Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Has No Audience

It’s hard to imagine a more perfect disaster in terms of audience appeal than Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.  This game utterly fails every audience demographic that it’s meant to attract, with such multifaceted surety that it almost seems like it must have been by design.  Much like the gameplay of Lunar: Dragon Song, it does not seem credible that such myriad and unexpected manners of failure could accidentally coalesce in such a perfect manner; surely there are elements of sabotage at work here.

Okay, so first of all, let’s talk about what TMS#FE is supposed to be.  What it was presented and marketed as.  Promised to be.  Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is, in theory, a crossover between Nintendo’s second flagship RPG series, Fire Emblem, and Atlus’s genre superstar, Shin Megami Tensei.

And before we go any further, I think it’s important that we stop, take a moment, contemplate and reflect upon ourselves and this crossover concept, and consider deeply a very important question:

Um, what?

Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei?  Together?  I mean...I’m not against the idea, I guess, but I also don’t really see the common ground here?  They’re 2 RPG franchises that just have...very, very different approaches.  FE’s a tactical RPG whose titles have stories that are fundamentally character-based, always involve large-scale medieval-themed international (or occasionally intranational, like FE16) conflicts, and employ main villains that are usually some combination of dark fantasy cult, dark dragon, dark god, or gullible amoral moron.  There’s great emphasis on camaraderie, a lot of romance, plenty of epic heroism, and also for some reason incest is just a thing you cannot escape from.  Meanwhile, SMT is (most often) a turn-based RPG whose titles have stories that are narrative/theme-driven and usually austere, base themselves around and employ the lore and pantheons of practically every known religion and collection of superstitions of our species, and generally examine, analyze, and explore major religions and systems of belief, from Christianity to Hinduism to Luck to the Tarot, and what they mean about and for us as a species.  There’s great emphasis on the warring needs of order and freedom in human society and the human heart, a lot of fun intermingling of different faiths’ figures and concepts, great pride for Japan and Tokyo in particular, and also for some reason the protagonists are all silent because nothing is perfect.

What about these series makes it seem like they’d have enough common ground to make for a good crossover?  Their approach, their content, the way they style their narrative, their ranges in terms of art and intellectual value...FE and SMT seem as distinct and unlikely candidates to join together as Inspector Gadget and the musical Cats.  Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei?  That’s like trying to mash together, I dunno, Lord of the Rings with Paradise Lost, or Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain books with the Bhagavad Gita.  What would a functional version of such a combination even look like?

...The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, I guess.  But Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is certainly no Chronicles of Narnia.

So yeah, right off the bat, the crossover element of this game doesn’t make much sense.  But hey, okay, yeah, so what, right?  So Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei have all the natural crossover chemistry of Uncle Grandpa and Steven Universe.  Big deal!  That doesn’t mean something involving them both can’t work.  I mean, it’s certainly no more ludicrous an idea than mixing together Final Fantasy and Disney, and look how that turned out!

...Oh God, look how that turned out.

Well...Kingdom Hearts is financially successful, at least?

Alright, bad example.  The point is, if you put in some effort, respect and celebrate each franchise, and use them to their best potential, surely this crossover could please devotees of both FE and SMT, and even allow each franchise to court new fans.

Unfortunately, “respect and celebrate each franchise, and use them to their best potential” was not a bullet point on the TMS#FE action plan.

