/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.10604483]

what's the best story you've seen in a retro game that would blow modern games out of the water? Other than generic popular titles like final fantasy, etc.

[Anonymous No.10604502]

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Majora's Mask, but not so much the main story itself but how all the NPCs and their storylines work.

[Anonymous No.10604506]

None of them. If I wanted a compelling story I'd read a book, I play games for gameplay.

[Anonymous No.10604507]

>>10604483
Xenogears
Shin Megami Tensei 1
Suikoden III
>>10604502
seconded

[Anonymous No.10604512]

>>10604506
You're so cool and intellectual, absolutely not pretentious at all.

[Anonymous No.10604540]

>>10604506
You're so lame and troglodytic, absolutely pretentious.

based and correct

[Anonymous No.10604579]

>>10604483
It's either this or Planescape Torment for me, I know it's not really fair to compare modern game writers to Harlan Ellison.

[Anonymous No.10605663]

>>10604483
pathologic probably

[Anonymous No.10605717]

>>10604512
This but unironically. The pretentious people are the ones who treat MGS and JRPGs like high art.

[Anonymous No.10605727]

>>10604506
Hate it when games have music. If I wanted music I'd pop the tape in.
And what's with all the art in games. No thank you I'm not in a museum, just the white dots moving around the black screen please.
And why all the buttons? If it doesn't play well with 1 button, it doesn't play well, I'm not trying to land a lunar module here.

[Anonymous No.10605735]

>>10605717
The pretentious people are the ones who differentiate entertainment into "high" art and "low" art.

[Anonymous No.10605758]

>>10604506
Why the fuck are you posting in this thread then you fat fucking spastic?

[Anonymous No.10605773]

For me it was the Legacy of Kain.
It obliterated my socks.

[Anonymous No.10605791]

>>10604507
>Xenogears
Please tell me that was a joke

[Anonymous No.10605821]

the best vidya stories are simple and dont get in the way. max payne 1 and halo 1 come to mind. halo 2 was up its own ass and gay.
>muh arbiter
>muh gravemind

[Anonymous No.10605878]

>completely optional story
>builds on the ideas from its predecessors
>accessible, yet deep
>supported through gameplay elements
The LotGH of games.

[Anonymous No.10605884]

>>10605727
Based pong enjoyer.

[Anonymous No.10606854]

>>10604579
It makes me smile Everytime I see /vr/ post based Harlan Ellison. I'm glad he gets the love he deserves here.

[Anonymous No.10606857]

>>10605758
Same reason why anyone makes atrocious posts: To get attention.

[Anonymous No.10607530]

>>10605821
this. most of the stories that people like to put on a pedestal are too up their own ass and pretentious. i always roll my at TES & halo lore nerds because TES lore is just "dude chim/surrealism/abstracts lmao" and halo lore is just people trying to turn starship troopers & aliens into star wars.

[Anonymous No.10607551]

>>10604512
This but unironically. His post distills the purity of my beliefs.

[Anonymous No.10607559]

The Sith Lords.
I only really started playing it recently in spite of trying it way back then. I got the restored content mod, which is actually considered canon to the game now for some reason and holy shit. It actually is much better than the mass effect games. The story got me back into Star Wars. Not the new shit, just back into it in general.

It's one of those games that was extremely buggy at release that is actually a severely hidden gem. It DOES need that mod to be worthwhile make no mistake, but it deserves a play from literally anybody that likes star wars OR D&D style RPGs, or to the point of this thread- a great story.

[Anonymous No.10608668]

>>10607559
>I got the restored content mod, which is actually considered canon to the game now for some reason
Curious as to how that happened. Was that a dev acknowledging the mod or Disney corporate piggybacking off its success?

[Anonymous No.10608793]

A story in a videogame is an optional factor but an important one.

