Poll of the Day > originality in video games

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://youtu.be/AOQzTtsr3AQ

dont worry, its only 3 minutes long

another hilarious masterpiece from dunkey

video game reviewers are so bad lmao

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I don't really get it, I guess comparing games to other games so viewers are informed of what they're getting is bad?

Cruddy_horse posted...

I don't really get it, I guess comparing games to other games so viewers are informed of what they're getting is bad?

theres a much better way of doing that. saying 90% of video games are like Zelda or dark souls is not informing viewers lol

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Cruddy_horse posted...

I don't really get it, I guess comparing games to other games so viewers are informed of what they're getting is bad?

This. I bought Kena specifically because reviews likened it to Zelda

I bought Skatebird because it looks like THPS with birds...

I don't care if a game is derivative as long as it's fun

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Far-Queue posted...

This. I bought Kena specifically because reviews likened it to Zelda

I bought Skatebird because it looks like THPS with birds...

I don't care if a game is derivative as long as it's fun

wow this post is like the dark souls of potd posts


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Clearly, creativity is the Dark Souls of basic effort.

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I will buy any Roguelike and put it in my butt

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DirtBasedSoap posted...

theres a much better way of doing that. saying 90% of video games are like Zelda or dark souls is not informing viewers lol

It's easier and simple than going in depth, which is often the point of most reviews, most people don't want to watch an essay on a game to see if it's good, they want bullet points with light explanation which is the point of these reviews. If you want more in depth stuff there's plenty of channels that do just that.

When I took art in highschool anytime I did a drawing or painting my teacher wanted me to reveal where I got it from. Not like I was copying something, although it felt like that was the implication. I just recently realized it was a way to connect things so that something shown could lead to more things. But I wonder why can't new things just be a departure from anything. That's a good thing!

I want another 2D Metroidvania!!

Ugh, it's so copying Metroid and Castlevania... where's the originality

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Mead posted...

I will buy any Roguelike and put it in my butt

Have you picked up Risk of Rain 2? I keep meaning to ask you that, since it seems like it's similar in concept to Returnal, and I know you loved that one.

DirtBasedSoap posted...

theres a much better way of doing that. saying 90% of video games are like Zelda or dark souls is not informing viewers lol

Sure it is. Yeah, taking it out of context, it gets a bit tiresome to listen to, but comparing new games to established games that readers/listeners/viewers are likely to have played is very useful context to allow them to tell at a glance whether or not a game is going to be something they might like. It's a refinement over simply stating the game's genre, which is a very good thing to preface a review with because it immediately tells people that don't like the games to which it's being compared that there's nothing of interest for them in the rest of the review. If that comparison is enough to pique somebody's interest, then they'll want more detail to help them make a decision, which reviews generally provide if you keep reading/listening/watching past that initial comparison.

Entity13 posted...

Clearly, creativity is the Dark Souls of basic effort.

I'm certainly not going to deny that art in general tends to be pretty derivative of existing works (which is nothing new, you can hear Bach in some of what Handel wrote, and vice versa), and that often gets taken too far (especially in mainstream products), but that's not inherently a bad thing. If artists chose not to create because they couldn't come up with something completely original, there'd be very, very little art in the world. There's ample room for creativity even while relying on established works to provide a basic framework, especially when we're dealing with something as broad as genres/subgenres.

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adjl posted...

If artists chose not to create because they couldn't come up with something completely original, there'd be very, very little art in the world.

The real problem is in how you define creativity and originality.

If you're looking for pure originality completely untouched by any other influence or duplicated elements, there probably hasn't been an actual artistic accomplishment for the last few thousand years of human history. Almost everything we do is built on what came before, or consciously references existing pieces.

Creativity is basically taking all of the influences and inspirations that have come before, and combining them in ways that put a new spin on those things. Poe writes a story about a detective based on a real French policeman, which in turn inspires Arthur Conan Doyle to write Sherlock Holmes. Other writers follow, a new genre grows out of the cross-pollenization, and eventually thousands of writers write tens of thousands of stories, each with its own unique elements or outlook. Mystery novels lead to mystery radio plays, and mystery movies. All of those thing that follow aren't somehow invalidated solely because Poe came up with the idea of a consulting detective first.
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adjl posted...

