Behold, that most sacred and rare of creatures: a short rant.
Desperation Attack. Limit Break. Trance. Overdrive. EX Mode. And, inexplicably, Quickening. Why exactly does the Final Fantasy series have half a dozen names for more or less the same gameplay concept?
I don’t know why I’m so hard on Final Fantasy naming (recall my old rants on calling their lightning spells “Thunder” and on the stupid suffixes -ara and -aga (and nowadays, there’s -ada, which is just as bad)) in particular,* but this bugs me. I mean, look, in fairness, the nature of the ability does change a little from game to game, sometimes. In FF6, the Desperation Attack had a probability of activating when a character was at very low HP. In FF7, on the other hand, there was a Limit Break gauge that continually built up as the character got damaged, and once it was filled the character could use their Limit Break, although they didn’t have to--they could just kinda sit on it for a while until the player wanted to use it. FF9’s Trance was less a special ability than a mode in which, for a short period of time, a character’s abilities were enhanced, which was, like FF7, gradually built up to from taking damage. And so on and so forth. But these variations are ultimately just small changes to the same concept, that of special, climatic powers being unlocked in (supposedly) desperate situations. Naming them differently as though they were completely different concepts would be like deciding you couldn’t call a black cat the same kind of animal as a cat with white fur. The cosmetic differences aren’t enough to change the fact that they’re both cats.
I just don’t get it. What purpose does the name change serve, really? Why the desire to differentiate at all? I can understand Square’s wish to name FF7’s Limit Breaks differently since FF6’s Desperation Attacks were not really a well-defined part of the game, and were only rarely seen (I daresay most playthroughs of FF6 don’t see a Desperation Attack trigger even once), but after FF7 cemented the concept in Final Fantasy gameplay and gave it a very functional and personalized name, why keep renaming it later? Particularly since SquareEnix would eventually come back to the Limit name in its semi-Final-Fantasy-related Kingdom Hearts series. It just seems needless and silly.
* It’s not like plenty of other RPGs don’t also have stupidly-named spells and abilities. The Legend of Dragoon called one of its huge plot weapons the Psychadelic Bomb and tried to pass it off as serious, and don’t even get me started on the naming of abilities and spells in the Shin Megami Tensei series.**
** Actually, on second thought, I SHOULD get started on that. Thanks for the rant idea, me. Oh, no problem, man! I love your work. Well, except for those AMV rants. Those’re totally gay.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3's The Answer's Worth
Well, I've successfully managed to not mess up my plan to do a Shin Megami Tensei rant once a month for the rest of the year during the very first month. So far, so good. Thanks to Ecclesiastes for looking this over for me, making sure it wasn’t complete crap. You’re a prince, sir.
Warning: This rant will reference directly important events of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3’s ending. It’s a great enough game, and a great enough ending, that if you haven’t already played SMTP3 from start to finish, you should avoid this rant. Go do something else instead. Watch a movie, draw some ponies, eat a delicious meal of gumbo, play SMTP3 since you haven’t already, I don’t care. Just don’t you spoil this for me. By spoiling it for you.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is an absolutely terrific RPG, one of the best I’ve played and well worthy of the honorable title of Shin Megami Tensei. It’s a pretty universal hit, too, in that the strong majority of people who have played it enjoyed it greatly, as well as a cult classic that managed to get nearly as much attention from the RPG community as one of SquareEnix’s numerous overhyped, inferior offerings. I can’t help but be pretty pleased by that fact. I feel like at least half of the truly excellent RPGs are sadly quite ignored (even more than RPGs usually are, I mean) while many of the mediocre or outright bad ones are highlighted (Final Fantasy for the last 10 years, for example), so when one of the popular ones happens to actually DESERVE its renown, it’s a happy treat for me.
The thing with SMTP3 is that it was popular enough that Atlus decided to milk the game for all it’s worth. Almost a year after SMTP3’s release, Atlus rereleased the game as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES, which had several additions built into it. The Social Links were easier to progress, for example, leaving a little extra time during the game’s course to experience its other content, and some new content was added to the main game, most notably a Social Link for Aigis (which turned out to be one of the best in the game). Most importantly, a post-game quest called The Answer was added, which transferred the role of protagonist to Aigis, and set out to clear up some ambiguities about SMTP3’s ending and show us how the game’s cast reacted to the tragic passing of Minato.
Now, I’m not too terribly familiar with the SMT fanbase in general, so I could be wrong, but I’ve gotten the general impression from people I’ve spoken with that The Answer is not particularly liked by a significant number of players. I don’t think there are many that outright hate it, but the general outlook I’ve perceived is a negative one. And I don’t think that’s really a fair assessment.
Now, to be fair, I have to acknowledge that in some regards, The Answer IS not so good. Specifically, when one looks at it with the perspective of a practical consumer. If one were to equate the differences between SMTP3’s original and FES versions, the FES version is less like a rerelease of the original game (since the original had only come out less than a year prior, and for the same system), and more like the original game with a standard Downloadable Content package (the extra stuff in the main game) and an Expansion (The Answer addition). But you’re not just buying a DLC and an Expansion--in order to experience the FES version’s benefits, you had to pay for the whole game all over again. Fine for a consumer who hadn’t happened to purchase the original version (like me), but not so great for anyone who did. Now Atlus did take a small step to better the situation, in that you could, I understand, transfer your original version’s save game information to the FES version and be able to retain some of the stuff from the first version, so it at least wasn’t a total loss, time-wise, for the owners of the original SMTP3. But the fact remains that anyone who had bought the original and wanted to experience the FES version’s benefits was forced to pay the full price of a new game for what could only very generously be called even half a game’s worth of content.
I’m not sure what Atlus could have done about this, admittedly. Playstation 2 games aren’t really designed with the ability to be modified and added to later. Still, I feel like it’s a raw deal for the customer, and surely there was SOMETHING they could have done. I mean, just off the top of my head, maybe they could’ve had 20 or 30 bucks knocked off SMTP3’s FES version price upon purchase for anyone who could prove that they purchased the original. Like, have’em show a receipt (and ID, perhaps) to the retailer to prove they had previously bought a non-used copy of the original game as they get the new one. Something like that. But as it is, the SMTP3 FES version, and by extent The Answer, IS something of a rip-off.*
But by its own merits? Well, I don’t really have a problem with The Answer. I think that the returning cast are portrayed pretty well, and although their character development isn’t ever as strong as it was at times during the main game, it IS there, and it’s certainly not bad. I thought that the scene where Mitsuru’s comforting Yukari was really quite good, in fact, and Aigis’s character is handled pretty well and in a way that expands her beyond the tenderly wise, yearning, and loving role she had, while still properly acknowledging and building off of it. I like the general premise of the story, and while I think that the plot advances a bit slowly at times, it’s overall worthwhile to experience, and learning the truth of Minato’s fate is a pretty poignant moment.
From what I’ve gathered from the idle conversation of friends and asking around on GameFAQs, there are a few main problems that people have specified regarding The Answer. The first is Metis, the new character. Well, I can’t really argue part of this idea. Metis hasn’t got much depth as a character, and her personality’s neither especially memorable nor appealing. Still, I don’t feel that Metis is a significant detracting factor of The Answer. She does serve her purpose for the plot as the only one supporting Aigis as the group becomes divided, and even if her character adds more or less nothing to the adventure by her own individual merits, I don’t think it takes anything from it, either. And I would argue that the same thing could be said for Akihiko and Koromaru in the main game (and The Answer, for that matter), and no one seems to have much of a problem with them.
Another problem I’ve seen people state about The Answer is how it ends. The Answer ends with Aigis seeming like she should have died, but continuing to live on even though her internal robotic parts have been fried, with the only explanation of this phenomenon being Fuuka’s theorizing that she seems like she’s alive now. It’s been said that this is more your standard improbably everyone’s-happy-sunshine-and-rainbows-for-all Disney ending than a Shin Megami Tensei ending. I suppose I see some logic to this; it IS kind of quickly thrown in there, just as quickly resolved, and has an almost overbearing positivity to it. But I actually think that despite how rushed the idea is, it’s important to The Answer, because it’s ultimately showing us the Tarot’s transition from end to beginning. As I mentioned in my overly long SMTP3 and 4 Tarot comparison rant, the Major Arcana of the Tarot basically symbolize a journey of self-actualization and human understanding, beginning with The Fool, where all is blank and the journey’s potential is raw and unrestricted, and ending with The World, the end to The Fool’s journey through the Major Arcana, at which point the cycle shall begin again at a higher level with a new Fool, just as every close to a journey of understanding in life marks the beginning of a journey of a new kind. Aigis’s death as an android and as what she once was is the moment of The World Arcana in The Answer (perhaps even of SMTP3 as a whole), as she has reached the end of her small journey of understanding, and her rebirth as something alive, a being ready to join the world in a new way, a better way than she could before, represents a new beginning for her, the moment when she once again becomes The Fool, new, fresh, having all the understanding and lessons of the previous cycle within herself and ready to embark on a new journey to grow in new ways. Hell, in my opinion, this is also the start of the next cycle of the journey began and completed by protagonist Minato, for it was his journey from Fool to World in the main game that has brought all of this about, and the greatest pieces of understanding that Aigis gains from her journey through The Answer are those that Minato learned, embraced, and embodied. To me, Aigis’s beginning a new cycle is the proper completion and continuation of Minato’s as much as it is hers.
At any rate, in a game that so brilliantly and artfully employs and embodies the considerable wisdoms and themes of the Tarot, an ending like this in some degree is pretty crucial. Yes, looking at this strictly on its surface level, it is a bit too cheerfully feel-good, and too contrived to BE cheerfully feel-good. And don’t get me wrong, that IS a problem--one of the many great aspects of SMTP3 is that on top of all the immense towers of insight and wisdoms and art is a story that’s genuinely fun, interesting, and creative, making it a game that’s not just brilliant, but good even at surface level (which is sadly often not the case with works whose greatness is underlying), so for the actual, literal events and storytelling value of The Answer’s ending to be lacking is disappointing. Nonetheless, what truly makes SMTP3 exceptional, even brilliant, is its commitment to the subtle, underlying themes of the Tarot, and so I have to say that I view the happy end of The Answer as a good thing, because it all adds up to what it should.
Perhaps the biggest complaint I’ve seen about The Answer, though, is its general pace of narrative. The simple fact of the matter is that most of The Answer is about the gameplay, not the plot, focusing more on traversing the dungeon and a higher difficulty for the battles.** Many of the times when you get a break to see the story elements, they’re more about character back story than the actual plot at hand. The real, main story of The Answer is mostly present at its beginning and in its last stages, leaving the majority of the time you spend with The Answer small side stuff and just battles, battles, battles. And...well, this complaint is pretty much totally legitimate. I mean, I think I appreciate the small bits of character history more than many people do, but they’re not all that important, or even particularly good. And you know my feelings on RPG gameplay, so increasing its quantity at the sacrifice of more time with the plot is NOT a good thing to me. Yeah, this is a real problem with The Answer, one that I noticed and was very displeased with as I played through it.
But you know...it’s something I can forgive. Because, well, I think what plot IS there is worth it. The Answer provides us with a decent mini-story about how the SMTP3 cast reacts to the loss of their leader in SMTP3’s ending, and brings these broken people back to the state that Minato would have wanted them to be in, the state that he gave his life to provide for them--hope, personal awareness, friendship, and the optimistic desire to go out there and create a better world. It gives them, and we the players, the promised answer of what exactly happened to Minato, why he died, and provides a little more explanation on Nyx, as well, all in a way that is creative, interesting, and even inspiring--just what SMTP3 is supposed to be. A better understanding of Minato’s sacrifice makes him that much greater a hero, as well. I also appreciate some of the character development, even if there’s only a small amount--the stuff regarding Mitsuru and Yukari after they lose to Aigis and Metis was very well-done, for example. And ultimately, The Answer gives us what we must have from SMTP3: a story reaffirming just how powerful the human spirit can be, a reminder of how important it is to improve ourselves as humans to reach that higher level of spirit that Minato does, a story that finalizes the Tarot journey we saw before with Minato and makes the transition into the next cycle of the Tarot’s journey through Aigis (emphasized ever so cleverly by the fact that this new journey begins on April 1st, aka April Fools’ Day), and the idea that it is through our connections to those around us that we bring meaning to our lives and better ourselves as human beings.***
So in the end, what’s the verdict on The Answer? Well, it’s not as good as the main game of Persona 3. But SMTP3 is one of the top 10 greatest RPGs I’ve ever played. It’s a shame that its follow-up doesn’t live up to the game’s quality, but that’s still far and away from making it actually bad. It does what it sets out to, and even if it doesn’t give us as much content-per-playtime as it really should, what it’s got IS often good, and does, by its end, tie into the primary Tarot theme adequately. It’s not amazing, but I think saying that it isn’t good is a disservice to The Answer.
* Not the worst I’ve seen where add-ons are concerned, of course. Mass Effect 3’s Omega DLC, Dragon Age 1’s Awakening Expansion, and Borderlands 1’s Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot DLC are all bigger rip-offs, for example.
** At least, everyone SAYS it’s a higher level of difficulty. Oddly enough, I, personally, somehow found The Answer to generally be easier than the main game. I’m really not sure how that happened, but I can only guess that I was somehow playing the main game entirely wrong the whole time.
*** This is kind of neither here nor there, but I was just thinking the other day, as I rewatched the Season 3 Finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, how well MLPFiM fits with SMTP3 at times. I mean, one of the most important messages of that episode--a great message--can be found in how Twilight Sparkle solves her friends’ mixed up destinies by allowing their own selfless friendship to put them in the right place to rediscover themselves. The message is clear--sometimes by helping those we care about, we help ourselves even more. It’s just the kind of theme of the self-empowering nature of interpersonal connections that Persona 3 so excellently proclaims to us.
Warning: This rant will reference directly important events of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3’s ending. It’s a great enough game, and a great enough ending, that if you haven’t already played SMTP3 from start to finish, you should avoid this rant. Go do something else instead. Watch a movie, draw some ponies, eat a delicious meal of gumbo, play SMTP3 since you haven’t already, I don’t care. Just don’t you spoil this for me. By spoiling it for you.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is an absolutely terrific RPG, one of the best I’ve played and well worthy of the honorable title of Shin Megami Tensei. It’s a pretty universal hit, too, in that the strong majority of people who have played it enjoyed it greatly, as well as a cult classic that managed to get nearly as much attention from the RPG community as one of SquareEnix’s numerous overhyped, inferior offerings. I can’t help but be pretty pleased by that fact. I feel like at least half of the truly excellent RPGs are sadly quite ignored (even more than RPGs usually are, I mean) while many of the mediocre or outright bad ones are highlighted (Final Fantasy for the last 10 years, for example), so when one of the popular ones happens to actually DESERVE its renown, it’s a happy treat for me.
The thing with SMTP3 is that it was popular enough that Atlus decided to milk the game for all it’s worth. Almost a year after SMTP3’s release, Atlus rereleased the game as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES, which had several additions built into it. The Social Links were easier to progress, for example, leaving a little extra time during the game’s course to experience its other content, and some new content was added to the main game, most notably a Social Link for Aigis (which turned out to be one of the best in the game). Most importantly, a post-game quest called The Answer was added, which transferred the role of protagonist to Aigis, and set out to clear up some ambiguities about SMTP3’s ending and show us how the game’s cast reacted to the tragic passing of Minato.
Now, I’m not too terribly familiar with the SMT fanbase in general, so I could be wrong, but I’ve gotten the general impression from people I’ve spoken with that The Answer is not particularly liked by a significant number of players. I don’t think there are many that outright hate it, but the general outlook I’ve perceived is a negative one. And I don’t think that’s really a fair assessment.
Now, to be fair, I have to acknowledge that in some regards, The Answer IS not so good. Specifically, when one looks at it with the perspective of a practical consumer. If one were to equate the differences between SMTP3’s original and FES versions, the FES version is less like a rerelease of the original game (since the original had only come out less than a year prior, and for the same system), and more like the original game with a standard Downloadable Content package (the extra stuff in the main game) and an Expansion (The Answer addition). But you’re not just buying a DLC and an Expansion--in order to experience the FES version’s benefits, you had to pay for the whole game all over again. Fine for a consumer who hadn’t happened to purchase the original version (like me), but not so great for anyone who did. Now Atlus did take a small step to better the situation, in that you could, I understand, transfer your original version’s save game information to the FES version and be able to retain some of the stuff from the first version, so it at least wasn’t a total loss, time-wise, for the owners of the original SMTP3. But the fact remains that anyone who had bought the original and wanted to experience the FES version’s benefits was forced to pay the full price of a new game for what could only very generously be called even half a game’s worth of content.
I’m not sure what Atlus could have done about this, admittedly. Playstation 2 games aren’t really designed with the ability to be modified and added to later. Still, I feel like it’s a raw deal for the customer, and surely there was SOMETHING they could have done. I mean, just off the top of my head, maybe they could’ve had 20 or 30 bucks knocked off SMTP3’s FES version price upon purchase for anyone who could prove that they purchased the original. Like, have’em show a receipt (and ID, perhaps) to the retailer to prove they had previously bought a non-used copy of the original game as they get the new one. Something like that. But as it is, the SMTP3 FES version, and by extent The Answer, IS something of a rip-off.*
But by its own merits? Well, I don’t really have a problem with The Answer. I think that the returning cast are portrayed pretty well, and although their character development isn’t ever as strong as it was at times during the main game, it IS there, and it’s certainly not bad. I thought that the scene where Mitsuru’s comforting Yukari was really quite good, in fact, and Aigis’s character is handled pretty well and in a way that expands her beyond the tenderly wise, yearning, and loving role she had, while still properly acknowledging and building off of it. I like the general premise of the story, and while I think that the plot advances a bit slowly at times, it’s overall worthwhile to experience, and learning the truth of Minato’s fate is a pretty poignant moment.
From what I’ve gathered from the idle conversation of friends and asking around on GameFAQs, there are a few main problems that people have specified regarding The Answer. The first is Metis, the new character. Well, I can’t really argue part of this idea. Metis hasn’t got much depth as a character, and her personality’s neither especially memorable nor appealing. Still, I don’t feel that Metis is a significant detracting factor of The Answer. She does serve her purpose for the plot as the only one supporting Aigis as the group becomes divided, and even if her character adds more or less nothing to the adventure by her own individual merits, I don’t think it takes anything from it, either. And I would argue that the same thing could be said for Akihiko and Koromaru in the main game (and The Answer, for that matter), and no one seems to have much of a problem with them.
