The Splendor of the Mundane (Deadly Premonition, Shenmue, Yakuza, Persona)
11 replies, posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOM0HFaGoVI
Extremely interesting, accurate and well-written video.
That makes me imagine if the Call of Duty campaigns had things like this. You could play some segments, between battles, where you have to do regular soldier stuff like pitching tents or some training or cleaning your rifle or something. Fuck that would make it all so much more immersive, and make the actual action so much less boring.
I think thats why a lot of people like the training parts with the courses. But i dont really think it would work with action first person shooters. DP/shenmue/yakuza all work because all 3 are surrounding a drama/mystery. The nature of a mystery based plot tends to be much more slower and methodical. They also share a lot of drama in the main story, which the mundane silly nature helps lighten the mood so the depressive and drawn out part of the story isnt a total depressive slog. Imagine if hotfuzz was strictly sgt angel spending the entire movie tracking the murder down with little to nothing happening around him and no focus on his day to day events. Its a totally different movie and seems like a generic crime drama.
Basically juxtaposition is extremely powerful tool that can help lighten the mood in media but also land a punch in pushing the point across. The only way that would work with cod would be to reel in the super serious story which would seem entirely out of place and weird.
Well I'm not sure about that, Yakuza is kinda doing that. It's action-packed and you can practically fight non-stop if you want to, but the Kamurocho nightlife segments are still fun and immersive.
But the encourage a lot of the upgrades and such through nightlife interactions. Cod and other action games can't really do that unless they go a different route than linear shooter.
I suppose but I still think it would work well. Showing the contrast between the soldier camaraderie and the reality of war could be the strong point of any good war game. Call of Duty usually mixes them both in the worst manner, turning it into "fighting from one battle to the next one with your joke-cracking buddies" which is not representative of the army or war at all. The briefings in older games were completely serious presentations of the progress of the ingoing war and the present stakes. The loading screens were even part of the protagonist's journal writing about his daily routine in war-time. But it's obvious that they didn't expand on that because they just want the player to not feel bored and have him constantly kill and run through explosions. And once you realize that, it completely kills the mood.
I dont think putting this system in CoD would work because of the foundation of it being a shooter.
In most of these games, engaging in the mundane would actually give you bonuses and add to the gameplay through upgrades and such.
They act as player incentives by helping improve the character they're playing. Kiryu needs more moves and health upgrades and the P5 Protag needs stats for Social Links, Social Links to improve EXP Gain and money to buy equipment.
Its inherent in the gameplay that for you to improve your engagement with the game, you need to improve the character. In a shooter, this is impossible to do because it requires 100% skill and is not affected by stats or ability upgrades. To do so would greatly drag the gameplay with trivial actions that the player is not invested in. Games that don't incentivize this are niche for a reason.
I don't see why it can't work in a shooter. The first hour of BioShock Infinite is discovering its universe by taking part in its daily routine. Same with Half-Life 1 and 2 even, and the Max Payne series has a few of those mundane segments throughout the games. Same with Metro and countless other games, unless I've misunderstood your point.
I've always wanted to see a military FPS in the vein of something like Generation Kill. For those not familiar, it's an HBO miniseries following a real battalion of US Marines in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Off the top of my head, I can only remember like 4 legitimate "action" sequences in the whole show. Basically the entire rest of it is boring mundane shit like driving down dirt roads in humvees, sitting around at camps, maintaining equipment, manning checkpoints, providing security, observing buildings. And yet it's one of my favorite TV shows of all time, and I'm thoroughly engaged every time I rewatch it. It's pretty much entirely carried by characters, amazing banter, drama, and sheer authenticity. I don't see why an FPS couldn't have the same effect, even if it doesn't have a 100% realistic ratio of combat to non-combat. It just might not appeal to the teenage twitch-shooting CoD crowd.
Oh yeah, I didn't realize at the time I'm mostly basing this off the context of it being implemented in Call of Duty and the expectations and gameplay tropes associated with it.
Fair point on the games you mentioned. When you talked about adding it to CoD, I mostly interpreted it to taking it to the more logical extremes of actually adding gameplay elements to it rather than just adding breathing room.
I do think what the video points out and what those games you mentioned do are quite different beasts despite sharing similar purposes.
Yeah, Call of Duty has a lot of justified stigma associated to it. I understand why it can be hard to imagine it getting some depth in writing and gameplay.
I haven't played the new final fantasy game but i heard many praising its "bromance" that is very present in the game, in a sense that you actually feel bonded with the group as if, like the video said, were life long best friends.
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