Death Stranding Review Thread - MC: 82 / OC: 83 / GR: 83.17%

[Torillian]

TruckOSaurus said:

Torillian said:

Video games are a form of media like movies and music. Sometimes I watch/listen to them for "fun" (like watching a marvel movie) sometimes I do it to feel sad (music is particularly good at this). If you want to think of video games as children's toys then the idea that they need to be fun is pretty legitimate as we don't really need toys that make kids sad. I personally think video games are an art medium which means that "fun" isn't the only legitimate goal. Personally, one of my favorite games ever was To the Moon. It was beautiful, emotionally affecting, tear-jerking, but "fun" isn't how I would describe it. 

While "fun" can be seen as not essential to a game (or movie), I feel that enjoyment is crucial. You can enjoy a sad song or a thought provoking movie without it being "fun" but it does feel weird to see something described as dull or boring followed by a near perfect score.

That's fair, and why I only addressed the question of whether video games need to be "fun". I would need to read the entire reviews in question to determine whether their scores were justified by the overall impression, but I imagine it was something about how the gameplay was dull but the overall experience was enjoyable. Again I would put To the Moon as an example where the gameplay is literally walking from one person to another talking to them. That's dull or boring gameplay, but I still enjoyed the overall experience. I understand that to some gameplay is the end-all be-all of video games and so a game like To the Moon "would be better off as a movie" but I enjoyed my experience despite the dull gameplay and possibly even because of it since when more "exciting" gameplay is put in later in the game it takes away from the experience in my mind. Different video game fans have different expectations and enjoyment from the medium, and there's room enough in the art form for all varieties.