135 réponses à ce sujet

[Giantdeathrobot]

Honestly, I'm expecting a bit of both. 

 

If you were to ask me, a fairly consistent trend in Bioware games is their lack of consistency in terms of tone. They want their games to be dark and mature and contemplative and to tackle serious issues, but they also want to be self aware, to have a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, to give the wink and the nod to the audience.

 

I don't know that that is inherently a bad thing. Games, by their nature, are longer than movies. In film, having a consistent tone - barring sudden tonal shifts for dramatic effect - is important because you have a limited runtime. I enjoyed both Guardians of the Galaxy and Interstellar, but forty+ hours of either of those movies would drive me insane. A game needs to be able to take you on a bit more of a rollercoaster so as not to become monotonous. 

 

So I think you'll see influences of both in the game. If you're asking me which one I'd like to see more of, then I'd probably say Guardians because on a personal level I enjoyed that movie more and I like space cowboys.

 

Yeah, very few long games have a 100% consistent tone. Witcher is mostly about serious Geralt doing serious Witchery things but the game still has humorous sequences, mostly at Geralt's expense even. Fallout is a bleak post-apocalyptic hellhole but has fun with cultural references and black comedy. Last of Us is overall bleak but had hearthwarming and funny moments. Baldur's Gate is usually serious, but also had the likes of Minsc and Tiax. So on and so forth.

 

The only RPG I can think of that has a consistently serious tone was Planescape: Torment, and that was carried by its amazing writing.

[In Exile]

The only RPG I can think of that has a consistently serious tone was Planescape: Torment, and that was carried by its amazing writing.

 

I'm not sure I would even say that one. There was a lot of clever levity baked right into the way in which certain characters spoke (e.g. everyone's favourite disembodied skull) and there was a certain kind of absurdist humour that pervaded the setting. 

[Giantdeathrobot]

I'm not sure I would even say that one. There was a lot of clever levity baked right into the way in which certain characters spoke (e.g. everyone's favourite disembodied skull) and there was a certain kind of absurdist humour that pervaded the setting. 

 

True, but as you said it pervaded the setting. Whereas you have, say, Geralt in TW3 being his usual humorless self lifting curses and whatnot, and in the next quest he's chasing after pigs in the mud or playing hide and seek with kids. Or Fallout where your regularily scheduled wasteland adventure sees fit to include a crashed UFO.

[Lady Artifice]

I read that to mean that the laws of physics are arbitrary insofar that Mass Effect may occasionally abandon one or two to advance the plot or to feature certain technologies/abilities. It's sort of like the lighter in WALL-E. After 700 years, the fuel in a Zippo lighter would have long since dried out, but there's a meaningful effect of it still being able to do so for the character. 

 

 

Only in the sense that a fictional universe can have fictional physics.

 

 

I understand now. I was just taken aback because I suspect that the poster you responded to was being more literal. 

[In Exile]

True, but as you said it pervaded the setting. Whereas you have, say, Geralt in TW3 being his usual humorless self lifting curses and whatnot, and in the next quest he's chasing after pigs in the mud or playing hide and seek with kids. Or Fallout where your regularily scheduled wasteland adventure sees fit to include a crashed UFO.

 

Fair point, but then I'm not sure we could distinguish Fallout - and by which I mean the original, and FO2 - as it's also got more of a pervasive satirical bent. Though there are tone shifts in terms of how much of a focus on it there is (esp. from FO1 to FO2 as some fans of the original might say). 

[Giantdeathrobot]

Fair point, but then I'm not sure we could distinguish Fallout - and by which I mean the original, and FO2 - as it's also got more of a pervasive satirical bent. Though there are tone shifts in terms of how much of a focus on it there is (esp. from FO1 to FO2 as some fans of the original might say). 

 

Yeah, true, the pop culture reference barrage started in Fallout 2.

 

Anyway, point is, the person who said that games don't keep a 100% consistent tone is completely right. Even dramatic films sometimes have brief moments of levity to keep the whole thing from being overly gloomy. Even otherwise serious book series like A Song of Ice and Fire have funny moments. And some comedies also have serious moments, hell some stand-up comics manage to seamlessly plug in some serious messages in between their silly jokes.

 

A tone is a tool, not something that should shackle your writing. I see nothing wrong with, say, Bioware going for an overall Inserstellar/Star Trek esque dramatic space exploration saga while still having the funny, ensemble building moments that made GotG (and Marvel moves in general) a success. Arguably, Bioware's biggest strenght is indeed the casts of characters are that are consistently praised in their games, so much that people seem to take it as a given.

 

What Bioware should avoid (IMO) is a Citadel-esque case. Having an extended sequence full of in-jokes, fanservice and parties in the middle of what styles itself as a gritty tale of galactic extermination that puts WW2 to shame in terms of stakes created too much of a mood whiplash to me. 

[AlanC9]

Given the apparent popularity of Citadel, that's going to be a hard sell.

[Il Divo]

^Honestly, I'm not sure Citadel could work in any other context other than the ME3 situation. Citadel itself is largely built on inside jokes/prior awareness of the Mass Effect companions that a new IP or new Mass Effect base won't really have access to.

 

I'm not a huge Citadel fan, but in a vacuum, I don't think something like that could ever work. And to a large extent, Citadel has about as much in common with your typical Bioware experience as the ME3 endings do. It's essentially a spoonful of sugar to counter-act a spoonful of vinegar.   

[Iakus]

^Honestly, I'm not sure Citadel could work in any other context other than the ME3 situation. Citadel itself is largely built on inside jokes/prior awareness of the Mass Effect companions that a new IP or new Mass Effect base won't really have access to.

 

I'm not a huge Citadel fan, but in a vacuum, I don't think something like that could ever work. And to a large extent, Citadel has about as much in common with your typical Bioware experience as the ME3 endings do. It's essentially a spoonful of sugar to counter-act a spoonful of vinegar.   

Citadel was a DLC that shouldn't have been needed.  Honestly, I believe the only reason it exists is because of the hard feelings caused by ME3 itself.  It's clearly meant as a last moment of fun before closing the book on this now-toxically radioactive story.  And it shamelessly brings up all teh "fun" aspects of the series.  It's basically an Irish wake.

[Il Divo]

Citadel was a DLC that shouldn't have been needed.  Honestly, I believe the only reason it exists is because of the hard feelings caused by ME3 itself.  It's clearly meant as a last moment of fun before closing the book on this now-toxically radioactive story.  And it shamelessly brings up all teh "fun" aspects of the series.  It's basically an Irish wake.

 

Agreed. And there's nothing wrong with that, as a break from ME3. I did enjoy Citadel quite a bit at first. It actually wasn't until I finished the main quest and started to look back on it that I realized anything felt off about the experience.

 

Even putting aside ME3's craptastic ending, it just didn't have the same vibe as your typical Bioware game. There was the companion interactions, of course, but (in keeping with the thread's title), it felt much more Marvel-esque than your typical Bioware game, which don't usually make the comedy the focal point of character interactions. Mordin's singing (for example) is a fun addition to an already interesting character.

[AlanC9]

DS9 dropped a couple of comedy episodes into the height of the Dominion War arc. OTOH, those weren't atypical for the series as a whole, which had done those before.