/lit/ - Literature

>not VII

The Longest Journey.

>>5497309
>final fantasy
>great writing

Only real answer is 7

tetris

>>5497309
>Final Fantasy 6
>good writing
Wuter nigg?
It's painstakingly obvious they ran out of time at the end and did the entire World of Ruin storyline in one sitting. And even the World of Balance story is pretty fucking meh. Forgotten Realms tier at the absolute best

Virtue's Last Reward

>>5497309
>Are there any games with great writing?
No.
For good narrative stick to plotless indie experimental games.
>The closest ones I can think of that meet this criteria are Final Fantasy X, 6, and 3.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

none, video game writing is kitschy as fuck but it's only right because no braindead manchild could appreciate something beyond the satisfaction he gets from thumb-twaddling

I still think that the most well written game is Murder Dog IV: The Trial of Murder Dog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfF3psMGXPQ

Mother 3

Touhou.

>>5497351
This.

>>5497448
ma nigga

>>5497309
Well, FFX had some really good parts, but FFVI is not such a big thing, and FFIII was lame.

I think some games can have a good storyline/plot when compared to popular movies or books, but not so good if we match them with top tier literature. Example: Has Metal Gear Solid better writing than The Da Vinci Code, 50 Shades of Grey or a random Tom Clancy novel? Yes. Better than a lot of recent popular movies? Yes. Could we compare it with Homer, Cervantes, Dostoievski, Proust or Pynchon literature? NO

The thing is that almost every videogame is targeted towards youngsters and manchildren and need to appeal to huge audience since they're very expensive to develop, so they not usually provide with any real mature content overall.

>>5497492
If you strip everything else away, the bare theology that's left of FFIII is pretty fucking /lit/, in a Silmarillion kind of way at least.

FFX did not have any good parts. It was 10th grade level creative writing, or maybe 9th grade

>FFX
>good writing

HA HA HA HA HA HA-AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

>>5497506
FFIII was built upon a 'The Dark Crystal' rip-off tier plot device.
May be the thing is that I played 3 being more grown up that when I played 10.

>>5497442
What is this?

Planescape Torment
System Shock 2
Metal Gear Solid 2
Earthbound
Shadow of the Colossus

Some people will disagree, but I think these are some of the closest things we have to 'literary' narratives in gaming. Are they all well written? No, some are rather poorly written in parts, but nevertheless they're some of the better examples of storytelling in gaming.

>>5497309
Pathologic

>>5497309
Parasite Eve is breddygud/10 for story.

Avoid PEII like Harry Potter though

You can argue that specific games have good writing but writing itself doesn't tend to make games what they are. The best games tend to have an appreciation that they embody the player in the virtual-world and as such the experience is a multifarious one so the quality of writing doesn't typically matter (think how bad MGS2 is written for instance).

I don't think writing alone can represent the sensory elements that bring the most interesting qualities out in the medium. Games are all about experiential perception and it's pretty much ingrained in them rather than being a stylistic choice. A game doesn't play itself. It is played and experienced and the best 'writers' of video-games are able to understand that.

You can relate it to literature because its a combination of active participation between reading and the process of cognitive understanding of the reading-self.

But yeah I think I've swayed past the point of the OP at this point.

>>5497309
The Persona series

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is pretty great. Anyone who's delved any notable depth of TES lore will testify that shit be pretty wack, yo. If anyone is interested I could tell you all about the creation, the metaphysics, or what have you.

I've also thoroughly enjoyed Bastion, The Stanley Parable, Gunpoint, Deus Ex, and SS2.

>>5497566
>You can relate it to literature because its a combination of active participation between reading and the process of cognitive understanding of the reading-self.

I honestly don't see how games are any different from this. You have all the traditional aspects of storytelling combined with aspects of gameplay. The player appreciates the gamesplay and the story elements both from the same sense of cognitive appreciation of the design and their interaction with the design. So, between gaming and the gaming-self, if you will.

The idea that the player is somehow immersed in a virtual experience where they are the 'writer' is frankly just an excuse for entitled kids to insist that developers cater to the type of escapism they prefer.

>>5497608
Pls do

>>5497622

>The idea that the player is somehow immersed in a virtual experience where they are the 'writer' is frankly just an excuse for entitled kids to insist that developers cater to the type of escapism they prefer.

Hmmm that's true, but not what I intended to mean. I was trying to reflect more on the idea that the game is controlled within designed parameters by the developer. Instead of sitting on a rollercoaster and being sent round the tracks it's more like being pushed down a big corridor. You can move side-to-side as you see fit but the walls are always there. You can go forwards and backwards, but parts of the corridor open and close behind you dependent on how far you move forward.

They aren't the writer but they are a necessary component as it's only their interaction which moves things along.

>>5497650
What that basically gets at, I think, is that games have the ability to convey narratives by means that are much more non-linear and perhaps atemporal compared to other mediums. That is a unique property of the medium, to be sure, and can be used in genuinely creative ways.

