w-orst Moments in Gaming Plots

[Skyblade]

Have you ever had a moment in a game where something occurs in the story or events that you simply cannot accept? Something which, like midichlorians, you simply decide to wipe from the story. It didn't happen, and official canon be damned. I was going through a few of these in my head yesterday, and I wanted to share. Spoilers will ensue, though for most games I mention, it's beyond the statute of limitations for spoilers, so they're unmarked.



-Chrono Cross: The fall of the kingdom of Guardia. Chrono Cross has a lot of problems (most of which can be summed up "it's a sequel to Chrono Trigger when it should have been a new IP"), but few worse to me than the initial setup for the plot. In 1005, the Kingdom of Guardia is invaded and destroyed by the Kingdom of Porre. Wait, what?

By the end of Chrono Trigger, Chrono, Lucca, and Marle all return to Guardia. Each one is essentially a combat god capable of wiping entire armies out with a single spell, and together they get even more powerful. You're expecting me to believe that an army from a dinky little po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to its name except a beret and a generous mayor somehow defeated the only three magic users on the planet?

Oh, but it gets better. Yeah, the reason it was able to do this? Dalton. You know, the joke boss? The one who commands the army of the weakest minions in the game? The army that a single character can tear through without even breaking a sweat? And this guy, this pathetic frelling joke, somehow manages to defeat a guy who is capable of soloing the devourer of worlds?

No chance. No way. It just doesn't happen. How anyone can be expected to take the story seriously when the entire setup is dependant on Dalton being a credible threat is beyond me. It'd be like Ultros showing up at the end of VI and killing Terra, Edgar, and Celes to become the new king of Figaro. It'd be like the Antarans returning after Master of Orion 2 to wipe out your empire. Oh, wait...


-Master of Orion 3: The fall of the Empire. One would think that the atrocious gameplay would be reason enough for this game to suck, but the developers decided to destroy the plot as well. The setup for MoO3 is that the Antarans, the bogeyman race from MoO2 that harass you throughout the entire game until you finally kill them, turned out to not really be dead. Instead of destroying their home planet in another dimension, which is what MoO2's plot states, you actually just wipe out an outpost, and they return later to eliminate you. The problem? By the end of the game, they're a bigger joke than Dalton.

See, you can't investigate the Antaran homeworld without committing your forces there. You don't want to send a minor fleet, because you know these guys are nasty. They've been harassing you the entire game, and by this point you likely know that their armor, engines, computers, and shields are all better than yours. If you lose the fight, you'll probably lose your biggest fleet along with it. So, what is the result? In nearly every game I've played, what rolls into Antares is a fleet of about 300 ships equipped with multiple planet destroying Stellar Converters apiece, each of which is capable of destroying any Antaran warship (of the 9 or 10 they have guarding the planet) in a single shot. Even if you haven't reverse engineered their technology, you can wipe out the entire defense fleet with a single bloody ship.

And these guys somehow get uppity again and manage to wipe out my empire? Doesn't happen. My fleets literally destroy planets because its more efficient to build them from scratch than to deal with their low resources or toxic environments. My empire builds warships by the hundreds because its the only way to prevent economic collapse because the government has too much money. We have an entire galaxy or resources, and an immortal emperor guiding us. And that little race manages to wipe us out and destroy the entire series while they're at it. No thank you. It's not like 4x games need direct sequel plots anyway. I mean, are we supposed to believe that Civilization V takes place after the death of your spacefaring race from Civ IV?


-Final Fantasy Tactics: King Delita and the death of the Princess. This is a good game, and I've never tried to say otherwise. But I do have a lot of problems with it. Perhaps the worst, however, is the ending. Pretty much from his first appearance, I'd been convinced that Delita was a villain. At the end of the game, he becomes king. And he then proceeds to kill his new wife, a princess who was a character I was quite a fan of. And all of this happens because Ramza is too much of a wimp to do what needs to be done and slit the jerk's throat any of the dozens of times you see him. The guy can stroll through the entire Church of Glabedos without breaking a sweat, eliminating the Rukavi and anything else that looks at him funny in a heartbeat, yet he never even attempts to wipe out this sociopath whom he could have killed at any time, and the princess dies because of it. And this is your reward for beating the game. A view of the world now being led by a self obsessed meglomaniac who kills anyone who gets in my way, while Ramza goes running off into the night. Worst hero in any Final Fantasy ever.



Discuss your own, or mine. I'll certainly have more incoming.

[Balzac]

The end of Rage. Plain and simple. Playing through all of that just for that ending. :(

[Shauna]

The end of Rage. Plain and simple. Playing through all of that just for that ending. :(

This, except replace Rage with Prince of Persia (2008). Biggest what the hell ever.

[Wolf Kanno]

There are a lot of plot points that bother me, but I'll stick to ones I actively ignore their existence.

Desmond and the First Civilization in Assassin's Creed, I'm fine with a secret war between two secret societies that are battling to control man's fate but I absolutely never cared for the Sci-Fi elements with Desmond nor did I like the First Civilization nonsense. Had I actually cared, I'd probably would have been pissed at AC3's ending but I largely ignore those elements of the plot as much as I can.

The Compilation of VII, I am not a huge fan of VII but even I can't accept how bad these milking titles really messed up the narrative given in VII. So no, I don't believe any of it happened and VII is still a stand alone game. In fact let's just say for the sake of arguments that we'll lump all the sequels to main FF games here as well. So no After Years, X-2, XIII-Trilogy, or Revnant Wings.

I'm starting to think this way about Big Boss's backstory, while I love MGS3, I don't like how Portable OPS, Peace Walker, and MGS4 have painted him as this sympathetic anti-hero whose bullshit from the Metal Gear titles is handwaved as Snake just not realizing what he was really doing. I like stories about noble figures reaching their breaking point and turning into villains it is just not done as much as I would like but all the post-MGS3 Big Boss stories have basically made him into a good guy who is only evil cause Snake doesn't realize he's working for the bad guys. I prefer Outer Heaven being Big Boss' wrathful revenge against the U.S. government and the world for how it treats soldiers like pawns, not his secret army to wage a secret war with an old army buddy and his A.I. computers. Also I wish they would stop milking The Boss in his stories. Both Portable OPS and Peace Walker have great scenarios that get bogged down with it just being one giant wank fest for Big Boss to moan about what happened to The Boss and reaffirming his belief in what she wanted for him. Peace Walker even has BB forget crap that happened in MGS3. What do you mean you don't know why the Boss did it? She told you like four times in MGS3. :roll2

[maybee]

Agree about Chrono Cross, the game was pretty meh compared to Chrono Trigger but it was still interesting and unique in a way and then it throws that dumb plot-line with Chrono, Lucca and the rest.

