General RPGs' Storytelling EXP

I like it when RPGs employ Storytelling EXP. I wish it happened more often.

What do I mean by Storytelling EXP? I’m glad I pretended you asked! Storytelling EXP is when you receive experience points for writing-related feats in an RPG, rather than gameplay-related ones. Most of the time, we associate experience points as rewards for defeating enemies, or sometimes using non-combat character skills (such as picking locks in a Fallout game, or disarming traps in Dragon Age 1, and so on). And with a lot of RPGs, I daresay most of them, that’s the sole extent of the experience point, er, experience. The only way you level up your character(s) is by beating bad guys, usually over and over again. But sometimes, there are other, more plot- and character-related ways of getting experience points, and those are what I refer to Storytelling EXP.

The most common form of this comes as a reward for completing quests. Once you follow a quest through to completion in, say, Fallout New Vegas, whether it’s a main quest mandated by the plot or an optional sidequest, you’ll be awarded a sum of EXP, the amount of which is almost always sizable, and sometimes varies depending on how well you did the quest. This is a pretty common occurrence in western RPGs like Dragon Age, Fallout, Neverwinter Nights, Pillars of Eternity, The Witcher, and so on. Heck, quest-reward EXP is basically the only kind you ever get in Mass Effect 2 and 3, and almost the only kind available in the recent Shadowrun titles. Also, there are some games where you’ll be awarded a bunch of Storyline EXP not so much for finishing specific quests, as just for reaching certain points in the plot, such as with Celestian Tales 1.

This is a pretty sensible approach which calls back to the roots of the genre: the tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, which follow this general idea by and large. Quest experience points encourage you to finish the tasks you start, and to experience all that the game can offer, which is good. And of course, since most of the story of an RPG is usually told through the characters and narratives involved in quests, Storytelling EXP for completed quests is providing an incentive that betters the chances that a player will see and take in all the ideas and story that the writers wish to convey. And it even helps on a level closer to that of gameplay, since getting an experience point reward for a quest gives an extra level of satisfaction at having seen the task through to its completion, a satisfaction which I personally find money and items and so on not to give. And besides, if we say that gaining levels is indicative of our characters growing as adventurers and individuals, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to achieve that growth from more aspects of their adventure than just beating the bejeezus out of bunnies that randomly cross their path?

There is, though, a form of Storytelling EXP that I like even more. The quests that you get experience from completing, after all, don’t HAVE to be particularly strong in the writing department or have an especially strong tie to the story and its themes and characters--it’s only that that’s possible. But there’s also the Storytelling EXP that you get from directly investigating and pursuing the game’s plot and characters--and you know me, that’s the stuff that I really value in RPGs, the aspects of the genre that I think make it worthwhile to play. Planescape: Torment is an excellent example of this. Yes, in PT, you get experience for fighting monsters, and completing quests, but there’s also a significant wealth of experience points to be had simply through pursuing dialogue options and seeking to gain as much knowledge and wisdom about the game’s world as you can. There are many huge EXP rewards in Planescape: Torment for when you persuade NPCs through conversation options, for learning as much as you can from important plot figures during your dialogue with them, for exploring every lore-significant part of the game’s setting, for learning the protagonist’s history and piecing together the clues to his identity, and for coming to know, understand, repair, and greaten the party members.

Planescape: Torment isn’t the only game to do this, of course. There are many instances in the first couple Fallout titles which reward the player with experience points for exploring the games’ characters, setting, and lore through exploring dialogues, and the more recent Fallouts also give a little experience here and there as a reward for exploring extra dialogue paths that require certain stats and skills to access. Knights of the Old Republic 2 has almost as much of an EXP priority on exploring its writing’s depth and brilliance as Planescape: Torment did. The Witch’s Wake DLC for Neverwinter Nights 1, short and incomplete though it is, provides numerous little experience boosts for thorough exploration of all that characters have to say to you.

Still, though there are several games that employ this nuanced Storytelling EXP, it’s still pretty uncommon. I’ve played almost 290 RPGs as of writing this, and think I’ve seen this idea used in maybe 10% of them, certainly not more than 15%, and probably actually less. What a shame that is--and how strange! Being so strongly story-driven as the RPG genre tends to be, it seems to me like it would only make sense to tie one of the biggest driving forces of gameplay to the elements of the game’s story. It really seems like a waste of an opportunity, especially when you consider how terrifically well it usually works out.

I mean, look at some of the examples I mentioned above. Planescape: Torment is nigh-universally considered to have one of the most brilliant, deep, and rich stories and casts in all RPG history, and I myself would certainly go a step further and claim that it’s one of the greater works of storytelling art in human history, period. How incredibly important it is, then, that the game makes it a major point that your greatest source of power comes from knowing that terrific story and interacting with its countless thoughtful nuances. The case is similar with Knights of the Old Republic 2--such an important part of that game are the ideas of knowledge, wisdom, and the ability to sway others as being the true mark of power, and of seeing the universe from a higher perspective and understanding its workings of cause and effect, that having a reward for exploring these concepts and learning all you can from the game’s characters and world is symbolically essential! And hey, the whole idea of Witch’s Wake in Neverwinter Nights 1 is that of trying to learn the truth of yourself, the battle you survived, and the mission you’ve been charged with...so wouldn’t it make sense that you’d get a gameplay reward for seeking the answers to the questions which define this side story’s plot and purpose? Getting experience rewards for finding out as much as you can in a story that is about exactly that, creates a better immersion in the tale!

I especially wish that JRPGs would pick this idea up. I mean, I want to see more RPGs use this dedicated Storytelling EXP, period, but as you might have guessed from my examples so far, this is definitely more of a western RPG thing. Still, some JRPGs have used Storytelling EXP, or at least, something similar to it, to their benefit. Sakura Wars 5, for example, is a combination tactical RPG and dating sim (I still wonder who came up with that idea), wherein the characters in your party become more powerful combatants not through defeating enemies, but rather through having stronger personal relationships with the protagonist. Well, 70% of the game’s a dating sim, so it makes sense, right? If your actions in getting all your teammates to like you didn’t affect the battles in any way, then you’d wonder what the point was; this way, the character relationships that the game wants to focus on are properly emphasized by the gameplay. Similarly, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 and 4 have a system where you gain most of your experience points from defeating enemies, but advancing your Social Links for each Tarot Arcana provides level up bonuses for the Personae you create and use in battle, with a complete Social Link giving any Persona of its type several level-ups instantly when that Persona is created. This is a great idea, because a huge amount of the story and characters are explored through the Social Links in each game, as well as a ton of the thematic ties with the Tarot, which is at the heart of the games’ meaning. It’s especially important in SMT Persona 3, since that game, at its core, is about our connections with others and the ways that we enrich one another through them, so powering up your Persona, the powerful and monstrous manifestation of your psyche and soul, through furthering these connections is a perfect use of gameplay to underscore story. So yeah, definitely possible to incorporate Storytelling EXP in a JRPG with good results.

And that’s about it! I like Storytelling EXP, especially the kind that goes beyond just basic quest rewards, and nearly every time I’ve seen it used in an RPG, it’s really benefited the game overall. It doesn’t have to be the only source of character advancement in a game (though Mass Effect and Sakura Wars 5 prove that can work just fine), but I’d at least like to see more RPGs factor a significant amount of their experience points to come from storytelling sources.

Eternal Senia

I try to devote a rant to most Indie RPGs I play, on the basis that they usually can use the extra publicity (though not always; holy shit Undertale got popular fast). I’m not sure whether today’s subject, Eternal Senia, really benefits from publicity the way most other Indie RPGs would, though, since Eternal Senia is free on Steam--does its creator, Holy Priest, actually get any money from the game? I really don’t have any idea. But I do know that either way, ES is a great RPG and that whether or not publicity benefits it, playing it benefits others, so on we go.

Eternal Senia is a free Indie RPG available on Steam, made using RPG Maker. Now, yes, everyone and their mother seems to have dabbled with RPG maker at this point, but that doesn’t mean you don’t still find some quality works coming from it. Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle, though sadly getting harder and harder to locate since its creator vanished into the mists of the internet, remains one of the better RPGs I’ve ever played, an artistic work of video game storytelling that contains within it great emotional power and one of my favorite RPG romances to date, and it was made with RPG Maker. And Eternal Senia joins it as another really great game resulting from the RPG Maker program.

Eternal Senia is relatively straightforward in terms of its plot. Senia is a girl who has entered the Tower of Eternity to save her adopted older sister Magaleta, who is a powerful demon-fighting magical holy nun or something...you know, anime stuff. And that really is basically the game right there--you take Senia up through the tower to save Magaleta, learning about their history and the lore of Eternity as you go along. That’s not to say that there aren’t plot twists and story depth in ES, of course, but it all just boils down to a simple story of the incredible, touching love between these 2 sisters.

What makes this game so great is how incredibly poignant it is. Some RPGs are about the ideas and events of a story most of all (Deus Ex 1, for example), some are more personal, with the characters and their interrelationships being the center of game (Planescape: Torment, for example), and most, I would say, are a balance between the 2 sides (Wild Arms 3, for example).* Eternal Senia falls into the second category, drawing you into the story of its protagonist and her sister, and bringing you massive, massive doses of what is clinically known as The Feels. Seriously, if you enjoyed choking back sobs and feeling your heart itself affected by the tale of, say, Mother 3 or Undertale, then you’ll love this game.

