No one has mentioned Papo & Yo because, well, no one's heard of it.

Gameplay: It's a third person platformer. Think Mario 64. The level design is fantastically imaginative. It feels like it could be a level in Psychonauts, which is fitting since both games involve you delving into the psyche.

The game world feels like you're playing through a bored school kid's imagination of how the world might be if you were a freerunner and chalk drawings could warp reality. The trailer gives you a good feel for it:

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOUMYIZWt8g

Story: This is an unusual story for a video game, in that it's a personal journey through one kid's psyche rather than a traditional story. You know how we're getting more stories invoking the feeling of being a protective father lately? The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, Heavy Rain, etc. This story inverts it, where you're the adolescent child of an abusive father and the kid is dealing with the situation through escapism. The story is a simple one with a profound and refreshing ending. It gets a bit heavy, but since the game is only 3-5 hours long it's easy enough to finish it in one or two sittings and get to the resolution.

It started off as a typical indie game, but it's been refined and highly polished during the dev process. French Canadian money was poured into it, I think. I encountered one bug during my first play through which caused me to have to restart a boss battle [I was able to move my chara during a cut scene and ended up inside a wall] but otherwise it was bug free.

I've finished it three times now. I don't think I'll want to revisit the game, but I'm glad I played it and it's worth at least one play through.

edit: One last thing. While playable with kb and mouse, these types of games are usually much better with a gamepad. I use a 360 controller with my laptop, but you can buy Papo & Yo directly on consoles as well.

 

Final Fantasy X fucking sucks. Seriously, the story and characters are terrible. All in all, it's still a memorable game, but if you're even a little bit critical it all falls apart.

Now, if you want to try to Final Fantasy series, I'd recommend 7 or 9. Both are great games, even if they're a bit dated. Particularly 7.

I'll have to second whoever recommended Vampire: The masquerade. The plot in that game is frickin' excellent and it's made in such a way that you can approach all problems several ways. (Usually by being sneaky, social or violent.)

 

I can see this thread becoming Yet Another Final Fantasy Debate. I'll throw my hat in for IX in that case, though it's really more of a callback to earlier Final Fantasies, so it helps to have played those before it.

Otherwise I'd probably go with... Pokemon. Pretty much every one of them is story driven, with little option for side quests and the likes, but they're still very fun to play.

 

Played all the Pokemon games. Looking forward to X&Y. I loved both FFX and FFIX. always meant to play 7, but I never got around to it. I hear they did a remastered version or something for the PC. Maybe I'll give that a try.

 

To add to the FF-Arguments:

This. If only for one reason.

Yuna.

Yuna > All

Stay away from FFX-2 though, THAT was effing terrible.

FFXIII is a good story-driven game. It's really linear till the last section of the game, but then it blows wide open and there are massive amounts of sidequests to follow. But the combat and story are both fantastic. Even if I absolutely DESPISE one of the characters.

FFVIII is a good one too. Personally, I wasn't a big fan of FFIX.

 

I don't want to derail this thread from the topic, but I cannot sit idly by whilst this much retardation is uttered.

FF13 a good game? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?

Linear as fuck. This goes for both fighting system and plot. I like what they were trying to achieve, but since you're not really doing anything but mashing the x-button, it fails.

The plot... I like the main idea of a witch hunt set sci-fi times, but they failed big time actually telling the story.

For more details and a good laugh.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/game-reviews/final-fantasy-x/

FF13:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIOXqHz_2MY


Now, an actual recommendation:

F.E.A.R.

It's kind of a first person shooter blended with a horror movie. The first one's actually awesome and I like the way the plot is advanced. The sequels are kinda meh.

 

Games with strong stories (though, what makes them strong is very diverse) that I've enjoyed. Some are really "campy" (like Symphonia) and some aren't (VTMB). Most of these games are more open than TLOU though, and most (not all) of the following probably don't fit into the genre of, "Set piecey very directed expreience." They're more of a mix of story heavy stuff with more open-ended gameplay.

