Shin Megami Tensei 5's Chaos Route's Inferiority

The last time I talked about Shin Megami Tensei 5, I ranted about its greatest weakness, the fact that it’s just too damned light on its story to adequately function.  The game feels empty, with its plot rushed through, its characters narratively starved, its story beats too few and far between, and its ideas, concepts, and themes sparsely explored, if at all.  Atlus foolishly chose to exaggerate its traditional light touch with SMT’s writing into a nearly hands-off approach, and as a result, the game doesn’t manage to say what it wants to, has no emotional or philosophical grasp on its audience, and at many points is outright incapable of even connecting its plot elements.  If we were to liken an adequately, functionally voluminous story to, say, your average power plant, then Shin Megami Tensei 5’s narrative is the HELIOS One power plant when you first find it in Fallout: New Vegas--still technically functioning, but so neglected and mishandled by the drug-addled moron in charge that it’s running at 1% efficiency on a good day.

But beyond its major, glaring overall fault, Shin Megami Tensei 5 is also a bad RPG for its story’s significant components.  It’s not just that all the parts of the game’s plot engine were assembled together without care--those parts themselves are frequently of poor grade.  And I think the most painfully obvious example of this is just how ineptly executed the game’s Chaos route is.

First, and mainly, SMT5’s Chaos route is represented by the 2 least interesting, least developed, least expressive, least forthcoming characters in the entire game--and considering which game we’re talking about, that’s saying something.  Both Atsuta the Chaos Hero and his patron Director Koshimizu are austere, terse boards of wood defined by a single, completely static, largely undeveloped personality trait.  With Koshimizu, it’s a desire to restore Japan’s gods to their place as the nation’s protectors and caretakers, while Atsuta’s 1 guiding trait is a wholly undefined desire to protect Tokyo.

And that’s it.  That’s all there is to either of them.  Do you want an understanding of why Director Dumbass is pulling so hard for his version of Chaos?  Too fucking bad for you.  Do you want some background as to why Atsuta feels so strongly about protecting Tokyo no matter what?  Too fucking bad for you.*  Do you want a more rational, detailed explanation from Koshimizu as to how bickering pantheon factions (not all the Japanese deities particularly like each other, as the game itself notes) are going to be the best way to keep Tokyo safe?  Too fucking bad for you.  Do you want to see a scene, a conversation, a couple lines of dialogue, a single sentence of monologue, anything from Atsuta showing him thinking about the issue of the world’s future and coming to the conclusion that Koshimizu’s Chaos philosophy is in the best interests of Tokyo?
TOO
FUCKING
BAD
FOR
YOU

But hey, if you’re here to watch 2 guys make declarative statements in monotone, end the story as exactly the same people they started it without having grown in any way, and stare severely at each other while occasionally gritting their teeth in austere determination, then man has Atlus ever got the game for you.

Contrast this to Daizo and Abdiel, the Law Hero and his patron.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, the story of Daizo’s journey from fumbling, indecisive twat to laughably over-the-top sneering teleporting Scott Farkus is rushed, as awkward as he himself is, and falls apart under even light rational scrutiny--but his story is THERE, at least.  You actually SEE a couple of scenes in which Daizo is distraught over what to do about the state of the world, you actually HEAR him give a couple simple reasons for why God’s order is necessary, and you can TELL how he comes to his conclusion for what must be done in order to preserve Law, and why.  It’s rushed, it’s a line of logic that’s almost juvenile in its simplicity, it’s laughably over-the-top as Dazai flips his switch from Mewling Coward to Shonen Anime Badass, and damned if I can figure out why the hell he's so fucking hot for God’s order nor why he thinks that order's so damned necessary to keep humanity safe, but the game’s at least going through some motions of showing how and why Dazai takes on the Law Hero mantle.

That’s sure as hell a lot more than you can say for Atsuta, who starts the story fixated on Tokyo’s security and does not once change or question a single thing about that desire or how it’s to be achieved.  Dazai’s out walking in circles as he vocally works through the problem of the world’s future and reasons his way to the conclusion that he must corrupt the highest authority of God’s law to the point that she can break that law as the only means to preserve it--meanwhile Director Dipshit tells Atsuta that a squabbling menagerie of lesser deities is a good idea solely because they have home turf advantage, and Atsuta just unquestioningly snaps to attention like an army recruit caricature and that’s the end of it.

The monumental gap in quality between Abdiel as a character and Koshimizu is much the same.  Abdiel has an actual character arc(angel); she’s the herald of a dead god who’s stuck between a fanatical devotion to His decrees and the fact that those decrees restrict her to the point that she cannot successfully champion them, and it’s only when she allows a mortal to corrupt her into a fallen angel that she can work outside of God’s law freely enough to effectively fight for its cause.  I wouldn’t call it a great story--I wouldn’t even say it’s done well enough to be a good story--but an angel willingly becoming a monster and pariah because the only way to serve the will of God’s law is to defy its letter...it’s at least interesting in its concept.  You actually get to see the fall of Abdiel and understand why it’s a thing of glory for her and her cause rather than disgrace, and you understand how and why she got there as a character.

And by contrast, Koshimizu has...nothing.  No character arc.  No motivation or personality trait but that which is so superficial that it’s fully and completely expressed by a simple declarative statement or 2.  No explanation of how and why he came to his conclusion as to the best path for the world’s future.  We have an angel willingly fall to darkness out of necessity in order to be the champion of God’s light after His death in 1 corner, and in the other, we have a guy whose most impassioned appeals sound like an internal email statement from Corporate.

Jesus Christ, I can’t believe that we’ve got characters so static and boring in this game that they make Walter and Joshua in Shin Megami Tensei 4-1 look exciting and engaging by comparison.  Even their inadequate cases of character development can be more demonstrably charted than Atsuta’s.

Second huge, huge flaw with the Chaos route in Shin Megami Tensei 5?  It doesn’t even make sense for Atsuta or Koshimizu to believe in it.  These individuals may both have underdeveloped, forlorn, malnourished farces of character, but even the inadequate scraps of personality present in both Director Doofus and his mindless goon SHOULD stand in direct opposition to the world that Chaos is shooting for.  This isn’t just a case where these major characters are lacking narrative attention--they also suck because what’s there (and what’s missing) is poorly made.

First of all, Atsuta.  Atsuta’s whole thing, his ONLY thing, is that he wants to protect Tokyo and its people, including his sickly sister.  After Sahori is killed in the (long, tiresome, drawn-out) incident with Lahmu, Atsuta’s reaction is to express his regrets that he couldn’t save her, saying that the whole reason he got the demon summoning program was to prevent something like that from happening.  Atsuta wants to protect those who can’t protect themselves, to protect the weak from evil demons and from bullies alike.  And, uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the concept of the strong defending the weak 1 of the most important core tenets of the LAW side of Shin Megami Tensei?  Traditionally, Chaos in SMT means a cutthroat world where the strong thrive by taking from and subjugating the weak.  Even if, admittedly, the SMT5 Chaos route is somewhat different from the typical direction of the series, there’s no denying that Atsuta’s driving focus of defending the defenseless is definitely the behavior of a champion of Law.  Hell, SMT5 even had a sidequest early in the game in which the goddess Apsaras, established to be the representative of Law in that matter, was doing just that for various lesser demons--protecting them from the harsh world around them because they couldn’t do so themselves.  No damn wonder Atlus didn’t have Atsuta even faintly question anything Koshimizu tells him; the moment you even questioningly glance at the idea that Atsuta would be the proponent of Chaos, the idea crumbles to bits faster than consumer trust in Bethesda did on November 14, 2018.

