Gameplay is the Story 

Plus she doesn't panic when she's underfire during any of the earlier parts in the game unlike what any person would if they were ever put into a fucked situation like that

the opening face was really like good old Lara the game face is so dumb... i hate the reboot

I had the similar issue with The Last of Us when it comes to cutscene to gameplay dissonance. On one hand, as Joel, I had to protect Ellie and bring her to safety because she's a plot device important for the sake of manking because she has antibodies that are the key to create a vaccine. On the other, when I get to control Ellie, I was Ramboing my way through with an ease stealth killing one by one because she has an overpowered switchblade. And she's also packed with a bow and arrow.

@@Dacho_Shaki I don't know, when I played through Winter, I felt pretty powerless. If you compare that section to the previous ones, Ellie has way less weapons and fighting capabilities than Joel, so naturally she must rely almost exclusively on stealth. Joel, meanwhile, can fight his way out of situations that Ellie simply can't.

If you go for all the collectibles and tombs it's not that bad. I guess I saw those moments more as proof of Lara's humanity (we all make mistakes) than of cutscene incompetence because of that.

This also happens in Far Cry 3

@@marrvynswillames4975 No it doesn't he only has a panic attack for the first guys he shoots at. And also in the finale he gets hard on himself for having to kill bad people he does not have a" panic attack"

@@marrvynswillames4975 it makes more sense in farcry due to Jason being trained by the island and molded by it the finale kill is a realization of what he became/what he is.

May I ask about whose analysis that was? I would like to watch it.

Sometimes they can write around gameplay mechanics or levels that later get scrapped, so they either just leave that stuff in there, or try and retcon it and make a new story beat.

We call that a systemic problem! Makes sense.

@@led-0185 Yeah, I'd love to know too. Commenting to show interest and get notified by any other replies. There's a really good video onthe problems with the Ratchet and Clank PS4 reboot called "How Ratchet Lost His Edge" by TheGamingBritShow (title is paraphrased and I may have fucked up the channel name)

@@led-0185 I found it! Its by the channel extra credits. Here's the link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KG1ziCvLkJ0.html

Or showing Half Life

I'm here for that, dam... Yeah, Half-Life did it and companies still mess this up, and even if it's a cinematic game then Metal gear did it too...

Maybe we'll get a follow up "Story is the Gameplay" that focuses on that. I think both are great topics to explore - how do you respect the gameplay in the story; and how do you tell the story through the gameplay, rather than just cinematics.

Dark Souls (or SoulsBorne in general) is easily the best example of this. The gameplay mechanics and story and lore are all inextricably tied and inform each other. They're a shining beacon of the kind of experience and storytelling that you can only deliver in a game; deep and thematically rich and oozing with atmosphere, and also just incredibly engaging on a mechanical level.

@@InhalingAshes26 i love how the mechanics like the blood vial in bloodborne, insight etc. are so deeply connected to the lore. Especially Insight blew my mind. 🤯

That, and fooling another Combine soldier with a jar of mayo.

It's also a bore to play and unlike the HF 1 intro, I can't just go afk and wait it's finished.

megaman x1 losing vile was such an important moment for me with blinding gameplay and story

@@baudsp Then watch some Desinc and learn how to breeze through that section with bunnyhopping. You're in control, take advantage of it.

@@baudsp just fool around with the AI, it can be pretty fun. Though hl2 ain't a game made to be replayed more than 5 times

this is more a problem of terms , confusing words, the revive part of that item is not resurrection but revitalizing the body , is more like the smelling salts we use to wake up unconscious people , it dont bring dead people back . The damage part is a part of fantasy , no one would like it if it was permanent long lasting damage .

