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[michael]

i personally love how there was so little of the stories in the game and yet so much story inherent. it actually one of my favorite parts or old 2d games.

games these days are so insecure about players missing things or being confused. i love how every little thing in these old games, these little indiscernible pixel creatures actually had so much more story than we ever imagined. its this kind of situation that intrigues people by drawing them in rather than reaching out and molesting our faces. its one of the things that i really liked about sotc.

[TeeGee]

I too liked the vague stories of old games. Especially how it was done (and pretty much still is) in fighting games. You get brief description of each character's backstory and you use these bits to create the whole setting.

Though, having no story in game, just to fill half the manual with it, is kinda lame.

[Titch]

Why the hell do crabs throw rocks? In every friggin' game that contains crab enemies they fling rocks! I want to strangle the guy who first used rock-lobbing crabs. 

In Sonic they shot Fireballs.

Just sayin...

[gunswordfist]

Why the hell do crabs throw rocks? In every friggin' game that contains crab enemies they fling rocks! I want to strangle the guy who first used rock-lobbing crabs. 

In Sonic they shot Fireballs.

Just sayin...

Well they were robots and Sonic is just plain awesome so it doesn't matter. lol

[esc]

who needs an explanation for super weird worlds?
use your imagination

[Kadoba]

I understand how a lot of gamers/designers think that gameplay should tell the story but I'm a big fan of super text-heavy games like paper mario and persona. I love how the story and gameplay go hand-in-hand and it makes the entire thing seem meaningful holds my attention better. Of course, I love games that don't have them too. You know what? I just like video games.

[Aquin]

@Kadoba: I agree 100% 

But let's look at this anyway.  For me, I guess it depends on whether the text really serves a purpose.

Nothing bothers me more than RPGs that just don't know when to shut up.  I'm pretty sure most RPGs could cut their dialogue content by 50% with no harm to the story.  The mark of a good writer is saying a lot with few words.  Most writers for video games are not good.

So yeah, I'm not against text in video games.  I'm against pointless filler text that does nothing but repeat a sentiment or plot point I just saw 3 minutes ago.

[Eclipse]

I was never too deep in searching plots on my childhood games because the story always sucked.

for me Zool was a sort of green ant dressed as ninja shooting energy blasts, and he need to travel past... er... chupa chups land, then the music world and other stuff like that.

almost every platformer was like that.. colored worlds with senseless enemies, waiting for a bigger version of an enemy as Boss each three levels or so.

It was awesome.

On another side i loved how Another World told the story using the gameplay

[Jad]

The old sonic games had the charm they had just because of what the first post talks about.

When they started changing that, the whole sonic franchise got aidscancer.

/opinion

oh, also 'lol'

[gunswordfist]

who needs an explanation for super weird worlds?
use your imagination

But my tv stole it...

[nihilocrat]

How is this a 2D/3D thing?

I still think static narrative is kind of a bad fit for games. I don't really mind it being
around, but I enjoy gameplay-emergent 'stories'.