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Comment by freetime2 | Hacker News Reader

The most memorable video games of my childhood were Final Fantasy 2 (aka FF4 in Japan), and FF7. And the most memorable moments from those games are when they killed off playable characters that I had become quite fond of. Those 16 bit graphics on the SNES, combined with the right musical score, could create a pretty moving experience.

I never had a Tamagotchi, but I can understand how the loss of a digital pet could have been quite traumatic.

I wonder if modern graphics and voice acting might actually be making games less immersive, by asking less of players' imaginations when it comes to completing the characters. Or it may just be that I'm older now.

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> I wonder if modern graphics and voice acting might actually be making games less immersive, by asking less of players' imaginations when it comes to completing the characters. Or it may just be that I'm older now.

Depends on the game but I think you may be experiencing survivorship bias. You can remember the greatness of old games (I do too, still have very fond memories of Monkey Island) but right now you are going through a raw, unfiltered experience and get to see the few good games that will be remembered and also the bad games that will be forgotten in a year or two.

Good voice acting can make the experience much more immersive than it has ever been, What Remains of Edith Finch is a great example of that. Voice acting in that game makes it feel like someone is narrating a good book and adds a ton of emotion to the story, the amazing sound track also helps with that. Modern graphics help games such as The Last of Us or Horizon Zero Down make you feel like you are part of the story, living through it along with the characters. Those things don't ask less of your imagination, they let you focus your imagination on other aspects of the story now that you don't have to worry about pretending that a bunch of blurry pixels is a person.

I'd like to conclude that that's just my personal experience and anyone can feel exactly the opposite and also be right.

> Modern graphics help games such as The Last of Us or Horizon Zero Down make you feel like you are part of the story, living through it along with the characters.

Except it doesn't work for me. It's in an uncanny valley of near realism, where I notice every flaws and bugs that instantly break the immersion. Same with character development: due to growing up and kind of getting more experience of humankind I find myself becoming more demanding on character and worldbuilding coherence. When huge parts are up to the imagination, suspension of disbelief works for me. I just found I can still get emotional over a few pixel Tamagotchi by reading that article. But with modern graphics, the bar is set very high for everything else to follow and be credible (it needs to be like a strong very long good movie).

To me, it's a combination of the story, the storytelling, voice acting and music. The graphics can help with the immersiveness of a game, but they're only secondary. The games I used to play as a kid like Monkey Island, Sam&Max and Full Throttle still hold up today, despite their dated graphics.

I bought an Xbox last year and a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2. It instantly brought me back, the same feelings and attachment to the main characters. I broke up a little when Arthur died.

I can appreciate the modern, realistic graphics but without the rest... it's just a technical fad. While the other way around you can still make a great, immersive gaming experience without realistic graphics.

> Except it doesn't work for me. It's in an uncanny valley of near realism, where I notice every flaws and bugs that instantly break the immersion.

Same for me. The high-fidelity of graphics promises me a realistic simulation of the world, while the gameplay immediately breaks immersion (e.g. if I punch one of the friendly NPCs in the face, they usually don't take offence and continue as if nothing happened etc. etc.). In the lo-fi games, it was clear from the beginning that the game is just a richer chess or minesweeper or mario or any other purely mechanical system and there were no pretense of realism - they were more coherent this way.

I think for this reason 1998-2004 was the golden age of gaming. Hardware capabilities got good enough that fairly rich 3D environments and mechanics were possible, but they were primitive enough that there was no pretense at complete realism and imagination could fill the gaps. Games were also cheap enough to produce, so novel ideas could get funded and smaller studios could make AAA games.

Gaming audiences were also still small enough that you didn't have to pander to the lowest common denominator.

All of the above resulted in such gems as Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid, etc. I do not think this is nostalgia talking either - some of these games I only played for the first time recently and many years after their release.

It depends as much on the genre as it does the game. Some games aren't intended to be immersive. Take Action Fighter, The Ninja or Sonic on the Master System -- all hugely awesome action games but none are trying to build suspense-based drama, which is where the feeling of immersion is really felt the most. Like the catacombs in Phantasy Star. All of the aforementioned are Sega Master System titles but action titles invoke very different types of concentration to the latter game.

Another example is Sultan's Maze on the Amstrad CPC 464 (bottom of http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/s/index26.html). It's an 8bit game for a 64KB machine and yet that ghost used to make me jump every time despite being rather questionable graphics even for the 80s.

