After I finished writing about herbs and health restoration in Resident Evil in a previous post, my mind drifted off like “yeah, herbs are so unorthodox and illogical, unlike health items in other video games wait”
And so I began to think about health items in varying other games, and then inappropriately applying them with real world logic. Doing such basically takes a lot of fun and imagination out of them in one regard, but in another regard, creates a whole lot of funny theoreticals and imagery.
Like take for example, food. Food is pretty much one of the most commonly used things designated as a health restoration item in a wide expanse of video game genres. It’s mostly because food is awesome, and for all living creatures, a necessary staple for living. But apply some real world logic to how food is presented in video games, and then it makes absolutely no sense at all. If anything, eating food amidst the throes of combat should probably be considered detrimental in the big picture.
Some of the most popular go-to instances of irrational food in video games are usually Castlevania’s roast hidden behind breakable walls (above), and the crate and barrel turkeys found commonly in old school cult beat ‘em ups Final Fight and Streets of Rage. While playing each of these games, the discovery of these food items are widely considered moments of relief, because typically there has been an incessant amount of fighting and likely physical abuse incurred prior to the discovery of these delectable entrees.
But just think about the logic behind them, applied to real world standards. Would you really think eating a turkey hidden inside of an oil drum, a trash can, or a wooden crate would be a particularly good idea? Sure, it’s guaranteed to fully replenish your health bar, but think of the possible sanitary drawbacks!
Or in the case of the Belmont clan, does it seem like a good idea to actually eat a roast hidden behind a wall? I mean, according to Castlevania lore, Dracula returns every 100 years or so, so it would seem fitting that nobody’s probably been in his castle for the vast majority of the previous century, so there’s literally no telling just how old these wall roasts are. But got damn, does restoration of 50% of your maximum health sound like a good idea, considering that the game is pretty much four hits and you’re dead.
And then there are the ageless Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whom due to their obsession with pizza have absolutely no qualms with eating random pizzas found on the side of the street. I know they’re turtles biologically, but still they act like people, and should possibly have some discretion at whether or not to eat random pizzas found on the street, worse yet in the sewers, the Technodrome, and oddly in the past or the future, in eras when pizzas weren’t either invented, or the world was void of organic materials. But nope, they see pizza, it’s pizza time.
What I like to think about to amuse myself is imagining the characters of these games stopping everything they’re doing to sit back, relax for a few minutes and leisurely enjoy the random entrees they’ve randomly found. Like I want to draw a picture of Cody and Mayor Mike Haggar sitting on some overturned trash cans, slovenly eating and enjoying a turkey with their bare hands, while the criminals of Metro City around them patiently wait for them to get up so they can resume trying to thwart them. Or Simon Belmont kicking back and eating an 80-year old roast, while killer bats, skeletons and mermen wait for him to finish so they can try to kill him.
Continuing on these thoughts of the absurd, wouldn’t it be more detrimental for the characters to be indulging in such feasts in the midst of all their crime prevention? It’s like you have to ask yourself, if you would really want to go full 100% into a physical activity such as fighting for your life against legions of bad guys who want to kill you, right after eating a huge meal? Of course not! Doing anything physical on a full stomach sounds like a bad idea in general. Never mind the fact that so many games utilize turkeys as their go-to full health replenisher, as if the people who developed the game never heard of the urban myths of tryptophan sleepiness.
Like imagine Blaze from Streets of Rage suddenly getting hit with the itis after eating the turkey she found inside of an oil drum. She’s already dressed like a whore to begin with, but after she passes out due to the tryptophan, talk about encouraging rape culture to all the Syndicate thugs.
Food is indeed a wonderful thing, and there’s no doubt that we as human beings need it to keep our strength and energy up. But even still, there are rules about food and strenuous physical activity that apply in the real world, like not doing one immediately right after the other, or consuming an excessive amount of rich foods.