:cry:

[krissy]

-Final Fantasy Tactics: King Delita and the death of the Princess. This is a good game, and I've never tried to say otherwise. But I do have a lot of problems with it. Perhaps the worst, however, is the ending. Pretty much from his first appearance, I'd been convinced that Delita was a villain. At the end of the game, he becomes king. And he then proceeds to kill his new wife, a princess who was a character I was quite a fan of. And all of this happens because Ramza is too much of a wimp to do what needs to be done and slit the jerk's throat any of the dozens of times you see him. The guy can stroll through the entire Church of Glabedos without breaking a sweat, eliminating the Rukavi and anything else that looks at him funny in a heartbeat, yet he never even attempts to wipe out this sociopath whom he could have killed at any time, and the princess dies because of it. And this is your reward for beating the game. A view of the world now being led by a self obsessed meglomaniac who kills anyone who gets in my way, while Ramza goes running off into the night. Worst hero in any Final Fantasy ever.



ophelia stabs delita first. he pulls out the knife and stabs her back.
Final Fantasy Tactics #131- "Ramza...What Did You Get?" - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCLRPc_eVeA)
edit: i'm not defending him, but there's more to the scene than just delita being more of a dick.


anyway, ff8 GF dementia effect

[Skyblade]

-Final Fantasy Tactics: King Delita and the death of the Princess. This is a good game, and I've never tried to say otherwise. But I do have a lot of problems with it. Perhaps the worst, however, is the ending. Pretty much from his first appearance, I'd been convinced that Delita was a villain. At the end of the game, he becomes king. And he then proceeds to kill his new wife, a princess who was a character I was quite a fan of. And all of this happens because Ramza is too much of a wimp to do what needs to be done and slit the jerk's throat any of the dozens of times you see him. The guy can stroll through the entire Church of Glabedos without breaking a sweat, eliminating the Rukavi and anything else that looks at him funny in a heartbeat, yet he never even attempts to wipe out this sociopath whom he could have killed at any time, and the princess dies because of it. And this is your reward for beating the game. A view of the world now being led by a self obsessed meglomaniac who kills anyone who gets in my way, while Ramza goes running off into the night. Worst hero in any Final Fantasy ever.



ophelia stabs delita first. he pulls out the knife and stabs her back.
Final Fantasy Tactics #131- "Ramza...What Did You Get?" - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCLRPc_eVeA)
edit: i'm not defending him, but there's more to the scene than just delita being more of a dick.


anyway, ff8 GF dementia effect

Oh, I know she stabs him first. He deserves it. I'd have done it too. I wish she'd succeeded.

It doesn't change the fact that Ramza could have, and should have, done the same thing back in the beginning of the game, or any of a couple of dozen times throughout the story.

And it doesn't make the moment any easier to bear. Ophelia was a great character, and Delita was a sociopath. The guy didn't deserve to marry her, didn't deserve to be king, and didn't deserve to survive the story, let alone wind up killing a character so much better than he was.

[Bolivar]

FFVII compilation. I'm not sure why you would want to retcon the story like that.

I'm on the record for Xenogears and its facially shocking, but substance-devoid religion references, like the Ethos and child molestation and the scene where the Gears are crucified.

And now I'm going to argue...

Skyblade & Final Fantasy Tactics

Ramza didn't kill Delita because he was too busy trying to stop milennia-old demons from enslaving the world and killing everyone. Delita and Ramza both had the same objective - subverting the grand plotting of the nobility and clergy which had always led to the killing of innocents. Delita just did it through a lot of ambitious backstabbing. Plus they were friends and Ramza blames himself for Delita's sister's death. Delita's ending is perfect. He tries to stop the morally relativist cycle of ends justifying means by... employing a scheme of moral relativism of the ends justifying the means. He thought change was only possible through playing by the rules, and his ending is accordingly ironic. FFT is arguably the crown jewel of hardcore JRPGs and I think the player is thoroughly rewarded for its completion.

Wolf & Big Boss

Big Boss has been built up as a good guy since the original Metal Gear Solid retconned him and his status as Snake's father. Everyone in that game idolized him, and the Solid Snake in that game is a man wracked by grief and rage over killing his own father, leading to his complete disillusionment and distrust with the United States government and its special forces. Kojima sacrificed the original Metal Gear games in order to build a deeper story with relevant themes that go beyond a soldier on a mission. And Porable Ops and Peace Walker both dealt with the same subject matter because only Peace Walker was directed by Kojima. They were both games in which Big Boss dealt with The Boss' death because they had to be; we needed to see how Kojima intended to handle it. Lastly, at the end of MGS3, he only learned what The Boss had done, he still refused to understand why she had done it.

Have you listened to the bonus tapes towards the end of the game?

[Rostum]

ff8 GF dementia effect

This.

[Dr. rydrum2112]

ff8 GF dementia effect

This.

^A good one.

Also when we are reminded in FFX-2 that Brother is Yuna's cousin...
FF13 Snow's organization just happens to have the same name as Hope's mother...

[DMKA]

Prince of Persia (2008). Biggest what the hell ever.

Oh dear, I'm playing that right now.

[Slothy]

anyway, ff8 GF dementia effect

You really are just like me.

[Aulayna]

FF8 that moment when it turns out they all came from the same orphanage and all that other jazz. I still to this day cannot get my head around that. :mad2:

[Futan]

Ja. Repeating what everyone else said about VIII. Was the first and only time I immediately quit playing a game from the story. lol.

[Raistlin]

All of FFXIII's overplot from Chapter 9 onwards.

Also:


ff8 GF dementia effect

[Dr. rydrum2112]

WKC 2- when Scardine reveals "him"self.
FF12- Venat (and occult) in the same vein FF9's Necron

[NeoCracker]

I'll avoid listing all the problems with VIII here, as that would be my entire list. :p

Deus Ex Human Revolution - Any one of the endings. Doesn't matter. They are all him saying what 'Might' have happened as a result, what he hoped happened. He is sure to make a point of you knowing he has no Idea if any of this actually happens.

FF VII - The game is pretty clear, and it is stated in the Ultimania guide, Sephiroth is in control the whole game. Sephiroth, whose plan just happen to be Identical to Jenova, is in control. Why are his plans Identical to that of Jenova if she has no control over him? This is utter nonsense.

Lufia series - WHO THE FUCK IS AREK! I WANNA KNOW! :cry:

[blackmage_nuke]

FF8 that moment when it turns out they all came from the same orphanage and all that other jazz. I still to this day cannot get my head around that. :mad2:

Actually considering that Cid organised the missions and was Matron's husband, it's actually not that big of a coincidence that everyone involved in the Edea assasination plot happened to be from the same orphanage. It's possible he did it so they WOULDNT succeed.


FF13 Snow's organization just happens to have the same name as Hope's mother...
This confused me for so long -_-


All of FFXIII's overplot from Chapter 9 onwards.
I agree, around chapter 9 was when the plot stopped hooking me.

I also hate the wedding from MGS4. It just felt so out of place for a MGS ending, infact everything in that ending before the voice actor credits felt ridiculously out of place. It was only when I saw the second half of the ending which was a half hour or so rant that it really felt like a MGS ending.

Also Mei Ling shouldve performed the wedding ceremony

[Skyblade]

FF VII - The game is pretty clear, and it is stated in the Ultimania guide, Sephiroth is in control the whole game. Sephiroth, whose plan just happen to be Identical to Jenova, is in control. Why are his plans Identical to that of Jenova if she has no control over him? This is utter nonsense.

I thought Jenova was just a destroyer. Working more by instinct than plan. The idea to harness the energy of the wounded planet to become a god, that was all Sephiroth.

[Wolf Kanno]

Wolf & Big Boss

Big Boss has been built up as a good guy since the original Metal Gear Solid retconned him and his status as Snake's father. Everyone in that game idolized him, and the Solid Snake in that game is a man wracked by grief and rage over killing his own father, leading to his complete disillusionment and distrust with the United States government and its special forces. Kojima sacrificed the original Metal Gear games in order to build a deeper story with relevant themes that go beyond a soldier on a mission. And Porable Ops and Peace Walker both dealt with the same subject matter because only Peace Walker was directed by Kojima. They were both games in which Big Boss dealt with The Boss' death because they had to be; we needed to see how Kojima intended to handle it. Lastly, at the end of MGS3, he only learned what The Boss had done, he still refused to understand why she had done it.

Have you listened to the bonus tapes towards the end of the game?

No I haven't yet, I'm almost at the end of Peace Walker.

