As much as it might pain some of us to admit it, story-driven games can be good...

As much as it might pain some of us to admit it, story-driven games can be good, and they can be good partially because of their story.

But the real test of a good story-driven game is this: Would this game still be enjoyable if all the story was stripped out and you were left with the raw, un-contextualised gameplay?

If a game is relying on its story to be enjoyable, then it should have been a movie instead. This train of thought seems like something normalfags can be persuaded to follow, and hence might become part of how we drag AAA video games out of the deep, dark pit they're currently in.

It doesn't "pain" us to admit it, "all story in video games is shit only gameplay matters and nothing else" is a neo-Holla Forums meme born out of the need to try super hard to fit in.

90% of the shit you'll see spouted here on a regular basis is born from people that came in this place later on, saw certain trends and a certain way to approach video game critique, but didn't understand what made games that are considered good, actually good, so all they could do once the old users left was take what they were left in but didn't quite understand, and crank it to 11 so that they could look hardcore and badass enough.

So you reach modern Holla Forums, where it's all blindly about gameplay all the time and story is gay and if a game has a good story is shit and purchasing any video game is for faggots and playing games is for faggots too.

A constant one up of idiotic tryhards stroking each other dicks.

I never see people criticize red dead redemption despite it being chock full of flaws and shortcomings in both its mediocre narrative and its weak gameplay. The entirety of the third of the game spent in Mexico is spent doing nothing that contributes to the central theme of the story, does nothing to provide interesting game play scenarios. Seriously, how many times do they make you chase that fucking train? The fact that so much of the game is dedicated to this shows a drastic shortcoming in the narrative in the game, which after losing track of itself for about 20 hours, remembers it was trying to tell a story for the last two hours.

The script is one of the best things about Bayonetta, W101, and MGR. Partly because Platinum actually considers level and event ideas for gameplay when writing the script, and partly because the scripts are really high energy and get you really hyped up for the big events.

A game becomes like another world when you have some decent characters and settings to latch onto, and these details can just be set up in the level design.
You don't need "cutscenes"
Every time I make a plea for a better script or characters, tards think I want 2 hours of cutscenes.

Some of my favorite 90s PINBALL TABLES have better characters than some games.
Like Red & Ted's Road Show.
If you can put good writing and characters into a pinball table, every game has room for good writing and characters.

I agree with you, OP but I keep this opinion silent because I don't want to bother explaining to Holla Forums over and over that story/script is more than just dialogue and cutscenes.

the only thing that saves a game is its gameplay.
if the story its good you only play it once.
if the music is good, you download the OST.

I don't hate to admit it. Good gameplay and good writing belong together.

The gameplay is the formal attribute of a video game. But the rest of those things are still integral to the overall quality.

Like how a girl's pussy is the main attraction. You aren't going to want to fuck her if she has patchy hair, a hair lip, fat as fuck, and a huge bitch.

The gameplay is the essential feature which separates games from other media. But if the constituent incidents aren't good, then the game is going to be shit.

Yeah, when people say that you don't play DMC3 and stuff for the story, they're right, but there's no denying the initial hype from seeing Vergil pull out Beowulf and just fucking shit up before the second fight with him in the cutscene that leads into hype for the fight, or watching a giant monster crashing through the scenery to get to you and start a fight, that kind of shit hypes you up and augments the experience.

What is even the "definition" of a good gameplay?

I'm allways left to wonder with Story vs Gameplay discussions as to what is it.

Sure no QTE's and bugs/glitches for one is a good start but… how to make it so good the game simply doesnt need a story at all to be enjoyable?

The thing is, what you posted are games that are still fun to play and happen to have a good story as a bonus.

Games that prioritize story first are always shit or mediocre at best. Narrative is always is secondary to gameplay, aka the thing that separates games from other media.

But they're definitely story-driven, in that what it means to play them, for the most part, is to advance some pre-written storyline.

Absolutely no story seems difficult. You need some framework for why you're doing what you're doing, no matter how minor. Unless it's a puzzle game.

Not entirely. Part of why I played them was because they were fun to play. The story helps, but it was playing them that kept me interested.

Story is only supplemental to games.

Not really. As long as a game is fun, story can take a back seat. Just look at nearly every arcade game ever made.

There's a difference between the reason why you chose to play them - what you got out of them - and what is actually there in the game. I might choose to play The Last Of Us just because I like the crafting system. Doesn't change the fact that it's the epitome of a story-driven game.


