Board 8 > Top 35 Stories in Fiction

(+) Yeah! (+)

I knew MGS2 would be pretty high on the list!

My least favorite of the main four MGS games but still great.
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In retrospect, MGS1 should be an honorable mention. It's not a complicated story but it's well-executed and super fun.

"Main four MGS games" throwing shade on 5, huh

I still haven't played 5 actually, watched a lot of the story online though. It's a shallow reason but I'm not sure what the point of playing as a Snake without David Hayter's voice is.

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Oh, I don't count MGSV. It doesn't use Arabic numerals, so it's different...!

Plus, it's so far below the rest that it's not fun to include it anyway!
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I feel like you enjoy MGS2s structure and themes moreso than you enjoy the actual plot
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The thing I dont love about MGS2 as a story is that no one develops. Not a single character has truly changed as a person by the end. Raiden SAYS he is, but I dont believe his convictions.

The entire plot as it were is just a slow peeling of an onion to find out whats really happening. I mean, Ocelot starts the game in the role of a QUADRUPLE AGENT.
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Jakyl25 posted...

I feel like you enjoy MGS2s structure and themes moreso than you enjoy the actual plot

You can't separate the structure/themes from the base plot. Not for MGS2. Like, in MGS1 you can easily ignore the anti-nuke sentiments that the game throws at you if you don't really want to focus on it. There's still the anime spy action side of the plot. Pretty much every part of MGS2 is crafted to feed into the ending sequences and the messages they're trying to portray. It reminds me of SIlent Hill 2 in that regard.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Pretty much every part of MGS2 is crafted to feed into the ending sequences and the messages they're trying to portray.

I agree

But is that really a STORY
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Jakyl25 posted...

KamikazePotato posted...

Pretty much every part of MGS2 is crafted to feed into the ending sequences and the messages they're trying to portray.

I agree

But is that really a STORY

Yes.
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Was going to type up a longer response but I'm working on the next writeup so I'll just

Mac Arrowny posted...

Yes.

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Agree to disagree then

Its a great game. Its an incredible, mind blowing experience. I just dont think its a great story, because the plot is purely going through the motions in service of obscuring the truth until the final act,
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Rakuin no Monshou / Emblem of the Branded
Light Novel

"Of course Orba was going to meet their expectations. He had to meet them. But the loyalty they offered, the friendship, and perhaps even the care

Orba could only reward that sincerity with lies.

Always.

For all eternity.

He would give his name as Gil Mephius."

Light novels are generally pretty mediocre, filling a Young Adult-esque niche in Japan's literary ecosystem. To say that Rakuin no Monshou's quality caught me off-guard would be a huge understatement. Like many other entrants on this list, it's a case of a story with a simple but interesting hook with excellent execution. The objectively-shitty crown prince of Mephius gets himself offed, and due to political intrigue and a small amount of magic facial reconstruction, a replacement double gets put in his place with only a few people even aware of the change. The secret replacement, named Orba, is a slave gladiator who just happened to luck out in terms of physical appearance and frankly hates the nobility. This...causes conflict.

There's a lot to like about Rakuin no Monshou. Its fantasy world, while uncomplicated, is established well by the story. You're slowly introduced to the culture and history of the warring nations in way that is never overwhelming yet remains interesting. The side characters are memorable and well-developed, especially Vileena (who is technically the female deuteragonist even though you might not see her for books at a time). The action scenes are exciting without crossing over into anime shonen territory. The prose is fairly sparse compared to most fantasy books, but as a results its descriptions are effectively concise and it does a great job at packing a lot of emotion into very few words.

What really makes the whole series, though, is its protagonist. Orba is extremely easy to root for and he always manages to be entertaining in every scene he's in. He's competent enough to get stuff done while having enough room to grow that you want to see him go the distance. Best of all is his internal narration; he's perceptive in general but is awful at self-analyzing his own emotions, and watching him slowly come to terms with who he wants to be is portrayed in one of the most realistic ways I've ever read. 'Objectively' speaking, Rakuin no Monshou probably isn't better than other fantasy series I didn't include on this list, but there's something about it that really stuck with me.

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Watchmen
Comic Series

"Hahaha... Jeez, y'know, that felt good. There don't seem to be that many laughs around these days."

