Nintendo Wii Fanboy

For me, the story and the characters are the most important aspects of a game (which is why I never took to the Mario games).... If a story seems contrived then I won't enjoy the game (which is why I had fun with Final Fantasy XII but Final Fantasy X made me want to gouge my eyes out). Most games also need some sort of motivation behind what one does in the game. If one is required to run around and blow things up without any sort of discernible ultimate objective then I know I won't enjoy it at all.

A story doesn't have to be all that invasive (is that the right word?) in the story for me to enjoy it so long as it isn't rubbish. Zelda games from Link to the Past onwards have subtle story aspects which define the course of the game but aren't the most important of any of the titles. But they're fun and one learns more about the world in the game as one advances. I particularly enjoy the stories in the Fire Emblem series. They're inspiring and cool and make one wish to continue the game which is what a story should do. Okami is the same way. The story and the world are really fun so I have a hard time putting down the controller unless I get stuck.

There are some games I play only for the gameplay. Music games (DJ Max > Guitar Hero) have to be replay-able on the merit of their challenging gameplay alone. Multiplayer games also have to offer balanced and fun gameplay. Smash Brothers and StarCraft (SC is the best game ever made :P) have survived as intense multiplayer games because they are so well crafted (no one is going to dump five years into StarCraft just because that person enjoyed the single player story). However, these games are not as prevalent in my game library because a story is what usually draws me most. This is, of course, a personal perspective. I play/read a lot of visual novels and read scores of compelling literature as a child before entrenching myself into gaming so I'm more prone to being sensitive to the deep story aspect of a game than I assume Mario aficionados are.

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I love a good story with my games but only if the game will keep me going for more than a few days or weeks even. So far my favorite story in a game would be hands down Final Fantasy 8 but don't get me wrong I do love a great game even without the story. I have been a fan of games such as Mario since the NES days and I love them but if a game is supposed to be drawn out then a gripping story is a must. So far my favorite story for the Wii would be LOZTP. Now about Mario Galaxy I feel the story is good for the game play since it doesn't really have that epic aspect to it but I would love to see some great stories told over the life of the Wii. For the most part the titles for the Wii have been lacking in the story department.

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My preferences have changed a lot recently. A few years ago, all I played were long, epic games like Final Fantasy and Zelda. Now I have a lot less time for gaming, so I play mostly fast-action-low-story games: Madden, Mario, Rock Band, VC games like DKC and Super Mario World, etc. I like to be able to play for half an hour and actually accomplish something. You couldn't really do that in a FF game.

Unfortunately for some, I don't really see that engrossing-story game on the Wii... yet. I'm sure it will come, but there will be few of them. The Wii is about pick-up-and-play fun for the whole family, and that usually doesn't include 15 minutes of dialog before you can play a game. That's why I've always said that Wii is a great companion console; hardcore gamers will likely need a 360 or PS3 to really be satisfied this generation.

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Stories are kind of love/hate for me. On the one hand, a good one definitely adds to the gameplay and keeps the fandom strong. But on the other hand, I can't be bothered to remember minute details about random characters in a video game if all I want to do is sit down and play 10 minutes a day. FF7 didn't seem any different from Pokemon to me because I took HUGE breaks from gameplay during which I basically forgot the storyline and character backgrounds, leaving me to scour Wikipedia and walkthroughs to get enough info to finish the game. Even with Zelda, I have to leave sticky-notes on my Wii to remind me of what the heck I was doing in Ocarina of Time.

I don't think Mario has to change. It's been immensely successful without ever being a wonderful work of fiction. I think I'd be more disappointed if they came out with a story-filled Mario that stunk than never coming out with one at all.

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I love a great story but if it takes away anything from the gameplay or sheer fun of the game then I'd rather not have it. Honestly that's one of the reasons I didn't like Bioshock, yeah a good story and great atmosphere but that's all it had going for it. Otherwise it was a rather stale and tedious experience.

If I really want a great story I'll go read a book (which I do from time to time or when I'm bored in class).

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A good, character driven story is nice, as long as it doesn't detract from the gameplay, but a backstory, especially about the game's world, it's history, politics, etc, that really wows me.

That's why i adored the lore of the Metroid Prime games, gave so much back story, i also like Fire Emblem and Zelda for the same reasons

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A good story is a good game. A great story is a great game. An amazing story is an AMAZING GAME. An unusual story is... a mostly great game.


