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[.Pennywise]

This is not when a game already has one of these as its core. For example, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver series. They don't introduce time travel down the line when a story is already set, but it's part of its core from the get go.

This is for games that want to 'develop' its story further and overcome stuff like previous closed endings or plotholes by introducing time travel or trying to make some convoluted 'plot twists' for example, in detriment of previous established stuff and which in turn derails the story even further.

 

[.Pennywise]

Funnily enough, I think Alan Wake has them all.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Can't i pick more than one?
I want to say time travel but a few do manage to get it right.

So i'll go with ressurection.

 

[Danjin44]

I want to say time travel but a few do manage to get it right.

Thats the case with every story element, if done right then it help the story...in the end its all about execution.

 

[YukiOnna]

I like all of these... damn. Just a matter of execution, but I find it fun.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Pennywise is back lets gooo

 

[Guilty_AI]

Thats the case with every story element, if done right then it help the story...in the end its all about execution.

but some will always be harder to get right than others. Time travel is one of such.

 

[The Wheel of Fortune]

Resurrection for sure. There’s nothing I hate more than that trope.

 

[Meicyn]

I hate it when resurrecting characters are a thing, often done for fanservice reasons. The Trails series is infuriating for this, and I cannot take any plot related stuff seriously.

It can be done right in small doses. But it’s not often that I like it.

 

[DryvBy]

There's about 3 times I've enjoyed alternative universes content within a series or a single product. To me it's the ultimate way to be lazy and a writer because nothing needs to flow or make sense. You can just alt reality the sucker and make it like there's never a flaw in your story. I can tell the US education system is failing hardcore with how many people like this crap.

 

[Danjin44]

but some will always be harder to get right than others. Time travel is one of such.

Sure, but it doesn't mean they shouldn't try, writing good story is hard but we love to see it.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Eh I love Twin Peaks, sign me up for all of the above as a potential positive.

 

[ShadowLag]

Timetravel, Alternate Realities, and Prequel Retcons all absolutely ruin good stories. The other stuff can be just fine, if done with care.

 

[.Pennywise]

Eh I love Twin Peaks, sign me up for all of the above as a potential positive.

Then play Alan Wake.

 

[BouncyFrag]

Dream sequences:

 

[Quantum253]

I was really anticipating Darkness of Days for the 360. It turned out crap, but the time travel/alternative reality games could still be done. Take Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. That managed alternative realities pretty well. Of course we can bring up Chrono Trigger or Ocarina of Time.
It can be done, but it must be handled with great care and continuity

 

[Oppoi]

A cliffhanger with no end in sight, and no, the last twist does not make up for it we all know how it was supposted to end. I'm looking at you Valve.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Nautilus]

Depends on the execution. Any of these can break the game, or make it standout.

But the one went is done bad is the worst is probably the ressurection. It completely undercuts the stakes in the game if the important carachters can simply come back to life if the story feels like it(Without giving it an EXCELLENT explanation)

 

[March Climber]

I’ve seen time travel mess up more storytelling more often than anything else, ever. I also consider retconning in the same vein as time travel, because it’s still an alteration of time simply to suit the writer.

 

[DaleinCalgary]

weapons that break

 

[adamsapple]

weapons that break

and encumbrance.

 

[AJUMP23]

When you retcon what you did before sucks. It makes nothing matter.

 

[Zannegan]

Hate it when things get retconned for no good reason. It's one thing if they find a hole in the story and decide to fill it in in an interesting way. But once you start ignoring established storytelling for convenience's sake, the whole narrative begins to decay.

It's lazy, and it's typically done to shoehorn in something that didn't work with the original vision and ends up shifting the tone towards artificial vanilla.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Other.

When initial storyline is finished, but the franchise keeps going, often start and stopping attempted "second arcs," once they realize that they aren't hitting as big. This is a thinly veiled criticism of the same shit in television shows, anime, and movies, but totally applies to this hobby as well.

Recent examples: FFVII reeeeeing.

Kingdom Hearts, a series so confident in it's new direction post-Xehanort Saga to immediately start the new storyline with a game that has Xehanort as a final Boss, directly followed by a game about his origin story.

