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Worst Game Story Ever
- Thread starter Veelk
- Start date
iamaustrian
Member
deus ex
all the conspiracy shit made me sick. the far-fetched story elements weren't helpful either.
it almost felt like someone took the most mysterious and confusing parts from every sci-fi/conspiracy movie/series ever and mixed it randomly with the result being even more confusing/random
all the conspiracy shit made me sick. the far-fetched story elements weren't helpful either.
it almost felt like someone took the most mysterious and confusing parts from every sci-fi/conspiracy movie/series ever and mixed it randomly with the result being even more confusing/random
The Praiseworthy
Member
I would love to hear those who are claiming that Xenogears had the worst game story ever, what games they think have the best game story ever?
seriously I'm curious to know.
And for my choice for the worst game story ever goes to:
This game assaulted every good thing we knew about the series before 4.
I mean even Chris and Jill doesn't look like the Chris and Jill we used to know.
I felt that I'm playing as Jill in RE3.... the same with Chris in CV, but in this? WTF they have done to them -_-"
You call the best JRPG plot of last generation a garbage?
share your test with me, what is the best JRPG plot in your opinion .
seriously I'm curious to know.
And for my choice for the worst game story ever goes to:
This game assaulted every good thing we knew about the series before 4.
I mean even Chris and Jill doesn't look like the Chris and Jill we used to know.
I felt that I'm playing as Jill in RE3.... the same with Chris in CV, but in this? WTF they have done to them -_-"
Korigama said:
You call the best JRPG plot of last generation a garbage?
share your test with me, what is the best JRPG plot in your opinion .
After reading some of these, I'm so glad I skipped and saved my time on worthy games instead. But yet somehow, I'll still play MGS4, FFVIII, and FFXIII. :\
I'd be lying to myself if I said I don't play rpgs for the story. I just can't recall the last rpg that has hideous story without myself forgiving it. Oh yeah, Astonishia Story was terrible.
I'd be lying to myself if I said I don't play rpgs for the story. I just can't recall the last rpg that has hideous story without myself forgiving it. Oh yeah, Astonishia Story was terrible.
LaserBuddha
Member
Finaika said:
It's most certainly FF7 (and I love love love FF7)
Aeris' death really didn't move me. I don't get the whole thing around that. I was like 12 or 13; maybe those who were so moved were younger than that and were simply shocked at the idea of a good guy dying? I cry like a baby at many movies so I don't think it's me.
I'm fond of the story and characters but it's definitely guilty-pleasure drivel.
The Praiseworthy said:
I won't pretend that Xenogears doesn't have its flaws (Disc 2's execution, particularly), but I envy anyone who honestly can't think of anything worse when so many better examples come to mind. I suppose I should've clarifed that I actually liked that game (scratch that, loved it), just not its inept spiritual successor.
You would honestly consider the game with quite easily the most detestable JRPG protagonist in Shion
(a backstabber who had to be beaten back to her senses after betraying her team for her undead evil ex-boyfriend)
the vessel of Mary Magdalene
the guy behind Jesus' miracles
thetechkid
Member
Can't add to this except for adding in how useless the loyalty missions were to anything, adding no real reason for them being there except to have the game be longer. There is a race of almost unstoppable alien things that is slowly wiping out colonies and we need you Shepard, the only being no one listens to ever to stop them, but first deal with your crew's daddy problems. LotSB did more to further the plot then the entirety of the main story of the second game.Van Buren said:
LaserBuddha
Member
I played a few hours of Xenosaga and couldn't stand it any more. And I was the biggest fan of Xenogears you ever saw.
Maybe I just grew out of insipid Japanese writing. I don't know what it is about the Japanese game industry, but dudes can't seen to write plot and dialogue fit for adult consumption. Same with anime (and of course, there are plenty of exceptions out there). Do I just not "get it", or do games and anime skew a lot younger over there?
Of course the industry as a whole isn't a great deal better.
