Internet Personality + Review Thread 3.0+1.0: You can (not) discourse

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Rapidly Going Deaf > Internet Personality + Review Thread 3.0+1.0: You can (not) discourse

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Bakeneko posted:

Where did she get the idea that we were supposed to identify with Thanos or think his actions were in any way justified? Yeah, the film explains how he justifies them to himself but that only serves to demonstrate what a monster he is. We�re not meant to see him as a role model.

As the main character of the film Thanos is the person we have been trained to identify with. Its a matter of framing no one really gets to argue with Thanos and win he is shown as "correct" by whats shown in the film, even if hes actuality completely wrong.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2018 14:39

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:59

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

What it dose do is try to make you empathize with Thanos to a comical degree.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2018 14:47

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

That scene is where the movie completely lost me it focused more on Thanos and his pain how �hard� it is for him and I�m just in my seat making jack off motions

# ¿ Jun 13, 2018 15:03

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Augus posted:

This wasn't even remotely what the movie said at any point
Nobody in the film treats Thanos's views with even the slightest hint of legitimacy except for Thanos and Thanos's minions.

The problem with this argument is it treats infinite war like a self-contained story, which it isn't, rather than a chapter in a serialized narrative, which it is.

I mean the second part isn�t out yet so what are we supposed to do not examine the themes it puts out. I agree with you it�s why I overall enjoyed the film but without the second part it can only stand on its own

# ¿ Jun 13, 2018 15:33

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Ghostlight posted:

That's kind of my point? If this movie, through speeches by Thanos about how the ends justify the means, convinces you that genocide is a logically true endpoint then there's something wrong with you. The movie doesn't support fascism just because the mass murdering villain gives eloquent speeches about why he is the hero while his underlings genocide planets. He justifies fascism, but he is also a fascist mass murderer that nobody is supposed to listen to and agree with because his actions are abhorrent and unjustifiable.

Yes but the movie dose not frame it like that it frames all of Thanos's actions like a zombie movie would frame the hard choices made by a hard man who has to do these terrible things for the greater good and because this is only half the story we don't get the catharsis of the heroes smacking him and his lunacy down that is why people dislike it.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2018 14:45

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

OmanyteJackson posted:

Just like there's a broad variety of sounds in the world, but most popular music has the same 4 chords, stories are the same way and videogames are even more restrictive.

Any action game with a story has to justify why the enemies wish to harm the player and why the violence the player does is more just, sociopathy basicly. The more grounded the narrative is the more difficult that obvious that becomes. Games are a space where all other actors exist for the benefit of the player, either as an obstacle or an asset, great for escapist fantasy but terrible at tackling real issues that don't involve murdering.

Maybe use something other than sexual menace to justify the actions of your protagonist? Also "groundedness" is a matter of character and buy-in it dose not require the frankly juvenile portrail of sex in games.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2018 15:40

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Really the need to add sex and prostitutes in order to make things "gritty" and "real" is baffling to me. I literally cant understand the thought process behind it

# ¿ Jun 22, 2018 16:14

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

As someone who has a bachelor's in History we should absolutely condemn the mistakes and prejudices of the past, especially if those in question or their beliefs have influence in the present day. The point of judging within context in history is to well put them into their context while studying them. If you are focusing instead of what their beliefs and actions mean in the present day then making a judgement call is fine and expected. We are not reading Lovecraft or Jefferson, to make things current, in the 1910s or the 1800s we are in 2018 and what those people mean now is vary different than what they meant then.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2018 16:18

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Augus posted:

It is a mixture of ridiculousness and earnestness that makes it both easy to laugh at and easy to fall in love with.

Yes hello I actually thought Goofy was dead for a moment and was shocked into completely justified disbelief, granted I was 12 at the time.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2019 22:23

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

What teenager dosn't do their own dishes? How do these people function?

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 19:14

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Plan Z posted:

There's tons of them. Laundry is probably the biggest one. Lots of kids don't really have chores, and it's not always the parents' fault. The worst I've seen is teenagers/adults who genuinely don't have a concept of time. Their parents would wake them up every day and tell them when they needed to go somewhere, so not only will they not know how to read a regular clock, they'll look at a digital clock and just be like "okay but what do I do with it?"

