Is Nintendo the most incompetent story writers the gaming industry has ever seen?

Save princess for the 74th time in Zelda. Save princess for the 104th time in Mario. They never have any kind of well written memorable characters. The story is always extremely simple, as if it was made for the pre-kindergarten. I don't recall seeing a single game with top notch voice acting and actors performance. They usually don't even have any voice acting, saving millions per game in the voice acting department alone, but the game is still $60.

What is going on there? Sounds incredibly incompetent to me. Honestly very frustrating seeing them being this bad for decades. I mean, even 343i is better at storytelling, and we all know how mediocre they are with stories.

Was Nintendo ever renowned for stories? I don't think anyone ever tried to prove otherwise.

More like a desperation thread made by an obnoxious troll.

No.

I'd rather have a simple Nintendo story than a convoluted mess of a story from 343.

They still find a way to tug on your emotions better than most games out there.

and Sony game stories arent mediocre? lulz

inb4 durrr god of war best gaem evarrrrrr

The sad thing is: one company is actually trying to tell a story.

I suppose Sony moviegame stories are decent, if you never read a book in your life or watched a half decent movie that's not focused on box office.

Need a tissue for those tears?

Incompetent? If they tried making anything else than simple stories and failed at it, that word would make sense.

Nintendo doesn't write good stories? Never really paid attention to it as I'm more having fun playing their games. But than again, I rather have stuff like Subspace Emissary story than a pile of mess whatever 343 brings cause they clearly can't write a story for the MC.

No. They’re the best. Most game “stories” are garbage because they try to weave together a convoluted, tear-jerking, agenda-pushing mess that have overdone cinematics and cringe dialogue. Nintendo just says, “Here’s a princess, save her,” then gives you an incredible game that focuses on gameplay because it’s a GAME. Watch Maddox’s video on YouTube about game stories, and you will understand my perspective.

Sometimes simples all you need.

Zelda games have pretty good stories imo. I really liked and was engrossed in Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Windwaker, and Twilight Princess. Those games all told different stories and varied drastically in the directions they were trying to go. I can't really speak for current day Nintendo since I don't really play their games. My daughter has a Switch and I barely ever touch it since it's hers and not mines lol

I agree. Give me a good game over a good story any day. If I want a good story with nothing interactive to do with it, I'd read a book or watch a movie.

But also, Dread has a very good story, so it disproves the OP's whiny rant.

@The_Deepblue: A YouTuber... 🤣 no thanks.

Minus maybe Paper Mario or the other Mario RPG's, who the f*** looks to Nintendo games for stories?

Nintendo has the best stories. The true story is in the journey

A heros journey, if you will.

No. That honor goes to BGS. Look no further than Fallout 4 to see why.

Sure they may be great at environmental story telling - come across a village of Super Mutants and read logs to find out what happened. Fun.

When it comes to the actual story of the game tho, they are terrible. Fallout 4's main story actually makes the game worse - a lot worse. Nothing kills a sandbox game like an urgent need to find your lost son. Then there is the dialog options.... Terrible choices for an uninteresting protagonist. There is very little that changes regardless of what you pick. No matter what option you choose there will be no consequences. It's awful. This must be why they got rid of NPCs in FO76. They way BGS writes them actively makes a fun game not fun. I can't say enough bad things about BGS writing.

@vfighter: A random person posting on a dying forum? No thanks.

Nintendo and good stories are at war with each other and have been for decades. They are better off staying away from story focused games but they can lay off the frequent reminders for every item you pick up.

Dunno. I kinda think to actually be incompetent, you actually have to try and take risks. Consequently, I wouldn't really call Nintendo's writing bad; just predictable and risk-averse.

And hey, it works for them, so why begrudge them?

yes, they don't really write stories, they make games, unlike the movie station where you're wondering if you're really playing a game or actually just watching a movie.

what are you t alkingg about haha...the stories in nintendo games have been about rescuing peach for the 1000th time. Thats how far the story goes, and frankly thats what makes nintendo good in the first place.

Please Sony, release some damn games so this troll has something to play.

@blaznwiipspman1: That’s not the true story though. The true story is your journey from point a to point b. It’s all about that gameplay baby.

I heard they are teaming up with GRR Martin to make the next Paper Mario truly hardcore

Nintendo’s got the right idea, games are an awful vessel for storytelling almost all the time. Therefore they focus on what makes games great; gameplay.

@xantufrog: what seriously??