It’s actually kind of remarkable how quickly you become invested in this story of love, devotion, and sacrifice. The game is not long; Steam has clocked me in for a mere 5 hours of playtime, and I played pretty close to a completionist run of the game. Yet in that short time, Senia and Magaleta quickly become characters that you have a vested emotional interest in, and genuinely care for. That’s a feat that a LOT of RPGs can’t manage with a full 50 hours of storytelling opportunity, let alone doing so in a tenth of that time. Only Undertale and Eternal Senia can get me teared up for an ending after half a dozen hours or less, and if you’ve been reading my rants in the past couple months, you know that any comparison to Undertale speaks highly for a game.

It must be said, of course, that the game’s not perfect. Some people have complained about the gameplay itself. Eternal Senia uses a very serviceable and smooth gameplay system, but it’s certainly also not very impressive. Basically, you ram your character into enemies to attack, giving and suffering damage at the same time. Not the only RPG that uses this mechanic (Fairune, Witch + Hero), but I can understand why that would be off-putting. What I don’t understand is how anyone finds your standard RPG combat system any more entertaining...at least in Eternal Senia, I’m actually controlling my character’s actions, even if it’s just running around body slamming stuff, rather than simulating the experience of navigating DOS, like your average menu-based combat system.

Of more significant note, of course, is the translation issue. If you can read Chinese, great! You have no problem. If you’re relying on the English translation, though, well...there’re a lot of technical problems with the translation. Grammatical errors and awkward phrasings are, well, abundant. If you grew up with video games in the 80s and 90s, get ready for a nostalgia bomb of Engrish like you’ve never imagined.

Still...it’s a rather interesting situation, this translation issue. Even though everyone agrees that it’s there, I don’t think I’ve seen a single player of Eternal Senia mention in a review, forum post, or anything else that the translation was a significant stumbling block in playing and appreciating this game. It certainly wasn’t for me! And I’m an English teacher in training! Somehow, the meaning of every line is adequately clear, and you’re drawn into this tour de force of emotion no less for the fact that a lot of its dialogue sounds weird. In fact, I have to wonder whether a small part of how emotionally gripping the dialogue is, could actually be due to the translation...there have been times in RPGs past, such as Final Fantasy Tactics, in which the first, ‘lesser’ translation conveyed the characters’ pathos and ideals much more earnestly than the later, ‘corrected’ translation. Whether or not the subpar translation hinders or secretly helps it, though, the fact is that the dialogue, story, character development, music, and personalities in this game will hit you and hit you hard regardless, so I would urge you not to let this flaw dissuade you from checking Eternal Senia out.

And that’s about all I have to say about this game. Eternal Senia is a rollercoaster of tender emotion, more likely than not to leave you misty-eyed if not outright weeping at its ending, and it does all this while costing you very little time, and no money. Although you can, if you want to show your support, donate via Paypal at http://m963741m.wix.com/senia#!about-us/c21nl (thanks to the Anon who submitted this link!). I certainly enjoyed the game enough myself to donate. I’m told that Holy Priest is working on a sequel,** and I can’t wait to see this story continued. I definitely recommend you check Eternal Senia out; it’s just a lovely RPG.









* Well, I suppose there’s also a fourth type of game: the one that doesn’t bother with either, and is just a pile of boring nothingness, like Lagoon, or Evolution Worlds.


** Thank God. I mean, maybe I’m just setting myself up for more heartbreak by wanting a continuation, but all the same, if there weren’t a sequel in the works, then I’d have a new entry for the top spot on my list of Most Needed Sequels.

General RPGs' Jokes About Female Characters Who Can't Cook

They really just aren't that funny, Japan.

Final Fantasy 9's Players' Perception of Kuja's Power

This rant is made possible by the awesome contemplative nature of Ecclesiastes. Thanks, buddy!



Long time reader and good buddy Ecclesiastes posed a question to me a few months back, which essentially inquired why Kuja receives so little attention from players, compared to his Final Fantasy villain peers, for his power, when he has destroyed a planet all on his own. Taken from the email Ecc sent to me:


“Kuja for some reason seems to never be acknowledged in this regard. Maybe I'm not in the places on the internet where he's mentioned, but I don't recall seeing it even one time in the inevitable villain powerlevel bullshit discussions. Just a bunch of Kefka and Sephiroth hype, two of the least powerful FF villains ever. I know IX is underrated to the point that I'm mildly surprised the ESRB deigned to slap a letter code on it, but this is a peculiar omission in what is still a relatively common topic.”


It’s a very reasonable question. Everyone, especially the deranged chimps themselves who work at SquareEnix, goes crazy over how impressive and powerful Sephiroth is. Yet the guy lacks the sheer power to destroy a world on his own, having to rely on a Materia to do it for him, and even in terms of a confiscated power, it’s only so-so. I mean, yeah, Meteor is world-damaging, but it takes a damn long time for it to arrive. At least when Final Fantasy 5’s X-Death, for example, gains the amazing power to take things and put them in other places, he can do so in an immediate fashion. Beyond that, Sephiroth’s limited to just being pretty strong, fast, and having some semi-magical ability. And, I guess, control over plot-convenient pretty boys who are exceptionally shallow characters but can resurrect Sephiroth (sort of)...whatever the hell Advent Children was on about.

Then you take Kefka. Final Fantasy fans who have studied Sesame Street thoroughly enough to realize that the process of counting doesn’t start at the number 7 are all quite familiar with this infamous jester bad guy, and laud him for the fact that he actually did outright destroy the world in Final Fantasy 6.* Usurped the power of not 1, but 3 goddesses, and just fucked the world’s shit right up. More legitimately powerful than Sephiroth, that’s for sure.

But Kuja? A simple observation of his power reveals that he towers over Sephiroth and Kefka in terms of power, as well as most other FF villains. Sephiroth has to borrow a black rock and then has to wait 8 - 10 business days for Armageddon to ship. Kefka has to steal power from others for his Light of Judgement, and the majority of the destruction he causes is just from him moving the goddess statues around--it’s really not even him doing it; anyone physically strong enough to push a carved stone around could have done exactly as much damage to the world as the majority that Kefka gets credited for. Kuja, on the other hand, arrives at the planet Terra, gets pissed about mortality, and, through his own power alone, destroys the planet.

As in, on his own. He didn’t activate a gigantic robot to do it for him (FF4). He didn’t hold onto a black rock and wish super hard (FF7). He didn’t just happen to stand in a convenient spot between three petrified deities (FF6). Kuja destroyed Terra himself, with HIS power. And when I say destroyed, I don’t mean that he made it a very difficult place to live in (FF6). I don’t mean that he badly damaged a part of it (FF7, potentially). I don’t mean that he went around destroying small towns (FF6 + FF10). I don’t mean that he scooped up parts of it and dumped them somewhere else (FF5). I mean that he reduced everything on the planet to fiery slag. And he did it in minutes.

The evidence is patently obvious. Kuja is much more powerful than almost every other FF villain, in terms of what destruction he can accomplish and how fast. And he’s at this level of power on his own, without needing to rely on and steal the power of others, which is more than you can say for pretty much every other FF villain, and hell, most RPG villains period. But Ecclesiastes is right--go to any major FF discussion board topic about powerful villains, and Kuja’s all but ignored in favor of Sephiroth and Kefka’s weak-ass shit, as well as that of the other villains of the series. You’ll be much more likely to see people talking up the power of Sin, Vayne, X-Death, and so on, than you will Kuja. It was true in my experiences with Gaia Online, it’s true for Ecc’s experiences of GameFAQs, and a little searching on my part just now confirms that it’s true on multiple other sites, too.

Why is this? Why do fans so often completely pass over Kuja’s villain accomplishments, when the facts are clear?

Well, there are the usual contributing factors. FF9 is still extremely underrated and overlooked, sadly, and then there are the shallow morons--and they be many--who disregard the guy just for his outfit and looks. And there’s SquareEnix’s marketing strategies, too, in that other villains are much more focused on and popularized by the company itself.

But, I believe that the core issue of the lack of recognition of Kuja is this: Kuja destroyed a planet that doesn’t have a lot of weight to the audience. In Final Fantasy 9, the planet Gaia is where the audience starts the game, and it is the planet which we spend dozens of hours exploring from 1 pole to the other. Through Zidane, we travel across Gaia on foot, on the back of chocobos and gargants, and aboard ships of both air and water. It is Gaia that we know the size and scope of from traveling experience. Gaia is the planet filled with characters we have met and become familiar with, and Gaia is the planet possessing lore and a story which we have watched unfold and participated in all along the way. To whit, everything and everyone that the main characters of FF9 are connected to and fighting for, is on Gaia.

By contrast, what is Terra? Terra is a planet Zidane and company visit only a short time after hearing of its existence. Terra is a planet only a fraction explored--no more than a dungeon’s worth, really. Terra is alien and strange, and connects only in a distant, though admittedly essential, way to a few characters and a little of Gaia’s lore. The simple fact is that Terra doesn’t have substance as a world to the player, not as a Final Fantasy world usually does.

