I present to you the following argument:

But in dark souls after you get out of the asylum Crestfallen tells you to ring the bells of awakening. He flat out says he doesn't know what it does but that is your purpose as the chosen undead.

checks out

Puzzle games don't typically have stories, but that's an easy example. What do you make of games like Joust, Contra or the original Mario Bros. that just drop you in with no explanation? Or competitive games like Counter-Strike and Quake 3? Is the motivation to win not enough, or would a story-based reason be more effective?

back to /sudo/, turkroach

I get what you're trying to say. For some games like SotC or Portal, their real time gameplay is strong enough to still be fun and enjoyable, even without a worthwhile story to back it up. But for other games like Final Fantasy 7, you break it down to solely its core gameplay alone (turn-based Jrpg battles) and you'll end up with gameplay that's similar to regular RPG Maker games.

Undertale also works. The gameplay is rudimentary at best and only reaches its full potential during boss battles. Everything besides the actual gameplay is great though.

You do realize those game have story right? its not in the game itself but in the game manual, it have very detail explanation of the world, the main character and the villain, it explain everything to you. Of course the story/gameplay combination doesn't apply to every genre like sport, puzzle, competitive games and so on.

I agreed with the first point, for other reasons. If you can spoil the story in one sentince it's not a good story.

I disagree with the second point, I enjoy a good story game, gameplay is never enough to keep me playing. For example I quit Black Flag, Shadow of Mordor, Nioh half way through or sooner because I had enough of the gameplay and didn't give a shit about the story. For me, good gameplay can carry the game for a number of hours but if your game is longer than let's say, 20 hours, you're going to need a good story to keep me playing

But you do have a purpose in Dark Souls

H*CK OFF T*MBLRT*LE

I know not everyone cares about spoilers, or they actively seek them out. But my question involves the intent of the developers and writers. If that intent is undermined by the spoiling of the story and hurts, does that mean they were relying on that too much to make the game enjoyable?

Take two Star Wars games as an example: Knights of the Old Republic and Jedi Academy. Same setting, and both have a villain reveal late in the game, but they play totally different. In my opinion, KotOR's gameplay might be enough to carry it if the story is revealed, but not if it's removed entirely. In contrast, Jedi Academy still has an active multiplayer scene because it has fun gameplay. That's kind of what I'm talking about.

Are they just as fun? Now do the same with Final Fantasy VII like said, and judge if that means it's not a good game. That's my point. Most people who have played the game I mentioned have never read the manuals, but still enjoy them because they stand on their own merits as games.

Outside of boss battles, I remember it being an unfunny game with boring corridor level design and shoddy MS paint graphics.

What are some example of great games with zero story?

Besides stuff like tetris

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These muh story threads are always fucking retarded. You're taking a part out of a game and asking if the game is better for it. It's stupid. What if I took the soundtrack out of your favorite game? Would you still like it as much? Probably not. What if I took the graphics out and it was all just wireframes going at it? That wouldn't be as fun. Yes the gameplay is the core, but you need stuff around the core otherwise it's bland. It's like taking the frosting off a cake or gravy off potatoes, yeah the cake and potatoes better still taste good, but they taste better with it.

But back then the only times you would read a manual would be if a) you're on backseat of daddy's car while driving home from the store b) on the shitter or c) if you were one of the undesirable kids who didn't get a controller .

>>>Holla Forums

Or d) you weren't an illiterate faggot.

This, nobody who has better things to do plays a game for the story, but a story in a game is fun to have. More often than not, storytelling style and method are more important than the story itself. Video games are good for exploring never seen before ways of storytelling.

It is a /thread, simply because OP fucked up and said game instead of gameplay.

And now the thread talks about essentially graphics.
We don't talk about how story and gameplay intertwines, instead there is just a lot of people saying that yeah they like good story makes game worth playing.
It is same as saying good graphics makes game worth playing. Why are we having this discussion? Maybe they do maybe they doesn't, it is not talking about games.

Devil Daggers.
Any management, city building or puzzle game.

boy i would love grinding for gear for no reason in an empty world with no characters and no story

No, I'm asking if the game is WORSE for it. There's a big difference. Another example: Etrian Odyssey. Some people are adamantly opposed to playing the story mode in Untold because making up your own is part of the fun. You can still play the story mode if you want, but the core is good enough to hold up without it.

At the risk of derailing my own thread, what are some examples of this? Most games (like in the OP Webm) are just 'play for a bit, cutscene play for a bit, cutscene'. That's not 'never seen before', that's been done to death.

Or good sounds make the game worth playing.
Or good controls make the game worth playing.
Or well-designed enemies make the game worth playing.
Or availability makes the game worth playing.

I'm so tired of all those story-hating faggots. Every fucking game is remembered by stories. Yes, city-builders don't have a story, but that's the appeal, you make your own shit. Without it it's just a masturbatory endless process that is akin to cataloguing folders.

I can't name five games without stories. There is shit like pong and tetris, that came before even manuals (and sometimes emulated real sports), but story is essential to motivate the player. Doom has a story as well, it is short, but it gets the job done.

The worst thing a story can do is be ignored.

And games that have unique story telling (to rip off some webm I saw here a while ago) when Dante and Vergil fight, it's better because you the player have actual reason to want to dunk on him. The interactiveness of vidya is unique in that it makes YOU important, whereas a book can only try to get you to project onto characters who's thoughts and actions are independent of yours.

I agree with your argument, but that isn't to say that non-gameplay additions don't enhance your experience or make something enjoyable and fun.

And I know I'm double posting and double replying, but to throw your own argument back at you, the story that you make up when playing etrian odyssey makes it better no? Even if you made it up, the story enhances the game.

Lmao Who the fuck reads game manuals while taking a dump?

Jesus fuck, how long does it take for you to shit? Do you have digestion problems?

A game doesn't need a story, as the player's actions are the story. All it needs an initial reason, like the princess has been kidnapped, go rescuer her. The rest of the story is on the player.

what kind of simpleton has a single "favorite game"?

A game doesn't need a story in the same way your house doesn't need paint.

I disagree. A house's paint would be the same as colour selection of a character.

Cliche answers, but see Half Life, dark souls.

Enjoy mold.

But you still want to have paint at all, in the same way you want to have a story.

Kinda my point. You can still live in a house with no point, but you really should just paint the fucking thing.

I can't imagine enjoing an RPG without a story, OP.

These two are part of gameplay design, and you are retarded. I never said I hate stories. Fuck my favorite game this year was Nier and it was 90% because of story.

My problem was this thread invites people to just say Nier is good game and you are wrong, because OP is wrong. Game in not 100% gameplay, it is more than obvious, and this thread is just people saying the obvious or getting quads checked.
I said it is shit thread, because there is no discussion to be had.

I agree with those opinions but that's not an argument.

The paint is unnecessary if it's build properly and the right materials have been used. A brick house rarely is painted. A story in a game is more often than not separate, game interrupting scene. The player's actions are the actual, real story the has.

Yeah, nah fuck your shit. Some genres can have no story, mainly sports, racing or multiplayer fps.
Some can't do without it, rpgs for example. Knowing plot beforehand never made the game significantly worse for me, but it's nice to uncover some stuff on your own.

I'll make different claim

M8 even bricks are painted and no one build or lives in just brick houses anymore. And it sounds to me like you're implying that story is integral to games, as the gameplay creates a story.

I wouldn't say great(more enjoyable but heavily flawed) but Strike Suit Infinity literally has no story, it's just a score attack wave mode.

You can enjoy the game without the story like I said, enjoyment comes from gameplay, but story add that charm. Heres a hypothetical question, would you appreciate Contra more if you knew the story and the main character
gamesdatabase.org/Media/SYSTEM/Nintendo_NES/manual/Formated/Contra_-_1988_-_Konami.pdf

That's what I'm saying. Can a story elevate bad/mediocre gameplay, or should good gameplay be a requirement to be considered a good game?

Great question. I would argue there's a difference between an authored experience and making your own story. I had a whole paragraph typed up here about the Elder Scrolls, but I was finding it hard to type with simply ripping off Razorfist's recent video on it, so I'll just link that instead. In short, Daggerfall is a playground with an optional story. Should you try to do the same in Skyrim, you will find yourself much more limited.

inb4

Ok, I'll humor you. If perfect gameplay was enough, why has every game past Tetris been made?

