Do Games Give Us Too Much Power? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
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Nearly every videogame has us doing the same general thing: gaining power and leveling up. Whether in The Witcher 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Halo, Minecraft, the power fantasy is omnipresent. It CAN be abstracted, but when it comes down to it, what's up with games CONSTANTLY using the power fantasy as both a mechanical and narrative crutch? Have we, as players, driven designers to this, or is there something special about the nature of games and the nature of power fantasy. Is the power fantasy itself just a natural offshoot of overcoming challenges? Join Jamin on this week's episode of Game/Show and find out!
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Hosted by Jamin Warren (@jaminwar)
See more on games and culture on his site: www.killscreendaily.com
Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)
I'm not sure what conversation does Game Show want to have with this video. What was the argument? That the Power Fantasy is boring or that it has no value? Should we just list games with a subversion of the power fantasy?
Also, didn't the original God of War use the power fantasy to reflect on Krato's madness and guilt? And wasn't Watch Dogs mostly panned for it's weak half-assed storytelling? Are you arguing that it wasn't the weak storytelling but the reliance on the power fantasy what sunk Watch Dogs?
Why was the Witcher on the thumbnail? Did you edit out you opinion on the power fantasy on The Witcher 3?
What about sales? Do sales support your hypothesis that the Power Fantasy is getting stale?
What is even going on with this video?
***** Nothing out of the ordinary here
Just another pseudo-intellectual voicing an opinion for the sake of voicing an opinion.
*****
He certainly states that he enjoys the power fantasy, but that it shouldn't be the only thing around.
I think the argument is that the power fantasy restricts the number of stories you can tell, as well as the types of gameplay and level design. It has to be used in accordance to both gameplay and story.
For instance, GoW has gone less and less conscious of the madness of Kratos, to enjoy it's own savagery. Watch dogs was panned, but obviously for such a production, the writers aren't bad at writing...only, the type of gameplay constraints the types of stories yous can make.
Maybe a lower key game (with less death and destruction) could make the intentions of watch dog's character more... understandable and proportionate?
Maxime Teppe I don't think is unimaginable that a big production gets lousy writing. But true, the gameplay might not be serviceable to the story they wanted to tell.
But still I didn't get that from this video. He didn't dissect the mechanic and the examples were glossed over :/
***** The writing can be lousy, but not necessarily made by lousy writers. I think most games having lackluster stories stems from the constraints of the gameplay, not the lack of talent of the writers.
I was never really able to put my finger with what was wrong with most of his videos but you just about nailed it. At the end of the video you just feel that he said nothing.
I think Dark Souls might be getting unfairly maligned in the first part of the video. Sure there are two major kinds of "leveling up" in Dark Souls, Soul Level and Weapon Strength. On the other hand, one of the charms of Dark Souls is its strict reliance on player ability and strategy over raw power ups.
Obviously you have reinforce your weapon so you can keep pace with the growing health pools of enemies, and most players will choose to raise their soul level. But you don't get any new skills over the course of the game other than weapons that you buy or find on the ground, no auto-takedowns, no "survive one critical hit" skills etc.
The very point of Dark Souls is that a player can forgo all of the typical power fantasy growth stuff and instead beat the game through sheer mechanical skill, using the same tools they have had from the very beginning. In a very real way, the thing that does the most leveling up over the course of the game is you, as grow more skillful and capable of dealing with increasingly complicated and dangerous scenarios.
mrtmat well, the game is also quoted later as a subversion of the "death is a slap on the wrist" thing.
It's still a power fantasy though, be it through leveling up or actual player progression, the game is about starting at the bottom and ending up defeating monstruous bosses and increasingly tough and nasty foes.
Not that power fantasy is a bad thing. Only that some game use it badly and end up formulaic and ridiculous.
Maxime Teppe No, this video is specifically talking about a power "fantasy" - as in the illusion of skill is false. The player actually getting better doesn't count because it's not a "fantasy" - the player is really getting better (I know that games are in a sense a "fantasy", so this is confusing, but I'm pretty sure this is what the video is talking about - he addresses at the end of the next video).
R. Ringshifter let me clarify then: story wise, dark souls is a power fantasy. Gameplay wise, it's just a challenging game.
I would like a game where you level up backwards and you have to pick a power to lose with each level
we'll bang okay That is actually a very interesting idea, I might use it some day...
Squid Larry You could justify it with the character being poisoned/having a virus, and you have to sacrifice something to stay alive longer.
we'll bang okay Transistor had a system somewhat similar to what you're talking about, each time you died, you lost one of your 4 chosen attacks, 4 attacks lost = gameover.
Slayer Jesse I imagined it more like a sort of thing where you're playing(/seeing) the game(/adventure) backwards, so you start where it ends and end when it starts
we'll bang okay In some ways Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP does that
I now want a Metroid where Samus has her iconic abilities but she gains nothing and the enemies are progressively harder. A mandatory 1% run would definitely turn the power fantasy trope on it's head. It's about time Samus did that anyway.
12 Bits The problem with that is complexity. An aspect that Jamin didn't adress in his video is that most games give you new toys along the way to break down the gameplay in small manageable pieces to learn.
Getting everything at once can be overwhelming, and f it's not, and the gameplay does'nt renew itself, it can end up pretty boring. It can be a tough balance to strike.
Of course, you could have everything available at the beginning, simply not useful until a certain point...but it would defy the point of the metroid series: non linear architecture with new areas ulocking progressively as your abilities expand.
Anyway, such a game would require a stellar level design.
Shouldn't there be a spoiler warning for the bit on The Last of Us? I mean, you don't go into details, but still... I thought that moment was pretty important, and this could spoil it for somebody else.
get off the internet if you don't like spoilers
Smitteys86 Everybody, calm the heck down. To Jason Neu, thank you for springing to my defense, as I do appreciate your good intentions. To be honest using your energy to retaliate at people on the internet isn't really worth it. Best to not fight fire with fire. To Noble Manic, I'm sorry if I somehow got on your nerves by suggesting that Game Show put spoiler warnings on their show. And to Sergio Natividad, I was only thinking of other viewers that hadn't already played through The Last of Us. I consider that particular section of the game to be very important to both the plot and the development of the characters. So I, personally, would've put up a warning beforehand. I understand why they didn't think the same way.
There. I hope that handle everything, and now we can return to being happy internet campers.
Minor correction: Skyrim has no built-in food spoilage system, that comes from user-created mods. That in itself says a lot about what lengths players will go to make gaming more immersive.
Wow, I'm surprised that there was no mention of perma-death games here. One of the reasons that I believe we're seeing a rise in consumption of perma-death video games (Day Z, Hardcore Minecraft, etc...) is because they mitigate that mid to end game 'low stakes' atmosphere that "power fantasy" games contrive.
