Which universe do you prefer: Ico's or Nier/Drakengard's?

When will this retarded meme end? They speak the gibberish that's in the soundtrack, Popola and Devola are even singin the main theme in that language.

What about it is banal? There isn't much to it but as far as vidya fantasy settings go it has decisively more creativity than most.

Quality > quantity, 3000 years of gibberish isn't worth much.

Okay genius then why are the humans still speaking regular English/Japanese 10000 years into the future? Do you know what the equivalent of English sounded like 10k years ago? You wouldn't even be able to understand that shit.

Pick one you autist. That's supposed to be the language that's actually spoken. What's next, are you going to complain that the Homs in Xenoblade speak English/Jap?

It's just a bunch of wacky things cobbled up together to create a shallow social commentary. Let's see how other mediums utilize the theme.

Fallout, STALKER, and Elder Scrolls Morrowind are far more creative than any of these games.

Hell ,even Baiten Kaitos puts those films to shame.

What are you smoking? What about those games are wacky or social commentary?

What and how?

I was talking about Nier. SoTC is just "fantastic for the sake of being fantastic." It's not better.

What exactly is wrong with it then? You get to climb/fight monsters in a big world with mysterious and atmospheric ruins all over the place. I don't see your point.

It was one of those weird Card/action Jrpgs, but the setting was everything that Final Fantasy has been failing at since VII to be honest. And the second game was quite something.

I like the idea of the made up vocal song language but why doesn't anyone speak in it? They could just do that and throw in subtitles, that's what Ico/SotC did and it worked great.

Come on dude.

Also how is anything in Ico/SotC "social commentary?"

The main theme is a heavy spoiler, so no lyrics have been ever officialy announced, if you are fluent in moonrunes, finnmongol, and human languages like french, latin, german, and english give it a go, there is meaning in them and the only known tip is that it mentions Weiss in it.

They do, Automata Autist. They do.

That's cool but they should have made the actual NPCs speak in it too.

In the first three hours I only heard people speak Japanese, absolutely noone should be speaking a 10k year old language.

Well damn, I guess all that scifi where people speak english or japanese like star wars, star trek, LoGH, gundam, etc. are completely invalidated

In Legend of the Galactic Heroes, the Empire speaks German and the Alliance speaks English. Except they both speak Japanese because that's what you hear. Except they don't, because most people, including most Japs, are too fucking lazy to read subtitles for fucking everything that's said in a piece of media, and they just have them speak Japanese because that's the target audience and because Western VAs are shit and out of budget.

The fact that two spacefaring empires fifteen hundred years in the future uniformly speak two Indo-European languages that haven't diverged or evolved very much at all is a problem in its own right (the novels mention German only being the Imperial standard language, so maybe they have and the Empire are just being hidebound fucks), but you can, and should, just gloss over that shit and have the characters speak the language that you expect the viewer to speak.

In Nier Automata, you go a step beyond that to a language that no one speaks, because it doesn't exist. If the LoGH producers had had the dosh, they could have hired shitty English and German VAs to voice the whole thing- and then had the OVA flop because most people hate subs. Platinum can't do that, because they'd have to hire a very talented linguist to design the new language, then hire the VAs, then phonetically teach them to speak their lines in a natural tone of voice. And then have no one understand the story because most people hate subs.

Yep they're shit, at least in regards to the internal consistency of their settings. Also how is it not common knowledge by now that Star Wars has awful writing?

Not an argument

Wew lad, we've hit a new low.

You might be right as regards LoGH.
With Nier, it goes beyond that and into the realm of financial impossibility. Designing a convincing constructed language is hard and expensive, and learning a language, or even learning to speak a few phonetic lines convincingly, is difficult and time-consuming.

