Memorable game plots?

[Digital]

What games do you think have the most memorable plots? Games where the plot and stories were so good that you can still remember all the twists and turns?

How did the plot affect your overall impression of the game?

 

[Nate]

Kinda necro'ing here but felt like giving input on this...

The Altador Plot on neopets was my favourite plot I ever did as a child. 

It is actually what inspired me to create the "Cecies Disappearance" plot when I owned IcePets 4-5 years ago. 

 

[Aminirus]

Currently, the two that come to mind are Okami and Tales of Symphonia. Symphonia probably the most out of the two because of how in depth the overall story was and how you could decide certain outcomes between friends and allies before the end. There was even parts in there that had me surprised and hit all the heart strings.

Okami was different but enjoyed the story and how it progressed. How things of the past influenced the future and how each character felt unique and important in their own way.

 

[Nate]

I guess the real question here is: What makes a good plot?

 

[Aminirus]

I guess the real question here is: What makes a good plot?

I personally think that what makes a good plot is something a human can relate to, some sort of emotion or situation that someone can connect with, whether it be a feeling, or an action, or even a good memory or experience. 

 

[tiff]

I guess the real question here is: What makes a good plot?

That's a tough one, and one I've tried to think about a lot. To start: I think an interesting premise can be very valuable in that it can get people excited about a story early on. This is very useful both for marketing a story and also for getting an audience engaged early. However, a lot of works are very memorable despite having premises that seem sort of boring, and some works have very good premises which are executed poorly, so ultimately the final quality of the work is not that great. So, what else is there? 

I think as far as plots go, there are some things that tend to be better. For example, it's good if you can make your plot not too predictable. I know people often complain about plots being too predictable when they watch movies or play games. In my mind, making a plot not too predictable is partially about avoiding cliches, but it's mostly about creating interesting dilemmas where the solution is not obvious. I think it's also important to realize that making a plot have random twists doesn't make it better if the twists don't fit in well with the story. (See: Jumping the Shark) 

I remember a long time ago, I heard the writing advice that you should always make sure you make your stories start with some sort of question that the reader wants an answer to. I think this can be a good way to keep people wanting to know more, but it is important to make sure that the answers to the questions you present are also interesting. Mystery for mystery's sake can be cool, but I've read a lot of works which seemed to try very hard to build up an atmosphere full of intrigue and tended to fall flat as they failed to provide interesting answers. I tend to also get very impatient at works that overuse this tactic and make the plot drag on without closing any plot threads. XD

At the end of the day, I think I could go on and on about the sorts of things which make a plot well-structured or interesting. I could give you a giant list of cliches to avoid and so forth. But let's you follow all of the conventional advice on what makes a good plot, and you take absolute care to make sure you construct a beautiful plot with no plotholes, lots of interesting mysteries, and some unique dilemmas with clever solutions that are not obvious to the audience. At the end of the day, this might be a nice story, but it might still not be that memorable. Personally, in my opinion, while having a well structured and thought out plot can make me feel that a story is well-made, a good plot is not specifically what I believe tends to make stories memorable.

When I think about a story that I thought was good, I usually remember the strong emotional reactions I had to the story. ie: "It made me cry" or "It was sooooo funny" or "x character was totally AWESOME!". These things can exist even in stories which have "sloppy" plots with lots of loose ends. At the end of the day, I think people tend to enjoy stories for the feelings they get: relating to characters, feeling happy or sad, feeling that a work "speaks to them". As for how to create that sort of emotional impact, that's a topic that can and does have books written about it haha. 

I know I was sort of vague here. I have a lot of thoughts on the topic of what makes a story/plot good, so I think I may or may not return to this thread later with more specific examples of some of my points. 

I will also say I absolutely not a professional writer by any means, so my opinions are just those of someone who enjoys stuff. But, I do like to read about what makes writing good, and I've read two books on writing that I both very enjoyed and felt had good insight: "On Writing" by Stephen King and "Writing for Emotional Impact" by Karl Iglesias. I would recommend reading either or both of those books if you want to know more about how to write a good story. Or, if you haven't already, I think everyone who writes should read some of TV Tropes' guides on writing.