Game Genres Are Kinda Trash
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- Опубликовано: 14 май 2024
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🎬 CHAPTERS 🎬
0:00 Weird Genres
4:02 Soulslike
6:22 Roguelike
8:15 Metroidvania
11:26 Adventure Game
15:35 The Point
🎵 MUSIC USED 🎵
• Music Used - Game Genres
Sources: Trust me bro. 
Игры
Defining a game genre is the Dark Souls of categorizing
"Dodge n strike" genre?
my lord what an incredible comment
this video is "Rant-Souls Like"
“Huh, didn’t know Category Theory was a Souls-like game.”
@@RuV9999it's really just a harder hack and slash
saying something is an "adventure" game is like telling a biologist about A "carbon based lifeform".
🤣
Not really? ManyFPSs aren't adventure games. Puzzle games are often not adventure games. At most, it's like telling a biologist "it's an animal". That at least tells me it isn't a plant, or fungus, or so on.
@@frousteleous1285 😔
@@frousteleous1285 Nah. Almost all FPS with a campaign (outside of like Unreal Tournament singleplayer or something) have an adventure.
I think that "adventure" is more of a secondary theme like how platform adventure is for games like Another World/Flashback, Action Adventure for the Zelda kind of game (basically with puzzles and exploration while also not being really a RPG) and often are for games with a focus on Story.
"FPS Adventure" are immersive sims, Starfox is also a Rail Shooter with adventure elements because of the different route and emphasis on the story as well (especially the N64 game).
“Before people start unironiclaly using the term “Soulslite”.”
Nobody show him Dead Cells’ Steam store page description.
Steam genres are legit trash. Games like Dirt Rally get tagged as open-world combat games and it's neither combat racing nor open world. That's not even splitting hairs, you're the only car on the track and the single linear track is all there is.
Fucking what?
@@JZStudiosonline Store page description! Not genre! Just take a look into the page.
But yes, it's stupid, that genres on the store page are "crowdsoruced"...
@@JZStudiosonline They aren't talking about the tags, they are talking about the actual description. "You'll explore a sprawling, ever-changing castle... assuming you're able to fight your way past its keepers in 2D souls-lite combat."
i though the same man haha
Honestly, I think that this overwhelming focus on genres can also cause issues for developers. Not only because a decent number of people will call your game a "ripoff" or a "clone" just for borrowing some rudimentary gameplay elements, but also because it can potentially lead to dissonance between the aesthetic/story and gameplay of a game due to feeling the need to fit into a certain genre.
I worked on Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and sometimes people would call it an Assassin's Creed clone, which we always found hilarious. How dare another game have stealth, climbing on things, and jumping from high places.
I hate calling something a ripoff just because it was heavily inspired by something before it. Thats how we get iterative game design. some things aren't original enough and are just "X game with a new coat of paint". some games copy the art style completely but the gameplay is actually much different. I see people say that with games that are inspired by Darkest Dungeon's art style. Darkest Dungeon didn't create that art style. They just took a common grimdark comic style and adapted it to a video game. If people didn't copy metroid and zelda we woudln't have tons of different subgenres based on exploration and back tracking to areas when you get a new ability. "clones" are great. Without clones we wouldn't have most of our greatest games of all time.
@@Zectifinoh, and speaking of which, if there any gamers out there that are becoming a indie game developer or be part of a indie/AA game studio, don't make a MMO rpg, or a Stardew Valley-like/cozy farming Simulator, or a rouge-like (especially Vampire Survivors ones or bullet hell/heaven ones), or mascot horror, or open world, or metroid-vania, or walking Simulator, or souls-like as your first game project that you made.
Try making crappy knock-off version of a game like pac man, snake, angry birds, tetris, cut the rope, or better, make a fan game of Fnaf, Sonic, or Dark Deception.
Start something small, then build your way up to improve your creativity, 2d/3d modeling, coding, and development skills.
Agreed
Games like Dante's Inferno and Asura's Wrath were sadly undersold and became underrated cus of that very reason because most stupid people on the internet simply brushed them off as "God of war Ripoff/Clones" simply because one game had similar core combat system where as the other game had a protagonist that's effectively a god.
I really do hate the term "ripoffs/clones" as It genuinely sounds like an insult to the said game, where as at least x-likes were used as a term to make people understand the type of game they are gonna play and what it's inspired from.
@@Kryxx07i never thought about that before, now i think - kinda reminds about assassin's creed, but yeah, kinda far fetched
I've wondered for a long time what people in Japan called western RPGs and I was not disappointed 😭
You know what they call "Metroidvania" in Japan? Search Action.
Because they're *action* games where you *search* for stuff, and that stuff often lets you perform more *actions* and *search* for more things.
Its a perfectly self-descriptive genre name that we refuse to pick up. Nobody wants to change all their "Metroidvania" tags.
Should've been named "Search & Action" instead, like "Search & Rescue"
I guess this will eventually leads to “is Zelda a Search & Action”, especially those ALttP and OoT-style games. This is actually interesting considering the fact that games like Shantae & Pirate curse are having a huge Zelda Deja vu but are still classified as metroidvania just because they are 2d side-scrolling.
Dunno how I never knew this but that's a way better naming scheme. Gets across it will likely be action oriented and you will be doing exploring. And when people go "well that makes Dark Souls a Search Action game" you can tell them "yeah, and what of it?"
@@Ashtarte3D People call Dark souls a 3D Metroidvania so that's not a problem.
Because the name is so deeply embedded in our mind, even more than Doom-like/Quake-like.
It's like asking to stop saying Roguelike and saying procedural perma death game.
My favorite thing is when a game is called a puzzle game because that can mean so many different things
Unless you simplify it. Like, the witness is a walking puzzle game. Portal is a adventure science fiction puzzle. Cause calling something rogue doesn't make sense. NOT EVERYONE HAS EVER HEARD OF ROGUE! Or even castlevania or metroid for that matter. It needs to be simplified.
You can break those down into "ones where you clear blocks" and "ones where you push blocks" and "ones where you walk around reading" and so on
There are more genres like that though.
Like "action", "adventure" (at least how it's commonly used). All these are distinctions on how you'll engage with the gameplay on an "emotional" level. These aren't hard lines of course, both stealth games and real time strategy games can be considered some kind of of action/puzzle game for that matter.