And speaking of the incident with Sahori and Lahmu, Atsuta has witnessed through this event the ways in which the helpless are mistreated and trampled by gods who want something from them.  Yet we’re somehow supposed to buy that this supposed stalwart defender of the meek thinks, even after seeing how things went with Lahmu, that his best move to protect Tokyo is to create a world in which entire pantheons of these smaller deities are running amok with no higher force to keep them in check?

Frankly, the Chaos route doesn’t even seem all that logical for its patron saint Koshimizu to believe in, either.  I mean, this guy is adamantly convinced that the best thing for Tokyo’s welfare is to put it in the care of a gaggle of local gods, theoretically working together to benefit the city.  Yet...shouldn't every part of Koshimizu’s experience in the last 20 years tell him that this is false?  Because since the initial holy war in which his brethren were killed, Director Diddledick has been a 1-man show running Tokyo as both its civil and military leader.  He’s said to basically be single-handedly keeping the city functioning even while also personally directing its security efforts and coordinating with Abdiel and the other Bethel alliance leaders.  For 2 decades, Koshimizu has been calling every shot in Tokyo, unquestioned by anyone else in the city, surrounded only by underlings, never peers.  And he’s been doing a fine enough job of it; things in Tokyo have run smoothly enough that no one’s even aware of the true nature of the devastated world beyond their borders.  Koshimizu can’t possibly fail to see the benefits of the single, infallible leader structure of the Law side of things, as he’s been that leader to Tokyo for longer than most of the major characters of this game have even been alive.  Maybe if we’d seen some indication that he’s tired or hates the burden of being the sole leader who can keep the city safe and functioning, then his eagerness to have a world where he’s only 1 of many who oversee the city would make sense, but, well, as previously mentioned, the guy gets absolutely 0 in way of character development.  So all we’ve got is an absolute leader who has actively maintained the absolute nature of his leadership for decades to demonstrable success taking up arms against the philosophy that supports absolute leadership.  It’s dumb.

And you know, not for nothing, but the narrative itself doesn’t exactly make a great argument for Chaos.  I mean, as I mentioned, Chapter 2 of the game basically shows us that when other gods are allowed to pursue their own goals, human beings are the collateral damage that comes with that--or helpless commodities to be acquired.  Dazai’s take-away from seeing the dissolution of the Bethel alliance is a crude one that doesn’t bother accounting for mitigating circumstances, but his criticism of Chaos born from that scene isn’t entirely wrong--the only example the game has shown us of a group of deities working together to protect their human charges is one which, immediately after being introduced to the audience, dissolved because there was no longer a higher power to keep them from pursuing purely selfish aims (and in Odin’s case, that aim involves, like Lahmu, human beings being helpless victims of his pursuit for power).  The closest thing you might get to a positive spin on Chaos’s world is the sidequest where Khonsu is trying to make Miyazu a demigoddess or whatever so she won’t die from her illness, but while well-intentioned, even that’s not really a positive example of the whole “lesser gods watching out for humanity” thing, because he’s ignoring her own wishes in the matter and basically has to be beaten near to death before he even thinks about respecting her autonomy as regards her own actual life.

By contrast, you get positive examples of Law in the game.  For all its failings, Bethel has managed to tenaciously endure a war against the demons for 20 years in which all of its highest generals and even God Himself were eliminated early on.  God at least did Tokyo and its people a solid by using a miracle to save it from annihilation before He kicked it.  The source of the protagonist’s victories in the game is invariably attributed to the fact that he’s a Nahobino, rather than the fact that he also commands a bunch of demons to fight alongside him--putting the emphasis of success on an all-powerful leader alone, rather than on a joint effort of several individuals working together.  The only continuously functional and positive community we see is that of the Fairies, and they’re a monarchy, a decidedly Law-styled system of government.  Even Koshimizu himself, if you judge him by his accomplishments and his role in Tokyo’s stability, is, as I mentioned before, an icon of Law’s idea of a single, infallible leader protecting and watching over the many.  

Similarly, there’s positive data for choosing the Neutral path(s).  The world’s terrible state is undeniably a result of the interference of gods, angels, and demons, and the majority of crimes and tragedies that occur over SMT5’s course are the fault of demons.  If you can get past what a tiresome unlikable self-important arrogant douchebag piece of shit Yakumo is--admittedly quite a challenge; the guy’s like a less emotive Albel Nox--then there’s plenty of evidence in the game for why Neutral’s goal of getting all these demons to fuck the hell off once and for all is a viable path.

But Chaos just doesn’t have anything in the game itself that significantly supports it.  There’s plenty of examples of Law’s failings in SMT5, to be sure, and even the Neutral route has some major glaring flaws at its conclusion (to be discussed in a future rant about SMT5’s endings), but there’s at least some cause, narratively, to support ideals for each, which the player can point to for rationale in choosing either Law or Neutral.  The same can’t be said of Chaos; the idea of a joint pantheon of lower gods being the ones protecting and guiding humanity has only negative associations within the game’s events and characters.

It’s frustrating.  Admittedly, of the standard Shin Megami Tensei philosophical doctrines, Chaos is the one I usually buy into the very least, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate and want it to be a reasonably equal, viable competitor to Law and Neutral.  Yet in Shin Megami Tensei 5, Chaos is easily and transparently the option with the least attention or consideration given by the writers, championed by characters that are each a poor fit for it, whose rationale and association with it are utterly unexplored, and who possess all the depth and charisma of a sheet of plywood, as well as the route that the game’s own direction and events uniformly contradict and condemn.  And this really isn’t even the end of the story of how the Chaos faction of Shin Megami Tensei 5 sucks; it’s just that the remaining reasons are related to broad enough topics that they’re gonna be a part of additional rants forthcoming.  No part of Shin Megami Tensei 5 is good by any stretch of the imagination, but some parts are definitely worse than others, and the Chaos route is easily 1 of its weakest areas.













* Technically there’s some very softly understated implication that it’s tied to Atsuta’s fixation on protecting his ill sister Miyazu, but considering how little he interacts with her--and most of those interactions occur offscreen, to boot--and how her being his motivation quickly stops being brought up, and that the entire little sidequest arc about her poor health never once involves Atsuta for even a single line of dialogue, it’s pretty fucking safe to say that she is effectively irrelevant to his character.

Chrono Trigger's Anime Cutscene Selection

When you stop to think about it, Squaresoft’s choice of placement and priority for the cutscenes in Chrono Trigger’s Playstation 1 rerelease is...not all that great.  Like, look at the first anime cinematic in the game.  Not the obligatory opening, mind you--the first one in the game.  It’s the scene in 2300 AD, when Crono, Marle, and Lucca first discover Robo.

I would like you to think about that for a moment.  The first cutscene shown in Chrono Trigger is meeting Robo.  That’s, what, a quarter of the way through the entire game?  A fifth at the very least.  20 - 25% of the game will have passed by before you see its first cinematic.  By that point you’ve forgotten that the game is supposed to have them; it takes you by surprise.

