I love Soulsborne. I hate its storytelling

Swift_Star

Swift_Star

Banned
Honestly, I love all of them and always get addicted to it but the storytelling is utterly lacking. I really wanted to know for real the characters motivation, the enemies, gods, villains, motivation. Know their personalities, who they really are. Why am I doing this? Why am I going to the fend and getting power to get demon souls and free the world? Why me? Just because? What am I? I have no idea. Why I'm the ashen one? Why I'm the chosen hollow?
The lack of real storytelling in these games is something I really don't like and, c'mon, reading "lore through items" is not really storytelling.
 
Not all game should be about heavy cutscene story telling, some games much more world driven story rather than character driven story.
 
People feel this way but I'm not sure if it is right. How do you know that the developer meant to tell a story? A gamer must consider that a game is meant to be played not experienced through a conscious lens of prose and deep fictional immersion. Only then can a gamer truly realize the depth of the motion and physics of the game, once they have freed themselves of the illusion of fanciful tales.
 
Swift_Star said:
Honestly, I love all of them and always get addicted to it but the storytelling is utterly lacking. I really wanted to know for real the characters motivation, the enemies, gods, villains, motivation. Know their personalities, who they really are. Why am I doing this? Why am I going to the fend and getting power to get demon souls and free the world? Why me? Just because? What am I? I have no idea. Why I'm the ashen one? Why I'm the chosen hollow?
The lack of real storytelling in these games is something I really don't like and, c'mon, reading "lore through items" is not really storytelling.
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Not sure what to tell you other than "read through items".


You wake up in a mysterious world, no one is going to magically come tell you "Hey, here is the entire rundown of our universe, world, and cultures and we need you to do x, y, z, and watch out for these folks for these reasons..." Nah, you have to piece it all together yourself and that is a perfectly valid way of telling a compelling narrative. It isn't even the first game to have done that. Ever played the Myst franchise? How about most of the early Elder Scrolls games? You don't even have to do it if you don't want to. If you just want to "kill everything" go do that. If you want to "ring hte bell towers to see what happens" do that too.
 
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I always thought the presentation of the story and the lore was one of the best parts of the series.
If I wanted everything spoonfed through 15 minutes of exposition laden cutscenes I'll fire up a Kojima game.
 
All the story you need to know is that you run around a place where baddies can hurt you from the get go and sometimes they drop stuff that lets you hurt em back harder with cool looking gear strewn about that lets you mitigate or deal more/faster/harder/safer damage. Once in a while the environment will cue you into "story time" via visual narrative devices like scratches on a wall and bloodstains on the ground as you work your way down a hall way with corpses increasingly pilling up as you progress foreshadowing a major encounter. Atmospheric foreboding and passive lore is the name of the game.
 
It's ok because while the games are amazing, the stories are nothing to write home about. I play them like I would play an arcade game from way back. There's no why, the reason is "just cause".


I was hoping george martin would write the story for elden ring so itd be worth a damn. But sadly thats not the case so I expect more vague bs to ignore.
 
Those games get played for their gameplay and level design, ofcourse lore is there to make some context to the worldbuilding and add some extra flavor, but its not the main selling point.
If you want storytelling its why we have story-driven RPGs, things like Witcher and Dragon Age and Mass Effect are specifically made to tell stories through clear timeline, cutscenes and direction with added player agency and context. The main selling point of the game is its quests and characters.

I'm sure my post doesnt help you since you clearly want a story-driven game with gameplay and level design quality of Soulsborne, sadly that is yet to come, that is what i expected Elden Ring to be frankly, but it appears this task is currently too ambitious and costly.
Nioh 2 had more storytelling aspect attached into it, but its not of a high quality.
 
I think one of the reason games like Souls and Dread are loved is because they focus on gameplay and storytelling is less of a priority and more organic.
 
Those games have deeper stories then most games. If you don't care about discovering the lore (I don't either) then just watch some videos. Everything you want is already there.
 