Maybe I just grew out of insipid Japanese writing. I don't know what it is about the Japanese game industry, but dudes can't seen to write plot and dialogue fit for adult consumption. Same with anime (and of course, there are plenty of exceptions out there). Do I just not "get it", or do games and anime skew a lot younger over there?
Of course the industry as a whole isn't a great deal better.
Riposte
Member
This thread is too damn arbitrary to take seriously. I don't even know how to approach some these arguments. Story vs storytelling. Simplicity vs convoluted. Grading stories as if they were laid out like a movie. Fanboyism. I don't even know what standard people are using to grade these narratives.
Can't believe only a handful of posters have mentioned Bayonetta.
I have never played a video game where I simultaneously loved the gameplay mechanics and loathed the story and characters in equal measure. I cannot express how much I hated the story. The level of my hatred was magnified by the depressing and disappointing fact that it could have been one of the best video games ever with a decent story or at least with a playable character you didn't despise.
Can't believe those fawning Japanophiles at Edge gave it a 10.
I have never played a video game where I simultaneously loved the gameplay mechanics and loathed the story and characters in equal measure. I cannot express how much I hated the story. The level of my hatred was magnified by the depressing and disappointing fact that it could have been one of the best video games ever with a decent story or at least with a playable character you didn't despise.
Can't believe those fawning Japanophiles at Edge gave it a 10.
perfectnight
Banned
LaserBuddha said:
They know they have a large adult fanbase, it's just that the fanbase doesn't demand anything beyond their disgustingly contrived plot devices and 1-dimensional characters. So why bother
Bayonetta committed the worst sin of all - it was straight up boring.
Japanese games do seem to suffer more from interminable "dramatic" cutscenes characterized by tons of horrible dialogue and exposition.
I kept watching the story because I was hoping it would be good and I didn't want to miss anything - in retrospect I should have just skipped all of it. They also didn't appear to have the budget they needed, as a lot of the cutscenes resorted to motion-comic style.
I don't know if Bayonetta had the worst story but I agree that it did a ton to hurt an otherwise great game.
Japanese games do seem to suffer more from interminable "dramatic" cutscenes characterized by tons of horrible dialogue and exposition.
I kept watching the story because I was hoping it would be good and I didn't want to miss anything - in retrospect I should have just skipped all of it. They also didn't appear to have the budget they needed, as a lot of the cutscenes resorted to motion-comic style.
I don't know if Bayonetta had the worst story but I agree that it did a ton to hurt an otherwise great game.
indigo-cyclops
Member
So true and the more I play the more problems pop up regarding continuity and sensibility. Overall the story was not good or interesting. Other elements of the game as well just didn't match up.Sadist said:
I don't know, I enjoy a lot of the video games story, it's kind of about the message and all the bizarre concepts and ideas,
Xenosaga was great because they built a sci fi robot animu game using a lot of different concepts ranging from Jungian psychology, to religion and mythologies, they're bizarre and sometimes stupid, but they put a lot of thoughts into designing the characters, world, history and foreshadowing a lot of different events.
In the creator's mind, they make perfect sense (some were inconsistent because they changed the fucking writer), exploring those weirdass universe and finding out what those secrets are is what make video games enjoyable and fresh in the first place.
With that said, it doesn't mean they aren't bad, and some ideas were pretty dumb and badly executed.
kind of like m night films
Xenosaga was great because they built a sci fi robot animu game using a lot of different concepts ranging from Jungian psychology, to religion and mythologies, they're bizarre and sometimes stupid, but they put a lot of thoughts into designing the characters, world, history and foreshadowing a lot of different events.
In the creator's mind, they make perfect sense (some were inconsistent because they changed the fucking writer), exploring those weirdass universe and finding out what those secrets are is what make video games enjoyable and fresh in the first place.
With that said, it doesn't mean they aren't bad, and some ideas were pretty dumb and badly executed.
