Brandon Sanderson's list: Honorable mentions - KOTOR, Witcher 3 5. Infamous series 4. Hades 3. Undertale 2. Bioshock series 1. Final Fantasy X Wesley Chu's list: 5. Stellaris 4. Bioshock series 3. Witcher 3 2. The Last of Us 1. Grand Theft Auto 5

I'm just throwing this out here but I would totally tune into a twitch stream of Brandon Sanderson trying to beat Castlevania

I can't believe Brandon still hasn't player OuterWilds. It's never left my mind as the best narrative playstyle out there. I'm certain he would love it!

Fun fact about Enter the Gungeon- There is a weapon called a "Sprun" that changes into a radiant weapon. The description is really cool.

Idk if this exists already, but I'd love to see something like this between Brandon and Christopher Paolini

Infamous was playstation 3 for those wondering. One of the first PS3 games I played. Fantastic series.

Well, having these two talk about classic video games is exactly what my soul needed right now. Bravo.

I love that i can count on Brandon Sanderson to defend FFX as the best in the series.❤

Great lists! My five favorite games that I like for their narrative: 1. Disco Elysium 2. Hades 3. The Banner Saga 4. Heaven's Vault 5. 80 Days

I love that Wes came RIGHT out of left field with Stellaris for emergent storytelling. It's VERY different, certainly not "narrative"... but I'd also suggest Rimworld as a good game for similar reasons. The events that can happen and how you respond (and the mistakes you make) will create a story. My most memorable was accidentally sending a colonist to consume a corpse rather than bury it. And the madman did it, become psychotic and then I had to deal with a psychotic cannibal for a while.

My list: 1. Disco Elysium 2. Celeste 3. Outer Wilds 4. Return of the Obra Dinn 5. Virtue's Last Reward Undertale *just barely* doesn't make the top 5 for me. However, Undertale does have two of my favorite gaming moments of all time: 1) If you accidentally kill Toriel, and then immediately reload your file to save her, Flowey still knows and calls you out for reloading. That moment was when I realized Undertale was going to be an all time great game. 2) At the end of the game, finding the mirror, and... "Despite everything, it's still you." That straight up brought me to tears. I was also really tempted to put 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors in my list in place of Virtue's Last Reward - both games have phenomenal stories, but VLR edges it out a bit in my opinion.

The Bloody Baron's quest in The Witcher 3 is probably my favorite video game storyline.

So happy Infamous got a shout out. That game was so phrnomenal and I want more.

You both should check out Outer Wilds. Its my very favorite video game with an absolutely beautiful story. I will say, its one you can only experience it once, so don't look up anything about it before playing, just play it

I saw Wesley speak this year at DragonCon - had no idea about his past relationship with Brandon. He's brilliant, really excited to watch this.

I know EXACTLY what part in Ninja Gaiden that Brandon is talking about. It's actually fairly infamous because of how impossible it was to get past that stupid bird. When I was a kid I also thought that some of the cheat codes were kind of like save game passwords that my actual friends had created. My best friend and I borrowed Metroid from one of his friends and then he lost the cheat code that would start you without her suit or something and I was like "try his name! Try his brother's name! Maybe it's his birthday?!"

Final Fantasy 14 is an investment. But that game has the best story I have ever experienced in a game. Shadowbringers and Endwalker were perfect.

I am so into this video. This felt like a conversation I actually have with people. Anytime either of you said a game I was like “OH I LOVE THAT ONE!”

Still no mention of Disco Elysium this game is such a hidden gem

The Trails Series!!!!! Number 1!!

Ff6 was the best one imo. Definitely the best 2D rpg of that style.

kotor 2 being honorable mention level is great considering it was unfinished and infamous! man this guys a gamer love to see it

1. The Last of Us Part II 2. The Last of Us Part I 3. God of War 2018 4. The Witcher 3 5. The Longest Journey If I can group narrative series together: 1. The Last of Us Part I and II 2. God of War 2018 and God of War Ragnarök 3. The Longest Journey/Dreamfall/Dreamfall Chapters 4. Mass Effect Legendary Edition 5. Uncharted 1-4 I haven't finished it yet, but Baldur's Gate 3 will absolutely be joining my best ever list.

