Board 8 > Hot take time: What is the worst story you've ever seen in a story-driven game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

GuessMyUserName posted...

as someone that hasn't played any TLoU I can't say I've really seen much if any defence of 2

maybe defence is the wrong word, I guess dismissals but no actual praise

Personally? I've seen far more praise than criticism.

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I won't get into the nitty gritty details, but basically one of the VAs started screwing (or attempting to screw) one of the VAs of a supporting character, and the game was re-written mid development to make that character the secondary lead of the game.

It was Hideo Baba's last Tales game before "leaving the company".

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Lol what

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I guess I can't argue that FE *isn't* story driven, but I'm kinda used to FE plots just being "uhoh, now you've gotta fight this guy!" until you have fought all the guys, so I don't really get too hung up about them.

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You mean the director was screwing the VA, right?

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Tom Bombadil posted...

I guess I can't argue that FE *isn't* story driven, but I'm kinda used to FE plots just being "uhoh, now you've gotta fight this guy!" until you have fought all the guys, so I don't really get too hung up about them.

I actually think thats why three houses is so great to me. I was totally into Edelgard

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Lol what

It's worth noting that almost everything he said is purely fan speculation that's never had any real proof.

TheRock1525 posted...

Personally? I've seen far more praise than criticism.

i may be hampered by not entering spoiler topics for obvious reasons

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redrocket posted...

You mean the director was screwing the VA, right?

Yeah I re-worded that in my head and didn't correct.

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masterplum posted...

I actually think thats why three houses is so great to me. I was totally into Edelgard

True, 3H is kinda the exception (in my mostly-the-casual-ones experience)

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Murphiroth posted...

It's worth noting that almost everything he said is purely fan speculation that's never had any real proof.

No real proof, but a good deal of smoke to the fire.

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It will 100% have to a JRPG since that genre is a hotbed for terrible stories. I just don't know which one I would highlight.
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NBIceman posted...

No real proof, but a good deal of smoke to the fire.

Oh yeah definitely. Just not a fan of people posting stuff like that like it's 100% confirmed gospel.

Genuine, albeit snarky, question: Did anybody understand FFT's story enough to have an opinion on it? I never beat it and most of my attempts were as a kid, but I remember thinking it was just longwinded and inaccessible.

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I typically also try to avoid it, but this is like the largest smoke cloud around, and considering how tightly sealed the inner working of the Japanese game industry are everyone pretty much pushes it at a 95%+.

The part about a side character being changed mid-development to the lead is at a 100%, though, which is still funny but less funny without the background scandal.


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The Last Of Us Part 2

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Tom Bombadil posted...

Genuine, albeit snarky, question: Did anybody understand FFT's story enough to have an opinion on it? I never beat it and most of my attempts were as a kid, but I remember thinking it was just longwinded and inaccessible.

Its not difficult at all to understand as an adult. Yeah there are spots where the translation is bad, but theres really only one spot where it requires more than a token effort to puzzle out the basic meaning.


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I would rank FFT among my favorites!

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Tom Bombadil posted...

Genuine, albeit snarky, question: Did anybody understand FFT's story enough to have an opinion on it? I never beat it and most of my attempts were as a kid, but I remember thinking it was just longwinded and inaccessible.

I don't think it's too difficult to follow, even with the occasionally mangled dialogue.

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A Way Out.

Really enjoyed the whole game up until the ending, which completely ruined the experience.

You play through the whole game as a co-op experience, and then the final is one of you was a cop all along so you turn on each other. One of you must kill the other to finish the game.
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Shaduln posted...

A Way Out.

Really enjoyed the whole game up until the ending, which completely ruined the experience.

You play through the whole game as a co-op experience, and then the final is one of you was a cop all along so you turn on each other. One of you must kill the other to finish the game.

That part is utterly fantastic though.

This partially depends on what a hot take means. Is it an opinion that very few people would say? Or if very few saying it means it's a cold take? How about if it's some obscure porn game on steam, cause no one would consider it, even if it's true.

Anyways, my first thought was me going "what the hell was that" after Dear Esther

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Oh yeah I guess mine isn't a hot take since everyone agrees. In fact almost everyone here missed the hot take part of the title.

I guess if I had to go hot I think FFX's is terrible.


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Shaduln posted...

A Way Out.

Really enjoyed the whole game up until the ending, which completely ruined the experience.

You play through the whole game as a co-op experience, and then the final is one of you was a cop all along so you turn on each other. One of you must kill the other to finish the game.

I predicted that the moment the game was revealed, they would have been foolish NOT to do it

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ExThaNemesis posted...

The Last Of Us Part II

Lightning Strikes posted...

Nope. Not even in the bottom half of stories Naughty Dog has done, and Im not even sure its the worst TLoU story. It only got hate because of the leaks and separately an absurd movement motivated by, lets be honest, hatred of women and LGBT people. For that reason its not even a good hot take! Just regurgitating insipid rhetoric.

Like this, if people disagree with it so heavily, does it make this a hot take?