First of all, Shin Megami Tensei?  I don’t know what it was doing when production began on Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, but it clearly did not make it into the office that day.  There is basically nothing in this game that relates to the SMT series.  There’s no conflict between Law and Chaos.  God, Lucifer, angels, demons, fairies, fiends, representatives of the pantheons Norse and Greek and Mesopotamian and Celtic and Egyptian and more, celebrated mythical heroes of fallen civilizations, quasi-religious figures of Japanese history and folklore, Barong, Alice, Amanozako, Krishna, Cerberus, Xi Wangmu, Medusa, Shiva, NONE of them are here.  There’s no overarching theme or examination of any religion or other faith.  About the only thing about TMS#FE you could say has even a faint whiff of Megaten about it is the battle system being a modified version of the press turn formula of SMT--and even if SMT’s take on turn-based combat IS basically the best I’ve seen, no fan in her or his right mind would ever diminish the franchise so disrespectfully as to say that the essence and significance of Shin Megami Tensei is adequately contained within its gameplay alone.  Oh, and I guess you can make the argument that the game’s dungeon aesthetic, its approach to sidequests, and its use of “summoned” assisting combat entities are reminiscent of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona...but that’s the very separated style of a subseries of SMT, not SMT as a whole, and it’s still obviously not a satisfactory, significant involvement of the franchise in this game for any Megaten fan.  You sure as heck didn’t see a great outpouring of positivity from SMT devotees the last time Atlus ripped itself off in this fashion with Conception 2, after all.

So in this touted crossover between Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem, there is effectively NOTHING of satisfactory presence of the former.  Did the Fire Emblem fans at least get something they’d want out of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE?

Well, there ARE some elements of Fire Emblem actually present and involved...but if anything, that might just mean that FE supporters have more reason to be disappointed.  See, the predominant influence of Fire Emblem on Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is that, through convoluted but narratively convenient means, each party member is paired off with an incorporeal entity who acts as their Persona-esque partner (called a Mirage) in and out of combat, and these empowering entities happen to be a handful of characters from the Fire Emblem series--the protagonist’s partner is Chrom, Kiria’s is Tharja, Mamori is paired up with Draug, etc.  Aside from that, the only other Fire Emblem characters to show up in any significant capacity are Tiki, who’s an ally that upgrades the team’s abilities, and the game’s main villains, Gharnef and Medeus.  A few other FE characters trickle in momentarily here and there, but only as vehicles for brief sidequests, or quickly-dispatched boss encounters (often both).  Trust me when I say that the sidequest and midboss fodder have so little virtue unto themselves that they may as well just be cardboard cutout stand-ins with speech balloons taped onto them, for all the character authenticity or care they’re given.

So let’s see...Chrom, Caeda, Cain, Tharja, Virion, Draug, Navarre, Tiki, Gharnef, Medeus, and some very minor dabbling of a few others as sidequest and combat props.  So, 10 characters with change.  I guess that could be worse--sure as hell beats the pathetic showing Final Fantasy made in Kingdom Hearts 1, at least--but I still feel like one could expect a bit more Fire Emblem presence in a Fire Emblem crossover, you know?  It ain't exactly like the franchise is lacking for options in this department; you practically have 10 FE characters in your party coming out of the prologue of some of these games.

Also, it bears considering that ALL of these FE characters come from the same couple of titles, Fire Emblem 1 (or 11, its remake) and 13.  I get that 1/11 was the origins of the series and that 13 both takes place on that same world and was a huge success that finally, definitively broke into the mainstream American RPG market, but it still feels like a surprising waste of potential to have a franchise over a dozen titles strong, yet limit yourself strictly to only 2(-ish) of them.

Far more than quantity, though, it’s the quality of Fire Emblem’s presence that makes Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE such an embarrassing failure to its premise.  For starters, as the Persona-knockoffs whose main purpose in the game is assisting the main characters, Chrom and company are unavoidably restricted to secondary roles--and even that seems like a generous way of putting it.  By and large, the Fire Emblem characters in this game are reactive personalities whose dialogue and moments of character development just exist as responses to what’s happening around them or what the main character they’re paired with is doing or saying.  Rarely do they take initiative as their own beings, and on the occasions that they do start a conversation or sidequest, it’s usually specifically focused on discussing or advancing their partner as a character.  Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE very clearly views the iconic heroes it’s plucked from their renowned and storied franchise as nothing more than tools to benefit its own original cast.

