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Apr 17, 2004 March 18, 2004: The best VG stories ever. Yeah, we have those. For some games, it might not look very obvious, but they are definitely there and they are very much present. The best video games stories are widely believed to come from the RPG genre, and I would tell those people, whoever they are, that they are dead wrong and should be slapped upside the head for what they just told me. While it is true that the RPG owns a majority of the video game stories around, that does not mean that they are the best. For the last three weeks, I have done a lot of research on what I found to be the best video game stories around. Most of them are obvious, but there should be a few that might surprise you. 1. Metal Gear Solid, PS-X, 1998 Why: MGS is the quintessential story because it never skips a beat and is able to produce a massive story and make it so convincing. The cut- scenes were used to maximum effect to make the story more intriguing. At the center is Snake. He is a man looking for redemption, but he seems to be looking in all the wrong places. The story is so absorbing that it sucks you in. There are plenty of plot twists galore and it uses them very convincingly. Most notably, the whole thing with Miller. The story has characters that are all three-dimensional and it uses reversals of fortune, the themes of redemption, good v. evil, right v. wrong, the value of friendships, the way America has evolved, and it builds into this massive structure created by the master of VG writing, Hideo Kojima. 2. Final Fantasy VII, PS-X, 1997 Why: FFVI is the better game, but VII has the more accomplished story. It takes a more sci-fi approach with a David Lynch style to the story and maybe some David Mamet with a more modern vocabulary. The characters are all superbly written at the core of the plot. (Near the outer edges, it starts to become very hit-or-miss). The plot is very dark and twisted and it makes Sephiroth so evil by what he does, not what he says, and that is very hard to do. The plot rarely has a miscue and it shows so many themes including our origins, redemption, the question of our technology beating humanity, and running from our past. A brilliant story that never holds back on the emotions. 3. Final Fantasy VI, SNES, 1994 Why: Final Fantasy VI made VII possible, but that doesn't give it a free pass to the #2 spot. This game does a tremendous job in making great characters on the protagonists side. Locke, Terra, Edgar, Sabin, Shadow, Celes are all tremendous protagonists that all have their own lives and their own secrets. On the dark side, the bad guys aren't as well drawn, but villains like Kefka show their insanity through their words more than their actions. (The exception is the poisoning of Doma) The weakness in this story is the second half of the story doesn't quite match the brilliance of the first. It isn't bad or anything. A step down might be an appropriate word. Still, it mops the floor with everything else because it doesn't stray from its roots when the stakes get high. 4. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, PS2, 2001 Why: Say what you will about Raiden and so on, but there is little question that the story that is being told is better than MGS. The story is more convulted and it has more characters to contend with, but the payoffs are bigger and the story only really loses momentum in one spot (the whole thing with Emma is not awe-inspiring, but well written). As for Raiden, Raiden is what Snake was in the original Metal Gear. Snake and Raiden are the unspoken link between the old and the new world. The story is enthralling from start to finish and the pace never slows down. The ending is a brilliantly staged sequence that is among the best ever. 5. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, SNES, 1996 Why: This was a hard one. Syphon Filter, Deus Ex, Chrono Trigger, and Ocarina of Time were all in contention. At the end of the day, though, Mario RPG told the best story. The plot seems simple enough, but Square gambles and goes in a whole new direction. They make brand-new characters and make them interesting. They take old characters and make them better. (Bowser gets the most notable nod) What really makes the story shine is the uproarious dialogue. I rarely laugh in video games, but there were some scenes that got me really laughing. (The whole thing from Booster Tower to the end of Marrymore is priceless). When it needs to, Mario RPG knuckles down and tells the story and sets aside the humor. Magnificent writing. There are many great stories for video games and many that I wish I could have talked about, but these will do just fine. ------------ About the author: I am Chris Vavra, a young writer and hopeful novelist. I have written 23 books and I am also the senior editor and columnist for a video game website called PGNx Media. www.pgnx.net I hope to publish books sometime in the near future. In my free time I read and I write a lot, as well as play golf, basketball and other sports. Any comments, email me at: proapgnx@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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