Examining something too closely...

Visual Novel Community Off Topic
#1

When you’re playing a game or watching a show, have you ever sat there and wondered how insanely stupid something is?

For example I was playing Zelda on the Wii, and then thought to myself: “You’d think a nation like Hyrule, getting invaded by some ultra evil power every hundred years or so, would be a military superpower with a standing army of elite heavily armed shocktroops, armageddon trained wizards, and a systematic method to screen newborn babies for Triforce shaped birthmarks - thereby warning them who is the Chosen One for some intensive hardcore training, while also pointing out that in about 16 years, there’s gonna be a need for that super army being led by said hero.”

For Star Wars I kept thinking: "Why are gun shots the EXACT same width as a lightsaber? Why don’t these blasters have variable projectiles (its lens energy after all), so they can be WIDER than a lightsaber, so when a Jedi blocks it, some of the blast still gets through?

Star Trek: The Next Generation kept making me wonder: “In the future we have interstellar travel and matter to energy transfer, but we can’t figure out how to stop hair loss?”

#2

Maybe baldness is considered ‘distinguished’ ? :mrgreen:

#3

I think it’s pretty well established that the Hylian royal family only hires about 6 guards for the entire castle and outlying towns. And pretty much the only thing they can stop is a little boy, but only sometimes. Usually little Link is smart enough to get by them.

#4

The whole lack of a Hyrule Army really baffles me… and while Twilight Princess actually has a large military (with full plate even), its utterly incompetent… as if they were just a bunch of town yokels thrown in armor ¬ñ which was probably the case. Then there’s the whole lack of magic support. I mean if Hyrule is the “chosen people” of the goddesses, where the hell is the divine magic? There’s clearly a total lack of arcane wizardry. However during some of his adventures, Link runs across the “spirits” of great swordsmen who teach him techniques and/or the artifacts of powerful archimage. I mean where are these people in “modern” times when a crisis pops up?

I can tell you why Hyrule always gets invaded: because they’re the only nation that just sits around WITHOUT a working defense… well… except waiting for that hero to be born every 100 years.

I assume the pattern is:

[list]#1: Evil is vanquished by Link.

#2: Zelda becomes queen. Link her king.

#3: Link and Zelda establish a powerful army with highly trained swordsmen taught by Link and elite wizards taught by Zelda. They invent new melee techniques and powerful magic items.

#4: Link and Zelda eventually die of old age, while the Golden Age continues.

#5: Their children, for some unknown reason, disband the military.

#6: Their grandchildren give birth to the reincarnation of Link and Zelda.

#7: Evil is reborn. No army is there to stop them.

#8: Repeat.[/list]

Stupidity. Maybe it’s the incest? Link should stick with Ilia then.

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#5

i remember thinking to hard about certain things as well
Like in dragon ball Z how bullets and missiles and other ordinary weapons didn’t work on both the hero’s and villains. Which i didn’t have a problem with since one would assume there to powerful to be hurt by these things. But then trunks shows up with an ordinary sword and is able to cut frezia in half with it. i mean if bullets bounce of off these guys then a sword should be just as ineffective. It should have just shattered…

And more recently i saw the movie i am legend, and in one of the scene it shows will smith fall asleep in a bath tub and then when he wakes up the next morning he is in a bed… and thats all i can remember at the moment

#6

Oh yeah. In fact this annoys me quite a bit, because I can usually pick plot holes in a lot of things. I’m talking to my friend, and I’m like “yeah, playing it again, all the plot holes in FF6 annoy the hell out of me.” “What plot holes?” “Oh COME ON now. They’re all over the place.” 'What are you talking about? There ARE NO plot holes in FF6." “So how does Gestahl capture Espers alive when they have magical powers, and his men don’t? And the Espers know exactly what will happen if they let any of their kind be taken prisoner - therefore their response would have been to crush the humans utterly, THEN reseal the gate.” There’s a slight pause, and my friend goes “Hmm.” Then I pointed out the entire game was full of crap like that.

And Zelda? That’s not the least of the series’ problems. I really want to talk to their architects. WTF are they smoking when they designed the buildings? And where can I get some? That has got to be some good stuff. And what were they using all the various dungeons for? How did they expect people to get around in them, and do … whatever it was they do in those buildings? And what IS it they do?

As for Star Wars … another one of my friends was like “I would kick so much Jedi ass. Make the triblaster: 3 barrels, all pointing in the same direction. Sure, by lining up the saber, a Jedi could theoretically block any two shots. But 3? Totally impossible.”

Yeah, I’m one of the guys watching the shows nitpicking the bad science. And it’s really rather annoying.

#7

Wholeheartedly agreed!

