Shin Megami Tensei 5's Ending Sucks

You may have intuited from certain subtle clues I’ve dropped here and there over the course of this year that I’m not a huge fan of Shin Megami Tensei 5.  But just in case I was being too coy about the myriad ways in which the latest installment of the mainline SMT series is disappointing, let’s talk about the ending.

First of all, it’s dull and empty.  You beat the final boss, the Nahobino briefly exchanges nods (because dialogue would have required someone at Atlus actually doing their job that day) with the dead Hero and patron of the path he chose in a white void, he finds himself in this empty space-y expanse with planets and frozen celestial beings and a really, really ostentatious New Years ball in the center, and he starts walking nonchalantly through the extra-dimensional emptiness as the narrator tells, not shows, what the results will be of the protagonist taking or breaking God’s throne for a whole whopping 2 minutes (and the narrator isn’t exactly rushing through his lines, either), and then it goes to the credits, which play over a scene of the Nahobino continuing to just walk in a straight line with someone’s very pretty Deviantart landscape in the background.  Finally, once the credits are done, the stroll concludes with the Nahobino walking up to God’s super special disco ball and the screen fading to white.

And that’s it.  That’s all!  That’s the ending.*  That’s your reward for forcing yourself to play Shin Megami Tensei 5 for 40+ hours: a lack of dialogue from the characters who matter, a minimal narration-dump, and trudging through an atmospheric but thoroughly empty void.  Well, it may be garbage, but I suppose you gotta give SMT5 credit for being consistent to the bitter end.

I suppose there’s an argument to be made that the endings of most of the previous mainline SMTs are also a bit, shall we say, sparse.  I certainly can’t deny that point, any more than I can deny the fact that character development in the same games has likewise been on the low and understated side.  But as with the depth of the cast, prior SMT games have maintained an approach throughout their course that makes it clear to the audience that their endings’ stoic minimalist-leanings have been a matter of storytelling design, something chosen and planned for, rather than just a consequence of not having spent enough time and effort on the game.  In previous games, the span and scope of the plot (whether good or subpar) has possessed enough substance and artistry that a somewhat austere and spare conclusion feels acceptable (and aesthetically appropriate), while with Shin Megami Tensei 5, the scanty approach to its finish just feels like more of the same inadequacy that’s plagued the game’s entire narrative to this point.  Even if the result is superficially similar, there’s a big and discernible difference between a landscape artist who paints a desert out of a wish to capture the sensation of sprawling starkness it invokes within him, and a landscape artist who paints a desert because it has fewer features and he’s lazy.

So yeah, Shin Megami Tensei 5’s ending is empty and half-assed.  And yeah, it’s hardly surprising; watching SMT5’s story unfold is like reading a book printed with only a single sentence on each page, with an epilogue scribbled on a sticky note taped to its back cover.  But--and this is also, sadly, not surprising for SMT5--what little material IS there in the ending also manages to disappoint in its own right.  Because every ending of this game seems kinda determined to leave you dissatisfied, or at the very least tell you that you’re a stupid jerk.

Seriously, there’s really just no pleasing ending to this game.  So let's say you choose Chaos.  What happens?  Why, what happens is that a mere 3 sentences into his monologue, the narrator makes it a point to let you know that the new world you’ve chosen of multiple gods and an ever-changing society has been difficult for some people to adapt to and find happiness within.  That’s the first reaction he speaks of; the fact that there are plenty of people who thrive in the new world of Chaos is only something he mentions AFTER he shows you your 1-star reviews.  And then a mere 2 sentences later, this pessimistic prick’s back on the complain train as he informs you that, shocker of shockers, a bunch of competing divine narcissists (and 1 actual Narcissus) is naturally a recipe for, and I quote, “immeasurable conflict.”  The ending narration then talks about how sad the Nahobino is to witness his reality completely plagued with war, but that he holds firm to his belief because of some sloppy, shaky philosophy about how people should be able to choose for themselves rather than have things chosen for them.

First of all, this is a fucking stupid statement and correlation all on its own.  The Choose For Yourself ship has already sailed for the people of Chaos’s world because the fact that the world is this way was a choice the Nahobino made without consulting every other person in existence, or any of them, for that matter.  All they’re getting in exchange for never-ending violence is the ability to choose which powerful being to obey because they’re powerless themselves.  And also, even if this idea that people are self-determined in this world was legitimate, you’re saying that the trade-off for having any choice in your actions and the direction of your life is constant war.  Free will may be inseparable from the potential for, and eventuality of, conflict, but there’s no rational way you can argue that the reasonable price of it is or should be a never-ending turf war between insanely powerful deities that makes the entire human species a reluctant participant and casualty.

Secondly, and more importantly, what kind of shitty way is that to end your game?  There’s only 7 fucking sentences of narration in this ending to reward the dozens of hours you put into this garbage, and of them, 3 are devoted to admonishing you for your choice.  And sure, Chaos IS a dumb choice to make in Shin Megami Tensei 5 and anyone who couldn’t see bickering godly gang wars being its result is probably as facile an unquestioning a moron as Atsuta himself, but that’s still excessively negative to a degree that feels mean-spirited.  The writers seem to actively want you to feel bad about having played their game.

And lastly, let’s not forget that the whole reason that Atsuta becomes the game’s Chaos Hero is because he’s told by Koshimizu (and because he unquestioningly, blindly believes this statement) that Chaos’s world of multiple gods will be the best way to protect Tokyo and its people.  And by siding with him, you’ve wound up bringing about a world where the people are caught in constant, inconceivably devastating warfare from which they can never be safe.  I’m getting flashbacks to Wild Arms 4’s ending with Jude, Mr. Codependent Everyone Let’s Be Friends Forever And Work Together And Never Ever Let Each Other Out Of Our Sight becoming a goddamn forest ranger hermit who lives completely separated from his friends and the entire human species.  Just as it was with Jude, for Atsuta, this conclusion is the opposite, the exact polar fucking opposite you understand, of the single solitary overplayed trait of his 1-dimensional character.

You might think that maybe this poor showing of Chaos, the latest in a whole game’s worth of instances of this route’s lesser quality, might just be a case of SMT’s preference for the Neutral path being taken a little too far.  But the fact is that both Neutral endings, though not quite as poorly reasoned and inconsistent to their figurehead’s stated purpose, are equally unsatisfying.

The ending in which you destroy the throne involves what’s-his-name, the monk guy who decided out of nowhere right at the last second that he was gonna be some important lofty observer entity, outright talking about what a foolish decision you’ve made, so right off the bat you have a tidy little bit of narrative disapproval for your actions even before the other endings get their chastisement.  Then when you get to the regular ending narration, the game makes sure you know that plenty of people will perish in the efforts to resist and stand free of the influence and control of demon-kind.

Granted, Neutral Hero Yakumo, who is basically what happens when you decide to base your entire personality around your Resting Bitch Face, has made it clear that any human being who can’t personally stand up to malevolent godlike beings and beat them in hand-to-hand combat doesn’t, in his opinion, deserve to live.  So this ending gloating about how many people will be casualties in the world you’ve created isn’t as thematically opposed to its representative as Chaos was.  And at least this time around the game doesn’t tell you that even the protagonist himself is disappointed with the results of his choice.  But it still is an example of SMT5 going out of its way to use its extremely limited ending summary to make damn sure you know that the ending you got was really bad for a hell of a lot of people.  The very people, in fact, that you presumably chose this path with the intention of doing right by--the deities and demons certainly don’t benefit from breaking the throne, and the Nahobino doesn’t gain God’s power with it gone, thus presumably you could only be choosing this path because you genuinely believe that it will be in the best interests of humanity as a whole.**  So thanks for making sure to hammer home the fact that the players who have made this decision for the good of the people have, in fact, fucked those very people over, SMT5.

It’s not even like it’s a sure thing that those sacrifices are even toward a greater good.  The narrator ends his stunted little spiel by expressing certainty that humanity will, in the future, come out on top against the demons and gods that would control them, but he doesn’t actually state it as fact.  Even the underwhelming, disappointing ending for the Black Eagles route in Fire Emblem 16 at least made it pretty unambiguous that the long, bloody war with Those Who Slither in the Dark, a costly and prolonged conflict that would have been quickly and relatively painlessly settled had the player possessed the brains and/or human decency not to back Edelgard,*** would end in an eventual victory.  In SMT5’s first Neutral ending, the best we get is a “surely” that humanity will eventually be able to stand on its own and win its right to freedom from the machinations of higher (and lower) mythological beings.

But okay, sure, that’s the lesser Neutral ending.  If any conclusion in the game is gonna be crappy, it’d be that one.  Surely**** the True Neutral ending is reasonably satisfying, right?

Well I’m talking about it right here and now in this rant about how the game’s endings suck, so I guess you can probably tell from context alone that it isn’t.  Hell, we’re talking about a component of Shin Megami Tensei 5--that should be all the information you really need right there.

So yeah, the “best” ending of SMT5 is also unsatisfying.  Now, this time around the game is at least kind enough not to gleefully make all the myriad people who are going to be miserable and dead because of your decision the most memorable takeaway.  And there’s even more content besides, with a more enthusiastically positive reaction from Tao and I Refuse To Bother Learning Monk Guy’s Name Because Holy Shit What A Forgettable Character, and a more involved talk and confrontation with Lucifer.  No, rather than the game forcing unnecessary admonishment into the ending text, the dissatisfaction of the True Neutral ending comes from qualities inherent to its nature, thanks to the incompetence of the game’s writers.  The disappointment of the True Neutral boils down to 2 points.