VTMB:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRdMQpsKKNo
Deus Ex:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zStn70Ot4r0 / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GDe0UDQA-U
Psychonauts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPUZIagbl94
Symphonia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlHPSldhJLE
HL2: You probably have already played this? It's aged quite a lot, but I think it still holds up, even if some sections of its gameplay are a little weak.
The Witcher 2 / The Witcher: I don't need to sell you on this, I think? It's pretty popular. I didn't care for the story of the first game, personally, but you might be drawn into it. The second game resonated more with me despite disliking the first.
Planescape: Torment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgqX82-HRYE
Torment is probably really pushing it. It's an old game that didn't even have "great" gameplay way back then, but many consider it to have one of the best executed stories. I'd also recommend Fallout/Fallout2, but those games are very open-ended and not story-oriented experiences, unlike Torment, which only has a few real "open" segments to its gameplay.
KOTOR/KOTOR2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O15JzDqbOjI
Another oldish game that's a little more open. The story is very star wars flavored ( campy) in the first and very anti-star wars in the second (some people call it a "deconstruction" of the series, I dunno if I agree). If you decide to play the second, pick up the restoration mod, for sure.
I'd almost recommend Mass Effect, but the story kind of jumps off a cliff at ME2/ME3. If you enjoy character-driven stuff, you might enjoy the whole series and it's probably going to be more comfortable to you than some of the above games, but I'd recommend the above over Mass Effect, for their more engrossing elements and better attempts at story. Still, lots of content to explore if you get all the DLC for each game. I can't in good faith recommend Dragon Age Origins, partly because of how DA2 turned out and partially because the story isn't that interesting at points.

Ghost Trick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axae7FyRnkA

Very story heavy, many critics praise it up and down and back around. Virtue's Last Reward is also getting a lot of praise for its story, I can't say I've played it though.

I'd go so far as to say that Warcraft 3 is very story heavy - its campaign has a lot of lovely CGI and there is a ton of fun dialogue in every mission. It's also long and got some of the best multiplayer you can find.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuP6P3R3ArU

If you're kind of crazy, Pathologic and The Void (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQKFLAeXJjA) are great in their own, "What the fuck am I playing" sort of experience. Pathologic is plagued by bad controls and esoteric gameplay, but its story and presentation is pretty fascinating if you can get into it. The Void is much more competent but it's extremely open-ended, its story isn't really thrown at you like TLOU, you have to figure it out for yourself. Pathologic is very much the same (but it's different in that you NEED to understand the gameworld and its story in order to beat the game, you could beat The Void without understanding much of anything).

The Metal Gear Solid series is very very story heavy. Start with the remakes that you can find, as the originals are a little ugly, though their gameplay still stands up (save for the ocassional underwater escort mission).

Silent Hill 2 is a masterpiece of story and gameplay.

Shadow of the Colossus is great, but not so much for its story. I'd say it's the antithesis to TLOU - I mean, what story it does have is great, but the story/gameplay are almost seemless, unlike TLOU. It's gameplay heavy, with a more implied kind of story.

A lot of classic adventure games are good for their story, still. Stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRPCs4ZLND0 are still a joy.

Dare I recommend Dark/Demon's Souls? Also anti-TLOU in terms of design, but enjoyable gameplay and story, nevertheless. Hitman Bloodmoney is fun, but it's story is maybe too loosely connected to be recommended here. Same sort of goes for Thief/Thief2/Thief 3, but all of those are pretty great in what story you do get. Alpha Protocol gets special mention too, for its arcing storyline - every time I sit down to play it, I tend to get something that's slightly different, it's really well done in how the game's story changes based on your choices, a shame its gunplay is a little poor. Penumba: Overature has an interesting story, but it's way too fucking scary for me to recommend. Finally, Fallout New Vegas. I can't really recommend it here, because although its story is good, there's way too much walking around in the wasteland to say it's a story-oriented experience. Fallout/Fallout 2 have that whole map traversal thing, so there's a lot less pointless wandering around in real time.

