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Favourite narratives of all time in media

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Avaro
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Favourite narratives of all time in media

Post by Avaro »

I've already seen a thread about books, but this can be used more generally.

What are your most favourite narratives of all time, in media? In books, movies, tv series, games and others.

This topic is supposed to be for recommendation purposes for people looking for good stories in general! NO SPOILERS!
I know it's super hard to pick your absolute favourites, but they must exist, right?

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Personally I never read books.. and don't watch movies or tv series. So my list will be mostly games. Mostly games with less focus on gameplay ;P

Games:

Ace Attorney Games
A classic among visual novels, featuring murder mysteries, courtroom action and a lot of charm.
The original trilogy has brilliant stories, many of which are intertwined. The third game wraps things up super well. The other games are nice too, but avoid Dual Destinies.

Steins;Gate
This story is very very interesting. It's a science fiction drama about time travel. The characters are extremely good! Especially the protagonist. This starts out as a slice-of-life for like half of the story before it gets serious. I'd recommend the visual novel over the anime.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
This must be my all time favourite mystery story! It's a unique visual novel / puzzle like game about a murder. Your own murder in fact. Awesome and charming presentation and characters and intertwined stories.

Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Very good, slice of life esque high school drama with mystery. The first game also has supernatural time travel stuff. Before the Storm features some great romance. Both games got very good characters and scenes. Stay away from Life is Strange 2! It’s very bad.

Beyond Two Souls
This is a story focused on a girl with a ghost by her side. It’s a thrilling journey with interesting plots and incredible presentation. There’s a lot of variety here. A fun ride I highly recommend.

AI: The Somnium Files
A murder mystery story with great characters and intertwined mysteries. There are puzzle sections in this game where you enter people’s dreams. The story also explores the matter of parenting in a lot of ways? I loved finding out everything about the characters and unraveling the mysteries.

Xenoblade Chronicles
So this is an RPG, the only RPG on my list. Huh. The plot, the twists and presentation of everything make this a really great narrative. Aside from the story, the gameplay is alright, but what I enjoyed a lot are the world and areas you run through.

Celeste
A precision platformer with big focus on the gameplay. The gameplay and story and everything come together to a cohesive experience. The story feels very real. This game is just overall a joy!

Night in the Woods
This is a story focused game, with some well crafted exploration. A slice of life kinda narrative with mystery. The characters are really good and relatable and it touches on a lot of philosophical themes.

Movies:

Lilo and Stitch
Very sweet. This story I loved a lot. The hawaii plus sci-fi theme of it is pretty cool. The other movies and main TV series are pretty good too.

Harry Potter movies / books
I probably don’t have to explain it. Just an overall good and relatable narrative, wrapped around magic. I actually like them all. The books are probably the better way to experience this.

TV Series:

Avatar: The Last Airbender
I watched quite a few TV shows as a kid, but no narratives have stood out as much as this. I watched the whole series like 3 times. Great characters, plot, world building and presentation!

Death Note
An interesting and clever anime about crimes, problems and a supernatural notebook.

Honorable mentions:

Here some narratives I loved which I omitted because they're not absolute favourites:
Detroit: Become Human, Heavy Rain, Danganronpa Games, Zero Escape: 999 and Virtues Last Reward, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, Suikoden Tierkreis,
Finding Nemo, Tangled (2010), Naruto, original Yu-Gi-Oh series.
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Re: Favourite narratives of all time in media

Post by KobaBeach »

Arc the Lad 1&2 captivated me in a way few games had. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue and The Legend of Heroes III: White Witch (Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch) were also touching about how human their main stories were. Too bad about their translations.

They talk a lot about the beauty of humanity and how human kind can surpass any hardship, Arc 2 hitting especially hard with how cruel its world is, ending with

the main two heroes of Arc 1, Arc and Kukuru dying at the end in a sacrifice to seal the Lord of the Black Abyss

, but it uses that as a springboard to go back to the hardship moral.

The world nearly ended, much is destroyed, but life still remains. The world can be rebuilt and is rebuilt in Arc 3, Kishin Fukkatsu and Arc R, the former two being a different timeline than the latter.



Arc 2 is much more grim than Lunar 2 and LoH3 but they're all very hopeful in a way. It feels especially necessary in these days where I'm going through a lot mentally and also with the whole Covid thing going on and the rise of fascism amongst at risk men thanks to the patriarchy.
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