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This is one of the reasons why i like games from the dreamcast, or the psp. They hit the nail where the graphics can look really nice, while still leaving enough to the imagination to fill in. Opening a drawer inside Ryo's house in shenmue and seeing a jpeg of spoons shows their ambition and how they had to deal with limitations, it's really charming.
Dreamcast had an amazing balance of imagination/immersion, graphics were getting pretty good at that point but there were still tons of video gamey elements to keep things fun
I'd say it's not that simple sadly. One player might love a game that teaches them a playstyle or genre they have not tried before, and greatly enjoys that after completion they unlock a harder difficulty mode, a sign of their growth. Another player already has all that love and skill from a previous game in the genre. But now they have to slog through hours of low difficulty that does not engage them and they struggle with paying attention, before they can unlock the gameplay they actually wanted to experience. Just one example that shows that fun is subjective and not universal :/
Imagination reigns supreme in the GBC and PS1 games for me. I’d always be wondering what was behind doors that you couldn’t access etc. As for immersion, it stems more from good gameplay/writing, rather than art direction. The Zero Escape games, although they are visual novels, are super immersive. You can feel the tension in the air during both dialogue and puzzle solving. On the other end, games that let you choose how to approach a situation, like a jrpg, are immersive just out of self expression. And that’s why I love the genre so much.
Honestly I think it comes down to art direction and game design itself. It's funny you mentioned Star Ocean when talking about getting to screw around in towns cause the first thing I thought of when you said that was Zelda BotW and TotK. You can flout realism and cutting edge graphics all you want, but the moment you take away player agency you're... well, taking them out of the game itself. That's why I think I got way more mileage out of games like the aforementioned Zelda titles and the Xenoblade series than RDR2.
I enjoyed the topic quite a lot, yet at the same time I feel like both aspects each deserve a video on their own, talking about several games in more detail and just generally showcasing the beauty of some worlds and artworks and scenes instead of just a 6min section. I would definitely appreciate a more in-depth talk or follow-up on this! Keep up the good work
I like this topic. It's similar topic with friends on how media keeps evolving. From oral traditions to literature and now to movie and videogames. I like a sweet balance of setting up a good base to keep something for imagination and overall vibe of the game that let's you feel so immerse. Usually, a good blend of visual and music background should do the trick.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is partially what made me go back to playing those late 90s and early to mid 00s games. It's a great and beautiful game, and you really get out what you put into it. But, there is something to be said of simplicity. I was playing Portal 2 with my son and the engagement of having every room be a puzzle was fun. But, there is repetition in simplicity. Then I want to go back and do my chores for the day before riding into Valentine and partaking in the saloon and seeing what happens...
This is a cool topic. It’s like reading a book or watching the movie counterpart. In a book I build the characters looks and voices, in a movie it’s someone else’s interpretations.
Btw! VR has been the tech that reignited my passion, wonder and excitement for gaming the past 8 years. My favorite feeling and nr:1 immersion go-to these days is a heavily modded Skyrim VR. I'm THERE! It. Is. Insane.
I think about this all the time! As a kid, playing snes games, I’d look out upon the mountains and cities and wonder which cheat code might allow me to explore those areas… I still remember how mind-blowing it was to be able to explore the inside of buildings in GTA 3. Gaming has come a long way graphically, but in many cases, the emphasis on music and storytelling has suffered. Probably why I’m drawn to games like Chained Echoes.
Haven't even watched the video yet but the Phantasy Star IV screenshot in the thumbnail is something that always stuck with me ever since i saw it all those years ago. The feeling of the endless unknown expanse it evoked I feel was almost never realized greater than in that game, even now far in the future where it should be able to be realized even more...
It’s such an awe-inspiring shot and really makes you fantasize about how expansive the world really is. It instantly came to mind when thinking of good pics to display imagination
I would love to go back to an age of imagination in gaming. I do love the balance the 5th & 6th gen hits where depending on the mood you can lean more into one than the other, but as always my dude - great video and great topic. I’m curious- have you ever dropped a game due to either the immersion not going deep enough/ going too far? I can’t finish RDR2 because at some point the immersion ruins it for me and I just want to play something else in my limited gaming time. It actually drove me to start playing more racing and fighting games over the past 2 years since I wanted something more action focused for quick gaming sessions. Been loving MK1 lately and this topic made me reflect on how much even fighting games have evolved over the years.
My favorite use of imagination back then was the player's home in Legend of Mana. There's just so much stuff and small corners in each room that I start to wonder what everything is and where would I put certain stuff of mine if truely lived here. It's so dense, yet cozy all around. I loved it! Also, I've been meaning to say this for a while now, but I think your channel intro is the only channel intro I love to watch each time. The music, the visuals, and even the quotes said over it make it beautiful to watch.
Thank you for articulating this idea. I've always had a similar thought. Around the PS1-PS2 era they were able to put in just enough detail to suggest fantastic worlds but where restricted enough by the hardware that they never rose to the scope of modern open-world type experiences that often feel somewhat thin despite their richness. It's been a while since there's been a game that gives me as much pleasure to hang out in as El Nido from Chrono Cross, the world from Legend of Dragoon, or Spira from FFX
This was such a good idea for a video. I was literally just talking to one of my buddies about this a couple weeks ago. Something about seeing those portraits packed with things in the background or seeing a super detailed pre-rendered background that just made me feel like I was in the place the game was taking place in. Older games would almost feel more real than games today because of the use of our imaginations.
The amount of time I spent daydreaming about some little detail on the world map that was just a flourish was crazy. Staring at the maps of legend of mana in the cities was so fun. Walking around on the world maps of final fantasy, breath of fire and chrono trigger especially made me create all sorts of imaginary places that existed in the world we couldn't go to.
Awesome video, you covered just about everything I could think of about the topic. I see it as immersion is what happens when your mind is tricked into believing in a world that isn't real, and imagination is the gap that is bridged in your mind to make that happen. The manuals, the concept art, the more detailed character portraits, and anything that adds detail is there to stir the imagination, filling in the details that aren't there. I recently started playing Daggerfall for the first time and it's crazy immersive despite the dated graphics and gameplay. A lot of the time I find it more difficult to stay immersed in a game that's more realistic because you don't use your imagination as much. If you're not using your imagination and the game does something that's contrary to reality, immersion is lost.
I remember playing Dragon Warrior II for the first time when it was a brand new game on the NES and thinking, "Wow! There are tables, chairs, and beds in the houses now!" But I'd never assumed that the houses in the previous game were empty; I'd just used my imagination to fill in the details. I'm not suggesting we should go back to that, but it was an entirely different experience, and I'm glad I was there for it as a kid.
