On Classical Heroes - The Power of Failure - Extra Credits
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 5 май 2015
- In video games, we see heroes who really can conquer every challenge. It lets us play out a power fantasy, but doesn't give us a meaningful story arc to watch the character grow. Studying classic heroes such as Achilles or Gilgamesh can help games improve their narrative.
Subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday! bit.ly/SubToEC (---More below)
_______
Get your Extra Credits gear at the store! bit.ly/ExtraStore
Play games with us on Extra Play! bit.ly/WatchEXP
Watch more episodes from this season of Extra Credits! bit.ly/2hhXx6f
Contribute community subtitles to Extra Credits: / timedtext_cs_p. .
Talk to us on Twitter (@ExtraCreditz): bit.ly/ECTweet
Follow us on Facebook: bit.ly/ECFBPage
Get our list of recommended games on Steam: bit.ly/ECCurator
_________
Would you like James to speak at your school or organization? For info, contact us at: contact@extra-credits.net
_________
♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM
bit.ly/1eIHTDS
♪ Outro Music: "Tread a Little Heavier" by DDRKirby(ISQ)
bit.ly/1EPBKEZ 
Игры
The title Classical Heroes makes me picture Beethoven wearing Batman's costume.
DERFabzAn how would that work? I know both songs off the top of my head but I don't see how it would fit
davidabeats The first part of Fur Elise's melody is 9 notes. The na's can take up the first 6 (the E's and D#s and the one B), then "Beethoven" will take up the last 3 notes (D, C, and A).
Cuckoo Phendula I'm not sure that's how it's supposed to work. Here is what I was thinking
Na na na na na na na na naaaaaaa
E D# E D# E B D C A-------
Ba tho ven
C E A .....but what about the rest of the note? It cuts right into measure
davidabeats
You're probably thinking too far with it. The way I imagined it doesn't further than the first 2-3 measures, and I'll admit that it won't make sense after that. Jokes don't have to carry on too far to be funny, and trying to make too much sense out of them can be a buzzkill :p
I agree with this, except for one huge problem.... Alot of games use this 'weakness' at the beginning, making the character go from amazing, god-like powers, to level 1, and needing to get it all back... It's like a tease of what you're going to get, and often is just annoying. And... it gets overused FAR too often.
Nizati is that really an example of the heroe failing? maybe your example is not the same thing as the example of the video.
Nizati Yup, I agree.
I prefer blank hero over restore-my-power heroes everyday, even though I think that restoring the hero's power during a tutorial is ok.
Nizati I thought about this example too. But if you think about it, when games do that you're not invested in the character yet, so when you lose all your powers, i'm more like "i'll look cool" rather than "oh, i'm just a human".
Also, in the video, he doesn't mention that the hero get's weaker in the process of failure, he just fails. You don't have to get weaker in order to fail.
Gustavo Santos
I agree- it's like the inevitable fall of reach in Halo reach- the hero saves everybody, but he always dies in the end.
Actually it's a crappy example but I love halo reach
Nizati Those people often apply The Rule Of First 15 Minutes that is - give the player taste of the full developed game mechanics for ~15min so the game catches their interest. Lots of games prove this strategy to be effective and game devs know that.
I remember going back to vault 101 in Fallout 3 after you have a plasma rifle and power armor. You easily restore order to the vault and squash any security guard foolish enough to get in your way. You expect to be praised when you restore order and Amata is made overseer, but then, she makes you leave for good. It hit me so hard, and after I left the vault again, I felt even more alone than when I first left. It was incredible.
Me too. Thinking now, it makes me realize that war is only thing that never changes.
That's how Fallout 1 ends by one of the endings...
That moment is a form of tribute to that :)
I didn't get the same feeling you had, for I didn't feel anything for the vault dwellers...
In Fallout 3, the only ones that I felt something to, where the ghouls.
An ancient living relic stuck in a world long altered, with themselves always on the brink of losing their sanity and becoming ravaging brainless monsters.
They are extremely tragic in every sense of the word... Super-mutants aren't as tragic, for... They aren't aware to their condition, they just are big brutes by most.
The smart ones are a different story though.
I'm trying to find that "Achilles screaming on the trenches" bit.
It's in the middle of book 18 of the Iliad. Here's an excerpt from the Stanley Lombardo translation:
"You have heard the piercing sound of horns
When squadrons come to destroy a city.
The Greek's voice was like that,
Speaking bronze that made each Trojan heart
Wince with pain."
The Iliad is awesome.
I feel you are overlooking the player in this idea and what they go thou. Remember we all died once.
Carzeyday But we don't always associate player failure with character Failure.
oathkeeper005 True I guess. But, really failure does not have to be getting beat down by a boss. But,that is where most of this go to.
Simply. Failing a task is enough.
I think this touches on something that bugged me about this video. More often than not, "failure" in a game is either "you lost, try again" and "the plot says your character fails HERE". In the former camp, it's an incentive to try again. In the latter, it's not only taking power away from the player, but doing so in a way that isn't a result of their own hubris (which is the point that I think EC are saying is a key factor in classic heroes). If you lose because you walked into a boss fight thinking "Eh, I can take him," and you get smacked down, THAT'S hubris. Your character being defeated in a cutscene has nothing to do with the player, and I would argue can harm immersion.
Exactly! The hero of a game doesn't need to struggle, accept their weaknesses and overcome them because the player is already going through that. This is something games can do that movies can't.
Gareth Scott agreed but what i think would be even more impactfull would be to fail a challange of some sort which then has some irrevertable consequences on the world for example you fail in defeating an enemy force thats attacking a town and they just anihilate the population if a game manages to deliver something like this well and the player feels of the townspeople as more than npc´s i believe it would be quite engaging
(oh and im not talking about the classic "supposed to lose fights" but a fight you could be able to win if you are good enough so it is most definetly the fault of the player)
I'm doubtful about this, but I think Captain Martin Walker of Spec Ops: The Line fits in with the classical heroes. Without slipping in the slippery spoiler slope; Walker is unstoppable in his quest to seek Conrad, but by the time he does he finally finds him he realizes his flaws as a human being.
Groxworld1 Walker is less of a "Heroic Hero" and more of a "Tragic Hero." His failure is not a point of character growth on his journey to save the world, his failure is the catalyst of his downfall.
