Support NeoGAF

[EpicBox]

The gameplay CAN be made less enjoyable if it is not combined with a good story.

Often, the storyline is what compels us to want to continue playing in the first place. Certainly, story is the only thing that will get me playing an RPG.

A game with no story or minimal story does not require that to enjoy the gameplay. But if a game goes and includes a half-assed story, or acts as though you should be taking it seriously when the writing is cringe-worthy, that needs some points knocking off in the review.

 

[SystemUser]

It's an abstract and badly told story about building a rocketship

In Tetris Worlds you are helping the Tetriminos get evacuated from the planet. I retconned' that into my head canon for all Tetris games.

 

[redflamingolingo]

Yes. Easily. Amazing gameplay can make up for lackluster story.

MGSV is 10/10 for me because the gameplay is perfect.

The story? Not so much.

 

[Adam_Vania]

i was gonna watch 2001 yesterday then i thought oh yeah it has a bad story cos it sets up a premise that doesn't go through and the ending is messy. come on kubrick, coulda done with cutting out that blue danube section that adds nothing to the narrative what a waste of film.

i was gonna listen to the Sgt. Pepper album but again there's that weak story dragging everything down. like where is the narrative? it starts off good but loses focus come on guys less songs about lsd more songs describing the daily life and chores of Billy Shears.

i was gonna go to an exhibit of Dali paintings but really you can tell the guy wasn't even trying to tell a cohesive story. come on, less paintings of psychedelic landscapes. i want to know who made those melting clocks, i want to see how they got melted, and i don't want any plot holes.

see how ridiculous all this sounds?

why apply this dumb expectation for narrative perfection to video games?

 

[Eusis]

two words: mario galaxy

Nonsense, the Rosalina stuff was good and outside of that it was more minimalistic than BAD. Though I suppose there's people who will argue you need a good story and next to no story is an active flaw.

Anyways... well, I guess that's really up to the reviewer? I WOULD think that a truly awful story that can't even be enjoyed ironically or laughed at, and is constantly in the way of gameplay or is otherwise a prominent aspect of the game, can drag it down. If a racing game wants to waste a lot of time with some sort of drama that I can't skip that definitely impacts the experience, though I'd rather not dock it more than a point or two. But it definitely seems unfair to judge the likes of Rocket League this way, or even games like MGR that are more innocuous or outright comical with the story, and (relative to the rest of the series) doesn't really overstay its welcome and lets you get to the action without too much fuss.

 

[duvjones]

Again 10/10 doesn't mean a game is perfect. It means that the reviewer felt the game was so good/engrossing/unique/well-designed/etc. that it deserved the highest accolade and award they offer. It's not a concrete assessment of a game

Note something, not once did I say that "10/10 is the equivalent to 'The prefect game'"
But if that is the perception that you are having, that just goes to show you why I have always considered the ranking system that reviews use as flawed. It blankets over too much of the nuisance that games have, and asserts a score that is not indicative to if a consumer might enjoy the game in question... which is the ultimate judge.

 

[NHarmonic.]

It depends. If the story is good enough (Mario Galaxy 2), then I would say, yes. If it is a game where story is really important, then no.

Lewd.

If your game involves a narrative, then it's part of the game and it's quality (good or bad) will obviously affect how it's reviewed. I don't know why Nintendo keeps bothering with storylines on mainline mario games, when they are basically filler in between levels.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

i was gonna watch 2001 yesterday then i thought oh yeah it has a bad story cos it sets up a premise that doesn't go through and the ending is messy. come on kubrick, coulda done with cutting out that blue danube section that adds nothing to the narrative what a waste of film.

i was gonna listen to the Sgt. Pepper album but again there's that weak story dragging everything down. like where is the narrative? it starts off good but loses focus come on guys less songs about lsd more songs describing the daily life and chores of Billy Shears.

i was gonna go to an exhibit of Dali paintings but really you can tell the guy wasn't even trying to tell a cohesive story. come on, less paintings of psychedelic landscapes. i want to know who made those melting clocks, i want to see how they got melted, and i don't want any plot holes.

see how ridiculous all this sounds?

why apply this dumb expectation for narrative perfection to video games?

