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[Crossing Eden]

They cannot be told through other medium without losing up a lot of the essential parts of the experience. A MGS 2 movie loses ridiculously more in the adaption than a Last of Us movie and the same is true about the other games. An Automata movie doesn't even start because of the different endings providing different experiences depending on what level of involvement you want to have. That possibility is unique to videogames. Last of Us doesn't take advantage of anything unique to videogames as a medium.

Again i'm thinking you should watch more films. I'd say something like Undertale which straight up requires direct input and acknowledges how much it's a game takes advantage of the medium more so than MGS2 and Nier.

And how it's easy to mess up child molestation in a work of fiction? Devs do it all the time? Give me 2 examples.

Chico being forced to rape Paz and the teenager who got gang raped in Dead Island.

I wouldn't use "subtle" here as a synonym for "well done." That just reinforces the false notion that this kind of stuff needs to be easily ignorable to be good.

Probably "handled deftly" would be better.

True.

 

[EGM1966]

Life is Strange does a very good job of properly and honestly handling a number of difficult topics from bullying to suicide to falling in love to abuse of women.

To be fair the main point of the game is to explore those so not sure it counts as brief but it's often sutbtle and the game deservedly drew praise for how well it handled many of the topics in a medium not generally known for going so.

 

[tsundoku]

I think I'll have to disagree somewhat on the child soilders. I think having them in the game is a way of touching on the subject, but I think it's execution was bad. When you play the game and the child soilders show up, you are explicitly told that you cannot harm them or it is instant game over and that you should save them. With this, the kids just become another npc to rescue in the game. You are never put into a position where Big Boss and the player themselves has to struggle with the thought that he might have to fight back against child soilders and forcibly do something that is very wrong. The closes the game does this is with the kids locked in the mines and the camera pans to big boss pointing his gun at them, but he instead shoots the lock and frees them. im not saying you should be able to kill children at choice in the game to just feel like the game is touching sensitive ideas, but I think they went to safe with the subject and it just didn't deliver in my eyes.

Its like you're pretending the mission with Eli doesn't exist??

 

[Kain-Nosgoth]

To the moon on Mental issue!

Spoiler

With river having the asperger syndrome (they never say what she has, unless you go do a search on google with the name of a book that's in the game)

being a huge part of the game

 

[Taruranto]

Fata Morgana thread.

Rule of Rose

All of it. It deals with a lot of heavy themes and various topics games are scared to touch, but it does it in a very artistic, tasteful, and impacting way, and a lot of it is done subtlety and symbolically rather than for shock value.

Oh yeah, this one too. You never see childhood and children handled with such brutal honesty (In videogames).

 

[TissueBox]

To the Moon and

Spoiler

Asperger's.

 

[SomTervo]

While Silent Hill 2 is possibly my favourite game of all time, and many aspects of its story are very subtle, i think the overall concept/point is pretty damn clear and spelled out for the player.

If we're focusing on smaller storylines, yes, but the overall Mary stuff, nyeh.

 

[SomTervo]

They cannot be told through other medium without losing up a lot of the essential parts of the experience. A MGS 2 movie loses ridiculously more in the adaption than a Last of Us movie and the same is true about the other games. An Automata movie doesn't even start because of the different endings providing different experiences depending on what level of involvement you want to have. That possibility is unique to videogames. Last of Us doesn't take advantage of anything unique to videogames as a medium.

It absolutely does. Do you not remember (/still experience) how totally divisive the ending is?

That massive debate was largedesde to the player being forced to physically enact Joel's questionable actions. You can't do that on film. You can't make the audience ACT Joel's part out and make him move. It's almost like we're forced to play the bad guy. Then we swap control to Ellie to objectify Joel and we feel how she controls with different body language, interactive options, reactions to collectibles, etc.

TLoU absolutely harnessed the forced inactivity of games to enhance its story. In a film it would still be good but the core experience wouldn't have as much impact.

Disagree with the "so subtle you can miss it" = good LGBTQ representation. That's pretty much all LGBTQ representation in main stream media. It isn't more "natural" to have gay characters never talk about their partners or interact with them in any meaningful way, sexuality for straight characters is in your face a lot, in the real world and in video games, gay characters should be allowed to be too. It why I roll my eyes when people say "Bioware is pandering! They just want the attention", well yes they're pandering, like any game that has a straight white male lead is pandering. And considering they are one of the few AAA publishers who've had good LGBTQ characters, they deserve all the praise and attention. A character whose sexuality is so ambiguous people need to ask the developers isn't necessarily bad representation, the problem comes from this being almost every instance of gay representation in entertainment. It becomes pretty clear as to what they're doing, they don't want to rock the bigot boat. Greg from Night in the Woods is a good example of the kind of representation people want.

