V's storyline isn't as bad as people say: its misunderstood

[DeafMetal]

I think people just like to lump "realistic/serious/dark" with "good." Personally, I'm tired of the ol' "omg i'm so edgy and dark" storyline. That is so 2008.

 

What I liked about V's storyline is that it went back to some of the III-era roots by having a little fun with itself. Didn't feel like it was licking the in-depth emotion from its balls. I like a happy story that has fun with itself. I like the action movie feel it had throughout. Some of the characters could have definitely been developed better (see: main antagonists), but the ones who were were great, and funny as sh*t. I like things that don't take themselves seriously; and what's wrong with that?

 

To be fair, I'm a guy who thinks this is the most badass song in rock history.

 

Edit: jesus, ultra glitch

Edited September 26, 2014 by DeafMetal

[S1N0D3UTSCHT3K]

The story ended for me as soon as Franklin became irrelevant to the plot and Trevor went to LS. It was a good story up until that point IMO. With the exception of "Bury The Hatchet" the back half of the story was complete and utter garbage. Not to mention those horrendous things they call endings.

 

I think that was the first weak point, yeah....

 

the start with F and M was awesome, Heist 1 awesome, and Trevor intro awesome

 

and so much excitement for the first meeting for M and T....

 

and we get Fame or Shame

 

wow that was anticlimactic one of the lowest quality moments in the game

 

some of the FIB stuff become better... some of the scenes like when M talks to the FIB guys at the start of Three's Company, or preparing to set-up or begin Blitz Play are decent... the start of By The Book is good and I like the banter between M and Dave... but yeah... story wasn't as good as the start

 

 

Exile was aaaawesome but after exile and especially after Bury the hatchet when M and T become super emo whiners... story become pretty crap. i mean, the whining at the end of the big one? the F and Lester talk before ending C? so bad so crap

 

but at least there was still some fun missions like Lamar Down once Ending C starts it's a very good ending

[Magic_Al]

Pre-release, when it was suggested the story length would be similar to Red Dead Redemption (shorter than GTA IV), and with three equal protagonists, math implied that character development might compare to the shortest GTA games, TLAD and TBOGT.

 

If you take the view that the game world is really the main "character" and having three personalities interact with it gives the player a broader experience, then GTAV tells a lot of stories. No it doesn't recreate the feeling of a one-man odyssey and wasn't meant to, but there's plenty to do.

 

Rockstar had to deal with the fact that GTAIV's story achievement data showed less than 30% of players finished that epic story. They're never going to make a story as long as IV's again unless they enjoy spending their time and money making stuff people don't see.

[REVENGE777]

Pre-release, when it was suggested the story length would be similar to Red Dead Redemption (shorter than GTA IV), and with three equal protagonists, math implied that character development might compare to the shortest GTA games, TLAD and TBOGT.

 

If you take the view that the game world is really the main "character" and having three personalities interact with it gives the player a broader experience, then GTAV tells a lot of stories. No it doesn't recreate the feeling of a one-man odyssey and wasn't meant to, but there's plenty to do.

 

Rockstar had to deal with the fact that GTAIV's story achievement data showed less than 30% of players finished that epic story. They're never going to make a story as long as IV's again unless they enjoy spending their time and money making stuff people don't see.

The thing about V's story in comparison to IV's is that many people felt that IV was VERY BORING and Niko was boring too. But V had three separate characters which would appeal to different gamer demographics, so it should've been just as long, if not longer than IV's story. But, ya know... It is what it is...

And that thing about having a lot to do doesn't make much of a difference, especially when the things there are to do aren't fun, or interesting, or things people asked for... But, like i said... It is what it is...

Edited September 26, 2014 by SonofLosSantos

[PhillBellic]

What? The story was not very good and had many, many, inconsistencies. As I have said before up until Trevor entered the scene the story was going well.

Furthermore the popularity of Drunken Cowboys "The Identity Crisis: The Problems with V's story." topic backs up my point very well.

 

Cheers.

[whats_a_username?]

I replayed GTA V's story many times. Fun missions.

I never finished The Last of Us, because that story got pretty boring quickly. People say that its a great story. It doesn't matter if the game is bloody boring, which TLoU definitely was.

Edited September 26, 2014 by whats_a_username?

[killahmatic]

How is the story misunderstood? Character development was extremely poor, especially for Franklin.

 

 

There was no character development for Claude or Tommy either and no one complained. There doesn't need to be. Its just a game about shooting and stealing. I don't necessarily need some deep story to keep me attached to the game, it just has to bring the game from one mission to the next. V was a little rough at times as far as trying to sync one story into a completely different one. Thats really the only thing R* didn't do right. Instead of having so many mini-stories along the way, I would've liked it to focus on one goal.

