes wrong for the protagonist so long as you win every fight is Pokemon levels of non-story.

It's really not. Most of these games have you win like 90% of the time. The story is usually fine in those parts. Just keep that going. I ranted before about the episode 11 problem with many anime and it's the same thing. Pokemon's nonstory isn't even because of the plot structure, they just traditionally don't actually have enough dialogue or scenes to make a real story. And honestly, the arvan story in scarlet/violet was pretty good and a nice example of how you can still explore characters and story despite not losing. Granted the team star storyline was awful and the normal pokemon league part was standard pokemon nonstory.

In fact arvan's story is probably a pretty easy way to do it. It has something bad in the story, but it happens before we arrive (before the game even starts in this case), and we just work to heal the damage.

Working around the constraint of not punishing the character when the player does well is certainly not impossible. If the game I'd just been playing let me collect all the blessings and then beat the guy, 95% of the story would have been the same and the whole thing would have been enjoyable.
I_Abibde posted...

Got a game from a five-dollar eroge bundle that solved the problem of bad dialogue in sex scenes by having all of the potential partners be NPCs that are only allowed to say their one line they always say, regardless of what is happening. Points for creative thinking.

That's pretty funny. It makes me think of the NPC party member in SAO abridged that they stole from the tutorial. Although I wasn't aware that was a problem to begin with. If I'm playing an eroge over just watching porn, I'm probably doing it FOR the dialogue.

agesboy posted...

story concessions should be made if reasonable, but in a LOT of them, they're foundational

This assumes we have the story written before the gameplay and we just add in a throwaway line or item afterwards. The story should be written initially in a way that losses aren't foundational to the story. At least thats my position.

adjl posted...

If the plot not going your way is enough to make you consider your investment in the gameplay busywork in the service of a story, that means you're only ever viewing your investment in the gameplay to be busywork in the service of a story that you hope goes your way.

Enjoyable gameplay is its own reward. Embrace that instead of expecting immutable stories to twist themselves to heap more rewards on you. You'll have a much better time that way.

That doesn't make sense. The two are related. That's the whole point. Gameplay and story aren't (or at least shouldn't be) separate. They BOTH have to go the same way and it's the gameplay part that should be immutable as opposed to literally every other medium that only has to worry about the story. As soon as they are separated, it becomes a problem.
adjl posted...

And that's just lazy writing.

We already have lazy writing and writing with a difficult constraint isn't lazy. Finding a way to make the story interesting while adhering to the limitations of it being a game that can be won requires effort and skill. It stops you from just regurgitating the same poor plot as the rest of the games and calling it a day.

adjl posted...

Why bother with greater depth than that if the only thing you want from the story is a pat on the back for winning?

Frankly, I don't need greater depth. A lot of games guilty of this aren't very deep. The game I was playing that prompted this was light hearted fun until you autolose in the cutscene, twice, get captured by the bad guy that has no reason to keep you alive, escape, immediately attack the bad guy without any new power ups from when you lost last time, beat him, beat the real final boss in the gemaply, but then lose in the cutscene AGAIN just for the gods to come down and beat it for you. The end. Wtf was I even there for?

We don't actually get the middle ground games I'm fine with, outside of MAYBE atelier games (although the ones I've played still follow this). We either get pokemons level of nonstory or this exact same heroes journey that forces you into a low point, usually due to a loss and capture at around the 60-70% mark.

If I had dozens of jrpg alternatives that do what I want, I probably wouldn't be complaining, although I still would about xenoblade and tales because I like the gameplay and the character and the side content and world building, I just hate the plot.

adjl posted...

Moreover, stories aren't tests.

But games ARE. We just disagree here fundamentally.

adjl posted...

Your investment in the gameplay is always just busywork used to move through a static story, in games with static stories.

Your words, not mine. A person that can honestly say that will just never see eye to eye with me. Our values are too fundamentally different. We've already had the xenoblade discussions before and I don't feel like retreading it. It won't get anywhere anyway.

"Because that's not how stories work. Not every story ends with "and they all lived happily ever after the end," nor should you expect them to because restricting yourself to that is just lazy writing."

Yes but is how every GAME should end. The same way every test you perform perfectly on should result in a passing grade.

EchoBaz posted...

God this sucks. God forbid an anime not get gross.

I mean, the anime is a comedy first and it was pretty funny when that happened. I also would have preferred it didn't though. The first 4 feel girls feel like the ideal group and everything after that probably reduces the enjoyability of it slightly.

Judgmenl posted...

It is the Serial Experiments Lain of the 2020s.

That seems really hard to believe. I suppose I should catch up with it.

adjl posted...

Most stories would be pretty significantly altered if an instance where the antagonist won was removed.

They really wouldn't. Xenoblade 3 would change a lot (probably for the better) but most of the time it doesn't really change any motivations or goals. These story arcs are borderline self contained and once you escape, you are doing exactly what you were doing before hand.

About the xenoblade 2 stuff, I'm aware the need for a sacrifice CAN come up unexpectedly, but it doesn't NEED to and the plot would have been totally fine if that just didn't happen. If they just escape the space station thats already blowing up anyway.

You also wouldn't necessarily need as many different scenes as possible. The way optional characters are typically handled is their lines are written and just not said if they aren't there. You only really need variance if something would produce a different result, like in this case, but even then you can probably use all of the characters interchangeably. Even the default wind blade could probably chuck you across the gap for that matter.