B_Rik_Schitthaus
Banned
Mom's are tough.BigJiantRobut said:
perfectnight
Banned
Korigama said:
The game in your avatar had awful writing, BTW.
When they started going off about Ice-9 I wanted to choke someone. (chem student)
GhostWriter24
Member
This thread is so sad, we should be celebrating gaming's greatest stories...this is our entertainment medium which we're always trying to defend against the likes of film and books and poetry and music, isn't it? Who's to say there hasn't been phenomenal narrative in gaming? I'm playing Red Dead Redemption at the moment and the writing in that game is simply superb for 10-15minute quests. Every one has been interesting and well thought out.
Also, the Portal series, GTA (yes, even with all the oscar-worthy bs, it's still great) and Uncharted are deftly written.
Also, the Portal series, GTA (yes, even with all the oscar-worthy bs, it's still great) and Uncharted are deftly written.
perfectnight said:
That's nice.
They went with the Vonnegut version of Ice-9 as opposed to the real substance (which isn't like the real deal anyway).
Mortrialus
Banned
As far as an other wise good game with a painfully awful story, I would nominate the God of War series by having what I consider to have the one of the worst, masturbatory, juvenile awful protagonists ever made. Everything about Kratos just screams "I'm here to pander to the 12 year olds who think this is the epitome of coolness and mature entertainment", including the game's developer. I would describe the feeling of playing any of these games as akin to reading a really creepy slash fan fic where an obvious author avatar is written in to sex up the author's favorite character as a proxy for them being unable to do the same in real life. It's embarrassing to play, to the point of not only ruining any entertainment to be found in the rest of the characters and stories, but it ruins the game itself which otherwise might have been a 10/10 game for me to the point where I literally can't stand it. Kratos is such a horrible protagonist he literally sucks all the fun out of the game. God of War is a testament to everything wrong with the video game industry.
For me it's:
The plot is so full of cliches that for some time I was sure this game was a jrpg parody.
I truly think Star Ocean's IV or FFXIII plots are superior to this one.
The plot is so full of cliches that for some time I was sure this game was a jrpg parody.
How many times the bad guys can kidnap the princess in the same ridiculous way? Or why the dancing scene in the middle of the forest when the princess and main hero barely knew each other?
I truly think Star Ocean's IV or FFXIII plots are superior to this one.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Generic said:
Yes. Some of your complaints are off (because you didn't remember correctly or weren't paying attention or whatever), but MW2's story is utterly off the deep end into total, irredeemable garbage.
Regarding Makarov, the thing is a false flag operation meant to justify the war against America to the Russian people. The Russian government wanted to go to war to begin with but was trying to find an excuse for it. "An American shot up an airport" is a flimsy fucking excuse, and they should have thought of something better for the game, but it was obviously chosen for its player shock value (shooting up an airport) and to stir up controversy rather than to make sense in the plot. The Russians knew he was a CIA agent because the American general who goes crazy later was working together with them to get the war started (he was the one who chose the player character for that role in the first place).
Price launching a nuclear missile was bloody offensive to the intellect, let me tell you. You need to have launch access codes from multiple officers followed by multi-person cooperation to initiate the launch (key turning simultaneously, etc). So apparently either Price has fuckin magic powers or the Russians on the sub fully agreed to just let him fire a nuke wherever he wanted, and help him do it. Jesus.
His motivation for firing the warhead in the first place is never really defined, and would have made things worse, not better. For one, US military equipment is every bit as reliant on electronics as the Russians is, probably more so because it's higher tech in many case. Large scale, high altitude nuclear bursts like that would utterly demolish a large section of the global satellite infrastructure too, so I hope Price is pleased with himself for ruining global communications (and fucking up the US' own satellite intelligence and comms infrastructure). Next, any possible reasons the US had for not retaliating with a nuclear strike the very instant the Russians invaded is now invalidated when a Russian Boomer has just launched a fuckin' missile that knocked out satellites all round (including the ISS). Nukes detonated specifically to create HEMP like that are universally recognized as the opening move to an all out nuclear offensive (eliminating early warning systems). Fifteen minutes later, the missiles would have been flying if this was in real life. Not just US missiles, everybody's.
