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Shagger

What Game, What Genre?

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This was going to be a reply to @m76 on the thread I started in tribute to the late actor Lance Reddick, but since I didn't want that of all threads to devolve into some irrelevant debate, I decided to just do this as a new topic. This is here to basically debate what qualifies a game to be a part of a certain genre. I'll go into some details about my own specific nuances about this further down, but first my response to @m76 with regard to this:

 

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You earn loot from defeated enemies in most, if not all RPGs, because that's what HZD is. And to be honest, that is debatable as even though you play as Aloy, you don't really decide much in terms of her fate and how the story goes, so it could be described as an open world action/adventure and I wouldn't argue. But either way, it's definitely not a looter shooter. The same mechanics you described exist in Assassin's Creed, Diablo, Hogwarts Legacy and not to mention pretty every MMO and MOBA, are they looter shooters too? Seriously, you review video games, don't you? How can anyone be expected to take your reviews seriously when you can't even get the genre of a game right! I know genre definition is open to interpretation (The whole purpose of this topic), but that is WAY off. And by the way, I'd advise you to be careful when you through the term "lootbox" around because, for most gamers, it doesn't mean earned-in-game-only loot from destroying enemies in the form of a box you open with a random selection of items inside that can't buy through a microtransaction. People might misinterpret your meaning. Proper, professional reviews know how to make that clear.

 

Onto the topic.

 

RPG or JRPG?

 

I briefly touched on what sets an open world action adventure from an RPG already, and to be honest I'm still trying to define for myself on what that difference is, so how about what the difference is between Western Style RPG's JRPGs for a kick-off. This has been discussed before both on and off the forum, and before I give my two cents I want to call attention to this video Jim Stephanie Stirling posted a few weeks back as I think it's quite interesting;

 

 

Anyway, to me calling something a JRPG was meant meant to be derogatory, all it meant to me was calling into attention a certain style and philosophy of RPG gameplay made famous primally by Japanese developers. Whilst the gameplay itself can vary greatly, that philosophy to me was about combining strategy into the action and making it more of a focus. Western RPG's tend to be more about skill in combat itself. The art style is also a big thing for me as JRPG also tend to be more stylised whereas Western RPGs try to emulate the real world a little more closely. One is better than the other, it's just a different philosophy. I love both and do think that can be considered separate genres because to me there is that separate philosophy and style that separates them. for example, Dragon's Dogma is a western RPG. That's how it it plays, that's how it looks, that's how it feels, despite being the work of a Japanese developer/publisher, Capcom. Traits one would more associate with JRPGs have been in western made games too, like Child of Light, Temtem and Indivisible. There certain in life, but for sure the sun rises in the east, it sets in the west and this debate will go on for every moment in between until we die. What you have read is merely my opinion.

 

Strategy Games

 

For me this is very simple. A pure strategy game should take no skill to play. Nobody will be impressed by you juggling the pawns in a chess tournament, and it's the same with strategy games. It's not easy to generalise these terms to suit every strategy game out there, but rhe user interface is there to allow you to place your pieces, units, buildings or whatever whare to want them to best execute your desired strategy with no direct input no thier actions from you. Some strategy games will allow for direct control of things on occasion, like the possession spell in Dungeon Keeper, and that's ok, but the mean of the game is and should be and hand of approach. You tell things what to do, you don't actually do it. That's a strategy game. Obviously, there can be strategy and tactics in other types of games too, but when that combines a skill based input, then it's not a strategy game. It's some other kind of game with strategy elements, strategy mechanics. Bringing us back to to JRPGs, a lot of them are like that and may even be pure strategy games in combat, but there's still role-play, you're still being the character, so it's not the same thing.

 

Anyway, that's enough from me for now. What's your thoughts on what defines a genre?

Edited by Shagger
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And you know what, screw it. I'm going to give you all crash course, or in @m76's case, a "reminder" as somebody who actually knows his genres to what constitutes as a looter shooter.

 

A looter shooter is focused (and that's important) on the player obtaining in-game items of various rarities to customise the appearance, characteristics and performance of the player in a 3rd or 1st person person shooter gameplay environment. The heart of a looter shooter is a quest to become better equipped, more powerful and, well, look cooler. Customization is key in a looter shooter with the ability to alter an item's appearance all the way down to the colour and even texture is all but a necessity. That is the core gameplay of a looter shooter. Not story, not roleplay, or even the combat. In a looter shooter, it's all about the customisation and the reward of obtaining top-end gear. A looter shooter doesn't need to be a primarily multiplayer game (Take Borderlands, for example), but multiplayer and/or social integration are a staple of the genre. Loot is almost always entirely randomised, not like in HZD with it very limited amount of randomization and predictability depending on the strength and type of enemy. You can't even dye your cloths in HZD, much less customise Aloy herself. No looter shooter worth it's weight in dung would be without full character customisation. Even in HFW where you can dye the clothing (But still not change Aloy's base appearance), these options are mostly earned through in-game trading with merchants, not as loot drops like how it should be in a looter shooter.

