I played Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal on their respective release dates and loved both of them; they were my favorite titles in the years that they released. Of the two, Eternal was my favorite, but I wanted to return to these games to see if my opinions had changed at all. After replaying the original Doom 1 and 2 I decided to return to Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal a few weeks ago

So I started a brand new file on Doom 2016 on nightmare. I gotta say, I was surprised how thoroughly I was enjoying it. After completing DE in 2020, I looked back at Doom 2016 with what I would describe as the "opposite of rose colored glasses", remembering the game as more boring and simplistic than it really was, but in reality Doom 2016 is a triumph.

The gameplay truly feels like a modernization of classic Doom, albeit with a more vertical element. The movement, enemy variety, weapons, and level design synergize is such a perfect way, resulting in one of the most consistently enjoyable Doom experiences available. There is a strong inverse relationship between the game's difficulty and the strength progression of the Doomslayer, but even at my strongest, I never felt bored. It was extremely cathartic to enter a late game arena and absolutely destroy every enemy with my SSG and Gauss cannon, leaving no survivors. There wasn't a lot of strategy in those later levels, but even so, I was still enjoying myself.

Despite how fun the combat is, my greatest praise of Doom 2016 has to be its tone. From the moment the game starts, it hits you with this perfect balance of seriousness, malevolence, and just a bit of self-aware cheese. Samuel Hayden was a true standout, perfectly alluding to some unspoken sinister intensions. Despite this darker tone, the game also didn't shy away from taking itself too seriously, with some of the actions of the Doomslayer being particularly great.

After my amazing experience with replaying Doom 2016, I was very curious to see how my thoughts with Doom Eternal would change and if it would still be my favorite of the two. I didn't even make it through the end of the second level for me to be reminded why Doom Eternal was such a special game for me. Simply put, DE has one of the greatest combat loops in any FPS I have ever played and unlike Doom 2016, it just gets more intricate and engrossing the further you progress. The weapons, level design, player abilities, and enemies have been expanded with such intelligence in a way that is able to balance dexterous skill, intelligent consideration, and player creativity in a truly elegant way, I don't think I have ever played another FPS like it in my entire life. On this most recent replay, I decided to switch up most of the weapon mods I leaned on during my playthrough in 2016 and I found a completely different approach to encounters that was just as effective. I totally understand some criticisms saying it doesn't feel like a Doom game in the same way D2016 did, but in terms of an FPS experience, I really feel like it is unmatched.

Ironically, the biggest strength of Doom 2016 was one of my only criticisms of DE, that being the overall tone of the game. DE is a little too goofy and self aware when compared to its predecessor and loses a lot of those sinister undertones that used to work so well. None of the characters are as intriguing as Samuel Hayden in D2016, and his appearance in DE makes him feel like a totally different character. Despite these small short comings, the rest of the game is so perfectly balanced, that I can overlook an issues I have with the game's more whimsical tone.

After replaying these two gems, I walked away with a much bigger appreciation for both titles. Doom 2016 is such a perfect distillation of Doom in both gameplay and tone. Doom Eternal may be a different beast entirely, but I find it to be one of the greatest FPS experiences I have ever played. They both deserve heaps of praise and I am thankful for our current timeline where ID is knocking these games out of the park. I can't wait to see what Doom The Dark Ages has in store.

I recently, finally, finished Cyberpunk 2077's main quest after 65 hours of stop-and-start playtime. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy most of that time, but I could never escape the nagging feeling that something was missing. Something that kept me from playing more than an hour at a time. Something that would spark me to go all-in, sacrificing my sleep and sanity to become a legend in Night City.

After meditating on my dissatisfaction for a bit, here's what I've concluded:

Cyberpunk is just okay. Fine. It's not bad, and in a few ways it's actually pretty great, but it's not the masterpiece experience that gamers have hailed it as post its 2.0 update.

And why?

Cyberpunk is caught between two of the finest games ever released: Deus Ex and Grand Theft Auto. The former's inspiration is obvious in the very subject matter, and the latter is obvious in the manner in which it's presented (and was infamously hyped).

Cyberpunk offers more weapons and cyberware enhancements than the equivalent tools in Deus Ex, but to what end? Each augment in Deus Ex is designed with a specific purpose that meaningfully changes the gameplay, but in Cyberpunk, a lot of the abilities are redundant as the game doesn't have the same tightly-designed systems that deliver rewards and consequences unique to each player action. It's complexity for the sake of complexity; and this extends to many of the game's other sprawling systems such as upgrades, crafting, vehicles, and large sectors of the skill tree.

Level design, stealth, augments... all done better by Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which dropped 9 years before. Writing in Deus Ex (yes, all of them) is a far deeper exploration of the cyberpunk genre, although to CD Projekt Red's credit, Cyberpunk does show top shelf character-writing (minus the protagonist, ouch). Cyberpunk 2077 fails to match the other major cyberpunk gaming franchise on its own terms. So what about other open world games, specifically the kind of urban chaos found in Rockstar's portfolio?

It wasn't exactly subtle that CD Projekt Red had their eyes on Grand Theft Auto as a role model for how Cyberpunk should be received by gaming culture. The "cool street kid" persona that Rockstar is known for was being copied all over the marketing for Cyberpunk, and they were throwing everything they had toward it: licensed music, edgy sex appeal, raunchy advertisements, and Keanu Reeves, to name a few.

And yet three years' of drip-fed updates later, and the game never carries the kind of high-flying, watch-my-screen fun that's found in any of the Grand Theft Auto games. It may claim to have many of the equivalent systems, but none of them match Rockstar for quality nor implementation. The radio stations are sleep-inducing compared to Rockstar's celebrity round tables, Night City somehow manages to feel more lifeless than a game released on the PS3, and on its best behavior, the driving can only compete with Watch Dogs.

So it's not better than either of its primary influences, but what about on its own terms? What does the game have to offer that's unique?

I cannot deny that Cyberpunk is one of the best-looking games ever made. It is, at times, and said with zero irony, truly breathtaking in both fidelity and scope. But then again... many games can hold this title today. Horizon Forbidden West, The Last of Us Part II, Red Dead Redemption 2... these are all games with a similar level of jaw-dropping visuals, but at least they each offer unique benefits beyond their shiny presentation and occasional bloat of AAA checklist features.

The graphics arms race is slowing down. Gone are the days of being shocked in the way we were shocked the first time we saw the building fall in Battlefield 3. Even a franchise like Horizon, often (and rightly) criticized for its vanilla open-world spread, offers up some truly original systems and moments with its frantic combat and intriguing backstory. The best Cyberpunk can do is obey what William Gibson already thought of and wrote 40 years ago.

Strip away the presentation, and all Cyberpunk is a is pretty-good compilation of Ubisoft-level gameplay design. Compare that to its influences, and you wonder what the designers really wanted to do.

I opened Steam today and the first thing I saw in the "new and trending" list was a pirate-themed character DLC for The Finals, a game that is not even remotely pirate-themed. In recent memory: Diablo 4's first season pass of the new expansion includes pirate-themed cosmetics, a new Yakuza spin-off game is based entirely around the classic pirate theme, one of Fortnite's major crossovers this year was with Pirates of the Caribbean (in a season unrelated to pirates thematically), World of Warcraft's new battle royale mode is pirate-themed (I suppose this one makes slightly more sense), and of course Skull and Bones released early this year and was highly anticipated (successful, not so much).

These are not all the examples, I distinctly recall seeing pirate-themed cosmetics as microtransactions in multiple other games this year out of nowhere, usually unrelated to the game's theme. It's the strangest marketing trend I've seen this year by far.

So, what's the deal here? Do these companies all use the same "microtransaction consultation company"? Was everyone expecting Skull and Bones to be some kind of major success and were getting pirate stuff ready for market? Are developers becoming creatively bankrupt and pirates were one of the last themes on their checklists? This is just such a bizarre pattern to see all across multiple games that I can't believe it would be truly coincidental. I don't think I've seen cosmetic/DLC content so aligned across multiple genres like this before, ever.

I've been thinking about this since a discussion I had with a friend about the merits of Assassin's Creed, Hotline Miami, PES 6, Final Fantasy Tactics and another game I don't remember.

The funny thing is that he really hates "sweaty" or straight up skill-check games like Hotline Miami or Dark Souls, even PES6, and to me that's actually really, really important. But despite our differences in preferences, we both agreed on something: we regarded them as "Good Games" ^(tm) , even if we wouldn't play them more than once, or maybe even not finish the runs.

In fact, even if he didn't like it at all, this friend of mine went ahead and told me that, certainly, GG Strive was a good game, even though he 1) doesn't like pvp 2)doesn't like labbing 3)vastly vastly prefers turn based games.

And I was wondering: what makes a "Good game" a "Good game"? Certainly, there are games that I personally recommend even if they are not within that person's preferred genre.

Hell, there are a lot of games that non-gamers play and that may be "obscure" but if they have the mindset they enjoy it very much.

Now, the thing that confuses is "what do these games have in common?".

Because if you told me production values that would be one thing, but I don't think Cuphead has THAT much money behind it, specially compared to one of the early AC games.

I know FOR ME artistic direction is very big and can help carry a game, specially if it's well integrated, but I'm not really sure my boomer dad liked Return of the Obra Dinn for the graphics.

EDIT: I realized that while kind of synonymous, more than "Good game" I was thinking of a "Well made" game. Which I think is the same ballpark but not the same thing.

I recently got into JRPGs (For now played only Persona 5 but I'm getting the hang of it.) I was able to play through Persona 5 in around 3 weeks because of the holiday season and now I'm planning on picking up Metaphore Refantazio. But the funny thing is I can't pick up the game because of the long tutorial. When I played Persona 5 I had the time to play through it in one sitting and be immersed. I know that tutorials for these types of games are extremely long and sometimes a bit nagging, but at this point a part of the genre.