You misunderstand.

We're not celebrating that their sexuality is veiled or ambiguous.

We're celebrating that their sexuality doesn't define them. Because a person's sexuality doesn't define that person.

Well-written LGBTQ characters won't tout their sexuality or draw attention to it. Just like in real life you won't go out of your way to say to someone "I'm straight" or "I'm gay". It's just an aspect of their character.

Which is why treatments like Bill in TLoU are to be commended. Bill has no need or motive to tell anyone he's gay. And he is about as far away from the design of a "stereotypical" gay man as you can get.

So instead it's left to the player to gleam it from contextual details. Ellie finding porn mags full of huge dicks (never shown but heavily implied). Bill saying a dead guy is his "partner". Full disclosure: i thought he meant "partner in crime" and didn't realise bill was gay for ages.

Also see the examples of trans people in AC Syndicate and Watch Dogs 2. Their status is never mentioned or made light of, but it's clear they're not gendernorm. That is the perfect way of handling it.

Edit: a more concise way of putting my point is that we need to normalise LGBTQ characters. We never mention or draw attention to the fact straight characters are straight - why should we do it for queer characters?

Whatever their sexuality is, it should be normal. Human culture shouldn't see it as unusual or the "other". We shouldn't draw attention to it.

Watch Dogs 2's Miranda Comay

Ubi put a black transgender woman in their game and simply made it work. Wasn't exploitative or played for laughs.

Fuck yeah that was awesome!

Also the trans character in AC Syndicate. Forget his name. Was also a real person and a total chauvinist.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

To the Moon

Spoiler

and Asperger's.

Spoilers

 

[petran79]

Phantasmagoria 2 in 1996

Trevor is one of the first openly gay characters in video games and a friend of Curtis. He appears like a normal person. Too bad he gets killed in such a gruesome way.

 

[cj_iwakura]

I would say Persona 2: Innocent Sin's treatment of Jun and his homosexuality, but I made an entire thread about that already.

It's never made a big deal out of. It's just how he is.

 

[Zap Rowsdower]

Phantasmagoria 2 in 1996

Trevor is one of the first openly gay characters in video games and a friend of Curtis. He appears like a normal person. Too bad he gets killed in such a gruesome way.

On the one hand while it is gruesome, its the only death in that goofy ass game that is genuinely sad. Also Curtis admits that he loves Trevor and its treated as normal.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Again i'm thinking you should watch more films. I'd say something like Undertale which straight up requires direct input and acknowledges how much it's a game takes advantage of the medium more so than MGS2 and Nier.

If you think that MGS2 would work as a movie without losing the essence of what made its narrative work, I'm sorry, I just don't know what to tell you. Nice try implying ignorance on my part, but there is no galaxy in which the MGS2 narrative is as easily adaptable to another medium as Watch Dogs or the Uncharted games or any other recent examples. Could you make a movie about it? Yes you could, but you would need to change so much shit and you'd lose a lot of the features that made it work. How would you do the coded calls? The bait and switch of Raiden would not work out as well and the whole "Raiden represents the player" would be gone. It's not because you can do something that you should do something. MGS2 could be done into a movie, yes, but it would not be MGS2.

How would you simulate different endings in a film?

Chico being forced to rape Paz and the teenager who got gang raped in Dead Island.

Disagree on the Chico and Paz audio log, I think it was torturing because it was a torture scene and there was some ambiguity regarding their feelings towards each other and it was heavy and shit. Didn't play Dead Island so can't comment on that one. Still, "devs fuck it up all the time" is a big stretch.

The Ellie scene is fine, but in terms of writing it is pretty thin. Clearly evil guy tries to force himself on the heroine who kills him and is about to flat out say "he tried to fuck me" when father figure good guy interrupts her because we know girl it's alright it's alright. It's done well, but I don't think it's subtle at all. It made me feel relieved Ellie got away from it, so it works I guess.

It absolutely does. Do you not remember (/still experience) how totally divisive the ending is?

That massive debate was largedesde to the player being forced to physically enact Joel's questionable actions. You can't do that on film. You can't make the audience ACT Joel's part out and make him move. It's almost like we're forced to play the bad guy. Then we swap control to Ellie to objectify Joel and we feel how she controls with different body language, interactive options, reactions to collectibles, etc.

