Can we stop pretending that story/narrative/sub-plots/characters are worthless and that gameplay alone can make a game great?
>Deus Ex
>Baldur's Gate 2
>Grim Fandango
>Final Fantasy 7
>Nier/Nier Automata
etc.
The greatest games have always combined narrative with gameplay, whether it's in the form of interesting characters, sub-quests or a fun main quest.
>FF7
>Baldur's Gate
Yeah, maybe if you had actually good taste I would have agreed.
BG2 is the finest Western RPG ever made.
FF7 is good because of its gameplay though. Materia system is great and the battle speed settings make it playable today.
If it had slow battles and some Trance like garbage then it would be as unplayable as FF9 is.
Are you implying that BG2 is a bad game? Please tell me you're favorite games so I can laugh at you.
Wrong,a videogame needs outstanding gameplay and music to be a great VIDEOGAME.
Can't change my mind, nice try. Enjoy being opinon.
Story & characters are important in a game, but it isn't worth as much if the actual gameplay is bad. That said, they can collaborate to make a good game better.
>stealth thread
>others are still talking about vidya
hmmmm
This. Post more pics OP.
>Final Fantasy 7
>Nier/Nier Automata
LOL
World design is EXTREMELY important to great games, however. Story and setting tie into all of that. So I agree overall.
I am right. The greatest games ever all have substantial narratives in some form or another. Deus Ex would be nothing without its focus on conspiracies. Morrowind would be nothing without its world-building. Likewise for BG2, plus its character arcs. FF7 would be nothing without its epic, over-arching plot.
Games are great because they allow us to visit fictional worlds that feel lived in. If I wanted "gameplay" alone I'd just play more squash.
Neckbeards once again thoroughly BTFO'd!
If you play video games for the story, kill yourself.
A game with bad gameplay is a bad game, no exceptions. If the one fucking thing that makes games games in the first place is done badly, it is by definition a bad game.
Man it would be horrible if someone told us who this one and didn't talk about vidya
OP has a point, however I think the distinction is that tons of cutscenes do not make a story great, it comes from atmosphere + worldbuilding + characters + the player choosing to explore the world and narrative rather than forcing all of it on them at once
He isn't arguing that though. He's saying that it isn't solely gameplay that makes a game good.
Yeah although I think the hate for Last of us is too much, it does have a point. You'd get the same experience watching a playthrough as you would playing the game.
Grim Fandango has objectively bad gameplay. Same with TLJ.
Understand that interactivity itself helps bind you to a world and create an emotional bond in a way other non-interactive media does not. This is why objectively mediocre video game stories seem more engaging, because you're experiencing them in a definably direct way.
Gameplay takes precedence over story in video games. No exceptions.
"Walking sims", a la Firewatch, are NOT video games, they are interactive experiences.
Shit world design makes a game bad though. If the game's character and environment designs are ugly, the enemy designs boring and indistinguishable, or the main character is a faggot, or the other characters you deal with are faggots, or what you're doing in context of the setting and premise is just boring and stupid, that all hurts the game and can sometimes completely ruin a game.
I think the best way to do it, bar none, is make story/lore optional and keep exposition cutscenes to a minimum. If people just care about the gameplay, they shouldn't have to sit through stuff that bores them
No.
No.
A thousand times no, you relentless faggot.
I'm tired of pressing X to continue a fucking movie. I want to actually play video games.
Do me a personal favor and just cut off your fucking hands.
But none of OP's games do that.
There are innumerable gameplay-driven games out there.
Why do you care if a sub-section of the market caters to people who don't actually want to spend a thousand hours reaching the requisite learning curve?
Environmental story-telling >>>>>>>>>>>>>> cutscenes out the ass
In general:Gameplay>Music>The rest
Of course it depends on the genre of the game,i'm not gonna judge a VN harshly if the gameplay is not good.
Narrative in video games is overrated and forgetteable. I watched The Shining once ten years ago and can still tell you the main story points. I played GTA IV for god knows how many hours and I can tell you nothing apart from beginning and end.
But we must arbitrarily limit all games to focus on mechanics, because that's what it says in the dictionary
It depends on the type of game. Some people really love cutscenes, some people absolutely abhor them and prefer to never ever have control taken from them.
You can't please everyone so the best option is to just do what you think is better.
user OP's not talking about a black and white world like you are. He's saying the mix of gameplay and story is the best.
To be fucking fair he's correct, way too many "muh gameplay" faggots lately who want to turn every single series into a carbon coby third person shooter or a carbon coby third person action.
Gameplay is pretty subjective in this. I consider both BG2 and Deus Ex to have great gameplay while also having great narratives. Hence why they're so replayeable. I don't know about FF7 and GF though, would be a drag to play through them again.
oh hey, isnt this the bitch who used to draw homestuck shit
>and music
There sure are a lot of people obsessed with videogame music. When did music ever become as important as gameplay and more important than story and characters?
I'm curious because I rarely ever notice background music while playing a game.
DEADLY PREMONITION
I like the way Thief 1&2 does story, you get a short little cutscene giving context for the mission, and the rest is up for you to discover as you skulk around the city
This is coming from someone who has the same preference for that kind of structure.