@@UNGGodYT damage could also be interpreted as like how Uncharted does, when she gets slashed the damage isn't from the slash itself but from her using her points to avoid injury or fatal damage

@@UNGGodYT i think of it as similar to the D&D "unconscious" vs. "dead". If you hit 0 HP, you're knocked out. You've sustained too much injury to continue fighting, but you aren't automatically dead. It's only if the damage falls below a threshold or you fail to stabilize (lose 3 death saving throws) that you actually die.

i played some game where those terms were different , beyond the beyond where HP hits 0 you go groggy and use Lp (LIFE POINTS) to came back but when hp an lp are 0 is dead , can only be resurrect at the church but there is obliterated only at the capital and for a heavy price. in wild arms i remember one item saying it "revives" the character , but when one of the party fell and i used it , nothing happened , them i got one item that says that brings it back , so thats where i got that theory.

FF seems to make a distinction between being knocked out and being killed. There's this scene in Final Fantasy Tactics in which a character is beat down by a robot while another asks for a Pheonix Down, seemingly not for resurrection. It's a bit comedic, but the point still stands.

Eh, There are instances of cutscene incompetence and "kill stealing" in SoT that are a main part of the story. So many fights and sections feel like "glue"

Warrior Within did it the best. The boss fights in that game were amazing and the dahaka chases as a little kid always had my adrenaline going

What's great about the whole trilogy they're also consistent with knowing The Sands of Time is busted and you're basically messing up the timeline.

Also present in Assassin's Creed. When your Animus character dies, instead of the classic "You died" message, we get "Desynchronized". Because the protagonist already did all that stuff centuries earlier, you're supposed to do what they did

by also being an ultra shitty game AND THEN THE KITTEN WOKE UP

GiRayne what I mean by that is, if one moment the protagonist is actually good at anything, the player shouldn’t be forced to lose, what is essentially offscreen, because they are the protagonist

@GiRayne But you could simply solve the problem with the villain beating the player in gameplay.

@GiRayne you're playing a video game as lara croft ,you are lara croft in this game narrative should be following player action instead of forced cutscene those are for movies where character have mind of their own , in game you're the mind behind character actions so these forced stupid cutscenes doesn't make any sense

@GiRayne There is even a word for that. ludonarrative dissonance, which descrides the conflict between the narrative in gameplay and story. And i argure that you don't need to make sure that the conflict isn't there at all but there should be some sort of consistency between these two things. For example in Uncharted you mow down enemys wave after wave like there is no tomorrow but in cutscenes Drake is always the good guy without a doubt and even has problems with way less dudes then he has in gameplay. Same with rpg's like Tales of the abyss were Luke kills everything that moves in gameplay but in the story he can't mentally handle killing one nameless soldier. It dissconects the player, like in the example you gave lara can kill 30 guys with a riffle in Gameplay like you said, ofc we don't need to see how she does that in a cutscene without a reason at least, now i didn't played Tomb raider but if the same lara in a cutscene struggles with two dudes then i have a problem with that. A game that perfectly balanaces gameplay and story is DmC 3, you see Dante surfing on enemys , taunting them, runing on walls etc. And you do the same stuff in gameplay. This makes you feel like you play as dante compared to something like Uncharted where you are the indestructible force of nature in gameplay and Nathan drake in cutscenes.

@GiRayne Yes i know these big words always sound like someone tries to act smart and smug , i also don't like them that much but i feelt like that this might be a good way to explain my problem with Story telling in games, i hope you don't feel like i was trying to insult you or anything. Like i said i didn't played the modern TR games ( even though they look like fun) and i must have misunderstood what you were saying. It sounded like you mean that there has to be no consistency between gameplay and cutscenes, which is the big gripe i have with the uncharted series. But you made clear what you mean and i agreed with that even in my original comment , ofc we don't need 100% consistency but i really appreciate when there is at least not a giant conflict between the 2.

What's the other option though, requiring the player to accomplish everything on their first run?

@@uncreativename9936 He does talk about how much of a paradox it is. The player is always able to win the gameplay but if they always win then the characters never loses. There are a couple of things the game can do but they aren't day to day things they are more situational. More scenes in games where a loss is a narrative loss. Using Tomb Raider rather then having her get jumped in a cutscene have her jumped in gameplay, set up a situation where the player is going to lose. Lots of games have that unwinnable battle at the start to set the tone. Or instead of having a cut scene where someone dies have them killed in gameplay. That way the Player can be incentived to exact immediate revenge, try to save them and relate to the character more. Immediately turn and start gunning down that ambush that killed them ect.