Screw that, someone please give that troll a shiny new GPU. (I heard that Radeon 6600 is out)

@blaznwiipspman1: lol, no. I'm just goofing

Oh god no. Story is just rarely a focus for them. But they can spin a good yarn when they want to.

i mean if you break it down to just "save the princess"...sure it's boring. but you can do that with any games story (or any story in general). Planescape torment: guy tries to regain his memories. big whoop. Uncharted: guy robs some treasure and saves the girl (or is saved by the girl...i forget :S). who cares? GTA 5: some guys rob some stores. snore fest.

it's all about the delivery and nintendo, more often than not, deliver it very nicely while not letting it get in the way.

Metroid Prime games (actually metroid in general from what i have played of them) tells a good tale. Xenoblade 1 and X have great stories. Kid icarus was the first game from nintendo where i thought "hey...they can actually do voice acting well when they want to". Also a good and fun story.

Other M.....OK that was utter rubbish and dont get me started on XC2. But most of the time the story is told well in nintendos games.

To be frank, I haven't found a video game story yet that I would characterize as particularly good. Half-Life 2 is probably the best of them, though the narrative was largely hinted at rather than told to the player directly which made the story seem bigger than it really was and is something I wish more developers knew how to do instead of trying to be mini-movie directors by constantly interrupting our games with idiotic cutscenes.

No. I prefer the simple stories sometimes. I like that they focus on gameplay and not stopping the gameplay every few minutes to tell a story. If I am in the mood for a good story, video games are not the media I would go to. I would go read a book in that case.

They don't do stories ...

Nintendo owns monolith, and while I can't speak for all the sequels, the first xenoblade chronicles had a pretty original and unique storyline. The voicework was super cringy but the concept and story where definitely original.

That's obvious. They don't do a lot of things.

BUT, are we really gonna pretend that a well written and interesting story for BOTW2 would be a negative?

Nintendo is exempted from being criticized for storytelling.

The fact that Nintendo doesn't really give a shit about voice acting and story telling is one of the reasons I like them so much. They just make fun games and that's cool as shit.

And pretty much everything else. If you do, tho, its considered trolling😁

I honestly can’t name you a good story from a video game off the top of my head.

Well, maybe I’d say Red Dead Redemption 2 or perhaps The Last of Us. Even then, it‘s the gameplay that makes those games excellent. The former’s story thrives on its laser focus on the development of one character at the expense of the development of other characters. The latter‘s story benefits from its simplistic plot and not complicating matters for some emotional punchline or cliche theme (I have not played the sequel). Still, no video game story I can think of reaches the heights of the best novels, short stories, or films, not even the merely decent ones in those mediums.

That Nintendo focuses on gameplay and largely snubs story-telling is a positive. I love me some Zelda games, but those are getting borderline cringe with the heavier focus on story, including my favorite game of all time: Breath of the Wild.

As Maddox says at the beginning of that awesome video to which I alluded earlier: “Have you ever played a game of chess and thought, all this needs is a good story? Yeah, me neither.”

Good thing Nintendo makes video games, not movies then.

So a video game can't have a good story? Got it.

It wouldn't change the game that much , BotW has a serviceable story, perfectly fine for an open world game ... in fact i don't remember many open games with "well written and interesting stories" outside Red Dead, also Nintendo does basic plots that are far from "incompetent" ... so yeah, not gonna bite on this one.

Why do we need to look at other games? Botw is said to be the best open world ever. If that's the case, just "serviceable" is not an option, because as you have mentioned, RDR1 and RDR2 has incredibly good stories. And even if the main story in most open world games is indeed mediocre, many of them have a lot of quality side quests. Fallout 3, Oblivion and Fallout NV to name a few.

Bought recently a Switch Lite and traded some games for Super Mario Odyssey...

I'm not a Nintendo fan or anything and, so far, I dont see the 10/10 game everyone claimed when it first released. Yeah, I trully believe Nintendo scores are inflated due to nostalgia more than anything else

Saying this... the game is still very good and I realised no one plays Nintendo games for their stories but the charm of it. Yeah, its simple kiddie stuff but it takes us to a time where everything didnt need to be taken seriously and I understand that approach and ended up apreciating it.

I find Nintendo fans to be composed of mostly manchilds (what other reason for them to continue buying Pokemon entry nº 711?) but there's nothing wrong with it. Its not a crime for an adult to enjoy kiddie stuff. Adulthood is just so full of responsabilities and sh*t that gaming can takes us to a place where nothing has to be taken seriously and that fine

Yes, it is.

Also if you don't want to mention other games, that's fine, BotW is still a fantastic open world game with a basic plot good enough to set in motion the entire game ... don't see any incompetence at all since what they do, as basic as it is, is serviceable.

Fixed ... let's be real, we are all a bunch of manchildren gaming with space marines, jumping plumbers, 1996 Michael Jordan, Wizards, etc, etc ... And i'm agree, there is nothing wrong with that.