Great Stories that deserve Better Games
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Final Fantasy 8. Somewhere in here, there's a good story, minus all of the poorly-written romance between an angster and an idiot. Squall's "face" at the end (Look at Faceless Squall in Images and cross your fingers that Rule 34 won't show up) could proabably have an interesting story behind it, other than meaningless symbolism.
It's an interesting story and premise, but it's so caped in shit.
Persona 3, also. They turned a story about normal people having to accept reality and their cessational future into every high school kid in Japan having a convenient tragic backstory. Seriously.
Yukari's got mommy issues and a dead dad.
Ken's mother died because of Shinjiro.
Shinjiro's entire family is dead.
Akihiko's sister died in a fire.
Mitsuru watched BOTH, not one, BUT BOTH of her parents die in front of her.
Junpei's dad is an abusive alcoholic.
Kuromaru's owner is dead, and he feels he has no meaning in his life.
It's all so convenient and set-up, even the fucking dog's got a tragic backstory that the player needs to fix.
Persona 4, also. 1 and 2 had better stories, but probably worse execution gameplay wise. Persona 3+4 still have good stories, but worse execution (somehow). In P4's case, it's the grinding. I'd level the entire party - even characters I don't use in boss battles - up to their neccesary level in order to keep the main character ahead about 5 levels, to cut down on the grinding later on.
And Costume Quest. I love the game's art and humour, but the battle system is directly cloned from Paper Mario. I also love Paper Mario, but I spent $10 on something that wasn't Paper Mario, damnit. Now dance, monkey!
It's an interesting story and premise, but it's so caped in shit.
Persona 3, also. They turned a story about normal people having to accept reality and their cessational future into every high school kid in Japan having a convenient tragic backstory. Seriously.
Yukari's got mommy issues and a dead dad.
Ken's mother died because of Shinjiro.
Shinjiro's entire family is dead.
Akihiko's sister died in a fire.
Mitsuru watched BOTH, not one, BUT BOTH of her parents die in front of her.
Junpei's dad is an abusive alcoholic.
Kuromaru's owner is dead, and he feels he has no meaning in his life.
It's all so convenient and set-up, even the fucking dog's got a tragic backstory that the player needs to fix.
Persona 4, also. 1 and 2 had better stories, but probably worse execution gameplay wise. Persona 3+4 still have good stories, but worse execution (somehow). In P4's case, it's the grinding. I'd level the entire party - even characters I don't use in boss battles - up to their neccesary level in order to keep the main character ahead about 5 levels, to cut down on the grinding later on.
And Costume Quest. I love the game's art and humour, but the battle system is directly cloned from Paper Mario. I also love Paper Mario, but I spent $10 on something that wasn't Paper Mario, damnit. Now dance, monkey!
Those aspects of the game completely kill it sometimes. Sucks, because it's got a deep lore, that's still growing.Rossmallo said:
I'm actually going to say Street Fighter on this one. Don't get me wrong, I love the Street Fighter series as videogames and generally wouldn't change a thing about them. The genre, however, just isn't all that suited to telling really good stories and the whole back story of Ryu, Ken, Gouken, etc. just cries out to me for some sort of deeper treatment. Maybe I'm just a sucker for that sort of typical kung fu movie storyline, but I'd love to somehow actually be able to play that storyline instead of just having the occasional curscene or manual excerpt referencing it.
The combat is very hamhanded, but not particularly difficult; it probably just felt impossible because nothing really worked. The only way it plays out in any really organic way is if you're a mage. I tried going for a dual-swords rogue sort at first. Felt clunky and awful. Decided to start over as a mage, wrecked pretty much everything with AoE attacks. Only time I died was at a point where I was intended to die.EternalNothingness said:
Hmm, Legacy of Kain: soul Reaver series. Don't get me wrong, the series has an amazing story, characters, and some of the best voice acting ever seen in a game, but the actual game itself was...well maybe not terrible but certainly boring.
Xenosaga, as mentioned, is another good contender.
Xenosaga, as mentioned, is another good contender.