 

In the Horizon games, the reward for playing the game, like any game of it's type, is the adventure, not the loot, so it is not a looter shooter. And I can't believe I just had to explain that to human adult to claims to be a gamer.

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How do you decide if the reward is the adventure or the loot? Because you get both by playing most games.  It's not an A or B choice, it's a scale. In some games the story is more pronounced while in others it is more of an afterthought. Or are you saying that if a game has a story it can't be a looter shooter by definition?

In HZD you upgrade your abilities and equipment through in game loot drops, that is the core gameplay loop. Of course it is not a pure-bred looter shooter, but I think it is its defining characteristic. Most games are mixing genres, and not strictly fit into one specific genre. We can argue whether HZD is 40% looter and 60% action adventure, or the other way around, but I don't see the point.

I'm not a professional reviewer, I write reviews for fun and they only reflect my opinion. I'm sorry if by calling HZD a looter shooter I upset you, but I stand by my opinion. The way I remember the core gameplay it is a looter shooter first and action adventure second. I have not even called it a looter shooter in my review itself, since a genre is just a label, and giving things labels is inherently restrictive.

A game can be turned from being a looter shooter into a regular shooter by small changes. Take for example Ghost Recon Breakpoint, when it came out it was the general consensus that Ubisoft has turned it into a looter shooter. But due to the massive backlash that got, they implemented changes to the game that made looter shooter elements optional, and you could play the game as a tactical shooter if you wanted. I'm mentioning this to demonstrate that being a looter shooter can hinge on small details that are not necessarily built into the game from the grounds up, and are easily alterable.

There are a few things that I question in your reasoning:

  1. I don't know where is it written in stone that a looter shooter has to  have full character customization. Were do you get that from? Or have you made up that rule yourself?
  2. A lootbox is just a game mechanic, whether it is purchased from a cash shop or given as a quest reward is not relevant. If anyone thinks that it's only a lootbox if you paid real money for it, they are plain wrong, and it is not my fault that they don't understand the difference between in game purchases and a game mechanic
  3. If in-game loot chests that contain random loot which is generated at the time of of the drop and are not pre-determined are not lootboxes, then what should we call them?
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3 hours ago, m76 said:

How do you decide if the reward is the adventure or the loot? Because you get both by playing most games.  It's not an A or B choice, it's a scale. In some games the story is more pronounced while in others it is more of an afterthought. Or are you saying that if a game has a story it can't be a looter shooter by definition?

In HZD you upgrade your abilities and equipment through in game loot drops, that is the core gameplay loop. Of course it is not a pure-bred looter shooter, but I think it is its defining characteristic. Most games are mixing genres, and not strictly fit into one specific genre. We can argue whether HZD is 40% looter and 60% action adventure, or the other way around, but I don't see the point.

 

Maybe I didn't make it very clear, and if I didn't I apologise, but what I mean is in open world RPGs and action/adventure games, or at least the good ones, the reward is both adventure and the more vain stuff like loot, experience or whatever because that's the whole point. You want to know a game of that type that offers no adventure, nothing fun or interesting to discover and no stories to tell the player by exploring? Well, I'll tell you;

 

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In other words, not a very good one:

 

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While I'm at it, I wonder if Metacritic lists HZD as a looter shooter?

 

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Apparently not.

Getting back to the point, Forspoken, like as aforementioned almost every RPG, also loot in it in the form of cloaks;

 

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Jewellery;

 

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And... nails? OK, so this game is a little unconventional;

 

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I haven't even played this game, but I knew there would be loot in it because that is what these games do, and yet the rest of us, who must be crazy, don't call them looter shooters. The point is, just because a game has loot, doesn't make it a looter shooter, and I can't believe I need to explain that to you because It's an obvious fact! So obvious in fact that it's actually quite hard to frame and explanation why into words. It's like trying to write the dictionary definition for the word "word". I really can pick out just about game of this type and find these kind of look mechanics in them...

 

Hogwarts Legacy

 

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AC Odyssey

 

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Dragon Age Inquisition

 

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I could go on forever. It's, of course, not limited to equipment either, there's often weapons, resources and other things, but it's same thing of it's random, you find it, it's yours. Maybe it's something you want, maybe it's not. Regardless of what the "loot" specifically is, it's this thing with each game's indigenous spin on it throughout video games the world over, looter shooter or not. 

 

Nobody, not even you who has proven time and time again that his pride far out measures his cognitive abilities and logical reasoning, can be this stupid. Which is why if this sound patronising I apologise in advance, but if you don't get it, I have little choice. Just because a game has loot, it is not a looter shooter. Just like how a game can have a focus on story (The Last of Us) and not have it be an interactive narrative (Examples of Interactive Narratives: Life is Strange, Detroit Become Human, Telltale's The Walking Dead).  It is not difficult, so either you are slightly stupid, or you know you're lying when you mislabel a game's genre like you have HZD. Why you would lie, I don't know. Maybe by calling HZD a looter shooter you feel that can influence somebodies pre-conception on the game, but whatever the case those are the only two possibilities here.