My question is, are long tutorials a "turn-off" for you when you decide to pick up a game? How does the tutorial affect the rest of the game? In my experience, most of the games I've played with long tutorials have become my favorite games of all time, despite the deep initial investment. I'd like to know your point of view on this topic.

This is probably obvious by now but yes this is a response to a previous post in here that irked me, inventory limits can definitively end up feeling unneeded in a lot of modern games where they feel tacked one, but saying thy are inherently bad and a leftover from archaic design is too extreme of a point I hope this post can balance more.

Enough of that tho, let's get to the actual gist of it, namely situations and games where inventory limits can add to a game.

Items are powerful and inventory limits are the main thing to balance this out.

Common in rogue(likes), let's take darkest dungeon as an example. In this game you can buy items for every dungeon run just before entering, they aren't too expensive and money isn't a super limiting factor. It's very possible to fill your entire inventory with a bunch of useful items that can be used to get a lot of loot and rewards from interactables, heal status effects without wasting a turn, restore a lot of HP to the party when resting mid dungeon... But the thing is, loot also takes up space in your inventory. A big part of the game is thus balancing useful items with loot that gets you more money for mostly permanent upgrades. You can risk taking less for more space, try to stack the same loot to minimize inventory slots needed for them, or even just try to plan to naturally deplete your resources so you make place for loot as you fight. This imo becomes a very big part of the game that can never be brute forced in any way, it'll always requires the player to plan ahead and make decisions on what they prioritize.

Weight limit is heavily impacted by your build and playstyle.

RPG's are all about making builds, doing one build you can do X things but not Y things, weight limit can easily become a part of this. Common in Bethesda RPG's but also games like Outward and Zomboid. If you want to be a loot goblin you can but you have to make your character suited for for it. Maybe you can invest in strength to greatly increase how much you can carry, use bags, enhance/mod your equipment to carry more, get yourself some companions o carry stuff for you or even a vehicle. All of this makes weight management it's own game where's there's a lot of options to handle it to the point it becomes a big part of the games RPG mechanics and can lad to a lot of unique situations.

In beth games this is mostly found in raw stats builds, in zomboid and outward it's mostly found in tools like backpacks and vehicles you need to manage. (like dropping a heavy backpack before you fight, or managing a car you put your stuff in)

Weight limit penalties are less extreme.

Another thing I feel can help is simply making the penalty less extreme, instead of not being able to move at all when you have too much, have incremental debuffs. For example the more you go over the limit, the more stamina you consume for walking around. A simple yet useful tweak that makes managing inventory, especially in non combat encounters, a lot less of a possible headache and open up more possibilities for a player to manage it. Have a spell that negates using stamina? Useful for combat but can also be used to avoid the weight penalties for a bit. STALKER is a game series that used this really well (and hopefully will continue to be)

TL;DR

Weight/inventory limits aren't just a relic, they can enhance games in a lot of ways, just like every other game mechanic the game has to be suited for it. A lot of modern games tend to get this wrong, but a lot of older or nicher games show how it can add so much.

Y’all mind if I gush for second? (This is gonna take longer than a second.)

...in fact, this is like a 3,000 word analysis. It should take you roughly 10-15 mins to read. If walls of text aren't your thing, feel free to skip this post! If you wanna see this writing with supporting images & visuals, skip to the bottom of this post.

Spoilers abound.

--

I just can’t get over Sifu’s museum level. Years after completing the game, its sleek aesthetic and coloration still seep sporadically into my subconscious. I recently rebooted my game just to experience it all again.

With a sharper mind than I had when I previously played it, I realized all the things about The Museum that make it so great, and now, I must write about them.

The Museum is one of the single greatest video game levels of all-time.

Full stop, hands-down. I would debate that statement in a court of law. In fact, maybe I will… (minus the court of law).

The Museum’s Story

To understand why The Museum is so damn good, you must understand the story it is trying to tell. It takes at least two runs of the level to understand all its moving parts, so let’s lay the groundwork now so everything that follows makes sense.

The Museum tells the story of its curator and boss encounter, a woman named Kuroki. The game leaves some of her backstory muddied and up to interpretation, so we’ll break this down into what we do know and what we do not know.

By completing and fully exploring the level, we learn the following, of which we can say for certain:

• Kuroki is an exile from Japan living in China
• She had a twin sister, whom she loved dearly
• For reasons unknown, Kuroki dueled to the death with her sister and killed her
• As a result, Kuroki now lives in regret and grief
• For reasons unknown, Kuroki abhors her own father, whom we can see brutally scribbled out on the family portrait
• Due to her familial trauma from her father and sister, Kuroki has developed severe mental and emotional trauma, which manifests as a wrathful, rage-filled alter-ego embodying her sister
• She now searches for relief from that grief, and she turns towards the redemptive properties of water and artistic expression as mediums for healing and release
• Her beliefs about water’s redemptive properties coincide with her claiming of Yang’s Water Talisman

I’m going to propose that Kuroki’s mental trauma is actually Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder). There is no supernatural, no illusions, no hallucinations to speak of in Sifu’s Museum. Kuroki just has two aspects of her being. Unfortunately, that can’t necessarily be said for certain, so I had to omit it from the above.

The Structure of the Museum

What we have from the above — and what The Museum is working with in its structure — are three narratives.

• Kuroki’s tangible, material story
• Kuroki’s mental and emotional reaction to the events of that story
• Kuroki’s search for healing and redemption

The Museum is such an exceptional piece of video game design because it mixes, swirls and spins together those three stories, exploring:

• The tragedy of Kuroki and her twin sister (tangible and material)
• Kuroki’s grief, anger and eventual personality disorder (mental and emotional reaction)
• Kuroki’s use of water to wash away her pain and sins (search for healing)

The Museum achieves this through gorgeous, cohesive use of presentation, color, symbolism, allusion, foreshadowing and both environmental and esoteric storytelling. The level weaves and manipulates aspects of each narrative thread through almost every ounce of its being — taking the form of art pieces, text, architecture, layout, visuals and more.

But we must look closer to truly appreciate. Now, we break down each piece of the triad.

Tangible and Material Storytelling — How We Learn the Tragedy of Kuroki and Her Twin Sister

Through physical décor, (the absence of) colors and implied revelations, the museum demonstrates the tangible and material aspects of Kuroki’s story; that she had a twin sister, that she fought and killed that twin sister, and that she took no pleasure in this — experiencing tremendous grief as a result.

Art pieces and quotes on exhibit walls allude to Kuroki’s duality both subtly and overtly.

• Matriochka figurines sit in duos
• Twin statues stand in stylized poses
• There is an entire exhibit called the Twin Exhibit
• The Kunai-Pendulum room hints at Kuroki’s sister’s weapon of choice
• The fourth and final Hidden Self Exhibit features multiple instances of dueling feminine statue art, even depicting the moment Kuroki stabs her sister
• The Submerged Emotion Hallway demonstrates a transition from Kuroki’s to her alter-ego’s state of mind

Textual quotes on the walls aren’t just there to fill up white space, but to fill blank spaces in Kuroki’s lore.

In the following quotations from around The Museum, note the bolded text, which indicates to us Kuroki’s duality and twin, her loss and pain, and her expression of those emotions through art.

A swirling set of pieces, each one tinged with splashes of anxiety, sadness, or pure absurdity. A chance to catch sight of conflicting artist’s personas*, to witness* juxtaposed but equivocal identities.

Twins are an unusual and intriguing subject to capture. They provide us with the challenge of capturing uncanny symmetry, sameness, yet also nuanced differences (a quote from real life)

A sister is a dearest friend, a closest enemy, and an angel at the time of need. — Debasish Mridha

LOSS: Expressing the pain a soul feels when facing down the darkness of loss is considered one of art’s never-ending quests for creativity through pain. Death transcends time, space and culture. It binds us as humans. Death is universal.

Crushed by sorrow*, half of me is drawn away / these hilts and those shafts / the noises and the slams / the make me forget your name / but never for too long*

PAIN: Birthing art requires an artist to give something of themselves to their creation. Their soul, their flesh, their blood is imprinted upon the canvas as a testimony of the pain an artist must endure to create

Trapped and deceived to slay my own flesh and blood / far beyond the clouds, far beyond my tears / a vast furor raises in the air / it fills my head, toys with my words / she has never — and will never — show any mercy

The factual reality of Kuroki’s siblinghood is, indeed, overt and obvious — but only if you engage with the level’s scenery and give it your attention. What’s satisfying about The Museum is how it delivers this information to you not through straightforward exposition, but through its environment.

In the level’s final stages, Sifu hands it to you off the backboard if it wasn’t already apparent — Kuroki’s hidden personal art room reveals an image of her holding her dead sister. At the level’s culmination, the second phase of the boss fight sees us challenge the actual manifestation of Kuroki’s dead sister, cementing the twin sides of our museum’s curator.

We can also look beyond the physical and towards the inferred, specifically at how The Museum approaches color — or the lack of said color.

Throughout The Museum, one can witness a light Yin & Yang influence taking shape — further alluding to Kuroki’s dual nature. Yin & Yang is a concept originating in Chinese philosophy, describing an opposite but interconnected, self-perpetuating cycle. Do note that Cycle is the name of The Museum’s second exhibit.

Yin & Yang play out in the form of Kuroki’s white depiction in both her art and her attire, versus her sister’s black depiction in each. We can also see Kuroki’s reflection underneath her sister in the Submerged Emotion Hallway and the boss fight’s second phase.

Yin & Yang is a paradox of simultaneous duality and unity — this implies to us that Kuroki has another half, but that her and her sister are also one-and-the-same.

Obviously, it is impossible for two separate humans to literally be one. Especially if one’s kicked the bucket. That is, until you explore Kuroki’s mental state…

Abstract and Symbolic Storytelling — How We Learn of Kuroki’s Mental and Emotional Reaction to Her Trauma

Through physical arrangements and the use of color, The Museum demonstrates Kuroki’s mental and emotional reactions to her familial trauma; that her breadth of mixed feelings following the ordeal were cyclical and inescapable, always leading her back to her acts against her sister’s life. Her emotions became so powerful, so varied and uncontrollable that she spiraled into a state of mental disorder, developing Dissociative Identity Disorder — which manifests as an enraged version of her late kin.

