Someone please COHERENTLY explain to me how SOVL OBJECTIVELY exist. Don't just post fricking memes I want to you define in written irrefutable logic how something can be soulful or soulless.
>P.S you can't because you're an autistic schizo nostalgia gay
Even zoomers who didn't grow up with retro games like the aesthetic. This is the biggest proof I can give that it's not just nostalgia
People have nostalgia all the time for places they weren't and times they didn't exist.
SOUL: Developer includes or implements a feature or design element not just because it is necessary, but because they feel it will improve the quality of the game
SOULLESS: Developer does the bare minimum required to get the game made and ignores every opportunity to make the game better if it requires extra effort
This, but I would also say soul is when it improves the quality so much that the feature actually becomes unnecessary; therefore, it was put in solely because of the passion. That is soul.
>correct answer is ignored
Absolutely shocking.
Hop on Vocaroo and pronounce "ghoul" for me right now.
It's a useless term unless you are in the culture associated with it.
These two mostly
And zoomers have no culture, hence they have no soul.
False. Honestly couldn't be more wrong there. There are plenty of things that have soul that aren't nostalgic, and there are plenty of soulless abominations that are nostalgic. You're just admitting you're better and resentful that you don't get it.
It’s literally just nostalgia
Truth.
Soul is a non-existent quality that can be applied to anything that gave them a sense of childhood wonderment. As time goes on what soul is will change and people will start using it to describe later and later gens. That’s why we rightfully laugh at anyone who attempts to use it as an argument.
When you play a game and the way it sidesteps technological limitations and sparks your imagination to the point where you go "oh, that's neat" involuntarily.
In that screenshot, as well as most PSX games that feature real-time reflections, the devs basically duplicate all elements being shown on-screen and flip them upside-down as to achieve that reflection effect. Real polygons and textures. That's neat, especially for a 5th gen console game.
Observe the ruins that are half-buried into the ice at the edges of the level, remnants of an ancient civilization that's been gone for so long that the ice grew to almost completely hide it. That's neat.
Notice that Crash himself has different animations when sliding on the ice, and how it's animated in a way that it shows the character's personality.
If you stay still for long enough, Aku Aku will slowly turn to look at you through the screen, wondering why you're not playing the game. That's neat.
None of these details impact to the gameplay at all, but they're there because the devs wanted to put them there. Effort beyond the basic necessities. It's neat. It's soul.
well said anon
>prove to a machine man with a machine mind and a machine heart that the human soul exists and can distinguish sincerity and passion from loveless creation
moronic contrarian opinion
Intentionally inflammatory verbiage
Creates a condition at the end that automatically “””””””refutes”””””””” any counter argument
Yep, it’s a homosexual thread
The only gripe I have with this "soul"/"soulless" shit is that people didn't go with "ghoul" to mean "soulless". It was right there.
To answer your question, you either get it or you don't. s1mple as.
They like identical but they don't rhyme. I like soul and coal
It doesn't objectively exist. The fact you want an objective explanation for a feeling makes you the autist.
https://www.autismspeaks.org/
imagining OP running around the Louvre or St Peter’s Basilica demanding passers-by and staff to explain OBJECTIVELY why they think the art there is any better than the latest MCU movie
Or even better, why someone painting a copy of the Mona Lisa is painting something of the same or higher value than the original.
Please stop cross-shitposting.
You got enough answers.
it's cross shit posting if a different thumbnail is used and there's an extra word at the end
*it's not
It's still shitposting. Cry moar.
I've never visited Ganker so when people point this stuff out it's like taking a train and landing in an even more uncivilized and more crowded space of all the same people that are here.
soulless
Soul is basically a sign that the game developers cared and truly wanted to make or respect something.
From a /vr/ perspective, game artstyles were born out of technical difficulties and making the most out of the hardware. Thus, when a game gets a remake or a remaster, it can run into a "less is more" situation where it looks worse due to for various reasons. The Spyro remakes, for example, have a sort of environmental design that feels generic western cartoony compared to the original games which were less overtly detailed, but come off as more charming. Another, more subtle case is Sonic Adventure DX and its city hall, which got lazily redesigned from the original and broke parity with the end of Speed Highway (since the stage ends, or begins in Knuckles' case) at the opposite end of City Hall
Another is little touches or things you may not realize. Some versions of FF1 make a tweak to Marilith to take into account how players can potentially skip her. Stuff like that.
