ZeldaFreak

(^ If you know, you know ^)

Man, I completely forgot about Blood Dragon. We need a game like that again, that was great.

I've seen people say this, including critics, which is interesting since I felt it was the worst one by far. I'm not sure where that disconnect comes from. Damn good villain though, loved Salazar.

And it's also important to note that, whilst the writing is obviously the core of any story and is a very important part of it, the other aspects about delivering a story to an audience can be just as important. Visuals, audio, music, voice acting, the medium in which it's being told, etc. Which have all indeed improved over time as technology has gotten better, these projects have been allowed more and more of a budget to facilitate doing these things well, and storytelling within video games has been taken more seriously. Any one (or multiple) of those individual things being done poorly can ruin an otherwise great story, even if every other aspect is done well. The writing alone isn't the only thing to take in to consideration when discussing any story, unless we're talking about something like a book or novel which is essentially solely writing.

1: I figured someone might bring that up, and yeah, those absolutely did and do exist as well, I didn't forget that. It's just that, at least by my perspective, like you say those were much more basic examples of that type of storytelling, and in times where that sort of storytelling wasn't really "the norm," they were more so treated like fun little novelties I think. I don't think very many people were trying to tell genuinely complex, gripping stories in those sorts of formats, and I don't think very many people actually succeeded in doing so when they did try. Whereas now, that sort of storytelling has become a much more commonplace thing that's taken a lot more seriously. And even so, when I say "recent," I mean recent within the context of the larger history of storytelling as a whole. Thousands upon thousands of years, in which case, yeah, even 50 years is still very recent. 2: That's one example out of many many many that exist. I've mentioned it a few times in the thread already, but take something like Hellblade. Still a linear story to be sure, but the way in which it's told wouldn't work in another medium. You could still tell the same story, absolutely. But it wouldn't be nearly as effective. And in regards to making an existing story "better" by making it interactive, that's... not really the point, nobody's arguing that doing that would be a good idea, and that kinda goes back to what I was saying earlier about how these different mediums aren't as directly comparable as people seem to think. Most of the time (there are always exceptions, such as TLoU and games like it) you can't simply transplant a story from one medium in to another. It needs to be tailor-made for that medium, or otherwise heavily altered throughout the process of adapting it, otherwise it plain and simple won't work. And again, there are always exceptions there, but those exceptions shouldn't be taken as examples for the norm. I mean, take something like the Netflix Castlevania series for instance. Great in it's own right, but the story is so heavily altered from the "story" of the original games that it's almost it's own thing entirely, because that's how they had to do it to get the story to work at all in another medium.

Look at the post I quoted, I added numbers there as well so it was more clear which individual points I was addressing within that post. I oftentimes do that to minimize confusion about what specific parts of a quoted post I'm responding to. And I don't have a larger point, you don't need to have one to have a discussion. I just think this is a very interesting topic and I like seeing people's varying perspectives on it. And your personal opinions on The Last of Us are directly relevant to the topic at hand, even if I personally disagree with them, hence why I was responding to that.

We are finally starting to come out of the dark ages there, thankfully. Video game adaptations are more often good (or at least "OK") than bad these days, and I never thought we'd get to that point.

1: And the audience Critical acclaim alone doesn't lead to a piece of media like The Last of Us being as widely beloved as it is, even long after it's initial release. 2: But like I said, the existence of the HBO show entirely disproves that otherwise perfectly valid train of thought, at least I feel it does. Also, we live in the year of our lord 2024; it's literally impossible to craft a fully original story. Every story is massively derivative from some other story that exists. I've, personally speaking, never agreed with the train of thought of a story being bad solely because it's derivative. Every story you've ever heard in your entire life is, no matter how original it may seem at first glance.

We'll just have to agree to disagree there, same exact story has been critically acclaimed in two completely different mediums, a decade apart. I think the story has proven it's worth, especially seeing as how the game did indeed release at the height of the popularity of the zombie apocalypse genre.

You joke, but there actually is more of that in the show than you would think. And again, crazy thing is? It works.

