Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[Kolsykol]

I find the realism to be refreshing. There's no shortage of games with goofy, light hearted moments and a lack of stakes. The Witcher is a fairly gritty game and yet that sold like ice cream on a hot day. Same with Elden Ring.

They do sell for sure.
I mean it's the same reason why I was disappointed with the redesigns in Street Fighter 6.
Do they '' make sense '' for the story they're going with and look closer to what people irl wear etc?
Sure..

But there's just something really dull and bland about them to me.
One of my favorite things with fighting games are the crazy and super expressive character designs.
But Chun Li for example, her redesign could as well be a new Chinese martial artist in a totally different game.
There's just nothing about it that makes me think of Chun Li and it really doesn't have any aspects to it that stands out, not even the spiked bracelets.
It feels so restrained and bland by comparison.
I don't believe that anyone will remember it the way her OG costume is remembered, not because it's the OG but because it's just simply a more unique, fun and expressive design.

If we're talking about indie games then you do have a lot of that I guess, but when it comes to the big titles I think we're just losing more and more IP's to the '' realism and gritty '' thing.
The Witcher didn't really feel '' performatively realistic and gritty '' to me tho which is how I'd describe most of this, visually it was honestly quite bright which in the end of the day is closer to real life.
In '' realistic and gritty '' shows and games colors get desaturated, they're often unnaturally grey.
And there was a fair bit of comedy in the Witcher too.

I am just trying to think of games in recent memories that aren't indie which weren't like this, and all I can think of is sequels and reboots that used to be but aren't anymore.
But yeah I never said they don't sell well, I don't really believe that something selling well is a sign of something being good either tho.
The Marvel movies and Disney shows/ movies are incredibly popular but I think they're kinda garbage tbh lol.
I am sure we can think of a ton of examples of this in gaming too, the average person has a mild interest in games and tends to want something more familiar and vanilla I think.