We have already mentioned the cyclical nature of Yin & Yang, as well as The Museum’s second Exhibit featuring the name Cycle. This idea of rotating and repetition is seen all over The Museum — the kunai exhibit circles perpetually, the “Mourning Whirlwind” statue at the beginning of the Identity Exhibit expresses grief in flowing, spinning fashion…

… and The Museum’s entire floorplan is a spiral, wrapping itself up, down and around the cascading waterfall at the center.

This notion of whirlpooling is also spun into Kuroki’s experience via quotations on the walls, specifically in the Cycle Exhibit. Here, they begin to illuminate for us what exactly is spiraling; Kuroki’s grief and emotion.

There are patterns in one’s life, circling and born again, endless variants of a theme. Follow them to take advantage. Stand in their way and you’ll get hurt.

When the storms of emotion begin to swirl and take hold, the artist seeks the brightness, the safe passageway to shelter.

Kuroki’s grief and emotion, in its endless swirl, takes the form of color in much of her art. Throughout every one of The Museum’s exhibits, we see the same shades of blue, purple, orange, yellow and red.

The Hidden Self Exhibit is naturally the best example of the level’s use of color. Contrasting the concreteness and realism of moving through a museum in the first three quarters of the level, the Hidden Self Exhibit takes players through a hallucinatory and surreal depiction of the mind and emotion.

There are no floors, walls, hallways or doors to discern in this section — only the vast emptiness of color. This blurring of reality reinforces the abstract nature of the exhibit’s contents, of Kuroki’s intangible emotion.

Harsh saturation flickers, dances and shifts as we progress through architectural representations of Kuroki’s duel with her sister. The ever-shifting lights and colors represent Kuroki’s shifting emotions in grief and her inability to control them.

The Museum then flips and inverts color into desaturation for dramatic and symbolic effect.

Following the Hidden Self Exhibit described above, we move from the saturated, hallucinatory rooms to the black and white snow and water rooms where we encounter Kuroki herself.

Additionally, much earlier on in the Cycle Exhibit, we move from the bright and vivid suspended lightbulb room to the dim and grayscale kunai room, physically representing the cyclical nature of Kuroki’s colorful emotions and the stages of grief she is experiencing — no matter what she does, they always bring her back to the moment she kills her sister.

Through all of this, we see notes on the walls suggesting that to fight these emotions is futile, we must allow them to flow through and wash beyond us (hold on to that idea of flowing and washing for later).

You may want to battle the riptide or to let the flow carry you through its cycle.

There are patterns in one’s life, circling and born again, endless variants of a theme. Follow them to take advantage. Stand in their way and you’ll get hurt*.*

Kuroki fails at this, however, and allows the strength of her emotion to cripple her to the point of developing an alternate personality.

I believe, as a result of her familial brokenness, Kuroki has Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), defined by Psychiatry.org as the existence of two or more distinct identities brought about by overwhelming experiences, traumatic events and/or abuse that occurred in childhood.

In the museum’s first exhibit, we watch this play out, again through paintings and wall quotations. Art pieces in the Identity Exhibit feature female portraits with their faces scribbled over, as well as wall text reading;

A swirling set of pieces, each one tinged with splashes of anxiety, sadness, or pure absurdity. A chance to catch sight of conflicting artist’s personas*, to witness* juxtaposed but equivocal identities.

Over time and through the experience of life events, our identities are reshaped and remolded*. These experiences allow us as humans to alter how we see ourselves.*

In The Museum’s rising action, taking place in the Hidden Self Exhibit, we literally “watch” this transformation of identities occur in the Submerged Emotion Hallway (more on this in a moment) as the white décor plunges underneath the surface into aquatic décor, with Kuroki’s image at the hallway’s beginning and her twin sister’s at the end, completing the transformation as we dip under water and into Kuroki’s subconscious.

And now, our attention must turn to Kuroki’s obsession with water.

Redemptive Storytelling — How Kuroki Blends Water with Her Work to Mend Mental Wounds

Through The Museum’s art, layout, architecture, and immersive exhibits, the location demonstrates Kuroki’s ideological belief in water as a mechanism for healing and redemption of the subconscious.

As soon as we enter The Museum, we’re greeted with its namesake and physical representation of it. “Flood” reads the banner hanging overhead of the front door, with a large, cascading waterfall pouring down from four floors above.

The Museum’s and Kuroki’s obsession with water becomes more apparent as you move through each exhibit, with wave imagery a constant, as well as art pieces depicting water droplets, fish, bubbles and more.

It’s all reinforced by copy written upon the walls:

Color always moves, always changing its own state, going from one container to another, liquid to solid, or evaporating to pure abstraction. You may want to battle the riptide or to let the flow carry you through its cycle

But it becomes overtly apparent as we traverse up, down, left and right through the fourth and final Hidden Self Exhibit.

In one of the early rooms there, we’re dropped into a dark locale, standing in water up to our ankles as more drips in from overhead.

A voice speaks through the darkness as we’re assailed by Kuroki’s henchmen:

“Water has the power to cleanse us and set us free. It represents birth and the cleansing of a darkened soul. Water is the key to being reborn*. It is considered* redemptive in nature. And like the darkness itself, you must first embrace it.

The mind is like an iceberg. It floats with 1/7th of its bulk above water. Our consciousness is merely the tip of the iceberg. We must dive beneath the waters to explore the subconscious — to face the past*”*

We don’t have to do any analysis, interpretation or guesswork here — Kuroki hands us her thesis statement, drenched in literality.

In order to address the pain and suffering she experiences, Kuroki has set out to face her past by exploring and examining her subconscious — which she physically depicts in her art as a sort of submerging, an idea built upon Kuroki’s belief in the healing properties of water.

Indeed, this is what is happening in the Hidden Self Exhibit — we are exploring Kuroki’s subconscious state of varied and overpowering emotions that lead to a rift in her personality.

We soon pass through what I have dubbed the Submerged Emotion Hallway, and we watch on the walls as an image of Kuroki is displayed alongside large text reading LOSS and PAIN. As we transition down the hall, we see Kuroki’s image from before mirrored - yet different - reflected from the blue, split-creating paint on the wall.

As we’ve established, Kuroki’s emotions are too strong for her, she resists their riptide and descends into the next paragraphs of text on the wall; ANGER, RAGE. It is then, at the end of the hallway, we see Kuroki’s completed transition into her alternate personality, a wrath-filled reimagining of her own dead sister.

After this, the exhibit asks that you plunge deeper into Kuroki’s self and mind — a final “underwater” room ensues as we reach the depths of Kuroki’s pain and emotion.

After our “submerging” is complete, we see the fateful duel of sisters play out under Kuroki’s colorful, emotional lighting, which we have already discussed.

We then arrive at Kuroki’s space. A calming, quiet, snow-draped courtyard. Water is present here, too, but it’s frozen. Kuroki, as she speaks to us upon approach, is fighting to control her anger. She snaps a wooden doll in her hands.

My reading of the scene is that the still snow is meant to portray Kuroki’s attempt to stop the rushing, flowing waters of her emotion. She freezes it in place, holding the violent waters of rage back through force of will.

But as we see when we push her to her limits — and as has been depicted and suggested in her art all along — she is unable to hold these waters back.

In Kuroki’s heightened emotional state following the first phase of our duel with her, the floodgates quite literally open, and we submerge again into Kuroki’s subconscious. The courtyard shifts to a raging seascape and Kuroki’s secondary personality, her vehement twin sister, emerges to face us in battle.

--

Everything in Sifu’s museum level is Chekhov’s Gun. No art, architecture, or verbiage was spared in the curation of Kuroki’s physically manifested history or mental and emotional disorder.

Making deft use of presentation, color, symbolism, allusion, foreshadowing, and environmental & esoteric storytelling, The Museum weaves the life narrative of its curator in a way that absolutely must be described as one thing and one thing only;

Art.

--

Writer's note: Thank you for reading. This article is much easier to understand and follow when you can actually see the shit I'm talking about lol. To that end, here is a link where you can read a full, uncut rendition of this piece with supporting images and links. I don't add this here as self-promo, just as a more robust way to experience the analysis.

There has been a lot of discussion about remakes lately. Studios have increasingly been remaking previous works from well-known, recognizable IPs. Many people are reacting to this trend by expressing frustration with the very concept of remakes. I often see arguments that remakes are less artistically valid and indicate a lack of creativity. While I can empathize with the desire for more original ideas, I disagree with the notion that remakes are inherently bad. I want to narrow this discussion down to video games, specifically focusing on the Silent Hill 2 remake, which has sparked some debate.

First, I want to clarify that I don't believe remakes replace the original work. Instead, I believe that remakes are entirely separate products, often created by different artists, using different technology, teams, techniques, and intentions. They use the original work as a vehicle for artists to explore their own creative interests, themes, or aesthetics. In video games, this can extend to exploring new gameplay loops and mechanics or reinterpreting old ones into a modern context. This process results in a new game, even if it’s a variation on the same theme. For example, the Resident Evil 2 remake is not the same game as Resident Evil 2 (1998), Metroid Zero Mission differs from Metroid, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake hardly resembles the original. Some titles blur the line by keeping much of the content the same but enhancing the visuals, yet even these create a new aesthetic experience, making them distinct from the original works, such as the remakes of Link's Awakening or Demon's Souls.

Turning back to the Silent Hill 2 remake, it’s valid to compare it to the original; however, I don't think it's fair or productive to criticize the change in camera perspective. The remake was never intended to be a semi-fixed camera game—it was always going to reinterpret the original through the lens of an over-the-shoulder perspective. This change required new level design, combat mechanics, enemy behaviors, and gameplay loops. It also fundamentally alters the emotional connection between the player and the game. The original’s distant semi-fixed camera created more dynamic and striking visuals, effectively building suspense and setting the tone of scenes, it also had the effect of creating intentional distance between the player and the character, enhancing the game's mystery and themes. This is part of the original’s brilliance, but the remake has different intentions.

