Epic meaning:
noun: epic; plural noun: epics
a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.
Similar:
heroic poem long poem long story saga legend romance lay history chronicle myth
fable folk tale folk story the genre of epic poems.
"the romances display gentler emotions not found in Greek epic"
a long film, book, or other work portraying heroic deeds and adventures or covering an extended period of time.
"a Hollywood biblical epic"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epic
1: a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero
the Iliad and the Odyssey are epics
2: a work of art (such as a novel or drama) that resembles or suggests an epic
3: a series of events or body of legend or tradition thought to form the proper subject of an epic
the epic of the winning of the West
Soul Reaver's intro fits every single definition of Epic, as does the ShadowHearts Covenant cutscene.
Damn near every Xenoblade cutscene from both Chronicles games establishes an Epic.
The God of War scenes establish a mythos, the birth of a legend, that's what makes it epic. It's the same case with Ninja Gaiden. Ryu was just living his life peacefully until over half of his ninja clan were murdered over night & he couldn't do anything to stop it. That girl who was killed is actually Momiji's sister which is why Ryu acts as her parental figure. Momiji actually looks after that village in NG3 (& presumably NG2) after Ryu left for revenge back in NG1 and he never came back home until NG3.
I renamed the thread because I forgot about the slang meaning of epic, which is what you seem to be using.
I've always intended the original use of the word "epic" though, as was shown by the videos I linked to.
dmc not epic at all though? i mean choreography etc. of it. Unless you mean that its better jump on rockets/missiles in Contra Shattered Soldiers during gameplay than watch how donte does it in fmv.
How the fuck would Shattered Soldier be any better? LOL you really don't fucking understand what Epic means, which is why I guess that you're using some slang meaning. Epic either refers to Huge or Grand, and legendary. I meant all three and initially showed 3 examples that fit the entirety of the word "Epic".
I use the slang meaning too in everyday context but for this thread, it's clear that I was using the original meaning since none of the motherfucking vides that I posted had anything to do with simple martial arts choreography. Sure they fight a lot in Xenoblade, but I'm more focused on the actual dialogue, visuals & music of which I think is the point since I rarely ever see anyone talking about the fighting in the comments section for XB videos. Everyone is always talking about the philosophy or the traumatic events that happen in those scenes.
There's like zero action in Haze's death scene, she just gets randomly impaled to death like Aeris but unlike the FF7 Aeris scene which established a point of no return & had no dialogue at all to further emphasize the visuals. Haze's death had a different intention, as it's meant to show you what the actual conflict is about. Jin is a survivor of Torna, Haze was from Torna and used to be his partner back when Torna was alive. He kills her in that scene coz he viewed her as a slave of the humans, and Almathus (the man who killed Lora.), and he didn't want to see her being used like that anymore.
As Haze dies, you see the real reason why he killed her.
He didn't want Haze's current Fan La Norne identity to tarnish his memory of Lora (The girl you see when Haze touches him as she's dying.) The moment the dying Haze touches his face, you see Jin cry for a bit, coz deep down he wishes that things didn't have to be this way. He wishes it could still be like the old days when Haze, Lora & Him were his life. It's that scene which establishes that Jin isn't just a mindless psychopath who kills without reason. We see him murdering the shit out of 100s of random people, including the main character but we're never given any context as to why until that scene.
This is what I mean by Epic cutscenes. I'm looking for shit that establishes lore. SOme fucking retard jumping off of missles doesn't establish lore. Sure it could, if its acompanied by dialogue that discusses his philosophy but all I'm seeing is a music video.
What you posted looked more like a music video. What actual story was it progressing? You could've easily posted an animation of an elevator moving and it'd have the same effect. That's also what I criticize about the VP cg, since it's just showing objects moving, not an actual progression of story. I don't give a fuck about the rendering. I originally used the word "EPIC" for a reason, I intended for cutscenes that establish lore and change the tone so much that the rest of the game is affeced by that cutscene. What the fuck does Dante jumping from a building and gliding in the sky like an anime character do to push the story forward? Yeah, you may see similar actions from Xenoblade, but there's a strong philsophical story being pushed forth at the same time just through its dialogue.
