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[godofcookery]

Give me a game that you enjoyed because you enjoyed the story.
Not the art style, or anything else, or directing but the story.
The gameplay could have been eye-stabbingly bad, or totally
great, but you played or at least wanted to play it, because you
liked the characters and the story the game was telling.
give me a brief description why. spoiler free of course.

exclusions include:
any bioware or black isle RPG (nor Fallout)
any Final Fantasy Game (for entirely different reasons)

Not my favorite of all time but:

Shadow of Destiny

An early PS2 adventure game that tied up and clsoed its neat little plot very well during and after the plot ended. The characters were cookie cutter and the voices acting was horrific, but the story (in all its 7 endings) was a compelling reason to keep playing the game. Hell 7 different endings that potentially could all happen within the scope of the story. (as opposed to say Blade Runner where the endings were so different that the story couldnt support both endings "happening")

 

[Amir0x]

well you eliminated the bioware/Black Isle games so that's about 99% of them

so I guess most recently, Nocturne/Digital Devil Saga games were pretty decent story-wise

Point and click adventures:

Grim Fandango
The Longest Journey
Syberia
Syberia II

 

[Date of Lies]

Phoenix Wright

Grim Fandango

 

[godofcookery]

reasons? reasons? one or two sentences would be enough .

 

[The Guivre]

Obviously FFVII and VIII.

Beyond that I rather enjoyed the Jak series, particularly II and III.

Kingdom Hearts was a stand out for me. And non-gamers/girlfriends are likely to accept it.

Xenogears, Lunar: Eternal Blue, The Legend of Dragoon and I think I'd throw PoP:SoT I recently replayed it and I just enjoyed the storytelling aspect.

 

[Date of Lies]

reasons? reasons? one or two sentences would be enough .

seriously look them up but both are a bit wacky (while keeping a more serious tone), with great characters, great script, very involving and very original.

Phoenix Wright has some very thought-out twists that are really surprising.

Grim Fandango is just great all around, in fact I'd recommend it to you more since you seem to be a bit more into pcs.

 

[jgkspsx]

Three random faves from the past:
Star Trek: Judgment Rites. It was mind-blowing to a 13-year-old. I'm betting the writing holds up better than the actual show, as well. Particularly great: the Quetzelcoatl, base 64, and Trelane episodes.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! Individual character stories don't add up to a whole (it's comedy after all), but each is amusing, compelling, and often touching on its own.

Twisted Metal 2. Great, twisted, and mostly hilarious character stories. Art style gave it a great feel -- Black went and spoiled that all with the darkness.

Currently-playing fave:
Earthbound Zero has a surprisingly compelling story for an NES RPG. I'm very curious about Ness's background, and the overarching plot is pretty interesting too.

 

[godofcookery]

seriously look them up but both are a bit wacky (while keeping a more serious tone), with great characters, great script, very involving and very original.

Phoenix Wright has some very thought-out twists that are really surprising.

Grim Fandango is just great all around, in fact I'd recommend it to you more since you seem to be a bit more into pcs.

well i am at the end of Grim Fandango actually, and yes i did enjoy that very much. I was wondering about Phoenix Wright, it seemed people were having fun more with the case solving and objection stuff rather than then story portion, but maybe i was just skimming the impressions.

 

[godofcookery]

Kingdom Hearts was a stand out for me. And non-gamers/girlfriends are likely to accept it.

Xenogears, Lunar: Eternal Blue, The Legend of Dragoon and I think I'd throw PoP:SoT I recently replayed it and I just enjoyed the storytelling aspect.

with a bunch of the JRPGs i would often find myself going through them mechanically, collecting the next materia or summon or whatever to see the spectacle, but not knowing or caring about what was going on as far as character development or story progression. I think i just found everything drawn out and rushed to completion at the end. strange. I do think PoP was told well, but the story didnt wow me really.

 

[John Harker]

This non-RPG's story was worth every penny and every hour I spent on it($49.99).

I STILL think it's a stand-out game for story presentation, thriller story integration and just downroad trippy shit.

 

[Scrow]

hmmm... metal gear solid i suppose.

 

[Tarazet]

Dragon Riders: Chronicles of Pern for Dreamcast. Mechanically, it's one of the worst games I've ever played - in terms of bugs, graphical flaws, balance issues, and sheer drudgery, it's not much better than Drake on Xbox. But the storyline was so strong that 20 hours later, it became the worst game I have ever played through to completion - and I felt like I had gotten my money's worth ($30 on release date).

 

[Keru_Shiri]

FFX, and i'm not sure if this counts, but the support conversations in Fire Emblem captured my imagination. Made me wish they made an anime starring some of the characters.