Graciaus said:
Those games have deeper stories then most games. If you don't care about discovering the lore (I don't either) then just watch some videos. Everything you want is already there.
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As someone who can't handle stress very well due to reasons I would not like to discuss, Youtube lore videos for soulsborne games are really cool as are no commentary longplays.

ENB comes to mind.

 
I abolustely love the genre for not forcing me through dialogue heavy moments. I can watch or skip a handful of cutscenes and that's it. If I want to dive deeper I can buy a book that comes out or watch a video explaining it. I love it when a game can make me feel part of the world with fewer moments of dialogue and build up to some moment you see coming a mile away. I love being in the moment where I did something ridiculously obscure and it makes the credits roll. It's like being in a art gallery where you're looking at a painting and it's beautiful. You can't tell what the artist wanted it to be, but it's enjoyable to look at.

I'd rather fight a dragon with it having 0 to infinity amounts of storytelling than fight one where my characters discussed it for hours on end during banter. I'd rather fight a mystical dragon I find outta nowhere than hear about why someone needs me to do the same fetch quest just to gain entry somewhere.

I think it gets criticized by different types of gamers for weird reasons, but that's just my opinion. I personally felt like Demon's Souls back on PS3 crafted a perfect mold. It wasn't some computer or random NPC giving me some speech before I progressed 10-15 for another cutscene. I feel like I'm looking through a beautiful art book or book of architecture while I'm playing the games. I can see the world with my eyes and I can still follow that awesome formula of defeating a castle of enemies. I don't want that to change. A little goes a long way in my opinion. Which is why I love replaying FROM Software's games.
 
I don't hate the storytelling, but find it extremely overrated, honestly i thought it was just a cool game about killing dragons, monsters and zombies and ghouls until i heard there was an story and wanted to learn more but its just pure nonsense, the praise it gets is laughable(like on Resetera)but whatever.

will say Bloodborne has some interesting lore though, and the small cutscenes add some personality to the bosses even if a little
 
Northeastmonk said:
I abolustely love the genre for not forcing me through dialogue heavy moments. I can watch or skip a handful of cutscenes and that's it. If I want to dive deeper I can buy a book that comes out or watch a video explaining it. I love it when a game can make me feel part of the world with fewer moments of dialogue and build up to some moment you see coming a mile away. I love being in the moment where I did something ridiculously obscure and it makes the credits roll. It's like being in a art gallery where you're looking at a painting and it's beautiful. You can't tell what the artist wanted it to be, but it's enjoyable to look at.

I'd rather fight a dragon with it having 0 to infinity amounts of storytelling than fight one where my characters discussed it for hours on end during banter. I'd rather fight a mystical dragon I find outta nowhere than hear about why someone needs me to do the same fetch quest just to gain entry somewhere.

I think it gets criticized by different types of gamers for weird reasons, but that's just my opinion. I personally felt like Demon's Souls back on PS3 crafted a perfect mold. It wasn't some computer or random NPC giving me some speech before I progressed 10-15 for another cutscene. I feel like I'm looking through a beautiful art book or book of architecture while I'm playing the games. I can see the world with my eyes and I can still follow that awesome formula of defeating a castle of enemies. I don't want that to change. A little goes a long way in my opinion. Which is why I love replaying FROM Software's games.
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I think there should be a more elegant(friendly?) way of presenting the plot, rather than on loading screens and item descriptions it seems FROM is moving slowly with Sekiro and Elden Ring to a more presentable story
 
It feels like it started that way for budgetary reasons and it just became the style. "You read that shit and watch vaatividya on your own bitch."
 
You just need to collect EVERY SINGLE WEAPON in the entire game, what's so hard about that?

Joey Bosa Video GIF


I kind of hate it too, but I enjoy the gameplay.
 
I like the way its done. It has nice world building and a cool mysterious vibe about it.

I still don't really know whats going either mind you, but i still like it.
 
Yeah, I love the games and the gameplay so much, but I just can't be bothered with diving deep into the story. It's cool and all, but to me it's totally nonsensical.

