Phatose on 16/7/2010 at 22:23
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Well, if we're going to do
that, then I might as well nominate Final Fantasy VII because Cloud spends basically the ENTIRE game lying to himself and everyone else (including the player) about his getting into SOLDIER and what happened in the Nibeheim reactor, all because he was trying to impress a girl who was
already all over his junk. The truth doesn't come out until halfway through disc 2 (aka 4th quarter of the game) when both Cloud and Tifa decide the imminent doom of the
entire fucking planet is just the
perfect fucking time to have their respective breakdowns.
Of course there's also a major character getting killed off. And you're never going to get her back.
They only did that to prevent you from noticing they recycled the entire rest of the plot from FF6.
june gloom on 16/7/2010 at 22:43
I think there's significant enough differences in plot that your statement doesn't really hold water.
catbarf on 16/7/2010 at 22:47
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
I can't think of too many games where a.) the entire evil that's being overcome is the result of the protaganist being a total dick b.) the protaganist actually matures during the story c.) the entire game doesn't actually happen, and the ending is actually the part you see at the beginning and d.) the protaganist's mistakes are the result of him forgetting things when telling the story
That description reminds me of Cryostasis. You progress through the game by correcting the mistakes and all-too-human failures of the crew, and win the game by preventing its events from ever happening.
Jason Moyer on 16/7/2010 at 23:07
Cryostasis' story was A+.
Aerothorn on 17/7/2010 at 04:32
Sands of Time is interesting, but (without having finished it myself) I'd have trouble selling it as something really fresh based on the description alone. And yeah, while the whole Cloud thing isn't why FF7 is on my list, it *is* something I took notes on when playing the game. During my first play in a decade, I found that (as I expected) the story was not nearly as well-told as I remembered (oh god the dialog) but the manner in which the whole Nibelheim thing was unveiled was actually surprisingly sophisticated - that it's an example of a game narrative that succeed primarily based on its structure and not its content. That's my hypothesis, anyway, though obviously your typical FF fan isn't *thinking* of it in structural terms.
june gloom on 17/7/2010 at 04:40
To be fair, the dialogue is partly because of a blind idiot translation. I understand why Square didn't want Ted Woolsey anywhere near their big Playstation debut, but they went too far in the other direction and insisted on doing the translation themselves. They should have just got someone competent who wouldn't insist on changing things around for the hell of it.
Aerothorn on 17/7/2010 at 05:32
Oh, I'm fully aware of the awfulness of the translation (I wasn't aware just how bad it was until I played the PSX version - previously I played the PC one, where they'd at least cleaned up most of the outright grammar and spelling errors, if not the core of the writing itself). That said, I'd suspect (with no evidence) that it's not exactly brilliant prose in its native language, either. The dialog in these older console RPGs is just so *curt* - comes from having to fit everything in a little window, I guess (though, again, I realize Japanese is ahead in this department). Let's face it, Cid is going to be a pretty flat character regardless.
I mean, hey, I'm doing a chapter on the game, so clearly I see some merit in it, though it's also just as much to use it as the most prominent representation of a style/movement. Wow, that sounds pretentious. Anyway, while I appreciate many elements of it, saying the overall script is overrated by the larger gaming community would be an understatement. IGN had a piece a couple of years ago on the Top Ten Games that Prove That Games Are Art (in response to Ebert's critique). They chose FF7 as the prememinent example, demonstrating that they not only didn't understand Ebert's argument, but that they also failed to grasp how well FF7 would come off to the non-gaming world.
Sulphur on 17/7/2010 at 05:43
Yes, well, they're IGN.
Koki on 17/7/2010 at 07:23
I dug out the MW2 thread I missed when it was hot cakes, and well, long story short I see you don't have Modern Warfare on your list.
Then again I guess we wouldn't want narrative techniques that actually are important there eh? I mean when you have Baldur's Gate and Fallout AND Planescape on your list, even though all three use exactly the same narrative techniques and none of them are historically important... better lay low.
But then yet again, as you say yourself Mass Effect is on the list because of its twist on dialogue trees, so I guess you simply have no idea what narrative means.
All in all, how about you rename your book-project-thing to "Games With Kind Of Less Than Standard Stories And Which Also Maybe Did Something Slightly Different In The Way Player Interacts With NPCs. Sorta Kinda", it will be less confusing
june gloom on 17/7/2010 at 08:21
Koki of all people is saying Fallout is not historically important?
Man, I know you hate Fallout 3 but do you really have to extend that hate to the entire series?
(The others, I'll give you- BG is pretty typical boring fantasy, and Planescape has all of like, 30 fans.)