What are you talking about? Loads of games have absolutely no story. Arena FPS, Grand Strategy, ASSFAGGOTS, Madden, etc.
Now in a lot of these sorts of game you're making your own story, like in Total War where you fight long campaigns and get attached to your generals, but in others there isn't even that. Are you going to tell me that Rocket League needs a 'framework' to explain why you're trying to knock a ball into a goal?

Oh ok? Nobody played RDR for the story. It was all about the horse riding, western style gore and random events.

Grand strategies do have a story going on that you cant usually influence much like say the game is centered on medieval age and there's your typical 100year war, plague and such shit going on at set times.
That's allready story going on and sure it can be a bit make your own story like you said but rarely are you given an option to just create your own faction instead having to pick allready existing one.

Even Doom/Quake and Serious Sam have stories going on, might be bit nitpicking on that aspect but well… story of you being ultimate badass mowing down demons from hell to save the human race is still story.

Get's me thinking though, my main aspect as to if i enjoy a game is not the story or even gameplay(as long as the play isnt qte-fest) but what kind of character i can play.
But are good premade played characters part of the story, gameplay, or something else?

Different genres and game styles support different levels of story interaction. Multiplayer games (typically) don't have a story because the players are going to be talking amongst themselves. In a lot of strategy games, the player is far removed from the direct interaction of the units so they're not going to get attached. They're more like a board game like RISK and you're starting games over and over again to try different strategies. Also in arcade-style games, the player is starting new games over and over again and the games are short so not much story is needed because they're played in short bursts.
In other genres, such as character-action games or RPGs/JRPGs, the story plays a bigger role because you'll playing the same game through, so you can add a story means you'll grow attached and more likely to see how it ends.
Story can work for some genres in the game's favour whereas in other its definitely a detriment. I'd expect a 10 hour long shooter or action game to have some sort of story in order to keep me invested the whole time whereas I wouldn't expect it out of an arcade game or multiplayer game.

People often misuse the Carmack quote to dismiss story entirely, when in reality the quote helps to actually describe why story or narrative is actually an integral part of the experience in any medium, but never the focus of what makes each work in a medium good.

Story is meant to contextualize the things portrayed work, to get people more easily engaged in the work. Without story, all works would be reduced to abstract and pure formal elements with purely functional interactions. It would be much less engaging to anyone that isn't looking just attracted to the pure essence of a medium - gameplay in games, cinematography in film, etc. As for quality of story, this can depend greatly on how much engagement you want out of it. Something short and simple can prove to have much more use than a bloated and long-winded tale at getting the audience engaged in the media. For games that are more simple (arcade titles, etc), you can do with a story as minimal as "you're a spaceship firing at aliens" or can afford to be more abstract (like pong) if everything is simple enough to understand on their own.

However, while story is meant to be there and to serve it's purpose, its quality as entertainment isn't going to be what makes or breaks the game. In fact, most other elements in games take precedence over the story in terms of importance to the game's overall quality. Gameplay (mechanics, level design, progression, etc) is of course king as it is the unique functionality of the medium. Sound design and graphics come in behind this as they serve a sensory role in portraying what is in the game. Story probably comes right after this - it contextualizes the actions the player takes after they interpret what is on the screen and how the game works. So long as story serves its purpose in properly explaining what is going on, exactly how appealing that story is isn't necessarily important - it can make the game seem more appealing at first glance and keep you engaged, but beyond this, there's not much else it can do.

(TL;DR) To sum up, story in games (and pretty much every other creative medium) do serve a purpose - they give the audience context. However, it's not "important" in the sense that it's entertainment quality isn't biggest player in the overall quality of an experience.

Why would you have a problem admitting that?

Maybe the younger generation here on /v are a bunch of faggots who play mostly online games that they stream on twitch but games have always had stories.

Half-life, Deus Ex, Homeworld, Shadows of Amn, Xenogears etc etc.

Games are a form of entertainment, at least for me.

Nice memes kid.
I don't play any Grand Strategy games, but don't all the jokes about Gandhi being a ruthless bastard come from a Grand Strategy game?
Through his actions, behavior, and words he was given character, which is an element of story and writing.

This is the problem I was going on about. People don't know what kinds of things actually fall under the component of "story" in games. It's not just cutscenes.

Having opponents with unique personalities is much better than just having red squares vs blue triangles.

Even arcade games have stories.

Space Invaders is "invaders from space are invading."

The framework is you're playing a sport and you win by knocking a ball into a goal.

If you have literally no context at all, the game becomes so abstract that it becomes unrecognizable. Story provides context. It's become bad in recent times because wayward developers have confused "context" for "quality."

