General RPG Creator Large Battleship Studios's Character Writing

Large Battleship Studios is the Indie developer behind Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle, Quantum Entanglement, and A Dragon’s ReQuest, all RPGs for which I have a great deal of respect.  Headed by a gentleman going by Saint Bomber, there’s a lot about the studio’s titles to like, such as thoughtful and deceptively layered storytelling, engaging and witty humor, and the masterful way that humor is used to balance, enhance, and constructively work through a recurring and penetrating theme of emotional/psychological trauma.  But by far the strongest virtue Saint Bomber possesses as a creator, in my opinion, is his capacity for writing characters.  He very well may be, in fact, one of the most consistently excellent creators in this field that I’ve come across in my experience of almost 500 RPGs!  And today, I’d like to go over why that is, and pay him some due respect for his efforts, which I’ve so thoroughly enjoyed thrice now, and anticipate savoring again in the future.

So what makes Saint Bomber so great at what he does?  Well, first and foremost, the man puts in the time and does the work, to a degree that few RPG developers can match.  As one would expect, Saint Bomber lays the foundations of his characters’ personal points of depth and development, to give them weight to the audience and provide all that good, meaty drama of the human experience.  And it’s good stuff--stories of love so great that it permeates all possible iterations of a person’s life and reality, survivors of trauma gradually finding peace and purpose in the joy they find with and give to others, devotion so great that time itself bends the knee to it, children rising above the horrors that created them to be great and dignified people...roadmaps of humanity laid out with landmarks of sorrow, joy, pain, purpose, regret, love, fear, and more, are what you can expect of the cast of a Large Battleship Studios venture.  These are well-developed entities with interesting and emotionally gripping stories.

But while the existence of Chrono Cross means that I can’t make the claim that just anyone can write a decent character, certainly it’s not a trait singular to Saint Bomber.  Wild Arms 3, Children of the Zodiarcs, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Final Fantasy 9, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Tales of the Abyss, Final Fantasy 7, Hades 1, Dragon Age 1, and so many more RPGs all have great casts of at least comparable quality to LBS titles in terms of character depth.  I’d match the main characters of Tales of Berseria against Quantum Entanglement’s any day, and much as I enjoy Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle and A Dragon’s ReQuest, the merit of both of their casts put together can’t compete with that of Disco Elysium.  Because basically nothing can.  Suck it, Shakespeare, you had your time.

But what makes Saint Bomber stand out amongst his exceptional peers in terms of character development is that he’s never done with it.  There never seems to be a point in an LBS character’s journey at which point Saint Bomber says to himself, “Okay, that’s a wrap--she’s been characterized as far as she can be.”  There’s always a new and significant facet of his characters’ psyches that can be revealed and explored, which will influence who they are and how they interact with their friends, lovers, and/or nemeses going forward.

Take Aurellia in A Dragon’s ReQuest, for example.  With the issues of her upbringing, her trauma from being a prisoner who suffered great physical and mental torture, and her internal war between the hero she was intended to be and the monster she was crafted to become, Aurellia’s arguably the most deep and nuanced character in the game, and Saint Bomber does plenty with her throughout its course.  By the time that the heroes have arrived at Malphon’s castle, ostensibly the final dungeon of the game, Aurelia’s grown significantly as a person thanks to her experiences and more importantly her companions’ influence, and the player feels that he/she has a solid handle on her.  And yet!  If the player goes forward with the Seal Malphon ending, then he/she must choose between 3 variants of that ending, and in 2 of those, a fact is revealed about Aurellia’s feelings and her past which is massively significant to who she is, substantially rearranging how the player may view and understand Aurellia and retroactively altering how many of her issues and relationships over the game’s course can be interpreted.  Frankly, even if the player is ultimately shooting for the happier endings (which I certainly recommend), these scenes (particularly the one between Hinoki and Aurellia as they clear out monsters) are still so great and poignant that I’d say the ADRQ experience isn’t complete without witnessing them.

That’s a major piece of character development that occurs during 2 of the game’s endings, and not even the true ending,** for that matter.  And it’s not like this is some idiotic attempt to introduce some completely alien, disjointed element to the story right at the last second like those hacks at Bioware foisted on Mass Effect 3, nor is this a case of a too little, too late last ditch effort to salvage a major story entity who’s been grossly undeveloped and shallow up until this ending moment, as with Tales of Phantasia’s Dhaos and Tales of Vesperia’s Duke.  This new light being shed on Aurellia is simply another major component of a character who has been well-explored, and it’s relevant and accurate to both her character and its place in the plot.  Not every LBS character is always developing right to the last second of the game, but each one’s potential never seems to be finished in Saint Bomber’s eyes, and he’s ready and rarin’ to build a new expansion on any of his creations at any time that seems right, even to the very end.  You can’t say that about a lot of RPG writers, even really good ones.  I mean, hell, I’d call the cast of Final Fantasy 9 great, and it’s 1 of the best RPGs I’ve played, but when they finished Freya’s character arc barely a quarter of the way into the game, they were fucking done doing anything with the character.  If Saint Bomber had been on the staff of that game, we would’ve been treated to Freya’s excellent character discovering new truths about herself and staying narratively relevant for just as long as Zidane himself...and she probably would’ve ended the story with a far happier and more fulfilling romantic situation, too.