Another problem I’ve seen people state about The Answer is how it ends. The Answer ends with Aigis seeming like she should have died, but continuing to live on even though her internal robotic parts have been fried, with the only explanation of this phenomenon being Fuuka’s theorizing that she seems like she’s alive now. It’s been said that this is more your standard improbably everyone’s-happy-sunshine-and-rainbows-for-all Disney ending than a Shin Megami Tensei ending. I suppose I see some logic to this; it IS kind of quickly thrown in there, just as quickly resolved, and has an almost overbearing positivity to it. But I actually think that despite how rushed the idea is, it’s important to The Answer, because it’s ultimately showing us the Tarot’s transition from end to beginning. As I mentioned in my overly long SMTP3 and 4 Tarot comparison rant, the Major Arcana of the Tarot basically symbolize a journey of self-actualization and human understanding, beginning with The Fool, where all is blank and the journey’s potential is raw and unrestricted, and ending with The World, the end to The Fool’s journey through the Major Arcana, at which point the cycle shall begin again at a higher level with a new Fool, just as every close to a journey of understanding in life marks the beginning of a journey of a new kind. Aigis’s death as an android and as what she once was is the moment of The World Arcana in The Answer (perhaps even of SMTP3 as a whole), as she has reached the end of her small journey of understanding, and her rebirth as something alive, a being ready to join the world in a new way, a better way than she could before, represents a new beginning for her, the moment when she once again becomes The Fool, new, fresh, having all the understanding and lessons of the previous cycle within herself and ready to embark on a new journey to grow in new ways. Hell, in my opinion, this is also the start of the next cycle of the journey began and completed by protagonist Minato, for it was his journey from Fool to World in the main game that has brought all of this about, and the greatest pieces of understanding that Aigis gains from her journey through The Answer are those that Minato learned, embraced, and embodied. To me, Aigis’s beginning a new cycle is the proper completion and continuation of Minato’s as much as it is hers.
At any rate, in a game that so brilliantly and artfully employs and embodies the considerable wisdoms and themes of the Tarot, an ending like this in some degree is pretty crucial. Yes, looking at this strictly on its surface level, it is a bit too cheerfully feel-good, and too contrived to BE cheerfully feel-good. And don’t get me wrong, that IS a problem--one of the many great aspects of SMTP3 is that on top of all the immense towers of insight and wisdoms and art is a story that’s genuinely fun, interesting, and creative, making it a game that’s not just brilliant, but good even at surface level (which is sadly often not the case with works whose greatness is underlying), so for the actual, literal events and storytelling value of The Answer’s ending to be lacking is disappointing. Nonetheless, what truly makes SMTP3 exceptional, even brilliant, is its commitment to the subtle, underlying themes of the Tarot, and so I have to say that I view the happy end of The Answer as a good thing, because it all adds up to what it should.
Perhaps the biggest complaint I’ve seen about The Answer, though, is its general pace of narrative. The simple fact of the matter is that most of The Answer is about the gameplay, not the plot, focusing more on traversing the dungeon and a higher difficulty for the battles.** Many of the times when you get a break to see the story elements, they’re more about character back story than the actual plot at hand. The real, main story of The Answer is mostly present at its beginning and in its last stages, leaving the majority of the time you spend with The Answer small side stuff and just battles, battles, battles. And...well, this complaint is pretty much totally legitimate. I mean, I think I appreciate the small bits of character history more than many people do, but they’re not all that important, or even particularly good. And you know my feelings on RPG gameplay, so increasing its quantity at the sacrifice of more time with the plot is NOT a good thing to me. Yeah, this is a real problem with The Answer, one that I noticed and was very displeased with as I played through it.
But you know...it’s something I can forgive. Because, well, I think what plot IS there is worth it. The Answer provides us with a decent mini-story about how the SMTP3 cast reacts to the loss of their leader in SMTP3’s ending, and brings these broken people back to the state that Minato would have wanted them to be in, the state that he gave his life to provide for them--hope, personal awareness, friendship, and the optimistic desire to go out there and create a better world. It gives them, and we the players, the promised answer of what exactly happened to Minato, why he died, and provides a little more explanation on Nyx, as well, all in a way that is creative, interesting, and even inspiring--just what SMTP3 is supposed to be. A better understanding of Minato’s sacrifice makes him that much greater a hero, as well. I also appreciate some of the character development, even if there’s only a small amount--the stuff regarding Mitsuru and Yukari after they lose to Aigis and Metis was very well-done, for example. And ultimately, The Answer gives us what we must have from SMTP3: a story reaffirming just how powerful the human spirit can be, a reminder of how important it is to improve ourselves as humans to reach that higher level of spirit that Minato does, a story that finalizes the Tarot journey we saw before with Minato and makes the transition into the next cycle of the Tarot’s journey through Aigis (emphasized ever so cleverly by the fact that this new journey begins on April 1st, aka April Fools’ Day), and the idea that it is through our connections to those around us that we bring meaning to our lives and better ourselves as human beings.***
So in the end, what’s the verdict on The Answer? Well, it’s not as good as the main game of Persona 3. But SMTP3 is one of the top 10 greatest RPGs I’ve ever played. It’s a shame that its follow-up doesn’t live up to the game’s quality, but that’s still far and away from making it actually bad. It does what it sets out to, and even if it doesn’t give us as much content-per-playtime as it really should, what it’s got IS often good, and does, by its end, tie into the primary Tarot theme adequately. It’s not amazing, but I think saying that it isn’t good is a disservice to The Answer.
* Not the worst I’ve seen where add-ons are concerned, of course. Mass Effect 3’s Omega DLC, Dragon Age 1’s Awakening Expansion, and Borderlands 1’s Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot DLC are all bigger rip-offs, for example.
** At least, everyone SAYS it’s a higher level of difficulty. Oddly enough, I, personally, somehow found The Answer to generally be easier than the main game. I’m really not sure how that happened, but I can only guess that I was somehow playing the main game entirely wrong the whole time.
*** This is kind of neither here nor there, but I was just thinking the other day, as I rewatched the Season 3 Finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, how well MLPFiM fits with SMTP3 at times. I mean, one of the most important messages of that episode--a great message--can be found in how Twilight Sparkle solves her friends’ mixed up destinies by allowing their own selfless friendship to put them in the right place to rediscover themselves. The message is clear--sometimes by helping those we care about, we help ourselves even more. It’s just the kind of theme of the self-empowering nature of interpersonal connections that Persona 3 so excellently proclaims to us.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Guest Rant: A 'Tranquility Lane' to Call our Own, by Adam Rousselle (Fallout 3)
A little while back, one of my readers (apparently you guys do exist, wonder of wonders) emailed me and asked whether I would be so kind as to feature some of his own RPG thoughts on this silly little blog of mine. Though I could not (and currently cannot) fathom why anyone would want to piggyback onto a blog with a whole 11 followers, I didn't see why not, and thus, we are here today, with a Fallout 3 rant by Mr. Rousselle, an intelligent fellow by all accounts I'm privy to. Will this be a one-time thing, or will Mr. Rousselle, and possibly others, share more guest rants with us in the future? No idea, but I'm all for the exchange of intelligent thoughts and ideas, so hopefully there will be more of these in the future.
I guess I ought to throw up some sort of disclaimer, though, right? That's what all the bigwigs do. I make no pretense of ownership of Mr. Rousselle's words here, and this guest rant does not necessarily reflect my own opinions and perceptions. That said, though, I wouldn't publish it if I didn't think it was at least worth reading and contemplating, so check it out.
A ‘Tranquility Lane’ to Call our Own
Adam Rousselle
July 2, 2013
It was a warm day in January as I walked the grounds of the famed Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. I had driven up from Calgary to get away from the stresses of our so-called ‘modern life’, but was still very much preoccupied by them. I climbed up the stairs and on onto the deck of an Alpine-style chalet and took in the vista below; however, not even the stunning white capped mountains in front of me and the crackling fire inside could calm my nerves. Then it struck me that this place was reminiscent of Jacobstown in Fallout: New Vegas. The anxiety left my body and I was free to take in that moment and simply enjoy consciousness.
Why?
Within seconds it struck me: as Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now famously put it “like a diamond bullet right through my forehead”. I realized that in the game, once I got past the abject horror of running for my life and desperately chasing down supplies, the virtual world of the Fallout universe is a liberating one. It is a world where I don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on unwanted neckties or other crap I don’t need. There are no credit cards, only bottle caps; success is determined by merely surviving to see the sun rise once more.
More often than not in Fallout, the most successful characters are those in communities where their fellow members band together through reciprocal kindness to carve out a life in the harsh world around them. One need look no further than Nicole from the Followers of the Apocalypse in Fallout, or James, the Lone Wanderer’s father in Fallout 3. Seeing characters like these instills in me a sense of community in these games, which serves as a welcome reprieve from the never-changing war of the world outside.
This made me think: what’s so bad about our time that I feel liberated just thinking about the virtual, albeit deep and compelling, reality of this game series? I think we can all agree that the safety of our surroundings, coupled with modern medicine and basic amenities has added more to our quality of life than detracted from it. Despite this, I couldn’t quite get past the bizarre sense of peace I got when I immersed myself in what is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
It was at this time that I thought of Fallout 3’s ‘Tranquility Lane’. For those of you who don’t know, Tranquility Lane is a virtual world created by Dr. Stanislaus Braun to occupy those weathering a nuclear apocalypse in an underground vault. The problem with this already terrifying scenario is that Braun has absolute power over the other subjects of the vault: I’m sure we all know that famous Lord Acton quote about absolute power corrupting absolutely.
This chapter of the game is so strange that it seems out of place, but because it is a main quest we can reasonably assume that the developers had some sort of message in mind. This is Fallout, after all.
But what were they getting at?
I fired up the old Xbox and took a trip down memory lane to revisit Tranquility Lane. In so doing, my initial emotional reactions came back to me: the stifled feeling of being stuck in a 1950s-esque black ‘n’ white cheery dystopia. The concept of the place is quite morbid and disturbing: a reality created by by a vindictive monster masked in the face of an innocent child, intent on tormenting people for his own amusement. Despite the sinister undertones, the feeling one gets from this is that of security and, juxtaposed to the adrenaline-filled terror one often finds in the wasteland, this false-reality can seem quite comfortable. This is exactly what Dr. Stanislaus Braun was going for when he designed the program:
The allegory that most of us live in some version of tranquility lane is a palpable one. Tens of millions of us have been drawn into the comforts of seemingly the ‘tranquil’ suburban life: pressboard homes with tiny pristine lawns and a plethora of consumer goods. However, lurking beneath this apparently idyllic existence is something much more sinister.
For the condemned souls of Vault 112, this sinister element is embodied in the enigmatic Dr. Braun. As mentioned above, Braun enjoys taking advantage of the peoples’ apparent complacency by ‘toying’ with them for his own amusement. This involves creating conflict by playing on people’s insecurities and even orchestrating their simulated deaths through numerous elaborate plans. What is most important is that Braun always takes the form of the seemingly innocuous, which is in this case a little girl. While some may distrust her or even call her ‘mean’, the blame for these occurrences is never placed on Betty/Braun. The residents of Vault 112 are living in torment without a clue as to why these awful things are happening to them.
What can we derive from this situation? Though it is obvious that we are not subject to the sadistic whims of some hidden little man, but we are subject to our share of torment in our own ‘tranquil’ lives.
One need only look at today’s pop culture to see that we are pushed toward an ideal that encourages self-obsession, willful ignorance, and the exploitation of others. We are taught ‘magical thinking’ by revolting figures like Oprah Winfrey and Joel Osteen who say if you just believe hard enough, you can achieve all the wealth and prestige you desire. We are given mixed messages one minute saying we are ‘beautiful no matter what they say’, and the next are implicitly told that we need to look a certain way in order to be like one of the images we are bombarded with daily. If you think I’m making this up, I dare you to subject yourself to any of the number of mind-numbing reality shows or the latest celebrity gossip to see which young starlet we will push to suicide next.
While some media figures play superficial lip service to things like friends and ‘family values’ (whatever the hell that means), more often than not the message is clear: cash is king. When we don’t have wealth and nice things to demonstrate our largesse, we become insecure and are pushed to the brink of bankruptcy with credit card debt. When we do have wealth, we are taught to lord it over others because we are somehow smarter and harder working than those who have less. We perpetuate our own cycle of insecurity, and it is insecurity that makes men most malleable.
Eddie Bernays knew this better than most. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays is best known for his work as a pioneer of public relations, the principles of which were drawn from his book “Propaganda”. He drew on his uncle’s research in psychoanalysis and became a master of creating fear and desire for both corporations and governments. He used elements like jealousy, sexuality, and terror to make people rabidly fearful of communism and ready to line up and buy a new Chrysler and a pack of Marlborough’s in the name of freedom. At the core of his beliefs was the idea of control: complacency through comfort, compliance through fear (I urge you to watch the BBC documentary “Century of the Self” to gain a better understanding of this concept – please see below).
Aside from both being native German speakers, Bernays and Braun have commonality in their desire for control. The difference is that Bernays saw his work as inherently altruistic: his 1928 book Propaganda states that manipulation and control are necessary for democracy in order to have society led those who know best. However, Braun’s two centuries in the vault seemed to have left him without a shred of altruism, only hubris.
As credit runs dry and American workers are getting squeezed continually, the illusion of their idyllic lives epitomized in 1950s sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver is being ‘suddenly broken’. What happened? Was this ever part of Bernays’ dream for an ideal democratic society?
Bernays’ principles have been used by our elite to effectively manipulate our behavior under the auspices of ‘freedom’, but his desire for good governance has been ignored. It has been conveniently ignored in much the same way Adam Smith’s call for regulations to prevent oligarchies in The Wealth of Nations has been ignored by plutocrats like the Koch brothers who espouse ‘free market principles’ while being among the greatest beneficiaries of corporate welfare in the country. The idea that society must be in the hands of our elite is reinforced with images of the stereotypical ‘unwashed masses’: stupid criminals on Cops or the rabidly ignorant ‘Tea party’ protestors who remind us that we must never leave the country in the hands of the common man. We are taught implicitly trust these elites, if for nothing else than because Oprah Winfrey tells us we can all be rich just like them someday. We wouldn’t want someone else trying to tell us what to do, would we?
For Braun, the effects are obvious: simulated torture for his own amusement. With our own elite, it seems to take the form of greed and hubris: nickel and diming the public, stripping them of their rights, and uncaringly watching as nearly half of all Americans plunge into poverty.
In both cases, the powers that be play on our fears and insecurities. Is my husband cheating on me and why? What if we have another terrorist attack? What if congress passes Obamacare? What if my date doesn’t like my car or my clothes? What if Mitt Romney wins the election? In essence, these are trivial matters that distract us from the truth: the people of Tranquility Lane are getting screwed and so are we.
Most of us have probably found that suburban life, or modern life in general are not so tranquil. Somehow we find escape in games like Fallout, despite their terrifying settings. Perhaps we like the idea of being free of debt, free of thinking we need to buy new things just to get laid, free from the fake-tan douchebags in their entry-level BMWs, free from the persistant chipping away of our civil liberties by governments beginning the resemble the infamous Enclave.
Ironically, the most humane way to beat Tranquility lane is to not facilitate in Braun’s systematic torture, but to inflict catastrophic destruction in the form of a simulated Chinese invasion. With real climate scientists and real economists (not Lawrence Summers or Allen Greenspan) warning us of the potential catastrophic risks of living the way we do, the threat of some awful disaster freeing us of this illusion is a very real and terrifying one.
The good news is that we don’t have to be like the poor folks of Tranquility Lane: we just need to stop kidding ourselves. We need to stop being led by our insecurities and actually get to know those with whom we’ve been told to compete. We need to stop criticizing others for voting for one political party when and realize that the one we vote for is serving the same interests. We need to be like those brave pioneers speckled throughout the Fallout landscape that go above and beyond their own needs to commit acts of profound and selfless kindness in an otherwise brutally unforgiving world. It’s not convenient or glamorous, but I for one don’t want my grandchildren to have to walk something resembling the irradiated expanse of the Capital Wasteland.
For more on this subject, please see:
Bernays, Edward (1928) Propaganda
http://www.amazon.ca/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598
Documentary: The Century of the Self
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
Documentary: Human Resources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1EvCH8czhk
Smith, Adam (1776) The Wealth of Nations - Free online at:
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/adam-smith/wealth-nations.pdf
I guess I ought to throw up some sort of disclaimer, though, right? That's what all the bigwigs do. I make no pretense of ownership of Mr. Rousselle's words here, and this guest rant does not necessarily reflect my own opinions and perceptions. That said, though, I wouldn't publish it if I didn't think it was at least worth reading and contemplating, so check it out.
A ‘Tranquility Lane’ to Call our Own
Adam Rousselle
July 2, 2013
It was a warm day in January as I walked the grounds of the famed Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. I had driven up from Calgary to get away from the stresses of our so-called ‘modern life’, but was still very much preoccupied by them. I climbed up the stairs and on onto the deck of an Alpine-style chalet and took in the vista below; however, not even the stunning white capped mountains in front of me and the crackling fire inside could calm my nerves. Then it struck me that this place was reminiscent of Jacobstown in Fallout: New Vegas. The anxiety left my body and I was free to take in that moment and simply enjoy consciousness.
Why?
Within seconds it struck me: as Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now famously put it “like a diamond bullet right through my forehead”. I realized that in the game, once I got past the abject horror of running for my life and desperately chasing down supplies, the virtual world of the Fallout universe is a liberating one. It is a world where I don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on unwanted neckties or other crap I don’t need. There are no credit cards, only bottle caps; success is determined by merely surviving to see the sun rise once more.
More often than not in Fallout, the most successful characters are those in communities where their fellow members band together through reciprocal kindness to carve out a life in the harsh world around them. One need look no further than Nicole from the Followers of the Apocalypse in Fallout, or James, the Lone Wanderer’s father in Fallout 3. Seeing characters like these instills in me a sense of community in these games, which serves as a welcome reprieve from the never-changing war of the world outside.
This made me think: what’s so bad about our time that I feel liberated just thinking about the virtual, albeit deep and compelling, reality of this game series? I think we can all agree that the safety of our surroundings, coupled with modern medicine and basic amenities has added more to our quality of life than detracted from it. Despite this, I couldn’t quite get past the bizarre sense of peace I got when I immersed myself in what is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
It was at this time that I thought of Fallout 3’s ‘Tranquility Lane’. For those of you who don’t know, Tranquility Lane is a virtual world created by Dr. Stanislaus Braun to occupy those weathering a nuclear apocalypse in an underground vault. The problem with this already terrifying scenario is that Braun has absolute power over the other subjects of the vault: I’m sure we all know that famous Lord Acton quote about absolute power corrupting absolutely.
This chapter of the game is so strange that it seems out of place, but because it is a main quest we can reasonably assume that the developers had some sort of message in mind. This is Fallout, after all.
But what were they getting at?
