[drave]

Originally Posted by Destor Right. Exactly. Captivating, engaging, intriguing. These are reasons we might read a book, for example, outside of fun. Dare i even: informative? Is there space in gaming thats not geared toward 4 year olds thats informative? Can we mix informative with compelling? Great novels mange it. I dont know if we'll ever really explore much in gaming beyond fun but when i think of boundaries pushing that's where my head goes. Elden Ring pushing the souls like genre forward isnt nothing and it isnt small either. What Hades did the the rouguelike genre is comparable. im not dismissing that kind of achievement but i do think pushing the mechanisms of narrative delivery in games like GOW 2018 are definitely at the edges of gaming too.

Originally Posted by Destor Edit: Slightly off topic post incoming but i think about this a lot This particular argument i dont think we're going to have to choose between story and gameplay. GOW 2018 played as great as its narrative. Gaming is a weird medium though. Some of my favorite experiences have been visual novels. 13 sentinels is 80% VC 10% combat and 10% exploration. The "game" aspects are minimal. Outstanding game all the same. Some greta VCs have no gameplay whatsoever which begs the question "are they even games?" Then you have the interactive narratives like Detroit, Until Dawn, Walking dead etc. What even is a game? Is having a controller in your hand all it takes? Would the same "game" on your phone still be a game? Ive thought about this a lot before as a medium when you start to push around the edges its honestly not very clear philosophically. This thought really hit my mind when death stranding was making its waves. The argument for it being a bad game was most commonly "its not fun." Now if i wrote a film review and said "its a bad movie its not fun" for Schindler's List i wouldnt be a credible critic. Its not meant to be fun. So if games are only good when theyre fun then they are not games. They're toys. But if gaming is a serious medium fun cant be king. Which isnt to discredit fun. There's nothing wrong with that. My point is if the medium is to truly evolve, not just genre but the entire medium, its these kind of boundries that are going to have to be explored. Things like Alan Wake where the gameplay is pushing the narrative devices forward. For example. Fun games will always exist, i hope atleast. But the conversation of what makes a game is the one i want to see pushed, ignoring what makes a good game, atleast primarily. Lets find out what makes one good later; first lets find out what one even is. tl;dr I definitely enjoy having things that are fun to play just like i enjoy fun movies to watch. But not always.

This just made me think of Nier Automata. That game will forever stick with me. The game I started playing was not the same game I finished. The way this was presented was unlike any other ever, nor will there ever be another for me. Maybe it's because I often wonder about this existence/life and what it's all about / why we're here.


I couldn't stop playing. I found myself wanting to move forward regardless of what was in front of me. And the "ultimate sacrifice" at the true end (5th play through I think?


That story is unrivaled IMO. I honestly felt a heavy "lift" when I finished the story, exhaled deeply and just kinda sat back and thought about it all. It was incredible, and yet I don't know if I could ever play it again at the same time.