Then just make a gibberish one, surely they could do that. Oh wait, they already did and they just didn't choose to implement it into the rest of the game because casuals can't handle subtitles

Also making languages isn't that hard if it's for a specific game/story since you don't need to make an entire language, you just need to make one with the specific elements/words that you'll be using. I know this because I've done it (mine was only 200 years in the future so they didn't have to be too different though)

I bet you like Tolkien Literature, faggot

You still have to make the VAs learn that shit by rote, and then you'd be bitching that the language wasn't real.

Star Fox Adventure confirmed for greatest lore

Also, vidya gaems (and anime, as patrician as LoGH may be) are fundamentally mass media.

You can say the masses are casuals, but games that think the masses are casuals tend to either not sell or be indieshit, and anime that think the masses are casuals tend to not sell or be arthouse projects.

There is no legitimate reason that aliens or people from the future should speak a fictional language in works of science fiction, except if the theme you're pursuing requires it.

They hold no meaning, that's what's wrong. And even as a plain fantasy, it's nowhere as good as Morrowind in creating the fantastic.

Star Wars might not have the best dialogue, but the main theme of spirituality is what makes it great and distinct from others. Most people might think that the hero's journey of Star Wars is the point of the entire saga, but it's not. Star Wars is first and foremost a direct confrontation to THX 1138. In THX 1138 (which originally was an idea of George's friend), technology destroys the human soul. In Star Wars, spirituality is the answer to the banality of technological advancement. It's a deeper theme than anything Kubrick would make, and on par with the best from the greats such as Tarkovsky, Bergman, Bunuel, Fellini, and Bresson.

That critique was directed to Nier.

Your post reminds me of Mami's theme, a mishmash of German, Latin, Nipponese, etc that sounds like gibberish.

Reading subtitles takes attention away from the character's facial expressions, not that an autist like you would notice.

And? What does that even mean? Just because it has no message?
Sorry it doesn't have elves and spells, but it makes a far more interesting world by being deliberately mysterious.

And you wonder why our civilization is dying…

...

God no

The nice thing about gibberish languages is that noone can identify it being spoken poorly

Which is why the only good shit is made under those circumstances

kys fam

wew

Not the point faggot. If someone's talking, but you have anything else happening the viewer will only see it in their periphery, making it so that any kind of fancy cinematography is wasted because you needed to have dome dumbass language made up for you

It doesn't need a message. It just needs to question the point of human existence to be not banal, and not in a mockery kind of way.

Mystery doesn't work like that. Mystery is not something that should be treated as entertainment. I mean, for instance, the mystery of The Zone in Stalker (the film) functions as a driving force to move the characters' faith or lack of faith. Those mysteries as shown in those films are empty mysteries, mysteries that have no purpose in a grand scale of life. Better not exist at all, they're all vain. It's better to explain the meaning of your world than serving an empty cup.

lolwut? Are you sure you're even at a high school reading level? Unless you're a fucking chameleon you're going to be wasting some time looking at the bottom of the screen. Time that could be spent looking anywhere else. For fictional languages, it makes no sense to make up the entire language.

And I say this as a subfag for any game with dual-audio.

...

I'm not even talking about the made-up language autist, that's fucking retarded. I'm just saying that if you take nore than half a second to read the subs you are a genetic failure and should off yourself for the good of mankind.

In general, yeah. The exceptions are mostly when a director tricks a studio into funding an arthouse project like what happened with Snowpiercer.

Most shit games are indie but most (modern) good games are indie too.

What? My point was against having made up languages.

You still have to move your eyes up and down the screen every half second.

So you're not defending Nier's and SoTC's pointless gibberish?

No, that would be me.

No. I mean they wanted to have it so they can go ahead if they think it will add to the game in some way, but forcing it into every fantasy or scifi setting lest it be "internally inconsistent" is just fucking stupid.

I think made up language has no reason to exist in anything. There is no aesthetic or informative value in it.

Those half-seconds can add up, is my point. Most of the time it's fine, but in series that revolve around character development you can miss some of the subtlety. Rare as it may be for gooks to into subtlety.

