Define "soul". What creates a "soulful" game...

Bad graphics = soul
Good graphics = soulless

>I'm going to make a crap game that's not fun and I'm going to hate every second of it."
Not him, but there are plsnty of developers that make a game just to make some dosh abd don't care about it past that.

but WHY? Is style always better than realism? Has there ever been a realistic game that was also full of soul, or can than never happen?

No such thing as soul you bunch of piss-wanked circumcised smegma ridden crossed eyed mush brained retards. I can take a shit in the toilet and say its soulful because I put effort and dedication and you all retards would eat it all up.

soul is when the game developers actually care enough about their product to try things that are innovative or ground breaking, when someone tries to stand out and puts their heart and SOUL into doing so
look at both risk of rain games. made by 3 people and yet both the art, gameplay and feel are different to most other games on the market. they TRIED not because they wanted to make a product, but because they love what they do. each game feels sufficiently different while still being under the same umbrella too, so instead of the second being a soulless cashgrab sequel akin to something like final fantasy 13-2, it feels more like a standalone project that got a serious amount of love put into it

tl;dr soul is when you care and try. that being said a game having soul doesn't make it automatically good (looking at you pokemon red and blue)

Attached: 1560256916909.jpg (720x703, 34K)

I have no idea man. I don’t give two shits about the soul v soulless crap. But it’s always the way I said it. People just think old good new bad. Same shit as all the generations before us.

Game development is not like cooking burgers for a living. You have to study hard for years to do it. And you don't make "quick dosh", it's highly competitive and you are more likely to fail than succeed. You HAVE to be passionate about it to want to do it for a living. People without passion just looking for cash would get into regular software development where the pay is better, the hours are better and it's much less stressful.

Soul.

Attached: 1560845221884.jpg (1920x1080, 347K)

>Why does a game with "worse" graphics inevitably hold up more than a game that tried to be more realistic or high resolution?
Because upgrading the resolution or altering something to fit more modern trends doesn't make a game actually look better if the art direction is worse. I don't get why people still have trouble understanding that.

Attached: YU-NO.png (1024x1489, 1.87M)

What are some telltale signs that a game has no soul & was just made for the money?

Attached: maxresdefault.jpg (1280x720, 206K)

i love dithering

>soul
making something that you want people to love.
>soulless
trying to recreate that feeling. No exceptions. /v Calls everything that tries to recreate the feeling of soul, "soulless".

Ive never fallen for /v's stupid meme word shit. But theres no doubting that trying to recreate a feeling rather than create a new one, is the essence of cooperate art.

>What the fuck are shadows & light sources?

>color palette fits the tone & themes of the game
>memorable music that you still go back to listen to
>gameplay still holds up years later

the left is worse desu
80s anime art style looks like shit
she just has better tits

>the water reflections
every time i see that image

Attached: 1442366440935.jpg (469x355, 54K)

>soul
game i like
>soulless
game i dont like

Its not that hard to keep up with Yea Forums's buzzwords

Incel pandering. Yea Forums doesn't like to hear it but multiple Jap devs have talked about being ordered to put fapbait in their games against their wishes just because the bean counters think it's going to make them more money to do so.

But Japan's philosophy is almost always to do what has already been done but better yet it's mostly Japanese games getting the soul praise.

Soul comes through imperfections and human touches that remind you someone with passion put this together for you. Someone who has their own personal tastes and distastes, and wasn't afraid to make something that some people wouldn't like.

Soulless feels like it was made by a committee, to appeal to everyone. Everything is "flawless" and cute and appealing in the same way everything else is. It could have been shit out by an algorithm for all you know

IMO the new Link's Awakening is soulful as fuck. They're obviously taking a risk, going with a pretty unique style compared to the original. Soulless would be if it looked like a phone game, without the claymation and DOF stuff.

these

NES & Famicon = Soul
SNES & N64 = Soulless

Deal with it.

Me too, user.
>80s anime art style
This game was released in 1996.

Attached: 1527714207955.png (1024x2351, 2.08M)

good shit user

Soul: A shitty meme which means that someone prefers one art style or game over another. Usually in comparison from Old to New.

I would say its nostalgia glasses in meme form, but I don't think the people who post that crap even mean it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi
>Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.

So basically soul = imperfections by Yea Forums's definition. That's actually really beautiful. Most of Yea Forums became buddist philosophers over night & never realized it. By Yea Forums's definition removing a Blockbuster sticker from an old game would remove it's "soul" because you're changing the history behind the cart, and that history adds to it's soul & beauty.

Attached: soul.jpg (1000x750, 149K)

this

So TLoU had soul? And Celeste? What about Bad Rats? Or all of those fucking terrible unity games?

>Why does a game with worse graphics inevitably
Stop. This isn't true. Superman 64 had shit graphics and is a shit game.

That's a good explanation. It's why I like DIY punk, raw black metal and "janky" games.

Fuck yes.

Old good
New bad

finally someone gets it.

Here, have an very exaggerated example of it.
It's mostly when the thing loses the feel of "something done by humans".