And as if diminishing the Fire Emblem heroes to mere support roles wasn’t enough, they’ve all got amnesia for almost the entire game!  Yeah, not only are the FE cast forced to take a noticeable backseat in their own crossover, they don’t even remember who they are or anything about their own adventures until the very last stage of the game!  What, you thought there might be the occasional reference to the events and lore of Fire Emblem games in this Fire Emblem crossover?  Well fuck you, Atlus has other plans.  Chrom doesn’t remember Lucina, Caeda doesn’t recall Marth, Tharja doesn’t know who Robin is--wasn’t, like, obsessing over Robin something like 90% of Tharja’s entire personality and reason for existing?  Robbed of their past, the FE cast in Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE are just an assortment of vague personality stereotypes that merely suggest the characters that fans know and love.

Hell, they don’t even LOOK like themselves!  For whatever reason, all the FE characters besides Tiki and the villains have been redesigned to be almost unrecognizable.  Chrom looks like Fire Emblem just entered the public domain and someone’s trying to slap together a cheap horror-movie knockoff interpretation of him for a quick buck, and the rest, with their headwear covering their eyes and half or more of their faces, and their overbearing outfit redesigns, look like extras from some faux-psychological thriller anime.  You wouldn’t even realize who half of them were if the game didn’t explicitly name them!

So to recap thus far: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is touted as a crossover between Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei, only it’s got effectively jack shit to do with SMT, so it offers nothing to entice Megaten fans to be its audience.  And over on the other side, TMS#FE needlessly limits its use of Fire Emblem to 1 particular corner of the franchise, makes most of the FE characters unrecognizable shadows of their former selves who can’t even remember or reference their own pasts and exploits, and reduces their roles to secondary foils to its own precious baby OCs, so it offers close to nothing to FE fans to be its audience--I’d argue that its disinterest for its Fire Emblem toys is enough to drive that fanbase away, in fact.

Alright, fine.  So Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE has no audience with the groups it specifically courted.  That’s obviously a major flaw, but it’s not a death knell for the game.  After all, it could at least appeal to its audience simply as an entity in its own right, surely?  It doesn’t have to be a good crossover to be a good game as a whole; Kingdom Hearts 2 is a very good RPG even though it perpetually views both its Disney and Final Fantasy elements as mere obligatory stepping-stones to do what it actually wants to.  Is TMS#FE at least a good RPG on its own?

Ha ha ha
What
No?  Like, Jesus Christ, no
Look, Me, I know you were just asking that question as a way of transitioning to the next part of this rant but come on dude that was just too stupid a question to ask even rhetorically; you’re embarrassing yourself man

Yeah, no, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is not a good RPG by itself.  Aside from the entertainment industry angle--which we’ll get to in a moment--there’s not a lot to its overall plot that’s particularly interesting or different, and what messages it has basically just amount to the boilerplate “always do your best to do your best” bit and a vague encouragement to its player to never lose the excitement of consuming fresh new media products.  It ain’t a riveting foundation, and with a limp and uninvolved narrative voice for its characters’ interactions and plot twists that you either see coming or more often just don’t care about, it isn’t even making the most of that crappy premise.  Its villains range from the laughably exaggerated to the typical overwrought anime dingus who’s managed to come to the most absurd nuclear-option answer to an ultimately minor problem in the world; it’s hard to believe that fucking Gharnef, a bad guy underwhelming even by dime-a-dozen NES save-the-princess villain standards, is the most nuanced antagonist in the cast.

And the main characters might somehow be worse, a collection of empty caricatures and cliches who’d be as at home in a Kemco assembly-line “release it and then forget it ever happened” game as they are here.  Their personal arcs are uninspired and feel genuinely unimportant as their generic personalities rigidly reject internalizing any epiphany reached--not to mention that there are times when the lessons of these arcs are questionable, or just outright unhealthy (more on that in a later rant).  This is the cast that Atlus decided to award the entirety of their attention and effort, at the Fire Emblem crew’s expense?  I’m not exactly the world’s biggest Fire Emblem fan and I haven’t even played FE13, but Chrom alone weighs more as a character than the entirety of TMS#FE’s stable of OCs!