First of all: it’s an emotional betrayal to everything that the game has shown us.  See, in the True Neutral ending, the Nahobino takes God’s throne and uses his power over creation to decree that there will be no more gods or demons, that Earth is for humanity alone, because SMT’s Neutral faction always has such a boner for telling all mythological entities to get the hell off humanity’s lawn, as though we aren’t the ones who created and invited them to start with.  And in most Shin Megami Tensei titles, that’s fine, justifiable, and emotionally consistent, as gods and demons and the like are the source of most of humanity’s problems in the game.  But while that’s still true in SMT5, what’s also true is that pretty much every noticeably positive character relationship that the Nahobino has over the course of SMT5’s events is with a demon character.

I mean, think about it.  The most (inexplicably) loyal and supportive character in the game to the protagonist is his partner Aogami, who can’t seem to speak 3 consecutive sentences if at least 1 of them isn’t affirming that he’s gonna protect the protagonist at all costs and make all his dreams come true and wuv him and cuddle him and give him head-pats.  Then the runners-up behind Aogami are his companion Amanozako, who helps the Nahobino off and on for most of the game and who is weirdly sort of a half-assed love interest for him or something, and his friend Tao, who may start as a human but is resurrected as a goddess who outright pledges to help him become God because he almost made a mild effort to help someone one time (more on that in a later rant).  All 3 of the only people in this game who demonstrably have a positive character connection to the main hero are demons.

Additionally, most of the outright moral and decent people you meet in the game are likewise inhuman.  Khonsu, for example, is devoted to saving the life of the sickly Miyazu to a self-sacrificial degree.  In fact, Khonsu shows way, way more active concern and affection for Miyazu, not to mention expends way more effort in trying to help her, than her own brother Atsuta does!  And lest we forget, Atsuta is the clown who’s supposed to be entirely defined by his wish to protect her!  Meanwhile, the fairies under Oberon and Titania’s leadership graciously take in the lost, wounded, and helpless kidnapped human students in Chapter 2, treating their injuries and providing a safe haven to them for the entire rest of the game’s course, completely without complaint or expectation of reimbursement.  Hell, they didn’t even need to be asked to do it--Fionn mac Cumhaill just started bringing hurt human beings to the fairies to care for, and they set right to it.  And speaking of, Fionn, a mythological entity himself, just up and takes it upon himself to go around saving the students from their captors, again for no discernible reason beyond the desire to help the helpless.  And then there’s various minor sidequest demons like Idun and Demeter and Hua Po who are friendly and generally decent individuals.  Hell, the Neutral faction itself is much more likable for its demonic patron Nuwa than it is for that human jackass Yakumo.

I’m not saying that all or even most of the demons in this game are good people, but there’s pretty much no denying that all of the likable and nearly all of the morally decent members of this game’s cast are gods and demons, and definitely all of the Nahobino’s own positive friendships are with these supernatural entities.  So the True Neutral ending really sucks and betrays whatever emotional weight the game has managed to create, and makes the Nahobino look like a complete tool, because you’re basically turning on every individual who’s extended meaningful friendship to you and disintegrating them.  What was the point of protecting Amanozako, helping her with her search to find her soulmate, if a mere couple hours after she finally achieves what she needs to lead a happy and secure life, you force an abrupt conclusion to that life?  Why make a big deal about Tao being reborn if she’s just going to re-die the next day?

As with Atsuta’s criticism of Law, the writers of SMT5 clearly just paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to what they themselves had been doing.  They’ve made a story wherein the “best” ending involves killing every single character in the game who isn’t a jackass!

But even if you don’t give a shit about any of that and just hate them dadgummed durned demons for the hell of it, the True Neutral ending’s still unsatisfying.  Because it, in all its special Trueness, gets a special post-credits scene of the new (but basically just the same as the old) world you’ve created, and the narrator, as well as the golden-eyed putz sitting on a bench, strongly imply that this humanity-for-humanity-only world is not gonna last because the Mandala universal will thing cannot be denied or escaped.  So yeah, after all that rigamarole, after sacrificing everyone who demonstrably gave a shit about you in the game, it turns out it was probably all for nothing.

Honestly, compared to the rest of these, the fact that the Law ending only insults your intelligence probably makes it the least disappointing of all of them.  Sure, the narrator’s clearly relishing the opportunity to hammer home the idea that people who follow Law can’t think for themselves (a stupid claim that has been soundly proven wrong by the game’s own cast), but at least humanity is safe and generally happy, the Nahobino himself is pleased with the result, and it’s stated flat-out that the future is prosperous.  Frankly, I’ll take a clumsy attempt at an insult over any combination of being told that countless people suffer and die in war, being told that even the protagonist himself hates what he’s done, the assassination of the only people we’ve seen capable of being nice, and being told that my actions didn’t accomplish the 1 thing they were meant to.

Honestly, between this and the fact that the Law faction is the only one with anything approaching actual character development, I’d be tempted to think that SMT5 is actually intentionally favoring Law...if not for the fact that Dazai spends 85% of the game wearing a baseball cap that says “SUCKER” on it.

Make no mistake, though: even if the Law ending is the least unsatisfactory, the game’s still sneering at you for picking it.  The facts of the matter are, that all of the endings are careless, empty after-thoughts in a story that’s as barren and abandoned as the wastelands it takes place within, and that 3 of the 4 endings leave a player feeling unsatisfied, with the other one still goes out of its way to make you feel like you made the wrong choice.  SMT5’s endings are the perfect crappy way to cap off a crappy game.














* Well, there’s an extra scene for the “true” Neutral ending tacked onto the end.  But it is nothing beneficial, as we’ll see in a moment.


** Or you might just be simping for Nuwa, I guess.


*** Well, not Dimitri either, since the bad guys actually effectively win in his route.  But he, tiresome and dumb edgelord though he is for most of his route’s narrative, is at least not a gullible, amoral dingus like Edelgard.


**** See, SMT5?  See how effortless it is for “Surely” to be linked to an ironic opposite?

Fire Emblem 15's Royal Treasury

So...a treasury that only allows in those of the royal family.  How much use is that, exactly?

Think about this.  The royal treasury of the empire of Rigel in Fire Emblem 15 can only be accessed by those of royal blood.  So...doesn’t that mean that any time anyone needs something from the vault, whenever some relic or parchment in there is necessary for the sake of state business, they have to petition the emperor himself to haul his ass down to the basement to fetch it?  And it’s a good bit of a walk, too: this vault’s sitting smack dab in the middle of the final dungeon.  The emperor’s gotta clear his whole schedule and make a morning of it any time someone needs a particular national treasure for some reason or other.

And this uppity storage unit ain’t kidding about only opening to royalty, either.  This isn’t some situation where His Royal Highness can just show up, open the door, and get back to his business while some servants head in to procure whatever’s needed.  He really is the ONLY one that can go in.  No cargo-haulers, no dignitary from a neighboring nation that the emperor talked into helping him move this weekend, not even a goddamn intern with a dolly is following him in there.  Meaning that Emperor Amazon Fulfillment Center has to haul out anything he wants from the vault all on his own.  Yeah, that’s definitely what I want as ruler of a nation, alright--I want to keep important shit I might need in an emergency within a warehouse I have to drive 30 miles to get to, where I get to be a 1-man warehouse worker union.

And is it really such a good idea to keep Falchion in this vault?  Falchion, the god-slaying sword given to humanity as a safeguard against the day that the continent’s dragon overlords turn against their people?  The one weapon that gives humanity the capacity to defend itself against an otherwise theoretically unstoppable force?  You’re keeping Falchion in a treasury that only a tiny handful of very killable human beings can get into.  A tiny handful of very killable human beings who traditionally all congregate in the same palace, meeting with the same people, hanging out in the same throne room, eating at the same table!  The sword that represents the great and final hope of the human species is 1 really poorly-cooked fish dinner away from being lost forever to an uncooperative doorknob.

You know what would be a great way of keeping the stuff in your vault secure, but accessible to a highly reasonable degree?  A fucking key.  Just get some magical lock made that only recognizes a special royal crest or whatever--don’t pretend that’s gonna be less feasible than a goddamn DNA-scanning teleporter--and use that.  That way, the most important human being in the entire nation doesn’t have to lug himself through the catacombs every time Royal Gardener Harry needs the legendary +3 Vorpal Hedge Shears because those damned briars in the back are getting uppity again.  He can just give Harry--or a duly appointed designee, never put too much trust in a guy who has a wisteria as his emergency contact--the royal crest key thing, tell him to bring it right back afterwards, and get on with his day.

Hm?  What’s that?  Oh, “What if the Falchion falls into the wrong hands?”  Hmm, yeah, you know, I guess you’re right, it WOULD be pretty bad if someone were to kill the emperor, steal the key, and make a withdrawal of $God-Buster.  Yes, that’d be a real disaster!