I'm still not following, it doesn't need a message but it does need to "question the point of human existence". Wouldn't that be a message? Also mystery does work like that, it makes the world interesting by providing gaps for the player to want to fill in.

confirmed for being an illiterate who hasn't read 1984 or A Clockwork Orange

edgy bullshit
almost like Nier

There is atmospheric value in it, it helps make foreign things more foreign. And language/cultural barriers can be big themes.

Oh boy it's time for another round of "Bait or contrarian hipster?" Which could it be?

I thought you were just a linguistics autist, which I could sympathize with, but I think you're just a pretentious fag.

Everyone has read 1984, you fucking nigger. It's the third piece of media shitlibs reference after Harry Potter and Star Wars.

Gibberish does not enhance the setting. Linguistic fanservice like conlangs and made-up slang can, but adding it in for no reason aside from "its the future lol" serves no purpose.

Well, the question's kind of stupid, since it's phrased as which universe you prefer, not which story premise and recurring themes you prefer
If we're going by just premise, ICO is structured better as it's a more clearly connected series, where even though the ties are still DEEPEST LORE-tier, they're still more than just essentially easter eggs
In themes I think both have nearly equal merit, though Nier I think is better at making them hit home
Though if we are talking about the better universe, I don't think anyone would want to live in the one where magic exists but is also almost literally space aids

Also holy shit the hostile autism in this thread is off the fucking charts, every single one of you faggots should kill yourselves

You'd think so but apparently this faggot hasn't.

And gibberish helps show that the setting is not like our own, any futuristic setting should give you stranger in a strange land vibes which are reduced if they talk just like you do. Ideally though you'd at least try to find some middle ground between gibberish and made up languages and have some consistency with words that show up often to give the illusion that you actually made a language.

Then I guess I'm pretentious

...

By no means is this the case.

Back to LoGH. The setting is fairly realistic as sci-fi goes: planets aren't cities, the author gives a perfunctory, but sufficient justification for FTL and the Napoleonic space battles, and everything is fairly self-consistent and non-magical. But, everything feels basically like it's the modern day with some differences in technology and culture. The whole point of the series is that history is cyclical and that man is always the same (it's even in the first OP of the OVA).

If you're shooting for a strange, alien vibe, by all means go crazy with the conlangs. But future settings do not necessarily require that kind of feeling.

Popular things can be good, user.

Message works as a conclusion to something. You don't need to create a conclusion, not everything has an objective answer. A profound metaphorical, rhetorical question is enough to make your work meaningful.

Then it needs to be filled.

I don't know, I don't find anything new or fascinating about entertainment anymore. I just want to see they present the dynamic of life.

No, 1984 and Clockwork Orange aren't good books.

You're like a 3 year old being amused by Barney.

I think you've hit those things too much and can't see the forest from the trees, user. You aren't a stranger in a strange land in Automata, not technically. You sure as hell aren't a stranger in a strange land in Nier 1 or any of the Drakengard games. The player is, but the characters aren't. You can't just whine and cry that a futuristic setting doesn't have some made up language so you can ejaculate over that instead of the game itself. You seriously have no idea about the world and just think you do because you've read what is classified as the "top stuff" so you think your opinion is law for some reason. Get your head out of your ass.

Which is why I cited 1984, it's obviously very popular but it's also very good. And with the cyclical history thing I think that's fair, but I haven't seen anything that goes for that vibe (like whatever this anime you're referring to is).

Name a book with a decisively more well thought out setting than 1984 with more consistent themes. Protip: you might be able to name a couple but they won't be significantly better, not significant enough to the point where "1984 is not good" would have any truth to it.

Which I think is a mistake, this creates dissonance between the player and the character they are supposed to control.

Whoa there nigger. 1984's Newspeak is not gibberish, and is very significant to the story. It's an entire fucking plot point, that controlling language influences the way people think.