When the emperor surrendered, I made the demand that Kefka is executed - I actually wouldn’t even have accepted his surrender without that being done! And what happened instead? :evil:

#8

how about in FFVII when Red XIII says he is the last of his kind and somehow at the end he has two kids or what ever. Also when Aeris dies she wasnt planning on dying (supposedly) but I digress Cloud is standing in the lake and yet when he lets her go she looks like she drifts through several hundred feet of water. WTF!!?!??!

#9

Heh… FF7? The greatest loop hole is, why didn’t Cloud just use Phoenix Down on Aeris? :stuck_out_tongue:

Speaking of loop holes… in Metroid, why does the Galactic Civilization keep sending lone bounty hunters to destroy threats on dead worlds? Since the planet is dead, why not just destroy it via orbital bombardment? In most cases, the planet ends up getting blown up anyways.

In the Super Mario series, how is it that Bowser keeps kidnapping the Princess? Time and time again, we’re shown that Peach is just as powerful (if not more powerful) than Mario and Luigi. Is it like her abilities wax and wane with a PMS cycle or something?

The whole “timeloop” in Final Fantasy 1 raises so many damn questions and issues, I don’t even wanna touch that. :shock:

For Devil May Cry - how the hell did Virgil lose to Mundis, when Virgil is generally stronger than Dante?

An ultimate stupidity moment: Anyone care to explain how the hell Liquid Snake possesses Revolver Ocelot, just from an arm graft? I mean that would mean people getting organ transplants, would be possessed by the donor. :lol:

In Pokemon, the Creator of the Universe (i.e. God) is a Pokemon… how is it, that such an omnipotent being, gets captured by a 10 year old kid with a mechanical capture device made by mortals? Why does He allow His people to be enslaved by humans? For that matter, why the hell did He even create humans in the first place? Does that make us Pokemon too?

#10

Youre goanna have to elaborate on that last one !!!

damn spoiler tags didnt work:sorry to anyone who I have spoiled.

Actually I think I might be able to explai the Aeris thing ,When in normal battle a defeat is merely K.O., however (I know there is all sorts of violence but I mean you can recover in an inn) However Sephiroth runs her through with asword its going to be pretty hard to recover from that.

#11

Arceus - Pokemon #493 - is called “The Original One” that existed before anything else existed… at least that’s what Diamond and Pearl says.

Arceus created the Pokemon Dialga (time), Palkia (space), Giratina (soul). Then He created the “triplets” Uxie (knowledge), Mesprit (emotion), and Azelf (willpower) from a single egg.

The first group of three created the Universe itself, while the triplets created life. Following these events, Arceus left to watch everything from Heaven.

You can catch them all… that’s right kiddies: you can enslave God! :lol:

#12

Ouch that was a low blow, poor Patrick Stewart.\

Last I remember about that issue, I wouldn’t know cause I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game ( Only Fantasy I stick to is Phantasy Star ) but my buddy says that when your killed by Sephiroth’s sword it has some sort of property that doesn’t allow for the one killed to be revived. ( Was it a type of Materia, or whatever it’s called )

#13

Yeah. Then immediately after this, I play Secret of Mana. “Oh, wow! Look! The emperor is suing for peace!” – I was actually playing this game co-op, and my brother was like “Dude! He wants peace!” “Oh, come on now.” “But --” “You remember what happened when this was in FF3? … Yeah, figured.”

It didn’t matter nearly as much in those days, because the alternative was games like Mega Man 6 – ‘Oh no! The mysterious Mr. X has taken all of teh robots! Sure, when you think about it, “Mr X” is a suspicious name. And looking back, nobody ever saw him in person. And this WAS the “first annual” robot contest. But nobody could have predicted this! We were completely fooled, just like the last 4 times this happened! Oh noes!’

Yeah, FF6 looks like … well, an Opera. :slight_smile: The game had it where it was important, the individual characters, the plot … well, they strung it together juuuust enough so that what was happening right this second made sense. Most of the time. (There was that one time everyone was standing around in Narshe going 'We need Esper powers. Hmmm … … … We have NO CHOICE but to risk everything on a mad gamble." and they just like completely ignore the Esper chilling literally out back.)

But big things? Like if Gestahl had no magic, how’d he get his army? If he had magic, why did he need the Espers? Why is the Esper sooo important they send Terra to recover it (one of their most powerful agents), then ignore it ever after? If Gestahl needed information on the Espers in order to find out where they were, why didn’t he already know all the dudes in Thamasa know everything? It ain’t like they’re good at keeping secrets.

FFVI is terrible at keeping these things under control. And they’re not all easy to fix either, many of them mean that the whole game should have never happened.

