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Games that psychologically damaged you
- Thread starter Dr Pears
- Start date
OP
OP
Just recently finished Night in the Woods as well and I just symphatize so much with the main character.
As someone in my last year of University but hating my studies and actually dreading the idea of working in this field in the future, I sometimes think about what would happen if I just quit and went home.
That's what the main character in NITW is going through. She's a college dropout, having problems with her interpersonal relationships, losing friends and having fights with her family, and her hometown is changing so much, her favourite eating places shutting down, the mall become abandoned.
I can't help but feel so sad for the experiences she's having.
As someone in my last year of University but hating my studies and actually dreading the idea of working in this field in the future, I sometimes think about what would happen if I just quit and went home.
That's what the main character in NITW is going through. She's a college dropout, having problems with her interpersonal relationships, losing friends and having fights with her family, and her hometown is changing so much, her favourite eating places shutting down, the mall become abandoned.
I can't help but feel so sad for the experiences she's having.
Probably the only videogame ive ever felt really genuine in regards to a character thats differently minded. Havent played Hellblade yet but I don't really want to relive an experience i've had in reality as some kind of fun mechanic/selling point.
can someone explain the fawning over Nier to me? What sets it apart from other existentialist nightmare stories? Like, I'll grant that for games it handles the subject well, and I loved Nier Automata, but if you've ever been exposed to existentialist work before, it doesn't really feel like it brings anything new or interesting to the table beyond its medium.
I'm not a paranoid person - the opposite.
But Silent Hill 2 when you've been abused by Pyramid Head early in the game then he doesn't appear for ages and you forget about him then he SUDDENLY appears in a painting and the inner monologue just goes "It's him..." completely shook me. Like I had to pause and put my head in my hands. Suddenly I was too scared to turn around in the game, too scared to check out the next room because HE might be there.
Amazing that the game made me feel some level of psychological abuse. I got over it quickly but it still gives me pause.
But Silent Hill 2 when you've been abused by Pyramid Head early in the game then he doesn't appear for ages and you forget about him then he SUDDENLY appears in a painting and the inner monologue just goes "It's him..." completely shook me. Like I had to pause and put my head in my hands. Suddenly I was too scared to turn around in the game, too scared to check out the next room because HE might be there.
Amazing that the game made me feel some level of psychological abuse. I got over it quickly but it still gives me pause.
Nothing is new or original, authenticty and good execution go a long way. Perhaps Automata's story got under these people's skins in a new way. If it didn't for you, that's fine.
Hard
-Hotline Miami's difficulty (Headache inducing but boy do I like killing)
-Persona 4 Golden's true ending (Emotional wreck)
-The Witness's puzzles (Made me realize that I'm not that smart)
-Stanley's Parable (Made me question things about life)
-Nier Automata (mindfuck the game)
-Doki Doki Literature Club (Ayyyyyyy)
-Danganronpa V3's ending (Shit hit way to hard because I replayed all games, read the books and watched the anime just a month before V3)
Medium
-Walking Dead S1 (Emotional wreck)
-Virtues Last Reward's twists and turns (Ayyy)
-The Last of Us's ending (Something I still think about to this day)
-The Last Guardian's ending (Emotional wreck)
-Inside's ending and lore (Got me pretty shook)
-Gone Home's actual hidden twist (Made me a bit sad about the parents)
-P.T. (before the reveal)
-Night in the Woods (Hit way close to home)
Mild
-Heavy Rain's Ethan trails and first playthough endings (I was young)
-Bioshock Infinite's ending (Ayy)
-The Witcher 3's side quest and gray choices
-Everyone's Gone to the Rapture's theme and side plots (Deep thoughts)
-Valiant Hearts's ending (Emotional wreck)
-Hotline Miami's difficulty (Headache inducing but boy do I like killing)
-Persona 4 Golden's true ending (Emotional wreck)
-The Witness's puzzles (Made me realize that I'm not that smart)
-Stanley's Parable (Made me question things about life)
-Nier Automata (mindfuck the game)
-Doki Doki Literature Club (Ayyyyyyy)
-Danganronpa V3's ending (Shit hit way to hard because I replayed all games, read the books and watched the anime just a month before V3)
Medium
-Walking Dead S1 (Emotional wreck)
-Virtues Last Reward's twists and turns (Ayyy)
-The Last of Us's ending (Something I still think about to this day)
-The Last Guardian's ending (Emotional wreck)
-Inside's ending and lore (Got me pretty shook)
-Gone Home's actual hidden twist (Made me a bit sad about the parents)
-P.T. (before the reveal)
-Night in the Woods (Hit way close to home)
Mild
-Heavy Rain's Ethan trails and first playthough endings (I was young)
-Bioshock Infinite's ending (Ayy)
-The Witcher 3's side quest and gray choices
-Everyone's Gone to the Rapture's theme and side plots (Deep thoughts)
-Valiant Hearts's ending (Emotional wreck)
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Deeply resonated? Sure. Psychologically damaged over a video game tho? Damn bruh.