"Well, what do you expect? The Comedian is dead."

Undoubtedly the greatest comic book series to ever exist. Bold, unique opinion to have, I know! The fame is well-deserved though. Watchmen is a masterclass of storytelling, and boy do I now realize how increasingly pretentious I'm getting the further I get down this list. You can chuck a dart at a board filled with aspects of storytelling and always hit something that Watchmen excels at. Characters? Deep and nuanced. Setting? Extremely well-realized alternate earth where the existence of adults fighting in tights (and the existence of one single god on earth) have warped society irreversibly. Pacing? Never a dull panel. Plot? Well...actually great but I'm not 100% sold on the ending. Think the movie did it better actually and why are the comic fans on B8 pointing knives at me now?

I usually end these writeups by focusing on what makes the story truly special, but here's the thing: there is no one thing that makes Watchmen this good. EVERYTHING about Watchmen is this good. I don't even know what to say beyond that! Read this if you even remotely like comics as a medium.

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Cycle
Fanfiction

"That one dance turns into two, then three. The night spins around me in a kaleidoscope of colors and emotions as the music of a strange and different place guides me on. The storm breaks only for a moment before it begins anew in another brilliant display of power and light. The ground splashes under our feet and the air's fresh and alive as the grime is washed away. The torches may have sputtered out but the fires in our souls burn bright under the stars overhead.

I think that, just for the moment, I'll pretend that everything is okay. I want to remember what it's like to be alive and free.

Just for a moment longer."

Cycle is a Fire Emblem: Awakening fanfiction, whose plot can be briefly summarized as being a self-insert isekai story with an amnesia plot.

I'm writing this after I posted about Watchmen. Never let it be said that my tastes aren't varied.

But when it comes down to it, execution trumps all. I don't even like Awakening's plot and I'm not sure why I started reading this but here we are. Cycle is a little rough in the beginning as the author was clearly learning how to write as they went along, but even then it's a very fun read. The internal narration of the main character feels frenetic but human and does a lot to shape the tone of the story in a positive way. Characters are given depth and subtlety (far, far more than in the original game, not that that's saying much). The villains especially are characterized very strongly, with a few of them being in the running for my favorite characters in the story. Fight scenes have a lot of preparation and thought put into them, with strategy and usage of the environment generally being the most important factors in any scene. The plot manages to surprise me far more often than it should, and now that some things are starting to finally be revealed I appreciate even more that the story took its time setting up the characters and their relationships before dropping plot bombs on them.

It's not perfect, is clearly self-edited, and is not yet finished. But, well, it always makes my day when I see that the story has updated with a new chapter. Above all else, the story is fun, and stays fun while still managing to continuously raise the stakes. I had a blast reading it and I'll probably read it again once it maybe hopefully ends one day! I'm 'lucky' that I'm used to being a fan of long-running series that will never end. There's your future-list-entrant hint for the day.

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And that's all for today! Tomorrow will finish up TIer 2.

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Up you go.

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I am not a comic person but the Watchmen movie is very near my favorite of all time.
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The Watchmen movie isn't as good as the comic but it's very underrated. Hard to imagine a movie adapting Watchmen much better than it did, considering runtime constraints.

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LeonhartFour posted...

Oh, I don't count MGSV. It doesn't use Arabic numerals, so it's different...!

Plus, it's so far below the rest that it's not fun to include it anyway!

It's not supposed to count

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MGS2 is also my least favorite of the main four, and yet I also find it great. Wonderful game. Ditto on The Watchmen.

pyresword posted...

I am not a comic person but the Watchmen movie is very near my favorite of all time.

I dont regard it quite as highly, but I still like it a lot. V for Vendetta is probably the only comic book movie I love more.


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XIII_rocks posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

Oh, I don't count MGSV. It doesn't use Arabic numerals, so it's different...!

Plus, it's so far below the rest that it's not fun to include it anyway!

It's not supposed to count

MGSV does many things it's not supposed to do
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Nier Automata
Video Game

"Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle...and wonder if we'll ever get the chance to kill him."

