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Postby Dream » Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:13 pm

View Original Postssguy wrote:
SPOILER: Show
The Maria ending heavily implies that James is going to kill her like he did with Mary. Leave is the best ending; he's able to finally let go and leave his past behind.


Well, i'll be the first to admit that the themes of the story and the general narrative doesn't really back me up on this, but...

SPOILER: Show
It is true that the Maria ending implies the cycle will repeat somewhat and James didn't exactly come to terms with how things ended with Mary, although how much of a certainty is that he will kill Maria is debatable. Besides i like to think that it's very possible for James and Maria to eventually form a non-fucked, healthy relationship between each other (Yes, i do believe Maria is real to some degree), it might be running away from his past to a degree -which i admit is the thing that bugs me the most of the Maria ending- but it's the one ending where Maria and James can get to be happy with each other, and James doesn't have to suffer the loss of Mary as much as in the other endings.

Then again, like i said before, i really really like Maria, and it was somewhat saddening to see James treating her so badly since pretty much the beggining or telling her cruel stuff like "I don't need you anymore", specially when she left it on no uncertain terms that she needed him.

Although i have to agree that thematically speaking, "Leave" is the best ending in many ways, plus it's the only one that implies the possibility for an understanding or reconciliation between Laura and James, and where he comes to an acceptance or understanding of everything that he didn't get on the other endings, so there's that.
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Postby Tankred » Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:16 pm

View Original PostInstrumentalityOne wrote:So either way, this AAA title definitely won't play any time around the 19th century and will have yet another generic setting that'll be either heavily movie-inspired or already done to death. :facepalm:


Tfw no taiping rebellion game or Boshin War era game other than the shogun 2 expansion. At least I have Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai.
Last edited by Tankred on Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby Stryker » Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:29 pm

View Original PostInstrumentalityOne wrote:So either way, this AAA title definitely won't play any time around the 19th century and will have yet another generic setting that'll be either heavily movie-inspired or already done to death. :facepalm:


What do you mean?

You talking about this?
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Postby InstrumentalityOne » Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:56 pm

View Original PostStryker wrote:What do you mean?

That era is generally never taught in schools or has gotten any decent historical exposure because it makes the whole western civilization look like a bunch of dicks and will therefore not appear in an american AAA title.

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Postby Stryker » Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:03 pm

Ubisoft Montreal, a Canadian company, is not under the influence of America. They will make America look as much of a dick as they please. Especially after sucking up to America in ACIII. And even if they don't, they have no excuse to go after China, considering the Opium War and all.
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Postby liquidus118 » Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:10 pm

As long as they overhaul the combat and get rid of all that First Ancestral Race bulshit and pick somewhere with actual architecture I'm all in.

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Postby Monk Ed » Fri Feb 08, 2013 3:47 am

Well look at that, I never did make that brain dump about Persona 3 FES: The Answer.

I guess there just wasn't that much to say. Oh well, I'll say what there is to say:
SPOILER: Show

The Answer turned out to be almost exactly what I expected going in. I expected it to be about the party (especially Aigis) learning what really happened to the MC and learning to move on as a result.

If there was one part of the ending I didn't expect, it was the true role of the Great Seal. It was not to keep Nyx back, but to keep others from summoning her. That was a nice twist.

But Metis described the Great Seal as having been formed from the MC's "life essence". In other words, he's well and truly dead and gone. Not just "became the Great Seal"; he really is dead! How sad! Somehow that's sadder than if he had simply physically become the seal, because at least then it would've been kinda like he was technically still alive. On the bright side, at least the seal was not made from his soul -- that seemed like it would have been the saddest and creepiest fate for him of all. And at least his "mere" death leaves open the idea that he could see them all again some day, on the other side -- ghosts and the afterlife seem to exist full-bore in the Personaverse, if previous games and Akinari's final social link scene (and inclusion in the climax) are any indication.

The biggest emotional stuff in The Answer was certainly the intra-group conflict near the end. I thought it was really well done -- believable, stemming credibly from the characters' personalities and group dynamics, and yet "unbelievable" at the same time in the colloquial sense of the word -- a balance that's hard to strike.

