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Storyline and Characters: The Bare Essentials
While on the usual search for a game to review, I ran into a game that caught my interest. I couldn't remember what the game was thanks to a review for that game that had a quote that literally knocked me out of my chair:
"...but normally I care less about the story, because it is not neccessary to make a good game." D:
Story is ABSOLUTELY neccessary in making a good game, which is especially why i've put up this tutorial.
The Concept:
It's pretty clear that you have to do some ammount of thinking before you can go "Eureka! I have a story!". What kind of story do you plan on doing in the first place? Is the story plot driven like FFI, or more character driven like SMT: Persona 4? What is your story themed around? This will help to prevent making a cop out story based on the characters collecting some-odd number of magical stones, jewels, etc. before the "great evil" does. For example, the story could be themed around the concept of death and how it plays a vital role in the story.
The story could also be based on an old legend from Europe, Asia, etc. And last, but most important, how does that theme shape what your world looks like? So, lets say you decided that you would center your story on the legend of Susanowo and his fight against Orochi. With this in mind, you now have two directions to go in, you can decide to set your story in a world that looks similar to Japan circa 720CE or you can go in a different direction like in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger(Not an rpg exactly but good enough example) and give the story a more futuristic setting, or it could be a mixture of the two, again the same game as an example.
The Characters:
Normally comes as its own tutorial but the story is also influenced by the characters. What sounds more interesting, a story about a hero on a quest for revenge but mainly plows through hundreds of random encounters until he reaches an event that has something to do with his revenge? Or, it could be the same revenge story but on the way meets up with other characters that share his goal or disagree with his need to seek revenge?
If you picked the latter then you understand that characters can also influence the story, but in a different way. You can have an rpg with a great original story, but the characters were so bland that you either stopped playing or finished the game and now can't remember the names of the characters or what they even did in the story.
When you think of the central characters in your story, try to consider how each will interact with the other, and by that I mean with every character in the party. Are the character all linked by a common goal that drives them to work with one another until they reach their goal, or do the essentially all hate each other but share a common interest(usually some sort of legendary treasure) and are forced to put up with each other until they reach that prize.
Do the characters counter each other in terms of personality or Beliefs? For example a character with a strong belief in justice gets teamed up with a more hard-boiled character who believes solely in doing whatever it takes to get what he wants or the intelligent but straight-laced character that gets stuck with the freewheeling "like the wind" character that believes in the moment. Why are these differences important? The first being that it actually sets the foundation of each character's personality and their likes and dislikes.
The second is that it sets the path for character development. The characters, though with their personal differences, overtime learn to work out those differences in order to survive their journey and reach their goal.
Human Characters vs. Super Legends sent from God on the Moon:
It's hard to really like a story when your character is a first-class knight who finds out that he's not just any ordinary knight but a demi-god sent by Heaven based on the Moon to fight the one thousand demons of the Fellworld. It would be extremely difficult to create a story when the character can do anything. Characters with human problems, strengths and weaknesses, characters that you can actually go "Hey, I remember that character!" are the types of characters that will also keep you interested in the story. This aspect is more like something to work out yourself but don't go overboard and make them completely emo.
So basically:
Super Godly characters: Bad
Characters you can relate to: Good
All in all, if you're reading this, be sure to take in everything that was put in this tutorial seeing as it's the only one to say anything about the part of an rpg that really makes or breaks its playability.
"Read this tutorial, there is meaning in you reading it..."
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Details
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Tutorial:
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Storyline and Characters: The Bare Essentials |
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Date Listed:
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2009-08-03 |
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Author:
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eien_tsubasa
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Total Hits:
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4362 |
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