RPGs with high quality stories - are there any?

[gIzzE]

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.

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

But what about the people who like the Ghibli stories??

I think Poe, Carrol, Twain, Tolkien and Tolstoy are poor story tellers, but the world over tends to disagree with me.
That Shakespeare guy wrote a couple of OK stories, but he gets far too much praise.

I would much rather read somthing by Jim Grant than any of the above.

Surely story telling is finding someone who writes in the style you like and nothing more?

[noobish hat]

Well we might need to separate structure and style. I'm not saying the Japanese have bad style, because obviously that's different for each author. Tolkien's way of telling his stories might not appeal to everyone, but at least his plots have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The typical Japanese story won't have those, which results in the meandering, go nowhere journey of so many Japanese films/books etc. It's actually different when it comes to games though, really, because gamers are probably more demanding of closure, since they 'personally' have gone through the story as the protagonist.

[nakamura]

I like J K Rowling. Sue me.

[noobish hat]

JK Rowling is fantastic. Although I haven't read Casual Vacancy yet because I'm trying to finish Dracula. I'm sure it will be great though, it sounds a lot like a Mark Haddon or Sue Townsend kind of thing. Ok, NOW the thread is derailed.

[speedlolita]

I think you would like roleplay noobish. Want to join a TERA RP server with me? We could make something special together.

[noobish hat]

Son, I have no idea what you just said.

[smouty]

I loved Lost Odyssey storyline and all
Braid was pretty interesting too but then I'm not looking too much into it TBH.
I still think it is quite amusing that the characters in Street Fighter have a back story.

[S_rank]

I think the best story in an action rpg zelda like game i can't stand turn based rpg at all , is alundra on the ps1 its pretty dark at times and full of twist and turns its also an amazing game so that helps

[gIzzE]

I have no idea what you just said.

That may well be my new signature!!

[gIzzE]

I always find it depends how quickly I whip through a game as to how much I feel the story flows, if I do it quickly I tend to think 'that wasn't too bad.' but when I faff for ages and have a few days off between plays the story feels more disjointed, which is pretty obvious I guess, but not something I had ever thought about before.

[rmoxon]

I'm Playing The secret World at the moment and the story lines in it are pretty good, its full of dark twisted conspiracy type stuff, the world it is set in is incredibly absorbing.

The final fantasy games have good stories, well the first few didn't, and 13 had a terrible story, but some of them feature great storytelling.

I'd argue the only reason to even play certain RPGs is the story. For instance I find the witcher games rubbish to play but they have good stories (though the books are still better). The fact is that a story that you read or watch in a film is one long and hopefully cohesive tale. Games have to be broken up with actual gameplay (unless its heavy rain, then its a game without gameplay). It's simply harder to tell a story when its constantly broken up all the time. It's probably why a lot of stories in games make no sense

[gIzzE]

I'm not sure I am even bothered by 'the story' in a game, the game either grips me and makes me want to see more and therefore keeps me playing or it doesn't, Half Life, Ico, Zelda, Mana etc. etc. etc. all do the above, and none of those have a gripping story.

Games with decent stories tend to bore me ****less, if I want a story I read a book or watch a film.

[gIzzE]

Now you could argue that is the case because the stories are no good of course.