I dig what you're laying down here.

 

[autoduelist]

they do know what they're talking about, because they're talking about their opinion.

I'm sorry to say, not all opinions are created equal. You should not take my opinion on visual novels into consideration, because I absolutely hate visual novels. Any opinion I might hold on them would be invalid, simply because I do not have the necessary knowledge base to converse intelligently about them, nor do I care to. However, I do know more about some topics than most, and on those topics my opinion might hold some merit.

If someone wants to discount games like Tetris and Robotron because they don't have a deep story, that's not an 'opinion' I need to, or will, give weight to. It tells me they have a warped or missing perspective of the very roots of gaming. It's like people that discount entire genres of music as 'not music' because it doesn't fit their limited perceptions.

If you want to hold everyone's opinion as equal, go for it. But they aren't, and pretending they are does a disservice to those who actually put the time and energy to learn about something a subject.

This does not mean their opinion is wrong, for them. Sure, someone can hate all arcade games. They are free to do so. But it's not an opinion with any real merit to it. Tetris, solitaire, minesweeper, and others have withstood the test of time more than most games, and to discount them as masterpieces because they don't have a deep story is a critical failure of said position. When presented with those examples [or other similar ones], most would take the time to re-form their position, rather than double down on the position that games must have a deep story to be masterpieces. I realize it's the internet, so 'this game sucks/rules' is the general range of game banter, but that doesn't mean we need to be held to said limit.

 

[CadetMahoney]

Is it a plot-driven, linear auto-platforming, "interactive" cinematic game where you just hold up while explosions and shit happen around you?

Then yes the story matters more to the rating overall than a schmup, fighting, racing or scrolling beat-em-up etc.

 

[More_Badass]

Note something, not once did I say that "10/10 is the equivalent to 'The prefect game'"
But if that is the perception that you are having, that just goes to show you why I have always considered the ranking system that reviews use as flawed. It blankets over too much of the nuisance that games have, and asserts a score that is not indicative to if a consumer might enjoy the game in question... which is the ultimate judge.

"No game should get a 10/10" implies a game isn't worthy of a 10/10, 5/5, whatever the highest ranking a site has, because all games are flawed. At least that was my interpretation

Personally, I can't stand rankings and scorings. The complexity of a game, or even the nuance of a written review, can't be summed up in a single number or ranking, and it's even more ridiculous when the individual elements of a game are ranked.

 

[NullPointer]

I've always taken a 10/10 to mean "one of the greatest games ever made".

And when you think of the greatest games, none of them are perfect. All of them have failings, some large ones at that, but the sum of their parts achieve something magnificent.

 

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

and asserts a score that is not indicative to if a consumer might enjoy the game in question... which is the ultimate judge.

Isn't this what reviews are for?

Personally, I can't stand rankings and scorings. The complexity of a game, or even the nuance of a written review, can't be summed up in a single number or ranking, and it's even more ridiculous when the individual elements of a game are ranked.

I agree that scoring individual elements of games (like IGN reviews do) is pointless, but ultimately you can decide whether you thought a game was bad, mediocre, good, or great - and that's all an overall score is, ultimately.

 

[jett]

A game's story doesn't matter much unless the story is the focus or a major part of the game, in such a way that it can't just be ignored or put aside, for better or for worse.

 

[HK-47]

Pretty much every game Blizzard has released in the past 10 years has terrible writing, but they're usually very good all the same.

I definitely felt the terrible writing and characterization in the single player of SCII brought down the experience for me.

 

[HammerFace]

i was gonna watch 2001 yesterday then i thought oh yeah it has a bad story cos it sets up a premise that doesn't go through and the ending is messy. come on kubrick, coulda done with cutting out that blue danube section that adds nothing to the narrative what a waste of film.

i was gonna listen to the Sgt. Pepper album but again there's that weak story dragging everything down. like where is the narrative? it starts off good but loses focus come on guys less songs about lsd more songs describing the daily life and chores of Billy Shears.

i was gonna go to an exhibit of Dali paintings but really you can tell the guy wasn't even trying to tell a cohesive story. come on, less paintings of psychedelic landscapes. i want to know who made those melting clocks, i want to see how they got melted, and i don't want any plot holes.

see how ridiculous all this sounds?

why apply this dumb expectation for narrative perfection to video games?

