Roundtable: Is Good Narrative an Excuse for Bad Gameplay? 

Question: Does a strong narrative exempt a game from issues in its gameplay? In terms of difficulty, lack of engagement, or simply poor game design, is such a narrative enough motivation to push through an otherwise unsatisfactory experience? 

Preston: Whether people playthrough an entire game that has poor game design depends mostly on the community the person belongs to, expectations from that community, and expectations from publishers. Four examples, the Assassins Creed franchise, Far Cry franchise, Xcom franchise, and the Mass Effect franchise illustrate this fairly well.  

Assassins Creed games typically suffer from poor mechanics, lack of difficulty, poor game design, even bad story elements and people still push through. Do they complain about it? Absolutely, but the game is still pre-ordered and played. More recently, the games have gotten better in mechanics and story elements, yet the quests and story elements remain repetitive.  

The Far Cry games have similar issues to the AC ones. People still pre-order those and play through. They complained heavily about the cookie cutter maps, fighting, and repetitive mechanics. Just take a look at the steam page. The two games above are examples of what people typically do when poorly made games come out. They push through since we like story, but we actively complain, for good reasons, about the design grammar and inarticulate mechanics.  

Blake: I have two answers to this question, but let’s begin with the negative answer for the sake of brevity: I’m running into this issue right now with my first ever playthrough of the original Kingdom Hearts. Growing up, I fawned over the idea of a game that lovingly combined the best of the Disney and Final Fantasy universes. Every trailer I watched, every Hikaru Utada song pumping through AMVs (Anime Music Videos), indicated to me how vast the KH narrative would be. Fast-forward to this past month where I finally picked up a copy of KH with the intention of recovering lost gems from my gaming childhood. And the question I keep asking myself is deeply tied to the topic of this roundtable: I don’t consider KH difficult, but I am frequently frustrated by outdated player expectations and game design. I am not engaged while playing (e.g. repetitive combat), but I think the cutscenes and world building are brilliant. Finally, I keep asking myself if the potential narrative – whether the end of this game, the reward of moving on to KH2, etc. – is enough for me to keep going. Or do I just cut my losses, watch the “movie” of the game’s story on YouTube, and move on? I hate that feeling. As much as I often express my love for compelling narrative being the crown of good games, I would in most circumstances have chosen to put down KH already, all things considered. I am doubtful in this instance whether narrative is sufficient to keep the player driving on, or if the eventual payoff will redeem the game as a whole. I don’t think KH should be held exempt from this sort of critique, even as I press on. We’ll see if the payoff redeems the struggle. 

Andy: I love the differences in direction both Preston and Blake take this question. And I think that’s the crux of my answer: it depends on a few things that are mostly contextual and based on personal experience and understanding. The subjectivity of context and opinion are too easy to tailor an answer for either end of the spectrum regarding what constitutes a “satisfactory” experience overall. Where I think we benefit most is if we first distinguish, as objectively as possible and within reason, what makes a strong narrative and what passes as “issues in gameplay”. We gain little if we are always inclined to persuade each other under the guise of opinions, especially when analyzing anything filtered first through our perspective, contextual selves. With that said, I’m not able to objectify my answer at the moment.

I’ll be using Gris as my example. I started Gris with the intent of figuring out what made others report it as a masterpiece. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t overly excited about the potential experience Gris could provide; I was outright giddy. However, I found quickly that my expectations were too high. The opening scene and first level spoil most of the narrative and gameplay in one fell swoop: solve puzzles and bring back color to the world. I appreciate the complexity and interpretative nature of the narrative in Gris, but the gameplay was simple and monotonous. There wasn’t enough narrative nor gameplay between each color to keep me engaged at any level deeper than puzzle-platformer autopilot. I continued on out of principle. I needed to finish what I started to not only solidify my understanding of Gris and my lackluster experience with it, but also to debunk the “masterpiece” mirage. I did not thoroughly enjoy Gris‘ quiet narrative, and I could sooner forget the gameplay, but I did finish it. I had to. To which end of the spectrum is my experience? 

Preston: Two games where people didn’t push through though are: Xcom: Declassified was a mess in terms of game design with paltry story. The game tanked and was forgotten about. The community in Xcom won’t allow for poor game design. They want a game that challenges them as it tells a story. They want a story that feels like it is difficult to move through since the mechanics and gameplay put up a challenge. A game that fails this is not worth playing. See the Steam reviews. People tell you to stay away, to not even buy it on a sale. 

Mass Effect Andromeda was a hurried, administratively bungled mess. The game lacked in all categories. I and countless other people pre-purchased the game due to the beauty and complexity of the previous 3 games. I played for about 4-6 and then never touched it again and sought a return for it. The reviews tell a similar story. Bioware and EA’s administration and leadership messed up horribly on this game by removing multiple project managers, switching developers, and moving up the time frame. Will this game be played through? No. The ME community denies this game.  

Two communities are on show in this post. The AC/Far Cry community who pre-order and play games with complaints, usually finishing the game. They complain, rightfully so, about the games, yet they typically complete them. This is in part due to the players not seeing many improvements in the previous games yet still wanting a story from the franchises that continues the narrative. The player base, from AC, has come to expect cookie cutter games, the same can be said for Far Cry players. This has become more or less standard, at least when considering the publisher who releases the games.  

The want for a story to play through is the main driving force here, with concerns over mechanics and game design coming in secondary. Even with the player base sometimes accepting a mediocre game there is great contempt and dislike for the way the publishers and administration handled the game’s creations. The other Xcom/Mass community is not okay with the any deviation from good, already established game mechanics. This is mostly due to the games, especially Xcom, requiring mechanics to orchestrate movement through a story. With Mass Effect, the bar had already been set with the three previous games. Any disembarkment that alters the game in a negative matter from that established scheme means failure or dislike by the community. The community remembers the issues with Andromeda and we’ll be careful about Anthem. 

Ben: I think that “exempt” is a powerful word, here. Every game is obligated to present some form of coordinate gameplay, even if this gameplay involves selecting different dialogue like in The Walking Dead or Life is Strange. Ultimately, the gameplay here still exists in decision making. So when asking if a game’s narrative could potentially exempt a game from having issues with its gameplay? Absolutely not. Games have told really interesting stories before, see Dragon Age II, and still been punished by their relative fanbase for being janky to play. I do think there is room, however, for games to have bad gameplay and still succeed on the back of a strong narrative. This can be seen in games like The Last Guardian, where the mechanics are often frustrating and immersion breaking. Preston does a good job of identifying a key point here: how the game and its development manages the expectations of its audience is of upmost importance. Something like Dark Souls or XCom would be unlikely to get away with poor gameplay mechanics at this point in their franchise. 

Blake: One of my favorite games of all time is The Last Guardian. One day I will publish my forty-page essay on that game, but for now let’s focus on two aspects of the game: the extraordinary story, and the tedious gameplay. When I played The Last Guardian, the puzzles and level design were rarely straightforward and obvious. One section in the game, the water-based levels in particular, was absolutely maddening. The game tasks you with controlling Trico, getting him to dive underwater while you cling onto his body for dear life. I swear, I must have spent about two hours in one of those diving rooms, where Trico would not for the life of me behave as I instructed him to. Even with a walkthrough open, I only passed that level in a fluke. That said, once I got past that god forsaken water level, I fell back in love with the game. From that point onward, the game picked back up, the story increased in importance and scale. By the game’s end, I was in tears. I still hold The Last Guardian very close to my heart. In that instance, narrative absolutely and entirely redeemed what I was experiencing as difficulty and frustration in the gameplay.   

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