General RPGs' Preferable Non-Realism 3

That’s right, it’s back, by popular demand!*  Yes, today we’re going to look at another handful of common RPG tropes in which it’s far better to just grit your teeth and suspend that disbelief, because making them more realistic is only gonna get in the way of a positive experience with the game.



Interior Lighting: They may get a bit dim in places, there might be a few shadows in the corners here and there, and of course there’ll be just enough shade in the final room that some self-important wanker will be able to hide his identity as he delivers sinister foreshadowing at the protagonist, but on the whole?  Caves, dungeons, whale stomachs, extra-dimensional crystal fortresses, they’re all remarkably well-lit in RPGs.  Like, you wouldn’t expect to be able to go spelunking in a cavern and still have better visibility a full mile deep into the planet than some people keep in their own homes, but apparently whoever explored these caverns last was a trigger-happy electrician who set the entire cave network’s ceilings up with a thorough suite of halogens.  When it comes to RPGs, the very heart of a labyrinthine ruin that hasn’t entertained visitors in over a millennium has a better-than-average chance of somehow being better illuminated than a path along the outskirts of a forest in broad noon daylight, with nary a torch, light bulb, or sparkling personality anywhere.

But that is absolutely 100% okay, because--better sit down for this one--audiences like to see things.  Yeah, I know, shocking revelation that flies in the face of everything that House of the Dragon has taught us, but it’s true, and every time an RPG decides to get cute and try to impose realistic dungeon darkness on us, it just winds up being an inconvenience that wastes time and nothing more.  Early Pokemon games deciding to make 1 random dungeon** pitch black does nothing more than inconvenience the player into hauling a Pokemon who knows the otherwise useless Flash around with them, while a small handful** of dark rooms in Startropics 1 and The Legend of Zelda 1 just boil down to forcing you to go into the menu and use a candle.  All that the dark means in Dragon Quest 1, or a Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder game, is that you have to take a moment to equip a torch or cast a spell, and then just continue along as you were.  Boy howdy, a momentary setback that’s immediately dispelled by 3 seconds of menu navigation!  I’m blown away; it’s like I’m really there!

Yes, okay, there are a couple examples where this idea is kind of okay.  Very dim lighting does help set a lot of the mood for settings in the Fallout series, and atmosphere is very important to Fallout, so I guess there are some occasions where a tiny bit of lighting realism can be warranted.  But overall, I’m just content to accept that RPG sunbeams can penetrate solid rock and walls of steel, and call it a day.  Look, I don’t deny that in real life, I, like anyone else, occasionally enjoy pretending I’m God by rapidly flipping the light switch in my room on and off to confuse and impress my pet gecko.***  But I don’t want to make that hobby into a damn chore as I’m forced to use a lantern item every time the protagonist enters a new room lest I risk bringing Grues back into the popular consciousness.


Weapon Vendors’ Technological Prowess: Is it particularly realistic that there is, in Chrono Trigger, a caveman vendor in the prehistoric age who not only has a real, actual handgun available for trade, but the firearm that this literal neanderthal has put together prior to his society having discovered gunpowder, trigger mechanisms, iron-working, or basic physics, is actually of better quality than the one that Lucca picked up in 2300 AD that was created with incomprehensibly advanced future-tech?  And let’s not even get started on the fact that this same ooga-booga artisan just happens to have an inventory of detachable robot limbs lying around for Robo to trade for and equip, which are, again, better than the parts he was manufactured with.  My Nintendo Switch can’t even function if it’s not hooked up to the exact right charge cord, but somehow this hut-dwelling missing-link MacGyver has hand-crafted perfectly-fitted attachments for a specific model of automaton that won’t exist for another 65 million years.

Still, if we had to do all our RPG shopping based on who believably has the means to create what weapon, it’d get tedious pretty fast.  Does it make sense that the weapon vendor in a village of talking cats sells bows and arrows that his entire thumb-less species lacks the capacity to both craft and operate?  Is it rational that the weapon shop in an underwater city of merpeople sells swords with metal blades made from alloys they can’t forge and wooden handles made from trees they can’t access?  Maybe not, but there’s no way I’m gonna have my protagonist go without an upgrade for 4 new towns in a row while that smug jackass mage in the party gets a shiny new toy every time just because he decided his armament of choice was going to be a literal fucking stick that any fool could make/find.

Also look if there was no unrealistic trope of weapon vendors’ means of manufacturing then there would be no reason to lampshade it in Shin Megami Tensei Persona Q2, and Theo using his popcorn maker to create all manner of instruments of war is eternally amusing to me.  We’re keeping this one.


Warrior Needs Food Badly: Last time, I mentioned just how nutritionally poor the adventurer’s fare generally is in RPGs, whether it be the Secret of Mana kids eating literally nothing but items you can find in a candy store over the course of months or Fallout 4’s Nora regularly chowing down on raw steaks made from postapocalyptic dogs or indulging in a hunk of giant radioactive mutant housefly meat on her cheat day.  But to add to that, have you ever thought about just how little of that nutritionally-stunted diet heroes are consuming?