In the remake, the over-the-shoulder angle creates a greater sense of intimacy between the player and the game world. It makes combat more visceral, the environments more oppressive, and the player’s connection to the character more empathetic. Some argue that we shouldn’t feel this closer connection to James, as it wasn’t the case in the original game. However, I believe that Bloober Team intentionally used the remake to delve deeper into James's character and draw the player closer into his psyche. The voice acting is all around more conventionally good. Luke Roberts delivered a particularly great performance as James, portraying him more realistically and with greater depth. The motion capture work, with its detailed facial expressions, further immerses the player in the character’s mind in ways the original never could. By combining the new camera angle with this improved performance, Bloober Team has successfully re-examined James’s character and the plight of the supporting cast with great sensitivity.

I’m not saying the remake is better than the original—it has its own issues with pacing, repetition, and variety. I’m simply arguing that it’s a different work. It uses the original as a launchpad to explore the setting and themes in a different, more revealing way. It also recontextualizes survival horror gameplay in a more standardized manner without losing the essence that defined the genre. There is room to appreciate both versions, and I encourage people to play them both. The original is a shorter, less mechanically complex game and remains a masterpiece of video game storytelling, albeit with some rough edges. The remake is a bit padded out and more labored, but it is also more polished and it provides Bloober team’s respectful take on the material. It reinterprets the original aesthetic with incredible graphics and it explores the themes more personally, even expanding on some of them in a tasteful way.

I would like to draw a comparison to film remakes such as Nosferatu and its 1979 remake by Herzog. The original silent film is a classic, and the existence of Herzog’s version doesn’t invalidate it. Instead, Herzog used his remake to explore the same material in color, with spoken dialogue, and took the opportunity to offer a more revealing portrayal of the vampire and the characters’ inner conflicts.

There are certainly bad remakes. Some fail to create a compelling reinterpretation, some struggle to integrate new elements with the original material without causing major conflicts, and others adopt a new aesthetic that doesn't suit the source material. These are inherent challenges that remakes must overcome, requiring a certain level of talent to achieve successfully. In the case of Silent Hill 2, I believe Bloober Team did an excellent job. While the remake has its own shortcomings, they are not due to it being a remake or to the change in perspective. Even if there were no original Silent Hill 2 and Bloober's game was released as a standalone title, I would still consider it a solid 8/10 game

Hey, all!

In this thread, the rules are more relaxed. The idea is that this megathread will provide a space for otherwise rule-breaking content, as well as allowing for a slightly more conversational tone rather than every post and comment needing to be an essay.

Top-level comments on this post should aim to follow the rules for submitting threads. However, the following rules are relaxed:

• 3. Specificity, Clarity, and Detail
• 4. No Advice
• 5. No List Posts
• 8. No topics that belong in other subreddits
• 9. No Retired Topics
• 11. Reviews must follow these guidelines

So feel free to talk about what you've been playing lately or ask for suggestions. Feel free to discuss gaming fatigue, FOMO, backlogs, etc, from the retired topics list. Feel free to take your half-baked idea for a post to the subreddit and discuss it here (you can still post it as its own thread later on if you want). Just keep things civil!

Also, as a reminder, we have a Discord server where you can have much more casual, free-form conversations! https://discord.gg/truegaming

Dracula’s iconic confrontation with Richter in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night transcends a simple battle between good and evil. Dracula questions human nature, challenging the notions of honesty and power, and delving into the hypocrisy that humans often display. He suggests that humanity, by perpetuating lies and hiding behind facades, may be more monstrous than the creatures they fear.

This theme resonates with Psycho Mantis’s perspective in Metal Gear Solid, where he states, “The only thing that matters in life is the legacy you leave behind,” highlighting that humans are driven to propagate their genes, often resorting to betrayal to achieve this end. Both characters compel us to examine the idea that the true enemy may lie within ourselves.

What do you think about these reflections on humanity in these games? Do you believe these narratives present a compelling critique of human nature?

The world would probably have to be smaller but who would mind less pointless walking? It's annyoing the devs these days consider it so important for the world to be huge. They sacrifice gameplay for the sake of realism.

The basic rule would be there's always something within your sight around you like a landmark or geographical feature that's unique and lets you know where you are.

I think a good idea would also be that there are paths/roads leading everywhere. it would make places easier to find. and at every crossroads there's something unique – a monument, a shrine, a rock, a tree, a bush, so it's recognizable, easy to remember and refer to by NPCs.

Literally the vegetation around an area might indicate what region you're in. I was playing around with the Unity engine a bit and placed a few trees that were one and the same model, only resized and made taller or shorter, and it didn't bother me – they don't look samey enough to notice it, so imagine putting a different kind/genus of tree/bush around a certain area – it's easy to do and it makes the area feel unique.

Accordingly, the quest givers would tell you the directions instead of getting a quest marker. You wouldn't even need to know the cardinal directions (north, south, west, east) so no compass needed – you'd get descriptions like "leave the town near the statue of [some god], go down the road until you see [a monument], turn right, follow the river XYZ to your left."

There could also be huge landmarks like a tower or mountain in the middle of the map that is visible from every place on the map. Some games did this like Oblivion, or Outward i think.

I was also thinking about the sky and the position of the sun. the sky could look unique at different times of day (e.g. orange on sunrise, pinkish near sunset) to let you know better where to find east and west. If it's noon you could literally wait a few hours to figure out which way the sun goes.

you'd also have road signs. Every thing in the game should have a name, like regions, forests, rivers, ruins, like in Morrowind, and NPCs should refer to them as such.

For alchemy ingredients i'd make them rarer and stand out more as opposed to regular vegetation, e.g. normal bushes are shades of green but ingredients are colorful so you notice them at a distance. The thing i don't like about modern games is how cluttered everything looks so they literally add a 'search' feature to highlight collectibles like in the Witcher 3 or Dragon Age Inquisition. Quest items and important things should be recognizable at first glance.

Wouldn't that be immersive? It would make you enjoy looking at the world while being useful at the same time, instead of staring at a compass or minimap more often than not..

This is something that's been on my mind for awhile, and I can't figure out if it's mainly just a problem with me and my reading/story comprehension abilities, or whether most stories are genuinely convoluted and uninteresting/hard to follow.

The most glaring example I can give of this is the JRPG genre. I'll start with a recent example: Final Fantasy XVI. I played the demo, and was drawn in by the beautiful visuals, and the suggestion that it would be a darker, more mature story ala Game of Thrones. I bought the game, and the further it went on, I realized I just... didn't really know or care what was going on. At times, cool things were happening on the screen (Titan battles), but most of the story was just a bunch of people talking, and none of it made sense or mattered to me. It got to the point to where I would skip most of the dialogue, definitely the side quests which were horrendously boring, but even the main quest dialogue just seemed to drone on without there being any hook to keep me interested. I beat the game, and I look back on it and can barely tell you anything about it story-wise, other than who some of the main character's names were.

Kingdom Hearts is probably the most egregious examples of this. Fortunately for me, I don't play or follow the series, but I'm aware of how many games there are and just how convoluted the stories get, requiring several hour long youtube videos just to make sense of it all. But it doesn't make sense. Not to me. None of it does. It's just nonsense.

No video does my point justice more than this Dunkey video trying to explain the plot of final fantasy games. I know he intentionally edited the video to make it incoherent, but to me, most stories are this way. Just a bunch of random names and words and things happenings for the sake of things happening.

Nier Automata is an example where I liked the design of the world and the characters a lot, but I couldn't tell you a single thing about the story. Maybe it's because I didn't love the game (just some aspects of the game), so it just seemed like a blur.

So can you like the concept, setting, and characters of a game without really following or caring about the story? From Software does this well for my tastes. The "story" is mostly optional, and like Kingdom Hearts, most people only figure out the story by watching videos of people who have dug deep and figured it out. Not for me. I just like the tone and vibe of the atmosphere, and that's enough for me.

I can think of some more examples, but I just wanted to get this off my head and get some other people's opinions. I realized my examples were all Japanese games. I think Western games can have this problem to, but maybe to a lesser extent a lot of the time. A good example would be the first The Last of Us, where even though I have a problem with ludonarrative dissonance, the core story of Elle and Joel is easy to follow and impactful.

But what do you think? What kind of storytelling do you like or dislike in games? Or do I just have some undiagnosed form of dyslexia that makes it hard for me to follow complex stories?

Every time I replayed Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldurs Gate 3, I got reminded on how much I hate these things. Picked up one shortsword on top of your backpack that is already carrying 200kgs of armor, and you are suddenly weightbeared and cannot run. And now you need to spend time going to the nearest merchant to sell your most useless items. You have to take a complete halt in your gameplay and do the most mundane thing possible. Given how popular infinite weight mods are for these games, I think most people agree that these are sluggish game design.

Argument 1: They offer strategic gameplay and force you to plan your game.

99% of the time, the thinking process behind weight management is just sell/put away your most useless item. Carrying 20 different guns/swords very rarely make your game easier in any way. And the actual useful consumables like healing potions are usually the lightest one that can be still be comfortably spammed.

Powderkeg in Baldurs Gate 3 is a good point against this. But that can be easily solved by setting a carrying limit for individual items. And people find ways to exploit it anyway. You just need to spent 5 more minutes juggling between loading screens in your camp.

Argument 2: Immersion

You are already carrying weights that are beyond realism, like 10 heavy armours and 20 different swords. Why is it so important to make your character stop whatever you are doing and make time for opening the inventory menu? There are way too many examples of how having realistic features only adds annoyance to games.

Argument 3: They are the natural way to guide players to interact with game features, like going back to the hub area or merchants.

This is the most convincing one so far. But players should be smart enough to figure out that selling the items with multiple copies is an easy way to make money in-game. Using annoyance as a reminder seems to be excessive.