Edit: I suppose it would've helped if I read the OP, forget I said FFX, instead put in Eternal Darkness

 

[godofcookery]

FFX, and i'm not sure if this counts, but the support conversations in Fire Emblem captured my imagination. Made me wish they made an anime starring some of the characters.

just to reiterate, no final fantasies pls. (first post and all that)

Fire Emblem? any particular one?

 

[Kabuki Quantum Lover]

Snatcher.

MGS's story may have eclipsed it in scale, but for its day, Snatcher was a complex and highly entertaining little piece of software.

I hope I'll see another game with that scope in the coming gen.

 

[godofcookery]

Dragon Riders: Chronicles of Pern for Dreamcast. Mechanically, it's one of the worst games I've ever played - in terms of bugs, graphical flaws, balance issues, and sheer drudgery, it's not much better than Drake on Xbox. But the storyline was so strong that 20 hours later, it became the worst game I have ever played through to completion - and I felt like I had gotten my money's worth ($30 on release date).

well now here is an interesting choice, this game got basically panned from what i understand... ouch 3.6 on ign if that makes a difference. This is ann mcaffery right? there was some hype around this game at the time if I remember, are you a fan of the books?

 

[C- Warrior]

KILLER 7.

 

[godofcookery]

Snatcher.

Phoenix Wright sort of reminds me of this for some reason. is this a genre of games?

(ftr i have the original on SegaCD just never played through it...)

 

[Keru_Shiri]

just to reiterate, no final fantasies pls. (first post and all that)

Fire Emblem? any particular one?

Sorry, edit it out! The first one (the first one we got in the states). Sain, Erk, Will, Canas, Jaffar, Priscilla, heck, almost all of the characters had a side agenda going on that really made the game alot more interesting I could play spinoff games based off of the tales of the other characters for years, no doubt, especially Matthew's.

 

[Servizio]

Vagrant Story. Shadowrun, SNES.

Vagrant Story's characters are memorable, the writing and direction are ace for any medium, and the plot was intrigue, mystery, and the occult.

Shadowrun was a world of supporting characters who never interact with anyone but the silent protagonist, but they were all charming and interesting. The story was pretty standard fair for the Shadowrun universe, but really well done. Waking up in a morgue with no memory and scaring the coroners into the closet is a very good way to start a game.

 

[bill0527]

Pong had a great story.

You had to read between the lines to understand it though...

 

[godofcookery]

Shadowrun was a world of supporting characters who never interact with anyone but the silent protagonist, but they were all charming and interesting. The story was pretty standard fair for the Shadowrun universe, but really well done. Waking up in a morgue with no memory and scaring the coroners into the closet is a very good way to start a game.

heh, never realized the similarity to Planescape: Torment before. i guess it wasnt that original after all...

anyhow, i remember being intrigued and actually waiting for them to release a shadowrun 2 as the ending claimed! damn them to hell.
I do remember enjoying the story a bunch when i was young though, fair spot more than other SNES rpgs. Might have been my favorite story on the SNES actually. maybe not so much now as i feel like some of the elements were probably rushed... but my memory likes it fine.

 

[ronito]

Simple yet engaging.

 

[Nameless]

Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III, VII, and IX could have been text based games on the original gameboy and I would have sitll been up until 4:00am playing them.

 

[Zerodoppler]

Metal Gear Solid series.

 

[godofcookery]

Simple yet engaging.

good. yes. fell a bit apart in the end though dinnit?

Spoiler

wtf SHAUUNIIII?

 

[John Harker]

Pong had a great story.

You had to read between the lines to understand it though...

I actually laughed at this one.


But yea, Killer7 still gets my vote as the best story I didn't expect to obsess over.

But RPGs are my fav, so I think I give that story to Chrono Trigger. Even though there are a lot I really liked, but I can't mention becasue of thread rules i guess

 

[Mejilan]

Any Fire Emblem. Great cast of characters, interesting, political story. FANTASTIC localization. Some of the greatest dialogue ever.

 

[Date of Lies]

Any Fire Emblem. Great cast of characters, interesting, political story. FANTASTIC localization. Some of the greatest dialogue ever.

interesting but not amazing, like FFT

 

[Mejilan]

interesting but not amazing, like FFT

FFT was special, certainly. But I think I prefer FE's style. By just a bit. In particular, Ike of FE PoR kills me. He's brilliant, and just about every line of his makes me crack up. My brother and I are playing PoR together, and we almost look forward to the pre-/post-battle cinematics, support conversations, and info conversations more than the fights themselves, we laugh so hard. Almost.

 

[Red Scarlet]

Chrono Trigger was probably the last one.
And Suikoden 2.

But I liked more than just the storyline about them.

 

[Late Stage Marxist]

Monkey Island 4 and Grim Fandango. Both horrible games with awesome characters and script.

