I'm feeling pretty cautious about Kid Icarus: Uprising. I'm still buying the game day one, but I'm not going to be surprised if I end up somewhat disappointed with it in the end. Everything about the title just seems a bit... off.
Thankfully, there is one aspect of the game that's sounding just right to me. According to the game's director Masahiro Sakurai, Kid Icarus: Uprising will have "...a ton of talking", but he "...didn't add all that voice in order to tell a story." The reason for that is he thinks "...movies and such are much better at telling stories in an effective and enjoyable way than games are". Even better, he goes on to say that "...while there is a story, we don't advance it by forcing players to sit and watch some tedious briefing scene or anything."
It sounds like the voice acting and dialog in Kid Icarus: Uprising is more about bringing personality, tone, and atmosphere to the game than shoving a linear narrative down our throats, sort of like the mid-combat banter found in the Star Fox series That's a relief. I'd rather tell my own story through playing Kid Icarus: Uprising my own than have it told to me through unplayable "movies."
[Via Nintendo Power]
Jonathan Holmes is the most lovable Associate Editor on Destructoid. Catch him on videos, original editorials, and on back episodes of the Destructoid Show and MTV's Road Rules. Jonathan is a retro gamer's gamer.
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Contest:
9:00 PM on 02.05.2012 | 
On a more serious note, I'm glad the mojority isn't cutscenes. The fast-paced look of this game wouldn't work well with that.
because you go see shit?
Journey looks to be a pretty enjoyable story, and that game probably has minimal cutscenes and NO voice acting.
*sigh*...those were good times.
Seriously. Games like Mass Effect, Uncharted, several of the Halo's, Mafia II, GTA: San Andreas and IV, Red Dead Redemption, etc. are just as good if not better at telling stories.
Hell. Even the Call of Duty's (minus World at War) would make for completely amazing action flicks.
Although maybe it's because I have no imagination, but I've never had a time where I "had the story told to me through gameplay" or I've never praised the lack of voice acting because "it makes me feel like I'm in the game" or any of that. Professionals can tell me a better story than my imagination is capable of.
But wait... I can't say that. What I CAN say is that some games are much much better at telling a deep story than many movies. And vice versa.
I am no saying that games are 100% better at telling stories. I am saying that games have something unique going for them when it comes to storytelling, and a game can draw you into a world much better than a movie can. Heck, I never thought a game could take my breath away, but many like Ocarina of Time, A Link to the Past, and even Modern Warfare did just that.
Honestly, if your mouth wasn't on the floor when you witnessed what it felt like to be inside a nuclear explosion there's something wrong with you.
It depends on the developers of each medium on how to successfully create a balance between story, characters, pace, etc. It's a bit naive to say that one medium trumps the other.
today's movies sucks!!
it's all explosion and shit.
nuff said
That said, it's quite hard to see it those games. This kind of game uses both story/cinematic and gameplay to tell it's tale. Beyond that, it uses it's time to construct something we can remember.
Films are about 2-3 hours of lengh, while game stories must go much more because game can last to 6-80 hours long.
I've never wanted to drown someone in a lake until I saw my best friend skipping all the cutscenes in Enslaved:Odyssey to the West because he "didn't care and he just wanted to play". It was like seeing an impatient ass kid throwing away all the cereal from a box of Lucky Charms and only eating the marshmallows.
Damn, that got me sad. I'm a wuss when it comes to innocent children who get blown to bits.
I expect Kid Icarus: Uprising to be defined by its gameplay, not its narrative.
That's your hang-up then. Let people enjoy games they want and you enjoy them the way you want.
I don't care for video game stories myself, personally. I just want to press buttons and beat up/slash/shoot stuff. I'm not going to dismiss anyone's preferred way of playing as long as they don't insult mine.
Personally, I think using games strictly for storytelling is a waste of their potential. Much better use them as a canvas to hold my own experiences and ideas, and not just the prescripted "stories" that the developers want to "tell" me.
Really though, how would you write a compelling story about angels, mythological characters, baby grim reapers and eggplant wizards?
Also, Other M. If you think Nintendo should go near cinematic storytelling again - Other M is my counter. You could argue back "Skyward Sword" but people NOT TALKING or not writing expository nonsense is what saves Skyward Sword from being Other M.
Better writing would not have saved Other M, though. Metroid is at its best when the illusion of freedom is kept intact and its kept that way by keeping cinematics down to very minor, rare events and letting players fill in the gaps either on their own or through text-hased lore.
If anyone wants Metroid to be more cinematic after Other M, please go take a flying leap. Or just do it if you think Kid Icarus should be the game to do that. Or any Nintendo game invented out of a Miyamoto drug fantasy.
Never said that people shouldn't play they way they want,I'm just saying that it's a pet peeve of mine, like people that wear saggy pants and cars with spinners,people can do what they want,but I don't have to like it.
I just personally prefer games to have a story as thin as it may be (Just Cause 2, for example) and the characters to have an actual motivation and reason to do what they do,rather than "here's some guy, kill him for some reason". I do enough of the "make your own story" thing when I play D&D.