Whenever Jeff wants to rip into Destiny, he brings up the anecdote about the time he visited Bungie and they gave this big presentation to the press about Destiny, before they had shown much gameplay. And they said something about how you would have these "stories" about your gun, and how you got the gun, and it's your gun that is this kinda unique, memorable thing for each player. I don't know if Jeff's version of that presentation is apocryphal or not, but for the sake of discussion, let's just go with it as is.
Jeff is right to blast Destiny for making that vague promise, because Destiny is not even remotely close to that. It's a random loot game, and you run the raids/horde mode over and and over until you get the handful of guns that people think are really good, then you spend ages upgrading them. There is nothing memorable about the event in which you get a random loot drop, at least not memorable enough to warrant some anecdote you would share with other players of the game.
That being said, has any game ever accomplished something like that promise, where obtaining the weapon that you use was this really cool, remarkable experience you would share with others? It seems like a really tall order, when a lot of equippable weapons in games are either randomly in a chest somewhere, or you get them as you level up (like Call of Duty) or they randomly drop and have no real significance because it's just a roll of the dice what traits they have and who knows, maybe another roll of the dice will give you an even better weapon.
Part of the problem is that unless the game in question has Witcher 3-level quest writing, or incredibly top notch emergent gameplay or something, I don't see how you'd really associate the weapon itself with "how you obtained it" for more than a day or two, before it just becomes "that really good weapon in my inventory, who cares how I got it". For the most part, the weapons themselves don't have hugely thematic links to the events where you get them.
Off the top of my head:
- Demon's Souls/Dark Souls/Dark Souls 2: getting a Black Knight weapon after defeating a Black Knight is kinda close? On one level it's kinda ho-hum, but for some percentage of players, maybe the first Black Knight they ever successfully beat was this incredibly tough fight that they barely completed with only a sliver of health left, and then the Black Knight weapon that they got was probably one of the better weapons that they'd encountered so far. To a lesser extent, maybe the boss weapons sorta count? I'll lump the whole series in on this one. Bloodborne kinda misses the mark because for the most part you just get the weapons from a vendor, which is a real mistake, in my opinion.
- Massive Chalice: The "bloodline relics" that are created by particularly accomplished members of a noble lineage, that are then passed on to the heirs of that lineage, is actually a really rad idea and is a cool aspect of the game. The circumstances of you obtaining the relic aren't necessarily crazy memorable, but the weapon at least has some meaning, or legacy, or history, to it. Which I appreciate.
- Monster Hunter: Maybe? I don't play the series, but fighting some of the monsters in that game is such an arduous task that finally being able to craft that piece of gear from the remains of these monsters you've conquered is kinda neat.
- Day Z/that whole genre: I don't play the survival genre, but I guess if you worked your ass off for no gain, toiling away with mediocre gear, and then you jump some random dude and take all of his top notch gear, that would be reasonably memorable? I feel like the story of how you jumped him would have to be really, really good, though.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: I thought most of this game was a really uninspired retread of Ocarina of Time, but I did think it was clever that at one point you fight this armoured knight that is swinging this giant spiked ball and chain at you and smashing the shit out of stuff. Then you beat him, and the ball and chain is an item Link takes into his inventory, so now you have this comically oversized ball and chain that Link barely has the strength to swing around above his head, and you can just wreck the shit out of enemies and certain barriers with it. For a series that mostly doles out items in conveniently placed chests, taking a weapon off of an enemy (and having it be just as effective when Link uses it as when the enemy used it) was kinda memorable.
What games do you think actually have these memorable stories about how you got your weapons and gear that might actually tell someone about?
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