If you've ever watched a cartoon, sat through a movie, read a comic book, played a game, or experienced any other dozens of forms of entertainment, you're quite familiar with the Villain Laugh. Although obviously not an RPG-only cliche, I have noticed that RPG villains seem to be especially prone to it, just bursting out in raucous bellows of amusement at any given time of day.
Frankly, I think it's fucking stupid.
I do my best to understand villains. You know, get why it is that they're being dicks, and see where they're coming from. This doesn't mean that they're not still dopes for being evil assholes, or anything. But I can at least figure out exactly how and why they're stupid jerks. But that damn laugh I can't get.
I mean, okay, let's think like someone evil who is out to destroy at LEAST the world. Probably more--you know how these villain types are just never satisfied. And it's going well! You're collecting whatever mystical relics of an ancient civilization you need at a good pace, your henchmen have not yet started failing in every single task you assign them (they will soon enough, though, don't doubt it), you've killed some innocents, you've destroyed some property, and you've just finished explaining your ingenius plan to/using mind games to torment the leader of a group of heroes who stupidly tried to stop you while at Level 12. Morons. They'd need at LEAST 40 more levels to stand a chance.
In other words, you've got a good, evil buzz going on. You're walkin' on whatever the evil equivalent of sunshine is, baby. And so, you choose...to laugh like a ninnyhammer.
You've got evil plots to follow through, henchmen and accomplices to praise, berate, and/or kill, and each passing moment you spend here heightens the chance that some random person will show up to rescue the heroes you just pummelled in a way that is oh so convenient to the plot. But do you choose to just leave, maintaining your evil dignity and position as superior to these weaklings? No. No, you just throw your head back and scream with laughter as though someone just told you that they enjoy Final Fantasy 10-2 for its exquisite plot and thoughtful characters.
I mean, I can accept this when the game's villain is as loopy as a 4-year-old's self-portrait. Final Fantasy 6's Kefka giggling at mayhem and destruction that he's caused? It helps reinforce the idea that he's off his nut (not that you needed the reinforcement). Luca Blight from Suikoden 2 laughing happily as he personally murders civilians he's taken prisoner? It really works for him, because you just believe that he honestly does feel a sick mirth at such a hateful act.
But in general, the laughter thing just comes off as pointless. Regular, non-demented people, even evil ones, just don't do it every single time something good happens. Think how dull and monotonous (not to mention hoarse) you would be every day if you laughed on cue whenever good things happened.
"I passed my test! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Muhahahahahaha, they have a 2-for-1 special going for AA batteries today! Excellent, hehehehe!"
"My toast...it is...GOLDEN BROWN! PERFECT! All is going according to my plan...TO MAKE MYSELF A BLT! YAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
What part of this is supposed to be cool? Do game writers really think that this is a fear-inspiring behavior? If some evil twerp tried that routine with me, I'd just watch them guffaw for a minute and then punch their stupid teeth down their throat.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Star Ocean 3's Treasure Chests
Okay, folks, it's been a while since I ranted at you, so you might think I have something semi-important to complain about or praise. Something solid and significant, like a character or plot point of particular note, or something of a more general RPG sense to speak on. Well, if that's the case, then prepare to be disappointed. Because today I'm just going to talk about the treasures in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (henceforth known as Star Ocean 3).
I've been playing through this game for the last few days, having found it used at GameStop for $5. While SO2 had left me dubious of spending even that much money on a game from that series (I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone acquiring SO2 for $5--hell, I'd say the only fair trade is for a person to be PAID 5 bucks to take it), it's hard for me to resist cheap RPGs regardless of their pedigree. I mean, I spend about 3x as much cash on my lunch every day I'm at work. And Eagles had bugged me a couple times in the past to get it.
So far, it's actually not all that bad. I mean, granted, the improved battle system is only a little better than the piece of shit that is the regular Star Ocean battle system. The characters, though, are certainly pretty okay so far--not very memorable, but not outright dull like SO1's cast, or dull AND dumb as shit like SO2's cast. And the plot seems this time to almost make some sense and have direction. Honestly, the latter 2 facts above make me question whether this even really is a Star Ocean game I'm playing.
There is, however, one small recurring aspect of the game that is pretty dumb.
In Star Ocean 3, there're 3 basic sizes of treasure chests that you encounter: Regular, Biggish, and Fucking Enormous And Overly Ornate. This last type is bright aqua-green, covered in gold, and about 75% the size of your character. This thing looks like the kind of treasure chest you'd expect a king to keep half his own ransom in gold, a legendary sword, and a still-sealed copy of Suikoden 2 inside of--with room to spare. If your typical RPG party were to just lug this around on their adventures, there would be no question of how they could hold an inventory of 99 copies of all varieties of potions and herbs and whatnot. This thing is so huge that if I ever opened one and it turned out to be one of those Mimic-type enemies, I'd just reset my game--there'd be no point in trying to take on something that huge.
Now, the first time I really took notice of one of these enormous chests was in one city's old, abandoned church. As if it didn't grab enough attention by itself, the chest was sitting right in the middle of this holy-looking circle of flowers and greenery, bathed in bright light. If Schala had been hovering above it with angel wings while Aeris picked some flowers growing at a unicorn's hooves nearby, they wouldn't have seemed out of place.
This, my friends, was the ultimate treasure chest. Even if it were early in the game, this was surely the king daddy to end all treasures. Nothing less than the power of God Himself could possibly reside in this treasure chest.
Throwing aside the questions of the morality of stealing valuables from a church even if for the sake of their contributing to galactic peace, I eagerly ran up to the chest, ran against it for a minute or so, pressing X and fumbling with SO3's poorly-conceived need to stand exactly facing treasure chests to open them even though precise directioning is difficult because of slightly clumsy movement control, and finally opened it, and found...
Ripe Berries.
Not money. Not treasures. Not legendary equipment or jewelry or whatever. Nothing. But. Berries. Ripe ones, though.
Try to wrap your mind around this. Try to imagine the circumstances that lead up to this moment. Imagine the generous faithful church-goers pitching in money each service for months and months, so that their trusted priest could make a truly worthy purchase to benefit their little congregation. Then, finally, when the priest finally had months and months' worth of collections, representing a part of so many trusting members' living wages, he went out, and purchased the biggest, craziest, most expensive treasure box he could find. No, he couldn't have even found this. He probably had to specially order it. He probably had to commission several architects to design this thing. Then finally, after weeks of directing them in designing it to be properly beautiful and awe-inspiring, the time had come. The priest brought it before his followers with pride to let them see what all their faithful giving had brought about, set it down in the most heavenly, serene place he could, opened it up, dropped a few raspberries inside it, closed it, and enthusiastically declared their money well-spent.
No wonder that church was abandoned. They probably lynched that crazy bastard.
It's not like this is really an isolated incident, either. People in this game have an obsession with hoarding treasure chests containing berries in their home that borders on lunacy. In any given residence, you can expect to open up a random treasure chest shoved against the wall, thinking that you're looting pricy family heirlooms, and discover that this house's residents apparently value individual Blueberries enough to keep them under lock and key (well, not literally, since no treasure chest is ever actually locked, but you know what I mean). Ruins holding ancient wisdoms and artifacts and such are littered with treasure chests of all sizes which hold all varieties of berries.
I admit that berries ARE good healing items. So it might not SEEM any different than finding random potions and herbs and such in treasure chests in other RPGs. But other RPGs don't stuff them in countless immense, shining treasure boxes that your entire party could fit into. I mean, when you open the big ones, you get trumpet fanfare as the game announces that you've somehow managed to find a single Blackberry in the otherwise empty box. If the game's going to give me a quick blast of parade music, I want to be getting something just a little better than 1/60th of a pie's filling.
Anyway, I don't really have anywhere I'm going with this. It's just something that strikes me as amusingly crazy, and also somewhat annoying since I keep hoping for substantial treasure and just getting fruit-wannabes every time.