I first really noticed this effect graphically when I replayed Sunsoft's Batman on NES. The backgrounds are mostly just black, with patches of color representing dimly lit bricks or whatever. Your mind fills in the blanks and makes it one of my favorite games visually
Such an interesting idea that I never realized before. The limitations back then definitely brewed our imagination a lot. Going back and playing older games now gives me that same feeling. Especially with things like graphics during an in game cutscene (like the Phantasy Star IV example). I definitely enjoy the imagination side of things.
You the limitationsn broaden our imaginations back then,since i grew up with Nes,Snes PS1,Sega Ps2,lot of make me wish there alot we can do around the game,nowadays the charms might be lost considering there to much games like 3d open worlds,jrpgarounds
Awesome video! I agree with a lot of your points, and thinking about it older games had more to them because of the "imagination" aspect. In older games we got more unique stories and better fleshed out characters because game devs had to use different means to hook people and "immerse" them. Comparing FF7 to 15, each character in 7 had a home town and a backstory, families to go to, a place they "belonged" to. Now it's all just glossed over or not even mentioned because there has to be a big flashy cutscene to show you the invading imperial army floating above you (doing a whole lot of nothing by the way).
Video idea: Forests in RPGs. There's some really beautiful forest settings in Japanese games, often with great accompanying music. FFX's Macalania Woods comes to mind.
I feel that, I don’t usually like playing games based in reality. The farther a game is from reality the more immersed I can usually get as I play games to see and do cool stuff that I can’t do in real life
That Breath of Fire 4 opening had me in a chokehold. I always thought that I could find everything that was shown. I went back to those plains so many times. I wish they made a BOF3 or 4 anime
Cool video, I'll almost always go for imaginative games over immersive ones. Immersion to me also comes close to simulation, and while there's a lot of those games out there, it doesn't really strike my fancy. A game I've been playing lately that incorporates a weird amount of both though is called Lorn's Lure. The gameplay is immersive but the vistas can leave a lot to the imagination, in a good way.
Man those PS1 pre-rendered RPG backgrounds are still some of my favorite art in all of gaming. Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking but they’re still beautiful. Also imagination was huge growing up. I was knee deep into Gen 1 Pokémon and so were all of my friends in 98/99. The crazy myths, lore, and fan theories were just amazing. I put probably 100 hours in looking for “Pikablu” around the truck by the SS Anne. The internet was still the Wild West and there were all kinds of rumors out there. They were somewhat believable too since Pokémon already had missingno and the level 100+ rare candy glitch. Good times
Immersion is when the dev can sell you a certain perspective of the world. In scifi a jetpack feels realistic, so you buy the concept (and use it). I only have a problem with games that force a certain gameplay element on you. One example I can remember was the hex grid battle system of wild arms 4 and 5 that initially took me out of the whole world somehow and it never felt good - more complex and added more depth, yes. Or hud interfaces that fill the screen, maps that are filled with markers and the like. A gameplay system that never takes the player for an adult with a basic concept of gaming. 11:20 Good point. Devs found the middle ground in playing jibberish tunes for character dialogues as in most classic Shining games. You still had to imagine their voices and dialects, yet were provided some indication of their tone in voice, like girls tunes were high pitched and the village elder spoke in a deep jibberish tune.
FE7 on GBA was my imagination game. All the great art and dialogue really had me envision every detail of every scene. For immersion it had to be oblivion. That game felt the most free of any RPG I've played. Don't know how Skyrim got the better reputation.
I can really relate to pretty much everything in this video! Great topic. I love your videos but there's lots of content so I hadn't really reflected on the fact that youtube hasn't suggested your videos (which they always used to) to me for 3 months(!). I see now that I have a handful of vids to catch up on and I'll pause "Zelda's Quest" on this one because I want to see that story unfold chronologically. The lesson for me, however, is crystal clear: Set that bell to "all". Cheers, bros
The ability square had to made mini opens worlds with so much atmosphere is my favorite thing in retro gaming . Saga regions, racing lagoon micro machines map, front mission 3 cities, bars and false net, ff and their cities, world maps and dungeons....those games have so much content and work in them you could mod another story or a multiplayer mod and still not be tired of them
I love limitations on world presentation and exploration. If the game is fully open and photorealistic, then you know exactly what you will get. Artstyle and genre can help a bit, not every forest or mountain will look the same, but in general you know what reality looks like and exploring every nook and cranny of this open space becomes boring as you've seen it 100 times already on the way there. Heck you can probably see everything from here, no need to walk over. The limitations of old games instead hold limitless potential. You get screen transitions, you get abstracted pixel or low poly art, everything you see has the potential of receiving a much more detailed presentation if you examine it close enough. That last screen you have not been to in this region... you have NO idea what hides there, you can not see it before it loads. That one cliff ledge that looks like something is hidden there... it might be nothing at all, but you will wonder forever. That one screen that looked nice but did absolutely nothing... It might just be eye candy, but you will think about it while the credits roll, and attempt to unlock its secret. If every pickup in a room is highlighted with floating icons, you don't look at the room, you just go in, press the button and leave. But if you have to go into every corner to check if the game changes the viewing angle or pops open some unique interaction menu, you really observe your environment. Limitation isn't just about imagination, it's very practically affects how you engage with the game, how you behave and play. If you know you don't have the full picture yet, then you put more effort into exploring this leads to getting more out of finding something, even tiny things.
Yeah,that the reason why i wish some modern game like Kingdom Come,Days Gone would atleast has some open world activities around it,like fishing,making a camp or hideout
I've been around since Gen 2 and personally prefer 16 or 32 bit. I play everything but there was something about how those generation captured my imagination. The music was more catchy then too.
This is a great distinction to make clear, and I totally agree. The route of Imagination in gaming will always be my preferred way to experience the medium, but it just can’t be as it was before entirely. Also, in the age of the internet where anything can be looked up at anytime as soon as a game releases, the golden age of videogame imagination will never be the same or as explorative as it was in the 90’s and 00’s. However, immersion is still very excellent too, and essentially the natural evolution.