You should have just phrased it that way from the start, because the answer is unanimously no.

I never seen anyone praise the original Nier for its gameplay

I disagree. Mostly because stories significantly impact my enjoyment of games. The only games that I enjoy that have very little story or story that I don't care about also have a simplicity to them. Things like Mario and Tetris. I wouldn't say these games have much of an impact on me. They are fun but they're never my favorites.

I also firmly believe that a story driven game can be done well it's just gamedevs are generally incompetent and need to play more tabletop RPGs.

Yes, the bricks are painted, not the house itself. Furthermore, brick houses are still build even now. And yes, story as in the actions of the player is important, none more important exists. However, story as presented via cut scenes, dialogue boxes and such, are not of playing the game. A game's true story unfolds much like a sport event's would, with each player having a different experience and story on themselves. Does Mario jump fast and high over a certain crevice, or will he take it slow and use a shell to bounce off? Those are the important stories games tell and they are completely dependent on the actions of the player. Perhaps the better term for "story" would be the "narrative" as it is constant.

Ok. I never said Nier was good, so go ask those people their opinions.

:
Because perfect things doesn't exists and even through tetris gameplay is extremely good, it is not perfect.
Fact Tetris is not 100% of the games market doesn't proof perfect gameplay doesn't make perfect game, because perfect things doesn't exist.

But the story did elevate the game to the point it got a cult following and a sequel

What?

I said that gameplay isn't enough though. Can't answer your question since i have no idea, never claimed perfect gameplay is all the game needs.

Fair enough.

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user, what? Are you retarded?

No. Each decision a player makes in a game is part of the narrative, more important that developer made story scenes that interrupt that user driven narrative.

My fundamental axioms regarding video games:

Well put OP, agreed. Story in video games exists to facilitate the gameplay and not the other way around.

I guess it depends on the genre tbh. Turn-based rpgs generally aren't much without a worthwhile story backing them up. But then you have genres like 3D platformers, which are still super entertaining even without a worthwhile story.

Which is probably why I loved A Hat in Time so much tbh. It had these "Time Rift" platforming segments where it was more about the gameplay than the story. The platforms were painted minimalistically, and through seeing the Hat Kid's agileness and various abilities, you can see how much time and effort the devs put into making the gameplay shine.
If this game was released with Solely these types of minimalistic platforming levels (not the story-driven game it is now), I probably would have still enjoyed playing the game immensely.
Of course, the fact that it Did come with an adorable, charming story made it all the more better.

Don't ask me, dude. I didn't say that stupid shit. That other user did.

Always interesting when "principles" turn somebody into a retard.

Okay.

Minecraft?

No

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I never met anyone who would waste time on a manual instead of directly starting the game. In the 80s you certainly didn't need a manual for Atari, Sega, Nintendo stuff. Sure in the 90s and with the rising of PC games the big and interesting manuals became a thing (for a while) but 80s? Nah!

I'm a sophisticated king of porcelain and I take my due diligence with my backdoor business…therefore I sure as hell like to read while I let my digestive system do it's work for about 15-20 minutes. Not everyone can be a peasant barbarian who runs red-headed to the shitter, spreads his cheeks with both hands and forcefully disposes of his waste in a matter of seconds.

Ico.
Then the queen appears and kidnaps her.
And that's not counting the innumerable action games with rival characters whom you overcome through mastery of the game's mechanics, or the RPG characters whom you can choose to recruit or kill or what have you.

Fucking, Chrono Trigger. It all comes back to Chrono Trigger. You fight Magus as a boss fairly early, and when he joins the party a dozen hours later his attacks, which were almost strong enough to kill you the first time, inflict high but reasonable damage to enemies. You can see how much stronger your group has become by the caliber of your foes and Magus's strength rather than anything explicitly stated by a particular character.

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Story and game mechanics should complement each other. The story should give context and allow you to know what to do without directly telling you.
People will say, "muh doom no story and fun game" but what they forget is that the game would be more boring if you played as a blue blob shooting at grey blobs instead of a muscular space dude shooting at demons.