But then something like "first person shooter" is a very technical description of how you engage with the game, it means it's a 3D game and there is a specific focus on moving the camera and aiming, it's most likely an action game but...Portal is ultimately a first person shooter as well, but falls much more into puzzle game than action game.
I do think the big problem with genres is that there isn't much of a distinction between whether they describe something technical or the way it wants to make you feel.
Jrpg are puzzle game.
Like yes it's strategy, but it's really a puzzle.
@@andrewgreeb916100% with you on that one
Yes i totally agree, game genres are quite trash! Glad to have this Lextorias-like video to tell me that!
It is because young people cant read.
@@Schummler666...I was gonna say something witty but nah. Cold af statement
quite trash-like indeed
@drmoscowdvdbox3609 if there any gamers out there that are becoming a indie game developer or be part of a indie/AA game studio, don't make a MMO rpg, or a Stardew Valley-like/cozy farming Simulator, or a rouge-like (especially Vampire Survivors ones or bullet hell/heaven ones), or mascot horror, or open world, or metroid-vania, or walking Simulator, or souls-like as your first game project that you made.
Try remaking games or make a knock-off version of a game like pac man, snake, angry birds, tetris, cut the rope, or better, make a fan game of Fnaf, Sonic, or Dark Deception.
Start something small, then build your way up to improve your creativity, 2d/3d modeling, coding, and development skills.
@@keeganmcfarland7507 I want you to know how much I _genuinely_ appreciate this reply. *Thank you.*
I've always wanted to categorize "Roguelike" and "Roguelites" as "Hard-Reset" or "Soft-Reset" games, because it's simple, to the point, and describes the most prominent element of the genre quite solidly, I believe.
Game genres should be sorted into mechanics, theme, and genre.
Exactly. I think Hard-Reset and Soft-Reset would be a great indicator of the resetting on player defeat.@@kid14346
I'm very new to roguelikes and that's also how I understood the difference. Roguelike you retain nothing between runs. Roguelite you keep something between runs and gradually get stronger.
@@Kryxx07 Honestly, I'm led to believe that it's the only thing carrying over from the actual ASCII game of Rogue.
@@Badguy292 Actually a solid suggestion, ngl.
Great video, when you were talking about the absurdity of the -like labels i was expecting you to mention how hollow knight is normally called a soulslike metroidvania
The dark souls of metroidvanias
I've always wondered whether Dark Souls could be considered a Metroidvania.
@@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewic563Dark Souls 1 can be and often is. Dark Souls 3 is more debatable
It's so true. What is always a nightmare to find is good adventure 3D platformers. Dear god, you have to search and get lucky to find all the amazing hidden games.
Yeah, it seems like a nightmare the way the term makes it confusing, I don't if are talking about a collect a ton or a mission based game
@@drikeatmey yeah there are a lot that do both aspects and are a really good time. Not sure why I can't find any of them if I search their genres. I find most of them by searching through adventure games from the early 2000s on all the consoles and PC at the time.
They’re kinda short, but if you haven’t yet you should check out the Toree games. I really enjoyed them. Im not sure if they’re available outside the switch eshop, though.
Oh, you mean Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Uncharted types of games?
Not sure about the adventure part, but a game called Glyph is one of my favorite 3d platformers ever if you were looking for a cool game.
The roguelike/roguelite problem is frustrating, because it's a genuinely useful distinction between, but since not everone knows (or agrees on) the difference, the distinction becomes meaningless and anyone who cares has to just figure it out.
Not to mention games that land somewhere in between by giving you new *unlocks* that aren't necessarily *upgrades.* They aren't roguelikes; it's not a fresh start, but they also aren't in the spirit of roguelites, because there's no "power up until you beat it" system.
Roguelikes have perma-death and no meta progression
So is pac-man a roguelike because it starts from the beginning each time you play it?
@@cleverman383 No because it's not a turn-based dungeon crawler with procedural generation
lots of games have some roguelite features despite not being very roguelike
@@MetallicMutalisk it's also not a true rogue-like unless it has ASCII graphics
1:44 I mean, even 'third person shooter' can be rather open if taken only as a technical description. Asteroids is technically a third person shooter.
But TPS on modern times is mostly gonna be refering to shooters with the over-the-shoulder camera in it, like the OG RE4 that made the genre a popular thing. If it were specific, I bet it would be called as "Over-the-shoulder shooter" or "OTSS"
Imagine if we lived in a world in which VNs, Rogue and Walking Sims were all called Cave-likes.
I’m homeless an living outta my car. Your videos have really help me pass the time by an make things easier on hard days. Thank you.
I’m glad my videos are helping in some way. I hope things get better for you!
@@Lextorias thanks man I really do appreciate it an seeing you comment back made this day a lot better. Just wanted to say thanks for all the work you do.
@@seth21389I hope things work out for you
You have the same name as my brother, he’s also homeless and lives in his car
@@hikkisan9263 that’s crazy haha, hope your brother gets in a better situation and is doing okay
I think the weirdest thing in this space is how commonly we categorize by gameplay, independently from theming or gameplay aesthetics (not visuals, but the motivations and emotions that games are trying to invoke/fulfill). That's so drastically different from other mediums, like music or film.
I agree, but i would like to raise a point that due to how these categories began it is hard to not think of a specific theme or emotions a game is going for. To better explain what i mean, and i might be talking out of my ass:
If someone tells me "I have found this new First Person Shooter" there is a distinct image that comes up, usually as an angry dude with gun in a small arena, an open world or a short level blowing heads off other people or some monsters.
If someone tells me "I have found this new Open World Life / Farming Sim" my first instinct is a serene, calm farmscape where the loudest sound is the start of the tractors engine or a cow vocalizing its presence.
And then you look and in both cases its Slime Rancher, it fits both boxes. In the end i tend to look at the categories more like tags, where ideally you only need 3-6 to define a game entirely.
More towards the theme of this video however, i would be interested how, and more so IF, we could take something like a phylogenetic tree or the "tree of life" and apply it to game genres, heck maybe someone already did it.
I saw extra credit trying to categorize game genres based on esthetics
Never do it again!