When Kefka ruins his world, he’s ruining the equivalent of FF9’s Gaia, not the equivalent of FF9’s Terra. Kefka ruins the world that we’ve traveled over, whose characters we have met and whose events we have seen unfold. The difference is that Kefka destroys the world, and Kuja destroys a world. FF6’s ruined world is the everything and everywhere of the game, but for FF9, Gaia is that world, and Terra is just an interesting location that is emotionally separated from us. And you can apply this to the majority of the other FF villains, as well--Sephiroth threatens the only world FF7 knows, X-Death messes around equally with both worlds FF5 visits, Sin is a constant destructive force in the only significant location of the game, Spira, and so on.

So, despite the actual reality of Kuja’s power as evidenced by his destruction of Terra, despite the demonstrable fact that he is far more powerful than Kefka, Sephiroth, Zemus/Zeromus, the Dark King, Raem, Vayne, Ajora/Altima (well, maybe), Seymour, Sin/Yevon, the Cloud of Darkness, Galdes, Feolthanos, and probably most of the villains from the FFs I haven’t played...the perception of Kuja’s power is only naturally going to be that it’s less impressive than, say, Kefka’s, because Kefka destroys the world that truly matters, and Kuja destroys its third cousin, twice removed.













* Well, mostly destroy. Nature’s dying, monsters roam everywhere, humanity’s on the edge of survival, that sort of thing. It’s a bad scene for the world and its creatures...still, Kefka’s wrath is a little less impressive when you realize that the worst spots of the World of Ruin would still be considered a vacation retreat for the people of any given Fallout game.

Chrono Cross's Time Shifter

I have not been especially ambiguous regarding my feelings on Chrono Cross. Whether you look at it as an RPG in its own right or as a sequel to Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross is crap, through and through. There is just nothing good I can say about this game, no single characteristic or feature that can be praised.

Well, almost.

In the approaching 10 year history of this rant blog, this is a momentous occasion, because today’s rant is the first time, and unless I’m very much mistaken also the last time, you will hear me say something positive about this game. Yet there is, in fact, 1 feature to Chrono Cross that is laudable. Can you guess which it is?

...If you guessed “the accent system,” I will find you and I will murder you in your sleep.

The answer is the Time Shifter, an oft-forgotten little doohickey that Chrono Cross awards to you after you’ve hated yourself long and hard enough to actually finish the game and start a New Game+. The premise of this key item is simple: with the Time Shifter, you can slow down the game (don’t bother; much like an obnoxious American speaking to a non-English speaker, going slower will not make the garbled mess that is Chrono Cross any more comprehensible) by holding the L2 button, and speed up the game by holding the R2 button.

This is a goddamn fantastic idea.

Let’s get the obligatory joke out of the way up front: blah blah great idea because the faster you can get through this shitty game the better. With that out of the way, though, I have to say, this would be a terrific feature for ANY RPG, if implemented the exact same way.

Look, you know my feelings on RPGs. I’m there for the story, the dialogue, the themes, the emotions, the characters, the humanity, the humor, the drama...you know, all the art of storytelling. To me, the battles, the stat and item management, the puzzles, the exploration, those are almost always just necessary evils I put up with to get to the good stuff.* I’ll tolerate all the time-wasting filler that stretches a 7 - 10 hour story into a 40 - 50 hour game to see a story and its characters through to the end, but the biggest reason I rarely replay an RPG, even a great one, is because it’s too much of a damn time sink to justify seeing the same story a second time, even considering how great that story may be. It’s part of why I so greatly appreciate the idea of your standard New Game+ feature--being able to replay a game with my endgame-leveled characters means cutting a hell of a lot of hours out of the process just for the fact that the fights are that much faster and there’s no need for level-grinding.

So just look at how great a Time Shifter would be as a feature in any other RPG! Any RPG with multiple endings, at the very least, should have such a thing, a device that can let the player fast-forward every battle and go zooming from 1 area to the next as they revisit the game to get its full experience. But even entirely linear RPGs with a single plot path and ending would still benefit to have a device like this for subsequent playthroughs, because it would still up the replay value considerably. If you’ve created an especially excellent story, people WILL want to experience it more than once, so it makes sense to make the process smoother for them.

There’s not much about Chrono Cross that wasn’t awful or intensely uninteresting, but the Time Shifter, at least, was a really good idea in game design, particularly for this story-driven genre, and I really wish it were a standard for the genre, or at least a common element like New Game+ is. Being able to speed up all the game’s filler would make it much more convenient to see an RPG’s multiple paths, it’d make it a lot easier for me to show great games to others, and it’d give the deranged developers of Chrono Cross something they could point to and say, “We actually did contribute something positive to the industry, see?”












* Almost, but not always. Sometimes the exploration of dungeons and other locations can be a subtle part of the storytelling process. A lot of the exploration in the Fallout series, for example, heightens the detail and lore of the game’s setting, which ties to the series’s signature examination of Americana, and I eat that shit up. Likewise, there are some occasions where the battles are tied strongly to the plot’s events and/or characters’ development (like, say, Zidane’s walk of angry existential crisis on Terra in Final Fantasy 9, or most final boss battles), and so are a worthwhile part of the storytelling process. And then there’s Undertale, where the whole battle system is a significant factor in the story and messages of the game.

But, y’know, the other 99.3% of the time, it’s just pointless filler.

General RPGs' AMVs 13

Oh quit griping, I haven’t done one of these in like a year.


FINAL FANTASY

Final Fantasy 10: This is War, by Argol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlxZ5RdJSs0&
The music is This is War, by 30 Seconds to Mars. Oh God, 30 Seconds to Mars...by this point, this crappy song by this crappy band may be the most overused AMV tune ever. Ugh. At least overused Linkin Park songs are actually good songs; this stupid song was crap the first time I heard it, and hundreds of repeat listens does not improve it. Nonetheless, I have to say, this is one of those nearly unheard of instances where a This is War AMV is actually good. The editing is good, the video keeps up with the music adequately, everything matches up to the song well, and the selection for which characters represent which person mentioned in the song is actually creative and thoughtful...which is not at all common for a 30 Seconds to Mars AMV, let me tell you. This is basically the AMV that all the other This is War AMVs want to be.


JADE EMPIRE

Jade Empire: Last Ninja 3, by KlosterKatt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L0wz-_uO_c
The music used is from the soundtrack for Last Ninja 3. Nothing amazing here, but still quite decent. The game footage works well with the feel of the music, the scene selection generally keeps up with the tone of the song, and overall this is fun to watch.


KINGDOM HEARTS

Kingdom Hearts 1 + 2: Pompeii, by Mimi-Chan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sc12LWSlJY
The music used is Pompeii, by Bastille. There’s not a lot to say on this one. It’s basically the sort of video you think of when you think of a standard, but well made, AMV. Good editing that works with the music and video, scenes that coordinate well with the lyrics and/or tune of the song, not really any depth or meaning to convey but an overall enjoyable experience that reminds you pleasantly of the game and its characters.

Kingdom Hearts: 368/2 Days: The Lonely, by xXBethanyFryeXx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8NfRtpdJAM
The music used is The Lonely, by Christina Perri. While this song goes on longer than the footage can really maintain interest for, and it’s pushing a less than sensible romantic pairing, this is generally a good AMV that connects the song well to Xion. In fact, as far as characterizing Xion and making her a minimally appealing character, I’d say that this AMV does a hell of a better job than the actual game did...not that that’s saying much. All the same, it’s good enough to check out.

Kingdom Hearts Series: A Light That Never Comes, by Fleur-dRhae: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Hr3B06xZE
The music used is A Light That Never Comes, by Linkin Park. Kingdom Hearts and Linkin Park: the most overused video and audio components of RPG AMVs ever. But, well, overused or not, this is a darned good AMV (the song itself is one of LP’s newer ones, I’m told, so it’s not actually overused yet, anyway). The scene selection and editing is high quality, the video works darned well with the music on several levels, and everything just feels smooth and natural together. Good stuff!


THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Combat Ready, by Siphano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZkLD8mBqJk
The music used is Musique au Piano Nostalgique, by Herboristerie, and then Combat Ready, by Extreme Music. TLoZSS makes a better match to the heavy Combat Ready than you might think, and the AMV creator knows how to really capitalize on both the game and the music, matching pulses and tone skillfully to the game footage to make a pretty awesome trailer-styled AMV that makes Skyward Sword out to be pure, epic badassery.


THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU

The World Ends with You: XXI, by Antifrost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfUCazmOfc4
The music used is XIX, by Slipnot. This kind of music doesn’t usually make for particularly good AMVs (proportionately speaking, I mean; bad AMVs drastically outnumber good ones no matter what music genre you look at), but when combined with The World Ends with You’s bare animations and sequential art format, the heavy, nearly discordant notes and vocals are absolutely perfect. The song also connects very well to the game’s visuals and the story behind them, and the general feel of the music is a great match to the urban setting and style of the game. Great stuff; I actually considered making this AMV a rant all on its own.

(Also, it should be mentioned that the title, XXI, is not a typo of the song name (XIX). As explained in the video description, which I don’t know if everyone always reads, XIX = 19, which is an anagram for XXI, XXI = 21, and there are 21 days in The World Ends with You. Neat!)


XENOBLADE CHRONICLES

Xenoblade Chronicles 1: This is War, by Alf Productions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWRbLZQhMYk
The music used is...sigh. It’s This is War, by 30 Seconds to Mars. Again. Trust me, no one is more annoyed with this than myself. I’m so damn tired of this overused piece of garbage. And twice in the same AMV rant! Damn it, people, use your talent for GOOD music! Or at least music that sucks less! Oh, well...anyway, this is, unfortunately, a very solid AMV, and I can’t ignore that. The editing is done well, the match between visual and lyrics is skillful and actually works...it’s just a case where the AMV creator thought about the song as a whole, not just which characters to match up to which group the song mentions, and that consideration paid off with a strong, well made video.

