The Deus Ex Series's Problem with Endings

The Deus Ex series is by and large a pretty great one, for multiple reasons, but it is by no means perfect.  Its first protagonists didn’t have a particularly engaging or deep personality, for example, and sometimes a hiccup in some of the basics of writing will become an obstacle to the effectiveness of the series’s messages.  But if I had to pick 1 area where Deus Ex really drops the ball in a consistent and damaging way, it’d be the endings to its games.

Now, it’s a funny thing about this: most of the time, the endings to Deus Ex’s games are not, in their own right, bad ones.  DE1 and 3’s endings were actually quite good, in fact, and while it got a bit intangible and cerebral, I rather liked DE2’s conclusion--elements of it felt a bit like something Isaac Asimov might have written.*  Further, while the conclusion to Deus Ex: Breach’s narrative wasn’t exactly amazing, it fit the game’s very small story well enough that I can’t really say I find it objectionable.

Really, the only Deus Ex ending that’s actually bad is that of Deus Ex 4.  DE4’s ending, sadly, is highly dissatisfying, clearly meant to be little more than sequel bait in its resolution of the game’s main quest.  I mean, I’m okay with leaving a small amount of stuff open-ended, but a conclusion’s gotta actually feel like something important was, y’know, concluded, and DE4 did very little on that front.  And even the stuff that did actually have some element of finality, the sidequest-y stuff, was handled badly by DE4’s ending: it’s reported on Picus News, so, since the whole point of Picus is for Deus Ex to show you how completely disingenuous and manipulative major media journalism can be, it’s hard to really glean all that much about the results of your actions through the game’s course past what you already knew from completing the sidequests in the first place.  DE4’s already played up the Don’t Trust the News card all through the game in its inelegant hit-you-over-the-head manner (I miss DE1 and 3’s subtle approach to this), so it’s not like its message is really benefiting at all by this point from more proof of Picus’s dishonesty.  What we needed from the ending was to just get a decently straightforward rundown on how Adam’s actions affected those around him--that would have been a satisfying way to handle it.  And all the more important when the main story of DE4 doesn’t wrap itself up so much as just unravel into sequel bait.

So yeah, Deus Ex 4’s ending sucks, unsatisfactory both in how it doesn’t feel like much of anything was really accomplished in the main story, and in how poorly it reports the results of what smaller side-stories it does deign to finish.  But as I said, when taken strictly on their own, the rest of the series’s endings are good, or at least decent enough.  So what’s the problem?

Well, it’s that the Deus Ex games themselves have a bad habit of retroactively negating the significance of the previous title’s finale and invalidating player choice.

Let’s take the ending of Deus Ex 1, for example.  DE1 evolves into being a rather wild ride as a whole, starting as an exciting narrative of the shadowy, hidden truth of society’s masters being discovered and fought against and evolving into an analysis of humanity as a social animal and what society is, isn’t, could be, and should be.  The ending to the game reflects this gradual transformation into a treatise on the nature and potentials of the social concept, by having the player decide, through the actions of JC Denton, what shape the next age of humanity shall take.  Will the society of our future continue as a means for the privileged and undeserving few to control the many?  Will the notion of nations be retired in favor of a return to a world of city-states?  Will there be the continued order of a flawed but safe system, or the anarchy of a swift and violent transition to a new kind of world, a harsh and difficult change that might ultimately lead to something better for us all?  Deus Ex 1 has, by the time of its conclusion, made its arguments for what society is, what it is meant to be, and what we, as individuals and as cooperative beings, want and require from governance and one another...and having made its points through the course of its tale, DE1 offers the player a handful of very distinct choices, of the highest significance, for how humanity’s future will proceed, and sits back to allow the player to come to their own conclusion about it all.  It’s both philosophical and grounded in reality, and the player fully feels the weight of how much his or her choice matters.

...Except that it doesn’t, as it turns out.

See, Deus Ex 2 is a sequel set several years after DE1’s plot, and it treats the events of DE1 as having ended in 1 way and 1 way only.  So all that stuff about the importance of the player’s decision on the path that human society will venture forth on?  The intelligent and elegant way that Deus Ex 1 said its piece for the purpose of allowing the player to be an informed party that puts his/her understanding to use in the game’s conclusion?  The warring sense of satisfaction and regret at having made a decision that represents what the player believes is best for the affairs of humanity, yet one which carries heavy burdens with its implementation?  All gone!  What you thought was the memorable, distinct conclusion you chose in a great early moment of player agency over a game’s story is now non-canon, just a “what if” that didn’t come to pass.