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I remember really hating Eternal Sonata's story as a teenager. It's pretty generic JRPG stuff with a "deep" framing mechanism that's not relevant for most of the game. And then the characters spend like 10 minutes explaining the themes of the game to the player at the very end, because the plot itself didn't manage to do that in any interesting way. It's not even really the lack of subtlety that bothers me as much as the weird tonal shift for such surface-level platitudes. It makes the entire story feel like an afterthought for doing...whatever it is they were trying to accomplish with the game and its aesthetic.

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I consider a hot take to be an opinion that goes opposite of what the general consensus is. Basically, your personal tastes making you think something is bad that most people think is good.
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Hot takes are welcome but not required.

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Not my take, but I recommended gone home to a coworker and he absolutely hated it and got a refund

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Emeraldegg posted...

I consider a hot take to be an opinion that goes opposite of what the general consensus is. Basically, your personal tastes making you think something is bad that most people think is good.

Which reaction would make it hotter? "Oh yea, I kinda see that's true, never thought of that" or "wtf no way, hard disagree"

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hot takes huh

Final Fantasy IV

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GTM posted...

Which reaction would make it hotter? "Oh yea, I kinda see that's true, never thought of that" or "wtf no way, hard disagree"

2nd one for sure. The hotter the passion, the hotter the take!
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Hot take: I love star ocean 4's plot.

Is there anyone here with a more unpopular opinion than that?

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Last of Us Part 2 probably. Soul Calibur V was also a good mention but I don't view that as much of a primarily story-driven game.

Hmm would vanilla Destiny be viable too? That's a case of the lore being awesome but the story you get being pretty eh

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is MGSV for worst story a hot take

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ExThaNemesis posted...

also I'm sure there are objectively worse stories but I just hate the way that one makes people act. Because of the vitriol against it there is equally as much vitriol in defense of it and as a consequence anyone that actually wants to analyze the game just gets drowned out in all the nonsense.

Cursed game.

This isn't at all the fault of the game. It's got problems that are legit to point out, but the reception would have been much better if the plot wasn't leaked before the game came out and then gotten attached to by incels.

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I feel like the reception would've been WORSE if the story hadn't leaked. Imagine the amount of excited people going into that narrative rug-pull totally blind.

I really wish it had happened just for the shit storm honestly.

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LeonhartFour posted...

is MGSV for worst story a hot take

The game just kinda stops without finishing its story so I would say that's not much of a hot take

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MGSV is wierd though because I think all the actual cutscene stuff itself is cool as shit outside the wierd Quiet garbage.

There's just not enough of it.

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Oh actually.

Technically I never played this one myself but I did watch my college roommate play The Stanley Parable for a good 30-60 minutes which was apparently enough for me to feel comfortable listing it here.
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Stanley Parable is cool as hell, bad take.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

outside the wierd Quiet garbage.

you will be ashamed of your actions


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Dunno

Default answer for stuff like this is always FF5, so I'm gonna stick with that. That one was more like I didn't give a fuck rather than it being actively bad...though I guess if you don't give a fuck about the story, the story is bad

Nearly 10 years since that accursed playthrough, still haunted
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Now I feel compelled to play Zestria because of this topic. It's one the few tales I haven't played yet

ShatteredElysium posted...

Now I feel compelled to play Zestria because of this topic. It's one the few tales I haven't played yet

I dunno, like...

It isn't the kind of trash fire that makes you laugh at how ridiculous it is, it's just frustrating. The last 1/3 of the game just falls apart, if there's anything you were actually interested in or cared about its just going to drop the ball. It would be one thing if it just went off the rails, but it feels more like they fucked up with direction shift and ran out of time and money. The game starts to actually feel cheaper as it wraps up other than maybe 2 key moments which are pretty neat.

Battle system has interesting ideas but it breaks by the end, and the camera is the worst in the franchise.

I actually think the first half is pretty decent which actually makes the latter bits even worse. I seem to be in the minority, though, a lot of people think it was bad to begin with and just got worse.

"Haha they straight up forgot to remove the weapons the original secondary character used from the item shops throughout the game even though they have no reason to exist" is funny on paper until you realize just how fucked this production must have been at the wire if something that obvious got left in.


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pyresword posted...

Oh actually.

Technically I never played this one myself but I did watch my college roommate play The Stanley Parable for a good 30-60 minutes which was apparently enough for me to feel comfortable listing it here.

First answer that is actually a hot take. What is this nonsense

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

The last 1/3 of the game just falls apart

Yeah. I never actually finished the game, but I would say I enjoyed it more than most people, and I have a high tolerance for 'bad' games. I also just couldn't will myself to finish, and I have maybe like 3-5 hours left?

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tsukihime, maybe

or aa4 i guess
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Zestiria especially blows because it turned off a lot of people from Tales and really hurt Berseria's numbers

That game did a good job at earning back respect, but it was definitely a DMC2 -> DMC3 situation

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Do people see directors and producers as completely interchangeable?

Zestiria was aight, nothing special but not actively bad. Cool character designs and OP too.

But Deus Ex Human Revolution was a game I wanted to like a lot more but the story just falls flat on its face. Especially in the later half.
Decent sidequest content though.


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