But hey, you know what would also be pretty bad?  If instead of killing the emperor and getting the key to the vault, someone were to kill the emperor and there was no key and now no one can have the Falchion.  I mean, if we’re gonna suppose the possibility of a bad guy offing the emperor, I’d sure as hell rather run the risk of having to foil a villainous plot to abuse the power of the Falchion than to run the risk of the only defense against a malevolent god becoming eternally and irreversibly beyond anyone’s grasp.  Frankly, if it means not having to worry that humanity’s fate is 1 loose patch of carpeting on a palace stair away from sealed, I’ll happily run the risk of the royal treasury key being snatched up by any old pickpocket, some 2-bit usurper, or even just an intern who got mixed up and handed the emperor back the bathroom key by mistake.  A single detour from the main plot is all that’s required to fetch the damned key from a mortal holder.

But as the royal treasury stands now, a round of flu breaking out at the capital--or hell, even just a sole royal heir who doesn’t feel like walking all the way down there--is all it’ll take to make every single thing in that vault inaccessible forever.  Deus Ex Machina devices aren’t usually icons of intelligent thinking, but Fire Emblem 15’s royal treasury is a cut below nonetheless.

...And yes, I know that this is 1 of the least important things I’ve ever ranted about.  I’m not apologizing.

Chrono Trigger's Party Members' Pseudonyms

Aliases are not exactly an uncommon phenomenon in RPGs.  I mean, they aren’t in all of fiction, really, but they prevail especially often in this genre.  And that fact isn’t terribly surprising, either.  RPGs have the usual array of story-related reasons for characters to have multiple names and identities to go by which inevitably work their way into a plot twist later on--taking on a new name to go undercover (like a guy named Ryu beating the shit out of some hermit minding his own business named Baba so he can steal Baba’s identity because damn it all he’s gonna get those backstage passes 1 way or another), or making a clean break from the past (like a guy named Clyde taking on the name Shadow because he wants to avoid the messy business of child support checks), or deceiving the heroes into believing that their new best buddy is not actually a complete shitbag using them for nefarious ends (like a guy named Ghaleon deciding that his name just wasn’t sus enough and to begin moonlighting as the Magic Emperor), among many other examples.

But RPGs are also inordinately fond of of both the Plot-Induced Amnesia and the Rebellious Princess tropes, far more than most other narrative ventures, and these story paths are almost always accompanied by pseudonyms, since the schmucks in question either can’t remember their own names or view being known as royalty as a hindrance to adventuring (hell, sometimes it’s a 2-for-1 schmuck like Legrand Legacy’s Finn doing both routines).  It doesn’t always make a lot of sense--I really don’t know who Tales of Vesperia’s Princess Estellise thinks she’s fooling by choosing “Estelle” as her codename, that’s like someone named Jonathan going undercover as Jon--but it certainly does happen a lot all the same.

Oh, and also, goddesses who have reincarnated as humans and don’t remember that fact.  Holy fuck do RPGs ever love playing that card.  You can even get bonus pseudonyms out of that one--Erim from the Lufia series and Althena from the Lunar series each have (at least) 3 separate named identities, and can you imagine how many different monickers Hylia would’ve collected by this point if she didn’t just keep getting slapped with “Zelda” every time?  Woman would have so many aliases that the FBI would put her on a list just out of reflex.

Even considering how prone to pseudonyms the genre is as a whole, however, Chrono Trigger is a peculiar case.  Because while other RPGs might be content with 1, maybe 2 major characters who have separate names for substantial plot-related reasons, over half of Chrono Trigger’s main characters are known by pseudonyms!  There are, after all, only 3 characters in the party whose names are genuinely their own (Ayla, Lucca, and Crono), while the remaining 4 are known by adopted monickers.  Marle is actually Princess Nadia, Magus is actually Janus, Frog is actually Glenn, and Robo...well heck, Robo ought to count double, because he’s actually R66-Y AND Prometheus.*

And I can’t help but wonder: thematic, or a coincidence?

I mean, it’d be a hell of a chance occurrence to have 4 characters’ arcs all substantially involve adopted names in the same game, without the writers having intended the concurrence for any higher purpose.  Particularly since CT’s writers were all quite competent--it’d be out of character for this to just be a case of some oversight.

And it’s worth recognizing that each character’s pseudonym has different context and reason for its existence, but all could be seen to share a narrative purpose.  Marle chooses to be Marle, for positive and self-affirming reasons.  While the choice to hide her identity of Nadia might have briefly, at the start, been a matter of convenience (as she didn’t want Crono to treat her differently due to her status), after that point, being Marle is clearly a decision she makes for her own sake--”Marle” is who she really is, while “Nadia” is a restriction imposed upon her by people and circumstances she despises.  And while she does reconcile with her father and (presumably to some degree) her position as a princess, she and her character’s arc have made it clear that she’s not giving up the name she gave herself.  “Marle” is an identity, her identity, and “Nadia” a castoff that, at best, she won’t object to being called when her royal life does have to crop up.

Like Marle, Frog chooses his pseudonym--but for him, it’s clearly for negative reasons.  The name is a way of hiding within his cursed form, avoiding acknowledging his past failure as Glenn and hiding that truth from the world, particularly those he loves and respects, like Queen Leene and King Guardia.  While “Marle” is an identity of self-affirmation and freedom of individuality, “Frog” is one of shame and/or fear, an identity created to coincide with the cursed body that serves as a physical representation of Glenn’s failure and loss.  In terms of the identity of “Frog,” Glenn’s story is one of coming to terms with his past and an identity built on its consequences, and bringing honor and self-value back into his life as Frog.  While “Marle” is a positive identity to start with, “Frog” is one in which a healthy self-attitude must be grown--and even then, it’s almost certain that the identity of “Glenn” is the preferable one and would be who the man seeks someday to be again.

Robo, meanwhile, is an interesting variation.  Unlike Frog and Marle, Robo doesn’t choose his pseudonym, instead being dubbed such by Crono, who apparently either has no creativity whatsoever or just didn’t give half a shit.  “Robo” is the name of the character who develops from essentially nothingness from the moment that Lucca repairs him.  Unlike Marle and Frog, there’s not really any conflict of identity for the majority of the game for Robo--he doesn’t remember his previous life the way they do, and he isn’t given a chance, when meeting his assembly line brothers, to decide whether he wants to exist as Robo or as R66-Y, as they turn on him automatically.  While being called a defect distresses him and of course he doesn’t particularly like getting the crap kicked out of him, the incident never offers a choice to Robo regarding which identity he wants--by the end of it, the beings who have saved him are the ones who named him Robo and there’s nothing else left for him as R66-Y, so of course he’s going to be Robo going forward.  The choice only comes late in the game, and unexpectedly, as Atropos reveals that he had another identity as Prometheus before, and that he’d been meant to be an infiltration unit of sorts.  It’s a questionable claim, actually, given that Atropos herself is only being all genocide-y because her programming’s been tampered with by Mother Brain, but at the time said claim is made, Robo has no particular reason to doubt it.  Either way, the identity of “Robo” is the one that’s been given the time and opportunity to grow, and given things and people to cherish, while “Prometheus” is still just a theoretical that can’t be remembered, so the choice, while still significant, is nonetheless probably easy for Robo to make.  Though it was a name given to him, Robo has grown into his identity as such, and now chooses to be that self just as much as Marle does.

Magus, of course, is grumpy and not a team player even when it comes to narrative tools like character development, so we can’t really say for sure what the emotional circumstances are that tie him to his current name.  Maybe it was a name given him by Ozzie that he grew into like Robo, or maybe it’s something he wears because he’s ashamed of what he was as Janus like Frog, or maybe he legitimately only ever started feeling like a person in his own right once he was away from everyone who knew him by his former identity like Marle.  There’s a good chance it’s none of the above and more an edgy new-name-for-a-new-identity-of-VENGEANCE sort of thing.  Could also be something else entirely.  Regardless, we can’t say for sure exactly what the story of “Magus” is, only that he willingly keeps it.  But the absence of an answer is an answer too, in the sense that the mystery still makes it a different case from the other pseudonyms, from our audience perspective.

So the story of each character’s pseudonym is different, but they all clearly work toward similar purposes of showing identity as something consciously chosen.  Marle, Magus, and Robo all arrive at a destination of voluntarily embracing these identities, and even though Frog’s story is a bit different, it still revolves around him using a name to undergo an emotional journey to come to terms with and accept himself--it’s just that in his case, he’s arriving at an acceptance of “Frog” and more importantly a willingness to return to “Glenn” someday.  So there’s certainly a theme to be read here, one of the human will to choose their own self and to consciously defy or own the identity given to them by others.

I just don’t really know if this theme that you can find was actually intended.

I mean...yeah, okay, when the majority of your cast run in the same thematic circle, most often it’s for a reason.  Look at Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, after all.  The theme of ascension, of rising above the restrictions placed upon you by the universe, is all over the place in its cast’s stories, with succubi overcoming the Evil in their natures, and Hell Knights subtly working outside Law’s methods to achieve success, and broken PTSD-suffering fallen paladins being nurtured back to believing that a day might come when they’ll be okay again, and so on and so forth.  It’s all over the place; there’s very few major characters that don’t tie to this ascension theme in 1 fashion or another.
 