And the weird thing is what DE2 decided, retroactively, was how the first game ended.  See, in a situation like this, where the demands of a sequel’s story force a single canon into place where before there were multiple, very different options, it usually happens that 1 of said options was the “true” one that actually did happen.  Like how in Fallout 3, the player has the choice to save the Capitol Wasteland with Project Purity and be the expected hero of the game, but you COULD decide to be a complete douchebag and instead poison Project Purity and even further ruin the lives of everyone in the Washington, D.C. area.  2 choices are in the game, but when Fallout 4 rolled around, it was quickly apparent that, canonically, Fallout 3’s Lone Wanderer was not an evil bag of dicks, and did, in fact, properly follow through with Project Purity.  I mean, it’s never implicitly said in Fallout 4 that that’s what happened, but the Brotherhood of Steel wouldn’t have prospered in the region between games and built a new military empire there, as Fallout 3’s post-game events set up, had Project Purity not been successful.  That’s the sort of thing you expect when a sequel canon-locks a predecessor’s ending choice: a selection of 1 of those choices as what did occur.  It makes some basic sense, and if nothing else, at least some of the players are happy, because their choice turned out to be the “right” decision.**

Deus Ex 2, however, made the surprising decision to make no one happy.  Instead of just picking 1 of DE1’s ending options and sticking with that, DE2 decided to instead say that elements of all 3 separate conclusions happened.  As a result, as per Tracer Tong’s plan, the world’s global communication is knocked on its ass and human civilization becomes largely city-state-based--but the goal of definitively destroying shadowy overlords’ secret control over mankind is not achieved.  As per the Illuminati’s plan, Bob Page and Helios are destroyed and the Illuminati have a chance to rebuild and regain control--but the goal of security and structure to society is not achieved, as said society is now fragmented and more chaotic, set back centuries in terms of what methods are available to control it.  And as per Helios’s plan, JC merges with it--but the goal of creating a living benevolent god and ruler to mankind is not achieved, as the merger is not fully successful, and JCelios goes into 1 of those convenient sleepy-time comas that important characters are so damn fond of in RPGs.

So in summary, Deus Ex 2 denies any of DE1’s players the satisfaction of having chosen the true future of humanity, and instead retroactively creates an extremely vague amalgamation ending for DE1 where all the endings happened while accomplishing none of the goals they intended.***  Everyone gets everything, except what they wanted.  If you ever need a (sort of) tangible example of Calvin’s belief that “A good compromise leaves everybody mad,” look no further than what Deus Ex 2 retcons DE1’s ending into.

Although, if you do want to look further than just that single example, you won’t have to look far, because this is not an isolated event.  Deus Ex pulled this shit TWICE!  The ending to DE3, while not quite as grandiose or philosophical, takes a page out of DE1’s playbook and once again offers the player several distinct endings to choose, each one representing a certain view of how humanity should proceed into the future, this time being rooted in the regulation and governance of oneself and to what degree technology factors into that.  They’re all perspectives whose arguments for and against have been witnessed and imparted to the player over the course of the game, much like the case with DE1, and as a bonus this time around, the character of Adam is present and defined enough, and his personal connection to the major questions at hand strong enough, that the choice also relates strongly to him, what has happened to him, what he’s done, who he is.  I like JC Denton and all, but it’s always better to have a protagonist who’s intimately connected to the story that he stars in, so I appreciate Adam Jensen far more.

But just as Deus Ex 3 does a decent job of copying the format and strengths of DE1’s ending, so, too, does Deus Ex 4 do a decent job of copying the manner in which DE2 ruined its predecessor’s conclusion.  Once again, the sequel renders the player’s final decision utterly meaningless, and ignores the weight and significance of the predecessor’s choices by undoing them and forcing the narrative that the sequel wanted.  And it’s once again done in a frustratingly vague fashion, as Deus Ex 4 refuses to provide any detailed commentary on what it’s tyrannically dictating occurred at the end of DE3’s events, since having to actually tell the story of how things occurred is a consequence of retconning, and Cayden Cailean forbid that writers have to actually deal with consequences of their decisions.

