Topic: Another pretentious indie game yet...

[Pfil]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/25/the-swapper-captures-the-essence-of-super-metroid

When I read this, I thought: wow, Super Metroid...

Then I read the article.
This is exactly what I was talking about when I said a time ago that many downloadable games choose to go trying to pass as high art, so pretentious and stupid.
And just read all the nonsense this guy is talking about.

I never thought crap like:
"Oh, Castlevania 1 is so daring! It asks existential questions about life and death! Is Simon really dying and right next to it he is living again? Is this a limbo, where he must die over and over again? Is he immortal? Or has he the power of resurrecting, like the phoenix?"
What an a****le, my God!
It's just a game, go play it, enjoy the graphics, the music, and have fun with the gameplay! Even the story, doesn't need this nonsense.

This made me remember some recent games like Braid.
What's with the unnecessary pretentious story and all that abstract nonsense?

He says "emotional"... My God, if he wants emotional he should play Final Fantasy VI.
I'd even say Mirror of Fate is emotional, because the ending really is. But it is concrete, we know what's happening, it's not some abstract bull***.
We are living times in gaming where I see similarities with what happened with paintings. Once we had paintings from the renaissance and baroque, and then it was everything abstract (not the abstract period, but the modern times where, for example, someone just did one violent brushing on the paper and that's it, I don't know how it's called), and every pretentious art critic interpreted his own way things that didn't make sense... well, to me, this is it.
This kind of pretentious games is like those new form of art painting, and games like Final Fantasy VI are the highest point, and part of the past.
You can also compare it to The Beatles and Yoko Ono. Old classic games are The Beatles. Indie pretentious trash is Yoko Ono.

I tell you, VG's industry, not only developers but also critics, is full of stupid pretentious scum.

Fellow dungeonites, please forgive me for posting something in this manner. But I'm already tired of this.

[TheouAegis]

I'd read it, but IGN's site is so overbloated with ads that I can't even load their site on any of my computers.

[Lelygax]

Thats why I ever use adblock plus. I will read this article and post my opinion later.

Reading Pfil briefing I expect a shitstorm in this review...

...yeah, I think that he became drunk at the middle of the review. He started to say things that you say in a forum or with friends, not in a review.

I liked this "Drunken. Robot. Pornography" game, since I like bullet hell games.

[PFG9000]

I don't know that the preview is all that pretentious.  As soon as they explained the gameplay mechanics, and before they got to any philosophical musings, I had already asked myself those questions about the ethical implications of using such a "swapper" device.  It seems like an interesting concept.  Maybe some people just read into things more than you?

[KaZudra]

oh boy, another $15 game that's only good for a single play-through with gimmicks and single approach puzzles and copies the vein of a older well-known game.
I bet it'll have this "Deep enriching story" that is barely present in the game.

Please people, Braid and Limbo were terrible, why can't they realize that?!

[Lelygax]

Because they think that if they say good things about indie games they will be "cool". I never played these 2 mentioned games nor meatboy, but the reason is obvious.

[Abnormal Freak]

oh boy, another $15 game that's only good for a single play-through with gimmicks and single approach puzzles and copies the vein of a older well-known game.
I bet it'll have this "Deep enriching story" that is barely present in the game.

Please people, Braid and Limbo were terrible, why can't they realize that?!

Downvoted. Limbo is incredible. Great atmosphere, fun gameplay—what more does a game need? Did the "pretentiousness" really get to you so much that you can't recognize an amazing game when you see it? In a very roundabout way, that's very pretentious. "I don't like these HIGH ART games, pfft, pshaw!"

[shelverton.]

Limbo is one of the best games I've played for years, but each to their own...

One game that really made me think about life and death was Journey. The story is minimalistic but it's impossible to play through it and just be like: "Yeah that was a fun action game with nice graphics!". Because it's not about that. I don't think it's pretentious either. It's actually very low key and melancholy. I think there ARE pretentious games out there though. Mass Effect trilogy for example. But I dunno. Maybe it's just me.

[Pfil]

I don't think the critic just understand more than what I can.
He seems to be high while writing this.

I like artistic games. Of course games can be art. Just check Eternal Sonata and all the background for Chopin's tragic story of lost love and early death, and the classical music that sounds throughout the game. Now THAT is art.
This, at least to me, is just pretentious.
I think from the beggining that the intention of the developers is for everyone to think "Wow, this is so deep and philosophical!".

