Realism-paradox?

I'm confused. Why does not looking Japanese make them difficult to take seriously?

The humor part I understand, though. Sometimes humor is very culture specific. I personally don't "get" British humor, for the most part.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Sorry, that was a typo. I meant to say "don't really look human", not "don't really look Japanese".

But still, I mean, compare http://img638.imageshack.us/i/94686020090304screen001.jpg/ http://img839.imageshack.us/i/infiniteundiscovery2008.jpg/ to http://img585.imageshack.us/i/01877904photoinfamous.jpg/ http://img715.imageshack.us/i/tsplatterhouselaunchhd0.jpg/

in the amount of how "human" they look despite still being stylized, particularly in the second western picture

edited 9th Mar '11 11:21:20 AM by TravisBickle

Je Suis "Aware"

Those were stylized?

Jokes, aside, I get your point. I think the Japanese ones are just too plain pretty. There's not enough definition in there. They still look human but when you comapre them side by side, the animeesque style in 3-d looks a little creepy. In fact, it would probably look better in 2-D. Like Blaz Blue or something.

The Blog The Art

Aw, now I'm saddened by the fact that there isn't a JRPG where I kill giant robots with the power of love.

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That said, it sounds like your problem is just plain difference in cultural tastes rather than being unable to take them seriously. Or more lazily put, YMMV.

For me, video games are fictional, therefore I like it when my fictional works take advantage of the fact that it takes place in a fictional setting  ^*

while it gets on my nerves how developers keep striving for realism in a fictional universe instead of taking advantage of it.

A good analogy for my point of view would be walking in the rain with a rain jacket...without actually wearing the rain jacket or putting on the hood to keep yourself dry.

A warrior who won 100's of wars and still look pretty and unscarred? Healing magic! Is the sword too oversized for a 11 year old girl to carry over her shoulders? Well it's still more realistic than a traditional dragon being able to even take flight in the first place!

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^ Gotta agree with your 3D vs. 2D comment...2D games look much prettier than 3D games, just look at Mega Man Z vs. Legends. Funny enough, Legends in the only game that did critically better in the west than in the east.

edited 9th Mar '11 12:29:14 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I think the Japanese ones are just too plain pretty. There's not enough definition in there.

The biggest difference between Japanese games and Western games in terms of being "too pretty" is that Japanese games apply the unnatural prettiness in a more equal manner. Western games love gritty ugliness on male characters, but the women still have impossibly perfect complexions and such.

(Anime style is much less realistic in other ways, of course, but if we're just talking about "unnatural prettiness," I don't think Western styles deserve any praise for avoiding it on characters who the audience isn't expected to find attractive)

But that kind of logic really only works for completely unrealistic worlds. Something with more realistic design like Max Payne 2 or Grand Theft Auto IV could never do that. Plus, it's based around finding the most beautiful and marketable character, rather than finding a character who seems like he actually fits. It'd be like if they cast Jake Gyllenhaal as Gimli, just because he's hot, and when asked "well, how come he's not a stocky wizened older man in his 50s?" and responding with "Because magic, that's why." It's lazy design and makes it ridiculous to tell any kind of reasonable story when my supposed veteran commander of a thousand battles is a perfectly smooth blemish-free and lithe 16 year old boy.

I will never understand this idea, that a video game must be fictional and over the top. Nobody complains about the same thing when it comes to any other kind of media, yet when it's video games, which have the advantage of the best aspects of every medium, people just want poorly plotted crazy over-the-top action with a ton of ultra-unrealistic design elements slapped on top. Yes, "people play games to escape", but people watch movies to escape too, and by no means is every movie a mindless action blockbuster.

And besides, it's not as if the games I posted don't take advantage of a fictional universe - Splatterhouse is about an impossibly muscled guy smashing monster heads together through dimensions in a quest to stop the end of the world, and inFAMOUS is about a high school drop-out bike messenger who gets the ability to shoot lightning. It's just that by keeping a stylized but realistic design, it keeps it grounded in reality to an extent, raising the immersion and believability of the events.

Je Suis "Aware"

The problem with it is not that all games should be over-the-top, it's that everything has a different roof for suspension of disbelief, it can be whatever it wants to be as long as it remains consistent, and the problem is a lot of people seem to be unfairly shifting the quota just so they can have more things to complain about.