I mean, how often do you see these people actually eat what anyone could call a meal?  Fayt in Star Ocean 3 may spend his entire day fighting from 1 end of an enemy’s medieval fortress to the other, permanently crossing an entire battalion’s worth of knights and guard dogs off the duty roster, and the most snacking he’ll do the entire time is to munch half a dozen healing blueberries, maybe a single blackberry if he’s really feeling decadent.  I don’t care how great antioxidants are for you, there’s no damn way that the man’s replacing the energy and strength he spent on Operation: Level 18 Or Bust from a single muffin’s worth of fruit.  And that’s still more than a lot of other RPG characters eat in a day; at least Star Ocean healing items are actual food.  Most adventuring parties walk from 1 end of a continent to the other on a single leaf of a healing herb.  Even Popeye needs an entire CAN of spinach to bust some heads; we’ve got RPG heroes out here doing cross-country marathons while throwing fists with ogres and entire wolf packs, all powered by a single frond of fennel that they resorted to chewing on to do something about those broken ribs.

Even RPG heroes who DO regularly and demonstrably have actual meals still aren’t getting enough to be realistically adequate.  It’s almost always solely a dinner-before-bed deal in an inn or around a campfire or whatever.  I adore Grandia’s dinner conversations, but if Justin and Ryudo actually want to keep their strength up and be at their best for their world-saving tasks, their parties really ought to consider also chatting it up as they hit a breakfast bar or break out some sandwiches for an impromptu picnic amongst all the corpses they’ve made of the local wildlife.  If a single bar pizza late at night isn’t enough for even just a retail worker who does a third of his job sitting down (as my doctor keeps insisting), you can bet it’s not realistic that a few pork chops and a conversation about local architecture are enough to keep a guy who fights world-ending calamities for his 9-to-5 healthy.

But the alternative is to have a game that keeps nagging you every 20 minutes that your protagonist’s tummy is hurting and he wants to go to McDonalds and do you at least have any mints in your purse he can have?  And look, that’s all fine and great as an optional mode to bring Fallout’s survival element to life, and I’ll accept it in a rare case like The Banner Saga trilogy, which expertly incorporates resource management as a function of its story of a group of refugees fleeing the end of the world.  But overall, I already have a pet whose meal schedule I have to keep track of in real life.  I don’t need another entire party of them.  Get out of here with that nonsense, Lords of Xuilma.


Decaying Weapons: Is this the third time I’ve talked about the detestable realism of RPG weapons that need constant maintenance?  Yes.  Am I bringing this up again for any real, reasonable cause?  No.  Am I revisiting this subject solely because of just how blindingly, totally, furiously, incalculably much I fucking HATE equipment degradation?  Look, you already know the answer, why are you bothering to ask?  I want the person who first came up with the idea of inflicting constant, necessary weapon repair on players to wake up every morning to fire ants nibbling their toes.  I wish for that person to have to be Elon Musk’s Valentine every year.  I hope that whenever they go out to a restaurant, the place is out of every beverage but Diet Mello Yello.

Alright, anyway, look, I’ve thought of a new angle of preferable non-realism to this stupid idea, so don’t get all bent out of shape, I can justify a third round of it.  Let’s say you’re a game developer who’s taken a few blows to the head, and you do, in fact, decide to insert a recurring equipment maintenance mechanic into your game.  Is it particularly realistic for the same whetstone and rag setup that fully repairs the thief’s daggers to also completely restore the hero’s longbow to working order?  Maybe not.  Does it make sense that the same parts in a single toolkit are somehow able to fully service 4 different melee weapons, 2 musical instruments being abusively treated as melee weapons, a crossbow, and a hardcover book (because Dohter the Charitable forbid a mage ever put any serious effort into defending themselves with an actual weapon)?  Er, no.  Should the same repair powder in Dark Cloud 1 that refurbishes a big wooden hammer also work just as well in fixing a goddamn laser gun?  I thought I just told you to stop asking questions you know the answer to.

But the alternative is Fallout forcing you to scrounge weapons and clothing of the same type as the one you’re trying to restore.  Having to constantly keep an eye on your battle axe’s physical and emotional state is already tedious enough; the last thing that needs to be added is ANOTHER layer of inconvenience to the stupid process.  As far as I’m concerned, if I’m gonna be saddled with the responsibility of treating my helmet like a goddamn Tamagotchi for the sake of oppressive realism, the least the developer can do is include a Fix-It-Felix hammer in every toolbox.


