What video games do that you won't find anywhere else
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- Опубліковано 20 бер 2024
- Once we’ve defeated the final boss and sat patiently reading every name in the credits, there’s a familiar phrase we gamers love to see: New Game Plus. In games ranging from Chrono Trigger, to Nier: Automata, to Starfield, game developers explore different ways to let you keep playing, even after the credits roll. Polygon's Clayton Ashley dives into some of the most iconic NG+ modes and what they bring to the game.
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Having a second kid was very much NG+. You start from scratch with a new kid but with all the gear, experience, and knowledge gained from the first kid.
Wait 'til you have your fifth kid and you get the chance to delete your kids to help another parent
My 2nd kid experience was more of “oh, you thought you knew how kidS work? Jokes on you, you know how ONE kid worked”
Wheres new game -
AAAA sequels
I feel like unlocking a harder difficulty after beating a game is New Game -
New game - is way back when you bought a game, finished it and sold it back to gamestop
starting a brand new character is New Game -
I think it's FF XII that has New Game Minus in which you start over but characters can't gain any levels.
As a former VICE employee, I appreciated the small shade thrown at 9:10. Great people, horrible company.
was a great company, then they lost their vision like a decade ago and just became yet another boring mouthpiece for the left. based on the recent uploads, it looks like they may be returning to interesting/weird journalism.
no the people were smarmy jevvs
As a fan back in what was probably the early 2010s, it's sad what Vice has become. I can only begin to fathom the grief to have been employed within a better version of Vice than what it is now.
Vice was super boring. It's a shame they earned the shuttering of their business.
Trust me, you won't be missed, Leftist.
I've always unironically said, "The only way to beat Dragons Dogma is to quit playing it."
And here I thought I hadn't beaten the game because I never came back to it, thanks for sharing the good news that I actually have
My favorite instance of New Game Plus is in Bravely Second. The games starts very typical RPG way. You're a royal guard and an evil empire crashes in and steals your leader. You fight the bad emperor but it's a classic unwinnable boss fight. The rest of the game is trying to chase down the empire and stop them from getting some magic relics. You kind of fail, but when you get to that point, new game plus unlocks.
You start back where everything began, and back at that unwinnable boss fight. But now you're around level 50 instead of level 1. You win and this changes everything. It's a time loop story but they establish that everyone remembers what happened in the first go around. Which is important since now you know what the magic relics the empire was chasing do, and where to find them. So instead of feeling like you're always one step behind, your team takes the initiative and goes to those places first. I won't say too much for spoiler reasons but the use of new game plus for a time loop story rules and works so well.
The original Bravely Default also used NG+ for a time looping narrative, although in its case it also involved multiple other worlds, so when you get to the true final boss you get moral support from the other versions of your party from all of those other worlds/dimensions. The first time through the character Airy the fairy helps you along as you purify these 4 Crystals in a very Final Fantasy style plot, but finishing that caused you to loop back. After a few loops fighting the same bosses, you eventually get unique quests that expand the story of what is happening and allow you to change certain plot lines, and the title page even changes from "Where the Fairy Flies" to "Where the Airy Lies", pretty much revealing that Airy isn't being truthful.
Personally I wouldnt count a situation like this (even though I love the game) and Nier Automata because you have to experience it if you want to see the credits, it's required to finish the game. Maybe it's just me
@@ShiverskillYeah I was gonna say, I love both games but their "New Game+"s aren't really the same NG+ that the term typically entails or the kind of way that the games featured in this video are. The Bravely games' NG+ is more like a clever plot hook using the trappings of a game to get meta. Like, in BD the game doesn't actually end on the first runthrough, you're encouraged to do it again (and again and again and yeesh the game really didn't need to do that many to get the ending especially when it spells it out in like loop 4 but whatever) until you hit the true end. Second is a little closer to a conventional NG+ with you getting to curbstomp early bosses but you're still just telling one story.
In a way I guess Default's closer to Automata since you do have to play multiple times to get the true ending, but since none of BD's "multiple times" are actual new playthroughs (more like creative boss rushes) it's still not the same.
i feel like i have grown and changed as a person
congrats
Time to start over
5:45 wrong! PIKMIN 2 HAS NEW ALBUM+
the music is all randomly generated, so jt never sounds the same when you listen to. A constantly evolving soundscape
Randomly generated...? is it even... good?
