|
Post by HMARK Center on Jul 12, 2014 8:43:58 GMT -5
once the stories got more developed and/or complex.
If you're like me (and why wouldn't you be?) and grew up playing NES and the 16 bit systems, you'll recall how early video game storylines tended to leave a lot of things blank, so to speak. Maybe it was stuff getting lost in translation, maybe it was graphical limitations, maybe it was a change of heart by the creator/company later on, but a lot of early storylines were very basic, to the point where even the names and official appearances of some protagonists went unknown for awhile.
So I put it to you: were there any video game franchises you grew up with that had storyline/characterization changes over time that you disliked as those "blanks" got filled in? What bugged you about them?
I'll list a few for me:
-Here's a simple one: the nature of the "going Maverick" in Mega Man X. Given that some of the storyline of the X series has to do with reploids developing some level of free will, and given what I remember reading in the original Mega Man X manual as a kid, I always saw "going Maverick" as a choice that reploids made to turn against humanity. For me, it made Sigma a much more interesting character, since he was the greatest, lead Maverick Hunter before turning a 180 and becoming the Maverick leader. Meanwhile, in the original game X begins as a rookie who looks up to Zero, who's depicted as an ideal X should strive to match and possibly surpass.
Years down the line, suddenly it turns out Zero was the original Maverick, was built by Dr. Wily, and "going Maverick" was simply a by-product of a virus that Wily put into Zero. I'm not saying that totally ruins the games or anything, but for me, personally, it took something away from it all.
-The lore change to the Castlevania series after Lament of Innocence. I remember having a guide book for the Castlevania 64 games (don't laugh) that did something pretty awesome: it had a whole write-up on the real life Dracula, Vlad Tepes. The game even made reference to the real guy (if I recall correctly), and the series had always had its origin point in the 1400s, the century in which Tepes ruled Wallachia. I loved the idea that Dracula was so violent, so brutal, that death on the battlefield could not keep him away from this world, leading to his return as a vampire. Then Castlevania Legends threw in the implied storyline twist that the Belmont clan began due to Sonia Belmont, the first Belmont to fight Dracula, and Alucard having a baby named Trevor, adding in the cool dimension that Dracula, in a way, had sowed the seeds of his own destruction.
Then Lament of Innocence came along and killed the fun for me. Dracula had just been a normal dude who was upset his wife died and...whatever, the tying in with the real history was gone, and it subtracted from the experience for me. I give credit to the Lords of Shadow games for doing a bit to rectify some of the changes (clearly it's an alternate universe, but still), but it never sat well with me.
-Perhaps the most egregious of all, for me? Sonic the Hedgehog.
All we had about Sonic back in the day was "Sonic is a super fast hedgehog with an attitude. He lives on the planet Mobius. He wants to stop the evil Dr. Robotnik from enslaving the world's animals by putting them into machines. Also, there are Chaos Emeralds. GO!"
This opened the door to a whoooooole bunch of different interpretations of Sonic and the world he lived in. In the US alone, between the years of 1993 and 1997 we had THREE different Sonic cartoon series, and between Sega of America and Sega of Europe there were two different Sonic comic book series, both very unique from one another, with the US-based Archie comics series still going. I greatly enjoyed this period; Sonic was probably my favorite game franchise during this time, and part of the fun was how many different iterations and interpretations were possible with it. You could have a whole bunch of kids playing Sonic 2, and each one might have a different Sonic cartoon or comic or whatever in mind while they played. I was a huge fan of the Saturday morning cartoon series, with the super scary Jim Cummings-voiced Robotnik and "robotization", and had a subscription to the Archie-published comic book.
Once we hit the Dreamcast era, though, everything changed, because Sega of Japan took over. Now every character had a voice, the world became much more established, Dr. Robotnik became much less of a threat (at least they've tried to fix that a bit lately), and some of the US and Europe-based Sonic stories had to alter their storylines, character designs, and characterizations to suit what had been done with the games. Not coincidentally, this was also the time period where Sonic games really, well...sucked. Never enjoyed it as much after that.
So how 'bout all of y'all?
|
|
|
Post by Regal Stretch on Jul 12, 2014 8:47:03 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by BorneAgain on Jul 12, 2014 8:55:49 GMT -5
I think the attempts to entirely explain the backstory in Metal Gear Solid have gotten a little too contrived. MGS5 especially looks somewhat over the top with its plot and villain in bringing about the eventual bad guy nature of Big Boss.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 9:00:16 GMT -5
I think the attempts to entirely explain the backstory in Metal Gear Solid have gotten a little too contrived. MGS5 especially looks somewhat over the top with its plot and villain in bringing about the eventual bad guy nature of Big Boss. Ever since Kojima has said 'it's the last game of the series, the storylines don't matter after this' with 2, then with 3...before realizing he'll never make another standalone great game outside of the series has pretty much led to the series folding in on itself I think. When Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is more acceptable as a story than 4 or 5 then you know the passion/care for the game (outside of shock value, which I dislike) is long dead. Weird really, I enjoy Revengeance a LOT (as it's practically Bayonetta 2) and think Peace Walker is really a great compact/interesting action management game, but I have zero interest in the main series these days.