I knew my guess was a bit off.
Even Commander Shepard, who can singlehandedly talk The Illusive Man into taking his own life, begins his journey by failing a mission, losing a soldier who died without firing one single shot solely because of a direct order from him, getting proof of a betrayal, and then having said proof dismissed because, just like in real life, it doesn't count if only you can see it. Your entire first few hours are spent being shown that the awesome person you were stated to be can still fail hard, and immediately does, and because of that failure, he has to spend the rest of the game cleaning up after his impulsive decision not to get proof.
+Alex Leonardi I'd actually cite that the real example of this is the fall of Thessia. Now, ok the Kai Leng bit is contrived and felt like he was being treated as the creators pet character, but this is still the first time that Shepard is truly _beaten._ And it's from this defeat that Commander Shepard, the galaxy's ultimate unstoppable badass, finally begins to really show the stress that s/he is under. There are hints of it here and there beforehand, but this is first time we really how much the stress of having the fate of the entire galaxy resting on their shoulders is affecting them.
Now admittedly this doesn't lead to any real character growth. But what is does do is humanises Shepard. It's so easy, in universe and out of it, to get lost in the myth of Commander Shepard, the person who fixes everything just by their mere presence. This defeat and the subsequent revelation of the pressure they are under, brings them back down to a more human level, makes them more easy to empathise with and, by reminding that they are ultimately still just human, casts their victories up to this point in a more impressive light by reminding us that it wasn't a god who did this but rather, just a human.
+Morafo Regnos I was thinking the exact same thing as I saw this. And then my mind went to ME3, you fail SO hard and SO often in ME3 that Shepard absolutely breaks, especially if you follow a renegade-ish path
It's one of the things I liked most about the trilogy, that the characters actually feel believable and constantly evolve. Despite its flaws, this is exactly the reason I will always remember it and smile.
We're not just heroes,we're SONIC HEROES.
Para Soul It's all good as long as we don't go boom.
SONIC BOOM.
xD
David Vino yeah, that would be a bad thing
Para Soul Just don't let the bad experiencences be unleashed.
SONIC UNLEASHED!
sorry
Sonic Heroes is my fav
MrRoMaGi unleashed day time stages were a lot of fun
Ironically, Kratos in the original God of War is a perfect example of this.
Current kratos fits a bit better but in general he's definitely a God and mostly an unstoppable badass so he could count as an example but that all happens way too late since his humanizing failure was before the series started. He's just an old man now filled with regret because he knew how wrong he was in the past.
The moment you fail to rescue Faridah Malik in Deus Ex human revolution. Up until that point, I'd been trying my best to play a relatively non-lethal playthrough, only going lethal when it was absolutely necessary.
But that was a terrible failure, and I realized pretty quick that I didn't have a real way of going back to correct the mistakes I'd made that led to her death without going a fair way back, due to just character build and the path I picked for the mission.
That hit me pretty hard, and I had to put down the game for a while. Sometimes, you just *CAN'T* save everyone.
The same thing happened in NWN2, when some failed dialogue choices lead to one of my favorite characters being forced to betray the party, and again, I could not save them.
shepard1707 Yea, and remember (spoilers) that part where you think you almost finished the game (beginning of Singapore) the arguments start to drive people crazy which later leads to the final choice. I felt very demoralized when I had to fight civilians.
This is an important addition to the "Hero's Journey" kind of discussion of what a Hero is about, that everybody knows. I don't know why I've never heard it talked about like this before.
One of the absolute best examples of this video's topic is the microwave hall scene in Metal Gear Solid 4. Why? Because we know that Snake feels that he has nothing else to give, no legacy of his own to share, to say 'I was here'. And that in this moment, we know that he's desperate to continue because he wants to give something good back to the world, something people will look back at in textbooks and think 'What an incredible individual. He did so much for us.'
Someone needs to show this video to the Superman writers.
Someone should?
I kinda want to talk about how The Doctor fit's into this. and in my opinion how removing him being forced to destroy Gallifrey takes away from his character.
Desmond using the Apple of Eden in AC3 (an outside tool) to destroy Abstergos guards felt immensely powerful… but also humbling because you realize it’s all he had left to try
I love how the infamous serious makes you an unstoppable force in the first game then in Infamous 2 you are faced with an unstoppable force and are defeated then makes you spend the rest of the game trying to build up the power to defeat this unstoppable force, then eventually learning the sacrifice of the powers to accumulated.
Cloud Strife. From temple of the ancients onward. He almost fails at the end of the temple but carries on, then he fails in the forgotten city. He gets up and tries to make things right but fails again when he reaches the crater and has a complete mental break. His oldest friend helps him to recover before he finally begin the last arc of his story where he finally triumphs and both saves the world (with the help of his friends - he couldn't do it alone) and puts the horrors of his past behind him. (Though as we see in Advent Children, whilst he HAS put much of his past behind him, his failures that occor in-game are still weighing him down years later).
I think that Zack Fair delivers more that heroic feeling, although Cloud is also a good hero figure, he's the legacy of Zack, and with Aerith's death, Cloud is the only one who carries his will, and the reason why this happens is cause Zack gave his life to put HIM on the line, as the new hero. And Cloud doesn't even remembers him, his savior. How sad is that? I'm sorry, but in the ff7 context, Zack is who's the real hero for me.
This makes me think back to the original Superman movie and the death of Jonathan Kent. I know it was mostly just an excuse to send Clark to Antarctica to start his journey to becoming Superman, but to me, that scene has another purpose: showing that Superman ISN’T all-powerful, as some claim he is. For all his power and strength, Clark couldn’t save his father’s life, couldn’t overcome Jonathan Kent’s human mortality.
Then, he saves Lois’ life by changing history; that was how Superman reacted to the confrontation with his failure, by refusing to accept it. Because he’s Superman, and Superman DOESN’T give up.
The Nameless one is pretty much the most awesome hero concept ever...
You shape a God-like flawed being, that has an history, you face his endless tragedies, and pretty much experience something extremely different than playing anything ells...
It's being yourself, in the body of another...
And the world around him is deep, extremely deep...
It's nice to see him mentioned in relation to epic classical heroes :)
I'm just gonna say that your description of Achilles's heroism gave me chills!
