Is "soul" a meme?

If it weren't a meme, then why would Yea Forums use it exclusively for the purpose of blatant shitposting?

No. Its vague to most , but its not a meme.
Extra care with the limitations in mind + saturated colors & studio lighting > stuff just made for money...

soil? it's just dirt, user.

Yes, but it's also legitimate criticism. "Soul" is shorthand for "consistent, well thought out, and well executed art style," which is a valid metric. Games have "soul" when their aesthetics blend well together, work with context, etc. The most common contrast is many older 8/16-bit games (wherein the developers thought about the best ways to work with the limited color options and TV scanlines) vs. modern imitators of those games which thoughtlessly copy the pixel-count without putting the same level of care and attention to the designs. However, any game from any era can have "soul" when executed well.

Yes, because none of you faggot memers knows how much effort was put into each piece in a comparative fashion in all cases, dumb fucking faggot. Most of you stupid cumsockets can't even use the comparison properly.

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To people with no soul it's a meme.

Just making something realistic is reproduction. If there's nothing more being conveyed then it's not any better than something a machine could produce on its own.

"Soul" is just a buzzword insecure retards use to defend their favorite shitty JRPGs

soul is whatever YOU like that doesnt look good
it has "soul" so you dont have to properly justify reasons as to why YOU like it

No. You can tell the difference between a game shat out by a faceless company for a quick buck, over a game made by devs who greatly cared about what they were making and put all their blood and sweat into it. It's just that idiots turn the whole soul argument into "old good new bad" which turned it into a buzzword. Plenty of new games have soul, even if Yea Forums won't admit it.

is soul something that is achieved on purpose or is it just a consequence of passionate developers

Soul is something with a conclusive definition. It cannot, therefore, be nothing but a meme.
SOUL is an attribute of a game where you can tell another human being worked on it, a connection between creators and players.
It shows through imperfections. Not necessarily "flaws", but places where a game sacrificed UNIVERSAL appeal for stronger appeal to kindred souls, or places where the developers ran into limitations they had to get creative around.
In the modern world, where AAA games have massive budgets and entire art teams dedicated to making sure nothing is too rough around the edges, soul is virtually impossible to come across.
Even some indie games fall into a soulless trap, between modern hardware that's unchallenging to develop for and a market where apathy is standard.

Don't take this to mean that soul is another word for "old good, new bad". It's just harder to come across now, that's a consequence of the medium's development.

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No, you can't. Proof? Yea Forums considers BotW to be soulless. The use of the buzzword is predicated on the assumption that the person using it knows more about the game's development than the developers themselves, which is true precisely 0% of the time. It's the exact same fucking thing as "comfy" but with an extra layer of a smug sense of superiority.

> The use of the buzzword is predicated on the assumption that the person using it knows more about the game's development than the developers themselves
No, it isn't. It's predicated on the assumption that the person using it knows what a product made by humans, rather than a whole-ass marketing department, feels like. Nintendo games have little nuggets of soul where you can tell a small group of passionate people made a certain segment of the game, but the entire experience is somewhat lacking in soul by simple definition.
"Comfy" isn't a buzzword either.

the latter, the only thing developers should be trying to achieve is making a quality product that they're happy with. devs explicitly trying to emulate "soul" is how you get the indie pixelshit """retro-inspired""" meme.

>but isn't the pursuit of photorealism just human nature

Indeed. But as said, that shouldn't come to the detrement of style and originality. I think what I was most impressed with at the vatican, when looking at these old paintings, is how, despite being a painting and less 'realistic' than a photograph, they were infinitely more life-like. Video games are the same will. Games don't have personality like they used to, even though graphical enhancements of toady should not be an excuse

aw shit, sorry about that.

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kek

soul is when a group of people put a lot of time effort and love into a game/idea regardless of how good the actual idea or execution is.
soulless is when a game/idea is used solely for money

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Shit graphics + Shit artstyle = Soulless
Shit graphics + Good artstyle = Soul
Good graphics + Shit artstyle = Soul
Good graphics + Good artstyle = Soulless

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>It's predicated on the assumption that the person using it knows what a product made by humans, rather than a whole-ass marketing department
Which you don't. None of you do, because your determination towards hating certain games as influenced from the hivemind will completely warp your objective perception of their development processes from the outside into something that can still fit your indoctrinated belief that the game in question must be soulless.

Soul imo basically means "effort" and originality. Back then ideas were fresh and groundbreaking. Overtime ideas began to run out and games started looking more similar from each other. It's almost impossible to keep franchise fresh for so long, they all degrade and lose their touch or "soul" as everyone here likes to call it.

you just gotta feel it

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maybe i'm just autistic but I think modern games have too many fucking details in them everything just kind of runs together and it's hard to pay attention to all of it, older games were easier to process visually and the details they did have stood out a lot more because of it and thats part of why I appreciate them more

Thing I like soul, thing I no like soulless. That's all you need to know about the phrase when it's muttered by a brainless reddit mutt. When spoken by a cultured individual however, it indicates one can see that something has had effort and time put into it. A hastily created art asset with little time put into the colors or style is quite soulless. When a piece is made not to inspire or invoke ideas, it is soulless. Soul and soulless are not words used to quantify pixel count, but rather the quality of the piece as a whole.

You can tell the difference between a "soulless" game to a "soul" game.
I personally consider Overwatch as a game with soul, even if Yea Forums won't agree with me. You can tell a lot of time and love was put into that game. All the little things they added to OW like being able feel how your characters walk is what helped give it that soul, and make it feel alive in a sense.

Now let's compare that to the modern Pokemon games(mainly SM), which I consider soulless. These game just feels dead to me for the most part. It just felt like GF rushed it out the door because they wanted to cash in on it as quickly as possible. It does have it's moments of "soul". Some of the animations the Pokemons do are neat, but so few have those neat animations that it's hard for me to say it has soul. It just doesn't feel like the devs cared as much for the game, or the higher ups rushed them so they didn't have the time they needed to add that love to it. Also if you want a real example of a soulless game just play any game you find in a dollar bin at gamestop or something. It's extremely clear no one gave a shit while making that game.

Limitations made devs push themselves harder to deliver, but ultimately make old games, no shit, limited.
The fact that it's so easy to make shit nowadays makes so its easier to cut budget on stuff that make you think 'damn thats soul' on old vidya

How does that even look in-game?

i never noticed that none of that shit iws rotating

take a look at this and tell me soul is a meme

It's not about a game having too much or not enough details that is the problem but how those details, or lack thereof, are applied. Some games like the original Spyro for example are liked because the lack of details gave the world an eerie and empty sensation while the added details in Reignited made some levels look generic and cluttered. CTR Nitro Fueled has tons of details that were included in the tracks that weren't present in the original but rather than looking cluttered and distracting, it makes the world feel more alive and interesting.

This is why I think you can't go "Oh my God guys one minute you're saying that a lack of details reflects laziness and another minute claim that adding details makes things cluttered". Everything should be judged on a case by case basis.