Metal Gear. This is like gaming's Dragon Ball. Was supposed to finish at the Frieza Arc and have the entire story wrapped with a neat bow but goddamn employers and fans, so I'm gonna stretch it's corpse out. MGS2 was a thought provoking, meta narrative that played with player expectation but knew when to reel it in. It was almost prophetic in some ways, and should definitely be held up as a preserved title. Snake Eater came next, and it was short, punchy, poignant. Wasn't necessary to the story, but it didn't step on any toes.

Come MGS4, Kojima is just so fucking over it. "You were never supposed to know the Patriots identities, you idiots. This is like an autistic child refusing to eat dinner because you never find out what happened to Tom fucking Bombadil after the Ring was destroyed in Middle Earth. Fuck it, guys, Sigint was a Patriot. Para Medic, too. Big Boss, he hated the Patriots. Fuck it, he was a Patriot, too,"

By MGSV, dude couldn't even be arsed to direct cutscenes so it was just one brilliant gameplay sequence to the next bridged by tape recordings of DA VOH KULL CORRD PARASITES.

Resident Evil. Fuck, we really shot our load blowing up the fucking setting in 1999. How about we rip off that Dagon B-horror movie and put it in a Spanish place. Maybe Africa? Okay, so hear me out: The Family is an Illuminati group and the new big bad. Until the next game, now it's The Agency. Or The Unit. Or The Shield or some shit. Actually, it's the BSAA. Oh, the BSAA are the good guys. Well, uh...fuck it, that was a different branch. The main one has Zombies and shit in it.

Just LEAVE IT ALONE if it's logically finished. I give Naughty Dog mad respect for going this long without shitting out Uncharted 5-12.

 

[NightmareFarm]

I rarely see time travel stories that work well.

 

[TommyCronin6969]

Time travel because now I'm expected to just suspend disbelief in everything that has happened and is about to happen.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Time travel because now I'm expected to just suspend disbelief in everything that has happened and is about to happen.

Time travel is one of those deals that only works two ways: if it's not explained at all, or if it's explained in such detail that you could write a thesis on it.

Gaming does the first well, and the second terribly.

 

[brian0057]

This has less to do with videogames and more to do with actual writing.
Unless your name is Back to the Future? Don't.

 

[Hugare]

I lol'd 'cause Chrono Trigger has everything from the poll: clones, time travel, resurrection of characters, alternate realities, you name it.

And it still has a great story despite all that

Thats why its the GOAT

 

[March Climber]

Kingdom Hearts, a series so confident in it's new direction post-Xehanort Saga to immediately start the new storyline with a game that has Xehanort as a final Boss, directly followed by a game about his origin story.

To be fair, if you are talking about BBS, that KH game was the second best game in the entire series.

In a lot of ways BBS is a lot like Halo Reach or MGS: Revengeance. Totally unnecessary but damn were they cool and fun games.

 

[rabbity-thing]

Time Travel is always awesome. Even when it's stupid, it's still awesome. Because, as previously stated, Time Travel is always awesome.

Case in point, it can easily be the catalyst for basically the entirety of the rest of OP's list.

• Clones - Time travel means you can have multiple instances of the same character.
• Resurrection of Characters - Time travel means a dead character can exist after the point of their own death.
• Alternate Realities - Often created as a byproduct of time travel.
• Prequal Retconning - You better believe it got retconned cause of some time travelling.

Really, it's the ultimate narrative cheat. And it is never unwelcome. Ever.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

To be fair, if you are talking about BBS, that KH game was the second best game in the entire series.

In a lot of ways BBS is a lot like Halo Reach or MGS: Revengeance. Totally unnecessary but damn were they cool and fun games.

Sadly, I was referring to Dark Road and Melody of Memories, two titles I would forgive the non-fan or casual for never having ever fucking heard of. BUT I'M ON THIS TRAIN THE WHOLE WAY TO HELL, NOMURA

 

[.Pennywise]

Just LEAVE IT ALONE if it's logically finished. I give Naughty Dog mad respect for going this long without shitting out Uncharted 5-12.

Spoiler: The Last of Us 2 Heavy Spoiler

 

[A Most Virtuous Cat]

LGBT elements and diversity

 

[Fbh]

Time travel always sucks unless it's a core part of the story.