And also think about what exactly has transpired by that point.  Not to say that meeting Robo isn’t an important event in Chrono Trigger’s narrative, but they didn’t make a cutscene for meeting Marle, Lucca, or Frog.  There wasn’t one for the sudden, jarring turning point in which Marle is erased from history before Crono’s eyes.  You see no anime representation of the moment that the party first beholds the ruined world of 2300 AD (normally I feel that establishing shots are a waste of FMV, admittedly, but 2300 AD’s setting is a rare case where it’s warranted), nor the dramatic exit Crono is forced to make from the trial after his sentencing.  By heavens, there is no cutscene for the moment in which Marle is transported through time, nor when Crono follows her!  The monumental, dramatic moment in which time travel is first introduced to this game, the beginning of all that is to come, arguably the most fundamentally significant event in this world’s entire history, and Square decided that it wasn’t worth special commemoration.  Mind-boggling.*

And while the middle of Chrono Trigger is generally good about emphasizing the really important plot moments with a cutscene, the cinematics go weirdly silent in its last quarter/fifth, too.  The very last anime FMV you see in the game, aside from its ending, is Crono’s demise.  Everything after that is in-game portrayal only, for so long that by the end of the game you may have once again forgotten about the anime FMV altogether.  There’s no cutscene for the cataclysm following the Ocean Palace disaster.  Nor for the moment the new Epoch is revealed, or when the heroes find Magus at the cape.  There isn’t one for Robo confronting Atropos or Mother Brain, or the party entering Fiona’s Shrine and finding Robo at its center.**  There’s no special scene for the ghost of Cyrus emerging from his grave, or Marle leaping through the stained glass window of the courtroom to save her father.  The Rainbow Shell, the Sun Stone, the Green Dream...all denied the fanfare of a cinematic.  Likewise, there’s no animation devoted to the emergence of the Black Omen, the final confrontation with Queen Zeal, or the revelation of Lavos’s inner heart.  Squaresoft did not see fit to commemorate Crono’s salvation!

And sure, yeah, I get it.  The Playstation 1 had limited space on its discs.  FMV was expensive.  And Akira Toriyama is, for some reason, a highly respected artist, so I can only assume that he’s expensive, too.  There could only be so much anime footage put into the game; the line had to be drawn somewhere and cuts had to be made.  

But did 1 of those cuts really have to be the first time portal opening and drawing Marle into it, starting the whole epic adventure?  You’re telling me THAT is less important than seeing Ayla jump on a dinosaur and fly off?  Squaresoft didn’t have the resources to iconize Crono’s friends overcoming death itself and holding all of time within their hands for a moment, to bring him back to the world...but it COULD justify animating an inappropriate, classless prophecy of Guardia’s fall that has nothing to do whatsoever with THIS game to begin with?  Neither Marle nor Lucca, respectively the heart and mind of the party, and arguably the 2 most indispensable characters to the entire story, have a single damn cutscene to call their own within the game, but Squaresoft did take the time to needlessly, hamfistedly cram a portrayal of Janus’s prediction of doom into Chrono’s death scene?  Hell, the animated opening’s good, but it’s just an opening--I’d have gladly traded it for the chance to use its comparatively extensive length on seeing a full portrayal of Marle disappearing into time, Lavos arriving on the planet as he crashes down onto Tyrano Lair, Lucca and Taban unveiling the Telepod at the Millennium Fair, and the moment in which we’re introduced to Schala.  You know--stuff that’s actually significant.

Also, not for nothing, but the Playstation 1 wasn’t the last time Chrono Trigger was rereleased.  It’s come out a few times since.  While admittedly SquareEnix has predictably botched its newer rereleases with their signature incompetence for smooth adaptation of gameplay and aesthetic mechanics, it’s not like there hasn’t been opportunities for them to call up Toriyama, throw some money and animators at him, and have him whip up a few new cutscenes for the game.  Frankly, distracting him from producing Dragon Ball Super could’ve been SquareEnix’s generous gift to the world.  What, they could code superfluous bonus dungeons that add nothing and further inflict the harm of association with Chrono Cross on the later releases, but adding something actually enjoyable for the players was out of the question?  But of course, that would require SquareEnix to treat Chrono Trigger and its fans with the barest shred of respect, so of course it’s impossible.  I wonder if we’ll ever know why the company perpetually seems to resent this game so damn much.

Look, it’s not like Chrono Trigger wasted its FMVs like so many other RPGs of the era did (with the exception of the crappy fall of Guardia one, of course).   Stuff actually happens in its cutscenes, that stuff is animated well, and the events portrayed are significant to at least some degree.  I haven’t had reason to say this sentence often in the past 20 years, but: Square could have done much worse.  And further in fairness, CT’s Playstation rerelease got a HELL of a lot more dedication and quality in its FMV additions than the contemporary rereleases of Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6 did.  Their new cinematics were restricted to openings and endings, and they certainly didn’t look as good; FF5’s CGI portrayal of its cast was actually ugly as hell.  I may not be impressed by Toriyama’s limited style, but I’ll take it over Yoshitaka Amano’s world of indifferent tow-headed barrow-wights any day.

Still, the pacing of Chrono Trigger’s anime cutscenes IS jarring with their lack of presence in the game’s end and especially beginning.  And even if none of their scenes are undeserving of an FMV, a lot of other moments in the game were undeniably more significant than some of the ones that got animated.  CT’s cinematic gallery is certainly good, but it definitely could be better in this regard.
















* You may notice that I neglected to mention what might be the most important scene in the entire game, that of the discovery of Lavos and his actions in 1999 AD.  Well, while I can believe the other major events prior to finding Robo could be portrayed well enough by a newer anime cutscene, I think that the moment in which Crono, Marle, Lucca, and perhaps even ourselves all watch in dawning horror as the end of the world unfolds before us is as perfect as it can be in its original form.  Anything embellished, anything given better visuals or dramatized, would lessen the scene’s power, make it more alike to things that have been seen before in other stories, other media.  Much like the scene of Crono’s demise, the subtle, flawless makings of this moment are Chrono Trigger’s alone, and I cannot believe it could ever be adequately replicated.


** Hell, if they wanted to use Robo’s only dedicated cutscene on him sitting around deactivated, couldn’t they at least have given him the dignity of making it this moment in Fiona’s Shrine? Robo sitting as a monument unto himself, his long work done and Fiona’s dream realized through his labor? Would’ve been a lot more respectful to the guy than just surrounding his scrap heap ass with rats in 2300 AD.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous's Galfrey Should Be Romanceable by Azatas

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is awesome.  It’s a grandiose epic built around a great, involving story, which deftly and consistently highlights a theme of the capacity for people to ascend to greater heights than should be possible, to transcend the limitations of their nature.  It’s got a strong cast, good pacing, fun humor, and so much complexity and variety to its narrative beats and triggers that I’m convinced that without data-miners, it would have taken the collective whole of this game’s players years, maybe over a decade, to suss the secret, true ending out.*  Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is an epic that does its predecessor Kingmaker proud, and that’s a high bar to meet.

So naturally the first rant I write about it is going to be a petty, nitpicking complaint.  Because I’m me, and I make that fact everyone else’s problem.

So here it is: Galfrey should be romanceable by a protagonist on the Azata Mystic Path.

