this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
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The Lessons of SOMA Are Timeless (www.youtube.com)
submitted 2 days ago by MetaStatistical@lemmy.zip to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[–] AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I love this game, love the lore, love the atmosphere, but god damn I dislike Simon.

Tap for spoilerHalf his dialogue is yelling at the only other person stuck with him in this situation. Also, maybe it’s just because I’ve thought about it before, but that “suicide” part would not have phased me. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised by how the mind copying works after already understanding what happened to previous me. Like Simon really is an idiot. And even if you are upset you really shouldn’t yell at the person trying to help you especially in an already stressful environment

Also I do kind of wish you could do more things and that more actions had consequences rather than just being ethical dilemmas.

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Simon and Catherine are the two sides of the debate. The emotional response, and its conclusion. And the intellectual response, and its conclusion.

SpoilerThe people who killed themselves, landed somewhere in-between.

Catherine had already thought about it a ton before she was copied, and came to intellectual conclusions well in advancea.

Simon is experiencing the feelings involved, after he's been copied. Worse, he's the kind of person who thinks people have souls, something intrinsicly unique and irreproduciple. He may never get past his emotional response.

We hear him voice his opinion several times, that to him, there is only one soul. He refers to original Simon as "real" Simon. He actively avoids thinking about it too much because the conclusion he'd come to is that his current existence is "fake". And you can tell that Catherine picks up on it, pushing the subject only when she has to. Even when she does explain, it's not that he can't understand the way she thinks about it. It's that he won't.

They also do several things in the story that discourages Simon from thinking about the copies as "real" even as he is one himself. After getting a password from a simulated copy of a mind, Simon wonders if they just killed a person several times over just to get a password. It goes unsaid, but he undoubtedly lands on the side he is more comfortable with. That the copies aren't "real".

Cathrine does manipulate Simon into being copied the second time. She avoids explaining it in a way that would offend him. Only doing so when she fails to hide what happened.

And then Simon comes up with a rationalization, the coinflip. That when you're copied, there's a coinflip on whether "you" end up on either side of the copy. Just so he can accept his current existence as valid.

If you're on the intellectual side, that's BS. You end up on both sides. Both copies are real.

But if you think the soul is real, then the coinflip must be how it works. That, or only the original was "real". But to the Simon we play as in Soma, that is not an option he is willing to even think about.

I think it's extremely good writing. I just pitied simon, I wasn't able to hate him for reacting the way a normal person might.

He could've been nicer to Catherine, tho.

[–] alphabethunter@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I couldn't have said it better. This is it. Yes, you as a player might be someone who is more rational than emotional, but the vast majority of people living in the world in the 21st century are religious to some degree at least, and more sensitive than sensible. Let's not forget that Catherine is not from the 21st century either, she is, from Simon's perspective, from far in the future. Mind cloning for us today is impossible, not real, just a thought experiment. For Catherine, it was reality. Thinking that Simon is just "a big baby" is quite a wrong interpretation of the person he is supposed to be. He is not you, he is the 90%, a dude living a normal life in the 21st century, that, after going to get a brain scanner, wakes up in an abandoned underwater facility full of man-created horrors far into the future. He is not your self-insert. In a way, he is also a kind of empathy test for the audience, which the devs very much knew would be more on the rational side for this kind of game. Can you empathize with this "dumb" dude and understand his struggle? Can you understand his views and partake in his personal horror?

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

I fully agree.

Having Simon as the main character constantly had me feeling like one of the reveals would be that the scanning process was imperfect and somehow left him mentally damaged. Alas, it seems he was just naturally gifted with the emotional control and abstract reasoning abilities of a toddler.

I get that it's hard to explain a story in the internal monologue of a first-person character, so having them be oblivious is a great way to explain things to the player. But Soma felt likt it was actively insulting my intelligence by assuming I needed a drool-proof keyboard.