Not to mention it's a game, I already won, why aren't you giving me the happy ending I earned? I mean, I guess they technically do in xenoblade 2, but we both agree that part is poor writing. I should be resolving the conflict IN the final boss fight. Assuming I win, I shouldn't be getting a bittersweet outcome.

And that theme of accepting not saving doesn't make any sense at all. You said he accepted he couldn't save her, and then...went to save her. Classic unevenly applied xenoblade themes. If he really wanted to accept his limitations, he would just do nothing I guess even though that too was a really stupid plot point because he dies if he does nothing. He didn't have the option of giving up and going back to his previous life like he was trying to do. Thats where the story fell apart for me in the first place. He was such a surprisingly enjoyable character up to that point.

adjl posted...

She used Aion to do it. In the entirety of Alrest, there were exactly two individuals that could operate Aion, and the party had just finished killing one of them. I'm not even sure who you're trying to suggest could have done it, because this is just straight up false.

I was a little fuzzy on how the ending went down and rewatched it. I for some reason was remembering malos staying behind to do it after the fight. Rewatching it was quite frustrating though. Pneuma just activates a 5 minute self destruct. Could have just left after initiating that. And why would a space station designed to be automated and work by itself for thousands of years not be designed with a way to deal with the world tree falling on the planet? For that matter, why would it just collapse without power in the first place? It should just remain dormant. No, I'm getting ahead of myself, theres no reason to discuss xenoblade 2 anymore.

All in all I don't think this discussion is going to get anywhere. I remain completely unswayed and so do you. A person who merely sees the gameplay as busywork for the static story is just never going to see eye to eye with me.

adjl posted...

Damages, but doesn't destroy.

Doesn't matter. Damaging it means putting something else above it and it does destroy the gameplay fantasy. It also wouldn't gut the vast majority of these stories that would still function just fine if that section of the game was straight up removed, much less altered. If you want the boss to feel threatening, make it threatening in the gameplay. And again, getting captured and not killed by the boss already makes them far less threatening. Any story with high stakes doesn't allow for a loss.

adjl posted...

Because people like grinding to become overpowered in RPGs.

Why though? It's because they want the fantasy of their character being overpowered. Something immediately destroyed when ludonarrative dissonance shatters the illusion of agency that they had. You talk as if you know all of the people that like to be overpowered in these games, but I don't think you do. I'm pretty sure more of them are like me than you suspect.

adjl posted...

Canonically, Rex's only blades are Pyra/Mythra, Roc, and that one common wind knuckle blade he gets in chapter 2 (and also Nia, but that's a bit different). Roc doesn't have the Leaping field skill (note that every time you jump a large gap in the field, it's a combo of Wind Mastery and Leaping), and the common one's abilities are randomized and therefore non-canon, so canonically, no magic flying powers.

Ah, more of "90% of the game is non canon IN the game". It's such a stupid argument. It's not even ludonarrative dissonance at that point, it's just straight up narrative dissonance. It's even worse than non canon movies for long running series. It's more like if episodes 2-11 were non canon in a typical 12 episode season. "Ah, the audience is only expected to watch the first and last episode".

adjl posted...

If they aren't interesting, why care about them so much? Why not just skip the cutscenes and eliminate the whole issue?

That's often times not an option. Even when it is, not telling interesting stories doesn't mean not having interesting or entertaining characters. The tales series is my premier example with some of the dumbest and worst executed plots in gaming but usually really fun and interesting characters with good dynamics fleshed out through the skits. Sadly this only really applies to the party. Other than mythos from symphonia, it's hard to actually even remember who the bad guys were in a lot of these games. I know Duke was the final boss in vesperia but I don't remember at all why or what he did since the real bad guy is just a natural phenomenon that can't be directly fought. Can't remember zesterias at all or graces f. You also get captured and thrown in prison in every one of those games. Wow, it's almost as if that doesn't do a good job of establishing the bad guy as interesting.

Meanwhile I can easily remember the final boss of dark souls despite gwyn having like 5 lines in the game, all during his one and only fight.

On the other hand I remember almost all of the party members pretty well from all those tales games and outside of solaire and patches, I don't remember any NPC in dark souls.

So if the writers can't even be bothered to make good plots in these jrpgs, the least they can do is stay out of their own way, develop the party, and not cause dissonance for the player.

Xenoblade 3 is like the prime example here where if the main story was just weak and out of the way, it'd be a godlike game, but the story couldn't do that. Somehow every side story was well written and interesting endearing me to like 50 named characters and a ton of places but the main plot was a nightmare of inconsistently applied themes, poorly motivated bad guys, and so many contrivances. Also has maybe the worst boss fight in the series being very long and scripted and supposedly if you lose you have to start all over from the beginning.

I feel very similarly about the episode 11 problem in comedy anime. The authors just feel the need to end on a dramatic climax even if the strong suit of their show is in not being dramatic. The currently airing in love with the villainess is doing that right now and what a surprise the comments are full of complaints. I think the vast majority of people don't like this kind of plot element. Come to think of it, the last yuri anime I remember did the same thing. The revolutionary princess one. People didn't like it there either but the authors just can't help themselves, they have to the love interests misunderstand each other and fight as if thats the only way for a relationship to form. I'm getting off topic here though.

adjl posted...