Among the many love interests which one can pursue in PWotR, Queen Galfrey is an interesting case in being the only one who is not a party member, but rather a story-important NPC.**  Well, okay, she’ll join your party for the final dungeon if you’ve romanced her, but she’s in all meaningful ways an NPC.  And as a very enthusiastic paragon of her alignment of Lawful Good, she’ll only entertain a courtship from a suitor who falls comfortably close to her ideals--meaning that only a Protagonist on the path of the Angel (Lawful Good), Gold Dragon (Neutral Good), or Aeon (Lawful Neutral) are approved to acquire dat aristocratic ass.  Well, also the Legend path (Neutral Neutral), but presumably that’s mostly because Galfrey’s goddess herself endorses it, and the only Lawful characters who let heaven do more of their thinking for them than the D+D/Pathfinder crowd are the Shin Megami Tensei crowd.  Galfrey’s too good a woman to love someone evil (even in consideration of the fact that D+D/Pathfinder’s definition of “Evil” has enough interesting complexities in its take on the concept that we really wouldn’t view some of its Evil characters as truly bad people (cases in point, Daeran and Regill in this game)).  And she’s too dutiful an icon to allow herself to love a being, benevolent or not, who actively opposes the concept of order.  Galfrey’s open-minded enough to open her heart to those who are at least neutral on 1 or both parts of her moral spectrum--and good on her for that, seriously--but she’s not buying that “opposites attract” bullshit.

Okay, fine, you think.  That sounds quite reasonable, right?  Galfrey’s more than just some random hoodlum who got caught up in your party through conveniently unlikely cosmic circumstances, like the rest of the RPG party schmucks one tends to attract in these games.  She’s a fixture in the story meant to embody her role, and its virtues and flaws.  Why should she be an available love interest to a character who clearly is opposed to 1 of the 2 core tenets of her nature?

And you know, maybe, if that’s all there is to it, I might agree, stop typing here, and go work on a different rant.  I’d have to hope that I don’t later forget this is an abandoned rant draft that was never meant to be released.  Imagine if I accidentally published it without reading this last sentence and realizing it was left unfinished!





































But, you see, that’s not all there is to the matter of Galfrey as a love interest.  Because while they certainly and obviously are not unrelated, Galfrey the Woman is not the exact same person as Galfrey the Queen, and while the former still clearly holds her ideals of righteousness and order very dear, she is not personally defined by the Law thing nearly so much as Galfrey the Queen is.  In fact, when she is allowed to momentarily escape from behind her holy royal veneer, we see that Galfrey actually has an instinctive penchant for behaviors not in line with those of a strictly Law-oriented person.  In fact, honestly, just about everything we see of Galfrey’s actual, true personality implies Chaotic Good!

I mean, consider what we see of the Real Galfrey in the game--the decisions she makes outside of her role, the methods she uses for accomplishing Galfrey the Queen’s goals, and the emotions she expresses all along the way.  The first introduction we have to Galfrey is telling--she’s come to meet the woman/man who’s saved Kenabras, and get a measure of her/him, with the possibility of putting her/him in charge of the next crusade.  And to do this, Galfrey dresses down and secretly inserts herself into the revelries of the defenders, so that she can get a better, more honest impression of the protagonist, without being hampered by the pomp and circumstance of an arriving queen (and she’s good enough not to want to have her arrival ruin or lessen the festivities).

So right off the bat, the very first impression we get of Galfrey makes it clear that she’s not so stodgy and stiff in her pursuit of her duty that she cannot adopt a distinctly less Lawful approach to accomplishing what she wants to.  I mean, by the strict code of Law that Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous displays throughout its course, Galfrey, if she were truly inflexible, would never have adopted any sort of subterfuge in this matter, insisting that all pomp and circumstance be followed appropriately, and accepting the respect and honor due to her from her subjects.  But instead, she is capable of recognizing that a less straightforward approach will accomplish what she needs better, and be most considerate of others’ needs.  There is no doubt that Galfrey is an entity of order, but she is not reasonlessly Lawful, and consideration of good people’s personal needs has respectable weight for her.

Also, frankly, she seems to enjoy the little bit of benevolent deception, and getting to momentarily take part in common festivities.

In spite of the commonly held wisdom, first impressions do not have to be defining ones.  But Galfrey’s is no incongruous anomaly to her personality.  Her next major roles in the story only support this initial perception of her penchant for kind mischief and open-mindedness.  She makes the decision to put the protagonist, a new and wholly unknown quantity, in charge of the next crusade, trusting her intuition that something new and unconventional may be the best way to break the stalemate that she herself has been unable to overcome.  While her goal of defeating the demons and preserving her world is at least partially an expression of Galfrey’s devotion to Law, there’s absolutely no debating that a gamble like that, a willingness to value the results for Good over the propriety of the methods to achieve them, is 100% an act of Chaos.  She’s right to do so, of course!***  But it’s a huge decision made at odds with half of her philosophical perspective, and a good chunk of her character development later on relates to her growing discomfort with the Chaotic nature of that decision.  Character development which, I'd like to point out, only underscores her personal nature having streaks of Chaos within it, as a truly Lawful individual almost surely would not struggle with feelings of jealousy at the Commander's success.  Inadequacy, certainly, that's a negative emotion that falls within the Lawful spectrum, but not jealousy.

Also, Galfrey amusingly outmaneuvers Daeran and politically tricks him into having to continue being a crusader.  And while that’s probably still an act more Lawful than anything (since she’s using established social protocols, both official and unspoken, to trap him), it’s hard to argue that the amusement she clearly (and justly) derives from finally getting one up on her blithely sardonic cousin is that of a satisfied trickster.  The action is Lawful, the cause for it (to assist the crusade) is Lawful, but the personal enjoyment, the part having to do with who Galfrey is instead of what, is definitely not.

She can (and must, for the romance) be convinced to actually take part in the march on Drezen, too.  Now, this isn’t necessarily a Chaotic decision, or even a Neutral one--it’s easy enough to argue that her place, as Iomedae’s Chosen and the woman entrusted by her church to protect Golarion from the Worldwound, is as a part of the crusade’s army, that her duty in those roles is higher than her duty as queen.  But it IS worth noting that she clearly appreciates the chance to be making a difference out in the field--her duty is to be a leader and a queen, but her preference and her comfort is to be doing good directly as a warrior.  Again, there’s a significant line between Galfrey as a figure, and Galfrey as a person.

And so it goes--further interactions with her as the story progresses continue to provide evidence to the idea that Galfrey, though a clear and outspoken proponent of Lawful Good, is not an orderly automaton, nor is she beyond recognizing when the Law part of her philosophy is not the best option to achieve Good, and when she can see that conflict, she prioritizes what’s Good over what’s Lawful.

Since a romance is a matter of the heart and thus inherently personal, considering the fact that Galfrey personally has a streak of practical Chaos to her, and that she’s able to recognize when a situation calls for an approach outside the strict parameters of regulation, and that she seems to care most about doing what’s Good and right first and foremost, it doesn’t make much sense for her to reject a protagonist on the Chaotic Good path of the Azata outright.****  Given who she shows herself to be in the game’s course, I think it’s hard to deny that, at the very least, Galfrey should be more open-minded about falling in love with a being of Chaotic Good like an Azata than with a truly Neutral being like the Legendary hero.

And beyond the fact that the true Galfrey clearly isn’t so stringent about Law...the direction that a romance with her goes in makes it all the less reasonable to exclude Chaotic Good routes.  Because regardless of what path you’re on, even if it’s as a Lawful Good Angel, Galfrey automatically views a courtship with the Commander as something not just outside of her duty, but in direct conflict with it.  That’s basically 1 of the 2 major parts of her romantic character arc--coming to terms with the fact that her feelings cannot be denied, and deciding to stop denying them and allowing her duty (or her perception of it, at least; I don’t really get why she’s so convinced that falling in love is something she’s not allowed to do) to dictate her future.  No matter what, a successful romance with Galfrey inherently involves her choosing to give up being queen for the sake of being with the protagonist after the war, because she cannot reconcile love with her duty.