[Official General]

Sorry Phoenix, but I still think GTA V's story was sh*t for most part, the majority of it was uninteresting and boring. It was the weakest out of all the main GTA titles since III. Regardless of what you say, nothing will change the fact quite a significant number of GTA fans hold the same view as I do. You're just beating a dead horse, this has been discussed many times. Nothing was misunderstood, V's story was very poor in many ways. The writing, the script, the pacing, the structure, character development, - it was terrible, especially by GTA standards. Rockstar rightly deserved heavy criticism for V's story, you could just feel the lack of effort when playing through it. Rockstar did themselves no justice serving us such rubbish on a platter, they could and should have produced much better than that.

 

For me, V's story was doing just fine for the first quarter of the game, right up until Trevor came to Los Santos, and once the FIB got involved (what an epic borefest).The remaining majority of the story went down the pan. And I really hope that government agent bullsh*t does not dominate another GTA storyline ever again.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Official General

[mjansing82]

While I think the story was decent in some aspects you cannot please everyone. I thought that most of the game elements made up for story. I dont .rank them on a whole I rank them on their own. For example GTA SA was story wise was a master piece in story there where a few game mechanics I didn't care for. I felt it was in some aspects a sims game and I don't like that. 5 had a broad feel but not so much it overwhelmed the game.

Edited September 26, 2014 by mjansing82

[Algonquin Assassin]

 

How is the story misunderstood? Character development was extremely poor, especially for Franklin.

 

 

There was no character development for Claude or Tommy either and no one complained.

 

GTA III and VC didn't come off the back of such great characterisation such as GTA IV, RDR and MP3 though. I guess for a lot of people the standard set by those games wasn't something they felt that was achieved in GTA V hence why it's a common complaint.

[Snake Plissken]

The story sucked balls! The heists were god awful and overhyped and Michael, Franklin, and Trevor were very bad developed characters. Franklin especially. MY OPINION. Please don't get butthurt over MY views on this game.

 

IV > V in terms of story

Edited September 26, 2014 by Snake Plissken

[VCR]

I feel like they made it a hell of a lot easier to complete, which made it weaker right from the start. we had everything right from the beginning, I didn't like that. remember in SA when you had to complete the low rider mission just to gain access to the mod shop? that was cool

[S1N0D3UTSCHT3K]

no it is pretty bad. We learn practically nothing about the character's past, and have really no connection to them like we did with niko or cj. pretty much every gta had a big event that started the story. VC - drug bust, SA - moms death, 4 - moving to LC. We get nothing like that with gta 5. we are thrust into the game clueless about what is going on. we never connected with the characters to begin with.

 

i dunno i cared far more about F and M than any of those characters because they other GTA characters are incredibly ludo-narrative dissonant

 

F and M are basically the only believable characters in GTA... M is basically the Anti-GTA, really

 

 

it's also the only GTA with a story that's even remotely plausible... IV's is so warped and passive that it's hard to feel emotion for something so devoid of emotion

 

and other than the first 3-4 hours of SA, SA and VC are basically a bunch of pointless random stereotype characters that serve no purpose other than the move you around the map doing the same repetitive bad gameplay.

 

SA had by far the best story potential and maybe even storytelling moments of any GTA but is what hurt simple because it tried to have far too much gameplay... SA would have been a far better story as a 8-10 hour game. it was stretched far too much and filled it with so many irrelevant characters, events, and empty copy/paste wilderness or copy/paste corridors (which was a great technological achievement on the PS2! but it hurt the story)

 

gta v is the only gta where it seems plausible they designed the setting, story, and plot before the game world and gameplay because it doesn't feel tacked on, and they put in enough resources to make almost every mission unique and highly produced

[S1N0D3UTSCHT3K]

V's story was very poor in many ways. The writing, the script, the pacing, the structure, character development, - it was terrible, especially by GTA standards.

 

i won't disagree with the stuff you said about the story... but if by writing and script you mean the dialogue then i gotta disagree.

 

it can't even compare because they couldn't even write this way for other GTA games. they purposefully kept a lot of VC and SA's writing simpler because you can't have certain lines work with better facial animations. there are a lot of scenes in GTA V you couldn't even have in GTA IV with the weaker facial animations for lips and eyes, let alone in SA and VC.

 

that allowed them to write far more nuanced comedy for Franklin and Lamar, or far wittier banter for M and T.