Agree,nowadays most of them got their info from internet,especially the younger generation,to the point the some might become smug and arrogant at it,it bit annoying to be honest,considering longtime player who been playing some series for longest usually get disrespected by them,i remember some of younger player asked and tell me to uses emulator despite i already known about that stuff long time ago. Off topic like whenever i discussing some stuff like older anime,reminded me when they usually goes older anime has 3d and digital working on them too,despite i said it was only used on some scene that hard to animated even back then(like some scene in Char Counterattack movie) What i mean is most nowadays anime is fully digitalized and too clean to invoke certain tones like the sombre feeling,or fluid machination scene,more lively character with much expressive facial features that was mostly present on older anime like Magnetic Roses,Macross,Bubblegum Crisis,Parasite Doll,Vampire Hunter D,the first GITS film,considering most of them usually said anime nowadays is better than older anime back
Post 5th gen also shifted away from more static cameras and i felt these games were worse for it. Like FF7 Remake/Rebirth doesnt sit as well with me with a fully scaled world with player camera control. While FF7 you had visual setpieces that the creators controlled the image you see, and every screen was a well thought out painting. Remake/Rebirth scaled everything 1:10 and the camera is always pulled in so you never get the same pulled out view of the “painting” of a scene. I felt it was way less of an interesting game to look at than the originals despite the huge leap in realistic graphics.
I just could never get immersed with Western wild west story compared to the"spaghetti western"that i used to grew up with,no offense but it a very different tones
Really appreciate that. I wish TH-cam felt the same as unfortunately they never really do that well view wise. It seems like our 8 Great lists are the only type of vids the algorithm ever wants to push out. Hopefully that’ll change eventually because I’d love to focus on making more unique content like this over list videos, though I don’t mind making those either as we still try to find ways to make those stand out from other list videos
Awesome video! Man even looking at just the thumbnail of that phantasy star picture (and the picture in the bottom part, not sure which game 😅) really made me think. The imagination the games invoked really were a force! I almost think it’s more powerful really but they’re both good. Ff7 remake looks so cool (I haven’t played it, despite being the biggest ff7 fan around, because I don’t have a PlayStation.) so if done right it looks like they can really make it work
This video feels like a broadcast from a pirate radio station, and really speaks my language. I can tell there is some heart poured into this. I particularly appreciated the Zelda's Quest bit after the outro. Kudos!
Don't know if I've commented before, but I absolutely love your channel. Major nostalgia hit every time. Seriously one of the best produced channels on TH-cam. Love the intermission, gives major Toonami bumper vibes. Keep up the good work!
Great topic to discuss! For me, imagination has always been a necessary component for my enjoyment. A game needs to leave me enough “dream room,” to engage my mind. Old games were great at this, but modern games with minimalist design aspects (i.e. Dark Souls) leave tons of room for the player to dream as well. 🎉
I basically arrive to that conclusion at the end of the video, immersion for me simply just comes down to having a lot of fun with the game and old games with imagination do that for me
Fantastic video on a great subject. To this day, I still think Metroid Prime is the most immersive game I’ve ever played. It completely absorbed me. I ten to find immersive sims well, immersive. Deus Ex Mankind Divided and Prey are among the most recent. Too bad it’s a gente with a very small output because the games don’t sell a ton.
Etrian Odyssey excels at both sides of the coin. Your party members only have static portraits, so it's up to you to fill out their personalities and backstories with your imagination. That goes for dungeon events, too, which are simply described to you in text; you get to figure out how your party members feel about what just went down. On the other hand, filling out the dungeon map by hand really immerses you and gets you feeling like you're the one exploring the dungeon personally, even without realistic or proportional graphics.
I'm glad your videos are slowly getting more and more views. I love seeing your carefully selected clips of retro games. Channels like your really inspire me to finish off my old SNES/Saturn/PS1, ETA collections, just to see all the unique art style and I 100% agree with you about promotional renders (Super Mario RPG takes the cake for me). Keep it up, just seeing that 3s clip of Mischief Makers makes me want to play that game now, and I remember being fully uninterested in the 90's for that specific game.
Imagination: Fire Emblem IV Genealogy of the Holy War (Very dark, with some of the darker acts referenced to) Immersion: Shining in the Holy Ark (I love how enemies appear around the corner, zombies dig themselves out of graves, etc)
Phenomenal video. Very educational for younger gamers who never knew the joy of utilizing as you put it, the imagination. Def remember making voices for each character in my head when reading dialogue so you hit a nostalgia point there! When you posed the question of the most imaginative game… of course vintage jrpgs flood my mind and it’s hard to pick one. I will have to go with final fantasy legend on the original game boy. Playing that thing on the green screen, having to have sunlight or artificial light to even see the screen made it challenging from the onset for the optimal visual experience. Even once you had that down, the graphics were super limited but they did a great job with the sfx for spells and attacks with different types of weapons and abilities so the imagination factor was off the charts. Great sound track as well but no surprise there since it was the goat Nobuo Uematsu. It was quite dramatic when you revived someone from the dead as the dialogue would appear and say “I made it”. Resource management was huge since all weapons and spells bought from the store had finite uses. It also has a monster transformation mechanic where if you have a monster as a party member they can eat the meat of monsters after defeating them in battle and transform. There were only a limited number of icons used for said monsters so you had to use your imagination for sure!
If the story, characters, music, and gameplay are good, then I _enjoy_ filling-in the blanks. What Viridian City would look like in OG Pokemon is the best example I can think of. Going into the multi-story mall, buying my Pokemon lemonade from a vending machine. Things like that.
Depending on what I want at the time, I can go either immersion or imagination. But I often find myself daydreaming regardless of which one. Daydreaming about how the world may look or how a silent protagonist interacts with people normally for imagination heavier games, or about a character my mind makes up in an immersion heavy world would interact with it. I blame Grandia and Lunar for helping inspire that habit, there's so much of those worlds we didn't see that I really wondered about.
Another great video. Personally, i believe immersion works best when you're trying to tell a more realistic story. When we're talking about fantasy, anything goes for me.
Thank you! That’s a great point to make, I do like more realistic styled controls when the game itself is more realistic. For something that’s not based in reality though I just want your classic video gamey elements and fun movement
Love the variety of videos you guys put out, always interesting to hear your take on different games. Thank you for all the time and effort you guys put into your content, it is appreciated 😊
Altough I like the feeling of imagining how a world looks like or how a character voice sounds like, sometime immersion can be a good thing. Not like Red Dead Redemption, bringing a massive open world, but used in a smart way like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, where immersion give us nice details and lore without saying a word, something that the original game couldn't do. I think the most important thing is know how and where use imagination or immersion.
It was interesting, but highly subiectiv topic to cover. I can't say what is more important for me, imagination or immersion. I'm sure that i'm more often searching imagination than immersion, but if games is also immersive is great. It strongly depends from game and it's narrative and/or gameplay, i think. In recent i was playing Phantasy Star games and despite their age i was able to imagine that this world is living. You can say that it was more immersive for me than modern open world games with their detailed graphics specific designed to be immersive, but often dull and repetetive places and tasks to do which are breaking this immersion.
