Enjoy the Story/Game, skip the Game/Story (2024)

This is a trope I’ve seen some entries that are debatable. I saw someone added a Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game for Video Game/Omori, a game whose gameplay is widely praised. I deleted it because, to my understanding, the trope only applies when the gameplay is only worth sitting through for the story. However someone messaged me saying that some people do say they preferred the story in Omori to the gameplay.

Is this a valid example?

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Nov 20th 2022 at 9:04:39 AM

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

A game can qualify for this trope even if its gameplay doesn't suck: "There are many reasons why this might happen: (...) sometimes it's purely subjective taste." The trope's only criterion is that "there is evidence that criticism or fan reaction towards the game in question focuses more on the story at the expense of the gameplay."

The entry in question is very confusing to someone who has no idea what the game is about, so it's hard to evaluate its validity. Even then, some sentences suggest that the criticisms only apply to an insignificant amount of players ("The game's few detractors tend to find..."), and also contains Speculative Troping ("it's possibly intentional").

Edited by TantaMonty on Nov 21st 2022 at 10:47:54 AM

Was it by chance this page?

I’m gonna put some Gloom in your eye.

For what it's worth, I've only heard praise on both sides. The only complaint I heard was about a translation error.

• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: Not the case for the main game (Chapter 1-7 and by extension Chapter 8) since that is considered to be reasonably challenging, but the game starts getting more and more difficult, to the point where many players vent about being forced to use Assist Mode in order to get the rest of the story.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: Conversely, the game's twitch reflex platformer with a scaling difficulty sometimes comes into sharp relief with the story of a Broken Bird slowly dealing with depression and anxiety. It often sidetracks into discussions on how to subjectively grapple with these issues. Often it can feel like it's slowing down the gameplay.

Edited by VerySunshine on Nov 23rd 2022 at 8:22:39 AM

Would Sonic Frontiers count for Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game? The story has seen unanimous praise while reception the gameplay is more mixed and even many people who positively reviewed the game said the gameplay was rough in many places.

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Nov 28th 2022 at 11:59:28 AM

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

This doesn't fit the purpose of Projects: Long Term if it discusses only specific examples. May be worth hollering to be moved to Trope Talk.

• Re OMORI: The example needs more focus. Yes the story is considered phenomenal, can't tell if people complain enough about the gameplay. The example doesn't need to bring up anything else beside those two points.
• Re Celeste: There are people who like the plot and like the platformer, there are those who like both and neither, so the non-tropes don't have to cancel each other. The Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game contradicts itself, which can be fixed by removing up to "The game starts getting". Play the Game, Skip the Story needs to explain what the actual problem is, skippable cutscenes taking too long?
• Re Sonic Frontiers: From what I can tell seems to be the case. Ian Flynn's character writing is considered amazing, but many think both the Starfall Islands and the Cyberspace levels could use another year in development.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

With Omori, the story is what the game is most well known for, but the gameplay is quite well done so I don’t think it counts. With Celeste I think it can stay under both because the gameplay and story appeal to different niches. With Sonic Frontiers I hope they make a sequel that refines the formula introduced to make the gameplay better (it’s still fun but it’s clear that Sonic Team needs more experience with making an open world).

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Nov 28th 2022 at 1:34:01 PM

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Moved thread to Trope Talk as requested

Macron's notes

That would explain why I couldn’t find it.

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

I'm not familiar with the game in question, but I can see examples where the gameplay, mechanics and overall game polish is well received but still falls into Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game. Basically some games are so heavy on the side quests or require so much level grinding to get the Golden Ending that many people prefer to watch compilation videos on You Tube than spend the 130 hours necessary to personally experience the story through a playthrough. The same goes with the inverse, where a story is more than serviceable but the mechanics are so dynamic it keeps you playing well beyond the Framing Device.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Nov 28th 2022 at 8:23:26 AM

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

What game are you talking about?

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

I was thinking of Destiny 2, they reached a point where their temporary seasonal content is so dense it has caused resentment in the playerbase over the commitment needed for true 100% Completion. It is where I first learned of FOMO (fear of missing out), but the tradeoff has been that the game has had more complex and detailed in-game story than they ever had.

Conversely, games like League of Legends and Overwatch are less about the variety of content you can play but about mastering the playstyle of the characters you can choose, all of whom come with expansive background lore.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!