... I'm okay with character storyline, it's definitely cool and all...
~_~ But it's kind of a turn-off for me now. Though if I play it, I get into it. But I never have the will to buy it nowadays...

It's all about the whole universe's storyline.
Everyone has a story to tell, every building, every statue and every NPC... it'd be nice to know at least a part of their history... or at least a SIGN that it HAD a history.
When I know a game has that, I HAVE TO GET IT. (very few games have that though)
... :) It gives you more of a prespective of who the people are, what the things are, where things are, and why are things there.

Mmmm... Mass Effect goodness...

*ahem* If a game has a story, I would like to feel more inside the story.
Some games don't even need to have that much of a backstory to make you feel a part of the story.


... but of course, a story can be ruined by completely awful gameplay.
Gameplay rocks.

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People tend to forget about Mario Paper (etc.) games, which are technically a Mario game with a story (bowser becomes part of your party, what else can you ask for? plottwist++)! Anyhow, I guess this was discussed yesterday!

Back to the topic of discussion, I'm much of a reading guy, so a game with a pretty good story that actually makes me want to go forward and see what happens with the settings and characters hits me on the heart. However, it needs to be perfectly presented. Like someone noted above, some games overreact with the story which makes me lose interest in the end.

To end my post, I would like to say Zelda games have completely lost my interest with their sub-par story development.

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I think too many people seem to think the story is something that exist outside or around the gameplay which is something dangerously counteractive to the idea that Video games are a new medium of storytelling.

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I am also in the camp that long hours of gaming is now a luxury so has geared my gaming purchases towards games like Mario, Geometry War,..etc. However, every once in a while, I'd like a game with more story. For the most part, I tend to play longer games in my DS, especially when I out on business trip. It is just hard to play long hours of Wii with two kids at home.

For the Wii, the only game I have played with a good story is Fire Emblem, which I highly recommend. But get the first part of the current series in the Gamecube version first.

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Well the fact that Mario games never have stories is Miyamoto's fault. I read all about it. Shigeru HATES stories in Mario games, for some reason. He insists on the same old princess rescue, maybe because he wants to make the game focus only on its fun factor. The director of Galaxy said he actually only got away with the little bit of story there was because it was optional and you had to go and look for it. If he had it his way, Mario games would have intense and exciting plots, but the Miyamoto shuts him down.

I do loves me a good story. However, gameplay ALWAYS comes first. Gameplay comes before graphics, story, sound, artistic design, everything. If a game is unplayable, then it sucks automatically. That's why all arcade games were classics. There was no story, or intense graphics, or fancy design, nada. Just pure gaming goodness, and thats why they are so special to a lot of people.

Anyway, yes, I do love a good story, and my favorite two series have excellent stories: Zelda and Metroid. That is actually why I was so pleased with TP, because Nintendo was FINALLY beginning to take forward steps with the story itself. People always praise OoT for its story, and it does have a good story, but the story takes a backseat until very specific moments, so its not a big deal. TP has great cutscenes and the story is actually pretty interesting, and I'm sure the next game will build on the advances they made so far. Metroid, on the other hand, has an entirely optional story, but a really great one. You don't get slapped in the face with the plot, but if you choose to look into the scans and data logs, you'll really be interested. Very clever on Retro's part. So, MP3 and LoZ:TP are the best of the best story games on Wii.

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First and foremost, I've always believed that if the gameplay sucks, the entire game will be difficult, and it won't be worth playing. I want to play a game and have fun, not waste time fighting with my controller.

The second most important thing to me in a game is storyline. If the game has an awesome storyline, there's almost no way I can hate it. That is, as long as the controls don't fight me. This is one of the reasons why Tales of Symphonia is one of my favorite games ever, and I simply CANNOT wait for Knights of Ratatata... Knights of whatever that title calls them.

Of course, I know some games don't require storylines, or have a light storyline with no real depth. That's why gameplay is so important.

On the other side of the spectrum, as long as it doesn't look like a work of Picasso (Assuming, of course, it's not a game that NEEDS such art xP...), I'm don't really care much about graphics. I just need to know the person on the screen is a human/robot/alien/whatever, and that the thing I'm hitting isn't an ally, and I can pretty much get over any lack of graphics. Don't get me wrong, graphics can also add to a game, but I don't rank them very high on game priority.