Pneuma tells Rex that she needs to stay behind to annihilate the world tree to prevent it from destroying the world (not just saving Rex).

It was blowing up anyway. She wasn't even the only person to stay behind to do it. And honestly, yeah, if they really had to be sacrificed, it would have been better if they'd gone out together instead of completely trampling the main characters will.

You also don't need leaping and wind magic, they could just throw you. These things smack down giants, they've surely got the power. Given the moves rex makes in combat and cutscenes, I wouldn't be surprised if he could just jump the gap all by himself as well.

The bigger issue though is why make it require a sacrifice to begin with? That wasn't inherent in the problem. They didn't go up there on a suicide mission expecting to sacrifice someone. The author just made it that way at the last second to have contrived drama and then fortunately changed his mind with an even more contrived "just kidding". The themes of the game aren't about sacrifice and moving on or anything like that. It serves no purpose narratively other than to upset the viewer.

I'd also LIKE the stories to be good. Not at the cost of gameplay but theres no reason we can't have both. A lot of these stories even have interesting concepts and could be salvaged by a better writer with a better understanding of the point of a video game.

Again, tales is such a great example. Tales of vesperia has vigilante justice, a very interesting concept. The situation between Yuri and Flynn is very similar to the dynamic between lelouch and suzaku in code geass. However, rather than confronting the issue correctly and allowing Flynn to get some real by the book wins over the bad guys, the game presents a case where it's literally let a child murderer kill more children right in front of you, or take matters into your own hands. There's no dilemma. You would be downright responsible for the childrens deaths if you didn't act. And meanwhile it's shown Flynn has zero ability to affect positive change at all. This is in stark contrast to code geass where suzaku's methods actually bear some fruit making the choices of the two characters interesting.

Berseria is even worse though. It picks a fun morale dilemma to frame it's plot around. What if one of the sacrifices required to make things better was the only person you truly cared about? Could you accept their loss for the greater good, or would you seek vengeance? Do you have the right to get vengeance? Does those ends justify the means used? Well none of that matters because ACTUALLY the bad guy is secretly a genocidal maniac rendering the entire morale dilemma moot. Also all those bad things you did to get revenge happened to not actually cause a single innocent casualty and you can just take back every bad thing you did. Sickening.

adjl posted...

No, it means that you strive to make enjoyable gameplay even if that creates some inconsistencies with other elements. Trying to be consistent is still good, but putting gameplay first just means that your first priority is making enjoyable gameplay.

The gameplay should be there, and then the story should be written around it. Besides you are arguing semantics, my point is still the same. You can obviously disagree with it, but it's not really the type of thing that even could be refuted. Creating an inconsistency that damages the gameplay fantasy would necessitate putting something above the gameplay.

adjl posted...

And in cases like this (again, where it's done properly, not poorly), the sacrifice made is that moment of ludonarrative consistency for a small handful of players who have already been deliberately deviating from the narrative for the sake of indulging in more gameplay

It's going to be inconsistent for the vast majority of players, even if they aren't oneshotting. Winning in the gameplay and losing in the cutscene is always going to feel bad, no matter how close or tough the fight was. You are going to think "why isn't this second part of the fight gameplay that I could try to win?".

If the boss kills them in the gameplay with some sort of super move, and then somehow doesn't have that same level of power in the actual final fight against it, thats more dissonance.

adjl posted...

The grinding you've done does not establish a canonical power level. It can't, because you're dealing with a static story that can't change in response to you. Canonically, you're too weak to win the fight in question.

If the gameplay is non canon, why is it even attached to the story? And of course, if you always win, there is no dissonance. The player that struggled through the fight underleveled, the speedrunner cheesing it in two seconds, the person who did all the side content, and the person who grinded incessantly all have no dissonance if you just win the fight.

And I just have to go out onto a new tangent but when the villain can beat you, and you don't die, the villain is incompetent. It's actually almost always terrible character building. The stakes immediately plummet when you can actually lose to the bad guy, get captured, and escape with your life. It only even makes rational sense if the villain is stupid and cocky beyond reason, but thats not a very compelling or scary antagonist. This isn't why I hate this trope, but if my current problem disappeared, this would be making me annoyed instead.

adjl posted...

Neither of the abilities Rex had that gave him that kind of jumping power were available to him in that moment (and, extended further, it stands to reason that any other blades that might have helped would also have refused once they realized the situation).

Really? All of the blades would have chosen not to help? All 39 rare blades with their different personalities and values wouldn't have helped him close the gap? And it would have completely made their attempted sacrifice to protect rex impossible if rex was able to jump the gap. Rex doesn't even TRY to do it.

adjl posted...

"You should never put X in a story" is always going to be infinitely more constraining than "it's okay if you put Y in a story," no matter what X and Y are, by simple virtue of the fact that the former is a constraint and the latter is not.

Their constraint is to keep telling the same story in the same way with superficial differences. You are endorsing them to keep doing what they are doing. Any criticism written away with "it's shonen".

adjl posted...

If one plot loss makes you upset enough to ruin the whole experience for you, that's on you and you can't expect people to give up writing interesting stories to cater to that.

