There are some games which, for whatever reason, I just don’t vibe with enough to keep playing even if I want to see the story. Some of these games will have a “story mode” difficulty which is just meant to be a really easy version of the game you could play to just get the story without worrying too much about needing to overcome the challenges.
Recently I tried going back to a game I had previously dropped because I wasn’t really enjoying the combat. I had dropped it down to story mode, but this wasn’t really enough to keep me engaged. And on some level, I don’t really enjoy games when they’re too easy anyway. It may not be that important or necessary to engage with the mechanics to succeed, but you often still need to go through the motions with them and the act of doing this with systems that don’t actually serve a purpose at that difficulty. The result of this is that the story that you’re continuing to play drains your energy and is potentially paced poorly.
When I was talking about this with a friend, we discussed how let’s play videos could serve as a substitute for playing the game if you just want the story. But of course this has it’s own problems. The pacing may still be bad, the video maker’s commentary might be distracting, and if you decide to go this route before even purchasing the game, the dev isn’t even financially rewarded for the work they did at least creating a story you liked.
So I had a thought: It might be nice if for exactly these kinds of games: Linear, cutscene heavy, and story based games, that currently choose to include a “story mode” instead just straight up edited together a movie from some combinations of the cutscenes and either recorded gameplay or perhaps some additional cutscenes to fill in the gaps that would normally be filled with gameplay. That way, if all you care about is the story, you get the best version of that story that you possibly could.
Of course there are plenty of kinds of games this wouldn’t work for, but for the ones where it could, I think it would be a nice replacement for “story mode” difficulties, or at least an addition. What do you think?
MKIceandFire is probably one of the best no commentary Let’s Players on all of YouTube. It’s just gameplay and no bullshit. And they edit out any grinding and unnecessary side stuff; like their playthrough of Spider-Man 2, they would regularly edit around breaks and collecting things to just show you more of the story. And they have different ways to watch, from one long video of the entire story, to breaking it up into multiple 15 minute+ videos in their own playlists.
Agreed. I regretfully left out a lot of it when mentioning MK.
They also leave any readable lore open long enough to give you time to pause the video and read it at your own pace. And they’re very throughout about exploring, looting, etc but as you say, they edit out anything boring like grinding. So you get a very smooth gameplay video that is worth watching, and hardly frustrating. I’ve used their videos to find collectables in some games, too.