As you progress in a game like Day Z, you obtain a lot of power in-game that can be lost permanently. The stakes rise when you have MORE. Essentially, because you have more to lose, there is a natural hindrance placed on the player that may cause him to take LESS risks. In a way his progress is actually limiting him . A bit of a "Sword of Damocles" paradigm emerges when playing games that place a higher risk on death the further along you progress.
These games have gained a nice foothold so the demand is certainly there.
AnythingMooNs Hey did mention roguelikes, which, conventionally, have permadeath. But, your elaboration on why permadeath specifically mitigates this power fantasy conundrum is spot on.
Horace Newman Oooo, I actually relistened to make sure I didn't hear any mention of 'permadeath' or 'roguelike' before I typed out my original comment and I missed him gloss over roguelike twice.
But yeah, overall kind of surprising that this segment didn't dive more into these specific kind of games. No doubt.
+AnythingMooNs Hz .
Power fantasy isn't a problem so long as the narrative and game mechanics support it. It's not like forcing ideas that don't go together.
I don't agree with you, Jamin. While new more powerful items do make you more powerful, you do need to master a game, and you DO get better at them. I noticed this in Rome 2 Total war. With each playthrough, I became better. Sure, I upgraded my units, ships, (but not siege weapons, Ballistae are a tad bit too perfect to replace). Yet, you can have an army made up entirely of praetorian guards, Praetorian cavalry, (praetorians were the Elite bodyguards of the Roman Emperor.) If you don't know what you do on the battlefield, the meagerest uprising by the slaves will wipe you out without problem. Also, economy. In my first playthrough, I struggled to cough up every bit of gold. In my latest, I have the means to raise entire legions just because it's fun to do so.
1234kalmar I like that you used my first name! I haven't played Rome 2, so it could completely be an exception i.e. a game where statusing up is only a facade.
PBS Game/Show I might have an unknown bias by selecting games without the "fake mastery" mechanic you mentioned. As I see it, upgrades and skill go hand in hand, and the lack of one makes utilising the other much more harder. Dragon Age origins is a good example. Gosh... Before I really got the hang of it, I spent more time on "Your journey ends here" screens than playing. But after a few playthroughs, I steam rolled every enemy even on the hardest difficulty. But for all my trial and error learning, if it weren't for better and better equipment, I'd have been dead a lot more.
As for die-ing, it really holds little consequence for the story, but it's a... "Combo breaker." The player's enjoyment of the game increases gradually, the longer the "Success streak", the greater the enjoyment, be that succes shooting enemies or just reaching that one more floating platform. When you fail in a game, you have that streak broken, and it has to be built up again.The consequence is not really in the story, or the game itself, but the psychology of it all.
1234kalmar That's actually a really interesting way to think about dying in a game. And it completely makes sense, especially in competitive multiplayer FPS's such as CoD or Battlefield. The more enemies you kill, the more powerful you feel and the more fun you have. The more you die, the more frustrated you get until you finally start racking up the kills again. Never really thought of it that way
1234kalmar Personally, I think an even better example was my experience with Metal Gear Solid 4. I worked hard to earn the "active camo" suit (invisibility) which was definitely a power-up. However, by the time I'd done all the work to earn it, I'd become so adept at stealth in the game that it actually seemed useless. The skill required to earn the power-up made the power-up redundant.
Robert Éiva I have had the same with the Muffle spell in skyrim, for sneaking. By the time i got it, I could have been dancing the cancan in front of the enemies, and they'd have just been like "Must have been my imagination!". :D I learnt ho much can I go in to the illuminated areas around torches, wich armor makes the less sound, etc.
One of the reasons that I loved the Portal series is that there was a genuine progression of skill. If they had confronted us with the final level right off the bat, sure we could have done it eventually, but not as quickly as we did having played through the rest of the game. They developed a vocabulary of puzzles and techniques which they called upon in an increasingly complex way. Rather than presenting the player with new tools, they presented her with new problems and forced her to use the same tool in a new way.
I definitely felt powerful and clever at the end of Portal 2 when the roof broke open and I saw the moon. I remember thinking, "no, they didn't... did they?" (thinking about the dev's ingenious use of moon dust) and sure enough they did. It was the most magical moment from any video game I've ever played. Sure it was the dev's idea, but it felt like I was the one figuring it out. That to me, is the power fantasy done right.
I would love a Metroid game where when you die, you don't actually die, but you lose your suit and become Zero suit Samus. And the next hit kills you, but you get a massive speed and agility increase. That way you can go back and forth between being "powerful" and being "defenseless."
a leveling system is about strategy and finding the most efficient ways to play with long-term planning. Straight-up power is about spectacle and being able to do do accomplish short-term goals... They are very different game elements and you shouldn't equate them.
to say that a leveling system takes away skill is ludicrous, if you're good at the game you will be able to play through the best leveling route
This episode was a little silly, and it's cheating with Witcher in the thumbnail but not clips or even talking about the Witcher... :/ piggyback much.
Weird how you show Mario in there as the platforming entries in the series let you have the complete moveset after the first level (excluding Kuribo's Shoe and Galaxy's Power-ups). The game does get as harder as you go. While new gimmicks get introduced, they take advantage of assuming you are of a certain skill level to get to the point. Super Mario 64 is a good example of this. Bob-omb Battlefield- platforming only sets you back a few seconds, not killing you, however as the game progresses, you get more challenging worlds, with Rainbow Ride having numerous open pits where if you didn't learn the skills from the first worlds, you just keep dying, missing the carpets, getting pushed off by the intentional platforms and enemies. Pretty much all the Mario games do this.
PIKMINROCK1 Good point. Similarly, I was wondering why Counter Strike was shown. All the gun upgrades are material. Obviously, having more money nets you more powerful weapons, but they are always earned against a competitive field of other players. And it resets every game; you always have to be good. I mean, it's not bloody World of Warcraft.
Since the Illusion of Control is central to video games expect the easiest way to represent that to continue to be the Illusion of Power.
maybe off topic, but i really wish watchdogs actually required stealth, i hate that it turned into a gta clone, it could have been that aiden was a HACKER, not a superhuman , maybe he couldnt use guns well, and had to actually rely on hacking the environment
Oddjob X trust me, i've played enough Thief to know a super stealthy ninja-like person with barely any combat abilities is no fun to play as. you spend the entire game cowering like a little child. at least in Assassin's Creed games you DO have good fighting abilities. still gotta sneak around and stab Templars though for those damn optional objectives. *sigh* why can't i just go in gun blazing and kill everyone. The assassin's you play as are totally capable of that.
NoForksGiven I guess It depends on the level design, and of the toys you're given to play with. If you can take control of the cameras and such to monitor the enemies and mask your progression, or even trigger false alarms and such, you can be active the whole time, not waiting fo the enemy to end is round.