M8, stop being so fucking pretentious. It's a videogame, you're there for fun not to be awed by the mysteries of human existence. Read a fucking book if you want that to the extent you claim you do, there's tons.
I never said it fascinated me, it just makes it feel foreign.

user the levels of pretentiousness you're operating on is way to high. Go read a fancy book and come back when you're ready for fun.

Brave New World puts 1984 to shame. And Orwell is no genius of literatur- wait a second, is it you Quentin? Didn't you die from shoving The Great Gatsby up your ass?

Nothing wrong with that. There's nothing requiring a player to always personally insert as the main characters.

My point is purely that future settings don't have to be overtly alien or "futuristic." If you haven't seen LoGH it kind of diminishes the point, but you can sub in any work set in the future that still has the same basic social structure and civilization.

BNW isn't that great either, the dystopia genre as a whole is a meme.
Also, Animal Farm is better than 1984 because it's forthright about what it is.

I know man, Newspeak fits into the linguistic fanservice category, not gibberish. I understand and appreciate Newspeak.

I prefer BNW and even Oryx and Crake to 1984 but I wouldn't say that either put it to shame, I don't think 1984 could be improved in any significant way for what it was trying to do. The two things 1984 does better than either however is being efficient at not wasting time on things that don't impact the story/theme and Newspeak is genius.

Also The Great Gatsby sucks.

To each their own, I think this is something that should always be addressed in a game unless the point is to become the main character, like how in Devil May Cry there's a style meter that exists to encourage you to play the game like how Dante would.

I meant that I haven't found any work that mirrors our social structure that actually utilizes that fact in the way you're describing, in that the theme would be about history repeating itself. I'll check out this anime though, thanks for the recommendation.

Are we talking about novels or scientific journals? I think Ivan Ilyich has more artistic value than 1984, which was just another "gubmint oppresses me" story.

I don't find any of those either fun or profound, you know? Innocence and humbleness are very respectful, but Nier is just so vulgar and so far up it's own ass that it makes me cringe.

But I'm talking about SotC and Ico. Nier does like to get pretty pretentious sometimes.

Haven't read it or heard of it, I'll throw it on the backlog.

Those are just bland for me. Neither entertaining or artistic, just bland. They're also up their own ass too by pretending to be artistic.

Don't expect it to be anything like 1984, it's just a simple but beautiful life story.

I can accept that you don't find it interesting but

You're wrong. The only artsy thing about them is visually. That's like saying a painter is up his own ass for painting a pretty landscape. They are visually artistic and not much else, the story has no message or themes and isn't an allegory either. You have no grounds to call it up its own ass.

Well, they're nothing special in that regard either. They aren't pretty.

Depends. Masaccio wasn't as full of himself as modern artists. He just painted simple setting, but in the most beautiful way, while other artists today love to paint a fantastic theme or glorified simple setting solely to show off their skill. I see the same in SoTC and Ico, they're just fantastic for the sake of being fantastic. It's just a form of pretension.

They most certainly are, especially for PS2 games.
Holy shit look in a mirror you pretentious faggot. They made something fantastic because it was pretty, it pushed the graphics tech to the limits, and had good art design. They only made it as fantastic as it needed to be as well, most of the land is nature with some ruins.

The art direction I mean.

Morrowind pushed a distinct art style to entertain the audience by telling a story and giving the art direction a meaning. SoTC and Ico, as I said, are just empty and pretentious.

The art direction is still good.
What and Ico and SotC's art didn't entertain the audience? And the story in the games is serviceable enough to give the art meaning, as well as the gameplay backs up the art design and use of fantasy, because there are no regular creatures that you could climb and kill by attacking one small spot on their armpit. You haven't given me any real reason why it is pretentious.

Morrowind wasn't pretentious because it knew it's place and potential. It's a mockery and exploitation of fantasy genre in a tasteful way. SoTC is pretentious because the creator thinks that his work is deep enough to be worthy of subjective interpretation. Or maybe it's just childish, like those glorified space marine paintings by artists who take large commissions on DA.