Nier 2 takes an entirely different approach to its storytelling than Nier 1, tackling different themes with a different tone in a different setting. Naturally, it does an amazing job at this. I'm not sure when Yoko Taro transitioned from writing edgelord stuff to extremely emotional and thought-provoking material, but we're all better for it.

Nier Automata is about a lot of things. It's the only game I can think of that asks the question "What does it mean to be?" and actually handle the answer intelligently. This writeup will be brief, because the game is still fairly new and spoilers suck, but I'll just say that Automata takes the 'AI coming to terms with the nature of its existence' plot and does it so well that I'm not sure a game will ever surpass it in that regard. It's one of those games where I couldn't stop thinking about the world even between play sessions. The game is extremely insightful and melancholy in a subdued sort of way, giving you plenty of time to become immersed in the world and the characters before it blows the doors off the plot and hits you with an endless string of gut-punches. Nier Automata's final ending is one of the best all-time endings in any video game - I have yet to see a single person who didn't have a sharp emotional reaction to it.

Special thanks once again goes to the music. Nier Automata's writing is very good and the gameplay is fun, so I don't want to say that the music carries the experience, but even if the rest of the game sucked it would be worth playing to hear the music. And it's not just the inherent quality of the soundtrack that's top tier - the way the music is integrated into the gameplay and cutscenes is, for lack of a better word, cinematic. Music in video games is one of the biggest advantages it has over other mediums and Nier 1/2 use its stellar soundtrack to its full effectiveness.

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Nier Automata has what I might consider the best stretch in gaming with The intro to Route C. Really all of Route C is a masterclass, mostly on the back of 9S's breakdown over the course of it, but also the smaller things like finding 2B's last message to him from the broken flyer, him setting up the memorial in Kaine's flower field, the bonus boss and the emotions around that. To say nothing of that final stretch.

how was 2017 so good for gaming
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Completely agree. 2017 was a killer year and even then Automata was the standout for me.

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1984
Book

You are a slow learner, Winston."

"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."

"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.

I spent a more time choosing the quote for 1984 than I will writing the rest of this post. There's a LOT of fantastic quotes from the book.

1984 is, in essence, the scariest horror story in existence. There is no better novel about a dystopian society and I don't think there ever will be. 1984 describes a world where free will is dead, facts can be alternative, and cognitive dissonance is a prized character trait. There's a lot of reasons why it's so effective, but I think the main reason is because of how uncompromising the prose is. 1984 doesn't pretend to be subtle. It directly and viciously describes how messed up the world is at every given point, showering you with uncomfortable one-liners like "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human facefor ever so that you never grow complacent to how far society in the book has degraded. There is no happy ending in 1984, or a happy middle or beginning either. It portrays a society where truth has lost and has no chance of ever returning, and that fact is never sugarcoated.

In a lesser novel it might have come across as too much, but in 1984 it only serves as a reminder that the state of society is recognized by the characters within it and none of them can do anything about it. In fact, the characters themselves self-regulate their own thoughts to ensure that they continue to love Big Brother, because that's all they've ever been taught to do. Specifically, main character Winston is a fantastic viewpoint character because he epitomizes every aspect of humanity that remains. You get the sense from his internal narration that he's not even remotely fully-formed as a person, and his attempts at gaining even a semblance of individuality end...poorly. The closing line of 1984 is one of the most chilling I've ever read.

Now that I think about it, 1984 holds a similar spot in my head that MGS2 was. Hit me in my formative years but has endured the test of time, but not in a way that I appreciate. Would prefer less doublethink in modern society, pretty please.

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KamikazePotato posted...

There is no better novel about a dystopian society and I don't think there ever will be

Brave New World is too distracted by an orgy to reply
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Yeah, I think 1984 is so effective because it is a complete defeat for the protagonists. There's no room for debate and no ray of hope.

Automata might have the best credit sequence in gaming history. I tried for so long to do it on my own without help.
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Yeah, 1984 hit me in my formative years too. Couldn't even say how many times I read it during high school whenever I was in the library.
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NFUN posted...

KamikazePotato posted...

There is no better novel about a dystopian society and I don't think there ever will be

Brave New World is too distracted by an orgy to reply

Eh, I didn't enjoy Brave New World nearly as much.
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Brave New World is a good book but it didn't hit me nearly as hard. Like, as far as dystopias go it seemed pretty tame compared to 1984, and less likely to happen. And the character writing is...weird.

