/v/ - Video Games

>>15839806

what's that faggot up to these days?

How the fuck is that storytelling at all? It's just sensible enemy placement keeping you on your toes. I mean for fucks sake when your metroid counter is getting low of fucking course you know you're getting to the last boss, baby metroids or not.

>>15840604

well, compare to both am2r and Samus returns, where regular, non metroid enemies never let up, you get the feeling metroids don't prey on the fauna at all.

It also greatly impacts the mood.

>>15839750

the fuck? its holding the item with its foot

>>15840604

Imagine being this much of a dumbfuck.

>>15840604

>He wants ludonarrative dissonance in his player experience game!

>>15839750

>subtle background storytelling

>flat out didn't exist before videogames.

I don't believe it.

Thief TMA had it. The first level introduced the cogboys(I forgot their actual name) as a secretive religion not even Garrett is aware of.

>>15840797

Mechanists were just a group that were getting more popular as a sect of hammerites. Garrett was as aware as most people would be of a new fad until it becomes present everywhere.

>>15840726

It's existed as part of a greater whole in movies and comics but never as the primary way the story is told because, well, it can't. How do you do that in a movie? Have the camera pan over shit for 2 hours? I guess you can do it but it'd be suck.

>>15840856

>How do you do that in a movie? Have the camera pan over shit for 2 hours?

Do you pan over shit for 2 hours in a video game? "Background" story telling is inherently tied to something in the "foreground" and that's the story married to the gameplay. Basic or not there's something going on that the background is giving context to. There are plenty of animations, comics, and movies that follow actions of characters, perhaps in silence, while the background tells a deeper story (lore might be more accurate, depending on how you look at it). That's equivalent to the background contextualizing you as the player.

Doom did it. Several placements of enemies and decorations depict scenes of satanic sacrifice, worship and proceedings. In one level, imps are seen gathering around a shotgun, seemingly worshiping it. E2M9 shows off the rivalry between two separate species of demons, the cacodemons and the barons of hell. Many of the levels feature dead marines, showing the player that many have come and none have survived the demons up to this point.

>>15843494

okay I'll bite, whats the story in pong?

>>15843644

Two guys wanted to play tenis.

>>15843666

did they satan?

>>15843537

I think you are right anon, you can also sometimes see pieces of machinery with designs that make sense and you can believe were used for something but not exactly sure what for which made you wonder what exactly they were doing in those facilities. Does Quake have stuff like that too?

>>15839750

>Everyone shits on it

>Everyone

Try contrarian /v/ipsters and dumb faggy niggers.

>>15844677

I think if there's a Zelda "timeline" it's the same sort of thing as having different versions of the same myth, legend, or story told over the different ages. That's why none of the details ever match up exactly but some do sometimes. Through years of bad story-telling and the telephone game, the Legend of Zelda changes into something else. I really like how BotW gives people headaches, because it's probably the most interesting one to think of as being just a legend. It's certainly better than the story the actual game provides, to say nothing of the level design getting you there. At least the mechanics are there so they can make a good game with the engine eventually.

>>15840856

Does Lord of the Rings count? On the most basic level, it's the story of some guys trying to destroy a ring to stop an evil guy and save the world. But on another level, it's the story of the end of the era of magic and the rise of man as a force that can rule the world. But it's quite on purpose that that stuff is all in the background, and the main story is about two little guys who don't really know or care much about all those big ideas, they just want to do what needs to be done so they can go home and smoke some pipe weed.

You mention comics, and they're a big one. There are individual stories, sometimes multiple per issue (they were almost always multiple stories per issue until the '60s), but when you look at the series as a whole, there are bigger stories, arcs that you might not even notice. Certainly you wouldn't if you were a kid and didn't get every issue. Then a creator's whole "run" would have a larger but deeper story arc. And if you look at a character or even a universe's entire history, it becomes its own story. The DCU has a rich history of its own, the way it's evolved both literally and figuratively over time, but of course this is always in the background of character stories.

Or maybe you mean stuff like how Norman Osborn was introduced as a background character at J. Jonah Jameson's social club who was slowly built up, still largely as a background character, until he was eventually revealed to be the Green Goblin.

>>15844708

I'm sorry, but that whole "it's just a legend" thing never worked if you paid attention to the story in any of the games, which (almost) all explicitly reference events of at least one other game in the series, which means those two games can't be the same story. Zelda II is very explicitly after Zelda I. The one place I'll say your idea actually works is Link to the Past, which does not directly refer to events of either Zelda I or II. People all treat it like a prequel because of the title, but that's a localized title, and the original is just called Triforce of the Gods, not indicating it's a prequel. The game itself doesn't do much to strongly show it's a prequel, unless you look at the map I mentioned or a few other things, but sure, those can be interpreted in other ways.

But then Ocarina of Time comes out, and it's very explicitly a prequel to Link to the Past. It's obviously letting you play out the backstory given in Link to the Past. It's retarded to think they're the same story when it's clearly just letting you play events described in the other game.

I skipped Link's Awakening, but that's also explicitly stated to be after Link to the Past, and given this is one of the times the story is actually pretty different (no Ganon, it's all a dream, etc), it would be dumb to say this is the same story. Same goes for the Oracle games, which are somewhat inconsequential, but end with Link going out to sea like he begins in Link's Awakening, and feature Ganon being dead like he is after you kill him in Link to the Past. So they fit in well there.

Majora's Mask explicitly takes place following Young Link after he goes back in time in Ocarina of Time. Obviously not a retelling of the same story.