Maybe if any of them were actually writing interesting stories you'd have more of a leg to stand on, but even then, go ahead and write that story, but in a medium that is appropriate for it.

adjl posted...

That the story needs to validate the gameplay at all times.

Thats what the gameplay coming first means. Everything in the game should support the gameplay. If anything has to be sacrificed it should be anything other than the gameplay, whether that be story or realism or character development or world building. The gameplay should be the cornerstone everything else is built around. The gameplay in an rpg sets up the fantasy of power for the characters.

adjl posted...

Avoiding that either means creating different cutscenes based on your performance in each fight (which is ridiculously labour-intensive)

It's really not that labor intensive in most cases. A few variations on voice lines and the characters standing instead of on one knee wincing in pain. A lot of games have similar minor variations in scenes that are self contained or maybe have 1 or 2 brief references later in the game. I'm not asking for every game to be baldur's gate 3 levels of variety.

adjl posted...

(boring, interferes with establishing the stakes well enough for battles to feel meaningful)

Worth it. Avoiding gameplay dissonance is more important than setting the stakes and plenty of games set the stakes without that. Like look at melania in elden ring. The latest populer "super hard" boss out there. The lore sets up her power, the opening cutscene sets up her power, and the gameplay reinforces those examples. What happens after the fight? She gives a death monologue and disappears. No player exhausted and panting or collapsing right after the fight or saying how difficult it was. The gameplay already told us how difficult it was and the lore and cutscene told us how meaningful it was.

Ideally in something with more defined player characters, they would be commenting mid battle on how difficult it is based on how the fight is going, something that only costs voice lines to do. Stuff like tales and xenoblade do this already, albeit fairly poorly and usually non specifically.

Basically the video game version of show don't tell.

adjl posted...

And you lose to unbeatable bosses because you're not strong enough to beat a plot device. It's a static part of the game that you'll never be able to beat. Failing to beat it therefore isn't a real loss any more than you should feel humiliated by having to find a bridge.

If my character has the power (and reason) to go through the maintain, or jump over the river, then I will complain about them finding a bridge or way around the mountain. In fact, one of my biggest story complaints in xenoblade 2 is rex not jumping over the relatively small gap in the space station. Something he canonically should be able to do with ease at the point. It was incredibly frustrating and completely took me out of the scene.

adjl posted...

And those are both failures on the protagonist's part, so we're back to protagonist failure being essential for an interesting story.

Failure maybe, but not combat failure. These things didn't happen because of a lack of ability to defeat someone in a fight. And realistically the story of me as a player dealing with the enemies is probably more interesting than the static story being told. I'm really hard pressed to think of any jrpg stories that are good, even divorcing them from the games they are a part of. I think more evidence to back this up is anytime we get anime adaptations, even really good ones (like tales of zesteria), they fail miserably.

adjl posted...

Well, yeah. This is an anime/manga/JRPG topic, after all

There's more to those things than b tier shonen tropes and none of them are worth ludonarritive dissonance.

You talk about how constraining what I want to do is while endorsing them sticking to the same exact formula every single time. That's far more constraining than what I propose even. You are just protecting bad writers and bad game design for I guess the sake of it.

adjl posted...

Because they want to. Simple as that.

As a piece of commercial entertainment, this is not a good enough reason for me, or at least not a reason for it to be beyond criticism. And if you really wanna make it simple, then I want them not to, simple as that.

adjl posted...

And that investment in the gameplay always comes with the caveat that the story generally will not support you becoming as powerful as the game permits, a caveat which most people accept as an inevitability of a static story

Then why tell that story as a game in the first place? Why not use a medium that takes advantage of that by being able to control the pacing, like almost every other medium. Most jrpg plots should be anime/manga and not games. And just because most people accept that, it doesn't mean it isn't bad. Let's also not pretend jrpgs are rife with amazing stories to begin with. Most of them are b tier shonen garbage that probably wouldn't cut it as passive media recycling the exact same tropes and plots with a story that usually has a simple solution the characters ignore because the author couldn't think of a way to make the setting and story make sense.

Ultimately, the thing being talked about here is a game so the gameplay should come first. That makes a weak story somewhat excusable provided it doesn't hinder the gameplay. But you suggest the opposite should be the case, that the gameplay is just busywork so we can see a static story. Why do the work then? Why not just watch all the cutscenes on youtube?

adjl posted...

Fundamentally, you easily finishing a boss fight and the characters saying "that was hard" in a cutscene

That too is quite annoying. This doesn't even require overleveling. Often times the enemies that are supposed to be tough just aren't as tough as some other enemies that are supposed to be average. That should be avoided as much as possible. You need to think of the fact you are making a game, not just writing a book.

adjl posted...

Very few games let you beat, say, the ground, or a river, or a house.

If the ground or a river start kicking my ass, I'll complain too, especially if my character has tools to beat them like being able to fly/swim. Like imagine how annoying it'd be in a game if your character falls off a cliff and injures himself on the ground in a cutscene but your character can fly. And I'm clearly talking about in combat here. There is a difference. I've said over and over I don't mind them causing indirect problems to my character, so long as they don't lose at whatever the gameplay is in the story (generally combat, but it could always be something else, like cooking or crafting or something). That requires some modicum of writing skill though, to set up a scenario where the villain can cause problems in a way other than just brute forcing down your party.

adjl posted...