Yeah, you honestly picked the best time to pull the chord on that one. The story goes nowhere in the end, and its already considerable case of Evangelion Syndrome (a disorder characterized by shallow, ultimately pointless, judeo-christian symbolism, an excess of needlessly complex acronyms and made up words for things, and the complete failure of the story to survive the final act in a comprehensible/satisfying manner) only gets worse from there. The whole thing just kind of falls apart in the end.OrpheusTelos said:
]The robot actually contains the soul of Mary Magdeline, you fight an evil robot made from the body of Mary Magdeline (also, the silver-haired guy on your team is some sort of spirit of the universe and met Jesus one time). The gnosis are actually just pissed off ghosts of dead humans. Albedo basically becomes irrelevant as a villain, and villain duties are taken up by far less entertaining badguys. Final boss is the obviously evil CEO guy from the first game, who wants to use a magical god-robot to reset all of time and space because he figured out being immortal doesn't protect him from the end of the universe billions and billions of years in the future.[
Basically, the series was meant to be like five or six games, but they had to cram everything into three. There's a hilarious part in the third game where a narration seems to recap the plot of an entire xenosaga game that just never got to be made, but still has outcomes and plot points that are vital to the story of the last game.
On topic thought: Final Fantasy XII. It actually had a decent story about politics, and war, and betrayal and stuff. But the actual gameplay (and Vaan and Panelo, characters that are literally not required, nor contribute anything of value to the larger plot) is just terrible. It's just a dull slog. No real flash or oomph to it, just a console game trying to feel like you're playing an MMO.
I agree with some of the previously mentioned titles but for the sake of originality I'll pick one that hasn't been mentioned, Homefront. The actual gun play and the half of a story presented was good but the graphics and the fact there was only half a story was terrible.
I kind of cheated with that one so I'll pick another... I got it, Dead Rising 1 & 2 (haven't played 3 so I can't comment on it). The story is surprisingly lucid for a Capcom zombie game and is, in my opinion, a good piece of writing. The gameplay is just so clunky in most areas, but unbelievably so in the boss fights. I still like them and DR3 was the only thing making me think about starting to consider buying an Xbone right out of the gate, but I don't like the series that much...
I kind of cheated with that one so I'll pick another... I got it, Dead Rising 1 & 2 (haven't played 3 so I can't comment on it). The story is surprisingly lucid for a Capcom zombie game and is, in my opinion, a good piece of writing. The gameplay is just so clunky in most areas, but unbelievably so in the boss fights. I still like them and DR3 was the only thing making me think about starting to consider buying an Xbone right out of the gate, but I don't like the series that much...
Ninja'd on the first post v_v. Bioshock Infinite has a lot of interesting things going for it in the story department but the decision to strip it down to a straight-faced shooter did not work for me. He says it better and in more depth. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ2cSKBFBDQ]Casual Shinji said:
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
The story is amazing, and fairly innovative (well, at least the way it's told is). While it's hated now, I think this game might be considered significant in the future.
The game itself is just so frustrating, shallow, and buggy. It was clearly rushed out for the holidays.
The story is amazing, and fairly innovative (well, at least the way it's told is). While it's hated now, I think this game might be considered significant in the future.
The game itself is just so frustrating, shallow, and buggy. It was clearly rushed out for the holidays.
I'm shocked by how many games here are just a couple of years old. I was expecting people to name older games that could use an update, because video games are unique among media in the speed at which even the greatest stories become obsolete relics over a course of several years. You can still find The Count of Monte Cristo or a Buster Keaton film and it holds up, but if you want to experience, say, Shenmue, you'll have enough trouble just finding a way to run it.
I've been playing the first Deus Ex, and it's fantastic in terms of story and theme. I love any game where you can walk up to a bartender and start discussing whether our governmental structure is capable of overcoming the inherent vices of mankind. But trying to play it now can be rough, due to looking and feeling like an N64 game, and there are other problematic aspects: for one thing, the voice acting ranges from "good for a video game" to "a customer at a foreign restaurant ordering a lunch special he's never heard of off the menu phonetically". It could use an update, maybe as a follow-up to Human Revolution since I hear it's a prequel. Somehow a world where the World Trade Center was destroyed in a terrorist attack, resulting in the government massively increasing security, seems even more relevant now than in 2000.
I've been playing the first Deus Ex, and it's fantastic in terms of story and theme. I love any game where you can walk up to a bartender and start discussing whether our governmental structure is capable of overcoming the inherent vices of mankind. But trying to play it now can be rough, due to looking and feeling like an N64 game, and there are other problematic aspects: for one thing, the voice acting ranges from "good for a video game" to "a customer at a foreign restaurant ordering a lunch special he's never heard of off the menu phonetically". It could use an update, maybe as a follow-up to Human Revolution since I hear it's a prequel. Somehow a world where the World Trade Center was destroyed in a terrorist attack, resulting in the government massively increasing security, seems even more relevant now than in 2000.
Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2. While I won't say they are amazing stories, they are decent enough for me to want to continue playing. The problem, I really hate MGS 1's controls with a passion. Apparently, they were made to be bad on purpose(if someone wants to verify this be my guest), for me that's a bad excuse, it makes the game not fun to play. The same could be said to a lesser degree for MGS 2. I liked the actual game more than the first one, but it still felt very "meh" to me.
Not only a 100% third person shooter, but a poorly designed and buggy one at that. It just felt like a game that tried to have it's cake and eat it too. You can't be a full-on action game and an RPG at the same time. Pick one!TehCookie said:
In a way, FFXIV:ARR.
You know the protagonists of the trailers? Might be the only interesting FF protagonists we've seen since IX's Zidane and co. And they're wasted as nothing other than implied characters in an MMO!
Now I love the MMO, but I'd have loved FFXIV:ARR if it had been the next installment in the single player franchise just as much- or perhaps more. Keep the story, make the trailer protagonists the actual protagonists, include dual audio on the fricking disc and don't use costume switching as a battle mechanic, and you just might have the first `classic` quality FF since the PS1.
You know the protagonists of the trailers? Might be the only interesting FF protagonists we've seen since IX's Zidane and co. And they're wasted as nothing other than implied characters in an MMO!
Now I love the MMO, but I'd have loved FFXIV:ARR if it had been the next installment in the single player franchise just as much- or perhaps more. Keep the story, make the trailer protagonists the actual protagonists, include dual audio on the fricking disc and don't use costume switching as a battle mechanic, and you just might have the first `classic` quality FF since the PS1.
I totally agree with what you were saying about Spec Ops: The Line. If they were to take the redundancy from the action, it would have been a near perfect game.josemlopes said:
Loving all the answers. I typically like to wait a bit to present my own so that the question, rather than my opinions dominate the topic.
For me, the ultimate story that deserved a far better game: Shadow Madness (PS1).
I'm willing to bet very few people even played this game, it's not necessarily broken or flawed per se, it's just a shameless rip-off of other JRPG games of it's time that ended up very boring. I can't recall a single battle in that game being interesting, memorable, or even very challenging (outside of remembering what the poorly named spells actually did), and I certainly can't remember any of the basic enemy types. Plus that whole "level cap is 14" thing only works if you're doing something like AD&D based systems, but for a blatant JRPG rip-off it's just pathetic. Underneath all of this mediocrity though is one of the greatest settings for a game I've ever seen. The atmosphere, the writing, the humor, the dialogue, the overall plot, is just absolutely incredible, and had so much originality. I can easily play this game just to experience the story, but it certainly deserves more recognition for it's story and deserves a better game overall.
I'm also surprised nobody mentioned The Witcher or it's sequel. I can't comment as much since I have so much difficulty even getting through the first act with the poor gameplay but everything I've heard lends this to being an exceptionally well written dark fantasy, yet many critics agree it's hard to enjoy until you get the hang of it's very backwards playstyle that is not user friendly at all.
For me, the ultimate story that deserved a far better game: Shadow Madness (PS1).
I'm willing to bet very few people even played this game, it's not necessarily broken or flawed per se, it's just a shameless rip-off of other JRPG games of it's time that ended up very boring. I can't recall a single battle in that game being interesting, memorable, or even very challenging (outside of remembering what the poorly named spells actually did), and I certainly can't remember any of the basic enemy types. Plus that whole "level cap is 14" thing only works if you're doing something like AD&D based systems, but for a blatant JRPG rip-off it's just pathetic. Underneath all of this mediocrity though is one of the greatest settings for a game I've ever seen. The atmosphere, the writing, the humor, the dialogue, the overall plot, is just absolutely incredible, and had so much originality. I can easily play this game just to experience the story, but it certainly deserves more recognition for it's story and deserves a better game overall.
I'm also surprised nobody mentioned The Witcher or it's sequel. I can't comment as much since I have so much difficulty even getting through the first act with the poor gameplay but everything I've heard lends this to being an exceptionally well written dark fantasy, yet many critics agree it's hard to enjoy until you get the hang of it's very backwards playstyle that is not user friendly at all.
I'm going to pick the new Tomb Raider.
I liked what the story was going for, but it needed to be a platformer-adventure game, or at least a serviceable platformer-stealth'em'up. Not the platformer-shooter that we got.
Still my GOTY.
I liked what the story was going for, but it needed to be a platformer-adventure game, or at least a serviceable platformer-stealth'em'up. Not the platformer-shooter that we got.
Still my GOTY.
I can understand frustrating, but that's part of the point of horror games. I don't understand shallow and buggy. I've heard a lot of complaints about that game before, but those two definitely weren't one of them.SomeGuyOnHisComputer said: