Why does such an extremely vast majority of Japanese video games have stories (or plotlines at least) that boil down to...

Why does such an extremely vast majority of Japanese video games have stories (or plotlines at least) that boil down to an infinite cycle of life, death, and rebirth?

The most obvious example is Legend of Zelda, with the rise of Ganon followed by birth of another Link and Zelda to fight him every so often but there are far more examples than that to be found in Japanese video games.

I get that Bhuddism is really big in Japan, but it seems to be an exclusively Japanese thing to hamfist in such heavy religious undertones into every type and genre of thing. There are certainly Western video games that use biblical references or have a focus on religion, but there's no way it's even half as frequent as overseas.

What's the fucking deal?

Other urls found in this thread:

fantendo.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Mario_Timeline
smbhq.com/timeline.htm
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

user, please don't fall for the timeline meme. Zelda always fights Ganon the same way Mario always fights Bowser. You don't see autists clamoring for a Mario timeline.

This would explain rehashes.

Well user, in video games you often die and then have to do repeat that life over again, getting a little better each time.
And since that happens a lot in video games, and it's a common theme in Japanese religion (including Shinto as well as Buddhism), and since lots of games are made in Japan, it might just be a good fit, culturally as well as narratively, to incorporate those themes in to the game.
Dark Souls is another example, not only in a single game, but across the series as a whole (DaS1 and DaS3).


I'm here to ruin your day.
fantendo.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Mario_Timeline
And here's one from pre2k, to show that autism has always been a part of us.
smbhq.com/timeline.htm

I'm not talking about timelines, I'm talking about the cycle. It's always a cycle. Evil rises, Evil Reigns, Good rises to fight Evil, Good Wins and there is peace for a time, rinse and repeat ad infinitum.


Every single JRPG I've ever played has had this cycle bullshit in it. Prophecies and fate in an endless, pointless cycle of eternity.

And so many games start off with the same concept of an evil that has been asleep for a hundred or a thousand years, and the only way you can beat it is to reseal it – a doomed cycle of constantly setting forth a band of plucky teens to put the bad guy back to sleep.

It's greater food for thought that elevates entertainment to work on more levels which ultimately makes it more fulfilling. The idea of entertainment is to entertain, Japan is very conscious of this and will seek to create their games as entertaining as possible. It is also why fan service is such a thing embraced so heartily, it is more entertaining this way. Provided the audience finds it entertaining they will embrace natural real life philosophical concepts to provide more meaning for those that it might appeal to.

I stopped paying attention to the story a decade or so ago. King's Field I got, simple premise, go to it. Dark Souls, yeah, I just clear this area and move on to the next, and something being hollow and an old king.

because the universe is cyclical

TICC!

That's what i think, Nintendo just reuses popular characters, it only matters how the world is going to be in danger at that particular time, but its basically anything that works for "choosen hero saves the kingdom and the princess from evil", next game just redo it but introduce a few unique characters so it doesn't feel like you judt dont care, oh and also change the art direction to piss off people.

Looks like she got COBBED

In a roundabout sort of way, and in due course, many similar situations can potentially eventually occur and have occurred in the past, but they are neither inevitable nor truly similar enough to be objectively considered the same events.

Not trying to get deep, I'm just saying that I strongly disagree with the idea of "fate" and I'm honestly getting tired of it in my vidya games.

Every empire falls after around 200-270 years. This has been observed through history. And only an idiot would not observe history to know how to not repeat the same mistakes or prepare for them. It's foolishness to think we'd be any different mind you, especially when we're already in our last age, the age of decadence, which was been thoroughly reported on throughout history.

user the idea of Fate has nothing to do with cyclical nature of civilization and in many Japanese games its not fatalism being explored but cyclicalism because they want to inspire traditionalism in their youth. Its just another take on the old adage "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". In fact often Japanese games represent the hero as rebelling against determinism and the Villain is the one calling for fatalistic end of the word.

It's 1am and I don't have it in me to argue with you, so you win. I concede and apologize for my wrongthink.


No matter how true or how thought-provoking such a plot point is, when it's in EVERYTHING it becomes grating and absolutely loses its value.

It's 1:53 am, not 1am. It's closer to 2, you baka.

but that's hyperbole

Because unlike the west, Japans religion and theocratic traditions have not been viciously severed from them through propaganda and progressive schools?

Effective hyperbole, it gets the point across.


I was rounding up, it's currently 12:55 AM.


I wasn't directly raised with any religion, so my entire understanding of Christianity was "God is a dick and he's gonna kill you one day, so be good" and I just managed to pick that up from people around me and TV. I became an atheist as a teen and now I consider myself more of a functional nihilist.

