RPGs often have the best stories in games, and it's easy to see why. They are often longer than most game types and give players a chance to bond more with their party. While that's true, it's also true that RPG stories can drag, so they're not always the best representation when it comes to naming the best stories in games that can rival movies.
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Games themselves don't need a great story to be great. These next games may not make sense, but they sure are fun.
Survival horror, superhero and interactive adventure games can all have compelling stories, whether they are long or short. Their stories in the following games will be based on drama, characters, how everything fits together, and more.
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Final Fantasy Tactics: History of Ivalice
A medieval plot of families and cults
Final Fantasy Tactics: History of Ivalice This is an enhanced version of the PS1 original game aided by voice acting for the first time to further this complex yet rich story. Before and after battles, there will be scenes with in-game models discussing everything from dreams to political coups to believing in magic and worshiping the underworld.
The individual characters, especially the draw between the protagonist and antagonist, Ramza and Delita, help propel the story forward into something that connects beyond a medieval fantasy game. The strategic gameplay definitely helps make this game a treasure, just like a great game of chess Game of Thrones.
Personality 5
Supernatural teenager willing to change lives
Personality 5 Follows a group of teenagers who gain magical powers through a phone app that transports them to another world. In each major chapter of the game, players will have to change the heart of the ruler of the region by sinking into their metaphysical temple. It's complicated, but it takes into account the speed of the game.
It's a slow burn, but the story works because the teenage protagonists are caring, goal-oriented, and flawed like all teenagers. This slow build helps players bond more with the heroes so that unique elements in the story, such as being able to summon monsters, seem more realistic from a turn-based RPG.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
A pilgrimage certain to end in death
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 A turn-based RPG full of drama set within a picturesque world where the titular campaign is a pilgrimage to exotic lands to fight an evil witch. The subject matter is dark, and the consequences are often harrowing, but the game manages to inject some levity to lighten the mood a bit to help players move forward.
Whether it's dealing with quirky NPCs like Francois, who act harder than they are, or recounting good times during camp interactions from the main party. The characters are flawed, but determined to see this journey through, and that's a big reason why the story works to keep things completely out of whack.
Dispatch
An interactive hero drama
Dispatch One of the best modern superhero games, and players never pull a punch. Instead, gameplay is relegated to conversation with branching dialogue options, and everything affects how the character reacts to the main protagonist, Robert Robertson III, and how the story unfolds. Basically, as a former superhero, Robert must manage former villains and adversaries who now want to be good for a superhero dispatch agency, which involves tough decisions.
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Being too strict can make the employee cringe, but being too passive can turn that character into Robert. Even though the game is about superheroes, how the story plays out is skillfully handled from a dynamic and realistic perspective, no matter what options players choose.
Disco Elysium
A hardboiled detective story
Disco Elysium A hardcore detective story set in a dark world where everyone is out for themselves. Players assume the role of Harrier Du Bois, a detective who has dementia, but is still tasked with solving murders. This one murder has spiraling cracks that connect it to almost everyone in the era, each with an opinion on the situation, or how other people may have been involved.
Disco Elysium An RPG, but without combat, players fight with words on a dice roll to determine the outcome of the conversation, which gives them a greater connection to the story and how it plays out, for better or worse.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
In search of Ciri
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt An action RPG and the conclusion of the two previous games in the series. While it begins as a continuation of the search for Yennefer, she appears rather casually, and the story then shifts to Geralt, inquiring about the whereabouts of Ciri, who is like his daughter/student. Each area is a great challenge in the players journey, linking to several main and side quests.
How players decide to answer these quests can change the perspectives on these individual episodes, such as the first major dealings with the Red Baron and how his village, wife, and child will be treated. There aren't any great decisions in the game, but making those tough choices is what's so compelling about the story beyond the brutal beatings.
Marvel's Spider-Man
Peter Parker is a human superhero
Marvel's Spider-Man Another great superhero story, but this one has a more direct interaction. Players assume the role of Peter Parker, a well-established web-slinger in New York City at this point in his career, who has often dealt with the kingpin leading up to the game's main big bad, Doc Oak.
Players will follow a similar story Spider-Man 2The film, as they call Peter and Dr. Otto will see the results between Octavius, who is disturbed by the poor use. They will feel a tug at Peter's heart because Dr. Octavius was essentially a father figure. Peter must decide if being a good son/friend is more important than saving the entire town, along with several other key decisions that send the hero spiraling.
Baldur's Gate 3
Speaking of character selection
Baldur's Gate 3 Another long turn-based tactical RPG that is well paced between major events in the story, each with its own set of problems. Whether it's a local town being attacked by monsters or an affair with a town set deep within a forest preserve, players will pay attention. Also, the way each episode relates to individual party members is fantastic and gives them more of a role within the campaign.
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Player choices are important, shaping the story and their party in major ways, including something as simple as the race players choose when creating a character. The players are the story, and each campaign will be as different and as interesting as the last, which proves how much staying power it has as a massive RPG. Baldur's Gate 3 is
Red Dead Redemption 2
A high drama western
Red Dead Redemption 2 Not the western type of chasing the good guy or the antihero with a lot of action. It is an intimate story about the main character, Arthur Morgan, in his waning years as a bandit. His group, the Van der Linde gang, is doomed after a bad deed or two, and players can decide whether Arthur's last day on Earth should be positive, helping others find their way, or whether they should help Arthur survive as a bandit.
It's a high-drama western that really comes alive in big set pieces like the train robbery, but the voiceover dialogue between Arthur and the characters he meets could rival some of the best Westerns or Banner movies of all time, all thanks to the writing.
The last of us
A story of two souls bonding
The last of us A linear survival horror game that will have players hooked from minute one, thanks to a great opening. It begins with the protagonist, Joel Miller, at home interacting with his daughter, Sarah, as his brother, Tommy, tells him that something big is happening, which then leads to a zombie apocalyptic event and time moves forward decades.
It's a brilliant and engaging opening that will tear players up, but it only gets better from there as the story continues with job-hardened Joel who finds himself traveling from Boston to Seattle to give birth to a girl, Ellie, he wants no part of. There's the Infected and the Attackers all wanting the pair dead, and the individual episodes all add something to Joel and Ellie as characters. It's definitely a dark story, but one with a lot of heart when it comes to the journey of two soul bonds over time.
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