Asklemmy

43363 readers

2411 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

757

What was a profound moment that a video game caused you to experience, and why? (reddthat.com)

submitted 11 months ago by RagnarokOnline@reddthat.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

392 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The moment that inspired this question:

A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.

The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.

One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”

I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.

… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.

I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

It wasn't exactly profound so much as it was a sudden appreciation for just how deep the game had gotten its hooks in me.

The end of Persona 5.

I was sad because it was over, but not just because I liked the game, I've experienced that before with plenty of others. What I felt at the end of that game was something I'd never felt playing a video game before, and that was a sense of loss. I didn't just want to play more of the game, I wanted to spend more time with these characters. I'd gotten so attached to them, and so into the life sim aspect, that when the credits rolled, it felt a little like I lost my friends.

Now granted this was during covid, and I was quarantined alone, having not been able to see my actual friends in months. Burning through Persona 5 became my primary unwinding activity for a few months, and as I got deeper into it, I spent solid days with it. So it's fair to say I was in a very susceptible state of mind to attach myself to some characters.

But even without that, I think that game really hit something special for me that made me temporarily forget these weren't real people, and for a fleeting moment, I felt a profound sadness at their absence

[–] finthechat@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago

I felt like this after playing Persona 4. Atlus has weird and kinda crappy business practices but their writers are good at least.

[–] Boldizzle@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Did you play Royal or just vanilla P5? P5 Royal extra content is well worth it IMO.

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Both. Prefer Royal for the extra content and some of the QoL changes, but I think I enjoyed the overall gameplay of vanilla better because the difficulty balancing was much better. Royal is way too easy and has no true hard mode.

[–] Boldizzle@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Yeah you're right, Royal was easy as compared to vanilla. Bi really enjoyed the extra story though!

[–] CoderKat@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago

Persona is definitely one of those games that really hits you when it's over. In part I think it's cause it's just so damn long. You spend a long time getting attached to characters and it being your daily activity. But also, the format of the games is just very relatable. Sure, it's got fantasy elements, but the school and calendar format grounds the game into something more relatable. The game's story is heavily focused on building up friendships.

Plus that fantasy element plays a part. It's what makes the game world something unachievable for the real you. You'll never have the grand, world-saving adventures of the video game. You could make some friends and such, but you'll never bond over saving the world or catching a killer or the likes. The end of games like Persona tend to make me think a lot about that.

I've seen this called "post Harry Potter syndrome" or "post anime syndrome" before. It's very common for a variety of works, but I think the recurring theme is usually that you invest a lot of time into a character driven work where building friendships and some kind of adventure is the key element.