I still remember how shocked and aghast I was at Yukari when she actually suggested taking other people's keys by force. I think that was the lowest my opinion of her ever fell in the game -- and that was after what a game's-worth of her sometimes-grating personality (after falling in love with her at first sight of all things) had already done to it. It was lessened when Mitsuru seemed to be on her on side, because at least then it didn't seem like Yukari alone was to blame for the schism, but I still remember my feelings in those first moments. Strangely, even when it turned out later that Mitsuru was only following Yukari out of loyalty because of their major bonding scene in The Journey rather than because she actually agreed with her, and therefore it arguably really was Yukari alone who caused the schism in the first place, somehow by that time my anger at her had passed. It was still quite off-putting how much of a true villain she seemed in the meantime, though -- complete with evil, derisive laughter at some points. And the way she tried to grab the complete key away from Aigis even after losing fair and square, and the way she said those things through her teeth... At once I was continuing to be appalled, recalling how I felt about her when she first seemed to turn on everyone, and yet, all I could really feel for her was pity, because by that time I knew that what her actions really showed was just how deeply, even desperately, she really cared for the MC.

Huh. That turned out much longer than I'd expected.

Anyway, these past couple days I've been playing Amnesia: the Dark Descent.

Not as scary as advertised. There's a number of reasons why, so I guess I'll do this in list form:

* The game is surprisingly rewarding of boldness. I don't know how I got it in my head, but I got into the habit of heading where I saw a monster after successfully hiding from it. There was always that little bit of fear but after the first umpteen times of it working it stopped being so frightening. I even started to actively pursue the sounds of enemies (but not always) because that way I'd be approaching them on my own terms, ready to run and with an idea of where to go if I actually were to encounter them. Or maybe I didn't even think about it that rationally; I just got this strange boldness to face head-on what I knew the game was expecting me to shy away from, as if daring the game to scare me. And when each time I was not met with a frightening occurrence, to me that was like the game backing down, and before long I discovered how little power it really had over me. By the middle of the Prison level I was traipsing about the halls quite freely, understanding how rare an encounter actually was and what to do if one happened.

* Personally, I think games where you can't fight back are less scary than games where you can. By limiting your options, it creates less uncertainty, which is the heart of any good scary game. In a game where you're supposed to run, you'll know that the game expects you to do that and will be designed with escape routes and hiding places, and that you'll likely not be found in any hiding place you're likely to take. This was the same problem that afflicted Clock Tower 3 -- it stopped being scary once I understood how much of a sure thing it was to run and hide. If you know you're supposed to run, there's no mystery about how to (generally) approach each threat. By contrast, hiding in a game like Crysis can actually be quite thrilling (if not exactly "scary" in a conventional sense) because in many cases you actually will be found, even if you found a pretty good spot.

* Expanding upon and softening the previous point, I must say that on the other hand, being encouraged to run does a terrific job of preserving the creep factor of the enemies because the inherent need to run from them at first sight means that even after several encounters you won't have gotten a good look at them. I'm a few hours in and I still don't know what these creeps look like beyond the basic outline.

* Overuse of "creepy" music and sounds, underutilization of the scariest background music of all: silence. The strange noises and footsteps and groans are so constant that I quickly became immune to them, and after I realized that most of the sounds that I thought signaled danger in fact signaled nothing at all, I stopped being afraid of them. As I played I could easily imagine how it could have been done better: Make the game mostly silent. Make the creepy sounds rare and irregular, so that I'll wonder if I, the player, have in fact just imagined that noise I just heard. Some games and movies have used silence and the occasional strange noise effectively and they scared the shit out of me. This is not one of those games.

* Concomitant to the above, the problem with the music in the game is that it communicates too much information. If you just pay attention to the music you'll know exactly when you're supposed to run and exactly when it's safe to come out. How can true fear be achieved with that kind of certainty? I guess plenty of people really were scared by the game, though, so maybe the musical cues are a necessary safety blanket. In my case, for sure, if it weren't for the musical cues I wouldn't have any idea when to come out, which might make the game scarier but would also make the game near-unplayable because I'd keep going insane waiting in the darkness.