The mentioned Sun Wunkong, yes
Example of the power of failure done horribly wrong: games where the "hero and/or their party is captured by enemy forces and thrown into prison" scenario is used, when previously the game had been letting you beat hundreds of the most elite enemies and smash through much more than flimsy iron bars.
Actually, you know where this happened in a very power fantasy-esque game? Metal Gear Rising.
True you are playing as a super strong, super fast, cyborg who can fight gunmen and war machines with a sword, a personal fantasy to many of us, but the moment where Raiden's character makes the greatest personal change in that game is not when he beats Armstrong, but when he is confronted by Sam and Monsoon.
Raiden starts the game saying "[they're] people who kill and terrorize for money. They sealed their fate when they took this job . . . I'm just the Reaper."
Logic that, as players and even just people, we typically buy. The bad guys made the choice to hurt people so we are justified in stopping them even with lethal force. Then Sam drops the bomb of nuance, that your typical minion is likely no more privy to their master's plan than the hero is and were driven to serving them because the bad guy needed bodies and they were in a situation where they were desperate enough to accept, no questions asked.
It throws Raiden's previous worldview, that his sword was a tool of justice and that he could change the world simply by literally cutting out the bad elements, for a loop. No longer able to reconcile his cause as moral, he is forced to confront his baser nature. That which makes him less superhuman, Apollonian, transhuman, god-like, and that which is inherent to his personal demons, that which makes him savage, primal, more human.
In the face of this, Raiden admits to his personal desire to kill, but then reconciles that desire with his mission to protect the children; thereby becoming stronger.
Fucking hell, FINALLY SOMEONE ELSE GETS IT! GOOD SHIT WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I need to take you with me all the time. I'll stuff you in my pocket.
LonghornRed Uhhhh thanks?
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I remember when playing Dust: An Elysian Tail that I had been enjoying the game so far but it wasn't until that moment when, despite all the struggle the characters and the player went through, when failed one of our objectives and the reaction everyone had and the character development... It wasn't until that moment that I truly loved the game.
What about Kratos? He is a god. But in the context of his story, he's not fully omnipotent. His hands shake when he tries to pick up the blades of chaos again. He stops and turns to Athena when she calls out his role as a father. When he finishes wrapping up the chains and picks up the blades again, that's him looking at his failure, and accepting that he will never be perfect. Kratos is such a deep and interesting character. He can teach us so much.
I would say more than failures, the hero, just as any mortal being, always will have 'deficiencies' on his / her own, she or he will lack of something that won't be enough to do. It's important to remark that they can't stand alone, while the vast majority of idyllic videogame heros magically do so just because.
That is why more dear and beloved characters close to them can bring what they may need and be useful to help the hero in his / her quest line. If used them properly, of course.
Another bright video as usual, Extra Credits. You rock a lot! :)
Had this been made later, Capitan America from Endgame would've been cited
Halo: Reach. I know people might see it, and play it, as a "kill the aliens" game, but for me it was a game about tragedy and failure. Every success repaid in failure, every victory peeled away to reveal the inevitable defeat. In that last level, when the end came, the full emotion of it hit me; reach fell, noble fell, but in those failed battles they still did enough to secure victory in the war. Because of what they did the halos and the flood would be found and stopped, a victory they would never know. Playing through this story let me reflect on the tragedies of war far more than I could have playing an unstoppable, unbeatable pc.
I binge on these.
One of the unique ways games can create that feeling of failure is through player failure; this is a big part of games like Super Meat Boy, and the Soulborne games. Now, not everyone is going to have the same story arc or progression for everyone within these games, which can be good or bad, but because it feeling like 'you' are the hero, when it works out, it is more powerful and more personal than the Iliad.
I'm so thankful I found this channel. I just love your episodes!
"There are certain things that all classical heroes share, whether they be [list]"
Beards! It's beards! Look at all of those bea-... oh, being "more than we are". I guess there's that too
LOL
It's like Link from Breath of the Wild. Both he and the player slowly learn how powerful he once was, until he failed and Hyrule fell to Calamity Ganon. It makes Ganon's defeat much more satisfying.
Lauren Bernhard exactly! I feel like that is the strongest part of BOTW's story.
Joel is such a perfect example he plows through everything unstoppable and then he realizes I can't save both
Extra Credit, you bring me another video that amazes me. Thank you.
This is one of the many reasons that Skyward Sword is my favorite Zelda game. Link isn't portrayed as just some uber-powerful hero who wins at everything. Despite the fact that he takes down some of the most terrifyingly strong opponents in the series, the designers/writers go out of their way to place him in a situation where there's absolutely nothing he can do. He even gets chastised by Impa for failing to be completely unstoppable. He has to come to terms with the fact that he _can't_ do everything, at least not on his own. As a result, he becomes the _only_ incarnation to ever obtain _all three_ parts of the Triforce.
Even in Wind Waker, (which otherwise has a great story) Link is completely unfazed by the fact that the Master Sword isn't gonna work. He just goes, "Fine. I'll _make_ it work. Let's do this."
Jake Pillsbury Exactly! I understand a lot of the criticisms leveled at Skyward Sword, but there's no denying that it was the most well-written in the series. And for what basically amounts to an origin story - the first incarnation of the Hero of Time ever - it made Link seem so much more badass. He wasn't just a puppet through which the player interacted with the world, he was a true legend.
***** Are you a fan of Egoraptor by any chance? I'm sorry you don't like the game, but the story resonated very well with me. I _wanted_ to do these things because I _was_ attached to the characters. It was told, from my persective, in a _very_ natural way.
Also, the only truly nonlinear Zelda game was A Link Between Worlds. The rest all had a specific order you needed to do things in. It's just that some of them didn't _tell_ you where the next place you needed to go was. You just had to wander around until you found it. And frankly, I'd much rather see the characters grow and have a reason for what they're doing than just wander around aimlessly until I happen to use the right item on the right random object a la Zelda 1.
Although I will agree that the Scrapper escort mission wasn't explained all that well. It did seem kind of arbitrary, but the shift in gameplay strategies was fun enough that I didn't care.
There's no right or wrong way to do an interactive experience. There's things you can only do with scripted, defined events and characters, and vise versa for true avatar experience. What I meant mainly was that the story, the actual writing in the game, was fantastic. It might not be what you are looking for in a Zelda game, but for someone like me, who vastly prefers JRPGs to their western counterparts, it made the game stand out.
