GameCentral readers name the most memorable stories in gaming, from The Last Of Us to Skies Of Arcadia.
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Jonesy, who asked what’s your favourite ever plot line from a game and why? Is it the characters, the message, or simply the tone or the way it’s delivered?
In the end almost no game was mentioned more the once, with a huge variety of both obsucre and mainstream suggestions. The Last Of Us was an obvious choice, given the remastered version was just released, but older games such as Legacy Of Kain and Beyond Good & Evil were also well remembered.
Too obvious
I was going to say Gone Home for this, and I assume other people will as well, but thinking about it it feels kind of like cheating. Gone Home is a great story, but I’m in two minds as to whether it really counts as a video game or not. Sure it’s interactive, but you can’t really loose and it doesn’t require any skill to complete.
That’s not to denigrate Gone Home, but to suggest that traditional video games are pretty bad at telling a story. In fact it seems to me that the better the story the less interactive they are. Just look at The Waking Dead (good example) and Heavy Rain (bad example).
So yeah, in terms of ‘real games’ I’m not sure what to say. Resident Evil, maybe? It’s badly written cornball shlock but it totally fits the game and I’ve really learned to love the characters over they years. Although I’m probably imagining most of their personality, rather than relying on what’s in the game. But that’s probably half the point.
Purple Ranger
Timeless story
I’d say my favourite video game story is Chrono Trigger, which is odd really as I’d don’t generally like Japanese role-players. I always try to give things a try though and when the game came out on DS I picked it up and burned through the whole thing in just a couple of weeks. It’s a great game and I have no idea why other Japanese games didn’t also see the benefit in ditching random battles and speeding up the pace.
But for me it’s the story and characters that really sell it, and although the main bad guy is a bit of a non-entity the other characters are really well rounded and interesting. Magus is my favourite by far and I love how much he can be changed by how you play the game (no spoilers!) and the way there are multiple endings. For such an old game it still does just about everything right in my book.
Toby Jug
A Telltale of two games
I was going to say The Walking Dead, but I’m sure that will get plenty of mentions as it is. But to be honest I think my favourite is probably The Wolf Among Us. Both Telltale games and I have to admit I was much more cut up about the ending of The Walking Dead’s season one, but after thinking about it (and not enjoying season two anywhere near as much) it’s all pretty manipulative and obvious. Plus, the ending is a total rip-off of The Road.
The Wolf Among Us though has what seems like more normal people (which is ironic considering what they are) dealing with normal problems (mostly a lack of money and morally ambiguous job orders). I got pretty weepy at the end of season one but none of the characters really seemed very really, more like archetypes. But I feel like I actually know and understand Bigby and Snow, and I think that’s probably even more impressive.
Rocky
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A good story badly told
For me, the story in a game is one of the most important factors in my enjoyment of it. I often find that, no matter how technically impressive or how good the gameplay is, if the story is unsatisfying (assuming that it’s a game where the story is the focus, unlike an arcade-y game) I am left feeling that the game as a whole was poor. Similarly, if the game is itself average, but the story engaging, I find myself enjoying the experience immensely. (Honestly, The Last Of Us falls more into the former camp than the latter, for me).
It doesn’t necessarily affect my buying decisions (as I very rarely would know the entire story of a game before buying it), but I will of course buy the sequel if I enjoyed it’s predecessors.
My favourite plot-line in a game is, as should be obvious by some of my previous letters, The Legacy Of Kain story. Not only do I maintain that it is the most consistent time travel story I have ever encountered in any form of fiction (with clear rules that are very strictly adhered to) but the history of it’s development makes it seem even more impressive.
Silicon Knights allegedly wanted to take the story in a different direction, and Soul Reaver was not only initially a completely different franchise, but when Crystal Dynamics decided to make it a Kain game it had a completely different ending planned. It only became a cliffhanger because they couldn’t finish it within their deadline.
Then there is the Blood Omen 2 fiasco. It was initially Chakan 2, then also got turned into a Kain game, but it was apparently done with no consultation with the core team and as such didn’t make much sense. The fact that Amy Hennig (yes, that Amy Hennig) managed to then write Defiance in such a way to let Blood Omen 2 make sense and fit into the story as a whole is truly a testament to her genius as a writer.
Soul Reaver 2 would have to be my favourite in the series – it establishes the rules of how the universe works, introduces the largest plot elements, and forces the player to question their preconceived ideas of morality by turning the world on it’s head.
The most ironic thing about all of this is that the story is, arguably, poorly told. There are many aspects to the lore, explaining exactly what is going on, that are only revealed in Q&A sessions with the developers. It’s a fantastic story, but poorly told, overly melodramatic, and sometimes very complicated, but I love it so.
Joseph Dowland
Second chance
For me, one of my favourite video game stories was Second Sight. I’m not sure what kind of reception it got as I picked it up in for few quid from CeX on the GameCube and I’m not sure how it holds up today, but the story really drew me in.