I've been playing Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together on the PSP lately - it's the precursor to FFT... and I find it to be strictly better. The story has three major paths, so at least three potential playthroughs, and the story is pretty nice, with actual weight to your choices. You can become an anti-hero, even. The definitive version is the PSP one.

Finally, I got a taste of Divinity: Dragon Commander that just came out on Steam. I'm pretty impressed so far, I don't know if its story will hold up as it has so far, but some of the choices that they let you make... pretty wild, though I've yet to know what effects they actually have. A demon offers you power in exchange for the soul of you wife, for instance. I didn't take it, but I wonder what happens as a result.

 

I'll second Planescape:Torment a phenomenal game and fits absolutely perfectly with what you want. That is really really good story/plot and excellent characters plus you're a reader so I think you'll enjoy the game much more. Its a very dialog heavy game so if you do play it make sure you keep that in mind when distributing you're attributes at the start, trust me it will be worth it. Oh and always talk to your companions they will have some really important stuff for you.

Am getting excited just thinking about it again. I honestly suggest you pick it up before the others if the whole AAA thing has become tiring.

 

Tales of Symphonia is definitely worth the play through. Somewhat campy story that is both deceptively simple and complex. It tackles a variety of issues with a refreshingly optimistic approach.

Graphics were meant to be stylized and I feel they've held up well through the years. Combat system is repetitive but very fun. Basically take the time to play this through. Its worth it.

 

If we're talking about JRPGs, play Persona 3 and 4 immediately. They're seriously some of the best JRPGs ever made. The Shin Megami Tensei series is generally excellent, but those two in particular are excellent from a writing perspective (mainline SMT games, as an example, tend to be fairly scaled back on the story.)

Also: unless you're willing to dig really, really deep, playing Demon's/Dark Souls for the story is a bad idea. They're pretty much the opposite of "story driven" in that - while their stories are probably pretty good (I don't know, I didn't really encounter their stories) - they're also hidden from you. You have to put in a lot of effort to even find the story in those games, and a ton more to understand it. They're great games, though.

 

See if you can find a working emulator for the Wii's Xenoblade: Chronicles. It's a kickass JRPG (one of the few times I've said that) that was released late into the Wii's cycle, so it didn't get much hype, but it should. It might be my favorite game of anything released during the Wii/360/PS3 era.

 

I don't know how I forgot Metal Gear, but I did. Play that series.

 

FF4 is the best, followed closely by FF6. Also, I'm old (I remember using the game genie to unlock all the "dummy" items they removed for us stupid Americans for FF2US).

I'm a fan of strategy/tactical RPG's which are usually story-heavy, starting with FF Tactics (the War of the Lions remake is fantastic*). Unfortunately they're pretty much all console- or handheld-bound. There's even the SRPG equivalent of crack!fic: the Disgaea series.

*EDIT: In my head I was mashing FF:T together the PSP Tactics Ogre remake, Let Us Cling Together, which is just as fantastic and an even more drastic improvement over the original.

Unfortunately to make this on topic, I can only personally recommend the ones that are also available for consoles: Dragon Age and KOTOR 1 & 2.

 

I guess you could call Disgaea cracky; I wouldn't, but I can see why you would. They're just comedy games that are really, really anime.

They're also pretty fun. Disgaea 2 and 3 don't have the best writing out there, but 1 and 4 are really funny and generally well-written. Disgaea 1 is old as fuck and has really unrefined systems, though.

FEdit: Oh, and don't worry about grinding. That series is notorious for its grinding, but that honestly doesn't happen until the postgame, and there are a ton of different systems in place to expedite the process (and generally make it more varied/interesting.)

 

Story-driven is a bit of an open-ended description. Are you sacrificing gameplay for good plot, or do you just want more substance than collect X amount of Y or kill 30 terrorists?

Tactics Ogre was just mentioned, but there's also Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen and Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (and a few others). Both are quite long games for their time. Turn based army building rpgs. The gameplay is pretty much the same for every single level, but the story is pretty sweet, and there are moral choices to make, which results in a few different endings depending on if you were a ruthless conqueror or a peaceful liberator. They both make my top 10 list of best games ever. The games are fairly long for how old they are. OG64 is like a 40 hours game, which when compared to Last of Us's 12 hours, it's a fair amount without getting dull like skyrim.

