Well-written games

What are some games from 2016-2017 with the best writing?
I'm tired of playing games with shit stories and terrible dialogue. I'm also tired of playing walking simulators with good stories. Any recent video games that actually take the writing seriously?

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>is 16 years old

Great thread

Overall I found the writing in Witcher 3 and especially Heart of Stone to be pretty good but if you're not into fantasy stuff it might not do it for you.

I simply cannot bear my way through the beginning. I don't find the artstyle appealing so I'm not that impressed by the first area, and in trying to plow through the story I just got bored by the quests.
Definitely an example of what I was asking for, though. Everything I encountered in the game was well written.

a book

>Any recent video games that actually take the writing seriously?

Metro. Despite being pretty different from the books, the games nail the tone and themes perfectly and Artyom's monologues and diary entries are pretty thoughtful if only occasionally becoming a little heavy handed and pretentious. General dialogue ranges from "pretty good worldbuliding" to "words the horrifying plastic creature spews". The story is also pretty good and well paced, only broken up by a few segments that feel like a forced addition because it's a video game and we need to have this in here because VIDEO GAMES.

Fair enough.
i could give you stories that I liked in recent games but the writing itself is rarely that noteworthy. For example I thought TLG told a really simple, emotional and engaging story, but there's next to no writing in it.

Maybe some of the recent CRPGs? I heard good things about one of the Shadowrun games.

>it's a video game and we need to have this in here because VIDEO GAMES.
I really hate this. I understand the reasoning behind it but why does every video game have to follow video game conventions? If there's a legitimate reason for a section to be a cutscene and non-interactable it could potentially improve the experience, and obviously vice versa.

Also I know the first Metro is good in the writing department but is Last Light any good?

Not the guy you're replying to and I haven't played TLG but I find it hard to believe a story has "next to no writing in it", even if it's incredibly simple from the audience's perspective

>shit stories and terrible dialogue
>life is strange
Yep.

Not Pillars of Eternity, that's for certain.

...

I'm playing through Last Light now and the story isn't as good, but it's still really good. Only a little worse than the first and still in my top ten. It starts off a little too quick with Khan walking in and dickslapping you awake to tell you essentially that "HEY, BRO, THIS GAME IS ABOUT REDEEMING YOURSELF.", but beyond that it's a pretty worthy successor and nails the tone and themes of the books. There haven't been any moments where I've gone "VIDEO GAMES" either, so it's a plus in that regard. The monologues at the beginning of each mission and the diary entries are still great, and this one adds some pretty well acted and written supporting characters and a fantastic secondary antagonist...while then adding a Disney villain as the primary antagonist.

Hey thanks, I was actually considering buying that for a good story.

It's greatest crime is being mediocre and tonally inconsistent, especially in regards to these little glimpses you'll have into character backstories. It's serviceable, but the whole package just isn't worth it when you add some bad overworld design, stupid balancing, and formulaic gameplay.

Night in the Woods.

>while then adding a Disney villain as the primary antagonist.
Good antagonists are rare, especially in vidya. Good writing is even rarer really which makes it a real shame Last Light fucked up on that front.

I find Jap games tend to get characters right very often, but they get characterization right only conceptually because in execution it seems they eschew subtlety for...well, nothing, honestly. It's like the East has a vendetta against not being incredibly blunt about things. Tales of the Abyss is actually an example of a very well-written JRPG that doesn't fall prey to the subtlety issue I mentioned; it may not seem like it at first glance but each character's motivations and actions make sense given their characterization. It also gets quite dark and emotional in its third act and while some concepts it tries to play around with aren't executed quite as well as they could be, the way it twists the all-too-familiar "chosen one spoken of in prophecy" is very interesting.

Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice. You have to play every other game in the series first though.

TACOS
I'M TRASH

I'm in the middle of the third case right now. The first case was alright and the second case was great but this one is very predictable and Nick is kind of acting like too much of an idiot rookie for someone who's gone through what he has. Does the remaining half of the game make up for it?

If you think either of the Life is Strange games had good writing you need to neck yourself, and never comment on the writing in anything ever again.

The PSP remake of Tactics Ogre has good writing imo

>I am fucking retarded oh god hurfff durrff please rape my face oh god im so stupid

Pillars of Eternity has great writing, compared to Life is Strange its a fucking masterpiece.

Pleb who probably had to turn the game down to easy because he was too retarded for oldschool isometric tactics.

All the Ogre Battle games have good writing
The PSP remake just cleans up the Engrish of the PSX version (the only English version of the original)

The original SNES Ogre Battle game just doesn't have a lot of writing in general

Ogre Battle 64 has a generous amount of text, though. Just not as much as LUCT. LUCT reigns king for story.