[–] MetaStatistical@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago

Simon is the most audience surrogate of all time. Also, I think his continuous lack of understanding is partially due to his "flat" scan, being done when the technology was in its infancy.

[–] LePoisson@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

My review for Soma, I really should get around to replaying it at some point:

Wow ... a storytelling EXPERIENCE. I rarely finish games, this one gripped me from beginning to end. About 10 hours or so of gameplay, I'm not sure if there is much replay value to be had - perhaps a few dialogue variations.

The themes of existentialism, the threat of AI, and humanity's future are all beautifully blended together in a deeply enthralling way. This game is scary and definitely has its moments of terror but it is not heavy on jump scares (there are a couple though).

The graphics hold up well. Mechanically there isn't any novel ground being tread but what is there is solid and works well. This game is definitely more about inhabiting the mind of Simon and less about running away from scary stuff although it does have plenty of times where you will be doing just that.

Buy this one on sale and you will more than get your money's worth in entertainment value. Definitely a game that gives you a lot to think about.

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I felt like this was a game that could be better served as a shot story. The gameplay is weak and the setup for all the mind copying is cool, but mostly irrelevant to the main philosophical question posed.

!Most of all what I don't like about the game is it purposefully misleads the player about the "mind copying". The fact is there is no gamble or uncertainty, when copying the person's mind the original always stays where it is and a new consciousness is created in the new body. By changing control for all transfers but the last it seems to imply you got unlucky, but that's what had been happening every time prior.!<

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Disagree. It's very effective as a horror game in its own right. The excellent story is icing on the cake.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Simon is just a moron who comes to the wrong conclusions constantly. I also found it extremely annoying to play a protagonist who is just demonstrably wrong about everything, and has emotional outbursts at everyone trying to improve the situation.

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah, that's pretty much the same way I felt playing it.

[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I really, really wanted to like that game. The lore and atmosphere was right up my alley.

The problem? There wasn’t much game to it, no fighting or anything like that. Mostly just go around trying to avoid things like a horror game.

Having said that, the story was sooo good, years later after giving up the game I read the plot on Wikipedia and holy shit, what an ending.

[–] MetaStatistical@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago

Space Quest Historian put out a good video talking about these kinds of games. I think it's too easy for people to get so hung up on these definitions. I know everybody has these kind of expectations of what a "computer game" is supposed to be, but story-focused "walking simulators" still have a place in an interactive medium.

You can't put yourself in Simon's shoes like this in a movie or TV series, because you're controlling him in a first-person view. It just wouldn't be the same perspective, which is critically important in a game where the POV is almost a centerpiece to the story.

It's a different kind of game, sure, and not everybody is going to like the lack of traditional "gameplay" or whatever you want to call it. But, it's a category of game that should be respected as just a valid a "game" as any other computer game. It's just far more story-focused than most.

[–] ieGod@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah it's a walking simulator. The story is fine but nothing novel or ground breaking. I thought it was way over hyped.

[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I never understood those games.

I understand that their main goal is to tell a story, but then imo there are other mediums for that.

Also, some devs think horror with sneaking is universally fun.

For me, shit like that gives me anxiety and it’s the opposite feeling I want when I game. Why the fuck would want to feel terrified and worried that something is about to catch me?

Having said all that, I still think SOMA is worth trying cause the story is that good.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You just answered your own question, no other medium would give you the anxiety the protagonist is experiencing.

Also, worth noting that this game was made by Frictional games, they essentially invented (or at least popularized) the genre. So while you might be sick of similar games, it's like saying Mario is just another platformer. Most similar games out there are heavily inspired by Frictional games games.

[–] winkledinkle@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago

And frictional games are definitely not walking sims, they just rely on emergent gameplay rather than hardcoded mechanics.

People are criticising the horror games for being stressful. Its OK to not like the game but it's definitely not the games fault. They are very competently made.

[–] MetaStatistical@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago

There's a Safe Mode, and if you don't like horror games or anxiety-inducing chases, it's a good compromise. I talk about that in the intro.