You all know by now that I don’t play RPGs for the visceral so-called joys of their gameplay, a genre whose interface is based roughly 90% of the time on an inherently dull, plodding foundation. It’s just not what I like about the genre. But that doesn’t mean I can’t identify and acknowledge that some RPGs manage to arrange just enough tricks and features in just the right way to make them far closer to diverting to play than their peers. Do I appreciate the fluid, intuitive complexity of the Bravely games? The skillful way that Fallout 1 and 2 broke ground and developed a battle system that actually made fire-arms based turn combat work? The ability of Bahamut Lagoon to seamlessly bring tactical and turn-based systems together into a single entity? The way most Fire Emblems manage to offset a somewhat imbalanced difficulty with patently obvious ways to cheese your way through the game? Sure. Do I enjoy them? Nah, not especially.
...Although I do have to give it up for the extremely rare occasion that a developer brilliantly manages to create a battle system that subtly underlines and expresses major dimensions of its characters, or themes of the game as a whole. Like how Tales of Berseria’s aggression-based battle system is consistent with its protagonist Velvet, or the way Lunar: Dragon Song expresses its developers’ disdain for the human race in a careful symphony of infuriating gameplay anti-features.
So even though this sort of thing doesn’t affect my estimation of how good an RPG it is, I think it’s only fair to mention that the Bravely series has got a terrifically fluid, intuitive, and useful auto-battle system, especially Bravely Second. It is, in fact, pretty much the best example I’ve seen thus far in the genre.
First of all, let’s just acknowledge that the fact Silicon Studio bothered to do anything more than the bare minimum on this matter is laudable. In like 90% of the RPGs I’ve encountered with an auto-battle function, said feature basically just has everyone in the party mindlessly attack enemies until the battle ends in either victory or defeat. It’s just a more convenient version of mindlessly mashing the confirm button for every character over and over again, a process so simplistic that even most Kemco games possess it. KEMCO, for Abadar’s sake! And don’t get me wrong, I’m still appreciative of an auto-battle feature, even in its most basic form--I’d go so far as to say it and the battle speed option are tied as the very best characteristics of just about every game from Kemco’s catalogue--but actually taking steps to make the auto-battle commands in Bravely Default and Bravely Second anything more than just mindless Attack commands in succession represents an uncommon level of effort in this genre.
And that effort is spent so effectively! Silicon Studios makes the auto-battle system in Bravely Default so natural and handy. Just because you want a little more complexity to your battle performance than “everyone just hits Attack” doesn’t mean that every damn turn you take has to be a completely new strategy than the last--most of the time in an RPG, there’s only really a handful of combinations of characters’ abilities in a single turn that you’ll use with any great frequency. So Bravely Default’s clever way of handling auto-battle is to simply have your party repeat all their actions from the last turn again. Once you’ve explored BD’s shockingly complex and yet even more shockingly intuitive battle system enough, you’ll have a general idea of what effective strategies you want to repeatedly employ in most random encounters, meaning that getting to simply press a button to repeat them for as long as you want is incredibly convenient--and yet, since you can disengage and change tactics 1 turn, then repeat those new tactics over and over again, this gives you all the convenience of an auto-battle system with none of the limitations! And possibly best of all, you can keep using this repeated-turn system even in a new battle, without having to manually create the first turn you want reiterated each time.
And then Bravely Second improves the system even further by allowing you to not only select auto-battle to repeat a turn’s actions, but also have the option to select from 3 preset turn strategies you’ve designated for repeated use. So basically, all the benefits of Bravely Default’s take on the auto-battle system, combined with the functional convenience of a battle strategy system like Dragon Age 1’s tactics system--only also smoother and better designed.* You can preset 3 strategies that’ll presumably take you through most battles and have’em ready to go at the press of 2 buttons, any time you like, giving you convenience without sacrificing the ability to explore the many nuances and possibilities of the Bravely combat system.
It’s basically like Final Fantasy 12’s Gambits, if that system had been streamlined, attached to a well-constructed combat engine, player-friendly, and actually effective. And if the FF12 developers had possessed the collective 12 brain cells necessary to know that the Gambits should be optional, because otherwise it’s less like playing a video game than it is making some meek suggestions to a video game. And if the FF12 playing experience was good in any capacity whatsoever. So...basically like Final Fantasy 12’s Gambit system, but at the same time, absolutely fucking nothing like it, really.
And although I’ve spent most of this rant talking about how great the auto-battle system is with the Bravely games, I’ll also give major appreciation to the games for the fact that they also have a battle speed-up feature, too. I’ve already made my love for this function known in a previous rant, so no need to get into it here, but the fact that Bravely Default and Second have simple, effective fast-forward options as good as any I’ve seen in the genre is as valuable to me as their having such an effective and reliable auto-battle system.
Bravely Default and Bravely Second’s developers clearly had a lot of pride in the mechanics of their games, pride which is fully justified, as valuing gameplay conventions goes. But what I really appreciate about Silicon Studio is that they didn’t let that satisfaction blind them to seeking to make the playability of their games as convenient to the player as possible--no matter how proud they were of their creation, they didn’t hesitate to give the players a uniquely efficient set of tools to hasten our way through that creation to our content. Considering that over the course of both Bravely titles, I engaged in hundreds if not over a thousand random encounters, I feel significant gratitude to the developers who put these tools of convenience together. It feels like they valued my time.
