Whisper of a Rose's Hellena's Nonexistent Fire Magic

Okay, I said I was done ragging on Whisper of a Rose, but this issue only came to mind after I was done with the other rant, so...yeah. 1 more rant on this Indie RPG, and then I’m finished. Really.

...Well, until I remember something else that bugs me, anyway.

Something which occasionally occurs during story cutscenes in RPGs is that magic-using characters will use a spell from their repertoire to accomplish something or other. Most often, this comes in the form of the healers in the party trying to repair someone who just got thoroughly wrecked, actively showing their healing spells outside of combat, but it can apply to plenty of other scenarios. In Final Fantasy 4, for example, there’s a moment in which a bunch of ice is blocking the heroes’ path, and they need Rydia to get over her fear of fire so as to use fire magic to melt the ice. Rydia, of course, steps up and delivers, as she always does, and we see her use fire magic outside of battle, and find that it’s been added to her list of battle spells.

RPGs tend to be, I’ve found, surprisingly careful about this sort of thing, too. Many times, I’ve been slightly annoyed because a party member will use an attack spell in a cutscene that’s actually not nearly the best option available to them (like, say, using Fire 1 to attack an enemy outside of actual combat even though the character has access to Fire 2). This is done, of course, to make sure that other players who may not have advanced their characters’ abilities as far as I have at that point will not be seeing the party member using spells that he/she hasn’t actually unlocked yet. It’s a careful detail for the sake of accuracy, you see. Heck, Lufia 2 has several moments in its storytelling in which Selan or another spellcaster uses their magic for a purpose outside of the battle system, and the game is so meticulous about being accurate with this, that Selan in fact has in her magic list a spell called Light, which has no actual function in the game whatsoever, save for a moment at the game’s end in which she uses it to light the dark fortress of the Sinistrals. And I think that’s only there because it was shown to have happened during the beginning sequence of the first Lufia title, so to maintain accuracy, they added this otherwise unused spell to Selan’s repertoire, specifically so her ability to light up the room (in the literal sense, though I daresay Selan does it figuratively, too) is accurate. Now that’s attention to detail!

I suspect that it is because RPGs tend to be extra careful to be accurate with their use of out-of-battle spell-casting that it seems so careless and strange when a case like Hellena in Whisper of a Rose comes along.

So, in Whisper of a Rose, the first companion that protagonist Melrose meets is Hellena, the perpetually and maybe a little unrealistically cheerful and friendly witch whose control over the elements makes her your primary spellcaster for the game. There are several moments in the game in which Hellena’s powers manifest during story scenes outside of battle, such as early in the game, when she accidentally uses a lightning bolt to try to keep Mel from walking away from her, or very late in the game, when she casts a fire spell on piles of wood during a sidequest to find a pile that doesn’t burn. In fact, those 2 abilities are the ones which Hellena frequently exhibits outside of battle, the ability to throw lightning around and the ability to control fire. She has more spells, of course, but you don’t really ever see the storytelling emphasize her control over wind, hail, rain, and plant life, just the lightning and fire thing.

And that would be just fine if Hellena actually had access to a fire spell. But she actually doesn’t.

I’ve looked everywhere on her skill tree, and even checked the walkthrough for Whisper of a Rose to see what her Rose Point super-skills are, and...nope. There is not a single fire spell in the entire tree. There’s a lightning spell, so that one checks out, but no fire spell. And yes, the lightning spell is actually of the fire element in terms of which kind of damage it does, but you can’t really count it as the same fire spells that Hellena uses during cutscenes, because, well, she also clearly has separate lightning spells that she also uses in cutscenes, too, as I said.

I know this is a nitpicky detail, but how do you, as a developer, manage to overlook the fact that the mage that you show using fire magic at multiple places in the story does not, in fact, have a fire spell? I mean, the very first time you encounter Hellena in the game, she burns down an inn! Fire is not only an ability that she makes use of frequently during the story’s course, it is also the first, character-defining thing about her that we see! That bit of hotel arson is related to Hellena’s occasional inability to control her powers, which is a plot point later on regarding her wicked witch wannabe mother. It’s at the root of a scene having strongly to do with a major story detail about Hellena! How did you just FORGET that she can’t use the fire magic she uses in this and multiple other scenes, Roseportal Games? Come on!

Is it a big deal? Nah. Is it a unique problem? Well, I guess not technically (the Mass Effect series’s cutscenes are known for ignoring the various abilities and weapon preferences of Shepard in favor of generic weapons so as to keep things easier for themselves), although it certainly is unusual. But it’s details like this that can be telling of larger problems with a game, and that’s the case here, I think, because this carelessness with following up on Hellena’s details to make sure they supported the ideas that Rosepetal Games had for her is similar to the major problems what Whisper of a Rose has with not taking the time and making the effort to support, explore, and follow through on its ideas.