Other stories of its ilk don't have a hot android you can oggle at. That's honestly probably it, or like 50% of it.
OP
OP
Yeah this. A game can psychologically scar you? Please stay away from this thing they call the internet then. I'm honestly lost as to how that happens with any game so far released, but a few have left impressions I guess?
Journey was pretty beautiful, PT was scary, 999 was very interesting...other than that I dunno lol
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I honestly quite disliked Nier Automata and have difficulty understanding why it's so beloved. I got into my thoughts on the existentialism on the last page, but to sum up:
-I found almost none of the characters remotely emotionally endearing, and a lot of story beats lost their impact as a result. 9S was the one exception, and not by that much
-The world both looks gross and is badly designed
-The story pacing is total shit
-The combat was nice. The enemy and boss variety was absolutely not.
And before someone @s me, yes, I got ending E, or whatever the true ending was called.
Silent Hill 2. Each character's arc and story of tragedy is so profoundly sad. And the whole Maria/Mary situation is depressing. Especially if you get this ending.
OP
OP
Finding someone you cared about dead after comitting suicide in Doki Doki Literature Club was psychologically distressing for me as someone who have real friends with depression.
But I guess that's what you get for being emotionally attached to fictional videogame characters.
I imagine playing DDLC would have fucked me up bad if I didn't know every single plot twist going into it :P
The first 'twist' is masterfully executed.
DDLC, even as a proof of concept, would have been a lot better without the long ass monologue at the end.
We got some great new music out of it though.
To be blunt I had sky-high expectations I couldn't really help myself from setting up because I was a massive fan of the first Nier which I played at a very different stage of my life. I loved the game during my playthrough and after but I'm kinda settled on my opinion of it now which is that the characters just weren't compelling at all. I really didn't care for 2B and although later plot revelations make her relationship with 9S more interesting in retrospect, that kind of twist doesn't magically make Chapter A more riveting.
We got some great new music out of it though.
P.T. messed with me big time. I now can't play games without always expecting something creepy to happen. I knew that it affected me when I played Everybody has gone to the Rapture, primarily a walking simulator in the English countryside, but I found my self walking around on edge waiting for something to terrify me. More recently playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, there is an area in that game that I found almost uncomfortable creepy. Thank fully it hasn't stopped me from playing anything, I'm just way more sensitive to stuff now. I managed to get through RE7 in VR on my first playthrough.
Same. There were emotional moments like in Life is Strange, The Last of Us, Hellblade, and of course SOMA. Espcially the superb and perfect voice acting in SOMA and the interaction between Simon and Catherine does a great job in causing these emotions.
But I wouldn't say I'm 'damaged' by them.
Dark corners of the earth, attack of the fishmen. Had a bad screen so couldn't play with any lights on down in the cellar. My face twitched for days after every time I played. Same thing happened with Amnesia. I don't think I can do it anymore.
HM the cheap browser game:
Uncle Candy goes to school again.
HM the cheap browser game:
Uncle Candy goes to school again.
Twilight Princess made me semi depressed after it was over. I remember that I was 12 and I kept replaying the ending almost daily because I wanted it to continue like I was in denial. I wasn't ready for the emotional farewell in the middle of the credits or some of the twists/reveals after the final fight. I was also displeased over the way Ganondorf was handled in the plot which was also a cause for confusion and incomprehension.