I wouldn't say they built him up as a good guy in the first game with the retcon, the father retcon just makes the clone plot twist not come off as silly as it really is. He was well respected but only Liquid truly idolized him and mostly in a twisted "I'll surpass you" kind of way, it doesn't change that Snake and just about everyone that wasn't FOXHOUND felt that Big Boss' idea of Outer Heaven and reigniting the Cold War by throwing Nuclear deterrence out the window was a bad idea and made Big Boss look crazy instead of this wonderful guy. He was presented as a complex character for sure, but I wouldn't say it made him any less villainous. They didn't ever really build him up until after the success of MGS3. I also disagree with "needing to see how Kojima would handle it" cause that's a terrible excuse to re-use an idea especially so shortly after it was already done and despite Portable OPS still being official canon. I also feel your last statement should be changed to that she told you why she did it, he just refused to listen to it.

I feel that the writers are just grasping for something meaningful to give him development and are willing to tredge up resolved issues and making them unresolved again to do it. Peace Walker is to the MGS narrative what Advent Children is to VII, a rehash of old themes cause the team knows there is nothing new to talk about. I want to see the Big Boss that was ready to throw the world into chaos for the sake of soldiers, not the guy who literally picks up and recruits every woman, child, and sob story he can find in the jungle and send them back to mercenary base for tea and cigarettes. I wanted to see him fall, not be transformed into the only true hero of the story, and I like the guy but I feel he lost his edge with the retcons. Even if Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 were remade to coincide with the series new narrative, I feel that Big Boss would be more of a Woobie Destroyer of Worlds (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds/VideoGames) instead of a Well Intentioned Extremist (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist) due to how they've been building him up since MGS3.

[Aulayna]

FF8 that moment when it turns out they all came from the same orphanage and all that other jazz. I still to this day cannot get my head around that. :mad2:

Actually considering that Cid organised the missions and was Matron's husband, it's actually not that big of a coincidence that everyone involved in the Edea assasination plot happened to be from the same orphanage. It's possible he did it so they WOULDNT succeed.

I understand the reasoning of it but to me it still doesn't make it any less of a lame plot.

[The Man]

FF8 orphanage thing, like everyone said.

The other thing was the end of Star Ocean 3. I loved the game for the most part, but the end revealing that the entire Star Ocean universe was part of a video game was a bit too much for me to take. Basically could've done without almost the entire second disc. The concept behind what they were trying to do could have been cool, but it was executed really haphazardly and it spoiled the effect they were obviously going for. At the very least 4D should have felt like another universe entirely, but it didn't.

And yeah, the backstory of Chrono Cross connecting it to Trigger is pretty troutty too. I love that game for the most part, but there are two really weak moments in the game's plot; the first is the backstory everyone mentioned and the second is the feeble attempt to drop about ten hours of gameplay's worth of exposition on the player right before the final battle, because it's obvious they ran out of time to finish developing the game. The execution of the final battle itself leaves a lot to be desired as well - couldn't they have made it easier for the player to figure out how to get the proper ending of the game?

[NeoCracker]

FF VII - The game is pretty clear, and it is stated in the Ultimania guide, Sephiroth is in control the whole game. Sephiroth, whose plan just happen to be Identical to Jenova, is in control. Why are his plans Identical to that of Jenova if she has no control over him? This is utter nonsense.

I thought Jenova was just a destroyer. Working more by instinct than plan. The idea to harness the energy of the wounded planet to become a god, that was all Sephiroth.

What Jenova did was infect and devour planets so that she may move on to the next planet to do so.

Which is exactly what Sephiroth is doing now, the only difference is the referal to ones self as god. So really the only difference is semantics. :p

[Bolivar]

He was well respected but only Liquid truly idolized him and mostly in a twisted "I'll surpass you" kind of way, it doesn't change that Snake and just about everyone that wasn't FOXHOUND felt that Big Boss' idea of Outer Heaven and reigniting the Cold War by throwing Nuclear deterrence out the window was a bad idea and made Big Boss look crazy instead of this wonderful guy.

Sniper Wolf talked about what an amazing man he was and how he saved her from the desolation of her environment. Locked up, Snake cites his death as the reason why he had to leave special forces and live by himself in Alaska. Naomi also cites him as a father figure who helped finance her education and gave her a better life, cursing Solid Snake for killing him. His reputation is as "The Greatest Soldier of the 20th Century," not as madman who nearly killed us all. The LEF project is introduced as a betrayal that the player can easily compare to what they've been through with Solid Snake, and by the time the game is over, the U.S. government is no longer something the player should be surprised Big Boss challenged.

I think that's ample enough evidence.


Peace Walker is to the MGS narrative what Advent Children is to VII, a rehash of old themes cause the team knows there is nothing new to talk about.

An older plot point is not a theme. The self-defeating logic of nuclear deterrence is a theme. The 20th century emergence of Non Government Actors is a theme. Costa Rican neutrality through disarmament is a theme. The MGS series has always been about going beyond just the narrative and exploring larger ideas. All of these were new to the series.

Even the point about why The Boss carried out her role - that was only one part of the story. And to clarify, Jack learned why The Boss sacrificed herself - to cancel out Volgin's destruction of the R&D site and avert a nuclear standoff. But that explained nothing about why this woman who gave her body and her child to her country, only to be betrayed by them in the Bay of Pigs, the first space flight, and presumably other incidents, would continue fighting for them up to that point in 1963. The tapes revealed later on in the game give the answer, but there's still a lot of deciphering and deeper meaning the player has to go through to figure it out.

[Wolf Kanno]

Sniper Wolf talked about what an amazing man he was and how he saved her from the desolation of her environment. Locked up, Snake cites his death as the reason why he had to leave special forces and live by himself in Alaska. Naomi also cites him as a father figure who helped finance her education and gave her a better life, cursing Solid Snake for killing him. His reputation is as "The Greatest Soldier of the 20th Century," not as madman who nearly killed us all. The LEF project is introduced as a betrayal that the player can easily compare to what they've been through with Solid Snake, and by the time the game is over, the U.S. government is no longer something the player should be surprised Big Boss challenged.

I think that's ample enough evidence.

Notice how all of these people barring Snake are bad guys, also anyone would be shell shocked to learn you killed your old man so I would Snake's PTS is pretty founded without him thinking he's a good guy. The issue here is that Big Boss was respected, but that doesn't mean he was a good guy, Snake has a deep respect for several of the series villains but it didn't change that they were tragic psychopaths either. Even Metal Gear 2 showed that Big Boss wasn't absolutely evil as he took in war orphans to help them but this in turn allowed him to create a an army of loyal almost fanatical soldiers for his cause.

Even in the retcon versions of MG and MG2's story given in MGS1, Big Boss is still doing all this to create a perpetual state of global conflict for the sake of the soldier. MGS1 makes Big Boss' goal more sympathetic but it doesn't make him a good guy. Liquid Snake himself is following after his ideals and it doesn't stop that Snake and everyone else not FOXHOUND feels it's a bad idea that needs to be stopped. The issue with Snake's relationship with Big Boss as soldier is that he agrees with Big Boss about the plight of soldiers as he himself is basically a burnt out shell used by the government, whose skills make him feel unfit to be in peace time; but on the other hand, Snake also understands that soldiers fight for the sake of peace and what Big Boss is doing is counter-intuitive to this philosophy. That's why Liquid taunts Snake about enjoying the killing because it's a sign that Snake is becoming more like Big Boss who only felt alive on the battlefield. A lot of Liquid and Snake's conflict with each other is over being the true heir of Big Boss which Liquid desires and Snake sees as a curse, so I don't agree that everyone felt Big Boss was a great guy, certainly not Snake who almost tries to attack him when they reunite in MGS4. Everyone respected him as a professional soldier and he did earn the everlasting devotion of many by taking them in, but Big Boss never offered them a real life, he simply trained them to be part of his war machine. He's presented as a complex figure who wasn't really evil but I would also say the game wasn't portraying him as good either. I mean in both MGS1, 2, 4, and even Portable OPS ironically enough, a recurring conflict was trying to prevent Big Boss' ideal from becoming a reality.