|
|
Sephiroth
Wade Wilson
Surviving
Posts: 28,950
|
Post by Sephiroth on Jul 12, 2014 9:03:48 GMT -5
Am I the only one who thinks the Kingdom Hearts storyline has gone way out of proportion?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 9:50:09 GMT -5
Am I the only one who thinks the Kingdom Hearts storyline has gone way out of proportion? KH's storyline was stupid from the beginning. Then they kept building. For me: Chrono Cross. Everything that game added to the overall Chrono Trigger story was a mess, it's own plot was a rambling convoluted jumble of half assed ideas, and it didn't even seem to know what point it was trying to make. Kickass soundtrack though.
|
|
agent817
Fry's dog Seymour
Doesn't Know Whose Ring It Is
Posts: 21,258
|
Post by agent817 on Jul 12, 2014 10:18:43 GMT -5
Even though I like the game, I would have to say "Saints Row IV" is a good example of them taking a different turn and I didn't really care for it. It's funny how I can say that I like the game but I don't like how they went sci-fi in the fourth installment. First of all, the first two games were essentially GTA clones but instead of playing as some guy doing dirty work for different people, you are a gang member/leader doing work for your own gang in bringing down rival gangs. In the fourth game, you are now president and you have to go against an alien race.
I can see why some people have frowned upon "Saints Row: The Third" as it went a little more cartoony and there are a lot of elements that were different than the first two. I will admit that I had fun in those activities involving shooting the mascots and stuff, but it still felt a lot more over the top than the first two. I remember reading a blog article from someone about the series in general but I don't think he covered the fourth game. The third game felt a lot different from the first two. The Saints were a branded business now. They went up against The Syndicate, which were a set of different gangs who didn't look too much like gangs (Well, except for maybe The Morningstar), not to mention dealing with paramilitary group that looked like it came out of a sci-fi movie with a futuristic theme.
Yet I still like the last two games.
|
|
Goldenbane
Hank Scorpio
THE G.D. Goldenbane
Posts: 7,331
|
Post by Goldenbane on Jul 12, 2014 10:20:40 GMT -5
Dragon Age II. In the Add On game for Dragon Age Origins you meet a mage named Anders and a possessed guy named Justice. Now, in every single ending I ever got...and I'm 99% sure I got them all, Justice dies at the end. Lots of different things happen to Anders too, but my favorite ending involves him leaving the Grey Wardens for a short time, then returning and gaining the power of an Arch-mage. Over time, the ending states, thousands of Mages flock to the Grey Warden banner and the Chantry gets really scared.
In Dragon Age II, they ignore EVERYTHING. Somehow Justice doesn't die and instead bonds itself permanently to Anders. Because "his personality affects the host" Anders goes from the very likable maverick mage in Awakening to this zealot asshole that despises the chantry and the Templars...who's job is to basically keep the mages from being possessed by demons and running ape-shit on the world. While this job could be done FAR better, and the Chantry and Templars aren't innocent...neither are the mages. Oh, but DAII Anders won't hear any of that and he does all this stuff that...well...lots of things can happen to him, but none of them involve him going back to the Wardens and founding a new "Grey Warden School for Mages" like in the DA Awakening ending.
Just complete bullcrap and raping of the character and the happenings of the expanded game.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 10:21:34 GMT -5
Am I the only one who thinks the Kingdom Hearts storyline has gone way out of proportion? nope. It started bugging the shit out of me at KH2
|
|
|
Post by Amazing Kitsune on Jul 12, 2014 10:25:25 GMT -5
I think the attempts to entirely explain the backstory in Metal Gear Solid have gotten a little too contrived. MGS5 especially looks somewhat over the top with its plot and villain in bringing about the eventual bad guy nature of Big Boss. I love the Metal Gear series and, in particular, love the stories that are told within it. That being said, it's painfully clear that Kojima has been totally making it up as he went along. I think everything changed with Snake Eater. You see, as he was making Snake Eater Kojima fell deeply, madly in love with Big Boss and Revolver Ocelot. They'd both previously been the two main villains of the series. After Snake Eater, the entire mythos was changed so that the entire series absolutely revolved around them instead of Solid Snake. Solid Snake was still important and still the guy that kind of saved the day in the end, but that's only because Big Boss and Ocelot had been guiding events for a long, long time. In Metal Gear Solid 4, the series had a great ending, I thought. Still, it can't be denied that the last 45 minutes or so was dedicated to questionably tying together most of the plot holes in the series by explaining that Big Boss was the greatest, coolest, sexiest guy that ever lived and that all events really revolved around him, Ocelot, and [spoilers]the cast of Snake Eater--most notably Major Zero[/spoiler] far more than it revolved around anybody else introduced in the majority of the series. As I've said before, I absolutely love the series but it's really obvious that there was massive change of overall plot direction in Metal Gear Solid 3. To Kojima's credit, he does the massive changes so well that most of the time I end up enjoying it. And they're not going to go all out with making Big Boss a bad guy in Metal Gear Solid 5. He's going to go through a classic "blah blah hunting monsters blah blah become a monster blah blah" character arc, but in the end everything's going to be OK because any time that Solid Snake was fighting against Big Boss it's effectively been retconned that Solid Snake was the bad guy (In the sense he was working for the real bad guys almost his entire life).