Wind Waker explicitly takes place following the people left in the future after Young Link is sent back in time. Slightly less explicit than Majora's Mask, but really still quite explicit.

So there are two timelines made very explicit right away. The issue is with the pre-Ocarina games. I understand the instinct to interpret Ocarina of Time being literally the backstory of Link to the Past, and the discrepancies are because it's a "legend" and therefore stuff Link did gets misattributed to the Knights of Hyrule, but then that's our assumption. If you take it at face value, Link didn't save the day in the backstory of Link to the Past. But the triforce was within him so he had to meet Ganon and then lose, or else Ganondorf would never turn into Ganon. So therefore it has to be a third timeline where Link lost against Ganon. Frankly I don't think it's elegant, but it's what happens if you take everything at face value. If you just actually read the stories, they tell you that this is what happened.

>>15844729

>think it's just a piece of "what if" fanart

>check it out

>it's fucking real

>>15844779

Holy hell those are some cute rodents.

>>15844834

I don't mean I skipped it in real life. I mean i skipped it when chronologically going over the games in order, so as to better show the link between Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. Gameplay-wise, every 2D Zelda is great.

>>15844779

I almost forgot to elaborate on the best example, which is Sonic 3 & Knuckles, particularly the fact that Knuckles story is actually a sequel to Sonic & Tails' story. This is never explicitly stated, but made clear by background details, like the backgrounds of levels being different, and enemies only being partially defeated by Sonic & Tails, but fully destroyed by Knuckles. I had a whole fucking big ass post like that previous one written, and then my browser crashed. So fuck it. Anyone can look it up. But it's a great example, and it's all done with zero dialogue.

>>15844762

The last I heard of that, it was postponed indefinitely because their lead coder was an absolute shithead who wanted so much control over the project that they had to forcibly remove him and basically start all over again. Something about having his own DRM to protect his code against pirates and thieves in a free fan project, a refusal to work with the team, and just generally being a complete dickhead.

Looking at their home page, I can see they've made serious progress, which is great to see. The music they made for the remake is pretty damn good, too.

>>15839750

Background story-telling existed before video-games. There are plenty of novels that use the technique of having a primary story between characters with secondary narratives and the explanations for why things are the way they are as descriptions without being outright stated.

Take The Road by Cormac McCarthy for example. The story is a father and son trying to survive in the apocalypse. You're never told what happened to end the world as we know it, or why, but you can put it together from the clues in the story. It's not essential, but you can.

>>15840856

it's called mise en scene and there are entire books written about how to master it to tell a story in a movie without ever saying a word. It's an art-form in itself.

>>15844743

The whole "the games can't be retold legends because some games are explicitly sequels to retellings of the original legend" argument keeps cropping up. How hard is it to understand that the games that retell the same basic story are retellings of the legends, and that the direct sequels are in fact sequels but only to that specific legend?

Take Dracula, for example. There's the original Bram Stoker novel,there's the Universal movie series, there's the hammer movie series, and recently there's a retelling from Mina's point of view with Dracula as the misunderstood vampire, each canon exists on its own but stems from a retelling of the original Dracula story.

>>15844857

>actually writing anything longer than a paragraph in your browser

If you're about to hit the carriage key when shitposting, copy and paste into your text editor. And don't use OS default Notepad or whatever, use something that periodically autosaves new documents to disk in case your PC crashes in the middle of it, like Notepad++ or Sublime.

>>15844889

>How hard is it to understand that the games that retell the same basic story are retellings of the legends, and that the direct sequels are in fact sequels but only to that specific legend?

It doesn't work because of how many are tied together as explicit sequels and prequels. Only a couple are a little more vague. At most you could try to argue Zelda I and II are not in the same continuity as the others. Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks all have extremely explicit connections. If you're gonna take like half the games in the series and admit "okay well those ones aren't retellings but the rest are," it kind of defeats the point, especially when even those other ones still have connections that imply a place in the timeline, just while being somewhat less explicit about it. And half of those tell wildly different stories that would barely make sense to be called a "retelling" in the first place. Link's Awakening and Oracle of Seasons/Ages have very different stories to the ones that center on Ganon, not to mention different locations (though Hyrule is still mentioned in them but Link has traveled away from it temporarily). I suppose Vaati is just another name for Ganon? Except for in Four Swords Adventures, when both of them appear. Or is that one the one that is the retelling and the other two in the series are not?

I'm sorry, the legend idea sounds neat, but it doesn't hold up if you actually play the games.

>>15844905

I'm sorry, Anon. My Sonic autism got the better of me. As you know, Sonic 'tism is the strongest form of 'tism. I'll do better next time.

>>15844552

Quake has visual storytelling, but it's definitely foreground: you go through decades old crumbling castles, rusted sci-fi military-industrial hybrid complexes, warped wizard palaces and eons old caves carved in alien cliff faces. You generally get the idea that you're not on earth, at least not on our earth. But from what I recall, you don't have set designs or thematic object placement. Ogres for instance can be placed anywhere, but for whatever reason they often get placed on chandeliers and balconies, not because anything in their design would dispose them to such heights, but because their grenade lobbing capabilities lends well to being placed up high.

>>15844929

Interesting point about the Vatii example. in Skyward Sword, Hylia is the only goddess mentioned. In Minish Cap, there are no goddesses but Zelda is implied to have some sort of power, either weird goddess powers or Triforce powers, it's not clear. On the other hand OoT has three goddesses that were hardly mentioned in the previous tales. We can also consider the chain of Demise, Vatii, and Ganon to be a similar pattern of changes.