The other ones have better gameplay, though

BtS is pretty good, stop following the majority without thinking or trying it out by yourself.

Perfect example of the kind of person who thought Life is Strange had good writing. Thanks for proving my point.

No. It really isn't.

Anyone who thinks the Life is Strange games had good writing: what's your favourite book/movie? Could be good for some laughs.

What do you predict will happen then? The fourth case is the worst in the game asides from the first. The last case, as is usual in Ace Attorney games, is the best.

>What are some games from 2016-2017 with the best writing?
I honestly can't think of a damn thing. I'm not even trying to contrarian. I honestly haven't played a game with a truly great story since the Legacy of Kain series.

you... you are baiting, right? you aren't really this stupid.
are you?

It's consistently cringy. I can't see anyone with an adult mindset actually finding merit in it.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

There's a good video game for you called "Read a Book Nigger"

You're basically walking into a McDonald's establishment and asking for the best 5-star chef prepared gourmet burger. It's not even available at that location and you are a stupid lobotomized faggot for even looking there. Go to a real restaurant if you want gourmet food.

Again, all i'm saying it improved, and looks like you actually didn't play the game, bet you watched adumplaze i-hate-everything-tier and you made up an "opinion".

Bloodborne.

"The Choir stumbled upon an epiphany, very suddenly and quite by accident. Here we stand, feet planted in the earth, but might the cosmos be very near us, only just above our heads?"

>and looks like you actually didn't play the game
Why? Because he doesn't agree with you?

The Ogre Battle games definitely have pretty great writing, especially for Japanese developers.

Best written recent games (though some have shit gameplay, and lots of other problems):
Pillars of Eternity
Dishonored 2
Torment: Numenara
Tyranny
Prey
The Witcher 3
Pyre

This has always been such a retarded argument and it genuinely amazes me people still make it

If you have played a story driven video game and actually read books instead of pretending to, you would know that they are completely different and a book wouldn't be a substitute at all because it's a completely different thing

No one plays a story driven video game expecting a book style narrative, I cannot understand what made you think anyone does.

Seriously though, the dude is a fucking genius.

>Bloodborne
>well written

I think Dead Rising has more appropriate video game writing and voice acting work than most video games.

youtube.com/watch?v=q6CGL7TqDMg

>Neil DeGrasse Tyson is the shit

Dr. Phil is to medicine as Neil deGrasse Tyson is to astronomy.

I'm not even meming you. Writing in video games have been so terrible.

I just played the Longshot mode for Madden 18, and I think the writing in that mode surpasses so many other games I've played this year like Torment: Numenara, Tyranny, PoE, and Andromeda. Imagine that, a fucking American Football game with a story mode.

When comparing to Life is Strange even Fallout 3 is a fucking masterpiece plot-wise.

Then you're an ultra-pleb.

>plays madden

Have you ever read a book outside of a class assignment in your life? Makes me sad that retards like you played Torment/Tyranny/PoE, pearls before swine.

You probably played like an hour of each of them.

Skyrim SE for Nintendo Switch. when will you be getting your copy, OP?

>thinking tyranny/torment/poe has good writing

I'm convinced you don't read books, period.

Real talk
What is with Sup Forums and food?

I read A Tale of Two Cities about a decade ago, and reread it in the previous months. Is there any game that comes close in terms of prose?

Does he get a royalty for being mentioned in a shitty VN?

That game isn't well written though, it's mediocre at best but compared to other video games the writing is a higher quality than usual.

T/T/POE are pretty abysmal. Read more books and not just sanderson trash.

Sup Forums and book talk is always so funny.

Sup Forums and game talk is even worse.

what triggered you this time babe

Grim Fandango
Syberia
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

Lol

I feel that I have to defend Sanderson, he writes garbage, but the very best garbage.

Syberia is so strange. Especially the recent one. It's actually unsettling.

How in the fuck can anyone defend Life is Strange's writing? Maybe if you get off to pretending to be a bitchy teen girl you can enjoy the game, but I couldn't stomach 15 minutes of what I saw of some random let's player playing it.

I think this may be bait guys watch out

I read more books before I was 20 than both of you have in your entire life, and I've never read Sanderson.

My favourite book is Blood Meridian, pleb cunts.

What went so wrong in this goddamn board

Oops, I'm retarded.

>2016-2017

Don't know, my picks for GOTY (Yakuza 0, Person 5, NieR Automata) aren't as well-written as a classic adventure game. I find NieR to be the most unique, but in my opinion Yakuza's soap opera works better and the humor is actually funny too.