And every time I got annoyed by the weight limit in these games, I was also immediately reminded of how much I love the Souls games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring that don't have a carrying limit. Instead, you have equipment weight limit that arguably offers way more strategic gameplay thinking. You need to think about min-maxing the equipment you take to a fight. But don't have to worry about looting items. And I think that weight limit do have a place if inventory management really is that integral to the game, like games that heavily emphasize on the survival aspect. But most of the games I listed are focus on either story or/and combat. The life sim aspect is arguably not the main selling point.

I am convinced that the weight limit is just some leftover designs from devs with an RPG purist mindset.

Edit: Since a lot of people are misunderstanding me, I specifically stated non-intrusive physics and visual effects. I also specifically stated that I am talking about design choices that merely impact the visual and audio-visual quality of games. When I talk about enemies visibly recoiling I am not talking about stun-locking them and when I'm talking about more realistic and varied particle effect hits, I am not talking about actual destruction physics. Just a bit more love and polish. The replies to this thread kind of confirm what I stated about gamers excusing subpar quality. There is games that implement all of these design choices, even non triple A ones. These things are really not that hard to implement as they are mostly visual and audio-visual with minimal physics implementation. Bullet casings bouncing off objects is not hard to implement but adds a lot. Insurgency, a game made by a small team of developers, has it.

I’ve noticed that gamers have a tendency to excuse subpar world-building, sound, and environmental design by saying that a game is "supposed to be arcadey" or "isn’t meant to be realistic." However, I firmly believe that even games in the sci-fi and fantasy genres could benefit immensely from incorporating realism to an extent.

Immersive sound design—whether it’s the ambience of a location, the sound of a weapon, the hum of machinery, footsteps, or the impact of a fall—elevates even the most outlandish plots and worlds into something more believable and engaging. This is ultimately what gaming should be about: creating immersive experiences. For instance, games like Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War or DOOM, while undeniably arcadey in nature, have no excuse for their guns sounding like tin cans or explosions resembling the muffled thud of someone punching mud. Imagine how much more chaotic and satisfying DOOM would feel with loud, snappy guns whose bjullets echo with a sharp crack, amplifying the impact considerably imo.

Even a game as cartoonish as The Legend of Zelda, often hailed as a magnum opus of video game design, falls short in these aspects, in my opinion. Adding more variation in lighting, ambient sound, impact effects, and footstep sounds (and I’m not just referring to different sounds for different materials, but rather less repetitive ones) wouldn’t take away from the classic Nintendo feel. Instead, it would add an extra layer of immersion, making each area feel much more distinct and alive rather than static (controversial, I know).

Games like The Witcher 3, Destiny, God of War, and Bioshock—while undeniably great—often feature repetitive play animations, impact effects, and destruction mechanics. When you strike an enemy with a sword, shoot one with a gun, or hit them with a heavy attack, there’s often little sense of impact. Bullets create the same particle effects repeatedly, enemies don’t visibly recoil or react, and your sword doesn’t convincingly bounce off surfaces. Crates or loot boxes break apart in the exact same manner every time, and character animations are often misaligned with the objects they interact with, like door handles, crates, or food items.

In contrast, games like The Last of Us Part II, Red Dead Redemption 2, Modern Warfare (2019), Metal Gear Solid, and many milsim titles excel in some of these areas. For instance, Red Dead Redemption 2 captures the weight and impact of weapons, the environment reacts to the weather, and NPCs respond dynamically to the player’s actions, making the world feel alive. The Last of Us Part II shows how proper sound design and realistic animations can enhance immersion even in a narrative-heavy, linear game.

To be clear, I don’t think every game needs to implement realism in its core gameplay mechanics. That’s not my point at all. I simply believe that every game, no matter how outlandish, cartoonish, or fantastical, could benefit from a more realistic approach in areas like animations, non-intrusive physics, sound design, and environmental detail. These elements, when done thoughtfully, don’t disrupt the gameplay or art direction while at the same time making the game much more believable and immersive.

Well don't get me wrong. I do know that silent hill 2 is the best in the series with all the psychological horror and stuff. Personally I played the game before and enjoy it very much.

What makes me think this way is because it's so disconnected with the rest of the series (especially the old games created by team silent). If you straight jump into this game you will have no problem at all to know the story. This happen to Biohazard (Resident Evil) 4 as well.

This makes me to think that if the game is publish separately with another name instead of making it part of the franchise, do they still be this good or even spawn a whole new franchise?

At first I was just thinking these are old west themes and they're not pulling punches while depicting a harsh life, even if we know that harsh life is mostly made up. Then there's an Irish guy I met they just named "Irish" who plays up every stereotype possible building his entire character from the negative ones cuz he's just a drunken fool. And like beyond that every time dude speaks to him he's talking down to him while yelling.

Then Mexico it's like... man. Everyone you meet in Mexico just a violent rapist senselessly murdering men while kidnapping their wives... or more accurately whores since almost all the women in Mexico are prostitutes.

The government is portrayed as some evil entity by nearly everyone in the game while your own character either agrees with this stuff or says nothing at all. If a prostitute is being murdered/abused by a man in the white town you're rewarded for saving her. But in Mexico dude doesn't even make a peep with this "welp. this is what Mexicans are like so I won't intrude" vibe. Meanwhile the white cowboy is just the most dutiful guy ever not once considering cheating on his wife and son.

There's lots more moments as well. Beyond those issues I know the game is dated but people made such a big deal about it 'n generally it feels really repetitive to me. Is RDR2 at least more playable/immersive? I'm getting these ubisoft feels playing the same go somewhere/kill everyone quest over and over.

Hey, all!

In this thread, the rules are more relaxed. The idea is that this megathread will provide a space for otherwise rule-breaking content, as well as allowing for a slightly more conversational tone rather than every post and comment needing to be an essay.

Top-level comments on this post should aim to follow the rules for submitting threads. However, the following rules are relaxed:

• 3. Specificity, Clarity, and Detail
• 4. No Advice
• 5. No List Posts
• 8. No topics that belong in other subreddits
• 9. No Retired Topics
• 11. Reviews must follow these guidelines

So feel free to talk about what you've been playing lately or ask for suggestions. Feel free to discuss gaming fatigue, FOMO, backlogs, etc, from the retired topics list. Feel free to take your half-baked idea for a post to the subreddit and discuss it here (you can still post it as its own thread later on if you want). Just keep things civil!

Also, as a reminder, we have a Discord server where you can have much more casual, free-form conversations! https://discord.gg/truegaming

Yes it's true, Persona 5's stylization is a big reason why it looks so good for modern platforms despite being designed as a PS3 game.

But Sims 4 stylization is a big reason why EA can get away with milking a defective game released in 2014 to this day.

The Sims 1 has 3 year lifespan.

The Sims 2 has 4 year lifespan.

The Sims 3 has 4 year lifespan.

The Sims 4? It's 10 years old now and shows no sign of stopping.

With each numbered entry, The Sims game takes a new step in both gameplay and graphic. Except that for Sims 3, despite being technological marvel in terms of scale, has such an unappealing Sims ("clayface" and "puddingface") look that people often cite as the reason why they refuse to play Sims 3.

And the other case is Sims 4. What's originally meant to be an online game and thus has severely limited capability, was a launch disaster that lacked so many features you commonly see in other Sims games. It's also unsurprisingly a downgrade in technical aspect compared to Sims 3 (no open world is the biggest one).

But what Sims 4 succeeded is in its artstyle. It's cartoony, instead of trying to be realistic like its predecessors. And.... It works. The artstyle makes it so that the look of the Sims are never "outdated". Just look at the trailers for Sims 4 Packs, and try to guess when it was released.

One of big reasons why is that The Sims fanbase is filled with people who wants to play a Virtual Dollhouse. They don't really mind not having an open world, the ability to have complex relationships between Sims (Sims 2 Relationship System), to have Sims behaves uniquely and complex (Sims 3 Traits System), open world, etc etc.

They're simply content with making their Sim looks pretty without having to rely on CC and designing their dollhouse which most of the actions will take place in (Sims 4 does have the best Build and Buy mode, allowing for some of the best creative freedom in the franchise).

There's never a rush for "Sime 5" in the majority of the fanbase because they're perfectly content with what they need (graphic) for 10 years.

Let me begin by saying that I love Starfield. I love how it itches my need for an endless sandbox rpg experience in a modern if not science fiction world. I love how the gunplay feels. I love how it's the first game where modifying my weapons somehow feels great. I love how it gave me an endless trove to grow and try out new things, where it just doesn't limit me trying out my new arsenal because it simply gives me an endless supply of grounds and enemies to try it on, while most rpgs ends when things just gets good for me as a player. Somehow those things just kept me playing and other mechanics such as the potential to roleplay as a freelancer, building my own ships, or building industrial complexes just makes this game almost my dream game. But the other folks seem to disagree with me by a lot to the point where it feels disheartening. Seeing the constant back and forth between the critiques, the haters, the glazers, and the enjoyers is confusing, tiring, yet intriguing for me, and since Bethesda promised more updates when it first came out, I decided to drop the game until the first expansion to enjoy as much stuff as possible in one fell swoop because im not one to repeat long games, especially bethesda rpgs. While waiting for this first expansion, i also decided that it would be a good time to go on a journey and try out all sorts of other games. Little did i know that this would be a journey filled with contemplation, drama, and sleep depriving thoughts.