TLoU absolutely harnessed the forced inactivity of games to enhance its story. In a film it would still be good but the core experience wouldn't have as much impact.

That's a fair view about TLOU's ending. Maybe I didn't feel that way because I agreed 100% with Joel and would have done exactly the same thing, so it didn't feel like I was being forced to do anything. But yeah, if someone didn't want to do what he does I can understand how it would work as you point out.

However, I still think TLOU would work out fine as movie, you wouldn't lose much of it in the translation. Dark Souls, for instance, with its environmental storytelling and grueling difficulty as a mean of making you feel the oppressive atmosphere around you, would probably be a pretty fucking boring movie unless you changed everything about it to the point where it's no longer Dark Souls. It only works as a videogame. I agree with you that TLOU is enhanced by being a game though, but I don't think it's built around what makes the medium unique.

 

[OfTheOverflow]

Your TLoU example was the first thing that struck me, OP. Riley and Ellie's story in Left Behind was also handled Masterfully.

 

[Crossing Eden]

If you think that MGS2 would work as a movie without losing the essence of what made its narrative work, I'm sorry, I just don't know what to tell you. Nice try implying ignorance on my part, but there is no galaxy in which the MGS2 narrative is as easily adaptable to another medium as Watch Dogs or the Uncharted games or any other recent examples. Could you make a movie about it? Yes you could, but you would need to change so much shit and you'd lose a lot of the features that made it work. How would you do the coded calls? The bait and switch of Raiden would not work out as well and the whole "Raiden represents the player" would be gone. It's not because you can do something that you should do something. MGS2 could be done into a movie, yes, but it would not be MGS2.

It's not a matter of whether it's adapatable it's whether film can convey the same message, (and that medium sorta already has multiple times over in the first place.) I think you're genuinely giving it too much credit as there's a lot that you can actually take out of MGS2, like the incredibly long conversations, and end up with a more concise narrative overall.

How would you simulate different endings in a film?

Same way some films simulate different introductions. Watch Run Lola Run for example.

Disagree on the Chico and Paz audio log, I think it was torturing because it was a torture scene and there was some ambiguity regarding their feelings towards each other and it was heavy and shit.

Um no....it's heavily implied that it was rape as she then makes a move on Chico while they're in a cage later in another audio log, which is an insanely fucked up way to tell a story about rape that should've been cut and laughed at by everyone involved in the writing process.

Didn't play Dead Island so can't comment on that one. Still, "devs fuck it up all the time" is a big stretch.

It stands that the vast majority of games are incredibly terrible at addressing it's subject but also the repercussions of it.

The Ellie scene is fine, but in terms of writing it is pretty thin. Clearly evil guy tries to force himself on the heroine who kills him and is about to flat out say "he tried to fuck me" when father figure good guy interrupts her because we know girl it's alright it's alright. It's done well, but I don't think it's subtle at all. It made me feel relieved Ellie got away from it, so it works I guess.

Like I said, not only do they not bring attention to it specifically or outright state it as rape, they also show that she's still visibly bothered by it months later in the narrative, which, like the Harley Quinn example, is much more tasteful than the way most games address traumatic situations. For instance, take the scene where Quiet is almost rape, which, because she's just SO "badass," has no effect on her whatsoever. And in fact, makes her even more badass because she reacts more violently than ever in the game in the most schlocky way possible.

 

[Lionel Richie]

It's not a matter of whether it's adapatable it's whether film can convey the same message, (and that medium sorta already has multiple times over in the first place.) I think you're genuinely giving it too much credit as there's a lot that you can actually take out of MGS2, like the incredibly long conversations, and end up with a more concise narrative overall.

The same message? You don't experience something solely for the message, you do it for the experience overall. Yeah the message of MGS2 could be adapted by anything. I could tell you right now and there it is, I adapted the message. But the point is the experience of MGS2 works only as a videogame without making too many compromises to the point where it's no longer MGS2. And the bit about the conversations is like your opinion man, I wouldn't take it out and I don't think it would make it a more concise narrative. It would make it a more simplistic one.

Same way some films simulate different introductions. Watch Run Lola Run for example.

I did watch that movie, it was nice. The way it's divided is not comparable to Automata for the simple reason that stopping at any point would leave you with an incomplete narrative, while in Automata the different endings are all reasonably well contained and it's up to you to keep going to unfold the whole story. Did you play Automata to its completion?

