3 ms·
But that's just it. Different art says different things to different people. To me, Inferno read like historical fan-fiction, where Dante put some well-known
by logfromblammo 10y ago
But that's just it. Different art says different things to different people.
To me, Inferno read like historical fan-fiction, where Dante put some well-known figures and some people that he just had some personal grudge against into his own version of Hell. The words were well chosen, but I didn't like it. Yet there it was, in my Norton Anthology. Someone liked it well enough to decide that I had to not only read it, but also dissect it and write BS essays about it.
That's a horrible enough thing to do to art you actually enjoy, but to chop up and rehash something you feel nothing for is even worse.
From my perspective now, as 2017-me, I wouldn't say that Planescape: Torment was "sublime". But 1999-me thought it was just the best thing to ever grace my hard drive. And 1999-me was able to look back on 1994-me and think "This is way better than Dante's Inferno." Dante took the concept of Gehennom from the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious tradition and turned it into an epic poem. Black Isle Studios took the Planescape campaign setting from D&D 2nd Ed. (aka AD&D) and turned it into an epic CRPG. In it, the ordered layers of Hell had to be renamed to Baator because of the moral panic from D&D 1st Ed. When Nameless One actually (re-)visited renamed Hell, I thought that the pillar of skulls was at least as good as anything Dante ever dreamed up, and the protagonist actually had a plot-essential reason to see it.
I think I actually need the gamey bits. I have tried the artsy walking-simulator games where the story is on rails, and I don't like them. For me, an essential part of enjoying the art is in the discovery. I tend to like it more if I had to work to get it. So as tell-a-story games go, I much prefer something like The Stanley Parable over something like Dear Esther.