I don't have the time or energy to inspect every single object and try to put all the puzzle pieces together. It's cool that it's there and I understand if it's your thing but come on.. How do people do it?

Collect all the nuggets of info in a spreadsheet? Copy all of the nonsensical dialogue to post-its for easier interpretation later? Discuss on forums and write a masters thesis?
 
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Nah, its one of the reasons i love them.

If they were more "cinematic" and cutscenes heavy i would not bother with them.

Such games are less common. Thankfully for you, most other games are cinematic so you should be happy.
 
I agree with the OP. People seem to be confusing lore and worldbuilding with storytelling.

There is a huge chunk (heh) of lore in the Souls games, but the game does a horrible job giving you this info in the 'conventional' way, although this could be the player's fault for expecting such a thing in the first place.

I have to admit I know almost nothing about a Soul's game's story until I start going to wikis.

That said, a couple of NPCs succeeded in giving me feels without me wiki'ing about them like the prince of Boletaria in Demon's Souls. Ostrava I think his name was? I really liked his character, his sense of duty in fixing his father's mess coming in direct conflict with his lack of expertise.
 
The Souls games are cryptic on purpose. Even if you would read everything these games have to offer you wouldn't understand everything to its fullest extent. This leaves room for interpretation. Miyazaki wants it that way as he has often stated.

Just like the gameplay is a commitment so is the gathering of clues about the world and its inhabitants. This is an important part of the core experience. It is incredibly fulfilling to beat a hard boss after countless tries and it is also very fulfilling to find a rare piece of lore and draw your own final conclusions.

To tell a story like this might not be very convenient to you but it is a pretty natural way to absorb and conceive something. What do you do when you travel to a foreign land? You start to read about it. And when you are there you will visit a landmark or a sight and there will surely be written something that tells you more about this place.
 
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Jesus, could you imagine how shiity the Souls games would be with constant stoppages of gameplay for cutscenes and story exposition?

You get a cutscene at the beginning and one at the end, in between the story is told through items, NPCs, locations, and it's perfect that way.
 
Being obtuse In the story deparment is part of their charm however I laugh whenever a random dude on the internet or some 10 h long essay videos talk about the lore as it was some Gandhi deep shit. They're really not. People can "imagine" things about the story in its lack of coherence and thats why its good. I also wish it had a more straight forward lore/story but at the same time being complex as well instead of the nonsense they feed us. You can have a great story presentation without intrerupting the player but fans are just blind to that idea.
 
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I thought so too until Bloodborne and I dvelved into that universe by reading Palebood Hunt and other theories. I then later went back to Souls because I thought that I missed a great story here as well but unfortunately that was not the case. Dark Souls didn't do anything to me.

So I guess the storytelling can be good... if you dig the universe itself.

Generally I like it because of it's uniqueness. This kind of storytelling can turely only be done in a videogame.
 
I love the story telling specially because i hate long walls of text(Dragon age) or long cutscenes taking the controller away(FF13).

My only problem with From's storytelling is that they usually rush their games out, cutting a lot of content away in the process. As a consequence, certain storylines feel way more incomplete than it should be(Velka storyline in dark souls 1 is an example of this)

I hope that now that FROM's popular Bamco will lose the leash as far as release date goes.
 
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Swift_Star said:
Honestly, I love all of them and always get addicted to it but the storytelling is utterly lacking. I really wanted to know for real the characters motivation, the enemies, gods, villains, motivation. Know their personalities, who they really are. Why am I doing this? Why am I going to the fend and getting power to get demon souls and free the world? Why me? Just because? What am I? I have no idea. Why I'm the ashen one? Why I'm the chosen hollow?
The lack of real storytelling in these games is something I really don't like and, c'mon, reading "lore through items" is not really storytelling.
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I know the story is very vague, but as far as all your questions go they're all explained in the opening cutscenes.
 