Love ya Brandon, thank you for aiding us in our writing careers

1) Legacy of Kain series 2) Vagrant Story 3) Final Fantasy VII (original version) 4) Bioshock 1+2 5) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trilogy Honourable Mentions - Xenogears, Valkyrie Profiles: Lenneth & Silmeria, Medievil, Ico/Shadow of the Colossus. Positions 1+2 could have gone either way and there is a bit of a gap between them and the others which I actually had to think about. _Legacy of Kain_ has an outstanding continuous narrative with amazing writing and voice-acting throughout. It is also a fascinating example of how a narrative can evolve over a series' lifespan from one game to the next. _Vagrant Story_ is practically a movie in its own right, with a stunning localisation and scene direction. While the gameplay can be a slog the story is as amazing as it is intriguing throughout. Choosing a favourite narrative from a _FF game_ is no easy feat but I have to give it to VII over X (which is still pretty close). I'm very fond of VIII and VI is certainly worthy (I oddly never gelled with IX that much). VII was my first FF and still the best narrative overall. I love _Bioshocks 1 + 2_ and feel that an aggregate between them is a great balance in all areas (wasn't impressed by Infinite). I even have a decently sized Triptych of Rapture on my living room wall along with the 3 posters from the B2 special edition. _The Sands of Time_ trilogy has a great narrative running through it, both adventurous and poignant, well acted and with a nice 'full circle' element. Xenogears has a stunningly complex story behind it but is let down by its unfinished state (plus still hasn't technically come here to Europe). The first and second Valkyrie Profile games have great interconnected stories not just to the main plot but all the little Einherjar origins too, plus Silmeria has the best progression of a wet noodle protagonist to a 'storm the gates of heaven' badass. Though primarily a comedy game Medievil has a pretty great hero's journey for its protagonist Sir Daniel Fortesque (4-tess-Q). Though extremely minimalist in their stories Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are both masterpieces of understated adventure.

Honestly did not expect the last one as a number 1 but the justification was absolutely perfect lol.

Enter the gungeon was only briefly mentioned, but it contains a weapon that is a stormlight archive reference. There's a gun called Sprun that turns into the Windgunner

I have never heard Brandon talk about infamous before, despite having listened to him so much. I love infamous, it is why I bought a PS3. Amazing 3rd person shooter disguised as a superhero game. Last reply of 1 and 2 was about 18 months ago, I reply them ever ~4-5 years. The story of the first game, specifically the twist at the end, is very creative and well done and leads very well into the second game.

It is a massive time investment, but the Trails series is a great piece of storytelling that is still ongoing. There are currently 11 entries in the series split across several story arcs with an overarching story connecting them. Aside from the great main story and characters, there are nearly a thousand named npcs that each have their own unique personalities, dialouge, relationships, and dialouge thay changes dozens of time throughout each game. Many of the npcs appear through multiple games since they take place in similar locations, so all these npcs each have their own individual storylines and arcs. The games are massive, and each one takes well over 80 hours to do. They are also extremely text heavy, with cold steel 3 having a larger text count than the first five harry potter books combined. There are even full novellas in the games that you can read as well. I highly recommend people check it out, or at least check out the incredible music each game has

It makes so much sense Brandon likes Infamous lol I loved it too. Played the first one multiple times. Enjoy the others as well.

Just picked up The Art of Destiny and cant wait to dive in!

Such a cool top 5. Great video.

