Light Novel 'Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan' to Receive TV Anime Adaptation

lol saw the name in English, immediately thought to myself this is going to be an anime where a young overpowered guy with a murky past is paired up with 3 misfit girls who put him in all kinda of awkward situations. Looks like I was right.

Prob going to watch just so I can continue to slam my head into my wall over how much wasted potential it will probably have.

Is this somehow like black bullet?
I hope it's far better than black bullet, due the pacing of the show i ended up disliking black bullet anime because a lot of things got skipped.
Let's hope this show, the studio aint skipping things.

The originality is astounding!

So this is what happens when Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object?

Those are all loaded questions, I hope you realize that. You’re basically saying there’s no point in talking about any of that stuff. That only feeds your ignorance of other perspectives.

You can certainly argue about things such as narrative consistency, narrative coherence, character development, character motivations, plot induced stupidity, etc.
Does the music fit the mood? Does the music serve to enhance a scene?



For insight? More perspective? A better understanding why some things are the way they are? You’re asking as if talking about this stuff is meaningless. Only the willfully ignorant think that.

At most I can tell you, even if you don’t accept it, is that most things in life are on a spectrum. The degree of impact is on a spectrum. The type of impact could be anything, really. I even said it’s not necessarily positive or negative as that can be up to the person, but it can cause people to take up words, view things differently, influence derivative works, etc.

I’m not opposed to the idea that many games had some sort of impact on something as gaming is a varied medium with many different contributors, but I don’t think every game in the games industry’s history had impact. Statistically that’s unrealistic due to the sheer number of games that just aren’t well known nor accessible. What you’re asking here is what if a work isn’t known but still has a message to deliver, then I’ll just say that’s a damn shame. Usually exposure is the first step is to having impact. Though whatever impact it has/had could be industry-wide. It could be localized. It could be somewhere in between. It could be cross-industry, cross-media. It could even be on a very personal level. That impact could be seen in many different forms. The most common would be inspiration, where people liked certain aspects of a work and appropriated it for their own.

You’re probably still thinking at this point, “so what?” (And I’m probably asking myself, why am I still wasting my time trying to persuade you?)

I’m going to say something very philosophical but it’s something that I very much believe on a basic level… I think video games is all about thinking up different ways in which we can engage or interact with the player, whether through mechanics, story, music, spectacle, dialogue, a fictional universe, or many other ways that I can’t think of yet at the moment. We play games for all sorts of things: to feel, to adventure, to escape, to live as someone else, to save the world or bring ruin to it, to be a lvl 20 dungeon master, etc. It only makes sense that any sort of impact that a game has on the industry-scale or some smaller scale is based on any combination of those aspects.

For example, RE4 was probably the game to popularized (as opposed to invented) the over-the-shoulder view for shooters. It was so influential that there are games made today that took great inspiration of it; Dead Space, Gears of War, The Last of Us, and many other third person shooters released after it. Killswitch was probably one of the first games to use a cover system and Gears of War subsequently adopted it and popularized it. I mean you can make a genealogy for just mechanics alone. For narrative delivery, Metal Gear Solid was one of the first cinematic games released and was the granddaddy or daddy of cinematic gaming. Grand Theft Auto 3 revolutionized and popularized the sandbox open world game.

Alien and Aliens influenced the sci-fi genre for years to come. Includes but not exclusive to… space marines! Motion trackers! Enemy design! It influenced Doom, Quake, Halo, Borderlands (Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox, whom I met in person before, said numerous times he stole from Aliens all his career), Duke Nukem 3D, System Shock 2, etc. etc. Consider the impact Doom had on the industry. You can totally write a dissertation on the genealogy of FPS.



Pff, I didn’t talk about the number of maps. I talked about how the maps are narrow hallways and here are pictures of the maps that show how narrow they are. Next thing you know you’ll tell me it’s relative how narrow they are and that it’s my opinion that they’re narrow.



At which case wouldn’t it make sense that the critic’s word is just as good as any other person’s if you’re trying to equate them to everyone else, regardless of whether or not they’re being paid? Or will you be saying that other people’s opinions aren’t worth considering afterwards? If so, that’s a really destructive worldview.



If you’re going to be like that, why does any award matter? An award on a basic level is the acknowledgement of some type of achievement. (GOTY means Game of the Year if you didn’t know the acronym beforehand. Got a real nasty habit of assuming people understand what I’m talking about here on MAL.) GOTY awards is just some acknowledgement that an entity believes a certain game that is so (brace yourself for opinions!) good and outstanding that it is called Game of the Year.