* Don’t get me wrong, though, I think the DA1 tactics system is quite thoughtful and effective overall. And in fairness, while there’s a surprising level of innovative depth to the Bravely games’ combat, Dragon Age 1 still has a lot more going on in regards to what’s happening when, under what circumstances, and to what priority, so it’s pretty understandable that its use takes a little more work.
Showing posts with label Bravely. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bravely. Show all posts
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Bravely Second's Interesting Protagonist Duality
Every now and then you get an RPG which thinks a little outside the box as far as its protagonist goes. Sometimes it’s a case of having a protagonist who basically fulfills the role of a traditional RPG villain even though he is, indeed, in the right, like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1’s Marche. Sometimes it’s a game which has more than 1 character serve as the story’s protagonist, like Final Fantasy 6’s Terra and Celes. Sometimes it’s a game in which many of the game’s characters could be the hero of the story, and it’s up to you to determine who shall fill that role, like with Live-A-Live or Romancing Saga 1. And sometimes it’s an RPG in which the protagonist is actually a completely superfluous entity who could have been removed entirely without affecting the story whatsoever because every important event and action is instigated and performed by the supporting cast, as with Final Fantasy 12’s Vaan (hey, I didn't say they were all good ideas). And then there's Velvet, from Tales of Berseria, who's so chaotically spread across the spectrum of tragedy and heroism and villainy that you just don't know what to make of her.
Bravely Second has introduced me to another interesting take on the protagonist role in RPGs: a separate duality to its protagonist. Like Final Fantasy 6, Bravely Second essentially has 2 characters share the role of main character rather than the traditional 1--but whereas FF6 has Terra and Celes split the role of protagonist to the main plot of the game, Bravely Second’s main story is straightforward in having Yew as its protagonist. But BS does have a substantial number of sidequests, almost all of which turn out to be interconnected as events in a single, personal story--and the central figure of that side story is most definitely Edea.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game take this approach before. Oh, sure, plenty of RPGs have many sidequests whose central figure is 1 of the supporting cast--that is, in fact, 1 of the most tried and true methods for creating character depth and development for a game’s secondary major characters. But this is a case in which all the sidequests specifically make 1 supporting character their central figure, and, as revealed during the final installment of this running side-story, are specifically geared toward telling a narrative of that character developing into a leader and more complete person. The sidequests of Bravely Second constitute less a collection of minor ancillary adventures and more a second, independent adventure simply occurring at the same time as the main quest. So basically, Bravely Second is a game with a protagonist for its main story (Yew), but also another protagonist for its second story (Edea).
What’s also kind of interesting about this is that of the 2 of them, Edea’s actually a way more important protagonist of the game’s side story than Yew is of its primary plot. I doubt it was intentional, but Edea’s far more active in her leadership duties during the game’s sidequests than Yew is during the rest of the game’s course. While at least half the time Bravely Second’s plot events carry its heroes along with it, requiring little to no direct input from Yew and making him even seem incidental for much of its course, each sidequest directly requires Edea to take an active, deciding role for it. At first, it does seem like she’s just a tiebreaker for the sidequests’ decisions more often by accident than by design, true. But the final sidequest of this series, in which Edea must face her father and determine what kind of leader she will be to the world, retroactively gives each sidequest before it a significance, because each decision Edea makes as arbiter is shaping her view on what matters most in conflicts of human interest. As such, she’s a constantly active protagonist of her story, whereas Yew goes in and out of specific importance to moving Bravely Second’s plot forward.
Beyond being a more active protagonist than Yew, Edea is also, equally interestingly, a far more important hero for her story. Culminating in her meeting with her father and his handing the duchy over to her, the entirety of Bravely Second’s sidequests until and including this final point have been formed specifically to tell the story of Edea’s rise to leadership, and to determine what kind of ruler she’s going to be. Every decision Edea makes about which side to support in each sidequest isn’t just a case of her being the essential arbiter--it is, more importantly, also conflict representative of the kind of dilemmas she will have to face as a ruler, and her decisions characterize the leadership and values that Edea will hold as future Grand Marshall. While Yew does hold some essential personal relevance to the main story of Bravely Second, Edea is the key figure of the game’s secondary story, a story which is specifically about her.
Do I have a point to all this? Not really. I just thought it was an interesting situation with Bravely Second, having a protagonist for the plot proper, but setting up almost all the sidequests to be a separate, concurrent story with its own side protagonist. And then, having made note of that, I found it amusing that Edea, as the hero of this secondary story, was so much more prominent, effective, dynamic, and essential to it than Yew was to the primary storyline. It’s like 1 of the writers came up with this interesting dual-story dual-protagonist idea, but it worked out too well, creating such a strong and fulfilling story for Edea that suddenly Yew and his main quest were found wanting by comparison.
* Although, honestly, at least half the time it kind of just progresses on its own, with no one in the party acting as the sole narrative leader. But that’s not an especially infrequent situation in RPGs.