* I'm not frightened by the invisible monsters. Something invisible would be frightening in real life, but the rules for video games are different. I remember the haunting images of the creatures I saw rather than the creatures I didn't. Turning around and being startled out of my wits by a freaky-looking monster that I can see is much scarier than being killed by one that I can't.

* Concomitant to the above, nothing frightens me more in the game than seeing an enemy suddenly, such as spotting one off in the distance after rounding a corner. It's always one of those "Oh shit run!" moments, and I love that I feel it every time. At times like that, I feel the best sense of fear the game has yet offered.

* Concomitant to the above, the one moment that was truly the scariest for me in the game so far, and quite memorable if not exactly scarring (which I guess actually makes this the best scare possible because I don't want to be truly scarred), was the first time I died to one of those shambling things in the Prison level. I spotted the first one as it was pounding against a door from the other side, ran, turned one way at the next intersection, spotted a second one, turned the other way to head back to the entrance of the level, got there, turned around to shut the iron bar door behind me and it was right the fuck there and killed me in one hit and I just about shit my pants.

Now, arguably, to use Yahtzee's words, this was not "scary", it was "startling", but my oh my did my blood pump and I llloved it! Or maybe the fact that I loved it is exactly how I know that I wasn't truly scared? I'm not sure how that works... Anyway. Seriously, how did that guy catch up to me from so far away? I thought these guys were slow shamblers! A very pleasing surprise.

* However, after the above, I pretty much stopped being quite so afraid of the same thing anymore because now the great thing I'd feared (getting caught by one of those things) had gone and happened to me. The funny thing about fear is that in many cases (but certainly not all), having that thing you dread actually happen does a lot to break your fear of it. Can you ever really be scared the same way twice?

* On the other hand, hiding from those shambling enemies was still quite a thrill, even after that first time dying to one. Maybe it's because I still never got quite a good look at the thing that killed me, or maybe it's just inherent to the act of hiding and thinking to oneself "please don't find me please don't find me". I think the hiding tends to actually be scarier than running from them or getting caught by one (even if that's only happened once). It's that dread of not knowing whether that big jump scare is coming or not, or when.

...

When I think about it deeply, I realize (and this is not the first time) that what I'm really dreading in a game that makes me feel a prolonged, not-outright-terror sense of fear is that something horrifying and brain-scarring is going to flash before my eyes. Perhaps the only thing that can truly scare me in any screen-based medium is a shocking, sudden image -- a very particular kind of jump scare. And it has to be well-prepared, of course, which is where games like Dead Space always seem to fall flat.

Let me tell you a story about Silent Hill 3. One of the (but not the) scariest parts of that game was sitting on the carousel going round and round, waiting to see what would happen if I stayed on for too long like I was warned not to. I was curious -- curious enough to test my fear.

And you know what? Turns out, nothing special happens. You just fall over dead.

You know what I was expecting? I'll tell you exactly what I was expecting: A horrifying, startling image to flash on the screen, or better yet a series of them, accompanied by loud, horrible noises. If something like that had happened, I wonder if I would have been scarred for life and wound up crying in the bathroom or something. But nothing like that happened. If it had, maybe it would have been the best scare of my life.

Silent Hill 3 was probably the first time I was able to identify exactly what I was dreading whenever the game creeped me out: the very "jump scare" that I deride "lesser" horror games like Dead Space for overusing.

And once I realized that no Silent Hill game would ever pull that trigger (and I had the Silent Hill 4 scare spoiled for me), I just stopped being truly afraid that it would ever happen. Although Team Silent are incredible at delivering atmosphere (few games use silence so excellently), once you realize that the jump scare you're expecting will never, ever happen, that that trigger will not be pulled, it really takes a lot out of the experience (or puts a lot back into it depending on whether or not it would otherwise be too much). Some people prefer jump scares, some people prefer slow-building atmosphere, but for me, there needs to be both.