We were talking about TLoU’s impact on the industry right?

These GOTY awards for TLOU matter in the context that the industry (and gamers) at large acknowledged TLOU’s achievement in seamlessly intertwining layered, contextual gameplay with an emotional narrative, stellar characters and a stunning attention to detail. That is what gamers and critics lauded it for doing. People have always clamored for a game that has all those things and Naughty Dog made one for those people. It also made a lot of money, earned a lot of awards, got a lot of people talking about its story, characters, and their impact, and they’re asking the industry for more games with the same level of care and detail especially in its narrative. Its critical and commercial success inherently impacted the industry in a few ways: it gave proof that you can create a cohesive game with very strong narrative and gameplay, it showed that there’s an audience for this stuff, that it’s getting developers to try to one-up Naughty Dog’s PS3 magnum opus, etc.



(Oh, I can hear you shitting your pants now, as I stated opinions somewhere up there! Woe is me! So help me God! I’m already telling you why it’s good to so many people including me. Sure, I guess you can say it’s an opinion, but so fucking what? That doesn’t discredit our points on why it’s so good at all, but, of course, you’re going to take the copout route by saying those points are just opinions too, so honestly, just what is your deal? You have no argument to pose and I’m stuck here defending against you. You constantly make statements without sufficient support and when I make rebuttals you accuse them of being opinions to deflect and discredit them.)

Me: “TLOU made a big impact on the games industry because X, Y, Z”
You: “Opinion tho”
Me: “Yeah, so? Do you think it didn’t make a big impact? Or do you not agree with the reasons? Are we having a discussion about TLOU or not?”
You: “No use because opinion tho”
Me: “First, that’s also an opinion. Second, dude, why the hell are you even here then?”



I initially brought up The Last of Us as an example of a work that is not particularly groundbreaking in mechanics or story (as everything in it has been done before either in gaming or in other mediums), but it’s the execution of that amalgamation of ideas that sets it apart from other games of its type. Me loving it is merely an aside, don’t look too hard into it. You were misconstruing my idea of creativity as new content, or creating a new TV tropes entry. My idea of creativity in its useful capacity involves its execution of its included content more than whether or not the content is original. It’s how that content is used is what I’m putting emphasis on.

Honestly, none of what I’m talking about here is meaningful to you as you don’t seem as invested in the games industry as I am. I guess I’m the authoritative figure here, it’s all relative after all, but I guess you don’t like the label “authoritative figure” being applied to me, so whatever.



Yet you move so fast to discredit them in the sentence before. Dis sum Dunning-Kruger up in heo, boi.



Maybe that wasn’t the best editorial to show you because it’s mostly about the military shooter landscape and you also lack the context for why Spec Ops: The Line is so special in an industry that is filled with military shooters. You say that you can reach the same conclusion like it’s so easy, but before Spec Ops: The Line, critics or bloggers merely extrapolated these larger topics from the Call of Duty or Battlefield or [insert brown/grey shoot bang title here] games. I don’t think any military shooter game itself actually tried addressing those very questions that players posed until Spec Ops: The Line came along.

And when you talking about impact, what are you talking about here in this sense? The impact of violent/gorey games range from creating the modern ESRB to trying to correlate video game violence to real life violence (see Mortal Kombat, Postal, Manhunt). The call for regulation of “violent games” by puritanical government is another. We can talk about Call of Duty it’s easy to play, hard to master kinetic gameplay with RPG elements influenced multiplayer FPS design for the last console generation. It can literally be anything. Also, I don’t remember saying Spec Ops lead to the downturn of the industry. I merely provided that as a possible method of impact. E.T. would be an example of that sort of impact.

I actually articulated what I meant by impact for The Last of Us and is possibly only a few aspects of that impact. I did the same for Spec Ops: The Line here. If I had to make a comparison… Madoka is to mahou shoujo as Spec Ops: The Line is to military shooters, but even that isn’t a sufficient comparison as Madoka is a subversion while Spec Ops: The Line is a critique.