@@uncreativename9936 Doom's Ultra Nightmare comes to mind.

@@uncreativename9936Some form of conditional in-game respawning. The player picks themselves off the floor at or near the point of failure with the enemies moved around a bit - as if a little time has passed. A friend shows up, drags them away from the scene while under fire then administers first aid. Even just an explicit respawn mechanism like systemshock of darksouls would be fine. The player is no longer a perfect badass and failure for narrative isn't a total mismatch. The other option is the nightmare of writing non-linear narrative; allowing for failure by giving it consequence and having the story take a path toward the finale based on that consequence....which this video is specifically not about.

uncreativename if the story was narrated the narrator could be like ‘wait that didn’t happen’ or in like Ultimate Spider-Man when you fall in water spidey crawls out of making a quip or complaint about what just happened. That happens in Gears 5 as well but only in multiplayer after you’re killed.

On the other hand, DA:O also has your party characters and other NPCs constantly talk about how EVIL and horrid blood magic is, and then be completely oblivious to you using that very blood magic in combat under their very noses.

_"The guy has me on a silver platter, and he won't shut up!"_ _"Yammering?"_ _"Yammering! Going on about how the world will soon be his, yada yada..."_ _"You sly dog! You got me monologuing, I can't believe it."_

If I were watching, for instance, "The Book of Eli" and Eli just stood there while the guys under the bridge kicked his ass, I would never have watched it again. The sort of story where plot armour is suddenly applied or dropped is inexcusable.

all movies have terrible stories often also terrible plots nothing new here

@GiRayne In a sense yeah, in another sense I agree with him. You've gotta think about it from the POV of someone who has encountered enemies in large numbers and has either mowed through them or has used objects and tactics to distract and overwhelm them. Then, there's *this* cutscene, where Lara has the jump on a group of enemies and just...doesn't do anything for a significant amount of time, and then takes a meh shot and gets captured. She doesn't appear to be considering her options, and it might just be the animation, but it doesn't appear that her emotions get the better of her and she freezes, she just seems to be gawking. It's kinda odd. That's my interpretation of the scene at least. The reboot TR games have a bit of a disconnect between the cut scenes and the gameplay through all three, having played all of them myself.

@GiRayne if you're going up against a group like that, stealth doesn't work. As soon as you take one down, you get swarmed. Your only options are either something that can kill many people in a short amount of time - automatic weapon or explosives; or something that can confuse them and split them up where you can stealth - basically explosives. The bow was dumb.

Yeah, i hate that kind if shit too

Jrpg have lot of those

This. So much this.

4:35 Good thing it's on the internet so we can remind Shamus about it. F O R E V E R.

Thought the same about 1:35 when first played it. The jump is hollywoodified.

Oh, yeah. That fucking jump. The game was revealed with this in a trailer. And I was like "oh boy, is this how Lara dies? Dissembowled by torn structural metal beams of a ship? RIP, man." Storyteller, a second later: "NOPE LOL. I can has not fyzix! How do ya like dem boom booms?!"

valve is so good at this, I cant wait to see what they do with half-life alyx!

except that last monologue only happens because the game forces you inexplicably to strap yourself into an alien prison pod. Just as bad as having him do it in a cutscene in my opinion

Ohhhh ha ha. No buddy listen. Ever heard of Black Mesa East. Yeah. No.

The shit like this only possible within borders of corridor shooter games, where you can take action only in limited space, going straight through linear narrative.

@@otoyana Not exactly. Shit like this is only possible when you don't wanna or don't need to show the protagonists emotions. But Lara growing up from a little girl to a badass, that's where you DO want to show emotions. And because of that it gets waaaay more complicated and there will always be someone unable to put himself in the characters shoes and complaining that his emotions don't align with the protagonists emotions.

I think the reliance on cutscenes has more to do with game developers not knowing how to translate these story moments into player driven gameplay.