Or rather, I guess I should say, there better not be both. I think that might be crossing the line. I can get truly scared by all this shit sometimes and really regret ever indulging in the first place. Maybe Amnesia is exactly where it needs to be on the scale of scary.
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Postby liquidus118 » Fri Feb 08, 2013 4:13 am

View Original PostMonk Ed wrote:You know what I was expecting? I'll tell you exactly what I was expecting: A horrifying, startling image to flash on the screen, or better yet a series of them, accompanied by loud, horrible noises. If something like that had happened, I wonder if I would have been scarred for life and wound up crying in the bathroom or something. But nothing like that happened. If it had, maybe it would have been the best scare of my life.
For me, having Heather just drop on the floor like that is scarier. It feels...I can never describe it. When a game doesn't feel quite right, such as your character dying for seemingly no reason, when the game doesn't quite follow predictable logic is when a game scares me. I think the best way to put it is when it doesn't feel like the game is trying to scare me and it's just the game being strange and incomprehensible, but even that isn't quite right.

Maybe an example would help. The first thing that springs to mind is the end of the Hospital section of Silent Hill 2. You get the key, get into the door and go down the corridor - a slightly surreal corridor - with Maria. Great.

Bam. Pyramid Head's right behind you oh shit he's attacking Maria oh god why is this happening run run run run RUN RUN RUN RUN. RUN. RUN. RUN MARIA RUN OH JESUS CHRIST.

It's how it felt less like it was an event that was designed and more something that just happened that made it scary for me. If they'd have set it up, perhaps made the corridor super creepy and built up his arrival or had him appear in a cutscene (though sometimes cutscenes are effective too), then it would feel okay to me. As The Joker said it would feel like "it's all going to plan". The developers have set up this scary sequence and now the scary sequence is occurring in a scary way. Neat. But that's not how it felt. It didn't feel planned or designed at all. It felt illogical, I didn't understand what was happening or why. The way I think about it in my head is it felt more like the game was fucking with me personally rather than the developers designing a scary sequence that is playing out in front of me. I'm also aware that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

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Postby Monk Ed » Fri Feb 08, 2013 3:14 pm

View Original Postliquidus118 wrote:I'm also aware that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Oh, no no, it makes perfect sense, and the particular example you described there is also a great horror moment, but it doesn't seem to really be an example of why Heather just falling over would be scarier if you ask me. (Maybe that's because Heather just falling over is perfectly logical to me.) But the general point you make is a good one, and I totally agree with it. I'll give you an example of my own.

One of the times I was one of the most creeped out in my life was when, as I was on some website, all of a sudden weird sounds started coming from my speakers. Not random noises like there was something wrong with them, I mean things like Donald Duck quietly saying "Oh shit...". It was unnerving and I wondered if I had just imagined it, if I was going crazy, or if the website was taking over my computer, or who knows what. Looking back on it I laugh that I ever felt that way, but at the time, it was petrifying. Like you said, it seemed just so fundamentally illogical.

EDIT:

I just tried Slender. During the day. I thought I could take it. I couldn't. I fear-quit before seeing the Slender Man even the first time. It was the steadily increasing pounding music that got to me. Note to Amnesia: this is how you scare me with music. And this is after watching a hilarious video that I thought would have immunized me to any fear effect this game might have.

Bravo, Slender. Bravo.

I hope to overcome this some day. Today is not that day.
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Postby liquidus118 » Fri Feb 08, 2013 4:54 pm

View Original PostMonk Ed wrote:Oh, no no, it makes perfect sense, and the particular example you described there is also a great horror moment, but it doesn't seem to really be an example of why Heather just falling over would be scarier if you ask me. (Maybe that's because Heather just falling over is perfectly logical to me.) But the general point you make is a good one, and I totally agree with it. I'll give you an example of my own.
It's how she ***d that got me. Nothing seemed to kill her, no weird possession went over her body then killed her
SPOILER: Show
ie that also-creepy scene in the hospital room with the mirror
it just felt like the game decided she was going to ***. There wasn't any logical cause like a monster or something. It felt like the game was just going "I told you not to stay there, now look what happens."
I think what scares me is that, despite how obviously untrue it is, when the game acts in a way that doesn't seem logical or set up it feels like the game is aware, that it's controlling what's happening to you and knows what you're doing. Remember that haunted Majora's Mask cartridge Halloween blog? That I think epitomises what scares me, in Silent Hill games at least.

