u/Dramonen

This is a hot button topic that I've been sitting on for awhile now. It's mostly just how impossible it is to adapt a videogame narrative. Or atleast, how impossible it is for the story to remain good after adapting it.

This mostly came about after Nier Automata's anime came out, and the receptiont towards it was kinda cold honestly. Nier Automata is considered one of the best written video game narratives to ever exist. So you would think a adaptation would obviously be incredibly well received by anime fans, but not really no. And it's just not Nier Automata, it's been every direct adaptation of video game narratives. The only game "adaptations" that really escape this are ones that do their own thing and tell their own stories. Like Arcane, I know everyone hates it because of Season 2,but you gotta admit it had everyone hooked in the first season (though I didn't like Season). Another series was Cyberpunk Edge Runners, a story I actually like, but is also not a direct adaptation whatsoever.

So I'm here to ask why though. Are Videogame adaptations just incapable of being adapted? I believe it's because of the interactivity of video game mostly. The pacing of the story is mostly dictated by the player, the challenges faced are completely dependent on the individual. If there's a hard boss you had to try incredibly hard to defeat, it fundamentally changes your perception of the story in comparison to someone who found the boss fight easy. You can just sit there and do nothing for hours on end in video games, which creates a big disassociation from the narrative that is on a constant move. Videogames allowing for you as an individual to decide how you experience the story and world of the game, fundamentally changes how the story can be told. Something an adaptation cannot compensate for.

Though here's where my thinking brought me, the real controversial point I hid at the very end. Can a narrative be considered good if it's unadaptable. Videogame are not perceived to be places of incredible storytelling, atleast from like half the gaming industry. I look at Nintendo, literally one third of the gaming industry, they literally don't belive video games are meant to or are capable of telling narratives. It's why Shigeru Miyamoto said he didn't consider Mario as a person until the Mario movies came out. They think videogames are to put it simply toys, and that strategy has worked incredibly. Zelda lore and story is very touchy subject to the fans right now, specifically because Nintendo believes it doesn't matter all that much. It's also why the Mario movie is the way it is, they tried their strategy of treating the movies like they are toys more than narratives. I could mention Bethesda aswell, those boys have actually come out and stated how unimportant the story is to them but I'll leave out any segment about them because they're not in a very good position publicly right now.

I know all entertainment with a narrative struggles with adaptation, but video games having the worst track record ever is bit insane to me. Though I will admit I was kinda lying, there is one somewhat direct adaptation I like. Persona 4 The animation is pretty great actually.

I don't Modulo, and so now I'm more critical about series's. And the fights in the series are genuinely just bad.

Modulo has proceeded to copy Dragonball, or it took inspiration to be nice about it. A bit of One Piece aswell, but the most egregious inspiration is the fights of Modulo. Modulo fights are pretty boring, or uninspired in comparison to original JJK.

Let's take Modulo's best fight (Maru Vs Tsurugi) and some random original JJK fight (Choso Vs Yuji). Maru Vs Tsurugi is to put it plainly, basically Namek Saga from Dragon ball. Maru is overwhelmingly stronger than Tsurugi, until Tsurugi gains cool new powers that changes the flow of the fight completely in his favor. I don't say it's more inspired by Bleach, because the fight fundamentally lacks any interesting abilities being used. Bleach has different abilities, so even if someone is getting dominated in a fight it atleast causes to a new and unique stomping of a fight. Modulo on the other hand lacks any real interesting abilities to have fights with, instead it's just throwing stuff or punching people really hard like in Dragon Ball. Or like in Tsurugi's case, he proceeded to gain new hair and a face and completely dominate against Maru.

In Comparison to Yuji Vs Choso, where it has Choso as the superior combatant. The flow of the fight still makes the battle become more nuanced. Yuji didn't just receive a cool power, he took advantage Choso's weakness of water and used it to take the absolute dominating advantage Choso had away. The fight goes into Yuji's favor, but he ultimately lost, because Choso's cool ability, with his incredible battle intelligence lead him to victory despite Yuji's scheming. In comparison to that off Modulo where the only reason Maru won was because Tsurugi let himself get killed for some pseudo intellectual reason.

I understand that those two fights were portraying to different purposes using battles. Yuji saw Choso as nothing more than an obstacle and Choso's wanted revenge. And Maru and Tsurugi were two good friends (underdeveloped friends) trying to kill eachother. My real problem with the way Gege changed the way he writes fights is with Dabura Vs Mahoraga though. It was simply a Dragon ball fight, but with worse fight Choreography. It was like Goku fighting a weaker Buu in a way. Dabura was just punching a literal punching bag for the entire fight, got injured once by the punching bag, and proceeded to do nothing untitled very end of the fight where he was taken away.

Mahoraga's nature as a opponent is to fundamentally be a punching bag that fights back. Gege had always avoided making uninteresting fights like this happen, by either offscreening them (Hakari Vs Uraume), demonstrating the unfair power of the opponent in comparison to Mahoraga (Sukuna Vs Mahoraga) or by just making the punching bag a support to another character (Sukuna Vs Gojo). Gege did neither, he made Mahoraga an actual threat to Dabura.

And not just that, but he made sure that we the audience got to see the entire fight. Rather than pulling a Mahoraga doing something unique like a World Cutting Slash like with Gojo Vs Sukuna, he just had Mahoraga get destroyed a trillion times and aura farm. And to make things worse, the fight meant nothing but to waste time. Dabura still would've killed the Deskunte tribe leader and wouldn't have wanted to become king. And still would've returned to Earth. Gege made an actual filler fight that dominated the last few moments of chapter for hype and aura reasons only. Nothing comes off Dabura's enlightenment, because Dabura doesn't do a single thing out of character from what he would've done before his fight with Mahoraga.

Dragon Ball fights are simple, but they are have incredible fight choreography and conflicts with actual depth and build up. So did Original JJK honestly, but original JJK had more complex abilities and better battle scenarios. The thing that even made me realize how much I dislike the fights of Modulo, was how the narrator had less immaculate lines. Something as shallow as that made me that annoyed about the fights in the series.