Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

I have a pretty broad view of what art is - in my opinion it can be pretty much anything that people create - but I can think of a few examples of what you're suggesting. Games like Metroid and Breath of the Wild convey a feeling of isolation (maybe not quite the right word for BotW but hopefully you know what I mean) that goes beyond what films can do because you're free to explore for yourself. Undertale takes the basic conventions of an RPG and uses them to make the player question their own morals. Even games like Mario that are just supposed to be pure fun are still art if you ask me; if they can make the player feel joy then why not?

W.r.t. video games as art - my feeling is it's down to the person playing the game and how it makes them feel. And video games certainly have the power to inspire emotion in the same way that other art forms do.

Even if you don't feel that video games in their entirety are art, they are almost certainly the sum of many pieces of art. I think it's hard to argue that the gleeful tone of Gusty Garden Galaxy's music isn't a work of art, or that much of the visual work throughout gaming isn't artistic.

And sure, financial demands, executives, committees, etc., perhaps do devalue and limit some of the artistic notion of video games...but art usually has its limitations, and massive projects by massive teams will always be driven by at least some passionate individuals (although personally I think art is less about intention and more about the outcome).

On a similar point to that final parenthesis - I also fundamentally disagree that games need a deeper message to be considered "art". Something can inspire emotion without being allegorical or trying to convey anything particularly deep. Are the over-the-top action sequences in Bayonetta a work of art? I'd argue yes.

Good example @jump. I would add that at a point in their career The Beatles had a certain amount of artistic and professional freedom. They were able to stop touring and make music that couldn't be replicated by conventional live performances. They were also allowed a lot of studio time (relatively) to work. 12 albums in 10 years is phenomenal though and they accomplished more in that time than most do in their entire careers. I believe you're right in saying that the business side of their music had positive influences. Parlophone and Epstein knew how to market them in the beginning and if they didn't have that surge of popularity they wouldn't have had the foundation for their last six (and debatabley better) albums.

I don't know diddly about Shakespeare though - so i'll take your word on that one 😉

I had to look up Damien Hirst. I have seen 'The physical impossibility of death...' before but outside of that (and the one Red Hot Chili Peppers album cover) I'm not familiar with him. I glanced at his Wikipedia page. He kind of sounds like an art pimp. And the whole "animals in formaldehyde" is more of a shock value thing to me. I've had to dissect fetal pigs preserved in formaldehyde and they made me feel much more than the (admittedly bitchin') shark.

Something like eutierria or ambience?

Yeah there are games that have a lot of artistic merit like Metroid Prime and BOTW which are fantastic but as good as they are I'm still looking for that one undeniable example you can't argue with it. Maybe I'm just fussy.

@Losermagnet To be honest I was just using examples of people who are accepted as top of their fields rather than ones I'm fans of.

I'm not a keen on Damien Hirst but he's probably the biggest (bad) contemporary name of today I can think of for art-art although he's probably bigger in the UK than in America, my missus is the art expert so I've gone to a few exhibits of his to see his stuff with her and she's says what you said of he's a shock artist more than anything else and is a proper hack nowadays. The last time I saw his work the main attraction was a room filled with thousands of living butterflies, I'm not entirely sure what was trying to be expressed by it. I much prefer the work of Yayoi Kusama, she’s mental, with her work being about obsession and attention of detail so you see her use thousands of dots all placed in the exact spot of her choosing to convey how nuts she is with details. I actually was meant to be seeing her new exhibit but literally days before the coivd lockdowns happened.

@jump I didn't know the word eutierria but yeah something like that. That feeling of insignificance compared to the enormity of the natural world.

Maybe but either way having a deeper message does elevate it above just another game imo. It's the difference between watching something like Soul or Inside Out from Pixar and watching The Trolls Movie.

@jump All quite subjective though. Tbh I often find works trying to overtly portray some sort of message to be quite pretentious. Other works don't have a clear "message" but will inspire emotion in a way that feels a lot more organic (back to the Mario Galaxy example - there's no message here but it generates a feeling of wonder and excitement).

@timleon I find what really sticks to mind about Galaxy is Rosalina's backstory which is deliberate heart string pulling.