But at the same time...well, ascension is a theme that exists within and permeates PWotR far beyond just the main cast.  The story as a whole plays with it, the main villain ties to it, and it’s the very purpose itself of the true ending.  By contrast, as far as I can see, this concept of self-determined identity represented by pseudonym isn’t a part of Chrono Trigger as a whole.  Human will and potential is a major theme of the game, and I suppose that’s at least somewhere in the same ballpark as self-determined identity, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to assume they’re intended to be connected, particularly since the method of the latter (the pseudonyms) doesn’t appear in any other significant part of the game.**

So...I’m inclined to say that the peculiar prevalence of pseudonyms in Chrono Trigger’s cast might, indeed, be more coincidence than contrived.  Maybe it was intended to tie to the game’s ideas on existential will and potential, but I just don’t see enough evidence of it.  Maybe the writers didn’t somehow overlook the fact that the game had so many main characters running around with aliases, but just recognized that what they’d made still works and wisely decided not to mess with it.  Anyway, the point is that I have fully wasted my time and yours considering a question no one was asking, and arriving at a conclusion that requires no shifting of one’s perspective on the matter in the slightest.  Aren’t you glad you read these things?




















* I mean I guess Frog also has a second pseudonym of Mr. Toad thanks to Crono’s mom, but just because all these amphibians look the same to her doesn’t mean that we should humor her blatant and disgusting racism.  Why, she was even shocked that one of Frog’s kind could articulate himself!  Truly disgraceful.  I ask you, where were Nintendo’s censors that day?


** Yes, Lavos is given a name by Ayla (like how Robo was named by the party), but it’s no pseudonym, because it’s the only name he ever possesses, nor is it part of any story of identity.  And yes, Gasper’s name is only revealed late in the game, but until that point he only has a title (Old Man), not an actual alternate alias.  And again, it isn’t used to explore any concept of identity.

Shin Megami Tensei 5's Incompetent Critique of the Law Route

Boil the art of debate down long enough to get to its rudimentary basics, and you find 2 elementary strategies that are employed when trying to persuade an audience: talking up your own side of the issue, and discrediting the opposing viewpoint.  Because we’re a contrary and, let’s face it, oftentimes stupid species, it can often be the case that convincing someone that your side is right is not nearly as effective and reliable as simply convincing them that the other sides are wrong.  If you want an example, look no further than the United States’ presidential elections, which have, for the entirety of my lifetime and far before even that, had their outcomes determined less by citizens voting for a candidate whom they believe in than by citizens voting against a candidate whom they despise.  If we ever as a collective nation decided to vote solely based on which political asshole we most believe in rather than which one we think has the best chance of beating the political asshole we hate, this 2-party nightmare we’ve been locked into for most of a century would be dispelled lickity-split, and we’d all be better off for it.  But because we’re easier to manipulate with enmity than with unity, that’s unlikely to happen.

The Shin Megami Tensei series has naturally made use of both basic sides of debate when its advocates for Law, Chaos, and Neutrality make their arguments to a game’s protagonist.  Even though Shin Megami Tensei 5 is reluctant to perform even the most minimal narrative labors expected of it, the game nonetheless does manage to halfheartedly go through a few motions of its philosophical emissaries making their cases for their faction and against the others.  And it’s on this point that we see not only that SMT5 is, as I have accused, barely written at all, but also that what stunted scraps of storytelling it does possess are often, as I have also previously accused,  poorly written, too.  Because Shin Megami Tensei 5’s Chaos advocates’ criticism of the side of Law is completely and clearly incompetent.

Atsuta, the flat, emotionless, shallow, pea-brained dipshit that SMT5 has the audacity to put forth as its Chaos Hero, makes the claim that Dazai, the hapless helpless hopeless goon that SMT5 has the audacity to put forth as its Law Hero, only believes that the world needs God Almighty because Dazai has stopped thinking for himself.  And under normal circumstances, this is the easy slam-dunk go-to criticism that the Shin Megami Tensei series is fond of leveling against its Law faction.  While I would argue strenuously that it’s a grossly oversimplified misrepresentation of 1 of the major motivations for choosing to side with Law in SMT, it’s at the same time quite impossible to argue in most of the titles that there’s not at least some merit to this accusation.  Many of the major Law figures in the series are basically hard-coded to follow God’s will, and the Heroes who partner with them are frequently doing so in large part out of a trust in and reliance on The Big Man to know what’s best for all.  Hell, I can’t even deny that my personal favor for Law over Chaos in SMT may be at least in some small part influenced by Christian concepts impacted upon me during formative years in my childhood.  There’s a fun and intelligent debate to be had about the line between mindless obedience and healthy and laudable faith as they apply to a character’s and one’s own choice to side with God and His Law, and I myself certainly see it as much closer to an admirable and reasoned display of faith than dull subservience...but it’s still a vulnerable chink in SMT Law’s armor.  Atsuta and his patron may completely lack the inclination and the logical capacity to actually explain why their version of Chaos is a good idea (or even makes any sense at all), but they at least can levy the golden standard personal attack against their ideological opponents.

Except that this time, it’s not accurate.  In fact, the claim that Dazai only advocates for Law because he’s stopped thinking for himself is blatantly incorrect to the point of exposing just how incompetently, stupidly ignorant the game’s writers were of their own damn work.  Because Dazai is literally the only character in the game who we actually SEE contemplate, in even the smallest regard, the world’s situation and what path must be taken forward!

Oh, sure, there’s a little bit here and there in Dazai’s dialogue over SMT5’s course that tells the audience that he’d rather be a follower to a leader better equipped to make decisions than to have to give input on future actions.  There’s even a conversation he has with the protagonist in which he hallucinates that Koshimizu ever asks his subordinates for their opinions on his orders, something which never happens nor is even hinted to be consistent to Koshimizu’s personality and leadership style, and Dazai laments that he’d rather not have to be a part of such a discussion when he doesn’t feel personally qualified to be.  The preference for following instead of leading is definitely shown to be there in Dazai.

But the fact of the matter is that of Atsuta, Dazai, and that shortsighted laughable clown Yakumo--not to mention the Nahobino himself--Dazai is the ONLY faction representative in Shin Megami Tensei 5 to actually be seen weighing his options, stressing out about what needs to be done for the world, and taking the steps to come to the conclusion that his faction is the best course to follow.  Yakumo will haughtily deign to briefly outline why he believes in his cause, and his partner Nuwa will later neatly deliver the brusque, inadequate little sob story of how Yakumo became such a violently sanctimonious prick, but he’s long since determined his stance on the world by the time of the game’s events.  Atsuta, meanwhile, doesn’t do the audience even that small service, instead just going along with Koshimizu’s Chaos plan without questioning it or himself even once.  But Dazai we see express concern about the future of Tokyo and the world, debate with himself what to do to bring the order he thinks the world needs back now that it’s confirmed that God is dead, and persuade Abdiel to defy the letter of God’s law (which dictated that there would be no more Nahobinos) in order preserve its spirit, talking her into becoming a fallen angel to accomplish God’s will in ways she could not as the champion who outlived Him.  It may still be rushed and it may still be laughably over the top and the origin of Dazai’s boner for YHWH may still be a mystery, but at the very least we do SEE Dazai actually think about the cause he’s going to champion before committing to it, he can explain (albeit simplistically) in his own words why he believes in his cause instead of just parroting Daddy Koshimizu’s propaganda, and he can point to his experience with a practical example of the Chaos faction’s goal as evidence of why it won’t work.

And not for nothing, but the way Dazai goes about pursuing his goal of restoring God’s order is not something you could call thoughtless.  Sure, most of the time, pulling for Law in SMT does just boil down to “Do what the angel says and shut the fuck up,” not exactly a course of action that necessitates an inventive mind.  But after thinking about his position, Dazai does enough creative thinking to conclude that God’s function and value can still be restored by replacing Him with an equal rather than getting stuck on the fact that He was killed, and then is innovative enough to conceive and propose a plan to Abdiel to get her to join him in this pursuit, and argue for that plan well enough that the archangel of God’s will embraces the need to betray God’s law as the only way to serve it.  The mere idea of a fallen angel being the only one who can do right by God’s memory is by itself a clear case of thinking outside the box, for that matter.  Wouldn’t the act of defying God’s expressly stated command for the sake of restoring God’s big picture be the very opposite of what Dazai would do if he weren’t thinking for himself?

And it’s Atsuta who has the gall to make this claim.  Atsuta, the eternal lapdog of Koshimizu, who never gives the slightest indication that he possesses the basic human capacity to think critically about his actions or the orders he’s given.  Atsuta, the guy who’s the exact same character at the end of the game as he is at its beginning, blandly defined by the trait of a dogged determination to protect Tokyo and an equally unrelenting determination not to consider for himself how that goal should manifest.  He’s accusing someone else of choosing thoughtless obedience.

I’m not even really all that annoyed with Atsuta, honestly.  He just isn’t even human enough to warrant it; the guy’s closer to an inanimate object than he is a facsimile of a person.  I might as well get upset with a napkin.  But I certainly can get frustrated with the creators of the game for this blatant, blindingly-obviously boneheaded criticism of Dazai.  The “you don’t think for yourself” criticism is, as I mentioned, the go-to for the Chaos crowd in SMT, and because Atlus simply couldn’t find it in itself to actually do its job, it just grabbed the fall-back and didn’t consider the matter any further than that.  A single, passing glance at the script for SMT5 would have been enough to realize, for the writers--if there really were any--that the scenario they had in their gross sloth created was the exact opposite of one in which that criticism would have been applicable, but they just couldn’t be bothered to give even that glance.  It’s not like there was all that much there to have to reread!  I’ve seen more verbose manifestos on the back of some cereal boxes than certain entire chapters of this game’s script can boast.  It’s like Shin Megami Tensei 5 is a parody of itself--its authors threw out a pre-made criticism that used to mean something in the series, they did it reflexively and without a thought, and it turned out to be a condemnation of that very action.