 

3 hours ago, m76 said:

I'm not a professional reviewer, I write reviews for fun and they only reflect my opinion. I'm sorry if by calling HZD a looter shooter I upset you, but I stand by my opinion. The way I remember the core gameplay it is a looter shooter first and action adventure second. I have not even called it a looter shooter in my review itself, since a genre is just a label, and giving things labels is inherently restrictive.

 

I'm going to admit to something that I probably shouldn't admit to. My pride is pleading with me as I type this not to it, but I'm going to honest. You calling HZD a looter did upset me, and I'm going to explain why. It doesn't matter if you only write reviews for fun or a form of self expression (I do as well, believe me I get it), the very fact you expect or hope for people to read them means it's your responsibility to get your facts right. I agree, genre labelling is inherently restrictive because is shuffles works of creative expression with thier own unique identity into a conformed order and that's annoying. I understand that, I truly do, but that doesn't change the fact that when people are looking make a well informed choice about what they want to watch/play/read/listen to, understanding the genre of that creative expression is one the first and most important steps people take in making that choice. And in the end, regardless of why you wrote the review, the reason people read it is to use that review as a tool to help them make that choice. Like it or not, there is a general consensus to what fits into the conformed ideas of what genre. That is why it pissed me off when you called HZD a looter shooter because it's not your opinion, it was an obvious and glaring error. As somebody who has also wrote reviews in the past just a form of self expression, that grated me. When I write I review, I feel obligated to reader to as honest and as correct a possible, and I'm sure you do as well. However, I have enough humility to word what I right in such a way that it is fits to the conformed and defined parameters that I expect to be established in the mind of the reader, not my own interpretations. How glad I am you didn't actually call it that in you review, that's the silver lining, but I still find it incredible that somebody who writes reviews, even for fun, could make such a mistake and worse, take pride in it.

 

3 hours ago, m76 said:

A game can be turned from being a looter shooter into a regular shooter by small changes. Take for example Ghost Recon Breakpoint, when it came out it was the general consensus that Ubisoft has turned it into a looter shooter. But due to the massive backlash that got, they implemented changes to the game that made looter shooter elements optional, and you could play the game as a tactical shooter if you wanted. I'm mentioning this to demonstrate that being a looter shooter can hinge on small details that are not necessarily built into the game from the grounds up, and are easily alterable.

 

If you say is true (And it barley is, the specific controversy stemmed more from the game being too far from the stealth roots of a Tom Clancy game to carry the name as well as the inclusion of NFTs.), then is looter shooter even a genre? You can removed microtransactions from an RPG and it's an RPG. This is nothing against what you've said here, you're not wrong, it's just now I've thought about it can a genre even qualify as a genre if begging back a controversial feature changes that genre? Maybe I'm thinking to hard about this and Ghost Recon Breakpoint was simply a poor execution of an even worse idea, but it does make me wonder.

 

3 hours ago, m76 said:

There are a few things that I question in your reasoning:

  1. I don't know where is it written in stone that a looter shooter has to  have full character customization. Were do you get that from? Or have you made up that rule yourself?
  2. A lootbox is just a game mechanic, whether it is purchased from a cash shop or given as a quest reward is not relevant. If anyone thinks that it's only a lootbox if you paid real money for it, they are plain wrong, and it is not my fault that they don't understand the difference between in game purchases and a game mechanic
  3. If in-game loot chests that contain random loot which is generated at the time of of the drop and are not pre-determined are not lootboxes, then what should we call them?

 

  1. I already explained that character customisation, especially with acquired loot, is a huge a part of what defines a looter shooter. I didn't make it up, it's a common observation I've make in several of these types of games. I never said it was THEE defining feature. In fact the definition of a looter shooter is so loose (To the point whare I'm now questioning to myself whether it's even a genre at all) that I don't think there is such a thing as a defining feature for a looter shooter.
  2. Like I said, it doesn't matter whether people understand it or not, it's about what they think about when they hear the term. Certain terms carry certain meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words. That is why I would describe calling that mechanic in HZD a "lootbox" as misleading, even though it is literally a box you open with random loot in it. Again, as somebody who writes reviews, albeit only for fun, you should know why calling an in-game randomised look mechanic that is not attracted to any for of microtransaction a "lootbox" is a problem.
  3. Em, how about loot? With your broad, but stubbornly literal definition of a "lootbox" an argument can be made that looting the chests you find laterally everywhere in RPG's count as lootboxs. You don't know what you're gonna get and it is not revealed until you open it. It's the same thing, really. It could also be the same thing with looting dead bodies in these types of game. I admit that's a bit of a stretch, but the mechanics are essentially the same.
Edited by Shagger
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