In a perfect world, Good Gameplay and Good Storytelling should be able to exist, but if it came down to a choice between one or the other, I'd take Good Gameplay over Good Story every day of the week

No to mention, it wouldn't be terrible to come up with some fictional teams, give the members unique personalities and tactics, and perhaps put the player through an arcade-mode championship campaign.

Nigger, the whole "muh vidya don't need stories its like watching porn for the story" shit was always a meme. Its just that story-driven vidya nowadays is lumped with movie-shit that normalfags eat for breakfast just because the games have pretty graphics and don't know any better.

Essentially, story-driven games balance game and story together to produce an emotional impact on the player by various means, be it fear, sadness, empowerment, etc, by it being able to be interactive and giving the player feedback on whats going on by showing, not telling.

And they're absolutely meaningless. You play Space Invaders to get a high score. The story of INVADERS COMING TO TAKE OVER EARTH is window dressing just the art on the arcade cabinet.

I wonder who could be behind THIS thread
You're obviously baiting or shilling hard

But it provides context. You need to know what you're doing when you play a game, otherwise you're just looking at colorful lights bashing into other colorful lights, and why care about it if that's all you know? That window dressing was important even if it wasn't a part of the game itself.

Good gameplay is based entirely on 2 basic aspects: interactions and reactions.
When you interact with the game environment, an animation plays, a sound is made, the environment is changed (an enemy is attacked, they get staggered, blood spurt out; a block if broken; a group of bubbles pops… etc), this is reaction. Good gameplay knows what the player expect, deliver it and brings a twist that, while out of player's expectation, is still in the comfort zone of the player. The interaction is player's control, the reaction is the animation and sound.
For example, look at DMC series, specifically DMC2, DMC3, DMC4 and DmC (I didn't include the first one because clearly it's entirely different from the later games, but not in a negative way). First, DMC3/4. Look at the Rebellion. The control is tight and responsive, there's no delay at all between the button press and the animation play, as well as the effect it has on the environment. There's no delay between interaction and reaction. This is what all players expect from the control: immediate reaction. This is where the satisfaction comes from. This is further augmented by the animation and sound, and the twist from expectation. Take Million Stab for example, a combo where you mash the button to stab longer and thus deal more damage. The animation is fast, the sound is pretty much metal clashing into each other, making a devastating impression, and at the end of the move is a pause, and then single stab with an explosive sound entirely different from the stabbing sound before. This gives the reaction a weight to it, and adds to the satisfaction. You can find this correct for everything, from the charge of Beowulf to the Helm-Breaker of Red Queen, to the explosion of a Scarecrow, the charge of a Blitz, etc
However, DMC2 and DmC did not have this. DMC2 had a fluid interaction but its reaction is horrible. The animations are linear, no ups, no downs, the Million Stab is slow, it sounds like swinging a bamboo stick in the air. The guns, despite being the unfortunate main weapons, deal terrible damage. This is against what the players expectation: That their attacks when performed properly will be devastating and take a good chunk of HP off. DmC had a nice reaction from the explosion, the disorientation of Donte when he swings the Rebellion too hard, the blood spurt… but its interaction is unacceptable. Not only the game more often than not runs at around 40FPS which is objectively bad for a character action game, but the delay between the input and the reaction is atrocious. If you read about DmC on Holla Forums when it was being developed, you'll probably recall the story of CAPCOM employees having to explain a certain term to Ninja Theory, a term that refers to the wind-up before an animation to give it weight. Ninja Theory was a big fucking retarded studio and abused this on every animation of every weapon barring half the Rebellion (which I assume was thanks to the CAPCOM employee watching and providing input). The result is every animation has a long windup time and thus it's really annoying to perform.
This applies to every other game: be it Mario jumping and breaking blocks, to Bubble Bobble's dinosaur shooting bubble, to Tetris' block fitting into the space and erases the completed rows, as long as the input is immediate and responsive, the animation is not lazily done and has just-enough length, the sound is fitting, and the reaction between the player and the environment as well the reaction between entities within the environment follows the same rule, then the good gameplay aspect is achieved.
This is also abused by freemium trash mobile dev to give players a false sense of quality: the input is immediate, animation is moderately done and colorful, the sound is cheerful, all to give players a sense of satisfaction. However none of the entities really interact with each other and the interaction between players and the game is locked behind an energy/stamina/whatever system; or there is a system in place that makes the interaction minimal. Some mobile games has actually pretty good gameplay because it's not limited by such retardation; for example, Timing Hero.