Bravely Second has introduced me to another interesting take on the protagonist role in RPGs: a separate duality to its protagonist. Like Final Fantasy 6, Bravely Second essentially has 2 characters share the role of main character rather than the traditional 1--but whereas FF6 has Terra and Celes split the role of protagonist to the main plot of the game, Bravely Second’s main story is straightforward in having Yew as its protagonist. But BS does have a substantial number of sidequests, almost all of which turn out to be interconnected as events in a single, personal story--and the central figure of that side story is most definitely Edea.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game take this approach before. Oh, sure, plenty of RPGs have many sidequests whose central figure is 1 of the supporting cast--that is, in fact, 1 of the most tried and true methods for creating character depth and development for a game’s secondary major characters. But this is a case in which all the sidequests specifically make 1 supporting character their central figure, and, as revealed during the final installment of this running side-story, are specifically geared toward telling a narrative of that character developing into a leader and more complete person. The sidequests of Bravely Second constitute less a collection of minor ancillary adventures and more a second, independent adventure simply occurring at the same time as the main quest. So basically, Bravely Second is a game with a protagonist for its main story (Yew), but also another protagonist for its second story (Edea).
What’s also kind of interesting about this is that of the 2 of them, Edea’s actually a way more important protagonist of the game’s side story than Yew is of its primary plot. I doubt it was intentional, but Edea’s far more active in her leadership duties during the game’s sidequests than Yew is during the rest of the game’s course. While at least half the time Bravely Second’s plot events carry its heroes along with it, requiring little to no direct input from Yew and making him even seem incidental for much of its course, each sidequest directly requires Edea to take an active, deciding role for it. At first, it does seem like she’s just a tiebreaker for the sidequests’ decisions more often by accident than by design, true. But the final sidequest of this series, in which Edea must face her father and determine what kind of leader she will be to the world, retroactively gives each sidequest before it a significance, because each decision Edea makes as arbiter is shaping her view on what matters most in conflicts of human interest. As such, she’s a constantly active protagonist of her story, whereas Yew goes in and out of specific importance to moving Bravely Second’s plot forward.
Beyond being a more active protagonist than Yew, Edea is also, equally interestingly, a far more important hero for her story. Culminating in her meeting with her father and his handing the duchy over to her, the entirety of Bravely Second’s sidequests until and including this final point have been formed specifically to tell the story of Edea’s rise to leadership, and to determine what kind of ruler she’s going to be. Every decision Edea makes about which side to support in each sidequest isn’t just a case of her being the essential arbiter--it is, more importantly, also conflict representative of the kind of dilemmas she will have to face as a ruler, and her decisions characterize the leadership and values that Edea will hold as future Grand Marshall. While Yew does hold some essential personal relevance to the main story of Bravely Second, Edea is the key figure of the game’s secondary story, a story which is specifically about her.
Do I have a point to all this? Not really. I just thought it was an interesting situation with Bravely Second, having a protagonist for the plot proper, but setting up almost all the sidequests to be a separate, concurrent story with its own side protagonist. And then, having made note of that, I found it amusing that Edea, as the hero of this secondary story, was so much more prominent, effective, dynamic, and essential to it than Yew was to the primary storyline. It’s like 1 of the writers came up with this interesting dual-story dual-protagonist idea, but it worked out too well, creating such a strong and fulfilling story for Edea that suddenly Yew and his main quest were found wanting by comparison.
* Although, honestly, at least half the time it kind of just progresses on its own, with no one in the party acting as the sole narrative leader. But that’s not an especially infrequent situation in RPGs.
Monday, January 28, 2019
Bravely Second's Lousy Romance for Edea
Big thanks go to my buddy Ecclesiastes, for reading this rant through ahead of time to make sure I wasn’t completely spouting nonsense. As always, you are a champ, sir.
Bravely Default made a bit of an impact on the JRPG scene when it came out, for a few reasons. It was a well-made, well-written RPG that managed to be both a perfect representation of classic Final Fantasy and a strong title in its own right with a lot of twists that took you by surprise. It came virtually out of nowhere; I don’t think anyone had anticipated it, nor its quality. And, by far most surprising of all, it was a SquareEnix title--who could have predicted that they would actually be willing to make a good product again, after so many years? Even SquareEnix was publicly shocked by its success, a fact that I have always found absolutely hilarious. It’s like, “Oh wow! We made a game that’s like the games we used to sell back when we were well-liked and respected--and the game is well-liked and respected! WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED THAT WE COULD ACHIEVE SUCCESS BY DOING THE THINGS THAT MADE US SUCCESSFUL IN THE FIRST PLACE!?”
SquareEnix was so impressed, in fact, that they indicated that they would have to begin rethinking their overall direction and strategy as a game developer! And then, they forgot they ever said anything of the kind, and went back to making Kingdom Hearts rereleases, mobile trash Final Fantasy so-called games, and Yaoi Boy Band Camping Trip Simulator 15. But even if the slobbering knuckle-dragging executives of SquareEnix continued to refuse to respect their work, audience, or selves, they at least must have respected the potential to make more money from the Bravely title, as Bravely Second was published a few years later.
And it was...surprisingly good. Perhaps instinctively knowing that they couldn’t pull off the exact same success twice in a row, Silicon Studios took a new approach to the game’s overall feel and narrative, giving Bravely Second a far lighter tone overall, while keeping enough gravity to its story and characters to keep the audience invested and satisfied. And it worked--while Second is certainly not as good as Default, it’s skillful enough in mixing comedy into its style that it’s an overall fun title with virtually no substantial flaws.