Of course, this being Ganker, SOUL/SOVL and SOULESS, can also be used for "old bad, new good" or, at worst, "thing I like = good, thing I dislike = bad". So it's hard to actually seriously use it in a non-subjective way. The Spyro example I mentioned is technically subjective, even if folks here will agree wholeheartedly.
The colder, more realistic color palette on the right drags it down for me. It's technically better visually but it loses the cartoonish charm that makes everything pop.
You want someone to explain to you what soul is so you can recognize it like an AI that notices patterns. Here is the problem lil zoomie, that's not possible, it's something you either feel or you don't. Your generation has no soul and you will never understand it.
iykyk, hidden
soul: it was made by white autists in a smelly basement
soulless: it was made by brown trannies in corpo offices
Every nerd from this era looks like a testosterone leaking gigachad compared to the obese neon haired whackjobs we have now. What the frick happened?
jesus fricking christ women really do ruin everything
>absolutely nobody is bald or fat
>today 90% of nerds are fat AND bald
>corpo offices
Corpo offices to make video games were a thing in the 80's and 90's too. You just don't know enough.
Autism? Dude, some of those white people seem to have full blown Down Syndrome.
Oh wait, those are Japanese people.
its surreal looking at pics like these and just seeing how normal IT developers used to be. quite a few here are a little overweight, complete sticks and even have women too, but yet, they all 'look' healthy even if their economic situation might not be the best.
i wonder what was so different?
Limitation breeds creativity. When you see a creator's struggle against the limitations in place. you can more easily see the amount of work that was put in to overcome those limitations as best as they could. This speaks to the human spirit's ability to triumph and create under strict limitations, and how the end product can transcend whatever visible limitations still exist, which hopefully inspires you to do the same. This is the "soul" people are referencing. There's a relatable element, a shining example of the triumph of the human spirit that is lost when limitation no longer exists, because the struggle is no longer visible, or real, for that matter. This is soulless.
Soul doesn't need an explanation if you yourself have a soul. The game with soul in picrel doesn't need to be pointed out.
The 2017 version looks like they're fighting in a movie set. It feels fake, which I know sounds stupid since it's a game, but I don't know how else to describe it.
Holy shit what a downgrade. I've only ever played the PS2 version.
Why do remakes always look worse? The new one is so bland.
>Game is no longer bound by system limitations, so what's added isn't necessarily for the better and is just inevitably different due to the differences in systems unless they just reuse the assets.
>Different people work on the remake and may decide to change the artstyle or just reinterpret something
>They just didn't give a frick, lmao
Pick one
the third one, because the first two could be addressed by people who actually were interested in what they were making without having to constantly ""update"" it.
"Soul" in games is a very simple concept and you lack comprehension ability if you cant see it. When you have a passionate solo dev making his shitty little project, if he is pouring all of his passion and thoughts into it, making something with his own ideas, that is absolutely "soul", even if the game is crap.
Likewise, this can extend to small teams, like the dudes who made the original Doom, putting in the effort and a collaboration of new ideas for the time to make something wholly original. Soul can still exist in corporate mandates, to an extent. A japanese company wants a game made based off an American comic book license they got = passionate devs working on it that like video games, know how to make fun mechanics, programmer autismos, musical savants, otaku artists, all collaborating to make something that is really just meant to sell a brand they have no specific attachment to, but they still poured their time and efforts into.
An example of "anti-soul", is any game made purely for money (which yes, most are), but the devs working on it are pushing out a product with the bare minimum effort, no real interest in the craft or the IP, not wasting clever ideas on it, just completely churned out as a cash-in with no care whatsoever to even make something with merit. This is not to be mistaken for devs crushed by corporate demands. You can still find bits of soul that the devs wanted to introduce, but corps drained out or suffocated. This anti-soul can also be assigned to makes made purely by a committee trying to fill out "check boxes" to make a game designed to appeal to a specific demographic without no real understanding of it. For example, a gay dev who wants to make a game about orc men fricking each other, can have soul, because its something born out a personal desire, interest or hobby. A big company trying to make a game about orc men fricking with the entire purpose being to appeal and profit off of gay men who like orcs fricking, will never have soul, unless the devs they assign to make it have a high interest in orc fricking.