And it's not just for videogames but media in general. When they unexpectedly introduce time travel late into the story it's usually a sign that they've run out of ideas or written themselves into a corner

 

[Edgelord79]

Amnesia is another ones I particularly hate.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Spoiler: The Last of Us 2 Heavy Spoiler

See, that's a good sort of tricky example, but relevant to ND. I think from a narrative stand point, this was always the foregone conclusion were the story to keep going. Now, whether it should have kept going is another topic, and one that is tied to lots of guess work and backstage drama to boot. Personally, I think with the evidence publicly archived online, it's clear that (whether you view it as smart business or snaky business) Druckman played the game and deferred to his elder and higher ups with the knowledge that being attached to a success story would benefit him in a delayed way.

TLOU2 is basically Druckman's original storyline for TLOU1, just heavily reworked to incorporate an entire prior game to it's framework. It was his baby from inception and it clearly was a very relevant thing to him. TLOU1 existed perfectly in a vacuum. Self contained story. Good character writing and acting. Hella budget. Interesting twist on a tired premise. Anything that follows is going to be forever judged by the standards it set, and conversely, any stumble on the future entries' parts will invariably affect people's memory of the first. Memories are tangential and shit. I think it's especially pronounced in something that takes so much reference and direct continuation from it's predecessor as to be named "part II," It implies that the two aren't even a whole experience without one another, and...I wasn't really feeling that way, but it's Druckman's baby, he can take it in directions I don't agree with or find well written. That's life. I stand by my Uncharted comment though.

 

[Roberts]

All of these can be fun if done right. I’m more bored from games that approach storytelling as if it was some overly serious, thematically dull Oscar bait movie.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Then play Alan Wake.

Great premise and atmosphere, not-very-good game imo. I'm excited for the sequel though.

 

[MAtgS]

Is this a stealth KH thread? Because KH is guilty of every one of those options.

 

[Johnny Concrete]

Naturally games’ stories don’t need those things to go to shit.

 

[Crayon]

Great question. Political intrigue, for me. Same in movies.

 

[DragoonWalker]

Everything listed can work so long as the story was envisioned that way from the outset, all the plot threads are tracked, they serve a purpose beyond shock factor, any burning questions and glaring incongruities are resolved, and there isn't an overuse or abuse of them to confuse the audience. If you do any of those things, make it small, or focus the entire story on that one thing.

EXCEPT retcons. Retcons never work, because it breaks an existing story in ways that was never intended.

Is this a stealth KH thread? Because KH is guilty of every one of those options.

Case in point. KH is a textbook for how not to tell stories, period. Ironic a game about classic Disney films, which for the most part are fantastically tight woven stories, can be a total story clusterfuck.

 

[JC 1080P CRT]

I lol'd 'cause Chrono Trigger has everything from the poll: clones, time travel, resurrection of characters, alternate realities, you name it.

And it still has a great story despite all that

Thats why its the GOAT

This is not when a game already has one of these as its core. For example, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver series. They don't introduce time travel down the line when a story is already set, but it's part of its core from the get go.

This is for games that want to 'develop' its story further and overcome stuff like previous closed endings or plotholes by introducing time travel or trying to make some convoluted 'plot twists' for example, in detriment of previous established stuff and which in turn derails the story even further.

Chrono Trigger is indeed great, but it doesn't fall under what the OP was describing. Chross maybe, if we're talking about retcons or plot twists.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Political agendas, diversity, inclusivity etc.

Not that there's anything wrong with any of these things on their own but as a rule of thumb, if those things become the priority for you as a storyteller then the story always ends up being preachy and insufferable with a lot of cringe and sanctimonious bullshit attached.

 

[-Zelda-]

A cliffhanger with no end in sight, and no, the last twist does not make up for it we all know how it was supposted to end. I'm looking at you Valve.

Xenoblade Chronicles X

 

[supernova8]

I enjoyed Far Cry and Crysis until they both introduced mutants/aliens. Just ruined the flow of the game for me.

 

[Yoboman]

Hologram / phantom characters always look stupid af

 

[SeraphJan]

I enjoyed Far Cry and Crysis until they both introduced mutants/aliens. Just ruined the flow of the game for me.

Blood Dragon was great though