OR...i can just kill them and not worry about it. nobody will notice if there's nobody to notice
NoForksGiven i jst think it would be cool to have a protagonist who has to rely on hacking instead of murdering everyone, as theres plenty of games that just let you murder everyone.
why do i get the feeling that'll just turn into one big collection of minigames, as all hacking i've seen in video games turn out to be (i'm looking at you Sleeping Dogs and Crysis 3)
A small number of abilities at the beginning of the game, like in Banjo-Kazooie, lowers the learning curve of the game. Actions are added on when the player is ready and have a situation where that ability is useful.
Then there are games like Mario Bros. where powers up are kept by skillful play. The ability to shoot fireballs indicates that you have been playing skillfully.
This reminds me of my friend watching me replay Metal Gear 4, for just about the 12th time. And he said "but, you've completed this loads before. Why do you still play it?"
And i said "because i want to get stealth..."
And he said "so, you're replaying the game over and over, to make the game easier to play?"
He crushed my spirits when he worded it like that.
One game that i think did levelling up really well was The Godfather for PS2. To start with you're next to useless, you can barely take more than 3 bullets, and you get beaten up very easily too.
And when i started playing it, i ran into a lot of scrapes with gangsters, with me overestimating my own strength. Until the end of the game, when you can run at breakneck speeds, punch with the strength of George Foreman, and shoot a nickel at 1000 ft.
You nailed one thing about games today - dying is quiiiick.
That was one real charm about retro games. When you died, it was annoying. The annoyance however, makes you feel like you really accomplished something when you finally succeeded. The frustration made the happiness so much better.
Now it's pretty much you get a save point whenever you aren't getting shot at or punched or dying. There are exceptions to the rule as usual, but games now feel more cinematic than just games.
I want to give some attention to a different kind of game that has been around since the beginning of games: skill based action games. The easiest example is a platformer game like Super Mario Bros. and all of its sequels. There's no leveling up and generally no increasing number of permanent abilities or powers as the game progresses. There's just the basic mechanics of the game and increasingly difficult levels that you have to clear in order to progress. I'd still call it something of a power fantasy, because part of the fun of being a platformer hero like Mario is that you're stomping bad guys and doing cool, heroic things. But the increase in feelings of power actually *does* come from improved skill in the game. You can't beat the hardest levels of a platformer game unless you're actually skilled at the mechanics. There's generally no amount of leveling up that can help you.
Frankly, I feel like these sorts of games are on the decline. They're still there, of course, but more and more games, especially 3D games, really hold the player's hand and give them all sorts of outs so that they don't really have to master the mechanics of the game. Or, in other cases, the mechanics keep getting more and more complicated as the number of powers, abilities, items, or whathaveyou increase. I've always been the biggest fan of games that have a relatively simple core set of mechanics and require your skill in them to improve in order to progress, and the complexity comes from how you choose to apply those mechanics. I want to see game designers try out new approaches, new mechanics, and generally new ideas with this sort of thing.
"Most of the time you're not really getting better at the game, the game is just getting made easier for you to play"
And that's one of the many reasons why old games are so satisfying when you beat them, back in the late 80s and 90s in general, level ups and upgrades weren't the rule, so you'd only beat a game with your own effort, and when you played the game again and got farther in it than the last time, it's not because the game was made easier for you, it's because you, the player, got better at the game!
That's why I encourage that designers would use retro-style game design in modern games... Your games don't need to be super hyper long! Your games don't need to reward the player just for turning on the system! Because the player will feel more satisfied if they beat the challenge on their own, than when you hold the hand of the player through the entire experience!
Yes, that's why Kayne West's Power was the Video Game Song in 2013.
Also, it's what made Super Meat Boy and Fez so interesting. you felt as if you were supposed to get additional powers/abilities to get certain items, or achieve certain areas, when really, you just needed to get better or figure out the game more.
"Yes, that's why Kayne West's Power was the Video Game Song in 2013."
Kanye West is overpowered and needed to be nerfed in the next patch...
Video games are still a new medium. We don't quite know how to use Narrative in games when Mechanics are the main part. Paintings don't have any story, but we still use them to think. Eventually, someone will something smart and everyone else will built on top of it.
I see a lot of dark souls in there, and as far as I'm concerned it is the best counter example to the idea that levels are just power creep. In dark souls your level has more to do with available options then it does your power level.
Another approach I liked was the one used in _Sword & Sworcery_ (only game I can think of right now were I saw this), where you loose your few precious hp points as you progress in the story and it makes the challenge of defeating previously easy enemies into a stressful one, increasing the difficulty.
This inverse power progression is also important story-wise, as your character feels the physical toll of her quest more and more and falls further and further to great emotional effect.
I really love this topic and appreciate games that try something different than the typical Power Fantasy.
Sword and Sworcery is a popular indie game where your character, The Scythian, actually becomes weaker as the game progresses. You lose health for each boss you fight, ultimately going the exact opposite direction of the classic Power Fantasy.
This War of Mine, another popular indie game, had a great way of showing the opposite side of Power Fantasies. While in many AAA games you play as a soldier fighting a war, in This War of Mine you are a group of civilians trying to survive in a combat zone. You aren't trying to stop the war or be a hero, you're just trying to not die.
What I really enjoy about these type of games is the level of tension it builds. You feel that something is actually at stake and you want to see this whole thing through. You begin to care about the characters because your struggle is their struggle. When I play Power Fantasy games it seems so much more flat with the lack of tension, anxiety, or fear. You know your character will win because the game mechanics have made them godlike and the story has written itself into a corner by making the character overpowered. At the end of the day, stories need dramatic tension and without it the audience has no investment in the story. Essentially, Power Fantasy is at odds with dramatic tension, in most cases, making those type of games difficult to keep interesting.
I don't think the power fantasy itself is a problem, it's the lack of options available in most games. Typically you'll only have one or two choices for the kind of power fantasy you'll end up portraying, and even then there isn't much variety between them.
JaMaAuWright i agree but even then you would have much longer development cycles for all the balancing needed for more ways of attack than just melee and ranged magic and/or bow & arrow attacks that most games use or similar to them. More ways of attacking by you and/or your enemy(s) means more balancing has to be done and thus longer testing phases but since most games just have 2 or 3 ways of attacking most game studios have it stream lined onto how to balance them against one another 1 very good example of a game that does not have it balanced at all in the MMORPG of Mabinogi nothing in it is balanced
even though that game is one of the best power fantasies since your characters get to be everything and anything at any time you wish because of that by the middle of the game and specially by the end everything in it is a 1 hit kill to your attacks be them a normal melee, normal bow & arrow, or any of the other normal attacks in the game becuase the balancing is so messed up due to way to many options and the ability to be them all at once giving the player way to much power
sadly the games with the most options tend to be like that Mabinogi game and the balancing between them is never on spot with one noticeably above the others making most of us go to the easy one to use and exploit the power of instead of the others which are there but either 1 harder to use and/or 2 not as powerful when used
yumri4 I was thinking of one game in particular, Phantom Dust. A little known game that was only ever released for the original Xbox.