Still undisputed channel on TH-cam. I definitely prefer imagination because it actually helps my immersion process. Just like not having voice acting is more enjoyable than having it. At least for my RPGs. Keep killing it with quality content ❤
Thank you, music plays a big role in games to me so I give a lot of importance to it in our videos as well always trying to find fitting tracks for the particular section
I watched the beginning of the video and remembered a funny thing. In my country in the 80s-90s there were almost no licensed games. We bought pirated copies on game cartridges, floppy disks, and then CDs. And they did not come with colorful manuals. Moreover, pirates cut out music, videos and everything "heavy" from such games so that more games could fit on one cartridge or disk. On top of that, most of us had money problems and couldn't afford actual game consoles or powerful PCs, settling for something that was 10 years behind the trends. And when you bought such a hacked game at the city bazaar, where pirates traded - you prayed all the way home that it was the same game that you read about in your favorite game magazine, and that it worked and did not crash. And here I finally come to the main point - those game magazines in our environment worked in the same way you described the influence of game manuals on your childhood imagination. We couldn't afford many of the actual games of the time, so we reread the same reviews over and over again, and our imagination drew practical other worlds. This was aided by very small screenshots printed in poor quality. And often the screenshots were made out to be shots from CG movies, which made our brains explode even more. And our journalists embellished these pictures with incredibly juicy text descriptions. It was fucking magic😊
Even though we kind of got an idea what Terra, Locke, Celes, Sabin etc. looked like in Final Fantasy 6 based off of Amano's art (and their 3d renders in the Ps1 version CGI cutscenes and in Dissidia) I still have my own fan fiction sort of design in my mind that I am worried that if Square were to remake FF6, that it would totally ruin my memories of who they were and what they looked like I have plenty other examples with character and world design where I like how they were originally portrayed, and I dont want some modern Unreal Engine 5 adaptation of characters based on a couple sprites or a single pre rendered background. They will just end up 3d modeling objects and areas that weren't in the original in order to pad out the time spent in an area and justify the money being spent, until it reminds me nothing of the original
The first Dragons Dogma is the only RPG I chose to be a mage; simply to levitate everywhere. That flying aspect everywhere in-game is just plain cool 😎
I would love to explore Ivalice to my hearts content in Final Fantasy XII with no story and no enemies in sight. No loading zones between parts of the environments. I would love to explore Corneria in Star Fox Zero and see all the beautiful waterfalls, but it's a fighting on rails game and is only available for Wii U, which I do not have because I could not afford a Wii U at the time. And I wish I had the first Nintendo Wii, but now I have a Nintendo Switch. I would like to see Square Enix remake the City of Esthar so I can explore the beautiful city in all its glory without having to go through the story of Final Fantasy VIII. I would love to explore the outside of New Jerusalem in The Talos Principle II. And of course, be able to travel between puzzles and New Jerusalem. I would love to explore New Jerusalem during the night. Of course, I can explore New Atlantis in Starfield, but that meant that I had to go through the story so I can dismiss the companion and explore in my own leisure. I would love to explore Atlassian in Final Fantasy XV without having other party members surrounding Noctis and speak their brother troupes. I guess most people don't mind brother troupes, but that's just me. I prefer to explore alone and take a break from having all 3 party members tagging along. The town of Vale in Golden Sun and the Apojii Island in Golden Sun II is awesome, but it would be nice if it's all in 3D. One game that I enjoyed exploring and relaxing is Larapool in Quest 64. What other breathtaking games are out there that are not meant to be explored but is only for combat, puzzles, or both? Of course, there are walking simulator games, but in my opinion, far too many walking simulator games are far too apocolyptic for my liking. Too dystopian. Maybe that's because I'm an utopian kind of guy.
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I like that intermission beat man! Do you have a link to a longer version??
This is one of the reasons why i like games from the dreamcast, or the psp. They hit the nail where the graphics can look really nice, while still leaving enough to the imagination to fill in.
Opening a drawer inside Ryo's house in shenmue and seeing a jpeg of spoons shows their ambition and how they had to deal with limitations, it's really charming.
Dreamcast had an amazing balance of imagination/immersion, graphics were getting pretty good at that point but there were still tons of video gamey elements to keep things fun
This is why pre rendered games are personnaly the best artistic choice ever. Very immersive
"Just make the game fun." That is easily the best way to immerse yourself in the world of the game.
That was my takeaway as well
I'd say it's not that simple sadly. One player might love a game that teaches them a playstyle or genre they have not tried before, and greatly enjoys that after completion they unlock a harder difficulty mode, a sign of their growth.
Another player already has all that love and skill from a previous game in the genre. But now they have to slog through hours of low difficulty that does not engage them and they struggle with paying attention, before they can unlock the gameplay they actually wanted to experience.
Just one example that shows that fun is subjective and not universal :/
@@ruolbu Fun is definitely not universal. People love Minecraft but it's not my jam. What's immersive for some is not for others and that's okay.
Imagination reigns supreme in the GBC and PS1 games for me. I’d always be wondering what was behind doors that you couldn’t access etc.
As for immersion, it stems more from good gameplay/writing, rather than art direction. The Zero Escape games, although they are visual novels, are super immersive. You can feel the tension in the air during both dialogue and puzzle solving. On the other end, games that let you choose how to approach a situation, like a jrpg, are immersive just out of self expression. And that’s why I love the genre so much.
Honestly I think it comes down to art direction and game design itself. It's funny you mentioned Star Ocean when talking about getting to screw around in towns cause the first thing I thought of when you said that was Zelda BotW and TotK. You can flout realism and cutting edge graphics all you want, but the moment you take away player agency you're... well, taking them out of the game itself. That's why I think I got way more mileage out of games like the aforementioned Zelda titles and the Xenoblade series than RDR2.
I enjoyed the topic quite a lot, yet at the same time I feel like both aspects each deserve a video on their own, talking about several games in more detail and just generally showcasing the beauty of some worlds and artworks and scenes instead of just a 6min section. I would definitely appreciate a more in-depth talk or follow-up on this! Keep up the good work
I like this topic. It's similar topic with friends on how media keeps evolving. From oral traditions to literature and now to movie and videogames. I like a sweet balance of setting up a good base to keep something for imagination and overall vibe of the game that let's you feel so immerse. Usually, a good blend of visual and music background should do the trick.
TBF, Squall was the best looking dude at the dance, on a CRT TV.
The CRT effect gave him some extra points for sure
@GamingBroductions i know you're talking about his hair. that's good! 😂
@@GamingBroductions Squall looked special, just look at the other´s guys pixels, they just looked like common NPCs. 😆
Red Dead Redemption 2 is partially what made me go back to playing those late 90s and early to mid 00s games. It's a great and beautiful game, and you really get out what you put into it. But, there is something to be said of simplicity. I was playing Portal 2 with my son and the engagement of having every room be a puzzle was fun. But, there is repetition in simplicity. Then I want to go back and do my chores for the day before riding into Valentine and partaking in the saloon and seeing what happens...