Cool!! I keep seeing this book on Goodreads and have wanted to read it since I first saw it. The cover is beautiful. KOTOR is great. I had played FFX-2 but only played X for the first time this past summer because of you. Most of the sidequests are incredibly frustrating, but the story (which I didn't know the depth of before) is pretty great. (I actually understood the story of VIII but that I could never beat on PS2 while X-2 and X and XV were soooo much easier to beat)

Will definitely put it on my read list

I (like Dan Wells) loved the martial arts fantasy Jade City and the rest of the Green Bone Saga, plus a couple other YA books specifically covering Chinese culture in literature, so I’m definitely going to pick this book up as it seems a bit more in line with other epic fantasy books. This is also a great video idea, cool seeing old mates together like this

I am right there with him on Stellaris having great stories. The events in the game allow you to build your own stories through various playthroughs and each playthrough feels so unique depending on your choices and the choices of the PCs. I still have grand stories about finally defeating the raiders or joining with other nations to hold off the two awakened empires in the war in heaven. Getting some of the random events that totally shift your society in one way or another to the point where it changes your narrorator can be so fun. I do love the bio trophies robots where you take over the world to force all the organic pops of the world to endure Mandatory Pampering.

omg I just read the Art of Prophecy a couple of months ago. I love the twist on the chosen one and mentor tropes. The book is great and get wait to get the sequel !

When it comes to narrative, I have to mention the Legacy of Kain series. Gameplay-wise it has it's rough parts, but the storytelling was way ahead of it's time

Wesley seems rly nice

Great lists.

Undertale is a masterpiece. Played through True Pacifist and then ended with Genocide. True Pacifist route alone was already a perfect experience, but Genocide added a most gut-wrenching experience. For the first time I felt so defeated by a final boss, not because it was mechanically difficult (and it was tbf, as I'm not great at bullet-hell), but because it killed my willpower to "gitgud" to finish the fight.

My current favorite game is hollow knight. It builds lore like the souls games. The story itself is super awesome. The attention to detail is insane the music is 10/10. I thought it was going to be a 30 hour game. Ha silly me. It's easy to double that and still be doing new things and finding hidden secrets. (FFX was my favorite but has been recently dethroned to 2nd place under hollow knight.)

Brandon still remembering the Konami cheat code 30 years later is amazing.

Great video.

I feel like the emergent stories of games like Stellaris, Rimworld and Crusader Kings can be very engaging as the whole game is much more abstract, so you're building much more of the narrative in your own mind and filling in the gaps. But I rarely get emotionally affected when something happens, it's more of a 'oh that's a cool story beat' type reaction.

Wes!

Awesome! My top 5 story games are: Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider 2013, Last of Us, The Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid.

Is that a Bell&Ross watch Wesley's wearing? A man of taste!

The early game console discussion here was interesting! (And very much in my wheelhouse.) I do have to say there was no ET game on the Intellivision. I was surprised to learn there was a Ninja Gaiden on Master System which Brandon talked about. I think what Wesley was talking about with the spinning attack was Shinobi, which was available on Genesis. Wesley was thinking "Injustice" when Infamous came up. And the GTA with the cousin calling you to go bowling is IV.

I would have to say... 1. Star Craft 2. Horizon Zero Dawn 3. Halo (up through Reach) 4. Myth and Myth 2 Soulblighter 5. God of War & God of War Ragnarök 6. Free Space 1&2 7. Ghost of Tsushima 8. Mass Effect Trilogy 9. Days Gone 10. Last of Us part 1 I couldn't decide on what to cut to make it 5. Even now I have more that I would probably want to put as honorable mentions.

I love this guy. Does he have a KZfaq channel or anything?

I love the Infamous games, really underrated IMO.

Super cool :)) 🎈🎈🎈

This was so fun. MY TURN! 5. Kingdom Hearts 4. Marvel’s Spider-Man 3. Elden Ring 2. God of War/God of War Ragnarok 1. Breath of The Wild/Tears of The Kingdom

Brandon Sanderson needs to play Outer Wilds and Disco Elysium.

As game Baldur’s Gate 1-2 with all extra and “Big Picture” makes the list. That story is awesome. This BG3 is nothing to that. Still suffering of more visuals than story thing.

I just read Art of Prophecy and instantly noticed a lot of similarities in style and ideas with some of Brandon's work (while being its own thing of course). Now I know the origin story!

You can see the influence of FFX on Yumi and the Nightmare painter how cool

I like that Brandon Sanderson plays stellaris, one of my main builds is the DDF.