The difference I've always heard between rouge-like and rouge-lite was that rouge-likes were true resets every time, and rouge-lites have a meta progression system outside of the main game loops, meaning you might just actually beat them eventually
wait, there's a genre for the famous sonic the hedgehog character rouge?
Bro spelled it wrong every single time. At least it’s consistent
He must've not heard of that, 'cause I do believe that those are the commonly accepted definitions.
@@jideongab-le6760 yeah, they are commonly accepted
thats how i have always understood it but theres also a whole spectrum between true resets and keeping nearlly all progress after death. does dark souls count as a roguelite?
though one of the keys i have understood is that the majority of upgrades/items like 90 percent reset everytime.
If you pointed a gun at my head and asked me if Hades is a Rougelite or Roguelike, I'd have to do mental calculus just to come up with an answer and I'd still second guess myself.
The distinction is the perma-death
That's actually a pretty easy case where it's a RogueLITE as it has permanent progression between runs.
I feel the same way toward book genres. As someone who has been trying to self publish online, trying to describe my story can be difficult because of not following some genre conventions and realizing some genre descriptors are just Nothing in the grand scheme of things. Or realizing scifi and fantasy are basically the same, just with different coats of paint. Speaking of books can you believe a book I picked up called Dragondrum from the 80s has an elf on the cover but is considered scifi on the spine? It's hilarious but also drives me nuts. Genre is fake and I think we should embrace that more.
I know some people might consider genre fans to be snobs and a lot of popular writers in genre fiction consider themselves to be outsiders within their genre, but I think what genre fans (in literature) value is genre literacy, not genre adherence. You can think of genre writing (or just art in general) as a very long, very slow conversation between a bunch of people responding back and forth to each other which is why a lot of genre fans get annoyed when a person shows up with a megaphone, ignores what others were saying, and loudly proclaims an idea that has already been thoroughly discussed and attracts even more new people who also won't bother with the history of the conversation.
The point being, in creator cultures like art, music, and literature, you should first learn the rules because once you learn them you can figure out how to expand upon them or even break them (also true of game design). However, gaming isn't so much a creator culture as much as it's a consumer culture; which is why gamers value genre pedanticism over genre literacy (because literacy is of value to no one but oneself, but being a pedant allows one consumer to rate themselves above other consumers).
Well yeah, sci-fi and fantasy are identical concepts with different traits. The former is spaceships and robots while the latter is wizards and dragons. The science in sci-fi is nothing short of magic. Not only that, but their traits can be easily mixed and rebranded: mages in space are psychics and modern/futuristic technology in fantasy is ancient, lost or just magic-based tech.
Fantasy and sci fi's differenceis how detached they are from reality,sci fi existed closed to reality,and fantasy existed farther from reality@@adisca2k
this honestly applies to the whole of human language
try to define a char without including benches or horses, or really anything we won't describe as a chair
And that's not even getting into how sci-fi is 2 different genres that get thrown together even though they're almost total opposites, "hard" sci-fi that prioritizes the science to make a point and tends to be more theme and idea driven and closer to conventional literary fiction stylistically, and "soft" sci-fi that prioritizes the characters, story, and world and is basically fantasy but the magic is science, or how many books are both sci-fi and fantasy at the same time. Genre is meaningless and at the point where it's meaningful, it's so specific and pedantic it's too much effort to be worth it.
Two most important genres: games you like and games you do not.
games I like are the best
@@blartversenwaldiiiyeah, but oooooh, games that I do not like are terrible, why does that genre even exist?
The difference between rogue-like and rogue-lite genuinely pisses me off so much. Earlier this year i was actually losing my mind trying to understand the difference
Isnt rogue-lite just a progression system and a rogue like is one with none ?
@@themasterofw4295 yes as far as i know that is the only difference. Do you take something with you out of your runs? Rogue-lite. Otherwise, Rogue-like. THEN WHAT IS RISK OF RAIN??
From what I've gathered from rogue fans is that they try to make the rogue-like genre very narrowly defined while rogue-lite doesn't do that.
According to rogue-lite fans, any game with permadeath and between run progression gets the descriptor. While rogue-like fans like to keep the definition incredibly narrow for some reason.
A rougelite is a rougelike but with some kind of permanent upgrades
Caves of Qud is a good example of a modern rouge-like
I kinda love how “messy” genres are. Because the more you look into it the more it provides a history into gaming as a whole. Just like every Wikipedia page defaults to philosophy when you go down the rabbit hole, every game basically derives roots from DnD/Tolkien. I think that’s cool.
I got two genres I love
Sandboxes, which are rarely boxes full of sand
And the MMO, which has become so watered down that even a dozen people means massive.
One that I find amusing in its development is the HOPA, Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure. Now you take a basic concept, a game where you click on the screen to find hidden objects. Basically that stuff in magazines you’d waste time with in the doctor’s waiting room as a kid, only it’s a video game. But at some point somebody decided there needed to be a narrative to tie this particular brand of puzzle sets together. Fair enough. Then someone else thought that it might be kind of boring to just have the one kind of puzzle, so in between they might stick some other kind to change up the pace a bit. Then came the breakthrough moment, when someone decided to further tie things together by having the player move around a map to where the puzzles were. Maybe add in some characters to talk to and items to collect from the hidden object puzzles to use on the screen to progress.
So yeah, Hidden Object games managed to reinvent the point-and-click adventure, only now they’re cheap, simple, casual games churned out by the dozens for an entirely different demographic than “the gamers”.
Reminds me of old Nancy Drew games
I would love to hear you rant about one of my favorite genres; souls-lite castleroids. Not enough people talk about what a great genre it truly is.
U don't see me complaining about people not praising the best genre to ever exist, which is CoD-like games such as Immortals of Aveum!
Fantastic video! Especially the roguelite-like section!
Arguments over language are stunning the best. Important to have, fun to have, exhausting to have, and the language will change again as it is constantly evolving.
Endless learning and entertainment in the endless cycle of trying and failing to find the best way to communicate to each other.
Congrats on almost 100k homie. You just made my sick day a little better
We have a few funny examples of this in tabletop gaming, such as the Deck Builder genre which _does not_ include games like Magic, Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh despite the fact you literally build decks in those games. Then there's Living Card Games (have fun guessing that one) as well as the terms Euro Game and Ameritrash, which are so nebulous that it's difficult to even articulate what they mean without just pointing at a bunch of games and saying, "they're like THAT."