That's generally a pretty boring plot. Some guy rolls into town and says "I'm going to destroy the world in a week muahahaha" and then you go beat him up before the end of the week?

I was refuting your point but you can have him roll into town saying he will destroy your town and he's already destroyed the last 15 towns and you've been dealing with his lackey's and refugees from the previous towns if you want an example that can easily work and not be boring.

Or the lazy but classic he comes to town and destroys it while you are gone. You come back to burning rubble and dying loved ones and vow to either get revenge or stop him from doing this to anyone else.

adjl posted...

or be fighting desperately for their life in a battle they ultimately lose (if the devs want the player to experience the same despair as the characters).

It doesn't have to be easy. Even if you brutally struggle through, if you won, you expect to actually win. It's frustrating when that doesn't happen.

adjl posted...

which is very stereotypically shounen, but that's JRPGs for you

This is the level of writing we are trying to protect?

adjl posted...

Your investment in the gameplay is always just busywork

Here is the core of our disagreement. I don't think this is true. If anything I'm more invested in the gameplay than the story. There's a reason pokemon with it's dogshit story has the highest selling console exclusive of all time. It's the gameplay, the fantasy of in that case raising your pokemon to become powerful.

adjl posted...

And in every game, there are going to be things you can't beat regardless of how powerful you get

Factually untrue. In fact I'd argue most games let you beat every enemy in every encounter. It's usually only an issue in rpgs where they don't let you.

adjl posted...

It requires something to go wrong, which by extension constitutes a failure to prevent that thing from having gone wrong.

Not really. It just requires the threat of something going wrong. You could argue the threat itself was failure to prevent the threat from existing I guess, but you can solve the threat before any damage is done.

adjl posted...

You want the developers of every game whose story you have a problem with to put in all the necessary work to rewrite the story, animate, and potentially voice a brand new cutscene just to pat you on the back for becoming overpowered?

I don't expect them to do it retroactively but I definitely want them to do it going forward and if thats too much work, then just make the only path the one where I don't lose.
adjl posted...

And most of them respond to that dissonance by shrugging it off as a consequence of having a static story in a variable game. If they acknowledge it, it's to be amused by the fact that they've become so overpowered that the game had to cheat, not to get upset that their power fantasy is "ruined."

I've seen quite a few people voice annoyance with the "win in the gameplay, lose in the cutscene" thing. Even people that don't do any sidequests. Off the top of my head I remember dunkey complaining about it in one of his xenoblade reviews.
adjl posted...

Failing to win a fight against an unbeatable boss is functionally no different from failing to win a fight against the ground: It's not a real fight. That's not a loss that should bother you.

It's a fight for my character. Assuming I'm invested in both the gameplay and the characters/story, it very much IS a real fight.

adjl posted...

Despite the fact that you did one-shot them, you just didn't get a cutscene patting you on the back for doing so? The cutscene validation is that important for you?

Yep. All of the stuff I'm doing in the gameplay is to avoid that loss, so when it can't be done, it makes my investment in the gameplay pointless and it just becomes busywork in the way of a static story that could be better told in a different medium.

adjl posted...

Hence you don't actually "lose" when you lose an unwinnable boss fight.

I disagree. It makes the loss feel contrived. In fact, it's really made me realize how similar it is to something else I almost always hate, which is time travel stories, because time travel is such an insane power, that it's virtually impossible to threaten the character that can do it without contrivance and it becomes that much harder when the time travel can happen even after death like in a video game.

adjl posted...

To the point of stripping out every part of the story except "once upon a time there was a dude who won the end"?

As I mentioned, there are many ways to give the character a setback without a combat loss. Even in a story where the main character never loses, theres a lot of stuff you can still say. In fact, a lot of these rpgs with forced losses would be good stories if they literally just didn't have that part in it. You don't have to follow the heroes journey trope and force a low point on me in act 2 every single time.

Conflict does not require failure. Two sides want two different things, one side achieves it at the expense of the other. That is conflict and none of it requires the winning side to lose at some point. To put it in video games, the bad guy threatens things I don't like, I stop him. Done and dusted. You can still tell a great story that follows that outline.

adjl posted...

Hate to break it to you, but sometimes, stories aren't all perfect happy endings at every step of the way

Yeah, thats why I'm complaining about it. Feel free to add alternate routes that have plenty of the player failing, but leave me one that doesn't punish me despite success. If I don't lose in the gameplay, I shouldn't lose in the cutscene. I imagine that feels dissonant to most players, even ones that struggled through the fight and barely won.
adjl posted...

That's really just how life in general works: You can't change the past, so you instead change the future so the past doesn't matter.

Yeah and life sucks. I'm playing a video game to escape it.

adjl posted...

One boss fight that you still one-shot but that then goes into a scripted loss "ruins the fantasy" of one-shotting everything else before and after that?

Yes absolutely. It literally just takes one. The moment the illusion of my power in the game is gone, it's gone. I'm no longer a character progressing through the world, I'm a viewer of a story sitting in my chair in my room. All of my investment in getting stronger is gone and if I'm already stronger it retroactively makes it feel like it was a waste of time.

adjl posted...

If nothing ever goes wrong for the protagonist, you've got yourself a Mary Sue.