Octopath Traveler 1's Language

Well, I may be back to boycotting SquareEnix, and even more enthusiastically than the first time for that matter, but if someone goes and buys 1 of their games and gifts it to me, then the damage is already done and I may as well let myself enjoy the game.  If that’s possible, that is--this is SquareEnix we’re talking about, there’s like a 5% chance of anything they publish being even remotely close to passable.  But Octopath Traveler seems to be that rare roll of a Natural 20, and I’m thankful that the money spent on this generous gift to me was at least in support of an actually good game.

Anyway, enough of my excuses for owning a modern SquareEnix title and my grumpy reticence to give the company its extremely rare due accolades.  On with the rant.



A few years ago, I made a rant about how much I enjoyed Bravely Default’s elegant and smooth use of older, uncommon language.  Well, I figure it’s only fair that I also point out and applaud Octopath Traveler 1 for doing the same, particularly since it might actually be even better than Bravely Default at it!

Octopath Traveler 1 (and probably its sequel, but I’ve only played the first) is a game whose translators clearly delighted in the elaborate and elegant past of the English language.  As with Bravely Default before it, OT1 liberally employs a slew of interesting, extravagant language more at home with centuries’ past than with our own modern age of communication, to the end of better selling its medieval-to-Elizabethan-era settings.  And it’s quite successful at doing so--the skilled, natural way that Octopath Traveler 1 employs its grasp of the old, ornate side of English merges perfectly with its artistic style to draw the player into the olden-style towns and villages.  Additionally, again much the same as Bravely Default, OT1 approaches this linguistic task fully with its modern audience in mind.  It’s not like reading Shakespeare, which requires from a present-day reader some development of reading technique that can decipher the bard’s elaborate but daunting prose and poetry into modern meaning.  It flows easily for a modern reader/listener and the meaning of characters’ words is always clear enough from context, at least as far as I can tell.

Now, the fun thing about Octopath Traveler 1 is that it also goes an extra mile in a couple of ways that I don’t remember Bravely Default doing (although, in fairness, it’s been a few years since I played the only real Final Fantasy game that SquareEnix has allowed to be made in 2 decades).  The first is that OT1 uses a wider social net for its older English terms.  Yeah, you’ve got plenty of characters using the higher-brow language and phrases, your “augurs” “naifs” and “mollycoddles” and verb versions of “warrant” and the like, as seen in BD...but Octopath Traveler 1 also has no qualms whatever about slumming it a bit when the common man is speaking, either.  It’s just as comfortable bandying the cruder vernacular of the peasantry around as it is with the fancy stuff.  And I’m a simple man--I see a game that can casually, authentically throw “summat” around, and it gets my approval.

It’s even got archaic profanity in it!  I let out a squawk of delight when I saw the villain of Olberic’s story exclaim “God’s teeth!” in frustration at Olberic’s unrelenting nobility.  There’s also a “‘swounds” or 2 to be found, too.  Honestly, it’s a damn shame we didn’t have translators this knowledgeable and talented working at Squaresoft back in the 90s, because there’s no way Nintendo’s famously enthusiastic censors of the era would have been able to keep up.

And the other avenue in which Octopath Traveler 1 ups the game from the high standard Bravely Default set is with its regional dialects.  Not satisfied just with showing off their well-earned degrees in English Linguistic History with uniform speech patterns, the writers/translators of OT1 also vary the manner in which characters and NPCs speak by region and town.  Olberic, Cyrus, H’aanit, and Primrose, for example, all clearly have their own distinctive speech patterns, as do the regions of their origins, which stand out as different iterations of older English just as clearly as modern-day accents distinguish themselves as separate versions of the same contemporary language.  I love H’aanit’s heavy Chaucerian olde English especially; the woman is speaking it more thickly and constantly than Frog, Cyan, and Dynaheir all rolled into one.*  I mean, okay, granted, her dialect is, when I look it up, apparently not 100% correct/accurate/consistent, but it’s certainly still pretty solid all the same, and more than convincing and consistent enough for most players to enjoy and find interesting and appealing.  And these regional accents are even appropriately selected for immersion’s sake in some cases--the most noticeably dense dialect of old English is that of H’aanit’s village, and that tracks, because they’re the 1 community of the bunch that’s the most isolated from the rest of Orsterra’s population, so it makes sense that their speech patterns would remain the most unchanged by contact with other communities.

It’s a minor virtue, but Octopath Traveler 1’s skill and creativity in employing earlier terms and conventions of the English language is the kind of characteristic that adds flavor to an RPG, flavor that makes it stand out amongst its peers and develops a distinctive personality for it.  Octopath Traveler 1’s writers and/or translators deserve recognition for their work just as Bravely Default 1’s did, more even, because it elegantly takes what BD did even further.  Well done, Acquire Corp!













* And unlike those 3, the culture of her origins actually also speaks the way she does.  I mean, okay, I think we never actually saw where Baldur’s Gate 1’s Dynaheir came from, and you can maybe pass Chrono Trigger’s Frog off as having intentionally adopted a different manner of speaking to further hide his identity as Glenn (or explain it away as a peculiar side effect of Magus’s curse)...but what the hell was the deal with Final Fantasy 6’s Cyan, at the very least?  “Mr. Thou” indeed.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Stray Thoughts

I'm back, as promised!  Did you miss me?

...You know, a little white lie every now and then to make someone feel better doesn't cost you anything.  Just saying.



My Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous rants have thus far been pretty spoiler-heavy, but I’m happy to say that today’s you can probably read regardless of familiarity with the game.  In fact, as a stand-in for a recommendation rant for the game, I wrote it as much for those unfamiliar with the game as those who are.



Hey, remember when I did a collection of mini-rants for Tales of Vesperia?  I was thinking I might do it again today for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.  Except that whereas last time my stray thoughts were mostly evincing vices because Tales of Vesperia is vexing and vaguely vile, today’s viewpoints are applauding various virtues I vowed to voice my approval of while playing this very diverting videogame.  

Normally with a Kickstarter RPG, I’d just make a rant outright recommending and applauding it (if it’s good, of course; I certainly haven’t made such a rant for every Indie title I’ve helped crowdfund).  I did so for the first Pathfinder game, after all.  But therein lies much of the problem: while very much its own entity, a LOT of the virtues that give Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous its great quality and individual personality are ones I already enthused about in my rant recommending Pathfinder: Kingmaker.  Rather than make a whole new major rant for the successor and have to grasp at straws the whole time to re-describe many of the same characteristics that make it so good, we’re just gonna shine a spotlight on a few of the noteworthy bits and pieces of PWotR’s enjoyability, and cover the rest with the following blanket statement: The signature elements that made Pathfinder: Kingmaker great are by and large still present in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

On with the thoughts!



- After Pathfinder: Kingmaker’s mistake in making the only romance option for a gay male protagonist one which would end in the death of another party member--a matter I criticized in what has turned out, for reasons I couldn’t possibly guess at, to be my most-read rant of all time--I greatly appreciate the fact that Owlcat Games were quite careful this time around to make sure that there’s an appropriate number and variety of romantic partners for players who want to play heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual protagonists of either gender.  Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has 2 romanceable dudes for male protagonists, 2 dudes for female protagonists, 3 girls for guys, 3 girls for girls, and even 1 girl for players who are fucking psychopaths.  While things are still a little imbalanced in favor of players who want a female romantic partner, the fact is that Owlcat Games put in the work to ensure that each of the major sexualities has multiple viable romantic options to pursue, and I applaud them for recognizing where they went wrong in the previous game and striving to correct that misstep.  Good work, guys, and thanks.


- I was very pleased throughout the game with the dedication to involving the party members in conversations.  It’s not just the generous quality and quantity of the major characters’ dialogue as they pitch in with their own reactions and thoughts, either.  What also stood out to me as I played the game was that the writers were dedicated to making sure that even the less prominent companions of the party were included as individuals worthy of having a say.  Finnean the living weapon, for example, may only rarely have something to opine on, but it’s a pleasant reminder of him each time it does happen, and the fact that he’s valued enough as a member of the team to take part in conversations is laudable.  I mean, not every speaking spear and chatty chakram can is meant to be a Boyfriend Dungeon love interest, but still, minor talking weapon sidekicks are usually a speak-only-when-spoken-to deal.  Likewise, even though there’s every chance that he won’t ever be in the party, the writers made sure that Trever has stuff to say in reaction to the events and conversations that unfold before him, and even though it’s substantially less likely that they’ll both be in the party together, there’s a decent chunk of dialogue for Trever and Sosiel both interacting with one another in these circumstances, too.

And it’s just plain awesome that a TON of reactionary dialogue was put in for Aivu--considering that she’s a minor companion locked into only 1 route of the game, you wouldn’t think the writers would go to too many lengths for her involvement, but they actually just go all in.  Aivu is pretty much the most entertaining character in the game and I love her to pieces, so Owlcat Games making sure to involve her as much as--hell, sometimes more than--the rest of the main characters is an awesome blessing.  They even went as far as to create a few extra lines for her here and there that play if, at the end of 1 particular sidequest, you adopted the dragon messiah and she decided on the spot to be his big sister.  Just...very cool that no team member ever seems to be forgotten, taken for granted, or have less effort spent on their presence.