I don’t think you understand how it stands out from other military shooters of its kind. I advise you to watch Extra Credits’s two videos on it, especially the second one, since it addresses the details in its design point by point, so spoilers abound, but I don’t think even that’s enough bar actually playing it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjaBsuXWJJ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJZIhcCA2lk

It’s funny you bring this point up:

as Spec Ops: the Line did not sell very well. It had mediocre critical reception and sold like crap. The marketing was nowhere near the reach of something like a Call of Duty or Battlefield. The game only became known and relatively popular through the power of word of mouth. I only gave the game a chance because I heard about how different it’s from other modern military shooters and picked it up for $5 during a Steam sale. I finished it finding that it’s probably one of the most cerebral military shooters I’ve played, and honestly, a lot of the context is lost if you aren’t really familiar with military shooters. It’s hard to talk about it unless you’ve experienced it yourself. Especially since it’s a game.

I don’t think there needs to be lines drawn. It is what it is. Some works don’t get the recognition they deserve. Some you might feel are overrated. The most you can hope for is that the gaming community doesn’t forget the ones that weren’t as fortunate as the bigger games.

I don’t know why you’re automatically assuming that the games I mention are somehow super popular or well-received by the public. Hell, NieR, critically and commercially, is on the same level as Spec Ops: The Line, which is to say, “wasn’t very good,” and it was another game that impacted me greatly emotionally. Again, due to the power of word of mouth, other people decided to check out the game. Now it exists as a cult classic. The gaming community doesn’t keep all the good things to themselves; they make sure others know about it. Sometimes on NeoGAF we have the occasional thread about some niche game that they feel is worth talking about. We run on this whole concept of wanting to experience good games, so there will always be recommendations and people talking.



Look at you, acting so precious. If you want to always define things in relative terms, there’s no stopping you I guess. Gaming, again, is a varied medium. The same game can have impact on many different levels and in many different ways on equally as many different people. I should be asking you why you feel that they are or have to be relative? Why can’t you accept that there is a spectrum and many different levels? Are you trying to discredit their impact on the gaming community or industry? Do you have some sort of agenda?



It’s a reasonable assertion, seeing how it directly contributed to the decline of Atari, which contributed to the decline of console gaming in 1983, a sort of domino effect if you will. You have to consider that while it is true it’s the best selling Atari 2600 title, it not only did not profit, it also caused Atari to report record losses because the sales did not recoup the cost of marketing, licensing, cart production, etc. It literally brought the company to ruin. It’s failure in every sense of the word. Sure it sold 1.5 million as opposed to 5 million, but that shit is meaningless if its development and release destroyed your entire company. You say 1.5 million copies sold is a success, but that’s not only inaccurate (usually success doesn’t involve the parent company dying), it’s also disingenuous (because it killed Atari).

Or do you think success is relative too? It can be if you want to define it that way. I guess you can say 1.5 million copies sold is a success being the best-selling Atari 2600 title, but functionally, that’s meaningless in the context of the entire situation. The whole company died because of it, while bringing down the whole industry with it! What you’re doing is called cherry picking, mein freund.



Wait, wtf just happened? Did Candlejack get y—



Oh phew, thought you were a goner. Anyway, back to the task at hand…

That’s not a [valid] criticism. (笑) They were being facetious at best. I don’t know what kind of game these people played (or movie they watched) but I couldn’t get to the end without pressing buttons and moving the analog sticks a lot in different ways and occasionally swearing. I wasn’t just passively watching, that’s for sure.

Read above, as I addressed what impact could be. I gave examples. And, buddy, you certainly can argue about quality. It's just that you don't want to. I brought up this

because it's a fact that is what the dialogue resulting from TLOU is actually about. Again, what is your deal?




You know I was trying to find the right word to describe your line of thinking…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism



…and found that this is probably one of the stupidest philosophies I’ve ever heard. Yeah, consider yourself ignored. Spent way too much time on you. No use trying to argue with someone who lives their life basically in an echo chamber while telling themselves, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” and that there is no merit in discussing opinions. Keep living in that bubble of yours.

You dun fucked up m8 I swear on me mum

Not everything, surely, there are some objective qualities, but they're mostly technical. Like, uhm, colors? Colors are wavelengths of light, so you can surely say what color a painter used.

Anyway, to give simple examples from Anime.
Ratings on story, characters, art and sound. What makes a good story? That's different for every individual. What makes good characters? That's different for every individual. How is the art? That's different for every individual. How are the songs? That's different for every individual.

@wrenchbread
If you're going to argue like that, every game in the history of gaming had an impact on something. So what?

The whole "how many maps are in the game" is a bad example, that is a technical point.