YOOOOOO I can't believe Brandon played Infamous! The first one was amazing

Just wanted to throw out that Brandon was thinking of GTA4 when he's talking about the cousin calling you to go bowling. Close, but one number off!

My list: 5) Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4) Shadowrun trilogy 3) Trine series 2) Yakuza series (especially 0 and Like a Dragon) 1) Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous

Hes talking about FFX while im reading Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, it all makes sense now

One of my favourite narrative-driven game is Control. It was not only an amazing story with a good gameplay, but it made me discover a lot of books which inspired the creation of the game (such as "House of Leaves" by Danielewsky and the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer). For cosmere fans who played the game: I kinda imagine something like Polaris when I think about a Dawnshard.

Adoooonalsium

My 5 favorite narrative games are: Honorable Mentions: Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, What Remains of Edith Finch, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker 5. Golden Sun 1 & 2. 4. Tales of the Abyss 3. Bioshock 1 & 3 (Never got around to 2) 2. Metal Gear Solid 1-4 (specifically 4.) 1. Final Fantasy X 38:25

Hades is my favorite game ever ever ever. So glad to see Brandon representing it 🔥

Infamous was my fucking childhood it is so rad to hear him mention it!

Halleluiah that someone else had an Intellivision. I had an original Intellivision. We loved that console.

Wow, Brandon really broke down why Hades worked so well. I finished it, and I normally get bored of roguelikes quickly, what he said might explain how it held my attention. But I have also played every game by the devs so it might have just been brand loyalty at this point. And Final Fantasy X is the best FF game, the story is perfect. Huge accomplishment, and I love every bit of it, and the gameplay is great too. I caught the FFX influence in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter immediately.

Hmm, these were interesting lists! I guess this would probably be mine after about 5 minutes of thought: 1. FF7/FFX (I can't pick one, play them both!) 2. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together 3. Horizon Zero Dawn 4. Beyond: Two Souls 5. A Plague Tale I'm really curious what Brandon and Wesley would think of Beyond: Two Souls and Plague Tale. Both were quite interesting in story and gameplay mechanics!

I've always wondered if Brandon ever played Alpha Centauri, not only is it one of the better 4x games to be made but it has a really cool story that unfolds as you progress trough it. Easily one of the cooler Sci-Fi stories in terms of the setting and characters. Endless legend did a similar thing in a really neat fantasy setting tho I never found it as compelling.

I would never have expected GTA V as hitting the number one spot. Colored me fascinated.