Undertale Theory: Frisk is Suicidal

03/02/2017 EDIT: It took over a year, but I finally worked out how Undyne fits into the mirror dynamic of Alphys and Undyne in terms of the theme of depression, and have added this understanding below! DAMN, does it feel good to have figured that out at long last! Having done that, I now declare this rant officially finished!



For God’s sake, don’t read this if you haven’t thoroughly played Undertale. This rant has as many spoilers as a Bethesda game has bugs.

Also, many thanks to my pal Angahith for being a sounding board on this rant. As always, sir, you are a prince among men.

Oh yeah, and, uh, today’s rant is kinda dark. I mean, you can probably tell from the title here, but...yeah. You’ve been warned.



When it comes to RPGs that inspire theories, Undertale is pretty high up on the list. Pretty much any RPG can inspire at least a couple fan theories to explain its lore, characters, or events a little better, of course--I’ve shared a few of my own before, and I’m certainly not the only bloke who comes up with them. But there are some RPGs that just seem to invoke a huge number of theories from players. Sometimes this is because the game’s events and setting are rich, interesting, and/or subtle enough that it not only inspires love, but also creativity, from its fans, like Chrono Trigger. And sometimes this is just because the game’s plot and/or characters are sloppy and don’t make enough sense, and the players are forced to do the writers’ job and come up with some logical rationale for the idiocy they’re witnessing, like Final Fantasy 8, or Mass Effect 3’s ending.* Undertale falls into the former category, and in a major way.

Undertale’s got all kinds of fan theories being thrown around, on all kinds of websites. Theories about what’s up with Shyren’s body, theories about the backstory for Frisk, theories about the backstory for Chara, theories about why Mettaton NEO is a pushover, theories about the river person, theories about what went on in the True Lab, theories about Sans and Papyrus’s history, theories about the histories of the other 6 humans, and loads, bucketloads, craploads, truckloads, entire cargo-ship-armada-loads of theories about W. D. Gaster. And, whaddaya know, I’ve got a theory of my own to add to the mix.

Let it never be said that I was immune to peer pressure.

So, here’s my theory: Frisk is, or at least was at the beginning of the game, suicidally depressed.

“Goddammit, The RPGenius, you festering pile of bovine fecal matter!” you mutter to yourself now, which hurts my feelings, by the way. “I’ve ALREADY heard this theory from like every Undertale discussion board, chat room,” (those are still a thing, right?), “and Youtube video comment page I’ve come across. Stop wasting my time!”

You silly person, I’ve been wasting your time for like 10 years now. I’m not gonna stop now.

But anyway, yes, I am not the first individual to think that Frisk might be suicidal. Many players have inferred this possibility from a few telling lines that Asriel says during the ending of the True Pacifist playthrough. During this ending, you have the opportunity to go all through the game and talk to everyone you encountered along the way, as was the case in Earthbound, and if you go all the way back to where the game starts, you can actually find Asriel there, tending the bed of flowers that originally broke Frisk’s fall. Asriel has a good conversation with Frisk, within which he notes that people don’t usually go to Mount Ebott for happy reasons, and makes the implication that this might have been true for Frisk. That, combined with the fact that Mount Ebott is publicly known as a place where people have disappeared, makes the possibility that Frisk came to Mount Ebott to end his or her life very plausible. The implications made elsewhere in the game that Frisk doesn’t seem to have parents or a home to return to are suggestive, too, giving a potential glimpse into Frisk’s life that does not seem a happy one.

The thing is, though, that, as far as I’ve seen online, this is the end of people’s verifiable theorizing about Frisk’s potential suicidal nature. The general fanbase does not seem to have much else to add to this theory’s pool of evidence. And that is where I come into this. Because I’ve noticed a lot of things in Undertale beyond Asriel’s words and Mount Ebott’s reputation that relate to this subject.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that severe, life-threatening depression is a major theme of Undertale that underscores its entire plot!


Point A: The Neutral Pacifist Ending. This was what tipped me off and made me think there might be more to the idea of Frisk as suicidal than just Asriel’s words alone. This ending comes from your first run as a pacifist, not killing anyone but not having the ability yet to visit the True Lab. Essentially, this is the best ending you can get on your first playthrough. In this ending, like every other neutral ending, Frisk receives a call from Sans, and you learn about what the underground has been like since Frisk’s adventure through it.

Well, there are a couple of lines in this ending that stand out as slightly weird. Not completely out of place, exactly, but at the same time, they don’t quite sound like a natural part of the conversation, either. During the 1-sided conversation with Sans, Papyrus, and Undyne,** Undyne will tell Frisk, “So, where-ever you are...you have to try to be happy, okay!?”, and Sans will tell Frisk, “So, uh, hey...if we’re not giving up down here...don’t give up wherever you are, ok?”

1 occurrence of such a line I can pass off as just an oddity of conversation, but 2 lines like that in the same conversation? It gets my attention. The way Sans and Undyne are talking to Frisk, it’s not like they’re just describing the challenges they and their society face, which is, otherwise, the focus of the conversation. It’s more as though they’re saying that not only do they and their society face difficult times ahead, but also that they know that Frisk will, as well. With no explicit indication of what difficulties Frisk could be facing that would cause him/her to need encouragement such as this, my instinct is to relate it to 1 of the only things we’ve been able to infer about Frisk: the implication that the kid came to Mt. Ebott for unhappy reasons, the most likely being to take his/her own life. And if we are to connect that possibility with these slightly strange lines...they suddenly make some grim sense.

“Try to be happy.” “Don’t give up.” Are these not the words of encouragement that someone gives to a friend they know to be going through a rough time? Someone they know, or at least suspect, is depressed?***

It’s an interesting possibility, that these lines represent a further indication of Frisk being dangerously depressed, particularly when you consider that it would be a very appropriate bookmark were it the case. After all, in this scenario, you would basically have a story which starts with Frisk alone, and in that solitude depressed, and ends (Neutral ending, remember) with Frisk alone once more, with Sans and Undyne’s comments hinting that the depression threatens to return now that Frisk is once again left without anyone else.

That, however, would definitely be reading a LOT into things, so much that it’s barely a theory at all, more like an idea. But, it’s not the only point I have to make.


Point B: Having opened with one of my stronger arguments for this, we’ll take care of a minor, largely speculative detail now, though one which still can work toward the idea of an overall theme of depression and suicide. Consider how it is that Frisk gets to the land of the monsters to begin with: by falling down a hole.

Now consider: when you think of suicide, methods of death come to mind? Toaster in the bathtub. Gun to the mouth. Not being white while within a mile of a police officer in the USA. Medication overdose. Cutting ahead of me in line at a pizza place. Yes, there are a lot of well-known methods associated with taking your own life, but there’s definitely one that’s going to be pretty universally on any mental list: jumping from a fatal height. People usually think of this in terms of leaping off the top of a building, or doing a catastrophically unsuccessful reenactment of when George Bailey met Clarence, but, y’know, when you boil it down, it amounts to this: choosing to fall from a height you’re sure will kill you.

So if we were to say, for a moment, that Frisk IS suicidal when he/she goes to Mt. Ebott, that he/she IS climbing the mountain with the idea of disappearing like the legends say children do there...and that Frisk happened to see a hole in the ground, a deep, dark hole that seems almost surely a fatal plunge...doesn’t it start to seem like Frisk might not have fallen into the monster kingdom, so much as jumped?

Now, note, I do acknowledge that this is a small piece of evidence. It really only serves to bolster another, legitimate piece of evidence (Asriel’s words combined with Mt. Ebott’s reputation), rather than stand on its own, and it’s certainly somewhat iffy. After all, even considering the possibility that Frisk was suicidally depressed, he/she really might just have accidentally fallen in the hole; it didn’t have to be intentional. We know, after all, that 6 children have fallen in that hole before, and it stretches credibility way to far to try to assume that they ALL were trying to kill themselves, so we can only logically assume that the hole leading to the monster kingdom is legitimately difficult to notice (at least, until you’re falling in). Still, it’s something to think about, and lends at least a little more backing to this idea.


Point C: Think about something. When we get depressed, when we are truly at our lowest, what is it that keeps us going? What is it that a suicidal person lacks? Something in their lives to live for, perhaps, or at least, something good enough. A hope for the future. Enough survival instinct to stop themselves. When you get right down to it, though, those are reasons one turns to suicide, but not the bottom line. The bottom line is that what drives the reasons for a person to, in depression, take his or her own life, and what allows them to go through with it, is that they lack the strength of will to continue to suffer. What keeps us alive, depressed or not, from day to day is our willpower to continue living, our perseverance to meet our essential needs and see the day through to the next. In other words, what keeps us, as human beings, moving forward with our lives, overcoming obstacles, providing our bodies with the means to keep going, is...Determination. The Determination to live.

The choice to continue living is, barring the eventual and inevitable fatal circumstance that takes the choice away from us, a matter of our Determination to do so. When we go through difficult times, it is our Determination to get past those times and arrive at better ones that sees us through, if it is strong enough. When we are in pain, it is our Determination that allows us to endure that pain to endure that pain that sees us through it, if it is strong enough. The difference between someone who can keep going, and someone who simply cannot take it any more, is that one person’s Determination has been able to outweigh their difficulties, and the other person’s Determination has not.

