Games with a good cast but a bad story

[Wolf Kanno]

Inspired by the Story vs. character thread, what are some rpgs you feel have great characters but a ho-hum plot?

[Raistlin]

Well I'll mention the example I used in that thread: Lunar SSSC, though I wouldn't consider the plot "ho-hum." It's a solid, well-done story, but it's not what makes the game shine. That's definitely the characters.

I think this one is worse in all respects, but I guess I'll throw FFXIII out there. Some of the characters had decent development (I would hope so, considering the first 8 or 9 chapters focused exclusively on them), but the story was nonsensical and much of it had to be told to you in a bad James Bond villain parody.

[Vyk]

Fable is probably a good example. Not that the plot is a bad experience, but it's not that great on paper, and every part of it is made more memorable only because of the nonsense with characters and NPCs who are involved. If you just did a bullet point summary of the plot it'd probably just be five very basic plot points that are pretty generic to most hero journeys. And yet there's not really much else out there like it (excluding its sequels), save maybe the Overlord games which were heavily inspired to be the antithesis to a Fable good-boy run

[Wolf Kanno]

I'd second Lunar, honestly both SSSC and EBC. Great characters, pretty forgettable plots. I also find Breath of Fire falls into this category for me. Great cast of characters, but the plots are either ho-hum or kind of crappy though there are exceptions.

I also feel this way about FFIV and VIII. Even giving the games the benefit of historical relevance and tech, their stories are cheesy but the characters keep me coming back to them.

[Kikiara]

I feel like most Tales of... games (with the possible exception of Abyss, which had a reasonably memorable story) fall into this category. I can remember only the broadest strokes of their stories despite having played six of seven of the games in the series, but the characters from virtually every title I’ve played are still fresh in my mind.

[remy5623]

A lot of RPGs fall into this category for me.

Dragon Age II
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Final Fantasy XV
Lighting Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Mass Effect: Andromeda

[Del Murder]

Dragon Quest IV. I can't even remember the story, probably stop some evil guy from destroying the world like every DQ game. But I loved those characters!

[Lord Golbez]

Dragon Quest series in a general seems like a good choice to me, especially DQ8 and DQ11 for me. The stories are typically extremely prosaic run of the mill stuff andoften hit almost the same beats in several entries, but the characters breathe life into the stories. On the other hand, I can't really say the same about Tales of, because I tend to think they have mediocre casts and stories. Both are passable, but generally nothing great and I sometimes find the casts annoying. Something Namco could learn is there's actually such a thing as too much dialogue.

[Christmas]

Gotto be Dragon Age 2. No idea what happened to my dear Dragon Age series.

Hawke was cool, his/her story isn't.

[Dr. Acula]

I agree with Dragon Age 2. It had so much potential.

I also agree with the Tales games. The characters are usually excellent, but some of the games have pretty average storylines.