#uhhhhh yeah idk if this is coherent i cannot think anymore

[khytal]

Would you mind elaborating on how you think stories in games are declining?

yeah I can do that I talked about it a little on twitter the other night

to start I just want to mention that this is based on the games I've played recently, so if you're thinking "well [this game] had a great story" I probably. didn't play it, or plan to sometime

also this is just an observation I'm making about myself. it's not very organized i'm typing this up at 5am

so this is about how good ghost trick's story is. as in so good, the feeling of finishing a game with no questions about anything significant was entirely foreign to me; and it may be the only game to ever make me feel like that for a long time

frankly I don't know if I just chose the wrong new games to play this year, or if it's the whole "sequels are generally worse than the original" thing, or if I've gotten picky about stories, or all of the above (probably all of the above and then some) but ghost trick made me realize I haven't played a single story-driven game (released in 2022) where I came out of the credits satisfied

just "...huh. ok. that's it then I guess"

however, I played a number of older titles where I was like "ohhh that was so good. wow" and was overall happy with the experience

but it's not really just limited to 2022; a lot of the games I played in 2021 too were lacking and/or didn't stick the landing in their stories

these include: p5 strikers (though I played that for the combat so I enjoyed it), ntwewy, lost judgment, nirvana initiative, and xenoblade 3 (this is a weird one bc I didn't dislike it but I didn't feel very strongly opinionated about it when I finished the game)

(tales of arise had several issues but I actually liked the ending a lot so it's an exception)

and then. there are some games I played that weren't story-driven, but had an interesting premise and just. dropped it completely somewhere along the way, or half-assed the explanations: monster hunter rise, world's end club, and smt5

rise is only here bc I thought the thing with the elder dragons speaking through the twins was really cool. and then it turned out to be nothing. but this leads into one of my points: that a lot of games are being released unfinished so players are compelled to buy dlc promising new story content for the loose threads that weren't wrapped up in the base game. and sometimes it still doesn't cover everything important that's missing

although rise doesn't count bc we got the rest of the story in free updates, it WAS literally unfinished at launch. extra content being released in paid dlc has been discussed by plenty of other people though (I just think it's one of the more significant factors contributing to why stories have felt. lacking) so. moving on

my big takeaway after playing ghost trick was that I had grown accustomed to stories that just. have the most slap-a-bandaid-on-it-and-call-it-good endings/explanations ever. I was used to being disappointed (in a "well that was a letdown" way, not an "I'm gonna miss this" way) when the credits rolled. I picked up games that promised a good story and expected important plot lines to never be addressed, because it's happened SO many times

in other words, gt caught me off guard because there was an entirely reasonable answer to every potential question I had. it's like when someone shuts your argument down so completely that you're speechless

this has also been discussed by others but I think being too hypercritical of little things/refusing to suspend disbelief is a "harmful" mindset to have. if you keep actively trying to nitpick something so you can go "I knew it!! this SUCKS" then of course you're going to be hard-pressed to find a "perfect" piece of media

and while I consider myself someone who's fully willing to go "okay, sure" in the moment, I've been exposed to so many posts that read so deeply into something incredibly minor that now I can't help but raise an eyebrow at things I never would've given a second thought to before,,,,,whenever that started

so I guess my other point here is that it feels like a lot of people don't let themselves enjoy stories when the plot gets a little nonsensical at times, or just get super hung up on the flaws. there's a difference between a game with an ending that's so bad you never want to play it again, and a game that was mostly solid but This One Negligible Thing absolutely ruined it for you

and I'm not trying to tell anyone what to enjoy or how to enjoy it but I think people could stand to not focus on the negatives so much, because it makes some stories seem a lot worse than they. actually are

xenoblade 3 is currently kind of getting this treatment (or it's at least pretty divisive from what I can tell), but some of it is actually warranted criticism while the rest of it is a lack of media literacy/not picking up on the show-don't-tell

anyway TL;DR ghost trick is the most complete game, story-wise, that I've ever played. I can't compare any other game to it bc it's on an entirely different level, but at the same time I now know what it feels like to finish a game wholly satisfied with its conclusion. and writers should put more care into the stories they've crafted for their games, particularly if they've been planning it for multiple years (though I'm aware that time constraints/pressure from higher-ups/other variables like that are detrimental to the creative process)

#anonymous #this is a long post #uhhhhh yeah idk if this is coherent i cannot think anymore #i will not engage in further discussion unless i can answer it in 10 minutes bc writing this took way too much time-