Why won't the main character STFU?

[Heisenburger]

After playing Bunker and trying this, I'm glad they learned something.

[kenneth]

I guess being a woman seeing dead people and horrible stuff make people crazy you know ?
Bunker is in ww1 and Henri saw already too much

[Sv. Prolivije]

Originally posted by homeless enjoyer:

I guess being a woman seeing dead people and horrible stuff make people crazy you know ?
Bunker is in ww1 and Henri saw already too much

Not really a matter of sex. Play Outlast 2 and you'll see that a man who won't shut up can also be an annoying turd as well. Seems this is an issue with horror games, especially defenssless horror games that decided to put voiced protagnoists in the game. Besides saying "♥♥♥♥" a thousdand times, they don't really have much to add to the game.

[Norwee]

The issue with characters like Blake and Tasi is that they are part of games where the players immersion into their situation is important, yet they will talk quite a lot and have a personality that may not fit the players view of themselves, and by extension the player character which they should extend themselves into.
For example, i don’t want to look or care about the baby, but Tasi talks and dotes about it constantly.
I want to care about what happens in the Other World, but Tasi is selfish and only wants to go home.
This makes the ending sequence where you poison the emperor feel odd because Tasi as an character would not act unselfishly, yet the player might. So it’s like a fight between the character the game wants you to play as, and who the player really wants to be.
This kind of problem seems less severe in SOMA despite Simon having a personality, but there are still moments where Simon will talk and do stuff i don’t agree with. However Rebirth seemed to make this problem worse by turning it up to 11 by having a even more unique and a bit annoying character and them talking even more. Also the game has moments where control is taken away from the player and Tasi moves on her own. And it’s quite frequent too. Which leads to more disassociation with the player character.

[Amalgamation]

Originally posted by Norwee:

The issue with characters like Blake and Tasi is that they are part of games where the players immersion into their situation is important, yet they will talk quite a lot and have a personality that may not fit the players view of themselves, and by extension the player character which they should extend themselves into.
For example, i don’t want to look or care about the baby, but Tasi talks and dotes about it constantly.
I want to care about what happens in the Other World, but Tasi is selfish and only wants to go home.
This makes the ending sequence where you poison the emperor feel odd because Tasi as an character would not act unselfishly, yet the player might. So it’s like a fight between the character the game wants you to play as, and who the player really wants to be.
This kind of problem seems less severe in SOMA despite Simon having a personality, but there are still moments where Simon will talk and do stuff i don’t agree with. However Rebirth seemed to make this problem worse by turning it up to 11 by having a even more unique and a bit annoying character and them talking even more. Also the game has moments where control is taken away from the player and Tasi moves on her own. And it’s quite frequent too. Which leads to more disassociation with the player character.

I just dont agree with this statement, i didnt find rebirth amazing but i think this mindset is a fundamental "flaw" in your playing of the game as weird as that sounds. let me explain quickly.

The game is telling to be immersed in the game - immersion can mean a lot of things and i think you're taking the "I want to be in this world and see how'd id do in it" approach. which if fine, but its NOT what the developers are asking of you at the start in my opinion. They are asking for you to immerse yourself AS THE CHARACTER.

They want you to be Tasi. As a male myself, the story doesnt work if you try to Immerse YOURSELF in the world, because the story beats revolve around an expectant mother. it just doesnt work if you try to approach it from a different angle than Tasi's.

The narrative rational actually does work if you do what the devs are essentially begging you to do at the start - roleplay as Tasi. yeah you may not agree with it as yourself, but the game gives a good amount of justification as to why she would feel all of these things and its explained quite well in that regard. As in, I dont find anything Tasi does (until you, the player not Tasi, have full control of the ending) to be out of character.

essentially i feel you can only have this disconnect if youre trying to be a different person, yourself, and not Tasi. which again, the devs tell you they are asking you not todo that.

whether thats a failure on the dev team, or your own immersive capabilities, is up for debate still in my eyes. But i read your entire comment as again what I would call a fundamental blindspot in what immersion actually fully means. it is not just you "being in the world" it can mean immersing yourself in another's life - and its seems to me that you just didnt "understand" that.

[Gdudism]

I could see his point though, but yeah, you are supposed to immers yourself as Tasi, the player character.

[Heisenburger]

No, you are not supposed to do anything except play. It's a game not a movie after all. I don't want to be forced to play the way devs want me to play, I don't want to ""immerse"" myself as anyone except me. Thanks but no thanks.

[Amalgamation]

Originally posted by Bruce Lee Inc.:

No, you are not supposed to do anything except play. It's a game not a movie after all. I don't want to be forced to play the way devs want me to play, I don't want to ""immerse"" myself as anyone except me. Thanks but no thanks.

Sounds like a you problem, and sounds like a negative character trait to be frank.

Being able to immerse yourself, to have empathy, as someone else is a powerful and wonderful tool to have. to not be able to or to hate the idea of it is a legit mental illness I'm pretty sure.

and, yah. its a game, you PLAY the character, youre the actor essentially. this isnt a movie where youre literally not ever doing that (unless its Hardcore Henry). theres legit more rational by your standard to immerse yourself with a game like this - so that point just doesn't make any sense.