 

one of the best scenes in the game is during exile where when T tells M about calling F, M gets mad, and T says how M automatically thinks of himself. M doesn't say anything.. he just darts his eyes, his lips and jaw pinch, and his eyelids squint... and he then he admits it. T's face similarly animates a lot. half the meaning of this scene comes from face animations that couldn't work in other GTAs, and it makes it one of the best written scenes in any GTA. same goes for a lot of scenes like the banter between F and L at the end of Lamar Down, start of Repossion or F&L, F and M during Bringing the House Down... I could list a lot of examples. if you tried this level of writing in other GTAs, it would fall flat because without the accompanying facial animations, the wit or sarcasm would fall flat.

 

and it works well... M and T during Exile are incredibly well written, and almost everything with F and L is probably the funniest black comedy this side of Chris Tucker and Ice Cube's Friday, anything TV with Martin Lawrence, or the Wayans brothers' Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood...

 

Michael's hit or miss... sometimes like his intro scene with Friedlander is just superb... when he flips out with T and the FIB in exile is also very well written... when he gets back with his wife at Friedlander and says why don't you suck my cock is just incredibly timed.. and he has some of the most witty lines in any game, like at the start of By The Book when T says I'm beginning to think that's what you want to do and M replies 'just said the same thing to my wife' .... very witty and subtle. or when M and Ron talk at the start Derailed. very witty dry humour.

 

that's half the time... other half the time, he just whines and it comes off too forced... so he has some gems but also a lot of duds

 

 

 

Trevor.... Trevor is kinda GTA the character so he's cool and stupid in the same way Tommy Vercetti is cool and stupid. not well written. cliche. unbelievable. basically a comic character. my favorite to play as but not exactly a great 'story'

[Kampret]

Rockstar had to deal with the fact that GTAIV's story achievement data showed less than 30% of players finished that epic story. They're never going to make a story as long as IV's again unless they enjoy spending their time and money making stuff people don't see.

 

First of all, the survey was conducted WAY back in 2009. And second, it was conducted on Xbox Live, where pretty much kids rules the damn server. They should do another survey now in 2014, and extends to PSN and GFWL.

[Official General]

 

V's story was very poor in many ways. The writing, the script, the pacing, the structure, character development, - it was terrible, especially by GTA standards.

 

i won't disagree with the stuff you said about the story... but if by writing and script you mean the dialogue then i gotta disagree.

 

it can't even compare because they couldn't even write this way for other GTA games. they purposefully kept a lot of VC and SA's writing simpler because you can't have certain lines work with better facial animations. there are a lot of scenes in GTA V you couldn't even have in GTA IV with the weaker facial animations for lips and eyes, let alone in SA and VC.

 

that allowed them to write far more nuanced comedy for Franklin and Lamar, or far wittier banter for M and T.

 

one of the best scenes in the game is during exile where when T tells M about calling F, M gets mad, and T says how M automatically thinks of himself. M doesn't say anything.. he just darts his eyes, his lips and jaw pinch, and his eyelids squint... and he then he admits it. T's face similarly animates a lot. half the meaning of this scene comes from face animations that couldn't work in other GTAs, and it makes it one of the best written scenes in any GTA. same goes for a lot of scenes like the banter between F and L at the end of Lamar Down, start of Repossion or F&L, F and M during Bringing the House Down... I could list a lot of examples. if you tried this level of writing in other GTAs, it would fall flat because without the accompanying facial animations, the wit or sarcasm would fall flat.

 

and it works well... M and T during Exile are incredibly well written, and almost everything with F and L is probably the funniest black comedy this side of Chris Tucker and Ice Cube's Friday, anything TV with Martin Lawrence, or the Wayans brothers' Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood...

 

Michael's hit or miss... sometimes like his intro scene with Friedlander is just superb... when he flips out with T and the FIB in exile is also very well written... when he gets back with his wife at Friedlander and says why don't you suck my cock is just incredibly timed.. and he has some of the most witty lines in any game, like at the start of By The Book when T says I'm beginning to think that's what you want to do and M replies 'just said the same thing to my wife' .... very witty and subtle. or when M and Ron talk at the start Derailed. very witty dry humour.

 

that's half the time... other half the time, he just whines and it comes off too forced... so he has some gems but also a lot of duds

 

 

 

Trevor.... Trevor is kinda GTA the character so he's cool and stupid in the same way Tommy Vercetti is cool and stupid. not well written. cliche. unbelievable. basically a comic character. my favorite to play as but not exactly a great 'story'

 

 

Sorry, my view stays the same. The story in V was sh*t in most ways. There is no sugar-coating or disguising the fact that this is how I see it.