Most common example, "Sword's too big", if the game is trying to realistic then this is a problem, if it's not then it's fine neither is better or recommend over the other. For example if the game ignores the fact the character should not be able to wield his weapon but then kills a boss later because his weapon was too big for him to wield, then there is a problem with consistency and something should be changed.

The main problem is most games where things like this occur are consistently outlandish and as the suspension of disbelief should cover it reasonably. Best example is Nier, in Nier the original had a slimmer main character and got the "Sword" complaint, had the game been one that was trying to be realistic it would've been valid, however in the same game you had talking books, a magical super virus, and magical black raindrops that functioned as your offensive magic.

It seems like just unfair nitpicking that out of all the things you could've chosen to complain about, you chose this specific tiny thing which pales in comparison to almost every other detail of the game, if the game were trying to maintain a certain level of realism then yes it should be fixed, but in this instance almost every other detail in the game is either more outlandish or un-realistic then the "Sword" complaint, so how can you demand this aspect be changed but then leave the others? It violates precedent.

Even in inFamous everything remained consistent, Cole can shoot lightning so him having the standard high durability is not ridiculous, all his powers are at least understandable to the average person in their justifications like re-directing his rockets or static thrusters. However if Cole could call demons and summon meteors then we start to change the precedent and need to address if we want to make the game more or less realistic.

So having your war veteran be a teenager would be stupid if the game was not consistent in its suspension, so if it's a realistic-physics war-game in the modern era and he's not a genius with serious mental health problems then something is wrong. However if it takes place in Space in the future where robots crack jokes and there are other teenagers around fighting him then it's pretty consistent with the setting.

Then you have to take other things into account too, like if him being there is supposed to be satirical or a parody of some sort, or if the work is supposed to be comedic, nearly every time I've seen this happen it's one of those.

And I don't see anime characters as humans, I see them as anime characters, they're based off the human figure but how you draw them works on different rules.

I don't really have a problem thinking of stylized game models as human. Actually, I think anime styled characters look more "human" than the 2D sprites of bygone eras, and I never had any trouble taking them seriously, either. In fact, the games I can think of that evoked the most emotional response from me had heavily stylized graphics of some sort or another.

If we look back though history, art has frequently been about stylizing the human figure. Cavemen drawings, Greek statues, Egyptian paintings, etc. When I look at these, animeesque style fits right in. I think the human mind is primed to see "human" in a stylized human figure, from simple stick figures right on up.

Take, for example, the movie Up. The characters are highly stylized, easily as much as an animeesque character. How many critics and movie-goers reported this movie making them cry near the beginning? They (and I) saw the characters as human regardless of how much they were stylized.

edited 10th Mar '11 5:42:02 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

I agree to an extent though I think certain stylizations work better in 3D better than others. I guess it comes down to personal opinion I guess because the ones presented to me above I found to be eerie and inhuman, but I found the cel-shaded ones of Tales Of Symphonia to look just fine. And Pixar does a very good job with that as well.

The Blog The Art

@Travis

It seems to me like the Japanese games you've been playing are all Shōnen inspired. Which are pretty much just cartoons made for people in their early teens.

Perhaps you should try to find something outside this demographic?  ^*

edited 10th Mar '11 7:45:21 AM by JotunofBoredom

Umbran Climax◊

I'm all for some realism - but not just with visuals and audio stuff; I'm talking core gameplay mechanics, too. You can have a nice stylized graphics thing going on, and I'll love your game if the gameplay and stuff is still realistic, to a point.

Hey, I have to reload my weapon? Great. It keeps track of the half-empty magazines? Cool. I can't carry eighteen weapons on my person at any given time? Fine. I can actually bleed out from certain wounds? Fine. I have to eat, drink and sleep? Cool. I can actually take a third option when dealing with a plotline? Groovy. And so on.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

Depending on the game, though, a lot of those forms of realism may be either impractical, or their aversion is justified for practical reasons.

For instance, true "take a third option" is not really all that possible in games; the only plot-relevant choices available are the ones the game designers program into the game. Thus, how many different options are available, how often, and how divergently, depends very much on the type of game.

On the other side of the coin, most games don't track hunger, thirst, and fatigue, since it would add frustration and nuisance without actually contributing to the game. If survival is an important element, sure, like in New Vegas. In a RTS, however, direct tracking of hunger would almost certainly be more pain than its worth, and in an action FPS ( classic style, like Doom ), it'd be absurd.

My view is that a game should only try to be realistic when and if it contributes to the style and play of the game.

Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com

^ Agree, it does depend on the setting and the genre.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.