Leonhart4 posted...

Automata might have the best credit sequence in gaming history. I tried for so long to do it on my own without help.

Same. Business Division VI can go screw themselves. I remember them being the turning point.

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Man, I really need to play Automata. I've got an acquaintance who's only played FFXIV, FFXV, and Nier Automata. I think it says a lot about that game's success that the only non-FF she's touched is that game.

1984 > Brave New World, yes. I don't care for Huxley much as a writer.

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SaveEstelle posted...

Man, I really need to play Automata. I've got an acquaintance who's only played FFXIV, FFXV, and Nier Automata. I think it says a lot about that game's success that the only non-FF she's touched is that game.

Nier Automata's success astounds me. I think it's over 4 million copies sold now, but I still remember back in the day when Nier 1 came out and it was a struggle to get people to see it as anything else but a game that got 68% on Metacritic.

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Planescape: Torment
Video Game

"What can change the nature of a man?"

I'm iffy on including Planescape on this list at all, because there's not much of a main plot to it, but for the longest time I considered it to be the best written-game I'd ever played so I kind of *have* to put it here.

No game does self-discovery better than Planescape: Torment does. Your main character, appropriately called The Nameless One, wakes up with amnesia and the inability to die. The entire point of the rest of the game is to get answers; answers for who you were and who you're going to be. A lot of those answers are going to be uncomfortable or upsetting, but an unfortunate truth is considered more important to The Nameless One than blissful ignorance (and I just now realized I'm writing this after writing about 1984).

It's The Nameless One's journey for self-discovery that drives Planescape: Torment's biggest appeal. Every moment of the game, you're either learning about a past life or learning about who you are right now as a person. I consider TNO to be the absolute best protagonist where the personality is defined by the player, because the breadth of that personality can be so wide. The dialogue/conversation options you can take as The Nameless One are the most extensive and well-written in any game; a simple example I go back to is that oftentimes you'll be given two of the same dialogue choices to make except one of them is prefaced with [LIE]. It changes nothing in most cases except that you, personally, know that your version of The Nameless One is lying in that instance. Little things like that are everywhere and make hunting down dialogue in Planescape Torment more rewarding than any combat or stats or level-ups.

Simply put, Planescape's writing is just...good. Very good. Every line in the game is entertaining or insightful; your party members are deeply characterized and have unique personalities, and even random NPCs feel like real (weirdo fantasy world) people. Even without the compelling protagonist it would be a great, memorable experience. I think the first 2/3 of the game are the best, but only because the 'real' climax happens at the 2/3 mark and is one of the best encounters I've ever seen in a game. The last 1/3 is still good and the ending is satisfying. I struggle to recommend Planescape: Torment to a lot of modern-day gamers because of the archaic gameplay, but if you can look past it, there's an incredible experience it has to offer.

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Yeah, I tried to play the game once but I struggled to get past the opening part of the game because of the gameplay
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but an unfortunate truth is considered more important to The Nameless One than blissful ignorance (and I just now realized I'm writing this after writing about 1984).

LOL.

Planescape has been on must-play list for ages. Its Switch re-release means I will grab it whenever I can.

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That's it for Tier 2!

TIER 2
Metal Gear Solid 2
Rakuin no Monshou
Cycle
Watchmen
Nier Automata
1984
Planescape: Torment

TIER 3
Nier
Chrysalis
Transmetropolitan
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Pluto
Ender's Game / Speaker of the Dead
Dragon Quest V
American Psycho
Locke and Key
Deadly Premonition
Catch-22
The Truman Show
Silent Hill 2

TIER 4
Harry Potter
Bastard
Black Lagoon
Re:Zero
Undertale
Paranoia Agent
Tales of Berseria
(Final Fantasy X)

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Here's what remains:

2 Book Series
2 Manga Series
1 TV Series
1 Web Serial
1 Visual Novel
1 Movie

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Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, I tried to play the game once but I struggled to get past the opening part of the game because of the gameplay

There might be some mods these days that make it better. I haven't checked in a while though. I do remember specifically that permanently turning on Sprint helped me get through the game because otherwise the walking speed was atrocious. Then I got hit with a bug that made one voice line never stop repeating...PC gaming can be interesting.