DMC3 might be one of the best video game stories ever. It's fantastic.

@@Mekasoundwave How ironic that part of the reason I dropped DMC 5 was because of its incessant cut scenes.

DMC 3 still has you fight vergil 1 and win, but lose in the cutscene. I was so mad the first time I played the game and that happened. Like, I fought this asshole so many times to finally beat him, and apparantly I lost?!

DMC 3 also has a competent protagonist in cutscenes. You want to be cutscene Dante in dmc.

@@Drakonflare You should play on if you haven't. The cutscenes take a back seat after mission 5.

And how to tell story without cutscenes (except for short intro)

@@JoshuaRoberts_V Oh, they will. The first KotOR was developed by Bioware. A very different Bioware from Bioware nowadays. KotOR 2 was developed by Obsidian. No way any EA studio of today can make a game with that kind of storytelling.

@@TKOS96 I feel the same way about your statement. They are going to ruin Kotor.

I have been playing system shock 2 recently. So far, the gameplay is the story. There has only been like 2 cutscenes so far.

You... Liked... Turn based combat?

@@hanks_2210 It was not as awful as the usual implementations in that it made itself function as close to Real-Time Combat as possible. I at least find it superior to Morrowinds combat (Though if the series returns I would heavily prefer it adopt the FF7Remake's gameplay)

That sounds awesome

It's true though, DS doesn't need a cutscene to show you that capra demons or basilisks are hella scary, they just teach you through gameplay.

So, anyway, Metroid Prime...

Soulsborne in particular is just amazing at telling a story though the actual game play itself. It just gives you a bare bones concept and lets the players' imagination do the rest. I love this type of video game storytelling because it makes the player feel like the genius the game paints them as. It's funny I say that too because Miyazaki himself said that the reason Soulsborne games tell the stories the way they do was because he sucks at reading comprehension and relies on his imagination to do the rest. To me this is a sign of a secret genius willing to let the players' minds do the job. What a genius.

I also got a paper cut, why don't ya just pour a little lemon juice on it while you are at it!

I think the cutscenes were well done. Not perfect but good. I also think that a player sitting calmly in front of his PC after years of experience in CS:GO is unable to put himself in the position of an inexperienced character who's confronted with a big fictional stress level. People tend to make mistakes under stress, it's not that hard to understand.

Or the Thief series, which Dishonored took many cues from.

Half Life too

Augustine Czech That's because Dishonored's narrative is fundamentally a part of its gameplay. Dishonored is a story about the abuse of power, about what a man who's been granted powers by a god should use his power over others for. Tomb Raider of the Survivor timeline isn't comparable because it doesn't have an overarching theme but rather is a game trying to tell a story. Considering direction matters when trying to critique a game.

you are a man of culture

Not really. The second opus has dumb redundant cutscenes, a main character who does not shut up and the worst intro ever.

Yeah as much as I enjoyed that game, it always feels kinda silly looking back at how indifferent she was to murder while under the player's control, despite the emphasis on her first kill. I wonder if they could have fixed that by; instead of giving her the gun at the beginning and throwing a dozen enemies per minute at her - they'd just keep the initial encounters more grounded and have her refuse to use the gun unless absolutely necessary for a while, before slowly easing her into more desperate situations that continually harden her to the point that she's able to take a life with the casual-ness that the game allows for as it is now. I feel like that could have strengthened the narrative and story-gameplay cohesion but who really knows, that idea could make the game worse than I think it would haha

You're both right Lara was piss weak in cutscenes pretty much human. Yet gameplay o' girl was a monster which makes it worse when she keeps getting hurt over and over. Honestly, I remember I few folks being turned off at how fetishized it seemed with the cruelty they've put her through. Like wow give her a break...

@@DracoDxl I don't think people were really impressed when that idea was tried way back with Lester the Unlikely.

