Six of the best games that deserve “Best Narrative” more than God of War

So, the Game Awards was last night at the time of writing, and, predictably, outside of a couple of interesting announcements (which is the primary reason most people are there rather than the actual awards), there were no real surprises from the winners. The latest and supposedly greatest of Sony’s triple-A movie games, God Of War Ragnarok, cleaned up with a variety of awards — including Best Narrative.

Now, God of War Ragnarok is a decent enough game, let’s not pretend otherwise. But to pick that game out as “Best Narrative” with all the myriad other amazing story-based games that come out every year? Madness. God of War Ragnarok — and other Sony games along the same lines, such as The Last of Us — do a great job of making you think you’re experiencing a powerful narrative, but a lot of it is cheap emotional manipulation tricks rather than genuine character depth and meaning.

So I thought we’d go back through the year gone by and pick out some of the best narrative games that are eminently more deserving of celebration than the latest piece of big-budget excess. If you’ve got any of your own top picks, feel free to share them, too!

Atelier Sophie 2

I already picked this out as one of my top games of 2022, and a big part of that was to do with its storytelling; it was, for me, one of the best narratives I experienced this year. Atelier Sophie 2 has plenty of layers to its storytelling, and is designed in such a way that both newcomers to the series will find it accessible, and existing fans of Sophie and her shenanigans will appreciate the opportunity to get to know her a bit better.

Core to this solid design is the game’s positioning in a parallel dream-like world, which allows characters from a variety of different eras to coexist in a situation where they never age. And one of the most interesting and effective sides of this in Atelier Sophie 2 comes in Sophie’s relationship with her grandmother Ramizel.

The original Atelier Sophie made it clear that Sophie loved her grandmother deeply, but by the time that game started Ramizel had already passed away. In Atelier Sophie 2, meanwhile, Sophie has the opportunity to interact with Ramizel as a young woman, and discover the ways in which she is both similar and different to her grandmother in her prime.

Alongside this, we also get to see core secondary character Plachta from back when she was still human, which is an endearing and entertaining contrast from her doll-like self seen in the rest of the Mysterious subseries.

The game as a whole is a reflection on pursuing one’s dreams, and the question over whether if, given the opportunity to live out your days in perpetual comfort, you’ll ever actually achieve anything. There’s also a goddess with social anxiety, and the ways in which that is explored are delightful.

Red Embrace: Hollywood

As you might expect, the visual novel scene provides a rich vein of narrative content to explore, and this year has been pretty good to us in terms of both Japanese titles and original English language visual novels, of which Red Embrace: Hollywood is an example of the latter.

Ostensibly a vampire-themed visual novel with relationships at its core, Red Embrace: Hollywood quickly makes it clear that this is going to be a pretty dark narrative with a depressing destination. This is not a game where you should expect the narrative routes to end up with a nice cosy romantic conclusion; it is a clever deconstruction of the classic tropes of visual novel romances.

Red Embrace: Hollywood is particularly effective in how it juxtaposes the glitzy dream of Hollywood with the reality most people find upon getting there. By thrusting the main character and supporting cast into the undead underworld, the darker sides of society are laid bare and made all the more obvious, and the flimsy facades of Hollywood’s idealised image are made all the more apparent.

The game also makes good use of its vampiric motif to emphasise the flaws in humanity, as well as the monstrous nature that consistently lingers just beneath the surface. The glamour of eternal youth and immortality is not what it seems, and the exploration of this topic makes Red Embrace: Hollywood one of the best narratives of the year.

Lily’s Well

This was a really pleasant surprise for me. After I stumbled across it by watching a Game Grumps Let’s Play of it, I was intrigued enough to want to try it for myself. And I wasn’t disappointed; the game as a whole ended up being a highly memorable horror game, and one of my personal best narratives of the year.

In Lily’s Well, you take on the role of a young girl who enjoys knitting. Having been left home alone by her father, she hears a strange noise coming from the well in the garden. The game then follows her attempts to investigate the mystery, unfolding in two distinct sections: an initial component where Lily must find various items in order to construct a makeshift rope in order to climb down the well, and the result of her constructing that rope.

