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[Astral Dog]

i see people think adding a little bit of conventional storytelling here and there would make SOULS a God of War clone, ruin the atmosphere or whatever, it will not. Not asking for 2+hours of cutscenes

anyways i think the Metroid Prime games told their plot in a more comprehensible way(similar style to Souls) , the problem is that sometimes you can't skip using the visor XD

gonna add that this has a positive spin, the minimalistic storytelling in SOULS games started that way as a budget thing, players liked figuring out the plot themselves so it stuck for the next games, i admire that FROM puts the money in polishing their actual gameplay and content(some techniqal issues aside) , everyone can enjoy the games even ignoring the plot, these are big, 3D Castlevania like experiences with tons of amazingly designed enemies and bosses

 

[Kamina]

Title is a paradox

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

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".

To be honest you seem not to have much experience with experimental fiction. There are entire novels, quite critically acclaimed, written in the style of "random snippets of information that the reader has to piece together." Not every story has to resemble a soap opera in its content and presentation, even if that's your personal preference.

Bloodborne tells you in the first lines of the game what to expect from its story: "Oh, yes, Paleblood. Well, you've come to the right place. Yharnam is the home of blood ministration. You need only unravel its mystery." That's what you're supposed to be doing: unraveling the mystery of what's going on in the city. I found Bloodborne's story to be more compelling than that of all but a handful of games.

 

[DelireMan7]

Storytelling and lore are what put the Soulsborne above everything else in gaming for me.

But I get that it's not for everybody.

 

[FrankWza]

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.

I think it's in tune with the fantasy worlds that the games are set in. There are no dependable historians and all stories ended up turning into legend. Good or bad. Just like game of thrones. After years and generations pass, the stories are skewed.
Same thing with Returnal. They made that story and the visual way of telling it because it fits in with sci-fi and the movies that inspired it like 2001 and aliens.

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.

Same answer. I think this style of storytelling fits in with the subject or the literature it is based on

 

[Aesius]

The Soulsborne games are the definition of "show, don't tell" when it comes to storytelling. I can't imagine how much less interesting the games would be if every boss fight was introduced via 5-minute cutscene of them explaining their backstory and motivations.

 

[R6Rider]

I don't mind the storytelling or the info on items about the lore.

What I do mind is the vague quest requirements and states, especially in 3.

Quest NPC: You have found the item, defeated the bosses in the correct order, and skipped speaking to the other NPC first... correct?
Me: Yup! So quest complete right?
Quest NPC: Oh, sorry, it's Wednesday. Too soon.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

My issue isn't so much with the storytelling, so much as the actual story. It's all so hokey and clichéd.

"Thou art the chosen one" this, "prophesied by the ancient" that…

Bore off.

 

[FunkMiller]

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.

You're never going to get a Souls game with an easy to follow story all the time Miyazaki is in charge.

His entire storytelling philosophy is archaeological. He wants you to have to search for, and uncover the storyline.

This stems from how as a child he would have to make an effort to understand western fantasy like Lord Of The Rings, due to the language barrier. He only got snippets, and often either had to fill in the blanks himself, or research things, to get the full story.

Souls games are meant to be played, and also meant to be researched. You have to go digging to discover the full story. That's why the games are so popular. They exist on one level with the gameplay, and on entirely another with the way you have to work to understand the story. They are essentially games with two gameplay mechanics: the game itself, and then the effort you have to put in to properly understand what's going on.

Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way, and I doubt Miyazaki would either at this stage.

 

[Braag]

I just mainly play them for their gameplay. You can watch Vaati and other youtubers who explain the story, but even then, a lot of details are quite vague.

 

[Raven117]

Well, I kinda love the way they do it.

It gives such a sense of mystery, plus the community comes up with some bonkers theories. Its kinda grea.t

 

[FrankWza]

I don't mind the storytelling or the info on items about the lore.

What I do mind is the vague quest requirements and states, especially in 3.

Quest NPC: You have found the item, defeated the bosses in the correct order, and skipped speaking to the other NPC first... correct?
Me: Yup! So quest complete right?
Quest NPC: Oh, sorry, it's Wednesday. Too soon.