The anti-government sentiment was present from the get-go of MGS1 as Snake and Campbell certainly weren't happy to be in their positions, though I disagree that MGS1 tries to make you be on Big Boss' side, of anything it just showed how people like Big Boss are justified, but I feel the game also shows that Big Boss is no better than the U.S. government in his methods or ideals. Snake toppled one would be tyrant to protect another and that's why you have Grey Fox there to speak about how it's not about ideology, its about doing what you feel is right for you, which is funny cause the Boss herself will echo this sentiment in MGS3.



An older plot point is not a theme. The self-defeating logic of nuclear deterrence is a theme. The 20th century emergence of Non Government Actors is a theme. Costa Rican neutrality through disarmament is a theme. The MGS series has always been about going beyond just the narrative and exploring larger ideas. All of these were new to the series.

And it's largely unfocused, I don't think Snake has had a meaningful conversation about Costa Rica and it's neutrality for hours in this game. The entire MGS series is about the self-defeating logic of nuclear deterrence since the Metal Gears represent how fragile nuclear deterrence is. Lately, all he's been going over is the Boss and what she wanted.


Even the point about why The Boss carried out her role - that was only one part of the story. And to clarify, Jack learned why The Boss sacrificed herself - to cancel out Volgin's destruction of the R&D site and avert a nuclear standoff. But that explained nothing about why this woman who gave her body and her child to her country, only to be betrayed by them in the Bay of Pigs, the first space flight, and presumably other incidents, would continue fighting for them up to that point in 1963. The tapes revealed later on in the game give the answer, but there's still a lot of deciphering and deeper meaning the player has to go through to figure it out.

The Boss explains her rationale in MGS3 when she goes into her rather lengthy monologues about the nature of patriotism, the role of a soldier, and the bigger picture of history and leaving something behind. Snake (and the player) just doesn't understand what she means in MGS3 until the very end when you learn of her real role, but she does actually sit there and explain her rationale. The idea of the enemy is simply based on the times and allies and enemies are created based on what the times dictate but in reality there is "No East or West" there is just one tiny dot of earth floating in the cosmos, The Boss' trip into orbit allowed her to see this and her father taught her about the eternal spiral of war created by the philosophers, The Boss wanted to put an end to this and unite the world again (though historically speaking that never was the case before WWII either), she tells you all of this in the final confrontation. I have not finished Peace Walker so whether they decided to add to this is still a mystery for me but I've shown you that MGS3 certainly gave the player an answer, and if Peace Walker is adding to it, it still just proves my point that they are simply trying to draw out resolved issues more.

[Flying Arrow]

My first instinct coming into this thread was the FFVIII GF/memory thing. I feel so vindicated.

I'll come back when I can think of something more awful.

Don't hold your breath.

[Ultima Shadow]

Every moment of Star Ocean 4. Every single part of that game where there's supposed to be some kind of plot, it's terribly done. :greenie:

[Bolivar]

Wolf, you're writing pages of text and going out of your way to deny that someone who saves war orphans and pays for people's tuition may be sympathetic to a few people. If you don't think the original Metal Gear Solid attempted to move Big Boss away from the two-dimensional villain he was portrayed as in the original Metal Gear games then I just have to laugh and walk away shaking my head.

[Dr. rydrum2112]

Wolf, you're writing pages of text and going out of your way to deny that someone who saves war orphans and pays for people's tuition may be sympathetic to a few people. If you don't think the original Metal Gear Solid attempted to move Big Boss away from the two-dimensional villain he was portrayed as in the original Metal Gear games then I just have to laugh and walk away shaking my head.
lmpJZ8hNZR0

[black orb]

>>> Cosmos sacrificing herself on Dissidia..lol :luca:

[I Took the Red Pill]

I was a huge fan of Fallout 3, but the ending was utter garbage.

[Shoeberto]

Desmond and the First Civilization in Assassin's Creed, I'm fine with a secret war between two secret societies that are battling to control man's fate but I absolutely never cared for the Sci-Fi elements with Desmond nor did I like the First Civilization nonsense. Had I actually cared, I'd probably would have been pissed at AC3's ending but I largely ignore those elements of the plot as much as I can.
Jfc I remember playing the first one and the whole Apple of Eden twist happened at the end and I just thought it was fucking retarded. I was tired of the game by the 1/3 mark but soldiered through the bullshit repetition just for the story and then they dropped THAT on me. ACII at least handled all of that stupid crap better.

But also Desmond is one of the worst, most generic characters ever. Hearing him talk makes me want to play Uncharted.


Deus Ex Human Revolution - Any one of the endings. Doesn't matter. They are all him saying what 'Might' have happened as a result, what he hoped happened. He is sure to make a point of you knowing he has no Idea if any of this actually happens.
Really? I thought they were pretty clear cut as having actually happened. It's been a while but I was pretty satisfied with the ending. I think for a game that damn epic it's hard to put a decent wrap-up on it anyways.


I also hate the wedding from MGS4. It just felt so out of place for a MGS ending, infact everything in that ending before the voice actor credits felt ridiculously out of place. It was only when I saw the second half of the ending which was a half hour or so rant that it really felt like a MGS ending.

Also Mei Ling shouldve performed the wedding ceremony
The whole Johnny/Meryl thing was just dumb but the wedding was the most awkward thing ever. It's an awkward wedding and then Drebin just talks and talks and talks and talks. I like MGS4 a lot but there were so many cutscenes I just want to forget.


I was a huge fan of Fallout 3, but the ending was utter garbage.
True dat. I didn't play the DLC but I was fairly annoyed to find out that the player's ULTAMITE SACERFICE basically didn't even really happen so they could sell you more campaign.

Also: I gotta post about the FF8 amnesia thing, because it's just so damn bad. I was like... 12 when I played that part and even then I thought it was so freaking idiotic.

[Slothy]

Wolf, you're writing pages of text and going out of your way to deny that someone who saves war orphans and pays for people's tuition may be sympathetic to a few people. If you don't think the original Metal Gear Solid attempted to move Big Boss away from the two-dimensional villain he was portrayed as in the original Metal Gear games then I just have to laugh and walk away shaking my head.

Wolf wasn't arguing that at all Bolivar. He outright acknowledged that some of the characters were helped/looked up to Big Boss. But he's arguing that even in the original MGS he was not portrayed as a good guy. A more complex character than in the original Metal Gear titles to be sure, but not someone who was a misunderstood hero by an stretch of the imagination. I mean, his plan was pretty terrible and acknowledged as such by most of people in that game that weren't psychopaths or hell bent on revenge for Snake killing him. That some people agreed with him or that he was considered a legendary soldier for his skill on the battlefield does not mean they were building him up as a full on good guy, which is all Wolf has been arguing.

Now, I haven't played Portable Ops or Peace Walker yet so there's not much more I can say about the character. But I do think that if they went out of their way to build him up as even more of a hero rather than showing his descent into the villain he actually became, then I'm not sure if that's something that would sit well with me. I'm not saying he should be painted as a sort of cackling madman of a villain who's obviously on the black side of a black and white dichotomy or anything, but he's pretty far into the grey by the time Snake kills him.

[Wolf Kanno]

Thank you Vivi22, this is exactly my point. Its not about building him from a two dimensional being it's about whether the player was meant to think he was a hero when the reality is that MGS1 rewrote him as a complex figure who had good points and bad points. He wasn't retcon into a hero in MGS1, he was retcon into a human being who was fallible and admirable. Its the post-MGS3 titles that are retconning him into a hero and I feel that Kojima is dropping the ball by rewriting him as the most likable guy on the planet when the earlier games had him being a far more complex and paradoxical figure.

When I played Portable OPS and Peace Walker, I was hoping to see the writers bring him back into that grey area of morality after MGS3 made him so damn likable. I wanted to see him become the man he would become in the Metal Gear franchise, and instead he's basically just replaying his role from MGS3 where he's absolutely likable and I can't help but feel Solid Snake is an idiot and an ass for trying to stop the best damn hero in the series, and part of me just feels like the writers lost the point of Big Boss.