I cried with games many times, or got moved by the story. Final Fantasy VI for example. I love art, I studied art for several years in many forms, and I can also get touched or even cry with lots of movies, music...
But I played games like Braid, Limbo and The Path, and I felt NOTHING.
I recognize, however, the good gameplay within Braid, for example. What I don't like is the other part, that part that I find pretentious MYSELF. It's MY opinion.
I am not a cold person. In fact, I'm on the other extreme. I fell way too much. But this form of "art" is nothing to me, it never reaches my heart.

We can have art in any form. We have Michael Angelo and Da Vinci, we have Bach or Beethoven's music, or Queen in modern music for example, we have movies like Citizen Kane and Cinema Paradiso, we have Shakespeare plays, Edgar Allan Poe tales, we have William Blake poetry, Jorge Luis Borges, and of course, we have games, like Chrono Trigger, or Nier to name one modern game that is really touching (although I wouldn't put Nier next to classics like Chrono Trigger).
We have hundreds of examples for each form of art.

But for a developer to enter that select place of art history making a game, I don't think pretentiousness is the way. You can just make Cave Story or La Mulana, or some Touhou games or RosenkreuzStillete, and you will make a brilliant game without all the nonsense.

But these days critics seem to be a little messed up. I read days ago that Xenoblade is better than FF6 and Chrono Trigger for some IGN critic.
My God...

[Maedhros]

Outside of Jonathan Blow (and Phil - Fez creator- maybe) pretetiouness... I don't think I see anything in this review worth of your critic. At all. It's just a oppinion from someone who played the game, not from the developers themselves.

They can ponder about what the fuck they want. Aren't you being pretentious assuming that people shouldn't be enjoying these aspects of the game? Why should everyone only look at the gameplay?

[Pfil]

If any, I might be being intolerant. I recognize that. But not pretentious.
My opinion is that he is talking nonsense.
Like Lelygax said, these are things that you can say to a friend when hanging out, but a critic must follow some lines.
And, as I said, if he wants "emotional" he should play FF6 or any game like that. Unless he's high, drunk or something, then he can find emotion just by looking at a wall or by doing anything he wants.
All this new trend of indie games is, in my opinion, nothing more than pretentious stuff.
It's like the product of someone under the effects of LCD, and not a brilliant one for the matter (because I know some musicians that made good stuff under some effects, but that doesn't seem to be the case with all these games).
The topic is about this particular kind of indie games, in general, and the way the press praise them, and not about this particular game.

I'm not saying by any means that indie developers can't make something brilliant. Just look at Cave Story, La Mulana, RosenkreuzStillete... there's plenty of examples. But this particular trend that seems so cool nowadays, to me isn't worth anything. I repeat: to me.
Between this and the rise of other genres and ways, they are killing traditional gaming.
I see it as a waste. We should get more traditional games (Contra: Rebirth, FF4 The After Years, Sonic 4) and less crap.

But of course, that's just my personal view. Anyone can share it, or not.

[Flame]

I wouldn't call the game pretentious- I'd call that review pretentious. It made me barf. all this philosophy bullshit over simple gameplay mechanics. He was reading WAY too into things.

[Lelygax]

It's like the product of someone under the effects of LCD, and not a brilliant one for the matter (because I know some musicians that made good stuff under some effects, but that doesn't seem to be the case with all these games).

Jokes aside, someone -1ed me and I lol'ed. Mr/s. Unknown, do you atleast understand what I tried to say? Im not criticizing Indie games nor their creators, Im saying that reviewers are putting Indie games in a pedestal only because everyone is paying attention to them now. These reviewers (not all) think that review a Indie game = being cool. I didn't have seem any great sites reviewing Cave Story when they first launched it to PC.

Thats my opinion, not a fact. They do it with all type of things only to follow a trend and try to gather attention, since attention = more viewers = more money to them.

[Pfil]

As always, Lelygax saying things in such a concise and concrete way.
Thanks for explaining what I tried to express.
And don't worry for the -1, here's +3 from me for you 
It's true, I don't remember Cave Story getting this attention or praise when it came out.

And what about Touhou games? They literally kick the ass of any of this recent indie games.

As for what Flame said, I also agree.
The review is so, so pretentious. That's what annoyed me the most.

Anyway, the game doesn't seem to have anything of interest to me, comparing it to Super Metroid is a sacrilege.

[Lelygax]

Thanks for being so lovely.
Yeah, I totally forgot that Touhou are Indie games too, good point.