Ara Fell's Heroes Get Subdued Too Often

I really like Ara Fell, and I certainly do recommend it as a solid, classic RPG.  But I have to say, I think the game’s heroes get bailed out of trouble too much.

The unexpected rescue is a staple of storytelling when it comes to just about any adventure, and for good reason.  It creates a situation that demonstrates how formidable the villain(s) of the piece is/are by showing that he/she/they can surpass the heroes.  It provides an easy and exciting opportunity to introduce new characters (someone’s gotta come and haul the good guys’ butts out of the fire, after all).  And it moves the story forward, creating new goalposts and giving the main characters direction on what their next move should be as they react to the threat they just escaped from and whatever the villain accomplished at that time.  There’s a lot of substantial benefits that this narrative tool can provide--but it still needs to be used in moderation, or it starts to devalue the stars of the tale.  And unfortunately, Ara Fell does, I think, cross into this territory.

Now, make no mistake: there are many clear, shining points in AF's sequence of events in which Lita and her friends win real, demonstrable victories.  There is a good, functional give-and-take in the plot’s course in terms of whether good or evil has the upper hand; never do you feel like the game’s heroes are completely powerless to accomplish their goals.  This is not Xenosaga 3.

But still, there’s an awful lot of occasions in which Lita and company are fully overcome, helpless before their foes, and only survive by the good graces of miraculous circumstance or the arrival of an unexpected ally.  The main villain has to be a big deal, I know, but it starts to get disappointing when he’s able to get the better of the hero every time!  The fact that Lita and company are so frequently subdued, and have to be bailed out by an unexpected ally or event, lessens how reliably heroic and impressive they seem to the audience, and it starts to feel like a narrative cop-out past a certain point.

It’s honestly irritating at times.  In particular, 1 instigator of these situations* is that the game’s main villain, though not talented at destructive magics, specializes in a spell that paralyzes his targets, and Lita’s team has no counter to this problem.  And what’s annoying is that they never try to find one.  Multiple times do they acknowledge that he’s got an edge over them in this regard, and recognize that this advantage has very nearly led to their destruction, and yet never once does Lita, Adrian, Seri Kesu, or Doren ever think, “Gee, maybe we should figure out a way around this problem.”  I mean, if there really is no defense possible against this spell and tactic, no counterspell/ward or way to devise one, no protective amulet or method of creating one, no adjustment of approach or tactics that could help them get around it, then fine, I guess that’s something the audience must reluctantly accept--but the heroes never put enough thought into the matter to be able to come to that conclusion anyway!  It’s not just that they can’t save their own bacon in the moment of danger, they also don’t take any adequate steps to prevent that moment to start with!

And it’s further irritating that this problem persists right up to the game’s end.  At the moment of Lita and company’s final victory, they once again get taken unawares by this immobilizing spell, just as easily as the first time, to disastrous consequences as the villain achieves his goal now that the path to his desired plot mcguffin is clear.  He didn’t have to up his game, didn’t have to adjust his tactics whatsoever to do it, just did the same thing as he’s done multiple times before: got the drop on them while they weren’t expecting it, and disabled them.  By the game’s end, no one’s left to rescue Lita’s crew, so this time the story HAS to allow them to overcome the spell’s effects in the space of time it takes the antagonist to accomplish everything else, but it’s still a bit frustrating.  All the more so when even in the final battle the heroes can’t finish the job themselves; eventually they get overpowered and have to rely on Lita praying for enough deus ex machina to win.  Yeah, that’s not an unheard-of trope for the final conflict of the game, but it becomes kind of grating when the preceding narrative makes it less a moment of a heroic higher power’s triumph than it is just 1 last iteration of a bad habit of lucky breaks.

Now look: Ara Fell, as I mentioned above, is not Xenosaga 3.  I’ve never, ever seen this problem so harmfully pronounced as it is in Xenosaga 3.  The main characters of that game arguably almost never achieve a victory against any narratively significant adversary that is both clear and has substantial importance.  The Xenosaga heroes are completely ineffectual in the third title; their problems are resolved exclusively through circumstance and melodramatic faux-intellectual angst, never through the main characters’ merits and actions.  By contrast, there are, as I said, plenty of moments in Ara Fell’s narrative when the heroes accomplish what they needed to, when there’s cause for celebration, when they take down an earnestly powerful foe whose position in the plot is significant.  Even if Lita and her group don’t feel as powerful and competent as they should, they at least are a far cry from being demonstrably impotent accessories to the events of their own story like the Xenosaga 3 bunch.

But it's nonetheless still a problem with the game's story that lessens the player's view of the tale's heroes, and inhibits the satisfaction the story provides.  Ara Fell is still a good RPG that I enjoyed and recommend, but it would have been well served had its writer(s) given more thought to creative alternatives to subdued-heroes-getting-rescued trope here and there.