I fired up the old Xbox and took a trip down memory lane to revisit Tranquility Lane. In so doing, my initial emotional reactions came back to me: the stifled feeling of being stuck in a 1950s-esque black ‘n’ white cheery dystopia. The concept of the place is quite morbid and disturbing: a reality created by by a vindictive monster masked in the face of an innocent child, intent on tormenting people for his own amusement. Despite the sinister undertones, the feeling one gets from this is that of security and, juxtaposed to the adrenaline-filled terror one often finds in the wasteland, this false-reality can seem quite comfortable. This is exactly what Dr. Stanislaus Braun was going for when he designed the program:
“There's beautiful irony with this particular simulation as well. The residents here are naturally at home, naturally safe. When I toy with them, when their suburban illusion is suddenly broken, its that much more satisfying.
I do believe we shall all remain here in Tranquility Lane for a very long time. A very long time indeed.”
-Dr. Stanislaus Braun, Vault 112 Terminal Entries
The allegory that most of us live in some version of tranquility lane is a palpable one. Tens of millions of us have been drawn into the comforts of seemingly the ‘tranquil’ suburban life: pressboard homes with tiny pristine lawns and a plethora of consumer goods. However, lurking beneath this apparently idyllic existence is something much more sinister.
For the condemned souls of Vault 112, this sinister element is embodied in the enigmatic Dr. Braun. As mentioned above, Braun enjoys taking advantage of the peoples’ apparent complacency by ‘toying’ with them for his own amusement. This involves creating conflict by playing on people’s insecurities and even orchestrating their simulated deaths through numerous elaborate plans. What is most important is that Braun always takes the form of the seemingly innocuous, which is in this case a little girl. While some may distrust her or even call her ‘mean’, the blame for these occurrences is never placed on Betty/Braun. The residents of Vault 112 are living in torment without a clue as to why these awful things are happening to them.
What can we derive from this situation? Though it is obvious that we are not subject to the sadistic whims of some hidden little man, but we are subject to our share of torment in our own ‘tranquil’ lives.
One need only look at today’s pop culture to see that we are pushed toward an ideal that encourages self-obsession, willful ignorance, and the exploitation of others. We are taught ‘magical thinking’ by revolting figures like Oprah Winfrey and Joel Osteen who say if you just believe hard enough, you can achieve all the wealth and prestige you desire. We are given mixed messages one minute saying we are ‘beautiful no matter what they say’, and the next are implicitly told that we need to look a certain way in order to be like one of the images we are bombarded with daily. If you think I’m making this up, I dare you to subject yourself to any of the number of mind-numbing reality shows or the latest celebrity gossip to see which young starlet we will push to suicide next.
While some media figures play superficial lip service to things like friends and ‘family values’ (whatever the hell that means), more often than not the message is clear: cash is king. When we don’t have wealth and nice things to demonstrate our largesse, we become insecure and are pushed to the brink of bankruptcy with credit card debt. When we do have wealth, we are taught to lord it over others because we are somehow smarter and harder working than those who have less. We perpetuate our own cycle of insecurity, and it is insecurity that makes men most malleable.
Eddie Bernays knew this better than most. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays is best known for his work as a pioneer of public relations, the principles of which were drawn from his book “Propaganda”. He drew on his uncle’s research in psychoanalysis and became a master of creating fear and desire for both corporations and governments. He used elements like jealousy, sexuality, and terror to make people rabidly fearful of communism and ready to line up and buy a new Chrysler and a pack of Marlborough’s in the name of freedom. At the core of his beliefs was the idea of control: complacency through comfort, compliance through fear (I urge you to watch the BBC documentary “Century of the Self” to gain a better understanding of this concept – please see below).
Aside from both being native German speakers, Bernays and Braun have commonality in their desire for control. The difference is that Bernays saw his work as inherently altruistic: his 1928 book Propaganda states that manipulation and control are necessary for democracy in order to have society led those who know best. However, Braun’s two centuries in the vault seemed to have left him without a shred of altruism, only hubris.
As credit runs dry and American workers are getting squeezed continually, the illusion of their idyllic lives epitomized in 1950s sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver is being ‘suddenly broken’. What happened? Was this ever part of Bernays’ dream for an ideal democratic society?
Bernays’ principles have been used by our elite to effectively manipulate our behavior under the auspices of ‘freedom’, but his desire for good governance has been ignored. It has been conveniently ignored in much the same way Adam Smith’s call for regulations to prevent oligarchies in The Wealth of Nations has been ignored by plutocrats like the Koch brothers who espouse ‘free market principles’ while being among the greatest beneficiaries of corporate welfare in the country. The idea that society must be in the hands of our elite is reinforced with images of the stereotypical ‘unwashed masses’: stupid criminals on Cops or the rabidly ignorant ‘Tea party’ protestors who remind us that we must never leave the country in the hands of the common man. We are taught implicitly trust these elites, if for nothing else than because Oprah Winfrey tells us we can all be rich just like them someday. We wouldn’t want someone else trying to tell us what to do, would we?
For Braun, the effects are obvious: simulated torture for his own amusement. With our own elite, it seems to take the form of greed and hubris: nickel and diming the public, stripping them of their rights, and uncaringly watching as nearly half of all Americans plunge into poverty.
In both cases, the powers that be play on our fears and insecurities. Is my husband cheating on me and why? What if we have another terrorist attack? What if congress passes Obamacare? What if my date doesn’t like my car or my clothes? What if Mitt Romney wins the election? In essence, these are trivial matters that distract us from the truth: the people of Tranquility Lane are getting screwed and so are we.
Most of us have probably found that suburban life, or modern life in general are not so tranquil. Somehow we find escape in games like Fallout, despite their terrifying settings. Perhaps we like the idea of being free of debt, free of thinking we need to buy new things just to get laid, free from the fake-tan douchebags in their entry-level BMWs, free from the persistant chipping away of our civil liberties by governments beginning the resemble the infamous Enclave.
Ironically, the most humane way to beat Tranquility lane is to not facilitate in Braun’s systematic torture, but to inflict catastrophic destruction in the form of a simulated Chinese invasion. With real climate scientists and real economists (not Lawrence Summers or Allen Greenspan) warning us of the potential catastrophic risks of living the way we do, the threat of some awful disaster freeing us of this illusion is a very real and terrifying one.
The good news is that we don’t have to be like the poor folks of Tranquility Lane: we just need to stop kidding ourselves. We need to stop being led by our insecurities and actually get to know those with whom we’ve been told to compete. We need to stop criticizing others for voting for one political party when and realize that the one we vote for is serving the same interests. We need to be like those brave pioneers speckled throughout the Fallout landscape that go above and beyond their own needs to commit acts of profound and selfless kindness in an otherwise brutally unforgiving world. It’s not convenient or glamorous, but I for one don’t want my grandchildren to have to walk something resembling the irradiated expanse of the Capital Wasteland.
For more on this subject, please see:
Bernays, Edward (1928) Propaganda
http://www.amazon.ca/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598
Documentary: The Century of the Self
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
Documentary: Human Resources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1EvCH8czhk
Smith, Adam (1776) The Wealth of Nations - Free online at:
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/adam-smith/wealth-nations.pdf
Thursday, August 8, 2013
The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road's Controls
So Capcom announced a few days ago that there will, after a decade since the last real game in the series, finally be a Breath of Fire 6. And they have also announced that it will be a smart phone/tablet game. Whereas Electronic Arts practices a casual, accidental cruelty in which they don’t care whether or not their pursuit of every dollar in existence leaves the entire game industry a cultural wasteland and destroys video games as an artistic medium, I think Capcom is by this point actively, maliciously attempting to hurt as many human beings as they possibly can.
Anyway, on with the actual rant.
The DS and 3DS have become pretty much the signature RPG systems of the current age. Sure, you get some RPGs for the Wii, Playstation 3, and X-Box 360, and a decent number for the PC, but as a general rule, the RPG system of the current day is Nintendo’s handheld, at least as far as JRPGs go.* This is just fine by me, since it gives me a chance to get my RPG on during my break at work and generally any other time I’m sitting around waiting for something whilst out of my house and away from my other consoles. The list of RPGs in each of my Annual Summary rants that denote what RPGs I played in the past year would have been cut almost in half in the last few years if I hadn’t had my DS and 3DS available to me.
There is, however, one potential problem with this situation: the Stylus.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Stylus-oriented gameplay can be pretty awesome for most game genres. Nintendo’s seemingly never ending gameplay creativity has brought about a lot of awesome uses for the Stylus in gaming, and many other companies making DS games have also creatively and effectively incorporated the stylus into their works. And even in the case of RPGs, the stylus isn’t necessarily a bad thing, when used effectively. The general pace and play style of RPGs doesn’t fit that of a stylus-oriented game very well, but there are plenty of occasions in an RPG where stylus input can be a good way to do things, like with minigames, or certain puzzles, and so on.
Unfortunately, when a game developer isn’t using the stylus effectively in an RPG, it can get messy. And when they’re doing a REALLY bad job with it, well...then you get The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.
First problem with TWoOBtYBR’s control system: EVERYTHING is controlled with the stylus. The buttons on the DS don’t actually do anything. Now, this is the problem with the stylus when it comes to RPGs: a developer may look at this highlighted gameplay device of the DS and think, “Well gee, that sure is nifty! I think I’m gonna make my RPG ONLY use the stylus for input!” What I wish they would also think is, “Wait, is the stylus actually going to be the BETTER input choice for every part of an RPG?” Because the answer is that it definitely will not be. Most RPGs, regardless of what side of the ocean they come from, involve a heavy amount of menus in their gameplay. From inventory screens to character abilities screens to dialogue boxes to battle menus, a huge part of most RPGs’ gameplay is handled through selections on a menu. It’s the reason why RPGs are boring to actually play. And here’s the thing: it is faster, less work, and more accurate to select things in a menu using your direction pad and the A and B buttons than it is to tap your way through said menu with a stylus. If the menu is complex enough, hitting the exact menu selection you want is difficult with the stylus simply because that selection is small enough that you may need to be very precise with where you’re hitting the screen to get it. If the menu has enough choices for each selection, you’ve got to be moving the stylus to several places and tapping over and over again just to perform one action. And if it’s a heavily menu-based game, you’re having to do this literally thousands of times through the game’s course. Yeah, in the end it’s not all that big a deal, I suppose, but compared to simply hitting a directional button a couple times to highlight your selection exactly and then hitting the confirm button, it’s quite inconvenient and annoying.
However, that is only part of the problem with this game’s controls. If I were going to rant about a game whose gameplay was annoying for being entirely stylus-driven, I would have more than just The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road to rant about. I wasn’t a fan of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks doing it, either, even though Nintendo did a great job at making the system work mostly adequately. And the controls for Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, another all-stylus game, are just plain lousy.
What really sets TWoOBtYBR apart from other all-stylus games, however, is the way you move Dorothy around. Now, you won’t hear me praising Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood about anything any time soon, but I’ll give the game this: directing your character by holding the stylus down in the direction relative to said character that you want them to move in at least seems sensible in theory. It sure as hell didn’t wind up working out very well, but the thought of having your character move toward where the stylus is pointing is, at least, a rational way to go about character movement if you’ve already stupidly decided to only allow the game to be played with a stylus, no buttons. Here, however, is a considerably less obvious and straightforward idea: they’ve put a crystal ball on the bottom screen, and the player drags the stylus across it in the direction that they want Dorothy to move in. The ball will roll for a bit, the character will move forward for a bit, and then as the crystal ball slows its roll, so will Dorothy slow until both halt. This necessitates the player to repeat the stylus stroke incessantly to keep her moving.
I’m sorry, Media Vision, but which focus group was it, exactly, that said they wanted an RPG in which the simple act of just moving a character forward replaced the Up Button with a fucking bowling minigame?
One which doesn’t work all that well, I should mention. Dorothy takes a second or 2 to pick up any real speed, which I admit is only annoying to a player who wants her to get to her next destination quickly--but that would be presumably any player who’s trying to make her run in the first place. She also has to skid awkwardly to a halt after running, rather than stopping just meaning stopping, and her changes in direction are a bit sluggish at times. That said, when I say that these things make this ball-spinning process not work all that well, I don’t mean it in the sense of faulty coding or anything like that. I’m fairly certain that each of these little irritations I mention are intentional, as they make Dorothy’s running realistic. Unfortunately, this is the Totally Unnecessary, Annoying, and Reeking of Stupid Lack of Common Sense brand of RPG realism, like when you have to constantly take the time to repair your weapons to keep them functional (like with Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, and the Dark Cloud series), or RPGs with Sprint Meters, where characters can only run for so long without getting tired and having to stop (like with Lunar 1 and 2, or Baten Kaitos 1). This sort of tiny bit of realism typically adds absolutely nothing of value to the game,** and would not be missed if they were not present--I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall ever having heard a Final Fantasy player groan, “Aw, man, this game would be so much better if my sword were disintegrating faster than Dan Slott’s dignity! And why isn’t my character getting winded from 10 seconds of movement? I’m really sick and tired of being able to travel to places in a timely manner! And where’s the “Breathe” button? How can my character possibly stay alive if I don’t press a button to make him breathe every 2 seconds?” Part of the core principle of Suspension of Disbelief is that we, the audience, are willing to let some tiny, irrelevant details of reality slide if it justifiably improves the storytelling process and quality of the product, and this “realistic running” business is exactly the sort of tiny, irrelevant detail that is acceptable to trade away for the sake of the product’s quality--in this case, basic playability and convenience. No one expects an RPG character’s inn stay to actually last a realistic 12 hours instead of the customary 5 seconds, and in the same spirit, no one expects an RPG character’s running to require buildup, gradual turns, and skidding halts.
Even if this stupid ball-rolling-based movement style controlled more pleasantly, though, it’s tedious and dumb in nature. The Crystal Ball barely has a connection to The Wizard of Oz to begin with, to my (admittedly limited) knowledge of the Oz universe--isn’t it basically only a small prop of the fortune-teller in Kansas, from early in the story?*** And that connection isn’t even relevant to the game, since part of TWoOBtYBR’s departure from the original Wizard of Oz’s story is to eliminate the fortune-teller (and pretty much everything else in Kansas) anyway. And tap-dragging a stylus over the thing over and over again, once per second or so, for half of a roughly 20 to 30 hour game, can be described with many words, but “fun” is not among them. I don’t know who it was over at Media Vision who decided how the gameplay of The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road would be set up, but whomever you may be, if you ever happen to read this, I would like you to know that you are an idiot.
* Although I have to say that for all the many new RPGs that have come out for the DS and 3DS, there are unfortunately few great ones for the system. Of the 36 I’ve played, I’d say only 5 of them (Radiant Historia, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 1, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, and The World Ends with You) were truly exceptional. The rest range anywhere from pretty decent (Infinite Space and Pokemon Generation 4, for example) to just fucking terrible (Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and Megaman Starforce 1, for example), with most falling right into the middle of that range and being kinda okay but not really worth playing (Pokemon Generation 5 and The Glory of Heracles 5, for example). I can’t help but feel that the previous signature RPG systems, the Super Nintendo, Playstation 1, and Playstation 2, all had significantly better ratios of quality games per capita. Maybe the newly released Shin Megami Tensei: Soul Hackers and Shin Megami Tensei 4 will tilt the DS/3DS library a little more in the direction of quality, though.
** I guess you could say that the constant decay of equipment in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas ties to the setting of post-apocalyptic decay...but that’s still a bit of a stretch to justify forcing the player to constantly handle this meaningless maintenance busywork.
*** EDIT FROM THE FUTURE (LIKE FOR REAL, THIS IS GOING IN 9 FREAKING YEARS LATER): My coworker read this rant on a lark and has gleefully pointed out my mistake on this matter, because the crystal ball does return later in The Wizard of Oz for the scene when Dorothy has been trapped by the witch and is chilling in the room with the hourglass that's counting down to her demise. She sees Aunt Em in it, and "Waaah waah I'm scared and so on" to it, before the ball shifts its image to display the witch mocking her. So there IS, in fact, more to the crystal ball than I indicated at the time of original publication.
Does this make the stupid thing significantly more relevant? Not especially. I'd say my sentiments here are still correct, even if the technicality is not. It's still too small a prop to give this much gameplay importance to, and its roles in the original story still don't sensibly connect it to that which it plays in this game.
Anyway, on with the actual rant.
The DS and 3DS have become pretty much the signature RPG systems of the current age. Sure, you get some RPGs for the Wii, Playstation 3, and X-Box 360, and a decent number for the PC, but as a general rule, the RPG system of the current day is Nintendo’s handheld, at least as far as JRPGs go.* This is just fine by me, since it gives me a chance to get my RPG on during my break at work and generally any other time I’m sitting around waiting for something whilst out of my house and away from my other consoles. The list of RPGs in each of my Annual Summary rants that denote what RPGs I played in the past year would have been cut almost in half in the last few years if I hadn’t had my DS and 3DS available to me.
There is, however, one potential problem with this situation: the Stylus.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Stylus-oriented gameplay can be pretty awesome for most game genres. Nintendo’s seemingly never ending gameplay creativity has brought about a lot of awesome uses for the Stylus in gaming, and many other companies making DS games have also creatively and effectively incorporated the stylus into their works. And even in the case of RPGs, the stylus isn’t necessarily a bad thing, when used effectively. The general pace and play style of RPGs doesn’t fit that of a stylus-oriented game very well, but there are plenty of occasions in an RPG where stylus input can be a good way to do things, like with minigames, or certain puzzles, and so on.
Unfortunately, when a game developer isn’t using the stylus effectively in an RPG, it can get messy. And when they’re doing a REALLY bad job with it, well...then you get The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.
First problem with TWoOBtYBR’s control system: EVERYTHING is controlled with the stylus. The buttons on the DS don’t actually do anything. Now, this is the problem with the stylus when it comes to RPGs: a developer may look at this highlighted gameplay device of the DS and think, “Well gee, that sure is nifty! I think I’m gonna make my RPG ONLY use the stylus for input!” What I wish they would also think is, “Wait, is the stylus actually going to be the BETTER input choice for every part of an RPG?” Because the answer is that it definitely will not be. Most RPGs, regardless of what side of the ocean they come from, involve a heavy amount of menus in their gameplay. From inventory screens to character abilities screens to dialogue boxes to battle menus, a huge part of most RPGs’ gameplay is handled through selections on a menu. It’s the reason why RPGs are boring to actually play. And here’s the thing: it is faster, less work, and more accurate to select things in a menu using your direction pad and the A and B buttons than it is to tap your way through said menu with a stylus. If the menu is complex enough, hitting the exact menu selection you want is difficult with the stylus simply because that selection is small enough that you may need to be very precise with where you’re hitting the screen to get it. If the menu has enough choices for each selection, you’ve got to be moving the stylus to several places and tapping over and over again just to perform one action. And if it’s a heavily menu-based game, you’re having to do this literally thousands of times through the game’s course. Yeah, in the end it’s not all that big a deal, I suppose, but compared to simply hitting a directional button a couple times to highlight your selection exactly and then hitting the confirm button, it’s quite inconvenient and annoying.
