2nd Person Storytelling - General Discussion

#1 Posted by Asinies (35 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

Are there any games that have a story in the form of a 2nd-person point of view? Obviously first-person is from a character within the story, third-person is from a random narrator never seen in-game, and second-person would be either of those characters addressing the story to you personally, as if you were another character never seen.

#2 Edited by FluxWaveZ (18024 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

I thought second-person would mean the story told from a character within the story other than the protagonist.

Reading the Wikipedia article, though, I was probably wrong:

The second-person narrative is a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun "you".

Example:

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. —Opening lines of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

#3 Posted by Video_Game_King (29858 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

Super Mario 64 (Lakitu's following you throughout) and Final Fantasy Tactics (it's a historian telling you about this awesome story he found).

#4 Edited by FluxWaveZ (18024 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

@Video_Game_King said:

Final Fantasy Tactics (it's a historian telling you about this awesome story he found).

That would be 3rd person, wouldn't it?

All I can think of is old text based adventure games. Stuff like those specific segments in Saints Row: The Third or Nier.

#5 Posted by EuanDewar (4095 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

@Video_Game_King

Super Mario 64 (Lakitu's following you throughout) and Final Fantasy Tactics (it's a historian telling you about this awesome story he found).

Mario is more a perspective thing but yeah that FF thing makes sense. I guess in that same vein Prince of Persia is a second person narrative.

#6 Posted by CH3BURASHKA (4051 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

MGS2 was told in second-person.

Think about it.

#7 Posted by Animasta (13005 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

Bastion? Iunno

#8 Edited by Strife777 (1036 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

It's kind of hard to do, because it would imply that the protagonist needs to be retold something he already experienced. So you would need the main character to suffer amnesia and the narrator would be someone who followed him throughout his adventure, telling him about it.

Edit: Or, like someone else mentionned, you are being told what you, the reader, did/are doing, like in a text adventure game.

#9 Posted by EmuLeader (551 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

The only way I could ever see this working would be the protagonist losing his memory, and someone telling him (you) everything he did (which might not even be considered 2nd person). Even then that is stretching it. Second person doesn't really work with interactivity, unless there is a narrator was verbally or in text describing everything, kinda like Bastion if Rucks addressed The Kid as you.

#10 Posted by Doctorchimp (3981 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

Dragon Age 2

#11 Posted by elcalavera (330 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

Bastion would be the game I'd say. But it's a hard distinction to make in a video game.

#12 Posted by mshaw006 (526 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

"X-person" in games usually refers to the camera set up. In that way, a second-person game would look like a third person game, but the camera would be located in the head of another character. Something similar to this is when you're being chased by the cops is some of the GTAs, and the camera switched to a third-person view of the police car chasing you. That's still third-person, though.

As far as storytelling goes, you could say that all games are told in the second person, in that they give you commands. They say things like, "Go to the bridge." That means you, through the character. It gets complicated when it comes to interactive media. I think what you really want to know is if any game addresses the player directly, as the person playing the game. I haven't heard of doing that; it would be cool, though.

#13 Edited by TentPole (1858 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

There can be 2nd person writing in a game but it is impossible for a game itself to be 2nd person as by virtue of you controlling a character it cannot by definition be second person.

The dialog in bastion is 2nd person but the game itself is not as you control the kid.

There is no such think as 2nd person storytelling within a visual medium.

#14 Posted by Xtrememuffinman (958 posts) - 1 year, 5 months ago

@CH3BURASHKA said:

MGS2 was told in second-person.
Think about it.