What games would you say deserve that stamp of quality? I'm curious.
Wait, How does it explain away Gray Fox's absence?
Well honestly I loved the narrative of Shadow of The Colossus. However that's beside the point.
The Japanese have an entire different checklist for "quality" writing. Cultural context, and understanding play into the quality of story. For one thing, this is a Japanese man, with Japanese sensibilities phoning in what he knows of western culture from movies, and books. His actual understanding of english is pretty poor to be honest, which is why he often needs a translator. MGS suffers from a misunderstanding of our culture, and attempting to relate to Japanese culture when the two are VERY different.
That's not to say it's bad, it's just not tailored towards western sensibilities, which is why it comes off as whacky as shit, EVEN when it's attempting to be serious.
Games are hard to pin down for narratives as far as Japanese writing goes, but there are few I find have much better writing than others.
Shadow of The Colossus and Ico are both amazing, and utilize a completed new and created culture and story to weave a tale. The amount of mystery in those games is nuts, but the story telling needs no words. I know it's an old harp to start strumming, but I love them.
As far as actual writing goes, I love the Yakuza series. It keeps it's story straight, and while conspiracies might happen they are self contained within each title.The actual character development of Kazuma Kiryu is well done. He was a young punk, and became a very normal and reformed man, wise, and very fatherly.
Japanese games with good writing are at their best when they are subtle, and as non-spoken as possible. Something that MGSV attempts to do, but is backed by the rambling series known for it's batshit dialogue/monologues. Dark Souls, and Bloodborne tell really great stories with very little dialogue... and when there is dialogue... it hits harder. Unfortunately it's very popular to over emote characters in Japanese writing styles. I believe it kind of stems from classic Noh, and Kabuki theater, where exaggerated movements were used to get a point across. Hell it's used in Sentai to this day, look at the silly jerky movements they make when talking.
Japanese writing works best when they are able to portray context without words, or with as few words as possible. Take it from a Japanese/Anthropology major. It's one of the reasons Quiets story arc is actually not all that bad. She never talks, but you begin to understand her, and where she's coming from (too bad about the bikini thing though... that's stupid and titillation)
It's why I liked the twist at the end. As far as western writing I prefered Bioshock Infinite's story. I wasn't AS big a fan of the first Bioshock because Frank Fontaine was overdone, but it was decent. Bioshock Infinite did some amazing things with it's narrative, however the DLC was crap... It all depends. Half Life's narrative is silly but well written as well.
TLoU was just far too basic, and boring, as well. It was overdone, the characters were stereotypes, and the ending was silly. It was well acted, but it was a mess as far as written narratives go.