You're definitely powerful in that game, to the point where you can lob explosive balls of magic across half the stag, drop meteors, use kill sat lasers, throw objects with telekinesis, use fire/ice/lightning/air/earth/light/dark/etc..., defend against techniques directly or by actually turning your opponent's attacks against them, buff and heal yourself and your allies, debuff your opponents, so on and so forth, but at no point are you inherently better than your enemy, because they all have the same abilities to some extent. Bosses aside, all enemies have access to the same massive move pool that you do.
You're definitely playing out a power fantasy, because lets face it, that's powerful stuff, but ultimately you have to develop strategies to best use your powers, or you'll soon find yourself defeated, and there are over 300 techniques that you can find or buy, though you can only take so many into battle. Some techniques can be used as long as you have the energy to do so, some techniques can only be used once. Some techniques require lots of energy to use, but are high power, and some are the opposite, allowing you to pepper opponents into submission while preventing them from counter attacking. Some techniques require a permanent energy or health sacrifice, but offer huge rewards for landing it. To add to that, bringing lots of techniques into battle isn't always helpful, as you can only have 4 active at a time, switching one out removes it from battle, skill order is randomized, and having more skills means that you have less energy at your disposal, and your energy will charge slower.
Ultimately, you're left with an extremely wide variety of power fantasies so you can express them however you wish, but you still must be strategic in your actions. The game is very balanced, as no strategy is infallible, and every strategy has a counter. There is no single strategy that will work for the whole game. To this day, it remains one of my favorites.
JaMaAuWright it sounds like a good game with the mechanics sounding a lot like that of a card game maybe it was one??? either way excluding card games there mostly isnt that much choice to how a RPG or a FPS game goes about as it seems like they found something that works and stuck with it instead of innovating beyond there.
card games on the other hand have a vast amount of options and possible ways to win or lose with all the things that you just said being true too
yumri4 It was an RPG actually, not a card game. It certainly took a lot of ideas from card games though.
JaMaAuWright that it does really sound like it took a ton of ideas from card games and used them in a RPG to which depending on how it actually plays might be fun just as you said it isn't sold anymore nor for any console that is still sold anymore :(
I think the power fantasy is useful for revisiting earlier enemies. Like in Bloodborn when you have to go back to the first area to farm potions. You just rock through the enemies in that area and realize what progress you've made. Then you reenter the boss fight you've been gearing up for and the stakes are back.
Fat & Hairy I noted Bloodborne as a notable exception!
Yup. More games should implement this revisiting strategy so the player doesn't feel weak. I wasn't criticizing your research :D Love the show!
I thought of this idea as a subversion of the typical power fantasy: You could start out all powerful, mowing down early enemies like there isn't anything to it. A little later on in the game, the difficulty would spike to where enemies became a legitimate threat, yet you're still as powerful as you always were. Your stats and skills would level up in typical game fashion, but the difficulty spike could account for that, too.
What about all those good games that don't have a leveling system or introduce new items like Pikmin?
Pikmen does have a leveling system, in the form of the number of followers you acquire over the course of the game. Logistics (healing potions, armor, army size) is just as much leveling up as the actual level-based design.
Joshua Richardson The only thing you acquire is 2 extra types and that's about It i think; you can always take 100 pikmin into the field as long as you have that many, right fromt he start, no armour or healing potions are gained (the pikmins' health is so low they die instantly from full hp).
Powering up through items is a two-sided story: On the one hand, you do indeed often have something that suddenly flips some difficulty off (like Bokoblins powerless against the bow). On the other hand, items are most likely used to bring up new elements that up the difficulty (level design that require different thinking, or needs multiple items to be overcome; enemies immune to the new item).
About the levelling up aspect, it's true that just having enemies needing to grind up to be beaten is a pretty linear progression. However, the AI also usually becomes "harder": even if it's the player's equal in level, it could have an excellent moveset and a very efficient battle strategy.
Either way this video was quite enlightening, so I thank the Game Show for bringing this up.
Jamin, while I see your point here, I also think that the idea of progression aside from skill isn't entirely unprecedented. In the real world, we're constantly finding ways to better our abilities through new innovations and scientific discoveries. Video games reflect the instinctive human desire to learn and to find ways to achieve what isn't currently possible.
No matter how skilled you are at a game, or life for that matter, you're always going to be one step behind the people who have better technology. That's the foundation of history, and it's no surprise to me that it's the foundation of gaming as well.
This is why I like games like Street Fighter, or Smash Bros. If I'm getting better at those games, it's not because I'm unlocking new combos or buying super moves. I'm getting better at it because I'm able to better utilize the set of tools the game gives you at the very beginning. and assuming i'm not playing against only the CPU, the reason the games gets easier or harder is because of who I'm playing and how well THEY'RE utilizing those tools.
Now I'd like to see a horror game that pulls a full reversal of the leveling up dynamic. A silent and intrinsic leveling down, if you will, in which you start off a capable badass but slowly become more feeble as the game continues. Potential ideas for a narrative could be that the character looses a limb, or has been infected with a debilitating disease that gets worse and worse as you progress. Just a thought.
This question brings to mind the game Darkest Dungeon. While your characters can level up over time and gain powerful skills and traits, it's remarkably easy to lose them in an instant due to rash or hasty judgement, or even to some nasty luck. You have a pool of people to send out on missions, but death is permanent, so the player is wedged into consistently tense situations where they have to either retreat (and face penalties) or risk losing their favorite and most powerful minion. In this sense, a power fantasy is only presented to the player so that the game can force the player to try to gamble it away.
SixCubit That reminds me a lot of XCOM. Upon reflection, a lot of games notorious for their difficulty trick the player into thinking they're powerful. As Jamin alluded to at the end, these games play on our expectations of power progression in games. And it also means they stick out from the crowd; indie games with these principles like Spelunky, Meatboy and Darkest Dungeon have all found a loving audience.
SixCubit Yes, Darkest Dungeon is an interesting example of a game that brings together both Dwarf Fortress-style character management and roguelike risk assessments. There are many games with similar themes, but few are as deadly as DD.
But if you like games that makes you consider such risk assessment and permanent character death, I recommend Rimworld and Gnomoria a lot. And as Horace said, XCOM, though that has definately has more of a power fantasy feel to it than DD and Rimworld which basically feel mostly like just trying to survive. Something about macho cyborgs with plasma cannons take away a bit of that.
