I like Team Ico games. Ico is alright but I love Shadow of the Colossus, mostly for the boss rush, but also for the vague storytelling I was talking about before. I'll be last to submit SotC as proof that games are "art" though. Ptooey.
But sometimes the storytelling can be so vague that it's almost nonexistent. I felt that was the case with SOTC, especially since there was no character interaction for almost the whole game. How much can something be credited for telling a good story when most of it is created from the viewer's own imagination? Imo, SOTC left far too much to the gamer's imagination to be considered a good story. ICO did a much better job of balancing mysteriousness with telling a coherent story.
There's a tendency with the mainstream to overemphasize the importance of a plot in storytelling but at the same time, wannabe art connoisseurs also tend to undervalue a tight plot with a proper ending.
How did SotC not have a tight plot and a proper ending? It has a fantastic ending. What games are you even referring to.
If you felt SotC's story was non existent, then I am sorry. You go through a sacred land killing a bunch of baddies. Some of them are even cute! For the sake of your own selfish desire to see your lover alive again. Meanwhile, while you kill them, your skin gets paler and paler, your hair whiter and whiter. The game doesn't mention this, but you can certainly SEE that killing these things is taking away your humanity and your soul. But you can't stop this, the game doesn't mention this, and you have to keep going. The difference being that if this was a movie, it's not me playing a part. But since it's a game, it's on ME. By end game, you have lost everything, tricked by a god, as you transform into a shell of a human, a demon all for one woman's love. I find it to be a pretty satisfying story.
It just seems to me Hollywood gamers just can't get the appeal of simplicity because they want to validate the medium and make it like it's on par with film or some bullshit. And yet through that simplicity is better than any story offered by some faux Hollywood game with barely any cutscenes.
I've been playing Ghost Trick and you alter the story through the gameplay while the cutscene is playing. No sitting there waiting for my turn. No, no, no sir. I alter the story, continue the game, and solve puzzles while the cutscenes are playing in the game itself.
Actual player interactivity will always top cutscenes.
And this is why the latest GTA's annoy the fuck out of me. Stop talking, shut the FUCK UP, overwrought character melodrama and pathos is not going to make me LIKE you and the story you are in. I preferred the more simple take of the ps2 GTA's. Only a few lines is said, but the stories tend to be more open-ended and left to be interpreted rather than being some stupid overly long narrative.
TLDR: I hate hand holding.