>>15845029

Vaati appears in a game with Ganon. What you're seeing is simply each game adding bits to the lore. They tend to have more complex stories than the last. This is pretty much how it goes with every video game sequel. Most video game sequels also don't reference previous ones very explicitly either. There is little to connect Sonic 1 to Sonic 2 other than Sonic, Eggman, and the Chaos Emeralds. Does that mean Sonic 2 is actually a retelling of the legend of Sonic 1?

Honestly, if you want to play this route, the best bet you have is saying Super Mario Bros. 3 is literally a retelling of Super Mario Bros. At least that has the whole "it's a play" aspect with the scenery and such backing it up.

>>15845060

I dunno, I'm just going off what I see, and what I see is a game that can't really keep it's lore consistent, even in the more broad strokes sometimes. Then again I'm the kind of person that thinks Pokemon is a multiversial cluster instead of a set of timelines. Transformers lore might have fucked me up too, I dunno.

>>15845119

Christ, it's the Sonic autist again.

>>15840588

Still getting paid to faggot around everywhere he goes no doubt.

>>15845082

But Zelda does keep its lore relatively consistent. It adds new things, and some things are more important in some games than others, but there are few explicit contradictions. The biggest example, Link beating Ganon instead of the Knights of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, only sounds like a contradiction, but actually isn't. It's intended to be taken at face value and imply that the timeline of Link to the Past actually changes from what we see in Ocarina of Time near the end of the game. You could interpret it as a legend and claim that bit of the backstory of Link to the Past is wrong, and that Link actually saved the day and not the Knights of Hyrule, but that wouldn't imply Link to the Past is the same story as Ocarina of Time, it would only imply that Ocarina of time IS the exact backstory of Link to the Past, connecting them even harder and making them even more explicitly not retellings of the same story.

But yes, Pokemon is totally a multiversal cluster. That's obviously explicit. Black and White even explicitly refers to the other version of the game as a different multiverse. Every save file in every game is its own universe. Though there is an obvious order to the games, what you actually play is only in broad strokes what happens in the backstories or futures of other games. However, YOUR specific games are the backstories of YOUR other games. What you did in Emerald is canon to your own specific version of Platinum because of Pal Park. Also, Gens I and II are a different multiversal cluster than Gens III and later. But of course being able to trade with the 3DS releases of Gens I and II in the new games makes that complicated. They're still in the same omniverse and can still contact, but they're obviously more separate, with a much more different story. In Gen III and later, everyone always knew about Pokemon Eggs, while in Gen II, they were just discovered, along with 100 new Pokemon that nobody knew about when Red beat Team Rocket.

I love Transformers too. But I'm a massive Genwunner. But by that I mean everything before the series got rebooted. Generation 2, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, all those convention exclusive comics, the Japanese stuff, including the Japanese Robots in Disguise. All good until they had to start rebooting it all the time. The only issue is that the last story that includes the Generation 1 Optimus Primal and a few other Beast Wars guys is in those Universe comics that cross over with the other universes. If it weren't for that, I could have a nice ending with the big ape going to Jenwan with the other fallen heroes, like Optimus, Megatron, and Swoop. Those convention comics were cool until those newfangled universes fucked it all up.

>>15845152

Finally, somebody who gets Pokemon lore. Here's an interesting tidbit for you, the meteor in ORAS's Delta Episode and the one in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team both are (implied) to contain Deoxys, and both were destroyed by Rayquaza. So basically Zinnia was wrong about everything, proving that Delta Episode was the worst and might have prevented PMD from happening in some universes, who knows. I guess I really should work on my universal classification system, because I've got super autism.

I'm sure you like Kiss Players. Not the first part, that's boring. The second part with time travel and the insane Japanese story fixes. Similarly I'm sure the recent Legends comic is your style, wonder if it really will come back in full with the Big Powered set, or what. The only non-G1 franchise I'm particularly enthusiastic about is Animated, and mostly because the show gave me Beast Wars vibes and the lore is basically so many G1 and general homages they had to make two whole books of it.

>>15845197

There are actually good recent Transformers comics? I stopped paying attention entirely after IDW invented Trannyformers: Homos in Disguise. But again, my lack of interest in other universes makes me not keep up as well with most 21st century Transformers stuff. While I hear the Japanese lore is fucking insane with trying to tie everything into a single narrative, I've also been hindered in that by the lack of subs for some of the older anime, particularly Beast Wars Neo. So while I'd like to get more into the Japanese G1 universe stuff, and like what I've seen, I haven't fully read everything, like I have with the american/british media. British Transformers is my jam. I'm absolutely devastated that IDW's SJWism has suicided their own company so hard that now they have officially cancelled the last two or three volumes of their TFUK collection. We were so close. And I could get somewhat rare collections of Gen 2 elsewhere, but all the other UK collections are either fucked up "best of" shit out of order, or are some other new ones that are UK only and are expensive as fuck, especially with shipping. Plus I already have all the American ones and those other new collections are American and UK combined, which I wish is what IDW did in the first place, but they didn't, so now if i do get the other collections I'll have doubles of the american ones. Not to mention just being fucked up because it's a mix of two collections. The new ones look way better too but I'll never afford them. Just release the last three volumes, IDW, you SJW pieces of shit.

Sage for not video games.

>>15845228

I haven't been keeping up with the comics, but I can almost assure you nothing good will come out of that anymore. My brother has thought about working on Beast Wars Neo, but he's got so much other stuff on his plate now that I would not hold out any hope. At least Devastation was one of Platinum's best games, and and you can pretend War for/Fall of Cybertron are just yet another different G1 because even the devs knew Aligned wouldn't sell as well as nostalgia so they just went with what seemed G1 enough.