Always enjoy your videos bro. They take me into a happier place where I can avoid the hell of life on earth for a while.
Same same brutha 🤝🏾🤝🏾
Yeah
This is a cool topic. It’s like reading a book or watching the movie counterpart. In a book I build the characters looks and voices, in a movie it’s someone else’s interpretations.
Yep that’s a great comparison
Btw! VR has been the tech that reignited my passion, wonder and excitement for gaming the past 8 years. My favorite feeling and nr:1 immersion go-to these days is a heavily modded Skyrim VR. I'm THERE! It. Is. Insane.
I think about this all the time! As a kid, playing snes games, I’d look out upon the mountains and cities and wonder which cheat code might allow me to explore those areas…
I still remember how mind-blowing it was to be able to explore the inside of buildings in GTA 3. Gaming has come a long way graphically, but in many cases, the emphasis on music and storytelling has suffered. Probably why I’m drawn to games like Chained Echoes.
Haven't even watched the video yet but the Phantasy Star IV screenshot in the thumbnail is something that always stuck with me ever since i saw it all those years ago.
The feeling of the endless unknown expanse it evoked I feel was almost never realized greater than in that game, even now far in the future where it should be able to be realized even more...
It’s such an awe-inspiring shot and really makes you fantasize about how expansive the world really is. It instantly came to mind when thinking of good pics to display imagination
I would love to go back to an age of imagination in gaming. I do love the balance the 5th & 6th gen hits where depending on the mood you can lean more into one than the other, but as always my dude - great video and great topic.
I’m curious- have you ever dropped a game due to either the immersion not going deep enough/ going too far?
I can’t finish RDR2 because at some point the immersion ruins it for me and I just want to play something else in my limited gaming time. It actually drove me to start playing more racing and fighting games over the past 2 years since I wanted something more action focused for quick gaming sessions. Been loving MK1 lately and this topic made me reflect on how much even fighting games have evolved over the years.
My favorite use of imagination back then was the player's home in Legend of Mana. There's just so much stuff and small corners in each room that I start to wonder what everything is and where would I put certain stuff of mine if truely lived here. It's so dense, yet cozy all around. I loved it!
Also, I've been meaning to say this for a while now, but I think your channel intro is the only channel intro I love to watch each time. The music, the visuals, and even the quotes said over it make it beautiful to watch.
Thank you for articulating this idea. I've always had a similar thought. Around the PS1-PS2 era they were able to put in just enough detail to suggest fantastic worlds but where restricted enough by the hardware that they never rose to the scope of modern open-world type experiences that often feel somewhat thin despite their richness. It's been a while since there's been a game that gives me as much pleasure to hang out in as El Nido from Chrono Cross, the world from Legend of Dragoon, or Spira from FFX
This was such a good idea for a video. I was literally just talking to one of my buddies about this a couple weeks ago. Something about seeing those portraits packed with things in the background or seeing a super detailed pre-rendered background that just made me feel like I was in the place the game was taking place in. Older games would almost feel more real than games today because of the use of our imaginations.
The amount of time I spent daydreaming about some little detail on the world map that was just a flourish was crazy. Staring at the maps of legend of mana in the cities was so fun. Walking around on the world maps of final fantasy, breath of fire and chrono trigger especially made me create all sorts of imaginary places that existed in the world we couldn't go to.
Same. I would just sit in class imagining what all there was to these worlds
Awesome video, you covered just about everything I could think of about the topic. I see it as immersion is what happens when your mind is tricked into believing in a world that isn't real, and imagination is the gap that is bridged in your mind to make that happen. The manuals, the concept art, the more detailed character portraits, and anything that adds detail is there to stir the imagination, filling in the details that aren't there.
I recently started playing Daggerfall for the first time and it's crazy immersive despite the dated graphics and gameplay. A lot of the time I find it more difficult to stay immersed in a game that's more realistic because you don't use your imagination as much. If you're not using your imagination and the game does something that's contrary to reality, immersion is lost.
I love the games that manage to be a bit of both. But I’d rather lean toward imagination if forced to pick.
I remember playing Dragon Warrior II for the first time when it was a brand new game on the NES and thinking, "Wow! There are tables, chairs, and beds in the houses now!" But I'd never assumed that the houses in the previous game were empty; I'd just used my imagination to fill in the details. I'm not suggesting we should go back to that, but it was an entirely different experience, and I'm glad I was there for it as a kid.
I first really noticed this effect graphically when I replayed Sunsoft's Batman on NES. The backgrounds are mostly just black, with patches of color representing dimly lit bricks or whatever. Your mind fills in the blanks and makes it one of my favorite games visually
Such an interesting idea that I never realized before. The limitations back then definitely brewed our imagination a lot. Going back and playing older games now gives me that same feeling. Especially with things like graphics during an in game cutscene (like the Phantasy Star IV example). I definitely enjoy the imagination side of things.
You the limitationsn broaden our imaginations back then,since i grew up with Nes,Snes PS1,Sega Ps2,lot of make me wish there alot we can do around the game,nowadays the charms might be lost considering there to much games like 3d open worlds,jrpgarounds
Awesome video! I agree with a lot of your points, and thinking about it older games had more to them because of the "imagination" aspect. In older games we got more unique stories and better fleshed out characters because game devs had to use different means to hook people and "immerse" them. Comparing FF7 to 15, each character in 7 had a home town and a backstory, families to go to, a place they "belonged" to. Now it's all just glossed over or not even mentioned because there has to be a big flashy cutscene to show you the invading imperial army floating above you (doing a whole lot of nothing by the way).
Video idea: Forests in RPGs.
There's some really beautiful forest settings in Japanese games, often with great accompanying music. FFX's Macalania Woods comes to mind.
We already got you covered lol, we put out a video on that exact topic like a year ago. And yep Macalania Woods was mentioned as well
@@GamingBroductions Well what can I say. I'm in good company.
realism actually bores me, give me stylized abstraction
I feel that, I don’t usually like playing games based in reality. The farther a game is from reality the more immersed I can usually get as I play games to see and do cool stuff that I can’t do in real life
That Breath of Fire 4 opening had me in a chokehold. I always thought that I could find everything that was shown. I went back to those plains so many times. I wish they made a BOF3 or 4 anime
Cool video, I'll almost always go for imaginative games over immersive ones. Immersion to me also comes close to simulation, and while there's a lot of those games out there, it doesn't really strike my fancy. A game I've been playing lately that incorporates a weird amount of both though is called Lorn's Lure. The gameplay is immersive but the vistas can leave a lot to the imagination, in a good way.