The third one is baffling. It shouldn't exist.

Is this an actual quote from the game? Kek

Being in the starter place in s3 is the shit nightmares are made of. Horror games wish they were this creepy.
And yet I want more.

bait

just play secret world

Every single one who hate the game here either watched half a shitty let's play or didn't play it at all.

Interesting.

what game

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Me on the left.

Are you suggesting LiS has a good story. If that's the case then you can probably play anything at all with a story and you'll be entertained because you obviously have no standards.

all of Sup Forums on the left

I like to play alot of different games including LiS, where's the problem here

I played it up until episode 4 and I despised it. What I find interesting is that every fan of the game just accuses anyone criticizing it of having not played it, or says they played it knowing they wouldn't like it or whatever other non-argument they can pull out of their ass. I've been shittalking this game since the day it came out and I've seen maybe 3 people put an honest effort into defending it.

You can like it, it's still horribly written, and as far as I'm concerned, a disgustingly bad game. There are reasons why I can see someone liking it, but if you thought the story and writing was genuinely good then I have to assume you have no standards at all.

>I played it up until episode 4 and I despised it.
>I've been shittalking this game since the day it came out
hmmmmmmmm

>pic not related

It's called shit, asshole

Yeah, i shit talked the first episode, but still gave the second one a go because I thought it was a good concept and that it might improve, then that was awful too but it had a good cliffhanger so I gave the third episode a go and that was awful too and I don't know why I even bothered with the fourth episode, but thankfully I came to my senses when I finished it and didn't bother with the fifth.

make him your president if you love him so much why don't you

>There's a good video game for you called "Read a Book Nigger"

I can't find it...

store.steampowered.com/search/?term=Read+a+Book+Nigger

You're a real comedian, man, I'm having a hearty laugh at that side-splitter of a joke you just threw my way even as I type this.

He's not making the argument that they are the same thing retard. He's saying despite being different things, if you want a quality story go to the other one even if it's not a game like you want. Otherwise quit looking for quality writing in a game because you're not going to find it. He's saying you're shit out of luck and looking for something that doesn't exist.

Undertale
Fuck you I thought it was cute.

Seriously though, is it not on Steam? Please don't tell me it's only on consoles... I'm not going to buy a PS4 just to play a game about reading books. I'd rather just read a real book. I'm surprised you didn't suggest that, by the way. Actual books are pretty fun sometimes.

Undertale is alright, the story is not bad. I find the character writing horrendous, though.

There you go again, what a guy, my days.

What year is this?

Don't know about games from 2016-2017, but you got this old gem, with a great mature story.

Not a single one of those things you said is a refutation of my points. You just got offended by what I said and tried to attack my skill at the genera as a whole.

I didn't say it was too easy or too hard either. I only mentioned balance issues. The game was balanced as if it was made for multiplayer, and as a result combat was perpetually stuck just below where you would get a good challenge and was almost always boring as a result. And at no point did the game try to excel beyond what came before it, it wallowed in it's own stagnation.

>non-argument
Of course, you're on Sup Forums
If you want to have a real argument about this game, i suggest /lisg/ but try to build a real discussion not a one liner 'hella wowser SJW dumblr' one.

The story in Undertale doesn't really carry much weight unless you get attached to the characters, it's just a mediocre time with some cool ideas in that case, which was my experience with it unfortunately. Still both it and LiS are both games that rely on you caring about central characters to get the most out of it but at least Undertale has some things to offer if you don't get attached to the characters and it does a much better job of making the characters endearing as well. Now I'm just going out of my way to complain about LiS though.

BG was a very good game.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

Did you enjoy the third season, user?

I'm not going to go to a place filled with fans of the game, not only because I feel like I'd just be shitting the place up if I went there just to complain, but also because I should just let go of how much I hated it. I've gone on rants that covered seven posts dissecting every awful little thing about this game and I still just got the same old shit said to me as if I had just said "hella wowser SJW dumblr." I should just move on. Though I will say that while non-arguments are common on Sup Forums, I've never seen as many and so many annoying ones as I have with fans of LiS, so they really drew my attention.

I've been to plenty of /vg/s to discuss the game in a negative manner and they've been fine with it.
Just don't sperg out and start attacking everyone and everything, you should be good to go.

>Sup Forums told me it's bad because it's bad!
But Sup Forums thinks the writing is bad because it's not about killing monsters or some shit, therefore, not a game, therefore, it's liberal propaganda, therefore, it's shit.
The quality of the writing has nothing to do with the writer's politics, real or imagined.
>inb4 yes it does