>>15845243

I hate how they call things that aren't G1 G1. What exactly makes IDW's comics any more G1 than animated, or the Unicron Trilogy, or anything else? It's a different universe, period. It's not like it's partially connected like how the cartoon and the Marvel comics are both sort of leading toward the movie/Beast Wars, it's just a 100% different thing. How the fuck is it G1?

Oh yeah, they figure if they call it that they'll make more money. Fuck that. Aligned is better than the IDW "G1" shit. But I still can't bring myself to care that much about Aligned. I still have plenty of actual G1 anime and manga to go through I suppose.

>>15845133

>getting angry at people for making in-depth posts on the thread topic

Mario

>>15845082

> Then again I'm the kind of person that thinks Pokemon is a multiversial cluster instead of a set of timelines

that's literally the official canon though and is very explicit as of USUM

>>15845388

Why didn't megalovania play

>>15845133

Where do you think we are? Did someone actually come to /v/ with the intention of not being autistic?

I am an autist of many things. Sonic, Mega Man, Digimon, Twisted Metal. To a lesser degree things I already mentioned in my previous posts, like Zelda, Pokemon, Transformers, capeshit comics. In reality we are all the same autist. I'm really autistic for when there are stories that aren't made perfectly explicit but are there if you look for them. Stuff you kind of have to piece together yourself, frequently over many different entries. What should I spill my spaghetti over next? Twisted Metal? Okay.

See people think Twisted Metal is just about cars crashing into each other. Okay, they know there's a killer clown and the contest is run by a guy who grants Monkey's Paw style wishes. But there are literally several levels of story deeper than that.

So the first game has a guy named Calypso and his face is all burned up. He runs some underground contest called Twisted Metal, held in LA on the night before Christmas every year. It's 2005, and the tenth annual Twisted Metal competition is being held. Calypso claims he will grant the winner a wish, but at the end, they have to fight last year's champion, who drives a tank called Minion.

One of the contestants is Mr. Ash, who drives a semi-truck called Darkside. Mr. Ash is the devil, come to take back his demon, Black. Calypso stole Black and has been using his powers to grant the wishes.

Another contestant is Mr. Grimm, the Grim Reaper. He's come to take Calypso's soul, implying Calypso is supposed to be dead.

Everyone knows Sweet Tooth, the ice cream truck. What everyone including the devs frequently forget is that the drivers have different names than the vehicles. Sweet Tooth is driven by Needles Kane. He's actually not that important in the first game.

Yellowjacket is a cab driven by Charlie Kane. He wants to find his long lost son. Calypso tells him that his son was the clown in the ice cream truck who he killed during the tournament.

Outlaw is driven by Carl Roberts, an LAPD officer who wishes to live in a world without Twisted Metal, so Calypso throws him into space.

There are plenty of other characters but I'm only covering a few relevant to a major plotline. There are many more subplots.

So there was an extremely rare Twisted Metal 2 comic. It details Calypso's backstory, where young William Sparks accidentally ran over his sister while playing with the car while he was a kid. Now he's obsessed with vehicle carnage, becoming the best demolition derby driver ever, which is where he got the stage name, Calypso, until he accidentally killed his whole family including himself in a car accident. But the devil (who we know as Mr. Ash) loves demolition derbies, so if Calypso can beat the demon Minion in derby, he'll get to go back to earth and hold more tournaments for the devil's amusement. The dead souls, who are almost the best drivers in the world, get sent to hell for the devil to keep fighting each other.

Now the thing to understand is that Twisted Metal stories don't just contradict the other games in the series, but stories will contradict other stories in the same game. Sometimes they contradict themselves, and you can be sure as hell that they contradict the comic. But you get the broad strokes and you can tell what they're going for. And some of the contradiction is justified, as I'll get to soon.

One example of a contradiction is seen when playing as Outlaw 2. Jamie Roberts is looking for her brother who disappeared (thrown into space) after winning Twisted Metal 2005. However, when she gets to the mid-boss, Minion, it still says Minion won the previous tournament. It says that no matter who you're playing as. Of course, it's also a contradiction that everyone is still alive even though the losers should all be dead. But then that happens in a lot of fighting games. But hey, we get the point of what's going on. There are still continuing elements.

One of those elements is the final boss, Dark Tooth, who is insane after you killed his son, Sweet Tooth. So we can infer that this is the drunk cabbie, Charlie Kane, who drove Yellowjacket in the previous game.

You can unlock Minion as playable in this game. They call his driver Minion as well, but his story is that he's a demon whose powers have been stolen by Calypso and Calypso has forced him to win Twisted Metal every year so he wouldn't have to grant wishes. So we can obviously see that Minion is the demon Black from the previous game.

There's a character called Roadkill in the first game, but in this game he has a new driver, Marcus Kane. He's a crazy man who knows the whole world is fake and he wants to wish to wake up and see real life. So Calypso grants his wish, and he wakes up in a hospital, surrounded by other people who look like the other contestants.

Another character is Grasshopper. Krista Sparks. Calypso's daughter just wants to see her dad again. Turns out she was rebuilt by the LAPD after she died, and now she's a cyborg with a bomb in her chest with the aim of getting close to Calypso and blowing him up. She can't stand to see what he's become.

Oh yeah, Calypso's face is partially healed in this game. And he made the tournament take place all over the world and not just in LA.

Twisted Metal 3 and 4 are by different devs and some consider them non-canon. Given the nature of this series, I don't think it makes a big deal to include them or not. Later sequels would leave it ambiguous if they are canon or not. It's not important though so we don't have to talk much about them.