This is why it's impossible to platinum a From game without checking out a guide for the second play through

 

[lachesis]

Well, sounds like my issue with Igavanias.
Love the exploration, enjoy every single moment - but end up not remembering anything at all in the end for the storywise.
That's the beauty of a video game, that it really doesn't have to be anything about stories but the core experience of being in the moment.

 

[K2D]

Bloodborne textgate. Another reason to love Bloodborne, getting to gatekeep the story from people who don't/can't read! /s

Honestly I'd love for even more organic storytelling in Souls games, but I also love having to look for it.

 

[Griffon]

Sekiro has a more normal story... and it's not that great.

I prefer the mystery.

 

[Swift_Star]

i see people think adding a little bit of conventional storytelling here and there would make SOULS a God of War clone, ruin the atmosphere or whatever, it will not. Not asking for 2+hours of cutscenes

anyways i think the Metroid Prime games told their plot in a more comprehensible way(similar style to Souls) , the problem is that sometimes you can't skip using the visor XD

gonna add that this has a positive spin, the minimalistic storytelling in SOULS games started that way as a budget thing, players liked figuring out the plot themselves so it stuck for the next games, i admire that FROM puts the money in polishing their actual gameplay and content(some techniqal issues aside) , everyone can enjoy the games even ignoring the plot, these are big, 3D Castlevania like experiences with tons of amazingly designed enemies and bosses

I feel elder ring will try to tell a proper story... It's going to be great if they do.

 

[Swift_Star]

They have no money for proper story telling with VA and cut scenes.

After selling 20M games? What?

 

[Swift_Star]

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.

I actually don't. And it sucks. I wanted to know why there is a alien spider named ROM in a white mist trying to kill me.
I wanted to know why there are two moving assassin gargoyles. To me they're nothing but challenges I have to overcome. I love the games, I hate the way they present their stories.

 

[Swift_Star]

Swift_Star In this thread, https://www.neogaf.com/threads/would-you-accept-this-one-small-change-to-the-fromsoft-games.1616537/ I argued for more ways to discover lore, not exactly through cutscenes or heavy dialogue, and I think people would be into it if done right

Yeah, they could have documents all around like resident evil games where you get the extra bits of story if you bother to read them. You're not forced to do it. That would be great.

 

[JoeBudden]

its impossible to have this discussion with how overly defensive soulsborne fanatics are over any sort of criticism towards these games, but you are completely right OP.

 

[Yoboman]

Let Souls games be what they want to be. There is a lot of value in minimalist story telling. ICO and Shadow of the Colossus wouldn't be better games for having more dialogue and cutscenes

If I want an action game to scratch that itch I've got God of War

 

[Swift_Star]

Title is a paradox

Why? I have hundreds of hours in this series, just hate the way they present the story. Bloodborne has an amazing world but I'm not reading or watching long ass videos do get the Lore, it's not worth it.

 

[Yoboman]

They have no money for proper story telling with VA and cut scenes.

What? They literally have enough money that they managed to get George RR Martin to actually write something

 

[Swift_Star]

its impossible to have this discussion with how overly defensive soulsborne fanatics are over any sort of criticism towards these games, but you are completely right OP.

I'm utter crazy about these games gameplay-wise. I adore them, but the way they tell their stories is really, really bad.

 

[JoeBudden]

I'm utter crazy about these games gameplay-wise. I adore them, but the way they tell their stories is really, really bad.

Yep, i know how you feel.

I really hate having to go outside of the game to research online what's going on in the story like i just finished watching an ambiguous after credits scene for a Marvel movie.

Bloodborne in particular really has some fascinating shit going on in its world that most people will fail to fully understand or completely miss altogether because they just don't care to research about the lore.

I have a similar issue with these live service games with deep lore like Apex Legends and Overwatch, where there is no way to fully understand or learn the story and lore within the games itself, especially if you joined the hype train later on after launch / several seasons. You are absolutely required to go find youtube videos and posts online explaining everything.

 

[haxan7]

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.

Elden Ring might satisfy your craving for Souls with a story.

That's probably as close as you're gonna get.

Personally, if I wanted to sit through cutscenes or sift through endless dialog, I could literally just play any other game.