The human mind works on explanations. On finding the reason behind God's machinations and things that represent them. Humanity as a species has always gained and shared knowledge through stories - recountings of successful hunts and how threatening animals were defeated, cautionary tales of mythological beings and religious figures that taught principles, morals and imparted warnings of danger through parables, tragedies and comedies, memories of war, struggle, success and failure that older generations pass down to the young, granting them wisdom and inspiring them to be all they can be.
Humans seek a story to make or learn from in pieces of art, in musical lyrics, in ancient ruins, in myths, in campfire conversations, in pub happy hours, in sports teams, in their travels, and any piece of fiction available, be it audiovisual or written word in books or the internet. We explain and learn logical concepts through wording and storytelling, not through data. Chess was not created with simple square blocks on a square board without identity. It was made with kings, queens, rooks, knights and pawns to make you reminisce about what they represent.
This is natural human behavior. Having a well-made plot and setting in a videogame, even if as basic as the reason why Doomguy is killing demons on Phobos, is natural. When all the gameplay has been discussed to exhaustion and no new strategies remain, a good story will keep people talking about a game long after its heyday. It stimulates the creative side of the mind. In a book, you get to read about the protagonist and his quest; in a game, you get to be the protagonist.
Does that mean story stands above gameplay? No. They stand side by side, but a game where a square shoots squares at other squares without rhyme or reason is just not going to stay in your mind very long.

tl;dr if you can't appreciate a good story in a game, then you're just a golem.

[Anonymous No.10608847]

>>10608793
>tl;dr if you can't appreciate a good story in a game, then you're just a golem.
based
what's your favorite story

[Anonymous No.10608870]

>>10608847
The Homeworld series except Homeworld 2, fuck that one.

[Anonymous No.10608874]

>>10604483
Evil zone unironically

[Anonymous No.10608898]

*Blocks your path*

[Anonymous No.10608917]

>>10604483
Harvester is kind of a moviegame but it's one of the most unique and disturbing horror experiences I can think of as far as its tonal juxtaposition, subject matter, and background in real-world events go.

[Anonymous No.10609024]

>>10604506
fag

[Anonymous No.10609032]

>>10604506
Absolute kino. Chad.

[Anonymous No.10609045]

>>10608793
BASED

[Anonymous No.10609102]

PSO

[Anonymous No.10609218]

>>10605727
>Hate it when games have music
Go to the options and at turn it off then.
>just the white dots moving around the black screen please
Yeah roguelikes and text-based games are pretty fucking cool. Ever played any of those zoomie?
>And why all the buttons? If it doesn't play well with 1 button, it doesn't play well
Luckily strategy games exists and those let you do 99% of the stuff with left mouse button

If you would actually ponder what that other anon said and stopped being snarky little bitch, maybe you would realize that he's 100% right.
Gameplay is the core and the most important part of the game, if your game has an amazing gameplay it will always be an amazing game.
Your game is just going have a great soundtrack? Awesome, I'm gonna listen to it on youtube and don't play your garbage game.
Cool artstyle? Gonna see some screenshots and watch a youtube video, thanks! Hell, maybe I'll play it for an hour!
Same with photorealistic graphics, cool tech demo lil bro!
And then the story thing shilled big time by normies who want le cinematic experience or the geeks who desperately try to push for le games are le art please respect us! Heavy rain is a garbage game, Planescape Torment is significantly worse than BG1 and Fallout1, MGS is a joke compared to Splinter Cell or Hitman games.
Anything other than gameplay is secondary. It can potentially lift a great game to a legendary status but still, it's secondary.

tl;dr great gameplay always equals great game even with weak story or artstyle
story games with poor gameplay? you'll get meme garbage at best

[Anonymous No.10609343]