And also, Barry is there.  Jesus fucking Christ, Atlus.

So if you’re looking for a good RPG, something well-written or interesting or poignant or meaningful or creative, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE still isn’t your game.  Frankly, the fact that this game doesn’t (currently) make it onto my Worst RPGs List distresses me.  How can we live with ourselves as a species, knowing that Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is not the very worst thing we are capable of creating?  That it isn’t even in the top 20?

But hey, don’t worry if you don’t hold your entertainment to the same very picky and specific standards I do--even if you just want to play an RPG, any RPG, you’re still not TMS#FE’s audience.  Because this game seems to resent being an RPG just as much as it resents being saddled with the Fire Emblem characters.  Oh yeah, sure, there’s a plot with some hoopla about saving the world from these otherworldly forces that drain the passion out of the public using magical powers and it all leads up to stopping the evil schemes of an evil magic guy and his evil god he’s summoning, standard RPG stuff, but at no point does that feel like the story that has the writers’ interest.  The classic world-saving schtick is obviously just there to keep the narrative wheels greased and turning, to give the player something to do with him/herself between scenes of the game’s REAL focus: stories of a group of young people entering, advancing through, and branching out within the Japanese entertainment industry.

It’s not a natural fusion, and the juxtaposition between these sides is very lopsided.  It’s clear that the creators wanted to write a game about up-and-coming pop icons, musicians, and actors, and they either couldn’t figure out how or just didn’t especially care to really mesh that with the save-the-world adventure element.

And the thing is, there still could have been at least some merit, some potential audience, that this game could have properly captured, even then.  Because even if it’s certainly out of the ordinary, a story about the behind-the-scenes of Japanese idol culture and what its superstars do to rise up in the ranks and propagate themselves through the multimedia...well, it could be neat!  As the west becomes exposed to more and more of the creative works and culture of Japan (and some of its neighbors; K-Dramas are spreading like wildfire and just recently KPop Demon Hunters was a whole phenomenon) beyond just its anime, getting glimpses into how the industry works becomes more and more relevantly interesting to we overseas fans.  It’s not my first pick for the subject of an RPG, but then, “a kid and his mom wander around a hospital” wouldn’t have been high on my list of desired RPG premises, either, and I loved Rakuen, so hey, what do I know?

And yet, even for the rare, most likely purely theoretical audience who wants an RPG specifically about the journey of a rising star in Japanese media, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE still manages to disappoint.

Because, frankly?  The entirety of this game’s fixation on idols is entirely surface-level.  Skimming the surface level, even.  Each chapter’s and sidequest’s glance at the entertainment industry, from music to stage shows to modeling to movies to TV shows and on and on, comes off as someone’s guesses at the experience of being an idol, based on a conflict-of-the-day episode of Sailor Moon they kind of remember seeing as a kid.  The management’s supportive and almost always in the talents’ corner, the idols never burn out (and on the rare occasion they overextend themselves, it’s only out of love for the work), there’s no stalkers or otherwise overtly creepy and possessive fans,* no one in the industry uses their position or experience to do creepy things to naive or less popular stars...if it’s a problem that can’t be solved by believing in yourself just a little harder, then it doesn’t fucking exist in the idol industry, according to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

This is the idealistically shallow, smile-and-nod perspective held by someone who’s only ever sat in the audience, and never given a second thought to the performances put in front of them.  I’d call it a pedestrian understanding of the idol industry, but frankly, it’s not even that--I’m a pedestrian who just likes watching some VTubers, and even just from doing that, I at least know the horrific war on human decency that Nijisanji’s been waging against its talents for years, for example, and they’re certainly not the first entertainment corporation in Japan to do so.  Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE’s portrayal of the life of an idol has all the nuance and insight that you’d expect from an excited 6-year-old.