@@roadent217 This is the first I've heard of that game, thanks for bringing it up. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that a game based entirely on the concept of the character not responding didn't really take off haha. Still though, I don't think what I've mentioned is quite as bad as Lester, you'd still be able to fight, she just wouldn't be able to headshot the first 5 enemies immediately after being shocked by murder haha.

If played skillfully, it’s possible, the mechanics are there, it’s just challenging. Splinter Cell 1 though, some of the levels end in an action sequence even if the player ghosted the whole level completely. That ruins it for me and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory doesn’t have it, which proves again that it’s the best SC.

That's in-game incompetence/inconsistency where you're a badass off-screen and or in the cutscenes yet in game you're pretty weak.

Reminds me of Leon Kennedy's grapple hook in RE4 that only gets used in a cutscene.

Fucking Hideo.

A good game depends on a good story. But it's all up to the creativity of the devs.

JFrame Half Life has its own problems with its approach. Cutscenes may be happening while giving the player control but they’re unskippable. It also Uses the “glue” thing as well

@@FraserSouris Additionally, when the player has complete control during a cutscene event like in Half-Life, it's possible for the player to miss something important by looking in the wrong direction at the wrong moment where in other games, the POV would focus or at least hint at it.

I hate being stuck in a room, listening to people yammer. Half-Life's "cutscenes" are a bore chore.

The game foreshadows many times that the thechnology exists, the cat-monkey thing was even in trailers. I think this hole after life stuff wasn't intentional

@@andrade9172 it's certainly possible that he's alive and well. But there's also a scene where he reunites with Anya, and asks how they escaped Frau Engel's trap. She replies, vaguely, that they had "a few tricks up their sleeve." He then asks, "Is this real? Or am I in heaven?" ...She never answers him. I don't think the ambiguity was unintentional.

@@andrade9172 Yeah without that foreshadowing one would have rejected it all fully I think.

Oh boy I can't wait to berate shamus endlessly about this minor editing mishap in the comments

@@mrf4ncyp4nts hey I was just trying to make sure he caught the error or not jeez.

@@TheHeroBleeder He's just making a joke about how Shamus mentioned like a minute earlier in this video that people will endlessly berate him for the mixing up Rocksteady and Insomniac.

Honestly, I think the error of him was intentional - it was right after he mentioned he got berated endlessly for the last error. Good joke ^^

all these generic western AAA games look the same anyways. ;)

Anton Duroj Bidstrup It’s proof that there’s no easy solution, either Batman always counters and there’s no story. Or he doesn’t and there’s a flawed one

To be fair, there's a clear difference between investigative Batman and combat-ready Batman. In the first one Batman is more worried about examining the environment, so he's more vulnerable to surprise attacks, while in the second one he's more aware of his surroundings in order to prevent attacks more easily. While the game doesn't call this difference out loud, the gameplay makes it obvious, as the camera pulls back in combat mode to give a more ample view, signifying Batman's awareness, while in normal mode the camera is set closer to give a more detailed view of the environment The point is: Batman only gets caught off-guard when he's distracted with something, which is entirely reasonable. In the first cutscene, he couldn't expect an attack from Joker from behind because he's seeing Joker in front of him. In the second one, he's busy analyzing a clue in an empty rooftop, so his entire attention is set on it. Now, if Batman had decided to just stand there doing nothing while a bunch of goons show up from behind and clock him then yes, this would be a perfectly reasonable complaint.

Pretty much like the Prince of Persia The Sands of Time where the whole story wouldn't exist if the Prince rewind the time just a couple of seconds after he opened the hourglass .

Yes, and again, and again and again.

Doesn't that game also have a lot of cutscenes of Max more or less crying about how much he hates all the killing, and just wants it to stop, but in the gameplay, he just kills everything?

@@lugbzurg8987 He's also just generally berating himself for being a bumbling idiot who never thinks anything through and just keeps making things worse. Or just going places without a plan, having it go horribly wrong and then berating himself for not having a plan. But he never changes that. Also, I hate the parts where you're supposed to explore the surroundings, but you have a follower AI who constantly berates you for wasting time, so you're not sure what the game wants you to do.

