The intro needs this. It just does.
Okay, we got off the train, we grabbed a ring and then there's leon there and we have to help him.Kinda dry. There's no actual tension, no sense of danger, no rush, nothing.
When I see Leon there, surrounded by OMG's, even knowing perfectly well what an OMG represents to someone without rings, and knowing Leon is in danger - I just don't
feel it! It's like both Leon and my MC simply just don't care and are chilling.
Now imagine that, you load the game the first time, and you see the appear, but a window pops up immediately. It goes trough pictures. One shows the train moving, the next has the train stopping and a silhouette coming out. Next that screen fades slowly to black covered by a speech balloon with an exclamation mark on the right with a succession of pictures showing an OMG's leg, tail and skull on the left, and then a bigger picture of Leon cowering in fear in the middle of three of them in aggressive poses.
Then the window closes and you can move around.
Suddenly, the exact same scene establishes a feel of urgency. Suddenly, the fact you killed those three little things seem more heroic.
See, I've been watching a video game stream, and we've had this same conversation on the chat.
I can't say which game was on at the time because it was a Visual Novel where the objective after all the soppy melodrama and cuteness is some... less, publicly mentionable moments But the feeling on the chat was widespread: In a
genre full boring conversations looking at the same still images with little varying and uninteresting background that last forever, where the titles accepted outside their little cult following need to be filled with
humor or
puzzle elements, and getting more and more infested with pure fanservice titles, specially the
completely unplayable ones (that link makes me cry) that one on the stream in particular was very appealing because for a few reason, but the main one was that, no matter what was happening, it'd do exactly
THIS! By adding a Manga-like flowing form of storytelling. There was no scene that would last more than 3 lines without completely changing what was being shown, and there were several squares showing the character's face or a background detail all over the place. Placing two squares with their bodies further and further apart when one of the characters is slowly stepping away from the other, moving it quicker when they were surprised. And when someone was following the MC in the night, there would be close ups of the MC's eye, and the background would move around as if looking for something. A new character would be introduced by showing details on their bodies in succession, sometimes stopping a bit more time below the head with females. Text would appear slower or fast if that was a tense or calm situation...
But in the end, it was still a game about
reading a whole bunch of text. And yes, some scenes seemed to go on and on without stopping, to the point of you wanting to skip it (Goddamn Restaurant with 9 people talking!).
So we've talked about games that simply made the story captivating.
And it's that.
It's how we perceive the situation.
This body movement is important. A evil character sound far, far more evil saying he wants to rule the world if you can actually see him smirk, if he moves around and points his arm to the horizon in a menacing way, if he raises both arms with grip-like finger pointing up while he releases an audible laugh. Showing katsumi's face worried before she turns away, as if it bothers her that she lost her doll and its children are now out there attacking innocent passerby is more appalling than the feeling that text does. Even Jaques seems to simply wave off your help by telling you to go to Otami when Marshal is out there lost in the Sea! (apparently, those diving suits have a LOT of oxygen in the tanks) Is he just telling us to go to Otami because he finds us useless other than warning Blaze, or does he really believe we'll get something in the jungle? Speaking of Blaze, for such a tough character, her "please let me talk to the mystery tribe" attitude makes of her more of a hopeless girl who can't find it in her to help herself than a capable adventurer. If she had a stern or uninterested look when speaking to us, that would change a bit as well.
Although It's not just pictures. Music helps set the mood too. I wanted to use a simple, short example that I knew everyone in the stream would know. For some reason, only one came to mind.
I described the scene: Someone is taken to a prison, then they notice a friend is there right away and hug each other. Right after they remember of their situation and that there's no hope. The arrival character then explains not quite, and gives the jailed character something "magical" that will brings back hope as it works for a bit, and then they decide to set out and break free.
And the test worked wonders, everyone could very easily tell exactly at which point of the
background music each of the segment started and ended.
Music and sound effect also have a huge impact. It can either make or
(hilariously) destroy the mood.
What we hear
along an occurrence tells us how we should feel about something as it happens. When the music stops, you pay more attention. When the music starts again, you get emotional or stressed.
Something with prolonged moments of silence make the opposite,
where music has more impact. They're cues.
But unfortunately, I doubt zOMG! has the... financial power to add that into the game right now.
YES, yes to this suggestion! the zOMG! plot is not something you live, it's something you see happen.
It has more interest in terms of understanding the foreign concepts, such as Ghi and Null Chamber. The characters themselves have only memefied following. They're bland. There's nothing to them. You don't even care about who congratulates you at the Bar. You'd rather think "What is Olivia doing here" than thank for the party. It could have been Rina in her place, since it so easy to picture her cheerful and happy the bad guys are dead, and still that part of the story wouldn't haven't changed at all. Also, it also worsens the picture you make of the characters. You saved Marshall of drowning, and neithe himself nor his two kids are there to thank you. For all that matters, that party is for you beating Labtech X. The fact that you spent the last third of the game looking for and helping Marshall is completely forgotten and no player either notices or see anything wrong with it, because seriously, you completely forgot about him by then, and even if you did, you wouldn't think of what you went trough because of him or what is he likely doing now. You're not given a reason to care.
*done writing, point is already made*