The reason mtg, Pokemon, and yugioh aren't deck building games is because their gameplay isn't deck building. You don't build a deck through the course of match. Hell, you dont even need to build a deck at all, you can just buy one. They are TCGs not deck-builders. Dominion is a deck-builder. Slay the spire is a deck-builder
@Leader Have to disagree - games where you build a deck and then 'press play' so-to-speak are still deck-building, and that's possible in MtG and the suchlike. Where they differ is that by being a TCG, most of the 'gameplay' is -gambling- buying randomised card packs and the deck you end up playing with will be hugely determined by financial circumstances and which cards you happened to get (rather than being a purely strategic decision with both players on equal footing with the same number of options with the exact same randomness, if any). Since performance is so dependent on what cards you _own_ rather than which of the cards included with the game you _choose,_ it's not useful to classify TCGs as deck building in that sense.
@ccaagg you can disagree all you want, but you're wrong. A deck-builders gameplay is the deck building, if you're not building a deck as part of the gameplay, then it can't be a deck-builder.
TCGs don't have you build a deck as part of the gameplay. You build/buy a deck, and then play the game. By your own logic, every game is pc building simulator since you build the pc before you play any game. Is Uno a deck-builder then since you build a deck before you play? Course not.
It might be hard for you to grasp, but building the deck has to be the core gameplay in order for it to be a deck-builder, otherwise you're making the definition way too broad. Is every game with permadeath a roguelike? No, because that's too broad. Is every game without turns a real-time strategy? No, because that's too broad
@Leader There are deck builders where you build a deck _at the start._ You're being deliberately obtuse here by trying to claim that building a PC (!?) is somehow deck-building based on what I said. You're not going to be getting a serious response acting like that. Dialling back the condescension and hostility will serve you well in the future.
@ccaagg ah so you didn't acknowledge anything I said, mr always right.
A deck-builder by definition is a game about building a deck throughout the course of the game . If you build a deck, and then play the game, you are not building a deck throughout the course of the game.
Look at tcgs again. You build a deck, and then you play a match without ever changing the deck, not once, throughout the course of the match. There is no deck-builder there.
Look at dominion or slay the spire. As you progress the through the game, you are adding and removing cards from your deck. That is a deck-builder.
So kindly turn your ego off. And I didn't say pc building is a deck-builder, I said by your logic of anything with building a deck is a deck-builder, then every game is a pc-builder since you build a pc (or a deck in your case) before you play
People have been calling rogue likes that are more similar to Rouge than not, traditional roguelikes in lieu of the genre being overrun with games that are more like Binding of Isaac than Rogue. The distinction DOES matter for setting expectations when going into a new game because a full game reset and a lack of carryover progression are dealbreakers for a lot of people. Infra Arcana and Isaac are both horror roguelikes but, they play so dissimilarly that someone looking for games that play more like one would be frustrated by or disappointed in the other.
Yeah, the major problem with games is they cannot fall into prior genre conventions. Whereas every other medium has a narrative thrust, eg romance, tragedy, etc, games have to be described by their function a lot more. This then compounds where each game tries to be unique and branch out a bit, plus the medium as a whole is young but occurring during an age of far faster communication.
Absolutely love this, go off King! I remember the first time I heard "MMORPGFPS" unironically and that was definitely around the time where I stopped paying attention to genres types.
Is that supposed to refer to a game like Planetside?
@@ArjunTheRageGuy Destiny I think was the game I heard it for, but Planetside also fits that!
The "genre" that I hate the most is horror, because pretty much every other genre describes gameplay. Horror describes the theme or setting and absolutely zero of the gameplay.
It also puts together games that startle you with jumpscares along with games that talk about philosophy and give you an existential crisis
I think 'horror' as a primary genera in gaming is there to prevent returns and complaints more than anything else. It is a valuable descriptor (we do use 'sci-fi' and 'fantasy' as descriptors for other games), but if the focus of horror wasn't causing a physical and pyschological response that some people deeply dislike, we probably wouldn't see it as a main genera.
Hm… On the one hand, this is a lot more similar to how genre in other media works. On the other hand, the thing I care most about in a game *is* the gameplay-if an FPS and a platformer share a setting, it really doesn’t make them that similar
I used to be more annoyed by the weirdness of games' genres back when I assumed that a game had to be put in just one box, but when I realized that you can simply treat genres like tags and put as many as you want in any given game I started to like them. Nowadays my take is that if when you're describing a game's genre it doesn't sound like incomprehensible gibberish you're doing it wrong.
In that sense my favorite example of a genre is action-adventure, because while it's so vague that you use it to describe radically different games it's still useful in the sense that you can immediately get a rough idea of what type of game you're talking about. It's similar to how metroidvania works with a "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" kinda logic, it's not meant to be understandable by outsiders nor it tries to be so, understanding comes from experience, like how you can't know what jazz is until you listened to some jazz.
It's been so awesome seeing this guy's channel grow. It's inspiring. No matter how many videogame videos there are on RUclips, I never get tired of hearing different perspectives as long as they're well thought out. His videos are well thought out. Keep it up!
The Action-Adventure genre it's the funniest to me, because it's so widespread and it basically means an Adventure game but with fights, or some kind of real time interaction.
Or, you know, a Zelda-like.
Or any type of game inspired by Ocarina of Time/Tomb Raider, a Zeldatomb lol
10:10 Actually, a bit of history from a long-time Castlevania fan:
The terms "Classic"vania and "Metroid"vania/Castleroid were terms created specifically within the Castlevania fanbase to describe the difference in gameplay between pre- and post-Symphony of the Night Castlevania games (because people didn't like the change in gameplay, fan elitism, yada yada, typical gaming fandom drama). It wasn't until around the mid-00s or so when some gaming magazines started using the phrase Metroidvania to describe Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow that it started picking up steam and turned into a genre of its own.
Nowadays, with Metroidvania being used to describe games that aren't Castlevania at all, most of us describe those kinds of games as "IGA"vanias, after Koji Igarashi.