One of the first games I played after dropping Starfield was Fallout New Vegas. As a fallout player that has played FO 3 and 4, I was reluctant to play new vegas at first because I thought it was just a better written fallout 3, but because people seemed to put this game on a mighty throne, it became a perfect time to try it out. I managed to finish it including every DLC it has given to me and all i can conclude is that it is just what i thought, it's just a better written Fallout 3. Other than that it has its own downsides. It has its fair share of bugs, gunplay that doesn't feel satisfying, game mechanics that were not implemented well (faction costumes, survival mechanics, most of dead money). Only the story carries the whole game which i admit is really great. But then it got me thinking of how luck based it is to only judge a game by its narrative which means that bethesda only lucked out on writers. It also got me thinking of how people compared Starfield's writing to this game as well as other rpgs such as Mass Effect or Cyberpunk 2077. I have to acknowledge that Starfield's writing isn't its strongest suit compared to those games but to call it bad is an overstatement. I thought long about this and I have come to one of the key points of my journey: People love conflict. The more conflicting the nature of a narrative is, the more enticing and spicy it is to people. When people talk about depth, they don't just talk about how a character is written like a real person or how complex a story is written, they want more spiciness added into it which means that they prefer a story filled with drama, turmoil, or just basically things happening in a fast succession rather than a slow burn. Starfield's story is really vanilla while cyberpunk's 2077 and new vegas' story is really fantastical and gritty in nature, kind of like comparing vanilla ice cream to rocky road or oreo ice cream. Both are good but i guess more people like one better than the other and standards have been raised pretty high. I personally do not mind the vanilla nature of Starfield's story. It's enjoyable and it has its moments even though it's not an epic, and that's saying from someone who has played the mass effect trilogy multiple times.

Another game that I played is No Man's Sky. I've played no man's sky before it has got its update and i would say that it was a solid concept although lacking. I actually bought the game years before starfield and I pretty much enjoyed it. I dropped it because I ran out of things to do in the game to the point where others can't give me suggestions on what to do. I picked it up again and decided to just go all out and try out base building, building outposts on various planets and I had fun. It gave me time to think on the game's gameloop, its environmental design, its procedurally generated world, and how it works together. At the end of the day however, I still ran out of activities to do, things still get repetitive and boring even with the updates, and i had to join a roleplay community to actually spice things up. I thought to myself "What's different between No Man's Sky and Starfield in terms of procedurally generated content?". Both have planets that are generated with a similar method, both have points of interests that are also randomly scattered around and most of those are just flavor text. Why is one more impactful than the other. This chain of thought lead me to three major points. First of all, some settings or themes work better than others, especially when pleasing the eyes into immersion. I will be honest, No Man's Sky's procedural generation can be both just as boring and beautiful as Starfield's, only No Man's Sky is supported by its fantastical themes where the devs can go all out with the generation with colorful worlds, lush planets, beautiful peaks and valleys, while Starfield's more grounded approach can be seen as quite boring with less dramatic contrast in its generated planets. The second point would be that procedural generation of a gigantic scale requires a gigantic number of assets which is No Man's Sky's strongest suit and Starfield's biggest weakness. I can only hope that Bethesda will rectify this in the future but I guess that's far too much to ask from a public company. It is quite a shame though because there are supposedly more assets and POIs in the game than one would think, they're just mostly locked behind levels and progression which means that most of the critiques are probably mostly driven from first impressions. The last thing that i discovered is that when it comes to points of interests, there has to be a balance in the ratio between the time a player's exposed to a POI and the payoff. This point came to me when analyzing No Man's Sky's randomly generated buildings. Let me tell you, grinding points of interests in No Man's Sky is a chore and a save scum fest, but the thing that made it negligible is that it's short, compared to Starfield's mini dungeons. Because of this, i hypothesize that because of the time exposed to these points of interest in Starfield, the repetitiveness sets in more to the point where it hits a sour spot for most players, a really-really sour spot.

Speaking of a sour spot, another thing that i have gotten a chance to think about my past experiences and try out other short games, the underrated ones or hidden gems that weren't cut out to be one of the greats. I remembered my time playing Obsidian's Outer Worlds and it somehow fell short of my expectations with their less memorable storyline and gameplay. I remembered playing Ubisoft's Watch Dogs Legion and while i did have fun with it, It doesn't hit right compared to Watchdogs 2. I also got the chance to play Homefront: Revolution when i was looking for outpost takeover based games. It was clunky, It has game breaking bugs, Its stealth mechanics are barebones, It's really repetitive, the only thing that got me playing is just the story but even that is not even groundbreaking, it's just a classic, rebellion vs oppressor story, that tries to shorten the story from the books in a compact game form. What got me thinking was why is nobody talking about those games? They were left alone and the people who liked those games are left alone despite it not being that good/subpar, while Starfield gets all the hate for a year now, as if people cannot stop talking about how bad this game is, even in posts where people are sharing what they like about it. The only things that I can think that caused this is a mix of corporate hate, indie idolization, Bethesda hate, and unmet expectations, maybe added the fact that people can sometimes be mean bandwagoners who only listens to the top voice to echo to others, especially redditors. I know that Starfield isn't the perfect game by a mile but the thing that baffles me the most is the constant conversation and debate between those who like and those who hate the game as if these factors have put this game and Bethesda in one big sour spot that is the talk for months and quite possibly years.

So where did all of this lead me to you may wonder? On one hand, I learnt that some games will conceptually do worse than others and that scale needs to be tackled with passion and sacrifice. On the other hand, the mass subjective perception of the community can skew a person's perspective on a game, a game can be as mediocre as it can be yet still be praised because it was made by a good natured company and vice versa. Bethesda has dug themselves in a hole they need to claw their ways out but at the same time their efforts have been not enough despite how good natured they are, in my observation, leading to a stagnant gaming environment that leads to speculation and debate. At least, in my opinion, they're doing better than Ubisoft's efforts who kept digging a deeper hole for themselves.

I finally reinstalled the game, anticipating that my feelings would change after so many people told me that it did, yet when i played it, I can't help but feel entertained, by the narrative that entertains me, by the combat mechanics, and just seeing and feeling the game's atmosphere again makes me feel happy. I cannot change how people think about games, but all i can hope is to spread the happiness with others and make my case true. I just wish that people would be less mean about all of this and maybe learn to study games thoroughly, no matter how bad or mediocre it is. Some things can be studied from the roughest of places and through this journey i felt like i can accept myself a little bit more for playing games that no others would like.

Feel free to discuss this in the comments and I'll be happy to answer some of your questions or hear your thoughts about this whole thing. After all I'm still learning new things and I'll be honest, the fiasco with Starfield somehow just peaks my curiosity.

I moved to PC gaming around 2013 or so, disappointed with the lackluster performance of the PS360 generation, especially as it came to a close and the consoles clearly struggled to keep up with developer ambitions. I don't regret it at all--I've been a dedicated PC gamer ever since, buying consoles only years after they come out and even then rarely using them.

And yet, somehow, I miss the ritual of gaming on a console, or maybe more specifically the ritual of gaming on a dedicated device with no distractions. There's an alluring immersion to turning on a game and then diving into it without discord or windows notifications popping up every once in a while. I could get lost in games for hours back then--now I feel like I constantly get distracted out of them, unable to dump my time into them as much despite my free time. I often play plot-minimal games that are conducive to listening to youtube videos alongside or being in discord calls--racing games like BeamNG, rougelikes like Noita, platformers, etc.--so it's not quite as damaging to the experience, but of course I want to play single-player games too (I used to devour JRPGs in my youth).

I realized this a few years ago when God of War Ragnarok came out. I wanted to play it and the PS4 was my only option, so I bought the game at launch and played it on my household's TV. It was a very refreshing experience after over a decade of gaming at a desk with a gaming PC. The 30FPS and lower fidelity than my rig could provide (not that GOWR was even available for it) was disappointing, yes, but I let the game completely spirit me away for hours on end each night in a way I'm not sure I could have at a desk anyway.

When Ghost of Tsushima came out on PC, I bought it and decided to try mimicing that experience, so I turned off basically all messaging programs, disconnected from the internet, and then blanked out my two side monitors to force myself to focus on the game and only the game, and it was a lovely experience, diving into it each time for several hours each night and removing all distraction. So I wouldn't say this is a thing that requires console gaming, but I do have to put in some extra effort when I PC game if I want that immersion.

I think this is a thing that extends to more than just gaming, too. I vastly prefer watching movies in the theater because the massive screen and public setting forces you to focus solely on the movie. I have thousands of albums on my spotify and could access thousands of ebooks, and yet I feel like I cherished the CD's and physical books I used to own more than all this stuff. Some of this is just me being nostalgic for being young and less, jaded, yes, but I feel like it can't be chalked up to just that. I've endeavored to buy more physical books precisely because of this, and I hope to one day start building a vinyl and film collection.

Has anyone else been playing this title in HDR? Seriously, it is so good! The contrast is incredibly dramatic between dark and light in this game. The constant changing in lighting and how bright the Ki are really add a lot to the presentation IMO that is transformative. (no pun intended)

When the sky goes dark and you see that charging Ki in the distance and ensuing BRIGHT laser coming right at you. I feel like I'm actually getting vaporized! Lol

The game looks great in SDR too, not trying to say it doesn't. I just think the HDR presentation of this game adds more to the visuals than a game that goes for a more natural look.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST MY PERSONAL OPINION. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR THE OPPOSITE OPINIONS

Hello. I want to preface this by offering a little bit of a background. I am 22, and I got into cRPG games relatively recently - the first ones I played were Fallout 1 and then 2 some 7 years ago. Since then, I have played Baldur's Gate 1, 2, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, Disco Elysium and others. There are some I haven't finished.

Currently, I am playing Divinity Original Sin 2, and concurrently I have started Baldur's Gate 3. I am level 4, and in the first Act.

I have to say that I absolutely, completely detest animated/cinematic dialogue like in Baldur's Gate 3. At least, I hate it in Baldur's Gate 3, I thought Dragon Age Origins was fine.

Most of the RPG games I mentioned before utilize the "dialogue window". It's essentially a resizable bar that been used successfully in pretty much all of the most iconic cRPG games of all time. It's simple, it's neat, it's effective, and most importantly - it allows for the story to be told in full detail, and for the player to have a lot of choice.

However, Baldur's Gate 3 uses a cinematic style of dialogue. And in my opinion, it's terrible. It feels like they introduced it just to appeal to the Skyrim/GTA V/COD type of audience which just hates reading. It's infuriating, because the system in Divinity Original Sin 2 worked just fine and told the story/narrative well. But now we have this shitty cinematic style.

