Extra Punctuation: Why No Couples in Games?
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Locke and Celes from FF VI come to mind. Neither are necessarily the main character but both are characterized.
But Yahtzee, how can the characters start out in a relationship when one or both have them have AmNeSiA!!!!
What's that? Tsubasa Chronicles. Shutup you.
Anywho, yeah i gotta agree there are few times where they're in the middle of the relationship at the start and it stays that way. In anime as well (fancy that). Well Onidere i guess, but enough references few will get. Or maybe more would..../tangent.
The only real permanent "relationships" there tends to be is the "best buddy" character, possibly an animal. A number of times there would be some animal companion that is sentient and either talks or damn close.
But otherwise, I would like to see more relationships with even people that aren't the main character. One of my beefs with Mass Effect is that there's so little interaction because the crew. Hell, with you taken maybe the ladies start to look elseware. Or even just friendships and bickering more than the 2 scenes they threw in.
I guess they tend to like the formula of...random beautiful girl pops out of nowhere since it feeds your own imagination and dreams more.
Hmmm, this discussion reminds me of moviebob's superman discussion.
What's that? Tsubasa Chronicles. Shutup you.
Anywho, yeah i gotta agree there are few times where they're in the middle of the relationship at the start and it stays that way. In anime as well (fancy that). Well Onidere i guess, but enough references few will get. Or maybe more would..../tangent.
The only real permanent "relationships" there tends to be is the "best buddy" character, possibly an animal. A number of times there would be some animal companion that is sentient and either talks or damn close.
But otherwise, I would like to see more relationships with even people that aren't the main character. One of my beefs with Mass Effect is that there's so little interaction because the crew. Hell, with you taken maybe the ladies start to look elseware. Or even just friendships and bickering more than the 2 scenes they threw in.
I guess they tend to like the formula of...random beautiful girl pops out of nowhere since it feeds your own imagination and dreams more.
Hmmm, this discussion reminds me of moviebob's superman discussion.
The problem with Persona 4's relationships was how they weren't part of the main game. I enjoyed them and they were done well in-and-of-themselves, but nothing in the main plot changed based on them. Tell Chie she looks sexy while dating Yukiko? No problem. Try to pair up with the girl you're dating in any situation that seems like you'll be pairing up with someone? Sorry, they'd rather go with Teddie. Get the girl you're dating to sit in your lap during King's Game? She's just as embarrassed as if she hadn't been dating you for 5 months. They don't even give you special goodbye if you were dating them!Truly-A-Lie said:
I can understand that they wouldn't want to record that much dialogue, but even in the text only parts they don't add anything. Your final goodbye to everyone you maxed out is the worst. Your girlfriend(s) don't change their goodbye at all. They don't even tack an "I love you" onto the end of the text. Ugh.
(If you couldn't tell, this bothered me periodically throughout my 80 hours of Persona 4)
Wait a second. I believe Yahtzee once said that he doesn't believe in love. Now he's writing about romance in games like its' a big deal. I think he actually does believe in love. But his interpretation of the semantic form of love; (the word 'love'), was fucked up by real life examples, naturalist art and influence from other people. Which is perfectly understandable.
Even if true, undying love doesn't exist it damn well ought to. And art is nothing if not a projection of things as they ought to be.
Even if true, undying love doesn't exist it damn well ought to. And art is nothing if not a projection of things as they ought to be.
I'm pretty sure that Catherine is only a "Couple in the beginning and couple at the end" in two of the eight possible endings. A stable relationship is a bit less dramatic, because there's no change to the status quo at the end.
Unfortunately, that plays into the cliches of the romance subplot and the doomed romance. It's sad, and I think a lot of games without a romance subplot would benefit from adding a stable relationship through the story.
If you had a relationship with a character in Mass Effect 1, is it possible to stay in that relationship through the end of Mass Effect 2? That would qualify.
It's odd. The death of the Girlfriend in Infamous didn't do much to me because it was a cliche, but I thought the scene of Cole waking the next day near her grave was quite moving. It was just a nice touch.
Unfortunately, that plays into the cliches of the romance subplot and the doomed romance. It's sad, and I think a lot of games without a romance subplot would benefit from adding a stable relationship through the story.
If you had a relationship with a character in Mass Effect 1, is it possible to stay in that relationship through the end of Mass Effect 2? That would qualify.