***** And that's your opinion. Upon playing it, I immediately felt that it was a spectacular example of how linear gameplay can be extremely compelling.
Justin Knutson 'There's no right or wrong way to do an interactive experience'
I disagree, many bad games have done it wrong.
an infamous example would be bubsy 3d...or meme run
"I'm a normal human!"
"Oh, Wow!"
Subscribed. These videos helped me pass my essays.
Onie Caurel did you name them as a source
Fantastic episode. You guys put so much effort into these videos and I can see that. Keep it up!
What does it say about us that these stories, written so long ago in a world that is difficult to even imagine for people who have grown up in the modern world, that they still find there way into our hearts.
Have our modern lives really changed that much? We worry about things that did not concern those ancient people, and they had worries that we don't even think about today, but I think most of the important things were worried over by all people.
You can read about "Kids today..." complaints from the older generation, and they are exactly the same things Plato complained about in his twilight years.
It's not about whether our lives have changed. It's about the patterns inside us that have remained unchanged not just since Antiquity, but since prehistory.
Indeed.
Looking at history, it's always important to remember that they were still PEOPLE, like us. Ancient graffiti is one of the best reminders. You can't look at them as a culture of perfect white marble statues after you've read "I, Antonius, took a huge dump here."
I saw one that was more or less, "If you want a good time, call upon Lucina of Crete" or something like that. LOL
Nothing pull me more out of a game is when failure is forced on the player to get this effect. You see this in the unbeatable boss. The one where he hasn't layed a scratch and you have him at 1/4 health and all of a sudden a switch flips.
There's a game called Dragonfable, and there's a forced-defeat battle in the game with the character Sepulchure, and I think it fits what you want pretty well. Basically, the fight is nonexistent, he just kills you, no contest. Now, if someone told me that this fight was "good" I would probably punch him in the face, move to the other side of the room, and start hissing, but it's impossible to waste your energy or resources fighting him because of how goddamn quickly he kills you!
Now, some players have actually defeated him... And then the developers buffed him... And then they did it again... XD
Matt Murray but their are other types of failure like how Joel has can't have cure and ellie live
"To be honest, at first I didn't give a damn. But thanks to you, I know what's important now. I know what I need to do."
Leading directly to,
"I know why you're here. You want to ask me some questions. Well too bad! I already answered them all myself. I don't need you anymore."
There's a reason the third entry in the Devil May Cry series is the best one.
It just struck me... one game that delivers on this is actually Fallout 4.
(Spoilers)
You start the game with the only goal to rescue the son that was taken from you. This is the entire driving force behind the plot of the main quest. And along the way, you accomplish some marvelous feats: saving the Minutemen, exacting revenge on Kellog... But your quest was doomed from the star, literary before it began. And in perhaps the most disempowering way possible: not that you are unable to save Shaun, but that he did live a full life without you.
This is an interesting topic, failure in game story. It's so often left out, not just due to power fantasies, but that progress is tied to victory. You have to "complete" a level before you're allowed to move on, not just do your best with what you have. I guess my point is: every negative result shouldn't be turned into a game over. We carry our victories with us, why not our mistakes?
Example: if you die a lot of times to pits in a game, maybe you could make them easier in following levels but harder during boss fights? Or have a 1/5 chance that instead of losing a life, you're crippled for a little while. I know you're thinking "If a player's having trouble, why would I ever raise the difficulty?" It just works out, not every bit of a game is challenges, difficulty isn't constantly a factor
I think Mass Effect 3 did this well, causing Shepard to actually fail THREE times. First Shepard starts out the game with failure. The whole point of everything we did as Shepard in the first two games was to 1) Prevent the Reaper Invasion into our galaxy, or failing that 2) Prepare the Council Races for the inevitable attack. Despite all our efforts, Shepard not only can't stop the invasion for good but he/she is forced to leave Earth flames, failing to get anyone, even his own species, to listen and prepare a Defense. The third failure, of course, comes at the end of the second Act, where he/she fails to keep the Prothean AI from the Illusive Man.
I believe the bigger point in Mass Effect 3 that expresses this Power of Failure is at the start when Shepard watches as a Transport ship is destroyed with a child on it. As Shepard has nightmares throughout the game about his struggle of not being able to save people. These event prove to us as gamers that Shepard as badass as he/she might become still has the core feeling all humans have, we are not perfect.
But.. Prometheus was a god...Olympians are simply a different faction of deity than the titans.
Peteman12
But these ancient gods were depicted to be very close to a normal human and not like we think of a god in modern times.
They acted human, they had flaws, they had sex (Zeus...) and had physical bodies, which could be wounded (Like Prometheus, whose liver got torn out every day by an eagle).
Max Mustermann About the last part: it all applies to Jahve as well. Acts pretty human: jealousy for example, has many flaws: moral ones for example, had sex: with Maria at least in some sense, had a physical body: in Jesus, and could very well be wounded as such.
TL;DR: The western God is pretty much rooted in ancient mythologies and has great similarities with them.
Peteman12 Titans are more a lesser order of divinities than a different faction. In Norse mythology you do literally have two factions, the Aesir and the Vanir, who go to war and eventually unite to form a single pantheon with all of them being roughly the same order of power, though some are stronger than others. This is not the case in Classical Greek mythology. The Titans were an earlier generation of gods and goddesses who would later give birth to the Olympians and then be overthrown in a cataclysmic war by their own children. This mirrors the overthrowing of the primordial gods and goddesses by the Titans, who are descended from the Primordials. Prometheus, though vastly more powerful than a mortal, cannot hope to match the power of an Olympian, much less the King of the Gods. Thus, when his deceptions and trickery on behalf of humanity are discovered by Zeus, he is powerless to stop Zeus from punishing him eternally. In case you're wondering why Prometheus was still around after the cataclysmic war that saw the overthrowing of his entire kind, well it turns out he had rather the traitorous streak to him. He sided with the Olympians in their war against his own kind before then betraying Zeus by meddling in his plans for us mortals.
Andy Flow [Music Producer]
Yeah- Jehova or Jahve is partially based off the mythologies surrounding the area he originated from
Andy Flow [Music Producer]
That is why I mentioned "like we think of a god in modern times".