I'm sorry did you make SotC? You don't know his fucking intent, and the game does not try to be anything more than action game with pretty art and good atmosphere. Fuck off.

No, SoTC is like the merc_wip.jpg of video games.

well I see you're out of arguments.

But user that makes perfect sense because their **gods are from Earth and speaks English/Jap and as such taught them to speak it.*

"does not try to be anything more than action game with pretty art and good atmosphere" doesn't automatically mean that it isn't pretentious. They threw the concept of good gameplay out of the window in favor of emphasizing it's (((art))).

With the exception of individually crafted objects, all media is mass.

No, they didn't. It still has high action when you fight the colossi. What are you even going on about. Show me content that was cut or missed gameplay opportunities where "art" was placed instead. Only shit they cut was some more colossi most likely because of time, budget, or both.

SoTC is a slow and repetitive game for one. You do nothing but walking around a bland looking place without anything to kill for the sake of """immersion""" and when you meet one giant, all you do is climbing to it's attack zone, rinse and repeat. High """""action""""" (((gameplay))) indeed.

I'm sorry you have the attention span of a goldfish, but if you get bored finding the colossi (which isn't hard) and don't find the act of climbing a giant thrashing monster, looking for its weakspot, and then stabbing it to death fun, then you might just be an ADD riddled faggot.

curse this fucking brain

What the fuck user, there's official lyrics you know.

Come on now.

Oh, I see, you're merely pretending to be retarded. Well it was some pretty good bait while it lasted.

I have proven that Ico and SoTC aren't remotely good art though.

yeah i think i'll take the one with android booty.

No, you haven't. Show me where you've directly attacked the graphics or art direction.

I didn't play TLG, does that really happen? I thought nobody could figure out its placement among Ico and SOTC

Vague, interesting setting that can always be expanded upon > writing yourself into a corner by trying to dump everything up front

It's shitposting
I'm actually translating A Clockwork Orange to my native tongue, which is Russian, so that means I have to come up with a totally new form of Nadsat as a means of contrast among other things, since it's mostly based on Russian in the original

Don't know much about ICO, but SotC's setting does enhance the overall game and doesn't exist for the sake of existing. It's about a man's deal with the devil to save a woman for reasons unknown. There is literally nothing else in the world worth saving besides her, and while that might be boring, you never forget your purpose for being there. This and the fact that it's removed from reality are very important, because now it can appeal on a universal level. That's the beauty of minimalism; it can elicit intended responses in almost all audiences regardless of knowledge.

why does everything have to be so grim and depressing?

I have explained why the art of SoTC serves no purpose. To be a true art, a craft must serve a particular purpose, as explained in this interview from Tarkovsky:

You're not convincing me. Also, being removed from all reality doesn't give it a universal appeal, but in fact removes all emotional appeal.

Finding new enemies, Angelicafag? The death of yuri will bring the death of lesbians and you'll die with them.

Oh hi Angelica Autist. I see you somehow managed to stumble into a thread just to get your ass filled with my dick. I also see you still haven't managed to kill yourself. You really should get on it since in death you won't have to deal with all of the oppressive lesbians you fear so much.

That's not me.

Except for the part where I always win. Also, I thought you hated gay men, Scaredfag?
I am literally your master, remember that. I have all the control and YOU gave it to me.

anyone has a link/magnet of the Live concert blu-ray that came with the black box edition? I can't find it anywhere.

It does serve a purpose, it is entertainment and entertains. Also
No

Keep telling yourself that little buddy. You've never won no matter how much you bang on your keyboard and clutch on that safety blanket of yours. You're a little bitch who can't do fucking jack shit in real life to fight off the supposed "lesbian threat". It's the saddest thing about you and your character.

Angelica Autist is cancer.