[Laddy]

I was a huge fan of Fallout 3, but the ending was utter garbage.

What? Fallout 3 was utter garbage that, despite the inclusion of Liam Neeson, was a complete disservice to the Fallout series and its canon? In that case, I agree! :D

[Pete for President]

Deus Ex Human Revolution - Any one of the endings. Doesn't matter. They are all him saying what 'Might' have happened as a result, what he hoped happened. He is sure to make a point of you knowing he has no Idea if any of this actually happens.
Really? I thought they were pretty clear cut as having actually happened. It's been a while but I was pretty satisfied with the ending. I think for a game that damn epic it's hard to put a decent wrap-up on it anyways.

I loved the endings of Deus Ex: HR and thought they were a perfect fit. The entire game revolves around speculation about use of technology by humans and the endings emphasize that. The game shows that individuals have little to none influence over the future of anything, and little of it is relevant anyway when we look at the bigger picture. We haven't the slightest understanding of our existence, time or space. That is why the endings do nothing else but speculate. In the end, none of our efforts as a player (and therefore Adam's) will have mattered. Love that thought.



I also hate the wedding from MGS4. It just felt so out of place for a MGS ending, infact everything in that ending before the voice actor credits felt ridiculously out of place. It was only when I saw the second half of the ending which was a half hour or so rant that it really felt like a MGS ending.

Also Mei Ling shouldve performed the wedding ceremony
The whole Johnny/Meryl thing was just dumb but the wedding was the most awkward thing ever. It's an awkward wedding and then Drebin just talks and talks and talks and talks. I like MGS4 a lot but there were so many cutscenes I just want to forget.

I used to have little problems with MGS4 until a recent playthrough. I wrote this in the 'What are you playing right now?'-thread:

I finally understand why people say Kojima is the exact opposite of a poet: he barely says anything with seemingly an infinite amount of words. The points that do matter (and there's a lot of meaningful stuff in all MGS games) like the war economy, ID control, information control, manipulating the masses, trading human lives for profits and the corrupt monetary system all drown in the jibberish that surround them (like Raiden's emo story about rain or lightning or whatever the tit that was about). It could've been a real eye-opener to everyone, but damn they've made it hard to understand the core of the story.

The happy ending is obviously ridiculous. The long hard journey the main characters make loses all impact when everyone shows up happily after losing both arms, getting crushed by a colossal ship or taking 2 full magazines to the chest. Raiden should've died. Meryl should've died. Johnny should've died. Snake should've died. Big boss should've remained dead.


---> Insert discussion about Big Boss and his morality. <---

I'm surprised Big Boss gets this much attention as I've always experienced the post-MGS1 games as the Patriots being the star players with the master schemes. In the end of MGS4 I almost started rooting for Liquid, as obviously the Patriots have been controlling things in funny directions for quite a while; the war economy, information control, ID control. To me, that makes Big Boss a visionary who's seen that distortion coming for years. His solutions may not have been the best, but he was rebellious to the Patriots and for that alone his efforts should be praised. The big question mark I get from the story is why the hell Campbell and Snake still obey/choose side with the Patriots. From as far as I can tell, it's actually Naomi and Sunny who take down both Liquid and the Patriots, whereas Otacon and Snake are still clueless about whether to take action against the Patriots' psycho visions and the war economy.



Ramza didn't kill Delita because he was too busy trying to stop milennia-old demons from enslaving the world and killing everyone. Delita and Ramza both had the same objective - subverting the grand plotting of the nobility and clergy which had always led to the killing of innocents. Delita just did it through a lot of ambitious backstabbing. Plus they were friends and Ramza blames himself for Delita's sister's death. Delita's ending is perfect. He tries to stop the morally relativist cycle of ends justifying means by... employing a scheme of moral relativism of the ends justifying the means. He thought change was only possible through playing by the rules, and his ending is accordingly ironic. FFT is arguably the crown jewel of hardcore JRPGs and I think the player is thoroughly rewarded for its completion.


Agreed on this. Delita was a fantastic character. Indeed he and Ramza had the same goal and I believe Ramza did not stop him because he did not question Delita's greater goal, no matter the means. But this game is like a game of politics; you either like desperate measures for a desperate cause or you don't.

However, I wish they let the demon crazy-ness out of this story. The civil war between poverty-nobility from chapter 1 caught my interest way more than the ancient devil stuff did.

[Bolivar]

Agreed on this. Delita was a fantastic character. Indeed he and Ramza had the same goal and I believe Ramza did not stop him because he did not question Delita's greater goal, no matter the means. But this game is like a game of politics; you either like desperate measures for a desperate cause or you don't.

However, I wish they let the demon crazy-ness out of this story. The civil war between poverty-nobility from chapter 1 caught my interest way more than the ancient devil stuff did.

I was actually reading an interview with the creator who was talking about his previous games, and how with Ogre Battle, he didn't want to make a typical RPG about good and evil, so it had this big power struggle with morality at every turn, but in the end, the game wound up dealing with Zodiac stones and demons. It was something he regretted and, interestingly, it seems like he fell into the same trap with Final Fantasy Tactics.

[Elpizo]

You know that moment in FF V, when you're trying to save the fire crystal? So you go through the steam-powered ship, which I never really liked, fight that damn Liquid Flame, save the possessed-queen, all to protect that damn Crystal. Then when you finally think you did it, when you finally saved the Crystal after all that hard work... in comes a smurfing random no-name soldier through the back door, switches on the machine and destroys the Crystal anyway. I love V, but I swear, at that moment I felt the game was just mocking me and flipping me the bird.

[Red Mage Coffman]

The end to Pokemon Red is complete bullshit!

Kidding.

[Madame Adequate]

Firing a SLBM at the Northeast in Modern Warfare 2. It did do what it was meant to from Price's perspective but the US government currently fighting a full-scale Russian invasion had no way of knowing that it was just a single EMP shot, and even if it was that would have been seen as a tremendous danger posed by the Russians and would have at the least incurred a counter launch to shut down everything from Kaliningrad to Petropavlovsk, and quite plausibly actual nuclear strikes.

[Pete for President]

Firing a SLBM at the Northeast in Modern Warfare 2. It did do what it was meant to from Price's perspective but the US government currently fighting a full-scale Russian invasion had no way of knowing that it was just a single EMP shot, and even if it was that would have been seen as a tremendous danger posed by the Russians and would have at the least incurred a counter launch to shut down everything from Kaliningrad to Petropavlovsk, and quite plausibly actual nuclear strikes.

Wow, did you get that on the first go? First time I played that bit I hadn't the slightest clue what was going on.

[Bolivar]

Yeah, but I think they made that scene assuming most players know little about the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction.

[Madame Adequate]

I have a degree in Strategic Studies so all military stuff in videogames is ruined for me forever :(

[krissy]

Prince of Persia (2008). Biggest what the hell ever.

Oh dear, I'm playing that right now.

i thought it was all great
a lot of people hated the ending but i thought it was very well done

[Shauna]

To each their own. :p

I suppose it made sense from the way the game progressed story-wise. I enjoyed the story all the way through, but just something about the ending rubbed me the wrong way entirely.

[krissy]

i watched someone play through the dlc on youtube
adds nothing to the story at all
kind of a cop out

[Skyblade]

Ooh, I'm going to add in all the "moral lines" in Spec Ops: The Line. That game's writing was pathetic, often leaving you no choice to advance the plot except to kill civilians (even if another option is actually availible), and then trying to make you feel bad for doing it. And the biggest "ooh, look at you, you bad person" moment with the whole "attacking a mass of blips" kind of loses its effect when you see it coming beforehand and choose not to attack the civilians, only to find that the game has no other way of moving forward.

