Board 8 > What's the longest running story arc in a game series?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ah shit I forgot he was called dorf in lttp and a thief.

Instruction manuals feel like dubious sources since they conflict with in game stuff all the time.

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ChainLTTP posted...

But anything that says "yes this is totally a prequel/sequel/whatever even though we're using the same characters in a different world who have no direct knowledge of the other games" is just purely lazy. That is not how storytelling works.

is Skyward Sword not a prequel even though they deliberately set out to tell a specific origin story about the Master Sword and the gods of Hyrule

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Wind Waker is straight up a sequel to OoT, they spell that out in the opening story thing.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

Where do you think the Galactic Federation and the Space Pirates came from? This is also where they misgender Samus to keep her gender a secret. I assume the writer had never heard of singular they.

They should have hid it by saying "you", as in "they hire you, Samus Aran, the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy". That would have been clever.

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Blaster Master?
Gauntlet?
Ghosts 'n Goblins?

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pjbasis posted...

WW pixxxxxxx!!!!!!

who said I meant Cloud

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that's place in hell for people like you

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Lightning Strikes posted...

This is also where they misgender Samus to keep her gender a secret. I assume the writer had never heard of singular they.

It was actually intentional misdirection. They used "he" in the Japanese manual as well, which is a language where gendered pronouns aren't used that often and very easy to avoid. They went out of their way to call Samus male, basically

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Regardless of how planned Zelda was, it feels weird to call it a single story arc. Thry are connected but that's not the same thing. I would not it for the purpose here.

I'd also say the Metal Gear story arc you could count is Metal Gear to Metal Gear Solid 4, though counting until V is definitely better than counting all of Zelda.

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Yeah, it feels weird to call Zelda a single arc regardless of whether you adhere to the timeline or not.

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The only story arc in the Zelda games that spans multiple games is the Oracles arc

Even the other ones that share a protagonist with another game are just hero gets into a new adventure.
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colliding posted...

after OoT you can make an argument that WW and on are were just designed as Zelda games and the timeline came later.

This is a weird take though, since WW is very VERY explicitly connected to OoT
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Jakyl25 posted...

This is a weird take though, since WW is very VERY explicitly connected to OoT

Being connected is not the same as sharing a story arc.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Being connected is not the same as sharing a story arc.

understanding context is difficult

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Being connected is not the same as sharing a story arc.

Yes I agree. They arent the same story arc, as I just said in the post above that.
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Zelda isnt a single arc though there are arcs. It is just silly to argue against the intended continuity. Which yo be clear, did get retconned but that doesnt mean there was never continuity before the release of the timeline, they just changed some things.

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Some of the old Falcom games like Ys might fit the bill. I've never played a single one, but I think Ys is still about the same dude since the 80s.

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I think for it to be a running story arc, each game needs to deliberately and specifically reference events from other games/continue ongoing stories and character interactions, and so on. It can't just be each game for the most part doing its own thing with a vague backdrop of "X happened and that's why Y has been doing Z for W amount of time."

Of games mentioned in here, Tekken definitely counts. KH definitely counts. Metroid's kinda suspect (or atleast counting 1, anyway), Zelda is very suspect.

Stuff like Mega Man and Sonic and Mario I wouldn't count.

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squexa posted...

Some of the old Falcom games like Ys might fit the bill. I've never played a single one, but I think Ys is still about the same dude since the 80s.

it's a stretch to say each individual game even has a story arc

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StealThisSheen posted...

I think for it to be a running story arc, each game needs to deliberately and specifically reference events from other games/continue ongoing stories and character interactions, and so on. It can't just be each game for the most part doing its own thing with a vague backdrop of "X happened and that's why Y has been doing Z for W amount of time."

Of games mentioned in here, Tekken definitely counts. KH definitely counts. Metroid's kinda suspect (or atleast counting 1, anyway), Zelda is very suspect.

Stuff like Mega Man and Sonic and Mario I wouldn't count.

I would actually count Sonic, but the 2-D and 3-D games definitely follow different arcs, so it's not one singular plotline.

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Leonhart4 posted...

I would actually count Sonic, but the 2-D and 3-D games definitely follow different arcs, so it's not one singular plotline.