Man those PS1 pre-rendered RPG backgrounds are still some of my favorite art in all of gaming. Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking but they’re still beautiful.
Also imagination was huge growing up. I was knee deep into Gen 1 Pokémon and so were all of my friends in 98/99. The crazy myths, lore, and fan theories were just amazing. I put probably 100 hours in looking for “Pikablu” around the truck by the SS Anne. The internet was still the Wild West and there were all kinds of rumors out there. They were somewhat believable too since Pokémon already had missingno and the level 100+ rare candy glitch. Good times
Gaming Broductions back in action I appreciate your work your greatness continues we’re on the road to 100K
Thank you! Still a ways off from 100k but hopefully we’re able to make it happen in due time 💯
@@GamingBroductions no problem most definitely as time goes on
Immersion is when the dev can sell you a certain perspective of the world. In scifi a jetpack feels realistic, so you buy the concept (and use it).
I only have a problem with games that force a certain gameplay element on you. One example I can remember was the hex grid battle system of wild arms 4 and 5 that initially took me out of the whole world somehow and it never felt good - more complex and added more depth, yes.
Or hud interfaces that fill the screen, maps that are filled with markers and the like. A gameplay system that never takes the player for an adult with a basic concept of gaming.
11:20 Good point. Devs found the middle ground in playing jibberish tunes for character dialogues as in most classic Shining games. You still had to imagine their voices and dialects, yet were provided some indication of their tone in voice, like girls tunes were high pitched and the village elder spoke in a deep jibberish tune.
FE7 on GBA was my imagination game. All the great art and dialogue really had me envision every detail of every scene.
For immersion it had to be oblivion. That game felt the most free of any RPG I've played. Don't know how Skyrim got the better reputation.
I can really relate to pretty much everything in this video! Great topic.
I love your videos but there's lots of content so I hadn't really reflected on the fact that youtube hasn't suggested your videos (which they always used to) to me for 3 months(!). I see now that I have a handful of vids to catch up on and I'll pause "Zelda's Quest" on this one because I want to see that story unfold chronologically. The lesson for me, however, is crystal clear: Set that bell to "all". Cheers, bros
Like always, love the aesthetic of your video
Thank you 💯
After replaying Saga Frontier, I want pre-rendered backgrounds back. And sprites.
The ability square had to made mini opens worlds with so much atmosphere is my favorite thing in retro gaming . Saga regions, racing lagoon micro machines map, front mission 3 cities, bars and false net, ff and their cities, world maps and dungeons....those games have so much content and work in them you could mod another story or a multiplayer mod and still not be tired of them
as a huge fan of SaGa I second this. Frontier is on my top 3.
All the Squaresoft PS1 pre-rendered backgrounds were just absolute peak
Great video. Really been craving a Renaissance of 5-6th gen games with modern flourishes.
Lo-hi graphics
Same. There’s been a lot more indie games inspired by the 5th gen coming out recently and some of them have been pretty awesome
I love limitations on world presentation and exploration. If the game is fully open and photorealistic, then you know exactly what you will get. Artstyle and genre can help a bit, not every forest or mountain will look the same, but in general you know what reality looks like and exploring every nook and cranny of this open space becomes boring as you've seen it 100 times already on the way there. Heck you can probably see everything from here, no need to walk over.
The limitations of old games instead hold limitless potential. You get screen transitions, you get abstracted pixel or low poly art, everything you see has the potential of receiving a much more detailed presentation if you examine it close enough. That last screen you have not been to in this region... you have NO idea what hides there, you can not see it before it loads. That one cliff ledge that looks like something is hidden there... it might be nothing at all, but you will wonder forever. That one screen that looked nice but did absolutely nothing... It might just be eye candy, but you will think about it while the credits roll, and attempt to unlock its secret.
If every pickup in a room is highlighted with floating icons, you don't look at the room, you just go in, press the button and leave. But if you have to go into every corner to check if the game changes the viewing angle or pops open some unique interaction menu, you really observe your environment.
Limitation isn't just about imagination, it's very practically affects how you engage with the game, how you behave and play. If you know you don't have the full picture yet, then you put more effort into exploring this leads to getting more out of finding something, even tiny things.
I like doing a bit of both. Imagination can be quite good, while also I enjoy immersing myself in game worlds
Yeah,that the reason why i wish some modern game like Kingdom Come,Days Gone would atleast has some open world activities around it,like fishing,making a camp or hideout
I feel you, I enjoy both as well depending on the mood
4:27 I have the holographic Metal Mario binder! Turn it and Bowser appears…still use it for my DnD character sheets.
I've been around since Gen 2 and personally prefer 16 or 32 bit. I play everything but there was something about how those generation captured my imagination. The music was more catchy then too.
Koudelka is a bright example of mixing immersion with imagination. Stellar voice acting and blocky graphics create a special vibe.
The VA work was way ahead of its time.
This is a great distinction to make clear, and I totally agree. The route of Imagination in gaming will always be my preferred way to experience the medium, but it just can’t be as it was before entirely. Also, in the age of the internet where anything can be looked up at anytime as soon as a game releases, the golden age of videogame imagination will never be the same or as explorative as it was in the 90’s and 00’s. However, immersion is still very excellent too, and essentially the natural evolution.
Agree,nowadays most of them got their info from internet,especially the younger generation,to the point the some might become smug and arrogant at it,it bit annoying to be honest,considering longtime player who been playing some series for longest usually get disrespected by them,i remember some of younger player asked and tell me to uses emulator despite i already known about that stuff long time ago.
Off topic like whenever i discussing some stuff like older anime,reminded me when they usually goes older anime has 3d and digital working on them too,despite i said it was only used on some scene that hard to animated even back then(like some scene in Char Counterattack movie)
What i mean is most nowadays anime is fully digitalized and too clean to invoke certain tones like the sombre feeling,or fluid machination scene,more lively character with much expressive facial features that was mostly present on older anime like Magnetic Roses,Macross,Bubblegum Crisis,Parasite Doll,Vampire Hunter D,the first GITS film,considering most of them usually said anime nowadays is better than older anime back
Great point to make about how the internet has forever changed how imagination can be used with games regarding their secrets and mysteries
"Just make the game fun"
Ah a forgotten art to some game companies big or smal 😅
Post 5th gen also shifted away from more static cameras and i felt these games were worse for it. Like FF7 Remake/Rebirth doesnt sit as well with me with a fully scaled world with player camera control. While FF7 you had visual setpieces that the creators controlled the image you see, and every screen was a well thought out painting. Remake/Rebirth scaled everything 1:10 and the camera is always pulled in so you never get the same pulled out view of the “painting” of a scene. I felt it was way less of an interesting game to look at than the originals despite the huge leap in realistic graphics.