I mean, thats what the main character of a video game is for the most part. You are self inserted into the game making all or at least most of the decisions and given the very overpowered ability of reloading the save whenever you make a mistake. You are literally so overpowered that the only way to lose is to give up. That is obviously constraining when telling a story but them's the breaks. You chose to make a game, not write a book.

adjl posted...

To suggest that the narrative should support that, however, would be silly.

To suggest that the gameplay and story be married is silly? That's how games are supposed to work. That's the unique edge games have as a storytelling medium. It's the only edge they have. Any game not doing that is wasting it's story on a game instead of using another medium.
adjl posted...

If you lose winnable fights, you fail to progress the story.

Not always. Of course this does depend on the game but there are a fair few games where the story diverges on win or loss. There's no games that let me win the fight when I lose the fight, at least that I've played.
adjl posted...

That's not a failure, it's just progress where your gratification gets delayed a bit.

My gratification isn't beating the big bad, it's not losing to anything. A loss is something that needs to be undone, something possible in most scenarios by reloading a save and trying again or worst case coming back later.

adjl posted...

"I've gotten so powerful but it's still not enough"

Well therein lies the problem. It usually IS enough, they just won't let me win yet. Usually by these points in the game you are already strong enough to beat the final boss.

adjl posted...

From a gameplay perspective, the reward for playing well enough in an RPG is advancing the story.

The reward for playing well is winning the fights. Very observable because if I play poorly enough, I lose the fights. Separating the gameplay and story so heavily that success in one doesn't positively influence the other is bad IMO.

adjl posted...

You're not "punished" for turning the page if a character dies in a book you're reading.

That's because a book is passive. It is not testing your skill at something. If you were to have a choose your own adventure book but no matter what you do at a certain junction, the story only takes negative turns, then why make it a choose your own adventure in the first place? Just make it a static story. If someone wants to tell a story where the story has ups and downs, tell it by itself, don't randomly sandwich it between unrelated gameplay segments or again, at least get creative in how a negative part happens. You can kill off important characters by having my party not be in place to save them for instance.

adjl posted...

People who want to overpower the core game content

So me, except it's not for me because they just ruin the fantasy of that anyway. That's my point. Who is actually benefiting here? I think it's a fictional type of player.

adjl posted...

so what's a little dissonance in power level going to hurt?

A lot clearly. Not to mention, a lot of times the story only plays out completely if you do all the side content. Otherwise important characters end up underdeveloped. I understand that is the current "meta" of rpgs, I'm just saying that meta is shit and should change.

adjl posted...

Losing gives you a baseline to compare yourself against. When you later become powerful enough to beat the thing that beat you before, you feel a greater sense of accomplishment than if you just beat it outright.

Maybe if these scripted losses were happening early in act 1. It's usually around the 2/3rds mark into these rpgs. And as for being narritively limiting, it's a game, that IS narritively limiting. You cannot (or should not) tell the same kind of story in a game that you would in a non interactive fiction. It'd be like if a teacher just gave out only 0s on the mid term because it makes a better comeback story when you study hard enough to ace the final exam.

A game is testing the player, if the player never fails, the player should never be punished. In an rpg, the player takes the ROLE of the character and thus punishing the character is also punishing the player.

Every jrpg I can think of that has these autolosses could have written things in a way that explores the same themes without forced losses or at the very least, don't make those losses a direct loss at combat. Have it be something like hostages or something tragic happening when the player isn't around to protect them.

adjl posted...

You've gotta take some responsibility for that yourself. You know full well that games aren't (and never will be) balanced around 100% completion and whatever power level that gives you, especially in games that are relatively open-ended and let you go off on wild adventures before advancing the story. You should expect that doing so is going to give you a power level that's inconsistent with the story. If you don't like being more powerful than the story expects you to be, don't deliberately seek out every available optional power-up opportunity before advancing the story.

Then who is that option for? If you expect players to not do 100% of the side content, then just cut down the side content amount until the average player does complete 100% and you can stay consistent with the narrative. Instead you leave players like me in an annoying middle ground where not doing everything feels bad but then doing everything leads to dissonance with the story and also feels bad. At the very least, you can make the higher difficulties factor in doing all the side content. The game I was just playing and complaining about does indeed have multiple difficulties as do most rpgs I can think of.

adjl posted...

Because losing creates desirable dramatic tension

At the cost of destroying the gameplay fantasy. What is the goal of rpg gameplay? It is to become powerful. If I succeed at that goal by performing the gameplay well, I should never feel disempowered. I should never be punished in a game unless I make a mistake.

Plenty of people don't care in RPGs because they simply don't care about the gameplay to begin with. It's just filler between story bits for them, but it's frustrating when the gameplay goals and the story goals conflict if you actually care about both.

adjl posted...

They could avoid it by just not having scripted losses

Which is what they should do in a game.

adjl posted...

That means players that have gone out of their way to push significantly past that power level are going to mess with it, but those players have already made a conscious decision to mess with the game's balance, and in doing so they've chosen to change the difficulty they experience so it doesn't line up with the narrative, so they can't really complain.

But what IS the intended power level? Is it not doing any side content? Avoiding all enemy encounters? The game in question here is very open ended and I simply engaged with all the systems and beat optional fights as they opened up. If they don't want me to become powerful by that point in the game, then don't let me.

I think too many rpg makers forget that they are making a game, not just telling a story.