I thought Shulk's "I'LL KILL YOU!" was self explanatory. I didn't post it coz I thought it was badass. I posted it coz I thought it was one of the best examples of good scene direction & voice directing. He shouts "I'LL KILL YOU" coz he's hurting inside, he's both angry & crying, and he's in disbelief that his girlfriend was just squashed to death in front of him but he was too weak to do anything about it.
He even gets his ass kicked by Fiora's murderer which is what establishes the events that the rest of the story will follow, The three men in that cutscene all want to avenge Fiora's death and what ensues is a huge epic AKA Saga of legendary proportions which all started coz some retarded bitch died a brutal death, lol.
Meanwhile, Dante poses in front of a camera, trying to look cool. Yeah ok how is that epic?
Like seriously the first 3 examples I posted made it clear what I'm looking for. I purposely didn't post any MGS or Final Faggotry crap coz those are like the two most obvious choices, especially that scene.
That's like one of the only times where Hideous Kojima actually didn't overwrite himself.
What's hilarious is that you posted Parasite Eve which actually can be considered epic, and could've easily been one of my first examples but I went with Legacy of Kain coz I think it embodies the word Epic, the most out of any game I've ever played. Is there even any action in that scene? Not really, not unless you cound Kain tearing off Raziel's wings as action, lol. I saw that more as visualized exposition of a power hungry tyrant, or at least that's what we're meant to believe from the context of Raziel's perspective.
Dragon Quest 11's intro fits every single criteria of epic and it was so good that even Soyny's official channel spoiled it, lol. You see a kingdom fall, a pair of siblings trying to survive, the baby gets lost only to be raised by an old man (who's also family, lol. It's meant to be a spoiler though but it's one of the more confusing parts of the game so I spoiled it anyway. The girl is actually not related at all but she's a friend of your dead mother.)
I really don't understand why you think a video of a dude jumping from a building is epic, but then again you bring up an example of Shattered Soldier which also doesn't establish any mythos. The Valkyrie vids aren't much better since it's just short 5 second clips of things happening, which again you could've shown a 5 sec clip of an elevator and it'd have the same effect. The exposition VP cutscenes you showed have story, but there's no visual direction so again not at all what I'm talking about. The first 3 examples should be obvious that I'm looking for a combination of visual, aural story telling along with dialogue that contextualizes what the scenes are showing.
The all-dialogue Walking Derp scene I linked to is just showing how effective good dialogue can be, when you want to establish a conflict. It's like a less dramatic version of the Shadowhearts Covenant cutscene where they too are just talking, establishing the sides of their conflict but SHC does it in style, reminiscent of visual poetry. It's something that you don't see often in videogames (coz games rely too much on overexplaining its exposition.), but are pretty much the bread & butter of movies.
You may see Kratos from God of War doing crazy shit, but that's not the point of the video. The point is that Kratos is a bad guy who came to kill all of the Gods of Olympus, the Epic (AKA DRAMA) is seeing the Gods of Olympus trying to survive but no matter what they all die, or they will die since it's the entire point of the game, and the story.
Speaking of rpgs, i enjoyed Suikoden V pretty much, especially all those political gambit stuff Sialeeds and Lucretia were mindplaying.
That actually is a game with Epic cutscenes. I'd list which ones were epic, but I'll let you figure it out. I don't think it'd be hard considering how many Xenoblade death scenes I've shown.
The Suiko 5 scene I'm referring to also fits every single meaning of the term "Epic" coz that particular scene was turned into mythos & a legend in Suikoden 2, where you hear multiple people telling you their version of what happened that night. It's not until you play Suikoden 5 that you see it play out yourself. In Suiko 2, they make the Queendom of Falena sound like a Tyrannical government led by a madwoman who controlled an empire similar to a dying Rome. In Suiko 5, we find that the reality is quite different and much more tragic.
Note: It's not that I'm intentionally using mostly examples from jrpgs. They're generally just the only games out there that have a strong enough narrative to establish cutscenes of epic proportions. God of War shows that you don't even need to be a rpg or all that story-driven to fall under the Epic definition. When you reads tales of heroic feats, comparable to that of a god, they generally sound exactly like what's being shown by Kratos. There's a story going on with those cutscenes. We're not supposed to think Kratos is cool. We're supposed to be afraid of him as is demonstrated when the Gods of Olympus try in vain to protect themselves from him.