(Also, Castleroid was just an alternate name for Metroidvanias, though some people will try to tell you that there's a difference. And you're right, it's an awful name and I'm glad that it never gained traction)
I've always hated the massive amounts of genres that keep getting created for so many different entertainment media.
Like the incredibly vast amount of rock/metal subgenres. Like how many "core" genres there are right now.
I think it's completely ridiculous with music.
I also feel that it has become so damn specific that quite often a specific subgenre is basically an excuse for a lack of versatility.
I mean, I like electronic dance music. But the absolute majority of artists there seem to work in a specfic subgenre which only allow very specific rhythms and sounds. The whole appeal to me is that you can basically create any kind of weird sound and that it can define an interesting rhythmic pulse.
They're there to make it easier to find things you like .
I like shmups but hate bullet hells
It also prevents bad reviews just based on people getting miss sold a genre
It also makes it quicker to look things up , on the playstation store they just categorise things as adventure games it makes it difficult to find a side scrolling beat em up.
It gets even worse when you're looking for a visual novel and there is no tag and there is no sub tag for kinetic novels as well
Ok but to find similar bands, metal subgenres are needed at this point given how incredibly varied the whole genre has become. Tool, Opeth and Dream Theater are among the clearest examples of progressive metal yet sound nothing like each other because of the rest of the (sub)genres they are related to. So, rather than doing away with genre tags, we might need even more unless we want very intricate, technical details about each band (and albums and songs...). Heck, we have the Big Four but people that listen to only one or two among them are ubiquitous.
I actually think it makes much more sense with music
There isn't something called iron maiden-like
@@theuzi8516 I think the bands you mention are more of an example that prove the problem.
These might be bands that cover a larger variety of music than most specific subgenres.
I mentioned before in this thread that I feel electronic dance music is probably the worst offender. There are literally entire groups of music such as house, trance, hardstyle, moombahton that are considered entirely different genres yet all have constant prominent 4 to the floor kickdrums as a driving pulse. They all tend exist within a limited range of BPM and certain sounds. Most unhinged example I've seen is that I saw people argue that progressive house, which has, y'know, progressive in the name, has to be within 125 to 132 BPM and is also defined by certain specific synth sound. It's a problem when fundamental choices that shape a piece of music aren't even a choice anymore within a genre.
It's not like an album by the Prodigy or Noisia feels like an incoherent mess because it has a pretty large variety in tempo, rhythms and sound design.
Congratulations on 100k, Lex. You've really earned it.
Thanks for the upload. I absolutely love your videos and the way you break down topics. Early congrats on the 100k dude. 🎉
I personally don't think such genres titles,terms and labels bothers me too much most probably because of the fact that they were simply meant for people to understand the game they gonna play in a more positive light and i like that.
Like especially Rougelike/lites,Metriodvania and Soulslike cus not only they sounds cool, i also instantly understand what they means can even tell their differences and even recognize the original ideas added into the said games to make them unique and stand out amongst their inspirations and I am sure i am not the only one.
Pretty sure Iron Pineapple also made a video about Soulslike in detail too.
While yes in the end,such labels and terms may sound stupid IF you think too much about them and take them way too literal and serious.
But at least most people nowadays are conditioned enough to fully aware of the the game they gonna try and heck if anything it'll only make them research more about the said game and even come up with their own self made genre/term to make it more understanding for them and i like hearing people's made up terms for their favorite games.It's kinda wholesome in a way really
What i do HATE is dumb people just calling an X video game a Y Ripoff or Z Clone because that genuinely sound like an negative Insult to not only to the Games but to some of the passionate devs themselves who obviously took inspiration from the game they like or simply wanted to market out off.Games like Dante's Inferno and Asura's Wrath were sadly undersold and became underrated cus of that very reason because most stupid people on the internet simply brushed them off as "God of war Ripoff/Clones" simply because one game had similar core combat system where as the other game had a protagonist that's effectively a god.
I actually had a discussion with a friend with whom I'm developing a metroidvania over if we should call it metroidvania in the website, he wanted to call it action adventure platformer because Hollow Knight and a few other games that are metroidvanias called themselves that on their websites. I insisted on keeping metroidvania because i worked a lot on its level design based on what people online said they considered important for the metroidvania genre. then our marketing person said it should be called metroidvania cause that catchy word would help with the SEO (i think thats the term). then again, our game doesnt have RPG mechanics, which my other friend who is also working on the game considers important for the genre. so in the end I realized i dont care anymore call it whatever helps it sell lol
Yeah SEO is the main reason why people use genre tags even if their game vaguely matches the genre. There's more games closer to metroid being called metroidvania than there are castlevania games being called metroidvania. Some people even say "this game is like metroid" ie metroidlike, but they tagged it metroidvania. Or some roguelites on steam are tagged roguelike. It's a mess
“action adventure” is basically meaningless as a genre tag. something that can encompass Hollow Knight, Uncharted, Outer Wilds, GTAV, and BotW is far too broad. Most games feature an adventure, and action gameplay (vs turn-based) dominates the market. Action Adventure Platformer may accurately describe a Metroidvania, but you’re missing anything to describe the exploration-focused gameplay, permanent upgrades, and areas and secrets gated behind those upgrades, all key genre features that metroidvania implies.
Creating a genre box for specific kinds of games that have a series of genres that creates boxes of genres for the games is something I'd like to call "Boxxing."
Congratulations on 100k subs I love your videos. Hope to watch more of them for years to come
Dear Esther! I haven't thought of that game in like two years I need to return to that and feel melancholy on some remote Scottish island. Also Lex I'm always stoked as hell when I get a notification of a new video of yours. 99.9k viewers dude, CONGRATS!
I have taken to calling "soulslikes" by the term Precision Action. My reasoning is because I feel the word "precision" describes how the combat of the games are very much about rhythmic reaction to set boss patterns, the accurate management of resources like stamina, as well as the learn-by-failure and repetition we see in the precision platformer genre.
Does it solve the problem of genres not being good names for things? No. But is it a different term that captures one of the integral parts of most games in the genre? Yes.
I would be honored if you'd also like to start calling soulslikes Precision Action and not explaining it at all like i do in my videos.