I've been playing through this game for the last few days, having found it used at GameStop for $5. While SO2 had left me dubious of spending even that much money on a game from that series (I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone acquiring SO2 for $5--hell, I'd say the only fair trade is for a person to be PAID 5 bucks to take it), it's hard for me to resist cheap RPGs regardless of their pedigree. I mean, I spend about 3x as much cash on my lunch every day I'm at work. And Eagles had bugged me a couple times in the past to get it.
So far, it's actually not all that bad. I mean, granted, the improved battle system is only a little better than the piece of shit that is the regular Star Ocean battle system. The characters, though, are certainly pretty okay so far--not very memorable, but not outright dull like SO1's cast, or dull AND dumb as shit like SO2's cast. And the plot seems this time to almost make some sense and have direction. Honestly, the latter 2 facts above make me question whether this even really is a Star Ocean game I'm playing.
There is, however, one small recurring aspect of the game that is pretty dumb.
In Star Ocean 3, there're 3 basic sizes of treasure chests that you encounter: Regular, Biggish, and Fucking Enormous And Overly Ornate. This last type is bright aqua-green, covered in gold, and about 75% the size of your character. This thing looks like the kind of treasure chest you'd expect a king to keep half his own ransom in gold, a legendary sword, and a still-sealed copy of Suikoden 2 inside of--with room to spare. If your typical RPG party were to just lug this around on their adventures, there would be no question of how they could hold an inventory of 99 copies of all varieties of potions and herbs and whatnot. This thing is so huge that if I ever opened one and it turned out to be one of those Mimic-type enemies, I'd just reset my game--there'd be no point in trying to take on something that huge.
Now, the first time I really took notice of one of these enormous chests was in one city's old, abandoned church. As if it didn't grab enough attention by itself, the chest was sitting right in the middle of this holy-looking circle of flowers and greenery, bathed in bright light. If Schala had been hovering above it with angel wings while Aeris picked some flowers growing at a unicorn's hooves nearby, they wouldn't have seemed out of place.
This, my friends, was the ultimate treasure chest. Even if it were early in the game, this was surely the king daddy to end all treasures. Nothing less than the power of God Himself could possibly reside in this treasure chest.
Throwing aside the questions of the morality of stealing valuables from a church even if for the sake of their contributing to galactic peace, I eagerly ran up to the chest, ran against it for a minute or so, pressing X and fumbling with SO3's poorly-conceived need to stand exactly facing treasure chests to open them even though precise directioning is difficult because of slightly clumsy movement control, and finally opened it, and found...
Ripe Berries.
Not money. Not treasures. Not legendary equipment or jewelry or whatever. Nothing. But. Berries. Ripe ones, though.
Try to wrap your mind around this. Try to imagine the circumstances that lead up to this moment. Imagine the generous faithful church-goers pitching in money each service for months and months, so that their trusted priest could make a truly worthy purchase to benefit their little congregation. Then, finally, when the priest finally had months and months' worth of collections, representing a part of so many trusting members' living wages, he went out, and purchased the biggest, craziest, most expensive treasure box he could find. No, he couldn't have even found this. He probably had to specially order it. He probably had to commission several architects to design this thing. Then finally, after weeks of directing them in designing it to be properly beautiful and awe-inspiring, the time had come. The priest brought it before his followers with pride to let them see what all their faithful giving had brought about, set it down in the most heavenly, serene place he could, opened it up, dropped a few raspberries inside it, closed it, and enthusiastically declared their money well-spent.
No wonder that church was abandoned. They probably lynched that crazy bastard.
It's not like this is really an isolated incident, either. People in this game have an obsession with hoarding treasure chests containing berries in their home that borders on lunacy. In any given residence, you can expect to open up a random treasure chest shoved against the wall, thinking that you're looting pricy family heirlooms, and discover that this house's residents apparently value individual Blueberries enough to keep them under lock and key (well, not literally, since no treasure chest is ever actually locked, but you know what I mean). Ruins holding ancient wisdoms and artifacts and such are littered with treasure chests of all sizes which hold all varieties of berries.
I admit that berries ARE good healing items. So it might not SEEM any different than finding random potions and herbs and such in treasure chests in other RPGs. But other RPGs don't stuff them in countless immense, shining treasure boxes that your entire party could fit into. I mean, when you open the big ones, you get trumpet fanfare as the game announces that you've somehow managed to find a single Blackberry in the otherwise empty box. If the game's going to give me a quick blast of parade music, I want to be getting something just a little better than 1/60th of a pie's filling.
Anyway, I don't really have anywhere I'm going with this. It's just something that strikes me as amusingly crazy, and also somewhat annoying since I keep hoping for substantial treasure and just getting fruit-wannabes every time.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Kingdom Hearts 2's Jack Sparrow
Today's rant is brought to you largely by the recent, terribly disappointing Pirates of the Caribbean sequel. Let it never be said that outside factors don't influence my rant topics.
So, there are a few general complaints people have with Kingdom Hearts 2 that you hear repeated very often. These usually include the following criticisms:
1. Atlantica Sucked (Myself, I found it not so terrible--at least its dumb minigames gave you the idea that you were ACCOMPLISHING something, instead of just fucking around finding honey or pretending to be Tony Hawk).
2. Aeris's Voice Acting Sucked (No arguments here--man, I thought I'd been prepared for bad voice acting by other games, but this is in its own league of awful)
3. Sephiroth Is In It (Meh, big deal, it's still not like he's hard to beat, and Nomura has such a narcissistic infatuation with his own creations, both good and godawful, that you can't really expect anything else)
4. Nomura doesn't bother to even try to understand any FF character not his own (Oops, sorry, did I stick a personal complaint into this list? Silly me)
5. Jack Sparrow Wasn't Done Right
Number 5 there I was fully willing to believe before playing the game. I mean, the character of Jack Sparrow from the original Pirates of the Caribbean is a pretty unique fellow, with enough quirks and mannerisms that he's gotta be hard for anyone to reproduce (as further proven by the terrible job that Depp himself does at trying to recreate him in the afore-mentioned sequel). So I went into KH2 with a reasonably low expectation for the PotC world's central character. So I get to the PotC world, start busting up undead pirates with my trusty cartoon friends and fucktarded Keyblade, and hang out with Cap'n Jack for a while, and come to the following realization:
I have no idea what everyone's complaining about.
The general movements and gestures for him are all spot-on. He's got the same noticeable, but not glaringly obvious sway, the same smoothly flimsy hand motions, and even the same gracefully uncoordinated way of fighting. Even when he's doing the kind of wildly unrealistic stuff that hanging out with Sora allows you to do, particularly during joint Limit Breaks, he's still the same off-kilter pirate we all know and love.
Personality-wise, he's also just about a perfect fit. He still has his own best interests in mind, while still having that ambiguously friendly personality that can convince you that, just maybe, he's also just as motivated by the urge to be a decent guy. They even kept the line that I think really best describes him and the uniquely uncertain motivations for all he does: "Have I ever given you reason not to trust me?"
What seems to inspire people most to say that he's not right is the voice acting, I've found. Which confuses me as much as their criticism of any other part of him. To be sure, he's not voiced by Johnny Depp. But while you can tell this if you really, really listen for the difference, the voice is honestly so close that I doubt I could have told the difference without knowing beforehand that it wasn't Mr. Depp doing it. It's certainly closer than quite a few other Disney character voices get in the game, but you don't really hear any complaints for them, so I'm gonna have to say it's probably mostly the deranged Depp fangirls and fanboys who take any strong notice of this difference. Overall, I think SquareEnix did a damn good job with the character of Jack Sparrow, and anyone who has a problem with him is being too picky even for me.
So, there are a few general complaints people have with Kingdom Hearts 2 that you hear repeated very often. These usually include the following criticisms:
1. Atlantica Sucked (Myself, I found it not so terrible--at least its dumb minigames gave you the idea that you were ACCOMPLISHING something, instead of just fucking around finding honey or pretending to be Tony Hawk).
