What makes a video game unique is that the narrative is created through the interaction of the player with the medium. The narrative exists through the gameplay not just the cutscenes, and if you have predecided the outcome of a narrative event and have to rewrite the manner in which people interact with the work of art to make it happen then that is clumsy storytelling.
I think you have a good point here and this substantiates many of the cases you’re complaining about, but I think you’re still viewing the issue a little narrowly. Letting the player interact and having that interaction be meaningful is not the same as having the player character win if they Git Gud. The point is to express things and the issue with poorly done forced losses is that they don’t express very much besides “ludo-narrative dissonance” or something. Failing to achieve one’s desired outcome despite doing everything as well as they could have is still a valid concept and a meaningful idea that can be used well in a story, the issue is that most games just don’t do that.
Failing to achieve one’s desired outcome despite doing everything as well as they could have is still a valid concept and a meaningful idea that can be used well in a story,
Some games give you leeway to choose who your character will be, but there are games where the story is predecided and you’re just there to fill the boots (like in the god of war games); I’m happy to be told what the story is (as it is, growing up I LOVED reading novels to see what stories are out there; some people imagined themselves in the shoes of the protagonist, but for me I always saw myself as the audience), although I do think there should be an award of sorts for those who can complete impossible tasks or fights.
That is irrelevant to the issue. The issue is not that Kratos loses, it is that they interrupt the manner in which the story is told and overwrite your input as a participant in an interactive medium to facilitate it. It is not the same as a novel having a prearranged narrative, because a novel is not interactive and you do not create the narrative through your interaction with it. The characters in your novel don’t make their choices based on whether or not you pressed square or circle (The closest is those choose your own adventure novels, but the equivalent there would be you selecting to go to page 89 and the page 89 description being “No you didn’t, go to page 93 instead” and the novel then mocking your choice, which would either be satirical or incredibly bad storytelling).
And kratos, for the most part, has cutscene competence. in which as soon as you press a button in a cutscene he succeeds, the only exception as far as I recall being that you sometimes have impossible to complete “Mash this button” challenges, but in that scenario You still failed and the narrative of failure is created through your failure in the interaction.
What makes a video game unique is that the narrative is created through the interaction of the player with the medium. The narrative exists through the gameplay not just the cutscenes, and if you have predecided the outcome of a narrative event and have to rewrite the manner in which people interact with the work of art to make it happen then that is clumsy storytelling.
I think you have a good point here and this substantiates many of the cases you’re complaining about, but I think you’re still viewing the issue a little narrowly. Letting the player interact and having that interaction be meaningful is not the same as having the player character win if they Git Gud. The point is to express things and the issue with poorly done forced losses is that they don’t express very much besides “ludo-narrative dissonance” or something. Failing to achieve one’s desired outcome despite doing everything as well as they could have is still a valid concept and a meaningful idea that can be used well in a story, the issue is that most games just don’t do that.
TNG: Peak Performance
Some games give you leeway to choose who your character will be, but there are games where the story is predecided and you’re just there to fill the boots (like in the god of war games); I’m happy to be told what the story is (as it is, growing up I LOVED reading novels to see what stories are out there; some people imagined themselves in the shoes of the protagonist, but for me I always saw myself as the audience), although I do think there should be an award of sorts for those who can complete impossible tasks or fights.
That is irrelevant to the issue. The issue is not that Kratos loses, it is that they interrupt the manner in which the story is told and overwrite your input as a participant in an interactive medium to facilitate it. It is not the same as a novel having a prearranged narrative, because a novel is not interactive and you do not create the narrative through your interaction with it. The characters in your novel don’t make their choices based on whether or not you pressed square or circle (The closest is those choose your own adventure novels, but the equivalent there would be you selecting to go to page 89 and the page 89 description being “No you didn’t, go to page 93 instead” and the novel then mocking your choice, which would either be satirical or incredibly bad storytelling).
And kratos, for the most part, has cutscene competence. in which as soon as you press a button in a cutscene he succeeds, the only exception as far as I recall being that you sometimes have impossible to complete “Mash this button” challenges, but in that scenario You still failed and the narrative of failure is created through your failure in the interaction.