[BlackNoise]

Misunderstood. Alot of people thought V's storyline was gunna be super exciting with a 100+ missions , this that etc etc. Well it wasn't but it wasn't as bad as people say it was. If you rewatch the intro and the first mission, you will kinda understand this.

 

 

V's storyline was placed as a modern mainstream/ combined with stereotypical hollywood stuff and it shows 3 criminals doing different stuff. It wasn't like the old GTA's, it was very different. It showed alot of modern stuff like corrupt cops (Steve Haines) and stereotypical rich dumbasses ordering others to do their dirty work (Devin Weston) the main theme wasn't heist, it was the modern setting and it wasn't supposed to be dark like IV or something like that. Obviously the hype got the better of people but if you did not hype V, you may have enjoyed the story. It may have fallen short: but it was good while it lasted on its own. V is bashed because of its poor characters and story, I think that's wrong. The story is just misunderstood IMO.

Everything you described is why some people think it was bad. It's just an opinion. It's not deep enough for it to be misunderstood.

 

Some people don't like stereotypical hollwood stuff, stereotypical rich dumbasses ordering others to do their dirty work, or a heist game where the main theme wasn't heists. IV's tone had nothing to do with it, and neither did hype. I just think R* dropped the ball with V's story. There were some great moments, but the story was all over the place and it just didn't do it for me.

 

It probably would've been better if R* focused more on the crime. Michael was supposed to be the most interesting character, and I love his backstory, but the execution of his family drama got boring quick. It was like watching a weak sitcom in the middle of a heist film. Franklin was completely underdeveloped. I don't even know how to feel about him. He was just there, and his thought process didn't make much sense to me. He wanted to leave gang banging and his life of crime in the ghetto, but the stuff he was doing for Michael was even more ridiculous. This is why it would've been better if R* focused on the crime. It would've made more sense if Michael had his sh*t together, but it seems R* doesn't know how to make a GTA without some type of corrupt cop element. Michael got Franklin paid, so I guess Franklin was down to do anything at that point? Even work for the FIB?!

 

Trevor could've been fun, but instead of making him a complete psychopath who was also loyal to his friends, R* gave us a dirty weirdo. I can understand why some people like him, but R* tried too hard to make him a piece of sh*t. You can't even dress him properly. His character is just designed to be unlikable. Some people like that "I'm not supposed to like him, so I like him" type sh*t, but it's just annoying IMO.

Edited September 26, 2014 by BlackNoise

[HaythamKenway]

There is no problem with V's story being different. For most part, I liked many of new concepts and approaches to the storytelling. I was more than happy that R* decided not to "overhumanize" Michael and Franklin like they did with Niko and Johnny (to the point where their negative characteristics were completely overshadowed by their positive ones and they ended up looking like some fallen tortured heroes to many players). I liked antagonists (or, a lack of them) and I think R* handled the exploration of themes like pursuit of wealth and power, corrupting nature of capitalism, value of loyalty and generally how can one live in a system like this and stay true to himself and the others, really, really well. And hell, Michael's story arc is, in my opinion, the best plot in the entire series.

 

However, V's story failed in several very important aspects. First, I would be okay with R* trimming the story down and keeping the pace up for once. SA, IV and RDR were terribly slow games at times. But R* went too far. They didn't realize that they had three protagonists at the same time and that they needed three times as much room for their screen time and character development than they really needed for Niko and the others. The multiple protagonist concept could have solved the pacing issue alone. Jumping between three protagonists would keep the game fresh and give it always something interesting to tell. No more Red County/Bohan/Mexico chapters like in the old games. But R* decided to cut the story lenght down anyway and we ended up with underdeveloped Franklin.

 

Another problem is the cast. Everyone in the story, except for the main trio, is a joke and is taken as such. Think about it, even Lamar, who is pretty much the Roman/Sweet/Jim Fitzgerald/Tony (you get the point) of V is played for laughs in most of his apperances. Even main antagonists were cheapened for some easy laughs (even though Devin's antics came across to me as more unsettling than funny, which was good, but whether that was R* intent, I don't know) and generally, many of the characters got a "funny" trait that was completely unnecessary and harmed their presentation. Why does Lester have a wasting disease? What is the point? That's not even funny. The only supporting character I can take completely straight is Dave Norton.