I bet no one (ok maybe a few individuals) thinks, that god actually sits upon a cloud in flesh and blood and smites people because he is pissed off or turnes into a swan to seduce a woman.
The greek gods however were depicted that way. (But instead of a cloud, they sit on a mountain)
And while it is true, that the god of the bible was originally thought of like a easily pissed of uber-being, we have, over the course of time, turned this concept of a physical being watching over us into something more mysterous and unknown.
This might be the reason I love Sonic Unleashed's narrative so much, because Sonic begins by massively failing at stopping Eggman and the entire game is him picking up the metaphorical and literal pieces. For once, Sonic is confronted by not only failure, but failure caused by his own ego, and it's executed in a MUCH better way than it ever was in Lost World.
Through that failure, a player can actually connect with that larger-than-life hero, rather than staying perfect and unapproachable. Great video guys
Max payne 3. It made me feel like a badarse and a loser all at the same time, and it's my favorite third person shooter of all time...
Dan, there is no point in the Iliad where Achilles screams at the Trojans from the metaphorical trenches. That's not a thing. What is a thing is Achilles taunting the Thessalians after killing Boagrius the giant in single combat: but this is actually an entirely separate myth only referenced in the Iliad, and the action takes place before the Iliad begins. He does cry with Priam over Hector's body, and does have a realization that no matter how terrible the vengeance is that he enacts he can't bring Patroclus back. You are still mostly correct, but a little research goes a long way.
very good episode, thanks!
Makes me think of the Zero Escape series. They are point-and-click puzzle games combined with a Visual Novel experience. In both, your failures, sometimes expected and sometimes seemingly random, sometimes a result from your ethical decision or your selfishness, respectively, are all vital. Your failures serve an in-game purpose as well create a sense of fear and urgency in the player. You want to succeed because you are shown the consequences of your failure, but not your success. In fact, it isn't entirely clear what will come of victory, and I love that about these games.
But here's the real question: how do you accomplish all of this without cutscenes? The Wind Waker has a brilliant final scene, but Ganondorf easily taking out Link does not feel like a personal failure. You didn't fail, the game forced you to fail. The same can be said about storming the wedding in FFX. You get captured in a cutscene when you were handling yourself just fine mere moments before.
Look at the first level of Metal Gear Rising
There is an answer to this, but it's another one that people tend not to like: Unwinnable fights. If you were made to fight Ganondorf, but since you don't have the empowered master sword, you can't even scratch him.
The fact you can't properly communicate the fact a fight is unwinnable without ruining the experience, it tends to frustrate players even more than the cutscene loss, especially if you're in a game with consumables, and you blow all your healing items trying to survive a fight that cannot be won.
Alternatively, these failures don't have to be actual combative ones, as some of the ones mentioned in the video aren't. You can simply have a mission or quest end in a way that cannot really be considered a success, something where the thing the hero set out to do was not accomplished, despite not being defeated at any point along the way.
On the other hand, unwinnable fights can be game-defining moments, like the fight with the Black Knights in [NES] Final Fantasy II. ( Although for me that was also the point I quit FFII, so it definitely is a huge risk. )
i remember one level in call of duty black ops 2 (for some reason people never mention what the series did right) where a concept could be done in the future. there is a level where the second half involves trying to catch a villain who is escaping with a hostage critical to the plot. if you catch him in time, he dies early and the hostage is freed. if he gets away, he makes an appearance in later missions and the hostage has to be rescued in a side mission. that way the failure happens if the player messes up, not when the plot demands it
B Whit you can have it in such a way where you can't save them both is a really good method
Jack be nimble, jack be quick, jack kick you in the candle stick
Great episode, guys!
Pillars of Eternity did a great job at this. Setting you up to think that you are making an extreme important decision for the King himself, and then stripping that away and burning it.
I'm sure others have said it a hundred times, but for a lot of people, games _do_ include the classic hero's "struggle to face failure". It just exists as a difficult part of the game. Namely, the easiest example to make would be a boss fight. Whereas the stage preceding the boss may or may not be challenging, the boss will certainly be the worst thing yet (at least, that's the traditional intention).
Of course, the big problem then is that the player's internal struggle is virtually never mirrored with that of the _game's_ true story. Sure, boss fights end in big spoils and flashy fanfare, but as far as the _game's story_ is concerned, Leon never actually got his head sawed off - not even once. That moment of reloading a save or checkpoint creates a kind of disconnect between the player character and the player themself. Whereas a traditional story would linger on the hero's dramatic failure, their emotional struggle, and the path to resolution, a game's story simply undo's it all as if to say "let's pretend that never happened". Yes, I'm aware there are some examples of game stories embracing player failure, but I believe it's neither been done well or pushed far enough yet.
raiden in metal gear rising is a great example of this formula. he is capable of cutting down huge robots with only his sword and he tries to use it as "a tool of justice" which fails once he confronts sam and the monsoon and sees the other side of the conflict. making him temporarly break down until he decides to face the failure and unleash "jack the ripper". he proceeds with his quest but with a different motive then before. and after he confronts sam he keeps questioning himself just how human he is. and it all comes down to his fight against armstrong, where he fails at the start but once he understands his failure and embraces the other side, he fights through. and the game ends with raiden still questioning his motivation and if its right or wrong.
You mention Morpheus and the Nameless One in one single video?! You continue to provide me with reasons as to why you're one of my favourite RUclips channels :) Thanks and keep it up
This may be one of my favorite episodes. I agree that seeing your character fail to be omnipotent is a nice touch to add (specially in rpgs, I think).
LOL Yeah. Joel, the guy who would rather all of humanity die than lose Ellie, is a "hero" alright...
kryptospuridium137 He's an anti-hero.
He's the hero in the sense of the game, not necessarily for the story world.
Tom Beecher he is not a hero, he is a man.
kryptospuridium137 Considering the Fireflies are incompetent in every way possible and willing to beat a man giving CPR to a little girl unconscious, I say fuck the Fireflies! I would not trust them with a pen, let alone saving humanity.
Really their motto should be "We'll find a way to fail and get everyone killed", because along the way all you find of them is how they managed to mess up and get everyone killed. Then you finally meet them and they're real assholes.