Not that there was any reason it would have gotten that far to begin with. I mean, the US has thousands of active warheads that are still on hair trigger alert, even in the post-cold war era. They snuck into America by getting the access codes to some kind of military network that controls EVERYTHING apparently, such that external connections can apparently hide radar signatures etc without raising any suspicion. WHATEVER. As soon as the Russians hit and it was obviously the Russians, the US gov would have been on the phone with an ultimatum:
"Get the fuck out of our country and cease hostilities immediatley, or Moscow will be a giant radioactive parking lot in under twenty minutes". That's assuming they even bothered to present them an ultimatum in the first place. Oh, but even if they didn't do this and kept the fighting going, Russia cannot ever win, because even if they win the ground battle against America, they will simply launch their submarine based missiles (which they can't hunt down because their location is unknown and there are so many of them) and light Russia up. Alternatively, they lose the ground battle, the US doesn't resort to nukes, and they don't complete their objectives anyway. LOSE LOSE SITUATION YOU STUPID FUCKING IDIOTS. No country is dumb enough to do this, because nobody is dumb enough to risk nuclear war.
They didn't even give a token excuse for this shit. They could have done an EndWar and said "Oh, the Russians have a missile shield which takes nuclear war off the table" or something. Problem solved. BUT NO, they didn't even go to that much effort. Stupid piece of SHIT.
Risk Breaker
Member
Mortrialus said:
It's not a perfect franchise at all (I find it mediocre except for the technical part) but... really?
Mortrialus
Banned
zoukka said:
I was just referring to the story with that statement. However, I don't consider the statement hyperbolic in the slightest.
First of all, sorry for cutting up such a fantastic post. I agree with pretty much everything said, and I'd just like to point out that each of the points I kept in the post is actually something that a co-worker of mine (a huge fan of ME1) brought up in a rather short rant about how stupid ME2's story is. So it's not something that's exclusively noticed by nerds on forums.Van Buren said:
Blue Ninja
Member
"I'm dead. Wait, I'm not. You are my sister. This guy has to die. This guy is the key to all of this. Except he's not. There's a lot of zombies. You're my enemy. Oh, now you're my friend. Now you're my enemy again. The end. Except it's not."
Anasui Kishibe
Banned
so many videogames, so many shit stories, so many factors to consider, can't answer because it's illogical
astroturfing
Member
i enjoy some of the so-called terrible narratives in games. i dig MGS4, Heavy Rain and FFXIII completely non-ironically, especially the latter. at least these types games have the balls to do crazy shit and be unique. (i understand if the non-sensical aspects turn people off though).
it's the "safe" stuff i absolutely hate, the kinds of games with stories and dialogue that feel 100% predictable, calculated and cynical, trying to please everyone of all ages.. games like Uncharted. fucking EWW, game has zero soul.
until we have game stories that can match the best writing in literature, i'll take the crazy fun stuff over the safe cynical shit thanks.
it's the "safe" stuff i absolutely hate, the kinds of games with stories and dialogue that feel 100% predictable, calculated and cynical, trying to please everyone of all ages.. games like Uncharted. fucking EWW, game has zero soul.
until we have game stories that can match the best writing in literature, i'll take the crazy fun stuff over the safe cynical shit thanks.
SuperAngelo64
Banned
Did not read a single post in this thread but I'm guessing it's another 'It's cool to hate JRPGs' stealth thread.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Van Buren said:
The most offensive part of the story was that Shepard and Cerberus never had, or even discussed a plan to stop the collectors. Now, think about the game. Reflect on it. Did you, at any point, discuss how you were going to stop them? You start out with a goal - "I will stop the collectors no matter the cost". Fine, suicide mission, cool. But it wasn't a suicide mission, it wasn't even a mission at all, that was like a broad, overarching strategic goal. A goal you never at any point in the plot had any idea of how you would even come to grips with.