- Speaking of party conversations, how fun is it that when you set up camp on the date that you’ve set to be the protagonist’s birthday, your companions actually express birthday wishes to the Commander?  And they all can do it; even Grandpa Drill Sergeant Regill has genuinely positive sentiments to share on the special day, because Regill is secretly a goddamn bro.


- You know, when Baphomet shows up in the game, he has the bearing, the voice work, the profile art, just the general presence of a terrifying, arcane force of malevolence beyond the ken of we mortals, just as a demon lord should.  It’s honestly impressive that, after 4 chapters of being a demon-mashing superhero, the game could still manage to put just a bit of the fear of (anti) God in me with him.

...and then Nenio completely fucking dismantles this imposing lord of terrors and machinations with a single, innocent, hilariously demeaning scientific inquiry.  Just wrecks the man’s intimidation without even trying.  It’s glorious.  There are a lot of players who don’t like Nenio, and I don’t for the life of me get why.  She may mostly be a 1-joke pony, but that joke never seems to get old for me,* especially not when the sheer magnitude of its humor completely reverses the dynamic of personal power to make a godly villain the fool.


- It’s not all completely positive with this game, though.  They got a new tune for the character creation screen this time around.  And I mean, it’s fine enough...but if I’m gonna incarcerate myself for close to 2 fucking hours as I meticulously craft, re-craft, crash my computer, then re-re-craft a protagonist in this damn creation system because I’m a perfectionist madman, then I need something I LOVE to be playing the whole time, y’know?


- I like how smooth an advancement the Crusade minigame is of the Kingdom Management mechanics of Pathfinder: Kingmaker.  I mean...I can’t deny that I think I had a little more fun in PK with it, but the way the developer manages to adapt the originally sedentary system of kingdom-building into a system for advancing and managing a tactical military campaign is pretty impressive.  And although I greatly enjoyed running the Fifth Crusade, I nonetheless give kudos, as I did for the previous game, to the developer for the fact that there’s an option to skip the whole thing if you just don’t like this minigame.  Good Shelyn in Nirvana, do I EVER wish more RPGs afforded their players this courtesy.

...Although I do have to acknowledge that achieving the secret, True Ending of the game DOES require you to engage a little bit with the Crusade system, in order to research a couple of projects over the game’s course and attain certain necessary knowledge.  So it’s not quite as optional and hands-free as PK’s Kingdom Management was.  Still, it’s a very small amount of necessary involvement, and once you’ve done that research I assume you can just turn the Crusade system off again, so I still give full credit to Owlcat Games for being considerate.


- Can I just say that it’s very neat and refreshing, during an exchange within Sosiel’s character quest, to hear Regill actually give the side of Good real, genuine respect?  I mean, the man is a Lawful Evil soldier through and through from minute 1 of meeting him, and he makes no secret about disapproving of, even usually scorning, the impulses and instincts of those aligned with Good.  Yet instead of arrogantly viewing the side of Good as unworthy opposition, Regill will rebuke Sosiel, when the distraught latter expresses frustration and fear that he perceives Good seems not to be strong enough to overcome Evil without becoming Evil, thusly: “Don’t bring your metaphysics into this.  Stop blaming your own incompetence on cosmic forces.  The side of good isn’t weak, it’s you.”  I mean, yeah, he’s being harsh to poor Sosiel, but I still can’t help but be struck by a hell of a respect for an advocate of Evil who’s rational enough to recognize that the side of Good is, indeed, not weak at all--and who refuses to betray this valuable rationality just for the sake of trying to taunt and falsely confirm the doubts of a servant of Good on the matter.


- Thank you, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, for giving players on the Trickster path the option to get intimate with a real, actual poop monster.  This was just what my favorite genre was missing.


- I appreciate that Wrath of the Righteous generally lets itself be its own epic and only lightly references Pathfinder: Kingmaker.**  Nonetheless, I can’t deny that I was grinning pretty hard during the little cameo sidequest wherein PK’s Jubilost shows up to meet the Commander face to face and get a handle on who she/he is.  Juby was 1 of my favorite characters in the previous game, and the revelation that he’s secretly the Doctor Who of Pathfinder had me fanboying it up.


- While on the subject of homages to previous games, it’s neat how PWotR gives homage to many of the elements from previous isometric Dungeons and Dragons titles.  Arushalae was no doubt inspired to some degree by Planescape: Torment’s Fall-from-Grace, and Wenduag’s romance with the protagonist gives some definite Baldur’s Gate 2 Viconia vibes to me.  Then you’ve got Crynukh, who brings back fond memories of Neverwinter Nights 1’s Deekin, and of course, it seems fairly obvious that the paladin Irabeth is an homage to NN1’s Aribeth.  Irabeth even seems like she’s meant to be a case of PWotR’s theme of ascending beyond one’s natural limitations in this regard--Irabeth manages (in most playthroughs) to avoid losing her beloved and falling to the path of evil, overcoming the destiny that her semi-namesake implies will be her own.  That’s probably just me overthinking the matter, though.  Again.

But at any rate, through these and several more likely homages, we’re shown that just as Pathfinder is the successor to the heart and spirit of Dungeons and Dragons, so too does Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous wish to be the successor to the heart and spirit of the classic D+D games of the past.  Cool!


- While one’s alignment and choices made a difference very often to the events of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, it’s extremely impressive just how far that can go in Wrath of the Righteous.  As you’d expect, quests, endings, and the fates of various characters and communities hinge on how a player goes about progressing through the game, but the story as a whole can often look very different depending on what Mythic path you’ve chosen.  There’s enough variation between some of the paths that Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous can almost feel like a different game.  As someone who was, many years ago, a bit disappointed at the fact that the variations between Paragon and Renegade in the events of Mass Effect 1 and 2 did not radically change the succeeding sequence of events in ME2 and 3, I appreciate it when an RPG really goes the distance with this idea and constructs substantially different narratives depending on how its player’s choices diverge key points.  You don’t come across games that do this very often (and in fairness, it’s not hard to see why not, as it basically involves writing and coding almost multiple whole games), but I think it’s fair to add Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous to the the likes of The Witcher 2 and Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume on this matter.


- I fucking love Aivu.  If you only play Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous once, play it as an Azata.  It’s fun and thematically solid all the way through, but most importantly, Aivu.

BE FOREVER, AIVU!



These stray thoughts rants are kind of fun, and easier than my typical huge-honkin’-blocks-of-text-type rants.  And best of all, they can be critical OR congratulatory!  Although I’m fairly certain I know which way they’re going to trend towards if I continue them.  I’m already formulating 1 for Shin Megami Tensei 5, so rest assured, we’re gonna be back to Predominantly Grumpy Arpy soon enough.  In the meantime, though, Wrath of the Righteous is pretty great, and I recommend it as heartily as I did its predecessor Kingmaker.  Peace out, Pathfinders!












* And really, she DOES have some unexpected depth as a character if you can stick it out through her character quest.  It’s actually quite cool.


** Granted, the Storyteller is a pretty significant character in both games, but I’d actually argue that his far greater relevance to PWotR retroactively makes him a character of THIS game that Kingmaker just happened to also use.

Disco Elysium's Examination of Communism

So...last year, I took a break from ranting during June, because May had been an especially difficult month for me at work.  And, unfortunately, May this year was basically a little worse than last.  So...yeah, I think I'm gonna have to take another break this year to recoup my rant stock a bit.  And if I'm being honest, it's pretty likely that this is going to be a regular thing with June going forward for this blog.  Sorry, guys, but I've just been too wiped out from work to focus on the things that don't matter that really matter to me.  I'll at least leave you with a rant I think is 1 of my better ones, though.  See y'all come July!



Disco Elysium is an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful RPG that, to me, is the first true successor to the creative and philosophical perfection of Planescape: Torment, and in many ways, writing a rant about it is just as difficult to me as doing so for PT would be.  For starters, I legitimately don’t feel smart enough to weigh in on a lot of the game’s ideas, beliefs, and story content; I can keep up with it to my satisfaction, but trying to stake an intellectual claim in Disco Elysium’s substance is daunting.  Also, frankly, it’s the kind of game that a great many extremely sharp individuals have already written analyses, treatises, and theories about, so my own fumbling efforts to describe the excellence with which DE portrays the virtues, necessity, and tragically inescapable nature of failure, or its flawless use of the theme of impermanence and legacy, are inevitably going to just be retreading the same ground that was already explored better anyway.  Sit me down with a very intelligent but not absolutely brilliant game like Fallout 4 or New Vegas, or Tales of Berseria, and I’ll have plenty to work with.  Lock me in a room with some ridiculous, nonsensical idiocy like Xenosaga 3 or Chrono Cross, and I’ll beat a few rants out of it in no time.  But stuff like Nier: Automata, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Neverwinter Nights 2’s Mask of the Betrayer DLC, Planescape: Torment, and Disco Elysium?  I might get lucky and squeeze out a couple rants, but there's only so much I can do with them because they feel like they’re above my intellectual pay grade.

Still, there are occasions wherein even the greatest works of gaming feel like they have imparted some of their secrets upon me in a way different from others, and today is 1 of those times.  So let’s talk about the really interesting way in which Disco Elysium regards communism.

