Though few outside of the devoted gaming enthusiasts consider them a valid medium for narrative, games are as capable of fulfilling basic literary requirements as well as any other format. Granted, they do it in a way that reflects the youth of the medium, often echoing early myths and sagas, as Robert Scholes explains:
"For some, the telling of an exciting story is an end in itself. They do not shy away from improbable or even fantastic events. The characters in non-realistic tales and romances are likely to be sketched in rather than presented in depth, and they will tend toward extremes of beauty and ugliness, goodness and badness. Some writers of fiction fill out the thinness of such characters—not with the psychological details of realism—but with ideas and attitudes drawn from philosophy and theology." (Scholes 18-19.)
Scholes goes on to list a number of generally accepted fundamentals of fiction; the example of one such "exciting story," Yoshinori Kitase’s Final Fantasy X, will show how games can meet each of these criteria.