Have you picked up Risk of Rain 2? I keep meaning to ask you that, since it seems like it's similar in concept to Returnal, and I know you loved that one.

yep I was really into it last summer, ended up 100%ing everything that had been released up to that point

I remember spending so much time doing some of the challenges like the one with the merc where you cant get hit at all

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adjl posted...

it immediately tells people that don't like the games to which it's being compared that there's nothing of interest for them in the rest of the review

very poopy take homie

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Donkey straight up lies in his reviews if he doesn't like a game so nothing he uploads has much value

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CinderLock posted...

Donkey straight up lies in his reviews if he doesn't like a game so nothing he uploads has much value

Dunkey is very much a comedic reviewer, I never got the impression alot of his reviews were meant to be that serious unless he starts actually going into a fair bit of detail.

I like his videos but this one is a little dumb.

I'm a game developer. I got you to pay $50 for a copy once, so now I'm going to see if I can do it again.

Does this sound like a good concept for a game?

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

If you're looking for pure originality completely untouched by any other influence or duplicated elements, there probably hasn't been an actual artistic accomplishment for the last few thousand years of human history.

It might be closer to never depending on how it's reckoned. Even cave paintings were representations of things seen elsewhere.

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Mead posted...

yep I was really into it last summer, ended up 100%ing everything that had been released up to that point

I remember spending so much time doing some of the challenges like the one with the merc where you cant get hit at all

That doesn't surprise me. I guess it would have been a good recommendation, if I'd made it sooner (though given that I was basing it on your love of Returnal, time doesn't really work that way). I still need to pick it up myself. I really liked the first one, but I just never end up taking the plunge whenever 2 is on sale.

DirtBasedSoap posted...

very poopy take homie

Your butt is a very poopy take.

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originality is overrated

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genres are stupid and Im really not seeing how labeling everything as either Zelda-like or DarkSouls-like is useful to anyone

youre all wrong


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Darkest Dungeon 2 is going to be a slay the spire clone. How fucking disappointing. Slay the spire already exists. Literally nobody wanted this.

DirtBasedSoap posted...

Im really not seeing how labeling everything as either Zelda-like or DarkSouls-like is useful to anyone

It's useful to anyone that doesn't like Zelda-like games, since they know there's no point in watching any more of the review because it's a style of game they don't enjoy.

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adjl posted...

It's useful to anyone that doesn't like Zelda-like games, since they know there's no point in watching any more of the review because it's a style of game they don't enjoy.

As if there are a ton of games that are actually completely Zelda-like. One small part of the games mechanics might be sort of like a part of one of the Zelda games mechanics so I guess that means anyone who doesnt like Zelda should never even give it a try?

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DirtBasedSoap posted...

One small part of the games mechanics might be sort of like a part of one of the Zelda games mechanics

That's not what reviewers generally mean when they say a game is like Zelda, though. They mean that the overall structure is one of exploring the world, solving puzzles that use abilities and items you find along the way, with relatively simplistic real-time combat. If that's not a style of game somebody enjoys, anything else in the review isn't likely to change that impression, so that's a very useful way to open. A decent reviewer generally will not mean "there's a talking fairy that bugs you with useless hints here and there so it's Zelda-like despite actually being a rhythm RTS."

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adjl posted...

it's Zelda-like despite actually being a rhythm RTS."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_of_Hyrule

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I like dunkey most of the time but this one is a rare miss for me. I don't really get the point, I do think that professional game reviews are lazy and just make very surface level observations, but that's why I rarely read/watch them. I definitely see a game and a lot of my interest does come from me being like "ooh this looks like _____". So I already connect those kind of dots on my own, if anything it just shows that reviewers state the obvious more than something dumb.