Mass Effect 3 seriously depressed me, no, it made me a cynical fuck. It permanently damaged my expectations to ANYTHING regarding the anticipation of the continuation of a story that I "think" I like. I was SOOO fucking ready for Mass Effect 3 with my save and all after having played and replayed 1 and 2, where 2 just hit a real nice sweetspot of being like 1 but also a blend of action and exciting stuff with deep characters and deep RPG dialogue trees. But Mass Effect 3 immediately seemed off to me when I loaded it up in march 2012.
Autodialogue, partly better but also weaker graphics, wild shift in tone from optimistic but dark sci fi to BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S SHAKY-CAM AND EXISTENTIAL DREAD. I knew the Reapers were coming, seriously I did, but I didn't expect it to happen the way it did and practically doom the world from the opening cutscene, and I could not believe the way the writers went about making the characters plan around it. It just presumes that everyone should think Earth is No. 1 priority which emotionally did not make sense for the character I had established nor his alien companions, and there was very little of that gung-ho friendship and "working together" in the tone, it was all telling and no showing instead. It only makes sense that it all came down to earth by the very final mission in the game due to a number of unexplainable contrivances and then it goes from having great middle acts that go back to what made 1 and 2 feel like Mass Effect only to return to the brooding, shaky-cam, overemotional and depressing tone of the start.... But then they had to make everything worse by attempting a deep "philosophical"(?) sci-fi twist ending that revolves around the information that eatablished the premise of the original game and they turn everything you assumed about the Reapers 180 degrees in a shyamalan twist that makes some convoluted sense on a canonical level but is deeply questionable and imo worse than what I thought I knew, but on an emotional and thematic level it closes the whole Mass Effect arc on a nonsensical "so deep you can't even see it" level. It was a gainax ending, it took something that was perfectly serviceable and messed it up into a conclusion that doesn't drive home the themes that all 30 previous hours handled. It goes from having a universal message about the goodness of sapience and working together as a society, working out one's differences instead of infighting etc., to some useless subject with no footing in reality about the nature of organic beings vs synthetics as if "that's been the true theme all along" which was especially awkward because this was a theme and they concluded it earlier in the story with context and several impactful player decisions across the last two games... But the ending is not contextualized properly. It takes something you assumed was true and without explanation decides that "now it's this thing instead" and you make your final decision with only the context of what "this thing" is and zero ties to the rest of the narrative across all 3 games. It's as unaatisfying as it could get and it happened so suddenly barely anyone anticipated something like it.
I'll admit, I thought 3 was a little too straightforward in its focus on "war" and stuff, so I was actually begging for some more sci fi and existential ideas... So maybe I could see where they were going directionally, but the execution was so off that I can't believe it got produced, even if it was a rushed product. How it got approved by all 5 or so leads is something that only tells me that there were hacks among BioWare and that alone has entirely damaged that amazement and respect I used to feel, and in turn has made me a skeptical cynic to almost every other game I look forward to.
Mass Effect 3 seriously depressed me, no, it made me a cynical fuck. It permanently damaged my expectations to ANYTHING regarding the anticipation of the continuation of a story that I "think" I like. I was SOOO fucking ready for Mass Effect 3 with my save and all after having played and replayed 1 and 2, where 2 just hit a real nice sweetspot of being like 1 but also a blend of action and exciting stuff with deep characters and deep RPG dialogue trees. But Mass Effect 3 immediately seemed off to me when I loaded it up in march 2012.