However, that is only part of the problem with this game’s controls. If I were going to rant about a game whose gameplay was annoying for being entirely stylus-driven, I would have more than just The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road to rant about. I wasn’t a fan of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks doing it, either, even though Nintendo did a great job at making the system work mostly adequately. And the controls for Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, another all-stylus game, are just plain lousy.
What really sets TWoOBtYBR apart from other all-stylus games, however, is the way you move Dorothy around. Now, you won’t hear me praising Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood about anything any time soon, but I’ll give the game this: directing your character by holding the stylus down in the direction relative to said character that you want them to move in at least seems sensible in theory. It sure as hell didn’t wind up working out very well, but the thought of having your character move toward where the stylus is pointing is, at least, a rational way to go about character movement if you’ve already stupidly decided to only allow the game to be played with a stylus, no buttons. Here, however, is a considerably less obvious and straightforward idea: they’ve put a crystal ball on the bottom screen, and the player drags the stylus across it in the direction that they want Dorothy to move in. The ball will roll for a bit, the character will move forward for a bit, and then as the crystal ball slows its roll, so will Dorothy slow until both halt. This necessitates the player to repeat the stylus stroke incessantly to keep her moving.
I’m sorry, Media Vision, but which focus group was it, exactly, that said they wanted an RPG in which the simple act of just moving a character forward replaced the Up Button with a fucking bowling minigame?
One which doesn’t work all that well, I should mention. Dorothy takes a second or 2 to pick up any real speed, which I admit is only annoying to a player who wants her to get to her next destination quickly--but that would be presumably any player who’s trying to make her run in the first place. She also has to skid awkwardly to a halt after running, rather than stopping just meaning stopping, and her changes in direction are a bit sluggish at times. That said, when I say that these things make this ball-spinning process not work all that well, I don’t mean it in the sense of faulty coding or anything like that. I’m fairly certain that each of these little irritations I mention are intentional, as they make Dorothy’s running realistic. Unfortunately, this is the Totally Unnecessary, Annoying, and Reeking of Stupid Lack of Common Sense brand of RPG realism, like when you have to constantly take the time to repair your weapons to keep them functional (like with Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, and the Dark Cloud series), or RPGs with Sprint Meters, where characters can only run for so long without getting tired and having to stop (like with Lunar 1 and 2, or Baten Kaitos 1). This sort of tiny bit of realism typically adds absolutely nothing of value to the game,** and would not be missed if they were not present--I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall ever having heard a Final Fantasy player groan, “Aw, man, this game would be so much better if my sword were disintegrating faster than Dan Slott’s dignity! And why isn’t my character getting winded from 10 seconds of movement? I’m really sick and tired of being able to travel to places in a timely manner! And where’s the “Breathe” button? How can my character possibly stay alive if I don’t press a button to make him breathe every 2 seconds?” Part of the core principle of Suspension of Disbelief is that we, the audience, are willing to let some tiny, irrelevant details of reality slide if it justifiably improves the storytelling process and quality of the product, and this “realistic running” business is exactly the sort of tiny, irrelevant detail that is acceptable to trade away for the sake of the product’s quality--in this case, basic playability and convenience. No one expects an RPG character’s inn stay to actually last a realistic 12 hours instead of the customary 5 seconds, and in the same spirit, no one expects an RPG character’s running to require buildup, gradual turns, and skidding halts.
Even if this stupid ball-rolling-based movement style controlled more pleasantly, though, it’s tedious and dumb in nature. The Crystal Ball barely has a connection to The Wizard of Oz to begin with, to my (admittedly limited) knowledge of the Oz universe--isn’t it basically only a small prop of the fortune-teller in Kansas, from early in the story?*** And that connection isn’t even relevant to the game, since part of TWoOBtYBR’s departure from the original Wizard of Oz’s story is to eliminate the fortune-teller (and pretty much everything else in Kansas) anyway. And tap-dragging a stylus over the thing over and over again, once per second or so, for half of a roughly 20 to 30 hour game, can be described with many words, but “fun” is not among them. I don’t know who it was over at Media Vision who decided how the gameplay of The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road would be set up, but whomever you may be, if you ever happen to read this, I would like you to know that you are an idiot.
* Although I have to say that for all the many new RPGs that have come out for the DS and 3DS, there are unfortunately few great ones for the system. Of the 36 I’ve played, I’d say only 5 of them (Radiant Historia, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 1, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, and The World Ends with You) were truly exceptional. The rest range anywhere from pretty decent (Infinite Space and Pokemon Generation 4, for example) to just fucking terrible (Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and Megaman Starforce 1, for example), with most falling right into the middle of that range and being kinda okay but not really worth playing (Pokemon Generation 5 and The Glory of Heracles 5, for example). I can’t help but feel that the previous signature RPG systems, the Super Nintendo, Playstation 1, and Playstation 2, all had significantly better ratios of quality games per capita. Maybe the newly released Shin Megami Tensei: Soul Hackers and Shin Megami Tensei 4 will tilt the DS/3DS library a little more in the direction of quality, though.
** I guess you could say that the constant decay of equipment in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas ties to the setting of post-apocalyptic decay...but that’s still a bit of a stretch to justify forcing the player to constantly handle this meaningless maintenance busywork.
*** EDIT FROM THE FUTURE (LIKE FOR REAL, THIS IS GOING IN 9 FREAKING YEARS LATER): My coworker read this rant on a lark and has gleefully pointed out my mistake on this matter, because the crystal ball does return later in The Wizard of Oz for the scene when Dorothy has been trapped by the witch and is chilling in the room with the hourglass that's counting down to her demise. She sees Aunt Em in it, and "Waaah waah I'm scared and so on" to it, before the ball shifts its image to display the witch mocking her. So there IS, in fact, more to the crystal ball than I indicated at the time of original publication.
Does this make the stupid thing significantly more relevant? Not especially. I'd say my sentiments here are still correct, even if the technicality is not. It's still too small a prop to give this much gameplay importance to, and its roles in the original story still don't sensibly connect it to that which it plays in this game.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Xenosaga 3's Omega Res Novae Demonstration
Yup. It’s that time once more. Time to delve into the seemingly never-ending well of bad decisions whose multitudes when patched together form the writing of Xenosaga 3.
What to talk about today? There are still just so many things I’ve not mentioned left that I could rant at length about. Things like the famous first FMV fight against T-elos. Putting aside the annoying Voyeuristic Paralysis Syndrome causing them not to even think of actually helping out with the fight, which I already criticized in a previous rant...why the hell do Shion and company just stay to watch KOS-MOS get her ass kicked by T-elos when KOS-MOS is fighting for the specific, clearly expressed purpose of delaying T-elos and allowing them to escape? Or things like the weirdness that all the highest technologies of Xenosaga, like combat Realians and A.G.W.S. mecha, are almost always shown as ineffective cannon-fodder, while all the heroes are saving the day with antiquated crap that’s decades,* centuries,** and even millennia*** out of date? And then there’s the bizarre and distracting decision to change the art style with each game, a change that is always for the worse--the best, most memorable art style was Xenosaga 1’s; nothing looked right for the characters after it. I could always talk about the distracting, totally unnecessary Xenogears cameos and connections (Fei as Abel, Elly as Nephilim, Maria as Mai, Shion and Jin having the same last name as Citan, etc), which serve no purpose whatsoever since the creators have explicitly said that there’s no actual plot connection whatever between Xenogears and Xenosaga.
Wait, no--I seem to remember that the last time I did a Xenosaga rant, I told you all I’d be ranting some time in the future about the Omega Res Novae presentation. Well, let’s do that, then!
Ahhh, the Omega Res Novae demonstration. What about this moment in the game makes sense, exactly? Basically, this is a military demonstration of the new giant mech suit, the Omega Res Novae, which the military wants to use against the Gnosis. To show its power and effectiveness, the demonstration pits it against KOS-MOS in a fight.
Now, insanely powerful though KOS-MOS is, I think it’s a rather strange idea that you would pit your new building-sized mecha against a human-sized battle robot to show the former’s effectiveness. I mean, these are two machines whose supposed purpose of fighting Gnosis is obviously going to take on very different roles and applications for each. Wouldn’t it make more sense to make your new giant mech suit’s competitor in this demonstration another mech suit? Wouldn’t that give you a better gauge of how much better the Omega Res Novae is than a previous piece of military hardware meant for the same form of combat? It’d be like if the Navy were to demonstrate how incredible their newest battleship was having it engage in a sea battle against one of their Navy SEALs. Obviously both the SEAL and the ship engage in combat involving water, but they’re just as obviously not meant to be doing it the exact same way. And for that matter, if the Omega Res Novae’s purpose is supposed to be fighting Gnosis, as this demonstration proclaims, why the hell are they showing how well it can fight against a humanoid battle android? Wouldn’t the obvious thing to do for the demonstration be to show it fighting Gnosis? Y’know...the thing that it is supposedly being created to fight? It’s not like they don’t have captive Gnosis they can release for it to show its stuff; they did the same thing for the T-elos demonstration just minutes before this scene. If they don’t have enough Gnosis, why the hell not just move the thing out to a part of space with Gnosis and watch it fight there? By this point in the series the Gnosis are showing up everywhere; it wouldn’t be hard to find some. Having it fight a battle android of much greater power and far different size than any Gnosis, which additionally employs entirely different combat tactics and has a completely different arsenal then any Gnosis, does not actually provide any idea whatsoever of the Omega Res Novae’s ability to combat Gnosis! If you want to prove that your new pet cat is more effective at taking care of mice than a pet ferret, you don’t show that by ordering your cat to go on a ferret killing spree, you show it by having your cat catch some damn mice!
That’s not where the nonsense ends, though, not by a long shot. The actual setup for the demonstration is completely ludicrous, too. First of all, the demonstration of the Omega Res Novae is taking place inside an enclosed arena. Now, it is a big stadium, but this is a giant fucking mech suit! The ceiling of the arena is only a little higher than it is, relatively, and the walls on each side are just as relatively close. It’s basically like if you were to go and stand in the middle of a dentist’s reception room. Fine for when you’re sitting around waiting to have your molars capped, not so good when you’re a battle mecha meant to be showing everything you can do in combat. If the damn thing doesn’t have the room to fly, dodge, and maneuver, how is this demonstration supposed to effectively show its full capabilities? All we can know for sure is that it can stand still and shoot at things.
And speaking of this enclosed space, hey, how about the fact that you’re testing a massive, hyper-advanced battle machine in an arena comparatively small to it, with many of your audience and technicians seemingly watching from the walls of this arena, protected only by fucking glass? This is a LIVE FIRE DEMO; the Omega Res Novae is actually, fully armed with missiles and lasers and who knows what else, and you’ve got your audience sitting what amounts to a few feet away! A single stray laser blast in that direction and they’re all toast! Yeah, okay, the glass is obviously going to be very strong, and can, we see, withstand a very heavy object crashing against it at a high velocity, but the Omegat Res Novae is meant to be Armageddon in a fucking can! There is no way some safety glass is going to protect against it! And to compound that, again, KOS-MOS is the Omega Res Novae’s opponent, and given that she is very much smaller and obviously meant for more personal combat, her best defense in the fight is clearly going to be evasion, meaning that the giant mech suit’s going to be firing all over the place at a moving target--giving it just that much more likelihood that one of its lasers is going to accidentally kill some bystanders. And to top it all off, the pilot of the Omega Res Novae is a kid whose mental processes and connection to the suit seem relatively unpredictable, and who is unresponsive to regular human communication--just the sort of not-fully-understood wild card you’d want at the controls of a laser-spouting death machine surrounded by helpless bystanders, right?
You also gotta love the nonsensical aftermath of this demonstration. After the Omega Res Novae’s pilot goes, surprise surprise, out of control and starts firing wildly, KOS-MOS has to jump up in the way of one of its lasers to protect the people in the observation deck. Had she not taken a laser to the face, everyone where Shion is currently standing would be atomized. The Omega Res Novae’s shut down quickly after. So once that’s done with, the very next scene has the scientist who created T-elos walk up to Shion and Allen and casually introduce himself, and the three briefly exchange pleasantries. No one seems agitated in any way that they all almost were blown to hell and back by a giant laser blast. Allen’s not saying, “Holy shit, Shion, are you okay? You could’ve been melted in there!” Shion’s not pouting in annoyance because the idiot in charge didn’t pull the mech suit’s plug the second it started going nuts. No one’s rushing around, no announcement’s being made apologizing for the near death of everyone in the observation deck where Shion is, nothing. Just business as fucking usual. Like everyone just finished watching KOS-MOS and the Omega Res Novae having a picnic lunch together. And of course, when Shion meets moments later with Juli Mizrahi, who was the one in charge of monitoring the Omega Res Novae during the demo and who must realize Shion was in that almost-destroyed deck from seeing her come from its exit, Juli doesn’t offer any sort of apology for the incident, or even fucking mention it.
Awesome grasp of basic military procedures and basic human reactions, Namco, as usual. Stellar work.
* Cyborgs like Ziggy.
** Androids like KOS-MOS.
*** Jin did you seriously just bring a Katana to a Titanic Missile-Launching Laser-Blasting Bullet-Spewing Robot Fight?
What to talk about today? There are still just so many things I’ve not mentioned left that I could rant at length about. Things like the famous first FMV fight against T-elos. Putting aside the annoying Voyeuristic Paralysis Syndrome causing them not to even think of actually helping out with the fight, which I already criticized in a previous rant...why the hell do Shion and company just stay to watch KOS-MOS get her ass kicked by T-elos when KOS-MOS is fighting for the specific, clearly expressed purpose of delaying T-elos and allowing them to escape? Or things like the weirdness that all the highest technologies of Xenosaga, like combat Realians and A.G.W.S. mecha, are almost always shown as ineffective cannon-fodder, while all the heroes are saving the day with antiquated crap that’s decades,* centuries,** and even millennia*** out of date? And then there’s the bizarre and distracting decision to change the art style with each game, a change that is always for the worse--the best, most memorable art style was Xenosaga 1’s; nothing looked right for the characters after it. I could always talk about the distracting, totally unnecessary Xenogears cameos and connections (Fei as Abel, Elly as Nephilim, Maria as Mai, Shion and Jin having the same last name as Citan, etc), which serve no purpose whatsoever since the creators have explicitly said that there’s no actual plot connection whatever between Xenogears and Xenosaga.
Wait, no--I seem to remember that the last time I did a Xenosaga rant, I told you all I’d be ranting some time in the future about the Omega Res Novae presentation. Well, let’s do that, then!
Ahhh, the Omega Res Novae demonstration. What about this moment in the game makes sense, exactly? Basically, this is a military demonstration of the new giant mech suit, the Omega Res Novae, which the military wants to use against the Gnosis. To show its power and effectiveness, the demonstration pits it against KOS-MOS in a fight.
Now, insanely powerful though KOS-MOS is, I think it’s a rather strange idea that you would pit your new building-sized mecha against a human-sized battle robot to show the former’s effectiveness. I mean, these are two machines whose supposed purpose of fighting Gnosis is obviously going to take on very different roles and applications for each. Wouldn’t it make more sense to make your new giant mech suit’s competitor in this demonstration another mech suit? Wouldn’t that give you a better gauge of how much better the Omega Res Novae is than a previous piece of military hardware meant for the same form of combat? It’d be like if the Navy were to demonstrate how incredible their newest battleship was having it engage in a sea battle against one of their Navy SEALs. Obviously both the SEAL and the ship engage in combat involving water, but they’re just as obviously not meant to be doing it the exact same way. And for that matter, if the Omega Res Novae’s purpose is supposed to be fighting Gnosis, as this demonstration proclaims, why the hell are they showing how well it can fight against a humanoid battle android? Wouldn’t the obvious thing to do for the demonstration be to show it fighting Gnosis? Y’know...the thing that it is supposedly being created to fight? It’s not like they don’t have captive Gnosis they can release for it to show its stuff; they did the same thing for the T-elos demonstration just minutes before this scene. If they don’t have enough Gnosis, why the hell not just move the thing out to a part of space with Gnosis and watch it fight there? By this point in the series the Gnosis are showing up everywhere; it wouldn’t be hard to find some. Having it fight a battle android of much greater power and far different size than any Gnosis, which additionally employs entirely different combat tactics and has a completely different arsenal then any Gnosis, does not actually provide any idea whatsoever of the Omega Res Novae’s ability to combat Gnosis! If you want to prove that your new pet cat is more effective at taking care of mice than a pet ferret, you don’t show that by ordering your cat to go on a ferret killing spree, you show it by having your cat catch some damn mice!
That’s not where the nonsense ends, though, not by a long shot. The actual setup for the demonstration is completely ludicrous, too. First of all, the demonstration of the Omega Res Novae is taking place inside an enclosed arena. Now, it is a big stadium, but this is a giant fucking mech suit! The ceiling of the arena is only a little higher than it is, relatively, and the walls on each side are just as relatively close. It’s basically like if you were to go and stand in the middle of a dentist’s reception room. Fine for when you’re sitting around waiting to have your molars capped, not so good when you’re a battle mecha meant to be showing everything you can do in combat. If the damn thing doesn’t have the room to fly, dodge, and maneuver, how is this demonstration supposed to effectively show its full capabilities? All we can know for sure is that it can stand still and shoot at things.
And speaking of this enclosed space, hey, how about the fact that you’re testing a massive, hyper-advanced battle machine in an arena comparatively small to it, with many of your audience and technicians seemingly watching from the walls of this arena, protected only by fucking glass? This is a LIVE FIRE DEMO; the Omega Res Novae is actually, fully armed with missiles and lasers and who knows what else, and you’ve got your audience sitting what amounts to a few feet away! A single stray laser blast in that direction and they’re all toast! Yeah, okay, the glass is obviously going to be very strong, and can, we see, withstand a very heavy object crashing against it at a high velocity, but the Omegat Res Novae is meant to be Armageddon in a fucking can! There is no way some safety glass is going to protect against it! And to compound that, again, KOS-MOS is the Omega Res Novae’s opponent, and given that she is very much smaller and obviously meant for more personal combat, her best defense in the fight is clearly going to be evasion, meaning that the giant mech suit’s going to be firing all over the place at a moving target--giving it just that much more likelihood that one of its lasers is going to accidentally kill some bystanders. And to top it all off, the pilot of the Omega Res Novae is a kid whose mental processes and connection to the suit seem relatively unpredictable, and who is unresponsive to regular human communication--just the sort of not-fully-understood wild card you’d want at the controls of a laser-spouting death machine surrounded by helpless bystanders, right?