Fuck that. I think devs should develop their game the way they think is best for them. Not every game has to be Dark Souls. If you think a game sucks because of how it's structured, don't fucking play it.
I'm never playing a Gear of War or a fucking Neptune game. Doesn't mean they should stop making those.
GTA games have bad stories and bad world-building. The problem with them is that they're so completely steeped in satire and parody that it's very difficult to actually tell a meaningful story or create interesting characters in a world that feels so much like a giant joke at the real one's expense.
>I watched The Shining once ten years ago and can still tell you the main story points. I played GTA IV for god knows how many hours and I can tell you nothing apart from beginning and end.
This is what passes for an argument on Sup Forums I guess
Fallout 1 and 2
>as unplayable as FF9
Wew. Lad.
He's implying that the gameplay is good enough to keep him going, but narrative isn't. Which doesn't apply to every single game, such as BG2 and VTM
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
Thief's concept art is beautiful so that always helped. Fucking incredibly sound design too.
Yeah.
Since videogames began to have music,you must be a PC pleb.
Then don't call them games you fucktard.
Most of the most fun games rely on their stories or set design though.
Secret of Monkey Island
Metal Gear Solid
Halo
Shenmue
Deadly Premonition
Resident Evil
Red Dead Redemption
Shadow of the Colossus
Deus Ex
Planescape: Torment
Jet Set Radio
etc.
Even the Souls games would be far lesser experiences if you stripped them of their environmental / design storytelling aspects.
easy dude, just saying that that's the kinda storytelling I prefer
personally, I really liked how Bastion had a narrator spinning a long-winded tale as you smash up creatures and mosters with a hammer
I honestly couldn't tell you a single game where I still remember the story of years later and I played a lot of critically acclaimed games over the years. GTA IV was just an example, I could list any game here and people would sperg out.
I'm amazed these games get more attention than other old WRPGs like BG, Icewind Dale etc. Especially BG2.
BG2 is a vastly superior game to any Fallout game.
Fuck off
If you want a good story go read a book
I LOVE ASIAN GIRLS
What matters it the overall experience that you take away from the game while playing it. Every part of the game (graphics, sound, narrative, gameplay) contributes to this experience. So yeah, pretending that gameplay alone matters is stupid
I'm sorry, but being interrupted every 10 minutes to go through a 5 minute cutscene is where things start getting on my nerves.
Or when non-games are praised as some great fucking thing.
See, products are slippery slopes and soon enough that sort of cancer gets spread everywhere by companies looking for better sales.
Thats why all your fucking horror games these days are jump-scare walking simulators tailor made to give streamers something to react to so the game gets promoted to their mouthbreathing audiences.
Sorry, man. Just sick of this "stop making what I don't like" mentality Sup Forums has. I don't if I became an angrier person or if this place has become more juvenile, but I seem to get annoyed more often when reading this board.
>sound design
I agree, and by listening to guards you can get clued in to later events, in thief 1 you hear a guard lamenting that bears in the pits aren't at all like when he was young, which foreshadows the events with the Pagans
Asians women are for white beta losers, I've never seen one attractive white man asian woman couple in my whole life.
Someone sounds....upset?
I read plenty of books.
Recently finished re-reading The Once and Future King and I, Claudius.
Working my way through Assassin's Apprentice series at the moment. Surprisingly well written for genre fiction. Any other anons read it?
She's qt right? She's similar to this super cute Australian-Chinese girl I met through Sup Forums.
She also tends to date white guys apparently, so if you're white and a fag who likes Homestuck, you may be in with a shot.
Games are the only medium in which I can experience guilt for making a decision.
inb4 CYOA
Again none of OP's games have cutscenes that frequentely. In fact most of them have no cutscenes
Please don't make random assumptions that don't make any sense. I'm a strictly console player because every game I've tried on PC has broken, glitched, or become unplayable somehow so I just don't bother with the headache.
I'm not saying music is worthless, just that I feel it's importance is greatly exaggerated.
It's amazing how a line of good dialogue can make you feel some empathy with a completely random NPC.
More difficult to do in open world games though admittedly. I personally loved the sound of the footsteps and metal clanging on metal in Thief/Thief 2.
t. Angry Asian male.
I want to eat her pork dumplings if you know what I mean.
So you'd rather if every game just had an endless arena style mode instead of a campaign?
Sounds like pure autism. If that's all games were I'd instantly drop playing games forever.
Have fun with Elliot Rodger 2.0
I'd actually be really interested to know if Emi can cook, on that note.
Oh..and lo and behold, with the exception of Nier Automata they're all games that are a decade or more old, aren't they?
But, wait a second...what's the meat behind your argument here? That only THOSE games are to be discussed? the one the OP pointed out and not the concept itself?
Is this what autism does? Must everything be so super specific and precise that you can't discuss concepts but only things as they're listed out?
Let me guess, you're a white nationalist Trump-supporting fascist and you like Asian women because they're "more submissive" and not "corrupted" by feminism like yucky white girls?
Haha tiny pee pee Asian boi detected. Your women want the superior white sausage.