At the start of the game, you and all other characters believe that the Collectors are in fact a whole civilization. They are very advanced and very powerful, and we assume they have many planets, just like all the big factions. They're hidden behind a mysterious relay nobody has returned from, so you have to figure out how to get there. They have some weapon that can disable colonies (that's dumb in itself, but that's a discussion for another time). These are things you do, but beyond this, what is there? How were you going to destroy a whole civilization with dozens of planets? How were you even going to destroy them if they had a single solitary planet? How were you going to destroy them if they had two space stations instead of one, or two space ships instead of one?
The notion that Commander Shepard and a squad of elite commandos was the right tool for the job of taking the collectors down requires future knowledge that Illusive Man didn't have. He would have first thought to build an entire army, or at least to stockpile weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps should have found a way through the relay, then leaked that information to the Alliance to send a fleet through to fight them off. What ended up happening instead was that every time you talked, he just goes "oh, I have complete faith in you Shepard, do what it takes to bring them down". Then Shepard always goes on and on and on about how it's a suicide mission, how he doesn't expect to come back alive. But in reality, that's bullshit. He never had a chance of even completing his objective (neutralize the collector threat), let alone coming back alive.
To distract you from this obvious, gaping hole in the story and characters, they give you the bullshit final act ass-pull where you HAVE TO GO RESCUE YOUR CREW OMG GO GO NOW NO TIME TO THINK. Shepard apparently thinks that jumping through the relay RIGHT NOW with no idea of what is on the other side and no plan is the smart thing to do when failing apparently means the death of humanity or something. He went full fucking retard! But by pure god-damn coincidence, they have ONE ship, ONE space station and a convenient overload button on said reactor. Not even McGuyver wings it this much.
The icing on the cake is, of course, that the Collectors were never a threat in the first place. Not only would one Reaper not have done diddly squat to help the Reapers return (would have been obliterated by the council fleets just like the last one), but they never would have been able to finish building it. There aren't enough humans in the colonies to finish the Reaper (it's nowhere close to complete circa the boss fight) and it would have had to go after Earth... except landing on Earth is a total death sentence, because the whole Arcturus fleet is between them and Earth. Plus Earth actually has military ships in the solar system already, there are guns on the planet, and so on. A single collector cruiser could never have retrieved the humans it needed, it would have died, and without that ONE ship it had, the collectors would have been back to square one.
That's even assuming they got to Earth - the colonies were having defense guns installed, defense guns that actually drove the ship off. All it would have taken is for an alliance patrol to get lucky and intercept the Collector ship (which was by no means stealthy), and it would have been game over for them. You destroy the Collector ship in the end of the game with a gun that is, according to the codex, "as powerful as a cruiser". The Alliance has hundreds of cruisers. Not only that, if you didn't upgrade to Thanix gun, you blow it up with Disruptor torps (I think? The cutscenes are notoriously inconsistent regarding weapon effects), which any old frigate can mount anyway. Whoops!
ME2 >>> ME1 in gameplay, but damnit if the story in ME2 isn't a turd. I could rant for hours about it.
MurkyZebra2417
Member
zlatko said:
Hey, I liked Starcraft 2 story, don't hit me. I just said what the whiners about SC2 say
Maleficence
Member
I rarely ever pay enough attention to the story in games to give a shit.
Tryckser said:Hey, I liked Starcraft 2 story, don't hit me. I just said what the whiners about SC2 say
To Zlatko too: it's not about the absolute amount of suck a story offers, it's about the premise (SC1) and the hopes that the years of development and insane budget would show in the quality of the writing. In this regard SC2 was abysmal. Like I can't name a single thing in the games written story being good.
There's something inherently disturbing about SC2 Jim Raynor, can't put my finger on it though.
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