Finished witch spring r. It was ok. Stronger start than finish IMO. Kinda feels like it's missing what should be a middle section.

Ugh, why is it so damn hard for RPG makers to not have me lose in the cutscene, especially to people far far far weaker than my character. I'm sitting here with knightmare the super sword from beating the hardest optional boss that I've enhanced and nourished both to +20, maxed out combat, physical, and mental, over 2k hp and 5k attack and the best crafted armor, but no, I've gotta lose in the cutscene twice in a row and get captured just to be saved by someone I obliterated in 1 hit. The main character also acting like they are weak without their magic. I haven't used a magic spell since like the first quarter of the game. What's the point of the growth mechanics and optional bosses if they mean nothing? This didn't even accomplish anything meaningful to the plot. They could have just not had this section of the game (which also included a lame forced stealth section).

Woohoo yuri fanservice in 100 girlfriends. I hope that becomes a full on running gag.

EchoBaz posted...

This was great, wasn't scary perse, but very dark, and absolutely worth my time.

The anime of it from like a decade back was pretty good.

dragon504 posted...

Started watching Lv1 Maou to One Room Yuusha. I don't know why I do this to myself. Shows that are billed mainly comedy aren't good very often, yet a couple of times a year I start having forgotten the last debacle.

I quite liked that one. Although I tend to like comedies in general.

agesboy posted...

i can't play vanilla anymore, calamity + magic storage is too good

I agree. Recently played through calamity for the first time and did it on revengence with only utility mods like magic storage and magic builder and fargo and ore excavator. Did that as melee and beat everything. Then I had so much fun I immediately started again this time adding stars above and thorium which both felt pitiful compared to calamity stuff. Stars above has some really cool weapons and abilities though. Did that run as a summoner, also on revengence. Oh I also used summoners association because default summoner gameplay is pretty annoying. Kinda wish they'd rework summons as a whole.

I couldn't imagine playing terraria without calamity anymore. It's like mount and blade warband's prophesy of pendor mod in that it's effectively the unofficial sequel to the game made by modders.

I've been loving apothecary diaries which was somewhat unexpected. I feel like it's miles ahead of in love with the villainess and right up there with frieren.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

Just snagged it and will try it out soon probably. A nice change of pace from all the calamity terraria and end game nioh 2 I've been playing lately.

Following up on this, I've played through chapter 1 and I'm loving it. I beat everything you can possibly fight in the forest so far which was pretty tough (especially the bull). Couldn't figure out if theres a way to reach the dragon on the beach by the crab miniboss. I feel like the combat strikes a very good balance between fast and complex. I often times have to actually think about what move to choose to best take advantage of turn order and cooldowns but it all still goes by quite quickly. I also just really enjoy games with infinite (if slow) access to permanent stat increases outside of leveling up. So far physical training level 3, mental 1, combat 2 but almost 3 and life staff 3rd or 4th upgrade (can't remember, but max I can get so far). Also got all 3 pets I could find. The fox one was tricky to figure out and get. I wish I could ride on it.

I've fallen way behind on the less great anime this season. Just so many of them and I haven't been in as much of an anime mood lately. Season is still pretty great though and I am still keeping up with like 10-15 shows, thats just down from 31 at the start of the season.
Judgmenl posted...

This game was unexpected and is exceeding my expectations.

Just snagged it and will try it out soon probably. A nice change of pace from all the calamity terraria and end game nioh 2 I've been playing lately.

Not technically anime but I just watched blue eye samurai. It had some solid potential but IMO became trash. There was so much wrong with every later fight scene. People punching when they could have just stabbed them, people throwing the enemy when they had them completely beaten and were choking them, the bad guy just putting away his sword and never using it again half way through the fight. One or two of these things would be annoying but they were just constant. The plot around akemi also felt completely pointless and out of place for the setting. The comic relief no finger guy also served zero purpose.

It's like the show wanted to be samurai kill bill but also kung fu panda and sort ruined both aspects by poorly marrying the two which is a shame because there were great moments and pretty good fights in parts of the show. If they had just picked one tone and stuck to it, it could have been great.

I've read tons of 18+ western "VN"s. There's really a pretty stark contrast in style but one thing I do really appreciate is that a lot of times you have way more frequent choices in western renpy stuff. It's a lot more immersive IMO to be making all the decisions for my character. JP VNs tend to be a much more polished package but also often times only have like 3-5 meaningful choices in the entire game.

Both do that annoying thing though where the choice is just who to hang out with during free time between sessions. I dislike that greatly and feel like just including all the options in a single playthrough doesn't really take away anything.

Honestly my ideal game would be somewhere in the middle. Anime style with frequent choices.

Entity13 posted...

"I'm in Love with the Villainess."

It's been a pretty ok anime this season. I do feel like the central joke has gotten a bit stale by this point but the plot is moving places so I guess the writer realized that too.

True, although one of the anime has the mains in kite and blackrose's avatars. Tbh it's been a long time since I've seen em, I just knew I recognized that look from .hack somewhere. Had to look it up after you mentioned it.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

i don't know what girl you're talking about when you say .hack

Myne from berserk of gluttony looks like blackrose from .hack. Same skin and hair color with similar hair length and style and similar tribal tattoo mark things. Also both heavy weapon users. Granted, just like the other visual similarities to other characters, their personality is nothing alike.