But that's not the story. That's aesthetics you're talking about.

No, it's the setting, which is part of the story.

You are further restricting the already arbitrary interpretation of gaming as pure gameplay. Story and lore can be part of the enjoyment, depending on the skills of the dev.

And since we're blogging, my own definition of videogaming is "the control method for a show".

Maybe it's a meme. I don't know why magazines in the bathroom are a thing, but we had them in the crapper at our house. My mom used to tell stories about growing up at the old farm house which only had indoor plumbing in one room, and that was her dad's crapper. Everyone else had to go use the outhouse. They couldn't afford toilet paper for eight kids, let alone afford TP that would just get wasted by the elements. So they used to have to wipe their asses with those old thick fucking Sears Catalogs.

Maybe magazines in the bathroom is an evolution of that. Their primary purpose was to wipe your ass with, but while you got a moment, you flip through the pages. Then people stopped wiping their asses with books, but still needed something to flip through just out of habit… and that habit just kind of got passed down through the generations.

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It's so you have something to read while you shit, it's not hard to understand.

No you don't. You need to know the gameplay goal but not story.

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unfortunately not anymore.

You're actually right about the Sear's catalog being used for wiping ass. It was made out of soft paper and it everybody had them. People never talked about the need to wipe after shitting because Sears had the monopoly. Then they transferred to the glossy magazine pages of today and they're awful to wipe with. This opened the door for the American entrepreneurial spirit to come in and bless somebody with the idea of the modern day toilet paper
t. shit historian

Certain types of gameplay simply don't work without a story. Dialogue scenes, when done well, also involve gameplay. Traditional RPGs do this all the time. It's hard to do this in video games since you don't have a DM to react to everything the players are doing on the fly, but it's definitely possible to add mechanics to conversations beyond the most basic stuff like skill checks and branching dialogue with consequences.

Divinity OS 1+2 would be much better games if they were almost pure combat with much less story. Dungeon crawlers like Wizardry and Etrian Odyssey are a whole subgenre with minimal story.

I don't know if EO counts. It's got a story, but it's very minimal and the details are meant to be filled in by imagination

I've actually never seen anything like it; a game that actively encourages headcanon and personal theories/ideas

What about mechanical spoilers then? Would a game be considered poor if learning about a paticularly strong build or some exploitable unbalanced mechanic before you played it caused a drop in your enjoyment?
Because the inherent base concept is identical, only the factors involved are changing, and I know that there are some games out there that I haven't had as much fun with because I knew that I was either choosing to either deliberately gimp myself or make the game too easy.

What about mechanical spoilers then? Would a game be considered poor if learning about a paticularly strong build or some exploitable unbalanced mechanic before you played it caused a drop in your enjoyment?
Because the inherent base concept is identical, only the factors involved are changing, and I know that there are some games out there that I haven't had as much fun with because I knew that I was either choosing to either deliberately gimp myself or make the game too easy.

The medium matters, and for video games the gameplay is what defines the medium.
OP is going about things wrong though, because completely removing any single element that is present in a thing will degrade the experience by virtue of it being incomplete.
The important thing is that the gameplay be either outstanding, or good enough for non-gameplay aspects to make it stand out.

Not broadly applicable across genres.
Flawed methodology for benchmarking all games. Potentially decent for analyzing a game in more specific genres.

DURR HURR IF YOU ENJOYED THE SOUNDTRACK OF YOUR FAVRITE GAEM THEN YOU'RE FAVRITE GAEM IS NOT REAL GAEM

I'd say yes. Picking apart the game mechanically does remove any "mystery" or exploration involved.

It is for this reason that I dislike non-linear design in games. There is always an ideal route to take and once that's known you're just left with a non-existent difficulty curve.

You need a much higher standard than "significantly impacted". A twist definitely adds "significant" enjoyment even though it can't carry a game. This is especially true when these twists play off gameplay mechanics.

The way it's worded doesn't even require a specific direction depending on how you define outside. If knowing the twist from a prior play makes something more enjoyable it's a bad game by this argument. One of the Tales games (wasn't very good, but not the point) had prices fall and rise depending on plot events (War raises weapon, peace lowers them. Destruction of a production center raises price of their goods) and in a better game this would actually be fun to play with advanced knowledge of as it effects sell prices too. Even just being able to enjoy foreshadowing makes something bad.