Except, that is, for the fact that it really just kinda screws Edea over in the romance department.
Now, I can’t pretend that I like any of the major love subplots of Bravely Second (nor, for that matter, its predecessor). As a couple, Tiz and Agnes have, and have always had, the heat and passion of a bowl of plain oatmeal that’s been sitting out for several hours. They’re a piece of the nostalgic RPGs of yore that shouldn’t have been dug up for Bravely Default--the Hero x Primary Supporting Female that happens out of some imagined narrative obligation rather than any believable emotional connection. And while noticeably better than Agnes and Tiz, I can’t say that Magnolia and Yew have a particularly captivating chemistry, either--their connection feels no stronger or more romantic than their friendship with the other party members. In fact, I think there’s more demonstrable evidence of Yew having the hots for Tiz than for his having an interest in Magnolia.
But at least those romantic couplings are all just boring and lifeless. I mean, that’s not good, obviously, but it is, sadly, kind of standard fare for RPGs, which seem to view romances as a box on a list to check off more than an aspect of characterization to value and nurture. Edea’s situation, however, is not just boring, it’s outright negative.
So, here’s the deal. Through the course of Bravely Second, it is hinted here and there that Edea is carrying a torch for her former comrade from the first game, Ringabel. Why this is, your guess is as good as mine--certainly there’s no evidence to be found by any rational person of a romantic attraction on Edea’s part in the entirety of her interactions with Ringabel during Bravely Default. But hey, classic JRPG law clearly states that a female character’s life is meaningless if she’s not romantically involved with someone or other, so Bravely Second must clumsily attach her to Ringabel through some unwieldy narrative tape. And the fact that it’s a mild case of Since We’re Not Related It’ll Be Okay Syndrome is no doubt a bonus in the writers’ eyes, as Japan is so very fond of that sort of thing.
There comes a sidequest toward the game’s end, 1 which is otherwise really good, wherein Edea’s secret loneliness is exposed: she can see that the rest of her friends are all going to be boringly hooked up by the adventure’s end, while the guy she’s pining for is in another dimension. It is at this time that the Alternis Dim who’s been occasionally showing up during the game’s events to help Edea reveals that he is, in fact, Ringabel, returned to this world because he’s now some sort of interdimensional beat cop or something who’s on a job here, and he reassures Edea that she’ll never truly be alone, because any time she’s truly in danger, he’ll come to stand at her side. This appears to satisfy Edea, and the game’s writers clearly consider the matter of Edea wanting to have a significant other settled.
Well, that’s a really shitty way to treat Edea, if you ask me.
Let’s put aside the fact that Edea x Ringabel has spontaneously materialized out of nothingness and makes no sense based on Edea’s character and her interactions with Ringabel during the first game. Let’s pretend, for a moment, that Edea and Ringabel as a couple has any sort of emotional and rational logic to it. With that perspective, we are still looking at a situation in which Edea is expected to no longer feel romantically lonely because there is a guy somewhere out in the multiverse who cares for her, who she only gets to see and spend time with when her life is in serious peril.
I don’t think the writers of Bravely Second really understand how loneliness works.
Newsflash, Silicon Studios: the first and most basic, necessary thing that most people want in a boyfriend or girlfriend isn’t just that they’ll be around at the very worst of times. It’s that they’ll be around the rest of the time, too. I mean, think about how ridiculous this is, to expect Edea to have her loneliness completely solved by a guy who can only guarantee his presence in dire circumstances. It’d be like if the only time you ever got to call your boyfriend was when you were also calling the fire department, or an ambulance.
So while Agnes gets to live out the rest of her life throwing sheep in and out of pastures with Tiz, and Magnolia gets to live the rest of her life cooking like a good little waifu for Yew,* Edea gets to sit around by herself and attempt to find the same level of fulfilling companionship solely from the knowledge that there’s a guy somewhere in some universe who’s into her. Not into her enough to try not to leer at other girls, of course, but still.
It reminds me of a common defense that fans of Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic make whenever the fact that RD is a terrible friend for most of the show’s run is brought up: that even though most of the time she’s self-centered and utterly careless about her friends’ feelings, Rainbow Dash has demonstrated that she’ll always be there when the chips are down to help save them. Well that’s great and all, but believe it or not, I think that if your greatest/only act as a friend is that you’ll try to keep your pals from being dead, you might not be all that great of a friend. Frankly, I kind of expect that all of my chums, if given the option to either help me out or just sit and watch me die, would opt to do the former. Preferring that someone not die a horrible death seems to me like it should be a given in friendship, rather than some great, laudable achievement. Likewise for Ringabel: a promise to always be there on the exceptionally rare occasions of mortal danger does not make up for not being there all the rest of the time, and frankly, I would kind of expect as much from anyone who cared about Edea to any degree, not just romantically.
