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Post by toei on Feb 19, 2019 20:39:19 GMT -5
Proving my point that I can't even explain what I really mean above. Stories can be told without words. Oh well, I'm basically just agreeing with what chibby was getting at. I mean, I think I agree with what Chibby was getting at, too, but I don't think that's what it is. All the elements you said you like about Secret of Mana - art direction, battle system, dungeon design, music - are a combination of the game design & art, but it's not the writing. A game can be great without good writing, though.
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Post by Ex on Feb 19, 2019 21:46:56 GMT -5
We're really getting out in the weeds concerning the original point of this thread. This thread's point was never "a game has to have a story or it's not a good game".
Nor was it "a game has to have literal writing to be able to tell a story".
This thread's point is for game genres that normally have high amounts of literal writing (RPGs, adventure, action-adventure, visual novels ), what are some you've played which you believe were well written (as in the lore, narrative, plot exposition, and dialogue).
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Post by dunpeal2064 on Feb 20, 2019 12:59:15 GMT -5
Lost Odyssey was a game that wildly varied in its writing, but when it was good, I thought it was very, very good. (Xeo may have mentioned this already, I know he also digs the game). The actual game dialogue is passable, but the dream-like stories that you come across throughout the game, set to a nice melody, were very high quality imo, and could easily pass as short stories/poems on their own merit. Bit of an awkward case, as many of these are standalone, and the core game's writing isn't quite to this quality, but I thought it still worth a mention.
Yoko Taro, imo, has always been absolutely brilliant. While the writing alone is only a part of how he tells a story (And arguably the less interesting part, as he uses actual game mechanics to get messages across in a way I've rarely seen), his writing is still great, even as far back as Drakengard. He's gotten better over the years of course, and his too-new-to-talk-about-here game is unbelievable, at times hitting me in the same ways Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell have. Absolutely love the dude and all his works. (He'd disagree, and thinks everything he does sucks, but maybe thats just part of being brilliant)
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Post by Sarge on Feb 20, 2019 15:01:42 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, I agree with Lost Odyssey's story vignettes being fantastic. They're also often very depressing. But they work really well, and help capture the sorts of challenges an immortal being might face trying to live a normal life.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 20, 2019 18:42:26 GMT -5
I was definitely thinking of Lost Odyssey myself! Those little stories did go on... for a long time though haha, not sure if I listened to them all after awhile. You could easily pluck out those stories from the game though and enjoy them on their own for sure. Speaking of Yoko Taro, he employs similar ideas in his games too as I'm sure some here know already!
Lost Odyssey itself was pretty top notch with an awesome story, characters, world building, and could honestly be one of Sakaguchi's best games in general. I would say the villain is a stinker though, unfortunately. I can picture the big brute looking dude but couldn't name him if my life depended on it. He wasn't bad, but I don't recall him being that active as the game progressed compared to other classic JRPG villains and was just kind of the weaker point to me. I really enjoyed the games bend on the immortality thing though, it certainly made it come off as more of a curse for people that had that status, rather than a blessing. Great ideas and themes. And well LO always deserves a recommendation, poor game deserved much better but an exclusive JRPG on the 360 is a recipe for low sales and reception. It's the unofficial lost PSX Final Fantasy in just about every capacity.
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Post by Ex on Feb 20, 2019 22:34:52 GMT -5
I guess I should check out Lost Odyssey sometime this year. I've owned a copy for a few years now. I try to be really careful about the JRPGs I get into these days. After pushing myself to finish a certain overly-long, rather overrated Wii JRPG last year, I decided that spending my limited lifespan on 30-100 hours of mediocrity is not something I'm keen to do anymore. Although I have no problem spending that much time on a truly good JRPG however. They're just rarer than people think, or I'm just a lot pickier than most people.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 20, 2019 23:28:00 GMT -5
I've gotten a lot pickier myself, so I get it. I've played through so many JRPGs that it takes a lot to wow me. I find it funny that so many of the games I salivated over getting in my youth I've never actually played through because they just didn't click with me.