I don't care if they might have found a cure, they'd have found a way to lose it and all gotten killed - it's what they do, it's all they ever do!
kryptospuridium137It depends on your culture. There are some in which the statement "If the whole of humanity is willing to sacrifice Ellie for the sake of themselves, then I'm willing to sacrifice all of humanity for her." would be considered correct.
Speaking of failure. Is there any game that gives you a quick time event that no matter how fast you push the button, it just doent work, you fail and game continues with that consequence? The button should only be on screen long enough for the player to see it but not long enough for the player to realize that it doesn't work. The game should also be one where the player belives that pressing the button would have made a differnt outcome, where they failed and that massively affected the story. The closest i could come up with is minecraft story mode near the beginning, still the quick time event technically does work, just really really hard.
As someone who is very well-versed in classical and heroic literature, this is easily a new favorite episode!
You know, these advice don't have to be just used in games in my opinion. They can be used in any other story telling medium as well. Great job. ^ ^
As usual, an excellent exploration. However, Extra Credits missed a critical aspect of game Hero characters which is unique to interactive story: the player themselves provides the Hero's failures. We, the players, are fallible. The Hero fails because we, the Hero, weren't good enough, fast enough, smart enough, skilled enough. Which is one of if not THE biggest attraction about gaming, since we get to try again, learn from our failure and improve, thus providing the character arc in the actual real world. It actually happens, though the game makes it feel more significant than it actually is. Still, few games actually pay much attention to this, leaving it in the realm of mechanics, maybe playing a little failure cutscene or not, but always just picking up where it left off, as though nothing had happened, as though the failure was outside the story. And that's a failing in the game, I think. I don't doubt Extra Credits knows this, since it's the most singular difference between interactive entertainment and all other media, but it could use more attention, maybe its own segment?
One way to vary it. The primary sense of failure and success I think comes not from story though, but from content that can be overcome, but only with learning and skill improvement.
This war of mine, darkest dungeon, XCOM enemy within and XCOM 2 (unofficial title given to it by me: the fall of humanity). All video games is with flawed, human heroes.
The thing I kept thinking about was the Andrew Ryan scene from Bioshock, where the player, who has nigh god-like powers by then, fails to have free will at that crucial moment. It might not be in the same vein of character failure, but I'd call it a good example of when taking power away from the player can lead to an overall better experience.
I'm pretty sure what I'm about to talk about is about tragic heroes instead of classic ones, but there isn't a video on them so I don't know where to put this.
A series that really strikes me with its characters is the SoulsBorne franchise by FromSoftware. Two characters that particularly stuck with me were Ostrava of Boletaria and Knight Artorias, the Abyss Walker. In both of them I find a well intentioned, almost archetypal knight who sets out with a noble goal, only to fall victim to their own weaknesses and be turned against their cause. In Ostrava's case, he can't handle the revelation that his father has become a demon and gives into his despair, losing his soul and being turned into a black phantom. With Artorias, his literal lack of Humanity and his desire to be a hero are his undoing as he tries and fails to slay Manus and is infected by the overwhelming Darkness of Oolacile, turning him into a mad rotting husk of himself until the player puts him down.
On a broader note, I feel that the franchise has many deep and memorable characters that one could spend hours analyzing and discussing (which people actually do).
I suggest anyone interested in this topic check out the short story "Micro God" on Itunes.
Not only is it a tragic and facinating exploration of this very principle, and of humanisation through failiure,
but even more interestingly, it manages to do it with a main character who is actually omnipotent, if with one very speciffic limitation.
Halo reach achieves this in the last mission, lone wolf. Actually, the whole game is realizing that despite all your strength you cannot save the world and the Spartans doing what must be done
Devir Islas especially as one of your team member get heatshot. like that, no battle, no sacrifice for a greater cause. she just die, like anyone else. that's was a very powerfull emotional pulse. I mean it showed how despite how enhanced and powerful those Spartans are, they are as vulnerable as anyone else. It wasn't even one of those countless suicide operations to slow down. the covenant. that wasn't one for a thousand. that was one for nothing.
All my favorite games have characters that encounter failure at some point, often at multiple points in the game. They feel frustration and helplessness and even conflicted emotions, not knowing what is the right decision, or knowing what they must do, yet fighting against it tooth and nail.
Great episode. As someone who majored in Lit, I'm always examining the story structure of games. Mechanics are great but a bad story will break a game no matter how good the gameplay or art. While I was watching this I kept thinking about Hawke from DA2. For all it's shortcomings, I think this is where Dragon Age 2 did an excellent job. Hawke is a great classical hero: she's larger than life, can cut through swathes of enemies, lives through three impossible things before breakfast each morning--- and yet, the entire reason she resonates so well with players is because her tragedies are deeply personal. Her entire goal is to save her family and friends-- from the blight, from Templars, from poverty, etc. Saving Kirkwall is a side effect. And when she fails, she fails hard, and there's an intense feeling of solitude around her when it happens. I've played DA2 three times now, and it's entirely because of Hawke and her hero's journey.
I like Achilles. He was strong, but he was totally the bottom. And i can respect that
Comments like these are why you shouldn't be able to disable commenting on RUclips. Take notes everyone.
On the final note, I cannot believe that it's common nowadays for people to not have at least tried Planescape Torment. Seriously, that irks me to no end.
they didn't age well, i played them as kid, in the 90's, i can't sit though them now, too clunky, bad path finding, etc.
once i find pharros (or what his name is, under rag-picker square?) and get to the many-as-one/ dead king, i've lost interest
(edit) and that's with nostalgia, couldn't imagine a new player turned onto this, just because older players says its great
The idea of heroes is to teach people about however dark times can become one can always find the light (in other words optimism)
I have a character named Eternius. His power is so great, he considers himself a god, and has even slain gods. He is unstoppable and indestructible, but he isn't infallible. He can and does fail, either because of poor judgement on his part or just not getting someplace in time. The character even becomes depressed over the idea that, even though he is immortal, the universe is not, and thus he will die with it.
one more practical problem is how you can make an interactive hero be defeated in what the player does.
marinus18 I think one way could be to have a boss that cannot be beaten.
Not in the ways that many games seem to do it though.
Taking control away from the player via cutscene, having the boss have obviously unfair conditions (like 4x health bars or one-hit kill attacks), aren't the way to do this.
The failure has to be the player's.
