Storytelling in Ninty games

[gumby_trucker]

TomaTito said:

One of my biggest problem with story is it's static/linear nature, after you've played it I have less incentive to play it again. Sure you can find a few examples where this isn't true, due to an excellent development, interactive story or nostalgia. Truth is there are times when I'm reading dialogs from the game or watching an introduction I feel like I'm wasting time, I see the story as an obstacle to the gameplay (which is what gaming is about).

And what's even worse isn't story but the damn tutorials stages or control dialogs... argh. Put that damn data in the manual, we aren't reading those anymore because you put it in the game.

I agree with this. Some games, such as Twilight Princess, just feel like they are thrown completely out of whack due to the addition of tutorial stages or introductions to the controls. In the case of that game, we know this was something that was added late in development in order to help familiarize players with the new wiimote controls, and that's also probably why it feels so out of place in the game.

Many Nintendo games (Mario platformers especially) do a fantastic job of introducing you to the gameplay in a way that perfectly integrated into the experience. You learn as you go along, and the whole thing flows naturally. But this is something you really have to take into consideration at an early point during development or else you don't end up with a homogeneous experience. If you are going to add an interactive tutorial late in development, you are better off having it as a separate section of the game, like they did for the VC release of Sin & Punishment. It gets the player up to speed but not at the expense of the main event.

I think the same goes for story, mostly. If it's not an integral part of the experience you are better off sticking a screen at the beginning which says:
"In the year 2112 the earth has been invaded by evil forces.
Journey to neighboring sectors destroying invaders.
You are Mach Rider!" LOL
There's nothing wrong with admitting a certain aspect of the experience adds nothing to it and relegating it to the side in order to focus on what's important.
And if it is an integral part of the experience then it probably deserves more than a few lengthy cut-scenes that break the flow and immersion of the game. This is akin to pausing the game to tell you about the controls, as TomaTito already said. It's ok when done in small doses to add clarity but other than that should be avoided whenever possible.

The thing about Other M in particular is it feels like Nintendo thought it was really important for the continuation of the franchise to fill in these "gaps" in Samus' character. Unless they had very specific ideas in mind for the next games in the series, I am yet to understand why this move was so important at this stage... then again I haven't played Fusion so maybe it holds the answers that I seek...