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Zekkyou on 21 March 2017
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Jaicee said:
Zekkyou said:

I'd be down to play 100 more versions of TLOU In seriousness though, i guess we'll have to wait and see how it goes. Before it can be any kind of influence (either positive or negative), it needs to actually be good first. ND have earnt my confidence on that front, but a lot can go wrong when making a game. 

I think there are some great exceptions, but i do agree Steam and the like are better places to look for such titles. Art often needs a degree of uncompromised honesty, and that can be difficult when your end goal is to sell as many copies as possible. 

Me too! We clearly disagree on a lot of stuff (or more specifically the extent of some things), but it's nice to have a constructive conversation on the internet.

I didn't know Nier had a multi-playthrough narrative, that's pretty neet. I think the last time i played something like that was 999 in 2013 or 2014. Sounds like it's worth the time though, so i'll get that downloaded today. Thanks for the details~

I have considerable confidence in Naughty Dog as well at this point as well. TLOU II is definitely one I'm looking forward to a lot.

(Not that I think it'd make as big a splash in this country, but I also wish a U.S. release of Blue Reflection would be announced. It seems like, structurally speaking, it's basically Persona, but revolving around girls. There are so many interesting things you could with that that I wish I could experience it for myself!)

And yeah, I kind of like multi-playthrough games myself. The first one I played was Chop Suey for my now-ancient Macintosh computer back in 1995. That game introduced me to the concept of looping narratives. I believe it may have been the first video game to employ that approach, actually. That I've always thought was one of the most wrongly overlooked gems of all time. WAY ahead of its time. Lots of modern indie games use that kind of story structure too, as it helps pack in more content in a way that avoids pricier alternatives like building larger worlds and adding more play modes that can't necessarily be afforded or narratively justified while also adding more weight to your in-game choices. It often works really well! Undertale and Oxenfree are a couple of particularly solid examples from the last couple of years. Of course, NieR: Automata's version of multi-playthrough is more continuous than looping, but it not only makes for interesting storytelling, but also helps keep the scale of the semi-open world navigable (which is a big plus for me because I HATE detective vision :P ).

If it's successful enough we might see a western release of Blue Reflection eventually. We normally get a Gust release every year or two, and if not there's always the chance of a fan translation. Only a few more decades and i'll be able to read Chaos;Child!

When they're well presented they can definitely be interesting. It's a type of story telling fairly unique to gaming too, which makes it especially nice. The medium really needs to take better advantage of the benefits it presents to narrative presentation. Even basic stuff like "you're able to have the player literally experience events through the protagonist's eyes" goes remarkably unused.

Anyway, thanks again for the Nier info. I'll probably start playing it tomorrow afternoone ^^