>>10608793
>but a game where a square shoots squares at other squares without rhyme or reason is just not going to stay in your mind very long
Tetris? Arkanoid? Fucking Pong mentioned in this thread? Lmao
>Chess was not created with simple square blocks on a square board without identity.
But Cheekers was. Same thing with Go.
>Having a well-made plot and setting in a videogame, even if as basic as the reason why Doomguy is killing demons on Phobos
Yes id software games are the perfect example. The story is simple, straightforward, relatable and give you the perfect reason to do some killing. That's how videogame stories should be like.
But those stories are secondary to the gameplay and completely interchangeable. If you'd change nazis to aliens to robots to demons, people would still love those games. Hell, there's a semi-popular doom WAD called The Adventures of Square where you literally play as square killing circles and it's loads of fun.
Now imagine Doom where you still save the Earth from alien demons but instead of shooting you play ping-pong with them. Sound like funny meme garbage.
Also, going from Wolfenstein3D to Quake 3, the stories got dumber and more incomprehensible to the point where Q3 has basically no story and is just an arena shooter but at the same time it became a cult classic.
>When all the gameplay has been discussed to exhaustion
Great gameplay is almost never discussed to exhaustion. See Doom.

So yes your opening statement is right, story is an optional factor that is semi important. You closing statement that story and gameplay stand side by side is completely asinine.
All in all, your post screams
>I'm a pseud bitch, please bully me!

[Anonymous No.10609351]

>>10604483
For me it was the one from Original War.
Timetraveling straight into futuristic war in prehistoric era against alternate timeline countries was something else.

[Anonymous No.10609425]

>>10609343
>Tetris, Arkanoid, Pong
Guarantee you think about Resident Evil more often than any of those. Go on, pretend you don't.
>Cheekers
Checkers, you dumb nigger. And the game does have a theme to it with Man and King pieces and like many board game of old like Go and Shogi, it mimics war field tactics.
>those stories are secondary to the gameplay
Blood Omen survived where many action adventure games with poor gameplay failed solely because of its fantastic writing. Same with Silent Hill. Meanwhile shmups and arena shooters are dead.
>there's a doom WAD
That has an entire theme to it with actual characters and not just wireframe squares without any identity, you disingenous quadroon. It's also a mod.
>Doom where you still save the Earth from alien demons but instead of shooting you play ping-pong with them
Sounds like meme garbage because you're deliberately combining gameplay that doesn't fit its theme and pretending it counts for an argument.
>to the point where Q3 has basically no story
The Strogg plot involves an entire race of biomechanical war machines who don't have a war to fight or a master to serve, and thus go on a malfunctioning rampage to create more of themselves to prevent their eventual destruction. It's just as cool as Q1's interdimensional horrors breaking out of a research facility and corrupting the world through the slipgates. Hell, Quake was originally meant to be an ambitious horror action game with D&D elements and lore for days, all of it easily completed and ready to go, but Carmack couldn't figure out how to make anything that wasn't an FPS, so instead they just cobbled something together before the deadline was up and we got what we got. It could've been the herald of 3D immersive sims and you don't know half of it.
>Great gameplay is almost never discussed to exhaustion
Doom is kept alive by mods that add all sorts of new things. Vanilla gameplay is easy, solved and done and you know this.
Kys, golem.

[Anonymous No.10609427]

>>10604483
morrowind will never be topped in terms of world building narrative.

[Anonymous No.10609921]

>>10609425
>you think Resident Evil more often than any of those.
I don't think about Resident Evil at all. Meanwhile some kid just maxed out Tetris like a week ago and I've seen multiple news articles about it.
>Man and King pieces
that's just a naming convention that differs from country to country, the pieces still look like little stones
>many board game of old like Go and Shogi, it mimics war field tactics.
Every single game mimics a wargame in some way even if it's a simple FPS or tic-tac-toe. Your character is a "king" and you need to position him in a proper way so he's not captured or killed. It's all about strategy and positioning.
You're grasping at straws and missing the point.
>Blood Omen survived
The series is literally dead you idiot. And it's dead precisely because of the shit gameplay that they were trying to change in every single entry. Lmao, you bring up examples that completely contradict your argument.
>Meanwhile shmups and arena shooters are dead
No, those are not dead unlike Legacy of Kain. Those genres lost in mainstream popularity sure but are still alive. Especially shmups albeit mostly as shitty mobile games.
>That has an entire theme with actual characters and not just wireframe squares without any identity
Yes and the characters are as simple as it gets. And it's you who is a disingenuous poltroon that stretches definition of a story to themes, settings or artstyles. Next thing you're going to claim is that every single racing game has a story because 'You're a freaking race driver bro who wants to win and overcome the odds and shit'
>gameplay that doesn't fit its theme and pretending it counts for an argument
You have fucking Pinball machines with space and alien invader themes, and as you said theme = story so the joke's on you retard.

