Doesn’t everyone just hit escape as soon as a cut scene starts?
But imagine spending $30 on a story-driven video game and just skipping the story.
That's almost as bad as buying a book and never reading it.
(Which, to be fair, is a sin that I do, sometimes, commit).
> (Which, to be fair, is a sin that I do, sometimes, commit).
Buying books and reading books are separate hobbies. Everyone knows this.
I cannot imagine buying a "story driven videogame" honestly. I love reading and I love stories, but to me the appeal of videogames is to play. Videogame stories mostly just get in the way of the actual appealing fun part for me
Mass Effect 1 had the worst gameplay, honestly. The shooting mechanics weren't good, the RPG mechanics felt tacked on. It did have the best story and most developed lore and characters though, but they aren't good enough for me to ever want to replay it
2 had the best gameplay imo, but ths story took a nosedive. Some of the characters are alright, but overall it's a really bad story here
3 was probably the middle ground between them. The story picked up a bunch of the hanging plot threads from 1 that 2 wound up ignoring. It also changed the gameplay a bit from 2 in ways that weren't good imo
I used to think this sort of thing was the pinnacle of video games. Now I prefer playing stuff like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls, where the story is not the focus, but the gameplay is very fun and dynamic
Witcher 2 was a serviceable game with a serviceable story
Witcher 3 was a vast sprawling story with gameplay that got old fast and it made the story a slog to get through. I had to force myself to finish it
I played Cyberpunk four times in a row just because it is so damn fun to actually play and try out different builds and approaches to completing the missions
Every videogame journalist who writes about games from a "ludonarrative" perspective just comes across as someone who failed to get into writing about movies
I have one criteria: is the game fun to play
I can put up with a lot of cringe in a story if the game is fun
After all, cutscenes and dialog are almost always skippable. Gameplay isn't
I'll take Dark Souls minimalist storytelling or Cyberpunk's cringe storytelling but fun gameplay over any kind of game with mid gameplay and amazing writing
Edit:
I guess what I'm really saying is that for me, a good story and characters is icing, but games must be fun first. A bad game with good writing is still a bad game. A good game with bad writing is still a good game
I do not understand why people place so much emphasis on non-gameplay elements when judging a game. Watch a show or read a book instead if story is your main concern
Or does recommending a negative not really work?
ETA: Or, to make it simpler, most people are more interested in finding things they might like than in finding ways to no longer enjoy things they already like.
I don't agree at all that this is true. I've greatly enjoyed replaying story-driven games much as I would enjoy rereading a book I enjoy. Much like with a good book, there is enjoyment to be had in immersing yourself in that world again, spending time with the characters you grew to like, and noticing things about the work that you didn't spot the first time around.
I guess the atmosphere sells me on games. That's a whole other thing. I note "/setting".
Yeah, Keanu as Silverhand is fun
But by the fourth time through the game when you hit those Relic Malfunctions that are long and drawn out and trigger long and unskippable talking scenes, I was pretty ready for a game option that was "Get rid of all of this and let me play without interruptions"
I would have loved a quest system in that game that would randomly assign a building in the city to have a random enemy type inside it and an objective to handle, so I could just play
I love that game. I think it is very fun. I like trying out different builds and weapons. I would probably play it more but the idea of starting a new game is not appealing. I don't want to slog through the first few hours of the game again until after the failed heist just to get the game world to open up
Disco elysium, deus ex, cyberpunk 2077 have tremendous replay value to me in various ways. The story, for me, builds the flavour and the world, gets excited and invested, so that I want to replay and spend time in that game. It's not tough mutually exclusive from also enjoying games purely for their mechanics.
I enjoy both. I wouldn't want a video game which has no interesting gameplay, but neither am I very drawn to games which are pure game and don't bother to have an interesting story. They are at least better than the former, and can even be good (Doom for example), but IMO can't reach the heights of games which are fun to play and have an interesting story.
Look at Disco Elysium with more than a million words written, but also anything from Cyberpunk 2077 to Colony Ship to Days of the Tentacle and Monkey Island and Space Quest, plus Mass Effect and KOTOR, Baldur's Gate and Plascape Torment... Great writing makes for great games :)