Define soul, Yea Forums

spbp

nostalgia

Bingo

Bright colors, music that just sharp enough to still have a digital feeling to it, nonexistent story and gameplay thats both fun and feels like you're playing a game, not doing a chore

Soul is a compiler flag that is only available on japanese locales. If you try to compile with --soul in a non-japanese locale the compiler internally replaces it with --sour and then crashes.

true, this soul&souless is just circlejerk of elitist

it should be that:
>SOUL
means a game made with heart, the developers really believe in its message
>SOULLESS
means a game made with only money in midn, developers couldnt care less about it

Yea Forums being le master trole likes to use buzzwords incorrectly just to make spergs that take thigs too seriously throw a fit

When the devs actually give a shit about the game they're creating in an artistic sense and you can tell

This. Along with being creative or inventive

Soul: A game that provides value for the money spent on it. A game without MTX, forced online, or lootboxes. A game that isn't surrounded in controversy and doesn't attempt to preach to the gamer about real-world issues and whose goal is fun. A game that was created for user enjoyment and isn't afraid to do something that differentiates itself from other similar games. A memorable game has soul, a forgettable one doesn't.

soul = game i am nostalgic for
soulless = game i am not nostalgic for

for some reason, i get a lot of soul when i play games that use a lot of filter or grain effects. it just gives a game that kind of warm, non-artificial feel

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Looks good.
Looks simple.
It is what it is. It isn't trying to be anything more.
Pic related is souless.

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Look at this d00d
Try to tell me this guy isn't the most soulful npc of all time, I dare you

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Nostalgia

Witcher 3 was a game that immediately felt soulful because you could see from the start how much love and care was put into it.

Soulful games almost always either build great atmosphere or have an absolutely memorable moment or gameplay section. Usually also unique games or so refined to the point of perfection.

the end product being more than the sum of it's parts. If a game has soul it is because the most was made of the assets that were used, which is much easier to do if you have crappy assets than if your game actually looks good.

lel :p

Look at pic related and you'll immediately understand.

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the SOUL|SOULLESS became innacurate asf once someone replied at DOOM 2016 saying that it was SOULLESS compared to DOOM 3 (a.k.a. the flopped jumpscare of the franchise)

I've been thinking long and hard about this, and I have come to the conclusion that it boils down to feeling like there is a living, thriving world outside of your immediate surrounding.

This feeling can be achieved through things not directly related to a "living thriving world", such as the colour palette of the game. Washed out and grey? It will instill feelings of loneliness and decay/degeneration in someone. While a bright and colourful palette filled with life will instead instill happiness, for instance.

And then there are obvious things such as NPC's, vegetation, variance in environments in the game. Just look at the image you posted, you have rocky outcrops in the sea, aswell as a beach. You can see not only your own character token, but also a man on one of those rocks, aswell as a house further inwards from the beach. There's also the duality of red/blue present in that picture.

soul = effort

Soul: youtu.be/92__UaovpiI
Future Soul: youtu.be/USKKh_7lphQ

soul = nostalgia

where's my mystic water?

Old game good
New game bad

> this game was clearly made by a collection of humans who legitimately cared about making not just "a game", but the specific game they wanted
> this game was clearly not made by a ruthless corporate machine that aims not to please the right people, but to avoid displeasing as many people as possible
LITERALLY "the main decisionmakers behind the game had souls"

>Define soul, Yea Forums
What dreams are made of.

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Doom 3 if anything is soulless being a mediocre half life clone. Doom 2016 for all it’s flaws is at least a real doom game

>t. zoomers mad that they can't tell the difference

soul = games enjoyed by based and redpilled people
Soulless = games enjoyed by pseudohumans that import somali cum to put in their coffee

Chiron. Home.

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that which gives life to the lifeless

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"Soul" is what brainlets on Yea Forums use in place of "fun" or "I personally like it" upon realizing that these aren't arguments for a game's quality so they invented a term that's just as meaningless but slightly more vague so that it might seem like it belongs in an analytical discussion.

design oriented nostalgia

Soul: when the development of a game is run by the actual developers
Soulless: when the development of a game is run by corporate executives and marketing suits

He's literally the second NPC model you ever meet in pokemon, after your mom.
So yeah, soul incarnate.

To me it's about identity. Souless remakes take out what made something unique in favor of making it more palatable.

This post has soul

Soul is all those flash games I remember playing, yet can't remember the name of.

Like that 3D horror flash game where you're in a dark hallway with lights, and there's a monster trying to eat you, and if you get eaten, the girl screams with the most boner inducing scream I've ever heard.

nu-Zelda will never have this much soul

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/thread

Soul is the feeling we all had when we were kids before we discovered the world is a shit hole mostly because of laziness and ignorance. It represents a time in our lives of sensibility and naivety which are no longer attainable in our jaded adult lives. It's imaginary. You simply enjoy things less, that's all soul is.

had a friend who told me that aswell, but found out that damn zoomer had never played previous DOOM titles and believed to be the same as 3

>"Soul" is what brainlets on Yea Forums use in place of "fun" or "I personally like it" upon realizing that these aren't arguments for a game's quality so they invented a term that's just as meaningless but slightly more vague so that it might seem like it belongs in an analytical discussion.

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Soul as it's used on Yea Forums is supposed to be some coefficient for effort. There's this stupid notion that in "the old days", graphical and technological limitations made it harder to convey what the devs wanted and games are better then because of this barrier, where they think it's too easy for people to make games now. When this shit should immediately be proven false because GF was so incompetent even back in GSC they had to have Iwata bail them out.
However, what also people often overlook is that just because something has effort put into it doesn't mean it's good.