Although it’s not a total mimicry of Deus Ex 2’s shitty decisions: where DE2 retroactively cheapened DE1’s endings by saying they all happened and failed to accomplish the goals that were their entire purposes, DE4’s writers play it differently by saying that any of DE3’s endings might, indeed, have happened, but it doesn’t matter at all because no one in the outside world got the message Adam tried to send, regardless of which message it was.  So I guess, in a way, they’re letting the player keep his/her autonomy over the DE3 ending by saying, sure, whatever you chose to have Adam do is totally what he did, but he could just as well have flaked on the entire finale altogether, gone home, binged The Good Place on Netflix, and achieved exactly the same amount of nothing that day.

Actually, The Good Place is great, and pretty enriching as comedies go, so really, it could be argued that he’d have accomplished more by bunking off work that day.

It’s already baffling that otherwise generally competent and even skillful writers would be so incontestably stupid as to, in DE2, destroy a great ending (and in doing so, kind of run against the thematic purpose of Deus Ex in taking all autonomy to determine the course of humanity’s future out of the hand of the player, who in most cases is a representative of the common man that DE generally seems to be trying to empower with knowledge), but it boggles my mind that the series would pull this shit TWICE!  And managed to worsen it the second time around!  As much as saying that all the endings of DE1 happened and all failed to accomplish their goals, at least that results in setting the stage for DE2’s events, thus serving some function, regardless of how poorly.  Deus Ex 4, though, just outright makes DE3’s ending sequence entirely meaningless altogether.  At absolutely most, DE3’s ending is allowed to have factored into the mysterious events between games that have personal relevance to Adam, but since DE4’s so determined to play coy and keep all details of that period strictly confidential, we still get absolutely nothing out of it.

So in summary, let’s look at the Deus Ex series, here.  We’ve got a game with a great ending (DE1), whose sequel retconned all its substance, meaning, and positive qualities into oblivion.  We’ve got a game whose ending is fairly decent and has yet to be worsened (DE2).  We’ve got a game whose ending is really good (DE3), whose sequel pulled the same retcon bullshit, but somehow even worse.  We’ve got a game with an okay ending, but one which doesn’t matter at all and leaves no impact on the player or the series (DE Breach).  And finally, we’ve got an ending that’s just dissatisfying, spiritually empty sequel-bait (DE4).  So 1 positive situation, 1 neutral thing that frankly very few people even care about, and 3 complete disasters.  Yeah, this franchise has got a problem.















* And unlike Mass Effect 3, such an approach to the game’s ending was actually consistent to the game’s theme and storytelling style as a whole.  Yes, I know I find an excuse to mention how shitty ME3’s ending was every half a year or so, but all the same, for the record: Fuck you, Bioware, you incompetent nest of self-important molluscs.


** In fact, I think in the majority of cases, players will be happy about this, since the ending choices that are most useful when establishing foundations for a sequel are ones that most people would choose themselves.  I mean, I know there are plenty of asswipes out there, playing (and, for that matter, developing) Fallout games, but I daresay most would agree that Fallout 3 is a far better story and product overall when the protagonist is generally good.


*** Oh, and if by any chance you’re questioning exactly how, logically and realistically speaking, it would even be possible for the circumstances of Deus Ex 1’s story events and finale to have led to a potentiality where all 3 of these endings could occur, even just partially, then Deus Ex 2 has a big ol’ box of Fuck You ready and waiting for you, because DE2’s writers will be damned if they’re gonna commit to anything but the vaguest possible explanation for their DE1 chimera-ending.  I’ve heard JRPG villain-council conversations about “their plans” for “the object” currently sought by “that guy” which contain more useful, concrete information than DE2 deigns to provide about the patchwork fiasco it insists upon using as its foundation!  So not only did they remove all the value and satisfaction of the ending to DE1, they didn’t even really replace it with anything else; you don’t just lose the ability to decide DE1’s conclusion, you don’t even get to know what it was!

Final Fantasy 6's Enemies' Magic

Note: Blogger tells me that it's discontinuing the feature of updating followers through email whenever a blog is updated.  Which seems ludicrous to me, and I can't really see how it benefits Blogger to take away this feature--what are they gonna save, 4 millionths of a cent per email?--but it's neither the first time Blogger has made an incredibly stupid decision with its mechanics, nor is it likely to be the last.  The point is, if any of y'all depend on emails to let you know when a new rant's up, you can't depend on that any more, and I just wanted to let you know, so you don't miss any rants by accident because you were waiting for the email.

