Ye Olde Blah

I'm not really one for creative writing, but I thought I'd take a stab at writing some plot and dialog for a certain game. As I was writing, I noticed a lot of my ideas just didn't seem to have a "shining" style to them. The thing is, I can't figure out exactly what a "shining" style is.

So here's my question: What makes a shining style plot & story?

As far as I can notice, the Shining Style Plot always link back to the previous series..
They will somehow follow the official timeline.
For example, SF, SF2, SF3. Shining Soul 1 & 2 have common a character from SF, Boken.
SITD have DarkSol(although its not the same Darksol as in SF). SW(Sarah and Kazin)
The similarity in the plot in all of the 'Shining' game is always the same,
the Hero yield the power of Light to destroy the Darkness.

Here's a few thoughts. A Shining-style plot should be:

* Grand. It should involve a large-scale threat to the whole country or world.

* Telescopic. It should start with a small-scale story thread, like the appearance of a strange monster, and slowly lead the player into the main story, fighting the superbeing.

* Hopeful. Like Redian said, you should be the "light defeating the darkness", a Force for good against the evil permeating the world.

* Military. There should be armies and soldiers involved, like SFIII. Also, it makes sense that if there's a big enemy about to destroy the world, the army would be involved.

* Friendly. Develop a squad of friends over the course of the game, starting with a few close allies whose story begins before the game. It's important that they know each other already to limit the amount of catch-up you have to do.

Welcome to the board, Redian!

Enemies who are "Big Talkers", i.e. "You're pathetic, you don't stand a chance... etc", that always puts me in the mood for some fighting.

Also the antecipation that the game creates. Your hear from the townspeople about stuff long before you encounter it, like items, places and characters (i'm reminded of the Kraken and Taros for example).
The antecipation of learning new spells, finding new members and trying them out...

Beating a massively superior enemy offense with just one or two characters left available and then finding a nice town to recover in. Earning money and searching for items that might give you an advantage in the battlefield, etc.

Plus all the stuff Newts mentioned.

I think all the points made so far are good and remind me of a Shining game. I also think Shining games (at least the ones I've played) have plots that are pretty straight foward, perhaps a twist or two, but nothing that will really confuse you. Compared to games like Tales of Symphonia where even after completing it, I couldn't tell you what the plot was about.

Characters who embodies the enigma of Galm, the all-powerful.

Toss the Smoking Man another cigar!

A couple of things thing not noted here:

There's a chain of command in the bad guys.  So as you go through a few battles, there's a certain bad guy you get to know.  Then once you finally get around to the bit where you defeat this bad guy, you find out in the plot that he also has a master.   You start getting to know him.  Etc etc.

Secondly, the main character doesn't talk.
For interesting asides sake, you can say yes or no to some questions - but a lot of the time what you say to someone is assumed.  This is important to keep the game flowing smoothly - dialogue can be trying if you have to hear both sides of the conversation when you already know your guys point of view.
With smart dialogue the other character in the conversation can give away any interesting statements you make by partially repeating them, etc.