I'm not sure about this. I mean, when you get right down to it, most video games outside of puzzle and sports are power-fantasies, as most video games require some sort of fighting or adventure for gameplay, and we've still gotten so many fantastic games that have tons of variety out of that, so I don't really see the problem here.
Power Fantasies are unfairly dismissed by the pseudo-intelectual crowd with little thought given to it's potential, or the needs of it's audience.
There is plenty that can be done within the constraints of the system, from forcing the player to pick from a moral dilemma, to allowing them to build a home and family on their off time, that can improve on the formula. Just because the theme isn't being given it's full potential, doesn't mean it doesn't have potential for good storytelling. There's plenty that hasn't been explored yet, but boredom by some means they dismiss the whole genre as it isn't doing anything for them any longer.
This really is a thing that is genre specific to gaming. For example, in most platformers, the later levels have smaller platforms and more hazards, but jumping never becomes easier or better throughout the game. Also in fighting games, especially in Street Fighter II or Super Smash brothers, satisfaction is rarely focused on getting better equipment, but rather from being able to figure out how to do that combo just right or beating an enemy while taking as little damage as possible.
I personally find most games with some form of leveling system tend to not scale well with the difficulty of the game, really enhancing that feeling of power but taking the skill and fun out of it! D3 I'm looking at you.
I like the gameplay of Viewtiful Joe for this reason because you get better at the game by memorizing attack patterns and improving your reflexes rather than just doing more damage or something like that.
There have been games for decades that don't rely on the power fantasy idea. They've never had as much popularity but they've been there for sure. I know because I often preferred them. Survival horror, puzzle, racing and rhythm games almost never play up the power fantasy concept. There are also platformers out there that only give you evasion as a way to deal with dangers. Fallout and Elder Scrolls can be played with passivity and success (it's fun, you should try it). I even remember playing monopoly with my mom on the NES in the 80's. "Power fantasy" games should be thought of like an action movie for the most part. Fast paced, exciting, explosive and typically not trying to give you any big revelations with the story, it's just meant to be thrilling.
In my opinion, the fun we have with the amount of power we have in videogames depends on the character and the world he/she/it lives in. For example, in Prototype you are the most powerful living thing in the world, it may take a whole army to take you down but that's what the fun part of the game is about: being so powerful that you can do whatever you want and no one can stop you.
It's true what you said about horror games when you're defenseless like Amnesia, Slender, Outlast, etc. and that's what makes those games so special, you have to find your way out and if the monster shows up all you can do is run or hide. But there are some other horror titles like the Resident Evil saga. In those games you're not defenseless because you have guns, grenades, melee weapons and a partner in some games but this power you have is limited because you need to use your ammo wisely and if you don't, you'll be dead.
Games give us a lot of power in some cases but other games give us limited power or not power at all. It just depends on the game, what would be the point of Amnesia if you could just fly, walk through the walls or kill that monster with a rocket launcher? I think it would be boring.
One of the most interesting power experiences I've had in a game recently was in Brothers. *SPOILERS!*
Ok, as I played the game and became used to the weird, dual-joystick controls, I felt like the game led you into a clear rhythm. Particularly, the sky castle, where you have to alternate swing between the two brothers to get around the walls, is a good example. But, when the older brother dies, it literally felt like one of my hands was cut off. I kept finding myself trying to use his joystick or his trigger to help the younger brother along. Not only did this change make me realize how tenuous our agency in the world is, it also generated a visceral emotional reaction, as I felt as if a critical part of myself was missing for the last ten minutes or so of the game. The moment that you have to use the older brother's ability, even though he's dead, was enough to nearly make me cry. God, I wish I could play that game for the first time again.
Whenever I think of "power fantasy" I immediately think of the gaming mess that was Shadow the Hedgehog. The protagonist was super strong, drove a tiny motorbike, could pick up and use all kinds of guns and weapons, could speed through levels, could blow up enemies around him... And his whole reason for all the murder (alien or human) was because he was trying to find out the truth of his past...
And it's hilarious to me because after that game, his friends are still hanging out with him like nothing happened! Did they forget the senseless violence they saw him commit? When he (assumably) killed Eggman with a karate chop? The fact that Sonic was still willing to be all "hey buddy!!!" after Shadow shot some guy point blank on the face just left me in stitches. It was a power fantasy so over the top that I didn't feel powerful or cool, I just felt like I was watching insanity.
I find myself enjoying games where I get new items and stuff that help me understand the narrative it situation, but don't necessarily make me over powered. Like in the Ace Attorney series: finding evidence and using logic (or weird magic) to deduce what happened is key, and with each piece you find, you start to feel like "yeah, I got this!" But failure in those games doesn't feel like a slap on the wrist to me. I've only ever failed once, and I remember when the guilty verdict came down, I was mortified that I couldn't defend my client.
Maybe the power fantasy in those games is you're "the only one who can save this client!" but I'm also okay with that because for the most part, the character doesn't have stupid motivations that make them ignore senseless violence.
Imagine if Phoenix was murdering every prosecutor after the trial and it was justified because of his mentor's death? Stupid!
Sin and Punishment: Star Successor flips this formula in a really cool way. It's absolutely a straight-up power fantasy...but the game does nothing to help you or give you any illusions. The abilities you start with are the abilities you end with, no more and no less, and the game just keeps on amping up the difficulty to insane levels, both extrinsically (enemies take more hits to die) and intrinsically (the attack patterns you have to dodge and predict get more complicated). Death sends you back a not-insignificant amount, and you will die a LOT. So when you do succeed, you have completely earned that feeling of empowerment. It's interesting that removing the fantasy elements from the power fantasy is such a neat twist. If you want to feel like an unstoppable badass space soldier, you've got to learn how to think and dodge and shoot and fight like an unstoppable badass space soldier. It's harder than it looks, so figure it out, or you don't get the rush that you're craving.
That's why I like Ico - you're a kid with a stick, If you get better at the game it's because you genuinely get better, not because you get a better stick. Eventually, when you do get the sword, Ico still swings it like a piece of lumber.
I have actually thought about this recently. There are games where the player improves and one where the character improves. Personally I like games where the character grows stronger as it feels more manageable. Player improvement typically becomes frustrating trial and error. Also your point about excuses for violence in games is also something I've thought about. It's one of the reasons I'm kinda interested in hatred. A game that removes the pretenses for killing and simply makes it the objective
That Zachary Lubsy guy brought up an interesting point. Most americans take eating ramen for granted and in america eating ramen is culturally associated with single people living alone while attending collage lol.
