Story in a video game isn't needed.....Wait.....WHAT?!?

This post is brought to you by the phrase 'F*** Off' and also the phrase 'You are so wrong I want to reach into my computer and punch you'.

Firstly, I would like to say that in such games as Tetris, Bejeweled, story isn't needed. Games that you play to fill an empty half an hour don't need story. They are there for entertainment purposes only. I get that. Old school arcade games like Pac-Man and one of my personal favourites, Bubble Bobble, do not require a good story either. They were designed to be played in quick bursts in a public arcade. The comment I have referenced in my title though was a comment at an RPG.

Now anyone reading anything on my blog, will by now have realised that RPG's are my favourite type of game. I have always wanted to be an author since I was about six years old. It's a dream that still burns very brightly with me. I also love video games. I like the escapism they, like a good book, can offer. RPG's provide this.

Now back to that wonderfully ignorant comment lets look at this for a second, I will be playing this game from anywhere between 40 hours to over a hundred. I do not want to be sat there following a band of characters I care nothing for that are following a paper thin plot. Where is the fun in that? If I wanted to play a game for purely gameplay, I would. But RPG's need to offer both. I cannot stress how annoyed I am with recent RPG's and how they have let story fall by the wayside to accomodate for overly convuluted game mechanics and pretty graphics.

I realise I am yet to do a post for Final Fantasy XIII, despite my many posts on it's in production sequel, but this was a game that came dangerously close to being another throw away game where the characters and story count for nothing. If you have read my post on Eternal Sonata you will realise that my opinion on that game was ruined because the story counted for nothing. The whole game looked like it came straight from an artbook, the gameplay was fun and entertaining, but it was hollow, there was no substance holding it all together.

Story, for me, is everything. I once had a seminar at university where I argued this very point with another student. He said that a story should be a second thought on a video game citing Tetris as his example. In retaliation I cited Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy XII. VII, while the graphics were acceptable at the time of release, look horribly dated now yet XII looks stunning. Now I didn't play VII at the time of release, I didn't play it until 2005 when video game graphics were a LOT better. I didn't care that the grpahics looked rubbish because the storyline and characters were so interesting. They held everything together to the point that it quickly became one of my favourite games. However the gameplay, like the graphics, had dated compared to other games I was playing at that time.

Now XII on the other hand looks stunning. It really does look beautiful. The gameplay was so much fun. I loved the Gambit system and the fact that battles took place in the world rather than a seperate screen. It was for those reasons alone that I decided to try and do all the side quests as it was fun to play, but the story was poorly executed. The potential was there. There was the possibility that it could have been a really great game, but it was let down by characters who never seemed to interact with each other and a plot that thought it's own grandoise would carry it through. It was poorly recieved among players with many gamers I know citing it as a very weak link in the series. And from my own personal view, it was mainly to get the sense of achievement at doing the side quests that I chose to do them. By that point I felt so let down by the game that I felt I needed to get something out of it to get my money's worth.

So if gameplay is the most important aspect in an RPG, why did I and why do I still prefer VII over XII? BECAUSE YOU SHOUld NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A GAME TO TELL A STORY!!!!!!! It gets me so angry. It's like watching a film where you only want to see moving pictures rather than anything resembling a story. After all, a film's main purpose is to show things moving. Yet time and again movies with a poor plt and characters score lower than movies that have a brilliant plot and cast.

Basically, games, like movies, need a story. You need to engage the player so that they enjoy playing it because they want to, not because they feel they've just spent £50 on a game only for it to suck.