@@kitthekat6844probably means procedural like Ape Out (great game), but I haven't played Pokémon so I'm not sure
@@kitthekat6844 pikmin's soundtrack is broken up into phrases that all fit together, and different phases trigger based on what's happening in the game. the placement of some of the phrases already have a random element to them. i would expect that the randomness is limited to the arrangement of the phrases and what instrument is used to voice them, as opposed to just being a chaotic mess of random notes.
@@kitthekat6844beacuse of the thing the guy above me said... it's pretty decent! also it's only the cave music.
I was gonna say that a deluxe version of an album is sort of an album+ as well. And they seem to release later than the original, so timing checks out too.
You can only experience your third playthrough of Skyrim once (unironic)
What do you mean by that?
@@real_szop4692you can only play skyrim for a third time once
shoutout to I Was A Teenage Exocollonist with how it treats saves and replays as a time loop with protagonist having dreams of their memories that open up new options, and also trapping me in a Completionist craze
Was thinking about this game, adore it so much
you just reminded me to start my second playthru!!
My partner spent two straight months playing that game. It’s wonderful.
game destroyed my month lol
I was gonna say the same thing! It was my top game of 2023!
Sad for lack of Undertale, and Alan Wake 2, each of which have different and unique takes on NG+ from those mentioned here where it is canonical not only after the fact as in Starfield but is canonical the first time around that the game itself is just one iteration in a narrative driven by the player. Also unlike Starfield both games are actually good.
I would argue that is precisely what makes what Undertale does NOT a New Game Plus, but some other related but separate term we haven’t come up with. It’s that it’s ultimately less cyclical in the way classic NG+s are, and more of a forward spiral.
And then YiiK is somewhere in the middle, being its exceptionally post-modern self
So glad to see Dragon's Dogma mentioned. It really does have one of the more unique post-games/ng+. As a fanatic, I can't believe I'll able to play a sequel tomorrow, heck I'm just happy a sequel exists.
Whole video I was waiting for dragon’s dogma to be mentioned lol
aaaand a RTX 4090 drops below 30fps in the cities. Unoptimized as hell.
@@Quazeythe game is cpu limited, the gpu doesn’t make a difference regarding the framerate
@@Quazeyand even basic mechanics locked behind microtransactions because you
Surprised he didn't talk about Alan Wake 2 and how you need to use New Game Plus (The Final Draft) to unlock the true ending of the game, weaving in the narrative with the video game mechanics.
Same, I thought that's why they made it at this time
It might be the inspiration but it's also too recent of a game to spoil in one of these video essays I feel like
There is actually a book with something like a new book+ called Rayuela from Julio Cortázar, in this book you can read it as a normal book (chapter 1, 2, 3...) AND the way the author recommends that it has a completely new order of chapters and a fun thing with that order is that chapter 55 is missing and you read two times chapter 131
~Chrono Trigger mentioned~
I had no idea the guy from The Mountain Goats wrote books.
He does, and that book in particular is brilliant. It's a must read imo
Three of them!
devil house is actually sitting on my bookshelf right now, but my first delve into john’s books was “wolf in white van.” i HIGHLY recommend
I yelped seeing it on screen. Devil House is kind of ironic featuring in this video, as it very much does beg for a second reading.
Lately I've been playing A Highland Song, which I'm not sure counts as new game plus or not, but theres soooo much you can't unlock until you do multiple journeys, and its very very fun to discover new routes, shortcuts, and even another side of the loch
I have never played a new game+ it's a miracle if I just finish the game at all
New book+ is the paperback having a bonus short story
Interestingly, most visual novels are books with new game plus. The simplest way to get the same experience, in a book is just to have choices. So any choose your own adventure is a book with new game plus. Your example of an additional short story can also work but to really be a new game plus experience it would need it to be an experience interwoven into the fabric of the first story. An easy way for that to manifest would be for the short story to be another person’s perspective of a portion of the original work in the book that changes how you see that character.
@@andywhite9378 i was referencing the Locked Tomb series paperbacks which each feature a short story of a different perspective from the novel it's attached to. They are novels with large casts and a lot of worldbuilding and even more moving parts but with a singular and very limited perspective. So the short stories serve to fill in some of the gaps and let the reader experience a new character.
Gotta read that book. ⛰️ 🐐
Ugh, As Yet Unsent and The Unwanted Guest had me *crying*
Isn't new movie+ essentially just what director's cut/extended editions are?
I more-so thought of commentary tracks & other “special features” that came with discs and/or iTunes Extras for movies & shows.
Those definitely made it so you weren’t just rewatching it again a-la New Game +.