Money is not a sin, everyone would like it and it feels good to be paid for your creations. But if you are making something purely for profits and you also dont care about the thing you are making to the point you let your desire for profit outweigh any intrinsic interest in making something fun or unique, that is lack of soul. (see most GaS/"free-to-play"/gacha/phone titles)
People are using it as a synonym for nostalgia, its not worth schizoing out over.
People are dumb. Different words have different meanings.
The first requirement for a game to have soul, is, that it was primarily made with the intend of "making a good video game". The second is that it was made by actually talented passionate developers. If both two come together, there is a chance of a game actually ending up having "soul".
Most games today don't have soul because the industry lost its creative innocence due to the huge amounts of money involved. Most games, especially AAA games, are primarily made with the intend of making money and milking stupid video game audiences as much as possible. These games are no longer expressions of art or passion (which come from the "souls" of the developers), but rather just "products" - soulless accumulations of marketing strategies in order to sell to the lowest common denominator (in other words "the broad public").
Its simply a determining term for the amount of passion put into something. It has nothing to do with age or the era something exists in.
Soul is intention + passion + craft
Anti-soul is working solely for money while lacking the previous elements that created soul.
A remake like the ones we're getting now is objectively anti-soul because it lacks intention/passion/craft, it's made trying to please a checklist of what defines "a modern, smooth, standarized experience" thus removing intention, made by people who are simply mimicking another product thus lacking the passion, made with automated tools and modern engines doing everything with little input from the artist thus lacking the craft.
Only way a remake can be soulful is by doing its own thing and disregarding the original as much as possible. In film, the usual remakes praised by everyone (scarface, yadda yadda) are deeply different from the original. It helps too if you remake a flawed product or not as good product. But in this industry they're doing it wrong by remaking beloved classics. You don't remake Citizen Kane or Pulp Fiction. You take movies that lacked that something to be truly classics and improve them by transforming them without the shackles of the original.
A game like Final Fantasy II, or hell, VIII, would benefit from a well done remake. A remake of Final Fantasy VII is unneeded and cheapens the industry. Remakes with the aim of "modernizing" (aka appealing to the lowest common denominator) classics are illegitimate.
Soul is a part of you that you want to gift to the world. If you're merely taking an existing work, you have to make it yours, otherwise you're just simply ruining a better and more realized work.
I really wonder if people like Moebius have some sort of unique aspect of their brains that make them creative like this.
I remember hearing an anecdote about Moebius, that he developed his style, funnily enough, because it was fast. I can't recall where I heard it, but trying to look it up I found this: https://www.openculture.com/2015/03/moebius-gives-18-wisdom-filled-tips-to-aspiring-artists-1996.html
It only alludes to that point at the beginning with no further elaboration, but it was an interesting read nonetheless.
Is this the only SOVL remake to ever exist? I think no, because no game that was artistically/aesthetically good in the first place needs a remake, but HGSS had cool ambiance sometimes
Still worse than the OGs
pls elaborate?
Embarrassing thread all around.
> Ask for a definition
> get 20 different essays all saying something different
Point prove, no such thing.
>ask for a definition of the meaning behind a René Magritte painting
>get 20 different interpretations
Wow.
Non-calficied brains, am I right?
Interpretive shit enrages me. I want to know the creator's intention, nothing else.
>"Breaking news today after a local anon from the "Video Games Retro" board on this 4 Chan guy's website, was charged with 2nd degree murder after asking an artist for their intent behind their work only to be met with the answer "I'd rather hear what YOU think."
>i don't want to think for myself i want to be told what to think!
Golem-kun...
Lol, he asked for a definition not an interpretation. The word soul is not a piece of art, it’s a word used by morons such as yourself on the internet.
>ask dictionary
>dictionary gives you 20 definitions for a word
wtf? those must be interpretations, this dictionary is broken!
You dumb Black person.
>ask for a definition of the pronunciation of the word "pineapple"
>am told there's a rule that "ea" is always pronounced as either "bread" or "bead"
>flashbacks of hydrossity
Remakes are anti soul in general.
Soul = I like it
Soulless = I hate it
The less realistic effects on the left, make it more otherworldy
The crash remake is forced soul, artificial difficulty, has a dishonest art style, and it insists upon itself.