[Flaming Ice]

Arc Rise Fantasia:


Nico's death....l'arc should have died....every character in that game wants to make out with him...so bland!

Really wanted Nico back on the team. People may not like his cowardice attitude but it is a personality that's nice to see since everyone else is brave, dare-devilish, or psychotic in most games.


Lost Odyssey:


Keloloans......seriously ....they were some enemy in blue dragon then I had to endure those lame creatures in that good game.:eep:



Blue Dragon:


Some sort of poop monsters appear in the game...I read there's a dinosaur (i believe it was) pooping these monsters out for you to battle......tasty?

Sad part is I couldn't make it past the first disk because near the end is a part where you have to repeatedly tap the "a' button......I couldn't beat that! :D



Star Ocean:

Edge got so whiny and so annoying after the alternate world got destroyed.

[Shoeberto]

Ooh, I'm going to add in all the "moral lines" in Spec Ops: The Line. That game's writing was pathetic, often leaving you no choice to advance the plot except to kill civilians (even if another option is actually availible), and then trying to make you feel bad for doing it. And the biggest "ooh, look at you, you bad person" moment with the whole "attacking a mass of blips" kind of loses its effect when you see it coming beforehand and choose not to attack the civilians, only to find that the game has no other way of moving forward.
Haven't played the game yet but from what I've read that's kind of the point. The game itself isn't just supposed to make you feel bad, it's supposed to involve a meta discussion about the nature of wargames themselves. I find the concept fascinating and surprisingly underexplored especially considering how well Bioshock did it back in '07.

[Skyblade]

Ooh, I'm going to add in all the "moral lines" in Spec Ops: The Line. That game's writing was pathetic, often leaving you no choice to advance the plot except to kill civilians (even if another option is actually availible), and then trying to make you feel bad for doing it. And the biggest "ooh, look at you, you bad person" moment with the whole "attacking a mass of blips" kind of loses its effect when you see it coming beforehand and choose not to attack the civilians, only to find that the game has no other way of moving forward.
Haven't played the game yet but from what I've read that's kind of the point. The game itself isn't just supposed to make you feel bad, it's supposed to involve a meta discussion about the nature of wargames themselves. I find the concept fascinating and surprisingly underexplored especially considering how well Bioshock did it back in '07.

The purpose of the game is to get you to subvert your standard reflexes and thoughts, and to make you come to realizations about it. But these hinge on gamer immersion.

In one situation, you're launching mortar volleys at enemies targets. Everything kind of pans away to a radar-type interface where you see the enemies as little blips. Eventually you find a whole lot of them clustered in one spot, and attack it. The result: That group is a group of civilian refugees, and you just killed them all, horribly.

You're supposed to feel all bad about what you did. The problem: If the player sees it coming ahead of time, and chooses not to attack the civilians, the game just stops. You can't do anything else. It ruins immersion, and it totally breaks any moral point. It ruins player agency and any attempt to teach the player a lesson, because the player isn't the one who made the decision, the game did.

For those who don't realize the situation and keep going blindly, it's fine. For the rest, it kind of ruins the entire point of the scenario. When you can think of a way out of a situation that the game doesn't provide, and it forces you to do something bad, and then chides you for it, it falls apart. When a civilian crowd closes in on you and your only method of dispersing them is to start firing into the crowd, what about the players who go "why can't I fire into the air, and see what that does"? The game can't chastise you for a decision you have no choice but to make, especially when it blatantly and painfully avoids obvious ways out. And this is where it fails.

It assumes that all players will make the exact same decisions, and then shows them how those decisions are wrong. And for the players who do make those decisions, it works. For the rest, it falls apart. It also is a bit of a jerkass thing to do anyway, because a ton of military forces are actually extremely careful about civilian casualties, making this more of a commentary on gamer's predilictions and behaviours than those of the military.

And, as it turns out, not all gamers are casual homicidal killing machines even in games. And for those who don't fit their profile, the commentary, the lessons, the entire premise of the game turns into nonsense.

[Edge7]

Wolf, you're writing pages of text and going out of your way to deny that someone who saves war orphans and pays for people's tuition may be sympathetic to a few people. If you don't think the original Metal Gear Solid attempted to move Big Boss away from the two-dimensional villain he was portrayed as in the original Metal Gear games then I just have to laugh and walk away shaking my head.
That's like saying Solidus is a great guy because he raised Raiden (of course, there's that little snafoo about who put him in that predicament, but...).

Anyway, the majority of MGS4 I kinda had a problem with. It was literally the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this thread.

-Raiden. I swear to God, am I the only person who would've rather had Raiden as he was at the end of MGS2, than the angst ridden pile of scrap we got? Raiden was advertised as like, the second coming of Gray Fox, and he spends most of his screen time in the game coughing up blood or acting his life was completely devoid of value (he says to Snake, a man who is literally MONTHS away from dying)

-Nano Machines explain EVERYTHING. Vamp's immortality, bringing Big Boss back to life, everything. It was kinda cool seeing how dependent the government became on Nanomachines back in MGS2, but they left a certain element of supernatural-ness.

-I agree with Wolf Kanno on how Big Boss is built up like this big damn hero. What was originally the tragic breakdown of a great hero is now the heroic crusade of the worlds most influential man, and the hero we've been following is just a pawn being used for the other side.

-The War Economy. Okay, so I understand that in MGS1, the reason they were making Metal Gears was not only a form of nuclear deterrence, it was also an economic plan to save Arms Tech, which was going under. That was a well thought out plot point. But from what I understand (bear with me, last time I played the game was in 2010), the idea of the War economy is something similar to that... but with PMC Armies and the SOP system (the term got thrown around so much it lost most of its meaning)? One of the huge appeals of Metal Gear is that despite its wacky moments it feels like I could watch the news and hear a rumor about a terrorist attack during the START 3 treaty, or a suspicious partnership between DARPA and Arms Tech. But to hear that Mercenary Armies with Tech comparable to the US military is all a part of some new form of economics never meshed well with me. Or that all forms of weapon authorization are regulated by tiny machines installed in our bloodstream. The NRA would never get behind that :p.

[Bolivar]

Blackwater (http://blackwaterusa.com/)

It was very thinly veiled that the Preying Mantis PMC was based off these guys. They do exist, and like the other political themes in MGS games, this actually is something that experts and academicians write a lot and debate about. The only stretch was really the numbers - over half active military in the world being private. It really isn't that far fetched, though, since a lot of the other functions of the military are being privatized at an alarming rate. If you read about Halliburton, they do an insane amount of things that our armed forces used to do in house.

MGS4 came out around the same time as the surge in Iraq and we were talking about a lot of these issues at my university at the time. I was able to take some of the stuff I learned from the game and contribute it back into class; specifically The Report from Iron Mountain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Report_from_Iron_Mountain).

And guns being ID-locked isn't science fiction. It's a neat little fact that they decided to work into a gameplay system... it's unlikely the majority of weaponry would one day be like that, but as with the other plot points, you never know.

[blackmage_nuke]

I didnt mind the Big Boss plot twist. It's very metaphoric of each individual Metal Gear game where you find out youve been working for the bad guy (or against the good guy) all along. Pretty much every MG game does this and the fact that it decides to throw the same twist onto the overall series that it has been throwing at us in each individual game gives it a connected feeling.

That said I probably wouldnt like the game any more or less if BB had been the true villain all along.

