Console Games with good/bad Storylines

[Crow]

Good:

-Final Fanatasy Tactics. Many others have already explained this one, and I tend to agree with them on most points.

-Too Human. A lot of people had some trouble following this story, because it fell too much on the player to search out bits of it themselves. Plus it could be difficult to follow as it had some little nuances that were never explicitly spelled out for the player, or were left open to interpritation. Still a very solid creative spin on the eddas. I liked it anyways.

Bad:

-Any Grand Theft Auto game. Horribly cliche, nothing surprising, and not even in a good way. Maybe that type of plot paired up with the unoriginal characters is part of the "charm" of the series? I guess not for me. Why even bother?

-Final Fantasy 8. I just couldn't get into it, and it seemed like a contrived attempt to live up to FF7, which failed.

-Final Fantasy X2. They just couldn't leave well enough alone.

[Setra]

-Final Fantasy 8. I just couldn't get into it, and it seemed like a contrived attempt to live up to FF7, which failed.

I am actually curious about this.. the stories are pretty different... I could see if you meant Squall being an attempt to be similar to Cloud... but...

[Crow]

I am actually curious about this.. the stories are pretty different... I could see if you meant Squall being an attempt to be similar to Cloud... but...

It was more the attempt to live up to, or surpass the previous story in scope, scale, and impact. It just felt so forced. The main characters were horribly annoying too. Though I did chuckle at how much squall's "dress uniform" near the beginning of the game looked like a Michael Jackson special.

[Setra]

It was more the attempt to live up to, or surpass the previous story in scope, scale, and impact. It just felt so forced. The main characters were horribly annoying too. Though I did chuckle at how much squall's "dress uniform" near the beginning of the game looked like a Michael Jackson special.

Isn't that how every Final Fantasy up til.. 9 worked?

Two tried to live up to the first, three tried to live up to two, and so on..

Sure 8 may not have lived up to 7, but even though Crono Cross didn't live up to Crono Trigger doesn't mean it's horrible. It's actually amusing to see people who played 8 first play 7, I have a few friends in which this was the case.. they liked 8 better, so sometimes I wonder if it isn't just that people tend to like the first one they played better.. (It's true in my case as well, my favorite is 6)

Of course, if you dislike the characters then of course you'll hate the story. To me the characters are more important than the story anyways.

I actually liked them though.. so maybe I'm biased towards the story because of that? Who knows.

If I sound like I'm rambling or don't know what I'm talking about, or like I'm high... it's probably because I'm going to bed soon.

[Catch]

@ Catch: Halo only is bad because the crowd its popular around and its ex-stepfather Microsoft. I personally love the setting feel of it - hell, as much as the shooter bit is, it's almost a guilty pleasure for me compared to the story and the like. Although the game really should have been about Sergeant Johnson rather then the one dimensional boring cardboard Master Chief. Ugh. Anyway, Bungie is a great developer - the Myth series is a testament to that.

We've argued about this before, but Halo's flaws don't originate from the people who play it or the company that bankrolled the project--you can only blame them for the product's image, not its writing.

Bad: Starcraft's is the only game's story that just turns me off. There was no suspension of disbelief, and while the setting was novel, it was archetypical and made of cliches, almost intentionally so. Campy, I guess.

Halo: Compelling and rich in character. Starcraft: Trite and overdone.

From... a certain point of view, maybe.

In the original game, the Terran plotline is really the only one that's fun, novel, and interesting. The Protoss, are well...too alien, and the Zerg, well, enough said other then Kerrigan. The expansion - again, Kerrigan, and the UDF were a nice twist. But overall, it really just seemed like they were mostly excuses to give you the basic strategy objectives, almost like it didn't really take itself seriously.

Aliens are too alien? I dunno, the Protoss are pretty human-like, if you think about it. Self-centered, dogmatically pious, warlike, bogged down by internal politics, interfering with the natural order of things...

Every side and organization is vague and undeveloped, especially the Xel'Naga that just loved to wander around creating perfect races for no reason, probably that way it could be dramatically revealed in later installments.

There's more history and lore to the setting than could be reasonably packaged into the game's script (just like Halo) without plot-exposition-diarrhea, which the series skirted on more than one occasion. The explanations are there, if you're willing to look into it, but for the actual progression of the story, you get what you need.

And then, to make matters worse, because this is Starcraft 64, the extra "exclusive content" generally had mind-boggling HORRID plots (Resurrection! Dear god, why?) that seemed to take the dubious canon, bend it over across its knee and have its disturbing way with it.

Starcraft 64? Come on, that's like me bringing up Xbox Live or Halo Clix. Low blow, man.

[Terraoblivion]

That's funny, Zevox. I'd probably consider Mitsuru the least mature member of the cast. Her facade is strong and level-headed and in control, but as the game progresses you see that she ultimately doesn't understand how to deal with others on a personal level. She has never had the chance to truly grow up emotionally and it shows. Mitsuru collapses completely whenever the rules and systems she has set up for herself breaks down and immediately turns to others to tell her what to feel.

And Akihiko is just a dork without social skills and a huge competitive streakt which makes him awesome. He is genuinely fun for that reason.

[ZeroNumerous]

Although I'll inevitably burn you at the stake for dissing Bioshock's story, I have to ask: Diablo's on a console?

Yup. PS1 release of D1.

[warty goblin]

I confess to being a fan of Far Cry 2's story. Not really the characters, they are quite literally interchangable, but the narrative itself is fairly sophisticated if you pay attention to the way it sets you up as, then points out you are, a violent sociopath incapable of actually fixing anything since all you can do is shoot people*. The ending fits this to to a T.

*Or set them on fire. That works too.