Attached: soul souless.jpg (642x479, 68K)

Yes. Far more soul than anything made by the AAA studios.

>Soul comes through imperfections and human touches that remind you someone with passion put this together for you.
This. I think it's why so many people have a stronger endearment to hand-drawn, cel animation than they do digital animation. The literal lines being drawn are imperfect and not uniformly thick, the colors are altered by the process of capturing the drawings onto film and grain being added, etc. When you do things all by computer, however, those things actually are "perfect" unless someone goes out of their way and takes the extra time to make them imperfect, which most people are not going to do.

Attached: 1554472231295.jpg (1500x1141, 303K)

organic, not forced

Attached: 454968765.jpg (182x276, 9K)

Only while they are still following souls rule of making something you love. I think youd have a hard time finding a game developer in japan that knows anything more than doing what his superiors tell him.

Nostalgia

I think the problem is lighting. Everything is made in the same handful of game engines now, and a lot of them don't bother to change the default lighting, causing all their games to look the same, which contributes to making them look canned and mass produced

Asset flip is a decidedly obvious aesthetic, yes.

It's the roughness of human touch. People aren't perfect and neither should art. That's why all "modern" art has no soul, because it's too clean. Modern art if just a money laundering scheme anyway, but you get what I mean. Art is suppose to be a fingerprint of the person or team of people who worked on it. A snapshot in time. If the new madden games didn't have the year in their names you wouldn't even be able to tell what decade they were made in.

Soul is just a free licence to shitpost.

Soul is literal cancer.

It's intentionally ill-defined, which means it allows someone to start controversy, and thus, get (you)s, for something you can't quantify and therefore can't discuss in any meaningful way.

It's this generation's version of "mediocre"

>Looks like it was made by a committee to appeal to everyone
>Flawless and cute
>Boils down to apparent cash grab
Pretty sure you're confusing effort with this bullshit "soul".
Shitty unity games are apparently soulful because they took a risk in ripping off shitty assets or making their own shitty assets, regardless of mass appeal. Whereas games that focus less on sperating themselves by artstyle and more on making the game seem enticing by working with a winning formula, makes the game souless because wanting people to play your game is apparently fuckin gay or some shit.

>That's why all "modern" art has no soul, because it's too clean.

So if art is defined by its flaws, and if modern art is too clean, then wouldn't that cleanliness be modern art's flaws, and therefore soul?

Kino is different than soul, soul is retarded term that doubles for "I feel nostalgia for this". Kino isn't well defined either, but it's use as "Thing I like" is much more genuine than how soulfags use soul.

>TLoU wasn't AAA
>Baby is confused by the existence of bad popular games
>Also says that modern music sucks and probably tells everyone Queen was the last good band or some shit
OooooOOoOOooOOooO suck my ass child

Except well worn video games don't fuckin exist. There is usually no greater story told from developing these garbage low poly ps1/dreamcast titles than most AAA success stories.
Their points clearly rely less on the journey to the product and more on some arbitration of emotions felt when seeing an old game. It's some dorky fallacy and I jerk off to my little pony

>calls figurative cancer literal
>LITERALLY LIKE
>LIKE LITERALLY
Man, you're no better than us, fuck off.

Games with soul cannot be created anymore

Attached: 1536643447137.jpg (1280x1024, 90K)

>a practice or phenomenon perceived to be evil or destructive and hard to contain or eradicate.
It's literally cancer. It actively destroys constructive discussion.

retarded, I felt soul in lost of games I never played.

>come to thread about thing you disapprove of to DISRUPT the otherwise peaceful conversation with contrarian nonsense

It isn't LITERALLY anything the fact you keep saying that dumb fucking buzzword cheapens every other word you say.

no, because in the eyes of someone doing modern art their clean look is it's strength, & not a problem in their eyes. This is only in the case of extremes. If the liberty bell were "perfect" it would just be another bell, however the crack gives it character. Absolutes are very rarely art due to being one of a kind. If there really were a "perfect" game it would be something like Tetris which is only perfect due to it's simplicity. It's very hard to quantify, but if I had a line graph I would say the cleaner something is the less artful it is, and the rougher it is the more soul it has.

Attached: proxy.duckduckgo.com.jpg (1200x1422, 500K)

>Kino is fun, which is mostly tied to gameplay -> Sekiro is kino
>Soul is good artistic value, mostly good art direction and ost which create a harmonized ATMOSPHERE -> Nier Automata had soul

"I played it when I was a kid "

The creator puts soul into his creation, what is soulless lacks that inspiration. Usually an idea or franchise that is resurrected without that same soul.

Effort and passion.

UGHHHH MASS PRODUCED PLASTIC OVER DIGITAL SO FUCKING GOOD. GO ANALOG BABY YOU'RE SO POST MODERN
Holy FUCK. They were SO FUCKIN GOOD BACK in the day when creating games meant FUCKING SHOTTY PLASTIC MOLDS WITH EXPOSED, LOW QUALITY METAL CONTACT STRIPS and TRIPS TO THAT GAME STORE because INCONVENIENCE WAS """""FUN"""""

>convenient pole that blocks panties

jesus, there is missing the point, and then there is purposefully pissing off your target audience.

