Sakurai: Some game stories 'honestly irksome'

that just shows how import BALANCE is and is at present not achieved. to my mind it is not so important to write the story first or do the game mechanics first, it is all about the right execution for all the right reasons.  For people who don't like intro's and cut scenes...we used to have that very important choice in games that was called "Skip Cinematic" !  One very important CHOICE that was the first to disappear and  that is so foreign to this industry these days.  more choice and less force is my hope for evolution.

Seems that what game devs do is they either write the story, then force the gameplay to suit the story, or they do the gameplay, and force the story to suit it.

I came upon this topic accidentally. I don't have a wii or wiiU, or play nintendo games, but I disagree with him on many parts. I always say; no matter how much you love a story it has to end to be good, and to me story is a very important element of the game that adds a lot to the game and makes it objective. So if the story requires at a point sacrificing a character, then be it.

Though I get what he means by making the his own story to fit the gameplay, but that doesn't work if you want a strong story.

I'm not going to lie, I can really relate to the whole waiting through the introduction thing he's talking about. Don't get me wrong, if it's going to add something to the narrative and fits in with the chemistry of the game (Half Life comes to mind), then by all means, but if it's just some lame story that's shoe-horned into the game I'd really just like to get to the shooting part.

I don't want to spend a whole lot of time doing menial tasks just for the sake of narrative structure for a game that has no interest in being a story focused game. Give me a 30 second cutscene and let's rollllllllllll.

Another one that kind of made me relate to that comment was Mass Effect. The game starts out well, and then sticks you into a somewhat lengthy and tedious story section on the Citadel before allowing you to blast off and start saving the galaxy. I loved that game, but man, that slow section right off the bat took multiple restarts before I finally muscled through it.

I didn't mind the slower sections later in that game (or in the sequels), but it really was a poor design choice to put that slow of a section so early on in a game you're nowhere near immersed in yet.

He must be referring to Japanese games only and a prime example is medal gear solid I always joke about how the cut-scenes are too long and I be forgetting that I?m actually playing a video game and just watching a movie and I end up losing interests, but I understand Japanese developers are more story driven and the majority of storytelling in the games is not that good it way too melodramatic and lack substance now look at Mario it more like an objective storyline and it has more game-play than a driven storyline.

There is very little difference between novel, movie, or game stories in that the story should always be the focus. I think most anyone who reads alot agrees the story writes itself, as soon as you start changing the story from what it should be to what is 'politically correct' or more appealing to a certain demographics the author stops being creative and starts being a editor. 

This guy above writes stories for games that have the depth of pbs cartoons for preschoolers. Large expansive story lines sometimes require bad things to happen, a good story does not ask a focus group each time character takes action. 

I do agree that the media of games have to have stories told differently then, novels and movies. I think it is just laziness to push tons of back story into a very long intros before you have even been brought into the game. My favorite form of storytelling in video games is the strategy RPG. Short segments of story before each battle/incursion/event, then dialogue/story during the action or battles, and recap with more story before interaction with the player before starting it all up again. Great pacing, never gets dull and always being pulled along with the story. 

Again sometimes stories write themselves it is not a matter of what a gamer should get or what would make it sell more. In FF7, Suikoden i would loved if certain characters lived - but I do not think the story would have been as good. 

People are different, some like a lot of talking and cutscenes, some do not.

Some games go way over the top and leaves hardly any playng at all.

I agree/disagree in some places.

I think long-winded intro cut-scenes are the worst thing on earth, and should be banished from the planet. At least give the player some small taste of gameplay first.

But should every character and their personality be shaped by their specific role in the game? Isn't that advocating using generic role-based archetypes as characters only?

Just let me get all the non-Exclusive equipment they have on them and then they can go die.

Sorry but "wrote Kid Icarus: Uprising by himself" is not something he should be bragging about, that game was an abomination.

from what it says here, i don't agree with sakurai at all. but i think that i'd have to play uprising in order to understand his seamless combination of story and gameplay 

(though i don't see taking away control as a bad thing or as a punishment--i think it's more like, hey, can you get by a little bit without using this character? and if you can, but you struggled, then you realize how awesomely powerful that character really is)

I agree with him. I'm not too fond of leveling up characters only to have them leave the party because they turned bad, but at least it does keep the story interesting on other levels.  

what games has he been playing? 

people dying is a part of gaming. it worked well for ff7....

"As a player, as someone who's been playing games for a long time, the stories that get told in video games are honestly irksome to me pretty often," Sakurai wrote.

Okay, as a gamer pushing 40 I can relate to this, but not really for the reasons he goes on about. For me it is more of a "been there, done that already" lack of originality issue or simply the fact that most games are made and marketed for people 10-25 years my junior and I am perhaps moving beyond being interested in the more typical narratives in video games. As a long time RPG player I can definitely see where we have sacrificed in-depth gameplay and control over characters for "story."

Just compare the older RPGs like Baldur's Gate, NWN and even NWN2 to something like Mass Effect. To me ME is more like playing a choose your own adventure than an RPG. These at times forced and contrived attempts to make something more like an interactive movie than an RPG do irk me. RPGs used to give the player a palate (classes, races, etc...) and allow the player to create a character of their making but now many force you to play a premade character for the sake of story, great if the character appeals to you, awful if they don't... I'm looking at you DA2!

As an rpg enthusiast I prize story over pretty much every aspect of a game as long as the base mechanics aren't complete junk.  The killing of major pcs is something that I'm down for as it's been done effectively before, but it definitely requires skilled writing to integrate it into the total experience.  The character needs to be likeable enough for the player to have an attachment, but the overall game needs to be strong enough to engage the player after their loss.  On top of the obvious FFVII example, Square also did it in FFV. 

" I can enjoy a story in any other form of media; I just want the game to let me play it already,"

Thanks for quickly summing up everything wrong with today's gamers in one sentence.Really sucks that this is a video game designer's thoughts on the matter.

uprising was great game indeed, it's really sad the studio behind it has shut down :'(

I agree with this guy. Sometimes you feel that some conflicts in the story's flow are but excuses to trigger action or violent sequences.

I do not think that voice overs somehow break a games immersion. Having to frantically click click click past texted conversations just to get quickly back to the game itself is a sign of a weak game. This is a lazy excuse to not wanting to spend time and money on voice overs.

Big characters should die more often rather than less often..  Would be nicer if the player could affect if they live/die somehow.

Is this a common occurrence in games? Having a playable character die because of story? The only example I can think of is Aerith in FFVII.

Didn't think this was a major issue in games. I may be wrong though...

Sakurai is right, in a sense. He's not dissing your favourite game, he's pointing that killing a character you developed is a cheap cop out to create drama. Games like Walking Dead and Mass Effect puts the character's fate directly in your hands. Sakurai has no problem with that. He does have a problem when you are forced to watch a character die for the sake of adding drama.

That said, one of the things I would like to see Fire Emblem go towards is being forced to make sadistic choices. Are you as a tactician willing to sacrifice someone to save millions of lives?

I love him so much. I can't believe he indirectly dissed FFVII. That makes me happy. Go Sakurai.

Aerith says hello... or doesn't because she's dead.

What a surprising statement coming from a guy who write kiddy stories. 

All this from a guy that writes Kirby and Kid Icarus.