2 is even worse. Even something that has almost no story, like Gen 1 Pokemon, is very much "significantly impacted" by the removal largely by becoming vague and directionless. Why are you traveling to beat up these bosses? Why can't I enter this boss's lair till I beat this tower?

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I kinda agree. Story wouldn't kill anyone, but it could really change one's initial opinion on a game (ex. generic looking JRPG, but with some original spin you would never discover until you look deeper into it) and even the most shallow character design, atmosphere and other elements attached to the story can have a big impact on any game.
But if i played a game that replaced a big portion of mechanical incentives with cutscenes or dialogue, i could just go on the internet, spoil myself the entire game and feel no difference from beating it. I know almost everyone here claims that videogames are just a waste of time (rightfully so), but that doesn't mean you should throw rewards and incentives out of the window.
To me, a game could use both a good share of must-try gameplay stuff you can only truly experience if you PLAY THE DAMN GAME, along with story, original atmosphere and lore to make up for the size of your game and give it some discussion and a nice way to distinguish it.
Although you could probably make it more gameplay oriented since you don't really need a super 2smart4u plot or complex aesthetics for good storyside stuff, anything beyond Atari 2600/NES could work if it fits the intentions of your game, really.

Soul Reaver games

Thief II

Yes. Actually I did know the plot beforehand.

Yes. The gameplay is superb and the level design and atmosphere are unparalleled.

2 actually plays fine and is entertaining enough to play through without caring about the story at all, at least it was to my younger self.

There is some truth to that, but the problem is that in practice it leads to shit like those "evade the spikes" platformers. Also you get other aberrations like games designed with speedrunners in mind.

I imagine some of my favorite games and probably wouldn't have stuck with them if not for the flavor. But at the same time the mechanics are tight enough that as I obsess over them and slowly grow numb to the story and other things, I can still enjoy them. From my experience mechanics make the replayability, but not the game. Like I probably wont play Ur-Quan masters again(anytime soon), but I enjoyed it a lot more the one time than any of my favorite roguelikes that I've invested years into at this point. Also related to your webm, STALKER is basically a generic shooter that is made into something very special by the flavor. A more charismatic variant of what they are describing there. You also have things like La-Mulana where the lore informs the gameplay and gives it meaning, it would be bland without the story, but also fundamentally not the same game.

The final product is just more than the sum of its parts and there is no "essence" of quality you can surgically remove and mass produce like a drug. It also seems to me that memorability and replayability can be fundamentally at odds in their extremes.
Even when I play a well narrated game with good mechanics, the mechanics can seem to cheapen the experience. Almost as if constantly crunching numbers, optimizing your approach, and building muscle memory is slowly draining the soul from the thing. And each little "flaw" in a game I've found, almost seems to give its unique character. This is controversial, but it's like comparing Nethack or IVAN to more "mechanically correct" games like Stone Soup or Brogue. It's pretty depressing to think sometimes, that the very things that make a game enjoyable one way work to directly cheapen them in the other.

I feel like I might be veering off into rambling, so I'll just stop there.

do you actually believe that or are you just saying that for the sake of discussion?

Something just happens naturally to me that is heavily tied to this concept.
I start playing many games based on their looks or story or etc. but I never finish can bring myself to keep playing them unless the gameplay is good by itself. The game gets too tedious and won't carry the story to me. I seriously cannot play turn based RPGs unless
they really make you feel like a hero on a quest throughout the whole game, so the exploration/decisionmaking gameplay part carries me instead of the combat part.

Where the fuck is Askardt when we need him?

Nah

Kill yourselves

Pretty much all of them.
Story cucks need to be shot.

No.
Yes you fucking nigger, do even play games?

the time for memes is over

I would argue that mass defect is too reliant on the story. Same with most modern shitty games now that I thing about it. Like Fallout 4, and the newer Dragon Age games I liked the first one.

probably not.

explain.

Why do you only want to enjoy one thing rather then multiple things user?

Thats not a logic leap, thats a fucking somersault right there. Also, numerals.

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