Autodialogue, partly better but also weaker graphics, wild shift in tone from optimistic but dark sci fi to BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S SHAKY-CAM AND EXISTENTIAL DREAD. I knew the Reapers were coming, seriously I did, but I didn't expect it to happen the way it did and practically doom the world from the opening cutscene, and I could not believe the way the writers went about making the characters plan around it. It just presumes that everyone should think Earth is No. 1 priority which emotionally did not make sense for the character I had established nor his alien companions, and there was very little of that gung-ho friendship and "working together" in the tone, it was all telling and no showing instead. It only makes sense that it all came down to earth by the very final mission in the game due to a number of unexplainable contrivances and then it goes from having great middle acts that go back to what made 1 and 2 feel like Mass Effect only to return to the brooding, shaky-cam, overemotional and depressing tone of the start.... But then they had to make everything worse by attempting a deep "philosophical"(?) sci-fi twist ending that revolves around the information that eatablished the premise of the original game and they turn everything you assumed about the Reapers 180 degrees in a shyamalan twist that makes some convoluted sense on a canonical level but is deeply questionable and imo worse than what I thought I knew, but on an emotional and thematic level it closes the whole Mass Effect arc on a nonsensical "so deep you can't even see it" level. It was a gainax ending, it took something that was perfectly serviceable and messed it up into a conclusion that doesn't drive home the themes that all 30 previous hours handled. It goes from having a universal message about the goodness of sapience and working together as a society, working out one's differences instead of infighting etc., to some useless subject with no footing in reality about the nature of organic beings vs synthetics as if "that's been the true theme all along" which was especially awkward because this was a theme and they concluded it earlier in the story with context and several impactful player decisions across the last two games... But the ending is not contextualized properly. It takes something you assumed was true and without explanation decides that "now it's this thing instead" and you make your final decision with only the context of what "this thing" is and zero ties to the rest of the narrative across all 3 games. It's as unaatisfying as it could get and it happened so suddenly barely anyone anticipated something like it.
I'll admit, I thought 3 was a little too straightforward in its focus on "war" and stuff, so I was actually begging for some more sci fi and existential ideas... So maybe I could see where they were going directionally, but the execution was so off that I can't believe it got produced, even if it was a rushed product. How it got approved by all 5 or so leads is something that only tells me that there were hacks among BioWare and that alone has entirely damaged that amazement and respect I used to feel, and in turn has made me a skeptical cynic to almost every other game I look forward to.
User Banned (1 day): Inflammatory commentary
None. Games are toys, and I don't suffer from mental illness.
When i was way too young I rented Max Payne from blockbuster, i thought it looked funny from the trailer because of his face.
the opening level messed me up, I cried and told my mom to take the game back. Then i went and played it more and got to the part with the
That game messed me up.
the opening level messed me up, I cried and told my mom to take the game back. Then i went and played it more and got to the part with the
Drugged up hallucinations
That game messed me up.
Pretty much my point of view here. For the past few years I still think about that one scene where you transfer bodies and what I would do if I was put into a similar situation. That's a real horror game there.
I tend to stay away from story heavy and horror type games as they just don't appeal to me anymore. But I did play the original Silent Hill and I couldn't do it with the lights off back then. Plus the original PS1 logo sound didn't help it at all. Wasn't scaring just unsettling.
Undertale and TWD Season 1, for sure. Those games still manage to get into my thoughts every now and then.
Are you for fucking serious?
Are you for fucking serious?
I'd say disturbed rather than damaged but the introductory zombie cinematic in the original Resident Evil gave me nightmares.
I was only 10 at the time which accounts for part of it but frankly, it still gives me the willies even now.
I was only 10 at the time which accounts for part of it but frankly, it still gives me the willies even now.
This. Except I find it tough to call the combat good with the lacking quality of the enemies and all the ways the game threw at you to simply cheese your way through it.
At the risk of sounding arrogant and elitist, I severely question the emotional and intellectual state of those so impressed by Automata. Same with Bioshock Infinite years before. I'm guessing it's just getting drawn into the hype and having accessible gameplay are more than enough nowadays. And when people don't understand a story and thusly need YouTube videos or forum posts to explain it to them, it's suddenly "deep".
Absolutely. Games are toys, and none of them have psychologically scarred me. I also don't suffer from any mental illnesses, which I assume would be necessary to leave me open to "scarring" or even "trauma" from entertainment products I waste money on.
I might be going crazy now, though. I did just read that Ross meme picture up above in David Schwimmer's voice, and now he haunts my thoughts, narrating everything.
Oh bother.
The Resident Evil 2 remake is doing this right now to me >_<
Ever since Mr. X SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME I've had a legitimate fear of playing the game, lmao
Let it die when it sunk in that i really HAVE to buy some lives to conquer one of the last floors before reaching the end. on this day i swore to never play any "F2P" game again.
Lol "people like a game more than I do, must be something wrong with them!"