That's fair, actually.

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I acknowledge continuity in the Zelda series, although I think it's a very loose sort of continuity - I feel like it's better imagined as a sort of retelling of a series of stories throughout the ages rather than a strictly literal account of what happened, just because there are a lot of connections that make a sort of thematic sense but don't quite make literal sense. There's a recognizable continuity in the abstract but it's sort of hard to make sense of it as an actual historical account. Even so, it can't really be said to be a single story arc - it's jumping around and telling different stories in different places and times with no beginning or end.

Metroid actually IS a definitive story arc. Metroid 1 may not have been made with sequels in mind, but Metroid 1-5 do literally tell a linear story from one game to the next of the stuff Samus did. At minimum, Super Metroid must be acknowledged as a direct sequel to Metroid II, and Fusion as a direct sequel to Super.

Thinking about it more, Tekken is probably the purest example that's been brought up so far. The Mishima arc is quite literally one arc that has been building up over the entire series. It's not like an overlying arc with mini-arcs happening while the main arc was in the background. That story has been the focus since the very beginning, and it hasn't deviated at all. The games don't really tell their own stories that just happen to fit within the overall narrative, they're quite literally just parts of the bigger story.

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Honestly for a singular story arc it's hard to disagree with Shenmue.

He still hasn't even hit the man who killed his father, let alone taken revenge.

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To be clear, I also don't consider the first four Zeldas to be a "story arc." Legend of Zelda and Zelda 2 would count as a story arc. LttP and Link's Awakening are a story arc. OoT and MM are a a story arc. These story arcs are then connected chronologically in terms of lore.

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What about Mortal Kombat?

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Waluigi1 posted...

What about Mortal Kombat?

I thought about this, too, but I don't think it's a single arc. 1-3 is one arc, 4 through Armageddon is an arc (you could probably split this into two arcs, but I'm not as familiar with this stretch of the series since it's a giant mess), and 9-11 is an arc.

Same thing with Street Fighter. It's not one singular plotline. You could argue 2, 4, 5, and Alpha are all part of the same arc, but 1 and 3 are not.

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Paratroopa1 posted...

Super Metroid must be acknowledged as a direct sequel to Metroid II, and Fusion as a direct sequel to Super.

But Super doesn't immediately follow into Fusion though right? Fusion itself acts a sequel, but there's a clear break where the story is "wrapped up" in Super. Other M takes place between these games too iirc

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Yes, I was going to say that if there is a weak link in Metroids claim it is Fusion not Metroid 1 (which clearly sets up stuff that is followed up in 2, it even has a sequel hook!), as it starts a little separate from Super. However, once you get further in, it becomes clear that Fusion is paying off what Super set up also.

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Is it Final Fantasy?

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Xtlm posted...

Is it Final Fantasy?

With FF Origin, perhaps this is the frontrunner.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

Yes, I was going to say that if there is a weak link in Metroids claim it is Fusion not Metroid 1 (which clearly sets up stuff that is followed up in 2, it even has a sequel hook!), as it starts a little separate from Super. However, once you get further in, it becomes clear that Fusion is paying off what Super set up also.

I think this is correct. But it's also really up to interpretation and what you consider to be a complete arc versus loose story connections. There's an argument here that 1-2-Super form a trilogy (killing all metroids) and Other M-Fusion-Dread form another dealing with the consequences of that.

To draw a comparison, Resident Evil is built up of multiple arcs that constantly reference past games, but I wouldn't call RE1-8 one big story arc.

I think where I'm at is, if the glue for the "Metroid" arc is the presence of Metroids and everyone trying to kill and/or clone them as major plot points, then it will gain a lot of weight as one arc if we don't actually deal with Metroids much in the main series after Dread. So we'll see.

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was the story in pong ever resolved

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Dragonair posted...

was the story in pong ever resolved

Still waiting on Pong VII: Left Paddle's Revenge

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Worth noting that Fusion starts with a return to SR388 and having her life saved by the baby again

(then ends with nuking SR388 to rid the universe from the threat of X Parasites, to which Dread now reports they are still present on ZDR)

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Dragonair posted...

was the story in pong ever resolved

It's been going back and forth for awhile now