[Anonymous No.10609923]

>>10609425
>>10609921
cd.
>The Strogg plot
Guarantee you think about mecha Hitler from W3D more often than any of this shit. Go on, pretend you don't. Or better yet, stop and do what 99% of the Q2 players do and don't pay any attention to the weak story.
Also Q3 still has no story
>Doom is kept alive by mods that add all sorts of new things.
Yes like map packs that don't really change anything in the core gameplay but create new challenges because of the level design. And you need to beat those challenges using vanilla means. So all of this is a variation of the original gameplay. Even the gameplay mods base most of the things on the vanilla gameplay and its philosophy. It is a "discussion" to anyone who isn't a complete moron with zero technical knowledge. And because of that great gameplay we have Doom&Friends general that fills up every couple of days.
Also, you cry about these mods but unlike the what-ifs and could-haves in your drivel about Q1, those actually exist and have some substance in the discussed matter.

It's funny how you came with with that cringy little post/theory/whatever and desperately try to bend the facts in your favour even though it literally makes zero sense. But no surprise here, it's pseud 101.

[Anonymous No.10610060]

>>10609921
>grasping at straws
My point is very clear, and you're trying to make bullshit excuses when the fact of the matter is that human beings do and will always impart a human meaning to anything, and make a myth out of it. A plot. Get this through your fucking head, autist.
>The series is literally dead
Crystal Dynamics literally just acknowledged the fact that people want a new game in the series and made a fucking survey about it just last year after getting the IP rights back, you imbecile. The gameplay in this series has never been anything to write home about, and its entire staying power comes from the writing.
>Those genres lost in mainstream
Unreal 2016 literally got killed off after years of languishing in development and just about every other game in the genre is dead in the water. If you call shitty mobile games being anything but a walking corpse then you're delusional.
>stretches definition of a story to themes, settings
All part of a whole, you HFCS-swilling negroid. Just like how gameplay, physics and controls work in conjunction with each other.
>You have fucking Pinball machines with space and alien invader themes
Yes. Take that theming away from them and every pinball machine is the fucking same.
>you think about mecha Hitler
I think about both. They're both cool, and it's cool to fight them because it's Hitler in a mech suit wunderwaffe preventing Blazkowicz from escaping the castle, and because it's an army of cyborgs on a conquest against humanity. I'm not an autistic faggot who hates one thing to like another.
>but create new challenges because of the level design
Many of the most prominent ones are often complete overhauls with entirely new settings and a plot backing them up. Either way, reaching for unofficial mods to validade your point is pathetic on your part and just shows your desperation. What's more, you try to make a dichotomy out of it even though I said from the start that story in a game is an optional aspect.
Kys, golem.

[Anonymous No.10610083]

>>10604483
deus ex for sure, so good that real life keeps imitating it more and more
>>10604506
look at this retard
probably too low iq to process anything too complex

[Anonymous No.10610098]

>>10604483
Snatcher comes to mind, maybe Metal Gear Solid as well. I haven't played them but I know the story is supposedly very good

[Anonymous No.10610178]

>>10604483

[Anonymous No.10610181]

>>10604483
ENTER

[Anonymous No.10610445]

>>10605878
>>10610181
The Marathon games are the only ones I know that have good writing that aren't just "good for a game".

Though in general I think games can immerse the player in the role of the main character and empathize with him in a way that movies and even books can't.

[Anonymous No.10610454]

>>10604483
picrel

[Anonymous No.10611408]

>>10608793
/thread
That said the Scrolls series has the best story out of any game