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Also, if anyone wants a similar experience with somewhat better gameplay, Torment: Tides of Numenara is a worthy spiritual successor. It's not quite as good as Planescape but I still enjoyed it a lot. I mostly didn't include Tides of Numenara on this list because it has even less of a main plot than Planescape does.

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KamikazePotato posted...

It's the only game I can think of that asks the question "What does it mean to be?" and actually handle the answer intelligently.

Also Untitled Goose Game
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Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, I think 1984 is so effective because it is a complete defeat for the protagonists. There's no room for debate and no ray of hope.

Automata might have the best credit sequence in gaming history. I tried for so long to do it on my own without help.

Very curious if the first few people to beat it had to do it alone or if they seeded it with some helpers

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Planescape: Torment is so good. The amount of things you can do/say is amazing. ...It's almost hard to talk about because there's so much. I should probably pick up the Switch port because the only version I have is the original 4 CD PC release and I'm not even sure how much of a pain it would be to get that to run on a modern system. I think I remember it being kinda annoying back when I installed it on like... Windows XP. >_>

As for "spiritual successors," never played Tides of Numenara but I have played Pillars of Eternity and I think it is absolutely a worthy successor. Incredible game that hit a lot of the same emotional and atmospheric points for me though of course nothing is quite like Sigil.
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Pillars of Eternity didn't click with me like Planescape or Tides of Numenara did, but I can recognize it's a very well-made game and I appreciate how it helped usher in a renaissance of games of its type (like Numenara!).

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KamikazePotato posted...

Brave New World is a good book but it didn't hit me nearly as hard. Like, as far as dystopias go it seemed pretty tame compared to 1984, and less likely to happen. And the character writing is...weird.

arguably already has happened
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up

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Automata: great 9/10 game. I wonder how much I would've loved it if I actually liked 9S? I never particularly liked him, even in the C route. Just wanted more A2...

KamikazePotato posted...

Completely agree. 2017 was a killer year and even then Automata was the standout for me.

Not even the best action RPG of 2017!! (Ys 8 is awesome yo)

1984: Very chilling and effective. Brave New World's dystopia always felt more 'realistic' to me though, because I can see it as something that people would actually want. But hey, China and North Korea exist, so maybe 1984 isn't that unrealistic after all.

Planescape: Really fantastic stuff, yeah. Top tier story. Would be cool if there were a story mode difficulty or something that just lets you instant win all the battles.

I actually kickstarted Pillars of Eternity and only played a few hours because of how much the battle system sucked (they eventually patched it to make it not suck). I didn't think the writing/characters were even close to Torment level from what I played, though.
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I think it's possible to finish Planescape only having battled four times. You probably have to run from a lot of stuff though.

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1984 is a masterpiece. It's not a work I'm in a hurry to reread though.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Tales of Berseria
Video Game

"I really thought I could have my old life back, and I could forget everything else. I tried to act like I was doing it for him, but it was all for myself.

...But I can't forget. I shouldn't forget."

Tales of Berseria is an experience that is hurt by its mid-budget JRPG trappings. The art style doesn't lend itself well to serious scenes, the voice acting for some side characters can be so wacky it takes you out of things (looking at you, Bienfu), and it can be difficult to get immersed in the world when every environment looks like ass. Plus, Tales isn't a series known for its stellar writing in the first place.

It still baffles me how fantastic this game's story turned out. The plot hook is simple - revenge stories were invented millenia ago - but it takes that hook and runs with it. It's not often that you get to play as a group of people this dedicated to their own goals, no matter what happens to everyone else, and it results in a lot of entertainingly morally-dubious scenes. Berseria has a lot of parts where you feel like the bad guy, and just as many where you ARE the bad guy, giving it a unique tone not seen in most other stories. I've never been a fan of games where you play as the villain, but Berseria dips into toe into EVIL just enough to make you feel bad for what you're doing while still retaining the conviction to see everything through until the end. Just like it works for the main characters!