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Postby Monk Ed » Fri Feb 08, 2013 7:10 pm

So I looked into a few of the SCP (Special Containment Procedure) series of games, after first hearing about one of them a couple/few days ago while watching a Jimquisition video on The Escapist called "Scare Tactics", about the value and proper use of the jump scare. The one in particular that I learned about from that video was SCP-087 (the one about the stairwell), and through that I learned about SCP: Containment Breach and then just today SCP-087-B.

Today I worked up the courage to at least watch videos of these games, during the day and with hilarious commentary to ease my nerves, just to see how scary they were under the best (that is, least scary) of circumstances so as to judge whether or not I could hack actually playing them myself. As I watched I was petrified about the jump scares so I thought I'd check the comments to see where people noted the jump scares as being and figured I'd fast-forward to pre-expose myself to them (by first going to just after the scare to see how badly rattled the commentator was then backing up a little more to see it for myself, first with my hand blocking the view and then without but kind of looking away, and so on till I could look the event full in the face)...

...And even with all that preparation I still oghadgkhadfj OH DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT WHAT IS THAT WHAT IS THAT.

Could. Not. Even. Watch. The videos.

I'm thoroughly impressed. I figured that free indie games would be just about guaranteed to be the scariest things you'll ever find, because they don't have limits -- they don't have to worry, for example, about (literally) scaring away their audience and therefore revenue. I'm glad that these games lived up to that supposition.

God I hope I'm not giving myself nightmares. Then again, for some strange reason, my nightmares are never about anything that I've been doing or seeing recently, and most of what's scary about them is not scary to my awake self. Still, the material from which nightmares are made even years down the line inevitably come from past experiences (because how could you have a nightmare about a red sea tentacle apocalypse without first understanding the constituent concepts?), and I worry that I'm setting myself up for some truly bad experiences somewhere down the line.

Those faces... Dear God, those faces...

EDIT: This story reaches its natural conclusion described here.
Last edited by Monk Ed on Sat Feb 09, 2013 11:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby Final Messenger » Sat Feb 09, 2013 10:00 pm

beat waifu emblem a few days ago over my favorite FE game and favorite portable game, although I was able to predict the plot twists for the most part I really enjoyed the plot and characters. Welp time to start a hard mode playthrough.
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Postby Redtophat » Sun Feb 10, 2013 12:18 am

I'm on hard right now ans thank goodness I chose casual cause I'd have no one left by now :lol:
Anna is the best waifu in this game.

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Postby Monk Ed » Sun Feb 10, 2013 12:22 am

Srs question: Why do you (whoever does this) call it "waifu emblem"? Cuz of the girls?

* * *

So, after everything I've been through these past couple days, what am I playing tonight, approaching midnight and beyond? Yep, Amnesia: the Dark Descent.

I'm at the Chancel area and the game is less scary than ever. It's actually kind of soothing, in fact it's almost like therapy helping me recover from my experiences last night, because this game is just so damn logical. No monster music? No monsters. Monster music just stopped? It's safe to come out, and even to go right where you just saw that monster headed. Guaranteed he won't be there. I've tried it every time.

There's no real tension anymore. The "eerie music" and "strange noises" are so consistent that I'm desensitized to them, and the way the game has worked so far I know that no matter how many weird noises I hear it's only the ones accompanied by the distinct "monster music" that actually mean anything. Furthermore I feel quite free to just run around most of the time (instead of cowering in corners like I should be), because enemies are not just wandering everywhere all the time, they seem to appear primarily in scripted sequences (and when they don't, you know they're out there). All this, and I still have yet to get a good look at any of the monsters.

