LinksOcarina wrote...
Firewolf99 wrote...
Despite feeling that Dragon Age 2 has a better plot than Dragon Age Origins (among other things), it does suffer from a similar issue to Mass Effect 3- its Epilogue/ endgame is unsatisfying. Whereas Mass Effect 2's plot doesn't end, as such, as you can still canonically continue after the Suicide Mission, and Origins/ Awakening has the slideshow endings, DA2 and ME3 both ended on cut scenes that refused to elaborate in depth about our choices and companions/ characters. If DA2's ending had been slightly less cliffhangery (?), I feel the game would have left a slightly less bitter taste in the mouth of most fans (though probably not all- there were other problems with the game, after all.)
edit: Therefore, if DA I is to succeed, I feel it's ending has to offer us either a sense of continuation and hope, or an ending that leaves next to nothing to the imagination. Each characters path needs to be told to us.
Here is a question for you.
Why should Dragon Age II end by elaborating all of your choices?
After all, we didn't see choices from Mass Effect 2 come to fruition until were well deep into Mass Effect 3. Not to mention that Hawke is no longer the protagonist, such as the Warden, the lack of the same hero allows such disjointed feel to work.
Much like Game of Thrones, when the book works well, its through this idea of incomplete information. We don't know whats happening to big groups or how their story is mapped out in the end. I see Dragon Age II doing just that, were supposed to interpret what happens and we can only guess what our choices do in Inquisition. I always find it cuious when people say your choices don't matter at the end of Dragon Age II, but considering who lives, dies, and how issues are resolved leading up to the climax...id say we have a lot to look forward to still.
Inquisition doesn't need to offer anything to us that gives those feelings either. An ending without interpretation can be good, but also is boring. The Last of Us is a recent example of this, having a telegraphed ending and one that is completely hopeless in some respects, but people praise it for its writing and acting.
It has good writing and acting, but its boring and contrived. Truth be told, id rather the game took more risks but thats my personal preference. I guess my point is that we don't need to pigeon-hole specific criteria to an ending, doing so is foolish in my respects.
I think this is the biggest problem people make - thinking that video game endings should have any type of correlation to a passive media narrative, like a movie or a book.
Saying "well, movies have sad endings", or "a book leaves room for interpretation" is fine for those mediums, because they are passive. These things are happening to characters and people who you watch as the reader. It becomes quite different when you spend dozens of hours making the player feel like they ARE that character. Suddenly, there isn't a deeper message at play or allowing the player to wonder about what happen... instead, you have killed the player, or left them to wonder if they survived and if everything was worth all the work and sacrifice. The player doesn't have to be living as a self-insert, where the character looks, thinks and acts exactly like how they would to make this true, either.
Not knowing what happens to yourself is a terrible fate to have. It drives people to know the answers, to search out the truth, to hang around until resolution is given. Heck, in your standard ghost story, what's the number one cause of the ghost hanging around? They had unfinished business, or didn't even know they were dead. Because people's natural desire is to know how the story ends and see if their lives had meaning outside of the immediate consequences.
The way video games are actively engaging the player, especially in RPGs when they seek out input on the choices and behaviors of the main characters, doesn't mean "the hero dies" or "no one knows the true fate" but rather... YOU DIE. And no one knows what became of you. That type of message will leave all but the most cynical/analytical players to feel disenfranchised.
You want your player to feel like their actions meant something. An ending like in DA:O does this, where you can see the consequences of your decisions across the entire game. And that's even with the "sad" ending of the Ultimate Sacrifice - people felt their lives had been sacrificed for something worthwhile. That their choices may have resulted in things they believed in, but also maybe unintended results as well.
Point being, you can't just say "gamers are stupid and just don't get artistic vision." Because that's not it at all. It is one thing to leave the fate of Neo, or Deckard, or Cobb up in the air for the viewers to decide. We may like all of these characters, but the movie never gave us the impression that we WERE these characters. And that's where any correlation between video games as an active media and other media that is passive in nature completely breaks down. You spends dozens of hours reading a book or watching a series of movies WATCHING the characters. In a video game, you spend dozens of hours PLAYING as those characters. So you can still have a sad, dark or artistic ending... but you cannot skimp on clarity. Cliffhanger video game endings are probably the single most-guaranteed way to have players feel disenfrachised.
Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 05 août 2013 - 06:08 .
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