[Pete for President]

-The War Economy. Okay, so I understand that in MGS1, the reason they were making Metal Gears was not only a form of nuclear deterrence, it was also an economic plan to save Arms Tech, which was going under. That was a well thought out plot point. But from what I understand (bear with me, last time I played the game was in 2010), the idea of the War economy is something similar to that... but with PMC Armies and the SOP system (the term got thrown around so much it lost most of its meaning)? One of the huge appeals of Metal Gear is that despite its wacky moments it feels like I could watch the news and hear a rumor about a terrorist attack during the START 3 treaty, or a suspicious partnership between DARPA and Arms Tech. But to hear that Mercenary Armies with Tech comparable to the US military is all a part of some new form of economics never meshed well with me. Or that all forms of weapon authorization are regulated by tiny machines installed in our bloodstream. The NRA would never get behind that :p.

We're actually closer to this than you think. War has been the most profitable business for almost a century. It is why the USA has been involved in pretty much every conflict since WWI. It is an inexchangeable part of global economy. This is also where ideals get thrown out the window and are replaced by economical goals. For example; in WW2 German tanks drove on oil supplied by American companies. Sound like madness yet? Don't underestimate how far people will go for power and money.

Point is; MGS does not make these things up. Information control, the Patriots, ID control, the War Economy; it's all real in some form or another.

[Edge7]

Alright, I guess this warrants another playthrough. The whole idea just felt ludakris to me, but with this additional information I suppose I might get more out of playing a second time. I just remember at the time the whole thing seemed really overblown.

And as far as Big Boss goes; I'm not exactly saying that I hate the revelation that Big Boss wasn't a bad guy. That's typical of conflicts and ideologies; it's not merely a battle of good versus evil. My problem is that Big Boss went from morally ambiguous to what essentially feels like a crusader of justice. I'm not sure, it's just that ever since MGS4, Kojima's increased emphasis on Big Boss has made Big Boss the only true "hero" in Metal Gear (with most other characters being pawns or enemies). I admit that my feelings are out of personal bias for Solid Snake's character and I could just be jaded that my favorite character has essentially always been a tool for the Patriots, despite desperately trying to break out of that role.

I guess to sum up the conflict of MGS, Big Boss is a good man leading a crusade against the Patriots, Ocelot is kind of working for Big Boss by chasing the Patriots while pretending to be Liquid to pose as a villain who wants to take advantage of the Patriot's power, Snake is simply focusing most of his efforts on Ocelot, while occasionally worrying about the Patriots because the Patriots are a lawful evil force that control everything in the world.

This post was very "stream of consciousness", and I will probably edit it later.

[Bolivar]

I may as well explain my thoughts on Big Boss since I haven't exactly put my own position out there.

When I finished MGS1, I thought he was the most fascinating character in the game, and he didn't even show up. I wanted to know as much more as I could about him, and this was only compounded with how they further embellished on it with MGS2. I was almost worried that we were going to play as him and see it all in MGS3... I thought it would kill the mystery. But it was overall one of the most well-rounded and sastisfying gaming experiences I had.

I honestly cannot say that MGS4 repainted him in any way other than what I had come to expect from the previous games. Of course the Patriots were the bigger evil and his opposition to them was sympathetic. I can't imagine how that would have shocked anyone who played MGS2. But even in that game you saw that he was an extremist who would admit that he had made mistakes.

I can't say that Peace Walker changed any of that. When the game begins, he's already rejected the legitimacy of governments and has begun building his own PMC/"Outer Heaven." He explains his philosophy on what a Non-Governmental Actor can achieve and why he's doing it. The obvious contrast is with a real hero, Solid Snake, is that his methods only caused instability and brought the world closer to chaos. He's still exporting warfare and training child soldiers; but for a game's main story you need villains, even if your protagonist is an anti-hero.

[Forsaken Lover]

So guys

What do you get when yo take three separate and completed puzzles and take all the pieces, shove them together in a chaotic heap, and then systematically mutilate each piece so that you can fit all these three puzzles into just one?

You get Metal Gear Solid 4, an irredeemable testament to bad writing.

Guns of the Patriots was the result of Kojima saying TWO TIMES that he was going to end the series. MGS1? Never intended to have a sequel. MGS2? Never intended to have a sequel.

BUT KOJIMA-SAN! PLEASE GIVE US ANOTHER GAME! MGS1 WAS SO GOOD THAT WE NEED ANOTHER GAME!

smurf YOU KOJIMA! MGS2 WAS TERRIBLE! YOU BETTER FIX THIS!!

OH GOD MGS3 MADE ME CREAM IN MY PANTS! PLEASE MAKE ANOTHER GAME!!

Kojima: Ya know what? Okay. Here is your game. The Patriots? It was Para-Medic. Ya know that funny lady who likes to tell you about crazy sci-fi movies? She was a psychopath. And Major Zero, the James Bond fanatic who wants to invent a snake-gun? He was the real villain the whole time! And that arm possession thing? Ocelot was just faking it the whole time. Oh and Big Boss isn't dead.
Now that I've systematically been butt-smurfed by every person on the planet, are you happy?

I despise MGS4. It is a nonstop stream of the sloppiest, most retarded retcons imaginable. It completely destroys the ending of MGS2 for no reason except contrived drama. It takes Raiden's whole journey in MGS2 and takes a huge crap on it because the fans don't want good writing. THEY WANT NINJA CYBORG ROBOTS WHO BEAT UP OTHER ROBOTS! YEAH NOW THAT'S AWESOME111111
And Meryl? I know she had a whole touching speech and revelation about how un-glorious war was. I know she realized her whole career as a soldier was pretty much a sham. But let's bring her back as a soldier and make her star in a scene so unrepentantly "war is the best!" that it spits in the face of her MGS1 character development even more.


What I'm saying is that the MGS fanbase is awful and should be ahsamed of itself. We pushed Kojima so far that he just sold out everything he believed in and gave us one of the worst narratives in video game history.

[Bolivar]

Kojima has stated they say its the last game for the same reason its called final fantasy, to make sure the team puts their all into the game as if it was the last time. I'm honestly surprised that anyone who saw the mgs2 ending wouldn't think there would be a follow up to the plot thread.

Its also a false understanding of the creative process. It's always iterative... there's never been a concrete finalized version of a story in a creator's mind.

Meryl's place in MGS4 was a meaningful application of what she learner from Shadow Moses. What she was doing and why she was doing it.

I think they're wonderful games and I'm sorry you don't get the same joy from them.

[Forsaken Lover]

I don't know what you mean by that last bit. MGS1, 2 and 3 are awesome games. I was on an MGS forum for years and spent hours just searching through discussions about all the varied plot threads. Kojima's ideas have interested me for almost ten years now. Granted he isn't always the best at expressing his ideas but I commend his desire to intellectualize the video game market with stories about determinism, the dangers of nuclear weapons, and so-forth.

I only hate MGS4 because it is a complete slap in the face to everything that came before it. Kojima clearly had absolutely no goddam clue how to continue the story so NANOMACHINES and BS was slapped together and that's how the glorious MGS saga came to an end. It was a ridiculous string of convolution that undermined every character's personality and growth.

[Greatermaximus]

The game that I know of that doesn't meet my expectations.

[NeoCracker]

That time FF IX had a plot moment that blew FF X out of the fucking water.

So pretty much the entirety of FF IX. :smug:

[Greatermaximus]

Depends on the oversight ability of the creators to the game. There are noticeable plot errors but not so much that it deviates from the fun and purpose of the game.

[Forsaken Lover]

Yes, Gargant/Fossil Roo was just the best thing ever.

Blech.









To be fair it took me about two minutes to come up with a part of FFIX I really disliked

[Greatermaximus]

We all have our opinions and ideas of it. I know there's some games I haven't/won't play.

[NeoCracker]

That time FF IX had a plot moment that blew FF X out of the fucking water.

So pretty much the entirety of FF IX. :smug:

My bad, I thought it said best moments. Now this post just looks silly and wrong. :p

[Polnareff]

I normally don't care about stories in games, but there are some points in some of them that got my goat.

1. FFVIII: Everyone came from the same orphanage....WTF? They kinda made it clear that these guys didn't really know each other that well earlier in the game if I recall correctly, then this happens.