Yeah, those are called instructions, not "story"


Because the act of shooting aliens is fun, not because I need characterization of some pixels that have a lifespan of 5 seconds for when they appear on the screen.

Story is supplemental to games at best, get over it. If it bothers you that badly, go indulge in a medium that requires a good "story" to be enjoyable, like novels.

Funny thing is that all porn has story.

Example:

I'm seeding some JPN porn and the women are ugly but it is popular because it's a bunch of Yakuza raping and beating them. If you did not know the story behind it you would not watch it.

Says you. But story has been in games for ever.

Maybe you're the exception?

you chase around the most generic bad guy ever and go collect ancient pieces of a map to stop him from using the plot device of destruction that would allow him to take over the universe. The only part of that story that didn't make me want to kill myself was some neat stuff on Manaan and the plot twist was alright.

If you want a Star Wars RPG with a story that was written by someone who isn't 9 years old play KOTOR 2.

I did not mean controls, dumbass. I meant context. When you play Mario and push the button to jump, you know that's a jump because Mario does a jump animation with a springy sound effect. If it wasn't for context, all interactions taken in the game become much more meaningless and incomprehensible. Story in games is a grand scale deliverance of context.


The characterization IS that they're aliens. That's why it's fun to shoot them. That's all that needs to be but it still needs to be there because otherwise how the hell do you understand what you're doing?

I can project too.

It's porn, the purpose is to fap, you don't need context for fapping once you're aroused, and that's usually based on the physical attractiveness of the performers, which requires no story at all.


No it hasn't. Also, you didn't refute anything I said aside from NUH UH!

The story of Pong is that it's like a game of ping-pong. You say "it's Pong," people think "Oh, it's like ping-pong," so they can understand what they're supposed to do in the game.

JRPGs have ruined a entire generation of consumers.

Star Wars has always been about worldbuilding though. T

Bitch please, they were making a game with a totally different story, then Sam Lake came in and changed it. The reason the game was still great is because its was focusded on the gameplay to being with, the good story was just the cherry in the cake.

Shitty "story driven" games are story driven from the ground up, the gameplay is just a detail. They are all garbage with no replay value.

Also KotoR was fucking shit, both of them.

Stop getting all flustered you faggot. And no, you don't need a fucking story to know how to control a game, you need instructions. Gameplay mechanics and how to utilize them are not required to know via a story, they can be disseminated via instructions in a manual.

Physical descriptions is not fucking characterization. I don't need to know why they are invading, what they're backstory is or any of that.

God, you people who need muh story don't even know the basic foundations of one.


No, it's fun to shoot them because it's how to beat the game. It' satisfying that it increases your score, speeds the game up, and continues to provide a challenge.

Guess what none of that is not and doesn't require? A fucking story. It's not needed.


You sure can't prove me wrong, that much is obvious.

That's not story telling, that's merely pointing out its technical description of being a two dimensional representation of a game of ping-pong.

Again, you story cucks have no idea what an actual "story" is supposed to be or consist of. You probably think plot and story are the same thing.

I have never given even the slightest fuck about the story to Tetris or any other game for that matter. The demons in DOOM could have been aliens, robots, wireframe blocks, whatever, I don't give a shit.

Turn this into a movie.

Try.

Congrats user you've proven yourself to exactly be the kind of idiot described in


You need a story to understand why all those things are the way they are. Because if you strip away all story and context and identity, you have squares interacting with squares without meaning.

"Push A to jump" doesn't tell me anything about the game. It just says that pushing a button does that. Why does it do that and why should I care? What the fuck is the point if there's no given explanation of any kind for anything?

In this case, it is. The characterization is "alien." It's not much, but it's there. That's the character. It's an alien. Without that, it's just a weirdly-shaped mass of pixels.


You seem to not even know the basic foundations of English since all my words and phrasing is going over your head.

And also a game about fighting an alien invasion sounds fun. It's not the interactive fun, but it's a component.


If you're an autist with no imagination.


All I see is you pitching a fit and crying buzzwords so not much to prove.

It's the premise. That's the context. That's what I've been saying all along that you somehow can't wrap your head around.


Now you just sound like a pretentious English major.

...

I think one thing people need to have clarified about story is that it has two-parts of involvement in a game - there's of course how entertaining it is, but there is also how it gives context and instructs the game. True, you can have instruction without story, but it would be as abstract as "push the b button to initiate an animation and a hitbox which when colliding with an enemy will reduce the health value" or some shit - a lot more obtuse and not as easy to digest as "press the b button to swing your sword at monsters". Of course it could be something like "press b to swing your dildo-bat at the patriarchy" which has no real appeal to it, but it's just as informative.