You don't need to watch the comercial movie to watch a director's cut (although you might enjoy it more).
@@KZeni ooh I like that better yeah!
Hbomberguy has a great piece on this topic. It's covered in his "Scanlines" video. I might just go rewatch it
Also I LOVED Valve for their Left4Dead developer-team-commentary playthrough mode. You'd find speech nodes 💬 And then the devs would begin narrative about the desired feeling they wanted from the game. Also cut content and why it didn't make it; either it wasn't fun or it was adapted into a future game.
Just as a side note, NG+ in Chrono Trigger does reset your level, you do keep your items weapons and abilities but the level drop is still significant.
New Movie+ definitely exists. It's called commentary tracks and bonus features 👍
Dammit, Clayton does it again. Truly nobody makes me feel enticed to buy games like he does.
Goddammit, now I have to play Nier:Automata. I've managed to avoid it for years, but this video finally got me. I resent feeling compelled to play five goddamn playthroughs of this piece of apparently genuinely interesting art to see what everyone's been on about this whole time, but I guess I have to do it.
While he tried to avoid giving specific spoilers, it's not "5 playthroughs" of the same game. Route B plays from another characters perspective, there are sidequests that weren't available in the previous run, and in the later half the events change dramatically as the character you play as wasn't always side by side with 2B. So Route B goes by a lot quicker than Route A, and after that the story actually progresses beyond where both Route A and B ended, so beyond that it's just the next act of a continuing story, not a whole other playthrough. There's also a bunch of other joke endings that are optional and don't take much time, like dying in the tutorial or blowing yourself up in a certain location.
aside from the comment above, it's still more like seeing the credits roll five times than playing through the game five times. you only need to replay the final, final boss the last two times instead of the entire route.
@@gorimbaud There are other repeated bosses, but as you progress through the game those repeats gain new context and new cutscenes.
@@Mordalon there aren't any other repeated bosses if you use chapter select to skip right to the end fight
Also it's not just that you do the entire same thing, but you get different insights and gameplay depending on the run. In one mode you might just be beating up a boss, in another, you get to crack on in and get to know entirely what that Boss's deal is, and why you should punt someone into oblivion. It even inspires dread this way, as one time I had breezed past an area, but explored it later. By that point I was very much picking up the themes the game were putting down and so when i entered that area and the game telegraphed what it was going to do... I just put down the controller for a bit. because I didn't want to see it happen, to make it happen.
And also there are some stupid as hell choices that they threw in there just for fun. Like you can effectively sell your [spoiler] and then [spoiler]. A++, would recommend.
it should be pointed out that the feature talked about with RE2 at 1:40 only pertains to the original game from the 90s, not the remake.
Was looking for this comment
Third playthrough of AC6 was really fun with the story/mission changes; glad you mentioned it!
~simone wuz here~
time loops aren’t mechanically like new game plus all the time but going back and seeing events with new context and having new choices is so good to me. new game+ being in-universe is so fun (plug for my favorites: zero escape series, ai somnium files, i was a teenage exocolonist, gnosia)
Each of the Draken/Nier games uses NG+ in different and creative ways. Undertale is another big example of NG+ being used for narrative impact.
That's a great 5 min and 24 sec video.
Yo wait does that mean Stephanie Myer did Twilight New game+ but like twice. Can’t believe twilight uses video game logic to convince people to read the same story 3 times.
Another wonderful video, but I gotta admit I was hoping Oxenfree would at least get a minor mention lol. It had the repeating time loop mechanics built into the main game but also automatically had a sort of NG+ route if you chose to start a new playthrough that fit right into the narrative, giving the player character in-game moments of déjà vu and the players themselves moments that flip the script on what you remember from your first go. Plus a whole new ending. (That may or may not have been ignored by the sequel, but I still love Oxenfree 2 shhh)
I can think of a couple examples in other media that are a little bit like NG+. Midnight Sun is a kind of NG+ for Twilight, same story from a different POV character. Or maybe how Grendel is a re-imagining of Beowulf, or (in theater) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead for Hamlet.
An honorable mention for Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age where the New Game + has nothing carry over and sets all characters to level 90.
Bastion has a fun New Game + mechanic where some of the narration changes. Spoilers ahead.