|
|
|
Post by HMARK Center on Jul 12, 2014 11:34:52 GMT -5
It sounds like a lot of issues stem from series that feel like they were meant to either have a standalone game, or at most a sequel or two, getting stretched beyond what they were ever meant to be. Guess that's a bit like a TV show. Quick little PSA: you're lucky I'm a mod. Do this in a thread made by a non-mod and you're getting banned on the spot. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
|
|
|
Post by Red Impact on Jul 12, 2014 11:58:02 GMT -5
This pretty much applies to every fighting game series, but the Soul Caliber series really went over the cliff trying to expand the series. It started off being a cursed sword who doomed anyone who would try to get it, and you'd see endings of all the characters who would either be destroyed or old destroy the sword. The canonical one involved Siegfried getting it and becoming the cursed Nightmare. Then there were other swords, sword shards, Siegfried was redeemed and separate from Nightmare, characters randomly team up for no reason and it just wrecked it. Dragon Age II. In the Add On game for Dragon Age Origins you meet a mage named Anders and a possessed guy named Justice. Now, in every single ending I ever got...and I'm 99% sure I got them all, Justice dies at the end. Lots of different things happen to Anders too, but my favorite ending involves him leaving the Grey Wardens for a short time, then returning and gaining the power of an Arch-mage. Over time, the ending states, thousands of Mages flock to the Grey Warden banner and the Chantry gets really scared. In Dragon Age II, they ignore EVERYTHING. Somehow Justice doesn't die and instead bonds itself permanently to Anders. Because "his personality affects the host" Anders goes from the very likable maverick mage in Awakening to this zealot asshole that despises the chantry and the Templars...who's job is to basically keep the mages from being possessed by demons and running ape-shit on the world. While this job could be done FAR better, and the Chantry and Templars aren't innocent...neither are the mages. Oh, but DAII Anders won't hear any of that and he does all this stuff that...well...lots of things can happen to him, but none of them involve him going back to the Wardens and founding a new "Grey Warden School for Mages" like in the DA Awakening ending. Just complete bullcrap and raping of the character and the happenings of the expanded game. That character pissed me off and I didn't even know of his original appearance. That would have made it even worse.
|
|
|
Post by BorneAgain on Jul 12, 2014 11:58:12 GMT -5
I think the attempts to entirely explain the backstory in Metal Gear Solid have gotten a little too contrived. MGS5 especially looks somewhat over the top with its plot and villain in bringing about the eventual bad guy nature of Big Boss. I love the Metal Gear series and, in particular, love the stories that are told within it. That being said, it's painfully clear that Kojima has been totally making it up as he went along. I think everything changed with Snake Eater. You see, as he was making Snake Eater Kojima fell deeply, madly in love with Big Boss and Revolver Ocelot. They'd both previously been the two main villains of the series. After Snake Eater, the entire mythos was changed so that the entire series absolutely revolved around them instead of Solid Snake. Solid Snake was still important and still the guy that kind of saved the day in the end, but that's only because Big Boss and Ocelot had been guiding events for a long, long time. In Metal Gear Solid 4, the series had a great ending, I thought. Still, it can't be denied that the last 45 minutes or so was dedicated to questionably tying together most of the plot holes in the series by explaining that Big Boss was the greatest, coolest, sexiest guy that ever lived and that all events really revolved around him, Ocelot, and {Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}the cast of Snake Eater--most notably Major Zero far more than it revolved around anybody else introduced in the majority of the series. As I've said before, I absolutely love the series but it's really obvious that there was massive change of overall plot direction in Metal Gear Solid 3. To Kojima's credit, he does the massive changes so well that most of the time I end up enjoying it. And they're not going to go all out with making Big Boss a bad guy in Metal Gear Solid 5. He's going to go through a classic "blah blah hunting monsters blah blah become a monster blah blah" character arc, but in the end everything's going to be OK because any time that Solid Snake was fighting against Big Boss it's effectively been retconned that Solid Snake was the bad guy (In the sense he was working for the real bad guys almost his entire life). For me, even after Snake Eater, one could still look at Big Boss a good man who becomes so disillusioned and cynical that he becomes one of the very things the Boss worked to undo. For all the worship of the former {Spoiler}{Spoiler} by Ocelot and Big Mama , his role in creating the Patriots and the subsequent attempt to create a state (and possibly a world) of constant war where soldiers can be "free" demonstrate that the guy really missed the point of what his mentor was trying to do. Solid Snake's role in Philanthropy is that of its motto "Let the World Be", a philosophy which even Big Boss admits in the ending of 4 is what the Boss truly believed in. The entire scene between father and son in last part of Guns of the Patriots seems to be Naked Snake admitting the world is better off without people such as himself, and that the inherent poison of the previous 50 years has been individuals like {Spoiler}{Spoiler}Zero , himself, and others trying to control the world instead of respecting the individual and letting the world take care of itself. Its just that games like Portable Ops, Peace Walker and possibly V, seem to be stacking the deck and making the antagonists so necessary to be opposed that Big Boss doing what he does with Outer Heaven becomes more of a mis-executed noble move, and not the doomed act of bitter, controlling, egotist convinced that only his brand of quasi anarcho-militarism can unburden the world.
