Board 8 > Hotti take time: What's the most average story you've ever seen?

(+) Yeah! (+)

In a story-driven game, of course, but it wouldn't all fit in the topic title, hmm, yes.

Not good, not bad, just average.

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Mass Effect.

The world building is amazing but the actually story through the 3 games is pretty damn average.

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Final Fantasy IV

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i recently played Tales of the Tempest which was pretty average across the board - but it was short so it was fine... outside of the large overworld maps with a terrible random encounter rate & battle speed but hey that's not story!

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Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

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I feel like the first Uncharted fits this

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Horizon Zero Dawn

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The Legend of Dragoon

I don't really know how to define "most average" so instead I will go with the MOST average.

The Last of Us 1 was a pretty typical zombie apocalypse story for that time period, though it was executed extremely well.

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Tales of Xillia

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colliding posted...

Tales of Xillia

Solid answer.

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Uncharted 1

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Probably the original Metal Gear Solid. When I was young I thought it was cool as hell. As an adult I think it's exceptionally stupid with tons of boring exposition for shit I don't care about. It's just dumb. B-movie dumb which is fun, but it's pretty whatever as a whole.

As an aside, I think most of the other MGS games I think are just straight up bad stories though, particularly 2. It's somehow a hundred times worse version of M. Night Shyamylan's 'What a twist!' gimmick. I think Kojima is undeniably clever, but he needs someone to keep him in check which is probably why PT worked so well.

Probably Disgaea or something

Story wasn't very deep but it did its job

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Danganronpa 2? The story is "you're trapped on an island, now kill each other" except you're in a simulation.

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Super Metroid

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Every Assassin's Creed between Black Flag and Odyssey

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Probably like... Rise of the Tomb Raider?
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I don't even know how to quantify most average.

I'll say Dungeon Siege. You play a farmer who responds to having his fields burned and fight back against the evil monsters. You get to the first town, overrun by beasts, and help defend them. Then you hop from dungeon crawl to dungeon crawl, periodically adding someone to your party, but with absolutely none of them memorable or meaningful. There are sidequests, but they're just space filler. The gameplay is fine, but the story is just an excuse for it to exist. Really questionable if I can even call it story-driven in the first place.

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Harvest Moon 64.

Your grandfather died and left you his old rundown farm to take care of and make work again. There's not too much else going on for story, though it has a lot of fun random cutscenes you can walk in on, some permanent changes depending on things you do and don't do, just nice.

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Final Fantasy XII

how many of these can I answer with a Final Fantasy game

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I feel like Pokemon in general contends strongly, with endless variations on a theme of "become the best and also there are bad guys"

also my "here's the bad guy you're fighting THIS chapter" critique of some Fire Emblems might fit better here than the original

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Lunar Star Song absolutely wins this.

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MZero posted...

Final Fantasy XII

how many of these can I answer with a Final Fantasy game

I think FFI is a pretty average "save the world" tale if we're going for that (although you can argue it's not story-driven). Might be a Dragon Quest that fits the bill, too.

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So I guess in terms of video games an "average" story would be something that is just above "it exists" since I would say most games that attempt to be story driven fit into that group, enough that it really dilutes the pool, but that more games that try to make story and make it notable are good than bad.

I'll go with

Breath of Fire 3 for the Playstation

It's basically an "it exists" with a few exciting moments here and there that doesn't really do anything wrong. Seems about right.

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Uncharted 1 sets the standard for sure