Author Topic: Games with great stories.  (Read 1710 times)

Games with great stories.
« on: March 22, 2024, 08:11:47 pm »
Video game stories have come a long way since the "Defeat the villain and save the princess" days.

What games would you say have great stories? I got all 5 main endings for NieR: Automata, and WOW, what a rollercoaster that game is.

telekill

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2024, 09:11:57 pm »
All the Uncharted games.
Mass Effect trilogy
Tomb Raider 2013
AC 2, Syndicate and Unity
Resident Evil (og or Remake)

Shenmue would be added if it had an ending.
FF7 may be added after I've had the chance to beat the Remake trilogy.

ferraroso

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2024, 10:42:46 pm »
I'll avoid story-driven RPGs as they are unfair competition to most other genres:

- Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere
- Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War
- Back to the Future: The Game
- Ghosbusters: The Video Game
- God of War (2018)
- Marvel's Spider-Man
- The Metal Gear series as a whole
- Metal Wolf Chaos (for the absurdity of the plot)
- The King of Fighters '95 to '97
- Spec Ops: The Line

and the game with the best end screen message of all time:

Enduro Racer on the Master System

The message:
"Enduro" is a symbolic journey through life via the media of a race.
The results are insignificant and what really counts is competing. Of particular importance are the lessons to be learned concerning one's self from the various encounters you experience along the way.
There is no victor or loser in this test of endurance. The only thing that matters is that you make a commitment to begin the long and trying trek.
This game is then dedicated to all of the "life riders" who have started out on the solitary trip to find their own individual limits.
Last, but not least, may we sincerely congratulate you on a perfect run.

wartoy

PRO Supporter

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2024, 08:02:36 am »
Legacy of Kain and Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver series this story spans 5 games and 2 console generations with 2 main characters each having a lead role in their own respective game. The first starting with Kain then the second with the Soul Reaver (Raziel) the 3rd game with Kain again the 4th with Raziel until in the final game where you alternate between the two.

Allen Wake is another favorite.

alligo

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2024, 08:51:44 am »
Kingdom Hearts.

No I'im kidding.
https://vgcollect.com/alligo

I don't need a guitar, I'm a Rockstar

dhaabi

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2024, 11:44:41 am »
Personally, I find that even the most successful of games which are deemed to have strong stories often don't. For many games, the narrative is, at minimum, engaging—it isn't really that much of a challenge to provide that much (although crafting a unique story itself is.) To me, there are three things to consider when approaching this topic: writing, storytelling, and the story itself.

As an example, a recent game often praised for its writing is The Last of Us Part II. Is its writing really all that impressive, though? No, not really. But its story and storytelling are commendable, with the former going deep into themes of loss and the moral complexities of survival while the latter structures the game's events in a way which will force players to reconsider their actions for two separate characters with conflicting motives. For other games praised like it, usually there is only one, sometimes two, of those three aforementioned aspects truly worth praising, and it's rare for a game to succeed in all three. With that said, I actually have played Nier: Automata, and I do believe it's one of those rare instances.

After glancing through my list of completed games and pondering about certain items, I think these are the three other games which succeed in story, storytelling, and writing: Kentucky Route Zero, Silent Hill 2, and The Stanley Parable. I'll also mention Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice as a game I've watched someone else play.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2024, 11:08:19 am by dhaabi »

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2024, 01:38:41 pm »
Red Dead Redemption 2: I'm not even into westerns, but this game literally changed my life as well as my perspective on a lot of things. As far as stories in video games go, this game impacted me more than any other. The game itself is fun as hell too.


Resident Evil 1-3 + Code Veronica: I love the story and lore of RE before RE's plot went a bit off the rails starting with RE4. The characters are all memorable and cool, the settings are all awesome, the enemies are really imaginative and interesting, and just overall I can't get enough of those first four mainline games.


Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order + Jedi Survivor: Your mileage will vary depending on how much of a Star Wars fan you are, but these two games, especially Fallen Order, are the best Star Wars stories we've had since the prequels. If not for this series, I'd have lost all hope in modern Star Wars given how terrible the rest of it is.




NickAwesome

PRO Supporter

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2024, 07:40:33 pm »
Disco Elysium has one of the best game stories I've ever played.  It's too bad the company fell apart, I would have loved to see what future projects would look like.

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2024, 05:19:21 am »
I perfer narrative games in general. I'm not a competitive gamer but like to enjoy spectacle and the experience. For me what makes a great story is the dedication to detail put into the experience. It's spending time with the characters and getting a chance to know and care about them. For me, the two go together & if I care for the characters I tend to get more engrossed in the story and situation. I want good scenario writing, events to remember! I believe good writing is just as important as in other mediums because if I don't care for the context of what is going on, I will lost enthusiasm. Often I find with open world games they lack the care and offer just generic mission structures. That doesn't mean I need endless exposition or collectible documents either!

I think why JRPG's succeed at this is because they often have the structure to explore a character - Often visiting their hometown which leads to scenes and moments focused on that character, highlighting their personal struggles and why their along for the bigger picture.

- The Final Fantasy Series (The peak for me being 4,6,7,8,9,10)
- The Metal Gear Series (I personally ignore MGSV)
- A Plagues Tale Series
- The Shenmue Series (Hoping for more!)
- Shadow of Memoires/Shadow of Destiny
- Life is Strange 1 & 2
- The NieR series (I haven't played the Drakengard games yet!)
- Catherine
- Wolfenstein Reboot series
- The Yakuza Series (Has it's ups and downs but overall I like it)
- Resident Evil (A mixed bag when it comes to story but I respect it as a whole)
- Silent Hill 1-4 + Shattered Memories

That's just a few that come to mind.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2024, 05:39:02 am by vivigamer »

dhaabi

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #9 on: March 26, 2024, 11:01:51 am »
Disco Elysium has one of the best game stories I've ever played.

Disco Elysium is a game I'm hoping to get around to playing sooner than later. In discussions relating to Kentucky Route Zero (which I mentioned above), it's almost always recommended as a follow-up game to play.

turf

PRO Supporter

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2024, 05:30:46 pm »
Red Dead Redemption II
I’m playing it now for the second time. This game deserves to be HBO series. It’s amazing. The characters and story get you right in the feels


undertakerprime

PRO Supporter

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2024, 10:13:13 pm »
Some of my favorite game stories:

- The Last of Us (haven’t played part 2, but the story in part 1 is SO well done)
- Bioshock, especially the first one and Infinite (I ADORE Infinite)
- Metal Gear Solid 3 (the series story can be extremely convoluted, but I think MGS3’s works very well)
- Mass Effect (not necessarily very deep, but it’s a very detailed universe)
- Final Fantasy X IMO has the best story of any FF

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2024, 01:26:28 am »
For a shorter game: Dordogne. It's a pretty straightforward narrative point and click, but it does an excellent job at capturing that feeling of bittersweet nostalgia from when going through the things of a relative who has passed.

Re: Games with great stories.
« Reply #13 on: April 23, 2024, 07:47:18 pm »
Probably the best in writing were the old Infocom Text adventures, since they were just text, they had to be at least on the level of novels and thus much betterr than most video games even to this day: Trinity,  Planetfall, A Mind Forever Voyaging and Lurking Horror are great.
Planescape Torment is still one of the best, most mature stories around
L.A. Noire with it's mixture of based on real events crimes, real events turned fictional solution (Black Dahlia) and the whole tragic but very noire story of Cole himself
Gothic Trilogy, yeah the third game was a letdown and the ending wasn't all that it could be, but the ride from "Prisoner to Hero" and the friends we made (Diego!) was great.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. That's the fourth and last Indiana Jones movie made in my world.

With the announcement of the sequel, also Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I can't wait to see how the story further unfolds.