It's odd. The death of the Girlfriend in Infamous didn't do much to me because it was a cliche, but I thought the scene of Cole waking the next day near her grave was quite moving. It was just a nice touch.
That would be Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, of course. Probably better to find a non-incestuous relationship to hold up as an example of...relationships in gaming, mindsnowman6251 said:
. Though from the same game, I quite liked the Ezio and Christina subplot, though it is of course debatable whether that ever actually became a relationship...
It's just something that irks me but I always hate it when someone says something along the lines of 'this is why we aren't taken seriously as a medium'. We should come to grips with the fact that we aren't exactly what you would call a 'serious medium' yet, don't get me wrong, there is a lot of artistic and intellectual potential in games both in our future and in things we have already done but this doesn't mean we're a 'serious medium' (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean).hawk533 said:
We're still a young medium (they haven't even been around for a human lifetime yet), it's fine if you see a bright future for video games (I do too, I am very passionate about games) but understand that this isn't gonna be a universal view for quite a while.
I have a simmilar sentiment but for a different reason, I found it hard to care when Aeris died because it just seemed like something that was pulled out to try and make me weepy (my exact words when I first went through it were 'why the hell don't my Pheonix downs work?').
To be fair I think there are a few reasons why depeicting a realistic relationship isn't exactly a high priority in the games industry, a brief checklist of them are as follows:
1- For the most part it doesn't really detract from the game: When you complain about the relationships that are there just as a motivation/prize for the protaganist (of both the 'love interest in peril' and 'revenge for dead wife' flavours) that's all they really need to be for the most part.
The example of 'would Kratos' wife in God of War want him to have gone on a roaring rampage of revenge?' provided by Yahtzee seems to have especially missed the point completely, Kratos is heavily implied (if not outright stated) to be insane, delusional, self-rightious and otherwise a mentally unstable person and probably an abusive and uncaring person (in other words, do you honestly think he put even a moment of thought into 'what she would have wanted?', if he had would he have even murdered his family in the first place?).
Another example that also seems to have missed the point behind the context is the Gears of War 2 example, 'she wouldn't want him to go off and be just as violent and brutish as those who did this to her', somehow I doubt that going off to war against a race of aliens on a genocidal jihad against humanity with subspecies the size of buildings and a penchant for capturing people and torturing them to the point of disfigurement and insanity is exactly what one would call 'sinking down to their level'.
2- Us as gamers: I rarely use blanket statements to refer to groups but the whole thing about gamers being single losers who can't get a girlfriend is probably not too far from the truth for a lot of us. When the presumed majority of gamers out there are probably single it's a little bit pretentious of those of us who are happy in a relationship to assume tha they are distraught by how they don't realistically show the quirky dynamics of a happy couple interacting and displaying affection for each other, in other words, no, I was not disheartened because I couldn't draw parralells between how me and my dearest beloved talk to each other and how Shepard and [insert your personal choice of love interest here] interacted in Mass Effect (at no point was I ever outraged because they didn't watch movies and play old Sega games together).
3- Relationships as a plot device: The two most common appearances of stable relationships between people that appear in games (the formation and tragic violent ending of them/abduction of partner) both serve a distinct purpose in most games, giving the protaganist a clear, understandable motivation for taking action as well as a tangiable reason to not just call it quits when things get tough. It's an immediate and clear reason as to why someone would go to great lengthes and risk their life to ensure the safety of another person (or in the case of a dead spouse, it doesn't need to be explained as to why this would enrage or push them over their breaking point, it's fairly obvious for anyone who has even the slightest bit of human empathy). For this purpose the love interest doesn't have to be particularly well defined or characterised (after all, they're more of a goal to be obtained in this situation than an active character) and some of the most blisteringly awful love interests I've seen have actually been the result of too much of an attempt to characterise them rather than the absence of a character (sometimes a blank slate is a better character).
FFVII came at a time when romantic subplots weren't important in JRPG's, but following it's popularity started a shift towards having one as almost a necessity for a Square RPG.SgtFoley said:
For the game in question though I've never been a FFVII fanboy, but if I recall correctly there's a point early on in the game where you have a bouquet of flowers and you can give them to Aeris or the little girl which makes Tifa go awwwww. I believe this event determines who approaches for a 'date' later on in the game at the Saucer city, so you could basically say that's your girlfriend for the game. But like I said at the time of development romantic plots weren't important in RPG's so it was really turned down. After they found out people actually really liked it they cranked it way up for FFXIII.
