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The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

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Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#61

Post by IAmBroom »

jjhfarmer wrote: post #10

The first game I thought of upon reading the title of the article was 'Shadow of the Colossus'. There's a particular boss about half-way through the game who resides in a small secluded garden and the process of defeating them involves tricking them in to ramming over columns etc. until they are trapped. I have a strong memory of being 12 years old, lying awake at night with the melancholic feeling this article descr…

Long ago in the previous century, it was D&D that provided this scenario. DMs would offer us scenarios where "killing all the orcs" was detailed into "including the women and children in the cave", just to see how we'd react.

Are orcs as bad as zombies? They are supposedly born LE, and could not (then) be reasonably expected to change. But killing an orc innocent?

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#62

Post by myfonj »

Jensson wrote: post #53
myfonj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I don't think they must be mutually exclusive; on the contrary: in the late stages when your character is a tank, swarms of minions that posed a challenge in early stages become just a nuisance, mostly. You are walking legend slaying dragons for breakfast, everybody and their dog knows about your invincibility … but instead of giving you some respect, they try to bite your heels on the first sight. I guess…

> I guess the "fun aspect" of seeing them flee and not restraining your movement at all could be slightly more satisfying than taking them down in a single hit one-by-one for the thousand time. Chasing enemies is much more annoying than them coming to you, so that would be a punishment to the player. Players don't like when you punish them in that way, they want to kill the monsters they don't want an upgrade that ma…

> Chasing enemies is much more annoying than them coming to you, so that would be a punishment to the player.

It seems I've failed to express myself clearly. The idea was that at some point, "low-level" adversaries simply stand no chance against a "high-level" PC, which should be obvious to both sides -- so acting accordingly on both sides would make sense without taking the fun out of the game, because -- and hear me out -- at that point in the game, chasing the low-level minions should be the last mechanic the player is forced to endure. When you are going for a dragon, you should not be forced to stomp your way past overly self-confident "newts" or mow down swarms of goblin youngsters…

Naturally, if the PC chooses to chase minions fleeing in terror after they took out the most courageous (or silly) third of their clan, that should be an option… and arguably it could even bring some satisfaction after the PC's low-level struggles, perhaps. But should this be the main mechanic? Definitely not -- at least not in the kind of game my thought experiment addressed.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#63

Post by IAmBroom »

leoc wrote: post #59
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article is intentionally focused, if it were to mention every game that is related we'd be here for a while. That said, this is a common thing in articles about e.g. video games - "I wish they mentioned X". I too wish that but at the same time, one needs limits.

MGS (and MGS2) are prominent enough, and directly relevant enough, and predate Shadow of the Colossus enough, that not mentioning them is a conspicuous omission, and not just something it would have been nice to add. In fact not mentioning them makes the article somewhat misleading, especially when at the same time it chooses to highlight Spec Ops: The Line .

You really can't mention MSGS without giving due mention to DOOM, which owes its existence to the popularity of Zork. And you can't mention that without D&D, but you have to preface every mention of D&D with historical war board-gaming and... chess and Go.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#64

Post by frogulis »

asgerhb wrote: post #60
ionwake wrote: post #31

If you are young "shadow of the collosus" is a game I highly recommend you dig up and play, it set a special unique tone for the 2000-2010 era

When you say "dig up," do you recommend the remaster or the original?

If you've got the ability to play the original, it still held up fantastically when I last played it properly (2-odd years ago).

I tried emulating it a few years before that when I didn't have any workable screen for my PS2 and that was not so good. A game that pushed the original hardware to its limit also pushed the emulator past its limit. Might be better with more powerful hardware than mine?

However, I've heard the remake is perfectly good, and surely easier to play with modern PC hardware!

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#65

Post by kibwen »

jdw64 wrote: post #2

I can agree with the other examples, but including Dark Souls feels like a stretch. In Dark Souls, the primary currency for progression—'souls'—is fundamentally earned by killing enemies. No matter how tragic a monster's lore might be, the moment it drops the exact resource the player needs to level up, can we really call that a genuine moral dilemma? I agree with applying this to Undertale, but using Dark Souls seve…

> the moment it drops the exact resource the player needs to level up, can we really call that a genuine moral dilemma?

New players to Dark Souls assume that they need to kill every monster in their way to proceed. But the design of the game itself, with its repeated corpse runs to boss arenas where they get splatted over and over again, eventually teaches the player that running past enemies where possible is actually an expected way to play. Furthermore, leveling up is not required to beat the game, nor is killing enemies the only way to acquire souls. And there are plenty of opportunities for the player to choose whether or not to kill entirely peaceful NPCs, most notably Priscilla, who is posed like a boss while standing in what looks like a boss arena in a place where you fully expected to find a boss to fight, and yet she begs you to leave peacefully and does not bar your exit. It's not as clear-cut as Shadow of the Colossus (in particular it's not actually clear what the ethics of killing hollows is, given that they're cursed to repeatedly rise in undeath for all eternity), but the core theme of the game is futility.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#66

Post by leoc »

IAmBroom wrote: post #63
leoc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MGS (and MGS2) are prominent enough, and directly relevant enough, and predate Shadow of the Colossus enough, that not mentioning them is a conspicuous omission, and not just something it would have been nice to add. In fact not mentioning them makes the article somewhat misleading, especially when at the same time it chooses to highlight Spec Ops: The Line .

You really can't mention MSGS without giving due mention to DOOM, which owes its existence to the popularity of Zork. And you can't mention that without D&D, but you have to preface every mention of D&D with historical war board-gaming and... chess and Go.

I am afraid that you have missed my point. DOOM is famous for many things, but encouraging a really-makes-ya-think response to the death of its NPCs is not one of them. If it were then it probably would cry out for a mention in an article about games which made you feel bad to kill bosses, yes.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#67

Post by gchamonlive »

That reminds me of the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna and Krishna have a long conversation before a battle where the former is supposed to perform his duties towards the people he's sworn to protect, but which would mean most likely killing close relatives that he cares about.

There is no honor in killing, only in exercising your duty towards serving and protecting others.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#68

Post by gchamonlive »

br121 wrote: post #39
rootlocus wrote: post #13

> Before the encounter with the first Troll, the dumbfounded mythical character, Atreus, asks: “We’re going to fight that?!?” Kratos, the main character, answers: “We have no choice,” in a matter-of-fact, almost resigned way, as if shruggingly accepting the design conventions of the game itself. I didn't see it like that. Atreus thinks he and his father are normal humans, even if he saw his father perform incredible…

Atreus' question come out of fear, but Kratos' response is what the article focus on. Kratos does not take any joy in killing, he does that out of necessity and would have loved for that necessity not to arise. He could have boasted "I have killed bigger things", but instead he choose words of resignation against a kill or be killed fate he was trying to escape

> he does that out of necessity and would have loved for that necessity not to arise

Which I believe is in contrast with the older games. Haven't played them but from what I've heard he'd pursue conflicts because he enjoyed them. I think this change is because of his ongoing process of coming to terms with being a father which takes the act of killing and twists it inside out.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#70

Post by jjhfarmer »

asgerhb wrote: post #60
ionwake wrote: post #31

If you are young "shadow of the collosus" is a game I highly recommend you dig up and play, it set a special unique tone for the 2000-2010 era

When you say "dig up," do you recommend the remaster or the original?

I would highly recommend the original if possible. I feel the remake removed a lot of the atmosphere and direction in the pursuit of showing off asset fidelity. The original holds up amazingly well for its time and feels like playing a painting.
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