I totally agree. All for imagination, it's easy to immerse yourself in any game despite the graphics.
RDR2 was way too tedious and killed the fun
I just could never get immersed with Western wild west story compared to the"spaghetti western"that i used to grew up with,no offense but it a very different tones
@Zero_Tester I loved RDR1 and I couldn't get into RDR2. RDR2 bored me so much
@@zerohx77 I wonder if GTA6 is going to retain that feeling or will it be fun and not tedious like RDR2?
@@Silvergun_Raven I hope it's fun. I really enjoyed V.
Completely disagree.
"What are we fighting for!!!"
No matter how many times I’ve seen the clip, anytime I watch it it still never fails to bring a smile to my face lol
I've still got my Metal Mario Folder in my closet lol. It's a little rough nowadays but still holding together.
i had a rough week and i needed these chill vibes so bad, thank you
Sorry to hear you had a rough week, hopefully your weekend is a better one
Always love the unique take on games. Anyone can make a "Top 10"
Really appreciate that. I wish TH-cam felt the same as unfortunately they never really do that well view wise. It seems like our 8 Great lists are the only type of vids the algorithm ever wants to push out. Hopefully that’ll change eventually because I’d love to focus on making more unique content like this over list videos, though I don’t mind making those either as we still try to find ways to make those stand out from other list videos
@GamingBroductions That's very true. Algorithm LOVES them.
Awesome video! Man even looking at just the thumbnail of that phantasy star picture (and the picture in the bottom part, not sure which game 😅) really made me think. The imagination the games invoked really were a force! I almost think it’s more powerful really but they’re both good. Ff7 remake looks so cool (I haven’t played it, despite being the biggest ff7 fan around, because I don’t have a PlayStation.) so if done right it looks like they can really make it work
thank you so much for this video, I really couldn't explain way I didn't resonate with some more popular games and this helped a lot
Glad this video was able to help you put those thoughts into words!
Genuinely love this channel
This video feels like a broadcast from a pirate radio station, and really speaks my language. I can tell there is some heart poured into this. I particularly appreciated the Zelda's Quest bit after the outro. Kudos!
I don’t get how your channel hasn’t taken off. All of these analysis videos are such high quality and have the best retro vibes
Don't know if I've commented before, but I absolutely love your channel. Major nostalgia hit every time. Seriously one of the best produced channels on TH-cam. Love the intermission, gives major Toonami bumper vibes. Keep up the good work!
Great topic to discuss! For me, imagination has always been a necessary component for my enjoyment. A game needs to leave me enough “dream room,” to engage my mind. Old games were great at this, but modern games with minimalist design aspects (i.e. Dark Souls) leave tons of room for the player to dream as well. 🎉
But..... but.... imagination IS immersive. This is why I've started playing older games again.
I basically arrive to that conclusion at the end of the video, immersion for me simply just comes down to having a lot of fun with the game and old games with imagination do that for me
Fantastic video on a great subject. To this day, I still think Metroid Prime is the most immersive game I’ve ever played. It completely absorbed me. I ten to find immersive sims well, immersive. Deus Ex Mankind Divided and Prey are among the most recent. Too bad it’s a gente with a very small output because the games don’t sell a ton.
What a wonderful beginning to the video, gorgeous with this soundtrack with the VHS effect.
Etrian Odyssey excels at both sides of the coin. Your party members only have static portraits, so it's up to you to fill out their personalities and backstories with your imagination. That goes for dungeon events, too, which are simply described to you in text; you get to figure out how your party members feel about what just went down. On the other hand, filling out the dungeon map by hand really immerses you and gets you feeling like you're the one exploring the dungeon personally, even without realistic or proportional graphics.
I mean,wasnt that what Wizardry,Ultima does before Etrian existed?
@@Zero_Tester Yeah, EO is a callback to those.
@@DavisGSee EO is nice,but i liked the darker aesthetic of Wizardry series,especially the one from Sir A Tech game
Love your vids. Always waiting for the next one.
Love to hear that. Thank you!
@@GamingBroductions No. Thank you!!
Great video guys, always looking forward to them!!
Thanks dude! As always we appreciate your continued support!
Great video as always. The best videogame-related channel on TH-cam, thanks for your work guys!
I'm glad your videos are slowly getting more and more views. I love seeing your carefully selected clips of retro games. Channels like your really inspire me to finish off my old SNES/Saturn/PS1, ETA collections, just to see all the unique art style and I 100% agree with you about promotional renders (Super Mario RPG takes the cake for me).
Keep it up, just seeing that 3s clip of Mischief Makers makes me want to play that game now, and I remember being fully uninterested in the 90's for that specific game.
Imagination: Fire Emblem IV Genealogy of the Holy War (Very dark, with some of the darker acts referenced to)
Immersion: Shining in the Holy Ark (I love how enemies appear around the corner, zombies dig themselves out of graves, etc)
Phenomenal video. Very educational for younger gamers who never knew the joy of utilizing as you put it, the imagination. Def remember making voices for each character in my head when reading dialogue so you hit a nostalgia point there! When you posed the question of the most imaginative game… of course vintage jrpgs flood my mind and it’s hard to pick one. I will have to go with final fantasy legend on the original game boy. Playing that thing on the green screen, having to have sunlight or artificial light to even see the screen made it challenging from the onset for the optimal visual experience. Even once you had that down, the graphics were super limited but they did a great job with the sfx for spells and attacks with different types of weapons and abilities so the imagination factor was off the charts. Great sound track as well but no surprise there since it was the goat Nobuo Uematsu. It was quite dramatic when you revived someone from the dead as the dialogue would appear and say “I made it”. Resource management was huge since all weapons and spells bought from the store had finite uses. It also has a monster transformation mechanic where if you have a monster as a party member they can eat the meat of monsters after defeating them in battle and transform. There were only a limited number of icons used for said monsters so you had to use your imagination for sure!
Love your videos man. Been binging on them for the past couple of weeks. I'm loving the nostalgia trips and your content quality is top notch.
If the story, characters, music, and gameplay are good, then I _enjoy_ filling-in the blanks. What Viridian City would look like in OG Pokemon is the best example I can think of. Going into the multi-story mall, buying my Pokemon lemonade from a vending machine. Things like that.
Depending on what I want at the time, I can go either immersion or imagination. But I often find myself daydreaming regardless of which one. Daydreaming about how the world may look or how a silent protagonist interacts with people normally for imagination heavier games, or about a character my mind makes up in an immersion heavy world would interact with it. I blame Grandia and Lunar for helping inspire that habit, there's so much of those worlds we didn't see that I really wondered about.