Yea it's not great storytelling. Souls games can be very interesting at times (Bloodborne), but it's hilarious to me that some people think it's the greatest writing in the world because you have to dig hard just to figure out what the fuck is happening. At this point I actually think it's lazy, hackneyed writing at best.
 
Yeah, the storytelling is pretty vague, it's all about the atmosphere, not story in a traditional sense.

Thankfully the atmosphere is great and the mysterious vibe is intriguing, but it all essentially boils down to "well, I guess that's a thing that just happened"
 
kyliethicc said:
Returnal seems like how a Souls game would be structured if there was a greater emphasis on telling a story.
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I think they are similar in leaving things open to interpretation and explaining through logs but they used visuals in place of NPCs so it's "easier" to understand. But Returnal was far more ambiguous than any souls story overall.
 
This is literally one of the best features of Soulsborne games. I would stop playing if they made the narrative cut-scene based. Well, probably not, but it would trash the storytelling for me.
 
Sekiro has a more defined story, the protagonist has a place and name, it's somehow less cryptic.
Souls games have more or less the same story retold, you're the Chosen/Hollow/Ashen/Tarnished one and you must kill the ancient corrupted gods/kings to start a new cycle.
 
The stories are brilliant in that they are there for you to get completely invested into or you are free to ignore all together.
 
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Characters motivations in video games are usually them being incredibly dumb or them reacting to the game world being incredibly dumb and nonsensical.
 
Swift_Star said:
Honestly, I love all of them and always get addicted to it but the storytelling is utterly lacking. I really wanted to know for real the characters motivation, the enemies, gods, villains, motivation. Know their personalities, who they really are. Why am I doing this? Why am I going to the fend and getting power to get demon souls and free the world? Why me? Just because? What am I? I have no idea. Why I'm the ashen one? Why I'm the chosen hollow?
The lack of real storytelling in these games is something I really don't like and, c'mon, reading "lore through items" is not really storytelling.
Click to expand...
They have no money for proper story telling with VA and cut scenes.
 
Swift_Star said:
Honestly, I love all of them and always get addicted to it but the storytelling is utterly lacking. I really wanted to know for real the characters motivation, the enemies, gods, villains, motivation. Know their personalities, who they really are. Why am I doing this? Why am I going to the fend and getting power to get demon souls and free the world? Why me? Just because? What am I? I have no idea. Why I'm the ashen one? Why I'm the chosen hollow?
The lack of real storytelling in these games is something I really don't like and, c'mon, reading "lore through items" is not really storytelling.
Click to expand...
I dunno i quite like it, its very mysterious and cryptic almost like letting you make up your own imagination on what the story is about, especially in demon souls and ds3 but i wouldnt be againest cutscenes or alot more dialog, one of the worst story in all of dark souls is on the first game with the praise the sun guys side quest looking for his sun just the dialog and the way the quest plays out is just utter shite
 
Swift_Star said:
Honestly, I love all of them and always get addicted to it but the storytelling is utterly lacking. I really wanted to know for real the characters motivation, the enemies, gods, villains, motivation. Know their personalities, who they really are. Why am I doing this? Why am I going to the fend and getting power to get demon souls and free the world? Why me? Just because? What am I? I have no idea. Why I'm the ashen one? Why I'm the chosen hollow?
The lack of real storytelling in these games is something I really don't like and, c'mon, reading "lore through items" is not really storytelling.
Click to expand...
Nah.We have more than enough of those kind of games. As a lifetime horror fan, I love how Souls games leave things open to interpretation. Nothing ruins the atmosphere more than over-explaining everything. Silent Hill movie was a perfect example of that.

Perhaps it would be better to stick with Hollywood blockbusters, and games that imitate them, if that's your thing.
 
