Best 10 video game stories

One important element that sets a popular and fun video game apart from others would be a unique and compelling storyline. Having a great story is not necessarily a requirement but when a game developer does manage to develop a distinctive game-play environment, filled with a strong cast of characters, while at the same time make a story as good as that of a movie, the end result is a massive entertainment package for the same price you might pay for a typical video game.As the years have advanced, gamers now look for more than just a target to shoot at or a puzzle to solve, and hence, game studios, over the past ten years have given serious attention on giving gamers solid game designs with intense and entertaining stories as their centre foundation.

#10 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Besides the usual hero mechanic, Knights of the Old Republic quickly sets itself apart from other narratives by building a story that is both compelling and influenced by the player, a mechanic that would soon become used in many western game designs.

Gamers are shown a world in turmoil where Darth Malak, a former apprentice of Sith Lord Darth Revan, wages a war on the Republic. As they discover truths about their own past and form alliances, they are given choices that will ultimately reflect their character’s morality. In the end, the story reveals that the player’s character is actually brainwashed Darth Revan. Depending on the choices they have made throughout the course of the game, their character will either overthrow Malak and continue the war against the Republic or he will defeat him and be worshipped as a hero.

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#9 The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead was more than just a quick money-making scheme, thanks to Telltale’s respect and love for the popular franchise. Through a well-acted, well-scripted, player driven narrative that revolved around ideas of vulnerability and personal responsibility, the developers showed their skill in storytelling.

In the first game, players find themselves, in a post-apocalyptic zombie world, where they control an ex-con named Lee who takes up a responsibility to protect and teach a young girl named Clementine. In the second game, Clementine becomes the protagonist, after Lee’s tragic demise. While the second game sticks to the themes of the first game, players now have to deal with a non-traditional disempowerment of the main character.

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#8 Final Fantasy Tactics

Final Fantasy Tactics is a game that isn’t technically in the main Final Fantasy series, yet tells a story that some have audaciously claim to rival the tales of Shakespeare. Themes of country, politics, friendship and betrayal are woven into this tale and it ultimately surprises you as realistic selfishness creeps in within characters.

The perspective taken is also a unique one. The dark story is narrated to the player by a historian exploring the events of the game. The end result is a story that feels unavoidable and tragic. Instead of watching these events play out, you are made to understand that these things happened, and now we just have to learn and move past them.

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#7 Dark Souls

Dark Souls is an open world game with a rich, intricate narrative existing somewhere in the background, regardless of the main character’s plight. Every character feels important, and is somehow worthy of both player’s sympathy and contempt.

However, just playing the game won’t tell you the story. To know what really going on in the game, users need to follow the Dark Souls community which takes delight in piecing together the murky, twisted fairy tales and myth that make up the games lore. Their bits of information can range from flavour text and character locations, to equipment names, and, even dialogue.

It’s not the usual way a story is told, but it’s interesting, and keeps fans gripped as they explore about the story themselves.

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#6 Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Seeing a Mario game on this list is pretty surprising but, published by Nintendo and developed by Square, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, gave the world famous Mario depth, and gave players a reason to care about his quest.

The story puts players in charge of saving the Mushroom Kingdom from an unearthly threat. The world is fun to explore, and introduces players to new controllable characters, like the marshmallowy Mallow and even has the series’ main antagonist, Bowser, fighting alongside Mario against a common enemy. The series is sometimes considered as a successor to the Paper Mario franchise, and has managed to introduce a multitude of players to a new genre.

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#5 The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask

By not being very upfront about the world of the game, and deliberately expressing only the most basic plotline of the game, Nintendo tells stories a bit differently than other big publishers. Often, as with Dark Souls, a lot of what makes their games enjoyable is not open for all to see but lies somewhere beneath the surface.

The doomed and cleverly named world of Termina in the second 3D Zelda game is one that is begging to be explored. With a curse on the land that is drawing the moon closer and closer daily, a lot of the game’s characters are overcoming hardship as best they can. Exploring that world will reveal themes of denial, acceptance, and staying strong for the sake of others. While ultimately saved by the hero, the journey through Termina is one that is difficult to forget.

#4 Bioshock

Located under the surface of the ocean, Rapture is a mess of a place to live; politics and mental deterioration plaguing a once great city where two figure heads, Fontaine and Ryan, vie for control over the wreckage. The plot starts with the player character, Jack, surviving a plane wreck in the ocean. He ends up in the underwater city where he meets a man name Atlas who serves as Jack’s guide. Obeying him, under the guise of fulfilling favours, is the driving force behind Jack’s in-game actions. The whole narrative comes together when it is revealed that Jack is a sleeper agent, and the son of Ryan, stolen away by Fontaine and conditioned to respond to the control phrase, “would you kindly?” We quickly learn that the only reason the character obeyed Atlas is because of his use of the phrase.

But the player himself, obviously, wasn’t a sleeper agent. He was just obeying the mechanics of the game because, traditionally, that’s what players do. To win, you listen. So to find out that the player has been deceived alongside the character creates this strange, surreal sense of engagement that is rare in games.

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#3 Braid

Now here is a game where People become personally invested in the story, and apply it to their own lives in a heap of different ways. Developer Jonathan Blow, when asked about the game’s narrative, stated that he “would not be capable" of explaining the whole story of the game in words, and said that the central idea is "something big and subtle and resists being looked at directly.”

The game seems to tell the tale of a hero trying to save a woman from a horrible monster. Or maybe it’s telling the story of a man attempting to get over a failed relationship. Or maybe it’s telling the tale of a scientist who regrets his part in the creation of the Atom bomb. In the end, it doesn’t matter what the developer intended the game to mean. The literal story that is in place, combined with an uncertain ending, creates the ability for the game to deliver exactly what the player is looking for.

#2 Broken Age

At first glance, Broken Age tells two stories that take place in vastly dissimilar settings. Vella, a young girl, exists in a society that lives in fear of a Monster, Mog Chothra. To appease Mog Chothra, young girls from various villages are sacrificed to the beast. In an odd turn of events, which is in no doubt a social commentary, girls compete against one another to be the lucky one chosen by the beast. In the related, but incredibly different, sci-fi portion of the game, Shay (voiced by Elijah Wood) lives alone on a ship with only the company of a handful of creatures and various AIs. The AIs are horribly over protective, and the creatures are paid actors to entertain Shay. His daily routine consists of running missions to save these creatures. The missions are the same, day in and day out.

Both stories, prior to their unavoidable collision, are loosely concealed social commentaries filled with the comical writing that Tim Schafer is known, and it keeps the player engaged through a relatively simple adventure game.

#1 Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

This game should have been more successful than it was as it was written by Alex Garland from the 28 Days Later movie, featuring the voice talent of Andy Serkis and was inspired by Journey to the West. Still, the story that unravels in the game was an amazing one told even though only few people have gone through it.

Set in an overgrown New York City, 150 years in the future, Enslaved tells the tale of Monkey and Trip, two slave ship escapees. Since Trip is desperate after a crash, she fixes a device to Monkey that bonds the two together in a manner that makes sure Monkey will help her find her home. If Trip dies, so will Monkey. Due to such an untrusting action, their fragile relationship starts on the wrong foot. As the player watches the two grow closer, players begin wondering what is sincere and what is convenient. They ultimately do end up as friends, but a breathtaking reveal in the game’s final moments rewrites what till now seemed like a light-hearted, typical adventure.

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