Oh yeah. It's all coming together.

[Jiro]

Suspension of disbelief is a magical thing.

[CimminyCricket]

Tactics was the story that I was able to follow without any lingering questions. At the end of the game I only had one question: Now what?

[Kenshin IV]

It's extremely difficult to compare because different games have different levels of complex plots. I can tell you which had the most holes, though -- I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy VIII. One of the most complex (or, should I say, convoluted) in the series, and unfortunately I think Square just wrote themselves into a corner trying to make it complex.

"Guardian Forces made us forget" is still the single worst explanation for a plot hole in series history.

[Flying Arrow]

"Guardian Forces made us forget" is still the single worst explanation for a plot hole in series history.

I was going to counter with something else, but I really can't think of anything that made me stare unblinking at the screen for as long as VIII's orphanage reveal.

[Miriel]

Time travel = plot holes is a fairly universal rule, IMO.

This is such a pet peeve of mine because it's not like it's rocket science to do a time travel story properly without ridiculous plot holes.

If an Oprah's Book Club selection (a la Time Traveler's Wife) can do it perfectly, then a whole god damn team of writes and producers and developers should be able to get it done as well.

Harry Potter did it surprisingly well too.

[Flying Arrow]

If an Oprah's Book Club selection (a la Time Traveler's Wife) can do it perfectly, then a whole god damn team of writes and producers and developers should be able to get it done as well.

Producers and developers aren't really writers, though. And the writers a game does have could just be a team of terrible writers (or told what to write by the non-writer execs).

What do you mean if the Oprah Book Club selection "can do it"? She has Cormac smurfin' McCarthy on that list, also Faulkner, Dickens, and Marquez. I imagine any writer endorsed by her would have to be good at what she does, as opposed to game writers who don't even have to be good at all.

[Wolf Kanno]

Time travel stories can be fairly simple as long as you establish the rules clearly. The real problem with Time Travel stories is when you get obsessive fans who half read physics and start over-analyzing everything. It's not just VIII either, just look at some the crap out of the Chrono fan corners can make your head spin. The problem with most of VIII's fan theories for me when I read them is that they like to assume crap the game never states like time paradoxes, and they kind of forget that one of the underlying themes of the game is fate and how Ellone pretty much states that VIII's world is a determinist world.

I would probably say FFI and FFIII for the old school games, FFVI for the better written middle games, and Tactics for the convulated titles.

[Miriel]

What do you mean if the Oprah Book Club selection "can do it"? She has Cormac smurfin' McCarthy on that list, also Faulkner, Dickens, and Marquez. I imagine any writer endorsed by her would have to be good at what she does, as opposed to game writers who don't even have to be good at all.

I've read more books from Oprah's book club than probably anyone on this site because I love Oprah and I love books. But there have been some serious crap books in her selection. Thus the comment.

Like I said, it doesn't take much to do a time travel story right. If one writer does a crappy job, you would think that one of the other writers, or one of the producers or execs or ANYBODY would look at that and say, "Hang on, this doesn't make a lick of sense."

[Bubba]

Time travel stories can be fairly simple as long as you establish the rules clearly. The real problem with Time Travel stories is when you get obsessive fans who half read physics and start over-analyzing everything. It's not just VIII either, just look at some the crap out of the Chrono fan corners can make your head spin. The problem with most of VIII's fan theories for me when I read them is that they like to assume crap the game never states like time paradoxes, and they kind of forget that one of the underlying themes of the game is fate and how Ellone pretty much states that VIII's world is a determinist world.

I would probably say FFI and FFIII for the old school games, FFVI for the better written middle games, and Tactics for the convulated titles.

Hooray! WK is back!

[VeloZer0]

I actually find that one of the biggest plot holes in tie travel stories is how people use it. Unless there are some VERY specific restrictions on time travel I find it hard to suspend disbelief enough to imagine it is only being used in the specific way the plot dictates to avoid a paradox.

[Wolf Kanno]

^ I think you're going to need to elaborate...

[Flying Arrow]

I've read more books from Oprah's book club than probably anyone on this site because I love Oprah and I love books. But there have been some serious crap books in her selection. Thus the comment.

Like I said, it doesn't take much to do a time travel story right. If one writer does a crappy job, you would think that one of the other writers, or one of the producers or execs or ANYBODY would look at that and say, "Hang on, this doesn't make a lick of sense."

I was only confused because your comment implied that an Oprah Book Club selection is of an obvious low standard.

But still, it takes a lot of work to do any story right, especially something as convoluted as a time-travel plot. Most writers on a team probably get saddled with their own scenarios to work on. There's probably some criticism of each other, but unless they're really taking the story seriously and have enough time to go over it, there's probably going to be holes. When it comes to Square, this is a company who released FFVIII - I'm willing to bet that not a lot of hole-poking takes place once all the time and money has been spent putting the game together.

[Mirage]

All in all, time travel stories are *not* for beginners. It usually requires a better sense of logic than many writers have.

As for plot holes, FF13-2 is probably the worst one for me.