It feels like they've just chosen to dumb down their game for the Skyrim players? That's just my impression. Like, this BG3 style of dialogue is so infuriating. Do I really need to see a random goblin NPC's face from close up when he is blabbering some garbage about how other goblins are malodorous and that he has stolen this book from their human prisoner or some shit??? Like, it's just not interesting.

Tell me, how come Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Disco Elysium, or Divinity Original Sin 2, managed just fine without the cinematics of BG3, but somehow people now this it's necessary? Why?

Look at Disco Elysium. That game does not have fully cinematic dialogue. Sure, you can see your character, and in some cases, you may be able to see their actions (i.e. choosing to punch an NPC will result in Harry punching/attempting to punch them on your screen). However, it's certainly nothing like in BG3. Yet, the dialogues are NOT boring, because they are carried by the amazing writing and a unique artyle. I don't need some stupid ass animations in order to be able to appreciate Disco's amazing story.

A GOOD STORY DOES NOT NEED CINEMATICS. A DIALOGUE WINDOW IS ENOUGH. INDEED, THEY SPOIL A GOOD PRODUCT (OR THEY WORSEN A BAD PRODUCT FURTHER. DAO MAY BE AN EXCEPTION.

Thoughts? Do you agree with me or not? Why?

Hardware just isnt advancing like it used to. the ps5 isnt even 6 times faster than the ps4 on the gpu side. Heck its not even much bigger a boost over the ps4 pro than the ps4 pro was over the ps4. The cpu is a lot better on current gen than last gen because last gen used mobile processors but still. When visuals power of consoles isnt increasing fast theres no 'killer app' to make "next gen" a must have over the old boxes. Especially when the old consoles can still run the new games, and devs would be leaving a ton of money on the table by not having a port for them.

So, the only way to not have a large cross gen period would be for console generations to get longer and longer as time goes on. Which id be ok with myself, save some money. But i know some people do look forward to new tech more than me.

Warning - little bit of a wall of text here. Feel free to skip if that's not your thing!

--

I am a basic-ass hetero white dude living in America. I am also a person who has played and completed Tales of Kenzera: Zau.

Because I am a basic-ass white dude, I was really interested in playing Kenzera for the opportunity it presented me to experience and learn about another culture and its mythos. I’ve experienced (and written about!) plenty of media depicting Norse and Greek mythology, but not Sub-Saharan African.

Kenzera gave me a reason to experience and explore Bantu folklore through a lens of something I’m familiar with — grief. This got me curious over just how much Kenzera’s developers weaved Bantu myth with human emotion, and this article is me laying out what I found.

--

The Stages of Grief

I am not a therapist and this is not mental health doctrine, this is just me using Google.

There are typically five stages of grief, but you can flesh them out to seven in order to be a little more detailed.

Science’s previous and dated understanding of grief argued that there were five stages to the process and that they were experienced in a particular order (the order I am about to place them in), but modern science has adjusted to acknowledge that, while there are universally experienced feelings in the grieving process, they are almost never experienced in any linear order and are actually fluctuated between frequently on the road to closure. It’s not even fully agreed upon how to organize the seven stages — sometimes Shock and Denial are grouped, sometimes they are their own separate stages; some models contain “Upward Turn” as a stage, while others just see that as part of Reconstruction; and so on and so forth. The emotions and actions of each grief model are the same, but their organization can vary.

Kenzera is a very linear experience and interestingly, it actually uses that linearity to place the stages of grief in “order.”

Without further ado, here’s the stages of grief we’ll be connecting to Kenzera’s boss battles and mythos:

• Shock
• Denial
• Pain & Guilt
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Reconstruction & Acceptance

--

Impundulu: Shock and Denial

Of Kenzera’s bosses, this is the one you can find the most information on as a layman using search engines on the web.

In real life, Impundulu is a famous and common myth of Bantu culture, stretching across nations and borders in southern Africa. Like in the game, Impundulu is known as a lightning bird, but the legend takes on a much more maleficent nature in reality.

As a bringer of storms & lightning (and thus, destruction) Impundulu is known as a harbinger of chaos, devastation and doom. Its presence would not only bring damage to ancient African communities in the form of storms and wind, but also of a more social, interpersonal nature, as well.

An otherworldly form of malignant evil that was a companion of witches and often vampiric in nature, Impundulu was known to disguise itself as an attractive and desirable male to seduce women and feed on their blood.

While the depiction of Impundulu in Kenzera is much more “rated E for Everyone,” than actual Bantu myth, it does share some overt and symbolic similarities to real life’s stages of grief.

In the game, Impundulu is the Great Spirit of the Sky, ruling over the eastern highlands as a majestic lightning bird who attacks with beak, claws and bolts of electricity.

Just like in Bantu lore, Kenzera’s Impundulu fights with lightning. Curiously, it also seems to wear a mask. While the mask may, practically speaking, be a method of protection, one could also read it as similar in spirit to Impundulu’s tendency to disguise itself in Bantu myth.

As far as grief goes, Impundulu can come to represent the first stages of grief; Shock and Denial.

Shock, frankly, seems almost a little too overt and on-the-nose, but it certainly fits, while Denial can be read as the bird deity’s mask — a blocking or inability to see something for what it truly is. At this early stage in his adventure, Zau is still surprised his father is actually gone and denies he must live on without him as he searches for a means to bring him back.

When Impundulu falls, Zau has symbolically conquered his Shock and Denial, moving beyond the first two stages of grief.

--

Kikiyaon: Pain & Guilt

The legend of Kikiyaon paints a cryptid-like portrait of a humanoid owl entity that preys on the souls of its victims.

Minimally understood and rarely seen, the Kikiyaon preys on humans as a vicious predator known to ambush the unwary with its powerful claws. What makes the bird-beast so terrifying, however, is its ephemeral nature.

A more ethereal, almost imaginary monster, the Kikiyaon is often heard or even smelled before it is seen. When it is seen, it is mostly in hallucinations or dreams, no — nightmares. Indeed, the Kikiyaon preys upon humans mentally before devouring them physically.

The demon manifests in similar ways in Kenzera, trapping Zau in a literal hallucination after he attempts to save Sabulana.

Indeed, Kikiyaon is owl-like in game and, also mirroring real life, we hardly actually see it at all. The monster creeps along the maze’s backdrops as Zau evades his encroaching black mist and the fight against Kikiyaon isn’t actually against the beast — it is more of a trial to escape the nightmare.

In this entire arc of Kenzera, Sabulana stands as proxy for Zau’s father. With a sick and dying loved one in front of him, Zau attempts to do what he could not with his own Baba — save her. He eagerly collects the ingredients for Sabulana’s remedy, only to realize she is already long gone.

Here, Zau again experiences the Pain of losing a loved one and the Guilt of trying and failing to save. Kikiyaon itself even taunts Zau, chastising him that he didn’t do enough to save Sabulana or his own father, looking to stir the latent guilt in our young hero. In the escape sequence, we can read the black mist that Kikiyaon sends after Zau as the dark emotional state of both Pain and Guilt — two emotions that can be so crippling they can end Zau’s journey altogether if he allows them to close in around him.

With our help as the players, Zau manages to avoid the black mist and moves past the third stage of grief; Pain & Guilt.

--

Ga Gorib: Anger & Bargaining

The Ga Gorib is a cryptid entity from Bantu myth that operates something like a troll. As the tale goes, the Ga Gorib sits at the edge of a pit and taunts humans to throw rocks at him, betting that they can’t knock him into the pit.

The catch is that, by some magical force, rocks thrown at Ga Gorib always bounce off him, reflect back to the person who threw them, and end up knocking the rock’s thrower into the pit where they meet their doom.

In Kenzera, Ga Gorib is a flaming, bipedal, bull-like entity who is made of stone. Similar to real-world myth, Ga Gorib hurls a multitude of rocks at Zau during our encounter with him.

Before encountering Ga Gorib though, Zau encounters a shaman named Bomani, who’s lost his son somewhere on the mountain. His son’s attempt at the mountain’s trial was done as an act of Bargaining with the Great Spirit of Mankind; if he can complete the trial, he will earn his manhood, so to speak — his right of passage. All of this potentially, at the cost of his life — especially given that the volcano was nearing eruption when he set off.

It’s also implied Bomani’s son may have been looking for an escape from the grief of losing his father.

Bomani, as Zau finds as he ascends the mountain, is already dead. Ga Gorib, in Zau’s confrontation with him, mentions offering Zau a way out of his grief. Was Bomani’s unamed son also Bargaining with the great spirit in this way as well?

Regardless, Ga Gorib — and Bomani’s son — vividly display their Anger in their boss battle, where Zau vanquishes both the enemy and the emotion. That checks two more stages of grief off Zau’s to-do list; Bargaining and Anger.

--

Zuberi: Depression

There is no boss representative of Zuberi & Zau’s depression — the feeling takes its strongest hold on Zuberi when he reaches the end of his father’s book and realizes it is unfinished.

Hit with the knowledge that he cannot be guided through the remainder of his grieving because his father passed before completing the road map, Zuberi mopes through the house, hanging his head low as he speaks to his mother.

The scene serves as a nice bit of pacing following the break-neck climax of the Ga Gorib confrontation, and it’s slow unfolding also allows the player to sit with Zuberi in his emotion. The quiet contemplation gives us all space to relate to Zuberi before his realization of his father’s cleverness helps him overcome this stage of grief; Zuberi is meant to finish his father’s book himself.

--

Kalunga: Reconstruction & Acceptance

In the game’s final act, with new hope found through his mother, Zuberi picks up his pen and completes his father’s book. This is Zau beginning his Reconstruction.

Kalunga is revealed to have been Zau’s father all along, and now Zau must allow his spirit to pass into the realm of the dead.

Kalunga originates from Bantu myth too, ya know.