>snes cart is physical, has to have effort into starting it up since it has to be put into a system, manually saves, etc. It's full of "effort". It won't last forever & will one day stop working.
>online games are always accessible, never disappearing, clean, effortless

Devs make games purely for money all the time, what are you talking about.

none of these have any detail
they look nice but thats all

>because in the eyes of someone doing modern art their clean look is it's strength, & not a problem in their eyes.
You wanna know how I know you know fucking nothing about modern art?

Attached: murakami_tan.jpg (1920x1321, 3.68M)

IPs that are rehashed so the owner can keep a handle on it.

anime girls were a lot thicker back then
probably because the japs are all pedos now

>inspiration
>franchise that is resurrected without that same soul.
So the intent of the creator defines how much soul it has? or you saying a game becomes souless due to not coming from the right intentions?

>when you turn soul-slider to 0

Attached: 1549903724377.jpg (1600x1000, 1.41M)

It's not about the objective quality (not even close), it's about the range of emotions you experience while playing a game.
Of course, an argument could be made that most Yea Forumsirgins had soul when they were younger and became soulless when they were older

>online games are always accessible, never disappearing, clean, effortless
They can get completely obliterated out of existence without a trace.
Carts on other hand can last forever if you take out the battery and caps and not let em in a humid ambient.

The tilt shift effect is horrible tho.

Attached: crossroads.jpg (760x506, 59K)

>hard shadows and contrast

Left feels like it was made in a generation where that design was normal. Its a little off when you actually think about it. But it has a lot of character. While the right is oddly realistic and uninteresting.

Why?

What the fuck kinda pseudo-intellectual did I just read? Did you just walk out of some freshman level art history class?
I got 20 unity games where the fuckin dev left broken shit in because he was to lazy to clean it. And whats this shit about character? Are you honestly saying that some accident is never reproducible and modern art has no accidents? Have you ever created a fucking thing in your life? Or consumed any media at all, you fuckin zygote?

I think the Zelda remake looks adorable though it was maybe a tad too shiny in the trailer.

Pokemon just hasn't done a very good job transitioning into 3d.

This is not art my dude. I wouldn't be caught dead hanging that on a wall. It's a bunch of clean shapes put through a google a.i.. It's art for the sake of art full of paintbucket tools and fury, Signifying nothing.

Attached: stadia.jpg (640x640, 44K)

So what I'm getting from this is that lolis are better now but everything else was better back then

Yet here we are, having people defend paragraph by paragraph about the objectiveness of liking old things and the invalid behavior of enjoying new things. It's fucking preposterous, pompous, and pathetic. Puckerup pencil prick push my penis into your prolapse prostate

I dunno, Beenox definitely proved that there's still some soul left in the industry.

>Muh Pit Stop

Typical Activision fuckery aside, we still got
>Mechanics from the original game made very close in the remake
>Characters and tracks from CNK even if people say that only the ND era Crash is the good part of Crash
>Downright autistic amount of detail and Easter eggs (Penta not only needing to be unlocked with a cheat code, but even his masks power-ups remain glitched too, same as the original)
This game gave me hope that people can still make soul even in the current year.

Attached: 1562094632271.jpg (500x375, 48K)

Its the "Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V" problem in writing.

when you recreate something, you want to recreate it from scratch. Otherwise it is full of conflicting ideas that won't organically work.
If you don't reset your ideas, you'll be simply modifying the original and never create your own thing.

Imagine taking a painting, and try and pretend its something new by painting over it.

Attached: numbers.png (601x601, 339K)

I will never understand this. Like I guess they needed the art at a higher resolution than the old art was in, but honestly if your going to do such a shitty job you might as well save your time and just blow up the old art.

This right here.
This is peak SOUL.

Attached: fucked up sandwich.png (640x359, 322K)

>Hur dur hurrr dur hurrrrr durrr.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Murakami
Here. Educate yourself

that's not true yume nikki and undertale both have souls even if they are made in an era without limitation

Hey troglodyte, wanna join the modern world an experience Duchamp for us? Read up on a few arguments for and against post-modernism, come to even a semblance, or just a fucking inkling, of understanding and then provide your poorly thoughout arguments again.

Soul: game was designed with the intent of having strong appeal to a narrow audience, typically the game's creator.
Soulless: game was designed with the intent of having "good enough" appeal to a broad audience, i.e. consumers.

Well they aren't necessarily wrong. Having the ability to induce a flood of emotions, and doing so with subtlety is still a desirable quality in games. It's just if you're dead inside you wouldn't be able to experience this anymore

>you'll be simply modifying the original and never create your own thing.
>He doesn't know that 99% of art is iterative

>Imagine taking a painting, and try and pretend its something new by painting over it.
>He doesn't know that rennaisaunce painters used to do LITERALLY AND EXACTLY THAT

I can't think of a more soulful game than Wind Waker desu

For one, that pokemon is literally just standing on the fucking water.
Not even swimming.
Just casually being jesus

>He doesn't know that 99% of art is iterative

Iterative is not tracing user.
>He doesn't know that rennaisaunce painters used to do LITERALLY AND EXACTLY THAT
When restoring, or fixing it. Not when they want to make something "new".