I'm a white German
The best woman for the white man is a white Latina
There are no nice looking asian women, even if they have a nice face they look like cardbox cutouts with no ass and tits lol
Its not,the genres with the best gameplay tend to have great music too (shmups,action games)
Your kids will look Asian and they're twice as likely to be mentally ill!
Those tattoos are so bad but would love to toss her rice balls.
Did you start playing vidya 2 years ago or what lol
FF9 is garbage m8, not his fault you have shit taste.
Nah, white women are super cute too. Most of my exs have been white. Triggering hypocritical Asian American men is just fun.
See above.
Have you even looked at the pictures in this thread?
Mate I'm not going to marry them. They are my side bitches.
His point was that narrative focused games won't necessarily interrupt you with cutscenes
It's possible to have an incredibly fun but lore-wise shallow game and vice versa. The two rarely compliment each other completely or the gameplay /lore niche is very specific.
>Love the world, hate the game
Drakengard
>Love the game, but the story as we're told it is very shallow unless looking at extended universe or reading data logs etc.
Halo
>example of both
Deus Ex
It just depends on the company's vision of wanting to make a fun game or wanting to tell a story.
What does that even mean? That music causes gameplay to be good?
Oi you cunts stop arguing about women and post games with good stories & worldbuilding
Yeah, she's fuckable in a way few asian girls are. Raw sex appeal rather than just looking cute. I think it's the big tits.
Pic related is a more "cute" asian girl. Objectively attractive but doesn't do a whole lot for me.
>Can we stop pretending that gameplay alone can make a game great
No it means that videogames are all about gameplay and music,only a retard or a movie addict would deny this.
Asians are the best non-white race (not just in terms of their women) but hapas are the second worst progeny of racemixing. Don't breed with non-whites, kids.
t. Nazi
Anyway, is this thread still about videogames? I liked Fire Emblem 8's story more than 7's, which kind of made up for its easier gameplay.
>those fucking eyes
You sure that ain't a xeno?
>Halo
Halo's story, for a pure FPS, is fucking excellent. There's not a single pure FPS out there, perhaps with the exception of Marathon (another Bungie game) that tells such a complete, cohesive, satisfying story.
Or maybe I'm just being fooled by Marty's godly music.
>No it means that videogames are all about gameplay and music
I have to go now. I can't keep up.
Asian women are just so unattractive in general. They look like aliens. Faces so round the moon gets jealous and no tits and no big ass. Just boring all round.
While this is true, the story is rather simple and simply going through the levels you wouldn't catch too much of it other than being a world war II movie in space. The writing isn't "deep" or "intricate" or even trying to give any message, it's just cool dudes with guns fighting in space.
I fucking love Halo 1-3. Halo 3 being my favorite game of all time, but the stories aren't excellent at all. They're serviceable, it's more or less the excellent WORLD BUILDING that bungie does. Atmosphere and level variety that makes the games so fantastic. Halo Reach on the other hand is a great story shooter.
Fair enough. I'm Sup Forums as heck and generally prefer white women, but even I can acknowledge there are cute women of all races.
To keep it vidya-related, this is a German LPer who I think is hot.
Did everyone prefer TIE Fighter to X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter? Because I preferred the latter to be honest.
this is correct, vidya stories don't need to be "deep" or particularly complex to be good for the purposes of playing the game
good worldbuilding and atmosphere are key
Asian women are mentally ill self-hating race traitors that are DESPERATE to hop on ANY white dick they can find, to breed what they see as inferior Asian genes out of their bloodline. They will take ANY white man, even neo nazi ethnic cleansing actual racists, because they believe whiteness is SO superior. Meanwhile, the white man takes Asian women because they're an easy lay. These relationships aren't born out of love, but of self hatred and desperation. That's why hapa kids are statistically TWICE AS LIKELY to be mentally ill fuck ups - what do you think's going to happen when your parents who both hate Asians find out that the kids they just spent years raising turn out to look 100% Asian? They've been raised in a household that hates Asianness their entire lives, while looking totally Asian! Sounds like that might be enough to push a man over the edge, you know? That doesn't sound at all like a tolerable lifestyle. I think hapas might just start gunning down WMAF couples in the street, they can't take it anymore! Pretty dangerous!
Mario kart 8
/thread
FF9 is the blandest shittiest 3D FF that Square(soft) made. It was made along-side FF8 and both games visibly suffered. Even the sidequests are shit
>Examine this RANDOM part of the overworld for a prize!
>Chocobo Hot and Cold
>Speedrunning the game to get an okay weapon 20 mins before the game ends
>Astrology collectables
Wow. Gotta love it. Just remembered: The music is amazing but everything else is meh.
Yellow fever fetishists: fill in this card please
I follow what you're saying and agree for the most part.
I do think ODST was surprisingly atmospheric though.
I've heard a couple of the Halo novels are actually decent military sci-fi fiction too?
KotoR 2 is a strange case, because I really dislike the janky gameplay and the story is incomplete and a fair chunk of it is boring standard RPG fare. However, influencing the characters towards light or dark and acting as Kreia's student was an enjoyable experience and I'm glad I played it at least once