And since we’re on the subject of love, let’s look at character relationships in Large Battleship Studios games (which mostly evolve into love, hence this segue).  The “putting in the work” angle is also on positive display in terms of the cast’s group dynamics, not just with the characters as individuals.  Saint Bomber treats the relationships each party member has with one another almost like characters in themselves, growing the cast not just on the individual level, but also as an emotional collective.  Even as he develops his creations in a personal capacity, he also advances the ways they interact, who they are to each other, how they change and behave in one another’s presence.

Granted, this is something seen less in Quantum Entanglement and Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle, because of the way those games are structured--EoWC is Catherine’s personal journey and so she’s the center of almost all of the game’s dynamic character relationships, and QE is a game about only 2 people.  But A Dragon’s ReQuest is the more traditional venture of a party of several individuals in close contact for the extended period of a long quest, and in ADRQ, each party member has living, evolving relationships with one another and with the party as a whole.  These are written and labored upon almost as entities of their own, fitting Hinoki and her comrades together as friends and family until they reach a point at which these people who know one another so intimately and have found so much of themselves thanks to each other that the idea that they could do anything but spend the rest of their lives together actually feels wrong, unnatural.

This is, of course, a natural component to RPG casts to some degree, but not a lot of games really take the time to care about every single strand that connects each character to the others in a party’s web of personal connections and treat it as important.  Take Chrono Trigger, for example.  1 of the absolute greatest RPGs of all time, CT has plenty of significant ties between its cast members, but in many cases, “allies joined by a common purpose” is as far as they go.  Crono and Marle, Crono and Lucca, Lucca and Robo, Crono and Marle and Lucca, and Frog and Magus are all relationships that are narratively significant and thus developed, but the rest of the interrelationships don’t get much attention.  And that’s fine, they don’t necessarily need to, because obviously CT is an amazing product as it stands.  But still, if Saint Bomber had been involved, there’s a good chance that you’d see moments set aside wherein Ayla and Marle are isolated and form a unique and poignant emotional bond, and Robo and Frog have a meaningful heart-to-heart one evening which ties into their respective character journeys, and Lucca and Magus find some common ground that the latter can’t find with the others, and so on.  Like I said, there are other RPGs that achieve this sort of group-connections-as-its-own-narrative-entity quality--my favorite part of Tales of Legendia is just how perfectly it creates a found family out of its cast, for example--but it’s certainly a rarity to hit this level, and Saint Bomber puts in the effort to make it happen.

More than anything else, though, the put-in-the-work approach that makes a Large Battleship Studios game’s cast so compelling is exemplified by the banter.  Oh that glorious, glorious banter!  Perhaps even more than the major moments of character development, the excellence of a Saint Bomber cast is formed by the fact that they are all constantly communicating and reacting to their adventure and the world around them.  Catherine, Marine, Hinoki, and their respective companions have thoughts to express on what NPCs say to them, the events unfolding before them, the settings they find themselves in, the objects that they interact with...every party member is constantly involved in what’s happening before them.  LBS games are not the (sadly common) RPG where companions only pipe up now and then to comment on what’s happening, if ever.  The banter between each game’s characters is an ever-present way of establishing and reinforcing their distinctive personalities, and growing their dynamics as allies, friends, and lovers.***  

Having cast input as a steady, continuous part of the game’s narrative and environment is a major key to the creation of characters that the audience remembers, understands, loves, and wants to spend time with.  As vital and powerful as major development scenes are as a tool, as important and compelling as the major points of depth and nuance are in defining a character, it’s the day-to-day dialogue and remarks that cement who a character is, not just what they’re about.  Interactions based simply on the everyday thoughts, feelings, and so on do more to establish and immortalize a character’s personality than their major dramatic moments in the plot.  And it also keeps the cast feeling relevant to the group and adventure as a whole, even past their time.  I may (somewhat often) criticize Final Fantasy 9 for leaving an excellent character by the wayside early on, but Freya at least still regularly engages with the rest of the party, and that makes a world of difference.  You can’t say the same for, say, half of the cast of Xenogears, who, once their small arcs of development are over, become largely mute and feel superfluous as a whole.  Freya’s still having a voice past her significance makes her an unfortunate waste of potential in a great game, while Billy, Maria, Rico, and Chu Chu’s lack of engagement past what’s strictly necessary make them embarrassing symptoms that lessen the game and highlight how terribly it’s written.