After all, certainly it would be a tragedy if you were to miss out on me nitpicking a tiny gameplay detail of a game that's approaching 30 years old, or reviewing DLC packages so ancient that they just automatically come with the game now, or enthusing about some AMVs.  Right?



As is often the case, this rant owes a great deal of its existence to that most amiable and erudite of chaps, Ecclesiastes.  Thanks for so frequently being such a good conversationalist about meaningless RPG drivel that any given discourse between us can become a tidy little rant, sir!



Magic. Specifically, who has it and who wants it.  More specifically than that, the fact that magic is a unique ability gifted to the Espers which humans have no way to naturally access.  This is the founding, most crucial plot point around which the entirety of Final Fantasy 6’s story is built.

The creation of life on FF6’s world?  It’s all about the fact that Espers were created to be beings of magic by a trio of goddesses.  The distant history of the world?  A war between Espers and humans based upon the fact that Espers had magic and humans didn’t, but wanted it at any cost.  The recent history of the world?  A power-hungry emperor finding and abducting Espers because he wants to possess magic as a weapon to take over the world.  The major events of the first couple thirds of the game?  A conflict between the magic-wielding empire and the rest of the world, wherein the heroes of the latter pursue every ethical means possible to attain magic with which to fight back.  The first and arguably more important protagonist of the game?  A woman whose significance to the plot and characterization for the majority of the game is defined by the fact that she’s half-human and half-esper, and thus both possesses magic and is a symbol that there can be peace between those who naturally have magic and those who naturally do not.  The second protagonist?  A woman whose character development is defined in significant part by her having been a member of the Empire, a result of which is having been gifted the ability to use magic.  The major villains?  The guy obsessed with acquiring magic with the intent of ruling the world, and another guy who went crazy as a result of the process of being artificially given the ability to use magic.

The game opens with a mission to acquire a frozen Esper for the purpose of using its magic--the same Esper, because of its magic, becomes a central plot device to both defend from the bad guys and to discover more about the primary protagonist.  Party members whose significance is largely defined by their being descendants of humans with magic, a town of such people in hiding, divine statues whose magic can grant godlike power...it’s absolutely, utterly inarguable to assert that the facts of who can and can’t use magic naturally is an inextricably vital part of the substantial (and better) majority of Final Fantasy 6’s plot.  In its every major part, this story of ambitions to power beyond what one was meant to possess is built upon the concrete lore of magic’s accessibility.

So I have to wonder why the hell so many enemies in the game’s first half are able to use magic.

Like, okay.  Imperial troops?  Sure, it makes sense for them to be able to use magic, because the Empire’s been injecting magical science (or scientific magic, in this case) into its troops for a while; that’s the Empire’s whole thing, after all.  The weird wheel mutants that chase you during the escape from the Magitek Lab?  Yeah, alright, if you’re gonna make a weird force of mutant roadsters to zoom around in your minecart tunnels as security (I guess?), may as well give’em offensive magic to get their job done.  The little guy using a parasol to fly somehow on the Imperial continent?  Uh...I guess he could be an Imperial military agent from a branch of Vector’s army that happens to have a very relaxed dress code, and no better orders for him than “run around in the fields all day and harass any rando you come across,” thus explaining his access to lightning magic.  Seems a little unlikely...but then again, the Empire sent its most valuable and unstable asset into the absolute furthest point of enemy territory with only 2 basic and largely uninformed goons to watch over her, maintains a strict policy that all its highest-ranking generals must possess ethics or ambitions completely incompatible with the tenets of their job, and keeps its most dangerous prisoners incarcerated in a basement closet under the watchful eye of a single narcoleptic soldier.  So really, “Rule 63 Mary Poppins with lightning powers and wanderlust” would be relatively low on the list of Gestahl’s questionable military practices.

But how the fuck do the random vagrants and ne’er-do-wells of Zozo have the ability to sling spells at you?  If the entirety of Final Fantasy 6’s story is based around the idea that humans cannot, under natural circumstances, use magic, then why, exactly, are there a couple random-ass basically-town-NPCs-turned-hostile running around in Zozo who use outright spells in battle?