Man, berserk of gluttony is so derivative it almost feels like a greatest hits. Main guy is a kirito rip off, main girl is a visual rip off the main girl from danmachi, axe girl is a visual rip off of the .hack main girl, skill is a rip off of slime isekai, it's stealing the theme of deadly sins, it's name has berserk in it.

It's like the author challenged himself to cram as many elements from other popular isekai/fantasy shows as possible into one very mediocre package.

Konoha pisses me off every time I watch. Dudeman was all set to just abandon the PC 98 and move to windows like a sane human being and she whined at him to change the future (which in this case would be for the worse) and then when she had a chance to the future, she didn't for like 2 episodes cause she was scared.

It actually amazes me that they can create a plot about a cute nerd girl wanting to make porn video games and make me not like it. All of the references are great and it's fun just taking a disjointed trip down memory lane back to the 90s VNs and stuff but they just picked a really hateable main character IMO.

Under Ninja is such a weird show. It's so good at giving you these 50-50s where you don't know if it's going to be some cool interesting shit or some absolutely stupid absurd nonsense thats funny every time.

JJK has also been amazing lately. The arc really living up to the hype so far. The animation is godlike too.

I think those 2, helck, frieren and apothecary diaries are the best of season. I always look forward to them the whole week.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

i mean, they do that trope to show that the person still has some morality left

I'm pretty sure that trope was a bit more legally motivated than that. Probably something to do with age ratings and time slots. Kind of like how in EU you cannot show weapon violence against child characters in game cutscenes (hence the change to the opening of tales of berseria). You can still show children get killed, just not if it's done with a weapon. Looking it up, it does seem to be an age ratings thing.

Been keeping up with most of the seasonals I started. Under Ninja is fuckin hilarious. It's gotta have some of the best quotes in all of anime. "If I cut off 3 dicks, I can become a ninja. If I become a ninja I can save my daughter" and the newest line "How do you know where I live?" "Don't you remember me following you home without you noticing the other day?". There is nothing like this show and it's sad the first 10 seconds of hilariously bad cgi filtered the audience so heavily. Definitely my biggest positive surprise this season.

It also has a japanese 17 year old drink beer at every opportunity instead of pulling the classic "yeah I'm a trained assassin thats murdered 500 people but I'm underage so I can't drink" bs.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

is it not just following the plot of the manga?

I'm not a manga reader but it is as far as I know. This arc just doesn't focus on itadori or sukuna.

Yeah but it's a better plot to be honest. The last few episodes have been fantastic. Itadori's last fight has got to be one of the best like equal level fights in shonen anime. No taking the rest of the cast's opinion on every action and technique, logical albeit simple plans, great animation, hard to predict outcome. They did such a good job of making the fight in the bathroom feel claustrophobic.

Realistically plotwise I think nobody has time to be concerned with anything but what is currently happening.

I've only seen the first season of stray dogs so I can't say. Reception seems positive. It's the highest rated season on MAL (each season goes up about 0.2 points it seems).

Apothecary diaries just started and as I heard it would be, it was great. Dropped 3 episodes all at once. While the genre isn't really my favorite, the main character has a lot of charm and the story telling and directing is very solid. I was sad when I ran out of episodes.

Wow, they actually just asked Rae if she was gay in "in love with the villainess" and then had a reasonable discussion about the topic. I don't think I've ever seen that in anime. Talking about what you actually think in a romance seems like a cheat code in anime.

Judgmenl posted...

Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World

That show was pretty decent. Had a fair bit to set it apart from the typical fantasy while still having plenty of tropey characters.

I know you guys already hyped it up for me but 100 girlfriends is great. The vice principle almost had me in tears. i wonder if he's ever gonna tell the girls about the love god and that he has a 100 soulmates and they'll die if he doesn't end up with them. It is nice to have a harem anime thats hard committing to the harem route (or I guess mass murder but I'm presuming harem ending).

Yeah I'm quite enjoying it but bullshit on that guys code never having any bugs. Also hope main girl carries around a tablet charger with her at all times now. She won't of course, but it'll make me annoyed. As far as I know, power outlets were still the same in the early 90s but if not she could buy a converter I'm sure.

I think under ninja is going to be the hidden gem of this season. It's so bizarre and it's funny a completely deadpan way. And yet, in a way, it feels more realistic than most ninja/assassin anime.

Wow, is this going to become a genre now? I'm down. Just watched 100 girlfriends which has almost the exact same premise as girlfriend, girlfriend except here instead of dating two girls, he has to date 100 and any he doesn't date will die. It's the most contrived harem setup possible but it feels like it knows that and is running with it. The God of Love in the show was pretty funny. Some of the humor was breaking the 4th wall a little too quickly IMO but I'll still continue for now. Also that tsundere has gotta be the most tsundere tsundere I've seen in quite some time.

The fact that we have 2 anime of this same subtype of harem genre in the same season is kinda wild.

Shirobako was great. Even though it's fine to end where it did, I'd love another season. Granted it really highlights how needlessly stressful the anime industry is. I guess maybe it's because a lot of adaptations are designed to air at a time that is optimal to promote the source material but anime companies would just take an extra season to actually finish making the thing before airing it, we would see a lot fewer delays and still the same amount of anime being made.