Now look at Undertale. The human will, the drive to continue and succeed, is immensely important to this game. Determination is the mystical, indeed the divine, attribute in Undertale that allows Frisk to use save points, and return from every defeat. Determination is literally what keeps Frisk alive in Undertale!**** That which keeps us from killing ourselves in real life is also what staves death off in Undertale!

In fact, when you think about it...the only way for Frisk to honestly, permanently die in this game would be to voluntarily opt not to use Determination to resurrect. Or to put it another way...Frisk can only die by choosing to stop living.


Point D: In your final conflict with Asriel, he will taunt Frisk (and you the player) that he’s going to keep killing Frisk, and Frisk is going to keep coming back to be killed again, and again, and again. Why? Because Frisk (and you, the player) wants a happy ending. You can practically see the way Asriel spits this at Frisk in malicious mockery, but it’s certainly true enough, right? If you didn’t care about getting a happy ending, you and Frisk wouldn’t have gone through the trouble all throughout the game of not killing anyone. It would have been much easier to play the game like a regular RPG, and thoughtlessly kill anything that happened to get in your way--but you’re here, at the true final battle of the truth path of the game, because you chose not to. Indeed: you want that happy ending.

Well...isn’t this essentially a metaphor for life? What is it that we strive for, ultimately? Why do we seek to enjoy our lives, and/or give our lives meaning? Isn’t it, in the end, so that we can die without regret? By continuing to live even when we know it can’t be forever, aren’t we, in a way, trying to make it so that our death is as happy as it possibly can be? Isn’t the hope that the future holds better things, and good conclusions, that which gives us so much of our Determination? Couldn’t you say that the hope for a happy ending is something that keeps us from taking our own lives--or, in other words, from giving ourselves an unhappy ending? We keep our eyes on the prize in life to keep us going...and without a happy goal, it’s hard to keep our Determination.


Point E: “You called out for help...

...but nobody came.”

This line, found at a few places in Undertale, is a great reference to Earthbound, which used the line when enemies called for reinforcements unsuccessfully, and used a similar line during the final battle when Paula’s praying and seems to have run out of people who can answer her call for aid. Undertale, of course, expertly turns this seemingly innocuous battle text from Earthbound and turns it into something dark, a simple phrase that denotes the terror and despair of being alone, in need of help, and having your cries for a savior go unanswered.

But beyond the reference to Earthbound, and beyond being a perfect representation of the way Toby Fox took the Earthbound/Mother method and brought it to amazing new places, could there be more to this? When Frisk calls out for help in the fight against Flowey, calls out for someone to please come and save Frisk from this terrible conflict that he/she cannot overcome him/herself...when Asriel called out for help at discovering that he was alone, and not the way he should be, and could not find humanity (monsterity?) and hope within himself...could there be something more, than just an emotionally gripping phrase that expresses the true terror of danger, fear, and loneliness?

Well, let me ask you something: what would be another way to say “called out for help”? A plea for assistance. A request for aid. A shout for reinforcements. Or maybe you could say...

A cry for help.

You know. That thing that people do, as a desperate last resort to stop themselves before they fall to their inner darkness and do something terrible? The phrase used when we talk about the ways that a suicidal person tries/tried to let others know that they need(ed) help, in the hopes that those others would find a way to help them before it was too late?

Yup. That line that Toby Fox already made chilling and dark might be still darker that you thought.


Point F: The theme of serious depression runs pretty deeply through the triad of friend pairs in Undertale.

Let’s look at the first pair, Toriel and Asgore. The king and queen of monsters lost their children, a loss which is, from what I’m told, the single most horrible psychological and emotional pain that can be experienced.***** Essentially, this is something that can, and frequently does, cause serious, long depression. And how they respond to this loss is telling.

Asgore’s first response is momentary anger, as he lashes out and declares that the monsters of his kingdom will from now on kill any and all humans that find their way into the kingdom, and work towards destroying the barrier so they can make war against humanity as a whole as revenge for this loss. But afterwards, he becomes paralyzed by indecision, as his anger faded and he realized that violent revenge was not the right answer. He could manage neither to actively pursue his plan, nor take the hope away from his people, who were all just excited about finally leaving Mt. Ebott and experiencing the freedom of the surface world. As Toriel chides at the end of the game--if Asgore had truly wanted to follow through on his angry plan, if he had really not been held by indecision, then he could have done so after acquiring the first human soul (since he could use it to pass through the barrier himself, kill and collect more human souls on the outside, and bring them back to destroy the barrier altogether).

Instead, Asgore simply sat and waited, and just feebly hoped that what he feared wouldn’t come. He was crippled by an inability to move forward or back, stuck in a limbo--too afraid, regretful, and defeated to go forward with his intentions, but too afraid to disappoint those who had put their faith in him to go back.

Isn’t that similar in many ways to someone seriously depressed, who can’t find the determination or energy to follow through with their wishes and plans, instead just drifting one day at a time?

Toriel, meanwhile, is the foil of Asgore. They are connected by the same loss, the same pain that can, and in Asgore’s case did, lead to depression. But Toriel takes her grief, and acts to overcome it. She opposes Asgore’s plan, and leaves with her child’s remains so as to bury him/her. To bury the dead is a very important ritual in their passing, for it symbolizes an acceptance of the deceased having passed. Although in reality it’s rarely so simple, to bury someone is to show that you have made peace with their passing, and Toriel does so in bringing Chara to the ruins and burying him/her where he/she first entered the kingdom. Additionally, Toriel makes herself active, and in the way that will allow her to move forward and be what she loves to be: she makes herself a mother to any human who falls into the monster kingdom, and shields them (or tries to) from Asgore’s intentions. These actions, actions of acceptance of loss and of moving forward to try again to find a new way to experience the joy that had been taken from you...these are the actions of one who overcomes depression. Asgore’s actions, sadly, are those of one who succumbs to it.

Next, you have the second pair of friends, Sans and Papyrus. They represent another pain of existence that leads to serious depression: loneliness. They are both people who have no connection to others, who are outsiders. As human beings, we need connections to one another, meaningful connections that enrich our lives and give our lives so much more worth. If there’s anything that pastel princess ponies and pale teens holding mentality-shooting guns to their heads have taught me, it’s that. Some of us may need (and prefer) fewer connections than others, but few of us can healthily get by without love, respect, and camaraderie from someone. And when we feel alone, when we feel cut off from all others and like there is no one who can understand and care for us, we are in danger of the deep depression that can lead to suicide.

Sans is fatally lazy, despite his great talents, possessing only enough work ethic to do the bare minimum, if even that. The fact that he’s all about comedy is telling, to me--comedians are, I believe, famously susceptible to darker thoughts. For many comedians, humor is their defense against the misery of existence. Tina Fey writes that her view on the world as a comedian, her focus on finding that which can be laughed at, was formed when she was very young (4 years old, I think; it’s been some years since I read her book). She was playing outside, alone, and a man came up to her, slashed her face with a knife, and left, giving no explanation and never being caught. If I recall her writing correctly, Fey says that her comedian’s mindset was forged in that moment...because it was the only defense strong enough not to fall apart in the face of such terrible, dark, senseless reality.

Anyway, back to Sans. He’s from somewhere else, as Papyrus is, here for a purpose that no one can know about (and it’s doubtful that many would understand anyway), with abilities that make him unable to take part in the society around him in any meaningful way. While others lose themselves to the moment, Sans has a mastery over existence that they do not, and it separates him from them in an extreme way. And so he sits, and lazes, and accomplishes nothing in a world that he very well may see as largely meaningless. After all, as Flowey points out, once you’ve seen the same thing over and over in all its variations, it becomes less real to you; you cannot connect to it any more.

Meanwhile, Papyrus is lonely and separated from others, as well. He has no friends, and it’s clear, though not explicit, that this fact really bothers him. Just as Toriel was the counterpoint to Asgore, though, Papyrus is the healthy contradiction to Sans. Papyrus may be friendless, but he takes assertive, determined action to change this fact. He seeks to join a group and find purpose, he bangs at the door of that group’s leader (Undyne) and throws himself (albeit in a clueless manner) into the work of capturing a human so he can become publicly known and liked--he puts his all into making people think he’s worth befriending. And, of course, he genuinely befriends Frisk, seeking friendship in an unlikely place when the opportunity arises. These actions, that of actively going out and being proactive in search of companionship, are those of a person who overcomes his depression. Sans’s, unfortunately, are those of one who is succumbs to it.

Lastly, we have the pair of Undyne and Alphys. Regarding the latter...do I even have to describe her side of this, really? She’s the most outwardly obvious in terms of dangerous depression. Alphys feels herself a failure due to her past mistakes, and runs from reality in various ways. She doesn’t answer the calls and letters of the families to whom she promised more than she can deliver on. She keeps the True Lab, the site of her failures, hidden. She lies to others to make herself seem better than she thinks she actually is. Alphys is paralyzed by the thought of the world seeing what she truly is; unable to gather the courage to face the potential consequences, she lets her failures fester and her true qualities remain hidden. The feeling that you are a failure, that you have let down those who depended upon you and/or had high hopes for you in ways that you cannot make amends for, are powerful sparks to ignite dangerous depression. Alphys loathes herself, and there are even aspects of her retreat into the True Lab, once you’re on the true path for Pacifism, that imply that she might be contemplating killing herself there.