The next game is Twisted Metal: Black, the first for PS2. The original devs came back and it's seemingly a reboot, many recurring cars have new drivers, and many recurring drivers have new backstories. Also Calypso looks totally different. Needles Kane isn't just a killer clown, he was cursed by a crazy preacher and his head is literally on fire. There's a car called Manslaughter who is driven by a character named Black, who wears a gimp mask and seemingly wants to kill Calypso. He is a secret character, and secret characters only have one cutscene, unlike the three given to the other characters (the second of which is always their backstory). So Black's story is very vague.

Another character is Yellowjacket, driven by Charlie Kane & Son. Charlie was shot in the head while driving his cab, and his autistic son saw the whole thing. So he rigged up some device to turn his dad basically into a robot zombie, then controlled him to win Twisted Metal. When he wins, Calypso explains that he wanted his brother, Needles Kane, to be his successor. But since you just killed Needles, his younger brother will be even better, so destroys the machine controlling Charlie and takes the boy to train.

If beat the game with every character, you unlock the mid-boss, Minion. He has no cutscenes at all. However, he still has loading screen text. But it's all just numbers. However, if you decode all the numbers, it tells you that he is Marcus Kane, and that this whole game takes place in Sweet Tooth's head. "This is how Sweet Tooth sees his life," and Marcus misses "the old colorful world." So basically, the real story of the game is only found if you 100% the game and then are really quick at writing down codes on loading screens before the next levels start, and then you decode all those codes.

But wait, don't forget that Roadkill's ending from TM2 already said that that world was a dream too.

After Black, the same devs immediately made Small Brawl, for PS1 again for some reason. It's kids with RC cars, and it's seemingly intended to be a prequel (to the original games' universe, not the universe in Sweet Tooth's head). Young Billy Sparks holds the tournament, and a lot of characters are younger versions of ones from the other games. Not that important to the story except it uses the William (Billy) Sparks name from the comic.

Then there was Head-On, for PSP. A sequel to 2, or maybe 4. Not Black. Right off the bat, a lot of characters' stories all rely on them winning Twisted Metal 2. Whatever. Grasshopper is now a ghost, maybe because she got blown up, or maybe she just never got turned into a cyborg. But she wants to wish to be alive again, and Calypso is aware of her this time, but says she needs to win in order for him to be able to grant the wish. In the end, she instead wishes that the accident that killed her and her mom never happened, so Calypso would never become evil. Calypso grants her wish, and everything seems fine, but we see that the new world we saw was only a dream, with Krista now in a hospital in a coma, Calypso using his powers to influence her dreams, saying there are some wishes that even he cannot grant completely. Then two doctors are having a conversation and mention that she's been in the coma for 12 or 15 years. 12 lines up if this takes place a year after TM2, and 15 lines up if it takes place after 4.

Roadkill is back and is Marcus Kane again. He wants to know the truth, and Calypso reveals the truth, that actually he is Needles Kane. He wakes up and looks in a mirror, seeing Needles' face.

If you beat the game with every other character you unlock Dark Tooth, this time driven by Marcus and Needles Kane. As they're beginning to unite, they are becoming more powerful, and at the end of their story, they fully team up to drive Tower Tooth, the game's final boss (which of course you beat to get this far, but that's not the point. You also beat Dark Tooth even though you're playing as it). The point is that Marcus finally gives in to Needles.

When Head-On was released on PSP, it included bits from Twisted Metal: Lost, a game that was never completed when several key devs all died in a plane crash. It was meant to be a sequel to Black. One important bit is that the driver of Manslaughter, Black, was revealed to be the same Black from the main universe, sent into the dream universe by main universe Calypso to kill dream Calypso. Whether Lost is "canon" is unclear. But then "canon" in this series is very loose anyway.

So then there's the PS3 game just called Twisted Metal, from 2012. Again seemingly a reboot, Calypso is a well known tycoon (seemingly like the main universe) who runs Twisted Metal, which the public thinks is a myth or conspiracy theory (unlike the main universe, where everyone knows about it and there are multiple government task forces dedicated to fighting it). One theory said by The Preacher (whose incarnation from Black is explicitly crazy and doesn't see the world straight) is that Calypso is the devil.

The game has only three stories but they're longer and take place one after the other. The first is Sweet Tooth, who was once Marcus Kane, an ice cream truck driver, until one day he just woke up and went nuts, killing his family and becoming Sweet Tooth, the killer clown. Recall that Head-On had Marcus wakes up and become one with his inner Needles persona.

As in all the games, more stuff happens but it's not important to my point. Anyway, at the very end of the game, we see Calypso's office, and he has a whole bunch of items from all the games, from all three universes.

So basically, Twisted Metal is the story of the devil or a guy with demon powers manipulating into a man's dreams, and then his dreams within dreams, to influence him into becoming a serial killer. And everyone thinks it's just about cars smashing into each other.

There are lots of other cool plotlines that I'm sure people miss, about aliens and time travel and gangsters and all sorts of stuff, but this is the central one. Twisted Metal is cool.

>>15845400

Fuck. I forgot to mention one of my main points. See the contradictions are all justified because they're all dreams. Contradictions are allowed in dreams. The highest level game, the one from 2012, is the one that is seemingly not a dream, and the only one with a consistent plot (as the three stories aren't alternate versions of each other, showing what would happen if different people won the same tournament, but they're consecutive, and one story happens after the last). The other games can contradict even themselves, because each time you play is a different dream in Marcus/Sweet Tooth's head.

