When Combat Tells A Story | Psych of Play

Ah yes. Stockings hung above the chimney, snow on the ground, rampant Steam sales draining my wallet. It’s that time of the year folks. It’s time to talk about gaming in the context of pro-wrestling. Get cozy for this one, we’re talking about storytelling through combat systems and through choice of offense. I think this one might be something special.

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▶Games Shown

Control (2019) - Remedy Entertainment
Shadow of the Colossus (2005) - Team Ico
Undertale (2015) - Toby Fox
Ghost of Tsushima (2020) - Sucker Punch Productions
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (2020) - Omega Force
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (2017) - MonolithSoft
Octopath Traveler (2018) - Square Enix
Final Fantasy VII (1997) - SquareSoft
Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) - Square Enix
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019) - Intelligent Systems
September 12th: A Toy World (2010) - Newsgaming, Gonzalo Frasca
L I M (2012) - Merritt Kopas
Threes (2014) - Sirvo LLC
Gris (2018) - Nomada Studio
Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door (2004) - Intelligent Systems, Nintendo
Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (2014) - Game Freak
Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) - Rockstar
Final Fantasy XIII (2009) - Square Enix
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) - Nintendo

▶Clips/Movies Shown

The Prestige (2006)
The Mandalorian (2019)


Several WWE, AEW, NJPW, PWG, iMPACT, and ROH clips. Tweet at me a screenshot of the vid if you want to know what match/promo it is. And please YouTube copyright gods, have mercy on me.

Other clips and considerations:


▶Music Sources:

Tenno - Luna ()
Retro Vintage Funky Beat "1 9 8 0 s" - ()
chromonicci. - Breathe ()
Dinariyo - FFVII Who Are You [Tainted Memory Remix] ()
Otrebor - Loneliness ()
Gucci Louis - Rap Beat 2 ()
tenno - sacred tree ()
Jeff II - Wait for me ()
Vexaic - Last Goodbye ()
Lofi Lia - Final Fantasy VII - Tifa's Theme Remix ()

▶Research Articles Cited


**The Psychological Reality of Procedural Rhetoric


**Mirror Neurons: How We Reflect on Behavior


‘I Feel Your Pain’: The Neuroscience of Empathy


Neural correlates of emotion-attention interactions: From perception, learning, and memory to social cognition, individual differences, and training interventions


Emotion and Perception: The Role of Affective Information
#:~:text=Emotional%20arousal%20guides%20attention%20so,to%20objects%20that%20are%,influence%20pre%2Dattentive%20perceptual%20processes.

We Don’t Play As We Think, But We Think As We Play: Evidence for the Psychological Impact of In-Game Actions (The mechanic do matter, they shape how we think and id argue how we feel)


Ludonarrative Dissonance: Is Storytelling About Reaching Harmony?


Dissociable substrates for body motion and physical experience in the human action observation network


**All images, graphics, and fonts created or found with , , , and Lightworks v14 editing software. All gameplay footage captured with Elgato 60FPS recording device**

#PsychofPlay