While some games are remembered for their incredible on-the-surface storytelling, there are other games that have an intense volume of lore and world-building behind the scenes if they are examined more closely. Sweeping, grand adventures may be the best-recognized games, but there are others that also deserve their dues.
6 Resident Evil
The original Resident Evil has been mostly forgotten about today in favor of the sequels and remakes, but it was a simple yet hauntingly scary game that remains an intriguing one to play today. A team of police checking out a huge mansion where they become trapped and find the dead walking seems simple by the standards of today’s zombie games.
Adding the intrigue of Albert Wesker’s betrayal and the Umbrella plot and the story becomes much more interesting though. The deep lore created around the Resident Evil games both before, during, and after this initial entry makes playing the game back today so much more compelling knowing what is happening all around it.
5 Final Fantasy IX
While Final Fantasy VII is considered the best of the series by some, Final Fantasy IX is highly praised as well, and this is due to a much simpler story being told than was shown in the seventh installment of the series. While the story is still grand, there is a simple fairytale approach taken in this game which was much beloved.
This does not stop the world around this game from being massive, and the continent of Gaia is still considered a fantastic piece of gaming history. While any RPG with this much time to the story has to have some complications, there is so much more lore to be explored in this world by talking to other characters.
4 Silent Hill
Originally considered by many to be an attempt at capitalizing on the success of Resident Evil, the Silent Hill franchise quickly turned into a different beast and managed to be hugely successful in its own right. The first game had the seemingly simple premise of a man looking for the adopted daughter he loses during a car crash in the town of Silent Hill.
However, after conversing more with the various characters met in the practically deserted town, and after discovering there are five possible endings to the game, players began to realize that there was much more to this. Between subsequent entries in the franchise and the initial lore to be found inside this game, there is a huge volume of content and story to the seemingly simple horror premise.
3 Mega Man Legends
While the Mega Man series had already created a great deal of lore and many known characters, it wasn’t enough creativity for the team behind Mega Man Legends. This series of games began with the premise that the Earth had been flooded and people now used shards of quantum refractors for currency.
The game essentially set up a world with enough lore and story in this new sub-franchise to power a full RPG but instead told a much shorter story, with a lot of incredibly fun and memorable characters such as the Bonne Family Pirates. With all the extra lore to be explored, much of it is told in the subsequent games and spin-offs that came out of Mega Man Legends because of the huge success and love for these characters.
2 Parasite Eve
There are only a few games that try to blend horror and RPG elements in the way that Parasite Eve did. The game tells the story of a detective chasing after a woman that wants to destroy the human race through spontaneous combustion is a baffling yet compelling one. However, it may surprise fans of the game to know that the origin of the mitochondria the game and sequels focus on is much deeper.
The Parasite Eve video game was actually a sequel to a book written by Hideaki Sena. The way that mitochondria interact with humans is explained much more fully in the book and the world of this game is subsequently much more fleshed out by this added lore. It also tells a story about the villainous Eve and helps players much better understand where the story picked up by the game began.
1 Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver
A simple story of revenge with so much more lore behind it, Soul Reaver is the sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain and features an intriguing premise. The first game featured protagonist Kain turning evil and refusing to kill himself to save his world from decay, instead raising an army of vampires to become the dominant species.
After striking down Raziel at the beginning of Soul Reaver, Raziel becomes the protagonist as a wraith brought back by the Elder God and is sent after Kain, who becomes the antagonist in the sequel. Soul Reaver has an incredible world and lore around it, and it chose to tell a much simpler revenge plot than it could have with all the lore built inside the world.
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