Times when games impacted you more than you expected.

[BrawlMan]

Thoughts like Wasteland of Reality and Inexplicable Feminist Agenda helps paint a picture of how improve one's self against hedonist pursuit in trying times

Last I check, not every anime game supports/encourages a hedonistic life stlye. Unless you played nothing, but harem games, yet they are all not like that either. If you were taking moral advice from games about enjoying a hedonistic life style that is more of a you problem, than most of the anime games themselves.

 

[laggyteabag]

I think probably the first times I made a significant choice in a game.

I remember playing Mass Effect 1 for the first time, and spending about 30 minutes thinking about whether or not I should save Kaiden or Ashley. Or literally all of the first season of Telltale's The Walking Dead.

I had made choices in games before, like I had played Oblivion and Skyrim, and I had also played Dragon Age, but none of those games had game-altering choices as stressful as those in ME or TWD.

 

[Gyrobot]

Last I check, not every anime game supports/encourages a hedonistic life stlye. Unless you played nothing, but harem games, yet they are all not like that either. If you were taking moral advice from games about enjoying a hedonistic life style that is more of a you problem, than most of the anime games themselves.

Unfortunately my youth made up of JRPGs like Neptunia and other low budget niche titles

Maybe calling it hedonistic is a strong word, but anime games lately are escapist and playing Disco Elysium helped me reaffirm my decision to try and get away from more problematic stuff

 

[stroopwafel]

This scene from Xenogears immediately comes to mind.


The entirety of Xenogears really resonated with me. I wish so much for a remake, or a completion of the project in the original format.

 

[happyninja42]

Maybe calling it hedonistic is a strong word, but anime games lately are escapist

I mean all entertainment is escapist by nature, so I don't really see any distinction unique to anime games. I mean Disco Elysium is just as pointless of a use of your time as a game with harem girls and anime combat sequences.

 

[BrawlMan]

Unfortunately my youth made up of JRPGs like Neptunia and other low budget niche titles

Maybe calling it hedonistic is a strong word, but anime games lately are escapist and playing Disco Elysium helped me reaffirm my decision to try and get away from more problematic stuff

I understand. Just remember a small amount of escapism is not wrong. Just don't immerse yourself too much into it. It's all about balance and self-control.

 

[MrCalavera]

Little Red Lie and Actual Sunlight: playing the walking sims made me reflect as a person and seeing how much of a chud I was for liking weeb games thanks to an article and subsequent tweet from Vice who talked about pessimistic games.

Careful to not fall into Newly Converted Syndrome there.

 

[Gyrobot]

Careful to not fall into Newly Converted Syndrome there.

Newly converted syndrome?

 

[Ghostrick Dorklord]

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness

This game couldn't had come at a better time in my life. I was horribly depressed during the time because there was a lot of stuff going on my life and Final Fantasy X was certainty not helping my mood. I remember when I was talking to one of my friends during the few times he appeared in school and he told me about this weird game where the characters were demons that used exploding penguins and their leader died due to choking on a black pretzel. Naturally I was like "WAT" and thought it sounded funny but it didn't pass my mind until I saw it at a video rental store months later. I decided to play it based on his recommendation and well it changed my life for the better. I found it be pretty funny which was exactly what I needed because I took a level of cheerfulness by then. It greatly influenced my personality, my art style, and my general aesthetics. I think it also gave me a lot of patience for grinding in general because it encouraged major level grinding. Now that Disgaea has grown bigger than before I still think the first game is the one with the most care, especially with its story and I think I'll remembering it forever, even if I've kind of grown out of it.

Blazblue Continuum Shift/Chronophantasma

This is kind of a weird one. I didn't know it existed until I ran into a group of fans who were RPing and kind of clashed with them for a while before giving in and joining them. It wasn't anything serious mind you, it was me being me and messing with people. But I did get into the fighting game scene because of this series and believe it nor not but I ended up meeting my closest friends because of Blazblue. We ended up playing these games a lot together and learning how fighting games worked. It influenced me a lot besides finding my best friends, it kind of helped me a long to discover who I am. However these days we kind of moved on from the fighting game scene and just do whatever but yeah those were the times.

That's what I can think on the top of my head.