Another big mistake that's certainly keeping this from being the "scariest game ever" (as I have seen it heralded) is the part where
Chancel/Nave area  SPOILER: Show

you meet Agrippa. This at-first horrifying creature is actually a nice-seeming man? By the time I was done talking to him I was downright fond of him and no longer scared by his visage. I've developed the sneaking suspicion he'll betray me later but having a human to talk to, even one I don't entirely trust (or hell, even an outright malicious one like Alexander who chimes in every now and then), does a lot to reduce fear compared to a game like the SCP series where you never meet anyone else ever.

Anyway, something I continue to enjoy about the game is how the monsters are handled. I'm not overly fond of the sanity mechanic except for how cool it is that literally just looking at a monster drives you insane, and the screen effects that happen when you do so really sell it. I especially like how the screen effects help to obscure the monsters; there was one time I met one fairly up close and still didn't get a clear view because he was in the part of the screen that was messed up by the insanity screen effect. Nice. I also like what losing fine control of your character to insanity does for the tension of running away, especially as compared to how poorly it was handled (IMO) in Clock Tower 3.

EDIT: I should indicate that my complaints about the game not being "scary enough" are not exactly complaints. I'd rather a game undershoot than overshoot the Line That Should Not Be Crossed that I crossed last night. I'll bet this game is plenty scary enough for most people (if reviews are anything to go by), especially people who don't know enough about game design to know what the developers would and wouldn't do and where.
Last edited by Monk Ed on Sun Feb 10, 2013 1:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Final Messenger » Sun Feb 10, 2013 1:06 am

View Original PostMonk Ed wrote:Srs question: Why do you (whoever does this) call it "waifu emblem"? Cuz of the girls?

Because there is a self insert character and you can marry any female character in the game and have children with them. This is not restricted to the female party member though as you can make your self insert a female and marry any of the male cast. But really jokes aside Fire emblem awakening is a great game and I didn't buy it for the waifus (although it was a nice bonus :lol:)
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more people should read Dangan Ronpa

Monk Ed
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Postby Monk Ed » Sun Feb 10, 2013 1:07 am

View Original PostFinal Messenger wrote:Because there is a self insert character and you can marry any female character in the game and have children with them.

:nosebleed: Sold.

Probably much better than Record of Agarest War.
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Postby Fireball » Sun Feb 10, 2013 1:08 am

View Original PostJune wrote:I'm on hard right now ans thank goodness I chose casual cause I'd have no one left by now :lol:
Anna is the best waifu in this game.


I read that as I'm hard right now
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Postby Dream » Sun Feb 10, 2013 1:20 am

View Original PostFireball wrote:I read that as I'm hard right now


Made the post in general (specially the mention of casual) much, much better.
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Postby Monk Ed » Sun Feb 10, 2013 3:43 am

Huh. So, I beat Amnesia: the Dark Descent.
SPOILER: Show

That was the "good" ending? Not much of an ending at all. (Minutes later) Actually, none of these endings are much in the way of endings. But the "revenge" ending sure is nice for how Daniel finally speaks outside of a flashback or diary page, and ends with, finally, a satisfying escape to sunlight! ...But I would have liked to actually see the sunny outside as a reward, as in the Portal games or Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter.

Some final thoughts:

Well now, the game actually started to genuinely unnerve me towards the end. After that big blustering post I wrote up there, I encountered what to me was the scariest part of the game, the [s]Transept[/s] Choir, which unnerved me because of the wide-open space (and therefore lack of places to hide or clear instruction on where to go) and red haze (red is usually cool but can be my secret fear-color in the right circumstances). I got through it just fine by hugging the left wall like I have for the entire game, but the fear that I would have to cross the middle remained throughout and kept the tension palpable. Bravo. And when that monster showed up? Holy shit, watching it through that haze was probably the closest the game has ever brought me to true terror, and it was bad enough I made myself stare at the pillar I was hiding behind for fear that I would be scared out of my wits if I saw it up close. Of all games I've played with enemies you cannot fight, this one has certainly used them best.

