Your favorite stories in games

[ZedClampet]

For @Brian Boru my top 5 stories from games.

1) Soma (horror game). No other story in any other form has impacted me as strongly as Soma's story. Was absolutely brilliant.
2) The Witcher 3
3) Lone Echo
4) A Tale of Two Brothers
5) Wilson's Heart

Honorable Mention:
A Way Out
Virginia (no text or speech, but tells an amazing story)
Detention (another horror game)
Her Story (but this depends on what you searched for and when you searched for it)
Fall Out New Vegas
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Firewatch
Several Telltale and Quantic Dream games
Mass Effect trilogy

Honorable, honorable mentions
Portal and Portal 2
The Talos Principle
These games had minimal story but were fantastically entertaining.

I'm just going to stop here. I keep finding more great stories.

 

[Brian Boru]

Good topic—you're obviously determined to undermine my ongoing troll of our RPG overlords!

I've played the following from your list:
Soma
Her Story
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Firewatch
Portal and Portal 2
The Talos Principle

Soma I dropped quickly, I don't like dark games with my not-great vision plus horror isn't my thing. Dreamfall I bounced off too, don't remember why offhand.

I completed the other 5, and definitely enjoyed them all. Her Story's main draw for me was the innovative gameplay—story was ok as a detective-type thing. Firewatch I just loved the artwork and atmosphere, story I didn't notice tbh.

Stories which come to mind as memorable:
Syberia 1 & 2
Grim Fandango
Indigo Prophecy
The Blackwell series
Tex Murphy Under a Killing Moon
Myst
The Last Express
More I imagine, but I don't have time to go thru my list at the moment.

Some previous similar threads:
What AA or AAA games have the best stories?
Your favorite Stories in games?
Story in games

 

[Slasken]

My top games that got me really invested in their stories are:

1. The Witcher 3
2. Final Fantasy series, X and VIII
3. Horizon series
4. Red Dead Redemption Series

 

[Pifanjr]

I think Crying Suns has one of the best (short) stories I've seen.

 

[mainer]

My favorite stories from games I've played, not in any particular order, as it's really hard for me to judge one against the other.

-Dragon Age Origins
-Mass Effect 1-3 (the story is told over 3 games, much like a book trilogy)
-Dragon Age Inquisition
-Dragon Age 2
-The Witcher 3

Honorable Mention;

-Planescape Torment
-Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 + BG2 Throne of Bhaal (3 games that tell the story)
-Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 (story arc through 2 games, though it could use a 3rd installment)

I'm sure there are others, but the above game's stories always stick in my mind, and most of them are years old.

 

[Zloth]

So overall? The sum joy over all stories within the game, allowing for really stupid stories to have negative values and cancel out good ones...

1. The Witcher 3. Pretty good overall story and MANY excellent side stories.
2. Final Fantasy 7. Incredible overall story. Really stunned me when it came out because they kill off characters I didn't expect to get killed or, if they were, they would be killed right at the end of the story.
3. Dragon Age: Origins. 2 had some good stuff here and there, 3 has some pretty good stories, but the first game in the series was a really good one for story.
4. City of Heroes. The lore, taken together, had some really fun stories.
5. Yakuza 0. Alternating between zany and intense worked well for me.
6. Outer Wilds. There's not much story there, really, and what there is probably wouldn't be all that great, but the way you have to dig it out makes it fun.
7. Metal Gear Solid 5. Could have been higher, but Paz's story was fumbled badly at the end, IMHO. Lots of folks hate that we didn't get to fight the giant robot in the end, but I'm glad I didn't have to do that twice.
8. Saints Row 3. Just being zany all the time worked for me, too.
9. Horizon: Zero Dawn. Really interesting main story once it finally got going. Side stories were meh, though.
10. Final Fantasy 10. Started good, then got a really dumb romance, then got very good.
11. Bioshock Infinite. Sorta good through most of it, then it got an incredible ending.

Honorable mention to Lost Odyssey and Shadow Hearts: Covenant. They only get honorable mentions because they are still trapped over in console space.

Some old games probably deserve to be on the list, but it's been decades and I've forgotten the stories. Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Planescape: Torment, and Baldur's Gate fit in that category.

-Dragon Age 2

COMMENT REQUIRED!!!

 

[Brian Boru]

So overall? The sum joy over all stories within the game, allowing for really stupid stories to have negative values and cancel out good ones...

Oh hey, that's an interesting way to look at it—like a novella/novel with short stories bundled in.

 

[mainer]

COMMENT REQUIRED!!!

Okey Dokey then. Dragon Age 2, the weakest of the DA games in my opinion, had its issues. To me those were:

- exploration was basically nonexistent as most of the areas were used over and over for various quests, killing any suspense of discovery.

- combat was overly simplistic and not near as tactical as DAO or even DAI

-most of the game was in Kirkwall, so that "epic" feeling I got from DAO & DAI wasn't there; world and/or continent travel just didn't exist.

- actual gameplay suffered because of this, and I believe that DA2 was rushed in production, much like ME Andromeda was.

My big but to all this is:

The characters/companions and their backstories & personal quests, as well as voice acting was excellent, and it all blended into the main storyline of the Chantry vs the Mages and the outcomes of the choices your character "Hawk" makes. It has always felt like a prologue to Dragon Age Inquisition to me, with the introduction of certain characters, like Cassandra and Varick, who play prominent roles in DAI. While it's a difficult game to replay because of the actual gameplay, it's critical to me to replay it before DAI.

 

[Slasken]

Just finished Yakuza: Like a dragon, and that story is definitely up there as well.

 

[Brian Boru]

like a novella/novel with short stories bundled in

Ok, using Zloth's expansive interpretation, then Far Cry 6 comes into play. While FC5's main story is more cohesive and interesting, it only has a limited number of significant side characters and relatively short significant interaction with each.

FC6 on the other hand has an uninteresting typical game story—free Cuba from Castro—but it has a load of different side characters, and while many are over the top in a game way, they are often fun to interact with and their mission arcs have some variety and substance.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Ok, using Zloth's expansive interpretation, then Far Cry 6 comes into play. While FC5's main story is more cohesive and interesting, it only has a limited number of significant side characters and relatively short significant interaction with each.

FC6 on the other hand has an uninteresting typical game story—free Cuba from Castro—but it has a load of different side characters, and while many are over the top in a game way, they are often fun to interact with and their mission arcs have some variety and substance.

View: https://youtu.be/ki6U_RwCSJI?t=99

 

[Shodan_]

System Shock 1 : Still think it's a pretty clever way to put a protagonist alone on a space station going to s***.


Fallout 1 : No mention of stupid vault experiments that make no sense, no goofy Bethesda bull, no looking for a family member while fixing up a giant robot, just a guy coming out of a cave for the first time and looking for a thing. It's the pure essence of Fallout, it stands on it's own world and story without the need for a vault where everyone is named Gary.

 

[Iriiiiinaaaa]

My top:
- Mafia 2
- Witcher
- Valiant Hearts