Always a pleasure to see good content poping up in my feed, thank you, you make my days better when you post lex
"Metroidvania" is only used in the west. In Japan, those games are referred to as a word that is best translated into English as the portmanteau "Exploraction" (Exploration+Action), as the main mechanical loop in these games is *exploring* a world, finding key items that increase your traversal or *actions* which allow you to access new parts of the world that you couldn't before, lather, rinse, repeat. I quite like "exploraction," rolls off the tongue far better than "MetroidVania." Explore the world to gain new actions to further explore the world. Exploraction. The Japanese had it correct from the start.
I will call every game I play Action/Adventure. I don't care if it's Skyrim or Tetris or a visual novel, I will just say it's action/adventure. Makes life a lot easier
Game genres are most often based around the mechanic that is the main focus of a game within the genre, which makes these categories make a lot more sense. Examples:
Platformer: Jumping (or "platforming" if you will) is the main mechanic.
Shooter: Shooting enemies with ranged weapons is the main mechanic.
RPG: Focuses on character based story, with the main mechanic being developing the skills and stats of the playing character(s), usually done through a level-up system.
Racing: Main mechanic is, well, racing. Usually with a vehicle.
Strategy: Focus is on managing resources and developing tactics
Adventure: Based around world exploration and mystery, which in turn makes puzzle-solving a common element, the puzzles being mysteries to solve
etc.
Then you have subgenres, which are often more styles really. Think the difference of rap music as a genre and trap as a style:
Metroidvania: Platformer that heavily features nonlinear environments with weapons to be found that also unlocks new sections. Could maybe be called an "Adventure platformer"?
FPS: Shooter with a first-person perspective.
JRPG: Heavily feature conventions from a certain classic style of RPG developed mainly by japanese studios.
Arcade Racing: Racing game with mechanics along the lines of what was developed for arcade games.
RTS: Real time strategy game; ie. not turn-based.
Action adventure: Adventure game featuring combat
A jrpg is just an rpg where you play as a fully fleshed out character while a western rpg you are the one determining who your character is. In Chrono trigger you play as crono, so it’s a jrpg, and in Skyrim you play as a character you develop over time, so a western rpg. Jrpgs we’re born from anime, manga and literature while western rpgs were born from tabletop games like dungeons and dragons.
what is the witcher
@@Lextorias and now we’re back to the point of the video, you got me there lmao
Towards the end of the video I was thinking that you could do a video about metal genres and what an epic rant that would be, before you mentioned it yourself.
Great video!
Found your channel recently and all of your videos are top notch. Well done.
yay this is the first time I've shown up to a Lex drop the moment he uploads
"...the abomination that is MetroidVania."
Hilarious line.
Haha great vid! There’s so many of these categories, it’s head-spinning. You didn’t even touch on things like “EarthBound” inspired or “Farming Sim” or “Sandbox” but at this point we get the gist.
About to hit 100k. Congrats! Love your content!
Regarding games inspiring each other, when I played Sekiro for the very first time I could even feel the legacy that it draws or borrows from Zelda games.
The funny thing was, I had never played a single Zelda game, only heard people talk about them and seen how its community conveyed its spirit and interprets its mechanics, and similarly with all the extant official- and fanart, not to mention it's music I had soaked up growing up.
So I had no concrete reference point from gaming, but the "idea of a Zelda game" was so strong from every branch of media _other than the game itself_, that I recognized "the idea of a Zelda game" in Sekiro.
Then I played BotW and thought to myself "yeah, it still tracks!" 😉
(despite BotW being allegedly very different from "Classic Zelda")
Zelda games were called adventure games back in the 80s and 90s. The Zelda clones were also called adventures, as were the other similar games.
As for BotW, it IS most definitely an adventure game, but it lacks the genuine exploration that was needed to progress in every Zelda game before it (as well as most adventure genre games). Getting lost, backtracking, and figuring out how to get beyond the big rock blocking your path were all parts of adventure games. Getting stuck was a part of adventure games. You'll remember from the video where Leo talks about Metroidvanias being more like Zelda games.
BotW and its completely free form gameplay lacked any of the elements that made Zelda and those adventure games so fun to explore for players who expected that. There's nothing wrong with how BotW does it, but that isn't the standard that Zelda games, and other adventure games, created over the decades.
Puzzles have been an aspect of adventure games and Zelda games in some form since the beginning, and BotW failed there as well, at least as far as longtime Zelda fans were concerned. The puzzles were far too easy, and far too lacking in variety when compared to previous Zelda games and adventure games as a whole.
That's why some people consider BotW to not be a Zelda game, just in case you wanted a quick recap.
Really good video! I think the souls-like genre came out of a frustration of people calling ever hard game "the dark souls of". Though that's just a guess.
Release a Trailer of ANY 3rd Person action game with close Combat fighting style and you see a swarm of parrots screaming "soulslike" all over the Internet.
Ask 100 people to define what soulslike means and you get 100 different answers.
Also since everyone trys to compare the terms here to what is being used in japan. In japan they call all those kind of games "shinige" for shine (death) and ge short for game. So a games where the emphasis is losing a lot and repeating the game.
The problem with genres is (and that's not only in gaming) that every genre eventually comes to the point where so many people innovated, merged and twisted the genre and it's meaning that the newest releases of said genre borrow so many elements from others genre that you can't really tell them apart any more. Like when after Minecraft, every game suddenly had some form of crafting mechanic or after Dubstep had huge commercial success, a lot of artists implemented its sounds and "Drops" in other music genres.
That's why I use genre terms for describing elements of a piece of media rather than the media itself. I don't say that Dead Cells is a rogue like, only that it has roguelike elements amongst many other elements like exploration and 2D action. Of course that makes explaining a game in detail much more time-consuming, but just calling it a rogue like could mean anything from Darkest Dungeon to playing a Fire Emblem randomiser, which is just ineffective and defeats the purpose of using genre terms at all.
I think the main issue here is that we use systems that work under the impression that you can create an ideal tag and while people may voice a criticism that can not change how, for example steam, actually makes you to search for stuff etc aka when I looked for similar content to a specific title called battle brothers, I found that there were basically no other games like it and but people were correctly arguing that it’s a bit like Mount&Blade.
Basically, I think giving users more tools to categorise games ( maybe upvoting or downvoting tags or creating multi tags ) could go a long way.