Every member of the party has their own uniquely satisfying story and is written extremely well, to the point where it's maaaybe the best main cast of characters in any JRPG I've seen. And even among tough competition, Velvet Crowe stands out as an extremely memorable character. While her lines can veer a bit into edgelord territory, especially near the beginning of the game, she overall gets a ton of good moments and character development and is the defining reason behind why the game works so well. She carries the game's emotional weight on her shoulders.

It's that emotional weight that makes Berseria as memorable for me as it is. The game likes to lull you into a false sense of security with good-but-low-key writing before blasting you with a segment packed full with emotion, and it got me every time. A few of the scenes are very, very memorable for me and will be for a long time. Unfortunately, the ending has some questionable parts, and the last 1/4 isn't as good as what leads up to it, which prevents me from ranking the game higher, but the highs far outweigh the lows.

P.S. Velvet for Smash. Make it happen

I stopped right before the last dungeon months ago and could never finish it.

The problem is that while the story is good, I was never really that sold on the gameplay. It's overcomplicated, rewards players who love complicated combos way more than I do, and has dungeons too long and too repetitive. And don't get me started on that horrible equipment system.

I think I'll just watch the final cutscenes some time.

It shows that the other Tales game I played, Symphonia, I have beaten twice without feeling bored. The story is obviously inferior to Berseria, but it doesn't feel painful to play.

I hope Dune comes up.
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KamikazePotato posted...

1. Dexter Season 8
TV Series

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

One of the few pieces of media where I think literally every moment in it is bad. People who were upset by Game of Throne's bad final season should be glad that they never had to fight through the true final boss of bad TV final seasons. I say 'fight' because watching this season was a mental and physical struggle. The writers attacked you, the characters they'd built up, and the actors' future careers in an attempt to shoehorn in a incest subplot and the main character abandoning his son with an actual, literal serial killer so he can go be a lumberjack. And that's just scratching the surface! There's a hurricane in this season coincidentally named after Dexter's mother, and her's the actual given reason as to why:

"The hurricane also shares its name with Dexter's biological mother, Laura Moser. This is symbolic as Laura originally gave birth to Dexter, while the hurricane allowed Dexter to fake his death, and give birth to a new life."

Undoubtedly the worst TV to ever exist. I would need a damn good example to be convinced otherwise.

I only watched Dexter till season 4 and I don't regret it.

KamikazePotato posted...

1984
Book

You are a slow learner, Winston."

"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."

"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.

I spent more time choosing the quote for 1984 than I will writing the rest of this post. There's a LOT of fantastic quotes from the book.

1984 is, in essence, the scariest horror story in existence. There is no better novel about a dystopian society and I don't think there ever will be. 1984 describes a world where free will is dead, facts can be alternative, and cognitive dissonance is a prized character trait. There's a lot of reasons why it's so effective, but I think the main reason is because of how uncompromising the prose is. 1984 doesn't pretend to be subtle. It directly and viciously describes how messed up the world is at every given point, showering you with uncomfortable one-liners like "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human facefor ever so that you never grow complacent to how far society in the book has degraded. There is no happy ending in 1984, or a happy middle or beginning either. It portrays a society where truth has lost and has no chance of ever returning, and that fact is never sugarcoated.

In a lesser novel it might have come across as too much, but in 1984 it only serves as a reminder that the state of society is recognized by the characters within it and none of them can do anything about it. In fact, the characters themselves self-regulate their own thoughts to ensure that they continue to love Big Brother, because that's all they've ever been taught to do. Specifically, main character Winston is a fantastic viewpoint character because he epitomizes every aspect of humanity that remains. You get the sense from his internal narration that he's not even remotely fully-formed as a person, and his attempts at gaining even a semblance of individuality end...poorly. The closing line of 1984 is one of the most chilling I've ever read.

Now that I think about it, 1984 holds a similar spot in my head that MGS2 was. Hit me in my formative years but has endured the test of time, but not in a way that I appreciate. Would prefer less doublethink in modern society, pretty please.

I'm scared of reading 1984 because I think it will make me more pessimistic about modern society and I don't really need that in my life right now. If anything, I'm looking for reasons to find hope. Same reason I don't touch Black Mirror or Years and Years.

I will read dystopia stories if they end with the good guys doing a revolution or something.

Also I've read and liked Animal Farm so I feel like I get to say I've read Orwell and talk about it even if I never touched the other book.