That's not a story then. Thanks for proving you don't know what a story is and for also proving it isn't needed to enjoy a game.

That's not a characterization, it's a physical description. In fact, they're basically targets that you shoot at. Like in Doom they can even be interchangeable with ANYTHING else, as long as they are shot down in order to progress the game as noted by

Yep, some "story" that I needed to enjoy the game, dipshit.


Actually it tells you how to play it, which kind of how you interact with a game and are able to progress through it.


Oh I don't know maybe because you want to
play the fucking game and beat it because playing the game is mechanically fun and beating is satisfying.

Jesus fucking Christ, do you need someone to explain how enjoying games releases endorphin in your brain and that leads to feelings of excitement? Are you seriously incapable of playing something just for the sake of having fucking fun? You really do sound like an art college dropout who is deeply insecure about enjoying something that isn't up its own ass with telling a story or giving you an emotional connection with it.


You're the one who keeps hammering down on the idea that story is needed to enjoy something when I've proved why it's not, and every time you repeat the same thing about needing "context"


You're the one pissing and moaning about needing MUH STORY MUH CONTEXT MUH PREMISE and you're calling me an English major?

Well then again, you use "story" and "context" interchangeably, so I guess you really are a retarded dropout who has never seen or read a story outside of the garbage ones you see in games.

This is what I'm talking about. There's more to a story than sobbing lesbians and psuedo-philosophical horseshit that you see in every walking simulator. It's a simple answering of questions: who am I, where am I, where am I going, what am I doing, and why am I doing it? Once all that shit is communicated, the door is open for the player to play the game and have fun.

You've proven my assumptions about you, so at least you accomplished one thing.

That I'm right? Well, you sure didn't point out anything wrong I said in the previous post.

Thanks faggot!

Kill yourself.

There are people who genuinely think this and that scares me. Not only is that not how storytelling is supposed to work in games, it's not even how it works in fucking movies. Asset design is a huge part of telling a story in any visual medium.

Look at Star Wars. Fucking look at it. That goddamn movie explains three quarters of the shit going down just by how things look. You did not need a degree in Wookies or hyperspace or Imperial politics to know precisely what was going on or the purpose of something.

Video games have the added layer of player agency. Storytelling in games should generally be made to facilitate the player's agency and player awareness of what the gameplay and goals are. See Thief. Right in the title it establishes what you are doing. When you go to Cragscleft in the second mission, and you wake up the zombie, it's surprising but doesn't feel bullshit because we are all aware of what zombies are. You can then either avoid it as you clearly know this is a stealth game, or try to kill it and fail. Then you see a holy shrine with a fountain of water. Maybe, just maybe, you should try that shit to deal with undead. Maybe you should look for that Hammer symbol as displayed in the shrine to find anti-undead supplies as well. The game establishes those guys fight zombies and such all the time, in case you don't pick up on it.

A properly told video game story never has to drag you kicking and screaming out of the gameplay to invigorate your playthrough. It just happens. It feels natural. It feels better than it could have otherwise.

A lot of people hate story in games because they literally CANNOT concentrate for 5 seconds.

I blame online cancer and social media.

Back in the 90s we were immersed in games.

And twitch and ecelebs have ruined this gen.

KOTOR is a bad game and RDR and Max Payne aren't good just because of their stories.

Back in the 90s games weren't even close to having as much story as they do right now.

Immersion is not story dependent and varies greatly from person to person. You can get immersed in a game through an appealing story, but you can also get immersed due to really good gameplay that keeps you engaged.

Too much of the (western) industry is infected with that film/television style of professional writing tuned towards "general audiences", which fuels resentment for the entire idea of storytelling in videogames in everyone who isn't a drooling retard. Even, no, especially if they have loved videogames for their story in the past. Because developers on the whole are less skilled and less reliable than they used to be, many just want them to focus on the things that have at least a small chance of being good - any writing they undertake is almost guaranteed to be shit and therefore a waste of effort.

Command and Conquer
Xenogears
Baldur's Gate
Wing Comnander

The nineties had plenty of games with cool stories.

This I can agree with.

Story in games got a bad rep because now videogames are made for a mainstream audience. The story telling has suffered.

The movies, sure, but why praise a game that has decent worldbuilding and shit story when you can praise one with good worldbuilding and a good story.

Trying to think of the last time I gave a shit about the story in a Racing game.

Nope, can't do it.

Because it's fun.

Vid related

Good stories should enhance the game. when you get involved in the story it makes the game that much more fun.