(also the statement "i dont want to immerse myself as anyone except me. thanks but no thanks." just makes you sound like a self-absorbed ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ haha. just some food for thought)

[Sweets]

yeah the mc narrates a lot and I mean a lot

[KERNBOOM FORDOLF]

Sometimes you cannot immerse 'yourself', because you have to sacrifice 'yourself' to be immersed. Tackle it like Heath Ledger. Adjust your attitude: you are a talkative pregnant lady now.

You are interacting with a medium created to tell you a story. Gamers should want to master the art of interacting with such mediums. They will respect and enjoy them more.

//

I just finished The Bunker and expected a lengthier, more Rebirth kind of game.

If you want to experience an annoying female protagonist that you cannot relate with, try that walking simulator The Invincible. For a game that has to feature a pregnant lady with amnesia, the devs have added it into the game very skillfully. The writing and the voice acting are great.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by Sweeks:

yeah the mc narrates a lot and I mean a lot

Problem is most of the jibber-jabber is telling you what to do........"I need to go over there, I should put the thing in the other thing, if I do this then that will happen".

Not ,much of an "immersive" experience when it is literally telling you what to do chapter and verse.

[Umbralich]

This game gets just ridiculous amounts of hatred. Main complaints I've seen during the years: female protagonist, pregnancy, too much text, too much speech, "walking simulator", you name it. Seems to me the angriest complainers are not the game's target group to begin with, since FG's games have always been lore rich "walking simulators." People would get a lot more enjoyment from Rebirth if they stopped expecting it to be another TDD or SOMA. Rebirth is one of a kind game in their current arsenal, and imo it's just sad, because I bet they'll never make another one like it because of all the hate.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by Vicar Ame:

This game gets just ridiculous amounts of hatred. Main complaints I've seen during the years: female protagonist, pregnancy, too much text, too much speech, "walking simulator", you name it. Seems to me the angriest complainers are not the game's target group to begin with, since FG's games have always been lore rich "walking simulators." People would get a lot more enjoyment from Rebirth if they stopped expecting it to be another TDD or SOMA. Rebirth is one of a kind game in their current arsenal, and imo it's just sad, because I bet they'll never make another one like it because of all the hate.

Yeah, well firstly Frictional brought a lot of it on themselves shortly after release when they started accusing their customers of being too dumb to get it. It was all OUR fault they made a substandard product.

Secondly this is not the product that customers were lead to believe - it was fundamentally changed in late development when it was handed to TaleSpinners with large areas, enemies and mechanics being cut to make way for the romance / baby angle.

[KERNBOOM FORDOLF]

You proved his point; the hatred was dumb and if they can only see the game through the lens of 'what the hell is a pregnant woman doing here?' they are too dumb to get it.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by KERNBOOM:

You proved his point; the hatred was dumb and if they can only see the game through the lens of 'what the hell is a pregnant woman doing here?' they are too dumb to get it.

Nah, Rubbish. It WOULD be an excuse Frictional could used if they hadn't pulled such a - Bait And Switch - on their customers.

Firstly Frictional were promoting Rebirth as "the most extreme game we have ever made" and that's exactly what it was supposed to be. When it released it was nothing like they described.

Secondly someone was able to extract the hidden assets which showed a very different game was being developed and alarm bells started ringing.

Thirdly it turned out the project had later been outsourced to TaleSpinners - who have a history of making 5 / 10 quality product in the teenage romance market which explained why Rebirth feels so "off".

To this day nobody really knows how much input Frictional actually had into the Rebirth we got but it's definitely not the product they lead us to believe it was going to be.

Frictional's response to being called out - blame the customer. Yeah that's really smart.

[Norwee]

Originally posted by Amalgamation:

Reply

Amalgamation thank you for the response. You make well thought out points but i still feel like Rebirth's immersion is wonky.

It's not really about the fact that you're playing as a pregnant lady, but the fact that they took away the core thing about Amnesia that TDD did super well.

They said it themselves in the developer commentary. Once Daniel has taken the Amnesia potion, the PLAYER BECOMES DANIEL. We are allowed to move as we wish, we can take the choices that we wish, and nothing feels hamfisted. We want to take revenge against Alexander and redeem ourselves when learning how evil "Daniel" used to be before we took control of him. It doesn't feel bad because Daniel's character has been washed away and we are a part of him now.

Compare that to Tasi, we are forced to endure her constant talking, lullaby singing, decision making, and cutscene movement.

We could still have learnt about Tasi's character in flashbacks and get burdened by the knowledge that her decision doomed everyone in the expedition, but after the player takes control then we should feel like we are in control and making meaningful decisions that are our own, and not Tasi's. There are ways to make a player care about the baby without forcing the player's camera into Tasi's stomach and having Tasi go "Oh i wub you so much my baby!"
In fact it might even be more meaningful if the player naturally starts caring about the baby's fate instead of basically having Tasi narrate how we should be feeling.