Story Driven Games? Follow? Or Skip?

[oldgamerz]

How many of you follow the storylines in video games. I have heard on steam that some people could care less about the story in most shooting video games, how about you? Do you follow the cut scenes in any video game or do you skip some of them, and go straight to gameplay?

I usually follow a video game's storyline if I have a series of the same game. I rarely like to play a sequel of video game franchise. without first playing the first game or it's prequel. but sometimes the first game can suck on some franchises or it's the other way around.

Lets also talk about good stories and bad stories in our video games also

[stealthrush]

I prefer playing arcade-oriented games rather than dialog heavy adventure-dramas. When it comes to RPGs obviously I enjoy & follow the story 

[cirno]

I never outright ignore them, if I do i'll feel like I'm missing part of the experience, and I tend to love video games with very well developed stories.

[arkaneer]

It depends largely on the game & genre.

For example, I'm playing through main quests of Final Fantasy XIV at the moment and the story has been pretty good, so I pay it close attention.

I am also playing Monster Hunter World, and the story isn't grabbing me at all, so I'm just concentrating on leveling and getting better at combat.

I'm enjoying both games equally, just in different ways!

I do find that there are very few stories in games that stick with me after the credits roll. I forget all about them and move on to the next game, whereas a good book or film will keep me thinking for a while.

There are exceptions...'What Remains of Edith Finch' was my favourite game of last year and I can remember everything about it.

[ferraroso]

It is obvious that this depends on the game, right?
For example, I skipped every bit of Horizon: Zero Down’s story, but gladly watch all of Metal Gear Solid 5’s cutscenes more than once.

[ignition365]

I'm always in for the story.  Even the old fighting games, I would read through the manual trying to understand what's going on, what's everybody's motivation.

I always give the CoD games shit, but I rather enjoyed the story of CoD:MW2 because you had these relatively well defined characters who followed this generic "I'm the good guy" bullshit, and then boom, they are betrayed and become #1 terrorists or something.  At the time, I didn't feel like that was super cliche, so I remember it.  Now with every Mission Impossible movie doing that exact shtick, I'm just kind of over it.

It is obvious that this depends on the game, right?
For example, I skipped every bit of Horizon: Zero Down’s story, but gladly watch all of Metal Gear Solid 5’s cutscenes more than once.

You are not the first person that I've heard this from.  I really enjoyed the story of Horizon, and the gameplay IS great.  But so many people just straight up skipped the story just so that they could essentially play with robo-dinosaurs.

[Cartagia]

I generally follow the story in every game I play.  The main story at least.  On larger open world games I will skip the story on some side-quests if they aren't particularly interesting (Mad Max, Assassin's Creed), but there are also games like The Witcher III where the side quests are the best parts of the game.

[thewelshman]

Like most have mentioned, this is depending on the game. Since most of the games I play have multiple endings, I usually enjoy the storyline my first playthrough and skip scenes for my subsequent replays.

Games like the Hyperdeminsion series usually get skipped. I start off reading the plot, but after about an hour, it's mostly fluff that's not important.

[undertakerprime]

I almost never skip story scenes. I prefer to get the whole experience, and if I skip them I feel like I missed something.
By the same token, I usually try to do everything a game has to offer before finishing it, like RPG side quests.

Fun fact: I watched the “cinema scenes” in NES Ninja Gaiden so much I started narrating them in goofy voices; Ryu sounded like a little kid, Walter Smith sounded like an old man, Bloody Malth sounded like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget, Foster was a stereotypical British bad guy, etc

[hoshichiri]

It depends- certain games, like some schmups, force the story to share space with some attention demanding gameplay. I'm not likely to be giving too much attention to the dialog if I'm busy trying to not die.

On the flip side, if the game lets me mostly focus on the story when it comes into the spotlight, I will always follow the story. Which reminds me, I do need to finish Horizon Zero Dawn...

[oldgamerz]

Sometimes I like to use my imagination on one of my most favorite video games. like Duke Nukem 3D or any Duke Nukem game I usually enjoy the storyline. But I usually don't read the Atari 2600 games stories much. I think I going to start more often reading all the game stories

[shfan]

In the vast majority of cases I'll watch the cut scenes, if not it's a bad sign. I like quality games with well-written plots, I also like games which are all-game and no plot, but I don't like games with crap plots or non-games with almost no game in them. Excessive cut-scenes can and do ruin games for me and can also make a mediocre or bad game worse.

FFX is one example, I wasn't enjoying it anyway, but the cut-scenes were forcing more of the god-awful plot and characters down my neck. At the point when I hit eject I remember there being one cut scene which bored me to tears, when control of mop-head was returned to me I ran him around a corner and up a small flight of stairs, then the next cut scene started, eject eject eject. Put me off FF.

Plot being delivered by journals or 'radio' is hackneyed now, but I think BioShock 1 & 2 did brilliantly with the latter and Resident Evil with the former ("itchy.... tasty!"). Sometimes a handful of cut scenes really adds to a game, Haunting Ground's cut scenes are short and infrequent, just enough to fill you in.

I definitely do like plot, but I'm not in with the "it's all about the narrative" indie luvvie-duvvies and clueless triple-A studios, the former pumping out non-games and the latter overblowing their plot delivery well beyond the writers' ability to maintain pace. This War of Mine is another example of less is more, it's got character bios and short chats with NPCs, that just fills in the blanks and makes you care, but it doesn't try to grab you by the skull and yell "look, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK, we have a tale of sorrow to melt your blackened heart". Subtlety is lost on so many devs these days.

[burningdoom]

Absolutely I follow the story. It's one of the main reasons I play a game.

[bikingjahuty]

As I've mentioned several times before on here, I am not that into JRPGs like I used to be, which are obviously very story based. I feel like the story of most JRPGs is probably one of the elements that turn me off the most since a lot of them use very tired anime tropes and themes, which don't appeal to me like they used to.


As for other RPGs which are typically very story driven, it's really a mixed bag. I find that I value gameplay over story and if the game is fun enough I feel like it can make me tolerate even the most mediocre of stories in a game. Still, if the story is bad enough then not even the gameplay can save it. This is true for story heavy action/adventure games and other non-JRPG RPGs.

[turf]

You’ve gotta follow the story if it has one. It’s part of the game!  It’s what keeps you going.