RPGs with high quality stories - are there any?

[nakamura]

Stories I have enjoyed in RPG's.

Vargrant Story had an excellent plot that was well scripted and full of interesting moments. Brilliant characters too.

Final Fantasy Tactics has a really interesting plot too. Not the usual save the world plot either.

Persona 3 and especially Persona 4 have really good stories. Persona 4 is fantastic in fact with a brilliant script and a superb cast of characters. Probably the best script in any game I have played.

Grandia has a nice story. Starts off like a bonkers adventure with lots of larking around but ends up rather serious and with some touching scenes.

Chrono Cross and Trigger have good stories too. Love the time travel and dimension elements. The antagonists of Cross are superbly designed and very interesting.

[Golgo]

I've also come to realise that Japanese RPGs are probably not the place to look, since the Japanese are absolutely terrible at telling stories.

[mekanor]

Grim Fandango has an absolutely amazing story!

[tokyochojin]

Hmm, that's not really a game though. It would be no different to an actual book being included with the game.

I've also come to realise that Japanese RPGs are probably not the place to look, since the Japanese are absolutely terrible at telling stories.

Totally stupid comment. It's just the fact that most translation teams don't have the time/capabilities to fully translate the intricacies into the target language.

[noobish hat]

No, that's a stupid comment, seeing as I play/read/watch a lot of Japanese stories in Japanese, and in general they are very poor. The Japanese have a different set of values when it comes to stories, and hence they pump out crap like the Clockwork Bird Chronicle and every other Ghibli film. They make it up as they go along.

[tokyochojin]

Seems like you're confusing bad storytelling with cultural differences.

[noobish hat]

I'm not confusing them, I'm saying it's both. Japan's culture of storytelling is different. And wrong.

[kryss]

Totally stupid comment. It's just the fact that most translation teams don't have the time/capabilities to fully translate the intricacies into the target language.

I have to agree with Noobish. Can you name a Japanese movie made in the last 20 years with a decent story? Literally the only one I can is Ninja Hattori-kun the Movie.
They start well, get a bit crap in the middle and then fizzle completely before the end.

[Tobal]

Not RPG's but stories i've enjoyed in video games this generation

Nier
Binary Domain
Enslaved
Asura's Wrath
Dragon Age 1 (poor elf story for me)
FFXI (richest game world/history SE ever built for me)
Saints Row 3 (yes, SR3)

and i'll sneak Dreamfall in to, played it on my 360 via emulation(so i counts i my book) after seeing a review for the xbox version

[Golgo]

I'm not confusing them, I'm saying it's both. Japan's culture of storytelling is different. And wrong.

Congratulations, Noobish, you've managed to petulantly de-rail your own thread this time! Step beyond anime and videogames and populist schlock like Haruki Murakami. Read some Kobo Abe, Junichiro Tanizaki, or the better of Japan's two Nobel Laureates, Kenzaburo Oe. The 'wrong culture of storytelling' - you've given me a good laugh anyway! I'm gone.

[nakamura]

Noobish I would recommend you even forget Japan exists because you seem to hate everything about it.

[Guts]

Did you start playing Planescape already, Noobs? It's not even Japanese...

[noobish hat]

If I download it, is it just going to work on Windows 7, or am I going to have to fanny around with dosbox or something?

[Guts]

It should work without any trouble, it's not that old game (1999) and it was re-released on DVD a couple years ago. Pick it up from gog.com, it's like ?3 at the moment.

[S3M]

Good plot writing in video games just doesn't exist I can count the games on one hand that have had well written stories and dialog. There seems to be a real issue with the games industry not using good professional writers for storylines and plots. The industry as a whole also tends to avoid dark issues of the world and because of this you tend to get a very unrealistic story even in modern day settings.

As mentioned Planescape: Torment has an excellent script as does Dreamfall: The Longest Journey which has some very real feeling dialog between characters. The opening section of the father and daughter talking is rather eerie with how personal it feels. The recent Ghostbusters game also has a very funny and excellent script but that?s because it written by Harold Ramis & Dan Aykroyd who wrote the films.

Only one of the above is an RPG which is a sadly statement to video games writing in general as RPGs tend to have better stories than most other games.

Shining the Holy Ark certainly has the best Japanese written RPG story I?ve played. Characters aren?t black and white, it? also deals with darker human issues that most games avoid point blank this including child murder and rape, including one character who is himself the child of said rape.

Unlike many series the earlier Shining games story continued from game to game so the plot is much stronger. Heroes and villains aren?t throw away characters either with a number of characters reappear in the story sequel Shining Force III which expands events and conflicts between some characters seen in the previous game, it also includes a lot of political struggles this time around and politics rarely features in games.

The ending from Shining Force III also has one of the most interesting twists I?ve seen in a game, that said you?ll need to learn Japanese for Shining Force III. As the official English translation cut out a lot of content and the later parts were only released in Japanese. As par of the course the fan translation is also rubbish and best used as a rough guide for what's going on.

Dark Saviour is also worth a mention story wise, as it has a plot similar to the film
Sliding Doors, with a key event early on in the game then changes the story in three different ways depending how that event unfolded. (For DS fans I?m aware there are five story arcs but one is just an arena battle and another follows directly on after you finish a previous arc, there is only three true story arcs in total.)