I think it has more to do with having a lasting appeal, like Chrono Trigger or FF7. They have Soul because, even though there were huge limitation at the time, they could get over them with good art direction and good OST.

I was wrong in that respect. There are a lot of early flash games from 2000-2008 or so that are completely gone, but that's more of a problem of when they were made. Nobody thought to preserve them.

>No dev ever starts making a game thinking "I'm going to make a crap game that's not fun and I'm going to hate every second of it."
Where the fuck have you been for the past 10 years?

>art class
>paying someone tell you what is and isn't art
My dude. That is the DEFINITION of soulless.

Kino means you remember the experience as different from the norm and setting examples. It's related to Soul because experiences aimed at a narrow audience tend to differ from the norm, but you can have mass-market kino too, such as Modern Warfare's nuke scene.

But this nonsense gatekeeping, held up by the corpses of low poly art and blockbuster cases, is fucking awful. I mean, for fuck sake, did music die in 1970?
And another thing,
>a flood of emotions
Nigger. Fucking what. If you like a game, nay fucking anything, you're bound to be emotional it. So are we just drawing lines in the sand for why our favorite pastimes are objectively the best?

>No dev ever starts making a game thinking
Naughty dog went out and said they don't design their games to be fun.

Modern art is a scam. It's a money laundering scheme. You take a rock, glue a whistle to it, and then you say "hey this is art, it's worth a million dollars". Then a bunch of millionaires keep selling it between each other raising the price while saying "you just don't get it" & laughing all the way to the bank.

Attached: DELETE THIS.jpg (398x580, 150K)

>Soul
Dark Souls
>Soulless
Bloodborne

Literally. But not figuratively, I guess.

>SOUL
A game that attempts to be fun or artful for the sake of fun or art. Decisions are made because the developers like them. A creative work.
>SOULLESS
A game where every decision is made with the explicit purpose of maximizing sales. A product.
The problem is that all games are products. Art cannot thrive when it's made in the name of profit. Soul in a video game is not the standard, it's the exception. That's why you're more likely to find it in games that are just made for the fun of making them, like Yume Nikki or 7th Stand User or Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden: Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa

OLD GOOD
NEW BAD

>Not when they want to make something "new".
Blatantly incorrect.
Left is the Mona Lisa.
Right is a copy of the Mona Lisa done by one of Leondardo's students. It is painted directly over a draft of the Mona Lisa Da Vinci did himself.

And this is just a literal example. More abstract examples exist too; the definition of a new artistic movement is as a reaction to a previous movement. Art literally would not advance as a creative form if it wasn't iterating on previous works.

Attached: Mona Lisa.jpg (837x486, 120K)

Nothing, it's on the same level as boomer telling how things are shit now

>Ignoring the history of the craft, what it took to get there, and where we, as humans, have evolved from emotionally
>Treating ignorance as some kinda fuckin hymen to keep intact
>Acting so arrogant as to believe you have the right idea trapped in your head and any other input is brainwashing
Eat my entire ass

>you're bound to be emotional about it
See, you got my point. Was it so hard?
>our favourite pastimes are objectively the best
When has soul ever been considered an objective metric? Claims like enjoyable or boring can be considered subjective, but it doesn't stop Yea Forums from treating their word as gospel.

>Left one
Would have boner over, maybe blow some bitches up
>Right one
No boner, should bite the dust

that's not always the case as people loved breath of the wild as a new zelda game but are mixed on links awakening more so because it's old trying to be new and failing to in some aspect to capture the old in the same way, not just it being new.

>posts soulless art

>I don't need some TRAINED PROFESSIONAL to tell me stuff! My ignorance is just as valid as your knowledge!

This is how society dies.

people sleep on UT in terms of soul
probably because it looks bad

Attached: 1447038352069.webm (640x480, 2.05M)

You do know that there are high tier burgers in high tier restaurants, right?
McJob burgers exist, yes. So do wagecuck-made games.

>Subjective field based on self expression
>Knowledge in the first place
>Implication that self expression can be taught rigidly

Yes, this is how society dies alright.

it's about coming to the conclusion yourself not downloading someone's opinion into your head you fucking mongoloid. FORM YOUR OPINIONS.

>Modern art is a scam
Yeah and all football is just faking injuries, America only eats burgers, Europe is all muslims, plastic gives you cancer, all sharks are aggressive, and NWO 9/11 moonbeams holograms.
Making sweeping generalizations is a good way to let people know you dont know what you're talking about

ironic because they game is all about having a soul.
i wouldn't say the battles look bad they look really good it's just the overworld is a mess and lacking in a lot of places changing pixel art styles from detailed to non detailed pixel art from left to right.

the over world pixel art has no sense of clear direction in terms of quality consistency.

Truth

this thread
youtu.be/Qbnr2nI23dU

to be fair to him, the term "modern art" evokes a very particular image, despite being an extremely nebulous term, that most people are going to react negatively to.