2. Aeris's Voice Acting Sucked (No arguments here--man, I thought I'd been prepared for bad voice acting by other games, but this is in its own league of awful)
3. Sephiroth Is In It (Meh, big deal, it's still not like he's hard to beat, and Nomura has such a narcissistic infatuation with his own creations, both good and godawful, that you can't really expect anything else)
4. Nomura doesn't bother to even try to understand any FF character not his own (Oops, sorry, did I stick a personal complaint into this list? Silly me)
5. Jack Sparrow Wasn't Done Right
Number 5 there I was fully willing to believe before playing the game. I mean, the character of Jack Sparrow from the original Pirates of the Caribbean is a pretty unique fellow, with enough quirks and mannerisms that he's gotta be hard for anyone to reproduce (as further proven by the terrible job that Depp himself does at trying to recreate him in the afore-mentioned sequel). So I went into KH2 with a reasonably low expectation for the PotC world's central character. So I get to the PotC world, start busting up undead pirates with my trusty cartoon friends and fucktarded Keyblade, and hang out with Cap'n Jack for a while, and come to the following realization:
I have no idea what everyone's complaining about.
The general movements and gestures for him are all spot-on. He's got the same noticeable, but not glaringly obvious sway, the same smoothly flimsy hand motions, and even the same gracefully uncoordinated way of fighting. Even when he's doing the kind of wildly unrealistic stuff that hanging out with Sora allows you to do, particularly during joint Limit Breaks, he's still the same off-kilter pirate we all know and love.
Personality-wise, he's also just about a perfect fit. He still has his own best interests in mind, while still having that ambiguously friendly personality that can convince you that, just maybe, he's also just as motivated by the urge to be a decent guy. They even kept the line that I think really best describes him and the uniquely uncertain motivations for all he does: "Have I ever given you reason not to trust me?"
What seems to inspire people most to say that he's not right is the voice acting, I've found. Which confuses me as much as their criticism of any other part of him. To be sure, he's not voiced by Johnny Depp. But while you can tell this if you really, really listen for the difference, the voice is honestly so close that I doubt I could have told the difference without knowing beforehand that it wasn't Mr. Depp doing it. It's certainly closer than quite a few other Disney character voices get in the game, but you don't really hear any complaints for them, so I'm gonna have to say it's probably mostly the deranged Depp fangirls and fanboys who take any strong notice of this difference. Overall, I think SquareEnix did a damn good job with the character of Jack Sparrow, and anyone who has a problem with him is being too picky even for me.
Monday, July 3, 2006
General RPGs Minigames 2: Chinchirorin
Alright, folks. You know I love Suikoden. Like, just really love the series a helluva lot. So much so that I'll neglect ranting, and just about all other aspects of my internet life, for about 2 weeks to finish a new installment in the series.
But the series has its faults (besides the entire game of Suikoden 4). I mean little faults, annoying things that happen inside even the great games (which would be all the others). There's that frustrating problem in the endings of not giving you enough damn time to read the little bits for each character about what ends up happening to them post-game, the strange feeling of It's Here Because Plot Needed It that always springs up near or at the final boss, and the never-ending problem of not having enough money regardless of how long you've been whacking monsters.
The fault I'm really interested in today, though, is the minigame angle. Yes, Suikoden has minigames. Lots of them. Suikoden 5, in particular, seems to be littered with the damn things. And you know, sometimes, they're not all terrible. I mean, Suikoden 3's horse racing minigame was kinda sloppy and choppy in its controls, but nothing anyone who's handled Epona in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time can't deal with, and you do get some kinda okay rewards from it, and it's not, to my memory, mandatory in any respect.
And of course, there's always the Suikoden 2 Iron Chef minigame. That was actually pretty damn awesome.
But man, most of the time, these minigames are boring and stupid in their best moments. You take this one from the earlier games, Chinchirorin (you can tell it's going to be a BLAST with a name like that). Now, this one you can count as mandatory, because you have to play it to get a couple of characters, and without them you can't get the good ending in either game. What it basically is, is you throwing some dice in a bowl and seeing what number they turn out to be. Then, if it's a good number, better than your opponent's, you win money. If it's not, you lose money. It seems to be at least 98% random as to what you're going to get regardless of where or when you throw the damn little things.
Yeah. Fun. Let's play a game where you press a button, and a random number is generated beyond your ability to influence it with any skill or reasoning, and, depending on what number comes up, you might win, or you might lose. They might as well just call it Random Number Generator Minigame, drop all the pretense and save themselves some time on animation and programming by just having a random number come up and tell you that you lose. Who knows, maybe it'll be so stupid that it'll really catch on and become a classic (worked for Rock Paper Scissors). I know casinos would LOVE it; so much easier to rig than slot machines.
How does a game that stupid even come to exist, anyway? Like, I mean in real life here. There are plenty of incredibly simplistic and frankly dumb pastimes people have invented, often involving dice or cards or hunting rifles. But what exactly inspired this one, I wonder? Why the bowl? Was randomly rolling dice to see if a certain number came up just not exciting enough? Did somebody think, while watching his comrades bet their livelihoods one day on a set of dots adorning a certain face of a tiny cube, "You know what would liven this game up a lot? A bowl. This game needs a bowl." And thus was invented the game of Chinchilla or whatever it is, dice tosses made special, somehow, by the presence of a salad bowl.
But the series has its faults (besides the entire game of Suikoden 4). I mean little faults, annoying things that happen inside even the great games (which would be all the others). There's that frustrating problem in the endings of not giving you enough damn time to read the little bits for each character about what ends up happening to them post-game, the strange feeling of It's Here Because Plot Needed It that always springs up near or at the final boss, and the never-ending problem of not having enough money regardless of how long you've been whacking monsters.
The fault I'm really interested in today, though, is the minigame angle. Yes, Suikoden has minigames. Lots of them. Suikoden 5, in particular, seems to be littered with the damn things. And you know, sometimes, they're not all terrible. I mean, Suikoden 3's horse racing minigame was kinda sloppy and choppy in its controls, but nothing anyone who's handled Epona in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time can't deal with, and you do get some kinda okay rewards from it, and it's not, to my memory, mandatory in any respect.
And of course, there's always the Suikoden 2 Iron Chef minigame. That was actually pretty damn awesome.
But man, most of the time, these minigames are boring and stupid in their best moments. You take this one from the earlier games, Chinchirorin (you can tell it's going to be a BLAST with a name like that). Now, this one you can count as mandatory, because you have to play it to get a couple of characters, and without them you can't get the good ending in either game. What it basically is, is you throwing some dice in a bowl and seeing what number they turn out to be. Then, if it's a good number, better than your opponent's, you win money. If it's not, you lose money. It seems to be at least 98% random as to what you're going to get regardless of where or when you throw the damn little things.
Yeah. Fun. Let's play a game where you press a button, and a random number is generated beyond your ability to influence it with any skill or reasoning, and, depending on what number comes up, you might win, or you might lose. They might as well just call it Random Number Generator Minigame, drop all the pretense and save themselves some time on animation and programming by just having a random number come up and tell you that you lose. Who knows, maybe it'll be so stupid that it'll really catch on and become a classic (worked for Rock Paper Scissors). I know casinos would LOVE it; so much easier to rig than slot machines.
How does a game that stupid even come to exist, anyway? Like, I mean in real life here. There are plenty of incredibly simplistic and frankly dumb pastimes people have invented, often involving dice or cards or hunting rifles. But what exactly inspired this one, I wonder? Why the bowl? Was randomly rolling dice to see if a certain number came up just not exciting enough? Did somebody think, while watching his comrades bet their livelihoods one day on a set of dots adorning a certain face of a tiny cube, "You know what would liven this game up a lot? A bowl. This game needs a bowl." And thus was invented the game of Chinchilla or whatever it is, dice tosses made special, somehow, by the presence of a salad bowl.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
General RPGs' Odd Protagonists
When we turn on our machines made by Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft (if you're unlucky), Sega, or whoever and put in a new RPG, we have a pretty good idea about the character we're going to be controlling once the opening scenes, history lessons, and ear-agonizing beginning music videos are done with. We safely assume that the androgynous little freak in the bad clothes who walks around in circles to our grubby fingers' commands is going to be the main hero of whatever epic conflict and quest he finds himself in the middle of. This isn't ALWAYS the case, though.
