Before I begin, because of all this talk revolving around
Bayonetta, presumably as knee-jerk defense mechanisms out of one person saying "I didn't want to play it", check out
Jim Sterling's Bayonetta 2 Review, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. For the curious, he gave it a 9/10, which given his stern "use every point" philosophy, that's basically perfect, from him. His biggest gripe was the voice acting of one of the characters, but held up that it was worth putting up with because of the quality of the rest of the game. *I* personally loved his opening and ending assertions, which you guys seem to be missing: "
Recommendation: It's absolutely okay to like
Bayonetta. It's okay to NOT like
Bayonetta as well. See how easy that is?"
Now onto business...
Just to clarify a bit, some of this I may have already said:
Since you like Ninja Gaiden what are your thoughts on Bayonetta? I figure you would like it since the two series are so similar.
Similar???
Not even remotely!!! That's like saying
God of War is similar to
Ninja Gaiden.
Sure, they're both third person action slash-em-up games, but that doesn't make them similar. Or to go with a better example to express why they're not, it would be like comparing
Bioshock with
Call of Duty, or even
Borderlands, cause "they're shooters". Clearly, while they may fit into the same genre, they're not alike in just about every other aspect.
You say that they aren't alike, but one sentence later state the exact opposite. They do resemble each other in many ways. Not even remotely similar? Bayonetta was Kamiya's answer to Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden 2. They have many characteristics that are common.
Your hyperbolic answer to a very simple question is very telling. Sure Bayonetta may be more like Devil May Cry, but a comparison to Ninja Gaiden is no stretch. Typical semantics coming from the guy with semantics in his sig.
What you seem to be missing is that I'm not faulting you for making a comparison of your own that "is no stretch", but rather I responded- appropriate, *I* felt -to your assertion that a comparison YOU drew ought to apply to me. Furthermore it was JUST a direct and honest refutation, it wasn't a personal attack of any sort, so I don't know why it's such a big deal. If it's no big stretch to draw a comparison, why is it unthinkable for me to draw a line in the sand instead? Isn't that the point of argument: to get down to the bottom of differences in ideas/approach?
As for the hyperbolic comment, people seem to really love relying on that term as a crutch to instantly negate a statement, when really measured use is perfectly fine. You say hyperbole, I say analogy. And I believe that. The difference, I'd argue, is the stubbornness and unwillingness to accept the analogy for the harmless thought association exercise that it is, and label it some kind of travesty so you can move on with a feeling of conquest. I see people time and time again do exactly that, as though anecdotes are inconceivable, to them. No amount of metaphorical speech (NOT the lofty bullshit you get out of politicians being rhetorical, I mean just simple tangential mannerisms!) is acceptable to these sorts of people, and I simply find that stagnant thinking.
Then you go on to discuss all the differences to prove how they aren't exactly the same. Which I never said in the first place. But the games are comparable which was the only thing I was trying to say. You don't like it? Okay.
I'm sorry if my responses are too wordy, but I was under the impression you liked that from me. Not the LENGTH itself, I mean, the propensity for detailed discussion. You made a statement, and I elaborated; granted doing so by branching off in a direction that you didn't intend to imply. Is that so wrong?
Let's say for the sake of argument, if I'd never played the game and had 0 experience with it and no impressions to base any form of response over, I'm sure you would've delighted to see an answer of "Hmm, I'll take a look when I can" out of me, right? And because I do respect your opinion, that's more than likely what I would've said in response to a suggestion I have no familiarity with from someone I respect. But if the opposite was the case, and the opposite impression as well, and I'd LOVED the game, would you have begrudged me for going off on a tangent of how glad I was you brought it up and how I liked this and how I enjoyed that and on and on and on? Would talking about the game you brought up, favorably, yet in more detail than your initial suggestion, bothered you NEARLY as much as what I actually did, which is almost the exact same thing, except with the opposite impression being described? That strikes me as a bit disrespectful of a person's tastes, despite your assertion that it's actually okay with you. Which isn't to say this is the case, of course, since that's not what was said and done, and it's just conjecture at best. But I hope you see my point about a potential for contradiction here.