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The ending of the game gives the player the choice on whether to rewind time and give their civilization another chance to not wipe themselves out, but it's unclear if anyone will remember anything or if this failsafe has been activated before. New Game + implies that choice was made and that the main character has some memory of what happened before, along with some of the other characters. You also keep all your weapons, which is mostly due to the mechanics of New Game +, but I like to think that it means the protagonist had been stockpiling stuff in case The Calamity ever happened again.
Loved this concept as a game mechanic. Inscryption definitely falls under weird new game + for sure but at the same time was it own cohesive game when played multiple times. Kinda. 😈
only sliiightly disappointed by the lack of mention of Supergiant Games and how they have used NG+ characters not-quite remembering that this has all happened before will never not be chilling
Directors cuts, and extended rereleases happen to both movies and books.
tbh the twist in devil house is so good that rereading it is practically new book plus
ayy 0:22 Devil House by John Darnielle! fantastic taste Clayton
I was kind of waiting for a mention of Bastion's new game+. It's very thematically relevant imo
I want a NG+ for Control so bad. It seems perfect for it, and Remedy did it in other games
Amazing video, especially your point at 2:08.
I think when a developer takes the silliness seriously, it usually translates to more a more enjoyable/impactful experience for the “gamer.”
probably my favourite new game plus feature is in pillars of eternity 2, where after getting an achievement, youll receive a blessing point. During your playthrough you probably won't think much of it, but once you go to start a new game, you can use your points to unlock perks that include stuff like higher starting level/gold/equipment, a fully explored map, unique vendors, increased skill bonuses, and an additional pet slot. Combine this with the god's challenges (unique play conditions themed around the in-universe deities) and the multiple different endings you can choose, and it gives the game a lot of replayability.
Nier Automata was my first experience of this kind of thing, and it absolutely blew me away
a narrative twist that recontextualizes the plot of a book or film is kinda like New Game +
Smashed “like” as soon as I saw Clayton was reading John Darnielle. I cannot cope
when i heard clayton says new game plus I can already taste Nier series being touched at the end of the video and i was correct which is nice
this was wonderfully weird ty Clayton
Memento's second watching is kinda new movie+
I love Nier: Automata, but I do wish path B either started at the forest kingdom or streamlined the process of getting there. Everything is far too similar up until that point, and it takes a long time getting there. Nier's path B starts different immediately, and it's harder to convince people to play through a path B in DrakenNier games if they are going to have to spend hours replaying it before they get to the good parts. Anybody that's not familiar with the series is going to believe it's a standard NG+ otherwise
To me, Nier:Automata is so powerful, that even after years since I played it (all main endings), just Clayton's description of the endings makes me choke up and marvel at how great of a game it is, and how the NG+ of it is so wonderfully crafted.
Its really a shame, that after releasing a game that had multiple factions with multiple endings, which were exclusive to eachother, they released a game with a story driven new game plus and theres effectively only two factions and one ending. If you join the UC, you can still join FC. The pirates are the only ones that "lock" potential story avenues for you, and they hardly add anything new you can't get by being on the good guys team. They totally missed the mark in making compelling reasons to want to replay starfield. I played Fallout 4 multiple times to see how the world changes when you side with each faction. I managed to get through 1 NG+ cycle in starfield before I got bored with it.
All of these New Game + I have never experienced sound cool af
I really am loving these video essays from Clayton. Keep them coming!
To be fair, with the level of grind added into many current AAA games to get players to pay more money to play less game NG+ isn’t just about going ham so much as being able to play the game without the added grind. The only reason I played AC:Valhalla was because Ubi said NG+ was coming. Boy am I glad I bought it for $20 from another player.
Hope when I die i get to try New Life+
I did not expect a Clayton video essay to compel me *narratively*. Incredible stuff. I can only imagine the process of organizing those ideas in the script.
The problem is though, if we exist eternally, there is probably not much else to do other than interacting with games. Not totally sure ofc, but so far I see only 4 options. Not existing(Being unconscious)/Playing games/Developing games/Being stuck in omniscience. From this perspective I concluded that playing games and sometimes slowly developing your own games is simply the best path to go about it.
I saw a John Darnielle book and immediately clicked…
I guess a new movie plus would be something like a directors cut.
Really cool framing to support the essay, great work Clayton
Some movie watchers get really excited when there is a "Director's Cut" or "Extended Edition" available.
EXCELLENT video team, great edit, loved it 10/10 would watch new video+ again
John darnielles books are so good
As someone who hasn't played Starfield, finding out that NG+ is weird alternate universe versions of the main game is probably the most compelling reason to play it. I probably still won't, but it's interesting.