"Do Games Give Us Too much Power?" A better question would be "Does Power Give Us Too Much Games?" and that's how you get Game of Thrones
This is probably the only video of his I couldn't even finish.
point well made.. Journey did have a sort of levelling up through collecting cape pieces. Not the type to nitpick a small technicality, i just wanted some excuse to bring up that beautiful blissful experience that is "Journey"
I've been playing The Darkest Dungeon lately, which has a great level up mechanic where you might get some perks, but you're just as likely to pick up negative traits which hamper your characters. It never gets easier.
I find for most games I've played that use the power flow concept make it so the more powers you get the more difficult the game gets to accommodate those powers and it just makes a sense of variety. For example you could be playing a adventure game that requires some puzzle solving and you have obtained a good amount of tools in your arsenal to solve these puzzles. The puzzles may be more difficult because you have to use multiple tools for certain procedures to continue and its up to you to realize what you need to use. Even in a combat system its just variety because one weapon or power might be strong against certain enemies and be weak against others. When I get rewards through progressing sometimes they aren't stronger than my weapon but offer a different way of playing the game so I would stick to an item or power I know works already.
Auto Save is what took most the punishment out of games, instead of taking the player back to their save file, the game reloads the most recent check point it auto saved at.
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth combined the disempowerment of modern horror games with more common first person shooting. I thought these moments of losing all your weapons helped to push you to not hoard weapons and to make you feel more vulnerable. (It also resulted in frustrating sequences like the chase through the apartments, but if you can make it past that, the game is great.)
I think you were a bit harsh on Metroid and games like it. The stripping away of powers at the beginning of the games is a bit of a contrivance. But giving players the ability to reach previously inaccessible areas is a good alternative to simply giving them more health and more damaging weapons, then throwing enemies with more hit points at them.
In a game like Guacamelee, this is taken up a notch - your punches and kicks are just as powerful at the beginning of the game as at the end of it. As you are given more abilities, you are actually forced to become skillful at using them - often in rapid succession, with precise timing. Platforming mechanics in general often provide a good alternative to the power fantasy because often the "leveling up" that you do just facilitates more skills the game requires you to use.
Power is one thing but let's not forget the insanely inhuman abilities of some games:
Shooters- never jam your gun, never fail a reload, never reload slower than before, never fumble the ammo, walk over ammo to pick it up or just bend down and touch it and it'll end up in your inventory, reloading the gun adds leftover ammo to reserves instead of losing the mag entirely, instantly align the iron sights for optimal aim, permanently walk around with your gun pointing forward without your arms getting tired (First person shooters. third person at least holsters it)
Beat em up- perfectly executed attacks every time, never fumbles, hitting an enemy in the leg while he is falling will keep him in the air longer, gets back up after being beaten up for round 2
Action adventure- combat rolls to survive falls higher than 15 feet without breaking limbs. worst case scenario, lose some of your health bar, talks to NPC's without having to greet them. just press "X", 360 degree view of the world without turning around,
Racing games- respawn car if it crashes, ramming into enemies don't do anything (unless playing Burnout or MotorStorm), "rubber banding" because enemies would totally slow down and speed up a little in rl just for you,
I'd really like more games that flip the empowerment around, like Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery, where the more you progress, the weaker you become. It would be very interesting to see something like this in some more games, in the games mechanics and story.
I like games best when you become more powerful as you progress, but the challenge is still there. Where upgrades don't just make battles easier, they're almost a necessity to succeed. The enemies get stronger just as much as you do. So there's still skill involved in winning, you just apply more things that you've acquired or learned.
I'd like to see how designers do the "level up" trope in new ways. I like Skyrim because you can increase your abilities in both combat and and things like speech. The non-combat skills weren't used as much, but I would like to see that kind of leveling happen more in games, I think it could be used in really coo ways.
I found this video insightful; it's interesting takes like this that make me love Game/Show.
Coming from the world of Magic the Gathering, it's often said that complexity (when well managed) can bring out player skill by offering more choices. Leveling up by gaining new abilities - say, adding moves to rock paper scissors - gives the player more options to express their skill (RTS games adding unit types is a good example).
Honestly, as someone who loves video games and is Really bad at them, games where I can rapidly level up if I choose (by, for example, doing every little side quests before the main ones in rpgs) and make myself overpowered make games a lot less stressful and way more fun for me to play.
Shadow of the Colossus subverts the power fantasy in an interesting way, too. You would think taking down 16 giant colossi would make you feel powerful, but it doesn't because it makes many of the colossi sympathetic in the way they act. Wander, the protagonist is constantly shown through his animation to be struggling. It's understandable that many players might feel bad for doing what they do, and the ending isn't exactly rewarding to Wander either.
I think it's worth mentioning how Dark Souls also twists the power fantasy, by making player deaths common, and excepted part of the world and setting. The player can die to anything, if they're not good enough so the player has to actually learn how to play the game if they want to succeed. The player character isn't really anyone special just an undead who happened to have a lot more will than many others.
Power fantasy is just a story trope that works well with gameplay elements but I certainly think game can tell way more interesting stories, as games like SotC and Ico show.
It'd be quite interesting to play a game where while the game gets progressively harder, all your gear would also disappear or downgrade.
I think it's not what developers want to do, more what we demand to play. Most players don't even finish the game as is, the end point is more around ~50%. The causation is probably believed to be that the game is too hard and the majority just gives up on it. As much as I like hard core games like Dark Souls, that's not what the mainstream wants to play. In the end it's a money business.
2:29 That example only really applies to Other M. In all other Metroid games, the power-ups you get to use come from your own discovery of the world, and once you have them, nothing's stopping you from using them. A good story narrative should seamlessly ties the gameplay and story, which other Metroid games have successfully done in the past.
I think Arkham City is a good example of well used power fantasy. As you progress through the game you obviously receive upgrades and new move to test out on thugs. However, just when things start to get easy the game throws a new enemy type at you that you need to master and defeat using your newfound abilities, rinse and repeat.
If you were to have a double line graph with the two lines being difficulty and new upgrades you would see some very well designed patterns. You would notice a stair-like like pattern on the upgrades line, where it spikes a little when you get an upgrade and then flatlines 'till the next upgrade. The difficulty line would notice another stair-like line except it would flatline for a bit beneath the upgrades' spike and flatline then around fifty percent of the flatline before you get another upgrade the difficulty line will spike and flatline above the upgrade line. This system of spike and flatline ensures a bit of time to feel powerful while getting your upgrades while still keeping a steady pace of difficulty and challenge.
A game that is a bizarre but fun twist on the power fantasy is Magicka of all things.
In Magicka you start the game out as an insanely powerful wizard who can bend the universe and you will die... a lot but not by enemies but by YOURSELF!
Magicka's power fantasy twist is power without control is as dangerous as any enemy.