First of all, we should probably clarify that when DE speaks of communism, it’s a slightly ambiguous take on the concept.  Communism as we see it in Disco Elysium seems to be an indistinct amalgamation of both actual communism, and its brother, socialism.  Communism in Disco Elysium exists as a failed social-military movement of the past, a currently blossoming economic-nationalist uprising led by Evrart and the majority of the worker-populace of Martinaise, and as a governing entity theorized and yearned for by passionate young intellectuals--it’s a history, a present, and a future, and it means different things within each of those contexts.  As such, there are some ways in which Disco Elysium simply uses “communism” as a blanket term that covers its portrayal of both communism and of socialism, at least as far as I can tell with my only-barely-better-than-a-layman’s understanding of the concepts.  For the purposes of this rant, I’ll be following DE’s lead and using communism as the catch-all term for any and all of these slight variations of the idea of a government and economy controlled by the majority and those who do the most for it.

Also, I guess it’s probably worth mentioning that I, myself, don’t see socialism as an inherently bad idea.  Nor communism, I guess, although I certainly don’t like it as much.  So if my not going into Liberty Prime mode here is going to bother you, you probably shouldn’t keep reading today’s rant.  With that said, I don’t really count myself as a proponent for socialism, either.  I think it’d be great if there were a way to effectively implement it without compromising any of its ideals, because I’m sure as hell not a fan of capitalism, but I don’t honestly think that socialism or communism CAN be made to work, for reasons relevant to the rant below.  Mind you, I don’t think capitalism can work, either, and our current age sure seems to be intent on proving me right...but capitalism, at least, falls into its inevitable ruin a lot slower than socialism and communism do.  So if where I stand personally on this issue is important to you as you read, look at me as, I dunno, a sympathetic but uninvolved observer.  Like The Watcher in Marvel comics, or the United States every time something horrible happens in the world that doesn’t directly threaten its oil supply.

Alright, so, back to business.  Looking at communism through the lens of Disco Elysium, it’s clear that the creators of the game are very realistically pessimistic about the odds of communism’s ever succeeding.  DE shows clearly, distinctly, and bluntly why it doesn’t seem possible for communism to ever succeed and work in any kind of long-term capacity.

First of all, and perhaps most practically, the fact is that communism’s most powerful opposing ideology, capitalism, has no interest whatsoever in letting it gain a foothold in the world.  Elysium’s first, most famous, and arguably truest attempt at establishing communism as a governing power occurred decades before the game’s beginning, an established event of history there as much as the Russian Revolution is in our own world.  And this communist revolution of Elysium was violently, thoroughly crushed, as external nations quickly went to war with the new communist nation of Revachol and ruthlessly put down its idealistic militia.  Soldiers were killed, revolutionaries executed, territory seized, and control established by the forces that represent capitalism, and Revachol’s short attempt at a land whose people had autonomy over their own lives became a part of the city’s identity of failure.  Disco Elysium’s message is simple: communism isn’t going to flourish, because the big kids aren’t interested in letting it.

Did I say message?  I meant observation.  The observation of those who have seen or read of cold wars and costly real ones in this past century, who have witnessed the cultural demonizing of socialist thought for decades, and the careful forgery of an imaginary link between democracy, a system intended to empower the many, and capitalism, a system that crushes the many for the benefit of the few.

But don’t misunderstand: Disco Elysium isn’t just pessimistic about communism’s chances for success because of the outside forces that want to destroy it.  The game also bitterly but earnestly demonstrates why communism is doomed to failure even without the opposition of any external enemy.  You see, while the communism of the past fell to the hammer of capitalism, the communism of Disco Elysium’s present, that represented by Evrart and his Dockworker’s Union, actually looks like it may stand a fighting chance against the foreign corporate overlords from whom the union seeks to be emancipated.  As a result of many factors, such as the tired wisdom and regret of Joyce Messier, and Harry’s own actions, but most of all Evrart and Edgar Clair’s intelligence and preparation, a new revolution of and for the people is beginning in Revachol at the end of Disco Elysium.  This time, it looks like it might have the strength to endure its enemies’ attempt to crush it.  And if it does, indeed, succeed...

...it will be so, so much greater a failure of communism than the first time.

See, it won’t have succeeded because it was a movement by the people, for their own sake.  The Union’s communism will not have won the day by its own virtues.  It will have won because its leader Evrart is simply better at playing the game of his enemies than they are.  It appears that the only time that capitalism can’t crush communism is when the latter is being led by ruthless, manipulative, evil sons of bitches like Evrart and his brother Edgar.  Evrart is the closest thing to a standard RPG villain that Disco Elysium possesses--a man who’s bringing about his vision of a new, better world by making sacrifices of the very group of people who he’s supposedly doing it for, without their consent.  He finances his plans through the trade of narcotics that do the most harm to the common people, he manipulates his workers by spiking their borscht, he aims to “improve” slums by strong-arming their residents to move as he remakes the community.  And sure, the money DOES go toward his plans to make Revachol a city of the working class, and his people DO move in the ways he needs them to to achieve this, and the communities he’s rebuilding WILL be productive, wealthier areas--but each and every time, the desirable end result comes at the cost of the very people it’s meant to benefit, and their sacrifices aren’t requested, simply taken.*  Even if his greatest motivation really is the greater good--and we frankly only have his own word that this is the case--Evrart is very much an ends-justifies-the-means kind of guy, and what we glean of his brother paints a similar picture.

Which means that if the communism of Evrart’s union wins, then it effectively fails.  Communism is an ideology, a belief.  One that transforms itself into action and has tangible effects, yes, but ultimately, it is an idea, a philosophy of governance and trade.  You cannot prove your beliefs are right if the only way to do so is by betraying them.  Fire Emblem 16’s Edelgard’s new empire is not a victory for her ideals of a just and noble society if the executor of her will, Hubert, only upholds that society through murder and deceit.  Shin Megami Tensei 4-2’s Dagda’s insistence upon self-reliance is a joke if he can’t accomplish his objective without someone else doing absolutely everything for him.  And when Evrart uses up the lives and well-being of the working class, employs wealth as a form of power like capitalism, and has people inconvenient to him secretly executed like facism, then his victory is not one for communism.

Not to mention that, in addition to achieving success through the methods of capitalism and facism, Evrart and his brother Edgar are themselves basically living embodiments of a monarchy.  They’re basically heads of the union for life, because even though there are rules in place to keep a union head from serving in the position for too long, whenever the 1 brother’s term is up, the other simply runs and resumes where his sibling left off.  While an opposing candidate CAN run against the Claires, they have the advantage of resources, a totally ruthless mentality, and the willingness to have their opposition killed, making it very doubtful that almost anyone could depose them.  They’ve essentially made themselves monarchs--and Evrart (and presumably Edgar too) is more than willing to enjoy a higher quality of life than the working class he supposedly represents as a perk of leadership, so he’s clearly adopted the spirit of monarchy along with its method.  Capitalist tactics, fascist brutality, monarchistic lifestyle...if the union succeeds and establishes a communistic government following the events of the game, it’s only going to have done so through the leadership of a man who embodies every single political system examined by Disco Elysium except communism.  That is not a victory for the ideology.

And of course, this pessimistic view of communism in Disco Elysium’s present is based, once again, on how the philosophy has fared in real life.  Evrart Claire is a monstrous, scummy villain, but he’s essentially a fluffy little puppy-dog compared to the historical and current figures that he represents.  Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and let’s not forget our contemporary war crime enthusiast Xi Jinping, there’s no shortage of inhuman monsters and their administrations in the last century who have adopted the pretense of a communist nation as a way to brutally seize and keep power while oppressing, ruining, and often outright massacring millions of people.  While capitalism and traditional democracies are far from immune to horrible acts and being run aground by evil assholes gaming their systems--and of course fascism and monarchy don’t even really bother with a pretense--communism in our world has a damn bad track record of being easily usurped by ambitious, murderous psychopaths who twist it into something unrecognizable for their own benefit.

And while nations like North Korea and China may in practice be far, far off from being actually communist, they still purport themselves to be, and not a lot of people care to debate the matter when it provides an easy way to vilify the ideology through association.  Small wonder that the creators of Disco Elysium so pessimistically portray their world’s present form of communism through the unscrupulous and nasty Evrart Claire, when every “successful” communist movement or nation in our world winds up the way it does.

And so, Disco Elysium shows us, in its present and past forms of communism, why the concept keeps failing: because the only people who seem up to the task of defeating the capitalism that will seek to crush it aren’t the idealists, aren’t the people who actually believe in it, but the manipulators and sacrificers who are the exact same people as the worst of communism’s foes.  It’s a similar conclusion as I’ve drawn about socialism, myself, an unavoidable fact of history, human nature, and extrapolation.  Disco Elysium’s take on communism is elegantly, realistically, articulately pessimistic, as well it should be.

And yet, it is so careful to keep hope alive.

In spite of the past’s failure and the dim outlook of the present with Evrart as its architect, communism’s idealists DO still live in Disco Elysium’s world, and they are represented by Steban (and to a lesser extent, his cohort Ulixes).  Steban is shown to be ferociously intellectual, genuinely focused on understanding all he sees and reads at its highest level, and on a constant journey to experience and contribute to the exchange of thoughtful ideas, theories, and critiques.  He and Ulixes are staunch proponents and experts on communism and its branching theories, and envision a future in which its principles have been put into effect in government and economy, but also applied to interpersonal behavior and even the physical infrastructure of society, such as architecture.  The moral and philosophical heart of communism still lives in people like Steban, idealistic and intelligent youths who still have an eye to the future and envision what it could be.