Funny thing my mother would wake me up every morning by knocking on my door at 6 am which led to me waking up at 6am on my own but maybe my family just had different expectations. Me and my sisters stared helping around the house at age 10 and started cooking for our selves right out of high school

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 20:20

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Unlucky7 posted:

Well, someone sold their soul for power and went on what can only be described as the World's Most Violent Midlife Crisis, and it wasn't Goku.

That said, Goku is kind of a jerk.

Not a huge jerk, but a thoughtless one; The type of guy who, regardless of his other virtues, would leave dinner early and leave his other friends to pay the bill, or ask for a dollar, never pay it back, then keep doing it.

Goku would never leave food on the table, also in cannon mooches of his rich in laws and friends and dose not do it more because his wife finds it embarrassing.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2020 02:59

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Archer666 posted:

One of the things that I've heard rumors about is Toriyama not being happy with the characterization of Goku in the dub because he was less of an punch obsessed idiot than in the original.

He'd be real pissed about Toei's interpretation then because in one of the movies he's Jesus.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2020 15:27

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Have they put John Henry in Fate yet?

# ¿ Feb 8, 2020 00:40

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

The Bee posted:

Considering how popular objectivist reads of The Incredibles are, where the Randian self-driven ubermensch is the villain and a pivotal location is literally called "No man is an island", all because of a surface level reading of one quote said by the villain? I'm not surprised surface level objectivist readings and superheroes go hand in hand.

This has less to do with that quote and more that the entire story hinges on the consequences of not letting supers do as they wish. I'm not saying that that interpenetration is right but there is a probably unintended undercurrent of everything working out when you let your betters do things freely with no government over-site. That quote is merely the crystallization point.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2020 07:46

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Agent Rush posted:

I wasn't, I've never seen Speed Racer. It looks awesome though.

It's not the whims of gravity, he's fighting with Zod (who can also fly and has dedicated himself to humanity's destruction). For the entire movie, it's demonstrated that Superman is not in control when fighting other kryptonians and has to react to them.

Cool that you like MoS, but I don't get why you're repeatedly going back to 'deliberately' as if Superman could have just chosen not to destroy the fascists' tools of destruction. I mean, the throughline of MoS is that power is a dangerous and destructive thing but is absolutely necessary, especially against those who'd wield it unjustly. It's Kamen Rider Kuuga all over again.

Ok so clearly the problem here is that Superman as an ishinomori style hero dose not work, there�s just too much ingrained baggage where Kuuga and Kamen Rider in general dose not give a gently caress about killing evil and even views it as necessary, even if it�s not ideal. Superman basicly has never been about eliminating evil I�m phone posting so I can�t really go into it but a lot of people just don�t like Superman being that kind of hero. They want him to be the one who dosnt need to make those choices because he�s strong enough to use other options. MoS rubs aloe of people the wrong way because of that I think.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2020 00:43

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Augus posted:

I like the part of BvS where Batman changes his ways and becomes a good guy now, and then goes to brutalize some more criminal scum in the same exact manner as he was doing before but it�s good and cool now because he�s a good guy now and he saves Superman�s mommy and makes wacky one liners

That part is so god drat weird and I cant figure out why Snyder would do that other than he thinks violence is rad, it makes it seem that every reading of his films is mostly Death of the Author by people that subscribe to the auteur theory.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2020 06:08

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

i am tim! posted:

The skin lightening thing is incredibly crap, as well as how Oda�s been treating a lot of women both new AND old. A friend and I were speaking about how bullshit everything with Rebecca was on Dressrosa, because she�s said to be this arena champion fighter, placed in the finals with SO MANY tough contenders... but we barely see her fight. Also, it�s not killin� with swords, it�s �Trip Fu!� She doesn�t spill blood, no sir. Can�t have that. And when the poo poo hits the fan? Well, she sits and cries while Daddy fights for her. I would have loved a Daddy/Daughter fight where they worked together to kick rear end, but no.

Also there�s that girl who attacked by crying whales. Honestly, that was so absurd I kinda loved it, but there�s a lot to unpack with her introduction.