@Caleb Imrie Found that guy.

@Caleb Imrie how is it not an rpg

Szhival Eh. It makes mistakes here and there. There are cutscenes where Geralt makes silly mistakes and times where he “kill steals”. Many fights and quests are pretty irrelevant in the game

@Caleb Imrie it's an ACTION RPG game not RPG game. noticed how ACTION came first before the RPG? and you not liking it doesn't mean anything, the AWARDS and SALES NUMBER speaks for it self.

@Caleb Imrie I was surprised by how little RPG there is, especially in the third game. When I played the third one all the dialogue felt mostly just "options to know more" rather than a chance to make any kind of decisions about anything story-wise. It was also kind of weird that as a third entry in the series it felt like starting at 1st level with a new character what comes to his abilities. I would have thought that since you already develop the characters skills and abilities quite far in the first game, the games that came after it would sort of pick up where the first game left. Hell, 20 years ago Baldur's Gate did that where you could continue your save game from the first one instead of starting "fresh" and if you did, you had a head start with additional XP. Not to mention that due to how the levels work in The Witcher 3, the regular guards are way more powerful than Geralt even though he is supposed to be this famous swordfighter, stuff of legends. This in turn begs the question: since the town guards and Nilfgaardian guards in general are so powerful, why don't they go out and deal with the monsters? If Geralt is able to deal with a griffon in the starting village in TW3, then a group of Nilfgaardians should have no problem dealing with it either.

I have to say, all the begging for engagement with Shamus's content is starting to get a bit annoying. It takes time and effort to create popular (read: much-viewed) videos, and while the RU-vid algorithm _is_ obtuse, I heavily doubt that it's got it out for Shamus, considering his "Bethesda NEVER Understood Fallout" video garnered 541k views as of the time of this comment, more than any video of MrBTongue. Shamus himself only left the message at in a rather unobtrusive place, the credits roll in his video, and also wrapped in a humorous videogame reference. However, RU-vid comments are still a place to discuss the video, sometimes in a rather lengthy manner, despite their terrible reputation - people will do so on the video's own merits. I doubt the need for such an artificial comment trying to manipulate the algorithm without any constructive discussion.

@@roadent217 So... you hate fun? Yeah, me too.

get the tinfoil hats

Ok, then. Demons' Souls, it is.

I watched the opening cutscene, called half of Lara's predictable dialogue, turned it off. Then came back the next day with no expectations and was somehow still let down.

Tomb raider 2013 and Bioshock infinite are the definitive "honeymoon phase" games

Me too, TR 2013 was an awesome game to me.

Setzer K I feel like you haven’t played Dark Souls if you’re trying to argue that you’re “special” because you’re able to “beat gods.” Unlike other games you have 0 plot armor in Dark Souls-you can only “beat gods” if you’re literally skilled enough to. Also you might not even be the chosen undead, the lore makes it clear that there’s other worlds and that lots of “chosen undead” will fail thinking they were the chosen one, and if the player fails or rage quits before ringing the second bell underneath Blighttown, then they aren’t the chosen one and they were just a random undead. You aren’t able to beat bosses because of lore or cutscenes, it’s really bloody difficult. You’re able to beat them only because you can never truly die (like in Bioshock 1) and therefore you can keep trying over and over and over again, not because you’re the overpowered chosen one. I’m convinced you never played Dark Souls. I haven’t heard of this other game you’re talking about but you aren’t doing a very good job of selling me on it if you think you have to lazily tear down Dark Souls (in a way that makes it seem like you haven’t even played it and are just going off of what you found online) to try to make it sound good.

QTEs are just a more annoying version of a cutscene.

Quick time events are like most mobile games. They're just pretending to let you keep playing.

I like Quick Time Events. Some things are simply impossible to tell without a cutscene and Quick Time Events make it more interesting. But the game shouldn't rely too much on Quick Time Events either.

Anything that takes control out of the players hands is bad...I'm always getting frustrated with cutscenes saying "Can I play now?" It's why I mostly stick to online...if I wanted a story, I'd read a book or watch a movie/tv.

