PixlBit

It's a problem games have yet to shake honestly. The more we dive into serious or at least semi-serious storytelling, the more ludicrous gameplay feels. 

But also when games start looking better and better, the dissonance is more blatant. For instance, this game has a blaring anime soundtrack that breaks out once you initialize combat, and your party members boast excitedly as you are taking enemies down. The world is very bright and colorful, but then gunning things down and boasting with anime music is weird. Plus there is a weird little potato dude that follow you around all the time. Odd combination. It's a cool game though. The game also starts off with like a Star Wars-like battle destroying the earth, and then you become the destroyer of another world, but you're a bunch of cool anime kids doing it. I think Bioshick Infinite had a similar 'its too gamey' problem for serious story, or the other way around?  

You are absolutely right. I think we're a bit more desensitised than most, but Bilby will often chime in about how weird something is. I think the modern Tomb Raider games are exceptionally bad at this since the cutscenes and the gameplay tell a very different story. Uncharted 4 also suffers from this since Nate and his brother are very clearly in the wrong and the bad guy is actually more morally justified in some things than you are.

Bioshock Infinite does have this problem, but to a lesser degree than most people (including myself) seemed to think at launch. Going through now, it kinda makes sense to be killing all these people, and if I were given the option of stealth, I'd still kill every last one of those racist extremist fucks.

 And yeah, seems odd in Xenoblade Chronicles X, like someone anime'd up Shadow of the Collossus and tried desperately to hide the moral ambiguity. I will get around to playing it eventually, but it's still $100 here and I ain't spending that much on it.

I paid like $40 for it, but I would have bought it at launch but didn't have the time to play it really. It's basically a single player MMO mixed with scifi anime. It also seems like an endless type of game, with story missions added just to offer a little structure, kind of like Metal Gear 5. It appeals to me because it has everything I like, mechs, monsters, creative beautiful world, ambiance, and I like anime. I actually like the soundtrack. Its closer to openess and hot-key combat like Dragon Age Inq. I new what I was getting with it, so if you haven't played xenogears previously, you might not like it at all. It is very Japanese.

i understand, man.  I had to set GTA V down because I couldn't handle the realistic violence anymore.  

But blake is right, as game stories get more serious, the more ludicrous some of the mechanics are, hurting the overall experience.  

it would be cool though if the game measured your effect on the environment and you could choose how you interacted with it.  

GAME IDEA!

ew

Part of it is the fact that we've translated fighting and violence to gaming fairly well. but other aspects of human behavior, not so much. But then, how do you do that? I can't think of any way to simulate sexual activity in a video game without it coming off as puerile or creepy. I used to make jokes about "Wii Strap-On" accessories with regards to pornographic video games back in my 1UP days. That's for more creative heads to contemplate than mine, I guess, and if we want to move away from standard video game plot devices, that's a problem that's going to have to be tackled. In a lot of ways, gameplay has never made sense in the context of game stories. In the gameplay department, it seems like Monolithsoft decided to refine the well-received battle system and gear it more towards fans of games like World of Warcraft, Monster Hunter, or God Eater.

As far as what you want, back in the 1980s, Electronic Arts made a series of space RPGs, Starflight and Starflight II. These games were more Star Trek than Star Wars. You piloted an exploration ship and explored planets, picked up life forms, and collected relics that filled in the game's backstory and its conflict. It turns out your homeworld was a colony designed to save humanity after solar flares killed all life on Earth (you can even visit a lifeless, barren Earth in this game, and find relics that describe humanity's final days on Earth). There's some combat, but with the exception of one or two alien races, you can choose to talk to the aliens rather than fight them. But there's a conflict there, too: your current world is headed toward the same fate as the Earth, and you have to stop it by collecting clues. And as you piece together the story, the morality of the whole game becomes incredibly gray as you discover who is causing the solar flares and why theyre doing it.

The sex thing is a whole other topic on its own. I thought it was odd to have the ability to romance everyone in Dragon Age Inquistion regardless of gender. Is sex that fluid in this world? Like everyone is just asexual or pansexual? That would be an interesting story to explain. I would have preferred if they had character sexuality better represented. But its a game so its there to let the player choose what they want. That gamey mechanic kind of ruined the romance part.