I loved my relationship with Anders until
If we were so close why couldn't I have talked him out of it...
he blows up the Chantry.
The primary problem is gameplay.
One of the reasons it doesn't work in Gears of War is because of the violent shift between swearing and shooting to Dom's love sideplot. Marcus just seems awkward throughout and his solution as to how to solve a problem like Maria is surprise, surprise, offering a gun to shoot her. I'm just surprised Dom didn't tearfully add "Eat lead, arsehole" when he shot her. She get's no dialogue, we mostly only see her as a photograph. That said the inclusion of the scene where Dom finds Maria and sees her as she was and not as she is, is still effective.
Unless it's a co-op game, it's hard to see how to have the other character in the relationship around, except in the inferior role of escorted npc. Your best hope is probably RPGs that have a large numbers of playable characters and are dialogue heavy.
The other problem is narrative. Family and friends are there to die as plot devices to give the main character motive or emotion. Films are also particularly fond of breaking up relationship in sequels, just to bring them back together again, which filters through to some games.
E.g. Prince of persia: sands of time, where the prince grows as a person after meeting Farah and they start a relationship...then he erases all their time together...only to hook-up again in two Thrones.
The only other couple I can think of is Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley with their weird co-dependence and long time spent apart...
One of the reasons it doesn't work in Gears of War is because of the violent shift between swearing and shooting to Dom's love sideplot. Marcus just seems awkward throughout and his solution as to how to solve a problem like Maria is surprise, surprise, offering a gun to shoot her. I'm just surprised Dom didn't tearfully add "Eat lead, arsehole" when he shot her. She get's no dialogue, we mostly only see her as a photograph. That said the inclusion of the scene where Dom finds Maria and sees her as she was and not as she is, is still effective.
Unless it's a co-op game, it's hard to see how to have the other character in the relationship around, except in the inferior role of escorted npc. Your best hope is probably RPGs that have a large numbers of playable characters and are dialogue heavy.
The other problem is narrative. Family and friends are there to die as plot devices to give the main character motive or emotion. Films are also particularly fond of breaking up relationship in sequels, just to bring them back together again, which filters through to some games.
E.g. Prince of persia: sands of time, where the prince grows as a person after meeting Farah and they start a relationship...then he erases all their time together...only to hook-up again in two Thrones.
The only other couple I can think of is Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley with their weird co-dependence and long time spent apart...
Mario and Peach's relationship, at least in my opinion, is largely incidental. Whether or not they are romantically linked doesn't matter, because even in games where rescuing Peach isn't the main plot, Mario will still go and be a hero, because that's what he does. He's a nice guy who does the right thing. Come on, if you saw someone being attacked, you wouldn't have to be in a relationship with them to do something about it. Mario just takes that to the logical extreme of flying though space on a dinosaur to save her.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I also like how the relationships between the various Link's and Zelda's have been playing out in recent games; in Spirit Tracks they spend most of the game together as opposed to only seeing her at the end (even though I suppose the story is still 'rescuing her'), and in Twilight Princess I got a much stronger vibe from Link and Ilia, while Zelda felt more like an ally.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I also like how the relationships between the various Link's and Zelda's have been playing out in recent games; in Spirit Tracks they spend most of the game together as opposed to only seeing her at the end (even though I suppose the story is still 'rescuing her'), and in Twilight Princess I got a much stronger vibe from Link and Ilia, while Zelda felt more like an ally.
Wene it comes to couples in games, (that is ones i find compeling) my mind allways go´s to FF8.
I was never much for the game, it was okay, but not much more then that, but Cid and Edea Kramer has allways the best couple for me.
Cid/Edea from FF8 has been the one couple i code see my self in. even going so far as to cosplay as the par ones with girlfrend of the time.
Cant find the pic at the mommet, but will edit it in later, it was funny ;-)
I was never much for the game, it was okay, but not much more then that, but Cid and Edea Kramer has allways the best couple for me.
Cid/Edea from FF8 has been the one couple i code see my self in. even going so far as to cosplay as the par ones with girlfrend of the time.
Cant find the pic at the mommet, but will edit it in later, it was funny ;-)