I'm pushing through Mystic Ark, of course, but it's entirely that. The experience has definitely been a 7/10 overall, and I doubt that changes between now and the end.
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Post by dunpeal2064 on Feb 21, 2019 3:28:25 GMT -5
I guess I should check out Lost Odyssey sometime this year. I've owned a copy for a few years now. I try to be really careful about the JRPGs I get into these days. After pushing myself to finish a certain overly-long, rather overrated Wii JRPG last year, I decided that spending my limited lifespan on 30-100 hours of mediocrity is not something I'm keen to do anymore. Although I have no problem spending that much time on a truly good JRPG however. They're just rarer than people think, or I'm just a lot pickier than most people. Definitely feel this as well. There was a point where JRPGs were about all I played, and thus my standards for them were much lower. If the game was above average in any way, I'd probably stick through with it. Nowadays, even some likely 8/10 JRPGs often won't be good enough to make me want to spend weeks or longer exclusively with it. I really liked Lost Odyssey when I played it... and still, if I played it for the first time now I probably wouldn't stick with it. My gut tells me you won't be a huge fan of this one either, but I'd still be curious to see what you thought of it.
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Post by anayo on Feb 21, 2019 8:59:04 GMT -5
More games Anayo considers to have good writing:
Chrono Trigger - I didn't fully appreciate this until I played Panzer Dragoon Saga. PDS did so many things wrong that CT did right. Chrono Trigger's characters seemed more fun and memorable. Chrono Trigger kept the same villain looming over the horizon throughout the whole tale instead of changing it 3/4 in. Chrono Trigger also avoided one of the most common sins of video game storytelling by not taking itself so darn seriously. CT's exposition sticks to the brevity expected of a 16-bit game, so it never went overboard. I think modern games could learn a lot from Chrono Trigger.
Metroid Prime - Everything I've listed so far (Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door, Portal, Chrono Trigger) emphasizes levity over seriousness. But I'll take a departure by bringing up Metroid Prime. Metroid Prime is a solemn experience. Also, it doesn't have any expository cut scenes to speak of. You glean the story by reading journal entries of the space pirates and runes left behind by the Chozo. Both are entirely optional. If you elect to read them, the space pirates write about their sinister experiments to weaponize what they've found on Talon IV while the Chozo chronicle the downfall of their civilization. So it's less about individual characters and more about the world they live in. Metroid Prime contains details that are downright unnecessary, but make the world feel alive to me. Like in one space pirate base, they have a hologram model of Talon IV's solar system. You read details about the other planets, such as their atmosphere, gravity, and moons. They're all lifeless balls of rock and it's not possible to visit any of them. But it fascinated me that the writers included such minutiae. Later, the space pirates reverse-engineer Samus Aran's beam weapons. One of their journal entries tells how they tried to reverse engineer her morph ball, but the test subject was mangled when he tried to use it. I was excited for the sequels and spinoffs, but they all fell short by chasing whatever trend was big at the time. Metroid Prime 2 and Prime Hunters were trying to chase the success of Halo 2. Later Metroid games added cut scenes with character dialog, which completely loses sight of what Metroid Prime is about in the first place. I've never really been drawn into a video game world quite the same way since Metroid Prime 1 on the Gamecube.
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Post by chibby on Feb 21, 2019 10:18:25 GMT -5
I'm just going to sneak in here and also vouch for Lost Odyssey. By bringing up Metroid Prime anayo is reminding me that flavor texts can go a long way. I feel like half of why people love Bioshock is for those dang audiologs. I mentioned Halo 3 ODST at some point as being one of my favorites in that series, and on top of having a narrative that makes pretty effective use of flashback/perspective shifts, there's also a whole secondary story that goes on in audiologs as well. Neither of those stories are ultimately groundbreaking, but their interweaving did add something to the overarching experience.
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