Games That Are Loved For Their Story... Have Terrible Stories?

[Irridium]

Mass Effect 2 and Assassin's Creed 2.

ME2 because of a bunch of small issues that eventually add up to one big amount of stupid. Companion stories were great though. The main plot... not so much. And it was made worse by Arrival.

Assassin's Creed 2 because Carnival and pope pugilism. Carnival because it's a bunch of bullshit for absolutely no good reason at all. You apparently need a Golden Mask. Why can't you just ambush someone with it, kill them, and take it? Why can't you steal one? No, you have to do a race that nobody but Ezio can do, steal ribbons from women, fucking capture the flag, and fist-fight people. And even after all that, you still don't get the mask. Then you're told you have to steal it. WHY DIDN'T WE DO THAT IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE?! And when we get to the party, nobody else has a fucking golden mask. At the party where you apparently need a golden mask to enter. And even by just observing the area you could think of many more different ways to enter. You could have snuck in with Paola, swam in, posed as a caterer, steal a guard uniform and get onto the main boat... so many things. But no, you take the golden fucking mask from someone, and don't kill the guy which pretty much guarentees that he'll barge in and try to find you. Which he does, so now they're looking for the guy with the golden mask. And yet Ezio keeps the fucking thing on. The golden mask that you could have gotten in many better ways that you didn't even fucking need but did anyway because it's a video game and you do what you're told dammit. Also there's the general stupidity that a simple mask will disguise you from guards looking for you. Instead of, say, changing out of you're ridiculously flamboyant and easy-to-spot assassins outfit, you put a mask over you're eyes which is then covered by your hood. Just... why such stupidity?

Also, Ezio's a jackass. He makes it his life's work to kill the ones who killed his family. Well he does that, then proceeded to murder people connected with the people who murdered his family. And when he gets to the person who's the cause of it all, he lets him go. Why does he do it? Because "killing him won't bring his family back".

And he says this after he spent an entire game killing scores of people because they killed, or were related to in some way to the people who killed, his family. This isn't even focusing on the fact that he has no problem murdering the peons, people who most likely have no choice but to fight, people who might not even know what's going on but just want to hold down the job, and then lets the person responsible for everything go. For the same reason why he's been killing his way across Italy.

Fucking jackass.

And yes I've been watching Spoiler Warning, and no I don't have anything better to do. What of it?

 

[plugav]

I think BioWare games aren't exactly loved for their stories, more for their characters.
As for Portal, people have already said it - it's not about the story itself, it's how it's told.
And, judging mostly by Oblivion, whoever told you The Elder Scrolls had great stories was probably a liar.

What about games that I think did have great stories, not just well told ones? I'd name Planescape: Torment and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. (While the latter is not exactly as meaningful as the former, its complexity perfectly reflects the major themes of the pen&paper game.)

Oh, and then there's also this:

When people say a game has a great story, I always imagine they really mean to add on the end of their statement, 'for a video game'.

 

[Pearwood]

Anyway, the point is that there's a lot more to storytelling than plot.

That's pretty much the point I was trying to make, find out what people value the most about storytelling.

 

[Woodsey]

"The biggest case of this is Portal in my opinion and I think it makes my point best. The plot is paper-thin and relied solely on the quality of the narration to hold up."

/missingthepoint

People like Portal because its not got a story; its an aftermath. The 'story' is just a narrative which you progress through as you piece together small bits of information. When people say they "like the story" to something, you have to learn to filter through to what they're actually on about sometimes.

Although yes, I would agree with the general sentiment that gamers wouldn't know good writing if it cock-slapped them in the face.

ME2 because of a bunch of small issues that eventually add up to one big amount of stupid. Companion stories were great though. The main plot... not so much.

I thought it did quite well, considering it inevitably has to face being the second part of a trilogy. The biggest flaw was lack of a Saren/Smith figure; the Big Bad Machines need a Big Bad Lackey you can put a face too.

The companion stuff was really enjoyable, and the plot was really just a vehicle for a character-piece. That does seem to have been a bit undone by them not catering for as many characters (either by full-on omission or team size) in Mass Effect 3 though.

 

[LokiArchetype]

"Tower" is a setting :|

Anyways, that's like saying "I can sum up the entire RPG genre in one word: Dungeon"

 

[Pearwood]

"Tower" is a setting :|

Anyways, that's like saying "I can sum up the entire RPG genre in one word: Dungeon"

Oh you know what I meant!

 

[Exius Xavarus]

It's within execution that you will find originality. There are only so many ways to tell a story. But the story in and of itself is what matters. You can look at the basics and deepest workings of a story all you want, but you're refusing to look at the very thing the developers tried to create.

 

[Keava]

When people say a game has a great story, I always imagine they really mean to add on the end of their statement, 'for a video game'.

Maybe one day a game will have a great story on par with a good book or movie.

You can reduce any story, book, movie or game, into about 31 step template. In the end They are all the same story, just each time told differently, in various settings, with different names. Similarly with characters, You generally can classify them into 8 core types.

I really recommend reading about Vladimir Propp [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp#Narrative_structure] and his structure of folk tale, You would be surprised into how many of stories You've read, seen or played through it fits.

 

[jwonno]

What makes a good game story? The same thing that makes any other story good.