>>15845115

>So what was that story that the localizers thought we didn't deserve to see in Rockman World II? Oh nothing, just that Wily uses a time machine to go to the future, where future Wily is legitimately reformed and is a great ally to Doctor Light. So present Wily pretends to be future Wily so he can trick Rock into reprogramming him for evil and sending him back in time so he can fight present Mega Man. Mega Man is then forced to kill his own future self.

The fuck? Interesting as hell

>>15843853

Yes, but they were crippled, so they invented video games.

>>15844779

But how did Professor Gerald create Shadow? Does that mean Sonic and Knuckles share the same lineage?

>>15845119

I wonder if any of that stuff is cannon, though MM's storyline is kind of a mess, X even more so. I actually liked the game boy games despite the crazy plotlines, they had some cool levels.

>>15845133

I'd rather have someone here autistically talk about video games for a change.

>>15845740

I didn't even mention that Knuckles Chaotix is also part of the main pre-Adventure story arc. After the Master Emerald fell back to Earth in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, its energy reacted with another part of the land of the ancient echidna civilization which, rather than being thrown into the sky, was sunken into the sea. The Master Emerald energy has caused the island to rise back to the surface. On the island rests The Dark Ring, the tool used by the dark elders of the Echidna tribe (with the leader later being named Pachacmac) to harness the Chaos Energy. Eggman of course immediately finds The Dark Ring and starts using it for his purposes. The Dark Ring creates Chaos Rings, which are then what Knuckles and his friends collect throughout the game instead of Chaos Emeralds.

This further implies what the actual purpose of the rings are in universe. They were used by the ancient echidnas to harness Chaos Energy. This makes sense as other rings, like the large Super Rings found in Sonic 1 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles act as portals to the Special Stage, the dimension of Chaos energy that the emeralds are sent to. So if rings tap into the Special Stage and thus can access a bit of Chaos energy, this would explain why they provide a bit of immunity from damage. They have a tiny fraction of the power that Sonic can get when he has all seven Chaos Emeralds, which grants him invulnerability.

The cancelled Sega Saturn game, Sonic X-Treme, was also going to be interesting, focusing on the dark elders, as a group called CHAOSDOOM, who were sealed inside the Master Emerald and now their evil is leaking out due to Eggman cracking the emerald. It's interesting to see how this evolved into Sonic Adventure. Another aspect of the story involved Sonic having to collect The Rings of Order, the opposite counterparts of The Chaos Rings from Knuckles Chaotix, which would make sense if the Chaos Rings were what the dark elders, Chaosdoom, used to get their power.

However, I don't know if Sonic using Order as his source of power fits thematically. I think if anything, Sonic, who recall along with Eggman is a prophesied chosen one, is destined to be the embodiment of Chaos, but the good form of Chaos, representing freedom, while Chaos the god represented the bad form of Chaos, representing destruction. Almost as much is stated at the end of Sonic Adventure when Sonic can still use the Chaos Emeralds at the same time as Perfect Chaos because Chaos is only using the negative energy of the Chaos Emeralds. Eggman, by contrast, represents Order, as his whole goal is controlling everything, including the Chaos. He turns the wildlife, epitomized by Sonic, into robots to power his machines. Eggman is destined to try to steal the Master Emerald, which controls the Chaos, while Sonic has no particular use for the Master Emerald, he uses the Chaos Emeralds instead, only to ensure the Master Emerald isn't misused. Sonic is essentially the physical embodiment of the primal force of Chaos, and Eggman is the physical embodiment of the primal force of Order.

Yes, I realize I just said that Sonic the Hedgehog actually has metaphors and deeper literary meaning. I stand by it.

Also, here's a video specifically on only the Sonic games that take place before Sonic 2, mostly Game Gear games, just for peak autism.

>>15845751

Gerald had visited the Mystic Ruins and Angel Island and knew all about the echidna lore. He then started working on Project Shadow, hoping to create an immortal recreation of the prophesied Ultimate Life Form, from which he could then derive cures for diseases, particularly the not-AIDS disease that Maria had. He also discovered the Gizoid, an ancient weapon that harnesses the power of the Chaos Emeralds, and it's probably not a coincidence that it looks a lot like Chaos 0. He saw it was dangerous, but also saw he could try to instill in it a bit of a heart, a conscience. But the government took it away before he was finished. He continued working on ways to recreate the ULF but his solo attempts resulted in the Biolizard. Then Black Doom arrived, who also seemingly knew a lot about the Emeralds. He agreed to help Gerald make a successful Project Shadow if the result would then be used to help him collect the Chaos Emeralds (because remember the ULF is destined to collect the Emeralds) 50 years later. Black Doom's DNA was the missing piece that Gerald needed, but it caused Shadow to have the same colors as Black Doom's species, The Black Arms. Gerald agreed to Black Doom's terms, but actually gave Shadow emotions and heart, with Gerald and Maria's influence causing Shadow to be good instead. He then created a giant planetbusting laser on the ARK, the Eclipse Cannon, which in Sonic Adventure 2 Eggman uses to blow up half the moon and threaten the earth. But this is not what Gerald Intended. He intended for Shadow to collect the Chaos Emeralds and use them to power the Eclipse Cannon to fire at Black Doom's Black Comet, which he uses to travel through space and will use to invade Earth. After the government invades the ARK and kills most of the people on board, including Maria, because they fear Project Shadow, Gerald goes nuts and instead repurposes Shadow and The Eclipse Cannon to just fire the laser at the Earth and destroy everything. But that's not why they were actually created.