The game branches off in a variety of different directions according to whether or not you found enough pieces of rope and if they are suitable materials to support the weight of Lily on the way down. While there’s an obvious “canonical” route to follow, the other endings are also worth pursuing, as they reveal some interesting details along the way, too — plus uncovering the game’s “true” conclusion is dependent on having seen all the other possible endings, too.

To say too much more about Lily’s Well would be to spoil the experience of discovering this thoroughly intriguing, initially baffling horror game. But it’s a game I’ve had at the back of my mind ever since I first played it, and that definitely makes it worthy of celebration.

Full Metal Daemon Muramasa

Once thought to be too complex to even contemplate localising, the incredible Full Metal Daemon Muramasa from Nitroplus, brought west by JAST USA, is an absolute masterpiece, and a genuine example of what I would describe as interactive literature. Featuring some of the most astonishingly evocative writing I’ve ever seen in a visual novel, coupled with multiple narrative routes that blend exaggerated action with intelligent drama, Full Metal Daemon Muramasa is, without a doubt, one of the best narrative games I’ve experienced this year.

Core to Muramasa’s appeal is the deeply flawed protagonist Kageaki, who is a tormented soul plagued by how he is chained to the Law of Balance; for every “evil” person he cuts down, one “good” person must die by his hand also. As you might expect, this makes for some absolutely heartbreaking scenes over the course of the narrative as a whole, particularly because Kageaki is a complicated character who most certainly does not kill without remorse.

The story unfolds in an almost episodic manner, with a variety of different events occurring over the course of the game’s first half, before splitting off in several different directions in the latter half. Notably for a visual novel, there are several sequences that up the interactivity considerably more than simply making choices as to which route the story should proceed down; there are multiple text adventure-style sequences which require you to explore and solve puzzles as well as simply progressing the story.

Full Metal Daemon Muramasa is a hard read. It’s long, it’s wordy and it’s immensely challenging and upsetting in its subject matter. But it’s that uncompromising nature and that absolute commitment to realising its own vision that makes it such a masterpiece, and one of the best narratives of the year.

Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers

The original Arcade Spirits was already a very inclusive game, and the sequel took this to new heights with an unprecedented variety of options for player self-insertion into the narrative. And while some games with customisable main characters can end up feeling like their narrative is a little generic, Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers truly makes you feel like you’re part of the unfolding story, making this one of the best narratives of the year.

The key reason as to why Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers is so enjoyable and immersive is the fact that there’s not really a “wrong” answer to any of the choices presented in the game. This isn’t a game where you’ll get a Game Over for picking the wrong things to say; the narrative will simply proceed down a different route, perhaps affecting your relationships with the various characters and your own personality traits in the process.

You can even choose whether to pursue other characters in terms of simply cultivating a friendship, or attempting to spark a romance between you, and the option is there for a polyamorous relationship if that’s what you’re interested in. But with all these options, Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers manages to maintain a coherent narrative and remain enjoyable throughout, with a strong feeling that each playthrough really is your story. Successfully pulling that off is trickier than you might think — so Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers’ success in that regard definitely makes it one of the best narrative games of the year.

IMMORTALITY

Sam Barlow’s full-motion video games are always something special, and IMMORTALITY is the best of the bunch. Once again following the format of having to piece together a story by investigating a series of video clips, IMMORTALITY tasks you with tracking down what happened to a missing actress.

You accomplish this by watching the footage, making logical deductions as to related material you should search for, picking out noteworthy objects that appear in scenes and cross-referencing the things you discover. It’s a game that goes as deep as you want it to; you can focus your attention on attempting to solve the mystery, or you can dive right in and attempt to discover a lot more about the actress at the centre of it all: her life, career, and the three movies she made before she vanished.

Production values are high and the acting is top-notch. To say too much more about the experience as a whole is to spoil the wonderful sense of discovery throughout. So if you’re looking for one of the best narrative games of the year, this should definitely be high on your list of candidates.

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