I'm very confused. I thought the debate was over after Zod couldn't respond anymore? But now he's cherry-picked a few arguments to continue debating/spinning/goal-post-moving/whatever-you-would-call-his-responses.

I probably won't be able to respond for a while, I'm going to be busy learning about Muay Thai from various fighting games. I wish Smash Bros could teach me though, this missing feature proves it to be a worse game that objectively took less effort to make.

I told you why I called those games "somewhat realistic", pointing out what was realistic and admitting that many other things wouldn't. The 1st paragraph of your reply was about insting on the non-realistic aspects and ignoring the realistic ones (thus ignoring the difference between those games and Super Smash Bros). That's how you ignored my points. Whether the difference is big, small, huge or tiny, that's already a subjective statement (which I try to avoid here since people have been very picky with anything I say). It is what it is. Does that prove there were different purposes from each developer? Absolutely. Nintendo sought an arcade game in which their already existing characters would punch each other. Team Ninja, for example, sought a more simulating style of game (Dead Or Alive) in which brand new characters would fight with realistic techniques in realistic environments. Does it sound like the same thing?

You should wait and thank those people only after their real contribution: evidence of what they claim. Until then, I will say they are going against common sense.

Evolution is not only about time. Vocal music is instrumental + voice. Instrumental-only is...well, I think it's obvious.

Regarding your last question: yes, many times. But then other variables correlate with this (Nintendo's profits, policies, greedy behavior, etc.), pointing always to the same conclusion: Nintendo isn't willing to do much, only what is necessary to obtain the sale.

Sholdn't you also add modern computer utilising music like House to your evolution of music theory? It's clearly more evolved than instrumental and vocal music as it uses computermade sounds in addition to instruments and vocals. Electronic instruments should also be added in as music written with both electronic and accoustic instruments is more evolved than accoustic only. I'll leave it up to you to decide how to rank accoustic+electronic, accoustic+vocal and electronic+vocal because quite frankly I don't have a clue.

As for complexity, music isn't necessarily more complex because you add more instruments and/or singers. A pop album isn't more complex than a piano concert by nature, it greatly depends on the composition. Many classical works are extremely complex despite not using vocals or computers. Also, merely adding instruments and vocals for the sake of it can destroy a composition and turn it into unbearable noise.

Your last paragraph about effort is flawed beyond repair. Just like vocal music isn't more complex by nature, it also doesn't require a bigger effort by nature. It all depends on the composition, and a seemingly simplistic piece of music could have a ton of work behind it. It's not a fact that vocal music requires more effort, far from it. You're also ignoring the fact that you don't just write a bunch of music and add it to a game. You write music for the game, just like you do with films, not the other way around. It's quite possible that vocals just doesn't fit, and the choice of not using vocal music has more to do with the script, the mood, the setting, levels etc, then it has to do with the willingness of making music with vocals. Look at films, many masterpieces use instrumental music only because it fits ,not because the makers didn't want to make that much effort. Imagine replacing the soundtrack of Schindler's List with vocal music only. It would destroy it.

Holy crap! I applaud anyone who can read all of this pointless drivel! I mean I tried, but after chapter 1 I just gave up on you. Sorry.

where is the like bottom? I want to learn Krav Maga, but I don't know any game that can teach me

I'm quoting this so you'll think about what you just said.

1.  I wasn't ignoring the realistic aspects—I was arguing that they were not, in fact, as realistic as you were claiming they were.  As for big/small being subjective and therefore something you're not going to discuss, why don't we just say that no two video games are exactly the same and therefore nothing can be determined?  Also, 'design goal' isn't what I meant by philosophy. 

2.  I think common sense is that human beings have been singing for as long as we have been able to communicate, if not even earlier.  This, in my opinion, probably predates the origin of artificially created instruments, and, in my opinion, when those instruments were created, they were used to accompany singing.  In that case, instrumental + vocal would predate instrumental only.  Where in this line of thinking do you disagree? 

Also, instrumental-only music often, and unsurprisingly, has more complexity in the instrumental music than instrumental + vocal does in only the instrumental portion of that music.  So doesn't this undermine what you are saying about complexity?  And how about the fact that both "I" and "I+V" music have been around for centuries or millennia, "evolving" on their own before being applied to video games?  Doesn't that also make it a bit silly to argue about which one is more evolved than the other? 

3.  There's a pretty big flaw in that, but I don't want to completely derail the conversation, so for that reason I do not want to continue down this road.  (But if you are too curious, then it is regarding the fact that all companies are motivated by profit, and you are just assuming that Nintendo's products aren't high quality because you can't see it vs. the other products you like more or 'can perceive the remarkable achievements of more easily' (<-not an actual quote).)

I wiki'd, and then I laughed.  (Yes, he probably needs the hint.) 

I honestly want that you either criticize something with evidence or that you don't criticize it at all. Just criticizing with vague sentences is not criticizing, it's vilifying.

According to your logic, there are not things more evolved than others unless they are from different ages. If so, then no country is more evolved than any other. I (and I would say 99% of people) don't agree with you.

It's not just about the first game using each kind of music. It's about the whole industry shifting from one to the other. I couldn't care less if the first game to have vocal music was for instance in 1990 and the first to have instrumental-only was in 1991 if 3000 games adopted the latter on 1993 and the former on 1998, and if another 4000 games adopted the latter on 1995 and the former on 2001. With this scenario, I wouldn't say vocal music came first, I would focus on the majority (which is almost 100%) and I would conclude that instrumental-only came first.

The difference between our views is that you are focusing on technology limitations, I'm focusing on budget limitations. Vocal music is, as a rule, more expensive because it demands to hire or sub-contract singers. Games in the 80's and 90's had still very limited budgets. Most of the transition was made on an economic basis rather than tecnological basis.

Yes, but instruments can be a synthesizer and thus it becomes effort-wise comparable to digital music. Try this: listen to the Mario 64 soundtrack (1996), then listen to the Sonic Adventure 1 soundtrack (1998) and finally listen to the Mario Sunshine soundtrack (2002). Disregard tastes, focus on technical matters. And then tell me your findings regarding what you speculate to be the effort/time/money demanded on each one.

Ok sorry. You're making sense then. But I've already told you: you have a very particular view about evolution. I bet that 99% of people think differently.

Sonic Adventure (1998), NFS Hot Pursuit 2 (2002), Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 (2000), to name a few. And this is not binary (everything or nothing). If you find a Nintendo game that has 1 (among many) music track that has some limited vocal parts, that is obviously not at the same level as the examples I've mentioned.

As for your comparison, that's why I said "theoretically". Nevertheless, it's funny that you need to pick examples of games that difer more than 10 years to actually show that the example from Nintendo is superior.

I never talked about much or little. I said you could learn something. Sure the main purpose is to entertain and if I want to learn a certain martial art I will join a club to practice it myself and eventually buy a book.

As I said many times, I'm not calling them superior. I have already elaborated on this for several times and the posts were not small. I won't do it all over again. If you want, you can do some Ctrl+F for "realistic" and "realism" on previous pages to find my comments.