(Other thing the game started doing around this point that was very effective? Unexpected white flashes after picking up a diary page. Each time that happened it set my heart going and I remained truly unnerved for a while thereafter.)

Speaking of which, contrary to conventional horror wisdom, I think this game might actually have been scarier if I'd gotten better looks at the monsters. I never even got a good enough look at one for hints of their true appearance to tickle the worst fear-centers of my imagination. I say this because of the monster some call "Mr. Face". I never actually saw him in the game (that I recognized), but I'll bet that if I did, not all up close all at once but coming at me from the darkness, especially if it was my first time seeing him, I would've peed my pants. I count myself lucky that I already knew what he looked like because I saw a very up-close closeup of him in a Game Informer long before I ever touched this game, so that would give me at least some immunity, but his face is still of the sort that would probably terrify me if I saw it suddenly or approaching me from the dark. Even just looking at a shrunken, hazy picture of him in a Youtube link gives me the heebie-jeebies -- vastly more than the detailed closeup I saw in that Game Informer.
Last edited by Monk Ed on Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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"NGE is like a perfectly improvised jazz piece. It builds on a standard and then plays off it from there, and its developments may occasionally recall what it's done before as a way of keeping the whole concatenated." -- Eva Yojimbo
"To me watching anime is not just for killing time or entertainment, it is a life style, and a healthy one too." -- symbv
"That sounds like the kind of science that makes absolutely 0 sense when you stop and think about it... I LOVE IT." -- Rosenakahara

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Postby MugwumpHasNoLiver » Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:02 am

View Original PostDream wrote:
SPOILER: Show
It is true that the Maria ending implies the cycle will repeat somewhat and James didn't exactly come to terms with how things ended with Mary, although how much of a certainty is that he will kill Maria is debatable. Besides i like to think that it's very possible for James and Maria to eventually form a non-fucked, healthy relationship between each other (Yes, i do believe Maria is real to some degree) ... Then again, like i said before, i really really like Maria, and it was somewhat saddening to see James treating her so badly since pretty much the beggining or telling her cruel stuff like "I don't need you anymore", specially when she left it on no uncertain terms that she needed him.


Silent Hill 2  SPOILER: Show
That's really a lot of wishful thinking. Even if James doesn't smother Maria to death, she's still going to come down with the same fatal, incurable disease that killed Mary. To see the ending as anything other than an ironic hell where James is forced to relive is worst sin on loop is missing the point of it entirely. Hell, if we want to humor the idea that she doesn't die, their love was still grown in the soil of mourning, co-dependence, and a horrific Vertigo-esque replacement complex. (I'm imagining James taking Maria home, making her wear Mary's dress and do her hair like her's, all while Maria says "If I wear them, will you love me?" while internally screaming out something like "Why can't you love me for me!?")

Now, I like Maria, too. She's probably the most likeable character in the game if you ask me; but, then again, I like bitchy women. It's hard to look past the fact that Maria only likes James at all because she's a soulless homunculus who was born of some kind of Indian curse to die repeatedly for his torment. I'm sure she's her own individual on some level, but her wants and needs are far too twisted up in a magical hell dimension for there to be any kind of happy ending there. How could James ever possibly see her as a real person when he's becoming more and more aware that some faceless evil is toying with him?

Then again, I'm a weirdo who think the In Water ending is by the far the best and most fitting. It strikes the best balance between the optimism of the Leave ending and the gruelling torment of the Maria ending. It feels right to me, you know?
"Now, from Nature we obtain abundant information about ourselves, and precious little about others. About the woman you clasp in your arms, can you say with certainty that she does not feign pleasure? About the woman you mistreat, are you quite sure that from abuse she does not derive some obscure and lascivious satisfaction? Let us confine ourselves to simple evidence: through thoughtfulness, gentleness, concern for the feelings of others we saddle our own pleasure with restrictions, and make this sacrifice to obtain a doubtful result." -The Divine Marquis

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