It's hard to gauge this game. It's intriguing but...feels a bit dry. Definitely not full price worthy.

[StackzGaming]

I quite enjoy cutscenes. No problems with those.

But this game suffers from the "Tales of Aionios" curse.

For those that don't know the term, "Tales of Aionios" is what was released under the name "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" - but isn't a Xenoblade game at all (the DLC, Future Redeemed, is second best in the series and fantastic.)

In "Tales of Aionios", you're tossed right into a war you don't care about, then suffer through a bunch of conflict scenarios that you don't care about and piss poor (or lack of) world building and character development.

That's what ReFantazio does.

I prefer games that understand how to build to things properly (and I understand that modern gamers hate that style of storytelling).

Take Forspoken. It starts with the "real world" experience, a normal girl, who suddenly stumbles upon the journey, then along the way learns the truth of herself, climax is a battle to save this new world. The story isn't great, but it's told the way stories are supposed to be told. Start out by trying to make the player care about the main character. Slowly introduce other characters and elements (world building). Don't just throw people right into the fight scenes simply because we're in the ADD era.

This kind of presentation is what made Soul Hackers 2 so terrible. I'm not sure that what I played is worth full price; especially since they said this is from the beginning of the actual game.

I would argue that this is even worse than Tales of Arise, and I didn't think that was possible.

[JCKLNTRN]

You cite Forspoken as an example of "the way stories are supposed to be told", while ignoring that the story of that game received a very mixed reception, at best.

There are many different ways to tell stories, you may not like styles such as in medias res, but it has been around for thousands of years, and it's frankly stupid to assert it's somehow inherently a lesser method of storytelling.

[FPS]

This is a brilliant bait.

[ShockedHearts]

this game is playing with the term fantasy, and we as the player are important to the story. Im willing to bet your complaint is probably a point the game is making regarding how fantasy is perceived.

[TwoDucksOneAnus]

I feel like the prologue did a decent enough job of contextualizing the broader conflict while leaving enough questions unanswered that I want to keep playing to learn more about the lore. I get where you're coming from though.

[Hayato (Pitt)]

You lost me when saying Xenoblade 3 isn't a Xenoblade game and that it has no, or at least bad, character development
Some people are just dumb and can't help it, but usually you should keep this stuff to yourself lmao

[Griever]

I just played nier replicant for the first time and that game pulled me into the story way more than this game. What really doesn’t help Metaphor is the terrible boy anime protag and annoying combat system and bad graphics.

I will probably still buy this but it has problems. It’s all over the place. The UI is also meant to be stylish but in cities you have popups everywhere when people have thoughts, it’s just badly designed.

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by Griever:

I just played nier replicant for the first time and that game pulled me into the story way more than this game. What really doesn’t help Metaphor is the terrible boy anime protag and annoying combat system and bad graphics.

I will probably still buy this but it has problems. It’s all over the place. The UI is also meant to be stylish but in cities you have popups everywhere when people have thoughts, it’s just badly designed.

NieR Replicant was better than I thought it would be. I enjoyed it more than Automata, frankly. And yes, Replicant is a great example of a fairly well told story. I didn't think it was "meaty" enough, but it got the point across, built to what it wanted to tell very nicely, and left me generally satisfied.

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by JCKLNTRN:

You cite Forspoken as an example of "the way stories are supposed to be told", while ignoring that the story of that game received a very mixed reception, at best.

The STORY got a mixed reception. I felt the story wasn't great - as I said.

But the TELLING was done well.

Plenty of games have a basic or generic story that's told fairly well for what it needed to do. Grandia III comes to mind as does Alliance Alive.

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by JCKLNTRN:

You cite Forspoken as an example of "the way stories are supposed to be told", while ignoring that the story of that game received a very mixed reception, at best.

The STORY got a mixed reception. I felt the story wasn't great - as I said.

But the TELLING was done well. It didn't just throw Frey right into the middle of a fight with some unknown beast and expect you to figure it out or even care why she's there or why she's fighting, Elden Ring-style (garbage storytelling).

Plenty of games have a basic or generic story that's told fairly well for what it needed to do. Grandia III comes to mind as does Alliance Alive.

[Chaser324]

Dude, what are you talking about? Starting a story "in media res" isn't a new thing that video games just invented. It's been a storytelling technique for an incredibly long time. The Iliad was written about 3000 years ago and that starts in media res.

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by Chaser324:

Starting a story "in media res" isn't a new thing that video games just invented

No, but video games weren't doing this in the early Playstation era and before with the exception of Last Remnant and maybe Final Fantasy XIII that I can recall.

Even Final Fantasy XV, as bad as that was, started out with introducing the characters and the world before actually showing the king getting killed.

[Spardacus]

Forspoken story telling is awful, whats wrong with you? Whats next, Rings of Power?

[Pmirum]

This gotta be bait, you cannot unironically be using Forspoken as a good story telling example.

[Chaser324]

OK. This person is 100% just trolling. Claiming that Forspoken and FFXV are examples of good storytelling is ludicrous.

[Fine And Dandy]

Xenoblade 3 is peak fiction. Get a job.