Dude... this video is gold! I want to post that gif of the office of the guy just slamming the table and saying "THANK YOU!"
Genre names get stupid if you try thinking about how they connect to its origin, so it’s just easier to call genres by what they’re used to describe in the present. No modern games are “like rogue” but I think everyone understands that the label rogue-like is used to describe games where you start as a basic character, navigate randomised levels and attain randomised upgrades, and when you die you start from scratch. The pedantry of whether they should be called like or lite doesn’t matter unless you want to argue about it with people on the internet. Same with Metroidvania or any other dumbly named genre until everyone has decided on a better name
Most the times genres are primarily used by the game companies as a marketing tool! Like now Netflix promote their animated show as Netflix original Anime or when Cyberpunk 2077 was known as RPG then it became a looter shooter! 😂
But I do believe some basic genres shouldn't be omitted cause, like U said it will lessen the over explanation of what the game is about!
Congrats on 100k btw you deserve it
glad your back hope you feel better
I think roguelikes should just be renamed to "permadeath" games, because that's the defining feature of the genre (there isn't really a better descripter of "if you die, you go back to start" as permadeath, so that's what I think works). It also means people will stop using the same word to describe platformers, top down shooters and 3rd person shooters under the same name (e.g. spelunky is a permadeath platformer, risk of rain 2 is a permadeath 3rd person shooter with chest loot and hoards of enemies)
Today I learned that roguelites are my favourite genre. What I like about them is the gameplay loop, where you either discover or unlock new elements over time.
Yes, everyone calls the genre "roguelike", but that is not important as long as I know what they mean.
Necroposting but if the game involves only _discovering_ new elements instead of unlocking them, that's a roguelike. The best way to explain the distinction is that if the metaprogression happens in your brain, it's a roguelike, and if it happens in the code, it's a roguelite.
This is the first video of yours I've had in my recommended for a while, I hope the algorithm blesses you
The moment I realized this video can easily an allegory for modern social constructs and our societal breakdown in communication over definitions of words and who owns them and.... mind blown
When you talk about politics, you eventually realise that definitions on one hand don’t matter at all and on the other hand matter so much that you basically need to define your position ever single time you introduce a terms.
Fun fact: Most japanese don't want their RPGs called JRPGs, they are just RPGs to them
Personally I like camera based genres with main gimmick with sub gameplay ending, third person ability shooter, third person stamina slasher, third person style slasher, top down ability slasher
Great work for the topic, I talk all the time that everything is big mess
content so good i had to go out of my way to remember your channel name to eat food to a video
i love the souls like genre (i don't, but it's funny), it's basically such a niche genre where some people think star wars fallen order isn't a soulslike.
I categorize roguelike to be a game you got to beat in one go with no type of carry over stat buff or anything your personnel has that stays with you on consecutive runs. Roguelite allows you to keep certain things. Like Hades let's you boost stats and honestly I believe that's really it. Returnal kinda does the same as in your moveset expands and makes the journey easier for subsequent runs. The level of the guns mastery stick too. As for roguelike, I think risk of rain 2 counts as in every fresh run should be the same as when you start, other than your special currency, and there are new items in the randomizer. Some of these items do change the game dramatically, so I do understand if it doesn't fit roguelike and goes into roguelite, but for the sake of society I make this distinguishment. As in risk of rain will piss you off if you don't like feeling like you aren't progressing at all, and Hades and returnal will just test you how long it will take to get to the end and what upgrades it will take.
yeah
As someone who played A LOT of Adventure games back in the day, one of the defining things about them is that combat or action isn't a major part of them. If it is, then it's mostly done in specific segments (The insult swordfights in Monkey Island, or the Biker fights in Full Throttle).
Which is where I think the term "Action Adventure" comes in.
Heck you also have Quest for Glory, which looks like an Adventure game, but is an RPG. Because it has combat (that can occure almost anywhere) as well as a leveling system.
To be fair, dark souls is a JRPG but is typically just called an RPG because when people think JRPG, they typically think of an Japanese RPG in an anime artstyle
I had a discussion with my friend the other day about how i dont like to call modern pokemon games JRPGs because i think gen 1 and 2 fit the description, and thats because original R/B/Y and G/S/C use classic JRPG tropes alot in their games, modern pokemon feels like it shifted away from those classic JRPG tropes to me
It's just an action game.
Thank you soooo much for this. About a month or two ago I had a huge discussion with a bunch of people because I dared to call a game to be an RPG, because EVERYTHING is an RPG for me where I specifically are supposed to play a role and follow a strong narrative. Gearing, costumization, Level and stuff like that are "features of an RPG" to me, but not necessary to classify as such. RPG is therefor for me a very broad term and doesn't really say that much about a game. It's a very rough description. They mentioned that said game is not a RPG because you can't customize your character or create your character yourself. Way to go. JRPGs are no RPGs anymore, even though it's supposed to be a subgenre of it.
It's insanely stupid in my opinion to sit on an imaginary throne of "The Definiton of the word needs to be uphold". Words change, meanings change. It also always bugged me out to know that there are roguelikes and roguelites. I had to lear the difference and everyone was actually using it wrong. Fine. But If I use RPG in the wrong way, everyone loses their mind? What is going on? :D
Personally I just want to go full monkey brain with video games. I play. I like. I talk about it. If I get discouraged by other people to talk about the game I like in the way I do, I won't change the way I talk about it, I just won't talk about it, because it's just a hassle to accommodate to everyones perceived definitions, even though everyone knows what I mean by it. It feels pretty stupid. So yeah. Thanks again for this video. Glad I am not alone with this frustration. Games can be many things. A genre is kind of a feeling what we got from the game, not a definition what the game acutally IS.
I always make the distinction at do I make choices in the narrative if not its not an RPG. Since that is what was the differentiation between tabletop RPGs and their mother genre Miniature wargaming. The stat and equipment thing are a holdover from that time and there are RPGs without or very little stats. And JRPGs are just called that because for some reason stats and items are the thing people think about when their hear RPG in a video game.
if a game becomes too popular, it turns into a genre
Not really or we would have pokemonlike instead of turn based RPG or Mariolike instead of jump and run.
or if a game becomes popular, a genre for games like the popular one would exist
FPS games were originally called "DOOM clones"
You are so close to 100k!
common lexorias w vid (for real tho, ive been watching since "the new matrix was bad on purpose" and its crazy that after just over a year you are nearly at 100k subs. keep up the good work bro!!)