@jump The Trolls Movie has a message. It's "Don't Watch the Trolls Movie"

I agree with @timleon though regarding works that have a "message." Or try to be "art". Be it games or movies, the medium gets lost and all that remains is a propaganda/PR/political campaign/ad more times than not. Granted, something like Pikmin has an environmentalism theme at its core, and it occasionally overtly hits on that, but it never gets in the way of the work itself. But then you take most of the "message" games, and my favorite dead horses to beat with that are Naughty Dog and worse, David Cage games that more and more are either a political or forced social commentary piece with a game attached. But the public eats that stuff up as "art." Same in independent film. The more overtly political and preachy it is the more "artistic" and "brave" it becomes. "Art" and "culture" is repackaged for the masses as pre-defined talking points to feel aligned with high minded thinkers, the same way opera was art music repackaged for the new middle class masses in the 18th century...now with lyrics so the "simpletons" can understand it. (Kind of an irony that opera today is the pinnacle of elitism and snobbery. When it debuted it was the opposite, it was dumbed down music for the simple masses that can't understand music without lyrics....it was the Kanye of its day. Composers resented having to cater to such base forms, but it paid the bills. )

In my experience, on average David Cage is less interested in having a message as much as making stuff that vaguely resembles movies that tried to have a message. Either that or what he's trying to say is poorly executed enough that it comes off that way.

I also feel iffy about "forced", a word that is often mis-used to describe literally any story that's about anything. But maybe that's because I avoid actually forced social commentary, because I like good fiction.

Pretty much any story that's written has to be 'forced' out against a backdrop of looming deadlines and writer's block.

It's a minor miracle that they can sometimes give the impression of unfolding organically, to the extent that only the elements that people find politically objectionable get seen that way.

I find the level of writing and storytelling in the average game is a bit rubbish really regardless of what the "message" is. I mean it's good that there is a narrative to drive things along and all but sometimes it's just incredibly bad (not even intentionally bad like Bayonetta) to the point it just makes me dislike the game which is different to not liking the message.

I'm fine with hearing different point of views as long as the "message" is somewhat articulate, it's like the difference of hearing the same values between Republican speeches from Mitt Romney and Marjorie Taylor Greene or on the leftie side Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Biden. I like South Park even when it's an episode when they attack something I think something is important like when they denied Global Warming is a real which I disagree with for example.

It does make me very confused when I literally see statements like "I play it for the story first, gameplay second" as there's just not enough great story games because of the general low standard of writing in games.

Unpopular opinion: Turn based RPGS can be incredibly boring. Sometimes they're ok but sometimes they just drag on. I prefer the faster pace of an action RPG like Xenoblade or Final Fantasy XV. Like in those games, you're running around, slicing the enemy and occasionally using a special move. In a Turn Based RPG, you have loads of options of moves to use, complicated menus and having to wait for the enemy to hit you after hitting it. DoEsN'T tHaT sOuNd LiKe FuN?! I've just never gotten into them but I do get what all the hype for games like TTYD and Persona. Those games are very unique but for now, I just can't be bothered.

@Jackpaza0508 Even in Persona for me my main interest was just in the social simulations. I have no shame in turning the difficulty down to the easiest setting, I’d prefer to experience the life of Narukami and Joker anyway.

The Social Link system really incentivises spending time with friends so I enjoy that a lot more than the coming, as stylish as it can get.

Some turn based rpgs are boring to me. However, things like Persona 5 Royal or Bravely Default II manage to keep me engaged. Effectively due to their systems they have to make things more interesting.

There's plenty of fun turn based games like Valkyria Chronicles that tweaks the formula but I don't think enough turn based games go deep enough with the battles. Pokemon for all of it's weakness is very good at keeping the battles interesting and is more like Magic: The Gathering twhere there's prep and skill involved rather then levelling up til you can beat them.

Honestly, for me, Pokemon's battle system is growing stale. I've played Pokemon since gen 5 first came out, and there's really a lack of depth involved, at least compared to games like Persona 5 where you have the system of toppling enemies and baton passes to try to execute an all out attack, or Bravely Default, where you have to store up turns so that a boss doesn't kill you in a couple hits.

@Snaplocket I heard polarizing opinions on it. Some people really seem to like it, and some people despise it entirely.

I absolutely agree. They did great job of fleshing out Midgar (which, IMO, was by far the best part of the original game anyway), massively improved characterisation and writing, and the battle system is probably my favourite in the series.

It certainly doesn't replace the original, and the ending sucks, but the majority of FFVII Remake was a wonderful update on the first 5 - 10 hours of FFVII. It also has, to date, my favorite battle system in the series. It feels like what Ni no Kuni should have been going for. Great fusion of real-time and menu-based combat.