Board 8 > Cold take time: What's the best story you've seen in a non-story-driven game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

"Cold take" because these are obviously stories nobody really cares much about. How are we supposed to argue about these opinions?

(This is actually a surprising tough decision, though. I'm not quite sure what I'd pick.)
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Metal Gear Rising?

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Twisted Metal: Black

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My immediate thought was Ys Origin, although there are probably better

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Celeste

soul blade

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Bayonetta 2 just for the sheer audacity of using time travel to make the sequel also a prequel

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Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Hidden Palace Zone as Sonic in particular

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NFUN posted...

Metal Gear Rising?

was my first thought

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Gonna go with Celeste for sure. Shovel Knight is another good one.

I dont know if Metal Gear Rising counts as non-story driven but it has a better story than most of the MGS games!

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I guess we have different definitions of non-story driven if we're counting Metal Gear.

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Yeah, I wasn't sure if Metal Gear Rising counted, just it was my first thought and since it was the first reply I just rolled with it instead of trying to think on it more!

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Rosalina's Storybook in Super Mario Galaxy.

Thomas was alone?

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I figured a game that lets you do a boss rush mode immediately via the konami code is loose enough with the story focus to count

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Mythiot posted...

Rosalina's Storybook in Super Mario Galaxy.

This was actually my first thought when I made this topic. Good choice.
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Anyway, discounting Metal Gear Rising I suppose maybe Bloodborne? Although I'm rolling lore into the story there.

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Yeah, it's Celeste by a mile for me.

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Pikmin, Parappa the Rapper, or Harvest Moon: a Wonderful Life

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRozarc1kSo

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Darksiders


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Lenna's Inception. Easily.

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Janus5k posted...

My immediate thought was Ys Origin, although there are probably better

That's a good answer, might be mine as well though I'm probably forgetting something.

Is Dark Souls story-driven? Like, you can ignore it all and just kill the big things, most stuff is subtext and delving into the lore by your own volition.

If so, Kirby Star Allies.

If not, Kirby 64.

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Do primarily multiplayer games with a campaign mode count? If so I'd go with Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Subspace Emissary, but that feels kind of like it shouldn't count to me idk.

Otherwise...Zelda Twilight Princess? That's probably also a bit questionable whether or not it qualifies though.
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Anything Metal Gear

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Splatoon has some really good lore attached to the setting.

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Ecco the Dolphin

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I've always thought Star Fox 64 executed its story extremely well. There are lots of really cool moments, some genuine intrigue, and almost all the characters are likeable and do well in their roles. And it does almost all of it during gameplay, with hardly any cutscenes and zero exposition dumps.

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The fucking Kingdom Hearts mobile game.

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I don't think Celeste is a non-story driven game. The gameplay is a bigger deal but the story is also a very important part of the experience.

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Kenri posted...

I've always thought Star Fox 64 executed its story extremely well. There are lots of really cool moments, some genuine intrigue, and almost all the characters are likeable and do well in their roles. And it does almost all of it during gameplay, with hardly any cutscenes and zero exposition dumps.

Oh yeah, this is a great answer.

Super Metroid and Metroid Prime also do a good job of fleshing out their stories with minimal exposition.

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does tales of crestoria count? its a jrpg game on one hand but, its a mobile gacha on the other. but the story is actually really well done

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story is literally the only reason anyone should touch crestoria tho so I'd call it story-driven

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The entire Kirby series

That lore, man

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Evillordexdeath posted...

Pikmin, Parappa the Rapper, or Harvest Moon: a Wonderful Life

Pikmin is a pretty good answer for this

Also Human Resource Machine has a surprising amount of story in it

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Five Nights at Freddys - Well, the franchise more than the first game

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depends for me on how the criteria for this really works out (I'm not actually asking for clarification here)

there's definitely some games and series out there that come to mind where i don't really care much about the story but they're pretty fantastic in dialogue (Paper Mario: Color Splash) or worldbuilding (Touhou series, Solatorobo, Genshin?)

there's some games where i question the need for a story mode to begin with (the ultimate ninja series especially, where it's an entirely different thing to the fighting game it's meant to be) and yet i enjoy that a lot too

there are of course plenty of games with joke plots too, in which case my answer would probably be 200% Mixed Juice because i really like how they adapted pretty much everyone from 10 other games of varying notability into it. But that's still story-oriented really.

and if we just go to the extreme of what my favourite story in a game with clearly just no dialogue or anything... i guess it'd have to be a shmup. right now i'm leaning genetos but i'm probably overlooking something. And in a sense you could still potentially call that story driven so maybe instead like, Danmaku Unlimited 2 or Alexandrite

Star Fox 64 is a really good answer, and I came in ready to say Brawl.

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I keep recycling from other topics, lol. Pokemon has some interesting stuff even if (at least for the first several games) the story was just an excuse to go places and fight dudes.

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