John darnielle plus
The ability to understand and see foreshadowing and character secret intentions when re watching or re reading a book is new book/movie plus
I love the nier automata mention here, will also say that replaying the game is a big part of the whole series including the drakengard games.
Movies sometimes do have extended or directors cuts and books change with rereleases as well.
One other game I'd like to shout out that does interesting things with multiple playthroughs is Stories: Path of Destinies.
This is the awesome content I love Polygon for. Great work!
entered this video expecting to see n:a right off the bat. glorious ending
How many new game plusses does a game have to have to become a roguelike?
It's not about number.
In fact, usually Roguelikes are about resets from failure and not from success.
You can have a Roguelike without a new game plus at all.
Fantastic concept for a video. Nice job Clayton and everyone. 👍
DEVIL HOUSE IN THUMBNAIL?
The best thing about knowing how long you have left to live is not having to worry about spoilers
NieR Automata's final final boss being the end credits is a fun bit of poetry too, the opening lines are a quote about the cycle of life and death and wondering if we'll ever be able to kill god and there you are, literally killing the gods of that world by fighting the stand-in for the creators of the game.
Part of me wonders if Yoko Taro just doesn't know how to top that yet and that's why we're still in mobile game holding pattern number 53 for a successful franchise maybe possibly someday waiting on a sequel. And the mobile game is shutting down in like a month, too, which sucks. Unlike the console NieR games, that'll be completely lost forever, because even when you delete your save data you can just start again.
Remember that boss in that game you love? THAT fight? The one you groan about everytime you think about replaying?
The one where you reevaluated your strategy, changed up your gear, and overall grew as a player. The one where on that last bit of life seeping out of their body, you tasted the sweetness of victory and accomplishment and for a moment your neurotransmitters were swimming in happiness?
Know whats a better feeling than that? Effortlessly crushing them with the level of Power that Gods fear. To look upon this once-vaunted colossus of difficulty and strife and speak "you are nothing but ash in a burning world"
A1 video Clayton, this was great!
"there is no 'new album plus'!"
I present to you Linkin Park's 20th anniversary albums. Which are basically this.
I was hoping for this ending. Truly, it changed my relationship with games, the idea of sacrificing all the hours up until that point to help another player experience a true end in the same way. The way it’s truly a choice that is not a fake out that matters not to the in game characters, but you the player, resonates deeply. I will never play Nier: Automata again, not because I don’t want to, but because I choose not to.
For my first playthrough of the game, I chose to forsake my data because I decided that, if I was going to return to the game, doing that all again would be part of the fun. Years later I did return to it and Platinumed it.
ok but what about when musicians rerecord or remaster their works? is that ng+?
this might be Clayton's master work. good job yall
Nice chainmail coif mate. 10/10
I'm quite content to just replay a game from the beggining again, new game + is appreciated when it's there but I don't find it to be a nessesary part of the game unless it's woven into the narrative like in nier automata.
can we argue that fearless (taylor's version) by taylor swift is fearless new game plus?
There is new book plus in an argentinian classic from the 60's called "rayuela" you're supposed to read the book normally for the good ending and then the book purposes a different order of chapters that change the meaning of the book
wow the i come to shanghai vinyl is quite the throwback
While _Dark Soul's_ NG+ modes don't have explicit narrative justification, i'd argue they play into the series' themes of nihilism and cosmic cycles.
You go on an epic quest, overcome daunting odds, and make your choice at the end... and it's all ultimately meaningless because no matter what you choose, the cycle will inevitably repeat regardless of your actions, and the only real impact you have is how quickly it resets.
And so you and your character are stuck repeating the same story over and over, because no matter how powerful you become, even you cannot defeat time itself.
This video was awesome, thanks, Clayton🙂🙂
Beautiful stuff, thanks Clayton
I think Blade Runner could fit that New+ description
i would argue that a lot of stories have new game plus because you can go back and see all the foreshadowing
Heaven's Vault's NG+ are super important. You keep your confirmed words and get some new, bigger sentences to translate so it helps you understand the history of this world.
Unrated DVDs of mid-2000s comedies are the New Game+ of the movie world.
Why does your Rod Serling sound like the Comicbook Guy from the Simpsons?! Lol
i just wanted to see them pull out the john darnielle book hehe
I wish devil house had a new book plus
Namco's Tales Of series sitting off to the sidelines, wondering if they're chopped liver.
what was this video... polygon always has amazing content but this one just blew me away.
Outdone yourself this time, Clayton.