One of its main selling point is killing your self+ any friends who happen to be with you in as many hilarious way as you can find and most of these are by accident.
So yes your an all powerful god but you need skill to understand and effectively use your god like powers...Or just blow you and everyone else in the room up and hope an ally lives to revives you.
No mention of hack'n'slash? Those are the some of the biggest power trips you can get!
TheChaosStormBringer Your right! but mm i love me some hack n slash games.. :]
I'm a fan of the show, but this one seems full of arbitrary definitions and contradictions. Metroid games are cited as a case of levelling up and power fantasy, but in a game like Prime many of the upgrades actually increase the challenge by giving you more and more tools that have to be adapted to fights. Getting the Plasma Beam is awesome until the game introduces enemies that are only vulnerable to one type of beam, and then you realize that it's actually increased the difficulty by giving you even more things to keep track of. I know he rationalized that this is the game designers trying to offset power creep, but then he cites Journey, where the character's scarf gets longer and becomes objectively more effective, and it's somehow a counter-example to Metroid? That makes no sense.
I get his point in the JRPG sense, where the game just gives you stronger characters that reduce the challenge of the game, or in FPS games with experience systems that grant better equipment to give the illusion of progression. Those are just increasing a number that corresponds to damage, and they make it easier to play the game. But unique items work totally differently. They allow for different skills and approaches, offer new gameplay strategies, and if the player masters them then the player *has* progressed. These items are mechanisms for player skill progression.
A game like Zelda II comes to mind. Getting the ability to perform the up-slash or the down-slash completely changes the combat. They give you new ways of fighting every enemy in the game. A good player integrates this into how they fight, and learns to use this tool in their arsenal.
The power fantasy does seem to restrict the creativity in video games, but I don't think it's as much as you say it is. I also can't think of many instances where taking out empowerment in games would be very fun from my perspective. It's certainly worked in horror if you're into that kinda stuff, and it's impressive, but not my thing. I am interested to see where developers take this though. If they can create fun games without empowering the player, it would certainly like to see them.
I've always been surprised that nobody's ever made a game about aging and dying to flip this on its head. I feel like you could make a pretty interesting game out of a character growing old and slowly losing their abilities and perks, so you could keep the traditional difficulty curve of easy/harder/difficult end-game, except that it'd be associated with your own character's physical decline instead of more and more powerful enemies. I always thought Metal Gear Solid 4 was a missed opportunity in this regard.
Creators have the freedom to do whatever they want. this isn't really an issue.
i agree with most of this, but why is geralt in your thumbnail, the witcher is the opposite of the power fantasy, its far more like dark souls than uncharted or others power fantasys
Oddjob X maybe it's not as overt an over the top.
But there is a level up system, and you're still the providential man on whom relies the fate of kingdoms... It might not be centered on the power fantasy, but this fantasy is still a component of a game.
Oddjob X potential click bait I'd bet too.
Oddjob X Having only played the first Witcher, it's definately a power fantasy game. Both in how it treats the player and the character.
I am currently working on an idea for a game mechanic that seems relevant for this discuession. I was thinking of developing a system to handle player death in my starship based game where when the players charecter dies they can create a new charecter and that charecters backstory is intertwined with their dead charecter in some way, such as your introduction starts when the new charecter discovers the floating wreck of a starship that turns out to by the ship your old charecter died in.
This is why I like skill-based games such as platformers, fighting games, and other reaction based games. People at my school always brag about how good there base is in Clash of Clans and I'm just like, "1v1 me Smash Bros. items off Final Destination."
Soda POP 67 In other words, I feel like level based games are too one-sided to people with more time on their hands.
In 'Life is Strange' there's no leveling up. You have a huge power but failures are there to accept and live with.
Games already have achieved a balance between power fantasies and player skill, but in a genre that most players only barely scratch the surface of: fighting games. The difference between a professional Sol Badguy and a player that's played as Sol online for a few dozen hours is insurmountable despite the two players having the exact same tools to work with. The pro Sol will always seem like they are using a different character. These types of games that overcome "leveling up" end up being called "inaccessible" though. They present you with every tool you need right from the get go and then demand that you learn how to use them, which very quickly becomes a daunting task when you and your opposition both have a massive arsenal of options available at any given moment, each with their own special properties, recovery times, damage outputs, etc. Asking players to supplant an experience system with actual experience is like asking them to take a class on how to play a game. It turns play into work for most people.
I think there's another key flip of the power fantasy going on at the end of The Last of Us (SPOILERS!).
A lot of action games finish with corridor-like final level that pits you against an onslaught of some of the toughest enemies in the game, but you're driven on by the need to [insert common win state here]. While Joel has the same drive--to save Ellie--the player knows he's wrong. In the final room, there's even the "suddenly you're unstoppable" moment. In most games it's a new gun or superpower. In TLU, though, it's because the other people are unarmed doctors. As the player, you're forced to shoot them to finish the game, even though you know it's completely wrong.
I think it would be fascinating to play a game with an inverted system where you start really powerful and godlike and able to kill giant, scary monsters with each, and progressively get physically weaker, and weapons and armor downgrades throughout the game. Until you're basically struggling to kill a slime with a stick. It could make the narrative more interesting too. Maybe you're trading in your stronger gear for weaker gear because you're going to a 'safer' area and the people heading out in your direction need the better gear to hold off the really scary monsters. Maybe you're getting weaker because you're getting tired and sore and battle weary. You could play from the POV of a game hero returning home for example.
When you talk about horror games "recently" taking to disempowerment. I don't feel that's really a recent thing in the genre. What it actually feels like is that the genre took this road first with ClockTower and the first games of the series Silent Hill and Resident Evil and in later titles became more a thing of leveling up and getting the player so many resources that it became a run and gun type of game, killing the disempowerment feeling of the genre. What games like Amnesia did recently was more of a revival of the genre than changing it's course in first place.
The example of Journey also sounds a bit off to me since the game actually has a nice pacing to teach you the mechanics little by little, so in a certain way it does give you power once it feels you're able to handle the challenges ahead. And this is an argument that I feel like it fits most of the whole "power fantasy" thing. It's an easy way to work pacing and the whole "easy to learn, hard to master" thing. I agree that there are other narrative resources to be explored, but I guess this justifies why we see the power fantasy happening so often.
A game would be pretty boring if there was no evolution in the character's capacities / power. The important thing is that the difficulty increases faster than these capacities / power increase.
The Metal Gear Solid games.
You can have all the cool weapons and fancy gadgets in the game. Yet, if you're spotted, you'll inevitably be overwhelmed if you think that they'll allow you to beat the enemy with brute force.
Seems almost counter intuitive, but it still works.