Hell, it only gets worse when you really consider how often she’s likely to be in the life-threatening situations which Ringabel will show up for. I mean, by Bravely Second’s end, Edea is arguably the most powerful warrior in the entire world. Add to that the fact that she’s great friends with the next 4 most powerful warriors in the world and has but to ask their aid for them to come running to help her. Add to that the fact that she’s also now the leader of the most powerful military force in the world, situated in a nation with several natural defenses. Add to that the fact that within her military’s higher ranks are a significant portion of the rest of the world’s most powerful warriors. And then add to all that the fact that her nation shares the continent with a recovering powerful military force (the Crystal Guard) which is being restored and reshaped by a personal friend of hers, and which includes a couple more of the world’s most powerful warriors. Plus, the last major military force in the world, the Shieldbearers, are also run by a personal friend of Edea’s. Add all that together, and tell me: exactly how many times is Edea ever likely to see the guy she likes if he only ever shows up when she’s in mortal danger?
The concept of a pledge out of love that you’ll always be there to keep someone safe from danger is romantic, to be sure. But it’s not a romance in and of itself. If a love story were a cheeseburger, such an idea would be the condiment: a pleasant addition, but rather meaningless by itself. The actual meat of this metaphorical meal would be just being there for that special someone the rest of the time, when they’re able to appreciate and take comfort from your presence. And for someone who’s susceptible to romantic loneliness, that matters all the more. So for Bravely Second to arbitrarily and spontaneously decide that Edea is into Ringabel, then make her suffer from loneliness because she’s the only 1 of her friends not able to be with the person she likes, and then say her romantic problems are solved because Ringabel will be there for her in the most dire of circumstances but at no other time, is for this game to royally fuck Edea over in the worst possible way, romance-wise. It traps her in a romantic purgatory, unable to move forward to seek love with some other (probably more qualified) person, yet also unable to actually be with the object of her affections, even though she, as the only cast member specifically shown to be prone to loneliness in love, is the person who needs that companionship the most. And that really sucks.
* Is it just me, or do the women of Bravely Second’s romances always seem to do all the heavy lifting and sacrifice-making in their relationships? Magnolia leaves everyone she knew and cared about at her home so she could be with Yew, while all Yew has to do on his end is actually tell Magnolia that he loves her (although to watch him struggle with it, you’d think that actually was something really difficult). Agnes gives up a fulfilling career doing work she believes in just so that Tiz can pursue his halfhearted ambitions of fondling sheep without having to relocate to a different country, even though the destruction of Norende means it would emotionally cost him absolutely nothing to simply move closer to Agnes so she could be with him AND continue doing things that actually matter to her. Edea’s situation, as currently being illustrated, is garbage. Vega’s memories and love for Altair are the majority of the ammunition used by a dark god to torment her for centuries. And Aimee not only gets stuck with Chef Boyardouché, truly a terrible fate by itself, but is just expected to be totally cool with him keeping his female groupies around, while all she gets out of it are some pancakes. The man wasn’t even good enough to introduce her to waffles.
Bravely Default made a bit of an impact on the JRPG scene when it came out, for a few reasons. It was a well-made, well-written RPG that managed to be both a perfect representation of classic Final Fantasy and a strong title in its own right with a lot of twists that took you by surprise. It came virtually out of nowhere; I don’t think anyone had anticipated it, nor its quality. And, by far most surprising of all, it was a SquareEnix title--who could have predicted that they would actually be willing to make a good product again, after so many years? Even SquareEnix was publicly shocked by its success, a fact that I have always found absolutely hilarious. It’s like, “Oh wow! We made a game that’s like the games we used to sell back when we were well-liked and respected--and the game is well-liked and respected! WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED THAT WE COULD ACHIEVE SUCCESS BY DOING THE THINGS THAT MADE US SUCCESSFUL IN THE FIRST PLACE!?”
SquareEnix was so impressed, in fact, that they indicated that they would have to begin rethinking their overall direction and strategy as a game developer! And then, they forgot they ever said anything of the kind, and went back to making Kingdom Hearts rereleases, mobile trash Final Fantasy so-called games, and Yaoi Boy Band Camping Trip Simulator 15. But even if the slobbering knuckle-dragging executives of SquareEnix continued to refuse to respect their work, audience, or selves, they at least must have respected the potential to make more money from the Bravely title, as Bravely Second was published a few years later.
And it was...surprisingly good. Perhaps instinctively knowing that they couldn’t pull off the exact same success twice in a row, Silicon Studios took a new approach to the game’s overall feel and narrative, giving Bravely Second a far lighter tone overall, while keeping enough gravity to its story and characters to keep the audience invested and satisfied. And it worked--while Second is certainly not as good as Default, it’s skillful enough in mixing comedy into its style that it’s an overall fun title with virtually no substantial flaws.
Except, that is, for the fact that it really just kinda screws Edea over in the romance department.
Now, I can’t pretend that I like any of the major love subplots of Bravely Second (nor, for that matter, its predecessor). As a couple, Tiz and Agnes have, and have always had, the heat and passion of a bowl of plain oatmeal that’s been sitting out for several hours. They’re a piece of the nostalgic RPGs of yore that shouldn’t have been dug up for Bravely Default--the Hero x Primary Supporting Female that happens out of some imagined narrative obligation rather than any believable emotional connection. And while noticeably better than Agnes and Tiz, I can’t say that Magnolia and Yew have a particularly captivating chemistry, either--their connection feels no stronger or more romantic than their friendship with the other party members. In fact, I think there’s more demonstrable evidence of Yew having the hots for Tiz than for his having an interest in Magnolia.