#14

I actually have to disagree with this one. This isn’t called “stupid”, it’'s called “foreshadowing”. Actually, you could argue that it’s BOTH stupid AND foreshadowing (they’re not mutually exclusive), but the particular kind of ‘stupid’ we’re discussing here is ‘stupid game plots’, and I have to argue that this is actually one of the things Kojima did correctly about MGS2.

Even if you ignore the incident, both MGS 1 and 2 basically establish that the supernatural exists. Raven, Psycho Mantis, whatever her name was with the death wish that couldn’t happen cause she was preternaturally lucky – hell even the ‘luck manipulation’ machine that was behind it (Fortune, I think?). They all possessed supernatural powers.

So. How did Liquid Snake possess Ocelot? He’s psychic. And also some kind of lich. -___-

As for the foreshadowing bit: Remember the very end of MGS2, where they give a list of the names of all the Patriots? “Snake … these people have all been dead for 200 years!” – Suddenly this bit is explained, no? Kojima did this veeeery well, putting the explanation in at the beginning, so he couldn’t be said to have pulled it out of his ass; but separating it by so much mindfuck BS that you likely don’t recall that particular point aaaall the way at the end.

My predictions:

  1. Since Liquid can do it, all of the clones can do it too. That includes Big Boss and Snake.

  2. Big Boss is the final boss of MGS4. Even though he’s dead. After all, Liquid and Snake are both clones of him.

  3. At some point, Snake pulls an invasion-of-the-body-snatchers number on someone else to get a new body. Perhaps … a new clone body? Hey … sounds like someone wants to make himself The Emperor!

  4. All of the Patriots are undead / ghosts / whatever Liquid is. They continue to exist in exactly the same way Liquid is doing it. What that means, of course, is … err … Kojima’s been smoking some damn fine stuff.

This leaves the question of whether Liquid is a Patriot now. I doubt it, since I think he’s going to come down on your side against them. Besides, SOMEthing has to happen to screw their plans up – otherwise they just win, no?

Now, obviously this is total speculation. But supposing this is all correct (big supposition), then it’s actually an example of good plotting. Or at least, of self consistent and well-executed plotting. I’d still argue it’s not very good – seriously, WTF … The world’s shadow government is an undead lich cabal?? But it’s not the kind of stoooopid that we’re talking about.

#15

Maybe it has something to do with all the funky multicolored mushrooms growing from sewer pipes.

#16

Heh… I can tell you’re an MGS fan, but you’re not grasping the ramifications of what I’m pointing out here. I know MGS has supernatural stuff in it, and that doesn’t bother me here. It’s the nature of how Liquid is able to manifest his return. Through an arm graft. That’s the stupidity.

Why just an arm? It’s not a vital part of the body after all. This means a psychic heart donor, liver transplant, blood transfusion, hair replacement, artificial insemination, etc, can use their “transfusion” to dominate another person. The abundance of supernatural people in MGS (as well as the dialog and nature of how such powers were gained), indicates that the supernatural is not too uncommon (not common as everyone has it; but more than something like Star Trek). If 1% of the world population has latent psychic potential (for whatever reason), then we have 60 million people. There are vital organs transplants, with LOWER odds of adaptability.

It’s an exploitable loophole of astounding stupidity… which is what this topic is about. :o

But then that’s not the only area where the MGS series has issues. There are MANY. Just as another example: Liquid took out two air superiority fighters - which have a weapons envelop of several miles - with a Hind, which has a weapons envelop of several hundred meters (at best). What were the pilots doing? Sleeping? Solid took him out with a “dumb” shoulder missile system, that can’t achieve supersonic speeds. Jets have guided weapons that go Mach 3+… yea… :roll:

Don’t get me started on Snake Eater. :stuck_out_tongue:

#17

Somehow, I get the impression that not surviving MGS2’s prologue has its saving graces…

  • puts MGS2 and “Snake Eater” (the latter still untouched by me) into the deepest abyss of my gaming-backlog with hope they’ll never surface from there again *
#18

Oh, no. I’m not. I mean, until I beat MGS2, I was a fan sure. The first one rocked pretty hard. But … good god. The series didn’t just jump the shark. It jumped the shark, which was actually a man in a shark disguise … But the whole operation was conducted in the belly of a giant mecha-shark. Which then jumped over itself. I like scissors!

You’re neglecting the badass fields. See, both of these characters have a positively raging case of main characteritis … :wink:

#19

I guess my point was I don’t think it’s a ‘loophole’ but ‘foreshadowing’. I think that this is going to play very heavily into MGS4. I’m not particularly looking forward to that.

#20

You should really read the article at http://www.destructoid.com/sympathy-for … 1709.phtml as it explains a lot.

Just jump to the section regarding the Princess.