So there you have it: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE simply has no audience it can appeal to.  It promises a crossover between Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem, 2 franchises which don’t have any particular common ground to meet upon.  It’s got functionally nothing in it for SMT fans, and it utilizes its very limited FE elements in such a dismissive, inept manner that it’s got functionally less than nothing for FE fans.  It doesn’t hold up on its own merits as an RPG, and it’s much more interested in being a niche story about rising to stardom in Japanese media culture anyway, so just an average RPG audience isn’t gonna get much out of it.  And even in terms of looking at the idol industry, the only subject the game actually seems to care about, it’s too infantile to satisfy any sincerely interested audience.  There’s no shortage of Shin Megami Tensei, nor Fire Emblem, titles to be found, a great many RPGs of noteworthy quality exist to be enjoyed, it’s hardly impossible to find a decent crossover game like SMT Persona Q or Super Smash Brothers, and hell, the existence of Hololive CouncilRyS RPG and Chrono Gear: Warden of Time means that there’s even alternatives, and significantly better ones at that, for anyone who’s really hankering for an idol-themed video game.  TMS#FE simply has no reason for anyone to play it.










* Well, there’s Barry, I suppose.  But his crap is played up for comedy, or at most, gently admonished as the overenthusiasm of someone who means well.  He’s clearly still meant to be seen as one of the “good guys.”

Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA Stray Thoughts

Yeah, I’m doing a stray thoughts rant for 1 of the most obscure RPGs on the planet.  Because, you see, I’ve got it all figured out.  All I’ve gotta do to never have anyone tell me I’m wrong ever again is to rant on games that none of my readers have ever played themselves!  What’re the haters gonna do, go out and play the game themselves just to prove me wrong?  Well, I’ve already highly recommended this one, so you can’t do that, either!  Big-brain strats, you see.

Anyway yeah this is a pretty indulgent one, but I had a lot of thoughts when I played Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA, and it was a pretty sizable game that I’d like to get some rant mileage out of, so you’re just gonna have to live with my indulgence.  Come back next time or play it yourself and then be let down at how my rant was definitely not worth the wait, either way’s good with me.

Oh, also, significant spoilers ahead!



- I appreciate the fact that there’s a lot more of an open and direct narrative approach to this game.  It’s no great secret that in the past, the level of complexity in the plot, lore, and characters themselves was high enough in LBS titles that I’ve frequently not been confident that I really got everything, which is something that gets in my head and drives me to distraction.  I really want to just fully understand the things that I enjoy, on every level they can be.  This time around, though...there’s plenty of stuff going on in the backstage of AAAVXA’s story and lots you still have to infer and puzzle out on your own--Saint Bomber builds and relays his lore and plots in a fashion mildly akin to a well-paced mystery novel--but there’s a lot more about the backstories and the plot’s facts and direction that requires less constant interpretation, I think.  I felt more certain that I was understanding everything I was meant to be, basically, and whether that was an intentional adjustment or just a natural development of his style, I appreciate it and think it’s beneficial.


- Related to this shift to more direct storytelling: AAAVXA actually gives us a definitive pronunciation of Hinoki Jr.’s name.  I doubt this was done specifically in response to my grousing about it in a previous rant, but Saint Bomber’s willing and direct committal to such a detail that he previously wouldn’t relinquish, minor though it may be, gratified me as much as it would if it had been specifically done for me.


- This game’s use of a Magical Girls premise of love-draining monsters as an analogy for that which trauma takes from us is very apt and even a bit ingenious, and it’s executed quite well.  Like, I’m not going to say it’s on a Madoka level of brilliance for using a classic premise of the Magical Girls genre as a symbol for darker and heavier concepts, but Angelic Acceptor Alouette is certainly swimming in the same pool.

...It’s a bit troubling that Magical Girls have so aptly found themselves to be vehicles of heavier, painful stories in recent times, with representatives like AAAVXA, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Mamika from Re:Creators.  I mean for crying out loud, the most positive and feel-good magical girl media I've personally encountered in the last several years has been Gushing Over Magical Girls!


