So I've seen a number of people talk about Captain Toad and complain about the lack of a story. - I haven't played it yet but from the obsessive research I did into it via resources like GameXplain I've gotten the impression that it has a rather good story, conveyed through impressionist means.

By which I mean it tells the story of two 'adventure buddies' who will brave any danger for each other. Rather than simply being a case of 'Mario saves the Princess' it actually changes throughout in terms of who is risking their ass (while adorably sh*tting themselves) for who. Obviously the intention of switching between them is to make you feel an almost 'parental' concern for the playable character you now have to rescue. This is reinforced by how powerless the character feels while you're guiding them.

Not a world shattering plot, but a good one which not only embraces but seems to enjoy being a game and looks to exploit abilities unique to games. I have to ask, would this be better recieved if the story telling was less defused into gameplay mechanics and art direction, and presented much more bluntly in dialogue? - That is to say the same plot and same themes with a different method of expression.

Well, talking is free, you just have to move your lips and make noises.

If we're talking about speaking characters in games... that's diffirent. Some games might benefit from no talking, while others will suffer *cough* Hyrule Warriors *cough*

I should feel bad about answering the title while OP has nothing to do with it, but I'd prefer it to be more expensive.
Seriously we get a lot of dubs in french here and they are always really, really bad.

Also if someone told me it was possible to convince me to play captain toad for the story i'd never have believed him. Well played OP.

This is a very interesting concept as well. I am currently only set-up to work on indie projects which I imagine may remain 'strictly English' for the time being, but please PM me if you have any names of any afforadble companies who translate game respectfully while mindful of quality. 

I think you are reaching too much in your search for complexity. It's a more kids-oriented games and those will always have weaker stories (Lego games, LittleBigPlanet, etc).

This kind of subtle narrative you add here isn't very uncommon in story-driven games. The final hospital sequence on TLOU and the earlier Ellie sequences are good examples of non-dialogue gameplay mechanics and plot decisions made to create a better relation between player and user.

Frankly it's still overpriced for indies, we only ever see AAA getting dubs.

As far as subs are concerned, it's still kind of expensive, i mean translators take an average of 70$ dollars per page if i remember correctly. IMO, your best bet is making the system the most open possible to render fan translation easy (All text to be dynamic and stored in easy to moify files)

People actually expected a story from Captain Toad.. What?

No, rather people seem to be ignoring the fact it potentially has a simple but emotive one which is told through impressionism and seems to utilize mechanics unique to games to further its intentions. I mean it should be obvious its intended to have one given the fact you switch characters at certain points in said story's progression but... well it goes back to the key question of this thread, do we need dialogue for people to look at games as sharing a 'story experience'. 

Perhaps its because I've attended courses in both game design and media analysis but I can see a solidly emotive, though unspoken and basic, plot. Though your answer is actually quite useful to reinforcing the idea that, perhaps, a less diffused and more bluntly apparent 'story' may be better recieved. Then again their is the argument to be made that for games like this being subtly emotive is by far the better choice.

Regardless I am very excited to play it after the 'sort of Lets Plays' I've watch on GameXplain since the Japanese launch. Sadly I'm in Europe.

I am not denying it can be done alongside dialogue driven play. I'm raising the topic of that happening WITHOUT dialogue. Obviously Captain Toad isn't trying to win an award for being movie like, no one is saying The Last of Us isn't a great story-game, nor is anyone arguing that Captain Toad doesn't remain a gameplay driven puzzler. 

My question to you is, since you seem to dislike the example I picked because of the overly impressionist style (which is fine, to each their own), do you feel The Last of Us could have achieved the same story highs if designed from the ground up WITHOUT ANY DIALOGUE. 

That's a good question. We have a lot of examples (specially cinema and animation) of reaching high quality narratives without any dialogue. I think that it wouldn't work that well because it has a lot of subplots. When you want to pass a concept without words, the best thing is stick to a single, very, very strong idea and spend the entire game buiding it to a climax where you finnaly shows the full picture to the player and everything makes sense.