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Working around limited hardware abilities to create unique graphics and experiences. It also has to really sell it's atmosphere to create a better experience. It's harder for games to have soul nowadays because most games are diamond dozen unity shit or a ripoff of soulful games. Pokemon Gold and Silver had soul because they were trying their best to pack the game full of neat but meaningful features, despite the gameboy cartridge size. Heart gold and SOUL silver also have some soul. Graphically, many retro games are more memorable because you had to have good designs, memorable silhouettes, and unique color if you wanted your game to look good and stand out.

This fucking UI

/thread

Wow it's impressive how much worse the right looks. It's like when a corporation sucks the soul out of a mascot in an HD remake.

Something that gives me pleasant warm feels

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That picture is only soul-lite, it is definitely comfy though. Big difference.

samefag

>However, what also people often overlook is that just because something has effort put into it doesn't mean it's good.
While true, soul is about intent rather than objective quality. It's possible for a well-made game to be soulless if all the creative decisions were made by focus groups and marketing department suits. Conversely, it's possible for a mediocre game to be soulful if it felt like the devs actually tried making something fun, even if they flubbed the execution in some ways.

>When your artistic skills improve but your style goes to shit

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I think it's easier to define "soul" by first defining "soulless". A game is "soulless" when you can tell a game was created specifically for profit as the #1 priority. Bad graphics, lazy story, poor game mechanics, and many more game design choices are indications of a "soulless" game. Basically a cashgrab.

A "soul"FULL game is a game that created more with profits NOT at the forefront of their game design. In other words, they wanted the game to be FUN and were willing to spend a little more time/money on development than the soulless counterpart. Interesting innovative game design choices, attention to detail, characters that fill you with emotion (positive and negative), good writing. All of these are indications of a game that has "soul".

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Games with soul are usually fun too. Nowadays it is much easier to pack your game full of things to do and the core idea can become muddled. Many of these things can exist just to say you can do them to make the game seem bigger or more meaningful than it really is. Simpler games have to make their one shtick good enough to carry the game, along with smaller features.

Memes. The dna of the soul.
A game with soul is it's own thing it doesn't try to appeal to a huge market to maje Profits. It's made to be good because the devs had fun doing it and wanted it to be something kore than just means to make money

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Games are soulless because hardware development didn't cause quality to increase as well. Instead quality stays the same while hardware gets better because the games are easier to make that way.

Even then I disagree with it. Using GSC as an example because it's so commonly used, imagine playing GSC and there is no kanto region. Gamefreak never intended for that to be the game, it was only after Iwata compressed their shit and said "You have room for the whole previous region" is when it was added in. You beat Lance for the first time, and credits roll, and that was it. This was the intent.
Do you think that GSC would still be used as the flagship for soul? Should it still be used as that?

You're using one specific example while I'm talking in broader terms.

You realize its just a joke right? Why are you redditors such cunts about everything, its just video games who gives a fuck.

I haven't played any DKC game in decades but for some reason their music is still stuck in my head
youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Bi-lcUxCk

Yeah, but this one specific example is what people typically use as a definitive example of soul.

>analytical discussion
if you build your taste in vidya or any form of entertainment based on analytical facts, you good sir, are SOULLESS

8 bit theatre right there. Lol

>we'll never get 2D sprite based Zelda games again
3D graphics can die in a fire.

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Can I look at or listen to it and think "This is the work of a creative, inspired craftsman who had a passion for what he was working on?"
>A story that does the characters justice as opposed to just hitting story beats like the writer was invested and had emotion for them
>Music that plays like the composer was eternally grateful for the opportunity to create it leading to a track that both perfectly compliments the game and is timeless on its own, especially through the added context of the moment
>Graphics like an artist was inspired by a vision, for emotions he wanted to bless us with

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Soul: game made with love and care, devs put their heart and soul into it, and may or may not make money from it. Example of game with soul: Undertale
Soulless: cashgrab corporate approved game made with marketeting checklists in mind. no joy or thought was put into o
It, it's yet another burger the devs flip. Example of Soulless game: Fifa
Conclusion: please, PLEASE expand your vocabulary outside of one word, I am so sick of it.

for me it has a lot to do with color. its hard to explain, but usually deeper hues of purple or cool dawn/dusk colors

Cope harder.

2002 : likes Gunnm and assume his OC
2013 : ononononoono I prefer that AAAAA video games guys I'm not a wapanese nazi pedophile I like Mass effect and kojimeymey products like you

No surprise, back in the day the ranges of color available were much, much shorter, so how you mixed different tones in a color palette said a lot about how the game looked. I do remember the default palette swaps you could do on game boy color whenever you played a non color game on it

Yikes.

THANKS DOC

He looks like a super fat asian with a tripple chin

Soul is like character for a piece of media

It's simple input>output, if you put love and passion into your games it will show, if you make a game simply for the money then that too will show. For example, EA makes soulless games, indie developers usually make soulful games

This is a good way to describe it. A good example for me is Metroid Prime series environments compared to ultra modern, realistic games. Due to the limitations of the Gamecube, they had to get creative with the decorum and designs of rooms, you just can't fill an entire room with grass and rocks and trees and be done with it. The result is a world that is distinctly video gamey, but super alien as well. I don't think some of the background machinery or ruins in this game would be as creative or cool if the developers didn't have limitations to work around. When you can perfectly simulate reality, the "art" is lost and it becomes boring.

soulful answer

soulless NPCs

I did a playthrough of this game, but probably never will again, because even though the environments were cool, the story was ass, and the battles were a clusterfuck. The only things this UI is missing is the Fingerless Glove meter

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Care and effort put into any single pixel of the game to make the artists vision come to life

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/thread

It's supposed to be passion into a project, but the abuse of the word just means old good new bad.