Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

So I've been thinking lately, about games and the storylines within games I have played.
And it really dawned upon me that some games I can explain easily with words, and other games I cannot explain it all successfully.

(I mean sure, in theory if one took long enough time had the proper materials to explain maybe some video games could be explained then; but for the sake of this topic let's assume that I meant a videogame that one can explain verbally with words in 10 minutes or less.)

I can explain story line of most video games in about 10 minutes or less, but it really dawned upon me that games that I simply can't explain verbally in any time frame do exist.

For example, the game Killer 7 would be one such game. So would Xenogears. I don't think that you could find someone who has not played either of these games, and then talk to them and explain these games in the storylines to that person. I would push that belief to be near impossible because I do think that if you explain either of these games to somebody, and then asked that somebody to explain the storyline back to you to be sure that they do understand what you just told them, I do not think that someone who has never played these games would be able to explain what you just explained to them. Essentially that would make it so that you or I could not even explain storylines of those 2 games. Even if you think that you are explaining the storylines for the concepts in a clear transparent manner, it is just too easy to become convoluted and misinterpreted. I mean, even the games designers could not explain them, nor could the characters in the games.

So in addition to Killer 7 and Xenogears, what other games are near impossible when trying to explain verbally? Surely these 2 games are not the only ones out there, but right now they are the only 2 that come to mind.

Hmm, very interesting concept. One of the neat things about games to me is that since they're largely mechanical and visual they don't necessarily translate well verbally. I'll have to think on this one to give a good example, not having played Killer 7 and Xenogears yet, but I'll try to come up with one.

Xenogears is not a video game. Xenogears is an excellent visual novel that bothers you with a useless combat system. You don't explain a novel, you read it or, if you're a really talented and rigorous storyteller, you can tell it.

How about explaining games in a completely different way than what they are supposed to be?

"The story of a glutinous drug addict stuck in the never-ending metaphorical maze of his mind. He spends his life chugging pills, trying to escape his problems but, when he's lucky and manages to find THAT special pill, turns his life around momentarily and becomes the one in charge, facing his problems, literally eating them away. Sadly, the problems always come back and all's left for him is more pills. And the occasional cherry."

...
...
...

Pac-Man.

You're probably not going to be able to properly explain Marathon: Infinity with just what's given to you in the game, that's for sure.

Hotline Miami is probably in the same boat as Killer7. The latter is probably the only game I don't really feel I have the critical faculties to review.

Aeroprism wrote:Xenogears is not a video game. Xenogears is an excellent visual novel that bothers you with a useless combat system. You don't explain a novel, you read it or, if you're a really talented and rigorous storyteller, you can tell it.

I disagree, I think its a pretty bad visual novel myself. There's a lot of general inconsistencies with its writing that keep me from taking the plot seriously. I can explain further if anyone is curious why I think that way.

And for what its worth, I can explain Xenogears' plot pretty easily. Its honestly not that complicated to me. It seems complex on the surface, but I think the surface is the most complicated thing about XG. What is beneath that surface comes off as pretty shallow to me.

#controversialopinions

Hukos wrote:
#controversialopinions

Not really controversial that the game had problems.. A lot of the problems with Xenogears came from its bad localization combined with the fact that the game was basically robbed of a fair chunk of its second half to free up resources for FF8, a fate which was also suffered by SaGa Frontier.

R-90-2 wrote:

Hukos wrote:
#controversialopinions

Not really controversial that the game had problems.. A lot of the problems with Xenogears came from its bad localization combined with the fact that the game was basically robbed of a fair chunk of its second half to free up resources for FF8, a fate which was also suffered by SaGa Frontier.

Oh I'm well aware of that. Its just the plot is praised six ways to sunday, so saying you even just slightly dislike XG's plot is enough to get people to break out the torches and pitchforks. I'm saying that as a generalization of the internet, and not necessarily you guys of course.