Um no....it's heavily implied that it was rape as she then makes a move on Chico while they're in a cage later in another audio log, which is an insanely fucked up way to tell a story about rape that should've been cut and laughed at by everyone involved in the writing process.

I mean, it's not a great scene, but is it really heavily implied it was rape? She flat out says it's okay Chico you can not hurt me. It's ambiguous, it's not particularly subtle because Kojima was never about being subtle. Also, the morality of the situation is not as crystal clear as it would be in a western work because this is a japanese game. Japanese game usually avoid the patronizing traps of defining too strictly who are the bad characters and which are bad situations. It's also not exactly comparable to the Ellie scene because you have 2 characters that have some emotional involvement being forced to do bad things by the shit situation, as in TLOU you clearly have one rapist and an underage heroine. In MGS, the context is the bad the guy, while in TLOU the bad guy is the bad guy.

It stands that the vast majority of games are incredibly terrible at addressing it's subject but also the repercussions of it.

This is false because the "vast majority of games" don't deal with fucking child molestation. It's not a common theme and it's one that would take some severely demented writer to fuck it up. It's a simple situation when you're writing fiction. Nobody likes it, everyone knows it's traumatizing on the character and you should avoid being too direct about it as to not shock the audience. Manage to not fumble 2 of the 3 things listed above and you have a pretty emotional scene.

Like I said, not only do they not bring attention to it specifically or outright state it as rape, they also show that she's still visibly bothered by it months later in the narrative, which, like the Harley Quinn example, is much more tasteful than the way most games address traumatic situations. For instance, take the scene where Quiet is almost rape, which, because she's just SO "badass," has no effect on her whatsoever. And in fact, makes her even more badass because she reacts more violently than ever in the game in the most schlocky way possible.

Not defending the Quiet parts because honestly I didn't think it was good at all, but you do know that people react to trauma in different ways, right? Anger and denial are common reactions to trauma just as much as sadness and hopelessness, and since we don't live with these characters 24/7 you'd have no way of knowing if Quiet was Quietly bothered by it.

I think you're trying to simplify things in the narrative because any ambiguity might seem like the creator is normalizing that behavior. If it's anything close to that you're doing, that's more than fine, that's a valid way to look at art although it's not one I agree with. But there are various ways of portraying something. Quiet's arc was bad not because it was problematic, but because it could have been written better (like the entirety of Phantom Pain and honestly Peace Walker too). It was not bad conceptually, it was just undercooked.

 

[psychowave]

I want to share an example that may be a bit weird because I'm guessing for a lot of people it probably isn't a sensitive topic, and actually the game it comes from, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, is all about dealing with touchy subjects and traumas the main cast deals with. Still, this is a standout for me because of the rarity of the subject being tackled at all in games and the tactful way the game handles it.

This is Eikichi Mishina

He goes to a different school but is friends with the protagonist. He's extremely self-centered, narcisistic, never seems to take anything seriously and seems to believe all girls are behind him. He's obviously the main source of comic relief in the game because of all this.

Eikichi is an odd one because while the game likes its humor, most characters are complex and have different layers to their personalities... But Eikichi remains pretty ridiculous for the most part. Sure he's very likeable and dependable, but it's rare to see him being 100% genuine about his feelings or thoughts.

Anyway, this is Miyabi

She's a girl from the protagonist's school. She is secretly in love with Eikichi (secretly as in everyone knows except him), but for some reason doesn't want him to know her name and seems to try to avoid him in general... Suspicious because Eikichi is looking for a girl named Miyabi from the same school as well. They run into each other a couple of times through the story, and at one point he even saves her from danger, but doesn't seem too interested in her in general despite the villains using her as bait for him at one point, for some reason.

Now, Eikichi is pretty weird in general, but everything starts to make more sense once some flashbacks occur and we see what the main cast looked like as kids, and Eikichi is by far the most surprising

Young Eikichi is shy, he stutters, and in general has a sort of deffensive attitude that seems to imply he's bullied. But above all, what sticks out the most is that young Eikichi is fat. And one thing suddenly becomes obvious, Eikichi seems to have built an entire persona around his childhood traumas and insecurities (which makes sense, because according to Freud this is how much of our personalities work). He was once a fat, shy and insecure kid and now he's fit, outgoing and won't shut up about how attractive and great he is.

