I like stories in games, but usually need a little variety. For ever Last of Us or Mass Effect, I usually need a Pokemon or Mario where the story isn't a big deal, just let me go around and have fun. Though when a story driven game is bad lately, it tends to be more painful than when a gameplay focused one is (see Beyond: Two Souls and Assassin's Creed 3).
Short musings on story, myth, and Tales of Xillia
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 On 02/24/2014 at 09:54 AM by Ranger1 See More From This User » |
I like story-driven games. If I'm going to invest a lot of time in a game, there has to be something that interests me, and usually it's a story. That's why I love most Japanese RPGs - there's a story, it may be cliched, but there's a story. KOTOR hooked me the same way, even though I'd figured out my character's actual identity within the first 15 minutes of the game. It's why most fighting games and most FPS games don't interest me all that much, not enough of a story to keep me hooked. Exploration is the other key to my like or dislike of a game. I need to explore the environment. It doesn't have to be an open world, but there needs to be enough nooks and crannies to check out in outside areas, as well as drawers and cupboards to poke my nose into in houses and other buildings.
That may be why the Dragon Quest franchise is my favorite rpg series. Lots of places to poke around in and a decent, if not great, story. Ratchet & Clank wins for favorite platformer series, enough of a story to keep it interesting and a heavy emphasis on exploration, plus you get to blow shit up. Games like Flower and Journey may not have much of a story, but the important elements are there, especially in Journey. Having read several of Joseph Campbell's books about myth and the importance of myth (Hero With a Thousand Faces, The Power of Myth, Myths to Live By), I see a lot of those mythic base elements, as well as seeing the game as the parable for life that it is.
I finished the main story for Jude in Tales of Xillia Friday night. If you're planning on playing the game, stop reading now.
One of the things that Xillia does a bit different than most other rpgs that I've played is that the end bosses aren't evil people/gods looking to rule or destroy the universe just because they can. Gaius truly believes that by destroying one world, he is saving his world. And technically he is. Jude, the hero, sees things as less black and white - he believes that it's better to try and save both and fail (but he believes that they won't fail) rather than sacrifice one for another. And he has to lose the girl to do it. Some people might say that it would be a better game if you got to make those choices yourself, like KOTOR, and it might. I look at it this way, though: I don't get to influence the story in a movie, and most rpgs are really just interactive movies where you get to be the protagonist, so I'm OK with being led down a pre-existing path laid out by the game designer.
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