Old = soul
New = soulless
You aren't entitled to anything. What are you, King of the Black folk?
soul is life to the game's presentation, whether it be lively animation, rich colors and a nice aesthetic or neat details within the game design that often don't exist
>Someone please COHERENTLY explain to me how SOVL OBJECTIVELY exist
kek, nice bait. It's a subjective term. Could I explain to you how a game is objectively good? How a lemon is objectively sour?
to me, soul is when the developers took time and put effort into creating the environment, characters, and carefully selecting music/sounds to go along with it.
it is something that ends up being original and unique. you can tell that the devs/company had lots of creative freedom to do what they wanted with the game.
like some others have said, it seems that most new games are pretty soulless today. i really believe this is mostly due to changes in management style that a lot of tech companies use today.
they infantilize developers and abuse them until they no longer care about what they're working on and just want to get the shit out the door to shut their toxic bosses up. so you end up with some stupid bullshit that was just created to make the company more money.
one of my favorite N64 games i always think of when i think of soul is Milo's Astro Lanes.
that game has so much god damn soul!
It's putting effort in and achieving something beyond the sum of its parts. It's little details.
Soul is basically just giving a shit and going the extra mile. It happened more in the past because the limitations were so severe it was the only way they were getting anything done. It happens less now because the budgets and scopes are so big that they just literally can't afford to put any more effort in than the bare minimum needed to get it done.
Young people are very open to new experiences. They readily drink in and accept novel things in their environment, uncritically.
As a person ages they become less open. They don't appreciate new things. The perception of "soul" comes from a subjective perception of value placed on the subject in the past, which can't be placed on new things. This isn't because the new thing has an objective lack if value, though. It's an illusion.
Some media and technique also peak then degenerate, there's no delusion. Rock music was worse when I was young in the 90's than in the 60's and 70's. It had lost the soul. Equating soul with mere nostalgia does not account for that. Theatre was worse. Jazz was worse. Painting. Literature. And so on. But video games were peaking, and have indeed decreased in value since.
It's not nostalgia if you can detect soul in contemporary games, which you can. Anon said it best
>Soul is the human touch. You know it when you see it
The issue is made cloudy for some as there is a degree of subjectivity. Furthermore, some soulgays do indeed conflate nostalgic feelings with soul. Ultimately, it doesn't matter.
>If game good [positive descriptor]
>if game bad [harangue fans]
unironically, a bad game can still have soul though, even if they're flooded with contemporary junk that might seem out of place. its just a matter of how good everything is intended to be even if it might fall short of the mark.
Is an AI generated game capable of being soulful?
If you can’t see that something was created intuitively and with passion, that’s your fault.
you want it the one way
but its the other way
Study art history and maybe psychology, you'll learn more that way. There's a reason why realism fell out of favor for impressionism.
You sound like you don't have one talking crap about people with disabilities they can't help
Maybe try going to church and talking to someone that can help you not be a pile of crap on meth
You just explained it with that picture
you wouldn't get it
To me, "soul" means a game was clearly made by a team of passionate developers who truly enjoyed creating the project and might have done it even if they weren't being paid. The opposite, "soulless", means the was primarily developed for money. Thus, most games today have little to no soul, because AAAs are profit-focused (meaning they must be "safe") and most indies are focused on copying whatever the latest trend is (meaning they aren't creating what they want to make, just what they feel is popular) or making money off Early Access (which is akin to strategically fleecing people and doing what players think they want, not what you want or are passionate about).
It would also seem soul potential is somewhat proportionate to team size. I'm not sure what the exact numbers are, and of course there are outliers, but somewhere between 3-15 developers the potential caps out, and it can only fall as the team size grows.
And finally, soul will continue to decrease over time as long as greed continues to increase. And so, soul is also a reflection of the state of humanity.
Nostalgia does not add soul, although it can enhance the sensation of what was already there.
Wish the Mods wouldn't cowtow to these low level thinker poster and their low quality threads for "le engagement for site traffic". Are all the normalgay hobby boards where the cancer comes from not good enough?
Things i like: sovl
things i don't like: cringe
>Someone please COHERENTLY explain to me how SOVL OBJECTIVELY exist
No.
You are not owned anything.
By even posting this thread you admit you're a soulless, cultureless lump. No one is under any obligation to throw pearls before such swine.
soul should probably be a banword on here tbqfh