But at least those romantic couplings are all just boring and lifeless. I mean, that’s not good, obviously, but it is, sadly, kind of standard fare for RPGs, which seem to view romances as a box on a list to check off more than an aspect of characterization to value and nurture. Edea’s situation, however, is not just boring, it’s outright negative.
So, here’s the deal. Through the course of Bravely Second, it is hinted here and there that Edea is carrying a torch for her former comrade from the first game, Ringabel. Why this is, your guess is as good as mine--certainly there’s no evidence to be found by any rational person of a romantic attraction on Edea’s part in the entirety of her interactions with Ringabel during Bravely Default. But hey, classic JRPG law clearly states that a female character’s life is meaningless if she’s not romantically involved with someone or other, so Bravely Second must clumsily attach her to Ringabel through some unwieldy narrative tape. And the fact that it’s a mild case of Since We’re Not Related It’ll Be Okay Syndrome is no doubt a bonus in the writers’ eyes, as Japan is so very fond of that sort of thing.
There comes a sidequest toward the game’s end, 1 which is otherwise really good, wherein Edea’s secret loneliness is exposed: she can see that the rest of her friends are all going to be boringly hooked up by the adventure’s end, while the guy she’s pining for is in another dimension. It is at this time that the Alternis Dim who’s been occasionally showing up during the game’s events to help Edea reveals that he is, in fact, Ringabel, returned to this world because he’s now some sort of interdimensional beat cop or something who’s on a job here, and he reassures Edea that she’ll never truly be alone, because any time she’s truly in danger, he’ll come to stand at her side. This appears to satisfy Edea, and the game’s writers clearly consider the matter of Edea wanting to have a significant other settled.
Well, that’s a really shitty way to treat Edea, if you ask me.
Let’s put aside the fact that Edea x Ringabel has spontaneously materialized out of nothingness and makes no sense based on Edea’s character and her interactions with Ringabel during the first game. Let’s pretend, for a moment, that Edea and Ringabel as a couple has any sort of emotional and rational logic to it. With that perspective, we are still looking at a situation in which Edea is expected to no longer feel romantically lonely because there is a guy somewhere out in the multiverse who cares for her, who she only gets to see and spend time with when her life is in serious peril.
I don’t think the writers of Bravely Second really understand how loneliness works.
Newsflash, Silicon Studios: the first and most basic, necessary thing that most people want in a boyfriend or girlfriend isn’t just that they’ll be around at the very worst of times. It’s that they’ll be around the rest of the time, too. I mean, think about how ridiculous this is, to expect Edea to have her loneliness completely solved by a guy who can only guarantee his presence in dire circumstances. It’d be like if the only time you ever got to call your boyfriend was when you were also calling the fire department, or an ambulance.
So while Agnes gets to live out the rest of her life throwing sheep in and out of pastures with Tiz, and Magnolia gets to live the rest of her life cooking like a good little waifu for Yew,* Edea gets to sit around by herself and attempt to find the same level of fulfilling companionship solely from the knowledge that there’s a guy somewhere in some universe who’s into her. Not into her enough to try not to leer at other girls, of course, but still.
It reminds me of a common defense that fans of Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic make whenever the fact that RD is a terrible friend for most of the show’s run is brought up: that even though most of the time she’s self-centered and utterly careless about her friends’ feelings, Rainbow Dash has demonstrated that she’ll always be there when the chips are down to help save them. Well that’s great and all, but believe it or not, I think that if your greatest/only act as a friend is that you’ll try to keep your pals from being dead, you might not be all that great of a friend. Frankly, I kind of expect that all of my chums, if given the option to either help me out or just sit and watch me die, would opt to do the former. Preferring that someone not die a horrible death seems to me like it should be a given in friendship, rather than some great, laudable achievement. Likewise for Ringabel: a promise to always be there on the exceptionally rare occasions of mortal danger does not make up for not being there all the rest of the time, and frankly, I would kind of expect as much from anyone who cared about Edea to any degree, not just romantically.
Hell, it only gets worse when you really consider how often she’s likely to be in the life-threatening situations which Ringabel will show up for. I mean, by Bravely Second’s end, Edea is arguably the most powerful warrior in the entire world. Add to that the fact that she’s great friends with the next 4 most powerful warriors in the world and has but to ask their aid for them to come running to help her. Add to that the fact that she’s also now the leader of the most powerful military force in the world, situated in a nation with several natural defenses. Add to that the fact that within her military’s higher ranks are a significant portion of the rest of the world’s most powerful warriors. And then add to all that the fact that her nation shares the continent with a recovering powerful military force (the Crystal Guard) which is being restored and reshaped by a personal friend of hers, and which includes a couple more of the world’s most powerful warriors. Plus, the last major military force in the world, the Shieldbearers, are also run by a personal friend of Edea’s. Add all that together, and tell me: exactly how many times is Edea ever likely to see the guy she likes if he only ever shows up when she’s in mortal danger?