For example, in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, the protagonist of the game, Marche, is NOT the main hero. The game doesn't seem to really have one; Llednar is probably the closest to being one. Marche is actually the main VILLAIN. He's a classic FF bad guy--his goal is to destroy the world for strange, outlandish reasons that just about no one else in the world agrees with. The only real difference is that, for the first time in SquareEnix history, Marche's outlandish reasons for world-conquering are actually GOOD ones, not just stupid and misguided like most villains with a "lofty" goal to their actions ("THE WORLD IS SO DARK AND PAINFUL SO I'M GONNA KILL EVERYONE TO SAVE THEM FROM IT BECAUSE KIDS TEASED ME AT SCHOOL LOL"). The point, though, is that, even if he does the best thing for the best of intentions as a very decent and well-developed person, Marche is nonetheless the game's villain rather than hero.
That's a rare quality for an RPG main character, to be sure (Knights of the Old Republic games don't count, either, because you have the opportunity to CHOOSE whether you're hero or villain). And it's done VERY well, exploring Marche's perseverence for his ideals yet doubts about his right to do so in such a quiet and complete manner that most people won't even realize he's taking the position of main villain instead of hero until you mention the idea to them.
Another interesting oddity in protagonism (is that a word? I'm claiming it as my own if it isn't already) can be found in Dragon Quest 5. Now, my opinion on the Dragon Quest games is pretty much the same opinion that I hold on bacterial infections. However, that doesn't mean the games don't have a few good qualities hidden beneath the bad.
Now, in Dragon Quest 5, your nameless, personality-less protagonist is, indeed, a good guy. He has some adventures as a kid, gets captured for slavery, escapes as an adult, has some more adventures, gets married, has kids, gets turned to stone for like 15 years, and then gets saved by his kids. But as heroic as this guy's actions, if not any words from him, indicate that he is, it's his SON, not him, who is the legendary main hero person who wields the legendary main hero person's sword against the demon king bothering everyone. From a perspective, the game's protagonist is just the random father of the game's main hero. Most of the plot could just be seen as a long backstory for the true (somewhat short) quest of the son.
The idea's not taken very far or developed (nothing ever is in that series), but it's still there, and still a neat concept with interesting potential that your character's role in a game could be no more than an accomplice of some sort to the game's main hero.
Another uncommon trait in RPGs is the choice of selecting who YOU want to be the protagonist. Games like Star Ocean 2, Live A Live, and Seiken Densetsu 3 give you the option of who you want to be the protagonist and main hero of the game, which is neat. Though it's rare that any major changes to the plot occur depending on who you choose, it's still a nifty idea to be able to choose who you think is the real hero material of a game. In the same vein, an RPG which has more than one protagonist is also an original idea, such as Final Fantasy 6. I've never been able to see anyone successfully prove that Terra and Celes didn't share the roll in that game.
There's really a lot game developers can do with their games just by switching the role their protagonist plays. Sure, it's fine to play through a game as the main character, and there's still plenty of potential for interesting and gripping ways to develop a protagonist as a main hero (Virginia from Wild Arms 3 is a primary and reasonably recent example of this), but there's a virtually untapped wealth of creative freedom to build a unique tale out of a protagonist who's not a main hero, or not the only one, for whatever reason. Game companies really oughta try it more often, because you can get really great results with a little creativity.
For example, in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, the protagonist of the game, Marche, is NOT the main hero. The game doesn't seem to really have one; Llednar is probably the closest to being one. Marche is actually the main VILLAIN. He's a classic FF bad guy--his goal is to destroy the world for strange, outlandish reasons that just about no one else in the world agrees with. The only real difference is that, for the first time in SquareEnix history, Marche's outlandish reasons for world-conquering are actually GOOD ones, not just stupid and misguided like most villains with a "lofty" goal to their actions ("THE WORLD IS SO DARK AND PAINFUL SO I'M GONNA KILL EVERYONE TO SAVE THEM FROM IT BECAUSE KIDS TEASED ME AT SCHOOL LOL"). The point, though, is that, even if he does the best thing for the best of intentions as a very decent and well-developed person, Marche is nonetheless the game's villain rather than hero.
That's a rare quality for an RPG main character, to be sure (Knights of the Old Republic games don't count, either, because you have the opportunity to CHOOSE whether you're hero or villain). And it's done VERY well, exploring Marche's perseverence for his ideals yet doubts about his right to do so in such a quiet and complete manner that most people won't even realize he's taking the position of main villain instead of hero until you mention the idea to them.
Another interesting oddity in protagonism (is that a word? I'm claiming it as my own if it isn't already) can be found in Dragon Quest 5. Now, my opinion on the Dragon Quest games is pretty much the same opinion that I hold on bacterial infections. However, that doesn't mean the games don't have a few good qualities hidden beneath the bad.
Now, in Dragon Quest 5, your nameless, personality-less protagonist is, indeed, a good guy. He has some adventures as a kid, gets captured for slavery, escapes as an adult, has some more adventures, gets married, has kids, gets turned to stone for like 15 years, and then gets saved by his kids. But as heroic as this guy's actions, if not any words from him, indicate that he is, it's his SON, not him, who is the legendary main hero person who wields the legendary main hero person's sword against the demon king bothering everyone. From a perspective, the game's protagonist is just the random father of the game's main hero. Most of the plot could just be seen as a long backstory for the true (somewhat short) quest of the son.
The idea's not taken very far or developed (nothing ever is in that series), but it's still there, and still a neat concept with interesting potential that your character's role in a game could be no more than an accomplice of some sort to the game's main hero.
Another uncommon trait in RPGs is the choice of selecting who YOU want to be the protagonist. Games like Star Ocean 2, Live A Live, and Seiken Densetsu 3 give you the option of who you want to be the protagonist and main hero of the game, which is neat. Though it's rare that any major changes to the plot occur depending on who you choose, it's still a nifty idea to be able to choose who you think is the real hero material of a game. In the same vein, an RPG which has more than one protagonist is also an original idea, such as Final Fantasy 6. I've never been able to see anyone successfully prove that Terra and Celes didn't share the roll in that game.
There's really a lot game developers can do with their games just by switching the role their protagonist plays. Sure, it's fine to play through a game as the main character, and there's still plenty of potential for interesting and gripping ways to develop a protagonist as a main hero (Virginia from Wild Arms 3 is a primary and reasonably recent example of this), but there's a virtually untapped wealth of creative freedom to build a unique tale out of a protagonist who's not a main hero, or not the only one, for whatever reason. Game companies really oughta try it more often, because you can get really great results with a little creativity.
Monday, June 5, 2006
Tales of Phantasia's Characters
Y'all know the drill by now.
Cless: Cless is our main character. He's pretty solidly uninteresting, though admittedly to a much lesser extent than most of the meathead heroes I've noted in the past. Rather than being motivated by the goodness of his heart to do acts of heroism, Cless is more guided through his quest by the desire for revenge against Dhaos, who had his parents killed. This doesn't really lead him to be any more interesting than your standard hero with a one-track mind, of course--he still relentlessly leads his friends along into danger for the lofty ideal of Plot Demands It in virtually the same ways, he just has a more personal and ever so slightly more believable reason for it.
He also seems to be the jealous type when it comes to other people getting characterization. Whenever the idea that his sworn enemy might have some motive for his actions beyond Evil For Evil's Sake, Cless gets all defensive. It goes something like this:
"Hey Cless, I wonder why Dhaos is doing all this. Maybe we should try to think of what he has to gain from all this so we could better know how to--"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP MINT YOU WHORE DHAOS IS EVIL AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT!"
Mint: Mint is the nice, shy healer of the party. As per RPG Law, she becomes interested in the main character, doubtless enamored by his incredible ability to be an even more boring person than she is. Probably the only scene she ever gets where she stands out is the part of the game when she has to meet up with the unicorn so she can usurp its healing abilities for her own use, and even then, it's more just the presence of a unicorn there that makes the scene good, not Mint. Luckily for her, the unicorn gets attacked by demons and dies, so she doesn't have to deal with any qualms about killing it for its horn. What exactly she would have done had said demons not shown up, of course, baffles me. Perhaps she was going to shyly ask permission to saw off that piece of the unicorn's head.