So if, in Galfrey’s eyes, loving the Commander is in contention with fulfilling her Lawful responsibilities, even when the Commander is Lawful herself/himself...then what sense does it make in barring an Azata Commander from pursuing Galfrey?  To fall in love with the Commander is already, automatically a rejection of her Lawful duty, in Galfrey’s (inexplicable) judgment, so as long as the Commander is someone that she can love on a personal level--and as I’ve said, all prior evidence indicates that Galfrey has the capacity to accept and appreciate and even lightly be someone who’s Chaotic Good--there shouldn’t be anything holding this particular love story back.

I mean, hell, courting Galfrey ultimately causes her to choose, once the war is won, to relinquish her position in favor of the love and joy she finds with her beloved.  This is a romance whose destination is Galfrey turning her back, or at the very least significantly easing up, on her Lawful dedication (albeit once her greatest responsibility has been accomplished) for the sake of valuing what she herself needs.  That sounds exactly like the goal that a Chaotic Good person would have for Galfrey, a benevolent desire to free her from the miserable shackles of a position she doesn’t feel personally suited for so she can pursue the joys that an unrestrained life of Good can give her.  I contend that not only should Galfrey be a romance option for an Azata Mythic Path, a Chaotic Good protagonist is the BEST suited to be the catalyst of her love story!

Also, not for nothing, but this is a game whose major theme is the ability to transcend one’s limitations and ascend to greater heights than could have been imagined.  Galfrey’s romance is already a story of ascending above the bonds of obligation to achieve a personal, individual happiness she’d forgotten herself capable of, so it wouldn’t exactly have been out of character to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous if that story had also incorporated an element of transcending the limitations of alignment in love so long as her lover’s heart was in the right place.

Now, look, don’t get the wrong idea.  In spite of how much time and effort I’ve put into arguing about this, I know that this is a pretty small complaint.  Why, compared to the issues with 1 of the romances of the previous game, Galfrey telling an Azata path Commander that no Persuasion check on Golarion is gonna get these royal gams to open up is completely insignificant.  And hell, it’s not even like the Azata path is really missing all that much here; Galfrey’s romance may be well-intentioned, but it’s really just not compelling.  You want a compelling love story in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, go hit up Arueshelae.  Or Daeran.  Sosiel or Wenduag, maybe.  Hell, even Lann’s bland ass is a better option.  So this isn’t a major problem; it’s barely even a minor one, and to spend so much time whining about it in the face of such a grand, satisfying, and thoughtfully wrought work as Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous probably makes me look petty more than it does anything else.

Nonetheless, the facts of Galfrey’s character, the nature of her romantic subplot, and the very theme of the game are all there.  Even if it doesn’t really matter, even if I don’t even really care to do so, the decision to make Galfrey reject the advances of an Azata Commander is the wrong call.  Her character and the progression of her romantic story are, if anything, best suited for a Chaotic Good lover.

















* Admittedly not every layer of the secret ending’s complex requirements is laudable.  Making an unavoidable hinging point the act of finding Hepzamirah’s ghost in the Ineluctable Prison is such an obscure, counter-instinctive task that it’s honestly just kind of a dick move.  Seriously,  “Palm trees...and 8” is more fair than that.


** Well, the only romanceable NPC of any real substance, at least.  A protagonist on the Demon path can score, like, 2 lines of dialogue about getting to be Nocticula’s plaything.  And you can flirt a bit with some individuals like Vellexia and...the Fulsome Queen, for Tricksters who want their greatest and most cruel prank to be against themselves...but Galfrey’s the only non-party member love interest of substance.


*** Assuming you don’t go down an evil route for the game, but since we’re specifically talking within the context of an Azata Mythic Path run, that’s a given here.


**** Granted, it’s possible on the Azata path to lean much harder into the Chaos than the Good (and even to go rogue and start being pretty Evil), but at the very least, Galfrey could be designed to check to see where the protagonist sits, alignment-wise, on her/his Azata path.

General RPGs' AMVs 20

You know what I realized last year, when I was making the music list rant about the remixes and original fan songs and whatnot?  A lot of composers of original fan songs actually go to the trouble of making an accompanying music video to go with their tunes.  So, like, why wouldn’t I also count those as RPG AMVs?  That being the case, expect to see a bunch of these original RPG AMVs in the next couple of these rants.  There’ll still be plenty of “normal” AMVs, too, though, no worries.*



FALLOUT

Fallout 4: Some Things Never Change, by Miracle of Sound
The music used is Some Things Never Change, by Miracle of Sound.  The perfect video to accompany Miracle of Sound’s beautiful, haunting, weary love song to Fallout 4, this AMV displays the singular beauty and tragedy of the Fallout setting with sweeping, unhurried treks through the post-apocalyptic Commonwealth, perfectly in tune with the music.  Tributes to a game’s setting are difficult to make a great AMV for, particularly for landscapes that emphasize quiet and emptiness, but when they work, they work damn well, and this is a great example of that.


FINAL FANTASY

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Warriors, by RivAyshil
The music used is a cover of Warriors, by Imagine Dragons.  The cover itself is done by 2WEI.  This AMV is strong overall, a good match of song to game in terms of atmosphere and gravity, but it’s especially notable, I think, for the great timing of the game footage to the music.  The powerful and pervasive percussion of Warriors is matched at every point by the movement and actions of the visuals to create a single, flowing entity of sound and sight here.  I especially love the part right before the minute mark where the audio’s far-off marching is matched to characters’ steps in the game--it’s a small detail, but it shows off the skill and effort that went into this AMV as a whole very well.  Great stuff.


FIRE EMBLEM

Fire Emblem 16: The Storm, by Ramona BadwolfTM
The music used is The Storm, by TheFatRat.  This is a pretty neat AMV--the creator has picked an interesting song that, when paired to the game’s footage with such precise and artful timing, demonstrates Fire Emblem 16’s characters and conflicts, their relationships and their pain in a way that’s refreshing and compelling.  Let’s face it, after a certain point, there are some games whose AMVs tend to start to blur together, and Fire Emblem titles definitely seem to be examples of this phenomenon--but this music video manages to make the story and its cast feel new again, somehow.  It’s an interesting case of the AMV being genuinely fun to watch, even if it’s got enough gravity and sincerity that I wouldn’t call it a “fun” AMV, if that makes any sense.


NIER: AUTOMATA

Nier: Automata: Mercy Mirror, by Rail
The music used is Mercy Mirror, by Within Temptation.  You know, I hadn’t really thought about it before, but between A1 and 2B, Devola and Popola, the splintering of N2’s consciousness, the duality of the machines and the androids as a whole, and just a whole lot of moments from the game’s narrative, there really are a lot of examples of mirrors in Nier: Automata, huh?  An interesting realization I wouldn’t have had without this high quality AMV calling attention to it with its smart choice of scenes to coordinate with the song’s lyrics and tune, and interesting exploration into the theme of mirrors within the game.  This is a solid work with a neat thematic focus!


THE OUTER WORLDS

The Outer Worlds: The Fine Print, by The Stupendium
The music used is The Fine Print, by The Stupendium.  I love this one--the song’s a strikingly perfect and ingeniously written representation of The Outer Worlds’s setting, theme, and lore, and the video that goes along with it is excellently tailored to emphasize and enhance the music, giving us a great set of visuals from The Outer Worlds to pay it proper tribute, while staying contained and sparse enough that the video never distracts from the song and its message.  The Stupendium’s own role is played perfectly as he sings, and his background, visual effects, costume design, and overall presentation and progression are all excellent, engaging, and in complete sync with the source material.  I legitimately don’t think that a better tribute to and representation of The Outer Worlds could be made than The Fine Print--hell, I might even go as far as to say that this AMV is superior to the game itself, even on the game's own terms!