The concept of a pledge out of love that you’ll always be there to keep someone safe from danger is romantic, to be sure. But it’s not a romance in and of itself. If a love story were a cheeseburger, such an idea would be the condiment: a pleasant addition, but rather meaningless by itself. The actual meat of this metaphorical meal would be just being there for that special someone the rest of the time, when they’re able to appreciate and take comfort from your presence. And for someone who’s susceptible to romantic loneliness, that matters all the more. So for Bravely Second to arbitrarily and spontaneously decide that Edea is into Ringabel, then make her suffer from loneliness because she’s the only 1 of her friends not able to be with the person she likes, and then say her romantic problems are solved because Ringabel will be there for her in the most dire of circumstances but at no other time, is for this game to royally fuck Edea over in the worst possible way, romance-wise. It traps her in a romantic purgatory, unable to move forward to seek love with some other (probably more qualified) person, yet also unable to actually be with the object of her affections, even though she, as the only cast member specifically shown to be prone to loneliness in love, is the person who needs that companionship the most. And that really sucks.
* Is it just me, or do the women of Bravely Second’s romances always seem to do all the heavy lifting and sacrifice-making in their relationships? Magnolia leaves everyone she knew and cared about at her home so she could be with Yew, while all Yew has to do on his end is actually tell Magnolia that he loves her (although to watch him struggle with it, you’d think that actually was something really difficult). Agnes gives up a fulfilling career doing work she believes in just so that Tiz can pursue his halfhearted ambitions of fondling sheep without having to relocate to a different country, even though the destruction of Norende means it would emotionally cost him absolutely nothing to simply move closer to Agnes so she could be with him AND continue doing things that actually matter to her. Edea’s situation, as currently being illustrated, is garbage. Vega’s memories and love for Altair are the majority of the ammunition used by a dark god to torment her for centuries. And Aimee not only gets stuck with Chef Boyardouché, truly a terrible fate by itself, but is just expected to be totally cool with him keeping his female groupies around, while all she gets out of it are some pancakes. The man wasn’t even good enough to introduce her to waffles.
Saturday, August 18, 2018
Bravely Default's Language
Before we begin today, I'd like to just put a Kickstarter RPG I've found on your radar, in case you, like myself, find the idea amusing enough to back: I Have Low Stats, But My Class is Leader, so I Recruited Everyone I Know to Fight the Dark Lord. Looks promising as a comical RPG, and it's got a lower-than-average pledge level at which you get the game for free when it's finished. Check it out; it might be neat!
And now, on with the rant.
There’s a lot to really like about Bravely Default. Appealing main characters with depth,* an interesting plot, an awesome conclusion, a really good supporting cast, a great villain, the fact that this game manages to pretty much be the most perfect and excellent example of a classic Final Fantasy, a good balance of levity and seriousness...it’s just a great RPG, no 2 ways about it, a pleasant experience that really reminds you of everything you love about the JRPG style. And I do, indeed, really like all of those aspects to this game. And so do many others: as much as a JRPG reasonably can be, Bravely Default was a big hit, and many have extolled its virtues quite eloquently before me. But there is 1 additional characteristic of this title that I’m pleased with, which I have not seen lauded by its fans: the language of BD’s dialogue. And that’s a shame, because I think it’s worth crediting the writers and translators of the game for their use of vocabulary with it.
As a general rule, I’ve found that the RPG genre is a decent one for varied and interesting word use. This is, I suppose, quite natural for an entertainment medium whose greatest focus is on its storytelling elements. It’s also quite natural for an entertainment medium whose titles seem by and large to be nonsensical jumbles of any and all fanciful and archaic buzzwords the writers could think of.** Some games are better than others in this regard, of course--you’re much more likely to learn some fancy new words and phrases from Planescape: Torment and Torment: Tides of Numenera than you are from, say, Lagoon, or Zenonia 1--but you’d probably be surprised how often even the seemingly less intellectual works of the genre can teach the player a new word or 2. A decent chunk of my own vocabulary comes from my long history of playing RPGs, and my learning of my language through the genre is still ongoing. I wouldn’t have known of the existence of the word ‘dunamis,’ let alone its meaning, without having played Infinite Dunamis a mere 2 years ago. And that’s a Kemco game, for Hyperion’s sake!
Still, Bravely Default really goes several steps beyond what you might expect of its genre. The game quite frequently makes use of all kinds of older, less common words in the English language, and really cool ones, at that, such as ‘fain’ and ‘malefic,’ among many others. It’s not like with most other RPGs, where you might, every now and then, discover a cool word or 2 you haven’t come across before in the course of the whole game--in BD, it’s common enough to come across several older, eloquent terms you’re unfamiliar with within the same conversation! And not only that, but you also get frequent occurrences of common, familiar words being used in older, less typical ways, such as the use of ‘ransom’ as a verb synonymous with ‘liberate.’
As a prospective English teacher, this is something I already approve of, but what really makes the use of all this olde language great is how easily it’s used. See, it’s easy as a reader to see new words and phrases and stumble over them due to your lack of knowledge of their meaning. Hell, it’s easy as a writer to use less common vocabulary in a way that’s halting or stiff--even when you know its definition, if you’re trying too hard to use a particular word for its flair, you can wind up making your sentence too focused upon that single term, which makes it all the more jarring to a reader who doesn’t have an instant knowledge of its meaning.
