I do love games that have incredible, original, innovative gameplay (usually Nintendo games) regardless of story, but with those exceptions most of my favorite games tend to have good storylines. By good however I mean entertainment storylines. It saddens me that only one game I have ever played has ever had a story I could ever consider on par with the best in the book and movie industries. That game is The World Ends With You, which is really the only game I have played which uses advanced literary tools while also following conventional plot rules (you would be surprised at how many games do not even follow the rising/falling action pattern), and most importantly a theme-driven story. It's too bad its gameplay, although exceptional even on its own, had an incredibly steep learning curve which inevitably detracted from some people's experiences. However, as it is the only storyline which has inspired hope in me for the future of storytelling in the media, it is definitely my favorite game.
I actually felt disappointed after I played The World Ends With You because I realized that all the other storylines I have played through and liked, most notably titles by Squaresoft (pre-merger), in worst cases would not even follow rules that have almost always been a standard in writing. For instance, taking the rising/falling action above as an example, the critically acclaimed and top-selling Final Fantasy VII did something strange. It quickly accelerated towards the end of Midgar, yet drastically slowed down and subsequently stayed pretty slow for the rest of the game. This makes me believe that the climax actually occurred in Midgar, and the rest of the story was like...I can't really describe it. So despite the fact that it had decent concepts for a story, it was not in fact presented in a manner that would never get it to classic status in a writing/movie environment except perhaps among a small fan community.
This is how I feel about storylines in games. Developers should at least try to compensate for the (at best) mediocre storylines we see in games with decent, original gameplay, if they are not going to actually create a storyline that can compete with those of literary/movie classics. Of course they could also just lower the price of the game to compensate for their lack of ability to create something that ranks among the best. And game reviewers should stop encouraging such mediocre games.