You also gotta love the nonsensical aftermath of this demonstration. After the Omega Res Novae’s pilot goes, surprise surprise, out of control and starts firing wildly, KOS-MOS has to jump up in the way of one of its lasers to protect the people in the observation deck. Had she not taken a laser to the face, everyone where Shion is currently standing would be atomized. The Omega Res Novae’s shut down quickly after. So once that’s done with, the very next scene has the scientist who created T-elos walk up to Shion and Allen and casually introduce himself, and the three briefly exchange pleasantries. No one seems agitated in any way that they all almost were blown to hell and back by a giant laser blast. Allen’s not saying, “Holy shit, Shion, are you okay? You could’ve been melted in there!” Shion’s not pouting in annoyance because the idiot in charge didn’t pull the mech suit’s plug the second it started going nuts. No one’s rushing around, no announcement’s being made apologizing for the near death of everyone in the observation deck where Shion is, nothing. Just business as fucking usual. Like everyone just finished watching KOS-MOS and the Omega Res Novae having a picnic lunch together. And of course, when Shion meets moments later with Juli Mizrahi, who was the one in charge of monitoring the Omega Res Novae during the demo and who must realize Shion was in that almost-destroyed deck from seeing her come from its exit, Juli doesn’t offer any sort of apology for the incident, or even fucking mention it.
Awesome grasp of basic military procedures and basic human reactions, Namco, as usual. Stellar work.
* Cyborgs like Ziggy.
** Androids like KOS-MOS.
*** Jin did you seriously just bring a Katana to a Titanic Missile-Launching Laser-Blasting Bullet-Spewing Robot Fight?
Thursday, July 18, 2013
General RPG Lists: Lamest Villains
Well hey, it’s been a little while since I did a list rant, and also hey, I did a list of the Best Villains, so hey x3, why not make a list of the opposite?
Because it’s hard, that’s why! There are only so many truly great villains in RPGs, but lousy villains are a blue rupee a dozen. And how are they defined, really? It’s easy to tell what makes a great villain great, but there are just so many different ways for a villain to suck. Some are too ineffectual to really take seriously (such as that armored idiot in Grandia 3), some are pointless and thrown in at the very last second for no reason (remind me what Final Fantasy 9’s Necron’s deal was, again?), some make absolutely no goddamn sense in their role whatsoever (I’ve never seen a more painful stretch for a shocking twist than I have for The Last Story’s surprise traitor villain), some are just bland, unoriginal, and unexamined entirely (Snidely fucking Whiplash has more character depth than FF5’s Exdeath), some have moronic goals and/or methods (Dear Mass Effect 3’s Catalyst Star Child: if it is an elegantly simple task to reduce the entirety of your actions and motivations to a Yo Dawg meme, then everyone on the development team associated with you should feel profoundly ashamed of themselves), some are just spiteful, laughable little dicks (Kai Leng from ME3, for example), and so on. There’s all kinds of reasons, far more than I could really list here, or even accurately figure out. So this list is less about following any specific criteria, and more just about going with a gut impression of what villains have qualities that are just plain more pathetic than all the rest. So your list might be different, but I hope the losers below would at least be in consideration for it.
5. Ramsus (Xenogears)
Every villain loses eventually. For some, it’s only that fatal one loss, at the end of the game. Others fail at their task more than once. A few, like Ganondorf of The Legend of Zelda series, just keep failing over and over again (in fact, Ganondorf was a big contender for this spot). But Ramsus is just...sad. I mean, the dude just loses again, and again, and AGAIN. And unlike Ganondorf, who at least limits his failures to only 1 or 2 an installment, Ramsus manages to cram his dozens of losses all into the same game. His enemies outrun him. His enemies defeat him in combat, over and over again. His enemies outsmart him. His planned hostages immobilize him. He loses battles, he gets demoted, he gets manipulated, and the one time he manages to successfully beat his rival Fei, it’s only minutes before Fei beats him in a rematch. It’s just over and over and over again that you see this guy fail at everything he does. Honestly, Ramsus has got to be one of the most colossal fuck-ups in villain history.
4. Isamu (Shin Megami Tensei 3)*
I’ve seen a lot of villains’ plans for remaking all of reality so it will conform to their personal beliefs on what the world should be like. It’s really quite common in RPGs. Some want a chaotic world of constant struggle for supremacy. Some want to rule all of existence. Some want a world of complete equality. And so on--there are lots of different visions of a new world order that you come across in RPGs. However, Isamu’s is...pretty unique. Isamu basically wants to remake the world so that no one has any interaction with anyone else, and everybody exists as an island, no interference or assistance from any other human
So basically...Isamu wants to rework the nature of all existence so that he can sit in his room and listen to The Cure all day.
That’s pretty pathetic. Pretty damned pathetic, in fact. Seriously, Isamu, the coming birth of the new world demands that you determine a philosophy of the ideal world, and all you can come up with is to just have everyone be a hermit? Weak, Isamu, fuckin’ weak. But it’s not the only reason Isamu is a sad sack. First of all, there are the events that drive Isamu to this intelligent and totally not entirely idiotic idea. You know what was the clincher for him, that caused Isamu to isolate himself from others and led him to the place where his ideal was given shape? Well, he gets captured a couple times during the game’s course, and the protagonist rescues Isamu each time, but that’s not GOOD enough, because after the second time, Isamu throws a little hissy fit and complains that the protagonist is always too late for Isamu. Oh, I’m sorry, Your Highness, that my life-and-death struggle to free you from situations that you got yourself into wasn’t speedy enough for you! What a whiny ass.
To top Isamu’s whiny nature off, he is a tremendous hypocrite. If the game’s protagonist decides to follow any path beyond Isamu’s, Isamu insults him, saying that the protagonist is just wasting his time as a blind pawn of others. But if the protagonist DOES opt to assist Isamu, well, you better believe Isamu’s not gonna criticize the protagonist’s decision to be a pawn of another person then! And then there’s always the hypocrisy of Isamu’s wanting the protagonist’s help to achieve his goal when Isamu’s entire lame philosophy for the new world is to eschew others in all ways. Wanting and NEEDING it, I should say, because no matter what else happens, Isamu will always get killed by the other villains, so even if the protagonist were out of the picture entirely Isamu still wouldn’t be able to succeed in his goals. Yeah, way to stand true to your beliefs, jackass. What a whiny little git.
3. Thumb-Sucking, Irrational, Whiny Little Bitches (General RPGs)
You know what I’m so fucking sick of? I am so fucking sick of RPG villains who are oversensitive and have no fucking sense of proportion. They’re the ones who decide it’s okay to annihilate entire populations because they’ve had a bad experience in the past that they somehow think MUST represent ALL possible experiences, or decide to overreact to one bad thing in a villainous, world-threatening manner.
Shin from Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon could read the minds of those around him, and decided, somehow, that because the few dozen people whom he worked with didn’t think nice things, the same MUST be true for ALL of humanity, so he decided to wipe them all out. BOO HOO HOO PEOPLE WEREN’T AS NICE TO ME AS THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN! Shirley in Tales of Legendia** had a crush on protagonist Senel, but was told by him that he wasn’t interested a mere day after the woman he DID love (her sister Stella) died to save them, so she decided that humans like Senel and magical water people like her couldn’t exist together and began going along with a plan to wipe the humans out.*** BOO HOO HOO THE GUY I LIKE DOESN’T LIKE ME BACK! Emelious of Grandia 3 was born to an important destiny of communicating with the godlike Guardians, but he has to share that destiny with his younger sister because each was born with half the destined birthmark, and so he makes plans to summon a dark god to destroy the Guardians. BOO HOO HOO I’M NOT THE ONLY IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WORLD!
Don’t get me wrong, there are ways you CAN make the concept work. I mean, look at The Master in Fallout 1, and Seymour in Final Fantasy 10. The Master believes that humanity is a hopeless species and wants to replace it with a world order of mutants under his command. Yeah, that’s an extreme stance, but he IS living in a time after a global nuclear war destroyed all human civilization utterly and left the whole world a hellish wasteland, and the current state of Fallout’s societies isn’t exactly a pleasant one. He has enough REASON for his villain motivation that he seems to be making a decision that we can understand to a certain degree. Seymour in Final Fantasy 10 had a shitty childhood, but that pain isn’t the entire reason for his villainy--it was simply a catalyst, that which was necessary for him to recognize the pain of all of Spira. Spira has for a thousand years or more (can’t remember the exact time frame) been under nearly constant attack by an unstoppable, mindless monster that destroys everything the people create and kills indiscriminately, leaving deadly beasts behind that only further cause misery. Spira’s not as visibly miserable as Fallout’s wasteland, but one can understand why Seymour would think that a quick death to all would be a preferable existence to a life of constant terror and destruction, where the greatest hope you have is a small reprieve of a few years. Give me real, believable motives for a campaign of evil--lust for power, philosophical ideals, ambition, outright hatred, that sort of thing. But failing that, at least give me some real, sensible evidence for the villainy.
Because I’m tired of clowns like Dragon Quest 9’s Corvus, who tried to destroy both humanity and gods because he thought that a single human’s betrayal (she didn’t even actually betray him) meant that all humans were evil, and that abhorrent little turd Mithos from Tales of Symphonia 1, and that whiny doofus Volsung from Wild Arms 5, and that sneering charlatan Akechi from Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5, and so many more. These hordes of overreacting, childish fools with no sense of proportion or perspective are just tearful, immature lamers to me.
2. Sephiroth (Final Fantasy 7 and Kingdom Hearts Series)
Oh yeah, like you all didn’t know this much-glorified fucktard was going to be here. The only surprise here is that Sephiroth didn’t make it to the very top.
When it comes to lame villains, Sephiroth’s kind of the patron saint. This guy is toted by SquareEnix as the man with the strongest willpower on FF7’s planet, and yet he lost his mind from reading a book. What did that book tell him? That his superior power comes from having been implanted with alien cells while he was still in the womb. So you’re 1/3 space monster, big fucking deal. My dad’s Canadian; you don’t see me losing my shit and trying to enact Armageddon in some clumsy attempt to become a god over it. Shouldn’t the “strongest will on the planet” be a little better able to keep together under a little stress?
While it’s not too important, Sephiroth’s look doesn’t exactly help me take him seriously. I mean, he’s essentially a chick in bondage gear, wielding the only sword in history to make Cloud Strife’s look feasible by comparison. Putting aside the obvious fact that he should not, even with super soldier strength, be able to lift and control the stupid thing, even with full ability to manipulate it, it’s still a stupid, ineffectual weapon! Carrying a sword that long would be an incredibly awkward prospect, with it unavoidably poking walls, slicing and stabbing ceilings, and dragging along the floor all the time, and in an actual battle, its length, while admittedly handy for outreaching your opponent, would mean that once it’s been parried off to the side, it can’t be retracted enough that it could be used to make a different attack. You could just hold his blade off to the side with your own and calmly walk up to him; all he could do is try to slide his sword up or down your own, which would only work out if you for some reason forgot to slide it with him, or swing it again from the side. Easy enough to get close, where his ultra long sword suddenly has absolutely no use.
Small surprise that the only people he ever seems to be able to actually beat are unarmed, untrained, and/or taken completely by surprise. But you get anybody who actually knows what they’re doing and is ready to fight, and you get Sephiroth getting thrown down reactor pits, slashed to ribbons, demolished utterly, and fought to a standstill by a 12-year-old who hangs out with Saturday morning cartoon characters and fights with a stupid giant house key. The only time Sephiroth ever seems to accomplish anything is when it’s actually pieces of Jenova shaped like him.
Which brings me to the next point of why he’s fucking lame--he’s never actually DOING anything. The entirety of Final Fantasy 7, he’s just sitting in the fucking northern crater cave, letting Jenova do all the work of freeing itself, controlling former SOLDIERs, fighting Cloud and company, killing Aeris, and retrieving the Black Materia. Sephiroth’s another one of those lazy idiot RPG villains who just sit back and can’t be bothered to actually do his own work. Okay, yeah, fine, it’s not actually laziness, there IS a reason for it--in FF7, I believe he was too wounded by his encounter with Cloud 5 years prior to leave the healing mako energies of the crater, and in the FF7 Advent Children movie, his agents have to do all the work because he’s very busy being dead. But lemme ask you something--which is lamer, him not being able to be bothered to do his own work, or him having gotten so badly punked in the past that he has no choice but to have to rely on others to do his work for him? You’d think being put in magic traction would be enough to convince a guy maybe he’s not the best candidate for godhood, but I guess suppressing rational second thoughts is what that “strongest will on the planet” is doing to make up for being on vacation when he went nuts.
Dear sweet merciful heavens, this guy is just so fucking lame.
1. Dracula (Castlevania Series)
Well, this is honestly a surprise. When I first thought about this list, Dracula never even occurred to me as a possible candidate for it, let alone making the number 1 spot. I figured Sephiroth would be taking this part, or maybe those insufferable tools from FF9, Zorn and Thorn (who didn’t even end up making the list, shockingly). But the more I looked at it, the more this list began to take form...the more I realized that Dracula is the most pathetic RPG villain ever. And why is that? Because he is everyone else on this list put together.
Think about it. Dracula is a colossal fuck-up, just like Ramsus. I mean, the guy resurrects over and over and over again, and every damn time, he’s killed before he can cause much trouble, usually almost immediately after reawakening. When does he ever actually succeed at his goals? Only a couple times, one of which was in Castlevania Legends, does he even get partially there, and CL was an alternate reality and a different Dracula, so...it’s pretty rare for the real Castlevania Dracula to really get anything done. He can’t even seem to leave his room before some Belmont flays him to nothingness.
A lot of the opportunities that his incompetence squanders only come to Dracula because of the work of others, as with Isamu and Sephiroth. Many of Dracula’s resurrections are possible only through the ceaseless efforts of cultists, Dracula’s servant Death, and other vampires. And also like Sephiroth, the guy just sits around waiting to be killed; as I mentioned, most Castlevania games I’m aware of with Dracula never even have the guy leave his damn room. The majority of Dracula’s villainous history can be described by the following set of instructions:
1. Be Revived
2. Sit in Room for a Few Minutes, at Most a Few Hours
3. Fight a Hero
4. Die
At least other recurring villains like Ganondorf have their shit together enough to actually DO some evil stuff before they’re put down again. Being murdered is by this point as mundane and traditional a part of Dracula’s morning experience as having a bowl of cereal.
And of course, he is also a Thumb-Sucking, Irrational, Whiny Little Bitch, as evidenced by Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, which shows the origin of Dracula. I mean, look, I get it that losing the woman you love is a truly horrible thing and one of the worst kinds of pain imaginable, I do. And I don’t blame a guy for getting pissed off at God for letting it happen (don’t AGREE, mind, but don’t blame), and turning his back upon God in that rage. People do actually DO that.
But you know what people DON’T do when they blame God for their unfortunate circumstances, no matter how angry they may be? They don’t try to make a pact with the forces of darkness to become lord of all vampires just so they can stick it to God by being immortal like Him. I mean, what about that even makes SENSE? You’re pissed off with God about not keeping your girlfriend alive, so to defy Him, you...show Him that He’s not the only one who can be immortal? What exactly does the one thing have to do with the other? Hell, your plan involves you choosing to adopt a characteristic of the individual that you hate so much, a characteristic which most prominently separates Him from your late beloved, so, y’know, good thinking there, champ. Then later on apparently Dracula is sweet on some other chick named Lisa, and SHE gets burned for supposedly being a witch or something to that tune, and it’s at that point that he decides to declare war on all of humanity. And, like, yeah, I GET why he’s pissed at humanity for it, and obviously the society where such a thing could happen needs serious overhaul, but rather than go after the people who did the act, or even going after them AND the ones who control and guide the societal evils that led to Lisa’s death, Dracula instead decides that ALL humanity must be destroyed. That’s grossly overreacting; he’s gonna go around killing people who are completely innocent, including people who are good like Lisa and his first girlfriend--he can’t seriously pretend such people don’t exist, he’s shacked up with 2 of them now. So yeah--thumb-sucking, irrational, whiny little bitch? Check.
Oh, yeah, and getting back to his Lament of Innocence debut, the guy’s got another characteristic of lameness in common with Isamu--he’s a hypocrite. Only he’s a much bigger jerk of a hypocrite than Isamu. See, Dracula’s plans to give God the finger by becoming an immortal vampire include the manipulation of his friend Leon Belmont into killing the current master vampire dude, a process which results in the death of Leon’s beloved. And then, once Dracula shows up for his villainous reveal, he’s actually surprised that Leon doesn’t want to join him in vampiring it up. Just...DUDE. You are going to ridiculous extremes out of a hate for God because you blame God for not preventing your girlfriend’s death. You just ACTIVELY created the events that led to Leon’s girlfriend’s death. You actually don’t expect him to be equally righteously pissed off at YOU for ACTUALLY causing her death as you are at God for neglecting to prevent your girl’s passing? Are you SERIOUS? What a fucking idiot!
Anyway...I’ve wasted enough time on this twit. Dracula is the culmination of all the other lamers on this list, and so do I dub him Most Pathetic RPG Villain of All.
Dishonorable Mention: Stupid Organizations (General RPGs)
What’s the only thing worse than a lame villain? A whole organized group of lame villains! What IS it with RPGs and stupid, pathetic villain organizations? You get the trite, gimmicky fuckwits in Organization 13 from the Kingdom Hearts series, who basically have substantially lowered the quality of the games by taking a huge amount of the focus away from the Disney characters with actual depth and personality. You get those lazy, useless doofuses in the Turks from Final Fantasy 7, whose talent at running away is matched only by their talent at losing. And don’t even get me started on Team Magma and especially Team Aqua from Pokemon’s Third Generation. Dear sweet God what a bunch of incompetent numbskulls.
Well THAT was a lot more words than I’d anticipated. As usual.
* One might argue that Isamu (and Chiaki and Hikawa, for that matter) is not truly a villain since one of the 4 major paths of the game can have you ally with him, but I’d point out that following any other path WILL make Isamu one of your major opponents, so that’s still him being an enemy thrice as often as an ally. And he IS out to forcibly remake the world according to his personal beliefs with no regard for anyone else’s opinion on the matter even though his actions will directly affect them--and if that doesn’t just scream “JRPG Villain,” then I don’t know what possibly could.
** Yeah, I realize Shirley’s also one of the good guys in ToL, but there’s a point where she’s ready to go all in on the second villain’s plans of genocide.
*** Okay, fine, there WERE extenuating circumstances, but the core cause of the problem was pretty indisputably Senel’s rejection, since it’s Senel’s romantic 180 later that snaps her out of it.
Because it’s hard, that’s why! There are only so many truly great villains in RPGs, but lousy villains are a blue rupee a dozen. And how are they defined, really? It’s easy to tell what makes a great villain great, but there are just so many different ways for a villain to suck. Some are too ineffectual to really take seriously (such as that armored idiot in Grandia 3), some are pointless and thrown in at the very last second for no reason (remind me what Final Fantasy 9’s Necron’s deal was, again?), some make absolutely no goddamn sense in their role whatsoever (I’ve never seen a more painful stretch for a shocking twist than I have for The Last Story’s surprise traitor villain), some are just bland, unoriginal, and unexamined entirely (Snidely fucking Whiplash has more character depth than FF5’s Exdeath), some have moronic goals and/or methods (Dear Mass Effect 3’s Catalyst Star Child: if it is an elegantly simple task to reduce the entirety of your actions and motivations to a Yo Dawg meme, then everyone on the development team associated with you should feel profoundly ashamed of themselves), some are just spiteful, laughable little dicks (Kai Leng from ME3, for example), and so on. There’s all kinds of reasons, far more than I could really list here, or even accurately figure out. So this list is less about following any specific criteria, and more just about going with a gut impression of what villains have qualities that are just plain more pathetic than all the rest. So your list might be different, but I hope the losers below would at least be in consideration for it.