Bravely Default doesn’t have this problem. To me, at least, it uses all of its vocabulary fluidly, organically, and obviously. Each word, even if unfamiliar, is used easily by the writers, as a natural part of the sentiments being expressed, and in such a way that the meanings are easy to intuit from the context and the tone. To be able to regularly use archaic and very specific vocabulary in a fluent and flowing enough way that it never becomes a stumbling block to the audience is very impressive!
Bravely Default’s writers deserve a great deal of praise for just how good and enjoyable an RPG they crafted, and most of that praise comes from greater strengths of the game than just its use of language. Nonetheless, even if it’s a comparatively minor virtue, I also think it’s worthwhile to applaud the writers and translators for their consistent use of interesting, older, uncommon vocabulary to help create the atmosphere of their world, and also to applaud them for just how skillfully easy and natural that vocabulary’s use is for the player to read and hear. Well done, Silicon Studio!
* Well, 3 out of 4 of them, at least. Tiz never quite gains a more nuanced personality than one might find in any given lump of mud. Still, that is, sadly, the standard of RPGs.
** I would be highly surprised if the guy who titled Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings actually had a firm grasp on the definition of the word ‘revenant.’ I would be even more surprised if, in the unlikely scenario where he did, he could provide a compelling explanation for the title as a whole.
And now, on with the rant.
There’s a lot to really like about Bravely Default. Appealing main characters with depth,* an interesting plot, an awesome conclusion, a really good supporting cast, a great villain, the fact that this game manages to pretty much be the most perfect and excellent example of a classic Final Fantasy, a good balance of levity and seriousness...it’s just a great RPG, no 2 ways about it, a pleasant experience that really reminds you of everything you love about the JRPG style. And I do, indeed, really like all of those aspects to this game. And so do many others: as much as a JRPG reasonably can be, Bravely Default was a big hit, and many have extolled its virtues quite eloquently before me. But there is 1 additional characteristic of this title that I’m pleased with, which I have not seen lauded by its fans: the language of BD’s dialogue. And that’s a shame, because I think it’s worth crediting the writers and translators of the game for their use of vocabulary with it.
As a general rule, I’ve found that the RPG genre is a decent one for varied and interesting word use. This is, I suppose, quite natural for an entertainment medium whose greatest focus is on its storytelling elements. It’s also quite natural for an entertainment medium whose titles seem by and large to be nonsensical jumbles of any and all fanciful and archaic buzzwords the writers could think of.** Some games are better than others in this regard, of course--you’re much more likely to learn some fancy new words and phrases from Planescape: Torment and Torment: Tides of Numenera than you are from, say, Lagoon, or Zenonia 1--but you’d probably be surprised how often even the seemingly less intellectual works of the genre can teach the player a new word or 2. A decent chunk of my own vocabulary comes from my long history of playing RPGs, and my learning of my language through the genre is still ongoing. I wouldn’t have known of the existence of the word ‘dunamis,’ let alone its meaning, without having played Infinite Dunamis a mere 2 years ago. And that’s a Kemco game, for Hyperion’s sake!
Still, Bravely Default really goes several steps beyond what you might expect of its genre. The game quite frequently makes use of all kinds of older, less common words in the English language, and really cool ones, at that, such as ‘fain’ and ‘malefic,’ among many others. It’s not like with most other RPGs, where you might, every now and then, discover a cool word or 2 you haven’t come across before in the course of the whole game--in BD, it’s common enough to come across several older, eloquent terms you’re unfamiliar with within the same conversation! And not only that, but you also get frequent occurrences of common, familiar words being used in older, less typical ways, such as the use of ‘ransom’ as a verb synonymous with ‘liberate.’
As a prospective English teacher, this is something I already approve of, but what really makes the use of all this olde language great is how easily it’s used. See, it’s easy as a reader to see new words and phrases and stumble over them due to your lack of knowledge of their meaning. Hell, it’s easy as a writer to use less common vocabulary in a way that’s halting or stiff--even when you know its definition, if you’re trying too hard to use a particular word for its flair, you can wind up making your sentence too focused upon that single term, which makes it all the more jarring to a reader who doesn’t have an instant knowledge of its meaning.
Bravely Default doesn’t have this problem. To me, at least, it uses all of its vocabulary fluidly, organically, and obviously. Each word, even if unfamiliar, is used easily by the writers, as a natural part of the sentiments being expressed, and in such a way that the meanings are easy to intuit from the context and the tone. To be able to regularly use archaic and very specific vocabulary in a fluent and flowing enough way that it never becomes a stumbling block to the audience is very impressive!
Bravely Default’s writers deserve a great deal of praise for just how good and enjoyable an RPG they crafted, and most of that praise comes from greater strengths of the game than just its use of language. Nonetheless, even if it’s a comparatively minor virtue, I also think it’s worthwhile to applaud the writers and translators for their consistent use of interesting, older, uncommon vocabulary to help create the atmosphere of their world, and also to applaud them for just how skillfully easy and natural that vocabulary’s use is for the player to read and hear. Well done, Silicon Studio!
* Well, 3 out of 4 of them, at least. Tiz never quite gains a more nuanced personality than one might find in any given lump of mud. Still, that is, sadly, the standard of RPGs.
** I would be highly surprised if the guy who titled Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings actually had a firm grasp on the definition of the word ‘revenant.’ I would be even more surprised if, in the unlikely scenario where he did, he could provide a compelling explanation for the title as a whole.
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