Klarth: Klarth is an older man (by RPG standards, this means an age range of 20-24) who mistakes literature for weaponry and fulfills the team's vital requirement for someone who actually has a goddamn brain. He both explains the various magical phenomena that they witness and hear about, and usually gives them some direction on what they should do next to keep Cless from just leading them around in circles all day, waiting for Dhaos to show up. Of course, this minor virtue of character is almost entirely forgotten about Klarth, because the only thing anyone is ever going to really remember about him is that he once theorized that Arche would "fuck like a tiger."
Arche: When this jailbait half-elf isn't busy propositioning middle-aged sailors (what is WITH these half-elf kids, anyway?), Arche manages to be a kinda okay character with some actual development here and there.
Chester: Chester is a guy who falls in love with a girl that he doesn't like and joins you later in the game about 40 levels behind everyone else.
Dhaos: Remember back when I made the list of Star Ocean 2's characters, I noted that the 10 Wisemen's creators invented the cheapest cop-out of bad villain characterization ever by including a hidden scene in which it is implied that they might at one point have had some form of reason for wanting to be evil? I take it back. Dhaos has the cheapest cop-out of all villainy. See, for just about the entire game, Dhaos is just your uninteresting, super-powerful evil dude out to destroy and provoke protagonists into killing him. Cless's party continually wonders whether there might be merit into investigating Dhaos's reasons for being such a dick, and Cless continually tells them to shut their yaps, but that's about all you get for Dhaos's development. When you FINALLY get to know what was up with him, it's a small note made, in the ENDING, after he's already dead. You don't even get to hear Dhaos say it--all you see is him dying and saying he wants Cless and co. to know his motives, and then suddenly there's a scene change and you get to hear the heroes sum it up in about 2 sentences or so, and then just move on to other things. I mean, hell, why didn't the game just be honest about it and have Fei or Elly come in, sit down in a chair, and tell me instead? I mean, if you're gonna do a lame post-plot wrap-up scene, you might as well go all-out for maximum cheapness.
Cless: Cless is our main character. He's pretty solidly uninteresting, though admittedly to a much lesser extent than most of the meathead heroes I've noted in the past. Rather than being motivated by the goodness of his heart to do acts of heroism, Cless is more guided through his quest by the desire for revenge against Dhaos, who had his parents killed. This doesn't really lead him to be any more interesting than your standard hero with a one-track mind, of course--he still relentlessly leads his friends along into danger for the lofty ideal of Plot Demands It in virtually the same ways, he just has a more personal and ever so slightly more believable reason for it.
He also seems to be the jealous type when it comes to other people getting characterization. Whenever the idea that his sworn enemy might have some motive for his actions beyond Evil For Evil's Sake, Cless gets all defensive. It goes something like this:
"Hey Cless, I wonder why Dhaos is doing all this. Maybe we should try to think of what he has to gain from all this so we could better know how to--"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP MINT YOU WHORE DHAOS IS EVIL AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT!"
Mint: Mint is the nice, shy healer of the party. As per RPG Law, she becomes interested in the main character, doubtless enamored by his incredible ability to be an even more boring person than she is. Probably the only scene she ever gets where she stands out is the part of the game when she has to meet up with the unicorn so she can usurp its healing abilities for her own use, and even then, it's more just the presence of a unicorn there that makes the scene good, not Mint. Luckily for her, the unicorn gets attacked by demons and dies, so she doesn't have to deal with any qualms about killing it for its horn. What exactly she would have done had said demons not shown up, of course, baffles me. Perhaps she was going to shyly ask permission to saw off that piece of the unicorn's head.
Klarth: Klarth is an older man (by RPG standards, this means an age range of 20-24) who mistakes literature for weaponry and fulfills the team's vital requirement for someone who actually has a goddamn brain. He both explains the various magical phenomena that they witness and hear about, and usually gives them some direction on what they should do next to keep Cless from just leading them around in circles all day, waiting for Dhaos to show up. Of course, this minor virtue of character is almost entirely forgotten about Klarth, because the only thing anyone is ever going to really remember about him is that he once theorized that Arche would "fuck like a tiger."
Arche: When this jailbait half-elf isn't busy propositioning middle-aged sailors (what is WITH these half-elf kids, anyway?), Arche manages to be a kinda okay character with some actual development here and there.
Chester: Chester is a guy who falls in love with a girl that he doesn't like and joins you later in the game about 40 levels behind everyone else.
Dhaos: Remember back when I made the list of Star Ocean 2's characters, I noted that the 10 Wisemen's creators invented the cheapest cop-out of bad villain characterization ever by including a hidden scene in which it is implied that they might at one point have had some form of reason for wanting to be evil? I take it back. Dhaos has the cheapest cop-out of all villainy. See, for just about the entire game, Dhaos is just your uninteresting, super-powerful evil dude out to destroy and provoke protagonists into killing him. Cless's party continually wonders whether there might be merit into investigating Dhaos's reasons for being such a dick, and Cless continually tells them to shut their yaps, but that's about all you get for Dhaos's development. When you FINALLY get to know what was up with him, it's a small note made, in the ENDING, after he's already dead. You don't even get to hear Dhaos say it--all you see is him dying and saying he wants Cless and co. to know his motives, and then suddenly there's a scene change and you get to hear the heroes sum it up in about 2 sentences or so, and then just move on to other things. I mean, hell, why didn't the game just be honest about it and have Fei or Elly come in, sit down in a chair, and tell me instead? I mean, if you're gonna do a lame post-plot wrap-up scene, you might as well go all-out for maximum cheapness.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Lufia 1 and 2's Disparity
We're probably all familiar with the fact that, sometimes, two games can differ tremendously in quality, yet both be of the same series. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is monstrously frustrating and has a yawn-tastic story for the first 75% of it, while the rest of the games in the KH series (thus far) are terrific fun to play and have gripping and intriguing plots just about from start to finish. Phantasy Star 3 is the gaming equivalent to self-mutilation, while the rest of the series is engaging and original. Wild Arms 3 is a great game in the midst of a series of sorta-kinda-maybe-okay-perhaps-I-guess RPGs. And of course, the Final Fantasy series has its games going all across the board--horrible, incredible, and everything inbetween.
But I don't think I've ever seen quite as stark a contrast between 2 related games as with Lufia and the Fotress of Doom and Lufia: Rise of the Sinistrals (1 and 2, respectively). Now, true, I think there is actually one example with an even wider gap in actual game quality, that being the horrendous Grandia 3 when compared to Grandia 1 and 2, but the difference between the Lufias still seems the most pronounced to me.
First of all, the second game just looks and feels a LOT more crisp and clean. Everything is more defined, the general gameplay is a little more streamlined and fast, the music seems to have more effort put into it, and the battle system, while still a far cry from "fun," is at least not nearly so dull, repetitive, sloppy, and demonically frustrating as Lufia 1's. With Lufia 1, the bosses were so stupidly hard that you could not possibly avoid long level-whoring sessions about half a dozen times or more through the game. With Lufia 2, everything is set up efficiently--as long as you battle and kill most or all of the enemies you encounter while just progressing through dungeons and such normally, you should just about always be strong enough to take on the next boss (though there usually is still a decent challenge involved, but that's a good thing). With the exception of optional bosses, like Gades the first time around or the Egg Dragon, I can't think of any point in the game where you're forced to spend hours seeking out random monsters (who in Lufia 1 would often be tough enough to kill you themselves anyway) just to struggle your way to a few extra levels so you can withstand your next boss encounter.
But of course, this isn't something too shocking. I mean, a sequel cleaning up the general grubbiness of the original game is nothing new to video games. What really sets them apart are the plot and characters.