5. Ramsus (Xenogears)
Every villain loses eventually. For some, it’s only that fatal one loss, at the end of the game. Others fail at their task more than once. A few, like Ganondorf of The Legend of Zelda series, just keep failing over and over again (in fact, Ganondorf was a big contender for this spot). But Ramsus is just...sad. I mean, the dude just loses again, and again, and AGAIN. And unlike Ganondorf, who at least limits his failures to only 1 or 2 an installment, Ramsus manages to cram his dozens of losses all into the same game. His enemies outrun him. His enemies defeat him in combat, over and over again. His enemies outsmart him. His planned hostages immobilize him. He loses battles, he gets demoted, he gets manipulated, and the one time he manages to successfully beat his rival Fei, it’s only minutes before Fei beats him in a rematch. It’s just over and over and over again that you see this guy fail at everything he does. Honestly, Ramsus has got to be one of the most colossal fuck-ups in villain history.
4. Isamu (Shin Megami Tensei 3)*
I’ve seen a lot of villains’ plans for remaking all of reality so it will conform to their personal beliefs on what the world should be like. It’s really quite common in RPGs. Some want a chaotic world of constant struggle for supremacy. Some want to rule all of existence. Some want a world of complete equality. And so on--there are lots of different visions of a new world order that you come across in RPGs. However, Isamu’s is...pretty unique. Isamu basically wants to remake the world so that no one has any interaction with anyone else, and everybody exists as an island, no interference or assistance from any other human
So basically...Isamu wants to rework the nature of all existence so that he can sit in his room and listen to The Cure all day.
That’s pretty pathetic. Pretty damned pathetic, in fact. Seriously, Isamu, the coming birth of the new world demands that you determine a philosophy of the ideal world, and all you can come up with is to just have everyone be a hermit? Weak, Isamu, fuckin’ weak. But it’s not the only reason Isamu is a sad sack. First of all, there are the events that drive Isamu to this intelligent and totally not entirely idiotic idea. You know what was the clincher for him, that caused Isamu to isolate himself from others and led him to the place where his ideal was given shape? Well, he gets captured a couple times during the game’s course, and the protagonist rescues Isamu each time, but that’s not GOOD enough, because after the second time, Isamu throws a little hissy fit and complains that the protagonist is always too late for Isamu. Oh, I’m sorry, Your Highness, that my life-and-death struggle to free you from situations that you got yourself into wasn’t speedy enough for you! What a whiny ass.
To top Isamu’s whiny nature off, he is a tremendous hypocrite. If the game’s protagonist decides to follow any path beyond Isamu’s, Isamu insults him, saying that the protagonist is just wasting his time as a blind pawn of others. But if the protagonist DOES opt to assist Isamu, well, you better believe Isamu’s not gonna criticize the protagonist’s decision to be a pawn of another person then! And then there’s always the hypocrisy of Isamu’s wanting the protagonist’s help to achieve his goal when Isamu’s entire lame philosophy for the new world is to eschew others in all ways. Wanting and NEEDING it, I should say, because no matter what else happens, Isamu will always get killed by the other villains, so even if the protagonist were out of the picture entirely Isamu still wouldn’t be able to succeed in his goals. Yeah, way to stand true to your beliefs, jackass. What a whiny little git.
3. Thumb-Sucking, Irrational, Whiny Little Bitches (General RPGs)
You know what I’m so fucking sick of? I am so fucking sick of RPG villains who are oversensitive and have no fucking sense of proportion. They’re the ones who decide it’s okay to annihilate entire populations because they’ve had a bad experience in the past that they somehow think MUST represent ALL possible experiences, or decide to overreact to one bad thing in a villainous, world-threatening manner.
Shin from Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon could read the minds of those around him, and decided, somehow, that because the few dozen people whom he worked with didn’t think nice things, the same MUST be true for ALL of humanity, so he decided to wipe them all out. BOO HOO HOO PEOPLE WEREN’T AS NICE TO ME AS THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN! Shirley in Tales of Legendia** had a crush on protagonist Senel, but was told by him that he wasn’t interested a mere day after the woman he DID love (her sister Stella) died to save them, so she decided that humans like Senel and magical water people like her couldn’t exist together and began going along with a plan to wipe the humans out.*** BOO HOO HOO THE GUY I LIKE DOESN’T LIKE ME BACK! Emelious of Grandia 3 was born to an important destiny of communicating with the godlike Guardians, but he has to share that destiny with his younger sister because each was born with half the destined birthmark, and so he makes plans to summon a dark god to destroy the Guardians. BOO HOO HOO I’M NOT THE ONLY IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WORLD!
Don’t get me wrong, there are ways you CAN make the concept work. I mean, look at The Master in Fallout 1, and Seymour in Final Fantasy 10. The Master believes that humanity is a hopeless species and wants to replace it with a world order of mutants under his command. Yeah, that’s an extreme stance, but he IS living in a time after a global nuclear war destroyed all human civilization utterly and left the whole world a hellish wasteland, and the current state of Fallout’s societies isn’t exactly a pleasant one. He has enough REASON for his villain motivation that he seems to be making a decision that we can understand to a certain degree. Seymour in Final Fantasy 10 had a shitty childhood, but that pain isn’t the entire reason for his villainy--it was simply a catalyst, that which was necessary for him to recognize the pain of all of Spira. Spira has for a thousand years or more (can’t remember the exact time frame) been under nearly constant attack by an unstoppable, mindless monster that destroys everything the people create and kills indiscriminately, leaving deadly beasts behind that only further cause misery. Spira’s not as visibly miserable as Fallout’s wasteland, but one can understand why Seymour would think that a quick death to all would be a preferable existence to a life of constant terror and destruction, where the greatest hope you have is a small reprieve of a few years. Give me real, believable motives for a campaign of evil--lust for power, philosophical ideals, ambition, outright hatred, that sort of thing. But failing that, at least give me some real, sensible evidence for the villainy.
Because I’m tired of clowns like Dragon Quest 9’s Corvus, who tried to destroy both humanity and gods because he thought that a single human’s betrayal (she didn’t even actually betray him) meant that all humans were evil, and that abhorrent little turd Mithos from Tales of Symphonia 1, and that whiny doofus Volsung from Wild Arms 5, and that sneering charlatan Akechi from Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5, and so many more. These hordes of overreacting, childish fools with no sense of proportion or perspective are just tearful, immature lamers to me.
2. Sephiroth (Final Fantasy 7 and Kingdom Hearts Series)
Oh yeah, like you all didn’t know this much-glorified fucktard was going to be here. The only surprise here is that Sephiroth didn’t make it to the very top.
When it comes to lame villains, Sephiroth’s kind of the patron saint. This guy is toted by SquareEnix as the man with the strongest willpower on FF7’s planet, and yet he lost his mind from reading a book. What did that book tell him? That his superior power comes from having been implanted with alien cells while he was still in the womb. So you’re 1/3 space monster, big fucking deal. My dad’s Canadian; you don’t see me losing my shit and trying to enact Armageddon in some clumsy attempt to become a god over it. Shouldn’t the “strongest will on the planet” be a little better able to keep together under a little stress?
While it’s not too important, Sephiroth’s look doesn’t exactly help me take him seriously. I mean, he’s essentially a chick in bondage gear, wielding the only sword in history to make Cloud Strife’s look feasible by comparison. Putting aside the obvious fact that he should not, even with super soldier strength, be able to lift and control the stupid thing, even with full ability to manipulate it, it’s still a stupid, ineffectual weapon! Carrying a sword that long would be an incredibly awkward prospect, with it unavoidably poking walls, slicing and stabbing ceilings, and dragging along the floor all the time, and in an actual battle, its length, while admittedly handy for outreaching your opponent, would mean that once it’s been parried off to the side, it can’t be retracted enough that it could be used to make a different attack. You could just hold his blade off to the side with your own and calmly walk up to him; all he could do is try to slide his sword up or down your own, which would only work out if you for some reason forgot to slide it with him, or swing it again from the side. Easy enough to get close, where his ultra long sword suddenly has absolutely no use.
Small surprise that the only people he ever seems to be able to actually beat are unarmed, untrained, and/or taken completely by surprise. But you get anybody who actually knows what they’re doing and is ready to fight, and you get Sephiroth getting thrown down reactor pits, slashed to ribbons, demolished utterly, and fought to a standstill by a 12-year-old who hangs out with Saturday morning cartoon characters and fights with a stupid giant house key. The only time Sephiroth ever seems to accomplish anything is when it’s actually pieces of Jenova shaped like him.
Which brings me to the next point of why he’s fucking lame--he’s never actually DOING anything. The entirety of Final Fantasy 7, he’s just sitting in the fucking northern crater cave, letting Jenova do all the work of freeing itself, controlling former SOLDIERs, fighting Cloud and company, killing Aeris, and retrieving the Black Materia. Sephiroth’s another one of those lazy idiot RPG villains who just sit back and can’t be bothered to actually do his own work. Okay, yeah, fine, it’s not actually laziness, there IS a reason for it--in FF7, I believe he was too wounded by his encounter with Cloud 5 years prior to leave the healing mako energies of the crater, and in the FF7 Advent Children movie, his agents have to do all the work because he’s very busy being dead. But lemme ask you something--which is lamer, him not being able to be bothered to do his own work, or him having gotten so badly punked in the past that he has no choice but to have to rely on others to do his work for him? You’d think being put in magic traction would be enough to convince a guy maybe he’s not the best candidate for godhood, but I guess suppressing rational second thoughts is what that “strongest will on the planet” is doing to make up for being on vacation when he went nuts.
Dear sweet merciful heavens, this guy is just so fucking lame.
1. Dracula (Castlevania Series)
Well, this is honestly a surprise. When I first thought about this list, Dracula never even occurred to me as a possible candidate for it, let alone making the number 1 spot. I figured Sephiroth would be taking this part, or maybe those insufferable tools from FF9, Zorn and Thorn (who didn’t even end up making the list, shockingly). But the more I looked at it, the more this list began to take form...the more I realized that Dracula is the most pathetic RPG villain ever. And why is that? Because he is everyone else on this list put together.
Think about it. Dracula is a colossal fuck-up, just like Ramsus. I mean, the guy resurrects over and over and over again, and every damn time, he’s killed before he can cause much trouble, usually almost immediately after reawakening. When does he ever actually succeed at his goals? Only a couple times, one of which was in Castlevania Legends, does he even get partially there, and CL was an alternate reality and a different Dracula, so...it’s pretty rare for the real Castlevania Dracula to really get anything done. He can’t even seem to leave his room before some Belmont flays him to nothingness.
A lot of the opportunities that his incompetence squanders only come to Dracula because of the work of others, as with Isamu and Sephiroth. Many of Dracula’s resurrections are possible only through the ceaseless efforts of cultists, Dracula’s servant Death, and other vampires. And also like Sephiroth, the guy just sits around waiting to be killed; as I mentioned, most Castlevania games I’m aware of with Dracula never even have the guy leave his damn room. The majority of Dracula’s villainous history can be described by the following set of instructions:
1. Be Revived
2. Sit in Room for a Few Minutes, at Most a Few Hours
3. Fight a Hero
4. Die
At least other recurring villains like Ganondorf have their shit together enough to actually DO some evil stuff before they’re put down again. Being murdered is by this point as mundane and traditional a part of Dracula’s morning experience as having a bowl of cereal.
And of course, he is also a Thumb-Sucking, Irrational, Whiny Little Bitch, as evidenced by Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, which shows the origin of Dracula. I mean, look, I get it that losing the woman you love is a truly horrible thing and one of the worst kinds of pain imaginable, I do. And I don’t blame a guy for getting pissed off at God for letting it happen (don’t AGREE, mind, but don’t blame), and turning his back upon God in that rage. People do actually DO that.
But you know what people DON’T do when they blame God for their unfortunate circumstances, no matter how angry they may be? They don’t try to make a pact with the forces of darkness to become lord of all vampires just so they can stick it to God by being immortal like Him. I mean, what about that even makes SENSE? You’re pissed off with God about not keeping your girlfriend alive, so to defy Him, you...show Him that He’s not the only one who can be immortal? What exactly does the one thing have to do with the other? Hell, your plan involves you choosing to adopt a characteristic of the individual that you hate so much, a characteristic which most prominently separates Him from your late beloved, so, y’know, good thinking there, champ. Then later on apparently Dracula is sweet on some other chick named Lisa, and SHE gets burned for supposedly being a witch or something to that tune, and it’s at that point that he decides to declare war on all of humanity. And, like, yeah, I GET why he’s pissed at humanity for it, and obviously the society where such a thing could happen needs serious overhaul, but rather than go after the people who did the act, or even going after them AND the ones who control and guide the societal evils that led to Lisa’s death, Dracula instead decides that ALL humanity must be destroyed. That’s grossly overreacting; he’s gonna go around killing people who are completely innocent, including people who are good like Lisa and his first girlfriend--he can’t seriously pretend such people don’t exist, he’s shacked up with 2 of them now. So yeah--thumb-sucking, irrational, whiny little bitch? Check.
Oh, yeah, and getting back to his Lament of Innocence debut, the guy’s got another characteristic of lameness in common with Isamu--he’s a hypocrite. Only he’s a much bigger jerk of a hypocrite than Isamu. See, Dracula’s plans to give God the finger by becoming an immortal vampire include the manipulation of his friend Leon Belmont into killing the current master vampire dude, a process which results in the death of Leon’s beloved. And then, once Dracula shows up for his villainous reveal, he’s actually surprised that Leon doesn’t want to join him in vampiring it up. Just...DUDE. You are going to ridiculous extremes out of a hate for God because you blame God for not preventing your girlfriend’s death. You just ACTIVELY created the events that led to Leon’s girlfriend’s death. You actually don’t expect him to be equally righteously pissed off at YOU for ACTUALLY causing her death as you are at God for neglecting to prevent your girl’s passing? Are you SERIOUS? What a fucking idiot!
Anyway...I’ve wasted enough time on this twit. Dracula is the culmination of all the other lamers on this list, and so do I dub him Most Pathetic RPG Villain of All.
Dishonorable Mention: Stupid Organizations (General RPGs)
What’s the only thing worse than a lame villain? A whole organized group of lame villains! What IS it with RPGs and stupid, pathetic villain organizations? You get the trite, gimmicky fuckwits in Organization 13 from the Kingdom Hearts series, who basically have substantially lowered the quality of the games by taking a huge amount of the focus away from the Disney characters with actual depth and personality. You get those lazy, useless doofuses in the Turks from Final Fantasy 7, whose talent at running away is matched only by their talent at losing. And don’t even get me started on Team Magma and especially Team Aqua from Pokemon’s Third Generation. Dear sweet God what a bunch of incompetent numbskulls.
Well THAT was a lot more words than I’d anticipated. As usual.
* One might argue that Isamu (and Chiaki and Hikawa, for that matter) is not truly a villain since one of the 4 major paths of the game can have you ally with him, but I’d point out that following any other path WILL make Isamu one of your major opponents, so that’s still him being an enemy thrice as often as an ally. And he IS out to forcibly remake the world according to his personal beliefs with no regard for anyone else’s opinion on the matter even though his actions will directly affect them--and if that doesn’t just scream “JRPG Villain,” then I don’t know what possibly could.
** Yeah, I realize Shirley’s also one of the good guys in ToL, but there’s a point where she’s ready to go all in on the second villain’s plans of genocide.
*** Okay, fine, there WERE extenuating circumstances, but the core cause of the problem was pretty indisputably Senel’s rejection, since it’s Senel’s romantic 180 later that snaps her out of it.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Shin Megami Tensei 3 Theory: Overall Theme
Shin Megami Tensei 4 comes out this month! While Atlus has been releasing SMT games quite frequently since the SMT series’s start in the 1990s (remarkably frequently, in fact, especially considering that the quality of the titles has been kept pretty consistently high--there hasn’t been a year in the last decade in which a SMT game hasn’t been released, and most of those years had multiple titles), the big, official numbered games of SMT have been quite few, so SMT4 is kind of a big deal. For me, anyway. And in celebration of this, I have decided that for the rest of the year, I’ll be putting up an SMT rant once every month.* Enjoy. Or don’t, as may be the case.
The SMT series is, as I have stated before, pretty darned nifty. Certainly no other RPG series as a whole contains such consistent and thoughtful insights on and use of mythology, religion, and the occult in general--and the surface level of the games’ plot and characters are usually quite engaging, too, meaning that unlike a great many other higher works of storytelling art, SMT is actually fun to experience while you’re gleaning its deeper meanings. Sometimes the overall mythological theme of an SMT game is simple to pick up on. For example, it’s fairly easy to tell that the theme of SMT1 and 2 is Christianity, SMT Persona 3 and 4 is the Tarot, and SMT Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 is Hinduism and Buddhism (the former more than the latter, I think, though some of the most important, core concepts of the story are more Buddhist than Hindu). But quite often, the mythological theme of an SMT game is not transparent, and needs a little bit of thought and interpretation to discover, and I believe that to be the case with Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, also known as Shin Megami Tensei 3. I think I’ve come up with a pretty good interpretation of it, and as a quick bit of searching has not revealed to me any official explanation by Atlus of the game’s theme, I shall share it with you. That said, this is just a theory of mine, so I don’t hold it to be as ironclad and supportable as my usual rant opinions--it’s more just a possibility.
Trying to figure out the mythological theme of SMT3 was tricky for me. Oh, sure, general Christianity seems the first and most likely answer, with Lucifer playing a secretive overseer role as he often does and various parts of the story that fit with it, but non-Christian entities seem to play at least an equal role in the game’s plot, and every individual truly important to the story (the 3 people who create the Reasons (philosophies to choose from), the Manikin leader, Hitoshura himself, and the teacher) seems to be an original, non-denominational character. While every SMT game contains some important cast members whose cultural origins are different from the game’s main thematic mythology, there’s not usually this much, or even, a mixture.
Further compounding my confusion were the angels. In SMT3, the Reason that initially seems closest to the traditional SMT side of Law (which is, in SMT, associated inextricably with God and all things Heaven-born) is Hikawa’s Reason, which emphasizes an abandonment of passion and emotion in favor of pure logic and viewing oneself as a part of a spiritual and social whole rather than as an individual. In games such as Shin Megami Tensei 1, 2, and Strange Journey, we see a similar emphasis on an absence of self and dedication to strict, lawful unity associated with divinity and Law. Yet the angels in SMT3 support Chiaki’s Reason of might makes right, a world where the strongest thrive and rule over the weak, a world which is most definitely closest to the traditional SMT idea of Chaos, the anarchistic idea of pure free will and adherence to no law or society that Lucifer supports and embodies. Why would the angels be shown to support Chiaki, and not Hikawa?