Indigo Prophecy kept me playing, but it started to get really dumb near the end.

 

[etiolate]

The Story in the first Katamari Damacy had some parental issue subtext that was more interesting than most serious game stories.

 

[bjork]

Murder on the Mississippi - whodunit on a paddleboat, and I never did finish that game.

Full Throttle - Ben was cool and the story was interesting to me at the time.

Pirates! - I don't know if this counts so much, but your actions could have direct effects on how the game's world was, and it was interesting to see if you could do certain things (ie, make all the towns french, capture the silver fleet, etc).

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

Ace Combat 4 had a surprisingly well presented memorable story. It's use of narrative, music, and sound over still pictures was extremely well done. Such a unique presentation style that I wouldn't have figured be used on a jet fighter game. It's highly effective and dramatic.

 

[chaostrophy]

Koudelka had awesome characters and story, but the gameplay was absolute shit. I suffered through it, though.

 

[Alex De Large]

you fackassas, mgs has amazing gameplay, art, direction, he said just the story

 

[Odysseus]

Eternal Darkness.

It really changed my whole perspective on gaming. Before, I was mostly a casual type of gamer, playing sports/racing/fighting games. Afterwards, it's all about the story, baby! Voice acting, cinematic presentation, the whole nine. It can also be argued that because of that single game, I ended up leaving the Nintendo fold and buying an Xbox and later a PS2, just to get more games with serious entertainment value. That, in turn, opened me up to a game like KOTOR, which opened me up to RPGs, which opened me up to Final Fantasy, which now happens to have me playing through all the back catalog of Final Fantasy games available on the PlayStation brand of consoles. I'm going sequentially (after X and X-2, that is), now I'm on IV.

 

[Kangu]

Tekken Tag Tournament

 

[PkunkFury]

I played Star Control II almost 15 years ago and I still remember it as having the best story in any game I've played since. The multitude of alien persoanlities and histories kept the dialouge interesting and the story of what happened in the aftermath of the war unfolded interactively; the way any good videogame story should be told. SCII also had one of the best plot twists I can remember in a game. I really wish Star Con 3 had been by the same people At this point the series is dead forever

 

[Ghost]

Grim Fandango is easily my favourite game story ever, theres just so much to it, just when you think its getting predictable something totally new and unexpected happens, and its laced with some truly hilarious moments.

 

[DarknessTear]

Wild Arms, Xenogears, Shadow Hearts, Vagrant Story, FFT (when I was younger at least)

 

[godofcookery]

Most of the JRPGs listed here tend to just spin there wheels i think, 40 hrs (days and days in game time) of cataclysmic events and the characters basically remain the same as when they started. (maybe the tough guy sheds a tear or something...) This is from my limited FF experience of course. Chrono Trigger was an exception to the rule. I guess with FF as in any franchise piece (like a Bond or something) there will be certain things that come w/ that. I just don't see many stray from this mold.

 

[godofcookery]

I played Star Control II almost 15 years ago and I still remember it as having the best story in any game I've played since. The multitude of alien persoanlities and histories kept the dialouge interesting and the story of what happened in the aftermath of the war unfolded interactively; the way any good videogame story should be told. SCII also had one of the best plot twists I can remember in a game. I really wish Star Con 3 had been by the same people At this point the series is dead forever

I know Toysforbob was working on or is done with a remake of StarCon 2. I was quite dissappointed in 3 though.

 

[Cosmozone]

I've yet to play a game with a high quality story

Spoiler

that has graphics

.
Well, actually it's not that bad. Some games have decent stories. MGS series is not among them, though. SH1 was nice. Or Privateer.
But I mostly think about some text adventures when thinking about good game stories. I especially liked A Mind Forever Voyaging. That pirate adventure was good, too. (Not Monkey Island) The name was Romancing the Throne or something like that.

 

[BorkBork]

Monkey Island 4 and Grim Fandango. Both horrible games with awesome characters and script.

Another vote for Grim. Monkey Island 4 was trash compared to it.
Kudos also to Phoenix Wright, reminds me of cheesy(in a good way) mystery novels with tons of unexpected twists

 

[jarosh]

Not my favorite of all time but:

Shadow of Destiny

hell yes. i was gonna say this expecting to be unique and edgy and then you mention it in the first post.

of course you witnessed the uber-ending after starting a new game, right?

 

[JRPereira]

I really liked how chrono cross weaved the chrono trigger story in so well. Radical dreamers was also great, despite being short.

 

[godofcookery]

hell yes. i was gonna say this expecting to be unique and edgy and then you mention it in the first post.

of course you witnessed the uber-ending after starting a new game, right?

uber ending?! no, i have not. time to power this one up...

 

[godofcookery]

Anyone have an opinion on the Summoner game by Volition?