If you're argument is
>emotion = soul
I'd argue that there is a cash grab that would appeal to you, which defys all rhetoric described above.
>When has soul been considered objective
See the entire reason for this threads continuing existence

That's not what that means. It's about being taught *how* to think, not *what* to think. You can't come to any conclusions unless you've gained the tools to support those conclusions on your own.

You guys are talking about "Soul" being all about artistic intent and effort and creative freedom, but art is an ever-changing creative form, so how can you possibly judge intent, effort and creative freedom without knowing what you're looking at and looking for?

To be fair, I knew exactly where he was coming from which is what prompted my comment in the first place.
Thanks for the slow motion replay though

Considering the way Yea Forums acts towards indie games, I think it's clear that Yea Forums doesn't want a game to have """""soul"""""

Attached: 1554776969359.jpg (500x666, 111K)

and yet if I changed the word "all" to "most" the argument becomes much more sound. Dealing in extremes to try to get your point across is grasping at straws. Most sharks are aggressive, most plastics WILL give you cancer, which is why we only use a few in the modern day, tower 7. Many football players do in fact fake injuries. If you;re going to try to make a point at least use good examples.

You're one of the good ones.

Attached: dab.gif (500x288, 1.8M)

I assumed it meant:
>Any 16-bit game (unless it's a remake of an 8-bit game)
>Any 64-bit game
>Any game done with hand-drawn or stop-motion animation

>having people defend paragraph by paragraph about the objectiveness of liking old things and the invalid behavior of enjoying new things
Most people in the thread have done no such thing, it's mainly people who seem to for some reason vehemently dislike things just for being old who seem to shout "OLD THING GOOD NEW THING BAD" as a strawman. Sometimes they make things that I like in the modern day, and there's plenty of old shit that we've forgotten due to it not being good.

right looks so much better it's not even close

Soul is what I like
Soulless is what I don't like

spot on user, this is the correct definition.

Kino is supposed to mean "patrician" or "high class".

"Soul" is just a word underage users spam to make themselves sound sophisticated.
Of course one piece of media can have more charm and "soul" than another but when it comes to Yea Forums it just comes down to "muh sentimental value".

Most sharks aren't aggressive. Only a small subsection are
Most plastic only has increased likelyhood to cause cancer if leeching occurs which, if handled properly is totally fine. There's a rating stamped on regarding BPA and typical BPA usage is safe
Tower 7 fell due to high heat
I can fit a whole glass jar in my ass so long as i fill it first

The fuckin point is, you're uninformed and are taking wide swathes to make your conclusions, they very definition of narrowmindedness.

But photorealism has more soul than any crutchy quirky "artstyle" that's only purpose is to have the devs do less work?

Also ironic that the overworld art inconsistency is due to limitation, of benjamins that is. Couldn't pay tem for more good tilesets like the one in Snowdin.
I do think people disparrage the battle graphics too though. That's kinda understandable because of the simple, monochrome battle sprites and liberal use of mixels, but all that is pretty iconic now.

This.

Attached: lufiachange.jpg (1200x456, 198K)

>Tower 7 fell due to high heat
"Alexa"
"Play bruh.mp3 at 20% speed"

Attached: god damn it co.jpg (1261x1441, 384K)

Soulful game offers you fun experience and interesting ideas.

Opposite is games that made for profit, they reuqire your money or time. Shitty MMOs, modern AAA with grind and microtransaction, old arcade games with 'coin eaters' etc.

Attached: a brief comparison of soul.jpg (2100x1500, 493K)

A video game that was created with a vision in mind. A game that was made for reasons more than "It's my job to make video games".

Attached: 1555300660895.jpg (720x720, 57K)

>never question
>never criticize
>never experiment
>listen to authority
>education is liberation
>conformity is rebellion
good boy

Soul is music.

Soulless is white people version of music.

You dense fuck. What is this bullshit list of attributes that a soulful game has? None of them are subjective and are treated with this incredible accuracy.
>Devs did it fur free and cuz they like gamez
>Imperfect
These make up the majority of the arguments above and those two points are, generally, verifiable. It literally boils down to that supposed strawman despite the fact it isnt a strawman but a hyperbole or an insultingly boiled down rhetoric but i mean come on now it totally is and im totally Toyota Tacoma tits ternary tertiary tickle my taint

>On fire for literally hours
>Multiple videos show what happens to building grade steel is exposed to that temperature overtime
>Still convinced that the building would stand despite laughytaffy for supporting beams
Stop making me mad i have aids

Because with shittier graphics, devs do their best to cram in as much detail as possible.
Soul is defined by ambition, even ambition in grasping beyond your reach.
Soulless is when it's clear that no one on the creative team is really pushing themselves to their limit

>Knowledge is bad
>Learn from trial by fire
I heard that trained professionals said jumping infront of a train will kill you. Fuck the system, man. Show em who's boss

>Limitations suddenly makes more gooder
Fuck off you poetry loving faggot

Fuck you faggot. Why go out on a holiday when you can just talk to yourself?

