I just finished playing Triangle strategy and sometimes that games writing gets so good but feel what the very characters are feeling. What about you? What have been those games that have gripped your hand and made you feel every turn of the page?
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Disco Elysium is, without a doubt, the best written game I’ve ever played. That game had me experience the entire rainbow of emotions.
At first I was like “haha look at the funny hobo cop, no pants”.
By hour 70 I decided to finally read Chomsky, 11/10 can recommend.
With the praise this game regularly gets, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the story was inelegantly delivered by info dump.
An info dump implies its giving too much info at once. Disco Elysium paces its story well, it just doesn’t conform to how you would normally tell a story within a game.
It frequently gave too much info all at once about how its world works, yes.
I would say that the story of DE kind of plays a back seat to the inner dialogue stuff imo… It’s not the kind of game that you just rush through so you can see what the plot is.
I wasn’t rushing and info dumps weren’t my only criticism. There were some things that I could chalk up to just personal preference like my distaste for almost every character I encountered in the first 5 hours, but when it did decide to start filling me in on how its world works, I found that to be well below the standards of the praise the game gets for its writing. That’s not to say that it’s easy to do it better, but I can point to a number of other works of fiction that show how it can be done. The inner dialogue could have been a great vehicle to do it more elegantly.
What Remains of Edith Finch comes to mind for me.
In the game, you play Edith Finch going back to her family home. It was home to multiple generations of the Finch family. This family has a serious case of bad luck, and most of them didn’t get very old. As Edith, you explore all of the rooms and see the final moments of the person who used to live there.
It is not a horror game - but it is haunting, in a sense. If you enjoy good stories and writing, give it a try. It’s only about 2 hours, and best played in a single sitting. It’s also on sale regularly.
The quarry, and until dawn were pretty good. A bit lacking in gameplay, but awesome stories.
Witcher 3 tells many stories that contribute to an overarching story.
Fallout new Vegas does it with the option of murder hoboing
Bg3 is pretty good story wise too ❤️
A Way Out. Highly recommend playing it with your closest friend. Fucking game made me feel stronger emotions than any other game I’ve ever played, because the motherfucker I was playing with is my best friend. I’m not going to spoil the ending, I’m just going to say: heavy fucking feelings
Don’t forget to try their other games if you haven’t already! It Takes Two is wonderful, and the recently released Split Fiction is my favorite of them all.
Legend of Mana
Hell blade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
The game itself helped me understand people, who are no longer with us, in a better way. The manner in which psychosis is presented is powerfully accurate, at least from an outsider perspective. It made me cry as it portrayed struggles in a manner truthful to the symptoms beyond the effects - the story and execution of it really gripped me.
SOMA still lives in my brain 10 years later.
Come on, noone mentioning Planescape Torment so far?!
What changes the nature of a man?
Goosebumps.
Final Fantasy XV… Usually I get wet eyes when the games do it right. But with FF15 I literally cried.
Talos Principle is the best story I’ve played hands down.
Gone Home - when I finished the game I was legitimately sad that I couldn’t spend more time with the people whose lives I got to know so intimately from their environments. And yes, they didn’t feel like characters anymore, they felt like actual people. That’s one of the highest praises I can give to a game’s storytelling.
New Vegas, the writing of the dialoges are brilliant. Some of the funniest or straight up saddest stuff are both there.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the most recent example, but I also love the writing of Horizon. I wish it was more mature, but it’s good writing overall. Excellent setup.
Rime is a fun but emotional one.
Citizen Sleeper isn’t my usual type of game but I was hooked instantly by it all.
I just played around 6 hours of it, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 intro made me cry. With everything going on in the world right now the sense of despair is very relatable.
This game casually dropped phenomenal quality across the board. Best writing I’ve encountered yet.
