Board 8 > Hot take time: What is the worst story you've ever seen in a story-driven game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Stanley Parable and Kentucky Route Zero are the two worst I can think of.
---

KamikazePotato posted...

Zestiria especially blows because it turned off a lot of people from Tales and really hurt Berseria's numbers

That game did a good job at earning back respect, but it was definitely a DMC2 -> DMC3 situation

This is absolutely it's biggest sin. Berseria is one of if not the best game in the franchise, and it suffered heavily from blowback of Zesteria.

---

The main reason why the reaction to TLOU Part 2 would have been much better without the leaks is the simple fact that the leaks fundamentally misrepresented what the game was both in terms of story structure and plot specifics.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Stanley Parable and Kentucky Route Zero are the two worst I can think of.

WOW

We have a winner for hottest take.

---

XIII_rocks posted...

Dunno

Default answer for stuff like this is always FF5, so I'm gonna stick with that. That one was more like I didn't give a fuck rather than it being actively bad...though I guess if you don't give a fuck about the story, the story is bad

Nearly 10 years since that accursed playthrough, still haunted

It was just a sentient tree, calm down.

---

Star Ocean 3 plot twist.

SoulCalibur V story mode needed to be skipped.

---

Alanna82 posted...

Hot take: I love star ocean 4's plot.

Drawing attention to this take!

Honestly I think the characters hold Star Ocean 4 back much more than the overall plot itself, though I wouldn't call it a 'good' plot by any means.

Fire Emblem Fates came to mind for me, but that's not an unpopular opinion. Hmm... I really hated the last act of The Witcher 2. Steamworld Dig 2's lategame stuff annoyed me a lot too, but idk if that counts as 'plot-driven'.

---

oh an actual hot take I have is that Tales of the Abyss' story just turned me off immediately; I'm told it gets good but I tapped out before that happened. Almost the only thing I remember is having this experience with the MC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ikGvLUbOuU

for a second hot take I'm about due to be That One Who Doesn't Like SDRv3 for another hundred posts

---

The first arc of Abyss is kind of a trainwreck. For some people, it eventually turns around. For others, it just never recovers.

---

Tom Bombadil posted...

for a second hot take I'm about due to be That One Who Doesn't Like SDRv3 for another hundred posts

You don't like the best Danganronpa game? I don't even...
---

Final Fantasy 9

---

Danganronpa V3 and Abyss both among my favorite stories in gaming <_<

---

Tales of the Abyss is one of the few stories that outright offended me. It tries to present gaslighting as character development and it's pretty gross.

---

I got to the plot twist in Star Ocean 3 some 30-40+ hours into the game and got up, turned the game off, and never played it again.

---

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Danganronpa V3 and Abyss both among my favorite stories in gaming <_<

I'll go one better - Abyss is one of my favorite stories in any medium of fiction.

I think it takes multiple playthroughs to really hit that transcendent level, though, and considering the fact that I completely understand what would stop folks from wanting to finish even one (since that almost even happened to me), I certainly get why people tend to think I'm crazy for saying that.

---

Naw I agree entirely.

At the same time I'd be a hypocrite for faulting people in just dumping it.

---

Luke is one of the few shitty characters at the start I'm actually fine with by the end... I think mainly because how much more of the game there still is post-Akzeriuth that I kinda forget about early Luke by the end (not that he doesn't still slip-up with being dumb, but I also appreciate he didn't instantly 360)

but my god early Luke is just



fuck off

---

Yeah but that's the whole point.

Like, it's ROUGH, he's shit.

But, and I'm still going to put a spoiler warning here even without saying them directly, I think the game does an absolutely fantastic job of EXPLAINING how he came to be the way he is without JUSTIFYING it. And without him being total garbage up front, Luke as a character isn't even remotely as interesting.