Now this alone isn't that impressive, but as the story unfolds, we find out that Eikichi acts like this to hide his insecurities and fears, but also to get people to like him, which again makes a lot of sense, but eventually he finds out MIyabi's name, and reveals that he was his childhood crush and that she rejected him back when the day because he was fat, and she was very explicit about it. Miyabi at one point fell in love with Eikichi but found herself in an ironic situation because now the roles were inverted, Eikichi is now a "normal" guy who seems comfortable with his appeareance while she's fat, so she fears that he'll mock her and hate her if he ever find out she's the same Miyabi from his childhood...

The context for this reveal is that Eikichi is facing his shadow, who starts revealing Eikichi's hidden insecurities and brings up what happened between the two back then. And I think any other game could use this setup to show Miyabi what karma is and teach her a lesson


But Eikichi is nothing like that, and he reacts in a completely unexpected way. He desperatedly wanted to see Miyabi again now that he's changed, but he doesn't care that Miyabi looks different now, he's even baffled that she thought he would care, but he could never because he knows what it is to be like that. He accepts her for who she is, Miyabi apologizes and everything ends in a happy note... more or less.



But yeah, I believe this is the one and only example of "fat acceptance" that I've seen in games. The subject is rarely touched in media in general, so it really surprised me back when I played this, and I think it was very respectfully and makes Eikichi one lovable goof. He's my favorite character in all of Persona.

I would agree with all of this if Miyabi was still fat by the time she reconciles with Eikichi; however, she becomes thin by then, which defeats the whole message. The game wants to have its cake and eat it too; it wants to look like it accepts Miyabi despite the way she looks, but then slims her down when it's time for Eikichi to confront his fears, so that he gets the "hot" version of Miyabi. It's a mess.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

It's pretty subtle, but a lot of the magical stuff going on inside the heads of various characters in Torment: Tides of Nimenera are allegorical or even literal depictions of certain kinds of mental health disorders, and they're treated pretty respectfully.

And if there's room for games that are subtly terrible about this stuff, the ethos in life is strange is ethically and spiritually repugnant if you think about it too hard.

 

[Deleted member 465307]

Because Nintenso games often are sparse in their storytelling and like to maintain levity, I think a number of their games have these kinds of moments when they do decide to go serious. Most recently, I think Breath of the Wild has a few of these that might apply here.

Very early/low-importance spoiler:

Spoiler

One moment is the suicide prevention guy you encounter on a bridge if you look like you're going to jump off.

Later/greater-importance spoiler:

Spoiler

Zelda's journal, IIRC, seems to depict someone who is depressed. I remember reading it and being surprised because it was very familiar to me as someone with experience with the subject.

Various other side quests and characters also touch on serious themes in brief, not heavy-handed ways. Some other subjects that have popped up a few times in Zelda and have popped up in other Nintendo games are being orphaned and dealing with loss.

 

[Opa-Pa]

I would agree with all of this if Miyabi was still fat by the time she reconciles with Eikichi; however, she becomes thin by then, which defeats the whole message. The game wants to have its cake and eat it too; it wants to look like it accepts Miyabi despite the way she looks, but then slims her down when it's time for Eikichi to confront his fears, so that he gets the "hot" version of Miyabi. It's a mess.

You know, it's weird, I remember someone saying something similar in another thread and me along other users were confused because we never saw that in the game.

I think there might be some choice at some point that affects Miyabi's appearance in the end because I remember that she was definitely still fat at that point... It is shitty that it's even an option though, and well, she is thin in EP which kind of makes sense, but it's still lame.

Still, Eikichi does accept her like that in game and that's more than many games have done in the subject, IMO. And either way, just Eikichi's arc itself is kind of a big deal to me, I loved it.

 

[psychowave]

You know, it's weird, I remember someone saying something similar in another thread and me along other users were confused because we never saw that in the game.

I think there might be some choice at some point that affects Miyabi's appearance in the end because I remember that she was definitely still fat at that point... It is shitty that it's even an option though, and well, she is thin in EP which kind of makes sense, but it's still lame.

Still, Eikichi does accept her like that in game and that's more than many games have done in the subject, IMO. And either way, just Eikichi's arc itself is kind of a big deal to me, I loved it.

Oh, I'm not trying to undermine your feelings about Eikichi's arc and I'm glad you have such positive feelings about it! I agree that the subject is handled better than in most media (where fat characters are either jokes or nonexistent), it just feels kinda half assed right at the end. Like the game tries to "reward" Eikichi by making his love interest hot. I don't know, it just feels kinda scummy.

That's weird that she might appear fat in the end though, I played Innocent Sin very recently and she was definitely slim... I guess some dialogue choice must affect that?