i feel like video game collecting is probably one of the most rewarding things we've gotten into over the years. so many great games we would never have experienced otherwise, many of which have substantial literary merit as well as just being fun
-F
some universities have classes about the film styles of even specific directors (especially ones like kubrick who have very well-regarded styles); there should be one of those but for games from specific series or made by specific teams
imagine a deep dive into the games made by team symphonia or brownie brown or hell, even sonic team or the pokemon company
-F
(if you're not familiar:
Team Symphonia made Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Vesperia, and collaborated with team destiny on Tales of Xillia, Tales of Xillia 2, and Tales of Zestiria
Brownie Brown made Magical Vacation, Sword of Mana, Magical Starsign, and Mother 3, among others
I assume you know what Sonic Team and The Pokemon Company made, it's kind of obvious)
-F
@Felthry This would be fantastic.
Our favorite games (except for Distance) all tend to be /extremely/ story-heavy... one to the point where it's almost more movie-like than game-like.
@Felthry Also, another one [NieR Automata]... the gameplay was decent. The story was pretty good.
The /presentation/, the aesthetic, the emotional impact, was all phenomenal. That's where the game really shone.
@IceWolf which is the one you call more movie-like?
-F
@Felthry Lost Ember.
It's /amazing./ [Also you're a wolf, but even without that. :3]
@Felthry there's a ton of really good games crit on YouTube. (There's also some really bad crit.)
I'd recommend Jacob Geller.
@starkatt i'll give that a look sometime!
-F
games crit YouTube re: video games as a form of literature or film
@starkatt @Felthry we also really like Errant Signal - https://www.youtube.com/user/Campster/videos - for games crit; the video on "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" (cw: us politics + heavy topics, see opening card) might be a good example of some of the depth and subtlety he brings to his analysis
A couple channels that mostly do videos about other topics but bring their A-game to videogames as well are Folding Ideas - see "Minecraft, Sandboxes, and Colonialism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6i5Ylu0mgM (cw: discussion of colonialist racism) - and Innuendo Studios - see "Blood Is Compulsory: How We Talk About Advanced Warfare" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbEiVrnhwlU (cw: videogame violence, I don't remember because we haven't watched it in a while but feel free to ask?)
- 🦗
speaking of, it'd be really neat to see more people talk about video games as a form of literature or film
you don't see people often doing in depth analyses of the story and presentation of video games like you do for books and movies
-F