For the sake of commenting a list, with caveats that I may change my mind about any of them, and I'm not 100% convinced I'm grokking the category here, in no particular order, here are five games I love with a strong narrative focus: Stray Gods: the Roleplaying Musical. Very much not an RPG, but very much a musical, stylistically, it's like an action comic - static sprites with minimal animation - camera zooms and pans, and occasionally sliding an individual sprite over the background - and mechanically, it's a visual novel - watch a cutscene then make a choice, repeat until done - but it embraces the combinatorial possibilities, it has songs that are still stuck in my head weeks later, a top-notch voice cast (and all lines are voiced) and tells an interesting story. Like Hades, it has a lot of respect for the Greek myths it draws upon, though it takes different liberties with them. The story starts with Grace, college dropout and lead singer in a band, meeting Calliope, who then turns up dying at Grace's apartment and passes on her powers as the Last Muse, leaving Grace with a week to get the hang of her new powers, solve her predecessor's murder, and prove her own innocence before she can be executed... Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward is my favourite of the Zero Escape trilogy. The games are each a bunch of escape rooms held together by a visual novel, where a bunch of strangers are kidnapped by someone calling themself Zero and made to play a game in order to escape. In VLR, the second game of the trilogy, the game requires players to go through coloured doors in teams of three to find an escape room which holds a keycard that will let them play a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma, so you're co-operating during the escape rooms, but at least potentially in competition with the same people for the Prisoner's Dilemma rounds. The games also have the player character canonically jumping back to an earlier point in the game (or a point on a different branch) each time they reach an ending (you can also jump around using the in-game flowchart to go to any point you've already played pretty much any time, but that's not necessarily done in character), and require you to gather information from multiple paths in order to get the true ending. Kingdom Hearts 3. Another time, I might pick another game from the franchise. It's Final Fantasy crossed with Disney, with lore that's got a bit out of control. They're not without their flaws (KH3 makes it very clear, repeatedly, across the first 80+% of the game that Sora can't go pursue the main quest until he gains the Power of Waking, until, suddenly, just as they run out of Disney worlds to visit, and without having made any progress toward the Power of Waking, Sora's allowed to go pursue the main quest...) but I enjoy them despite also enjoying mocking them. Life Is Strange. It was a three-way coin-flip for me between the original Life Is Strange, Life Is Strange: True Colors, and Tell Me Why (the game from the original's developers made after parting ways with the series' publisher, who kept the IP). All three games follow a young adult with special powers trying to solve a mystery in small-town America in a Telltale-style third-person narrative adventure game. I landed on the original because its power of rewinding time means you get around the usual pitfall of picking a dialogue option from a brief precis, only for the result to take an unexpected turn as your avatar says something unexpected - rather than being locked in, you can rewind and pick a different option. Spiritfarer. It describes itself as a cozy management sim about death. Stella (accompanied by her cat, Daffodil), is told by Charon that he's picked her to replace him as "Spiritfarer", to ferry select dead souls to the "Everdoor" where they can pass on from this not unpleasant limbo/purgatory realm. The majority of the gameplay loop is sailing to new islands to harvest resources and find recruitable spirits, doing quests to get those spirits onto your boat, building them bespoke houses, keeping them fed and entertained until they've done processing their life (and death) and then ferrying them to the Everdoor to send them on, with the reward for sending a spirit through the Everdoor being the special material you need to upgrade your boat to access new regions with new islands and resources letting you build new buildings, recruit new spirits, and access new regions until you've got access to everything and learn how to finish the game. Islands involve some light platforming to fully explore, and obtaining and processing resources involves simple minigames. There's rarely any penalty for failure and most of the spirits have stories based on dead people the dev team knew in real life, so there's a real authenticity that comes through. Honourable mentions to Hades (kicked off the list by Stray Gods) and Majora's Mask (not quite strong enough in central narrative).

inFamous needs more love. Such a good series.

Regarding favorites, for story, one that hit me the hardest was Red Dead Redemption 2. After I finished the main story, I just put down my controller and just sat there staring at the screen, just feeling the emotions hit me. Star Wars: The force unleashed, although fairly basic regarding story, was also pretty impactful for me when I was younger. Metal Gear Solid 5 was pretty good (to me) as well, especially with two endgame missions, (and one with out any significant spoilers) you had to say goodbye to a companion character and another where you had to kill some of your own men, all while they saluted you.

My list 5: Gauntlet Dark Legacy 4: Earthbound (inspiration for undertale) 3: Super Metroid 2: Dark Souls II 1: Morrowind

By definition this is going to be a CONTROVERSIAL list lol

aww yeah

I'm replaying FF8 right now! My top 5 would be... 5 - Chrono Trigger 4 - Batman Arkham series 3 - Bioshock trilogy 2 - Metal Gear series 1 - Fallout series

Would have to think longer about how to populate the other 4 spots, but number one for me would be "Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth". The only issue with that game is that you have to play "Utawarerumono: Mask of deception" first and "Utawarerumono: Prelude to the fallen" is highly recommended (and arguably needed) as well.

I think a few games that would be on my personal list that weren't mentioned here: Bastion (also by Super Giant Games, publisher of Hades), Final Fantasy 9, Xenogears, Thomas Was Alone, The Stanley Parable, the original Halo trilogy + Halo Reach and ODST, and the indie horror game Signalis. Some of those would be honorable mention, and that's not in a specific order. Also I think I'd give Chrono Trigger honorable mention.