I think the problem is some people think of stories in video games and in other mediums as 1:1 and directly compare the two (would this story be as good/worse if told in a different medium?) when, other than game stories which are essentially just interactive movies, such as The Last of Us, they simply are not the same and aren't all that comparable, fundamentally. Like I said before, we've had thousands upon thousands of years to hone in on and perfect the craft of telling a story in which the person consuming the story is doing just that, consuming it. They don't have any say in how it goes, the story has already happened, you're just waiting to experience it. The concept of that same consumer being able to have a level of control over the outcome of the story, or at the very least, being able to play an active role within the story as it unfolds, is an extremely extremely recent development in storytelling. And as such, is still (I think) something that writers are trying to get a grasp on what the best approach for that is, since doing that, as I've said, is a far more complex and involved task than telling a fixed story in which the consumer has no bearing on any of what happens, which in and of itself isn't an easy thing to do well. Now, personally, I DO give a bit more leeway to video game stories due to all of this, and I'll happily admit that. However, I'm not saying everyone else needs to as well, I think it's just important to recognize the fact that a story within a video game and a story within a film/show/book are just fundamentally two completely different beasts, and to recognize that attempting to create a story within a video game inherently gives you less direct control over the story itself, thanks to the existence of the player interacting with it, which like I said, until very recently in human history, is not something that writers have ever had to consider. I just think it's important to keep all this in mind when judging the medium and comparing and contrasting the methods of storytelling between these mediums. It's obviously fair to compare video game stories to other mediums, of course it is, it's just that really the mediums are a lot more different than I think some people realize. If someone asks "Would this story work as well if it was told in a different medium?" that's often a very tough question to answer, since most of the time, for that to be the case, the story would be fundamentally different, and would have to be told in a fundamentally different way, depending on the medium in which it's being told. It's not an unfair question to ask, it's just a question that isn't nearly as easy to answer as some of y'all seem to think it is in my opinion. That's, in my eyes, the biggest problem with, say, @DefaultGen's argument of writing down the dialogue in a dialogue tree and comparing it to something like a film or book's version of similar dialogue. If the story of that game were being told in a different medium, there wouldn't be a dialogue tree, the dialogue wouldn't be approached in that way to begin with, which renders that entire argument moot IMO. And like I said, that shows that it's not as easy to directly compare these mediums as it seems at first glance. But, once again, all just my personal perspective on this very subjective topic, and I don't know the first thing about good storytelling so I have no authority with which to speak on the topic anyway. All just my own opinions on the matter.

The overarching story is essentially 1:1, with fairly minor changes, and one episode which is completely different to the game, but is tangential to the overarching plot. And it works. REALLY REALLY well. But part of the reason why it works so well is that TLoU is one of those playable movie-types of game stories, not that there's a problem with that. But it's a completely linear plot where really the only deviation that's possible is the player dying, which isn't permanent. Those are the types of video game stories that are easiest to adapt to a different medium.

I do think you make some excellent points and think this is a very nuanced, respectable take, but, small rebuttal to that point in particular:

That's somewhat fair I suppose, though my counterpoint would be it's a very short game as it is anyway, can't really outstay it's welcome if it's not even all that long to begin with. If it was like 20 hours long I might agree with you. I don't mind having just Senua's character and her experiences be the focus, since the topic of psychosis and how people experience it (which the developers were very, very, very careful to accurately portray since there's still to this day tons of stigma around mental illness) is enough of a complex and interesting issue to tackle that it's enough to fill out the whole story and, to me, not have it feel like the concept has overstayed it's welcome by the end, since it's not a particularly long experience anyway. You never did answer my question, but just based on what you're saying here it sounds like you generally prefer when a story is always on the move and not necessarily staying focused on one very particular thing, which if that is the case then I could see why you wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did. Plus, like I said, I struggle with debilitating mental illness myself which automatically made me latch on to the story and the character more, if you yourself don't (I don't know if you do or not) I can see how there wouldn't be as easy of a connection to be made there between you and the game. I think them accurately portraying psychosis and doing their part to try and reduce all the stigma surrounding mental issues like that is enough to warrant the game's existence if nothing else. If playing that game doesn't cause you to have even an ounce of empathy for the real people who go through that sort of thing on a daily basis, well... I dunno what to tell ya', haha. Not referring to you specifically there Sumez, using "you" in the more general sense.

I never did do that, haha. And both things can be true at once, those aren't mutually exclusive. I enjoy stories as a whole and am easy to please, but I'm not literally incapable of being critical of things, I think you might've misunderstood me a bit there. Never said I was devoid of critical thinking, and my personal, subjective enjoyment of things has very little bearing on the objective quality of something anyway. I just said, as a whole, I am far less critical of these things than I think you are, which may absolutely color my perspective a bit. It's just that I'm generally pretty good at separating my subjective enjoyment of something from the objective quality of that thing, which is something I think a lot of people have trouble with. Absolutely fair on everything else you've said though. Yeah, definitely missing out on tons of great stories. What kinds of stories are you generally in to? What aspects of a story grip you, personally? Hellblade would be a recommendation I'd make if you'd want to check out a game that delves deep in to the mind of a single character, sort of a character study. Fairly short, pretty easy to pick up and play, gameplay's fairly simple, very immersive, and decidedly not for everyone I don't think, but I'd be interested to hear your perspective on it, and how, with the way that game approaches it's story, it really wouldn't work all that well in any other medium I don't think. Like I said, I think video game stories are at their best when they literally just would not work in any other medium. That's when the writers are at their most creative IMO. ...Actually, if you do play it, definitely ensure you're wearing headphones as you play, or earbuds at the very least. Definitely massively helps the experience.