Cleverly hide the boss's "invulnerability."
I think this would work best in a game where respawning is explained in-game (like borderlands).
The thing is if you need the boss to win because of plot reasons then you take away control already. All you can do is try to hide it but you cannot prevent it from happening except in an RP game. I never really cared about their attempts to hide it. You are supposed to lose so why not just let it happen instead of going through all kind of complex tricks to hide it.
I like cutscenes a lot.
marinus18 Yeah, something that came to mind while thinking about that is the player's reaction to realising that they were meant to lose.
That's why, for all intents and purposes, it would appear to be a normal fight. Right down to the way you respawn. Maybe make it appear as though it was a "win or lose, this is permanent" kind of situation, even though they could never win.
The problem with that being people who will stop at nothing to beat the boss, until they realise they literally can't.
You could make the boss just very difficult but technically beatable (I think Bloodborne did this, but at the beginning of the game). But then you have the issue of a few very skilled players that may not experience the game as it is meant to occur even in their first play through.
I'm not a writer or game maker, so these are obviously nothing more than speculative ideas.
I just see it as a lot of wasted time and effort. If you're supposed to lose then just make it happen.
+Hamlet Enthusiast
The thing is I don't think you can actually hide it. People would catch on to it extremely quickly and know there is no possible way for them to win. Making the whole fight pretty much a complete waste of time.
Why does your Hero remind me of One Punch Man's Saitama?
because Saitama encompasses both the power fantasy and the character growth. He is omnipotent, he has changed and saved the world by himself. However in gaining that much strength he's suffered. He is completely isolated from normal humans, and he has failed to light the passion in his heart. He wants to "light the fire in his heart", to feel alive taking on that impossible challenge, that why he started training. However he grew to strong to quick, and failed to find an opponent who can push him past his limits. He's failed to find his passionate fight in life, making the hero business nothing more than a hobby to him. We watch him overcome this failure in the series while also seeing how godlike he is.
also, egg head and cape
Because the Hero is the archetypical design for a superhero, and Saitama design is the most cliche design (and that's he point, is not supposed to look cool).
its funny because his failure is that he cant fail (or even come near it) so like its just the same stuff yknow? but hes still a good guy and does the stuff anyway which is also good
+Jake romeo also he's bald
4:53 when you said that, I instantly remembered the last trailer for Zelda Breath of the Wild, when Zelda cries at Link's shoulder....
And ALL THE REACTIONS I SAW OF THAT SCENE, there isn't even a single one that no one cried together... and boom... HYPE GOES EXPONENTIALLY (now we need to know what is going on, and with that, you gathered a lot of attention and potential players)
I agree! I was very moved when that scene appeared in the trailer. It makes me think that the dynamic between Link and Zelda in BoTW will be very similar to (and perhaps even much more emotional than) the personal connection the two share in Skyward Sword. Its nice to see that Nintendo is continuing to make the two show genuine affection towards each other on their quest, and to not have it simply be a mutual respect and understanding of each others roles.
Extra Credits Holy crap this episode made me think a lot about protagonists in games. I'd say that 999 (9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors) did a pretty fantastic job of making the character so human. Later in the game, you learn that he has some pretty amazing powers, though he is still unable to save one person no matter how hard he tries, and his reactions throughout the game to the terrible situation he's him are so relatable it's easy to ignore that power and see him as just another human. I could go on and on about other games that have done this great too. This video was really thought-provoking for me, thank you.
How exactly is Joel a hero?
I wonder if part of that failure could be delivered on through the use of the player failing, when the charecter dies or fails a level due to the player not being skilled enough.
I'd like a game when you lose you get stronger,
Thorough this entire video I kept thinking of Commander Shepard and how He/She fits perfectly into this definition of a classical hero. :)
Maybe that's why it is such a great character and the story of the games is just so engaging and satisfying.
This kind of episode I like. You should do more like it.
The classical hero and the 'Hero's Journey' are interesting, but how about successful cases were we go beyond that? Or is it just like pop music? Success depends on repeating the same few cords over and over again in new and innovative ways.
Only problem with this is that players don't like unbeatable problems because games are constructed in a way where challenges are presented when the player is ready for them. The unofficial agreement is that If a problem is presented, a player can solve it, even if it takes more work than usual. If you create a problem so that they specifically fail, the player feels cheated of the experience. If you want to create failure for the player, you need to either present problems where there is no good answer (like until dawn) or this would be a great place to utilize cutscenes where the player wins but the character fails because of events out of their control. If you have to have an unbeatable boss, you have to make it clear that it's unbeatable for a good reason, and possibly have a way to avoid it. No one wants to put time and energy into trying to defeat a boss that you're not allowed to beat.
Usually you fail not in battle… but in story. Like some stupid character dies, who you can't phenix dawn her. Or when you finish a mission but the result is not exactly what you expected. Or cheated by someone you trust. There are many ways for you to fail~ other then due in battle and unable to continue.
Psyche's Rose I think it shouldn't be failure in the sense of just being shot and dying but for instance having to choose who to save
4:12, a good example of a hero in trouble, Shovel Knight, the campfire dream rescues.
The game actually makes you fight an onslought. It actually makes you feel the struggle shovel knight is actually going through.
I liked how Tomb Raider (2012) portrayed Laura. A scared girl faced with impossible odds, and it comes through, especially during those tight sequences of sneaking around mass amounts of guys.
The Chief in Halo 4 is sort of like this.
@1:24 This actually what happened with the villian in my last TRPG campaign. Were they actually the hero?
BORDERLANDS 2 SPOILERS
------
As you mentioned the heroes gunning through anything, never confronting failure, I was reminded of one the major plot-points in BL2, the part where Roland dies. While the narrative doesn't explicitly give the player *character* too intense a reason to feel great impact from this, I felt it was a great moment to mirror this concept of realization, especially if you'd played Borderlands 1 and become attached to the characters. Most so if you mostly played Roland in BL1 like I did. The first time I saw that scene, the very first time, it hurt. Deep. He was the most heroic of everyone I had come to know, and yet he was still mortal. Still died. After that, I refused to put the game down until I had avenged his death. Even if I didn't have the power to save him, nor the power to bring him back, I had it in me to tear down the man by whose hand my hero had died.
I think any sort of loss, if it hits home enough, can fuel a hero to true greatness.
