8 Most Ridiculously Complex Video Game Plots

WC: The major takeaway from the modern Story Wars is that there are examples even in the premium releases where the plot is a tangled mess, forcing players to keep notes, and in rare cases, resort to searching the internet for some explanation of what the hell just happened. What follows is a look through some of the more complex plots known to gaming.

[TheLyonKing]

I find kingdom hearts really easy to understand and I know my ffellow kingdom hearts fans will agree, what makes it complicated is that it spans over diffrent consoles and so you need to heavily invest money wise to play through the whole story.

Gametrailers summarises the story very well. If you read it the stroy would be complicated but having played through the games I get it.

Its like metal gear solid, I haven't played them all so I am thourghly confused about the plot.

[DarkOcelet]

Its great that the 1.5 and 2.5 are there to make the fans follow the story more easily because its really confusing without the whole package because every single game is just as important story wise.

MGS story is really great but i consider it a mind **** experience along the way. Especially MGS2 the first time i played it, i doubt anyone fully understood it until MGS4 landed but i didnt mind because it was fun as hell.

[GameSpawn]

The Metal Gear Solid database that was on the PS3 (it released alongside MGS4) is a really good recap. The only problem though (other than having to have a completed MGS4 save for its related entries to show up) is that the timeline established in the database conflicts with the timeline of events in Metal Gear 1 & 2. Kojima could be working toward erasing MG1&2 with Metal Gear Solid 5 (or subsequent games) and thus correct the conflicts.

For those with a PS3, I think the Database is still freely downloadable and it has loads of information and shows you the interconnections between characters and events between Metal Gear Solid 1 - 4 and Peace Walker. Otherwise you could use the wikias that exist to fill in the blanks (though the information is a little less organized versus the Database app).

[LAWSON72]

That's past tense now, pretty much all the games are available on PS3 for $60

[TricksterArrow]

1. Metal Gear Solid is not so much complicated. They use a lot of in-universe technical terms during the plot and that can make things confusing, but once you get familiarized with them the story is actually pretty straight forward, TBH. Just dont't expect someone to be able to explain to a non-MGS player what its all about (as I said, too much in-universe terms for someone not familiarized to follow).

2. The Legend of Zelda, I always treated the games of the series as stand alones, TBH. But I'm not an avid Zelda player.

3. Final Fantasy VII isn't complicated at all. Very easy to follow. Final Fantasy Tactics is much more complicated, if you're looking for a complicated FF game.

4. Mass Effect is incredibly easy to follow. Not sure what this guy is going on about. The ending was confusing, but the Extended Cut tied everything up (even if not in a very satisfactory manner).

5. All other games, I have never played, but I'm sure there are more complicated games out there than most of the ones present in this list. Hell, Parasite Eve seemed pretty hard to follow when I firt played back then.

[GameSpawn]

With Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess, Windwaker, and Skyward Sword established that all the games are essentially in the same universe just at different times and the characters are reincarnations of their ancestors with the individual pieces of the Triforce being passed along to later generations and becoming "active" when Ganon (and his Triforce piece of Power) becomes active/reincarnates/resurrects .

In the case of Windwaker, the Hyrule of Ocarina was completely submerged underwater. Windwaker was like the Waterworld of Legend of Zelda. Twilight Princess falls somewhere in between chronologically (because obviously global warming caused the water world in Windwaker and the Temple of Time was already in ruins in Twilight). I haven't read up on or played Skyward but I know they followed with the tradition of Windwaker and Twilight and it does fall into the timeline.

[NukaCola]

ZELDA games all take part in hundred year segments of reincarnation of "the one" the chosen boy who will defeat evil. The characters all share this similar story, and the games are just in different orders in the whole time line.

MGS is not complicated, it's just so well put together and integrated into the real world, it's scary to some. Check out the wiki MGS DATABASE on PS3. It'll break down about 90% of the series and is very informative.

[YamiMarik]

I found the story of Pong complicated.

[linkenski]

Mass Effect? Are you kidding me? It's a perfectly straightforward plot. The alien robots are going to kill advanced civilization every 50k years. Stop them.

Well the final 10 minutes of ME3 makes the plot needlessly convoluted but really, in the grand scheme of things I don't think it's overly complex.