My chosen games are Prince of Persia and Rayman 3 and the story nodes worked well to support gameplay and gameplay objectives in Prince of Persia but not in Rayman 3. Both of the games feel different from one another, Prince of Persia relies more on narrative and Rayman 3 relies more on gameplay.
Prince of Persia opened with a story node (cut-scene), establishing the characters and setting making the objectives clear. Through the story nodes I found the story interesting but the gameplay uninteresting and repetitive. I found myself playing only because I was engaged and excited about the narrative but not the gameplay, and as a result I saw the story nodes as rewards which came in a variety of forms; cinematic (start of the Game), scene and mood setting (when the level is shown to the player) and gameplay catapult (Father and son win the battle and give the sand of time to ally).
In Rayman 3 I found myself enjoying the gameplay but not the story nodes. It opens with a story node establishing the characters, plot and setting. The game used story nodes, only to make objectives clear to the player but not to engage and excite the player for the narrative. It felt very much like Mario where the story is not necessary for the gameplay to be enjoyable. The player lost agency when the story nodes played and I felt detached, just wanting to get to the gameplay instead of paying attention to the story nodes.
Overall, I think the story nodes supported gameplay and gameplay objectives in Prince of Persia but not Rayman 3. The story nodes immersed the player into the narrative in Prince of Persia but in Rayman it was used to get the character from “A” to “B”.
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