Gobbledygooks, for starters, can use the spell Vanish on themselves.  And that’s a magic spell.  This isn’t 1 of those halfhearted copycat “spells” the game sometimes pulls, like Blaze and Megavolt, abilities that are functionally and visually close to identical to actual magic spells but technically don’t exist in the Magic combat ability category so they somehow don’t count.  No, Gobbledygook just outright uses the Vanish spell, the same one that’s learned from the Phantom magicite.  Yeah, Gobbledygook, an enemy type living in Zozo, the town famous for and filled to the brim with lying pieces of shit that no one else in the world wants anything to do with, least of all the Empire...can use Vanish.  To repeat, that’s a human foe, a mechanic wearing a bomber pilot cap with a hell of a hunchback, living in what I have to assume is the hometown of Pete Hines, a settlement far, far outside the Empire, who can use the magic spell Vanish.

Terra's pivotal role as the protagonist is laid out and defined in a battle during which her gameplay convention of using magic is utilized.  And then you get this little random enemy dude able to throw a spell of his own around.  Unless there was, in Final Fantasy 6’s early stages, a planned second story path about a homely little aircraft greasemonkey living in poverty with big dreams of seeing the world, whose dad was an Esper milkman with a route that happened to include Maduin and Madonna’s happy little cave back in the day, I think something’s wrong here.

But surely we could rationalize it away.  Okay, Vanish is a magic spell, but maybe it’s just FF6 doing the best it can to impart an idea of battle actions with its limited means.  Like, when another enemy in Zozo, the giant Hill Gigas, dies, he may use 8.0 on the good guys in his dying moments.  As my buddy Ecclesiastes pointed out to me, this is probably meant to symbolize the idea that this giant just collapsed so heavily onto the ground in his death that he created an earthquake, which the party has to suffer through since they’re at ground 0.  There’s a bit of difference in that 8.0 is strictly an enemy ability rather than what’s considered actual magic (not that there really is much of any functional difference, but whatever), while Vanish IS just a damn spell, but still--perhaps Gobbledygook using Vanish is meant just to symbolize that he’s gone into hiding, and is very stealthy about it, rather than that he’s actually using magic to turn invisible.  Not great, but surely acceptable, right?

Sure.  Cool.  No problem.  Now explain how the Dancer enemy in Zozo can use Fire 2, Ice 2, and Bolt 2.

Also, I object to the fact that several regular monster enemies can frequently use magic attacks--like, official magic, beyond just identical enemy skills.  I mean, once the whole World of Ruin part of the story starts, okay, sure, whatever, everything’s chaos and mutants and unsealed demons and whatnot anyway, so that’s par for the course.  But regular, everyday monsters in Final Fantasy 6’s world as it was before Kefka’s nonsense should not have been using magic.

Sure, the significance of magic to the plot of FF6 is really only centered around humans and Espers; nothing’s outright said that would indicate that monsters can’t have some limited magic access.  But I nonetheless contend that ANY standard enemy not associated with the Empire or directly with Espers and whatnot using magic is a mistake.  Because the fact is that even if FF6’s lore never outright takes a stance on the matter of monsters, it nonetheless creates an undeniable understanding that magic is the dominion of the goddess and the Espers, and that’s it.  It’s regarded as such a rare and wonderful thing, the kind of thing that to dare to possess it oneself is an act of hubris, that adding on the footnote “oh also theres a random eel that can use Aqua Rake* and some chicken-lizards that can cast Quake and this weird vulture man who’s packing that sweet White Wind* lol” kinda lessens the weight and awe.

Additionally, magic as a concept is outright mythical to most people of Final Fantasy 6’s world, to the point that they’ve never seen it nor have any expectation of seeing it.  Locke himself doesn’t even know what it is when he sees Terra using it in front of him, for Gorum’s sake!  And Locke’s been around the block a few times--the parts of his adventurer’s profile that actually are related to treasure-hunting like he says give every indication of a guy who’s traveled far and wide.  The fact that even a seasoned traveler like him has never witnessed a magical spell in action before makes the idea that there are random monsters across the globe who can sling spells just like an Esper a logical inconsistency to the world.

And I don’t even know where to begin with all the Rages Gau gets from copying enemies that inexplicably let him cast all manner of magic spells.

Is this a big deal?  Contrary to what my act of carrying on for a whole 3 pages about this matter would imply, it is not.  This is such a small problem that it barely warrants complaint; if there were something between an observation and a criticism, that’s where FF6’s enemies’ lore-inconsistent use of magic would be.  Still, the ability of several monsters in the World of Balance of FF6 to cast spells is definitely an oversight, and the same ability of certain non-Imperial human enemies to do so is an outright plot hole.  A small one, to be sure, in the sense that it’s not going to actually negatively affect your playthrough and very well may not even be noticed by most players...but a mistake all the same, for the ability to use magic, specifically Black, White, Gray, and Blue magic, is inseparably, indelibly tied to, entangled with, branded onto the core premise of the entire plot of Final Fantasy 6, and the existence of several enemy monsters, and especially of a couple human foes in Zozo, is a contradiction to that upon which the game stakes its full story.