|
|
hassanchop
Grimlock
Who are you to doubt Belldandy?
Posts: 14,794
|
Post by hassanchop on Jul 12, 2014 12:07:47 GMT -5
For me: Chrono Cross. Everything that game added to the overall Chrono Trigger story was a mess, it's own plot was a rambling convoluted jumble of half assed ideas, and it didn't even seem to know what point it was trying to make. Kickass soundtrack though. I agree. They were trying to tie it with the first game, the Guile character was originally supposed to be Magus, but changed because no one knew what to do with him.
|
|
|
Post by Cyno on Jul 12, 2014 12:09:05 GMT -5
Metroid, easily. I think the biggest strength in the series was its atmospheric storytelling. The games let the world do its storytelling. It was nice and minimalistic. Then that all changed after Gunpei Yokoi died and Yoshio Sakamoto took over. Metroid Prime still did this, even though those scan logs could be pretty wordy it was still effective in-universe storytelling. But Fusion and especially Other M had a lot of breaking the flow of the game for narrative/cutscene breaks.
|
|
J is Justice
Wade Wilson
Will now be grateful.
Hi.
Posts: 28,557
Member is Online
|
Post by J is Justice on Jul 12, 2014 12:18:54 GMT -5
I guess in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children where they made Cloud a depressed dickface again, despite everything that happened in the game.
|
|
CMWaters
Ozymandius
Rolled a Seven, Beat the Ads.
Bald and busy
Posts: 63,084
|
Post by CMWaters on Jul 12, 2014 12:21:25 GMT -5
Metroid, easily. I think the biggest strength in the series was its atmospheric storytelling. The games let the world do its storytelling. It was nice and minimalistic. Then that all changed after Gunpei Yokoi died and Yoshio Sakamoto took over. Metroid Prime still did this, even though those scan logs could be pretty wordy it was still effective in-universe storytelling. But Fusion and especially Other M had a lot of breaking the flow of the game for narrative/cutscene breaks. For Other M though, how much of that was from the staff of Nintendo and how much of that was Team Ninja?
|
|
|
Post by BorneAgain on Jul 12, 2014 12:29:45 GMT -5
Metroid, easily. I think the biggest strength in the series was its atmospheric storytelling. The games let the world do its storytelling. It was nice and minimalistic. Then that all changed after Gunpei Yokoi died and Yoshio Sakamoto took over. Metroid Prime still did this, even though those scan logs could be pretty wordy it was still effective in-universe storytelling. But Fusion and especially Other M had a lot of breaking the flow of the game for narrative/cutscene breaks. For Other M though, how much of that was from the staff of Nintendo and how much of that was Team Ninja? Supposedly Team Ninja just did the programming and combat system. The story, character, and controls have said be all Yoshio Sakamoto's input.
|
|
|
Post by Cyno on Jul 12, 2014 12:31:26 GMT -5
It was all Nintendo and Yoshio Sakamoto. Team Ninja had zilch involvement with that game's narrative.
Team Ninja's an attractive scapegoat, but Other M's debacle is consistent with what Sakamoto's done with the storytelling and story in both Fusion and the Metroid manga.
|
|
|
Post by Sponsored by Groose Wipes on Jul 12, 2014 12:44:57 GMT -5
Metal Gear Solid 2's story is all over the freaking place. Some of the confusion is cleaned up in MGS4 but man does 2 leave you with more questions then when you started. Kingdom hearts was alright until it becomes super easy to get lost after 2 with Nobody this, Orginzation XIII that and manly because you did not play any of the spin off games. I really hope KH3 cleans up a ton of it.
|
|