- It’s not all really thought-provoking and intelligent content in AAAVXA, of course, but honestly, sometimes the outright idiotic stuff is just as enjoyable.  The side episode about a bra going bad is pleasingly stupid, and reminds me of both Steven Universe attacking Frybo by commanding his clothing and underwear, and an episode of The IT Crowd.  Which, who knows, could have been intentional--it’s a long-shot, but on the other hand, I wasn’t expecting multiple references to the Pitch Meetings internet video series, so anything’s possible.


- While there's a lot to like about Miriam, somehow the thing I most weirdly adore is that her hobby is renting and watching 80s/90s movies, then finding and watching the pornographic lesbian parody versions of those movies, and writing essays comparing the differences between them and the changes in their meaning.  It feels like the kind of absurdly pretentious and self-gratifying nerdy obsessive stuff I do with these rants.


- There have been a lot--a LOT--of extremely singular, unexpected, unique characters and individuals and scenarios I’ve seen in RPGs that I was not expecting to, from a 1930s Japanese paranormal detective cockblocking a cyborg Rasputin, to every character on this list, to the developers of Wild Arms 5 expecting their audience to take the use of a giant monowheel as a mode of transportation seriously.  And right up there in the Most Genuinely Unexpected Things To See In An RPG category has got to be Clarissa from Clarissa Explains It All as a major antagonist.  Like, okay, it’s a legally distinct version of her, and the character’s more of an amalgamation of several troubled and/or washed-up child stars that the 1990s/2000s entertainment industry ground up and spat out than any one individual...but she’s still primarily using Clarissa Explains It All as the 90s show that forms the basis of this character.  That is a deep cut, there.


- And while we’re on the subject of said Legally Distinct Clarissa...1 single solitary conversation from a sidequest about a secondary character’s history as a child TV star, and already Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA has crafted a more compelling, realistic, and insightful look at an entertainment industry than the entirety of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, the game that threw away every other part of its premise to go all in on portraying exactly that.  It's crazy how the slightest bit of talent and effort can make all the difference, huh?


- I like the fact that the conclusion of the vacation episode includes a moment of Mille essentially doing the same kind of "trust fall" that the (sort of) villains had been experimenting with earlier, showing it working in real time.  It’s a neat touch.


- Ha!  Aunt Raye said “...Well, don’t that just beat all?”  I see what you did there, Saint Bomber.


- Mille is a great character, and a decent part of that is the fact that she’s a rare demonstration that it's actually possible to have a well-written character who goes through a lot of her development off-screen. We can, for example, see tiny (often initially misleading) private glimpses and sentences of her personal growth throughout the game (and a few of her old diary entries in the Akashic Record), but we’re only able to contextualize the truth of these snippets retroactively as she and Simone talk after the fight in Episode 10.*  We’re only able to observe the tiniest moments of consternation and thought as Mille mulls over her feelings and herself through the majority of the game, and yet it’s handled well enough and leads the audience effectively enough that she still is ultimately a solid dynamic entity in the game’s cast.


- Much like what I've said in the past about never knowing when the random minor NPC or hench-villain in the background will turn out to be the person on whom the universe hinges, there's also never a moment so silly or innocuous in a Large Battleship Studios game that it isn't going to suddenly transform into a moment of shocking, overpowering significance and/or emotional gravity.  An absurd puzzle involving a succubus conga-line can suddenly reveal the most disturbing and tragic backstory in the game withinin the space of 1 textbox to the next, and an adventure about an isekai'd holiday icon can reveal that its jokes and absurdity are merely the cushion surrounding heavy pieces of lore and context to a previous adventure.  You’d think that the tonal shift would be jarring, but somehow it’s only ever intriguing.


- This game doesn't lack for sad and even morose moments and scenes, but the alternate moment in which Mille gives up on magic because she's been shut out of it for the last time is heartbreaking--shockingly so, considering how much worse things we've seen, but it’s an undeniable moment of wrenching disappointment.