It managed to keep Free Radical Design’s Timesplitters-esque charm, but with a serious plot and what was, for me, an amazing twist that I really didn’t see coming. I encourage people to check it out, I’m pretty sure it’s on Steam or GOG.
GGLeigh (PSN ID)
GC: Unfortunately it’s not on either.
Substantial tale
Sorry, but I’m going to cheat a bit here, because otherwise my entry would be insubstantial as hell – my favourite game story has to be either OFF or Undertale (the demo, at least).
And it kills me that I can’t tell you why. Both of them hit home the hardest if you have no prior exposure. Undertale in particular had an ending that, due to my actions, still haunts me a year on. They’re both free, go try them or at least look them up on YouTube.
However, so this entry isn’t insubstantial, I’ll talk about a game I actually can, well, talk about. RuneScape. It has fantastically written quests, but one in particular stands out: The World Wakes. In the span of three hours and one particularly shocking character death, everything I knew of the lore of the game got turned on its head about ten times over. This was Dumbledore’s death levels of story altering, and completely and utterly out of nowhere. If one was to go look up the story now, it wouldn’t have that big an impact, but to someone who’s kept up with the lore for nine years, like me, it was exceptionally well done.
Honourable mentions also go to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers Of Time (Surprisingly heartbreaking ending), and BioShock Infinite/Burial At Sea.
As for the importance of story in games, it kind of varies for me. As long as one thing, either the gameplay or the story, is fine, then a game is usually passable for me. Hell, some rather bad games can be salvaged by their story – the aforementioned OFF is very clunky, but the story saves it and then some. But on the other hand, unless a story is downright offensively bad, it won’t get in the way of me enjoying it. Because hell, one of my favourites is Minecraft and that has no story at all.
Oddly enough, though, something in a game’s story can occasionally make me quit despite it being a good thing. For instance, the very final Homestead mission in Assassin’s Creed was so sombre and touching without a single word being said, that I wordlessly turned the game off and never played it again. I don’t know why it got to me that much, but it did. Kudos.
DarkSapphire
Apocalypse line
It may get me some boos in the Underbox but I’m not a big fan of The Last Of Us. The gameplay is weak and the story doesn’t go anywhere until like the last hour. My favourite story is definitely Spec Ops: The Line. It’s a much more daring attempt at creating a morally ambiguous hero and situation, and the way stuff keeps going wrong but the game still makes you think you can sort everything out just by shooting people is great.
Some really disturbing and memorable bits in the game and I wish it had done better. Sure the gameplay isn’t that great on its own (it’s a third person shooter) but then neither is The Last Of Us really, and at least Spec Ops is good right from the start.
Hammeriron
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Moon memories
Obviously there are a lot of good stories from games over the years I could write about, but I think I’ll explain about a particular story I got for PC called To The Moon, a game released in 2011 and one of the most charming games I’ve played.
When I say played, it’s not really about any particular challenge, more of an interactive storybook in a classic top-down role-player adventure like all those Super Nintendo games of the past. This was made from an engine called the RPG Maker XP, by the Canadian designer/composer Kan ‘Reives’ Gao and the first commercial production by his indie game development team Freebird Games.
The story is about a dying old man who wants to have a memory inserted into him which is about a trip to the moon which will send him off as happily as possible when he dies. You are Dr Eva Rosalene and Dr Neil Watts, employed by Sigmund Corp. – a company which specialises in ‘Wish Fulfilment’ technology for people on their death bed. The memories can only be placed in people on their death bed, so as to not confuse or conflict with their proper ones as much – so not ones who are not near death or it would be disastrous.
The gameplay, like I said, is straightforward as you go around a seaside coastal retirement home where the old guy is to spend his remaining days with a machine which takes you back through his years as you search his memories for mementos, which after each key one found you jump to the next preceding stage of his life until his childhood, where the moon memories can be implanted without any regrets from the old guy as you put together his actual memories and try to free his mind of anything which was not done or completed in life which would taint the moon memory.
But things do not go according to plan as the two doctors find out about a mystery concerning his deceased wife and a certain desire, with which you have to solve in time to fulfil his wish to go ‘to the moon’.
The music and background graphics are perfect and as the tale unfolds you are caught up in a dream-like memory of colour and a comforting wash of emotion and just good uplifting sense of wanting to get to the bottom of the mystery to help the old man Johnny Wyles get the send off he wants.
I had the soundtrack CD which came with the game, which is awesome as the music is so relaxing and whimsical that you’ll want to listen to it on it’s own. The game is also on Steam and I certainly recommend this experience to all who just want to explore this game world without being stopped by hard enemies or difficult areas as there are none, just normal life with pleasant characters to talk to and a sense of humour and a great heart at the centre of it all with sad and happy moments – highly recommended.
Alucard
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