You've missed the point entirely then, if that is what you understand from me linking that article, you're really off the tracks. I don't want an objective review, at the contrary, I accept the subjectivity of a review, I'm saying that you should not put critics and their reviews on a pedestal because they are critics, even giving them authority, like they are better than the average consumer because they are paid (because as I said, that's what a critic is, a paid individual that gives his opinion on what he consumes like any other consumer).

Can you? I thought we'll just end in an infinite cycle until someone shows us some facts on the matter, that means it'll become an argument, how valid and sound it is, well, that depends. But by all means, do what you want, you can argue opinions, you can jump off a building too, I can also kill my whole family while riding an unicycle. Opinions though, can't be valid or sound.

That's just an assumption from my side then, why would GOTY awards (that I presume are given by critics, maybe the community or both based on voting? GOTY is quite obscure) matter then? You gave me The Last of Us as an example of a game you loved and then started talking about it's impact, sales and GOTY awards. Why do any of these matter? Any normal person would believe that you believe these factors are of importance in some way or another, considering I've been talking about subjectivity all this time too. Also yes, I do not believe critics are authorities when talking about art. It's hard to justify the authority of art critics.

Funnily enough, I can get the same conclusion that that author got from any other FPS game, without having to maim the main character psychologically or physically, actually, people we're asking themselves these questions without Spec Ops: The Line, that means every other FPS/violent game/gore game/etc had so much impact on the industry. So that is impact to you? Discussion on the matters right? I don't remember Spec Ops "downturning the industry" either. What about games that did not have that much publicity yet also had a message? Maybe their impact is not as big as Spec Ops or The Last of Us because they did not get as many discussions because of the small sales. Where do you... draw the line/s?
And here I go again, I can make everything you have here relative. Your "impact" as you call it is still relative.

"Some say it contributed" which is mere speculation. That title was the best selling title on the Atari 2600, even if it did not sell 5 million copies it was still a success.

Why do you believe I don't want discussion on art to happen? All I want is to not hear people pushing down their opinions into other people's throats, I also don't want to hear things like "if it has fanservice and a good story, it's most likely an exception, otherwise it's the norm", but of course, your problem is there is no more variety, well, isn't that your opinion that variety matters? Reading through your posts again, it seems you're not that bad, but you still have some mishaps that could be avoided.

Why did it insult your intelligence? What, do you think I'll stalk your history now to find out by myself? This was

I think you've forgot most of the criticism being like "It's not a game, it's a movie", but anyway, it seems that because you were never clear on what "impact" means to you, you've correlated some meaningless things again, and got to some other conclusions than before. Meh, whatever.

And now you're back to quality, when you denied, post by post, that quality can be argued in any way... Really now.

I see we've gone nowhere.

Consider the perspective that Tetris is a game that has been out since 1984 and released on more platforms than I have lived years. The Last of Us on the other hand is an exclusive late generation PS3 title and a new IP in a waning industry that is adverse to new IPs and it's been out for only a little more than a year. And yes, you "can still make it a relative argument on how much of an impact they had on the gaming industry." I never said you couldn't. In fact, I applaud it. These games all impacted the industry in their own way, and you can most certainly get into the specifics of how and why.

*groundbreaking, not gamebreaking, which changes the meaning completely if it's what as you miswrote

As for observations on art are not fact... Do you realize how insane you sound right now?

Me: "Here's how ABC is similar to XYZ"
You: "That's just your opinion, man"
Me: "But I just laid out point by point how they're--"
You: "THAT'S JUST YOUR OPINION, MAN"

or a more simple observation…

Me: "FFXIII maps for about 12 chapters of the game follow a narrow, linear path until you reach Gran Pulse"
You: "That's just your opinion, man"
Me: "Here are all the maps in the game to prove it"
You: "Still just your opinion"

Now if you were arguing that just because two works are similar doesn't necessarily mean they're connected in any way, you'd be getting somewhere. But we're not; we're stuck talking about whether or not similarities are opinions rather than observations.