Swift_Star said:
Honestly, I love all of them and always get addicted to it but the storytelling is utterly lacking. I really wanted to know for real the characters motivation, the enemies, gods, villains, motivation. Know their personalities, who they really are. Why am I doing this? Why am I going to the fend and getting power to get demon souls and free the world? Why me? Just because? What am I? I have no idea. Why I'm the ashen one? Why I'm the chosen hollow?
The lack of real storytelling in these games is something I really don't like and, c'mon, reading "lore through items" is not really storytelling.
Click to expand...
It is precisely that story or legend that is not explicit that fascinates me. It must be one of the few video games where practically you have to deduce the story through fragments of stories in the items, the descriptions, the brief interventions of the npc among others.
When you face kings, archdukes, knights, monks you think of ceremonious antagonists, but when you see them, they are rotten, disgraced, corrupted, or rightly dead. That gives you an idea of the world you are walking in, one in decline. Fantastic.
 
Imru' al-Qays said:
The Souls games have the best storytelling in the medium because they're not trying to imitate movies.
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I don't think so. I actually don't think they are trying to tell a story, at least not one they care about people understanding. They want people to be immersed by the atmosphere and bizarre world and characters. They left the item descriptions as breadcrumbs for the ones that wanted to know a bit more about what's actually going on.

Thing is, it's not good storytelling, it's downright terrible because you have to go to a YouTuber to find out what even was going on, but they are not trying to tell any story anyway, and that's fine, I love those games as they are but let's also not begin to tell nonsense. :)
 
Azurro said:
I don't think so. I actually don't think they are trying to tell a story, at least not one they care about people understanding. They want people to be immersed by the atmosphere and bizarre world and characters. They left the item descriptions as breadcrumbs for the ones that wanted to know a bit more about what's actually going on.

Thing is, it's not good storytelling, it's downright terrible because you have to go to a YouTuber to find out what even was going on, but they are not trying to tell any story anyway, and that's fine, I love those games as they are but let's also not begin to tell nonsense. :)
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They're absolutely trying to tell a story, you just have to let go of the conventions of other media to really understand what they're doing. The Souls games tell their stories in such a way that understanding the story is itself analogous to gameplay - you have to actively look for clues and piece things together via trial and error, just like as if you were progressing through a video game. They're more similar to works of experimental fiction like the House of Leaves or the science fiction novels of Gene Wolfe than they are to cinema, which is where most other "story-heavy" games derive their inspiration. In this sense I think the Souls games are almost the only games that have embarked on a natively ludic manner of storytelling
 
Imru' al-Qays said:
They're absolutely trying to tell a story, you just have to let go of the conventions of other media to really understand what they're doing. The Souls games tell their stories in such a way that understanding the story is itself analogous to gameplay - you have to actively look for clues and piece things together via trial and error, just like as if you were progressing through a video game. They're more similar to works of experimental fiction like the House of Leaves or the science fiction novels of Gene Wolfe than they are to cinema, which is where most other "story-heavy" games derive their inspiration. In this sense I think the Souls games are almost the only games that have embarked on a natively ludic manner of storytelling
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Just because they split up the paragraphs in the world building and put it into a jigsaw puzzle doesn't mean it has a meaningful story or that it is any good. Seeing bits of story in random pots and pieces of armour is equally stupid as any other way of conveying a story that you are denouncing above. If you go to a medieval armorer and order some armour and a sword, why in heaven's name would they have written random paragraphs of information? Hey, imagine a villager looking at a pot, seeing a paragraph like "Gwyn, the king of blah, blah, blah", then asking his wife why in the heavens that is written on the pot used to store flour. Look around your house and find how many pots have written paragraphs about the war of Iraq or why your Levi's shirts have paragraphs about the landing on the moon.

That is "equally dissonant in a ludic sense", i.e. makes no sense and is equally stupid. It's a novelty way of adding world building, that's it, but there's no meaningful story with fleshed out characters, arcs, or any of the sort. It's a bit of an arrogant POV, it reminds me of the dumbasses that think that jumping around while an NPC talks behind a glass is a great narrative, or even worse, the stupid idiots that decided "hey, let's put 80% of our story in audio tapes" was a good thing and worse, that it spread around the industry. I'd rather a good story with good cutscenes and proper acting rather than these...."innovations".
 
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