Profcrab said:
I have played Xenogears and I know RP. I doubt it would change his opinion. I loved Xenogears, but like most anime, its story is a bit overdone. Still a great game (except for the point where you can tell the team had their budget cut), but it is just a good story in a sea of mediocre JRPG stories (yes, JRPG stories are just like anime stories, 95% mediocre to poor with overzealous fans that try to polish brass into gold). MGS stories go from being decent to mediocre with a healthy group of fanboys that standby with polishing rags. Some of the best efforts by a Japanese dev to make games that really use the medium of games to have the player feel emotion and have you feel characters without obnoxious lengthy dialog come from Team ICO. ICO and Shadow of the Colosus are much better works of art than most games. It does stand to reason though that many times the games that have the best story or go for the more artistic approach may not sell that well. Movies are that way and books can be also. Its great that people try to make those games, but they are not for everyone. The reason people may get more emotional about video game storylines is that they are already involved in the game by interacting with it. People can be drawn into mediocre stories if the gameplay is decent. This doesn't mean the story is great, but it's doing it's part in the game to make you feel immersed. Take the story out of the game and you may see how laughable it really is. This doesn't make the game bad either, unless the story is so obnoxious that you sigh whenever a character speaks, but just remember to put it in proper perspective. |
While I had a hard time getting into ICO for some reason, I still acknowledge it as pretty significant art for the medium. It does a myriad of things very well and has a surreal feel to it.
SotC, on the other hand, is pure gold. I can't even begin to describe how much I love that game on pretty much every level.
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