Imagination is definitely powerful enough to fill in the blanks but you need a particularly kind of game to draw you in.

Let's also not forget that as we age, our imagination becomes less powerful. People often blame our fondness of retro games as sample bias (like you have done too) but often it's just younger gamers having better imaginations and a lower bar for what they find entertaining. I've seen this first hand playing Atari 2600 games with my kids. Playing Jungle Hunt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZxw4MfXnNs) my, then, 4 year old son corrected me when I referred to what appeared to me as a blocky shark -- to which my son replied "It's a crocodile daddy". And it obviously is -- but that I mean it is only obvious to adult me now that I've been told.

I've played modern generation games, grew up with 80s-era BASIC micro computers and have played on practically every system -- console and computer -- released in between. And as you might have guessed from my stories above, I still own and collect these systems too. But what made a game immersive wasn't the graphics nor voice acting (though these elements can certainly pull you from the moment if they're too jarring), it was games that required one to concentrate on longer term strategies from perspective of avatar rather than concentrate on quick reactions from immediate threats (as one typically sees in arcade-style action games).

As someone who puts Final Fantasy VII on a pedestal—for multiple reasons, including, but not limited to, the fact that I learned English to understand the plot when I was a kid—, I have to agree with you.

While the plot from Final Fantasy VII still holds up, and a certain character's death in the game was my first experience with death, games like The Last of Us—especially the second one— and Ghost of Tsushima have a much bigger impact on me today than Final Fantasy VII did at the time, and the voice acting is a big part of that; characters feel more real, which make me care.

Actually, Horizon Zero Dawn is a good example of that. My wife and I loved the game and did every single thing we could, but the atrocious voice acting means that while we loved the gameplay and story, we did not care about the characters at all.

> the atrocious voice acting means that while we loved the gameplay and story, we did not care about the characters at all.

I think part of the issue for me is that I'm subconsciously holding modern graphics and voice acting up to the standard of a Pixar movie (which I consider to be generally quite good). When a character is badly voiced, it really grates on me. And the "uncanny valley" effect of unrealistic facial animations is an immersion killer for me as well.

When dialogue is text-based, it's my own voice which I am hearing - and is far less likely to be offensive to me. Bad writing (or just too much dialogue) can of course still be an issue.

I didn’t find HzD voice acting to be atrocious

Does anyone have a side by side comparison of good vs bad voice acting in video games, I know plenty of example of universally bad voice acting but when it comes to flagship or AAA titles the criticisms seem arbitrary

This is analogous to someone telling me Red Dead Redemption has bad voice acting or Detroit Become Human was the worst due to that reason

I cant really tell the difference and I’m pretty content with that, but curious about what other people are judging

Silent Hill 2 vs HD remake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GKtsHcJOMI

This is helpful but even here it took me a few of the clips to know which one was the bad one

Halfway through it was obvious that the remake was bad

I can still see how I would have ignored this in other games

I don't know if the HD remake would have bothered me so much as the original felt really engaging and ethereal.

> Actually, Horizon Zero Dawn is a good example of that. My wife and I loved the game and did every single thing we could, but the atrocious voice acting means that while we loved the gameplay and story, we did not care about the characters at all.

I had forgotten how bad it was but you helped me remember. I played the Spanish dub of the game which is even worse. The graphics are great but the voice acting and robotic conversations kill a bit of the immersion.

> What Remains of Edith Finch

The cannery scene was done so very well.

I don't think it's age. These days I've replayed The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall and I find it more immersive than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Both are of the same genre. The latter has much better graphics (and it's a great game) but the former's labyrinthine dungeons, with foreboding music, rats and bats screeching and skeletons roaring, never fail to make me feel the oppression of being in hostile underground tunnels. The relief when I exit the dungeon, quest completed, and I hear the sounds of nature, almost makes me feel the fresh air in my face...

I suspect that the difference is that, if the graphics are just "bad" enough, the player starts filling in details from their own imagination, and I suspect that this increases immersion.

Being young and impressionable probably also helps.

More than just that. Think about "artsy with personality and taste" artwork in 2D games, which was enforced because of limitations.

> I never had a Tamagotchi, but I can understand how the loss of a digital pet could have been quite traumatic.