X-2 is insanely fun...if you treat it as fanfiction. If you treat it seriously its a mess, but as fanfiction it's so much fun.

FYI Rygar is a rouge like that lets you keep progress if you die.

my favorite list of favorite games (big reason cause ot their story and characters): 1. Mass Effect series 2. The Witcher series (The Witcher 3 being my favorite game of all time) 3. Dragon Age series 4. Yakuza (Like a Dragon, Judgment) series 5. Cyberpunk 2077

In no particular order my 8 (sorry I couldn't trim it to 5) top story driven games would be final fantasy 7, mass effect, witcher 3, max payne, assassins creed origins, horizon, last of us, and batman arkham city

Very interesting topic. I have never thought about my favourite story-driven games, only favourite games full stop. The list is similar, but not quite the same. I am also cheating a bit, of course, because I count game series that pick up on story elements of previous games as one if all of the games are great. If not, I'll just pick a selection ;) Still difficult to decide though. My honourable mention goes to Gothic 1+2. Almost picked it over Dragon Age, but couldn't quite bring myself to do it. 5. Dragon Age Origins (Dragon Age 2 was not as bad for me as it's often said to be and Inquisition I like a lot as well, but purely story-wise, it's Origins for me. And yes, I realise that it is in many aspects a very "generic" fantasy story, but it's so damn well written, imo). 4. Beyond Good and Evil (A little gem that is far less known than it should be, I think). 3. Bioshock series (Infinite is my favourite as well, mostly because I prefer the setting especially. All three are fantastic though). 2. Mass Effect Trilogy (the most immersive and personal hero story I have played so far, continuous over three games. Just great). 1. Knights of the Old Republic 1+2 (caveat: Restoration Mod for KotoR 2 is imperative. Without it is merely a good game with too much confusion and too many open questions. With that restored content though... my oh my.)

My top 5 1. The Last of Us (both games) 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 3. Ghost of Tsushima 4. Spider-Man PS4 5. Uncharted 4

So, I thought about this for a while. Not sure my list is perfect, I could move games around, and I might if you ask me another time. Honorable mention: Halo, RDR1, Bloodborne. 5. Fallout New Vegas 4. Final Fantasy 6 3. The Last of Us 2. Mass Effect Trilogy 1. Red Dead Redemption 2

Great list from both. Wes's choice of Stellaris might seem a bit strange at a first glance but the beauty of it, especially with mods that add extra events is the emergent storytelling which is different every time you play. Are you a fanatical egalitarian militarist who will conquer the galaxy... so that all may live a life of utopian abundance? Or are you a MegaChurch corporation, creating powerful alliances with your neighbors so that you can open up branch offices on their planets and convert their populace while making a bank? Perhaps you are a xenophobic authoritarian led by a God Emperor, ready to purge the galaxy of the xenos? Anyways, my list is: 5. Dragon Age: Inquisition 4. Warcraft 3 3. Hades 2. Witcher 3 1. Mass Effect 3

I'm not terribly surprised that Brandon likes playing stellaris as a rogue servitor.

I got good enough that I could do Contra on one or two lives. Prince of Persia, on the other hand, you had to beat in 60 minutes on one life. I never did it, but I got close a few times.

Shoutout to pokemon mystery dungeon red/blue rescue team (and explorers of sky*)

Man, if there was some B-roll of each game this video would slap hard.

I would kill to hear Brandons point of view on FFXVI story too

You know what’s funny? I did the same thing with last of us lmao but not because I didn’t like the style of gameplay, just because I didn’t have a PlayStation at the time. I eventually got one and played the remaster myself and it was phenomenal

Mass Effect wins for me. I also really enjoyed the story telling in Bastion. Fire Emblem Awakening also hooked me.....FE:A and ME, are character driven, which is probably why I liked them.

It's funny to me that y'all love the Witcher card game so much. My husband watched me play, and I would literally hand him the controller so he could play the Gwent for me because I couldn't have cared less about it. I avoided it whenever I could.

@33:18 - Everyone's reaction to Final Fantasy X-2.

Removing kotor 2 was criminal 😭