Metroveiya is not an abomination but a master piece. It was able to give you a very good description in one word
Ikr
I so Agree with this video video game genres are confusing but us Gamers we are used to it we already know what someone is talking about when mentioning elements of a Certain game but this is more confusing for a non Gamer
Nice one! Love that video! Too are thinking of genres.
Yoo congrats on 100k
The difference between rogue-likes and rogue-lites is not what you said at all. A rogue-lite has progression between runs while rogue-likes don't.
It is kinda silly since without progression these games struggle to justify their price and a longer game time. It might've come from elitism from rogue fans, but it's like a souls fan saying a game can't be a souls-like unless it's painfully hard so it's still kinda ridiculous.
that's a newer definition that came after the berlin interpretation, and is still controversial among roguelike fans
@@LextoriasTrue, but it's worth noting that the Berlin interpretation did not define rogue-lites and was essentially coined entirely separately. It more so creates a bunch of games with rogue features that don't count as either.
I usually love your videos but “genres are bad because language and categories are flexible and sometimes some people mis-categorize things” is an awful take. In a big way, genres are just analogies, and no analogy is perfect. But they get you in the door with an idea of what we’re talking about, and that is useful across every medium.
I think you completely misunderstood the take then, considering the second half of your comment is literally what I said
@@Lextorias But that's my point - in the first half you're mad that people use words to categorize stuff because sometimes things change or don't always fit perfectly in a box, but the second half is a complete contradiction with the admission that language and genres are flexible and change over time. The rant/essay feels like one big contradiction.
@@InfiniteHench I’m not mad at the concept of categories as a whole. I’m mad at the people who don’t let them change, like you say. That seemed pretty obvious to me
You are doing a great job man!
I find your conclusion really interesting, especially because, at it's core, it's almost the opposite of how I've always seen genres (outside of the fact that it isn't really important).
Metroidvania, Roguelike, and Soulslike are weird because they don't really specify what about the inspiration game matters, that's fair. We'd be better off if other names were decided upon instead. But the fact that people can argue about what does or doesn't count as a Roguelike means the genre is trying to say something relevant about the game being played.
I absolutely hate Adventure game as a genre or description. It's tells you absolutely nothing. A game with compelling story and puzzle elements? Any game of any genre can have a compelling story, so you basically just described a puzzle to me with extra steps, yet despite that, it doesn't feel like it fits half the games described as an Adventure game anyway. It's the one genre that, in my mind, is designed to tell you what a game ISN'T rather than what it is. An Adventure game isn't an action game. . .and that's the only thing anybody can agree on. And then every single AAA title in existence comes out and is called an "Action Adventure game", which somehow means even less, because that goes against the one rule about Adventure games!
All of these words are made up, but that's exactly WHY the arbitrary rules matter in my opinion. Because if they don't exist, you aren't saying anything of any value when using them to describe a game, which makes them utterly useless as a genre. Not every game needs to fit every box neatly, but if the boxes aren't neat, I might as well just keep my games in a pile on the floor, hidden away in my closet.
Another banger!!
You're the best man, keep going!!
You do really good conclusions and summarize the point and inspire thought on the topic whichever video you make!
Almost 100k, man! Congratz, definitely deserved. Are you planning on doing something to celebrate? Maybe an unscripted video, Q&A or something?
I have a big 100k special planned. Don’t you worry!
@@Lextorias Nice! Love any content that you put out
Congrats on 100k definitely deserved.
I personally don't think people much smarter than you have said everything there is to say. I would LOVE to hear more about this!
I did an rpg retrospective series and I can actually provide some insight into the name, role playing game as a genre definition was created to differentiate games like dungeons and dragons from the war games (think chess, stratego, or risk) that inspired them, mainly since you play as a single unit or role rather than an entire army, I will agree that even with this context the main issue is the original term is based more so on comparison to its predecessor than any intrinsic qualities specific to the genre.
I do genre retrospectives but even I will admit that genres are nebulous, it’s supposed to be a shorthand for these games are similar, not a strict set of rules. Horror works for example because it’s simply defined as a game designed to scare you. Defining a game by the player’s interaction rather than the mechanics behind it is the best way to categorize, like saying a game is a party game tells me immediately what it’s designed for, and it’s intended context, I know what to expect as a baseline and then can fill in the rest of the context through trailers or text on the store page.
Honestly I just call JRPGs Dragon Quest 2 clone, Dragon Quest 3 clone, and Dragon Quest 4 clone and you pretty much have described 95% of JRPGs. I find it funny that the game that started the Western RPG genre: Wizardry pretty much only releases in Japan after 2001.
Me, a tower defence enjoyer: *sips tea in satisfaction*
Just got off of work, doing laundry them time for some Blasphemous. This is the perfect video, thank you brotha❤️
That sponsorship transition was smooth as butter. Lolol. Great work!
"kusoge" is actually a term used by the fighting games community to define fighting games that are comically broken with busted shit everywhere, riddled with infinites or even downright unplayable lol
think Hokuto no Ken or Guilty Gear Missing Link, or that one Sailor Moon fighting game I keep forgetting the name of
Kusoge is definitely common in other places, I've seen it around the visual novel community alongside kamige (god-game, usually games considered 10/10)
Its like in the book or anime sphere like u mentioned where genres are overgeneralized and people feel the need to pitch their media based on tropes rather than simply an interesting premise. It gets so much worse when then theres also the need to qualify some aspects which is in part to help readers not be suspicious of the validity of say, the experience of a sexual or ethnic minority being depicted. Which gets messy when its not "perfect" rather than seeing it for the nuances of a lived experience or the sacrifices to satisfy a publishers criteria. And also therapy! Like everyone is saying oh i have Y symptom therefore i must have X neurosis. Like, Stop pathologizing and start humanizing!
Anyway, great vid. I learned something! Like "shitty western game" lmao
Also ur hair style has been looking great the past couple vids! Congrats on the almost 100k 🎉