Someone told me to post this here and that’s all I got to say.
My popular opinion is that I don’t like this flavor of subcommunity
I partially agree with you. Sometimes a story adds to the gameplay, if it’s an interesting one. But sometimes I’m not in the mood, and just want to blow shit up.
I like ambient story, background story, lore that is present but only if you seek it out. Dark Souls has the perfect approach to storytelling in games imho. You can ignore it completely and just BONK but if you are really into it, you can actually hear what the NPCs have to say, you can read the item descriptions that tell about the world, you can look around and see clues that tell the story. and every cutscene is skipable! you get a vibe for a world filled with madness, despair, repetition, cruelty, and mortality, but you don’t have to sit there reading some hackneyed japanese translation presenting every convoluted plot point crammed into an awkward dialog
The Souls series, subnautica, and Hitman all do this well. Minimal story, skippable cut scenes, and fantastic gameplay and environments.
In all of them you can dig deeper if you want, but it’s almost always optional.
There have been very few games where the story is what grabs me, I want fun and engaging gameplay and character development (stats, perks, weapons, etc).
The one exception is Mass Effect, but that game just has everything.
Haven’t played the others, but Subnautica is a perfect example. It caused me to really want to explore further.
I don’t like being spoonfed a story through endless exposition pieces of dialogue and reading - I much prefer the Subnautica approach where it is experienced rather than told.
Mass Effect was an excellent series.
Here’s hoping the new one carries the torch
I think a lot of games borrow too much from movies, instead of trying to tell a story in a way that’s suitable to a game.
right. recently an article was posted on lemmy about how Nobuo Uematsu thinks game music has been getting worse due to it becoming too cinematic. I think that’s relevant here too
I don’t like people with a soul
you’ll love final fantasy 8 then, those dialogs are terribly soulless!
“NO! I won’t have anyone talk about me in the past tense!!!”
I can understand where you’re coming from but the ‘background story’ stuff never really works for me because you’re only getting the parts of the story that you find, remember, and put in their context.
Dead Cells is a good example here - great game, story that’s hard to comprehend because it’s locked behind so many expansions, difficulty levels, and randomly generated rooms, plus it makes tons of references to other games, meaning if I don’t get the reference I might think it’s relevant to the plot.
On the other extreme is games that force the story on you, be it unskippable cutscenes, moments during those where suddenly you need to hit a button, or playable memories, all are unsatisfying ways to make the player stop what they were doing and follow a script.
I loved the PS5 Spiderman game and like many disliked the Mary Jane levels. But my reasoning was that my girlfriend is telling me about her day and I AM FAILING.
That makes no sense, I can’t fail at her memory. It’s just an obstacle that keeps me from getting back to the game.
I love story in games.
But it has to be done right.
because you’re only getting the parts of the story that you find, remember, and put in their context.
this works for me. maybe it’s ADHD. movies and tv shows are the same way. the ones I like, I watch over and over again, but never with my full attention. (usually watching while bonking something in a game). it’s fun that way! you get to experience it like new over and over. you’d be surprised at how many times I re-watched the Big Lebowski only to discover some completely new detail each time
I’m sure it works great for a large subset of gamers. And I don’t hate those games at all, but the story isn’t as accessible to me. That’s alright, I don’t mind spoiling myself.
What flavor do you like? Strawberry?
feet
I skipped all the dialog of a recent Assassin’s Creed. Stop wasting my time.
Honestly, I agree for the most part. I used to love story based games but over time I grew to care less and less about the stories because they were usually poorly done and just wanted meaningful game play. It’s why I love games like factorio so damn much. I used to play WoW a ton, but it was more because I loved min maxing characters and running through content with my friends.
Doom.
There’s a reason I’ve come back to it year after year for nearly thirty years.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed - and even been moved by - games like Broken Sword, Life is Strange, Mass Effect, Fade to Black, …Edith Finch, G-Police, Portal 2 etc… but Doom
is Eternalis just pure pick up and blast gameplay. I love it.I’m with you my friend.
Personally I can’t even relate when I hear people talking about how a game made them cry or how it changed their life.
Writing in games is largely trash. Vapid and expositional, cliche-driven pablum.
Even The Witcher isn’t good.