* Yes, Blue Magic counts.  The whole thing about Strago and his village is that he has access to magical abilities because he’s descended from the humans who first stole magic from Espers.  A step removed from traditional White, Black, and Gray magic though it may be, Blue Magic is still far more firmly in the realm of Magic than Vague Supposedly Non-Magic Enemy Skill.

Grimm's Hollow

Today I’m going to do something pretty damn easy.  Easier than usual, I mean, because let’s face it, just spewing passionate opinions about very minor and unimportant details of video games is not  exactly a strenuous activity to begin with.  Today, however, it’s even more facile than ever, because I’m going to recommend something that is totally free.

Although, I suppose that in the gaming industry, even that which is free usually comes with caveats, sometimes even dangerous ones.  After all, free-to-play models are notoriously laced with predatory microtransactions, which can subtly and all too easily lead you to spend more on the “free” game than you would have a fully priced title.  So let’s have no ambiguity:

Grimm’s Hollow is a small, entirely free Indie RPG.  There’s no microtransactions or anything else; this is just a game which doesn’t cost anything.  You CAN pay something for it if you want, but you can also just have it.  You CAN pay something for the soundtrack if you want, but you can also just have that, too.  While I’m sure that the game’s creator has made a little money from voluntary donations of this nature, it’s clear that the intent of Grimm’s Hollow is to share a story with the world, not specifically to profit from that story.  Which is nice!  I’m not going to begrudge any creator the right and necessity to charge a reasonable fee for their work, of course, but I can’t deny that there’s a special pleasure in knowing that there are those in the world who, presumably having enough money already not to need a new source of income, are content to share their labors out of love and without asking for more.

Of course, just being free isn’t by itself a particularly strong cause for endorsement.  You can play Connect 4 online for free, too, but I’m not likely to type up a rant about that any time soon, save possibly for a diatribe on how badly I suck at it.  Even that which costs you nothing in dollars must still be worth its cost in time, after all.

And Grimm’s Hollow most certainly is worth your time, and then some.  Granted, that’s an easy accomplishment, in this case, for this RPG is only 2 - 3 hours long, short even by Indie standards.  But Grimm’s Hollow overshoots that bar like someone hopping a fence by using a space shuttle.  Endearing in that simple, friendly Undertale/Steven Universe way, the game gently draws you into its cute-spooky aesthetic and concept just long enough to make you properly comfortable.  And then it starts laying on a hearty helping of that sweet, sweet emotional weight and turmoil, as it deftly tells a small but weighty story of the love of family, and the way loss can tear us apart, both overtly and subtly.  It’s a moving tale, and what it accomplishes in a mere couple of hours is easily the equal or even better of what most other games manage with more than 5 times that duration.  So yeah, this one’s definitely worth the time to play, no question in my mind.

And honestly, that’s kind of all I really know to say about it.  I know that with most Indie RPGs, I launch into a description of the specific virtue that not only makes them solid titles overall, but also that makes them stand out from all others...but it’s hard to do that here, because being a cute, weighty little tale of emotional significance is the sum of what Grimm’s Hollow accomplishes, which isn’t unique, and its approach is likewise of a style I’ve seen before in titles like Rakuen and Undertale.  But that’s not a bad thing; if anything, it pleases me, because seeing well-crafted, passionate appeals to the pathos of the human condition is my jam, and there’s a very engaging, disarming quality to the simple, friendly narrative approaches of these modern RPGs that I appreciate and welcome as a new narrative standard.

Bottom line, Grimm’s Hollow is a heartfelt, sincere creative work, as Indie RPGs so happily often are.  It provides a touching story of the unconditional (and conditional) love of family, and of the damage that loss can inflict upon us, which will leave you feeling bittersweet satisfaction at its end.  And Grimm’s Hollow gives this tale to its player freely, costing not a cent and confining itself to merely the span of time that some movies occupy.  It’s a high quality story that demands nothing in return from its audience save their enjoyment, so there’s no reason in the world for me to do anything but strongly, happily recommend Grimm’s Hollow to any gamer on a budget, without much free time, or simply in the mood for something cute, innocent, and heartfelt.