See, Dressrosa is easily my least favourite arc. The Birdcage was stupid as hell and I found the Tontatta to be grating at the best of times. It also drags like nobody�s business, the arena fights kinda exposed the limits of Oda�s design concepts, and everything in the above spoilers. I do like Doffy as a villain though, his history with Law was great to me, and his own backstory lends to the villainy of the World Nobles.

See i actually like Rebecca as a defensive fighter, showing her as defiant and refusing to kill in the arena is a great idea and a good starting point as a contrast to her father. There could have been a great arc involving those two culminating in a team up fight but no Oda just pisses it all down the drain and we get another Nami lookalike damsel in distress with a really insulting arc instead.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2020 15:26

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Maybe if so many people are misinterpreting something, the point was really poorly made.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 06:27

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Schwarzwald posted:

Superman, you didn't even smile when you saved my daughter's life from that burning building, and I have some serious complaints about that. I am going to need to speak with your manager.

All Might is 5 times the hero this Superman is and hits the same "being a hero is hard" beats and the character also understands that one of the primary functions of a hero is comfort. That it is not enough to simply save people but to do so in a way that calms their fears, emotional support in a troubling time not just physical safety.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 17:01

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:

The whole point of all might�s schtick is that he made an unsustainable society based around a single point of failure and the entire world of mha is about to be loving dumpstered by a couple orphans with grievances because his way of doing things is bad and failed to even try and solve the systemic issues present in his world. The characters of MHA idolize him because they are literal children

That dose not mean he isn't a real deal hero the problem was that yes he is the one point of failure and that the next generation will have to work together to create a more sustainable society using All Might's ideals. I did not want to give full context in a post highlighting one particular facet of his character. Are you disagreeing with my statement or do you not like the absence of context.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 17:49

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Schwarzwald posted:

Superman does not have a "primary function," he is a character in a story.

"This person is bad at their job [of being Superman] because they do not sufficiently fulfill my emotional needs," is, again, one step away from asking to speak with his manager.

Heroism is a job like any other and you can be bad at it, no I'm not asking to see the manager I'm asking for Heroism something that goes beyond the act of saving someone. If this Superman is going to be a hero then he should be one. At the end of the day many people just don't see this interpretation of Superman as particularly heroic. Heroism is not about the self its not about how you feel its about how others see you. If the story says the people see Clark as a messiah figure and he feels like he shouldn't be then the logical follow though is that he works to change this perception. But Snyder dose not want to tell this story so instead we continue with Clark being seen as a god and the audience is left with the impression that Superman is indeed a distant god.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 18:27

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Schwarzwald posted:

"If Superman isn't willing to smile then he'd be better off letting those people die in that fire," is, uh, certainly a take.

That was not my point jackass

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 18:54

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Sydin posted:

I like how Mandalore's shtick has slowly morphed into finding hidden gem games that sold like poo poo, getting the devs to put it on sale, and then giving it a glowing review and telling people to go buy it.

Good to hear the guy's gone because the game looks like it owns and holy poo poo a whole soundtrack by Makeup and Vanity Set is I can hopefully buy it without feeling too terrible.

His apology was a lie.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2020 20:07

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Technology Connections makes overviews of old formats/tech how they work and how they evolved vary informative if a bit technical
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy0tKL1T7wFoYcxCe0xjN6Q

# ¿ Jul 3, 2020 12:39

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Grapplejack posted:

I'm sure he covers it but the super fascinating thing is that japanese RPGs tend to be styled the way they are because the one that got insanely big over there was Wizardry, and you can very clearly see the lineage going from Wizardry 1/2 to things like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy

e: he does! yaay

Its about time this knowledge got out to the general public.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2020 07:18

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Groovelord Neato posted:

Grinding sucks why would anyone make an angry tweet about how someone wanted to make a game like ones they liked without the bit they didn't like.

Mandatory grinding hasn't been a thing since the SNES days people just don't experiment with the many options given to them and instead just attack and heal. Its a tired and untrue critique of JRPGs.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2020 15:27

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Demonstrably untrue. SMT Nocturne will punish you for even the slightest lack of preparation. You have to grind to keep your demons and resulting fusions up to snuff. There's also plenty of other games since the SNES days that have grinding such as Octopath Traveller, or the Digimon Story games (though the latter can admittedly, and almost by necessity, have that grind broken over your knee laughably easily once you know what you're doing and get some Tactician USB accessories).