Earthbound. Wacky storyline, great gameplay. You haven't lived until you played it.

As for modern games, most of them have already been said. Play bioshock 1 and 2. I loved the atmosphere in Rapture, and collecting all the audio tapes on the various experiments and the like.
Assassin's Creed probably qualifies, but who hasn't played any of them? The first one's gameplay is pretty shit, so I guess the plot is all it really has going on, but I loved the second trilogy. Just being able to work with Leonardo was sweet.
Fable. The first one's the best in my opinion, since it's the most unrestricted. God knows the follow ups have pretty shitty gameplay, so plot is all it really has.
Kingdoms of Amalur. Again, gameplay is fairly generic hacknslash, but the plot is pretty well done, especially if you like high fantasy. Perhaps a bit too questy though.
Mass Effect 1 is probably the closest thing you're going to find, but since you've already played it... A very good balance of rpg elements and storyline. Easily the best in the trilogy.
Dragon Age Origins. People have a distinct hatred for anything on the console, and I know the subject has been beaten to death, but I think the console version of this game is quite superior to the PC one, at least for the gameplay. The characters really make the game. Well, the banter between Morrigan and everyone else. The sequel may as well not even exist.

Now someone just needs to make an HP rpg with moral choices...

 

Yeah... we mustn't even speak of the Harry Potter playstation games. xD

 

I did a playtrough of HP games one weekend (1-8 ) and let me tell you it was a disaster. The 1st and 2nd are child games with a few fuck this shit moments but overall nothing worth mentioning. The 3rd game is 70% video and 30% playing. The 4th shouldn't even be mentioned. In the 5th the tutorial stopped me, it was almost impossible to do it with mouse. The 6th has a great semi open world and by far the best fighting system, but after 10 min I found a loophole and after that no damage wins everywhere. The 7th part 1 and 2 are smash your X on your controller and don't even try it on PC.

so the "best" one is the 6th if you want to play HP.

 

The new Tomb Raider is excellent imo. Quite a surprise actually, and it is story driven.

 

I think the Star Wars: The Old Republic also deserves to be mentioned. It may be a MMO but it has great stories and with it being f2p it is really easy to try it out. The Jedi Knight or Sith Inqui/Imp Agent stories probably contain as much content as any singleplayer out there and even the planet quests are entertaining when doing them the first time.

 

Sleeping Dogs: Maybe I was just on a crime binge at the time, but seeing Wei Shen change so drastically (or maybe reveal his true colours?) over the course of the game was fantastic. It also has some pretty decent driving controls. The combat is pretty easy honestly, but it's entertaining so fuck it.

Basically like playing a John Woo movie.

The Swapper: This was one of those games that I ended up playing with the lights off. It was a pile of fun and the narrative is loopy in the best possible way. It's an interesting game and I frequently wonder how other people finished it, unfortunately practically no one I know has played the damn thing.

Superbrothers Sword and Sworcery: Might be a little late to the party with this one but it was great fun. Basic controls that still manage to keep you on your toes. The story is also pretty self-referential, though the meta-ness of it might be a turn off for some. It kind of mocks the hero cycle, but in a good way. Also your protagonist is a chick, which is refreshing.

Tales of the Abyss: Confession time. I'm a huge Tales fan. Symphonia was great, everyone loves it ok. Abyss though seemed to have some really solid character development. It also has an ending which (kind of) breaks some of the tenets of the cult of JRPG. Fair warning, Luke is a total bitch for a while.

Baten Kaitos: DID ANYONE PLAY THIS FUCKING GAME. Jesus Christ. It was on the gamecube and had a horrible dub but whatever. It was brilliant back in it's day and the hand drawn visuals still hold up today imo. It got a sequal which I never played but I still remember how tough the fights got at the end. I think I got up at 6 in the morning to get a half hour in before I had to leave.