Now, the plot for Lufia 1 basically goes as follows: Unnamed Hero (for this rant, we shall refer to him by the name of Turd) sets out to stop superbeings (Sinistrals) from taking over planet, helped by his magically-inclined petal-plucking obsessive-compulsive tea-making girlfriend Lufia. They do nice things and join up with both canon-fodder (Aguro) and the pedo-tastic half-elf half-Lolita Jerin. Eventually Lufia remembers she's Erim, a bad guy. Later she decides not to be. They kill the Sinistrals and save the world. Lufia has to make some sort of sacrifice, but it apparently only actually involves giving up all her memories besides those of how to make a mean cup of darjeeling. But that's okay, Turd is perfectly willing to settle for a witless girlfriend; surely those memories will grow back someday, like a cancer, right? And if they don't, it's not like he had to work very hard to win her infatuation the first time anyway.
So it's your basic cookie-cutter save-the-world deal with a small additional subplot of a cookie-cutter anime guy-falls-in-love-with-amnesiac-girl-who's-forgotten-that-she's-Satan romance. Neither something new nor interesting.
Lufia 2, on the other hand, adds a little more flavor to your gaming experience. Now, yes, it's still a save-the-world game as before, with the same grumpy deities taking the villain's position. This time around, however, the game adds a little flavor to the plot, making it a more epic battle of not between good and evil, but also free will and destiny, Man against God, that sort of neat philosophical thing. Everything about the game’s events just feels a lot more like a legendary quest of heroism and virtue. Not to mention that the romantic subplot this time around is much, much better, not only in simple terms of the characters interacting better, but also in showing a glimpse at a relationship AFTER the characters hook up, through marriage and childbirth--quite a rarity in an RPG. It’s solid and a welcome way to watch the characters grow and develop.
Speaking of which, the characters also really set the second game apart from the first just as much as the plot. Where Lufia 1 gives you a cast rank with uninteresting mediocrity, Lufia 2 gives you a cast of realistic, unique individuals teaming up for the greater good and actually interacting with each other as friends and sometimes rivals. They’ve all got good personality traits that set them apart from your average breed of questing bums, be it Dekar’s goofy attitude, Selan’s faithful strength, or even just Maxim’s ability to have fun while adventuring without losing his overall serious and strong demeanor. They’re all good characters, and they mesh well with the story, which makes it all the more enjoyable.
So in just about all ways, Lufia 2 is greatly superior to Lufia 1. But what really makes the gap so memorable to me is the length that Lufia 2 goes to in order to connect itself flawlessly to the first game as a prequel. It’s not just a case of one sequel doing its own thing and kinda sorta trying to tie itself to the previous game enough to call itself a sequel, like with Chrono Cross, nor is it just a game in the series completely separate from the previous one(s), like Grandia 3. Lufia 2 plants itself firmly in the same place and timeline as the first game, and actually defines its world, explaining the origins and expanding the knowledge of a ton of details from Lufia 1, from giving a little more explanation to the Sinistrals’ existence, to showing the origins of the flower that Lufia loves so much, to better understanding the nature of the legendary Dual Blade. Lufia 2 does such a complete job of setting up even minute details of its predecessor that it’s almost even worth it to play Lufia 1 just to see all the big and little connections. That, I think, is what really makes these 2 games stand out as being so different from one another--the fact that they’re so strongly connected, with more care than nearly any other RPG series you can find.
But I don't think I've ever seen quite as stark a contrast between 2 related games as with Lufia and the Fotress of Doom and Lufia: Rise of the Sinistrals (1 and 2, respectively). Now, true, I think there is actually one example with an even wider gap in actual game quality, that being the horrendous Grandia 3 when compared to Grandia 1 and 2, but the difference between the Lufias still seems the most pronounced to me.
First of all, the second game just looks and feels a LOT more crisp and clean. Everything is more defined, the general gameplay is a little more streamlined and fast, the music seems to have more effort put into it, and the battle system, while still a far cry from "fun," is at least not nearly so dull, repetitive, sloppy, and demonically frustrating as Lufia 1's. With Lufia 1, the bosses were so stupidly hard that you could not possibly avoid long level-whoring sessions about half a dozen times or more through the game. With Lufia 2, everything is set up efficiently--as long as you battle and kill most or all of the enemies you encounter while just progressing through dungeons and such normally, you should just about always be strong enough to take on the next boss (though there usually is still a decent challenge involved, but that's a good thing). With the exception of optional bosses, like Gades the first time around or the Egg Dragon, I can't think of any point in the game where you're forced to spend hours seeking out random monsters (who in Lufia 1 would often be tough enough to kill you themselves anyway) just to struggle your way to a few extra levels so you can withstand your next boss encounter.
But of course, this isn't something too shocking. I mean, a sequel cleaning up the general grubbiness of the original game is nothing new to video games. What really sets them apart are the plot and characters.
Now, the plot for Lufia 1 basically goes as follows: Unnamed Hero (for this rant, we shall refer to him by the name of Turd) sets out to stop superbeings (Sinistrals) from taking over planet, helped by his magically-inclined petal-plucking obsessive-compulsive tea-making girlfriend Lufia. They do nice things and join up with both canon-fodder (Aguro) and the pedo-tastic half-elf half-Lolita Jerin. Eventually Lufia remembers she's Erim, a bad guy. Later she decides not to be. They kill the Sinistrals and save the world. Lufia has to make some sort of sacrifice, but it apparently only actually involves giving up all her memories besides those of how to make a mean cup of darjeeling. But that's okay, Turd is perfectly willing to settle for a witless girlfriend; surely those memories will grow back someday, like a cancer, right? And if they don't, it's not like he had to work very hard to win her infatuation the first time anyway.
So it's your basic cookie-cutter save-the-world deal with a small additional subplot of a cookie-cutter anime guy-falls-in-love-with-amnesiac-girl-who's-forgotten-that-she's-Satan romance. Neither something new nor interesting.
Lufia 2, on the other hand, adds a little more flavor to your gaming experience. Now, yes, it's still a save-the-world game as before, with the same grumpy deities taking the villain's position. This time around, however, the game adds a little flavor to the plot, making it a more epic battle of not between good and evil, but also free will and destiny, Man against God, that sort of neat philosophical thing. Everything about the game’s events just feels a lot more like a legendary quest of heroism and virtue. Not to mention that the romantic subplot this time around is much, much better, not only in simple terms of the characters interacting better, but also in showing a glimpse at a relationship AFTER the characters hook up, through marriage and childbirth--quite a rarity in an RPG. It’s solid and a welcome way to watch the characters grow and develop.
Speaking of which, the characters also really set the second game apart from the first just as much as the plot. Where Lufia 1 gives you a cast rank with uninteresting mediocrity, Lufia 2 gives you a cast of realistic, unique individuals teaming up for the greater good and actually interacting with each other as friends and sometimes rivals. They’ve all got good personality traits that set them apart from your average breed of questing bums, be it Dekar’s goofy attitude, Selan’s faithful strength, or even just Maxim’s ability to have fun while adventuring without losing his overall serious and strong demeanor. They’re all good characters, and they mesh well with the story, which makes it all the more enjoyable.
So in just about all ways, Lufia 2 is greatly superior to Lufia 1. But what really makes the gap so memorable to me is the length that Lufia 2 goes to in order to connect itself flawlessly to the first game as a prequel. It’s not just a case of one sequel doing its own thing and kinda sorta trying to tie itself to the previous game enough to call itself a sequel, like with Chrono Cross, nor is it just a game in the series completely separate from the previous one(s), like Grandia 3. Lufia 2 plants itself firmly in the same place and timeline as the first game, and actually defines its world, explaining the origins and expanding the knowledge of a ton of details from Lufia 1, from giving a little more explanation to the Sinistrals’ existence, to showing the origins of the flower that Lufia loves so much, to better understanding the nature of the legendary Dual Blade. Lufia 2 does such a complete job of setting up even minute details of its predecessor that it’s almost even worth it to play Lufia 1 just to see all the big and little connections. That, I think, is what really makes these 2 games stand out as being so different from one another--the fact that they’re so strongly connected, with more care than nearly any other RPG series you can find.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Breath of Fire 3's Plot
With the summer comes a lack of time spent wondering how to spend it whilst sitting in a college computer lab inbetween classes, and thus, I'm gonna cut my rants back to just Mondays for the season. Yes, yes, I'm sure you're all devastated.
