For ages, games have been defined by many things:
What consoles they’re being put on, the graphics, and what company makes them.
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But the most important part of a game is usually the story. Why should the player care about the characters? What’s the point of going from Point A and to Point B? Is there a reason that cuter weapons are stronger than regular-looking weapons? If a game is written well, the story can explain all of this without leaving the player confused or displeased.
However, some games have fallen short when it comes to story-telling for the simplest of reasons. These are just my opinions of some games that didn’t exactly hit well in the story-telling for simple reasons but it impacted my impression of the game in the end:
While Kingdom Hearts is a well-known and popular franchise, I feel that the game itself is spread out too long (literally fourteen games long, for now) and because of that some people fall out of the story. The tying of Disney worlds and original characters is both beautiful and pure, but the constant opening loop holes makes me wonder if the story is about Sora or everyone BUT Sora.
Fire Emblem: Fates seems really awesome at first when you see that there are three stories to experience: Birthright, Conquest, and Relevations. After all, seeing every point-of-view will certainly explain the game completely right? Not exactly. Not only were all the stories over twenty chapters long, the games didn’t need to be THAT long (that and the stories were more confusing and overly complicated for no reason). And to top it all off, the protagonist (who you create and play with) was literally as formidable as a wet piece of tissue paper.
The main complaint of Final Fantasy XIII is that it was too linear, which confuses me because isn’t a story, in the end, linear? (This, of course, isn’t including the entire Final Fantasy universe, since most of the games don’t even connect with one another.) However, the character development and progression of the story was lack-lustered and could have been better. The ending was a solid deal for me, until Final Fantasy XIII-2 came and literally made it vanish (but that’s for another day).
Keep in mind this is just a personal opinion of mine; even with the problematic story-telling, I found these games quite enjoyable to play and would even recommend them for others (as long as they have an open-mind). Just because the story isn’t wonderful, doesn’t mean the game is terrible overall.
When it comes to gaming, there are several factors that sale a game: the price, the graphics, the company, and the basis of it. Most gamers see a game through these factors only and not the story. Eventually though, the story must come into play because gamers want to understand the reason why they bought and played the game. Why should they care and why should they enjoy the game? If the story is written well, it can touch people’s hearts and even become a best-seller. If the story is terrible, it can literally destroy a game’s reputation.
The power of story-telling can either make or break a game.