This is incredibly ridiculous. No one said narrative perfection, but if you set up a story and fail to provide a decent one then of course it's going to detract from the experience. Also what? How the hell do movies get a free pass from not having a good(or even decent) story? Movies are literally narratives in a visual form! If they fail to do that what was the point?
This whole comment I have so many issues with.

 

[More_Badass]

I've always taken a 10/10 to mean "one of the greatest games ever made".

And when you think of the greatest games, none of them are perfect. All of them have failings, some large ones at that, but the sum of their parts achieve something magnificent.

That doesn't work. The only way to accurately judge what the highest score from a site means is to see what other games from that site earned the same score, how often that site awards that score, and so on

For example, regarding mobile/handheld games since that's a subject I'm knowledgeable on, Pocket Gamer has only awarded 30 perfect scores in 11 years (ie Advance Wars and Final Fantasy Tactics), while Toucharcade has scored over 200 perfect 5/5s in seven years (ie Angry Birds 2 and Crossy Road)

It only works on an individual site-by-site basis. Not a universal "perfect score = best game ever" scale.

Actually not even site by site, but by the other reviews of that one writer on that site. Because that judgement is based solely on that one individual person's opinion. See what other game he/she has awarded a perfect score. That's the only accurate metric of what a score from a site means

 

[Spman2099]

It depends on the emphasis placed on the story. If it is an important component, and they botch it, then the game probably deserves a pretty bad score. If it is a Mario game that places zero emphasis on the story then it really isn't even a component of the game.

 

[NullPointer]

It only works on an individual site-by-site basis. Not a universal "perfect score = best game ever" scale.

I don't follow. Scoring is site-by-site and subjective, definitely, but I've never seen a reviewer give a 10/10 and then not consider that game to be one of the greatest games ever made.

But then I haven't seen a lot of things ;p

 

[Not]

Nahh. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was a terrible experience because the story just wasn't up to snuff. Never had fun once, all because the clearly meant-to-be-important narrative just never grabbed me

 

[More_Badass]

I don't follow. Scoring is site-by-site and subjective, definitely, but I've never seen a reviewer give a 10/10 and then not consider that game to be one of the greatest games ever made.

But then I haven't seen a lot of things ;p

Infinity Blade II was awarded a 10/10 by IGN, and Unravel received the same from Destructoid, and so on

 

[Spman2099]

i was gonna watch 2001 yesterday then i thought oh yeah it has a bad story cos it sets up a premise that doesn't go through and the ending is messy. come on kubrick, coulda done with cutting out that blue danube section that adds nothing to the narrative what a waste of film.

i was gonna listen to the Sgt. Pepper album but again there's that weak story dragging everything down. like where is the narrative? it starts off good but loses focus come on guys less songs about lsd more songs describing the daily life and chores of Billy Shears.

i was gonna go to an exhibit of Dali paintings but really you can tell the guy wasn't even trying to tell a cohesive story. come on, less paintings of psychedelic landscapes. i want to know who made those melting clocks, i want to see how they got melted, and i don't want any plot holes.

see how ridiculous all this sounds?

why apply this dumb expectation for narrative perfection to video games?

Are you an insane person? How would a story in a film, one of the most narratively driven art forms, not be important? Beyond that, the other two analogies are weak sauce. This is one of the worst posts I have encountered on this site in a while...