 

[Kae]

So I'm going for the really obvious one that's Telltale's The Walking Season one probably, for one simple reason, I used to be a very stoic and unemotional person, getting a reaction out of me was so hard that my brothers genuinely believed I had no feelings and my friends would bring me horror games to play in front of them in an attempt to scare me, because they wanted to get a reaction out of me, we often watched a lot of horror movies too and nothing and I was often referred to as heartless because I tended to not get sad at all when watching sad movies, much less cry.

Anyway, so there's little old heartless me wondering if I'm even human because I don't seem to have emotions in the same way that everyone else does and wondering if it's at all possible that I'm secretly an alien since that would explain why also seemed to age slower than my friends and family, but anyway I get this game which I'm playing by myself and I'm just so invested in the story that when the reveal in episode 2 happens the one about the cannibals I was so engaged that I almost vomited and actually failed the event because of it, so that was weird, very weird to me

And now while I was generally affected by the rest of the story which is overall very sad none of it seemed to do enough to cause to have a physical reaction, but of course there's the ending, when I got there as I made my final choices in the game I suddenly started crying, which I don't think I had ever cried at any piece of media before this so that was a very unique experience.

Now I'll admit that I was going through a lot when I played this, I was coming to terms with some stuff that had happened to me, and I was having a very hard time adapting to being around people again, so I had a lot of stuff going on and I think I just needed to cry but it's not really something I did, you know it's like I was trying really hard to be tough because back then I saw myself as a badass and I didn't even know how bad I just needed to be more emotional, but yeah that game taught me it's OK to cry and be scared and all that, and after playing that I started crying at movies and other stuff too, so it's probably one of the pieces of media that has actually impacted my life the most, it basically changed my personality, I mean I know if I hadn't played it probably something else would have made me cry and roughly have had the same effect but it was that game that did it so I guess that fits, it changed everything.

I wouldn't say that nowadays I'm not emotionally repressed, I still am it's hard to change that but at least not as much as I used to be, but yeah that's probably it, I was expecting a below average zombie story considering I didn't like the TV show nor the comic, and instead that happened.

 

[BrawlMan]

Streets of Rage as whole influenced me on Techno, House, and Dance music. The entire series has a wide variety of songs that have not aged a day.

Street Fighter influenced me in being curious about other people of cultures and races. Something I am proud that Capcom still does today.

Rayman Legends and DK: Tropical showed true 2d platforming perfection and that critics were once again full of crap about the genre being "old hat" or "dead". Most 2D platformers aged better than 3D platformers.

Killer Instinct with its music showed how fast soundtracks were catching up in games. Not much else to say.

 

[Dreiko]

Nier in general but especially the ending bit. It got me to easily erase my save file and I'm someone who has 25 year old memory cards with save files in them that I still cherish. I think this was the perfect way of communicating existentialism from a gamer-centric perspective that you have to be a gamer culturally to properly grasp. The sense of loss combined with the hopeful energy it elicited for the future was incredible. I was happy to let the save file go as well, I dunno why, it just felt like it was proper to have an end like that. The two drones thank you in their overly polite Japanese as well, can't beat it XD.

 

[BrawlMan]

Newly converted syndrome?

The idea that you have been "enlightened" by something or someone and thus assume you're a better person for it.Or you're now better than the things before becoming "enlightened". But in reality, the person in question does not change for better, becomes worse, or traded one sin for another or the same sin wearing a different face, or drinking too much of the Kool Aid.

 

[Gyrobot]

The idea that you have been "enlightened" by something or someone and thus assume you're a better person for it.Or you're now better than the things before becoming "enlightened". But in reality, the person in question does not change for better, becomes worse, or traded one sin for another or the same sin wearing a different case, or drinking too much of the Kool Aid.

And how exactly would trading my love for anime games for games like Disco Elysium and TLOU2 be a bad thing? I am aware that I am quite passionate about both games.

 

[BrawlMan]

And how exactly would trading my love for anime games for games like Disco Elysium and TLOU2 be a bad thing? I am aware that I am quite passionate about both games.

I didn't say that. If you love them, go right ahead. All I am saying that playing those games over anime games does not make you a better person nor better than the everyone else. The same applies to me too. Though if you gave me the choice between Disco Elysium or TLOU2, I would take Disco every single time. A person can still be rude and snobbish no matter things he or she plays and enjoys or when tastes change.