In it, he is not so much the “god” of death, but moreso the entity that guards and maintains the divide between the land of the living and the land of the dead. In fact, in some interpretations of Bantu lore, he’s not so much a god as he is a threshold, or a boundary.

In Kenzera, we see Kalunga walk with Zau through the realm of the dead, and the two take part in symbolic battle in front of a great Baobab Tree.

Here, Zau receives a final moment with his Baba and is able to piece himself together with this closure. As his father passes to the other side, Zau reaches Acceptance, having now experienced and moved through every stage of grief.

--

Tales of Kenzera: Zau merged the human experience, the hero’s journey, African culture and emotional storytelling wonderfully. My only gripe is how hard it was to find information on the internet covering Bantu folklore in as much depth as Norse, Celtic or Roman.

Regardless, this basic-ass white dude right here feels more well-rounded having experienced this game’s story both for its depiction of grief and representation of southern African mythology.

Earlier this year I played through Sifu and its two DLC expansions. I got all of the trophies and did all of the in-game "Goals," which all together took a little less than 100 hours. I would probably not have been willing to do this if the game did not have a Practice mode; an arena where you can spawn enemies or bosses with infinite health and then let them beat you up until you finally learn their attacks. You have some limited control over their behavior, you can pick which phase of boss fights you want to spawn, and you can spawn multiple enemies if you want to.

I think this or other practice tools should be implemented in more games. Sifu also has cheats (invulnerability, infinite lives, etc) that disable progression. Temporary save states that disable progression would work, too.

After all, practicing what you're bad at, not what you're good at, is the normal way to learn something. You learn to bat in a batting cage, drive on a driving range, and if you play a wrong note, you don't start the piece over at the beginning.

I would go as far as saying that Elden-Ring-Style bosses (for example), requiring you to replay a boss's first phase over and over to get a chance to learn the second (or third!) are outdated, and should go the way of lives-counters. See also: Monster Hunter World's Fatalis, requiring up to half an hour per attempt.

I can't think of many games that I think would be damaged by such tools; some novelty (for lack of a better word) games like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, maybe, or games intentionally designed to capture a retro style.

What do you think?

Edit: Additional discussion questions: Do you think of repeated tasks which you have already solved as a waste of time (as I do), or do you enjoy them? Can you think of other cases where practice tools would be damaging, or negatively affect the pacing of a game?

Edit edit: This conversation is being dominated by references to Fromsoft bosses, but I really didn't intend that to be the full scope. I think this is a genre-agnostic topic. Fighting games have had practice modes for a long time. Some shooters do too, in the form of shooting ranges. PvE shooters like Darktide benefit from stationary enemies to test your weapons. Speedrunners use practice tools and save states.

So Overwatch was inspired by TF2 and the success of the game, which then popularized the hero shooter genre. After that, many companies also made their hero shooter inspired by Overwatch such as Paladins, Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege (not inspired but if I remember correctly, the Operators went from roles without specific characterization to incorporating designed characters with distinct personalities and narratives after the booming of hero shooter), and now the newest ones are Concord, Deadlock, and Marvel Rivals. Of course, we all know that Concord effectively bombed after release due to how oversaturated the hero shooter genre has become.

But nobody seems to make another class-based shooter -- as in you have a fixed amount of class/roles with the playstyle determined by the weapons and loadout you're using instead of having a gazillion of different characters with new ones coming every month/season or so -- like TF2 even though it's the game that started everything. If anything, the only other shooter that fit into that similar niche as TF2 was Garden Warfare 1 and 2, with each character having multiple variants that switch up their gameplay in various ways.

Why is that?

Edit: I shouldn’t have mentioned DF specifically. This is not a case of me going out of my way to watch one channel’s videos and then complain about that one channel. I used them as the main example because the stuff they talk about has seeped into all general gaming discourse, at least here on Reddit, seemingly more and more than ever before.

For context I am mostly a console gamer and have been one for most of my life, so going on 20-25 years.

But I always thought that it was pretty universally understood that

Console = Play the latest games but with less power and performance in order for a lower barrier of entry, cheaper cost, and more convenience

PC = Play the latest games with the ability to max out power and performance for a higher barrier of entry and higher cost

Basically if you care about gaming tech and performance than get a PC. If you don’t then buy a console.

But I feel like this balance has been thrown out of wack recently. For the past few years now I see over and over again so much unnecessary outrage and “controversy” basically over the fact that a $400 PS5 can’t run the newest games at 4K 120 FPS with pitch perfect performance. I don’t know if it was the introduction of the mid gen refresh last year or what, but sometimes it feels like the first thing people look at is the digital foundry video to watch meaningless bars and graphs and numbers go up and down before they even think about things that actually matter like if the game is good.

To be clear I understand that better performance is ideal. It’s not like I think that 30 FPS is better than 60 FPS or something. I just don’t understand how seriously people take it. To me it’s like watching a movie in 4K IMAX with Dolby Surround Sound vs watching it laying in bed on your tiny phone screen. Neither changes the actual quality of the movie itself like the writing or direction or acting. Breath of the Wild is still Breath of the Wild even though it runs like shit on a piece of shit machine. Bloodborne is still one of my favorite games of all time even though I played it probably at 480p 25 fps with input delay because I had to use PS4 remote play on my laptop. I just don’t think it’s as serious as people seem to think it is nowadays where they act like a vampire that got holy water thrown on it if they have to see something in 30 FPS or whatever.

I almost feel like if people just bought and played the games they wanted to they wouldn’t even notice half the shit the digital foundry videos nitpick because they’d be focused on just having fun playing the game. It’s one thing if a game releases like Cyberpunk 2077 did on last gen- yea, that’s embarrassing, and unacceptable. But do we really need to throw fits over occasional stuttering or when the game drops from 60 to 50 fps for 5 seconds a couple times? The common answer is that because games are interactive, so the smoothness affects how it feels to play- which is fair. But it really 30 fps isn’t that big of a deal. I have a PS5 and I’ve played plenty of games in either quality or performance depending on the situation and it literally takes like 2 minutes to adjust but people will act like 30 fps shreds their eyes to pieces and makes their stomachs implode and REFUSE to ever LOOK at something that’s in 30 fps ever again. You ask why it’s that serious “oh well I’ve been playing everything at 120 fps on my $4000 supercomputer for the past five years, personally my eyes have evolved to the point where 30 fps is physically torturous and unacceptable” so why tf are you here complaining about how a game is performing on console?

I even saw people raging over slight graphical issues for Metaphor: Refantazio which is a game that’s half visual novel clicking through text boxes and half turn based combat, where the whole thing is slathered in so much art that the graphics don’t even matter? I mean it’s a game that got glowing reviews as one of the best made in recent memory. and then I just see comments on Reddit questioning how a game could possibly be considered good if it has random graphical setting #18289 switched off. Do people even like playing games anymore?

For those of you who didn't know, apparently from what i've heard and read, there's a pattern when it comes to engagement in video games that has been a rule of thumb of many devs which states that from all of the people who consumes games, 80 percent of them only engaged with the game itself while 20 percent engaged in the form of reading something about the game and 5 percent of them are the true hardcore fans, those who make their presence known through interacting with the community and voicing their opinions. Having interacted with a lot of people in this reddit that are really really passionate about video games makes me wonder, what do you guys think of the 80% that isn't passionate enough to state their opinions about the game that they are playing? The silent gamers, the franchise lovers, the people that may be the main source of income of most triple A devs, and the fact that this 80% gave a "wrong" direction for game development at least according to what the 5% wants.

I've been playing Frostpunk 2 and it does a weird thing that has caught my attention. Population changes are done sporadically. As opposed to other ressources in the game which change every tick according to their production/consumption level, population moves in big chunks.

The reason this has caught my attention is because it's not intuitive at all. More than most other ressources, population should move rather evenly. Except for some extreme cases, people don't immigrate by the thousands at a time, or they don't die all at once from sickness or accidents. Despite that, it is how the game presents it. Population won't move for months and all of a sudden you get 3000 new people. The same goes for deaths by crime and by sickness. On top of that, these modifiers aren't grouped up in a neat "growth" value, they'll chunk away at their own rhythm, so you can get +3000 immigration follow by -1000 deaths a bit later.

It's a bit awkward, but playing the game more, I realized that its a pretty neat feature. You feel the impact of your decisions so much more. If all these values were added up and thrown into a growth value that ticked every cycle, you wouldn't worry about them too much. A neat +200 population every tick is comfortable, nothing to worry about. However, having a pop-up saying 1000 people died and having a portion of your workforce disappear overnight because of *YOUR* decision, now that's effective. It differentiates 200 immigration/0 deaths from 1200 immigration/1000 deaths.

Having these big swings is also quite nice gameplay-wise. More population will consume more of every other ressource. Having your production equilibrium constantly tick down would be quite uncomfortable. Having those values stay stable and just move a big amount when immigration happens is much easier to plan for and less frustrating. It's also a great demonstration of the impact of population on your ressources. Having your housing jump from +20 to -15 in a single tick really makes you realize how demanding this population is. It'll make you think twice about your immigration laws, at least.

Hey, all!

In this thread, the rules are more relaxed. The idea is that this megathread will provide a space for otherwise rule-breaking content, as well as allowing for a slightly more conversational tone rather than every post and comment needing to be an essay.

Top-level comments on this post should aim to follow the rules for submitting threads. However, the following rules are relaxed:

• 3. Specificity, Clarity, and Detail
• 4. No Advice
• 5. No List Posts
• 8. No topics that belong in other subreddits
• 9. No Retired Topics
• 11. Reviews must follow these guidelines

So feel free to talk about what you've been playing lately or ask for suggestions. Feel free to discuss gaming fatigue, FOMO, backlogs, etc, from the retired topics list. Feel free to take your half-baked idea for a post to the subreddit and discuss it here (you can still post it as its own thread later on if you want). Just keep things civil!

Also, as a reminder, we have a Discord server where you can have much more casual, free-form conversations! https://discord.gg/truegaming