Tom, your irrational hatred of gingers just goes too far!
Again totally disagree. I was way more invested in the story of Horizon than MGS5
Some of my best friends are gingers!
That’s fine, but whether you prefer Metal Gear Solid or Horizon isn’t relevant. My point is if the basics don’t grab you, the scattered minutiae isn’t going to do it. If the story in Horizon only gets good when you read all the diaries and listen to the audio logs, that doesn’t magically compensate for the ingame story, or even necessarily make it any better.
-Tom
MGSV cheated by winning you over with classic 80s pop music.
Yeah, that is a bit of an unfair leg-up. And to then throw breasts into the mix! Who could resist? Besides @forgeforsaken, of course. :)
-Tom
The Rost stuff was only the first 5 hours or so of gameplay, so I don’t quite understand the comparison to Last of Us. The game was more about the mother/daughter bond, which I thought was unique and refreshing for a video game.
Not having played Horizon I wonder if Alloy is comparable to Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite. Elizabeth resonated with a lot of players but I found her to be a pandering, designed by focus-testing, overly saccharine character whose sole reason for existing was making players feel great and emotionally connected to a walking vending machine. She even had a torn wardrobe with exposed bust to accompany her huge anime eyes by the end of the game.
Aloy’s the player-controlled character in Horizon, so no, not a walking vending machine or sidekick in any way.
I got sidetracked but the thrust of my argument was a character that was the product of careful focus testing that is deliberately designed to play with target demographic markets.
…which I think Tom’s argument was hinting at unless I misread him.
She’s not.
Moreover was the theme of growing up without a mother figure and trying to establish one’s sense of self without one. We’ve often seen this play out with the lack of a father figure in fiction, and while motherless characters are quite common, the stories rarely focus on the impact of development like Horizon does with Aloy.
Really? You don’t see the whole older cynical man shepherding a young girl who isn’t his daughter through the post-apocalypse as comparable to The Last of Us? Or you just don’t think it’s a relevant point of discussion since it only comprised the first five hours of the game? If it’s the former, I find that as surprising as people not seeing any point of commonality with Hunger Games because there weren’t spectators, or whatever the rationale was. If it’s the latter, I disagree. E/Aloy’s origins are, to my mind, certainly more memorable than her relationship with a purple exposition hologram.
-Tom
Rost wasn’t a cynic. He very much tries to teach her care and compassion, as well as the ways of his people even though he is an outcast.
Next you’re going to tell me he wasn’t old, she wasn’t a girl, and it wasn’t a post-apocalypse. Seems to me being thrown out of a tribe makes you pretty cynical about that tribe, but I guess he could have had a rosy outlook on everything else and their relationship is in no way comparable to Last of Us. Good point!
I don’t know what it is that makes you guys chafe so much at the very obvious point that Horizon is derivative, but cherry-picking single elements from the overall point doesn’t make much of a case. “West Side Story wasn’t based on Romeo and Juliet because it’s not set in Verona!”
-Tom
Well maybe you didn’t pay attention, but I’ll give you some slack as some of the Rost story was missable. Rost was not cynical about the tribe, he still respected their ways, he respected its elders and he supports Aloy in her quest to do the proving, which would bring her back into the tribe. He saw it as an honor when the elders asked him to take care of Aloy. He’s also an outcast willingly, he asked the tribe to be made a Death Seeker to hunt down a group of people that attacked the tribe before Aloy was born, knowing that to become one also meant exile.
Rost is not cynical about the tribe, Aloy is.
No, being thrown out of the tribe did not at all make him cynical.
At later points in the game it explains why.
A Ginger must have thrown Tom out of a tribe at summer camp and he comforted himself by listening to Bowie. It’s all starting to make sense.
This is the passive-aggressive version of “I bet you didn’t even play the game!”
So if I concede Roost was an optimist, do you guys concede all my other points? Or are we just running down the list one by one? I can’t wait to hear how E/Aloy wasn’t the savoir of the world like Ellie because there was no zombie ant-fungus.
Well, The Doors, but close enough.
-Tom
“West Side Story is nothing like Romeo and Juliet because Rita Moreno’s character wasn’t a nurse!”
I mean… Ellie didn’t save the world, or anyone other than Joel really.
The role is kind of different, isn’t it?
I mean, Aloy was a savior through her actions in a traditional hero role.
Ellie was a savior effectively by existing. She was largely an inanimate object in this regard… And hell, didn’t even end up fulfilling that role anyway.