2. Mega Man X6: Zero just randomly comes back from the dead. This is egregious especially because in X5, Zero was cut in half and sent to outer space, kinda like Frieza from DBZ. But then X6 comes out, which apparently takes place mere weeks after X5, and Zero is back. He apparently somehow put himself back together in that time like it was nothing! What the hell?! Sure, he's a robot, but the way Capcom explained the whole thing just made it seem as if he's some type of god or something.

3. This one didn't really bother me, although I got a good laugh from it. Star Ocean 3's whole world is basically a video game, as explained by a plot point that happens waaaaay late into it. So it's basically a video game about a video game. :p

4. Star Ocean 4: THE ENTIRE. GODDAMN. GAME. Hated it. It's still on my "worst RPGs ever" list. And not just for the story either.

5. Grandia 3: Grandia 3 started out with a young man looking for his hero, an airplane pilot named Captain Schmidt. The game made it seem as if that was the mission for the whole game, but you actually find him at about 3 hours into it. The story was pretty interesting when it was about that. After that the story becomes a typical clusterfuck of cliches and lame plot twists. Sad to say, when this happened, I kinda expected it. It IS a Squenix game, and all.

6. MGS. Not that MGS ever had a good story in the first place; the fact that people are arguing about how crappy the story is are pretty much proving my point.

7. Mega Man Legends games: Taken on their own, the MML games have pretty damn good stories. The problem is that Capcom confirmed that these games take place after the year 8000 (or centuries after the Zero series). I find that really lame and hard to believe, since the technology in the MML games is pretty primitive compared to what's in, say, the X games. Maybe it's supposed to be the world after so many years of advanced technology, and people taking it for granted, which would kind of make sense. Another thing is that by the time the events of Zero happened, the world was overtaken by robots. In MML, the humans are actually artificial humans called Carbons. I don't remember if they really explained how they came about (possibly in the Japanese versions, I can't really recall right now) but it seems to me as if Capcom meant these to be in their own timeline, and just made up the fact later that they take place waaaaay after Zero.

[Electroshock Therapy]

7. Mega Man Legends games: Taken on their own, the MML games have pretty damn good stories. The problem is that Capcom confirmed that these games take place after the year 8000 (or centuries after the Zero series). I find that really lame and hard to believe, since the technology in the MML games is pretty primitive compared to what's in, say, the X games. Maybe it's supposed to be the world after so many years of advanced technology, and people taking it for granted, which would kind of make sense. Another thing is that by the time the events of Zero happened, the world was overtaken by robots. In MML, the humans are actually artificial humans called Carbons. I don't remember if they really explained how they came about (possibly in the Japanese versions, I can't really recall right now) but it seems to me as if Capcom meant these to be in their own timeline, and just made up the fact later that they take place waaaaay after Zero.

The old world is locked away in ruins, and the Carbons are slowly digging up the past. That's why their technology is so primitive. They started out primitive and working their way up.

By the Zero series, aren't there still humans, but they are few and dying as the robots take over? So at some point, they managed to save one human from the robotic chaos on Earth and take him to the Moon and name him Master. Somehow, Elysium was able to lock away the past or the "Old System" so the new human race called Carbons can leave peacefully. Too bad curiosity is getting the better of them, because they keep opening up the ruins and slowly finding their technology.

I'm sure Mega Man Legends 3 would have given us more on the story of the Old System, as that's what Legends 2 so kindly brought that up for the cliffhanger.

I don't know about Reaverbots. Elysium seems to have made them to act as guardians of the Old System so the Carbons don't wake them up. But from details of Legends 3: Prototype claim that Reaverbots were falling from the sky and attacking Carbons, so that makes me think the Old System have their own Reaverbot faction. Curious.

[Bolivar]

Science can be cyclical. Europe was in a dark age until the Church started disseminating their translations of ancient greek texts on mathematics, navigation, astronomy, etc. At the end of MM1, you start seeing the hieroglyphs of what used to be and I think the timeline comes into perspective a bit.

This thread will be locked.

[Pike]

This thread will be locked.

Nah, we can leave it open. It's not even a year old yet!

The filter threw me off, though. I had to edit the title so as not to say "Best".

[Forsaken Lover]

4. Star Ocean 3: THE ENTIRE. GODDAMN. GAME. Hated it. It's still on my "best RPGs ever" list. And not just for the story either.


Fixed.

I'd say the worst moment though was just HAPPENING upon a girl who is identical to Sophie. Nevermind that Sophie is one of the worst female leads since Rosa, we now had to deal with two of them for some utterly contrivd and stupid melodrama.

[Loony BoB]

FFXIII: The whole thing has a fairytale ending. Nobody caves. Not a single one of the playable cast becomes a Cie'th. This would have had a major impact on emotional levels when playing the game and would have been a cruel yet fantastic twist of events to the storyline.

FFXIII-2: The ending itself is a joke.

FFVIII: Time Kompression is the part that irked me, rather than the orphan thing. The orphan thing I could see as vaguely possible at a stretch, but time kompression made no sense to me at all. How could some places be accessable while others were not? This bugged the crap out of me.

There are undoubtedly a lot of other plot points that have bugged me over the years, but from this thread these are the ones that are sticking in my mind.

[Skyblade]

FFXIII: The whole thing has a fairytale ending. Nobody caves. Not a single one of the playable cast becomes a Cie'th. This would have had a major impact on emotional levels when playing the game and would have been a cruel yet fantastic twist of events to the storyline.

Worse still, the "fake-out" with Sazh. I call it that because I don't think anyone was fooled by it. Had it actually gone through and occurred, it would have been a momentous occasion, and very deep and moving for a lot of people. But Square no longer has the guts to do something like that, and the entire scene just falls apart.


FFXIII-2: The ending itself is a joke.

I think the secret ending was even worse. Great job guys, you just ruined any depth or meaning you had given to Caius's character. Not to mention the obvious question: If a mortal survived it, how can it be enough to kill a god?

[Elskidor]

The fact Tinctures or Ether are still on sale in FFVI one thousand years after magic ceased to exist. Heck, that's a long time to keep them on the market for no reason.


What about Mario? He's either a moron or the Princess is one, because they never seem to learn a damn thing.

http://anticache.img7.joyreactor.com/pics/post/super-mario-bowser-princess-peach-secret-909247.jpeg

[Forsaken Lover]

Everyone knows Peach loves the Koopa.......

Well just put it this way. In Sunshine, Bowser Jr. claimed to be her son with Bowser and she ddin't know if it was true or not.

[Elskidor]

She needs to lay off the Peach Schnapps! How does a woman not remember giving birth?

[RocketMBA]

Worst moment has to be when Darren Bent went on loan to Fulham in FIFA 14 (the fourteenth game in the series).

[Cosmiccandy]

She needs to lay off the Peach Schnapps! How does a woman not remember giving birth?

Not only that, we also have to entertain the possibility that the damm thing still had spikes on its back while she was doing it. Ouch.

I know this thing has been beaten like a dead horse, but the ending to ME3. The central conflict abruptly changes from "stop the reapers" to "solve the meta-physical conflict between organic and synthetic life" and a new character is introduced in the last five minutes, and then fails to adequately explain the three choices we have. I could go on and on about all the unanswered questions and inconsistencies we have in that scene on the Crucible but ultimately what they needed to do is this.

Retcon star kid and the crucible scene out of the narrative entirely. Keep it simple, keep it centered on the same conflict you've been developing all game and keep the focus on the characters you've managed to make people get invested in and give a shit about to this point. Don't introduce needlessly convoluted garbage in the last five minutes which opens up more holes in the narrative than it fills.

[Spuuky]

As someone said long ago, walking in to the last room in Deus Ex: Human Revolution is awfully high on the list.