But it often isn't used creatively because, rather than encouraging creativity, gamers instead exploit the fact that games can be non-linear and interactive to simply justify the claim that a 'good' game is one that prioritizes the player's vicarious escapism, since that is supposedly the unique strength of the medium.

And when gamers insistently define the medium that way, well then it's no surprise that there isn't any good writing or storytelling because, as >>5497436 points out, it's all just thumb twaddlers defining what they want and so that's what you get.

>>5497309
Planscape always gets dropped in these threads but I think the Baldur's Gate games deserve mention as well in the writing department. The depth isn't the same as Planescape, but the storytelling is top notch.

>>5497510
nice reference

IX > the rest

>>5497627

Okay, I'll take it from the top.

One of the most fundemantal parts of the Elder Scrolls universe is that reality is a dream, dreamt up by the god-head. This is some pretty standard hindu shit, but it is only the beginning. All dreams begin with Aurbis, the Gray Maybe. Aurbis then divides into Anu and Padomay, IS and IS NOT. Anu and Padomay then subdivide into Anuiel and Sithis, Stasis and Change, who further subdivide into various Ada (gods). From here on we will move into some more familiar territory.

Amongst the Anuic Ada we have Akatosh who is Time, and amongst the Padomayic we have Lorkhan who is the Trickster-Creator. A notable thing about these two deities is that they are two sides of the same coin. Aka is Lorkhan and vice versa. So Lorkhan loves a change and he decides that he wants to create Nirn, but he himself isn't strong enough so he tricks a bunch of the other gods into helping him. After a while the gods realise that creating a world is tough work and some of them are opposed to the change it will bring, so a bunch of them get the fuck out of there after practically having finished all the necessary work. In leaving Nirn they tear holes in the veil creating the stars and the sun. Aka wants to get out too, but Lorkhan seals Aka's soul in his heart. Then Auriel comes along and rips Lorkhan's heart out and casts it down to Tamriel, the impact of which creates the red mountain. And then Trinimac rips Lorkhan's body into two parts and throws them into orbit around Nirn, creating the two moons Masser and Secunda. The remaining gods become the Earth-Bones, making sure reality flows properly.

Any questions? Want More?

>>5497715
>Any questions? Want More?
Not really. Whoever wrote that needs to get better taste and read some actual mythology.

>>5497694

Yes. I think the real shame about gaming is that it doesn't hold anyway to that differentiate one product from another. It won't grow until this happens and there's always going to be a problem with gamers who are quite willing to play games without looking at them with a critical-eye.

It seems that distribution might be too narrow. You either go through Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony on consoles, and they all uphold their own specific ideas about what games should be (and really they are all very similar when you think about it).

The situation seems to have regressed from the days when Xbox brought in XBLA and Sony endorsed games like Flow, Flower, and Journey. That point was an open-point where they didn't know what would sell and allowed for risks. Now they know what's a big hit (ie Minecraft) it's become about finding the next sellable product based on knowing what has sold in the past. It seems that the days where an interesting oddity could be released are gone. This was certainly the case with the SNES, Playstation 1 and 2, whereby a number of interesting titles were made (some of which have been named in this thread). Maybe they didn't have the greatest 'writing' but they made it seem as if people could come in with some outside-of-the-box thinking.

Of course there's PC which is generally seen as the free-medium but the main sources of commercial sales such as Steam, Humble Bundle and GOG don't uphold to any particular standards with the games they sell. They will simply sell ANYTHING. I won't be too negative as you can get some interesting ideas come through these avenues but often the work is of lower-quality and feels held back. Game-makers have no money to work with and none of those distributors are interested in funding projects. They just want to sell them.

This is a very different picture to literature and films whereby you have investors able to distribute works dependent on individual aims that are somewhat good. Publishing houses exist within institutes that want to promote certain ideas. Gaming doesn't seem to have this and it doesn't have the identity is requires.

>>5497751
It's not all in one text. It's all taken from a bunch of different in-game sources. Really though, the more tou get to know the more interesting it gets. That was the case for me at least. But to each their own.

>>5497309
Never finished VI, but III and X? Are you joking or are you really this lacking in taste. I like FFX for other reasons but to like the game's writing? You truly have no taste.

>>5497710
>>5497343

>mfw dropped in to mention both of these

OP, you silly bitch.

>>5497351

>Tetris

>not pong

>>5497530
man, I love Earthbound. The dialog is fantastic. I loved just walking around and talking to npcs.

MGS Solid Snake games have great writings altogether as a commentary on 90s through 2010s.

Final Fantasy 7 had good writing as well.

Oh and Chrono Trigger. Definetly Chrono Trigger.

All the JRPGs have completely shit writing.

Try Planescape: Torment or something.

>>5497947
WRPGs are complete shit

>>5497530
>>5497947
>Planescape: Torment

Came into this thread just to mention this one. I'm replaying it now and it's pretty breathtaking.

XI probably had the best story out of any FF, but it was such a shitty time sink that only a few people ever got to see all of it.

>>5497530
And what weaknesses that they have in terms of writing are often patched up with other aspects of the medium--MGS2 being a game that assaults you basically.