---

Final Fantasy IV or Starcraft II
FFIV because of plot twists from the ass your friend was actually controlled by the big bad! oh wait no actually the big bad was controlled by a even bigger bad, from space
And then pretty much every single character decides to kill itself to save the group and it becomes old fast

Starcraft II because it has the most idiotic "we are making this story as we go" story ever
Well-established characters from SC and SC:BW suddenly act out of character
Story is now suddenly about saving the universe from it's original creators or some shit, Kerrigan turning into a good guy and turning into a super saiyan that saves the universe because reasons..what the fuck

---

FL81 posted...

hot takes huh

Final Fantasy IV

As one of the bigger fans of the game here, this is actually pretty fair

---

Final Fantasy IX's story does kind of go off the rails at a certain poin.

---

Honestly I found MGS2s kinda stupid but thats part of its charm IMO

actually wait AC3 thats the one

---

999 (actually decent but that last route ruins it so much-- playing Ever17 first probably made this worse though)
FF9 (By the numbers story mostly but that cast is so horrible and made worse by how the story kind of railroads them into whatever characterization it needs them to have in any given moment)

Probably FF9 is the answer

---

Lopen posted...

999 (actually decent but that last route ruins it so much-- playing Ever17 first probably made this worse though)
FF9 (By the numbers story mostly but that cast is so horrible and made worse by how the story kind of railroads them into whatever characterization it needs them to have in any given moment)

Probably FF9 is the answer

Now this is a hot take

ShatteredElysium posted...

Now this is a hot take

maybe the hottest take I've ever read on this board

---

KamikazePotato posted...

Tales of the Abyss is one of the few stories that outright offended me. It tries to present gaslighting as character development and it's pretty gross.

Who gets gaslit? Are you talking about how Asch gives up the role of being the "actual" Luke?

---

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Who gets gaslit?

I assume how everyone (but Ion) puts the blame for Akzeriuth on Luke when there was plenty of blame to go around and Luke was probably on the lower end of the scale there.

I don't quite agree with that take but I can see how the way it all comes off can make it seem that way and rub people the wrong way.

---

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Who gets gaslit? Are you talking about how Asch gives up the role of being the "actual" Luke?

Luke was not remotely at fault for the Akzeriuth incident. He had every reason to trust Van over his other party members, and Jade even suspected something and did nothing about it. Despite that, he gets 100% from the blame for it and is quickly abandoned by almost everyone he knows.

Conversely, every other party member is a piece of shit (except Tear) and they never get called out on it. It's just Luke, just because he's a jerk early on and because the narrative is obsessed with. Natalia blackmails her way into the party and is incredibly self-centered, Guy joined Luke's family to kill him, Anise is a traitor who got Ion killed, and Jade is Jade. None of them ever receive repercussions for this or even get called out on it at all.

I honestly don't see how people interpret this any other way outside of just buying what the game is selling without considering that the game doesn't know what it's talking about.

---

Anise is the worst

---

one of abyss's biggest missed opportunities was not having arietta make a face turn and replace anise during that bit

---

xp1337 posted...

one of abyss's biggest missed opportunities was not having arietta make a face turn and replace anise during that bit

I don't hate Anise as much as most people but this would've been really good.

Towards the end of the game I was just thinking yo Anise why are you even here still

---

Abyss

How do you want them to be "called out on it"? Do you want Luke to call them assholes? The entire story is based around terrible people growing and admitting their faults, all of these characters openly admit their failures and try to grow as people, except Jade kind of because he never pretended he wasn't an asshole, but even he admits to fucking up. Natalia in particular goes through a ton in this game and grows astronomically.

I'm just not sure what you wanted to happen there other than a desire for physical retribution or something.

I do think Abyss made the mistake of locking some key character development behind obtuse sidequests. My opinion on the game changed immensely after my 100% replay.

Also Anise does suck, like she actually did deserve to get more than she got, probably the wierdest loose end. She gets an inordinate amount of hate in regards to the franchise as a whole (I'll take her over a lot of Tales characters who are boring piles of nothing), but she's still pretty far down there.

---

It's Corpse Party: Blood Drive and it isn't close

---

Because they are worse people than Luke, by far, but the narrative treats Luke much worse than him simply because his surface level personality is unpleasant. Oh wait, so are Jade's and Anise's, but for some reason they also get a pass for that.

