1. The Big Reveal
When information is purposefully witheld from the audience so that a single important plot point that "explains everything" can be revealed near the
climax or end. Prime example: Dr. Harris's vague threats all throughout "D" contitute the only semblance of "plot" the game has...until
the "moment of truth" occurs. Also of note are games that have more than one "big reveal", especially games that have every chapter end in
a "big reveal", and/or have several "big reveals" in a row at the very end. Note to scriptwriters: If your plot has more "big
reveals" than Star Trek: Generations has Captain Kirk deaths, you have too many.
2. The Scooby Doo Unmasking
Essentially, another form of "The Big Reveal", but it's the most common one so it gets it's own entry. This is when a character is (OMG!)
revealed to be the same as another character. How many times has this seriously happened in reality? Imagine what the evening news would be like! "And our
top story tonight is Saddam Hussein WAS Osama Bin Laden all along. Also, NBC has revealed that Conan O'Brien will NOT be taking over for Jay Leno upon
Leno's retirement, because they are in fact, the same person. Thank you and goodnight!"
3. Amnesia Plots
A technique of witholding information on a character's past details (usually a main character that you actually play as) by having them be afflicted with
total memory loss, aka amnesia. Amnesia is a condition which arguably doesn't even exist in reality. Therefore, it's ridiculous that it's the #1
physical affliction that video game characters have. Let's see some characters who have to overcome REAL medical conditions. I mean, besides Tachibana Ukyo
in Samurai Shodown.
4. Plot Alzheimer's
When something set up at the beginning of the story has no meaning or purpose later on. Prime example: Arek in the beginning scenes of Lufia 2 is never again
shown nor mentioned afterwards.
5. Anime Cliches
Things like third eyes and Power Rangers spoofs are so common that you do not even need to be an avid anime watcher to know that they exist. Avoid. Also avoid
basing things on obscure Japanese legends. Otaku points do not add up to great storytelling or great art.
6. The Final Boss Out of Nowhere
Or other characters that come out of nowhere halfway through the plot. I believe Final Fantasy 4 is the single biggest influence on this cliche, but what
others who ape it don't realize is that even that game has foreshadowing and reasons for its existence other than just for the sake of having a final boss
out of nowhere moment. I once played a game (Mystaria, Sega Saturn) that combined this cliche with the "Scooby Doo Unmasking" one. The entire game
had one main villain named "Lord Bane". But the final boss turns out to be another character you met once briefly earlier, and (here comes the best
part) after you beat him, the characters are STILL talking about Lord Bane!!
7. Weird For Weirdness's Sake
When things happen that are completely nonsensical and/or contradict the plot, or have no relevance to anything, but are there for the sake of being weird or
to trick gamers into thinking the game is deeper than it really is. "Well, it's over my head, so it must be smarter than me."
8. Gratuitous FMV
Not all FMV falls into this category. It's nice to see once in awhile. But do we really need to have games be 2-4 discs long just so that we can see text
appear over a wall? Or a still picture of someone talking with only the mouth moving? Or a camera pan across the dashboard of a car?
9. Show, Don't Tell
Too many game stories fall victim to this. This is when there is more backstory in the game than what is actually going on at the moment. Huge amounts of text
(or narration) are used to explain a lengthy backstory that is usually gleaned from either talking to NPCs, reading in-game books and text, or by a narrator
during a cutscene. This has one of two major effects: It either means that all that stuff happened in the past and so right now you're just wandering
around with hardly anything of significance happening (Legend of Mana, Panzer Dragoon Saga), or it explains the entire story in one fell swoop rather than have
it revealed as you go along, so there's no chance for the audience to figure it out for themselves, and thus the rest of the plot ends up being filler
that's witholding for a "big reveal" (see the narration at the beginning of Killer7).
10. The Irrelevance Twist
The plot twist that makes everything that came before it irrelevant or make no sense. This one seems to have been popularized by the movie, The Sixth Sense,
but again, people who don't understand it use it for the sake of using it, and thus end up doing it wrong. At the end of a story, we should always be able
to look back through the game's events and see how each and every one led up to that moment, interwoven like a huge tapestry. The Irrelevance Twist is the
equivalent of dropping an iron ball on a jigsaw puzzle when it's one piece away from completion.
11. The Sequel Ending
When an ending is vague or purposefully left hanging wide open with the intention of having it followed up in a sequel. I want closure, not your god damn iron
ball. Even worse is when games never get the promised sequel, or they do and it's completely screwed up (see: Arc the Lad: End of Darkness).
Some people might argue that older games were guilty of this one, too, and sometimes they were. Older games were often no stranger to having an ending that consisted of a single blank page of text or credits (Karnov, Ikari Warriors). But the issue here is that modern games are supposed to be better and constantly improving on these old issues, but this type of shit certainly isn't. In fact, I'll go so far as to say it's even worse because I don't like being made to care about characters only to not have any idea what happens to them at the end.
Also, while some older game endings (Earthbound, Magic of Scheherazade) have endings that heavily implied a sequel would continue the plot, I can argue that they don't have to be interpreted that way and that they are complete on their own.
12. Improper Use of Subtext, Theme, & Symbolism
While I have nothing against plots that exist for the sake of having an adventure, it would be nice once in awhile for a game's story to have something to
say that can be applied to everyday life, or at least something to ponder about. Also, when a theme is explored, the author must take a definitive stance on
that theme. One advantage of interactive media is that you can give your audience the chance to take the opposing viewpoint, but you MUST follow through
completely with it. Example: You can side with Japan in Killer7, but you end up killing Iwazaru anyway.
Also, using "Fish in a Barrel" themes such as "Religion is Evil", "American Government is Corrupt", or "Japan is Still Angry Over WWII" do not count when they are too obvious and used in otherwise manipulative and contrived plots with little to no opposing viewpoints.
The only game I know of to have used some of these cliches and do it right is Crystalis, mainly because they knew how to make it all make sense. But modern
game writers look at stories that have done these plots right and say, "Hey, you thought THAT game's story was a pretzel? Well, LOOKEE WHAT I CAN
DO!"
It's also rather ridiculous that these same paths get treaded over and over again when it seems like there's so much MORE that could be done.
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