Plaintiff wrote...
TheRealJayDee wrote...
Yeah, well, you know, maybe some people do. Story and characters are really important to me too, but if things like the art direction and the combat animations make it hard for me to take the world the story is set in seriously, then it's a problem.
If you allow yourself to be distracted by meaningless superficialities, then that's your problem.
Meaningless superficialities? That's where we differ. Games are an interactive media, and I like to play them because they allow me to interact with the world contained therein. Story is secondary to me. If I wanted a good story, I'd read a book (I do a lot of reading, actually). If I wanted a cinematic experience, well here's a shocker: I'd go to a cinema. For me, I enjoy games for the ability they give me to imagine myself in a world and do things I choose to do within it. This is
especially true of RPGs.
However, if I just can't see myself in that world, or if it doesn't interest me, then I am much less likely to suffer it just for a story or some cutscenes. The artstyle, animations, characters, dialogue, and gameplay mechanics in DA2 all hindered my ability to see myself in that world, or care to, and no story or cinematics are going to make up for that. Nevermind the fact that I was pretty unimpressed with the story on it's own merits.
The characters and environments of Origins may have been less stylized than those of DA2, but if you're seriously going to try and tell me that they looked more "real", I'll probably laugh until I puke.
Find a bucket, because that's what I'm going to tell you. In some ways DA2 was more believable, simply because the graphics were a little better in a
technical sense. The style, on the other hand, and (lack of) attention to detail had quite the opposite effect. Lothering was much more pretty and believable in Origins than DA2, for one example. In fact, the only pretty thing I can really recall from DA2 was the wounded coast, but if you look a little closer, it still lacked the detail that many places in DA:O had.
The characters were a whole different issue. Some didn't look bad, but some looked pretty terrible. What was up with all the nasty cauliflower ears on humans? Where did that come from, and why? It's like they tried to make some facial features more angular, while making others softer, and the end result was that nearly every human looked like a professional boxer rendered in blocky N64 graphics.
There is no style of animation that precludes the possibility of delivering a complex, mature, serious storyline.
True, that type of storyline can exist in any setting, no matter how fantastical. Like I already said, however, the numerous gameplay and other factors can seriously impede one's ability to care enough to pursue the story. The key difference between games and books/movies is the interaction and control given to you. For many people, myself included, that is paramount and the story told through that medium is secondary.
And again, this is ignoring the fact that I found it difficult to take the storyline and writing seriously on it's own merits.
As for combat animation, I doubt very much that anyone on this forum is qualified to dictate what "real combat" actually looks like. Tell me, do you have any first-hand experience with swordfighting? Or any fighting?
I do, as a matter of fact. 10 years in martial arts, 6 years kickboxing, and several years of training with various weapons including knives, sticks, staves and swords (though the latter two were for performance purposes, not self defense). I'd like to think I have a fairly good understanding of how combat works, be it armed, unarmed, large or small scale. This is one of the biggest reasons I prefer DA:O combat and animations over those in DA2. True, DA:O had it's flaws and was a little too slow, but that can be (and has been) easily fixed by mods. Even so, the rules, engine, animations and feel of the combat in DA:O made me feel much more like I was in a battle than DA2. I trained about 9 years in Taekwondo and earned a black belt. I have some pretty quick and flashy kicks. Even so, I can guarantee you I would
never do a jumping, 360 roundhouse kick to knock a flask into a mob of charging enemies. That's nonsense. I see the appeal of it, but it certainly doesn't lend itself well to a world I can see or feel myself in. Nevermind jumping 20 feet through the air, or teleporting behind someone's back, etc.
And all it takes is very minimal common sense to understand that people don't blow up when stabbed, unless the blade is hollow and distributing something with a
whole lot of pressure into that body.
Modifié par Anomaly-, 12 janvier 2012 - 09:59 .
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