Yeah my life is an idle phone

Art through adversity is a real thing.

That's why whenever you watch women singing on trash like American Idol, or whatever meme shows, where they flaunt their vocal range with their constantly wavy theatrical voices, you don't remember it. Think of any classic song with a female vocalist and I guarantee you she isn't flaunting how great her range is. They're generally using simple tones and maintaining them for emotional effect, sometimes because they don't have opera-tier range.

>blindly believing everything you were ever told
>needing someone to hold your hand in order to acquire knowledge
Put leeches on your skin, user. Trained professionals said it will suck the disease out of you and you'll be cured.

Attached: soul-making.png (711x122, 12K)

specific number of triggers that inspires a nostalgic feeling is what I'd say most consider "soul" to be
I think soul vs. soulless is fucking stupid anyways

This is true though. Nobuo Uematsu and other Final Fantasy composers have said one thing they missed was the limitations of what music they could put in a game made them focus on creating more creative and complex music while now the can just shit out some generic fantasy orchestra music with latin chanting.

youtube.com/watch?v=oTJ-oqwxdZY
soulless

youtube.com/watch?v=5CC_MK_5LH8
soul

>made especially with the hardware in mind
Such as the Genesis Sonic games for example.
>has an artstyle that is distinct enough to stand out, you likely won't confuse the game with another
That collage of generic FPS games picture comes to mind vs games such as what user here posted >has fantastic music
I would say most games at least pre-movie era that Sony put us in do this well. Even games with licensed music though can be soulful. Good examples imo would be Squaresoft Final Fantasy games, even GTA San Andreas or the good Tony Hawk games.
>atmosphere
Any game that does this exceptionally well pretty much instantly has soul such as Silent Hill 2.
>it should put you in an emotional state of some sort whether it be happiness, sadness, fear and so on but not really frustrate you or make you angry
Pokemon early gens give great nostalgia to so many older people. Therefore they have soul.

This is all I could think of for the moment really. I don't see gameplay itself as a sign of soul. A lot of what makes a game soulful is outside of what you actually can do in the game. Which is kind of what soul is like anyways. You can't actually see soul, you just can somehow sense it is there.

I legitimately think the biggest factor is this:

20 years ago game companies were competing with quality, they entrusted creative directors with more freedom, and development cycles were handled by small teams.

Today gaming has a higher GDP than Film and TV combined, publishers have their fingers in everyone's pies, mismanagement and restrictions abound, and they insist on having several studios across the globe stay up to the wee hours of night to have disjointed phone conferences before either side can resume work.

The current industry is a clusterfuck that has no idea how to efficiently spend their money, doesn't trust their creative devs (sometimes rightfully) , and is woefully out of touch with their consumer base.

It's precisely these things that indie developers lack, and why they surged in popularity in the early 2010's .

Attached: 1368495022286.gif (416x398, 582K)

This is soul
youtube.com/watch?v=5MIVvnQHxeM

It's funny how this post goes un-replied to the entire thread when it's the only correct one.
It really is just this, if you've been here long enough you know it's just a passing phrase that got meme-ed into the lexicon of Yea Forums vernacular in an unending cycle and will eventually be replaced by another set of buzzwords.
Any other explanation is someone justifying and projecting their own opinions and feelings onto these made up variables.

Attached: 1561940215371.jpg (578x722, 74K)

this.
even if the game is shit, it can still have soul

Come on man. Steel beams did not melt from an office fire lmao. I'm not even a conspiracy theorist, 99% of that stuff is complete nonsense but you are not gonna sit here and tell me a steel tower collapsed due to an office fire.

I think this is a good example image because it shows the conversion Zelda took to keep the soul, contrasted by Pokemon which is just bland and boring.

Soul is when I personally like something. Soulless is when I dont like that thing

"Necessity is the mother of innovation" is a famous saying for a reason.

You're right, they didn't melt, brainlet. The integrity loss caused them to bend, It only takes 1100 degrees for them to lose 50% of their strength and every variant of jet fuel burns between 800 and 1500 degrees.

If you'd like to spread more disinfo with memes, hit me.

Attached: 1351297634674.png (640x480, 38K)

It's basically a game that's easy on your eyes/ears, atmospheric and soothes the pained mind. It's less about the technical limitations and more about if the piece of media connects with you on a deeper level that goes beyond simple recreational needs. Some of the easiest avenues to invoke soul into the game would have to be through it's music or general nostalgia. And if we follow those examples then it means that the information being conveyed to you must express "feeling" without allowing you to fully be aware of it until after the fact.

Perhaps there's something particular from developers who make specific games that get passed along to the players. Maybe specific pieces of memories or past experiences being put into the art, music, writing or gameplay that can be related to without being conscious of it.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking it.

left is so much more interesting and mysterious

arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/09/actiblizzard-ceo-kotick-policy-rewards-profits-removes-fun/
Literally factually wrong buddy

Attached: 1543811636939.png (517x493, 48K)

Good games cannot be created anymore

Games cannot be created anymore

When the game was made with love by its developers, as opposed to workers working for a paycheck to pay the bills. When the game had a certain charm and aesthetic to it even limited by its limitations with gameplay to match it.
Soul less is when its copied later on when it could have been made the way it was intended without the limitations of yesteryear, while keeping its charm and aesthetics.
Links awakening really is a text book example of soul and soul less.