 

[Adam_Vania]

This is incredibly ridiculous. No one said narrative perfection, but if you set up a story and fail to provide a decent one then of course it's going to detract from the experience. Also what? How the hell do movies get a free pass from not having a good(or even decent) story? Movies are literally narratives in a visual form! If they fail to do that what was the point?
This whole comment I have so many issues with.

what do you mean by set up a story? do you mean teasers/trailers? because a trailer is supposed to promise more than it can deliver.

movies can tell other narratives that you can tell orally or through writing. movies can tell stories using more abstract concepts because a montage is not necessarily tied to the definition of words the way the same sequence of narrative events would be in a book. a game can do this too, only even moreso, in an entirely new dimension, when compared to these previous forms of storytelling. a videogame combines elements from all other forms of storytelling -- television, movies, animation, music, theater, comics, painting/fine art, photography, literature, oral history, etc. movies can be literal narratives (Andy Warhol experimented with this with his movies like "Sleep" which was just a movie of someone sleeping for 8 hours) but movies have something paintings or still photography don't, which is the jump cut. the ability to rapidly shift realities in an instant. that along with other effects delivered to art by the once-new technology of photo processing. super-imposition makes no sense in a narrative context at all. why restrict a movie or video game to what a book can do? how do movies get a free pass? a free pass from whom? from me i give them a free pass because i like movies as sensual experiences primarily. if it looks good and/or presents and interesting experience then i will give it all the free passes i can spare.

you may as well be complaining that baseball has a bad story.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Story is a big motivating factor for me to want to continue a game regardless of how good the gameplay is. If a game has a shit story, I will struggle to finish it.

*Does not apply to sports titles(Fight Night/Rocket League, ETC.)

 

[opulent_lemon]

Adventure games include text adventures/interactive fiction, point-n-clicks, visual novels, etc.

Basically the continued evolution of the classic text adventure

Think Myst, Monkey Island, The Walking Dead

I love the Myst series. There's lore but it's very non-intrusive and takes a back seat to the core gameplay which is puzzle solving. Never cared for the tell-tale series but the old school point-and-clicks feel like puzzle games rather than interactive stories; at least the ones I played.

 

[Bloodporne]

I love the Myst series. There's lore but it's very non-intrusive and takes a back seat to the core gameplay which is puzzle solving. Never cared for the tell-tale series but the old school point-and-clicks feel like puzzle games rather than interactive stories; at least the ones I played.

Agreed, Myst was a different animal and so were most of those types of games back then, they were quite cerebral puzzle games.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Probably. I skip all cutscenes anyway.

 

[RM8]

Yes it does, because not all games try to tell a story, sometimes the story is basically an excuse for the game to take place. Games can be narrative, but they're not inherently narrative.

 

[Gipsy Danger]

I rarely care about stories in games. Unless it is something I particularly find very interesting I'll tend to just skip cutscenes because I'd rather be playing than watching.

 

[The Artisan]

I'm sorry to say, not all opinions are created equal. You should not take my opinion on visual novels into consideration, because I absolutely hate visual novels. Any opinion I might hold on them would be invalid, simply because I do not have the necessary knowledge base to converse intelligently about them, nor do I care to. However, I do know more about some topics than most, and on those topics my opinion might hold some merit.

If someone wants to discount games like Tetris and Robotron because they don't have a deep story, that's not an 'opinion' I need to, or will, give weight to. It tells me they have a warped or missing perspective of the very roots of gaming. It's like people that discount entire genres of music as 'not music' because it doesn't fit their limited perceptions.

If you want to hold everyone's opinion as equal, go for it. But they aren't, and pretending they are does a disservice to those who actually put the time and energy to learn about something a subject.

This does not mean their opinion is wrong, for them. Sure, someone can hate all arcade games. They are free to do so. But it's not an opinion with any real merit to it. Tetris, solitaire, minesweeper, and others have withstood the test of time more than most games, and to discount them as masterpieces because they don't have a deep story is a critical failure of said position. When presented with those examples [or other similar ones], most would take the time to re-form their position, rather than double down on the position that games must have a deep story to be masterpieces. I realize it's the internet, so 'this game sucks/rules' is the general range of game banter, but that doesn't mean we need to be held to said limit.

i'm not sure what you're trying to say here?

yes of course everyone's got a right to an opinion, and knowing a person's taste can predetermine whether their opinion will have any bearing or influence on yours.

a game's story is important to me. so like I was telling badass earlier, it is of my opinion that, all things considered, Yakzua 3 is better than Me3. even though Me3 has better gameplay.