Another fantastic episode!!! I'm a huge fan of games that aren't about power or control but about sustaining and exploring like Papers, Please and Subnautica - mastery won't necessarily get you everything you want
I'm one of those guys, one of those guys that play games for mechanics. So I really love games like, well specifically, League of Legends, where the power up fantasy is more mechanic then fantasy. I don't see how you could divorce LoL or DoTA from the leveling system, since it's basically the game's core mechanic. Yea, narrative in LoL is entirely outside the game, but as a Magic player, that doesn't bother me. I think narrative games can get pretty boring justifying over power over and over, but I suppose my point is power levels have their place.
depends on what you play, ultimately
was able to experience an epic-tier campaign on d&d with a very good dm one time, and it never felt like things have gotten easier...
Fighting games are an example of a genre that gose against this idea. In most fighting games you are given a fully powered up character from the start and it is up to you to figure out how to best utilize those powers to defeat your opponent. There is literally never a point where the games get easier for you just points where you start to get better at them.
Depends on the game. Prototype started you with very little power. As the game progressed, you got to be god-like. But, the military adapted to your new powers almost as quickly as you got them. Thus, you were never on top of the enemies. Always just slightly behind.
This made for a beautiful mix of reward and challenge.
A big reason for many people for playing video games is experiencing fantasies of activities that we could not be able to do in real life, either because it's illegal or it doesn't exsist. But there is also a idea of being-one-to-change-the-world being appealing since they do not do any of the such in their real life; I mean who wouldn't want to be the one who saves the world when your life is just a repetitious job that is getting you nowhere?
That said, there are plenty of games without this power fantasy entailed in it like puzzle games. But in the point of plane context, power fantasies are easy to make, sell alot, and have the fans to back it up. But as long as the market isn't over saturated with them, I don't see a problem with them.
From the discussion of the leveling mechanics and it's use to ease the game, I am reminded of challenge runs that try to negate this, to remove the power fantasy from games that are based around it. For example, Kingdom Hearts, an RPG that is is very heavily reliant on leveling mechanics, has a function to turn off leveling, so that you never gain experience for as long as that is active. Players have level 1 challenge runs to beat the game - which is designed around the increasing strength of the avatar - without any of the empowerment of leveling, relying solely on skill. And let me tell is that a challenge.
funny how quite some footage from darksouls is used. I mean yes, you do level up also in the conventional sense by raising your stats, but far more important is your own skill. How you learn the attack patterns of the enemies, and so on
I do agree, but not really in the same way. I think about it in the way games use choices.
I loved The Last of Us. I loved everything about it, but what really left a mark for me was the ending (SPOILERS ahead, of course).
Back then, there was this really common dual choice system in games. Think inFAMOUS. You did good things to get the good ending and bad things to get the other. Even if it's not a morality system, there seemed to always be two really clear choices.
When I got to Ellie surrounded by the doctor and nurses, I waited. I waited some time and looked around for some way trigger something like an X above the doctor in order to get him to move away. Maybe something that would even make Joel just leave Ellie there. I was searching for multiple endings. But there were none. There was no option but to get rid of the doctor violently and take Ellie by force. There was a hidden choice, however. As soon as the doctor attacked me, I ended up killing everyone there.
This is why I love TLoU. People seem to be all over choices and playing however you want, getting the ending you wish for. I love how Naughty Dog just told the story they wanted to tell. You don't get an alternate ending in case you didn't like it. This is the story and you have to accept it.
I love the feeling of being practically invincible in a game after leveling up or finding "the good gun" - especially if prior to that it was a struggle to advance that far.
But if we're talking about the ultimate power fantasy I have to say I prefer games like Myst or Machinarium where my brain is "the good gun." There is nothing quite like being completely stumped by a puzzle, furiously scrawling down notes and clues, and then having it all come together and knowing that (unless you used a walkthrough) it had nothing to do with levels or difficulty settings - you were relying on your intelligence.
But of course even this is somewhat of a charade since often each puzzle was carefully crafted and placed according to the player's progression such that the hardest puzzles are found at the end of the game and not in the beginning.
WilliamBlarBlar Right -- Myst and Machinarium are good examples of flat leveling i.e. there isn't anyway. Also, inventories in those games are used and then generally disappear, not combined to make something really powerful.
I'm glad you used The Witcher 3 as the thumbnail, because the Witcher series is the perfect example of what you're talking about. It expertly portrays the main character as just a dude that is only as powerful as his tools and how he uses them. Of course, he's genetically modified to justify his incredible feats, but it's still a difficult series that allows the player to feel like just a man that has to think to defeat his adversaries (like Dark Souls). I would definitely recommend the Witcher series to anyone who hasn't checked it out yet.
Good video. If this kinda stuff bothers you definitely check out Dishonored. It actually allows you to play the entire game without killing one person. Your actions also have actual effects on the world. More then you'd expect from a game from 3 years ago.
Isn't the whole point of games about constraint? If a player were truly omnipotent, there would be no point in playing.
Of course, the obvious solution to giving a player power is to equally scale up the opponents. This is what D&D (which essentially introduced the leveling up mechanic) has always done. My first level fighter goes from killing goblins to twentieth level where he slays dragons. In the older editions, he could even literally become Immortal, but then had to face multiversal threats. Parallel leveling is what keeps the game interesting.
Really like the way you brought this design elements together!
Regarding the first half of your video, it's worth commenting most good games which use the power fantasy model (for example, Metroid, Dark Souls or a well balanced RPG like Bravely Default) give the player more tools and stats whilst ramping up the difficulty at a proportionally higher rate, creating a decent difficulty curve despite player empowerment. This can be done through sheer stat increases as well as more sophisticated attack patterns and encounter design which challenges player ability.
Alot of AAA games do conform to the pattern you described, but that's an argument against trash AAA design more than it is player empowerment.
SotC Doesn't have a level up system, or that is to say, the player is not meant to notice its level up system, and you're not meant to use it.
Only in FPS titles is having power a problem. A person can easily outmatch another by having logged more time or money into the game. Even then skill plays a key factor. Just because you're strong it doesn't mean you're invincible and it's still possible to die. Personally, in games where you can become overpowered, I love it. I love dominating enemies simply because I can. It shows the effort I put in... and it's just plain fun.
I think Shadow of the Colossus had progression without any upgrading system. (But then again, there was all those special lizards that you had to find in order to increase your stamina/grip meter, as well as special shrines to increase your health. (Or, maybe that was what the lizards also did.)) Either way, Shadow of the Colossus still had progression without having to give you any extra items, (except for the torch stick for that one colossus.) For most of the game, you pretty much have just your sword, your bow and arrows, and your horse. (Except for just before the last colossus.) Really, the only thing that changes between each colossus are the colossi, (somewhat self-explanatory) the environment, and the different strategies that you need to figure out in order to defeat each colossus. (I've said too much already.)