Anyways. I've always been a big fan of the Breath of Fire series--bigger than the good-but-not-fantastic series might warrent, even. One thing I've heard from a lot of people who've played some/most/all of the series, though, is that BoF3 is the low point of it. This is simply just not true. (Spoilers ahead, like, of the whole game).
Now, I can understand where this comes from. People I've encountered largely criticize it as seeming pointless, a long adventure without any satisfying aim or conclusion. The reason for this is that Breath of Fire 3 isn't your standard, shallow save-the-world deal. It's not a typical world-spanning quest ending with a climactic showdown with whatever mentally-imbalanced villain with unspeakably destructive powers is threatening the planet/universe for reasons one can only describe as "stupid." In fact, the conclusion of the game has your actions putting the planet's people in more jeopardy than ever, because you choose to kill the goddess who holds a slowly spreading, all-engulfing desert at bay, giving it no obstacle to continue its expansion into the last untouched continent of the planet, where almost all of the world's civilzation is gathered.
The problem is that people don't approach the game with an open mind. They go into the game expecting what they do from almost all RPGs--an eventual happy ending with the world safe and sound and evil banished forever, with several aspects of human nature and interaction having been examined along the way. Well, with Breath of Fire 3, the philosophy IS the plot. The whole quest is just a series of events and characters that all build up to the moment at the end when you confront the goddess who watches over the world, protecting it from the danger of the desert, but stinting its growth and freedom. This moment, in which the main character Ryu must choose whether or not he'll submit to the goddess and allow her to keep coddling the world's people and restricting their advancement, or trust in the determination and strength of the world's people and strike her down to free them to live life as it should be lived--with freedom and choice, even if having those important qualities brings danger, is the defining point of the game, everything it's built up to. It's not MEANT to be a climactic battle showing that Good will overcome Evil. What it's meant to be is a moment showing that despite the dangers and hardships that come with it, people need to have their freedom to live as they wish to, without a parental entity holding them back to protect them from the harsh realities of the world. It's an excellent and thought-provoking message of hope, freedom, and individualism all wrapped into one, but it nonetheless does mean an ending of uncertainty rather than happy security, and that's just not what most people expect from a video game. It's certainly not an inferior method, but if you can't appreciate this original twist on RPG story-telling, then the game will, indeed, seem as empty and disappointing as its detractors claim.
Anyways. I've always been a big fan of the Breath of Fire series--bigger than the good-but-not-fantastic series might warrent, even. One thing I've heard from a lot of people who've played some/most/all of the series, though, is that BoF3 is the low point of it. This is simply just not true. (Spoilers ahead, like, of the whole game).
Now, I can understand where this comes from. People I've encountered largely criticize it as seeming pointless, a long adventure without any satisfying aim or conclusion. The reason for this is that Breath of Fire 3 isn't your standard, shallow save-the-world deal. It's not a typical world-spanning quest ending with a climactic showdown with whatever mentally-imbalanced villain with unspeakably destructive powers is threatening the planet/universe for reasons one can only describe as "stupid." In fact, the conclusion of the game has your actions putting the planet's people in more jeopardy than ever, because you choose to kill the goddess who holds a slowly spreading, all-engulfing desert at bay, giving it no obstacle to continue its expansion into the last untouched continent of the planet, where almost all of the world's civilzation is gathered.
The problem is that people don't approach the game with an open mind. They go into the game expecting what they do from almost all RPGs--an eventual happy ending with the world safe and sound and evil banished forever, with several aspects of human nature and interaction having been examined along the way. Well, with Breath of Fire 3, the philosophy IS the plot. The whole quest is just a series of events and characters that all build up to the moment at the end when you confront the goddess who watches over the world, protecting it from the danger of the desert, but stinting its growth and freedom. This moment, in which the main character Ryu must choose whether or not he'll submit to the goddess and allow her to keep coddling the world's people and restricting their advancement, or trust in the determination and strength of the world's people and strike her down to free them to live life as it should be lived--with freedom and choice, even if having those important qualities brings danger, is the defining point of the game, everything it's built up to. It's not MEANT to be a climactic battle showing that Good will overcome Evil. What it's meant to be is a moment showing that despite the dangers and hardships that come with it, people need to have their freedom to live as they wish to, without a parental entity holding them back to protect them from the harsh realities of the world. It's an excellent and thought-provoking message of hope, freedom, and individualism all wrapped into one, but it nonetheless does mean an ending of uncertainty rather than happy security, and that's just not what most people expect from a video game. It's certainly not an inferior method, but if you can't appreciate this original twist on RPG story-telling, then the game will, indeed, seem as empty and disappointing as its detractors claim.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Lufia 1's Characters
Yes, it's once again time for a review of one game's terribly stupid cast. Not that the rest of the game isn't equally stupid or worse.
Unnamed Protagonist: This hero is one of those annoying sorts who doesn't canonically have any name that I'm aware of, so there's really no way of easily referring to him. I myself named him Maxim like his heroic grandfather (the hero of Lufia 2), but that ended up being kinda confusing later on as I tried to distinguish which Maxim was being referred to when people discussed the virtues of granddaddy Maxim to his unnamed descendant.
However, I have to concede the possibility that not naming this guy was INTENTIONAL on the part of Lufia 1's creators, because they may have realized that a complete lack of any defining name would reflect his complete lack of any defining characteristics. As a character, he can be likened largely to a sack of wet sawdust. No personality whatsoever beyond "dur were is evilz i gotta killz0rz it!!" and "OMG GOTTA SAVE MY LOVE INTEREST."
Lufia: Certainly the high point of the cast, though not really by her own doing. Lufia, as herself, is about as devoid of interesting qualities as this game's hero. You ever see that Red Versus Blue episode where Church and Tex are in Caboose's head, and see Caboose's impression of what a girl is like, saying crap like "I like pretty pretty dresses!" and such? This is generally the impression you get of Lufia. Her joys in life are pretty pretty flowers! And making cinnamon tea for her protagonist boyfriend, who barely seems to acknowledge her existence until she's gone for a while! Half the time she's talking I expect a girlish titter to escape into the dialogue box.
Of course, what makes her interesting is that she's also the Sinistral Erim, who has always kicked ass, but it doesn't really last for long before her overwhelming desire to make flower crowns and various kinds of tea overcome her dark instincts and she comes back to her annoying self.
Aguro: Aguro is the very essence of a Grunt. His entire purpose in the game seems to be being a second physical attacker (and by attacker, I mean, he can Attack, and do NOTHING else), and to be a person in the party who is not the hero or Lufia to add important, insightful grunts.
Jerin: Jerin is a half-elf who looks and acts just like a child and may in fact BE a child (it's hard to tell given elves' longevity) who really really wants to get her lolicon freak on with the hero.
Amon, Daos, and Gades: These three evil superbeings known as Sinistrals are, um, evil, and, uh, they want to take over the world, and do bad things. That's about it. Oh yeah, and at the end of the game, they all mash together in order to form...SUPER MEGA MUTANT VOLTRON SINISTRAL! You see, somehow, when you combine 3 godlike evil dudes, who are 2 warriorish-looking jerks in armor and 1 guy in a robe, you get what looks like Lavos's spleen. Really, someone please explain the following equation to me:
Amon + Daos + Gades = Michael Jackson
Because I'm not quite seeing how it works.
Unnamed Protagonist: This hero is one of those annoying sorts who doesn't canonically have any name that I'm aware of, so there's really no way of easily referring to him. I myself named him Maxim like his heroic grandfather (the hero of Lufia 2), but that ended up being kinda confusing later on as I tried to distinguish which Maxim was being referred to when people discussed the virtues of granddaddy Maxim to his unnamed descendant.
However, I have to concede the possibility that not naming this guy was INTENTIONAL on the part of Lufia 1's creators, because they may have realized that a complete lack of any defining name would reflect his complete lack of any defining characteristics. As a character, he can be likened largely to a sack of wet sawdust. No personality whatsoever beyond "dur were is evilz i gotta killz0rz it!!" and "OMG GOTTA SAVE MY LOVE INTEREST."