 

Hand in hand with that goes Trevor's problem. Above I wrote about how happy I was that they presented Michael and Franklin as they were, without trying to force them in a way to make them more likable. Well, this doesn't apply to Trevor. I still like the character (if not for anything else, than at least for Steven Ogg's fantastic performance). A true psychopatic protagonist was a welcome addition to the GTA series. But it seems like R* ended up being afraid of their own creation. Were they worried that Trevor would have been too extreme and heinious to the audience? There are Trevor moments I genuinely love, and those are moments where he's just a chilling, uncontrollable, disturbing psycho. His introduction missions in Blaine County, the opening cutscenes to Fame or Shame and Fresh Meat, By the Book and some others. But for the most part, R* decided to turn a potentionally fantastic "evil" protagonist into almost Saints Row-ish lunatic. The whole business with Floyd, Debra and Wade, his awful "romance" with Patricia and so on. I have a feeling R* did so not to offend its audience with a completely despicable protagonist. Which is a shame, because Trevor was a fantastic chance for R* to do something truly fresh and new.

[calvooo]

Like the story, I play it slowly with other side missions and stuff.

Sometimes i just driving & exploring around for hours, this is the importance of GTA games. Story.. its there, average/good, something in between.

Wanna play super duper story..? Play another game, sorry.

 

[S1N0D3UTSCHT3K]

 

Trevor could've been fun, but instead of making him a complete psychopath who was also loyal to his friends, R* gave us a dirty weirdo. I can understand why some people like him, but R* tried too hard to make him a piece of sh*t. You can't even dress him properly. His character is just designed to be unlikable. Some people like that "I'm not supposed to like him, so I like him" type sh*t, but it's just annoying IMO.

 

 

haha really? i like him so much because he's a cool bad ass businessman I think that's why most people like him, not the weirdo stuff

 

and what'ca mean about clothes, he has tons of normal clothes. all he ever wears for me is properly fitting suits, wool or leather jackets, t-shirts... basic blue jeans.. army stuff

 

 

the weird stuff is like less than 10% of his clothing (maybe 25% if you include all the bowling shirts which are kind a waste he didn't really need 14 bowling shirts lol)

[Trevorphilipjfry]

Ehat I quite likes with Vs story was that it was always going somewhere, and I didn't feel like the story was dragging on, very little filler missions, and each mission sequence was very different to the next, they learned their mistake with IVs story, and that why the released TBOGT and and that's why they did what they did with V. Leave the dark sombreness to Max Payne and possible Agent, but let GTA keep its unique charm.

[woggleman]

It's not as good as IV but better than people give it credit for. Michael's Story is very deep actually. People underrate the story in V the way they underrated the fun and action in IV.

[Guest Billy Russo]

I honestly think that if Michael was the only playable protagonist, that it would have been a better experience. Whilst the idea of toying with three protagonists was great, it also brought a lot of very bad character development. Michael was easily the main focus and most developed.

[rampage08]

I was expecting a darker story than IV within V in contrast of how the setting is more "bright" than IV itself.

 

But this one was alright but i liked the overall characters in V more, though Mike and Trevor are two of the best GTA protags imo.

[Tilemaxx]

Story was average, but execution and dialogue were flawless. In contrast, IV's story had more potential, but execution was troubled. It's a matter of perspective anyway.

[Algonquin Assassin]

Story was average, but execution and dialogue were flawless. In contrast, IV's story had more potential, but execution was troubled. It's a matter of perspective anyway.

Why do you think it was "troubled"? Just curious that's all.

[Studenta^]

 

Story was average, but execution and dialogue were flawless. In contrast, IV's story had more potential, but execution was troubled. It's a matter of perspective anyway.

Why do you think it was "troubled"? Just curious that's all.

 

Yup!!

[GN 92]

I like it, and if I enjoyed it, I don't give a sh*t what people think.

[Kampret]

 

Story was average, but execution and dialogue were flawless. In contrast, IV's story had more potential, but execution was troubled. It's a matter of perspective anyway.

Why do you think it was "troubled"? Just curious that's all.

 

 

More like a pace thing. I loved GTA IV, but there's no doubting that the game felt kinda slow to me, whilst V felt way too fast for a GTA.

[Algonquin Assassin]

 

 

Story was average, but execution and dialogue were flawless. In contrast, IV's story had more potential, but execution was troubled. It's a matter of perspective anyway.

 

Why do you think it was "troubled"? Just curious that's all.

 

More like a pace thing. I loved GTA IV, but there's no doubting that the game felt kinda slow to me, whilst V felt way too fast for a GTA.

I didn't think there was anything wrong with the pacing. It made the story more cohesive rather than jumping all over the place.

 

I would rather something that goes at a slower rate and builds itself up than something fast that feels like a pogo stick transition.