Most of this is not really subtle at all. It's just the plot of Shadow the Hedgehog. The bits about Gerald actually visiting the Echidna shrines is only implied, though, unless you get A Ranks on every mission in the game and unlock Super Hard Mode, which has new dialogue, including dialogue which explains the origins of the Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK levels. It still doesn't explicitly say the same thought process was used to create Shadow, but it's very easily implied at that point. Also I included bits from Sonic Battle that are only told in extra text blurbs that appear if you beat a level a second time after beating the whole game. So that's pretty secret, but actually integral to Shadow's story.

>>15845645

Fucking weeb. The (((localizers))) know better than the original creators, and you'll only get the parts they want you to get. I bet you also think Sonic doesn't live on Mobius, or Mario isn't from Brooklyn, or Kirby isn't angry all the time. Next you'll tell me that Fire Emblem once had a waifu petting mechanic, which never existed, but was super creepy and problematic, by the way.

>>15845827

I see no reason to not count any of this as canon. Quint is obviously canon, he's referenced in Mega Man & Bass, and nobody claims that's not canon. Other Mega Man Killers are also in other games, like Mega Man's Soccer. Okay not the best example, but still.

People try to say Challenger from the Future isn't canon because it's licensed out to Bandai, but I don't see why it wouldn't count. It doesn't contradict anything. Just adds a cool little bit of story on to the end of the series, which actually is sort of inconsequential since it's basically just a cooler redo of the events of Rockman World II.

Some also try to say that the future described in these games is only an alternate future, but again I don't think there's much to confirm this. In fact, these events would provide a good motive for Doctor Light to create X. You could say that Rock knowing the events of his own future would cause him to not be tricked in the future, but there's not much to confirm if we're working on time loop rules or changeable future rules, since there isn't much more time travel in Mega Man.

Long running series like this are a lot more fun if you just include practically everything to be canon, even the things that are seemingly inconsequential. Why not count more stuff? It all just builds a richer story.

>>15845065

>>15840679

Hey storycuckolds. Games will never be art.

>>15846513

Story shouldn't be the main point of a game. That's why it's fun when the story is only in the background. Those are the best video game stories.

>>15846513

>thread celebrating stories that shit on cinematic games as art

>stories that realize gameplay is king and stay in the background to compliment it

Anon, please listen when we tell you this time for once. You're retarded.

>>15846881

>It was advertised as a prequel.

Yes. Advertisements are not the game itself. That's why I gave that caveat. Still, obviously everyone knows Link to the Past is a prequel. When people act confused over the Zelda timeline, they never mean Link to the Past, even though if you're paying attention it's actually the one with the weakest link to any of its predecessors. But we still all understand that. To understand that one but get confused over others just means you weren't paying attention during the others.

>>15849990

I just figured Battle took place before Shadow the Hedgehog.

Something not being referenced directly a lot doesn't mean it's not canon. Sonic 1 isn't directly referenced in the story very much. It's obviously canon.

>earliest

I'm not sure, but I really liked the "background story" in Metal Gear.

I loved it when I realized that Big Boss is fucking you over and trying to get you to get yourself killed.

>>15850052

The Metal Gear series at the start wasn't bad with story. But it certainly becomes a horrible example over time, with it basically becoming more of a movie than a game eventually, with like 45 minute cutscenes. The series pretty much becomes the exact opposite of what OP describes.

>>15850059

Oh yeah once it becomes Metal Gear Solid the story is done totally different but that first one really struck me with the implied story. It's funny looking back and seeing how the more recent titles are pretty much the exact opposite in terms of how they convey the story

>>15844857

>This is never explicitly stated, but made clear by background details,

One specific detail I can recall is that when Sonic&Tails beat Mecha Sonic, the ground gives way but he's just sitting there sparking. When Knuckles beats him, he completely explodes into pieces.

>>15850051

Rouge and Shadow shacking up in Battle probably make it easier for the President to have a picture of Shadow on his desk but doesn't explain how he clearly doesn't know who the Professor or Maria were in the opening of his game despite knowing both their identities and the events of SA2 in flashbacks by the time he hangs out with Emerl in Battle.

>>15850120

Other background hints are the sky being exclusively shown in Knuckles' version of Angel Island Zone, lack of Death Egg in Launch Base, and the island itself being airborne (but steadily decreasing in altitude as time goes on) during his Mecha Sonic fight. Shame they retconned the Super Emeralds in the lore though.

Where are the autists from the Digimon threads who always go crazy with the lore of Mugendramon and Millenniummon? Few stories rely on more obscure and convoluted details than that.

>>15839806

>>15839758

>not posting this classic

For shame.

>>15857316

I played hours of that Bone Village minigame and I never noticed the crashed jet there.

>>15839806

Wow. Even the Nintendo versions of Tetris had no "Soviet music", it was classical composition from the era of the Russian Empire. And Tetris existed in spite of communism, not thanks to it.

>>15839750

>It's an amazing thing because it flat out didn't exist before videogames.

t. Never read a book before

>>15860994

Fuck off Quentin-lite, subtle storytelling is not the same thing as having a plotline you can skip in it's entirety and requires more than reading between the lines to find.

>>15845400

>devs died in a plane crash

Is this a joke or it twisted metal just reall really meta?

>Everyone shits on it because Dark Souls made it popular

No, people shit on it because it was fucking awfully done and most of the "background storytelling" is entirely in the minds of the few people who give a shit. In Souls the vast majority of the storytelling is finding an item and magically getting some tidbit of knowledge.

