Have to be careful here..
Be quiet now, be quiet.
What the -
Ludonarrative disonnance is when the gameplay and story don’t complement each another.
This can result in confusion, or unintentionally break immersion.
For example, when a prerendered cutscene and gameplay don’t quite work together.
Cutscenes are beautiful.
Back when they were prerendered, it allowed
for spectacular visuals.
They can also shatter your suspension of
disbelief, like in Final Fantasy 8.
At the end of disc one Squall is impaled by
icy spikes and, presumably, in a lot of pain.
He dead.
Next we see him he is fine, and nothing explains
his lack of wounds.
It’s all the more baffling when later he
fights Edea again, and easily withstands her
ice attacks.
Things can also differ between how you play, and how your character acts in a cutscene.
Say you are play Devil May Cry, for instance.
And you suck.
Horribly.
A simple Spider kills you when you play, yet in the meantime Cutscene Dante does this:
Apart from cutscenes, the narrative and gameplay can be jarringly opposed.
In-game you can have ungodly powers, and act without consequence...
... unless the story says you can’t.
Infamously, Final Fantasy 7 has Aerith die by Sephiroth’s sword
even though characters in the game can be revived by using a Phoenix Down.
Even during gameplay, the narrative can get
in the way.
Take this moment for instance, in Resident Evil 5.
For a long time it’s silent, and you haven’t
fought off enemies in a while.
Then the game in a painfully obvious manner
reminds us that the normal-looking Africans
are zombies.
Yes, obviously infected.
I’m not racist.
In Little Big Adventure 2, you are Twinsen, the hero of Twinsun.
How creative.
Twinsen must save the children from a terrible
evil.
Yet you can also do this.
He’s not the hero we deserve.. or need,
really.
Other examples are Sonic the Hedgehog – who is the fastest thing alive –
being outrun by Dr. Robotnik.
Being outrun by Dr. Eggman, then.
Or what about Final Fantasy 10, where the main character is a famous blitzball player
by far the best in the narrative.
Yet he gets to fight with a sword.
What a hero.
The world is saved.
There are so many other things that can create dissonance between narrative and gameplay.
Side quests can distract from the protagonist’s
role.
You’re a prince in FF15, yet you must do
farming side quests?
You, the heir to the throne?
Oh, and please ignore your sworn mission to defeat Ganon, Link
instead help collecting my chickens.
Oh, and what’s that?
You’re the Dragonborn who slayed dragons, vampires and werewolves?
Let’s play tag with children.
However, there are occasions where ludonarrative
dissonance works in the game’s favour.
In his paper, Frédéric Seraphine defends
ludonarrative dissonance as an enhancement
because of the disconnection.
He mentions that in The Last of Us, you can
consistently rely on a prompt to call Ellie,
to have her climb on your
shoulders and advance through the game.
However, at one particular moment, she will not come,
breaking the expected prompt in gameplay.
Attention goes to the narrative: Ellie won’t
help because she is emotionally hurt, and
you must talk to her first.
Tim Rogers, In his review of Final Fantasy 6, mentions
the moment where Cyan, a noble swordsman,
stands at the edge of a station after a train
ferried his family to the afterlife.
We control another character, Sabin, but there’s
no exit, and there is no music.
We cannot talk to Cyan, or even open the menu screen,
until finally the screen slowly fades to black.
Our lack of control as the player forces a
moment of reflection based on the narrative.
The game wants us to feel uneasy, to drive
home that we cannot help Cyan,
and cannot escape the despair by quitting to the menu.
So there we are: ludonarrative dissonance
can either break immersion
or enhance it, if implemented creatively.
We can only hope there will be more of the
latter.
For now I say thank you, and remember: mind
your language.