 

[Dreiko]

And how exactly would trading my love for anime games for games like Disco Elysium and TLOU2 be a bad thing? I am aware that I am quite passionate about both games.

True enlightenment is in finding the value in everything. Simply looking down on something or trading it up is like what immature children do when something is too "childish" for their supposedly mature selves who are old now because they're 13.

You are no more mature than the 13 year old who is too smart to be playing kiddy stuff like pokemon and is playing real games with blood and swearing. Or, in my place and time in the world growing up giving up gaming altogether because games are CLEARLY for kids and weirdos and instead picking up smoking and spending their nights drinking at clubs.


Most often, those same people are actually just putting airs because they get cultural signals and become peer-pressured to disassociate themselves with whatever the thing is, be it videogames altogether, magic the gathering card (those are "satanic" apparently), anime, comics, ponies, whatever you can think of basically. Deep down they wish they could engage in the activity, they just hold their public image and also their self image as someone who is virtuous because they're "above" that thing (and implicitly every other person who is still into it, this, this is the big selling point here) so they end up discarding joy and enrichment for that arrogant sense of superiority.


True enlightenment is in being able to find value in everything. The other day I watched an hour long speech by Cornell West with my lunch and an hour long stream by Sargon with my dinner. Fans of either would look down upon you for viewing the other most likely. Smart people should just respect the respectable things that you can find.

Disco Elysium is a completely and totally different experience than the average anime game. It scratches a different itch. To proclaim you only like games like it now just means you have lost that many intellectual itches and are a shallower person as a result of it. I love it too btw. Also liked the first last of us, the second game I prolly won't bother playing. Too many other stuff on my plate and I don't wanna give my time to people who purposefully make chars look androgynous due to political pressures lmao.

 

[ObsidianJones]

So, I have a less nuanced look at this.

Some of you know that I'm a person who loves Martial Arts. But I've always been more partial to kicks. My dad taught me boxing when I was a kid, but kicks always seemed more... cool to me. Blame movies

Back when Arcades were still a thing, the Nathan's near me got this wonderful game: Punch Maina, Fist of the North Star


It made me rethink punching, and therefore rethink the very way I actually defend myself. I now regard my entire body as one in terms of self protection, not just getting ready and spacing for kicks.

Another thing that has changed my life was during the Walking Dead Season 1, the generator puzzle. You used a multitool to solve that. And for the first time, I looked at a multitool and went "Huh. That's handy".

I looked them up and bought a leatherman that day. That episode was released in June 27, 2012. According to Google, from that day until today (7/19/20), it's been 2,944 days. Without hyperbole, I've used that multitool in some fashion for 75% of those days. From opening up packages, to fixing doors, to literally helping cutting out wedding invitations. I don't leave home without it, and I feel naked when I don't have it on me.

 

[happyninja42]

Some of you know that I'm a person who loves Martial Arts. But I've always been more partial to kicks. My dad taught me boxing when I was a kid, but kicks always seemed more... cool to me. Blame movies

For me it was the fact that i grew like a foot in roughly a year and a half, and became this gangly, long legged kid in middle school, that towered over most everyone else. I had these really long legs that were just perfect for keeping people at maximum range from me. So I focused most of my early MA training with kicks and evasive footwork, because it felt way more natural, and safer for me to stick out my leg that's like 50% longer than my arm, and bop you in the head. Considering most people I fought were shorter, it gave me a massive range advantage, so it worked great.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

For me it was the fact that i grew like a foot in roughly a year and a half, and became this gangly, long legged kid in middle school, that towered over most everyone else. I had these really long legs that were just perfect for keeping people at maximum range from me. So I focused most of my early MA training with kicks and evasive footwork, because it felt way more natural, and safer for me to stick out my leg that's like 50% longer than my arm, and bop you in the head. Considering most people I fought were shorter, it gave me a massive range advantage, so it worked great.

Plus a lot easier to kick them in the head I’d imagine!

 

[happyninja42]

Plus a lot easier to kick them in the head I’d imagine!

Very much so yes, I usually focused on avoidance tactics, than anything, because I've never been a fan of fighting (sparring bothered me even with it's controlled nature), but when I did feel compelled to strike, leg to the vitals was my preferred method.