I never implied you were [intending to make a "quote war"], but I knew that it was inevitable this would happen. You tend to bring up things completely unrelated while accusing others of doing just that.
How is branching off on a tangent that's related to a topic which was raised in the direction of the individual who raised it AT ALL like bringing up completely different subjects (game developer companies) and using that mistake to say I'm wrong? I point out when people bring up totally unrelated topics if the act of doing so was a mistake on some level, such as the aforementioned above, not JUST in response to the act itself. I don't throw stones from my glass houses, and I'm keenly aware of my tendency towards tangential verbal perambulation.
An analogy is a comparison. A partial similarity. I see a common theme here. If you can't understand the resemblance between NG and B then you damn sure can't understand the irony of these comments.
You also twisted what I have said about the game really picking up. The game doesn't need to pick up. It stays at a constant breakneck speed the whole time. But when you beat the game a whole other level of challenge opens up. I never said, "It gets good when you beat it"...
I twisted nothing. I responded to the statement with the appropriate reference to knock it down for what it was. I later elaborated on WHY that was done, and the whole way I was being told "that's not what this means" and "no, you misunderstood" when I understood it from the very beginning. I talking about my PERSONAL likes of certain games with "pick up" later, but that wasn't me saying you claimed a game "must" do so, nor did I state that it was a necessity for me. Every time I brought up a game I liked in this discussion, I ought to have clarified that I was doing so to illustrate that there's a great discrepancy in titles because fondness is not determined based on rational reasons, but because of irrational taste. The underlying point being that I could very well love a game which "picks up later" and simultaneously love a game that does nothing of the sort. For instance (here's another analogy incoming)
Demon's Souls and
Bioshock. DS ramps up each time you beat it, meanwhile both thematically and in gameplay BS just drops the ball after a certain point. Yet I love them both. The reason being because that particular detail was NOT the linchpin of my likes for either game... because the reason is always just ambiguous taste.
But while on the subject of analogies, a "type" of comparison doesn't make it the same as straight-up comparison. The common interpretation for "comparison" during discussion of a thing to be praised or disparaged is to say say how one is good and how the other is X, and in summation this is why you approve or disapprove of the latter. Meanwhile my instrumentation of analogies was nothing of the sort, merely using them to point out "If X is to Y like A is to B, then B being [insert comments] is why I disgree with you." The structure of the arguments and the nature of the dialectical tools is completely different from one to the other, and that's why they're different terms, I'd argue. Just like the old saying goes about Inuits having so many words for "snow" (or, more modernly, how many words for "money" there are across multiple American dialects of English), languages often- though not always -reflect distinctions in concepts when it comes up with different words for similar, yet not-the-same notions, and whether or not an analogy is a form of comparison doesn't make it comparison. Think square and rectangle; one is the other but the other isn't the one. And if so much as bringing up those idioms is me being "hyperbolic", then sorry, but that's just normal human train of thought. A, then B, then C, then D, etc.
Strawman alert!
Either way it doesn't matter. You've resorted to hurling insults and backpedaling, so I feel no progress can be made in this discussion. Not much more can be said from this point.
Strawman of not, that ending comment was needlessly (and apparently deliberately) hurtful of you. That's a low blow for you, having demonstrated many times more than aptitude at maintaining integrity, even humor, in the midst of heated discussion. But I haven't backpedaled in the slightest, and I only "hurled insults" at someone who began the practice by introducing himself to the discussion with derogatization (yes I know that's not a word) and belittlement in place of leveled rebuking and objective disagreement.
mC. That’s not to say I don’t still have something to say, though. As a matter of fact, there’s some serious crap you made up at the beginning of this bottom segment.