Did you stop and run around getting into fights because thats what grinding is I've never played Nocturne, but for the other 2 you could just go ahead with your team. I feel that most people who have this complaint dont actuality like menu based rpg gameplay and would be much happier if they did not play RPGs, and just watched/read a Lets Play because all their problems seem to stem from a lack of engagement with the mechanics but a big interest in the story/characters.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2020 16:06

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

CYBEReris posted:

in Nocturne if you don't grind before matador you will inevitably die to him fast through stat checking and/or having a wind weakness on your core team. there are many other walls like that in there.

Fair enough, then I'll say that mandatory grinding is rare.

"lets hang out" posted:

Only ancient old people still assume grinding means pacing back and forth like you would in Dragon Quest 1. In 2020 grinding just means "doing the turn based battles", like at all. People complain about how grindy DQ11 is, a game where you can just run around all the battles, because they don't want to do them at all.

Hence my second point they want the story but not the gameplay

dbzfandiego fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Sep 30, 2020

# ¿ Sep 30, 2020 16:18

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Terrible Opinions posted:

It seems weird that the grinding conversation has come up like three times in this single thread. Where each time the claim is put forth that grinding was only a thing on the NES and SNES. Then it is fightfully pointed out that mid budget PS2 adn PS3 games were just as bad or worse, and it turns out that person or people claiming grinding had already disappeared only ever played a small portion fo later gen RPGs and woops didn't know about Nocturne of Disgaea or whatever other famously grind heavy game everyone else had in mind.

You dont need to grind for Disgaea, at least not to finish it, if you want to do the extra content sure but thats more or less stranded in the genre the extra content needs you to leverage most of your possible advantages in order to complete but you dont have to do it.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2020 04:44

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Bug Squash posted:

This is the truth.

RPG fans demand their games last at least 40 hours (or even significantly longer). However, they don't demand 40 hours of story or novel gameplay. Grind is the obvious conclusion for the developer.

Negative reaction to forcing the player to pace back and force for hours just made the placement of grind more subtle, such as slower battles, longer animations, exp gain paced so there are no wall bosses. You don't have to spend 3/4s of the game pacing anymore, but you are still spending the majority of your time on what is basically padding.

The extent to which gamers will defend this as "not grinding" shows how massively effective this reframing has been.

If you dont enjoy a game's base mechanics dont play it. This goes for everything and I'm not sure why JRPGs get so much flack for it.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2020 13:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:59

dbzfandiego: Sep 17, 2011

Terrible Opinions posted:

There are plenty of times when a base mechanic can be enjoyable to you but also be implemented in such a way that you don't like.

RPGs in particular get flack for it though because they are frequently enjoyed as two completely disconnected experiences in their story and their gameplay. Hence the updated rereleases of story heavy crpgs frequently coming with a story mode that either skips combat or makes it impossible to lose. Though for them it's usually less avoiding combat for grind and more instant death attacks in a game were resurrection costs resources.

Though if you want other genres of game that experience similar criticisms people whined about collectathons both in their hayday and during the period of revival. Plenty of "Banjo Kazooie was never good" hot takes when Yooka-Laylee came out. In the modern day complaints about the repeated quests grind in ubisoft and ubisoft-a-like exploration games are a standard gamer complaint.

Collect-a-thons are still popular Mario Odyssey, and A Hat in Time, and every open world game with dodads to find prove that, Yooka-Laylee was just bad. I can understand knocking a particular game but if someone makes a blanket statement on a genre I'm going to assume they dont like that genre. Dragon Quest 2 has a, famously terrible end game im not going to extrapolate that to every RPG or hell even every Dragon Quest game. Turn based, stat based, number battles as a base mechanic can feel slow, or they can feel tactical, or frustrating or any number of things but if a game cant keep my interest in its mechanics for its entire runtime I'm going to assume that this game is not for me, there are plenty of shorter RPGs out there if you dont care for longer games, but repeated content is a thing in every game no matter the genre.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2020 14:23

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Rapidly Going Deaf > Internet Personality + Review Thread 3.0+1.0: You can (not) discourse