Final Fantasy X Made Me Shed A Tear When Tidus Finds Out Yuna Will Die, And That She Still Wants To Carry On

Okay, I think my two cents carry some worth, so here goes:

Cent #1) Sound is VERY imperative if you're trying to invoke emotion. Mostly we're talking about music, but mixing sound effects in different ways can also add to a scene. (watch the scene in Lord of the Rings 2 where they're all holed up in the Keep; when the elf leader dies, it goes into slow motion. They add a lot of reverb, etc, to the sound fx)
Anybody who has played Aidyn Chronicles knows what I'm talking about. This game had almost no background music, and it almost seemed like there was no atmosphere. It was boring...

Cent #2) Some posts have played on the difference between games and movies. In a movie, you're watching what happens. In a game, you're effecting what happens. Often times, in a movie, you watch someone 'die', and it hurts, maybe because it was unjust, maybe because they had an unfinished task that was very sentimentally important to them. Either way, THE AUDIENCE CAN'T CHANGE THAT. It's a movie. There is no 'A' button to jump out of the way of that train, and you can't go back and load a previous save to reverse that tragedy. That's one possible way to have the same effect in games; move the game in a general direction and give the player enough freedom in the game that they feel like they have a say in things, but have drastic events--life changing ones--that the player couldn't have stopped if they tried. This is why RPG's--which often include what I just was talking about--are the genre most famous for invoking emotions



[edited by - bombario on April 7, 2004 12:02:04 AM]

[edited by - bombario on April 7, 2004 12:03:54 AM]

You raise a good point. One of the most powerfull films ive watched recently is ''A man apart''. I dont know how anyone else felt about the movie, but when his girlfriend dies, I felt SOOOOOOO sad. And to watch him just start going in a spiral of diapair had me even sadder still.

But putting this in a game I would probably be thinking ''OH NO! SHES DEAD!!!.....QUICKLOAD TIME!''. The fact that the game is telling me ''hey player, you werent good enough to stop her from dying'' brings emotions of being pissed off rather than sad.

Maybe if the player was so single minded in killing the ''last boss'' (as all games are) that his girlfriend was shot and killed while he was out of town and didnt even know. I know I would be thinking ''shit...I was tottaly focused on brining down Mr. last boss...I didnt even think about her....'', and I would maybe feel guilty.

quote:

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Original post by Ysaneya
I can only remember one game that made me cry. That was that old adventure game called "Prisoner Of Ice", the end was absolutely fantastic. Best storyline ever.

Y.

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That was a good game

Unreal 2 was an emotional game when Aida died. I would never cry over a game, because I don''t get involved in games like that, but Unreal 2 had me feeling the loss of a good friend, lol

~Graham

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while (your_engine >= my_engine)
my_engine++;

LUNAR: Silver Star Story came very, very close to making me cry. One of the best games ever made, THE best story/writing in any RPG I''ve ever played, and a joy to play.

And the death of Dogmeat was a sad, sad day in Fallout.

Playing the Sims busting out mode, and having the main character''s life closely resemble (ie. disorganised, lonely, not calling his friends etc.) my own was quite depressing. Though I did manage to improve his standing after a while :-).

What kind of crying? Happyness or sadness? I''ve cried a couple of times out of happyness after seeing a satisfying conclusion in a movie or anime, but can''t recall that I''d cried out of sorrow when watching something.

Hmm, but I''ll try to analyze the times when I''ve cried out of happyness if that''s of any help. Not a single time was the story very sad or serious, it always had some comedy elements in it (I do watch many types of movies, not just comedies so you know). I think the comedy helps set up right kind of good feelin'' mood and when something bad happens, the contrast is bigger (comedy turns into scary movie) and when the bad thing is overcome, the sudden leap from the tense situation into a happy situation that you were anxiously waiting for, can be very satisfying. The last part may sound like stating the obvious but if the game is just normal action which turns into depressing action and then into happy ending, that just doesn''t have much of an impact. (I can only talk of myself naturally)

But it won''t suffice if the game is "fun" and safe for the first 1 hour and then a constant struggle for 50 hours and then a happy ending. There are hundreds of games like that. What you need is a *really* bad situation close the end of the game, which involves some of the main characters that the player has grown most deeply attached to. And resolving this *really* bad situation and then perhaps completing the game at the same time shouldn''t take more than 1-2 hours of gameplay perhaps. Otherwise the impact may be gone. (it''s hard to say anything conclusive about this as movies and anime are so short when compared to some games)

The stories in the "very happy pieces" weren''t very complicated, so I don''t think that would help in achieving a burst of happyness. It mostly comes out of good character development. The game should take some time in introducing the characters, they should talk to each other throughout the game (with user choices) and not just to NPCs. For example FF7 had almost zero such interaction which made it a flop in my book -- I was just controlling a dull bunch of people I knew almost nothing of. They didn''t have distinguishable personalities either, except maybe Barney or whoever that guy was with a gatling gun in his hand. Sorry I digress. And of course the trivial conflict is necessary. I''m not talking about the main plot but a conflict that concerns just the main characters. Like a sudden separation, betrayal (that turns out to be misinterpreted), conflicts between the main characters that lead to separate paths (but which are resolved in the end). And music, orchestral music perhaps. I can''t overemphatize how well that helps in creating the athmosphere when the right time comes.

Well, when I played Runemasters "Last Rose in a Desert Garden" I was feeling kind of hollow by the end, but no game has ever made me cry...

Come to think of it, not much has made me cry...

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - The future of RPGs GPA Thanks to all the goblins in the GDCorner niche

From my viewpoint:

I think what makes people cry is the music and the guilt for not being able to stop someone from doing something. For example in the movie "The Passion of Christ", you watch someone brutally beaten to the point where you go why are they still doing it? It makes you want to just go there and kill everyone whos doing harm to someone and actually enjoying themselves. Only thing that really makes me sad though is when innocent kids get hurt. Its really sad to see someone innocent and happy and be killed. Game wise, I can never really get into it enough to feel any guilt. Like grand theft auto I laugh like a mad man when i''m running people over. Games are still to fantasy and fake to be looked at as reality if you ask me. The emotion of a video game character doesn''t really have the feeling of seeing an actual human being in place.

PS: Only movie that choked me up was Lion King when I was little. Poor Simba couldn''t wake his daddy up :-( ROAR

interesting post

the common things between them all are : DRAMA

what is drama but the telling of human experiance
when this experiance is in trouble we felt that trouble

them drama is what is telling and then there things that tells him, the media

it''s what the media tells and how well it tell it that make us cry

media are music, image, interaction , dialogue, sounds , etc...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>