Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky

Heavy Rain unfortunately had questionable writing, voice action and just sucky gameplay which distracted me from the story. I wouldn't call the story good.

Half Life 2, F.E.A.R. and Halo CE had strong emotional stories without the need for a cutscene every 5 minutes.

Environmental story-telling is orders of magnitude harder than cinematic to do properly, that's why we're not seeing so much of it.

Can't blame devs too much though, not many games pulled it off properly, and I can understand why most of them shy away from it, but I would really love to see more of them going that route - that method is much more immersing and rewarding, well, at least for me.

Flower

The Last of Us. *there may be some spoilers in the post*

The stories that were present in the notes throughout the world were usually very engaging and believeable, strenghtened by the art style, the world design.

The story of Ish was greatly told only through notes, and the present affairs in the sewers. I actually hope he may get a DLC.

I'm gonna be that guy and say Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger but if you want unconventional examples of how in game dialogue and situations in general can make you feel attached to characters -Persona 3 has very few cutscenes, i would take a wild guess and say 10 and only HALF of those are during important events, important parts of the story are almost exclusively in game dialogue yet the whole game manages to trap you in such a way that in the end... -- Another personal example is .hack//G.U. while the games have cutscenes these are mostly to explain or give 'importance'/emphasize cerntain things and very very bad trying to tell a story, that's the game's job again mostly through in game dialog; Great story.

Gwynevere from Dark Souls, I was enraged to learn that she's not real and brutally murdered Gwyndolin in every play through, one does not simply toy with another man's penis.

Halo: CE, Keyes...., Halo 2 leaving Cortana behind, Halo 3, Majora's Mask, Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, Red Dead Redemption, many more.

I was gonna make a smartass reply to this thread but I must agree with you there.  Never thought I'd be so bothered by flower petals getting electrocuted.

i was never really moved by a game, until TLOU. Right at the beginning part. you know what part im talking about. That kept me thinking about it hours after i was done playing that part, in a bothersome way at the time.