SUIKODEN

Suikoden 1 - 3: SuikoPath, by Squall583.
The music used is Path, by Apocalyptica.  There’s very little to say on this one--it’s a blast from the past, possibly older than some of you reading this, and a prime example of a classic, good, basic AMV that gets the job done and is enjoyable to watch.  It’s also a bit noteworthy for managing to maintain a cohesive, strong music video from start to finish, in spite of having very little to work with (given how few cinematics the initial trilogy of Suikoden possessed)--granted, some scenes are reused in this, but the way they fit so well into the chorus effectively disguises this as an artistic choice rather than a limitation.  Good stuff!


TALES OF

Tales of Berseria: A Demon’s Fate, by Ard1n LC
The music used is A Demon’s Fate, by Within Temptation.  This one’s a solid, well-constructed AMV that skillfully brings the visuals and lyrics together in a song that works well with the source material; there’s not much to say about it beyond that it’s a good work all around.

Interestingly, this video also continues with a second AMV for Tales of Zestiria, done to a different song.  It’s a fine enough music video, but not great in and of itself.  It is, however, kind of a neat thing that the author did this, as ToZ takes place in the far future of ToB’s world--it makes it so that the AMVs sort of set up their own narrative.  Nice touch.


UNDERTALE

Undertale: Way Deeper Down, by The Stupendium
The music used is Way Deeper Down, by The Stupendium.  It’s a pretty simple video, obviously more about the music than the visual component (which is fair, since this is meant to be the release of The Stupendium’s new song first and foremost), but Way Deeper Down is nonetheless a fun and serviceable AMV.  Even if the clever and fun lyrics of this song about Undertale’s iconic undead are clearly the star of the work, the appealing, simple art nonetheless help bring them to life.  The Stupendium is a darned fun creator as a whole, and this AMV is certainly on-brand for him.









* Yes, I know no one was actually worried about this.

Neverwinter Nights 1's Add-Ons

Huh!  So it looks like Neverwinter Nights 1, with its re-release in 2018, subsequently had a couple of new add-ons made for it in 2020.  So while it may have seemed like I was over 10 years late to the party when I originally wrote this rant, the reality is that I was actually a cool 5 years early.  How's them apples, punk?

But because I'm a lazy fuck, I'm just gonna leave the original intro as it was.  If you're looking for the new content in this revised rant, check out the last 2 entries here (Tyrants of the Moonsea and Dark Dreams of Furiae), and the concluding thoughts.



Is it pointless to look at the add-ons of a game that came out over 10 years ago and is nowadays sold with its add-ons automatically included in the purchase, removing any influence this rant could have on the reader’s purchase decisions? Yup. Has the subject being pointless ever stopped me from making a rant before? Nope. So let’s take a look at the expansions and premium modules of the original Neverwinter Nights.



Shadows of Undrentide: Meh. A cookie-cutter plot wrapped in generic Dungeons and Dragons events. People complain that the second half of this expansion is rushed in its storytelling, and they’re totally right, but I can’t find that upsetting in the least because this expansion is frankly just not interesting enough that I’d want it drawn out at all. Frankly, I had more than my liking of drawn out, tedious plot cliche from the game proper, thank you. The first 2 party members aren’t bad, I guess, but they’re not good, either. They kind of feel like unfinished prototypes of Bioware characters rather than the real thing. I’ll admit that Deekin, and the kobolds in general, do tickle my fancy, so Shadows of Undrentide isn’t a total bore. Still, one amusing henchman does not a boring plot excuse. I don’t know how much this expansion originally sold for, but I know it wasn’t worth it, because even in its role nowadays as a free addition to the game, Shadows of Undrentide still isn’t worth the time it takes to play it.


Hordes of the Underdark: Like Shadows of Undrentide and the main story of Neverwinter Nights 1, the first 2 chapters of Hordes of the Underdark is plodding, largely mindless dungeon-crawling busywork, particularly the first chapter. The first chapter is just schlepping through a big dungeon, as if that were something novel for Neverwinter Nights by this point, and while Chapter 2 does finally see fit to grace us with a plot, it’s pretty generic stuff. The return of Deekin as a companion is welcomed, the return of 4 of the main game’s henchmen is not. The latter bunch clearly had their character development explored to its limit the first time around, and add nothing to the experience here, while Deekin (though he gets only a little more development) is amusing and appealing by nature, so he helps add a chuckle here and there. The new companion Nathyrra is okay, I guess...she’s sort of like an extremely watered down version of Viconia from Baldur’s Gate 1 and particularly 2. Like, if Viconia’s character depth and personality were filet mignon, Nathyrra would be a Slim Jim. Still pleasant, but not even in the same league as what it could be. I did like the part of Chapter 2 involving the mirror-cursed town of flying elves, too, but yeah...overall the first couple chapters of Hordes of the Underdark are no better than Shadows of Undrentide was.

...But then Chapter 3 starts, and suddenly the game pulls a complete 180 on you. No longer are you just going back and forth for one minor sidequest after another, waiting for something real to happen. Now you’re traveling alongside the soul of Aribeth, a paladin blackguard seeking to regain her faith even as she walks through the frozen hell of Cania itself, as you retrace the steps of an ancient, slumbering angel who gave up paradise for the sake of love in order to find a primal being who knows every person’s True Name--the name the gods bless each person with that holds ultimate power over him or her--all while the eternal Blood War rages on closer and closer, all so you can gain control of an interdimensional reaper and confront a hell lord before he can turn your home plane into his new domain to rule over. Filled with philosophy and beauty, the draw and power of the ancient and epic, and finally a companion with some real depth, Hordes of the Underdark’s third chapter finally delivers on the promise of a grand and meaningful Dungeons and Dragons story.

Is it worth it? Well, again, I don’t know how much HotU sold for originally. But the answer would almost surely be yes either way. Despite the majority of Hordes of the Underdark being generic filler, the third chapter makes up for that lost time in a big way and gives you something substantial and epic to enjoy. My policy is that if the payoff is great, I’ll happily suffer tedium to reach it (I really don’t know how I would play most RPGs otherwise, they’re so boring gameplay-wise), so Hordes of the Underdark gets a thumbs-up from me.


Kingmaker: Kingmaker is a Premium Module for Neverwinter Nights 1, which as far as I can tell is just what people called Downloadable Content before there was any widely recognized name for the concept. It’s, uh...odd. On the one hand, it’s just too simple to be interesting--the premise is just doing some quests for people to get their vote on making you the new lord/lady of a city (and oddly, it’s a position always listed as lord/lady, never king or queen, so I don’t know where the title of this DLC comes from), and then a short romp through some bad guys set on conquering that city for bad guy reasons. Boring. And yet, it’s also too complex to be enjoyable--the truth of the protagonist’s lineage, and the identity, nature, and purpose of the individual who sets this whole conflict up, are only half explained, even though they’re the major underlying factors that drive the entire story. Too simplistic on the surface, with inadequately explored complexity as its backbone: it’s a tough line to walk, but Kingmaker manages to do so and fail you twice over. To Kingmaker’s credit, some of the party members are actually pretty decent (particularly Kaidala and Jaboli, though Trip and Calibast are fairly unique, too), and there’s a decent effort put into developing the party members both in their own right and in their connections to one another, which I certainly appreciate. And even if it’s not compelling, Kingmaker is at least short and direct. After a full game, a full expansion, and 2/3rds of another expansion that are mostly just long, drawn out generic boredom, it’s hard not to appreciate a boring story that at least doesn’t dawdle and delay on and on.