I don't think religion is necessary in a proper modern society that actually has law and people who enforce that law.

It's more that your body kills you and unless you pleased god he won't welcome you into heaven which leaves you with oblivion. purgatory didn't exist originally, it was "created" earlier by others.
Don't lie to me. That timezone doesn't exist.

yes but your point is generally not true, so whats your real issue?

I prefer to think that humanity came about as the result of a series of coincidences over the course of an unfathomably large span of time, not that it was created by something that "always was"

And if something "always was," why can't it be that we HUMANS just "always were"? I mean sure, individual humans die, but the human race could easily have been around since the beginning of time and there's no way to truly empirically prove otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. Why immediately jump to "something made us!"

oh missed that part (you) are just retarded

Why were we the only ones then? And what of the universe?

Because Buddhism/Shintoism is the core of their philosophy/worldview as people. They have retained their traditions over a long time. Tradition isn't just dressing funny, eating certain foods and going to festivals.

Tradition is preserving the mentality that allowed your civilization to flourish in the first place.

If you don't observe this, the rot starts to set in.

hahahahahahaha
That's creationist tier bullshit!
hahahahahahahhahahahaha

I don't think anything really matters, but I'm not terribly worried about it because it's not my place to know.

...

This.
A superior society that did not let the regressives have rights maintained it's traditions and put them on all entertainment as means to teach younger people the values of their society as a whole, when said young ones paid more attention to entertainment than to their father's teachings.
In short: Japan does what any healthy society must do.

My question to you is: Why do you give a fuck? Most games are vibrant enough on their own, with an interesting cast of characters and interesting scenarios. Look at Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma. Do you think they're comparable in any way, even though they incorporate this concept into their stories? I'd say no. The presentation may be somewhat similar, but there's enough technical differences that keep the two games distinct and therefore independent from one another.

Because Japs are autists who couldn't be creative or original to save their lives. This isn't anything new.

Here's a quick breakdown


Alternatively

Fuck you, OP asked a question. This is the answer. Video games.

Because then the series can end at any point or keep going indefinitely for easy shekels.

I think most people with kids care about their kids and the next generation in general and want it to not be shit.

There are non-religious cops and you can bet your sweet ass there are a ton of soldiers that are atheist.

Not an argument, just pointing out a thing. I concede again.

Sure, and I don't content with any of that. Lot's of people make hard decisions for personal reasons. Civilizations aren't built on individuals though. They are built on groups of like-minded people. Statistics exist to determine trends, and I'm sure if you look at military statistics you'll find that atheists are a small number in their ranks. And for good reason. They have no afterlife, and no sky god to notice their unsung good deeds. It's probably the most depressing thing I can think of.

Statistics are for making informed decisions about future actions, not claiming a predicted outcome is inevitable and giving up. Even if it seems like it's a 99% chance that everything will go to hell and we'll all die in your lifetime, there's nothing stopping you from holding on to that 1% chance that shit gets fixed somehow by some insane fluke nobody could predict and everything ends up alright.

All souls come and go in cycles.
Just as the history of war and peace repeats.

You don't market to outliers in a group if you want to make money.

You don't cater to outliers in a society if you want the majority to feel welcome.

Two problems with this line of thinking. First, you don't need to create an organized religion in order to get people to agree on a series of tenets that will then act as the basis of your laws. People tend to agree with simple lines of reasoning. If I tell you, "Hey, I won't fuck you over if you won't fuck me over" then that should be good enough for the both of us. If you test me, I will check your bitch ass. Most people are willing to respect boundaries because the potential benefits of fucking someone over are not worth the confrontation and potential losses that come with doing so. In the case that someone is desperate enough to try and fuck you over for their own gain, then you are well within your right to defend yourself. The law takes these types of scenarios into account, and that's the whole fucking reason for law in the first place; to prevent people from misbehaving and to keep the peace. If your laws are based on your religious belief, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're more insightful and effective than any comparative secular laws, and it also doesn't mean that your religious reasoning for "why you shouldn't do this or that" is good enough of a deterrent for people who simply do not see the world from your theistic perspective.

Second, even if you don't personally agree with the underlying foundations of the law, as a member of society you are still beholden to those laws. Point being, you can disagree all you like but murder is murder and if you get caught you will suffer the consequences as ordained by the legal system. The whole, "God says murder is bad, mkay" thing is just a personal interpretation of the action in question, and doesn't effect how greater society views said action through a contemporary lens.