Here’s my theory: Shin Megami Tensei 3 is not about any particular religion, or even religion in as whole a form as a system of belief in something supernatural. Rather, SMT3 is about the foundation of religion’s behavior.
Take away one’s notions of religion as a form of belief for a moment. Strip away the association of deities, higher levels of being, prayer, divinity, spirits, sermons, spirituality itself, just for a moment. Let us look at religion at its most primal, basic, animal sense. What kind of behavior do we see? What social course of action does religion follow?
Well, it varies a bit from one religion to the next. For example, let’s look at Christianity, and its relatives Judaism and Islam. Beyond brotherhood, love, God, prophets, prayer, forgiveness, and all that jazz, there is a clear sense of command to these religions: “This is the True belief, Other beliefs are Untrue, and Everyone should follow this belief, because this belief is Greater than the others.” These are religions whose message is meant to be a personal one, but whose practices are largely social and require frequent confirmation by others in a spiritual community (often those spiritually higher) of one’s faith, religions who have inspired and encouraged missionaries, crusades, and the reward of those within the community of belief and punishment/shunning of those without. The message can be softened and shaped into something more reasonable and moral in practice once you begin adding in the layers of goodness and spirituality and so on, much in the same way that our desires in life are softened and shaped into things more reasonable and moral by our sensibilities and personality and intelligence, and become great and admirable ideals and beliefs. But the innate, most basic desire of Judaism, Islam, and especially Christianity, their Id so to speak, is to expand and convert.
Or we could look at another major set of religions, that of Hinduism and Buddhism. Dig deep into the core of these, past the reincarnations, deities, enlightenment, and so on, and you have a somewhat different prerogative. While organized religions such as Christianity and its kin are formed with communal worship and confirmation and structure in mind, with the idea that all should take part in it, Hinduism and Buddhism are ultimately about the self, and yet also the denial of the self. The message is modified, I think, to be: “This is the True belief, and because it is the only True belief, all other beliefs are simply misguided attempts to be this one. Everyone does follow this belief, whether they know it or not, because this belief is the Only one.”** Because these religions focus their attention on guiding the individual past the human condition and because they are self-assured in their rightness, there’s far less pressure in the social sense for Hinduism and Buddhism, with few public ceremonies and customs to maintain and prove one’s faith and adherence like I mentioned above for the previous religious set. Of greater concern than conversion of others is the focus upon oneself, the elimination of human elements to become greater. Guidance from others is fine, guidance TO others is fine, but it doesn’t have the same necessity. The necessity is the betterment of self, not another, to find a greater personal level of existence and becoming one with all existence, dispassionate and above emotion and individualism.
If we take SMT3’s theme to be these most basic cores of religion, the desire and behavior before the actual belief, then it explains the more varied and level involvement of religions in SMT3, as, ideally, essentially all religions would be covered in one way or another by the game’s Reasons. It also explains why the major characters of the game are all original ones, for they’re meant to embody and interact with philosophies greater than any one faith. It also makes sense of the Angels’ choice to follow Chiaki. Her Reason of might makes right, a world where the strongest are the best and the ones that thrive, actually DOES work extremely well with Christianity’s core behavior model as discussed above--the desire to expand, convert, and overcome its opposition. Oh, absolutely I do not believe that this is the true form of Christianity--its true form is one of love, tolerance, equality, brotherhood, forgiveness, and so many other good and virtuous concepts. But I also absolutely believe that the true nature of a man is more than the base instincts he builds himself upon and over. Thus Christianity’s foundation, if not its real self, is close to Chiaki’s philosophy, and this is shown through the angels’ alliance with her. Lastly, it makes sense within the game’s setting for this idea of the foundation of religions to be the game’s theme, because the whole idea of SMT3 is that the world the game takes place in is currently in its fetal stage, and these conflicting Reasons will determine its future, what kind of world it will become. Well, if SMT3’s setting is a world at its fetal stage, wouldn’t it be appropriate for its theme to be about religion in a similar fetal beginning?
I admit my theory’s not perfect enough for my tastes here. I mean, Chiaki’s Reason of might making right covers the religions whose major intent involves conversion and expansion (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, the Roman pantheon...hell, probably just most religions, really). Hikawa’s Reason also covers the Hinduism and Buddhism side with its abandonment of emotion and self in pursuit of clarity, reason, and harmonious stillness with the world. But I’m not too sure how much meaning, if any, the Manikins’ failed Reason is intended to have. I do have a few ideas about that, though. Since they are made of earth and wish to be free of the abuse of those around them who enslave and/or destroy them indiscriminately, they might be meant to embody religions and belief systems whose focus is upon respect for and care of the natural elements and the environment, such as Wicca and many tribal beliefs. Or perhaps the Reason is meant simply to be a broad example of the many smaller, oft-forgotten religions that get swallowed up by larger ones (particularly Christianity--sorry to belabor the point, God, but your followers do have quite the history of tremendous dickery), shown by the way the Manikins’ attempt to assert their Reason is quickly and thoroughly crushed. And of course, there’s always the possibility that the Manikins’ Reason is not really intended to have any particular meaning at all, at least not to the degree that the others do, since it gets crushed and, if memory serves, supposedly wouldn’t have been allowed as a foundation for the new world anyway.
More than the Manikin Reason, though, Isamu’s Reason causes me to have some doubts to my theory’s validity. I think I have a reasonable idea of what belief system foundation he’s meant to be, but it’s too tenuous for me to be as sure as I am of my interpretations of the other 2 major Reasons. Basically, my thoughts on Isamu’s Reason is that it’s supposed to be the behavior of withdrawal that marks individual beliefs, agnosticism, and atheism. I mean, in the context of the game’s events, the Reasons are how society and humanity will function in the new, reborn world, so if Isamu’s ideal is for every person to exist on their own with no interaction with others, then it stands to reason that the analogy would carry over to the religious behavior foundations in the form of people who, rather than following an organized and/or communal system of belief, instead seek their own answers and come to their own conclusions, more or less independent of others’ guidance and input. It’s not as solid an interpretation as I feel I have of Chiaki and Hikawa’s Reasons in relation to religious behavioral basis, but it does still work, I think, and with Chiaki’s Reason covering extroverted religions and Hikawa’s covering introverted ones, one of the few options left for Isamu’s Reason to cover would be the faith (or lack thereof) formed outside an organized belief system altogether.
This theory of mine is nothing more than conjecture, and the most vindication I can hope for on it is simply not to have some developer’s words officially prove it invalid, but I do nonetheless think it’s an interesting way of looking at Shin Megami Tensei 3. And it’s thematically sound, I’d say, since SMT3’s setting and plot concern the reboot of reality, a world at its fetal stage primed for the development of what it shall be, which would tie perfectly to exploring the seed of thought and behavior that religion is grown from, as I mentioned before. At any rate, it’s an idea I like, and the interpretation of SMT3’s meaning that I’m going to stick to, at least until adequate proof or convincing argument proves me wrong, or a better understanding reveals itself to me.
* This contract assumes, of course, that SMT4 turns out to be good. If it doesn’t, I feel no obligation to fulfill SMT Year on my end. Although if SMT4 is bad enough, it will probably provide enough rant fuel on its own to last the year out anyway, so it still might all work out the same.
** I admit that my understanding of Hinduism and Buddhism is considerably less concrete than my understanding of western religions (which in itself is not 100% solid). I’ve read parts of the Bhagavad Gita and I loved Hesse’s Siddhartha, and I’ve done some independent research on these belief systems, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m barely a novice in this intellectual pursuit, certainly no expert. So bear that in mind here--I’m trying my best to understand and interpret them here, but I may fail to do so well enough.
The SMT series is, as I have stated before, pretty darned nifty. Certainly no other RPG series as a whole contains such consistent and thoughtful insights on and use of mythology, religion, and the occult in general--and the surface level of the games’ plot and characters are usually quite engaging, too, meaning that unlike a great many other higher works of storytelling art, SMT is actually fun to experience while you’re gleaning its deeper meanings. Sometimes the overall mythological theme of an SMT game is simple to pick up on. For example, it’s fairly easy to tell that the theme of SMT1 and 2 is Christianity, SMT Persona 3 and 4 is the Tarot, and SMT Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 is Hinduism and Buddhism (the former more than the latter, I think, though some of the most important, core concepts of the story are more Buddhist than Hindu). But quite often, the mythological theme of an SMT game is not transparent, and needs a little bit of thought and interpretation to discover, and I believe that to be the case with Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, also known as Shin Megami Tensei 3. I think I’ve come up with a pretty good interpretation of it, and as a quick bit of searching has not revealed to me any official explanation by Atlus of the game’s theme, I shall share it with you. That said, this is just a theory of mine, so I don’t hold it to be as ironclad and supportable as my usual rant opinions--it’s more just a possibility.
Trying to figure out the mythological theme of SMT3 was tricky for me. Oh, sure, general Christianity seems the first and most likely answer, with Lucifer playing a secretive overseer role as he often does and various parts of the story that fit with it, but non-Christian entities seem to play at least an equal role in the game’s plot, and every individual truly important to the story (the 3 people who create the Reasons (philosophies to choose from), the Manikin leader, Hitoshura himself, and the teacher) seems to be an original, non-denominational character. While every SMT game contains some important cast members whose cultural origins are different from the game’s main thematic mythology, there’s not usually this much, or even, a mixture.
Further compounding my confusion were the angels. In SMT3, the Reason that initially seems closest to the traditional SMT side of Law (which is, in SMT, associated inextricably with God and all things Heaven-born) is Hikawa’s Reason, which emphasizes an abandonment of passion and emotion in favor of pure logic and viewing oneself as a part of a spiritual and social whole rather than as an individual. In games such as Shin Megami Tensei 1, 2, and Strange Journey, we see a similar emphasis on an absence of self and dedication to strict, lawful unity associated with divinity and Law. Yet the angels in SMT3 support Chiaki’s Reason of might makes right, a world where the strongest thrive and rule over the weak, a world which is most definitely closest to the traditional SMT idea of Chaos, the anarchistic idea of pure free will and adherence to no law or society that Lucifer supports and embodies. Why would the angels be shown to support Chiaki, and not Hikawa?
Here’s my theory: Shin Megami Tensei 3 is not about any particular religion, or even religion in as whole a form as a system of belief in something supernatural. Rather, SMT3 is about the foundation of religion’s behavior.
Take away one’s notions of religion as a form of belief for a moment. Strip away the association of deities, higher levels of being, prayer, divinity, spirits, sermons, spirituality itself, just for a moment. Let us look at religion at its most primal, basic, animal sense. What kind of behavior do we see? What social course of action does religion follow?
Well, it varies a bit from one religion to the next. For example, let’s look at Christianity, and its relatives Judaism and Islam. Beyond brotherhood, love, God, prophets, prayer, forgiveness, and all that jazz, there is a clear sense of command to these religions: “This is the True belief, Other beliefs are Untrue, and Everyone should follow this belief, because this belief is Greater than the others.” These are religions whose message is meant to be a personal one, but whose practices are largely social and require frequent confirmation by others in a spiritual community (often those spiritually higher) of one’s faith, religions who have inspired and encouraged missionaries, crusades, and the reward of those within the community of belief and punishment/shunning of those without. The message can be softened and shaped into something more reasonable and moral in practice once you begin adding in the layers of goodness and spirituality and so on, much in the same way that our desires in life are softened and shaped into things more reasonable and moral by our sensibilities and personality and intelligence, and become great and admirable ideals and beliefs. But the innate, most basic desire of Judaism, Islam, and especially Christianity, their Id so to speak, is to expand and convert.
Or we could look at another major set of religions, that of Hinduism and Buddhism. Dig deep into the core of these, past the reincarnations, deities, enlightenment, and so on, and you have a somewhat different prerogative. While organized religions such as Christianity and its kin are formed with communal worship and confirmation and structure in mind, with the idea that all should take part in it, Hinduism and Buddhism are ultimately about the self, and yet also the denial of the self. The message is modified, I think, to be: “This is the True belief, and because it is the only True belief, all other beliefs are simply misguided attempts to be this one. Everyone does follow this belief, whether they know it or not, because this belief is the Only one.”** Because these religions focus their attention on guiding the individual past the human condition and because they are self-assured in their rightness, there’s far less pressure in the social sense for Hinduism and Buddhism, with few public ceremonies and customs to maintain and prove one’s faith and adherence like I mentioned above for the previous religious set. Of greater concern than conversion of others is the focus upon oneself, the elimination of human elements to become greater. Guidance from others is fine, guidance TO others is fine, but it doesn’t have the same necessity. The necessity is the betterment of self, not another, to find a greater personal level of existence and becoming one with all existence, dispassionate and above emotion and individualism.
If we take SMT3’s theme to be these most basic cores of religion, the desire and behavior before the actual belief, then it explains the more varied and level involvement of religions in SMT3, as, ideally, essentially all religions would be covered in one way or another by the game’s Reasons. It also explains why the major characters of the game are all original ones, for they’re meant to embody and interact with philosophies greater than any one faith. It also makes sense of the Angels’ choice to follow Chiaki. Her Reason of might makes right, a world where the strongest are the best and the ones that thrive, actually DOES work extremely well with Christianity’s core behavior model as discussed above--the desire to expand, convert, and overcome its opposition. Oh, absolutely I do not believe that this is the true form of Christianity--its true form is one of love, tolerance, equality, brotherhood, forgiveness, and so many other good and virtuous concepts. But I also absolutely believe that the true nature of a man is more than the base instincts he builds himself upon and over. Thus Christianity’s foundation, if not its real self, is close to Chiaki’s philosophy, and this is shown through the angels’ alliance with her. Lastly, it makes sense within the game’s setting for this idea of the foundation of religions to be the game’s theme, because the whole idea of SMT3 is that the world the game takes place in is currently in its fetal stage, and these conflicting Reasons will determine its future, what kind of world it will become. Well, if SMT3’s setting is a world at its fetal stage, wouldn’t it be appropriate for its theme to be about religion in a similar fetal beginning?
I admit my theory’s not perfect enough for my tastes here. I mean, Chiaki’s Reason of might making right covers the religions whose major intent involves conversion and expansion (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, the Roman pantheon...hell, probably just most religions, really). Hikawa’s Reason also covers the Hinduism and Buddhism side with its abandonment of emotion and self in pursuit of clarity, reason, and harmonious stillness with the world. But I’m not too sure how much meaning, if any, the Manikins’ failed Reason is intended to have. I do have a few ideas about that, though. Since they are made of earth and wish to be free of the abuse of those around them who enslave and/or destroy them indiscriminately, they might be meant to embody religions and belief systems whose focus is upon respect for and care of the natural elements and the environment, such as Wicca and many tribal beliefs. Or perhaps the Reason is meant simply to be a broad example of the many smaller, oft-forgotten religions that get swallowed up by larger ones (particularly Christianity--sorry to belabor the point, God, but your followers do have quite the history of tremendous dickery), shown by the way the Manikins’ attempt to assert their Reason is quickly and thoroughly crushed. And of course, there’s always the possibility that the Manikins’ Reason is not really intended to have any particular meaning at all, at least not to the degree that the others do, since it gets crushed and, if memory serves, supposedly wouldn’t have been allowed as a foundation for the new world anyway.
More than the Manikin Reason, though, Isamu’s Reason causes me to have some doubts to my theory’s validity. I think I have a reasonable idea of what belief system foundation he’s meant to be, but it’s too tenuous for me to be as sure as I am of my interpretations of the other 2 major Reasons. Basically, my thoughts on Isamu’s Reason is that it’s supposed to be the behavior of withdrawal that marks individual beliefs, agnosticism, and atheism. I mean, in the context of the game’s events, the Reasons are how society and humanity will function in the new, reborn world, so if Isamu’s ideal is for every person to exist on their own with no interaction with others, then it stands to reason that the analogy would carry over to the religious behavior foundations in the form of people who, rather than following an organized and/or communal system of belief, instead seek their own answers and come to their own conclusions, more or less independent of others’ guidance and input. It’s not as solid an interpretation as I feel I have of Chiaki and Hikawa’s Reasons in relation to religious behavioral basis, but it does still work, I think, and with Chiaki’s Reason covering extroverted religions and Hikawa’s covering introverted ones, one of the few options left for Isamu’s Reason to cover would be the faith (or lack thereof) formed outside an organized belief system altogether.
This theory of mine is nothing more than conjecture, and the most vindication I can hope for on it is simply not to have some developer’s words officially prove it invalid, but I do nonetheless think it’s an interesting way of looking at Shin Megami Tensei 3. And it’s thematically sound, I’d say, since SMT3’s setting and plot concern the reboot of reality, a world at its fetal stage primed for the development of what it shall be, which would tie perfectly to exploring the seed of thought and behavior that religion is grown from, as I mentioned before. At any rate, it’s an idea I like, and the interpretation of SMT3’s meaning that I’m going to stick to, at least until adequate proof or convincing argument proves me wrong, or a better understanding reveals itself to me.
* This contract assumes, of course, that SMT4 turns out to be good. If it doesn’t, I feel no obligation to fulfill SMT Year on my end. Although if SMT4 is bad enough, it will probably provide enough rant fuel on its own to last the year out anyway, so it still might all work out the same.
** I admit that my understanding of Hinduism and Buddhism is considerably less concrete than my understanding of western religions (which in itself is not 100% solid). I’ve read parts of the Bhagavad Gita and I loved Hesse’s Siddhartha, and I’ve done some independent research on these belief systems, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m barely a novice in this intellectual pursuit, certainly no expert. So bear that in mind here--I’m trying my best to understand and interpret them here, but I may fail to do so well enough.
Friday, June 28, 2013
General RPGs' AMVs 9
What, more of these things? You’d think the internet would’ve run out by now.
Same deal as always--if you watch it, and like it, please hit the Like button, and better yet, leave a comment for the creator. It seems nearly all the really good AMVs go almost entirely without recognition, and that bothers me greatly.
FALLOUT
Fallout 3: Radioactive, by Pastel Ink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faDiWXtP8Kk
The music used is Radioactive, by Imagine Dragons. Quite frankly, this AMV just tears me up inside. There’s really no doubt that it’s a good video--the scenes’ actions and changes match very well to the music’s flow and tone, and several scenes work nicely with the lyrics. But...this could have been an absolutely INCREDIBLE music video, and it hurts to see it fall short of the potential. I mean, the skill with editing is there, the creativity for connecting the song and visuals is there, it just...it doesn’t do enough with it. So many times there are lyrics going in the song that would fit beautifully to scenes and characters from Fallout 3 (and other Fallouts, but the third game is what seems to be focused on here), and instead all the AMV shows is more slow-mo kills. I mean, don’t get me wrong, a healthy dose of those in this AMV is required to convey the feel and weight of the song and game, but just using that stuff for the filler parts of the song would have done the trick, leaving so many of the more important parts of the song free for a stronger selection of scenes. The creativity to really work it all to its most effective is there, it is, you can see it several times, like at 0:40 to 0:42, when the camera’s focus on the guy’s Power Armor helmet and the camera’s rise and fall combine flawlessly with the singer’s exaggerated breath. But it just...doesn’t show up save for at a few key moments. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is definitely a solid AMV, it just...it could have been legendary. Still, it’s enjoyable, and worth some recognition.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 9: Elevation, by Fellow Hoodlum Inc.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdum57uAOLQ
The music used is Elevation, by U2. Not much to say about this one--it’s just plain good. It does a great job matching scenes to the lyrics and shifts in the music, and overall the whole thing winds up being quite exceptional.