- Funnily enough, for all the glazing I’ve done for it and its creator, Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA is the Large Battleship Studios game with the most parts I disagree with or dislike.  There’s the incest thing, of course, my feelings on which I plan to really dissect in a forthcoming rant.  I think that considerably more cordiality is paid to Alice as a whole than should be--I do not like how glossed over her history of abusing animals is as the narrative moves along with what it needs from her.  While her role and characterization in this game are fine enough, I still can’t say I was pleased to see that Claudine survived the events of Quantum Entanglement; Saint Bomber makes more allowances for this particular creation of his than I feel are deserved.  Anastasia’s a boring pill on her own and is a surprisingly unconvincing love interest; her romance with Simone is the first time I can recall that a significant part of an LBS game’s love story has had less believable chemistry and development than the basic average RPG romance subplot.  It frustrates me a bit that so much of Mille’s role in the game’s later stages requires her to either hold herself at arm’s length or be adversarial, after so many chapters in which she was delayed from engaging in romance with Simone--I understand that with Mille’s easy and instant chemistry with Simone, a good bit of time had to be given to Miriam so she could play catch-up because otherwise she just wouldn’t be able to stand on equal romantic ground, but in the end, it feels like circumstances unfairly kept Mille and Simone from sharing the same depth of love (or at the very least, the same quality of romantic development) that Simone was allowed to form with Miriam.

I think that’s my full laundry-list of stuff I significantly didn’t appreciate about/objected to within AAAVXA, or at least all the things I can really remember offhand.  Which really isn’t that bad anyway, but it’s kind of funny that this game has the most components I’ve objected to in an LBS title when I also think it could be argued to be the best of them.


- You know, it was at around the time of the Alice scenario in AAAVXA that I got to thinking about something: there’s a lot of great, layered complexity to Large Battleship Studios games, this one in particular.  It’s very complicated, with many irons in the fire and pieces to its puzzle...but unlike games and series where the complications just stack up over and over into an incomprehensible mess (such as the Kingdom Hearts series, Xenogears, the Xenosaga series, and Chrono Cross, to name a few examples), it's all carefully coordinated to a definite vision and purpose, and it never gets bigger than its own cast, nor bigger than its audience wants to deal with.

At a guess, I'd say the difference is that Saint Bomber may have spent a long time after Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle constructing where he wanted his universe to go, and why, and while things are inevitably added on during the creative process, he's making sure that the structure is cohesive before any product is released.  The details and answers of LBS games are present and important (even if sometimes overlooked) all along and wherever they need to be, and learning their importance as time goes on puts already existing data into context, rather than flipping everything all over again.  By contrast, needlessly overcomplicated bullhonkey RPGs like Kingdom Hearts or Xenogears feel like the creators are flying by the seats of their pants, trying with each new step to make things bigger than they already are, layer more profoundness where it isn't, and outdo themselves at all turns.

KH and its ilk are a house that some child keeps hastily pasting new additions and oddities onto according to his newest whim, without caring too much about what it means for what was already there, only enough to keep the new stuff from outright collapsing the walls it's stapled to (and even that minimal care is not always given).**  Saint Bomber, on the other hand, thinks of new ways to add to and punch up the structure he's made, but he does it by looking at the blueprint and adjusting it to account for and incorporate the additions.  Each new layer and detail of his story-house isn't just pasted onto it, it's incorporated into its design. He can even do it retroactively, as evidenced by AAA:VXA's frequent returns to Quantum Entanglement and A Dragon’s ReQuest, which is impressive.















* The version of Chapter 10 where you attacked Petanque rather than Delta, that is.


** To quote Saint Bomber himself on this matter of how KH's overarching lore and story carry themselves (because yes, I totally am so desperate for attention and genuinely pathetic that I actually share these rants about his works with him), "Everything about Kingdom Hearts is exemplified in the construction of a Gummi Ship."