And I hope you you realize that that Jim Sterling review (thank GOD for him) is satirizing what people like you, yes, YOU, seem to want in reviews and arguments. That review tell me absolutely nothing meaningful for later discussion if you haven't noticed. It just says this is an RPG and there’s a battle system and there’s a story with characters. It’s dry and functionally meaningless for someone who wants to know the details. You saying "that's just an opinion” says nothing meaningful. That “objective” review up there is the type of world you’re advocating for, mein freund. For completion's sake, here's his actual review: http://www.destructoid.com/review-final-fantasy-xiii-167136.phtml

I find it baffling that you don't understand that you can actually argue an opinion. The whole political landscape is built upon this principle. Internet forums are built on this principle. School discussions are built on this principle to foster understanding and perspective rather than living in an echo chamber that you call your opinion. ”I think so-and-so should be done XYZ way because of A, B, and C." “I think that is wrong because of alpha, beta, and gamma.” It's why shit like humanities exist. People wouldn’t be arguing over accepted truths (at least, I hope not). It’s when opinions differ that debates start. Talk with your debate club. Look at this list. These are all opinions. Every single one. The point of a debate is to pick a side and argue with facts and observations.

Are you reading my reply properly? I never said critics are objective authorities (I have to point out your previous reply didn't include the word objective in front of authority so good job moving goalposts), nor did I ever insinuate that they are or aren't. I said, "The logical fallacy comes from assuming what an authoritative figure said is true because they're an authoritative figure," which is to say that what an authoritative figure says is NOT necessarily true in virtue of being from an authoritative figure. Your argument(read: opinion) is that there is no such thing as an authoritative figure. If you want to make that sort of argument that'll you have to define what does or does not constitute as authority (AKA how does one become authority? Is it given? Is it a consensus? Is it bullshit? If it's bullshit, why do you think that? Are top scientists of their field not authoritative figures? Are you wearing a tin foil hat?) Are you willing to make that commitment?

Thank you proving that your perspective is awfully skewed and narrow. Impact is more than just sales. It can be increased word of mouth. An influx of participants. The downturn of an entire industry. DIscussions or analyses spawned by the existence of the work. Look at all the different analysis and editorial posts about Spec Ops: The Line's story and inherent message. It challenged and impacted people's views on what [military] shooters are, what they can be, and why we play them. Look at this editorial for some perspective: http://grantland.com/features/line-explores-reasons-why-play-shooter-games/

Thank you for bringing up E.T. because its impact revolves around overestimating the industry's acceptance of hastily made video games just because they're video games based on a popular IP. It sought to cash in on a blockbuster movie and thus Atari threw tons of money at this investment and it backfired. You didn't bother to mention how Atari expected to sell 5 million copies that it ordered and quite a few of the sold copies were returned for refunds because of consumer dissatisfaction, and I'm sure you heard about the landfill of unsold E.T. carts, which they unearthed recently (thanks Microsoft!). Some say it contributed to the NA video game crash of 1983, due to the oversaturation of low quality and/or copycat titles (AKA fastly made clones, see Flappy Bird for a more recent example). The impact is there, just in a way you failed to consider.

You keep bringing up art, but what is it you do in art class or hell even literature class? You discuss art. Have you taken an art class? Yeah, we have plenty of discussions there. About what you may ask? About your opinions on a certain piece of art, mein freund. Unless you’re taking history of art, then that’s a whole nother thing. (笑)

What do you mean what about anime? I have my views and you have yours. SAO was one of the few anime series where I felt my intelligence was insulted. I wrote at length about why I felt that way and I’m not gonna do it again. I justified my stance two years ago. Just like critics justified theirs. Are you using argumentum ad populum? That sales justifies quality? For the record, I don't and will never deny the impact SAO has had on the anime industry. I give credit where credit is due. I just don't think the repercussions of its success inspires much faith, but that's only my opinion.

See my whole point about the impact The Last of Us had on the games industry is not just because it made a lot of money or a lot of people liked it. The impact is from the dialogue that it opened up regarding the future of games of its nature seeing how commercially successful and critically acclaimed it is. Again, whether or not you believe it’s good or even warranting such praise is your opinion and mine, but the numbers are all there to prove how successful it is. (Let’s not pull that bullshit about how it’s relative. Sure, it’s relative, but you’re acting like it discredits TLoU’s success.) The dialogue that opened up include: how can video games in the future integrate storytelling and gameplay into a cohesive package? How can we make video games that make us feel? How can we raise the bar in storytelling in video games?

I hope you know you’re advocating for a world with no [meaningful] debates on the quality [or lack thereof] in a work because to you, nothing can be argued because they’re all opinions or something. I’d even say that because they're opinions that they actually can be argued. Maybe you’re adverse to it because you just don’t like it when someone disagrees with you so you use “it’s just your opinion, man” as a defensive mechanism. I don’t know. Chalking everything to being merely opinion inherently stifles debate and discussion.

