Pokémon (most of them) have pretty good writing. Planescape Torment has ok “endcap of the airport bookstore fantasy shelf” writing. You’re making exactly the mistake I’m talking about.
(Even narrative-heavy FPSs like Bioshock have an order of magnitude less writing than most RPGs.)
You've got to be joking. Pokemon has better writing then planescape torment or "endcap of airport fantasy shelf" writing?
This isn't a mistake I'm making. Less writing isn't better writing and more writing isn't better writing either. I think you're one of those people who just likes things extremely plain. Basic text that's less wordy is usually an example of bad writing imo. This kind of writing is good for research papers but for stories it's not a good thing.
Anyway here's an example of the "good writing" you're talking about in pokemon:
Most people would disagree with you and agree with me. All the writing in there is pure garbage. I don't understand how you can call that "good" other then if you have a preference for simple sentences.
>You appear to have linked to an anime. We’re discussing video games.
The anime is called Pokemon. This is the source material for which all the Pokemon games are derived from and strive to imitate in style.
Any writing in a video game on Pokemon is equivalent (or worse) in quality and style to the original anime which all Pokemon games are based on.
>Simple sentences are great for simple ideas. Most video games, including most RPGs, only have simple ideas.
Writing isn't only about ideas. That's what research is about. Presenting facts, figures, results and ideas. For stories there needs to more irrational fluff. The writing needs to be immersive, emotive and vivid, eloquent, etc. Most people would agree with me on this matter.
I would say you're the one who has a different preference here.
Pokemon is an anime. Video games and the card game are derivatives of the anime.
I linked to the anime as an example of the writing to prove you wrong. The anime is childish and the games reflect that in the writing.
Maybe you're too young to know this. The anime just had its last episode 2023. It's been around for 25 years. Or maybe you're trolling. Pikachu is literally in that video. The information is quite obvious.
We have to ban accounts that keep breaking HN's rules like this. I don't want to ban you, so if you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the intended spirit, we'd be grateful.
Unfortunately the site in general has gotten increasingly unhinged lately. One of those is a literal "well, actually" defending torture!
I wish you'd stop playing this "I don't want to ban you, but I will ban you if you don't follow the rules, which I also set" game. Do it or don't but jesus christ, this obsession with tone over meaning is so 2010.
If you're referring to some comment that should have been moderated but wasn't, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. If you want to link to it, I can take a look.
"The site in general has gotten increasingly $FOO lately" is the sort of thing people have been saying for 15 years. Such perceptions are notoriously unreliable for a lot of reasons—one is that it's human nature to overgeneralize from randomness, and another is nostalgia bias. It's hard to extract signal. Most likely what you're observing is random fluctuation, but of course I can't be sure.
When I say I don't want to ban you I mean it! You're a good user generally. I'd rather persuade you to follow HN's rules, such as not attacking other users, and it's my preference to try for a long time before giving up on someone.
I'm fine. A bit rude to ask that it implies as if something is wrong with me.
If it's trivially disproveable then just trivially write out the proof. No need to comment on the fact.
>Well, yes, but childish isn’t a synonym for poor quality.
At a pedantic level yes they aren't synonyms. But any reasonable person knows writing is dumbed down and made worse in order for children to understand and follow. It's not just the writing, but the plot line and everything else is made worse and simplistic.
This is your thing. You equate simplistic to good writing. Most people would consider this completely orthogonal to good writing. A simplistic plot can be expressed in a silent film with absolutely no writing. See those Pixar shorts. But in those cases writing doesn't even exist, writing isn't even part of the equation, but I feel that is what you label as "good writing" and what your main point is about.
Rpgs do not universally have good/bad writing. And FPSs like BioShock and soma don't all necessarily have less writing..