It has to have characters that people can relate to / identify with in some way. There has to be a balance between enough depth to make characters & settings believable, without weighing the audience down with useless information (this also means having clear direction). Storytelling has to feel natural, more discovering what's going on than someone outright telling you something, and leave the audience wanting more.

Get these right and and it doesn't matter if the story has been told hundreds of times over; most genres have only one or two stories, just different characters, settings & paths.

 

[Aprilgold]

Its how you tell the story, you can make Twilight a moving piece of boner erecting awesome if you told it the right way. I do hate the stories of the games you told its just the actual STORIES are bad, but told very well.

 

[Fappy]

Because plot = story. Amiright? :/

 

[blackcherry]

Look, whilst most games do have simplistic stories if you strip away the extraneous details, it can do something that very few mediums can do so well so quickly. World Building.

 

[jboking]

A lot of the games people praise the story of are really very traditional stories told well. Not differently, just well. Stuff like Baldur's Gate and the Elder Scrolls are very basic "You are the chosen one" stories with the only difference being the depth of the world and the dozens if not hundreds of sub-plots and side quests it would take years to resolve.

Bioware have very rarely moved away from their favourite plot - a previously unknown peasant is sent on a quest motivated by revenge after the destruction of his/her home town. Yet their games are universally regarded as having the best stories when one could make the argument that the main plot differs very little between their games and indeed many other similar fantasy stories. Mass Effect as well has a very generic plot where aliens invade, you are a war hero and the universe's best hope but you're thwarted at every turn by a ruling body made up exclusively of denial-ridden tossers just for plot convenience.

Shin Megami Tensei is another one, particularly Persona 3. I can sum up the entire series more or less in one single word. "Tower". The plot is minimal in these games until the halfway or three-quarter way mark and before then really the plot is just a way to facilitate gameplay. The same applies to Etrian Odyssey too although I won't talk about that because I couldn't make any bloody sense of the storyline.

The biggest case of this is Portal in my opinion and I think it makes my point best. The plot is paper-thin and relied solely on the quality of the narration to hold up.


So after all that I finally come to my point. There are certainly games that diversify from the typical story archetypes but the ones I most often hear being praised for their plot don't. So with that said what is it that makes a game story good if it isn't originality? Is it the depth, the narration, simply the manner in which the plot is presented? Personally I can forgive a ton of mistakes if the game is written in a charming way. Hyperdimension Neptunia is a good example, to say that game had flaws is quite an understatement but I had fun with it for a good while.

I don't remember anyone ever saying that Bethesda was the best at telling story. Rather they're the best at creating lore. That's really not the same as storytelling, its creating a world for a story to occur in. Also, I think you have far overgeneralized Mass Effects story in order to try and drive a point home. Thing is, when you try and cut down an entire complex plot into only one line, it will always seem derivative and not unique at all.
Portal doesn't have a good story, it has good characters. I wasn't aware that this wasn't understood. Also, I noticed you didn't bring up Bioshock or even Deus Ex.

Lastly, I feel that a good story (not just a good game story) can be good based on characters, narration, plot, or even just the background information about the world. Stories are complex, and originality is nearly impossible in this day and age. However, that doesn't mean that stories that aren't original are Terrible.

 

[newdarkcloud]

All plots period sound generic and uninspired when you boil them down to the base elements.

The presentation is what makes them stand out.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Uh i feel kinda obligated to defend Persona 4 here seeing as it's the only thing i could call perfect, the whole

"The plot is minimal in these games until the halfway or three-quarter way mark and before then really the plot is just a way to facilitate gameplay"

I can actually call bullshit on this, the entire game is about solving this one big mystery (the mystery is the plot essentially) and saying that it exists to facilitate gameplay is ridiculous, seeing as the mystery tone is interwoven into every aspect of the game and is hung over your head from minute one.

Oh and innovative isn't a synonym for good... Just sayin'

 

[Lilani]

In many cases, it's less about the plot and more about the storytelling. See also: Bioware.

Pretty much. This is pretty much why Disney has been so successful. The source material for their classic movies are anything but original or innovative, but the way they told and presented the stories along with the characters they put in them are what makes them so different and innovative.

 

[valleyshrew]

Yes! I'm sick of people citing portal or sotc/ico or alan wake or zelda as having good story telling. These are all extremely minimalistic games where the storytelling is hugely second place to the gameplay. Except maybe alan wake but the story in horror games is always laughable and alan wake is a particularly egregious example of horrible writing.

I don't mind final fantasy, elder scrolls, mass effect or baldurs gate etc. though as those at least make an effort to tell a deep story of some sort and take advantage of a medium that's based on interactivity and gives a feeling of adventure no movie can approach. They may be highly flawed but I think they're still superior to most movies because of their depth and interactivity.

Quantic Dream, Obsidian and Rockstar do not get enough credit for writing actually relatable and engaging stories with meaningful themes. It's really shocking to see Valve get more praise than them when they admit they think story in videogames isn't important and their games have mute protagonists with only a couple of other characters. Most games are like this and they seem to have taken storytelling design directly from movies despite games being 5-10 times as long as movie on average and needing to be more like a tv series.

 

[drummond13]

I've always felt these games were praised for their good writing, not "good stories". A well written cliche story is always vastly superior to a poorly written original one.

And there's many things that make for a well written game. Characters, dialogue, pacing, overall plot structure. Some games get some of these right and others wrong. Modern Warfare, for example, has great dialogue mixed with some of the worst plot structuring I've ever seen.