Bioware strives to be all-inclusive in its player romance mechanics, and while it's great that they want players to be welcome regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, they've basically reduced the romanceable characters to sex dolls in a well-meaning but ham-handed process. People have their own personal preferences, and so should the characters. Fallout 4 kind of did that as well, and that was a step back from the way New Vegas did things.

And that's just another symptom of the fact that video games have traditionally been geared towards action and adventure, and we can't seem to make other aspects of human interaction translate into the video game format in such a way where we might as well just watch a good movie.

Undertale, a recent indie darling, did try to make a statement on the separation between gameplay and story, and the seeming pointlessness of killing RPG monsters on your way from point A to point B who don't have any real quarrel with you other than to be repositories of experience points and gold.

This reminds me of 'Deadly Premonition'. A wonderful horror adventure game that is better as a mystery but the developer had to shoehorn horrible combat to make the game more appealing. It would have worked better as a walking simulator, although I still enjoy the game regardless. But yeah, 'game mechanics' ruining immersion.

I think it comes down to your motivation.  It's one of the reasons the Mario games aren't viewed (seriously) as murder simulators.  When you have to question the threat of your enemies, or if they're your enemies at all, it's harder to justify killing them.  When playing through DA:I, wild life I can just run by, I do because it's not worth killing it or I'm trying to get through an area as fast as I can.  But, if I have no choice because it's attacking me, I put it down for daring to challenge me.   Xenoblade sounds like the reasons they have you killing things just aren't good ones.  Kind of like soldiers at war and their reasons for it aren't clear.  They question the war.  Why must these people die?  

This game is just very ambitious in terms of content and it seems that the game is still rooted in grinding as the main means for progress/strength. This is an issue that I have with the state of current JRPGs in general. They refuse to change. There are many chatty NPCs around the city and world and they do offer side-quests that allow you to assist them in combat or search for artifacts. There are even other aliens races on the planet that are friendly, while others are more hostile. I think for something that has its best foot forward, especially coming from japan, it still holds on to grindy roots where there is room for more growth. Many of the enemies aggro easily, although you can run away to avoid battle, it still feels unavoidable even if you are making a bee-line for the next mission objective. I love the game, but I would have loved it to have some story features and consequences like Dragon Age or Mass Effect. The grind is real.

I know how you feel. The little bit I played of Red Dead Redemption, I frequently felt like that when I had to hunt some animal to advance. And in the Tomb Raider reboot. I had no problem killing the people trying to kill me, but I felt bad about hunting stuff sometimes.

I mean even in Monster Hunter you have to kill all the things for resources and crafting which are vital to your gameplay, but at least there are missions where you can weaken and capture enemies instead of defeating them. Plus your resources don't go to waste.You can also harvest and farm. Defeating enemies isnt an easy task either. You are most likely to die more often at the hands of your foes, which I think is fair. Like hey gamer asshole, come get some of this if you can. I feel bad killing dino babies in Monster Hunter tho, but HP and staminia...

I sometimes try and be vegetarian in Minecraft but then it's just so much easier to massacre pigs and cows. I inevitably give in to butchery. But my friend constantly kills off villagers and that disturbs me more. They aren't useful for anything and are basically harmless unless turned to zombies. There's no reason to hack them up execept for pure bloodlust. The sounds of these actions in Minecraft are way more disturbing than the visuals. I'll know when he's dropping a villager 'cause of the gross punching bag sound.

Oh, and I want to get more interested in Chronicles X, but I just can't. I don't know why really 'cause I love open world RPGs. I think I get tired thinking about having to make these characters run across so much open space. Sheesh! Are we there yet?

Chron X has plentiful Fast Travel warp points. It is one of the incentives to explore early, rather than later. Your first major, and long running objective is to drop probes on the continent on designated points. Once you do this, a fast travel button will appear on the gamepad screen, which always displays the world map, and you can just warp anywhere you've visited before at the touch of a button. You will be walking A LOT, but fast travel makes it easier. Grinding is essential, so you'll want to walk around and fight everything anyway. 

Also, I saw gameplay footage of Friday the 13, and I don't know? Stalking teens at camp and brutally killing them just unnerved me. I don't mind violent horror themed games when it's gamey, but hunting/stalking helpless people and brutally murdering them just feels revolting to me. I will not be playing that. eww.

I could never get into games like Manhunt and such. Way too creepy.