I'm not saying you've got to convert or anything. Just admit the usefulness of the tool. We work better when we work together, and we work better together when we all share the same axioms. It's simple.

By and large it is.

/thread

That's why we have an ultra complicated legal system and court trials that can last for years, right?

It's just common sense.

Those trials do not go on because the morality of the situation is in question, but because the legal process is bureaucracy to the Nth degree. The major and most important laws every society has are common fucking sense. Don't kill people, don't steal shit. Everything else is small time.

Really it's closer to that you're going to die, but if you give yourself back to your creator, he can offer you eternal life with him and overcome death. Or, you can divorce yourself from God, and accept death.

Also, nihilism actually fits well with Christianity. Nothing can buy your way into heaven. The only way to God is through God. So, what you do on this world only matters insomuch in what you value here, though, your actions can be indicitive of your faith in God's word and therefore your faith. Basically, since you can't buy your way into heaven, saying nothing matters like a nihilist isn't far off. The works of men are nothing before the works of God.

Sage for not vidya.

Yeah I was hoping you weren't going to call me on that.

Surely you can think of a moral question that you cant come up with a good answer to. (ie the train switch question: Save a loved one or a large group of people you don't know)

Like I said those moral questions are often petty or don't come up in real life often. The finer details of legal systems aren't common sense but the finer details seldom matter.

They do but I don't have the clarity to tell you why at the moment. Everything matters, or it wouldn't be matter.

They really don't. We need the details obviously because there are times when they are required, things like the trayvon martin case where they had to decide if it was self defense or whatever. But seldom is that the case. Most murders, robberies, or whatever else are fairly cut and dry.

I bet we had a great old time riding dinosaurs and swapping tales during the major extinction events.

but what is "common" if one rejects universal truth.

lol, okay kid

there are atheist soldiers but they are an extreme minority, you clearly have never interacted with a soldier much less ever served yourself you fucking nerd

I think the greater point that is overlooked with the atheist solder is that they are not willing to die for a higher transcendental value which means they have a price. A soldier with a price is a mercenary and a army of mercenary's are an untrustworthy army.

sage because not video games

No soldier in this fucking day and age joined the military to serve God.

and in this day an age we have a corrupt government and a civilization falling apart and nobody defending the boarders.

That's only one of many levels that you are wrong. Go spend some time in the south.

I also forgot to add that most the Heroine in the USA is shipped by those "trustworthy" mercenary's for Israel in Afghanistan.

and this is a good point too

The sky is also falling.


No christian is gonna go out there and kill some sandniggers to appease God. Most people join the military cause they're poor or cause they have a family history of it. Killing mudslimes is just the cherry on top.

I feel like pic is related.

Is that so? Because I can easily find news report after news report regarding corrupt government officials, the porous state of the border and the rapid decline of morals, standards, lawfulness and other aspects that make up the foundations of civilisation, but I haven't seen anything about the sky falling. I'd like to hear more about this since you seem like a well informed individual who can bring more to this discussion than trite platitudes.

mainstream is kiked to the maximum, and small outlets have zero credibility

I love it when Japs post on English speaking boards.

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Thank you based internet man for making me hate games I've never played. I hate when my achievements are ultimately useless.

It's a pretty good thread so far.


Nice.

I don't get the appeal of japenese games in general, so it fits.

baka gaijin

A work of pure autistic art.

I'm a fucking brainlet and I think you're a dummy. A dummy!

What the fuck are you talking about? His whole point was that religion gives a way to have a solid tenet of certain values that everyone can relate to and you just completly misinterpreted it. You are spouting off on the glories of secular laws as though they are concrete and always have been. The "Hey, I won't fuck you over if you won't fuck me over" in itself could be up for change given a certain scenario.

Say a man decides to create a law between another man where they could not kill one another yet one summer the well of the first man dries and the other man will not give him water and there is no other water in a thousand miles. The other man has no reason to trust him to his nor has man any agreement to him. This is a limited example but imagine this on a huge scale back in the day when you couldn't say for sure you wouldn't starve in a week from now or not get a deadly virus. Religion brought something to the table that was unheard of t'ill then: Concrete selfless values that shaped peoples decisions instead of being shaped by them. This might not seem like much now but back when killing the man from the other tribe that looked at your wife funny was the norm it was incredibly useful. Hell even now the tennets of the ten commandements still stand same as the 2 new ones from the new testement and in two thousand years that has never changed. And how many laws get changed in the US? How many get added or taken off? You seem to think that society has never let murderers off on manslaughter or sentenced men who defended themselves to first degree murder and while that isn't that bad the worst thing about secular laws is that they reside on values that are fluid and could change from one generation, state or jury to the next.