Zupka w proszku Depends on how it's done in my opinion. If you have a game series like the original God of War trilogy and you want the player to feel part of the action and scale of the scenes then they can be done well. But if you have those games where you put random ass QTEs nobody is expecting anywhere then they can ruin an experience.

AND DARK SOULS! MWA-HA-HA-HAA-HAAAAAAA

@@EggBastion dark souls is not an indie rpg

You're right, it isn't an indie RPG... why does that matter exactly?

@@EggBastion it was a joke he said no dark souls I know you were joking too it's cool

Yeah, this is something Jrpgs really love to do.

Citing the Metal Gear Solid series is probably not as useful as you might think. It's well-trodden ground to say Hideo Kojima wishes he was making films or TV instead of video games. It's the most common criticism aimed his way, regardless of how true it might be (I've heard he's actually pretty happy making video games). The point Shamus is making by 'the audience is the protagonist' is a comment on the strengths of the medium beyond what films and TV can offer. Games are interactive, they expect the player, on some level, to be a part of the story. The more they expect that, the more effort they put in to make the player feel like they're the character (see: FPS games or superhero games), the more snatching away the narrative for a cutscene is going to rankle. And if you snatch away the narrative for a cutscene that has the character act like a moron? That's where people start getting a little pissed (see: Mass Effect 3 and Kai Leng).

- Does the game itself becomes less compelling? - Yes, it does.

Flux Casey That’s funny, actually. Kojima is well-known film lover and MGS series is really heavy on cutscenes, yet I can’t imagine MGS film (given the fact it would have been directed by the best director, in theory) being as good as these games. There is this tandem between you holding controller and playing as Snake and the story which progresses and is told through cinematics. It’s hard to put in words what gaming experience is until they do it for themselves. And yes, I do think games have to push forward gameplay-oriented story design. It’s a great opportunity to be an artistic form of expressing storytelling.

@@flux_casey IMO, the level of craft that goes into Metal Gear is usually blown away all too easily and underestimated. The series exists in its own sort of vacuum that no western developer has ever come close to, as far as I know. Instead of Tomb Raider or an Ubisoft game where the player is rollercoasted through gameplay into an explosive setpiece where camera control is taken away, then attacked by button prompts in a QTE sequence and then watching an actual cutscene play out (which IMO is an inept way of merging Hollywood and gamepads), MGS consists of 3 very clearly segregated elements. The player knows exactly what to expect of them when playing the game. These are cutscenes (obviously), codec calls and regular gameplay. But it's not like these exist completely divorced from each other - Found a new item while playing? Call someone on the codec for more info, or just to see if something funny happens. Watching a cutscene? Pay attention and you'll be rewarded by uncovering more backstory, or information that you can use during regular gameplay. Or just enjoy the shonen-style action scenes and cheesy camp. Sometimes, they will be affected by stuff that you did ingame. Missed something while it was playing? Codec calls got you covered for more lore and infodumps. These elements tend to play into each other and reinforce one another - building a stronger, more cohesive world around it and solidifying the player's/protagonist's place in it - if not affecting how you play outright. There's a lot of detail crammed in there and for everything the player attempts to do, the game usually has an appropriate response or a wink of acknowledgement. I'll admit that it won't appeal to everybody and it usually goes overboard on the amounts of it, but to say that these games (or Kojima) would/should work as movies is diminishing the goal it's trying and (in my eyes) succeeding to achieve - to get the player immersed in the story, background detail and the themes it's trying to convey.

Yeah, I want Prince of Persia to make a huge comeback, though there's going to be a Prince of Persia VR game at least.

The problem isn't the stylish kill. The problem is when the stylish kill happens before the end of the fight by taking over for you.

Then they should do the stylish kill via mechanics. For example Boss fights with different stages or over the top death animations. I know i shouldn't do this but look at Dark Souls. The fights are epic

@@teehundeart It would be more epic if I got stlish kill that are more than the mechanics allow

@@fyrentenimar I just disagree it's a problem.