This was such a thoughtful video. My imagination is certainly sparked!
Thank you, love to hear that!
Another banger. Thank you
No problem, thanks for watching 💯
Extremely important topic and I completely agree with u on everything
Thanks dude glad to hear you agree 👍
Love it! Thanks for the hard work gents🤙🏼
No problem, thank you for watching!
Another great video. Personally, i believe immersion works best when you're trying to tell a more realistic story. When we're talking about fantasy, anything goes for me.
Thank you! That’s a great point to make, I do like more realistic styled controls when the game itself is more realistic. For something that’s not based in reality though I just want your classic video gamey elements and fun movement
Love this video. Great insights on an interesting topic. Would love to see more like this!
Love the variety of videos you guys put out, always interesting to hear your take on different games. Thank you for all the time and effort you guys put into your content, it is appreciated 😊
I love this video and the thoughts you’ve put out there. Worth thinking about in every way.
Altough I like the feeling of imagining how a world looks like or how a character voice sounds like, sometime immersion can be a good thing. Not like Red Dead Redemption, bringing a massive open world, but used in a smart way like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, where immersion give us nice details and lore without saying a word, something that the original game couldn't do. I think the most important thing is know how and where use imagination or immersion.
It was interesting, but highly subiectiv topic to cover. I can't say what is more important for me, imagination or immersion. I'm sure that i'm more often searching imagination than immersion, but if games is also immersive is great. It strongly depends from game and it's narrative and/or gameplay, i think. In recent i was playing Phantasy Star games and despite their age i was able to imagine that this world is living. You can say that it was more immersive for me than modern open world games with their detailed graphics specific designed to be immersive, but often dull and repetetive places and tasks to do which are breaking this immersion.
Still undisputed channel on TH-cam. I definitely prefer imagination because it actually helps my immersion process. Just like not having voice acting is more enjoyable than having it. At least for my RPGs. Keep killing it with quality content ❤
11:00 finally someone explaining immersion in a way I can agree with
"Always leave them wanting more."
That Breath of Fire 3 music at the end is so chill man, can't beat it
I'm glad i still have some of my old ps1 rpg's i got as a kid🙏
PS1 RPGs are my favorite 💯
Intro credit is god tier
I see you are a person of great taste as well
I find OoT cities more immersive with ubique personalities per npc rather say a new game with hundreds of generic people
One of my new favorite channels!
Love your music choices
Thank you, music plays a big role in games to me so I give a lot of importance to it in our videos as well always trying to find fitting tracks for the particular section
Another fantastic upload.
Thank you, glad to hear you enjoyed it!
I watched the beginning of the video and remembered a funny thing. In my country in the 80s-90s there were almost no licensed games. We bought pirated copies on game cartridges, floppy disks, and then CDs. And they did not come with colorful manuals. Moreover, pirates cut out music, videos and everything "heavy" from such games so that more games could fit on one cartridge or disk. On top of that, most of us had money problems and couldn't afford actual game consoles or powerful PCs, settling for something that was 10 years behind the trends. And when you bought such a hacked game at the city bazaar, where pirates traded - you prayed all the way home that it was the same game that you read about in your favorite game magazine, and that it worked and did not crash. And here I finally come to the main point - those game magazines in our environment worked in the same way you described the influence of game manuals on your childhood imagination. We couldn't afford many of the actual games of the time, so we reread the same reviews over and over again, and our imagination drew practical other worlds. This was aided by very small screenshots printed in poor quality. And often the screenshots were made out to be shots from CG movies, which made our brains explode even more. And our journalists embellished these pictures with incredibly juicy text descriptions. It was fucking magic😊
Sounds awful
Lemme guess, you're Brazilian?
@@danielshiroma6774 Russian
Does OOT really leave anything to the imagination? You can pretty much go everywhere in the world
Great video as always!!!
Yo! Thousand Arms. I need to play that again.
Thousand Arms is a classic! So overlooked too, one of the PS1 RPGs I have the most nostalgia for
People take visual imagination for granted. I suffer from aphantasia and I just can’t “imagine” visuals. I can’t “picture this”.
Even though we kind of got an idea what Terra, Locke, Celes, Sabin etc. looked like in Final Fantasy 6 based off of Amano's art (and their 3d renders in the Ps1 version CGI cutscenes and in Dissidia) I still have my own fan fiction sort of design in my mind that I am worried that if Square were to remake FF6, that it would totally ruin my memories of who they were and what they looked like
I have plenty other examples with character and world design where I like how they were originally portrayed, and I dont want some modern Unreal Engine 5 adaptation of characters based on a couple sprites or a single pre rendered background. They will just end up 3d modeling objects and areas that weren't in the original in order to pad out the time spent in an area and justify the money being spent, until it reminds me nothing of the original
The first Dragons Dogma is the only RPG I chose to be a mage; simply to levitate everywhere. That flying aspect everywhere in-game is just plain cool 😎
I love being immersed in so many JRPGs like with me being immersed into XenoGears at the moment.
I would love to explore Ivalice to my hearts content in Final Fantasy XII with no story and no enemies in sight. No loading zones between parts of the environments.
I would love to explore Corneria in Star Fox Zero and see all the beautiful waterfalls, but it's a fighting on rails game and is only available for Wii U, which I do not have because I could not afford a Wii U at the time. And I wish I had the first Nintendo Wii, but now I have a Nintendo Switch.
I would like to see Square Enix remake the City of Esthar so I can explore the beautiful city in all its glory without having to go through the story of Final Fantasy VIII.
I would love to explore the outside of New Jerusalem in The Talos Principle II. And of course, be able to travel between puzzles and New Jerusalem. I would love to explore New Jerusalem during the night.
Of course, I can explore New Atlantis in Starfield, but that meant that I had to go through the story so I can dismiss the companion and explore in my own leisure.
I would love to explore Atlassian in Final Fantasy XV without having other party members surrounding Noctis and speak their brother troupes. I guess most people don't mind brother troupes, but that's just me. I prefer to explore alone and take a break from having all 3 party members tagging along.
The town of Vale in Golden Sun and the Apojii Island in Golden Sun II is awesome, but it would be nice if it's all in 3D.
One game that I enjoyed exploring and relaxing is Larapool in Quest 64.
What other breathtaking games are out there that are not meant to be explored but is only for combat, puzzles, or both? Of course, there are walking simulator games, but in my opinion, far too many walking simulator games are far too apocolyptic for my liking. Too dystopian. Maybe that's because I'm an utopian kind of guy.