As someone who used the "imperfect" argument, I'm sticking by it. I'm not talking about "people make bad decisions during development or do something sloppily" imperfect, I mean "there are imperfections in the work that happen just due to the nature of reality being imperfect."

Attached: 1561171530166.jpg (640x480, 40K)

again, soul =/= good
and no tlou didnt have soul its just generic fucking zombie shit that decided to try and be a movie instead

Almost every issue with the right side is shading.

Anime in the 80's up to the late 90's was comfortable with shadows and deep colors. Now everything has to be fluffed by light, and the further a detail gets from the hair/eyes/main uniform details, the more pastel it becomes. It's infuriating how uniform this design philosophy has become.

it ruins the nude shot entirely.

The original primary use of the word soulless was in terms of "soulless corporations", hand in hand with the concept of "selling out".

Lack of soul in games is most often caused by misallocated resources and devs that truly don't give a shit. Most remakes are smash-and-grab cash-ins. Maybe the new models and animations were rushed because of mismanagement. Maybe the OST was redone by an inferior composer. Maybe entire features were cut for budget reasons. Maybe aesthetics were made more generic for mass-market appeal.

The uniting factor is that they lost sight of trying to make the game good because of money.

Attached: 157.jpg (1280x720, 166K)

But the devs love making LA. In fact they're careful with the details to match the theme they're going for.

It's almost like this is a zoomer buzzword.

>No dev ever starts making a game thinking "I'm going to make a crap game that's not fun and I'm going to hate every second of it."
You're right, but a great majority of triple A devs work on games they don't want to and have to abide to producer demands that they hate; every CoD game in the last 10 years, every sports game, Halo 5, very likely every Bethesda game in the last generation... These are games made just to sell and sell and sell, they are not here to tell a story or with player catharsis in mind.
For a more directly observable comparison you can look on animated films: take The Lego Movie (commercial campaign that sill bothers to deliver a compelling story and lovable characters), The emoji movie (soulless commercial full of advertising) and pure passion projects that deliver like all of the early Pixar and Dreamworks films.

In short, having soul just means it has artistic value that people can actually feel, unlike abstract postmodern and ready-made "art" that is just there to sell gallery and expo fees but has no meaning even if it forces you to you grasp at straws looking for one.

Yeah; This war of mine, hollow knight, firewatch, frostpunk... so much nostalgia in these.

>all these fags trying to define soul

Soul is just a buzzword that at best is shorthand for nostalgia.

There's clearly a lot of love and care put into the LA remake. You don't have to like the direction they've decided to take it, but looking at the way the characters move and act and how much attention to detail there is makes it hard for me to consider it a simple cash-grab

It's actually not, the Rayman series is a good example of this. Rayman Origins despite being a sequel had an innate appeal and design that allowed it to immediately strike a cord with players. Something specifically that Rayman 1 could not do even with Nostalgia.

By your logic people should feel more nostalgic for Rayman 1 over Origins. But this is clearly not the case.

I think it's getting better.

They had "on model" goombas at first that have been re-souled since.

>left
Beautiful work of art created with a CRT

>right
Ugly piece of shit created with an inceLED

Hmmmm

Attached: 1553443303448.jpg (600x600, 30K)

>Ben Kuchera taking a CEO quote's insanely out of context
Well done, retard. For example,
>"We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression," he stated.
is the second half of a sentence. That hack just completely cut the first half out. The statement all these quotes are pulled form was in regards to store inventory. He's talking economics.

>20 years ago game companies were competing with quality, they entrusted creative directors with more freedom

You can always tell when someone is underage and/or just plain stupid when they say this.
This is the opposite of the truth.

Atari Dumbledore doesn't look right without her long pink skirt

How would that be soul?

Pokemon looks unironically impressive here, but man LA looks horrid

Game maker is a pretty big limitation.

/thread

Attached: tumblr_pts34q3Hc71xp5azoo1_1280.png (1000x1000, 835K)

Attached: NINTENDO HIRE THIS MAN.png (2399x1239, 1.19M)

If you don't know the difference between soul and soulless then I'm afraid you're too pedestrian to understand the more complex issues in life and there is simply no hope for a low IQ knuckle-dragging incompetent such as yourself.

this is to reductionist. these graphics onionss really think that their product has soul. it obv doesnt. its more a thing of insectoid consumerism that sucks the soul out of evrything. the people that can make soul simply are not part of thsi society. it will get only worse as time goes on.

It's not about GFX quality, specifically. A game has soul when it's trying to be its own thing, when its atmosphere is not influenced by the popular tropes other, perhaps more popular but ultimately less soulful games take on. Soul includes sound design, background music and art direction. It can also include voice acting (or the lack thereof). Soul is why 'pixelshit' swelled in popularity, because games began looking too real-world; art style and art directions were a lost... well, art.