The story is based on terrible people growing but while they grow, somewhat, they don't get abandoned by the party or have the people they were supposed to rely on lay the deaths of hundreds at their feet for something that was their fault.

The scenes where Luke goes crawling back to the party and starts apologizing for things that aren't his fault because he's terrified of being alone are disgusting. It's basically an abuse victim debasing himself because he has nowhere else to turn. Compare that to, say, Anise, who gets Ion killed through actions that are entirely her fault and gets forgiven immediately.

---

KamikazePotato posted...

Luke was not remotely at fault for the Akzeriuth incident. He had every reason to trust Van over his other party members, and Jade even suspected something and did nothing about it. Despite that, he gets 100% from the blame for it and is quickly abandoned by almost everyone he knows.

I mean...I always thought that scene was a little harsh but I don't disagree with the premise! Luke is being manipulated HARD at that point and while he's somewhat of a victim too, let's be real. Luke just did the equivalent of dropping a nuke on a city because he didn't know any better and handwaving that away by saying he isn't complicit would suck!

---

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I mean...I always thought that scene was a little harsh but I don't disagree with the premise! Luke is being manipulated HARD at that point and while he's somewhat of a victim too, let's be real. Luke just did the equivalent of dropping a nuke on a city because he didn't know any better and handwaving that away by saying he isn't complicit would suck!

That's not even remotely equivalent. Luke was unaware of the specifics of how it worked, and was told by the person he trusts most in the world - the only person who's always stood by him, unconditionally - betrays him in a way he couldn't have possibly seen coming. He was in fact told that it would help the people there.

He was involved, but that doesn't make it his fault, and it's disingenuous to say otherwise despite how badly the game tries to push that notion. He was a victim, not a perpetrator.

---

i mean the party had ever reason to hate on Luke even before he nuked a town for just being a complete and total asshole every moment they've known him. That was just a shit-filled cherry on top of a dumpster fire cake.

---

Yeah, they have very little reason to give Luke the benefit of the doubt or any sympathy whatsoever at that point. I as the player had zero incentive to feel bad for him either...!

---

Yeah and that has absolutely nothing to do with blaming him for a catastrophic event that wasn't his fault

Putting blame on someone just because you don't like them is, in fact, shitty behavior

---

I played it cause a friend said Luke was the best character development in gaming at the time

We are no longer friends

---

It's crappy behavior, but it's also understandable and realistic behavior.

---

Xenogears. Not entirely its fault because it was spawned in the age of wanky stories about god and man, but it is probably the only such story that was so wanky they couldn't resolve all the wank before they ran out of money

---

Anyways the answer is Umineko and disagreeing makes the take that much hotter

---

if anything Luke completely gets away with nuking a town without suffering any repercussions beyond a haircut

---

He's both a victim and a perpetrator. It is not at all mutually exclusive.

---

Leonhart4 posted...

It's crappy behavior, but it's also understandable and realistic behavior.

Yeah but it's not called out at all. That's the main issue I have with the game - the narrative gives certain people passes while vilifying others.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

He's both a victim and a perpetrator. It is not at all mutually exclusive.

Hard disagree. If you have no reason to realistically believe that an action you take would cause a tragedy, then it is not your fault. Anything else is victim blaming.

---

GTM posted...

Anyways the answer is Umineko and disagreeing makes the take that much hotter

HNNNNNNNNNNG

---

KamikazePotato posted...

Yeah and that has absolutely nothing to do with blaming him for a catastrophic event that wasn't his fault

Putting blame on someone just because you don't like them is, in fact, shitty behavior

It's also, you know.

Real.

---

GTM posted...

Anyways the answer is Umineko and disagreeing makes the take that much hotter

what if I disagree on the grounds that Umineko isn't a video game for double hot takery

---

KamikazePotato posted...

Hard disagree. If you have no reason to realistically believe that an action you take would cause a tragedy, then it is not your fault. Anything else is victim blaming.

This is a fundemental disagreement on a real world level that just means there's no way to actually see eye to eye in this conversation.

Like I could not be more averse to this take.

---