Does anyone dislike involved storylines in platformers?

[Gamerforlife]

I think every game should have three rules

1. ZERO screens before the title screen. If I want to know who made the game, there should be a menu I can access for that information. Most of us already know who is behind a game before we even play it anyway. I'm also sick of blu rays with forced movie trailers before I can access a main menu. We live in a society now that is built around wasting people's time. You go to a web page, you have to get rid of a pop up before you can read the article, then wait for trackers, banners, video ads, java scripts, and other garbage to load up before you can actually read that page. You click on a youtube link, you have to wait for a commercial to finish or wait until the option to skip it appears. It's sickening. This is the world we live in now. Waste people's time at every opportunity. Like the fifty billion TV ads we deal with every day aren't enough already, in recent years that shit has invaded the internet too. There's simply no escape anywhere from being advertised to anymore

2. ALL cut scenes should be skippable. I'm sick of game's half assing it and only allowing you to skip some cut scenes.

3. All dialog should be able to be scrolled through quickly with the push of a button.

And lastly, we seriously need to do something about these bullshit load times in our games today. I love Sly Thieves in Time, but the load times in that game are AWFUL.

[Violent By Design]

I think every game should have three rules

1. ZERO screens before the title screen. If I want to know who made the game, there should be a menu I can access for that information. Most of us already know who is behind a game before we even play it anyway. I'm also sick of blu rays with forced movie trailers before I can access a main menu. We live in a society now that is built around wasting people's time. You go to a web page, you have to get rid of a pop up before you can read the article, then wait for trackers, banners, video ads, java scripts, and other garbage to load up before you can actually read that page. You click on a youtube link, you have to wait for a commercial to finish or wait until the option to skip it appears. It's sickening. This is the world we live in now. Waste people's time at every opportunity. Like the fifty billion TV ads we deal with every day aren't enough already, in recent years that shit has invaded the internet too. There's simply no escape anywhere from being advertised to anymore

hmm? there's been screens stating what company has made games before the title screen for ages now.

[AppleQueso]

I'm thinking a good chunk of those pre-titles are also required by licenses and such. They should really let you skip all of the logos at once with a single push of the start button though. If I didn't want to see the first logo, why would I want to see the second or third? It honestly isn't something I'm too bothered by though.

I do agree with the cut-scenes and dialogue thing though, they should always be skippable. One thing I would also like to see more often though is the ability to pause a cutscene. Sometimes there's important info in a cutscene, or perhaps I'm actually getting into the story, and I need to answer the phone/go to the bathroom/someone needs to talk to me/whatever. Having zero option besides "skip" and "watch" is rather annoying.

Xenosaga, for all its problems, did cutscenes right at least. Start would pause it, and while it was paused you simply either pressed start again to unpause it, or you pressed X to skip it altogether.

[Gunstar Green]

Stories really only get in the way when they're not very good or just poorly integrated with gameplay and interrupt the pacing.

While it's sometimes okay to dump walls of text and cutscenes on a player in a slower paced RPG, it's going to get aggravating a lot faster in an action game.

That doesn't mean action games can't have great stories, you should just try to be a bit smarter and more efficient when telling them.

[ZeoDefender]

Anything more than "The President has been kidnapped by ninjas" is just a waste of time that I could have spent jumping on things or stabbing guys.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Stories really only get in the way when they're not very good or just poorly integrated with gameplay and interrupt the pacing.

While it's sometimes okay to dump walls of text and cutscenes on a player in a slower paced RPG, it's going to get aggravating a lot faster in an action game.

That doesn't mean action games can't have great stories, you should just try to be a bit smarter and more efficient when telling them.

This is very very true. One of the things that I enjoyed most about old sonic games was that it conveyed a story without saying a word or really disrupting the flow of the game. In Sonic 3, you knew the story of Knuckles without at any point in time being told with any words, cutscenes or voice acting what that story was.

There are times when you need this in a platformer and there are times when it works wonderfully and an enthralling, emotional experience can be conveyed. Does it happen with every Platformer? No. Should it happen for every platformer? No!

I am fine with the involved storylines if there is a valid reason for it and it is executed wonderfully.

[Scissors Shrimper]

Pretty much the only reason I have yet to complete the Mega Man Zero series is because of how tiring it gets having to mash through text at every mission, especially when you're trying to hold onto a decent rank. Great games, but man do they ever burn you out.

[ZeroAX]

As with most games, story through level design, personal experiences and set pieces = good. Story via cut scenes = movie.

Super Metroid did it best imo. But even they failed to repeat that when they made Metroid Fusion (not too bad, but still too much text compared to Super M).

[Toktogul]

I'm on the opposite. While I do agree that platformers aren't the most suited for 30 min cut scenes, there is some games that keep me playing simply because I can't wait for the next cut scene, because the story is very interesting.

Recently I picked up Castlevania on PS3, while it's not a good example of a platformer, the story and my love for Castlevania's series are the only reasons that kept me playing. Now that I'm further in the game, it gets more interesting, but it's mostly due to the good story. I heard bad reviews about the 3ds version, which is a real platformer, and I think I'll give it a shot, simply because of the story. I swear to god, i feel like a terrible gamer, as soon as it's 3d, I feel like i get 100% worse, and I enjoy the cinematics more in those games than the actual gameplay (example : Metal gear Solid. I love the series, Its the most nostaligic game, but i'm having hard time playing the following games. the only reason i kept going was to see the next part of the ''movie''. Metal gear solid is now a series where I have to work my ass off to get to the next cut scene, it's that simple, that's why i put all my games on easy mode now, to get to it faster

I guess that's why I'm a retro gamer, I enjoy 2d games art, music and gameplay, and new games, i enjoy the good quality cinematics

[Gamerforlife]

Puppeteer is actually a really strong example of how story can enhance a platformer. The story and gameplay are completely intertwined in that game. The story is constantly unfolding AS you're playing the game. There's always stuff happening in Puppeteer from moment to moment. It's not a game where you just play through a level and then get a cutscene, although it does do that as well

One of the best games of 2013 and likely to be one of most under appreciated as everyone's talking about Ratchet & Clank, Rayman, Tearaway, etc. etc. It's a real shame