Wow, that's a REALLY good idea actually.

I definitely agree with that statement, though I dunno about that specific example. I LOVE Symphony of the Night, but, uh... I dunno if great is the word I'd use to describe the story, even within the context of the game. It's... certainly there! Haha. Really the only interesting thing about it IMO is Richter's situation in that game.

I literally mentioned all 3 of those examples when talking about how much I like this franchise, haha.

1: I mean... well, no offense meant when I say this, but you've always come across to me as a VERY critical person, whereas I'm the opposite, I'm pretty uncritical when it comes to entertainment, I just sit back and enjoy it. So it's possible I'm saying this due to that fact, I'm generally easy to please. But with that said, I feel like you haven't really experienced too many good video games stories if you feel they're mostly bland and derivative. Some of them are, yes, that's a given with any medium, but video games allow you to tell stories in very unique and different ways than you can with a non-interactive medium, and since video games have a much more flexible length and format than a film or even TV shows in which episodes need to be a specific length, the creators can take as much or as little time with telling the story as they want, and tell the story they want to tell in a number of different ways. Video games allow you to tell stories in fairly non-traditional ways that you just wouldn't be able to in any other medium. One example would be games that have "databases" such as Subnautica and DOOM Eternal, in which things such as enemies or environments have their own entries within some sort of a database, which the player can choose to read to learn more about them, if they want. Firstly, it's optional, so if any given player doesn't care, they can just ignore it entirely, which is not a choice you have with something like a film. But in addition, it's a way to deliver worldbuilding, details, and exposition in a way that doesn't hamper the progression of the main story at all. It's a way to tell even MORE story for the players who want to hear it, but not get in the way for those who don't care. Optional storytelling is not a thing you can really do in any other medium, you either choose to experience the whole story, or not. One or the other. You don't normally get to pick and choose how much story you want. But, are those database entries still part of the story? Yes. Another example would be something like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, wherein the combination of the player being in control of Senua, plus seeing and hearing things from Senua's perspective (Senua being someone who suffers from psychosis and near constant auditory and visual hallucinations) offers a VERY unique experience that, whilst you could theoretically emulate it in a film, it just... wouldn't really work all that well I don't think. It only really works the way it's told if you, the player, are in direct control of Senua. Now, the stories of DOOM Eternal and Subnautica, while I did find them good and captivating, I wouldn't say they're absolutely groundbreaking, incredible stories or anything, but Hellblade was an experience that really stuck with me, and will continue to stick with me, especially as someone who's struggled with mental illness myself for the vast majority of my life. Both due to the content of the story itself, and the unique manner in which the story is told. 2: Eh, I don't think it's all that telling, personally. First of all, videos games are a much newer medium than film, and games which tell stories that complex and intricate, newer still. Films have had well over a century to perfect the medium, TV shows just under a century, and books have been around for, uh, awhile now, haha. Video games telling rich stories, in comparison, is still a relatively new frontier, and a task which I would argue is much more complex to successfully accomplish than something like a 2 hour long movie, with a fixed story allowing no interaction from the viewer. People are still to this day trying to work out what the best way to tell a complex story in a video game even is, whilst still having good gameplay as well. The storytelling is just one cog in a far greater machine for most video games. So, given that, I'm actually more inclined to give stories in video games a bit more leeway than normal due to how much taller of a task it is to tell a compelling story within a video game compared to pretty much any other medium, and how much newer the concept of telling a complex story within a video game is. It's not that the standards for video game stories are low, it's just that it genuinely is far more difficult to pull off than with other mediums if story is a focus of the game, and it's an art that's still being figured out and experimented with. And then... I mean, I don't really think what you said is a great litmus test. Like, random example off the top of my head, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Does it have the most compelling, complex, unique story I've ever seen? No. Not by a long shot. In fact, you could argue a lot about it is VERY derivative. And, speaking to your point, I could name hundreds of other stories that I find more compelling than the story of Raiders of the Lost Ark. But is it still a damn amazing movie that I love, along with just about everyone else who's ever seen it? Yes. Just because something isn't in your top 10 (or 100) stories you've EVER experienced doesn't mean it's not good. There's a LOT of good stories out there, so much so that if you've consumed a good amount of entertainment throughout your life, your top 100 stories you've ever seen are probably ALL pretty goddamn incredible stories. Something not falling within that range really isn't as scathing as you seem to think, at least not to me it isn't, just due to the sheer quantity of good stories that exist. Plus, (as has been proven with the very good HBO show) The Last of Us, while it's story is amazing, it's a story that could easily be told in any other medium, and it would work. Some of the best video game stories, IMO, are stories that simply WOULD NOT work if told in any other medium, or at least would not work nearly as well as within a video game. But, obviously, that's all just my personal perspective on all this, as someone who isn't generally super critical of the objective quality of entertainment unless it really is quite bad. Plenty of people don't even like ANY story in video games, so this whole topic is very very subjective anyway. Like I said, just my own anecdotal perspective.

