Most absurd backstory/setting you have ever played.

[FalloutJack]

The idea of North Korea being able to occupy the US makes it completely ridiculous.

I like that one.

Can I just say that all of this is trumped by Old Man Henderson, though?

 

[Dalisclock]

The idea of North Korea being able to occupy the US makes it completely ridiculous.

It makes a lot more sense if you replace "North Korea" with "China, except if we actually say China we won't sell any games there, so it's a different country in the region that we don't like, regardless of how much sense it makes."

I'm gonna go with Yathzee on this. Either call it China and risk the backlash, or go the Valkyrie Chronicles/Ace Combat Route where you change the country names to "The People's Republic of Stalingradia" and "Eagleland" or something.

Fuck, CoD did this kind of stuff and nobody cared. Remember the generic middle eastern country of NOT-IRAQ from CoD4? Or the NOT-DUBAI city at the end of MW3?

 

[Dalisclock]

Persona 4... high schoolers gain power to climb into TVs and summon their inner personalities to beat up the physical embodiment of the negative aspects of human collective consciousness and beat up gods with the power of friendship.

You mean a typical JRPG?

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Barring Warhammer games (too easy), I'd say Saints Row. This is the setting where a highly-trained US military branch armed with sci-fi tech can get its ass handed to it by a weakened criminal organization in a straight-up fight. And of course that whole presidency and aliens thing in the fourth game.

The idea of North Korea being able to occupy the US makes it completely ridiculous.

It makes a lot more sense if you replace "North Korea" with "China, except if we actually say China we won't sell any games there, so it's a different country in the region that we don't like, regardless of how much sense it makes."

I'm gonna go with Yathzee on this. Either call it China and risk the backlash, or go the Valkyrie Chronicles/Ace Combat Route where you change the country names to "The People's Republic of Stalingradia" and "Eagleland" or something.

Fuck, CoD did this kind of stuff and nobody cared. Remember the generic middle eastern country of NOT-IRAQ from CoD4? Or the NOT-DUBAI city at the end of MW3?

The "Generic Middle Eastern country" was simply a set of locations scattered throughout the entire region.
Because everywhere in the Middle East, you will find nothing but desert, ruined cities and Arabic-speaking insurgents (even in Iran and Afghanistan, for some reason).

 

[wings012]

The Void I suppose. I never did beat it, but I seriously can't tell you just what in the seven hells that game was about. Something about colours. And colours?

 

[pookie101]

metal gear solid 5... the creator obviously was dosed with LSD

 

[MythicMatt]

Sonic the Hedgehog.

It's a fun series of games, but when you take a step back and look better, "Fat supergenius builds army of robots to try taking over world, has to be stopped by multicolored talking animals". However you look at it, it's just as absurd as it sounds.

 

[Igor-Rowan]

Franbow, it starts with a usual dual-world mechanic, but then stranger things start to happen.

Spoiler

on the "normal" and the reality of them becomes weirder-er, there is a fantasy land, the main character may have an evil side, then there is the "other world" that may be in the main character's head, except she interacts with it and its objects back and forth; then there is a time travel mechanic or something like that.

I know its purpose may have been to weird its player out, but it was constantly changing the rules it became inconsistent and more of a pain to follow.

Bomberman: Act Zero, the attempt at justifying the whole premise of the Bomberman universe became all the sillier with a realistic envisioning, and thus stupider for taking itself so seriously.

Then there is Steel Battalion Heavy Armor: All of the world's computers are gone, because their microchips were devoured by a Sillicon-eating microbe... That was the first sentence of the plot and I already lost all will to follow this story.

 

[hermes]

The idea of North Korea being able to occupy the US makes it completely ridiculous.

You think that is bad? In COD Ghost, the invading army is from Venezuela...

At least North Korea has nuclear weapons and a fanatics army.

 

[09philj]

Punch Out! Because Little Mac is allowed to fight King Hippo despite them clearly being in totally different weight classes.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Persona 4... high schoolers gain power to climb into TVs and summon their inner personalities to beat up the physical embodiment of the negative aspects of human collective consciousness and beat up gods with the power of friendship.

You mean a typical JRPG?

Lets be honest here: its kinda unfair for people to point out JRPGs for this subject anyway. Because so, so many of them are insane. My current JRPG backlist consists of:
- Games based around parodying video games companies in the form of girls who are goddesses that 'rule' over respective territories (Hyperdimension Neptunia, the second one is next on my list actually but anyway).
- A game in which you go around Akihabara fighting and stripping the clothes off vampires (Akiba'sTrip, written that way very deliberately).
- And the aforementioned Persona 4 about climbing into TVs.