"God says murder is bad, mkay" might seem pathetic to you but I see a thousand year long legacy of millions of people doing what they thought was right, seeing along the same lens as the first creators of those values and I really can't say that their influence and effect on my culture is a bad one.

Well looks like you'll need a while to end up realizing the truth, it took me about 2 years to get out of nihilism but that was mostly due to not having much to go on. I'm going to give you 5 years tops before you either find the truth or go terminal. Cheers.

Yeah I was really disappointed when Nintendo decided to acknowledge the autists and make their theories canon, because it just means they're placing restrictions on themselves as far as plot and setting goes and it's going to be really difficult tiptoeing around that later when the lore becomes a twisted clusterfuck. The only theory I liked was the idea of every game being a different interpretation of the hero's story naturally corrupted through oral tradition, similar to the way ancient folk heroes like Gilgamesh seemed to live many alternate lives. Would have been neat and tidy but they decided to go the convoluted route.

Pretty sure all the responses to banal nerd garbage like "Toad's mushroom is part of his head" is some bored folks at Nintendo passing time between game releases. I don't take any of it seriously because they don't either.

I think they where baiting.


Oh thank god, bringing this back toward Video games was smart. And I absolutely agree. The Joseph Campbell power of Myth/Folk lore/ Hero's Journey was a cool take on Zelda. I genuinely liked that twist when they introduced it in Wind Waker.

Zelda has always had a timeline of events, from Zelda II being an explicit sequel to ALttP being a stated prequel, it's all been there since day 1
Lots of details they couldn't really give less of a shit about and any vague connections are generally more like easter eggs than anything else, but the major plot shit is intentional

did you miss type that?

Nah, not even. The recent interview with Eiji Aonuma and the other guy that led BOTW said in response to a fan question "Where does BOTW fit in the timeline" that they didn't even consider that when making the game, and in a separate interview Aonuma admitted the timeline was only made because fans asked for one and there never was one explicitly made outside a few games that are linked together.


I think he missed a comma. If you parse the whole sentence differently it reads
This is why proper grammar is important.

I like the idea of the games being different tellings of the same story, with some games being explicit sequels to versions of that story, (Zelda 2 after Zelda 1, Link's Awakening after ALTTP, MM after OOT).

I swear there was a comma in there
Though the only way that's confusing is if you stopped reading at the end of that quote

...

That's buy the guy who did katawa shoujo art rite?

They actually aren't. Most of their plotlines and stories are usually allegory of the bible's book of revelation where God is the bad guy that wants to eat humankind.

No idea, I found it on here with no attribution. TinEye returns nothing at all either.

Philosophy and Religion are both dead ends if given a significant amount of thought, and the only reason to believe otherwise is because you haven't been alive long enough to truly understand the futility of it.

You are, after all, just one single entity in an entire unfathomably large universe of entities. You don't have it all figured out, you barely even have a working game plan for the rest of your natural life.

By the time the west started making video games, it had stopped taking religion seriously. Japan never did.

This is common even among people who are nominally Christian. Very few people actually understand the religion now, they just think of it either as some kind of vague moral therapeutic deism or as an oppressive group trying to control people's lives for no reason.

Not a problem, I plan on living forever.

Cuz jap are grown with these values and don't think they are necessarily religious, unlike atheist faggots who want everything to be somehow secular safe space shit.

Look out we got a tough guy here!

Well sure, we are fucking insignificant but i think that's the gist of it all really, to find a purpose in our life and find a cause to believe in. Else why bother with living a life in which that you are but a mere spec in the cosmos with no goals to reach?
that comic is really pointless tbh, no message to be conveyed, no themes to be thought of, and not even a punchlineJust like nihilism amirite :^)

Lmao, look at this fucking smart-ass. Remember when the Germans hated the catholic church because of it simply existing?

this

to sell more video games retard

Easy way to do the hero's journey

/christian/ did more damage to this site than reddit or SA ever could.

Christianity is a cancer on the white race. Norse paganism is the real white religion.

like clockwork

Christianity fucked us all.

all-time champion grudge holders, 2000+ years now

Yes, this is the perfect thread for you to bitch and moan and certainly not a quality thread on Holla Forums.

Its the same with American games.

In pong, two bats play a game and after one side wins the bat dies and its reborn with news bat and new ball.

I’m sorry, I must be mistaken. I could have sworn I clicked on Holla Forums, but I must have come to Holla Forums by accident. My mistake.
Oh wait, no it fucking isn’t. Take this shit to Holla Forums, faggots.

checked

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