Willing to bet I'm older than you, kiddo.

Attached: 1452763983826.jpg (240x280, 18K)

this. well said.

FYI

If you're going to shit on the current games, at least use this.

Attached: 1561784668392.jpg (1107x1447, 234K)

The characters and world are bright cheerful, full of humor will actively dance and celebrate your accomplishments. The level design conveys what the music is playing and the music conveys how the levels play.

The lums you collect literally sing to you during special collection times and while you swim through the water levels. The big billed birds will cheerfully chirp and let you jump on their beaks without a care. You physically get to traverse the different worlds via shootem up levels.

Rayman 1 feels sterile and soulless in comparison. It's not even a technical limitation issue for Rayman 1 since for example Mickey Mouse World of Illusion was able to pull off lively and soulful world on the Sega Genesis. The design just feels basic compared to Origins.

>The game just has an unremarkable look to it. If you take a look at a random screenshot where the player character is omitted and you can't instantly recognize the game, that means that nothing about it stands out making it soulless.
>If you go back to a childhood game and you still don't feel that same happiness and wonder you did years ago, chances are that the game is soulless.
>Soundtrack doesn't stay in your head.
>The amount or lack of details depends on how they are executed. Done right, lack of details can convey eeriness or tranquility and if done wrong they make the game lifeless and boring. If the game has a large amount of details, it's good if the details are memorable, neatly placed, and they make the world interesting. If done wrong, extra details are distracting, pointless, and just plain ugly to look at.

I don't like age of empires 2 but i admit it has soul so you're definition s wrong

k-on really fucked up anime style permanently.

Then you're just retarded.
Video games literally started as little more than money-making machines.
That was their primary function.
20 years ago, Microsoft forced Bungie to completely re-write the design document for Halo so it'd work better on the X-Box. Nintendo designed the Gamecube specifically to make it easier for them and their 2nd parties to develop for, but harder for everyone else, and you had to pay Nintendo, on top of the standard contracting and prototyping fees, for special documentation, and everybody bought a PS2 specifically and exclusively because it doubled as a DVD player.

The industry has literally always been about making money FIRST, and if you were developing a high-profile game, you got NO preferential treatment, unless your name was Shigeru Miyamoto or Hideo Kojima.

Attached: collectible-replica-mini-arcade-machines-300x250.jpg (300x250, 39K)

Retarded buzzword of the year

Artistic integrity from the person who drove the work's creation from its very inception. Case in point:

Ahem *ting ting ting ting ting*
A-AHEM *ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting*

I THINK TABATA SUCKS
>turns the best FF game since FFX into a GTA bro trip sim
>has literally NO sense of tone, soul, taste or music
>FFXV ships as a LITERALLY unfinished game
>All DLC cancelled and tabata is BTFO by square
>Luminous CONFIRMED still working on a PS5 exclusive
>Nomura CONFIRMED reviving Versus XIII in Verum Rex
Lmao completely fucking anally devastated, not long before XV-kun, Barry, Bazzteck and all the other TabaTOIDS are finally put in their place. We won the long game Versus lads or shall I say Versus CHADS.

Attached: 1558963314781.png (600x900, 665K)

I'm not gonna defend FF15, but can you honestly tell me a game that doesn't exist (Versus 13) has soul?
Like V13 looks great, but FF15 *actually exists*, so Tabata wins by default

>so Tabata wins by default
and his grand prize was getting fired and now he's making a game about the paralympics

what a real winner :^)

Attached: 56e.png (560x434, 289K)

The FFvs13 trailers are better than anything FFXV, so yes, FFvs13 has more soul. Justl like how the MGSV trailers are so much better than MGSV.

Attached: r456y7u.png (405x409, 211K)

Gonna have to disagree with you there, champ.
The V13 trailers were literally made up by Nomura almost on the spot. He literally just came up with stuff he thought would look "cool" and made trailers out of them. Literally none of what he showed was playable or even coherent, and he didn't even know the names of the main characters until one of the designers asked him.
Tabata had to write a story completely from scratch. And I don't mean "he scrapped the story Nomura wrote", I mean he wrote a story, because Nomura never did.

>Literally none of what he showed was playable or even coherent, and he didn't even know the names of the main characters until one of the designers asked him.
Holy shit, source!?

>Tabata had to write
lol

I recall someone posted this here, not sure how y'all would feel about it:

Attached: The whole Versus XIII and XV story.png (1920x3177, 2.28M)

Attached: Untitled.png (881x669, 679K)

A lot of devs coughgamefreakcough don't give a fuck about what they're putting out, only doing so because they'd be out of a job if they didn't.

Holy shit, this is long. Can someone make a TL;DR? I'm not getting any younger with each word.

I I I I III
I II I I I=

This is loss to you? Really?

I just want a comfy OS. Hahaha xD

tl dr; nobody cares about op's image. They just shitpost their beliefs and other games that have "soul"

Maybe the loss is postmodern and it doesn't conform to the traditional I I I I _ setup or something.

Compare Metal Gear Solid V to Ghost Recon Wildlands and you'll understand what soul means