Final Fantasy 12: You Belong With Me, by Monkeypants06: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3OJDocviwU
The “music” used is You Belong With Me, by (blurrrrgh) Taylor Swift. But don’t let that stop you from watching this, because it. Is. Glorious.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: You Were Born for This, by Abzifun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7dQXkYOhQY
The music used is You Were Born for This, by Epic Score. Well, in all honesty, with a song like this, all you’ve gotta do as an AMV maker is try to keep up with it, and it’ll make what you’re doing look pretty awesome almost on its own, but Abzifun definitely does keep up with the tune and matches the scenes to the music well, creating a kickass tribute to the game.
MASS EFFECT
Mass Effect 2: Mass Relax 2, by Neko9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csP9m4OvWvE
The music used is The Legacy, by John Serrie. You may recall Neko9 as being the creator of the very first AMV I ever looked at in a rant, the Parasite Eve 1 AMV, Send Me an Angel. I’m always so pleased when a good AMV creator keeps making their videos, because the really good AMVs are just so damn rare. Anyway, this one’s pretty different; I wasn’t even really sure to count it as an AMV at all. But it’s showing game scenes to a song, so I reckon it qualifies. This video is everything it wants to be--relaxing, beautiful, tranquil, and somehow, even inspiring. Just showcasing the backgrounds and scenery of Mass Effect 2 to the music is more than enough to calm me down in the best of ways, and even to remind me a little of the cosmic beauty that Mass Effect used to so effectively embody. Very lovely.
Mass Effect 2 + 3: Ghost of Love, by ITaliZoraFan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm4JfXfTf20
The music used is Ghost of Love, by The Rasmus. At this point, it’s getting hard for me to come up with new ways to say the same thing about many of these AMVs--this is another music video that is just plain very solid. Put together well, effectively and entertainingly conveys its purpose, uses and meshes the game and music well. It’s fun to see a Shepard x Tali video that’s not your typical really sweet and tender take on them (although I enjoy those very much, if they’re done well), and the creator very skillfully takes advantage of this song’s passion, pain, and power.
Mass Effect 3: Some Peace, by Julciczka: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv5LdfVtlSk
The music used is This Night, by Black Lab. With so many Mass Effect AMVs being upbeat and inspiring (and with good cause; don’t get me wrong, that’s what Shepard’s all about), it’s refreshing to see the heavier, bleaker perspective on Shepard and his journey, and this video exploits the song and Shepard to their full potential, giving us a sober reminder of Shepard’s difficulties and regrets, and that which he has to leave behind, give up on, at his adventure’s finale. The video really provides and explores a great take on Shepard, and tells its story through great and appropriate scene selection.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha 1 + 2: Raidou Shall Open Your Heart, by MargueriteProduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agLUpcxxeXU
The music used is Open Your Heart, from Sonic Adventure 1. This one does an adequate job of following the tune of the music with the game scenes, but it does really well with coordinating the visuals to the song’s lyrics, well enough that the end result is that this AMV makes the song work better for Raidou than it probably did for the actual game it was made for--I can’t claim to know that for a fact, since I’ve never played Sonic Adventure 1, but I’d think it were a safe bet. Unfortunately, it’s a little hard to tell some of the lyrics; the song’s music kinda overpowers them at times, but MargueriteProduction has helpfully put the lyrics up on the screen, so the viewer can properly appreciate the connection of game to music. Non-Persona SMT AMVs are sadly uncommon, so it’s always a treat to find a well-made one like this.
Same deal as always--if you watch it, and like it, please hit the Like button, and better yet, leave a comment for the creator. It seems nearly all the really good AMVs go almost entirely without recognition, and that bothers me greatly.
FALLOUT
Fallout 3: Radioactive, by Pastel Ink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faDiWXtP8Kk
The music used is Radioactive, by Imagine Dragons. Quite frankly, this AMV just tears me up inside. There’s really no doubt that it’s a good video--the scenes’ actions and changes match very well to the music’s flow and tone, and several scenes work nicely with the lyrics. But...this could have been an absolutely INCREDIBLE music video, and it hurts to see it fall short of the potential. I mean, the skill with editing is there, the creativity for connecting the song and visuals is there, it just...it doesn’t do enough with it. So many times there are lyrics going in the song that would fit beautifully to scenes and characters from Fallout 3 (and other Fallouts, but the third game is what seems to be focused on here), and instead all the AMV shows is more slow-mo kills. I mean, don’t get me wrong, a healthy dose of those in this AMV is required to convey the feel and weight of the song and game, but just using that stuff for the filler parts of the song would have done the trick, leaving so many of the more important parts of the song free for a stronger selection of scenes. The creativity to really work it all to its most effective is there, it is, you can see it several times, like at 0:40 to 0:42, when the camera’s focus on the guy’s Power Armor helmet and the camera’s rise and fall combine flawlessly with the singer’s exaggerated breath. But it just...doesn’t show up save for at a few key moments. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is definitely a solid AMV, it just...it could have been legendary. Still, it’s enjoyable, and worth some recognition.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 9: Elevation, by Fellow Hoodlum Inc.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdum57uAOLQ
The music used is Elevation, by U2. Not much to say about this one--it’s just plain good. It does a great job matching scenes to the lyrics and shifts in the music, and overall the whole thing winds up being quite exceptional.
Final Fantasy 12: You Belong With Me, by Monkeypants06: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3OJDocviwU
The “music” used is You Belong With Me, by (blurrrrgh) Taylor Swift. But don’t let that stop you from watching this, because it. Is. Glorious.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: You Were Born for This, by Abzifun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7dQXkYOhQY
The music used is You Were Born for This, by Epic Score. Well, in all honesty, with a song like this, all you’ve gotta do as an AMV maker is try to keep up with it, and it’ll make what you’re doing look pretty awesome almost on its own, but Abzifun definitely does keep up with the tune and matches the scenes to the music well, creating a kickass tribute to the game.
MASS EFFECT
Mass Effect 2: Mass Relax 2, by Neko9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csP9m4OvWvE
The music used is The Legacy, by John Serrie. You may recall Neko9 as being the creator of the very first AMV I ever looked at in a rant, the Parasite Eve 1 AMV, Send Me an Angel. I’m always so pleased when a good AMV creator keeps making their videos, because the really good AMVs are just so damn rare. Anyway, this one’s pretty different; I wasn’t even really sure to count it as an AMV at all. But it’s showing game scenes to a song, so I reckon it qualifies. This video is everything it wants to be--relaxing, beautiful, tranquil, and somehow, even inspiring. Just showcasing the backgrounds and scenery of Mass Effect 2 to the music is more than enough to calm me down in the best of ways, and even to remind me a little of the cosmic beauty that Mass Effect used to so effectively embody. Very lovely.
Mass Effect 2 + 3: Ghost of Love, by ITaliZoraFan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm4JfXfTf20
The music used is Ghost of Love, by The Rasmus. At this point, it’s getting hard for me to come up with new ways to say the same thing about many of these AMVs--this is another music video that is just plain very solid. Put together well, effectively and entertainingly conveys its purpose, uses and meshes the game and music well. It’s fun to see a Shepard x Tali video that’s not your typical really sweet and tender take on them (although I enjoy those very much, if they’re done well), and the creator very skillfully takes advantage of this song’s passion, pain, and power.
Mass Effect 3: Some Peace, by Julciczka: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv5LdfVtlSk
The music used is This Night, by Black Lab. With so many Mass Effect AMVs being upbeat and inspiring (and with good cause; don’t get me wrong, that’s what Shepard’s all about), it’s refreshing to see the heavier, bleaker perspective on Shepard and his journey, and this video exploits the song and Shepard to their full potential, giving us a sober reminder of Shepard’s difficulties and regrets, and that which he has to leave behind, give up on, at his adventure’s finale. The video really provides and explores a great take on Shepard, and tells its story through great and appropriate scene selection.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha 1 + 2: Raidou Shall Open Your Heart, by MargueriteProduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agLUpcxxeXU
The music used is Open Your Heart, from Sonic Adventure 1. This one does an adequate job of following the tune of the music with the game scenes, but it does really well with coordinating the visuals to the song’s lyrics, well enough that the end result is that this AMV makes the song work better for Raidou than it probably did for the actual game it was made for--I can’t claim to know that for a fact, since I’ve never played Sonic Adventure 1, but I’d think it were a safe bet. Unfortunately, it’s a little hard to tell some of the lyrics; the song’s music kinda overpowers them at times, but MargueriteProduction has helpfully put the lyrics up on the screen, so the viewer can properly appreciate the connection of game to music. Non-Persona SMT AMVs are sadly uncommon, so it’s always a treat to find a well-made one like this.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
General RPGs' Level Caps
Any RPG that has characters gain levels to get stronger has a level cap, a point at which a character, upon reaching it, ceases to continue getting stronger (at least by means of leveling up). Most often the cap is set to Level 99, although with some games it can be higher. Star Ocean 3, for example, has a level cap of 255, while the standard for Nippon Ichi games is, I believe, 9999 (Nippon Ichi does love its stat extravagance). With some games, the level cap is set lower. This is usually the case in Western RPGs, such as Mass Effect 1, where the cap was set at 60, although not always--Fallout 2, a Western RPG, had a cap of the JRPG standard 99, while Super Mario RPG, a Japanese RPG, stopped at Level 30.
For most RPGs, this is not a problem. While it’s certainly possible to get to Level 99 in, say, Final Fantasy 6, you’re only going to do so if you spend hours and hours in random battles level-grinding, putting the game’s story on hold to do so. Obviously it becomes even more of an endeavor of time and patience with high caps--you can pretty comfortably beat Star Ocean 2, for example, at level 80 to 90, which is 115 to 125 levels short of the cap, and even if you want to pursue the optional ultra-bosses, a little skill and strategy will keep you from needing to go too close to the cap. But even lesser level caps can be fine in a well-balanced game. Those mere 30 levels in Super Mario RPG will take you pretty much to the game’s end, barring any extensive level-grinding, and if I recall correctly, you literally cannot hit the highest level of Mass Effect 1’s 60 without multiple playthroughs anyway, as there are a finite number of enemies and quests and such during the course of the game.
Unfortunately, the level cap CAN be a problem with some games that are not balanced well. And I hate to generalize, but I’ve found that this problem really only exists with Western RPGs. I cannot recall playing the JRPG for which simply going through the game’s plot and pursuing all its sidequests will, without specifically setting aside time to mow down random baddies to gain extra experience, cause your characters to hit the level cap significantly earlier than the game’s end. It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine. In fact, it just plain drives me crazy.
You take Fallout 3, for example. Now, Fallout 3 is a fairly mild case of this, because for most of the game, you’re pretty much all set. Things are generally pretty well balanced, so it takes a good while for the player to hit the original Level 20 cap. But if you’re going through Fallout 3 pretty thoroughly (exploring each location, using your Skills, killing whatever enemies you encounter, and completing the majority of the game’s quests), you’re gonna hit Level 20, and it’s gonna be before the game’s finale. It then becomes very annoying to me to keep playing the game as I have until that point. I mean, if I can no longer gain experience from it, what real incentive do I have to combat enemies and waste my ammunition when I have enough HP and restorative options to just walk by them through to the next area of whatever ruin I’m exploring? Why bother using my eyes to identify and Skills to disarm traps when I’m strong enough and have accumulated so excessively many Stimpaks that I can just skip on through a minefield without any problem? I admit I get a bit obsessive with that little “cha-ching” and experience ticker that show up whenever you get XP in Fallout 3, requiring their satisfaction to motivate me to do anything outside the strictly necessary, but still! A game like Fallout 3 is designed to reward the player’s involvement in its world in 3 immediate ways: Karma, Loot, and XP. And since Karma’s barely a factor and loot applies more to non-XP-giving situations than anything, it makes the game start to feel empty if you have to go on without it. Admittedly, the DLC packages increase the level cap, but they also provide enough content to cover most of that increase, meaning that you’ll still be hitting that XP wall too early.
It’s much worse with Fallout: New Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas had a level cap of 30 to 50 (depending on what DLCs you got; the original game, however, is 30), which is higher than Fallout 3’s, but they balanced the game much worse at the same time. In Fallout: New Vegas, there are a TON of enemies who give the maximum 50 XP upon being killed; in fact, I think there’s more that give out that max amount than there are enemies worth fewer points. With Fallout 3, at least, only a few enemies were worth that full amount, and they weren’t freakin’ everywhere. Even with the 10 additional levels that Fallout: New Vegas’s cap has over Fallout 3’s, I still hit Level 50 when I was only about 65% of the way through exploring the game’s content! Thank goodness for the modding community having more sense than the game’s actual developers, and releasing various mods to raise that cap to something reasonable.
And don’t even get me started on Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. A classic and impressive game in most ways, but good lord, if you’re fighting enemies yourself in that game,* you can be hitting the Level 50 cap before you’re halfway through it!
I don’t think I’m being unfair with my expectations. I think it’s reasonable to expect that an RPG’s level cap be set at a point where it’s only going to be close to being reached at the game’s very endpoint, going by the assumption that a player fights any and all random enemies they encounter along the way but isn’t just walking back and forth looking for more baddies to bash. RPGs are generally boring to play already--taking away the main gameplay-related reward for playing through them is not a good thing! And the fact that all the instances of game imbalance resulting in too low a level cap I’ve encountered have come from Western RPGs, ones that pride themselves on the draw of the player’s ability to direct his character’s growth, makes it that much worse. If, in Fallout and Arcanum and the other games that suffer from an inadequate level cap, character advancement is such an important feature of the playing experience, shouldn’t THEY, of all games, be the ones to get it right?
* Arcanum has this game mechanic where you get significantly less experience for slain enemies if your companions are the ones who do the slaying.
For most RPGs, this is not a problem. While it’s certainly possible to get to Level 99 in, say, Final Fantasy 6, you’re only going to do so if you spend hours and hours in random battles level-grinding, putting the game’s story on hold to do so. Obviously it becomes even more of an endeavor of time and patience with high caps--you can pretty comfortably beat Star Ocean 2, for example, at level 80 to 90, which is 115 to 125 levels short of the cap, and even if you want to pursue the optional ultra-bosses, a little skill and strategy will keep you from needing to go too close to the cap. But even lesser level caps can be fine in a well-balanced game. Those mere 30 levels in Super Mario RPG will take you pretty much to the game’s end, barring any extensive level-grinding, and if I recall correctly, you literally cannot hit the highest level of Mass Effect 1’s 60 without multiple playthroughs anyway, as there are a finite number of enemies and quests and such during the course of the game.
Unfortunately, the level cap CAN be a problem with some games that are not balanced well. And I hate to generalize, but I’ve found that this problem really only exists with Western RPGs. I cannot recall playing the JRPG for which simply going through the game’s plot and pursuing all its sidequests will, without specifically setting aside time to mow down random baddies to gain extra experience, cause your characters to hit the level cap significantly earlier than the game’s end. It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine. In fact, it just plain drives me crazy.
You take Fallout 3, for example. Now, Fallout 3 is a fairly mild case of this, because for most of the game, you’re pretty much all set. Things are generally pretty well balanced, so it takes a good while for the player to hit the original Level 20 cap. But if you’re going through Fallout 3 pretty thoroughly (exploring each location, using your Skills, killing whatever enemies you encounter, and completing the majority of the game’s quests), you’re gonna hit Level 20, and it’s gonna be before the game’s finale. It then becomes very annoying to me to keep playing the game as I have until that point. I mean, if I can no longer gain experience from it, what real incentive do I have to combat enemies and waste my ammunition when I have enough HP and restorative options to just walk by them through to the next area of whatever ruin I’m exploring? Why bother using my eyes to identify and Skills to disarm traps when I’m strong enough and have accumulated so excessively many Stimpaks that I can just skip on through a minefield without any problem? I admit I get a bit obsessive with that little “cha-ching” and experience ticker that show up whenever you get XP in Fallout 3, requiring their satisfaction to motivate me to do anything outside the strictly necessary, but still! A game like Fallout 3 is designed to reward the player’s involvement in its world in 3 immediate ways: Karma, Loot, and XP. And since Karma’s barely a factor and loot applies more to non-XP-giving situations than anything, it makes the game start to feel empty if you have to go on without it. Admittedly, the DLC packages increase the level cap, but they also provide enough content to cover most of that increase, meaning that you’ll still be hitting that XP wall too early.
It’s much worse with Fallout: New Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas had a level cap of 30 to 50 (depending on what DLCs you got; the original game, however, is 30), which is higher than Fallout 3’s, but they balanced the game much worse at the same time. In Fallout: New Vegas, there are a TON of enemies who give the maximum 50 XP upon being killed; in fact, I think there’s more that give out that max amount than there are enemies worth fewer points. With Fallout 3, at least, only a few enemies were worth that full amount, and they weren’t freakin’ everywhere. Even with the 10 additional levels that Fallout: New Vegas’s cap has over Fallout 3’s, I still hit Level 50 when I was only about 65% of the way through exploring the game’s content! Thank goodness for the modding community having more sense than the game’s actual developers, and releasing various mods to raise that cap to something reasonable.
And don’t even get me started on Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. A classic and impressive game in most ways, but good lord, if you’re fighting enemies yourself in that game,* you can be hitting the Level 50 cap before you’re halfway through it!
I don’t think I’m being unfair with my expectations. I think it’s reasonable to expect that an RPG’s level cap be set at a point where it’s only going to be close to being reached at the game’s very endpoint, going by the assumption that a player fights any and all random enemies they encounter along the way but isn’t just walking back and forth looking for more baddies to bash. RPGs are generally boring to play already--taking away the main gameplay-related reward for playing through them is not a good thing! And the fact that all the instances of game imbalance resulting in too low a level cap I’ve encountered have come from Western RPGs, ones that pride themselves on the draw of the player’s ability to direct his character’s growth, makes it that much worse. If, in Fallout and Arcanum and the other games that suffer from an inadequate level cap, character advancement is such an important feature of the playing experience, shouldn’t THEY, of all games, be the ones to get it right?
* Arcanum has this game mechanic where you get significantly less experience for slain enemies if your companions are the ones who do the slaying.
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