You want the story interwoven into the game? Then Dark Souls all the way. Period. Somewhat Spoilers I guess but most of the game is interpretation:

It's not ALL item descriptions either. The Painted World of Ariamis is another great example. It's essentially a ruined tower in a magical painting that was created to house dangerous items. You make your way through and notice a lot of things about the contents. The Occult Ember is there, which is used to make weapons that can kill gods. The Abomination is a cute half dragon half god Crossbreed Priscilla that tells you the enemies are all peaceful despite the fact they're trying to rip your head off. Despite most hollows being mindless, some of them show strategy and advanced magic useage, so were those "hollows" really hollow or were they an organized group trying to protect the object of their worship? Velka's symbolism is put throughout, there are crow demons, items related to Velka, Pardoner's gear on a corpse (Velka the Rogue Deity is also the Goddess of Sin and gives Pardoners the ability to absolve), and a mother and child staue that hints Priscilla may be her child.

There's also the part where examining items related to Velka lets you in on a secret: Miracles are no different than soul arts magic that the church looks down on. In fact, miracles are magic for the stupid and may be an institution to make people obey the gods.

Seath the Scaleless is grandfather of souls based magic, so much that schools proficient in magic use the crest of a dragon, of which Seath is allegedly the last. It's heavily implied he's the father of Priscilla as well, seeing as he's one of the last dragons. He has a relation to Velka through Magic. Velka's miracles are atypical of usual miracles in their purpose they fact they run on Intelligence, the modifier for soul arts magic. Was Velka involved in Seath's studies and was that the origin of Priscilla's birth?

There are several MAJOR plot points that strewn throughout Lordran, but they're not essential to your duty as the Chosen Undead. They're there if you want them, but you have to find them yourself. Here's a few big ones:

Priscilla's origin.

Magic vs Miracle.

Church infighting.

Origins of Pyromancy.

Humans vs Gods.

Humanity vs Souls.

Kingseeker Frampt vs Darkstalker Kaathe.

Nito and the Gravelord Covenent vs Gwyndolin and the Darkmoon Covenent.

MAdness caused by souls research.

The point isn't about the story itself, but the telling. You're still wrong though.

The story is that of the trials of the Chosen Undead and his decision to Link the Fire or snuff it out. Players should weigh their options by looking at the actions of those who benefit from the result of the Chosen Undead's choice. It's entirely up to your perspective.

In general, if you're the type to wander around doing random sh*t without questioning anything that's fine, but you don't get to say there's no story because you let yourself be duped into a long arduous quest for literally no reason. You didn't wonder why you were doing this? What purpose it served? Nope, some dubious looking snake told you what to do so you slmmed your head into a wall repeatedly until it crumbled, then lit yourself on fire. Genius.

Just because no cutscenes played when you were X amount of steps from Y position/object doesn't mean there's no story.

I said it was the best telling, not the best story.

And that's not the full story. Don't blame the game because your interactions with characters was stunted by your inability to find them or understand their motivations. Also, seperating lore and story is pretty stupid in general but its especially so since they're so entwined. You literally interact with legends from bygone ages in your own story. Artorias, Havel, Gwynn, Nito, Gwyndolin, Big Hat Logan, Quelanna and the rest of the chaos children, Keiran, Gough, Dusk, Elizabeth, Sif, etc are all historical lore figures that you can encounter and shape your entire story.

The story at its core is about your decision and you're supposed to try and determine what's the best path. Do you restore the status quo and aloow people to live in a comfortable age for a few more generations, or do you snuff out the morally ambiguous current system and send civilization back to the dark ages to start over? Are you being used by Frampt or Kaathe no matter what choice you make? The natural state of being for all living humanoids looks horrendous, but is it actually? Who do you kill, and are you right for killing them?

While not the best, saying it's just light the fire or don't is like summing up the Godfather as a movie about violent Italians.

Souls games barely even have stories so I disagree. The lore is interesting though.

It's funny how this works in the souls games. They never have big cut scenes or anything else for that matter, telling you much of what's going on, yet if you look/listen to the wind (litterally sometimes lol) you'll find out quite a lot about the mysterious lore.

I really like the Souls games and I do think there's a substantial bit of storytelling going on. I don't think it's the best story in gaming; the story itself, along with all the side-stories, are good but not remarkable. What is excellent about it is that it is very self-consistent.

If I had to give a reason for why I think the Souls games are good, but not great, I would say that it's approach to story-telling is TOO reluctant. It encourages to use wikis, walkthroughs, or previous playthroughs to make decisions. As a hardcore role-player, I find that very irksome and clunky because it breaks my immersion.

I don't agree. Killer7 had a much more complex, deviant and brilliant plot.

That being said, Demon's/Dark Souls lore is brilliant as well.

Dark Souls has some pretty amazing storytelling yeah. It's head and shoulders above the vast majority of the industry.

People bringing up Bioware...no, nowhere close. They have good writing. That's not the same as good storytelling.

I have to assume you're being sarcastic.

Dark Souls has a story?