>pick up a glove or knife

>suddenly know that person X did Y once and then died

Too bad because Demon's and Dark Souls actually had good gameplay, which turned to shit after the first two games and all the current fans care about is muh lore and the broken garbage they call PvP.

>>15861431

why do you think the player and the character always know the same things?

it could be that the character always knew everything and the item descriptions are just his knowledge, or it could be that he doesn't know anything and the descriptions are just narration.

>>15861320

Not a joke. Maybe "the real world" from Twisted Metal 2012 is just also another layer of dreams, another dark nightmare manipulated by Calypso, and we're in it.

Crash Bandicoot 1 tries to do this a bit. So just to get the basic story out of the way, as described in the manual, Cortex is using two machines to create an army of mutated animals to take over the world. The first is the Evolvo Ray, which mutates them into humanoid forms, and the second is the Cortex Vortex, which brainwashes them to work for him. Crash was intended to be the general of Cortex's army. None of this is described outside the manual, but is referenced in sequels. If you wait on the title screen, eventually a cutscene will play which shows that the Cortex Vortex malfunctioned while Crash was being subjected to it. If you just begin the game when prompted, this will never play, and there are no cutscenes or text during the game until you get to one of the two endings. But the level progression manages to tell a bit of a story. The closest you get is that the first level begins with Crash waking up on a beach, implying he drifted all the way from the third island, where he was being held, to here.

You make your way from the beach into the jungle. You have to pass a giant gate into territory controlled by the natives. Make your way further into the island, beating the native chief (Papu Papu) as he tries to defend his tribe's fortress (the level called Native Fortress).

From there you get to the second island where you work your way upstream (literally called Upstream) and begin to actually fight guys that work for Cortex, starting with Ripper Roo, the first mutated animal goon he created, who you fight at the mouth of the stream that you just worked your way up. Due to being a prototype, the Cortex Vortex never worked quite right on him, and he was left crazy (perhaps somewhat like Crash, but at least he's still loyal to Cortex. Sorta. More on that later).

After Ripper Roo, you find this island has ancient ruins that suggest a more advanced civilization than the one you met on the first island. But this isn't expanded upon much. Then you fight Koala Kong in a volcano. Koala Kong is the opposite of Ripper Roo, where Cortex focused more on the Evolvo Ray rather than the Cortex Vortex, leaving Koala Kong dumb but strong.

The third island is where things get interesting. First of all, it's actually two islands. On the first of these two islands, you begin by hitting Cortex's factory (Heavy Machinery). After that, you get to the power plant that powers the factory (Cortex Power), followed by the generator room (Generator Room), then the dumping site for the toxic waste (Toxic Waste), and finally the boss of this area, Pinstripe Poteroo, who is a rich gangster who runs the power plant. Coming after the imperfect Ripper Roo and Koala Kong, Pinstripe seems to actually be working properly.

So you have a level where you cross a bridge to get to the island that Cortex's castle is actually on (The High Road), then you have to take a Slippery Climb up the outside of the castle to find a way in. After getting through the inner workings of the castle (Castle Machinery), you fight Cortex's assistant, Dr. N. Brio, who defends The Lab, and finally get to The Great Hall at the roof of the castle, where you can either advance to Cortex or take the secret route to the secret ending.

In Crash 2, the 100% ending of Crash 1 isn't canon. Except for the parts that are. Like Ripper Roo getting treatment and education to become Professor Roo. In Crash 2, Crash is tricked into working for Cortex, but Professor Roo is now fighting Cortex and is the first boss. This makes sense because the Cortex Vortex never worked properly on Ripper Roo anyway, so if any of the animals would turn on Cortex, it would be him. But after you hit him once he goes crazy again, so there goes that.

The manual of Crash 2 also reveals that it was actually Dr. N. Brio who created the Evolvo Ray, and he's turned on Cortex because he's mad that Cortex stole the credit. So all the earlier creatures, as well as the ones in Crash 2, were actually created by him. So there's a justification for him being able to create new enemies like the Komodo Bros. and Tiny Tiger.

So eventually Cortex demands Crash actually hand over the Crystals he's been collecting under Cortex, but Crash has been warned by the now reformed N. Brio as well as Coco (who never actually gets an origin. Maybe she was created by N. Brio?) to not trust Cortex, so when push comes to shove he fights Cortex and his new assistant N. Gin and gives the Crystals and Gems to N. Brio to use to blow up Cortex's new improved Cortex Vortex which he was going to use to brainwash the whole world. Notably, in the last world of the game, when you're actually fighting Cortex, you fight no mutated animals, only robots and a couple regular animals, because Cortex doesn't have the Evolvo Ray, that's N. Brio's.

In Crash 3, Cortex also doesn't have any mutated enemies, only humans and regular animals (and actually the humans are revealed in the background of the secret Warp Room to be robots). There are two notable exceptions, Tiny and Dingodile. But Tiny is a violent retard, so of course he'd be more easily tricked into working for Cortex (as contrast to how Ripper Roo defected away from Cortex after he became educated, and Crash was easily tricked by Cortex until N. Brio and Coco taught him better). Dingodile is explicitly created by a new process of combining two species of animals, a different thing from the Evolvo Ray.

In CTR, there's a secret character called Penta Penguin, who is a regular enemy from Crash 2. He is also seen in Crash 3, celebrating when you defeat Dingodile (because the enemies from Crash 2 work for N. Brio and Dingodile works for Cortex). Because of his antagonistic role, while he's technically still a good guy, the mask that protects him shows up as Aku Aku on the icon, but is Uka Uka when you actually activate it.