Lufia: Certainly the high point of the cast, though not really by her own doing. Lufia, as herself, is about as devoid of interesting qualities as this game's hero. You ever see that Red Versus Blue episode where Church and Tex are in Caboose's head, and see Caboose's impression of what a girl is like, saying crap like "I like pretty pretty dresses!" and such? This is generally the impression you get of Lufia. Her joys in life are pretty pretty flowers! And making cinnamon tea for her protagonist boyfriend, who barely seems to acknowledge her existence until she's gone for a while! Half the time she's talking I expect a girlish titter to escape into the dialogue box.
Of course, what makes her interesting is that she's also the Sinistral Erim, who has always kicked ass, but it doesn't really last for long before her overwhelming desire to make flower crowns and various kinds of tea overcome her dark instincts and she comes back to her annoying self.
Aguro: Aguro is the very essence of a Grunt. His entire purpose in the game seems to be being a second physical attacker (and by attacker, I mean, he can Attack, and do NOTHING else), and to be a person in the party who is not the hero or Lufia to add important, insightful grunts.
Jerin: Jerin is a half-elf who looks and acts just like a child and may in fact BE a child (it's hard to tell given elves' longevity) who really really wants to get her lolicon freak on with the hero.
Amon, Daos, and Gades: These three evil superbeings known as Sinistrals are, um, evil, and, uh, they want to take over the world, and do bad things. That's about it. Oh yeah, and at the end of the game, they all mash together in order to form...SUPER MEGA MUTANT VOLTRON SINISTRAL! You see, somehow, when you combine 3 godlike evil dudes, who are 2 warriorish-looking jerks in armor and 1 guy in a robe, you get what looks like Lavos's spleen. Really, someone please explain the following equation to me:
Amon + Daos + Gades = Michael Jackson
Because I'm not quite seeing how it works.
Monday, May 8, 2006
Bahamut Lagoon's Love Triangle
I've been a pretty cantankerous RPG grump lately, so let's mix it up with another positive rant. And of course, as always, spoilers abound. I mean, I don't usually even bother putting that up these days, but sometimes I spoil so much of a game that I feel that I really HAVE to.
I don't expect too many of you are familiar with one of Square's more obscure old RPGs, Bahamut Lagoon, so here's a sum-up: A Silent Protagonist (God how I hate them) leads a small army of warriors, including Metallite, the original Adelbert Steiner, to save his world against the plots of an evil emperor and the encroachment of an usurper dragon god. Said world in need of protection is made up of large masses of land that float high, high in the sky, forming a world of aerial islands (and you thought Skies of Arcadia had that idea first).
So, yeah, history lesson done with. The game's definitely interesting and fun in its own right, with many deep, dynamic characters, an engaging and interesting plot, and a good share of goofy fun (Donfan is the most awesome RPG smoove operator lady-chaser EVER). But probably the most interesting and original aspect of it, to me, is its romantic subplot.
Now, before I begin, lemme just make a disclaimer here. A lot of this is gonna be based on my personal interpretation of the main character, Byuu, because, being the ever-irritating Silent Protagonist that he is, one has to piece his personality together out of actions, yes/no questions, and general demeanor rather than actual dialogue and monologue, meaning there's plenty of room for interpretation. But as we all know, my interpretation is always right anyways, so let's begin.
Now, at first, the love triangle of this game seems familiar to the point of stupid cliche--protagonist (Byuu) loves girl, antagonist (Palpaleos) loves girl, and girl (Yoyo--no, seriously, that really is her name) is caught in the middle of them. Antagonist turns out to be not that bad a guy after a little while, just to be on the wrong side. Byuu spent his childhood with Yoyo, and in their childish innocence, they went through a little ceremony promising to always be together (on this note, SquareEnix would later plagiarize itself in Kingdom Hearts 1). Palpaleos spent a few years later on getting to know and love Yoyo as she was a well-treated prisoner of his emperor's.
Now, here's where Bahamut Lagoon suddenly turns around and throws you for a loop: Byuu, the hero, loses. The hero of the game does NOT get the girl he loves. During her forced stay under the care of Palpaleos and his country, Yoyo falls in love with him (one can most likely attribute this largely to Stockholm Syndrome, which adds another very unique and intriguing dimension to the romantic story), and stays in love with him throughout the game. Byuu, however, still loves her as well, and his childhood memories with her hang heavily in his mind.
This whole triangle is carried out VERY well overall--it's not some stupid soap opera with feuds and jealousy, but rather a simple bittersweet affair. Byuu holds no grudges, and neither he nor Palpaleos battle one another out of jealousy or try to aggressively win/keep Yoyo's heart.
It's a story of having regrets that the world changed them as people, and that they had to move on from who they were to who they had become. Very poignant, and considering how easy it would have been to make it some violent, shallow affair that you could see on ABC during the daytime, I can really appreciate it. The closest I can think of to ever having seen a relationship ending up like this would be Final Fantasy 6's Terra's brief interest in Locke, but even she admits later that it wasn't substantial. I really enjoy and appreciate this game for taking a real stab at a new and intriguing angle to the tired love triangle.
I don't expect too many of you are familiar with one of Square's more obscure old RPGs, Bahamut Lagoon, so here's a sum-up: A Silent Protagonist (God how I hate them) leads a small army of warriors, including Metallite, the original Adelbert Steiner, to save his world against the plots of an evil emperor and the encroachment of an usurper dragon god. Said world in need of protection is made up of large masses of land that float high, high in the sky, forming a world of aerial islands (and you thought Skies of Arcadia had that idea first).
So, yeah, history lesson done with. The game's definitely interesting and fun in its own right, with many deep, dynamic characters, an engaging and interesting plot, and a good share of goofy fun (Donfan is the most awesome RPG smoove operator lady-chaser EVER). But probably the most interesting and original aspect of it, to me, is its romantic subplot.
Now, before I begin, lemme just make a disclaimer here. A lot of this is gonna be based on my personal interpretation of the main character, Byuu, because, being the ever-irritating Silent Protagonist that he is, one has to piece his personality together out of actions, yes/no questions, and general demeanor rather than actual dialogue and monologue, meaning there's plenty of room for interpretation. But as we all know, my interpretation is always right anyways, so let's begin.
Now, at first, the love triangle of this game seems familiar to the point of stupid cliche--protagonist (Byuu) loves girl, antagonist (Palpaleos) loves girl, and girl (Yoyo--no, seriously, that really is her name) is caught in the middle of them. Antagonist turns out to be not that bad a guy after a little while, just to be on the wrong side. Byuu spent his childhood with Yoyo, and in their childish innocence, they went through a little ceremony promising to always be together (on this note, SquareEnix would later plagiarize itself in Kingdom Hearts 1). Palpaleos spent a few years later on getting to know and love Yoyo as she was a well-treated prisoner of his emperor's.
Now, here's where Bahamut Lagoon suddenly turns around and throws you for a loop: Byuu, the hero, loses. The hero of the game does NOT get the girl he loves. During her forced stay under the care of Palpaleos and his country, Yoyo falls in love with him (one can most likely attribute this largely to Stockholm Syndrome, which adds another very unique and intriguing dimension to the romantic story), and stays in love with him throughout the game. Byuu, however, still loves her as well, and his childhood memories with her hang heavily in his mind.
This whole triangle is carried out VERY well overall--it's not some stupid soap opera with feuds and jealousy, but rather a simple bittersweet affair. Byuu holds no grudges, and neither he nor Palpaleos battle one another out of jealousy or try to aggressively win/keep Yoyo's heart.
It's a story of having regrets that the world changed them as people, and that they had to move on from who they were to who they had become. Very poignant, and considering how easy it would have been to make it some violent, shallow affair that you could see on ABC during the daytime, I can really appreciate it. The closest I can think of to ever having seen a relationship ending up like this would be Final Fantasy 6's Terra's brief interest in Locke, but even she admits later that it wasn't substantial. I really enjoy and appreciate this game for taking a real stab at a new and intriguing angle to the tired love triangle.
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