In many ways that's the thing I really like about 'eastern' games. The diversity (and insanity) is incredible. They really do seem to just come up with whatever they like in terms of setting, character design and story and then try to make it work.

 

[Dalisclock]

metal gear solid 5... the creator obviously was dosed with LSD

Not disagreeing with you, but hasn't that been evident since....pretty much the beginning of the series? I remember MGS having all that wierd clone stuff going on, and that nonsense about Solid having all the Dominant Genes of their dad, while Liquid has all the recessive ones.

 

[pookie101]

metal gear solid 5... the creator obviously was dosed with LSD

Not disagreeing with you, but hasn't that been evident since....pretty much the beginning of the series? I remember MGS having all that wierd clone stuff going on, and that nonsense about Solid having all the Dominant Genes of their dad, while Liquid has all the recessive ones.

i only played the 5th game, enjoyed the open world stuff, hated the lsd induced nonsensical plot

 

[step1999]

Generic magical fantasy heros composed of narcissistic noble, humble ex-king, two thieves, two commoners, a nymphomaniac fighting against Evil force led by big tittied immortal transgender visual novel fanatic from the future(every word of those are true).

Is this a tabletop campaign or an actual game?

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Oh, the award for most absurd setting has to go to Blazblue

By fighting game standards, the story has better character moments and stakes than most. By normal writing standards, it's an utter pileup with time loops, paradoxes, multiple timelines, multiple universes and characters crossing over from side universes to the main universe.

I love the characters and story but by god would you be confused.

 

[aozgolo]

Jade Cocoon 2... I don't understand how for the life of me they managed to turn an awesome tale about a small tribal village struggling to survive amidst the ruins of an ancient empire overgrown with jungle with it's serious tone into a hackneyed digimon premise weakly stitched together to explain the absurd level design of the game.

While that's more criticism than anything, I think when a game's plot comes in only to explain away it's weird game mechanics it can get pretty trippy.


Oh and Final Fantasy VII! This is more of a lost-in-translation thing, but main plot aside, there are dozens of instances where events and dialogue just... stop making sense. The house in Midgar where you first learn game mechanics leaves you scratching your head a lot wondering "what the hell...?" Oh and then there's the giant moogle-riding cat robot fortune teller

 

[ArcaneGamer]

:s

Probably one I made up for a freestyle DND type story for a friend in high school.

GOD it was dumb. Basically, in a near-future dystopia, people who don't fit in are shoved into a portal to another world, which just so happens to be covered in this depression-causing energy that's kept at bay with crystals. Said world runs completely on video game rules to the point where actual videogame characters showed up (including battles with Knuckles who got added to my friend's party as a ridiculously OP chargeup-bawler, Kirby, and...*cringe* Sephiroth), and also included honest to god videogame weaponry like Mario's fireball gloves. There was little rhyme or reason. I just threw in stuff that was kinda neat even if it made no sense.

So much about it was cringy. So very much. It was a mishmash of various videogames, the backstory of the Exile/Avernum games, and Crystal Chronicles. Plus, I focused too much on structure and mapping out actual grid-based dungeons that I didn't give my friend enough neat improvised stuff to do. (his improvised story that he made me do after was MUCH better, if absolutely insane and unbalanced at times.)

Fortunately, my writing has improved MASSIVELY since then and the main setting I use for my RPGmaker hobby games is actually pretty damn neat.

Hello again, friend. Remember me? For me, it would be a mod for Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall called Antumbra Saga (for how crazy it got.). You're someone called in for a job at a nightclub, to deliver a black box. Only problem, after reaching the goal, and learning what it is from a contact of yours, (it's a box full of building destroying nanites) and descover the club was built on a "Site Of Power" for spirits, and it's on you to deal with the spirits so they don't kill everyone. After that, it spirals into a war to defend your home from the Tir, a race of elves that have more in common with Tevinter or or the Quanari.

As for actual games I've played in recent years?

Probably Jet Set Radio. Oh look, retro-sci-fi distopian tokyo, where the Soul of the Streets Manifests as paint cans.

Wait, why is it distopian if the gangs that rule the streets just race and spray graffiti and nothing else criminal?

Oh right. The cops. Whose first level of response to roller skating punks is to sic a magnum wielding detective on you. Eventually escalating to "SEND IN THE TANKS I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS!!!" and beyond.

0_0 It's like a paint-fueled acid trip and janky controls aside, I loved it.