Now, I personally think that, unlike Sans and Asgore, who pretty tidily stay confined to their single (though impressive) ties to the theme of dangerous depression, Alphys represents a lot of aspects of dangerous depression mixed together. She is more connected to the theme of suicide than any other character in this game, which is probably intentional and appropriate, since she's also the friend who requires the most effort to befriend, and whose friendship unlocks the path to the game's true conclusion. Nonetheless, 1 of these depression aspects found within Alphys is mirrored by Undyne: the reliance of other people upon oneself.

For Alphys, the expectations and hopes of Asgore, the families of the 'fallen' monsters she experiments upon, and even just the entirety of the monster populace, all overwhelm her, and drag her into an abyss of self-loathing and fear. She cannot handle telling those relying on her of her failures, and this sense of both failure and of disappointing others spirals into self-loathing, which in turn dictates how she conducts herself with her friends. She can't handle letting others down, particularly not when she fails as spectacularly as she does, and so the reliance of others upon Alphys drags her down into a depression she can't escape from, which feeds and fuels every negative thing she does, says, and feels about herself. Alphys shows us the way in which we allow our fears of disappointing others, of failing when others have high expectations of us, to utterly destroy us from the inside out.

Undyne, on the other hand, is a character for whom the concept of others relying on her does nothing but empower her. To make the hopes and dreams of the monster populace come true, she throws herself into her work as captain of the royal guard, and uses the idea that others are relying on her to bolster her resolve and fight harder against Frisk. In fact, others' reliance on Undyne quite literally empowers her, during the game's No Mercy path--in much the same way as RPG and anime heroes often do for their most climactic battle, Undyne takes on the hopes, dreams, and wishes of the entire world to gain the power of a True Hero in her attempt to stop Chara. Where the expectations of others are an anchor that drags Alphys down, Undyne uses them to push herself forward all the harder. Once more, we see the the major characters of Undertale showing us a mirror image of an individual who succumbs to a cause of deep depression, and an individual who healthily overcomes it.


Point F.5: My sister has made an insight of her own on this theme of serious depression. Not only do the pairs of friends in Undertale have this theme running throughout their character development, but so, too, does the game's villain, Flowey. When Asriel describes what it was like for him after waking up post-death and finding himself now trapped in a flower's body, he talks of the horror of being trapped in an existence in which he knew he was missing a capacity for emotion which he once had, knew that he should feel love for Asgore and Toriel, his parents, yet found himself completely unable to feel that comforting warmth. Truly a terrible situation...and one which is very similar to a common part of serious depression: a numbness to all that goes on around you, a loss of the ability to feel joy and passion for things that used to be important to you.

Flowey even talks of having attempted to kill himself as a result of this condition, in fact. He tells Chara (this is during the No Mercy run, in which Frisk has been consumed by Chara's spirit) that he discovered the power of Determination at a point in which he tried to end his life, and at the last, too-late moment, got scared and desired to keep living. So yeah, that's about as hard a piece of evidence as you're going to find that serious depression and suicide are a theme underscoring Undertale.


At any rate, that’s about all I have to say, but I think this theory holds up pretty well. Subtle though it is, there is a theme of depression and suicide that underscores a very significant amount of Undertale, and considering some of the other darker themes that Undertale possesses, it certainly seems to fit the standard. The possibility that Frisk is suicidal really does fit into the rest of the cast and game undertones very well.

Ahh, I do so love a game that challenges me to really think!














* I still maintain that if SquareEnix were to swallow its completely causeless pride and adopt the Squall is Dead theory as canon, it would transform FF8 from an incompetent, sloppy, insulting mess into...well, not a GOOD game, exactly, but at least one with some modicum of artistic value.

Even the Indoctrination Theory wouldn’t be able to save Bioware’s ass, though.


** And potentially Alphys, if you did the after-Neutral-Pacifist-ending date thing with her, but didn’t go to the True Lab. Very few people are going to see this version, though.


*** Mind, I am not saying that these are necessarily effective or useful words of advice. I’m aware that cases of depression--particularly cases strong enough to cause one to commit suicide, as we are speaking of here--can’t usefully be combated solely by thinking positive. I’m just saying that these are the common words of others trying to help.


**** Well, it’s what keeps Frisk from being permanently dead, at least. Same thing, essentially.


***** I reckon that playing Wild Arms 4’s probably a close second, though.

General RPGs' Players Changing Opinions Due to Annoying Fanbases

Crappy title for this one, but I don’t really know what else to call it. Also, this is another one of those rants that applies to RPGs, but it really also applies to many other avenues of storytelling, as well. Like my rant on Resurrection Abuse, or Hot Springs.



Guys? Girls? Ad bots?* Don’t let an annoying fandom ruin something for you. Seriously, don’t.

It seems silly, but it happens. People will like a game, cartoon, anime, movie, TV show, or whatever--we’ll say a game for now, since that keeps it relevant to this theoretically RPG-only blog. They’ll like the game a lot. But as they go online to talk about it, to draw fanart or write fanfiction or make fan videos for it, they find that there are other fans of this same game who are loud, obnoxious, crude, and/or hostile morons. And sometimes, there are a LOT of them. Enough of them that the person’s feelings for the game’s worth change by association.

Worse still, repeated encounters with an annoying fandom for a game someone has not played will convince that person that he or she doesn’t like the game solely on the basis that he or she doesn’t like its fanbase. This is something occurring with unfortunate prevalence for Undertale right now, in face.

Please don’t let either of these things happen to you.

Again, it seems silly. Why should anyone let their opinion be changed about something just because the other people who like the same thing are morons and/or jerks? Worse still, why would anyone let their opinion be formed by such morons and/or jerks? Okay, sure, maybe seeing that you’re in inordinately poor company means you should at least give that thing you like a second look, just to make sure you weren’t overestimating its value. And maybe seeing that you would be in inordinately poor company means a reasonable amount of caution about trying the game out. But beyond that, it seems ridiculous to let a game’s popularity sway your own opinion one way or another. You’d be like the pretentious hipster stereotype who hates everything solely because it’s widely loved.

But silly or not, it does happen. Back in the days when I debased myself by frequenting the Gaia Online Final Fantasy forums, I’d frequently come across people who had initially liked Final Fantasy 7, but then began to look down on and even despise the game, simply because the fanbase for it was so absolutely full to bursting with illiterate, self-important jerks who lived their lives according to utterly concrete first impressions that they based on the shallowest surface level of all they saw.

I could never figure out why someone would do this. I like Final Fantasy 7 a lot because it’s a strongly written, creative story that covers many themes of personal identity, self-determination, self-delusion, self-forgiveness (a lot of focus on the self in this game), and so on, conveyed through a cast which contained several deep, dynamic characters. Does the fact that I see the beauty, wisdom, and art of Final Fantasy 7 change just because for every 1 of me, there’s about 50 drooling doofuses who like the game because Tifa has breasts and because they (the drooling doofuses, I mean, not Tifa’s breasts) erroneously think Sephiroth is a badass? So I like Cloud as a hero for his depth as a character and his dynamic change from a delusional loner to a man who has accepted his past and weakness and becomes stronger for them, while 50 other gamers who don’t know why blue boxes keep popping up on the screen while they’re trying to play happen to like Cloud because he has a big sword and broods sometimes. So what? I’m supposed to pretend that Final Fantasy 7 is less of a masterpiece of the RPG genre just because it happens to have a massive fanbase of people who like it only for the most base, unimportant surface qualities?

Hell NO!

My opinion is not the lesser OR the greater for who stands with me! I’ve observed Final Fantasy 7 several times. I’ve given substantial thought to its every aspect. I’ve discussed it at length with others who have also analyzed it. I’ve challenged my own opinions on the game multiple times, as I do with virtually every opinion I form. My perspective on the game is as valid as any opinion can be, because I’ve put the time and thought into it, because I can refer to the evidence for it and argue my point. Whether that puts me in the company of some giggling fangirl who just finds Cloud hot, or of the brilliant Chris Avellone himself, my opinion of Final Fantasy 7 stands the same.

Obviously there are certain joys to finding yourself in accord with people you respect. And obviously there are certain irritations to finding yourself in accord with people you can’t stand. And I definitely do not want to imply that you should never allow your opinion to be changed--one should always keep an open enough mind that they’re willing to have their perspective challenged, and even proven wrong.

But one of the joys of finding yourself in agreement with people you respect should never be that this fact somehow, on its own, validates that opinion. One of the irritations to finding yourself in agreement with people you can’t stand should never be that this fact somehow, on its own, invalidates your opinion. And if your opinion is to be changed, let it be through proof, through logical and emotional truth, through a new and better understanding of the subject matter, and never by the simple presence of others who share it. Similarly, if your opinion on a game, or anything else, is to be formed, let it be formed by the game itself, and never by the nature of those who have played it before you.

It’s a pretty universal occurrence that once something, ANYTHING, reaches a certain level of popularity, its fanbase becomes bad to some degree. That’s a truth of the internet that’s pretty important to embrace, because without understanding that, you open yourself to taking a bad fanbase too personally and letting it ruin your enjoyment of something. And when you do that, when you decide that Final Fantasy 7 is too beloved by morons to be good, that Undertale’s fanbase being pushy means that the game itself must be awful, that the varying levels of obnoxiousness in the fandoms for The Hunger Games, Star Wars, My Little Pony, Steven Universe, Doctor Who, or anything else means that those products can’t be worthwhile, you’ve given up your own free will to those you despise. And do not fool yourself on this point: when that happens, when you refuse to try something or refuse to allow yourself to enjoy something because its fanbase annoys you, your decision to let others dictate what you dislike will not have any lasting negative impact on them. The only person who loses out will be you.










* I have no misconceptions about where most of my page hits come from.

Fallout 4's MILA Placement

Fallout 4’s a pretty big deal. It’s got a strong plot (far and away the best of the series), a good cast, and, like all Fallout titles, a ton of allegorical (and sometimes direct) commentary and analysis on United States history, culture, and mentality. There’s more intellectual content, subtle nuances, and cultural and historical references to contemplate and discuss in this game than you can shake a bladed swatter at. And, of course, today we’re going to ignore every last one of these worthy topics of discourse, and instead nitpick an utterly meaningless detail that you could not possibly care about whatsoever.

Because I’m me.

So! MILAs. They’re observational doohickeys that you have to place at high places throughout the Commonwealth in Fallout 4 during a series of quests for Tinker Tom of the Railroad. Tinker Tom wants them at the tops of various buildings around the area so he can measure atmospheric conditions out of an irrational paranoia that the Institute is filling the air with mind control or something, and his boss Desdemona wants the MILAs up there for the completely rational paranoia of being able to monitor potential Institute movements throughout the Boston area. Either way, if you want to get in the good graces of the most moral and humanly decent group in post-apocalyptic Massachusetts, you’re gonna be climbing some stairs.

So here’s how it went for me on my first MILA placement quest. I travel over to the assigned building, MILA burning a hole in my standard-issue physics-defying RPG pocket. I get there, go inside, and begin to systematically wipe out the super mutants within as I climb stairs and fallen debris from 1 floor to the next...all the while grabbing every random piece of trash I can see, of course, because somehow my character can perform whatever forbidden alchemical arts are necessary to turn a packet of pencils and a few kitchen knives into a 12 x 18 foot solid wall of steel. I finally find my way to the top floor, and step out onto the roof. Time to find the little green box that indicates the exact spot to place the quest item doohickey.

...Wait. That can’t be right. There?

Allow me to explain what I am seeing right now. I have located the little green quest box that indicates the exact location of my mission objective. It is hovering over a loose board of wood, 50% (often more than that) of the length of which is extended over the side of the roof, weighed down by a single cinder block to keep it from succumbing to the seductive caress of gravity and falling 6 stories down to the ground. That is the spot where I am to place a large (think about the size of a big microwave), sensitive piece of equipment.

You know what? You need a visual. Here’s an example of a mission objective spot like that which I just described:

SCREENSHOT 1
SCREENSHOT 2

And here is what it looks like with the MILA placed:

SCREENSHOT 3
SCREENSHOT 4

Just look at that. Look at it! I know this really isn’t anything that matters, but the logistics bug the hell out of my nitpicky fan nature. Here you are, on a perfectly solid, serviceable roof where you could just put the atmospheric thingamabob down and know that it’s relatively safe and secure, and instead you’re sticking it on a single, extremely unsecured board of wood to jut out over a fatal drop. There are just so many things that make this a dumb placement!

First of all, the damn MILA is twice as wide as the board of wood it’s sitting on. There’s nothing to stop a playful breeze from unbalancing the thing and sending it hurtling down to the ground. And the weight! The MILA definitely looks heavier than the single, halfheartedly-placed cinderblock counterweight. One radroach larva happens to flutter over and land on the wrong end of that board, and the whole thing is toppling over, mark my words. And that’s all just assuming that board of wood, which has clearly seen better days, won’t just snap under the weight of it on its own* Do you really think that thing’s stable enough resist gravity when some nearby huge explosion (there are a lot of those in the Fallout Commonwealth) shakes the roof? Or when a Brotherhood of Steel vertibird flies low overhead, its rotors pushing air down from above? Hell, the heavy footfalls of a big supermutant exploring the roof might be enough to dislodge this damn thing. Or a raider in scavenged power armor. Or a Brotherhood of Steel goon in considerably better power armor. Or a deathclaw. I’ve seen all these things on roofs during my explorations, most more than once.

Even assuming that gravity does not claim the MILA for its own within 10 minutes of your having placed it there, the thing is jutting over the edge of a building, completely and totally visible to anyone looking up from the ground, or over from another building’s roof! Tinker Tom thinks that the Institute is monitoring absolutely everything everywhere, yet he wants to have his junk hanging out for all to see!** And even beyond his paranoia, it’s a fact that the Institute DOES have many agents, be they conscious or unwitting, active in the Commonwealth. Any of them could travel by 1 of these MILA points and happen to see this device and wonder about its use, which could lead to massive disaster for the Railroad. Even just a regular traveler happening to look up would be a bad thing--any given tech scavenger would probably see such a doohickey as a prize to acquire and sell off.

And hey, let’s not forget the other enemies of the Railroad, the Brotherhood of Steel...yes, the intelligent, scientifically advanced individuals with enormous resources who are specifically out to collect any and every piece of interesting technology they come across. The BoS is also the group whose members are always zooming around the Commonwealth in their vertibirds. Meaning that all they have to do is fly over a MILA, happen to be looking down at the time--which I can only assume is usually where vertibird passengers are looking; that’s kind of the point of aerial patrol ships--and they’ll see a cherry piece of tech they’ve never encountered before, just begging to having the information it’s sending out traced straight to the Railroad HQ!

And that’s STILL not the end of why this placement is so dumb. Let’s say that, miracle of miracles, the MILA does not fall and does not get noticed by anyone who would steal it or use it to harm its creators. It’s still out in the open, exposed! Say some idiot super mutant decides some time that he wants to have a staring contest with the sun. He looks up, and happens to see this weird box sitting on a board jutting out from a rooftop. Will he know what the hell it is, or have any interest in taking it? No. But will he be struck with the notion of using it as target practice? Quite possibly! Hell, we know from Fallout 3’s Galaxy News Radio dish quest that mutants have taken potshots at machinery located high above them before; there’s no reason they wouldn’t again. And if a super mutant doesn’t try shooting the MILA for shits and giggles, a raider certainly might, or a Gunner might decide to hone his aim with it. Hell, even totally unnoticed, the thing’s still not safe if it’s out in the open--the Commonwealth, particularly the Boston area where most of the MILAs get placed, is a constant warzone. There’s every chance of a MILA getting damaged in crossfire or by a stray missed shot, out in the air as it is. That’s especially true considering that a lot of fighting occurs between the Brotherhood of Steel and the dregs of the wastelands, meaning a ton of bullets and lasers firing up from the ground and down from the vertibirds.

And, that’s about all I have to say on the matter. MILA placement is dumb several times over. At any rate, congratulations on making it to the end of my most pointless rant ever! You have my condolences.
















* Yeah, okay, so the MILA doesn’t actually have a weight value when it’s in your inventory. I contend that’s for gameplay purposes, so you don’t accidentally exceed your carry weight with a plot item, not because the kitchen sink-sized device of steel, copper, and plastic actually is supposed to weigh less than a marshmallow.


** You’re welcome for that image.

General RPG Lists: Best Bad Endings

Happy New Year, folks! As the year of You Are Not the Hero, Xenoblade 2, Fallout 4 DLC, a romance-oriented Fire Emblem that actually caught up to 10 years ago by providing homosexual options, and oh holy shit TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENARA!!!, 2016 shows great promise for the RPG genre. Let's see if I can write up some rants so mentally stimulating and entertaining that they can keep pace with that exciting lineup!

(Spoiler Alert: I can't. You'll just have to be satisfied with the usual fanboyish, nitpicking garbage I spew every year).



In my Greatest Endings list, I covered the best of RPGs’ good endings...but you know, good endings aren’t the only ones to be found in this genre. A lot of games also have Bad Endings, intentionally dissatisfying conclusions that let the player know that somewhere or other, they done fucked up. These are the endings whose purpose is to create regret and discontent, and encourage you to do a better job next time. There’s a lot of these lesser finales in RPGs, and most of them are pretty by-the-numbers, but sometimes you’ll come across a Bad Ending that’s extremely well done, surprising you with just how much quality the developers put into even the conclusion that represents failure. And today, we’re taking a look at the best of the bad!

Note: I’m trying to be objective here, so endings that are just representations of playstyles I don’t agree with don’t count. So, for example, even though an ending where you empower Caesar’s Legion in Fallout: New Vegas is pretty bad from any decent human being’s perspective, I’m not counting it, because it’s not based on a failure so much as it is a social philosophy, even if that social philosophy is shitty and poorly thought out. So, no Renegade Shepard, no Chiaki Discipline, no negative karma Lone Wanderer, no Yamato meritocracy, etc. None of those are meant to symbolize a failure on the player or characters’ parts (besides, perhaps, a moral one). They’re endings meant to be as legitimate as their counterparts, not Bad Endings.

Note 2: I’m sure you can figure this one out on your own, but, uh, spoilers.