Grandia’s dinner conversations, the Tales of series’s skits, Final Fantasy 9’s Active Time Events, Legaia 2’s fireside chats...there are a lot of different tools in the chest for accomplishing this effect, and I appreciate and love them all.  But simple, constant, and direct verbal involvement of the main characters with the myriad facets of their adventure is the most obvious way to do it, if you’ve got the dedication for it.  It’s what makes Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5’s roster feel so much more real and personable than the previous couple Personas, and it’s much of what makes the player feel like he/she truly knows and cares about a Large Battleship Studios cast.

But that banter takes a hell of a lot of work, because as I said, Saint Bomber’s characters trade quips and have conversations about their situation, the people they’re talking to, props...just about anything around them that they could have thoughts about, these characters react to.  And that’s an impressive level of detail to include in even a small, 2-to-3-hour game like Quantum Entanglement, let alone the huge honkin’ standard-length RPG that is A Dragon’s ReQuest, but even right to the end of the latter, Hinoki and company are bantering like ever before.  Also impressive is the fact that Saint Bomber can manage to maintain an appealing humorous energy the whole time--a less genuinely enjoyable cast and a less amusing wit might transform so constant a level of dialogue into an overwhelming slog, but thus far I have yet to feel that way even once.

And you can tell Saint Bomber has a respect for banter as a method of character writing, because as light and fun as it often is, he never hesitates to take an opportunity to use it for a moment of vulnerability, or for two characters to get real about something that’s troubling them or to express heartfelt care for one another.  You never know whether the next flower vase or writing desk that you check out is going to lead to an aside that tickles your heartstrings, or forces upon you a moment of regretful sympathy for the villain.  All you can be sure of is that it’ll probably be in the midst of a diverting digression whose humor made the poignant little moment all the stronger.

The quality (and constancy) of LBS characters’ banter brings us to the other of the 2 most signature, major reasons that Saint Bomber is such a terrific character writer: he treats his creations as real people, and their relationships as real things.  Now look, I’m not inside the man’s head.****  I don’t KNOW what is and isn’t going on in there.  But based on playing his games, I feel like the characters that Saint Bomber creates are very much living entities to him.  It’s a well-known trope that authors claim that their creations take on a life of their own, and that’s surely true to some degree for most creators, but I do think that, in a lot of cases, this idea is somewhat exaggerated by those who make the claim.

But in the case of Saint Bomber, the sentiment that the characters have a life of their own definitely seems to be describing reality, and the banter is what shows this.  Their back-and-forth might be the biggest indication of just how much Saint Bomber truly loves the characters he creates, as real, feeling people, because he gives them every chance he can to express their thoughts, whether silly or soulful, and allows those countless little conversations to progress to a natural conclusion.  Any momentary aside can evolve into a conversation of over a half-dozen text-boxes in an LBS game.  It never feels like padding, never feels forced, as though Saint Bomber is simply doing it for the conscious sake of expanding and cementing his characters.  It instead always gives the indications of a little talk that gets sidetracked because real people are sharing themselves, and that’s how conversations work between people with personalities who are emotionally open and real with each other--the interaction evolves and moves along.

Where most RPG character interactions feel like a conscious effort by the writer to explore her/his creations and expand on the story,**** Saint Bomber’s banter is the kind of natural, flowing back-and-forth that real-life people have.  His characters feel like they speak and evolve on their own, as though he is simply a witness who chronicles these conversations and stories, rather than the one who directs them.  I legitimately could believe that Catherine, Alice, Gabby, Marine, Hinoki, Fluorine, Garnet, Aurellia, Argon, and so many more of the entities in a Large Battleship Studios title are, in fact, benign and fully alive split personalities living within Saint Bomber’s head space, growing into entities as he creates their games until it’s more a matter of his consulting them for their reactions and interactions than his consciously writing them.  I mean, I don’t actually think that’s happening, and certainly I don’t want to take anything away from the great effort he undoubtedly makes to hone his characters’ personalities through such constant application; I’m just saying that they feel real and vivid enough as people that I could believe they essentially were, and certainly Saint Bomber gives every indication of caring about them as such.  And while Large Battleship Studios isn’t the only creator who can manage such a level of realism to his characters’ personalities and a treatment of them that feels empathetic to the degree of treating them as actual people--Toby Fox is a talented peer on this matter--Saint Bomber’s certainly at the forefront of the field.

