What Are you Playing Now & General Game Discussions

[CKwi88]

(02-18-2023, 08:10 AM)basballguy Wrote: I didn’t mention any FPS (don’t play those).  StarCraft, in my opinion, was an anomaly when it comes to stories but Blizzard games used to always carry a good story….the Warcraft story was so good it spawned probably the greatest MMO we will ever see.

But more on topic, I am referring to RPGs (I mentioned Chained Echos as an example).  

Again it could just be me, but I’m fishing to see if anyone is in the same boat.

Absolutely, and I even agree on Chained Echoes. Lots of button mashing to just get to the next bit of gameplay, which is really what I look for now rather than story. I think it is just part of gaming as an adult because even if I go back and look at some of my all-time favorite games, very few of them really stand out for the story. The ones I keep going back to are for the gameplay, and I'd even lump Starcraft into that. 

I've experienced it most recently with the newest Fire Emblems. I've been a FE fan since as long as they've done the fan translation ROMs of the Japan-only releases here in the west. While Engage's story is bland and the characters meh (don't even get me started on female characters in Fire Emblems) the gameplay is airtight and on my subsequent playthroughs I am making good use of the + Button skip scene feature. What gets me so immersed into Fire Emblems are the mechanics and route/character/team planning from the gameplay, rather than a cookie cutter fantasy story. 

I think just as you get older the fantastical stories aren't as appealing as much as when you're younger. I'd even go further than Stewy and say that gameplay is king even when it comes to RPGs. A good story doesn't hurt of course, but if a game has good gameplay it can make up for it. A personal favorite of mine, Final Fantasy XII, is a great example. The story/characters are little more than a rehashed mashup of Disney's greatest hits, but it had some of the most innovative and compelling gameplay in the series. 

TLDR: Yup, we're getting old, and now we look for gameplay to get immersed into a game rather than a story.