This is something that can be helped immensely by having more branching narratives and multiple quest solutions - especially *failable* quests. Outside of RPGs I can't really think of many games that do this. Whatever objective the player is given, you either succeed, or reload and try again until you succeed. You only fail when you're supposed to fail. What we need is more quests where both success and failure is a possibility, and then the game continues with the narrative adapting as required. Mass Effect 2 is one of the best examples of how you can do it, particularly the companion loyalty missions and the suicide mission.
I know this isn't a game, but can I drag people to read the webserial Worm? It works so much along this line, and I think that gives it its merits.
Prometheus was a Titan, thus was a god before the gods came along and locked up and debilitated most of them. So when you said he was not a God, I would have e said he was one.
C l Titans and gods are different
BillyBob Joe but he was an almighty, celestial, imortal being in ancient Greek culture and although the Greeks did not call them 'gods' I would have said they were gods in the more modern sence and one of the titans, Kronos, actually sired many of the gods
C l Keep in mind that the Greeks had a fundamentally different idea on what did or didn't count as a "god." To them, "god" basically meant the 12 Olympians. Yes the titans came first, but they were still defeated. And yes, there were minor gods, but even they weren't immune. Eros was the god of love, yet he fell in love and suffered for it. You could even break it down further and say that the only one who was truly "god," as in a commanding force, was Zeus. Commanding being the key word. All the other Olympians had great power and respect, but it was only because Zeus let them. When Apollo tried to fight him, he was almost flung into Tartarus. When Hephaestus tried to stand up for Hera, he was sent falling to the earth for 9 days. So in a sense, everyone but Zeus could be a "classical hero," which is probably why Zeus never really had a big story other than the fight against the titans. And that was told more in the vain of a creation story than a narrative epic.
Dude
There are WAAAYYYY MORE types of hero's and a good amount of them are video game protagonist
I hope you'll discuss about all the others like Byronic hero (Booker DeWitt)
Anti hero (Shadow)
Tragic Hero (Take your pick)
Torian Hope BOW YOUR HEADS LOW ALL HAIL SHADOW
Torian Hope They said this is not the only kinds of heroes, just the one that today's video is about. Also which game are you referring Shadow to, because I really hope its not Shadow the Hedgehog. I mean the game shadow the hedgehog, the character is fine.
Yes the hedgehog sorry
Torian Hope also
Unknowing Hero
Ideological Hero (its more of a sub type than a type realy)
Torian Hope Well, the title of the video does read 'On Classical Heroes'.
Goku transforming into a Super Saiyan after realizing Krillin can not live. The power, the change in him.
Does Spider-Man count as a classical hero?
Olaoluwapo Williams Yes.
One of the most in fact
Does anyone else wonder what it might be like to see someone like Sonic or Mario face the consequences of a moral mistake that they made? True, they don't seem like the sort of characters that would do something out of selfishness, greed, etc., but it might make them a bit more relatable if they happened to let the wrong ideals sneak into their lifestyles. Just a thought.
I imagine that the only way to make Sonic do something he regrets is if he runs up against a problem that can't be undone by the universe's many deus ex machina devices.
Warning: I'm about to pitch an entire story concept here.
Perhaps a new power is discovered which is capable of literally obliterating people from existence. Not killing them, not freezing them in time, not trapping them in an alternate dimension, but irreversibly removing them the very fabric of reality, to the point of even making friends and family forget they ever existed.
Such a threat would really hit Sonic where it hurts. After all, he can shrug off pretty much any personal trauma, and he can bring his friends back from the dead with enough determination. But I don't think he can deal with the possibility of, say, having his little brother figure Tails eliminated from living memory.
The problem is, Eggman would never use such a power. After all, he wants to remember the day when he defeats Sonic for good, and cherish the memory of his victory. If he forgets that his mortal enemy ever existed, what would be the point in winning? So he shelves the idea... but his recently-hired apprentice, not quite as brilliant, but more resourceful and unscrupulous, goes behind Eggman's back and builds the weapon in the blueprint.
And then the apprentice uses this weapon, the Eraser, to eliminate Tails from existence.
And the way the game delivers on this even screws with the player. About halfway through the game, Tails, who had previously been a regular participant in cutscenes, suddenly stops showing up, and no-one even notices or comments on this detail. Then the apprentice reveals he's built the Eraser, and describes its function. Sonic suddenly realizes that someone is missing. Someone important and dear to him...
And the very idea that he's lost all memory of this important person causes him to fly into an unstoppable rage. Not only does he deliver a brutal beat-down to the apprentice that would give even Shadow pause, but he then takes the Eraser, and eliminates the apprentice from existence.
Luckily, this act of revenge happens to bring back everyone that Eggman's apprentice has erased, including Tails. Since the apprentice never existed, he never managed to erase anyone (though this reality rollback doesn't extend to him, on account of paradoxes). And it seems like everything's back to normal, and the game ends happily...
Except not. The ripples of the Eraser's reality-warping power still echo in Sonic's memory. Which means Sonic remembers what he did. He doesn't remember who he erased, but he knows that he did it. And what's worse, he knows that he killed his man without realizing that it would bring back Tails.
But of course, Sonic will continue to act like his happy-go-lucky self. And his friends will stay by his side, never knowing the monstrous, selfish act of revenge that Sonic took. He'll never tell them the truth. He's a paragon of heroism in everyone's eyes. He would never do such a thing. Nobody has to know.
That sounds deep (and crazy) enough to be a Sonic game's plot, but I was thinking more along the lines of a story where Sonic or Mario realize the error in what they did and spend the remainder of the game trying to atone for it (and possibly stop whoever agreed to help them do it). Nothing wrong with your idea, of course. I found it pretty intriguing.
Zack... Zack Fair.... *cries all over the keyboard*
That deal of weakness I think is great. Best example of your point I believe was Brutal Legends with Eddie Riggs is always the roadie. He doesn't get the glory, he doesn't get the fame, he is just a man doing his job. Which I personally wish to see more, how this person rather small no matter how great the deed is. Yet also played into the power fantasy.
As a character there are very few that I have had as big a connection to other then him, simply because threw day to day I am this man just doing my job. That is no more then a gear to others. Though the world of Brutal Legend feed the fantasy that may be job can be so much better.