This notable talent for treating and presenting his creations as real people also affects the extended cast of his games, too.  The lives and relationships of secondary characters and minor villains are compelling, and frequently matter in greater ways than one expects.  Secondary villains Rowdy, Larceny, and Payola all have more personality and depth in ADRQ than half the RPG protagonists I’ve encountered in my time, the barely-seen Greyghast of EoWC is nonetheless a chilling, sobering monster whose presence is constantly felt in the traumatic legacy Catherine carries with her, small NPC love interests like the Nereid and Chelisera that in other games would doubtless be minor, throwaway matters are treated as legitimately valued, adored beloveds whose affections are referenced and important past their little niches in the story...and you never know when the bystander sitting in the corner is going to turn out to be the person upon which all the world hinges.  It reminds me in some regards of Disco Elysium’s approach with its smaller cast members, and any time you’re on the same page as DE, you’re probably doing something very right.  Few are the characters, even minor ones, that truly only matter for a moment in an LBS game; the secondary and minor characters are not merely cogs in a narrative machine, but rather still full people with their own stories that just didn’t happen to be the protagonists of this one.

Now, Saint Bomber has plenty of other good qualities for character writing beyond these 2 characteristics.  He’s got a talent and interest in word play, a very good sense of humor, and an appealing style of writing, among other fine traits as an author.  But I think that the 2 most signature elements to what make Large Battleship Studios characters so vividly personable and deeply memorable, the greatest draw of its games, are Saint Bomber’s ability to love his creations and their relationships as authentic human beings and impress that perspective upon his audience, and his tenacity to never stop working for them.  At the very least, they’re the qualities that make Saint Bomber number among my favorite RPG creators, and I think it’s worth calling some positive attention to them.
















* Well...2-and-a-half, I suppose.  A venture that’s purely created for the sake of comedy is kind of its own thing.


** Although the events of the True Ending also have a very significant moment of self-understanding for Aurellia, too, that resolves and crystallizes a lot of the feelings and growth she’s had during the journey, too.  The character development of a Large Battleship Studio game really is never over until the curtain drops.  And it might not even be finished then--if I understand it, 1 of his games I have yet to play will see a return of some of his previous titles’ casts, and I won’t exactly be shocked if this opportunity to continue to build and refine their characters is exploited to its fullest potential.


*** Not to mention, it also serves, as I’ve mentioned before, an extra narrative purpose in Quantum Entanglement, in which the steady stream of flippant quips and jokes is used by Marine and Gabby as a means of keeping their calm, and resisting the ever-growing anxiety and urge to panic in their situation.  Although you could also make the argument that QE is just a more immediately apparent example of what Saint Bomber does in all his games on this point, as the sense of humor that most of his characters possess is at least partially a coping mechanism for dealing with the sadnesses and traumas they’ve experienced in the past, or even during the events of the game’s plot.  Either way, it’s comedy well-utilized for an interesting purpose.


**** And trust me, I’ve tried to get in there; I’ve never met any human being so infuriatingly committed to non-committal when it comes to revealing his narrative and emotional intentions, and the inner workings of his lore.  The man would not even confirm how Hinoki Jr.’s real name is pronounced when I asked him.  I mean, look, Saint Bomber has stated on more than 1 occasion that it’s largely out of a desire to give his audience the freedom of their own interpretation, and that’s great and I do respect that, but it drives an inquisitive lore-goblin like me crazy.  Particularly when half the reason I’m asking is because I’m self-conscious about whether I’m truly understanding and getting the most out of the works I take in. I just want confirmation that I’m not Stubb from Moby Dick, stuck in that hellish intellectual limbo wherein he can recognize that there are deeper levels to what’s happening around him, but falls just short of being able to understand them, and this man just.  Isn’t.  Helping.  I have never wanted telepathy more than when trying to get a straight answer out of Saint Bomber.

Oh, and why yes, since I’m gonna invite him to read this rant when it’s finished, this IS very passive-aggressive, thanks for noticing.  Look, I think I have sung more than enough of Saint Bomber’s (very well-earned!) praises in this rant to earn the right to vent a little.


***** Not that there is ANYTHING wrong with making a conscious effort to do this, by the way.  Please do not mistake my sentiments here--I absolutely want RPG writers to feel an obligation to refine and labor upon their creations in such a way.  Unless you’re just outright terrible at your job to a Wild Arms 4 level, making that effort is only going to be beneficial to the product.  To use an example from before, SMT Persona 5 has a very healthily present level of cast interactions, and each conversation feels like a conscious choice and effort of the writers to think of the topic, how the characters will interact with it, and how they’ll drive it to its intended conclusion.  The result is still a real-feeling discussion that develops the characters’ personalities and identities, and makes them a vibrant cast that the player likes and remembers.