Now, make no mistake, the game also shows that Steban is a dreamer who is biting off more than he can chew, as is the case of pretty much anyone who sincerely believes in the ideology in its own right.  Even in its message of hope, Disco Elysium is reasonably realistic.  Steban and Ulixes have not actually accomplished anything of their ideals beyond writing some intelligent but largely ignored articles, one of which has a subject matter whose relevance can’t even be called tangential.  Like, think of an article that is putting forth a passionate opinion about interpreting an extremely minor corner of human culture in a way that doesn’t really matter or change anything about that niche, which will be read by maybe 100 total people, ever.  And once you’re done envisioning Thinking Inside the Box, imagine it’s written way, way more insightfully.  That’s basically where Steban’s at in Disco Elysium--a highly erudite but infinitesimally minor bit player.  The fact that he has no idea how to raise enthusiasm for and recruit people into a reading group makes his potential to be the one to lead the masses to a social paradise pretty damn doubtful.  Additionally, there are multiple times during conversing with Steban when Harry’s inner thoughts and observations will conclude that the earnest young man is naive, spouting and indulging points of philosophy that he has not seen tested by the real world.  You absolutely can make a good argument that Disco Elysium’s portrayal of the well-intentioned but unprepared, disorganized, and green Steban as communism’s future suggests no more success for the ideology in the times to come than it’s had to date.

Still, the fact that idealists like Steban do still live, and that they’re shown through his representation to be smart, engaged people regardless of inexperience, at least implies the possibility that circumstances could improve for communism in the future.  Even if manipulative shitheads like Evrart are its present, there’s still the chance that the next face of the movement will be someone like Steban, who values communism for what it’s meant to be instead of what it can do for him.

And yes, the likely impossibility of communism being successfully implemented is still acknowledged by Disco Elysium...but even then, it still has hope.  1 of my favorite moments in the entire game is the scene in which Steban, Ulixes, and Harry all work together at the end of their reading club meeting to construct a building out of matchboxes, made in accordance with the architecture theorized by a communist philosopher in some of his writings.  In spite of the fact that the structure seems like it should be incapable of standing on its own, as Harry’s ever-skeptical partner Kim points out...it stands nonetheless as the 3 men finish and draw away from it.  Not for long--but long enough to prove its point in a quiet, poignant moment of hopeful symbolism that strikes awe even in Kim.  It seems clearly impossible--but it is accomplished nonetheless.  

1 of my favorite quotes from the game comes from Steban as a message of hope.  When Harry has the opportunity to question him on what the point is in striving for communism, in the face of a task which history has proven impossible and which may even prove fatal to undertake, Steban’s response is, “In dark times, should the stars also go out?”  In spite of all that has come in the game before it, it’s hard for a line like that not to be the take-away message on the matter.

Disco Elysium is realistically pessimistic about the prospects of true socialism and/or communism ever succeeding, as well it should be--but it’s also sympathetically optimistic, too.  Through the failure of communism’s history in Elysium and through the likely success of Evrart Claire, it establishes beyond doubt that, by all appearances, true, noble communism is unattainable.  And yet, by showing those that truly believe in it and want to urge the world toward it through the scholarly and sincere Steban, Disco Elysium is nonetheless sympathetic to the ideology...and through the scene of Harry, Steban, and Ulixes successfully building the matchbox structure, the game also goes out of its way to show that perhaps, with belief and hope, what seems and should be impossible really can be accomplished.  Disco Elysium strikes an interesting and elegant mix in its views on communism, and I appreciate equally its frank but non-hostile assessment of the movement’s unlikelihood to succeed, and its refusal to give up hope altogether for it.














* You can make defenses of each of these situations, of course.  The borscht is no big deal to him, to the point that he doesn’t even remember that it’s a thing he’s having done, so Harry can put an end to that one right then and there.  Evrart does claim that he’ll stop the drug trade if Harry raises a stink (although I’m fairly sure that this is meant to be a sarcastic remark, not genuine).  And Lilienne will justify her signature to allow Evrart to build his community center and thus displace most of the people living in the area by pointing out that regardless of how it may hurt herself and her community now, if it creates a better life for her children, it’s worth it.  But each of these justifications are only lucky circumstances each time--the evil behind Evrart’s behavior can’t keep lucking into happenstance that makes it theoretically justifiable forever, and let’s face it, it’s REALLY unlikely that these are the only unethical irons in Evrart’s fire.  I mean, again, he doesn’t even remember chemically manipulating his people with the spiked borscht, and if he actually IS willing to put the brakes on a narcotics empire because Harry doesn’t like it, then hell, I can’t even imagine how terrible the plans that he DOES really care about must be.

Breath of Fire 1's Second Wind

You know what was a pretty neat idea?  Breath of Fire 1’s Second Wind feature.  Like some RPGs before it and a lot of RPGs that came after, BoF1 utilized health bars to let the player know, broadly, how much HP an enemy still had during combat.  Health bars are a favorite tool of developers and gamers alike for managing their expectations for enemy longevity, and Breath of Fire 1’s health bars were particularly good ones for its time--the BoF1 health bar was big and diminished in real time with your attacks, giving you a very helpful and accurate understanding of what sort of chunks you could expect your characters to continue removing from the bar on subsequent attacks.  While BoF1 certainly didn’t invent the concept, it just as certainly did have a hand in positively directing the health bar’s evolution.

And the Second Wind system is a neat feature that was tacked onto the still-emerging art of the health bar.  The way the Second Wind worked was that when a boss health bar was fully depleted, they wouldn’t die like the rank-and-file random encounter enemies would.  Instead, the boss could get a Second Wind, in which a message would be given about the fight not being over, like “Evil Wizard grins fearlessly!” or “Diabolical General grits his teeth!” or “Annoying Politician demands recount!”  At that point, you would continue to fight on with no indication of how much HP the boss had left, turning your carefully planned assault into a slug-fest of attrition in which you just try to endure and match the strength of an enemy in the hopes that your own determination can outlast his.

Which is a pretty cool idea, right?  I mean, RPGs and their anime foundations are filled to the damn brim and then some with heroes who’re too damned determined to win to let a little thing like the disintegration of their spinal cord keep them down, after all, so why not let a villain do the same thing every now and then?  I mean, hell, Star Ocean 3’s finale involves the actual entire universe being wholly destroyed, and Fayt gets his Second Wind after being hit by that, so surely it’s not so unfair for 1 or 2 particularly important antagonists to be able to take a hit and keep on truckin’?

A well-placed Second Wind on a really important, powerful adversary could be a great way to really emphasize just what a dangerous villain it is that you face, and force an unexpected and even unnerving change to the player’s tactics.  The tension rises as you realize you’re up against a force that will not yield; blindly you struggle on, taxing your resources past what you had rationed them for, hoping that you can persist long enough to strike the final blow yet never knowing which it will be...it’s a good way to up the stakes of an already major battle, to make it clear that THIS is truly a fight around which the destiny of this world revolves!  I mean, okay, you’d need to have some discretion about the feature, because obviously it’s the sort of thing that should be reserved for only the most climactic of struggles, but I think as long as you didn’t go crazy and give a Second Wind to every damn boss in the game, you’d be good.

So hey guess what Capcom did with it

Yup.  Yup.  Rather than have the Second Wind be a special signature of the story’s more momentous battles and villains, pretty much all of Breath of Fire 1’s bosses have the ability.  Like, from the first boss on.  With a bare few exceptions, every single time you go up against any enemy of any note whatsoever in this game, you’re trained to expect them to outlive their health bar.  Hell, after a while, it starts to seem like they have MORE health in their last gasp!

Obviously this cheapens a tool which could have otherwise been applied tactically to raise the stakes of the narratively significant battles in the game, as a few RPGs have done with the concept in the many years since BoF1.  And honestly, it makes me wonder, what’s even the point of having a health bar for the bosses in this game, anyway?  I mean, if you go into every single boss fight knowing that the battle is going to extend past what said bar indicates, without the slightest knowledge of just how much extra health the bad guy will have, then what function does the health bar have?  If you want players to be in the dark about how much HP a villain has, then just don’t put a health bar on them to begin with.  Let the mystery BE a mystery if that’s what you want; having the Second Wind be a reflex rather than a special event just makes the presence of a health bar at all feel like an irritating bait-and-switch.

They also didn’t get the Second Wind thing off to a great start.  The message that plays when the first boss of the game gets his Second Wind informs you that he started crying, so, y’know, it doesn’t exactly present itself initially as a situation where a boss is too badass to succumb to death.  Doesn’t matter how many monsters and maniacs later in the game laugh in the face of mortality and redouble their efforts; your first impression with the Second Wind is always gonna have been a giant frog monster ugly-crying fat, wobbly amphibian tears down his green jowls.*

I dunno what it is with Breath of Fire pioneering interesting game mechanics, or at least adopting them while they’re still in their infancy, and just not having the slightest idea how to effectively make use of them (or establishing how to do so early on and then completely botching their own successful formula later).  I’ve obviously spoken on this trend in the series before, and I can already think of a couple more examples in BoF1 and 2 of good ideas implemented ineffectually that’ll probably get their own rants at some point, too.












* It also makes that battle feel really awkward.  It’s like, dude, you’re the one who led a violent invasion of a small, defenseless village at the behest of an evil emperor; stop crying like you’re the one getting bullied.  I resent being made to feel sorry for you.