I've been resisting entering this topic, but at this point I want to confirm one thing.

@Immahnoob - Is it me or are you basically saying that when it comes to "Art," everything is subjective? That there's no point to debate anything "worth mentioning" because you think it's ultimately subjective and can't be objective in nature?

Funnily enough, I can easily argue that that is still your opinion, 7 million copies is actually nothing, Tetris sold 143 million, Diablo 3 sold 15 million and I can still make it a relative argument on how much of an impact they had on the gaming industry. How many video games of every type exist at this current moment? The gaming industry itself is too big for you to generalize it so easily.

You've used gamebreaking wrong then, and that is your fault, the only point I can agree with is that the mechanics are not subjective. Also, your observations on art are not a fact, they're still opinions. And nope, you still can't debate how well the execution is made by "combining and weaving all those aspects together", because that will still be your opinion on the matter. How well certain mechanics work together is up to the player to decide.

Awards also mean nothing, considering they're also subjective, and the impact is relative any way you take it. You're correlating things that have nothing to do with each other.

So you seriously said that critics are objective authorities? That their criticism are automatically objective AND they are authorities because they are paid? I think you do know that the differentiation between a critic and anyone else is that the critic himself gets paid for his "work". Critics simply give their opinion by their own standards on games, and the standards change from person to person, that is why critics will never be objective, only subjective. But you can argue that certain criticism is objective, like the technical production value, but guess what. That is useless to almost any individual that seeks a review.

This is an objective review.
http://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii-179178.phtml
But I guess he did not play the Xbox 360 version too, he's biased as fuck.

You're also really really off with all this, seriously, you have to start from the beginning, dear wrenchbread, what is that we're talking about? "Art", my young padawan... "Art" will never be objective on the matters that we are arguing. E.T. was a horrible game on the Atari, so most say, but it had the best sales on the Atari 2600 with 1.5 million copies, I guess that also had an impact... Nope, hahahaha.

By the way, what about Anime? Why did you give SAO a 1 when it sold so much and it was praised by the populace and overall critics? Why aren't you agreeing with them? I want you to think of what changes all that for you, blend it together with the whole "That is your opinion" thing (especially on the critic thing) and with the whole "standards" thing, then open your mind.

Do know that there is a differentiation between subjective arguments and objective arguments, objective arguments have to do with logos, think of a second of why that denies what you said about opinions yourself.

But... they're not opinions. I see you're using that statement as a crutch to avoid providing an argument. I'll give you "wonderfully written characters," but everything else can be measured or observed.

What I meant by "not groundbreaking in terms of mechanics and story" is that it's been done before. That's not an opinion, it's a statement of fact based on observation and the different media I've consumed over the years. Nothing in TLoU was particularly new or innovative. It's a fact that the game includes things that has been done before. I don't understand how you can deny that unless you haven't played it (and the games that influenced it) before. Numerous bits of its mechanics were lifted straight from games such as Resident Evil 4 and Naughty Dog's own Uncharted series. The gameplay design is very reminiscent of RE4, the melee combat, shooting, and movement are an evolution of Uncharted's. The zombie apocalypse story in TLoU has been done so many damn times over the course of the last console generation and is heavily inspired by The Road, Children of Men, 28 Days Later, I Am Legend and The Walking Dead. The ending and certain story beats were pretty much NieR's (NieR came first) though I believe that's more coincidence than anything. However, what you can argue how well the execution is done in combining and weaving all those aspects together, and I would if I wasn't feeling so lazy and my fellow debater (pff, not even) didn't fall back on "it's an opinion" all the time. It also seems you didn't play it, so it'd just be spoilers from here on out.

The developers themselves talked at length about the different works that inspired them and influenced TLoU. (You should watch this video, it's extremely insightful.) Try educating yourself. Users at gaming forums all over talked at length about their observations regarding the game. I'd rather you read their varied [supported] thoughts for yourself rather than have me parrot them.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=740557 <<<< tons of untagged spoilers, but if you don't care...
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=759445 <<<< untagged spoilers!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=745099 <<<< this one has spoilers tagged
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=713861 <<<< also spoiler tagged
http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/the-last-of-us-7917/why-is-the-last-of-us-a-generation-defining-game-1489726/ <<<<more of an impressions thread than anything

