Stories in games have a variety of ways to tell their narrative. Cutscenes are the classic option, while in-game scenarios are more common nowadays. However, another effective way to tell the story is through journals. Whether it’s memos, journals, or diaries, they serve the same purpose in telling you the story through observation.
While cutscenes are out of your control, you’re the one to pick up and choose to look at these readings. You’re the one getting the story. Journals can be humorous, insightful, dramatic, shocking, and are an effective tool for expanding the game’s lore in so many new ways.
10/10 Red Diary – Silent Hill 4
Silent Hill 4 is a weird entry in the Silent Hill series, considering the premise of being locked in your apartment room. After completing the first area of the game, you’ll start getting red pieces of paper slipped under the room’s locked door.
Upon reading a few of them, you’ll realize that the diary is from the previous attendant in the apartment room and may be in the same situation you’re in. You’re given pertinent information on the story, and the notes are even involved in some puzzles. Towards the end of the game, the importance of the diary is fully revealed in a satisfying way.
Haunting Ground is a solid Clock Tower-style horror game that is one of the most expensive titles on the PlayStation 2. The story can get intense with some pretty serious subject matters. The game’s menu has a comments tab that works like an internal diary, telling protagonist Fiona’s thoughts on what has occurred so far. That alone is quite interesting and another way of getting the story, but there is a quirk to this comments tab.
After beating the game, you unlock hard mode, and when you play that mode, the comments tab describes your dog Hewie’s thoughts instead. Viewing your dog companion’s internal thoughts on what’s occurring in the game is quite cute and a nice way of spicing up your second playthrough.
8/10 Starlord’s Journal – Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is a 2021 game by Eidos-Montreal that, despite great reviews, sold poorly. The game evokes James Gunn’s portrayal of the team with its style and chemistry, and Starlord’s journal is a great example of said style.
Starlord’s journal is periodically updated throughout the game with his summary and thoughts on what’s occurred. It’s filled with illustrations that evoke that Guardians style well. The full journal is even shown to you after the credits to show off your journey throughout the game.
7/10 LeChuck’s Journal – Return To Monkey Island
Return to Monkey Island is a classic point-and-click adventure series developed by Terrible Toybox. In part three of the game, you must learn various things about the villain LeChuck in order to progress. To know his catchphrase, you have to read through his diary.
The diary is quite long and humorous, full of his hatred for Guybrush and constant changing of his catchphrase for seemingly no reason. It is also tricky to find the correct catchphrase because of how much he changes his mind. This section was a memorable part of the game that stands out across the entire adventure.
6/10 Ish Notes – The Last Of Us
The Last of Us is an iconic PlayStation title and is regarded as one of the greatest games of all time. In chapter six, you’ll come across various notes surrounding a character named Ish. He was a person who, after the outbreak, survived because he decided to travel to the sea stocked with tons of supplies. It makes sense because the outbreak can’t affect you when you’re stranded in the ocean, right?
However, after a while, he needed to come back to land after his supplies were running dry. Throughout the chapter, more notes continue his story, which is quite gripping. His resolution is also left open-ended and will make you wonder about what really happened to him.
5/10 Wake Reads A Page – Alan Wake
A classic Xbox 360 title from 2010, Alan Wake follows the titular protagonist throughout a supernatural struggle. Throughout the game, collectible manuscript pages describe the game’s events and serve as this title’s journal. While most of the pages are available on the first playthrough, there are several that must be collected on Nightmare difficulty. One of them is Wake Reads a Page.
Since the manuscript pages describe what’s going on in the game, this note is supposed to come across as an infinite cycle. However, it comes across as desperate padding to fill a page quota or something like that. The first time reading this, you’ll either have a good laugh or be irritated and feel like this was a waste of a note. Either way, it is the most memorable note in the whole game.
4/10 Yogenta’s And Koshimaru’s Notebook – Ninja Gaiden 2
Many assume that Ninja Gaiden 2 does not focus on its story. That is mostly true, but the game puts a lot of effort and care into its memos and item descriptions. There are two memorable notebooks in the game.
One of them is Yogenta’s notebook, which details the writings of a dead Black Spider Clan member. It’s notable for its distaste of the Tactical Ninjas because they use guns. Proper ninjas don’t use guns unless you play Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, in which case you can, for some reason. Then in Koshimaru’s notebook, it details a woman coming into the fray, and as a ninja, you need to stay wary of them. You must stay focused here. No distractions are allowed.
3/10 The Journal – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The journal in The Witcher 3 is not only incredibly useful for alchemy, viewing the world map, and viewing your quests, but it also can be fascinating to read. The fantasy world of The Witcher is quite big, with all the various monsters, characters, and races to discover.
It can be quite interesting to read the bestiary entries or characters section. Considering The Witcher 3 was the first entry to the series for many people, a lot of time could be spent in these journal menus. The descriptions themselves are well written and have plenty of depth to them.
2/10 Ragged Diary – Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a 2004 RPG exclusive to the Nintendo GameCube. Often heralded as the best Mario RPG, the game has a very memorable single-player campaign. Whether participating in a fighting league or solving a who-done-it mystery, the game is consistently engaging. In chapter six, Mario will come across Ghost T.
He tasks Mario with finding his diary but warns him not to read it. Now that you’ve been warned, you have to read it, right? You’re given three chances to back out of reading it, but at this point, you just have to know what’s in it. Within moments of reading the diary, Ghost T. appears and gives you an instant game over. The moral of the story is, don’t look into other people’s stuff like that.
1/10 Keeper’s Diary – Resident Evil
The first Resident Evil title has the most iconic note in the horror gaming genre. You’ll come across the Keeper’s Diary in the researcher’s bedroom, detailing a trip through a person’s progression into a zombie, ending with the iconic “itchy tasty.”
In retrospect, it is weird that there would be a phase where you were essentially a zombie but could still write. The rest of the series isn’t consistent with that portrayal of zombies, and the diary now comes across as a little corny. After reading the diary, a zombie emerges from the closet in an iconic and effective jump scare.
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