As a kid I cried when it "died". Taking care of the thing for days, seeing it grow, caring for him when sick, it sure created some attachment even though I knew it was virtual.

And because I couldn't bring it at school, parents had to take care of it sometimes, with the pressure of knowing I would badly react if it didn't receive proper care and died (or became sick).

Not sure this is positive, it could certainly have done without this feature. At least my parents didn't thought that me crying over a piece of electronics was very healthy.

My little cousin was like this. His tamagotchi was fully happy, well fed, etc. But he seemed too attached to it.

One day I told him "I am going to set you free, bro" and reset it. He was pretty upset about it at first but then thanked me.

Few years later I saw him playing an MMO. I think it was Ultima Online. I asked him what he was doing and apparently he was ambushing and mugging newer players. I hope both things were unrelated.

I had something happen to me that was similar. I was forever scrounging for points for this cocacola thing. One day I realized I had let some expire. I gathered all of them up and dumped them in the garbage and did a little dance in my kitchen yelling 'im free!' my wife thought I was nuts. I am now on the look out for engaging patterns companies use to draw you in. Point systems are one of them.

> on the look out for engaging patterns companies use to draw you in

I think about this all the time. Tamagotchi was the start. Every where I look, all I see are variants of Tamagotchi.

eg Quantified self help productivity hacking are just treating your own self as the Tamagotchi.

I still regret telling a few friends about Ultima Online at the time. They got addicted and it spread like virus and in no time the whole town was playing it. There was no place you could hide from conversations about weapons,attacks,and custom servers.

TV is not addictive but for some people it is. Same with food or shopping... and the Internet, and games.

It is not your fault.

My favorite was Final Fantasy 6.

I did not notice how dark some themes in the game were until later in life when I replayed the game. Seeing an entire city being poisoned, magical robots built with energy drained from enslaved magical creatures, murder, suicide, poisoining, mind control, abandoned babies, feral kids, cults, fires, cataclysms, possessed artwork, trains to the afterlife, tyranny, etc.

But that's part of what makes it a great game.

The SNES had many good JRPGs in addition to Final Fantasy, like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Seiken Dendetsu 3 (aka Trials of Mana), Super Mario RPG and others. They are worth playing even today.

It is not a very challenging game, but that is the core idea of Spiritfarer [1]. You care for spirits, help them come to terms with their finality, and take them to the afterlife. They give you enough of their back story to explain why their behaviors and preferences are what they are. You figure out their favorite foods, try to keep them happy with their accommodations and care, and then have to say goodbye forever.

It is done very, very well. It's easy to get attached to these characters and then have to let go of them.

10/10 in my book.

[1] https://thunderlotusgames.com/spiritfarer/

> I wonder if modern graphics and voice acting might actually be making games less immersive, by asking less of players' imaginations when it comes to completing the characters.

I’ve had Red Dead Redemption 2 for two+ years and I accidentally read a spoiler early on and I still can’t bring myself to complete the story because I’m so attached to a character I know will die. I’m probably dreading this character’s death far more than I dreaded my Tamagotchi’s and I was well and truly devastated the first time my Tamagotchi died.

Not sure if voice acting is the problem because the first Metal Gear Solid on PS1 is still one of the best video game and movie experience for me.

But Metal Gear Solid had great voice acting! Much better than MGS5, anyway.

And so did Deus Ex. Part of the fun was that these games did not take themselves super seriously, they did not pretend to be an overly-polished (to the point of being sterile) Hollywood blockbuster.

It's a bit like 80s movies. They weren't realistic, they had cliches, they weren't polished, but they were awesome!

Metal Gear Solid is a good counter example that I hadn’t thought of. The voice acting (or at least my memory of it) was excellent, and I really did develop a fondness for Snake and everyone else on the radio.

Have you played the FF7 Remake? More than anything, it feels a lot more immersive to me than the original.

I have not, since I don't have a PS4. If I am ever able to get my hands on a Playstation 5 I will definitely make sure to. I think that would be a really interesting comparison.

I'm also tempted now to go and give Final Fantasy 3 (aka FF6) a play through. I've never actually played that game, even though it's widely considered to be a better game than FF2. It would be a good way determine how much of my fondness for those other games is nostalgia vs. them being great games in their own right.

I still play text adventures because of that.

A good script can inmerse you better than most ultraHD graphics.

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