His constant cherry picking gets tiresome too. It's tolerable when there's commentary or some funny gameplay footage to play off of but he basically says nothing and the visual portion isn't necessary here. Feels more like a video someone else would have made

DirtBasedSoap posted...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_of_Hyrule

That's a rhythm Zelda-like (heck, that's just plain a rhythm Zelda, though CotN could be pretty easily likened to 2D Zeldas), not a rhythm RTS.

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So the videogame medium has matured like music where most new releases have an influence.
I'm more worried about remasters/remakes making the next 20 years a repeat of the last 20.

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sabin017 posted...

I'm more worried about remasters/remakes making the next 20 years a repeat of the last 20.

On one hand, that is a risk, since there's such a huge supply of old games available to remake now and that's generally much easier than creating new ones. On the other hand, I certainly have not played every game worth playing from the last 20 years, despite living through them, so I don't know that that's actually as bad as it sounds. Even with an overabundance of remakes, the market is large enough now that I doubt there will ever truly be a dearth of new-to-me games to play, since there will still be plenty of studios producing new stuff.

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Dunkey was just butthurt that he couldn't find any reviews of people describing games as being "strand-type" games

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seems like it's game reviews that need more originality


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Zareth posted...

Dunkey was just butthurt that he couldn't find any reviews of people describing games as being "strand-type" games

probably true!

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DirtBasedSoap posted...

adjl posted...

it immediately tells people that don't like the games to which it's being compared that there's nothing of interest for them in the rest of the review.

very poopy take homie

He's not wrong, though. Any time I hear someone describe a game as being "like Dark Souls", I pretty much stop caring about that game entirely. Because the comparison is usually used to describe what I generally refer to as "frustration gaming", and I fucking loathe frustration gaming as a genre.



DirtBasedSoap posted...

genres are stupid and Im really not seeing how labeling everything as either Zelda-like or DarkSouls-like is useful to anyone

Genres exist for a reason, though.

You can describe a game as a "platformer", and you've just told me with a single word exactly what sort of gameplay a given game has. Call something a "turn-based RPG" or a "bullet hell shooter", and you've just explained more or less exactly how the game controls and plays. If a game isn't a pure example of the genre, you can easily add extra descriptors to elaborate.

Rather than spending an hour explaining each individual facet of gameplay, mechanics, and design, you can just as easily say "It's a third-person hack-and-slash Metroidvania collectathon with RTS elements" and tell me exactly what sort of game something is.

As people have pointed out in the past, before FPS became the preferred term for the genre, most FPSes were referred to as "Doom Clones". It's possible that "Rogue-like" or "Dark Souls Clone" may eventually evolve into their own clearly defined genres with more generic names. But even if they don't, "Rogue-like" still tells you exactly what you need to know so long as you understand what the term means.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

He's not wrong, though. Any time I hear someone describe a game as being "like Dark Souls", I pretty much stop caring about that game entirely. Because the comparison is usually used to describe what I generally refer to as "frustration gaming", and I f***ing loathe frustration gaming as a genre.

Not gonna lie, I actually specifically had you in mind when I wrote that >.>

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Genres exist for a reason, though.

You can describe a game as a "platformer", and you've just told me with a single word exactly what sort of gameplay a given game has. Call something a "turn-based RPG" or a "bullet hell shooter", and you've just explained more or less exactly how the game controls and plays. If a game isn't a pure example of the genre, you can easily add extra descriptors to elaborate.

Pretty much. Genres are a very high-level description of what something is, and there are many games that don't fit cleanly into any one genre that are hard to describe with genre labels (so they shouldn't be), but the concept exists to give you a vague idea of what to expect. That can be refined further with sub-genres or by comparing to specific games within that genre, and then further from there by discussing traits that are specific to the game in question.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

As people have pointed out in the past, before FPS became the preferred term for the genre, most FPSes were referred to as "Doom Clones".