There have been a lot of games throughout the ages that have resorted to generic “health kits” to be a primary source of health replenishment. Usually, they’re nondescript white or gray boxes, or a mixture of whites and reds, and almost always have a red or a white cross, the international symbol of medicine. Ironically, the only game that comes to mind for me is Wolfenstein 3D.
But again, applying real world logic to health kits, basically leads to the curiosity of what exactly are in these health kits? What kind of medicinal equipment can be so universally good at instantaneously making a character feel at 100% again? My only guess is something like morphine or some other prescription painkiller that if deemed to be true, probably creates addiction with these characters after their respective storylines are over.
Left 4 Dead briefly actually accentuates what’s in their medkits, because they kind of show bandages momentarily, and they utilize the sounds of bandages being wrapped and wounds being dressed or something like that. If anything at all, they’re slightly more true to life, because they restore the characters generously, but certainly not to 100%, because being patched up to complete maximum health isn’t realistic. Like zombies or mutant tanks, witches, hunters, smokers and boomers.
Speaking of Left 4 Dead, and going a little back to painkillers, is probably one of the most infamous of (temporary) health restoration – pills. It’s not so much that they’re some sort of illegal pills that makes it so memorable, in actuality they’re really just Target branded ibuprofen tablets; it’s the manner in which they’re taken that makes them so easy to remember. Instead of any of the characters popping 2-4 tablets for 12 or so gradual hours of minor pain dulling, the characters of L4D literally throw the entire jar back and bottoms up the entire contents. All for somewhere around 40-50 points of temporary health that gradually decreases over time, faster when damaged by infected.
I’m obviously not the first person to point it out, but from a real world medical standpoint, chugging anywhere from 10+ ibuprofen tablets at one time is usually enough to melt your intestines, dissolve your liver, or a variety of other fatal internal events. I guess things like that are of low priority when the living dead are out to kick your ass and then eat you.
Although when it comes to regaining health in video games, it’s hard to dissect any game that has a fantasy element to it, because of the concept of magic, and its ability to essentially do all sorts of the impossible, I do feel as if I can pick on one common trope of many fantasy based video games and RPGs.
Inns. Pretty much every single role playing game ever released on a console had the ability for the player to go to an inn, and pay for the ability to get a night’s rest where they would be 100% rejuvenated and ready to go back to war the following morning.
That’s definitely not how it works out in the real world. For starters, your characters are walking up to an innkeeper and essentially asking for the last-minute, spontaneous, at-the-moment rate for a room. In the real world, that’s an easy way to get laughed at and gauged to all hell by any sort of front desk at any lodging establishment. It’s like video games run on Hotwire at all times, and the player is able to get one low, flat rate for their entire party at any given point.
Furthermore, a good night’s sleep does a whole lot of good for the human body sure, but when your days are comprised of trekking through deserts, fighting an endless number of monsters and wild animals, crawling through cages, slaying dragons, and talking to everyone, there’s no way a solid eight in a bed is going to fully rejuvenate you, mind and body. Fuck that noise.
Even if Cecil took advantage of the luxurious Baron Castle Inn, and soaked in the hot tub, treated himself to a fancy chimera steak dinner, and had a good night’s sleep in a large comfortable bed, there’s still no way he’s waking up the next morning devoid of soreness or mental exhaustion from the events of the day before and the days before that one.
Rest is very much an important way of recovering one’s health, but given the sheer amount of crap the protagonists in our video games are relied upon to do, there’s absolutely no way rest alone can bring a guy back to 100% in real world logic.
Let’s not even get started on tents, cabin items or like in the case of the very first Final Fantasy, the HOUSE item, because as much as I do like camping, there’s almost no way to not wake up uncomfortable, sore or awkward while sleeping in the great outdoors.
Look, I know that video games are meant to be our escape from reality, so in a way I do feel kind of silly of applying so much real world logic to them. But these are things that sometimes go on through my head, and frankly, I find it amusing to blab about, and I hope that others get some amusement out of it too.