Like I said, you can say the game is overrated, but this is also the game that garnered over 200 GOTY awards and sold over 7 million copies. It [almost] swept the VGX awards and BAFTAs. The impact (I didn't say whether good or bad or if it was an indication on the game's quality) on gamers and the industry is definitely measurable, whether or not you or I believe the praise was deserved or not is merely an opinion. I'm just saying the impact is real, because the sales are real and the unprecedented number of awards is real. Once more, you might be denying that it rightfully earned those accolades based what you feel about the game, but it's no opinion that it was awarded a lot of them. It's like denying Bakemonogatari's, or, probably a more relatable case to you, MOBA's (namely League of Legend's) impact on their respective industries; you just can't, regardless of your opinions about Bakemonogatari or LoL, unless you like being contrary and believing what you want to believe in spite of all the facts being there. What do we call that? Ah yes, being delusional.

Again, I was arguing impact, not whether or not it was good (read: quality) because of said impact. Argumentum ad populum is pretty bad, because Call of Duty/Twilight/Transformers/etc. And you're using argument from authority wrong. The logical fallacy comes from assuming what an authoritative figure said is true because they're an authoritative figure. Your statement is that critics aren't authoritative is only subjective at best. Then you're gonna have to enter the whole rabbit hole trying to discuss how can one be authoritative. I'd like to see your argument. (Actually, I don't, I don't want to spend my days here arguing with people who can't into self-reflection. I don't even think you're looking for a nuanced argument seeing how you're only saying "it's an opinion!" without trying to refute my points. Hell, if I wanted to be snarky I'd even say that you saying it's my opinion is also an opinion. As much as I like The Dude, you shouldn't be parroting him as you haven't provided any arguments of your own so far.)

You should still play the The Last of Us though if you already haven't. [I think] it's absolutely fantastic and a crowning moment in gaming. Unless, of course, you don't like third person action games with a pretty serious and depressing story about human survival in a bleak world. That's an alright opinion to have.

You mean false facts. "Wonderfully written characters" is your opinion and is subjective, "It wasn't particularly gamebreaking in mechanics or story" is also your opinion which is subjective. "You can't deny the impact it had on players and the game industry at large", yes, actually I can, considering that again, is an opinion.

Unless you believe that sales equals to quality, or if appraisal by critics equals to quality, then again, you are wrong, one is an argument from popularity and another is an argument from authority (which is flawed too, because critics have no authority, their criticism itself is subjective).

I haven't seen you provide any proof of your statements, so I believe I should be taking your simple words as facts then? And that's what I did, and it seems I found only false facts. Try again.

Wow. look at those arguments.

Anyway... The Mc's background reminds me of Layfon in Chrome Shelled Regios, being thought highly at first by many then being despised or held as a traitor at the end.

I can't say its bad thought, but I see the same similarities in the synopsis in almost every light novels. Well, I just hope it's entertaining enough.

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/subjectivist/

http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/thats-just-your-opinion/21160

An opinion is a subjective statement. An opinion supported with facts is an argument. I made an argument. Based on the above, you go figure out where you went wrong in your statement.

There's 4 vols out according to Amazon Japan, the 4th was released yesterday.

Amazing. Sounds like nothing but sameness, the first volume isn't even out yet according to the database, and it's getting an anime. Stay classy, Japan.

That's still your opinion though, which is subjective.

Creativity/variety has no bearing on whether or not everything was already implemented or even done better before. One of my most favorite games the last console generation was The Last of Us. It wasn't particularly groundbreaking in terms of mechanics or story, but what was groundbreaking was how extraordinarily well-executed the game was in providing mechanics that complemented the bleak world and wonderfully written characters. There are only a handful of games that reached that kind of reverence. You can call it overrated, but you can't deny the impact it had on players and the games industry at large.

I can't see why your opinion of what is "creative" and "varied" matters to any of us though. After all, almost everything was already implemented once, maybe with a different shell but it's still the same in the end.

Nothing is truly "original" anymore, "variation" is not necessarily good either.

So you still lack an argument.

Yes, it does, and because it stifles creativity and variety. It's why after much soul searching, I accepted something like Free! is needed in this industry. Or were you not around for the last console generation's brown and grey military shooter boom?



You keep thinking if that if it lets you sleep at night. Again, you're just a waste of my time, thinking you're so precious when you yourself fail to provide nuanced arguments while antagonizing me when I laid down all my cards. Like I said, if you didn't bother to read the last few pages, that's your failure, not mine.

That doesn't really matter.

Why is it bad if it saturates it?

So you'll run away, it's good to know you're wrong.