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Story is dependent on the type of game. Of course an RPG has to have a passable attempt at a story, as do action games or a certain FPS. I can't name how many RPGs had decent stories, so that's why I play them, if not because of the pure addictiveness. However, even if the story is boring, as long as the game play is long lasting and fun, I'll be willing to ignore the stupid story.(Tales of the World 3)
If playing a puzzle game, I naturally expect no story whatsoever, and just a fun game.
Action or adventure games are usually filled with a decent story. I expect the Zelda or Ratchet and Clank franchises to have a good story. If they fail to provide an entertaining story, I usually lose interest. This is only untrue in the case of Prince of Persia. The plot was OK, but the game mechanics itself is what drew me to it. Mega Man is also a franchise which requires little to nothing as far as plot. You go through stages and shoot things. What more do you need to know?
Most FPS games are to the point where they focus on linear story-telling, a direct copycat from Half-Life in 1998. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just now getting to the point where it's becoming more loose and less restricted as to what develops the plot.
As for open-ended RPGs, like any MMORPG or something like D&D or TES, the story's there but it's nothing worth delving into.

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A good story gets you emotionally involved in the game. I think Mario Galaxy is great fun as it is, but it could have been better if it had a compelling story behind it.

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I really feel that with a few, genre specific exceptions, too much story can really detract from a game, I really feel that story is incredibly important, but I feel that the story should drive the gameplay, rather than the other way around. Perfect Dark for the N64 will always be one of my favorite games of all time, the story was great, especially for an FPS at the time, but I could play any level of the single player campaign and still be completely engrossed in the gameplay, it lacks the urgency it had when I first completed the game, because I can't even try to really feel the world-saving stakes, but it's still a well-enough crafted game that I enjoy it thoroughly. Story driven games are seeping more and more out of the niche of the RPG, and more into other genres, and don't get me wrong, most of my favorite games are incredibly well-crafted RPGs, but I can't put them down and come back in a few months, when I come back, I have to start at the beginning, and I'd hate to have to do that with every game. Galaxy was great fun, I completed most of the game rather quickly because the gameplay was fantastic, and the beauty of it is, I can go back and play any star I want next year, and I will still enjoy it just as much. To sum it up, story is great, and I like to see it, but it shouldn't be central to all of them, and it isn't neccesary in all of them.

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The first 20 seconds of Donkey Kong is really all the story I ever needed in a video game. All the Mario games since then have taken more time to tell the story, but there hasn't been much more depth.

But I liked the story in Twilight Princess, despite the way they fed it to me one sentence at a time, printing to the screen at seemingly 300bps. And the story in Katamari Damacy was pretty cute and surreal.

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"how important a good story is to you when it comes to choosing games."

None. Not important at all.

Do Breakout, Tetris, DDR, Excite Truck, or Mercury Meltdown have stories? Hell no, but I still loved those games. Did the NES Mario games or the Donkey Kong Country series have "good" stores? Hell no, but they were still great.

More often than not, a story just gets in the way of gameplay. And even when it doesn't get in the way, I still don't give a crap if there's a good story or not. It's a videogame, not a novel.

Ok, ok, there is ONE exception I will make: The Splinter Cell series. I *love* the stories in those, plus they're handled very well, and they actually do add to the game (I'm speaking of the first three games in the series, I've only just started on the fourth).

But yea, other than that, videogames have become far too chatty for my tastes. Much worse, though, there is by far too much non-interactiveness in this supposedly interactive medium (And when I say that, I'm also including the gigantic influx of all that useless crap developers have been cramming in before the title screen, even though none of that is story). I don't give a crap who said what or why I'm shooting bad guys, just let me PLAY THE DAMN GAME! If I wanted to watch cutscenes I'd have popped in a DVD instead.

Now, if a someone wants to put a good story, or even a bad story, into their game AND never lets the story actually get in the way of gameplay (Again, Splinter Cell is a good example. So is GBA's Astro Boy), then fine, I have no problem. Just as long as they don't expect me to give a crap whether or not there's a story at all, or whether or not the story is good.

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The only story I need to know is that as mayor of Metro City I have to rescue my daughter Jessica.

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