More recently, ARPG's were broadly considered to be Diablo clones pretty much right up until D3 came out and was arguably quite a bit worse than Torchlight II, Path of Exile, and other contemporaries in the genre that showed it was no longer defined by the Diablo series. Metroidvanias, on the other hand, have kept their name despite the fact that Dread is the first Metroid or Castlevania game to actually fit the genre in 8 years, which I guess is a testament to just how thoroughly they dominated it in the past.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But even if they don't, "Rogue-like" still tells you exactly what you need to know so long as you understand what the term means.

Arguably, "Rogue-like" isn't that informative, genre-wise. It tells you how the gameplay loop is structured (shorter runs with random variation and the expectation of failure), but it doesn't actually say anything about what kind of gameplay you can expect. Liking FTL is not in any way a predictor of liking Hades because they're completely different genres that just have similar structures. "Rogue-like" is pretty similar to "RPG" in that regard, since you also see RPG elements show up in pretty much every genre now and that doesn't tell you much about the gameplay experience beyond those elements.

On the other hand, though, those are still useful descriptors, especially from the perspective of "genres help you figure out which games to ignore outright." If you don't like the roguelike structure, you're not going to like a roguelike regardless of what genre it's in, or that format may make a genre you otherwise wouldn't enjoy more interesting for you. RPG elements in particular help genres that would otherwise feel too grindy be more enjoyable by adding a sense of meaningful progression to them. They're useful, even if they don't say very much on their own.

I will say that I doubt the term "roguelike" is going anywhere, though. Much like "metroidvania" (and to an even greater extent), the term is generally used now without actually considering the original Rogue. That's just what the games are called, such that many of the people calling them that don't even know what Rogue is (heck, all I could tell you is that it's an old game that was structured like modern roguelikes are, for a nice, circular definition). "Souls-like" may or may not last once From stops dominating the subgenre (much like what happened with Diablo), though the fact that it's become the de facto term despite Monster Hunter offering a similar experience (slow, methodical action RPG with a high skill ceiling that rewards practice and personal skill development more so than character development) tells me it's probably got a fair bit of life left in it yet.

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PO and adij using up all the letters

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They're just compensating for the fact they are poor Scrabble players

ParanoidObsessive posted...

He's not wrong, though. Any time I hear someone describe a game as being "like Dark Souls", I pretty much stop caring about that game entirely. Because the comparison is usually used to describe what I generally refer to as "frustration gaming", and I fucking loathe frustration gaming as a genre.

well thats a dumbass mentality. there are a lot of games that have been described as like dark souls that arent difficult or frustrating at all

youre writing off entire games because one reviewer compares a game to something you refuse to give a chance? okay

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Mead posted...

PO and adij using up all the letters

lol

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DirtBasedSoap posted...

well thats a dumbass mentality. there are a lot of games that have been described as like dark souls that arent difficult or frustrating at all

That's more a matter of inaccurate reviewing than anything else. Conceptually, "Souls-like" refers to games that - like Dark Souls - have a high skill ceiling and enough challenge that players are likely to fail repeatedly in progressing through the game. 3D action RPG's that do not offer such challenge certainly exist, but comparing them to Souls games when Souls games are known first and foremost for their challenge is a poor comparison.

Mead posted...

PO and adij using up all the letters

No letters for you.

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Good artists copy, great artists steal.

my 2 cents:

Shin Megami was out long before Pokemon, yet Game Freak made pokemon a dominate franchise over SMT.

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adjl posted...

That's more a matter of inaccurate reviewing

and now we have come full circle

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Dmess85 posted...

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

my 2 cents:

Shin Megami was out long before Pokemon, yet Game Freak made pokemon a dominate franchise over SMT.

what if we took griant grotesque biblical and religious monsters and made them smoll, cute, relatable and released it alongside the Gameboy Pocket?

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DirtBasedSoap posted...

and now we have come full circle

Not really. It's a given that any reviewing convention is going to be mis-applied by some reviewers. That doesn't mean nobody should use that reviewing convention, that just means that reviewer is wrong.

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