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pokoko on 02 February 2018
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CGI-Quality said:
pokoko said:

I think this is where a lot of people tilt their heads and look at you funny.  You've said you are a Nintendo fan so I can't imagine shallow being a problem for you to begin with.

Some games are about more than simply hitting stuff or jumping over stuff.  They are about the atmosphere and the emotional experience.  They are about establishing empathy with the character you're playing and understanding their struggle.  Some people don't want or get that from games, which is totally fine.  They just want to turn their brains off and press the right buttons at the right moments.  There are tons of games like that so no problem.

Some people want more, though, or at least a range of experiences.  They're looking for a degree of depth, something that can provoke and engage their imagination as well as their motor skills.  Something they can care about, that they can think about beyond wondering how to beat the next puzzle.

Personally, I've played enough games with shallow characters following a hollow shell of a story to last me a lifetime.  If that was all gaming offered me then I'd probably stop caring about it the way I did during the SNES era.  I need games that try to go outside those bounds and I think it's clear a lot of other people want that as well.  

I'm also well aware that there will be people who try to belittle what they don't understand.  That's okay, though, as what they don't realize is that doing so will only reflect back on them and make them look shallow and petty in comparison.

Very much how I viewed Heavy Rain and why I defended it to such a degree. Although I was late to the ICO party in 2011, when I finally beat the Remastered version on PS3, I understood why it was so loved. Sometimes, it's just about taking in the experience, rather than timed head-shots or jumps from platform to platform. Nothing wrong with options.

That's why I'm willing to love a flawed game that strives to offer something unique and varied.  There are a million "game-play first" experiences out there.  That shouldn't be all there is.

ICO was one of two games that revitalized gaming for me.  It turned me into more than a person with a controller in their hands trying to execute combos or score more points.  It was like a great book that makes you forget you're reading and puts your heart there with the characters.