Yeah, over time I've come to accept that I'm one of the only people on the planet who enjoyed almost the entire series, and whose favorite film in the series ISN'T the first one. ...Which is weird seeing as how they all made like a billion dollars, you'd think someone would've actually liked the dam movies to keep seeing them again and again, haha.

Plus, Hans Zimmer. Always makes any movie better. Easily up there with the likes of John Williams as one of the best film composers of all time IMO.

Yeah, that's the draw of the whole series is the charm, witty dialogue, and good characters. IMO the whole series has that in spades, it's not like it's exclusive to the first one. It's just that as they go on, the action set pieces also get bigger, and the plot gets more complex. Well-written dialogue and action aren't mutually exclusive. Davy Jones is an amazingly written antagonist and an amazing character, and the 2nd film in general has a pretty intricate web of competing motivations for all of the main characters, which is a large part of why it's my personal favorite of the series. Every character feels like they're there for a reason, have their own individual goals they're trying to accomplish, and those goals directly clash with another character's goals, which makes it almost feel like it's every man for themselves. Very fitting for a pirate-themed movie now that I think about it, actually. And (at least to me) it doesn't feel contrived in any way, everyone's motivations make perfect sense, which makes it very engaging to me. And... the thing with Jack is that he has this facade of a bumbling idiot, when in actuality he's constantly scheming and planning under the surface, that facade he puts up is just to distract people from that fact. A common complaint I hear with the sequels is that people feel as though as the series progresses, he feels more and more like he actually is just a bumbling, lucky idiot and he looses the scheming side of him, but I've always disagreed with that. I think the facade he puts on just gets gradually more and more convincing, and the scheming side gets more and more subtle. It's honestly pretty obvious and not all that secret that he's a conniving little shithead in the first one, whereas he's not quite as overt about it in the future movies. That's actually why Jack in the 4th film is probably my favorite version of him. He comes across as a complete imbecile at first glance, but that movie almost more than any of the others, he's constantly outsmarting and outscheming everyone. Similar to how he is in the 1st film, but a bit more subtle about it which I personally prefer. Anyway, yeah it's probably pretty obvious that I love this series (other than the 5th.) I'd personally put it up there with the likes of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings, etc in terms of some of the best film series IMO.

Yeah, that's what most people think, but I've always disagreed. I actually prefer the 2nd and 4th films over the 1st, which THAT I know is an insanely controversial opinion. 5th one kinda blows though, that's the only one of the whole series I'm not a big fan of. At least it has a good villain.

They definitely have. Depending on how much focus the developers and writers want to place on the story, video game stories can be more in depth and lengthy than entire TV shows or novels these days, let alone individual movies.

Good question. The Last of Us is an easy mention. Detroit: Become Human I also enjoyed a lot, though people's opinions on David Cage games can vary somewhat. I personally like them for the most part. Plus, in regards to Detroit, it was nice to finally have a protagonist with the same name as me, haha. I also personally really enjoyed the storyline in the newer DOOM games, even though that's not the focus. Always enjoyed reading through all the codex entries in DOOM Eternal and whatnot. Other than that, let's see... The Binding of Isaac has an interesting, albeit very sad story. GTA IV and V both have excellent, very engaging stories IMO, but especially V. Skyrim's story I also always enjoyed, though I haven't played it in a long while. One of my favorite games, Payday 2, has a fucking batshit insane story which is entertaining in its own way, haha. Firewatch is another great one, albeit a bit short. Portal 2 is also pretty great. Undertale and Deltarune, both excellent IMO. The Half-Life series always had great stories, especially Half-Life 2 and it's episodes. Shadow of the Colossus is fairly light on story, but what is there is great. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag I always thought had a surprisingly engaging story for an AC game. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is another really good one actually, if you're looking for more of an immersive, individual character study. I personally enjoyed the story of Owlboy quite a bit, though that may be in part due to the fact that I could strongly relate to the main character. Subnautica's story and worldbuilding I always found very interesting, both the original and Below Zero. Stardew Valley actually has a pretty good story, in regards to having a lot of very well fleshed out characters you can interact with at will and at your own pace. I could probably think of some more, but those are all the ones that come to mind for me personally. Little something for everyone in that list I think, all different genres and differing amounts of focus being placed on the story, some being explicitly story-driven and some barely having any story at all, though the little that is there is good. I know there's some like Red Dead Redemption or some of the Telltale games which I've heard have excellent stories, but don't spring to mind for me since I haven't personally played them.