From what I can tell, Kingmaker sold for $8 originally. Oddly high price for the time, and definitely not worth it. But as it is nowadays, a bonus that comes free with the game, I would say...well, I wouldn’t recommend it, like I recommend Hordes of the Underdark, but I wouldn’t recommend against it like I do with Shadows of Undrentide, either. It’s a bit of a time waste, but not a huge one.


Witch’s Wake: Alright, finally! It took a while, but Neverwinter Nights 1 at last delivers a consistently engaging story that’s written well, has compelling atmosphere, interesting ideas, a good narrative, and some decent NPCs. Wooo!

Too bad it’s the first part of a planned series of DLC packages that was never continued.

Yes, after only the first leg of a mysterious and potentially awesome quest to remember one’s purpose and self, and to deliver a cryptic message to a king once known but now forgotten, this DLC ends, and you are left with no satisfaction whatsoever. Apparently Bioware planned to make this into a multi-part story, but the Premium Module program was shut down before Witch’s Wake could ever get past its first chapter. A damn shame.

Although I would like to express a serious level of disgust with this plan, had it come to fruition. I mean, consider this fact--back when it was released, you paid $5 for Witch’s Wake (and Shadowguard; they came in the same package), and what you were doing was paying for an unfinished story. If all had gone according to Bioware’s original plan, you would then have been paying more money for each subsequent chapter of the story! A common complaint with Downloadable Content is that if it’s handled dishonestly (and it so, so often is), it’s basically a case of consumer extortion, where you pay for a game but then have to pay an extra fee to actually play ALL of the game you ALREADY PAID FOR. Well, that’s pretty much what we would have had here, if Witch’s Wake had ever been continued. You’d have to keep paying over and over again to fully experience the product that you had already purchased! I tend to think of Bioware as having slowly descended further and further into greedy, amoral corruption over time, but finding something like this makes me wonder if perhaps the company was just always rotten, and we all just didn’t notice it as much back in the day.


Shadowguard: Oh for Phosphora’s sake! It’s Witch’s Wake all over again! While not nearly as intriguing or narratively strong as Witch’s Wake, Shadowguard nonetheless presents an interesting, engaging story with some actual personality for its protagonist...and then drops off into nothingness. Yes, as with Witch’s Wake, Shadowguard is meant to be the first part of a multi-chapter story which was never continued. As with Witch’s Wake, Shadowguard is something that’s enjoyable while it lasts and which you’d actually have some interest in seeing continued, unlike most of Neverwinter Nights 1’s content that we’ve seen so far. And as with Witch’s Wake, the intended concept of paying several times for the privilege of actually playing Shadowguard, the product you’ve purchased, to its conclusion is utterly repulsive, shameless extortion on Bioware’s part. What a load of bullshit.


Pirates of the Sword Coast: How much you get from Pirates of the Sword Coast is going to greatly vary depending on how much you like pirates and the whole swashbuckling adventure genre in general. Myself, I am pretty ambivalent towards pirates. By themselves, they are not interesting, and most stories involving them and the whole idea of seeking fortune on the high seas don’t pan out to be all that compelling. Nonetheless, there’s enough opportunity to the whole pirate thing that you can certainly get some decent plots and characters out of it if you’re a decent storyteller. So I don’t care one way or another about the pop culture pirate genre.

That said, I was surprised to find myself enjoying this DLC pretty well as it went along. Pirates of the Sword Coast isn’t kidding about being pirate-y. A jabbery, smartass parrot, recruiting a pirate crew, undead curses, being marooned on islands with (sort of) cannibal tribes, treasure map hunts, krakens, pirate-filled island towns...this side-story has pretty close to every pirate trope out there, and it plays all of them pretty well. It never feels like any of these common pirate story devices are forced, though, and the overall method of the DLC is pretty good. It’s only sparsely narrated, but what it has works, and overall the story is average, but the characters and NPCs, and the item descriptions and environmental text, are all lighthearted and even a bit clever. It’s kinda like a combination of the fun of Pirates of the Caribbean 1 (and only the first movie; none of that crummy drek that followed) and Muppet Treasure Island. So I did end up liking this one well enough, and I expect people who are more into the high seas genre of books and movies and whatnot would find it all the better.

Pirates of the Sword Coast was a bit costly for its time, selling at $10 (from what I can tell, at least; it’s been long enough since it was sold that my sources are only old forum posts about it). Nonetheless, it’s fun enough that I wouldn’t necessarily call that a waste of money, depending, again, on how much of a pirate fan you are. Maybe not worth that much to me, but I could understand why someone else would think it worth that. Moot point nowadays, of course; Bioware long ago stopped selling it and if you can find an installer for this module (or any of the ones below), it’ll authenticate itself and let you play it even though you haven’t purchased it (at least, mine did). But anyway, yeah. Decent DLC, this.


Wyvern Crown of Cormyr: Meh. Nothing especially bad (besides the damn jousting minigame; expect that bit of annoyance to get its own rant at some point), but likewise nothing interesting, either. Not worth the time to play it, certainly not worth the $10 that Bioware originally charged for this module.


The Dark Ranger’s Treasure: This DLC is among the 3 tiny little modules that Bioware made and released for free. On the one hand, it’s hard to find fault with something a company provides completely for free. On the other hand, this brief little venture could barely even be called a boring sidequest. I’d pass on it, but if you try it and don’t like it, at least it won’t waste much of your time.


To Heir is Human: See what I just wrote for The Dark Ranger’s Treasure? It applies to this one, too.


The Winds of Eremor: Ditto.


Infinite Dungeons: If, after a full game, 2 expansions, and over half a dozen DLCs of various sizes, you are, somehow, still in the mood for running around killing things in a dungeon for hours on end, then this is definitely your module. If, however, you are someone who plays an RPG to experience storytelling in the video game medium, who has become sick to death of the repetitive gameplay mechanics after experiencing them for 100 hours and frankly was not particularly interested in them to begin with, then this DLC is a thoroughly unappealing prospect.


Darkness Over Daggerford: Bioware designed this final DLC with the intent to sell it, but apparently someone pulled the plug on the idea of continuing to produce Neverwinter Nights 1 content before it was finished. So, from what I gather, one of the employees of Bioware decided to finish DOD after he left to form his own company. Thus, Darkness Over Daggerford is legally considered to be user-created content instead of official, but since it was mostly developed by Bioware, I’m still counting it here.

Darkness Over Daggerford is...eh, decent, I suppose. Nothing special, but a little better than the par for Neverwinter Nights 1; I at least didn’t feel outright bored at any point. The party members are alright, and the plot is generic but acceptable. Being unofficial content, this was released for free, so I guess the price was right, at least.


Tyrants of the Moonsea: This is quite a large adventure, easily enough so that I think it’s safe to call it an expansion more than just a DLC.  In this expansion, the player takes a hero through the Moonsea on an evolving quest to save the region’s people from a powerful wizard’s misguided attempt to overthrow the evil organization that effectively runs the place.  Because of course the wizard sold his soul to a demon and allied himself with violent, conquering tribes of orcs and whatnot to accomplish this goal.  If it was good enough for Chrono Trigger’s Magus, it’s good enough for every overly powerful antihero sorcerer, right?