5. Live-A-Live (Sad Ending)

What makes this such a good Bad Ending is that it’s so poignantly underscored by the tragedy of Orsted’s fall from grace. It’s not just about the fact that he wins, that he changes the fates of the other 7 climactic battles to result in the defeat of each hero and the dominance of the demonic force Odio. After Orsted’s victory, as the credits roll, we see him leave his fortress of evil and journey through the now empty and lifeless kingdom that he was once a hero to, quietly visiting the place of each of the losses, misunderstandings, and betrayals that pushed him from a hero to a demon, as well as the sites of the triumphs that gave him so much to lose in the first place. What this ending is really about is reminding you that the ruination of this man’s life, the circumstances that drove him to embrace darkness, is what caused the triumph of evil now in multiple places in time and space. The fickle, quick judgments of the people, the deaths of the only true and good people Orsted knew, the vicious betrayal by his best friend over petty jealousy, the emotional betrayal of the princess, she who had symbolized the pure, redeeming goal and light that he had clung desperately to when the rest of his world was falling apart...Orsted visits the site of each to remind himself and us of his tale. The people in Orsted’s life failed him with their petty, stupid vices, destroyed him...and now, in this ending, we see the tragedy compounded as his retribution seeks out not only the humanity that did him wrong, but the innocents of other worlds and times, as well.


4. Eternal Senia (Ending 2)

Ha! The real question is, are any of Eternal Senia's endings not a Bad Ending?

I kid, I kid. Because humor is a defense mechanism. And I need it right now. Because the second ending of ES breaks my goddamn heart. After all that Senia has gone through to save her sister Magaleta, and all that Magaleta has taken on herself to save Senia, Eternity still wins out, taking control of Senia while Magaleta is pushed away before she can try to shoulder this last lethal burden. Senia is lost, yet Magaleta cannot bring herself to leave her, even as Senia attacks her...instead, Magaleta simply accepts each injury, as fate’s punishment for failing to love Senia well enough, and failing to save her. After all the hurt and trials that Senia and Magaleta have endured, each girl’s only concern the wellbeing of her sister, her only wish to be with the other...Magaleta accepts death by the blade of her beloved sister, happily, as her penance, and because she’d rather be with Senia in death than attempt to live without her. The sheer weight of Senia and Magaleta’s love for one another is staggering, and the fact that they never had the chance to truly live and rejoice in that love, from circumstance and an inability to communicate their feelings and fears, makes this the saddest Bad Ending I’ve ever seen.


3. Fallout 1

This ending, which you get when the protagonist gives in and tells The Master’s lieutenant about Vault 13, is short, yet extremely effective. The Vault Dweller is taken and dropped into the vats, transformed into a super mutant, the scene nightmarish without needing to be excessive or graphic. Then, we see the result of the Vault Dweller’s loose lips: the invasion of Vault 13 in progress, through security feeds. It’s a masterfully disturbing scenario: hopeless, relentless, terrifying, and brutal. It’s simple, and again, nightmarish without the need for gratuitous detail. Stunningly horrible, this is an ending that leaves you feeling a little sick.


2. Undertale (No Mercy Ending)

Actually, there are quite a few neutral endings in Undertale that might have pushed Live-A-Live off this list, too, but they’re pretty much the ones where you’ve come close to a No Mercy run, but not quite gotten it, so I’m just going to count this one alone, and call it a day.

Okay, so this may seem like it goes against that rule I mentioned earlier about not counting alternate play styles, but the No Mercy is different than just deciding to play Revan as a Sith or something. Going out of your way to murder absolutely everyone you possibly can has no belief or philosophy behind it--even Flowey’s motto of Kill or Be Killed only logically applies to interacting with those you come across and/or possess something you want, not systematically hunting down and wiping out the weak and helpless in totality. Additionally, the No Mercy ending is not shown as an acceptable alternative to another legitimate ending that gives a deviant player what he or she was shooting for--it’s pretty unequivocally a Bad Ending. Lastly, it does not represent a success of the protagonist, Frisk’s, choices or belief. Rather, as the ending makes clear, the violent impulses of the game belong to Chara, the first child, and if Frisk kills, it is because Chara’s spirit is in control. Chara more or less says this, and even mocks Frisk’s assumption that he/she has ever been in control should Frisk try to resist. SO, the No Mercy ending can really only be seen as a failure for Frisk, never a consciously-selected consequence: it’s a failure to keep the influence of Chara at bay and stay in control.

We square on this? Okay, good. So, then, let’s talk this ending and why it’s here, which is because it
FREAKS
ME
THE
FUCK
OUT.

As is its intention, of course. In this ending, you’ve unleashed a psychotic, reasonless murderer on the world, one intent on and capable of destroying all existence, a monster that can neither be stopped by even a hero who has been imbued with the collective power of the world’s hope, nor by an unimaginably powerful creature who can manipulate the very laws of the universe. Seeing Chara, hearing him/her talk, realizing that this is truly the end of this world, and then realizing that you’ve given Chara the power to lock you out of restarting and can only ever play the game again by selling Frisk’s soul to him/her, a decision that cannot be taken back no matter how you play the game ever again...this ending perfectly blends the stuff of a living nightmare, and the sinking pit in your stomach that occurs when you realize that you’ve made a choice, an important one, for the worse, and will never, ever escape its consequences.


1. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (Kill Namatame Ending)

This is a pretty intense and emotionally painful ending all around. The scene that leads to the moment of this Bad Ending is heavy with the fresh pain of loss, and the desperation that comes of it. With the universally beloved Nanako dead, the Investigation Team privately confronts Namatame, the man believed to be responsible for her death. Although they only moments before were upset at the idea of what Nanako’s father, out of his mind with anguish, had intended to do with Namatame, the heroes find themselves also quickly blinded to reason by their grief and rage. In this moment of weakness, the team takes justice into its own hands, and murders Namatame.

Their adventure ends that night, in tragedy, their search for answers ended with a single terrible decision made without the dedication to the pursuit of truth that had united and propelled them up to that point. In the heat of this terrible moment, an act is perpetrated that cannot be undone, a betrayal of all that the team has stood for, striven for. It is an act that cannot be redacted. When it's time, a few months later, for the protagonist to go back to his home and leave the town in which the game takes place, there's no jubilant exit. There's only a small, sad speech by Nanako's father to the main character that sometimes bad actions must be taken for the greater good, awkward and quiet farewells from the protagonist's friends, and an atmosphere of regret. Regret, and perhaps shame, for what was done hastily in anger. It's very, very well done and poignant, and pretty much captures the essence of what a Bad Ending is meant to be--an unsatisfying, regretful conclusion that came about from a deviation from what the story had intended.


Honorable Mention: Mass Effect 3 (Fan-Created MEHEM Bad Ending)

You know, it’s a funny thing. The Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod gives us a satisfying, correct ending for the ME trilogy to fix that sloppy pile of shit that those incompetent, self-important fuckwads at Bioware forced on us...but worth noting is that it also gives us a Bad Ending, too, if you’ve reached the ending by making bad decisions and not gathering enough war assets. And this Bad Ending...really, really works. It’s interesting, it’s intelligent, and it’s meaningful. And it’s even a little artsy, too, with how well it conveys details and intentions without outright speaking them. Seeing that all hope for their cycle truly is lost, Joker and the crew of the Normandy heroically sacrifice themselves to keep their secret contingency plan safe from the risk of Indoctrination bringing it to light, and we cut away to see, someday, 1 of Liara’s capsules being found and activated which details the oncoming Reaper menace to the next cycle, in the hopes that the details of our own failure might be enough to give the galaxy’s next starfaring children a chance to survive. And once the credits are finished, we learn that this was, indeed, what happened.

Yes, obviously this modded ending uses a lot of what Bioware created for the official “Bad Ending” to create its own downer finale, but that’s what MEHEM does overall--it takes the bits of Bioware’s bilge that can be salvaged for something good, and then fills in the gaps with its own fan-created content (which, by the way, is very good, often indistinguishable from the “professional” content) that make for something worthwhile. The important thing here is that, whereas before the message of the Bad Ending of ME3 was Bioware saying, “Oh, you don’t like being left with only shitty options? Sure, here’s a new option for you: EVERYTHING YOU LOVE DIES. Happy?”, this Bad Ending has a theme of hope even within resignation to your own fate, and of heroic, meaningful sacrifice of oneself for the good of others whom one has never even met. There’s a powerful, inspiring nobility to this Bad Ending that shows that even in the darkest of times, when all is lost for us, there is still a beautiful light to be found in our ability to help others as we were unable to do for ourselves.

I suspect not many people will ever see this ending, as the whole point of downloading MEHEM would be to salve the terrible wounds in your psyche, still open and raw years after ME3’s ending created them, so few people are going to bother going into it with the low rating that this ending requires to activate. And that’s kind of sad, honestly, because just as MEHEM proper is an absolutely excellent ending, so too is MEHEM’s Bad Ending 1 of the best you’re ever going to come across. Thankfully, it's not hard to find on Youtube.



And that’s it for today! Personally, I think it’s pretty darned cool that there are games whose creators take such an interest in their work that they can’t resist telling the game and characters’ stories even when they go in the wrong direction. And it’s really neat that the RPG genre has quite a few of these--this list was fairly difficult to narrow down. There are a lot of quality Bad Endings out there, such as the ones for Chrono Trigger, Mass Effect 2, and Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, amongst others. The Bad Ending really can be an interesting, meaningful, and emotional little flourish that makes an already strong RPG that much more memorable and interesting, and I say kudos to those writers who take the time not only to make a Bad Ending at all, but to make one well.