Anyway, this thing’s alright.  Its best elements are easily the significant NPCs and party members, several of whom have engaging personalities and interesting shticks--Elf and Lyressa are standouts, but there’s a good handful of characters that give this tale some personality, and few important individuals who aren’t interesting or noteworthy in some regard.  I’m especially fond of Beirmoura--she’s fun, clever, and would probably get along very well with Suikoden’s Star Dragon Sword.  As much as I’ve enjoyed Finnean over at Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, there’s no question who’s the best sapient talking weapon I’ve used in an RPG this year.

There’s also quite a few smaller qualities of this add-on which are notably pleasant, too.  I appreciated, for example, that the book items within Tyrants of the Moonsea actually feel relevant to the setting and story of the game, which is a weirdly uncommon thing for the random tomes you can read in a lot of isometric Dungeons and Dragons games.  And speaking of setting and lore, there’s quite a few references and inclusions of significant actors and concepts from the regular D+D canon that make an appearance here which will please more hardcore players and fans quite a bit, I think, like that Drizzt guy I always hear about--but they’re not involved or spotlighted enough that a filthy casual like myself feels excluded in any way.  Similarly, it’s a nice touch that there are moments in the game in which NPC conversations can allow you to establish that your protagonist is the same hero as was involved in some of NN1’s other adventures, or even those of entirely different DnD titles--but you can also opt to deny this and have the hero of Tyrants of the Moonsea be their own entity, too.  There’s additionally a good bit of moral choices in the expansion that have more substantial results than those of the preceding add-ons, too, which is pleasant.

The only weak point of Tyrants of the Moonsea is probably its overall story, which, honestly, just didn’t feel all that compelling to me.  But it’s not bad, at least, and when supported by its other virtues, that shakes out to Tyrants of the Moonsea being a pretty decent adventure as a whole, and given that you’ll likely be romping around in the module for over 10 hours, I’d say it’s worth its $10 price point.


Dark Dreams of Furiae: I’m...not sure what I make of this, really.  On the one hand, this adventure set in the midst of a city’s philosophical crisis as its citizens and rulers struggle to change or maintain the community’s views and actions between Law and Chaos in order to secure Furiae’s place in the planes is very pleasantly reminiscent of Planescape: Torment--and the fact that the mod lightly references Sigil and certain concepts examined in PT makes it apparent that this in part an homage to that magnificent game.  And I, of course, love that, because it’s been way too long since I’ve taken a journey through the outer planes and witnessed the war of belief that forms the heart of the Dungeons and Dragons universe.

The premise around which the adventure is centered, that being a quest to discover the origins and determine the fate of Worldwine, a potent narcotic notable for being poison to the otherworldly devils that seek to subjugate Furiae and its people, is also interesting, resulting in a choice by the adventure’s end that did give me pause.  Small flourishes like an amply alliterative newspaper being periodically published for your perusal, well-written and engaging NPC interactions that immerse you, and some dream sequence moments that skillfully unnerve you and softly develop the silent protagonist in much the way that Fallout 3’s Point Lookout drug trip did, make it clear that there’s a lot of creativity and a good bit of narrative talent at work here.

With that said, I have to admit, a lot of my appreciation for Dark Dreams of Furiae feels objective more than personal.  I’m appreciating it from a distance, more than really getting swept up in actually enjoying it.  There’s something about its atmosphere, its approach, that keeps it feeling understated enough that it never gripped me.  I’m not sure why that is, but there’s just something in its quiet gloom that lacks the personal touch to bridge the gap between an interesting specimen, and something that I’m actually invested in.  I can’t really explain it; I just know that the positives I get front his add-on feel more like something I respectfully admire than actively enjoy.  Also, the ending to this adventure feels kinda rushed and a bit underwhelming.  Not bad, mind you, but not as good as one might reasonably hope for.

Still, the overall experience of Dark Dreams of Furiae was a positive one.  It’s a well-crafted add-on that, at $5, easily justifies and excels its price point in terms of content and quality.  Recommended!



And that’s the last of’em. There are plenty more modules for Neverwinter Nights 1, of course, but those are ones made by fans, not official sources (or at least released and sold by official sources). So how’s it all stack up?

Well, when I originally wrote this rant, my take-away from NN1's mod scene was a negative one.  I gave the add-ons credit for the fact that the original game itself being generic, uninteresting, and terribly paced meant that having any decent stories to be found in its add-ons could be seen as something of a victory, but overall, I called it a lousy showing.  And with justifiable cause.  The best moments of Neverwinter Nights's add-ons (hell, the game's best moments period) are Witch's Wake, which is incomplete and would have been economically unethical had its original roadmap been followed, and Hordes of the Underdark, which is only good in its last third and requires you to just slog through a bunch of average dungeon-crawling nonsense to get to the good.  And honestly, even now, the majority of these add-ons still range from boring to bad.

Still, I think the addition of Tyrants of the Moonsea and Dark Dreams of Furiae may have tipped the scales enough to warrant a new verdict on the matter.  They're both positive enough additions to the game's whole to offset a decent handful of the less compelling add-ons that preceded them.  Would I say that this makes Neverwinter Nights 1's add-ons a positive experience overall?  Well, no, there's still just too many boring and generic components to this whole, and it's still really, really frustrating that we only ever got a taste of Witch's Wake (and Shadowguard; it too was promising).  But even if NN1 still doesn't secure a win and join the exceptionally small club of RPGs whose add-ons were more good than bad, it's at least much more neutral now than it once was.  With Tyrants of the Moonsea, the final third of Hordes of the Underdark, Pirates of the Sword Coat, and Dark Dreams of Furiae, along with what enjoyment Witch's Wake and Shadowguard can provide, Neverwinter Nights 1's add-on scene is fairly well balanced, providing only a bit more of the negative than the positive.  You can even forgive it a little further by virtue of the fact that downloadable add-ons were still a pretty new idea at the time that most of the ones above were created, so some of this can be attributed to growing pains and feeling the concept out.*

So final verdict on Neverwinter Nights 1's add-ons: not good, but really only barely bad.  Certainly more than you can say for the main game itself, for whatever that's worth.  See you guys here again in another 15 years when the next DLC comes out for it.

















* Not that we're any better in the modern age at creating decent DLCs that are anywhere near worth their asking price.  In fact, I think things may be worse than ever.

General RPG Valentines 6

As ever, great thanks must be given to my sister and Ecclesiastes, whose input and suggestions for these idiotic Valentines rants goes way above the call of duty, even in consideration of the fact that just being my sounding boards for normal rants is already going way above the call of duty of family and friendship.  If any of the silly things below seem amusing or clever to you, there's a better chance than not that this quality is exclusively thanks to the influence of Ecc or my sister.



Chocolate, candy, special dinners, gestures and displays and professions of love...Valentine's Day is already pretty close to the total package when it comes to the holiday experience.  In spite of this, however, there has always been 1 notable failing of the holiday, the glaring and inescapable shame of Valentine's Day for centuries: not enough RPG content.  But that ends now!  Or...7 years ago, when I first started doing these.  Whatever.  The important thing is, Valentine's Day is now the perfect holiday because I'm a freaking hero.  You're welcome.

But just as I giveth, so can I also taketh the hell awayeth.  My gift of RPG Valentines may have elevated the holiday to perfection, but even an angel of Heaven can fall to the darkest depths of the abyss.  Because I have lived long enough to see myself become the villain, here are a few RPG Anti-Valentines sure to cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth in their recipients!