Treasure Chest Benefit-Cost Ratio: Consider the resources that go into the creation of an average RPG treasure chest.  Assuming a wooden version, you’ve got the boards and slats necessary to form a reasonably large box (to say nothing of those absolute monsters in Star Ocean 3), the bands of metal to keep them in place and reinforce its security, the metal fasteners to hold it together, the metal hinges to allow the chest to open and shut, the oil to keep those hinges in working order...and these raw materials are not gonna be the cheap ones, either.  This is not a cheap pine-and-tin affair.  RPG treasure chests have to be in it for the long haul, left out on their lonesome in abandoned temples and forgotten forest paths and forbidden crypts and so on for decades, centuries, sometimes even millennia.  These things have to make use of some sturdy-ass wood that’s been weatherproofed to Hell and back, and quality alloy that doesn’t just resist rust, it actively terrifies it.  The materials and preparation for them alone makes a treasure chest worth its weight in the very gold that gets put in it.

And the craftsmanship’s gotta cost a pretty penny, too!  Not a lot of RPG worlds have access to industrial manufacturing (and of those that do, they probably didn’t when the damn chest was made and stuck in the corner of a dungeon 400 years ago), so you’re gonna be hitting up a carpenter and a smith to commission this thing’s construction, and considering how perfectly, identically symmetrical and polished all these chests are in these games, it ain’t amateur artisans making'em.  A locksmith, too, sometimes, although admittedly most treasure chests seem to just be left unsecured, so maybe not.****  A cursory glance at Amazon indicates that in our current, modern age, a basic but reliable storage trunk goes for upwards of $150 - 250, and that’s with modern age technology being used to harvest the resources, modern age technology and workmanship techniques being used to craft it, and modern age vehicles and supply lines to haul the thing to your porch where the chest itself can ironically be the treasure that gets stolen by porch thieves.  So if with all that time- and effort-saving modern convenience a treasure chest is still at least over a hundred bucks, you can imagine the cost of just 1 of these things in most RPG worlds.  To say nothing of the time involved in having it made; the local smithy ain’t gonna 2-day-guarantee that shit no matter how many tips you grease Jeff Bezos’s palms with.

Okay, so now that we’ve established the substantial investment of money, effort, and time that goes into a single treasure chest...exactly how realistic is it, really, that some mook in Hyrule went to the trouble of getting one specifically for the purpose of storing 5 fucking rupees in it?  Did that dude seriously just drop more money  than can fit into the average Hylian wallet on acquiring a treasure chest just so his kid could stash her allowance in a box bigger than she is?*****  Imagine spending weeks seeking out and working with skilled tradesmen just to create a storage device for a single vial of healing potion.  One apple.  A chunk of charcoal.  A lone potato.  A solitary fruit gummy.  If half of these adventurers had any brains, whenever they found a treasure chest holding nothing more than a loaf of bread, they’d just grab the whole box and haul it back to a pawn shop to get some real value out of their find.

But screw it!  So what if the contents of probably more than half of all RPG treasure chests represent almost as bad a payoff for your investment as an NFT?  It’s still fun to find a shiny new treasure chest, open it up, hear that opening sound effect, and see what shiny new toy you just got.  I mean, okay, look, my excitement in Fallout 4 at seeing a promising safe is relatively equal to my excitement at seeing an equally vulnerable desk, locker, tool chest, lunchbox, or putrid body bag of rotten meat.  I will admit that I am perhaps not the pickiest post-apocalyptic pillager; my priority is the plunder more than the package presenting the prize.  Still, it’s undeniably more satisfying to pop open a prominently placed, polished, promising treasure chest to acquire the next step in your journey to 99 healing herbs in your inventory than to just happen across a zip-lock bag with a leaf in it, so by all means, ancient dungeon architects, keep artificially propping up that storage device economy!


Boring Planets: It's a real, actual fact that most of the planets in our universe, from all observable data, are barren and lifeless.  There's not a lot of stuff to see and do on most of the worlds floating in space.  Unfortunately, however, "seeing and doing stuff" is, in fact, something that players of a sci-fi game--hell, any game--want out of their narrative- and exploration-based adventure, so it's generally good to put aside astronomy for a moment if it's going to be a deal-breaker for making a good game.  This might seem obvious, and to most RPGs like The Outer Worlds or Phantasy Star, it is, but there's always at least 1 idiot who would rather something be realistic than worthwhile, and unfortunately, he was the guy calling the shots at Bethesda when they created Starfield.  Thanks for the empty, boring game about empty, boring planets, Todd Howard; your vision of procedurally generated planets in a game about the thrill and wonder of space exploration is exactly the kind of genius I'd expect from the mastermind behind the idea to have a Fallout game without a story or characters.  I feel like Howard is the kind of guy who would love the realism of Penn and Teller's Desert Bus game and see it as an ideal to aspire to.


What’s Mine is Yours and What’s Yours is Mine; Damn Time and Space If It Says Otherwise: RPG inventory bags are already not exactly the most realistic things in terms of how much they can hold, as previously noted, but a less remarked-upon unrealistic quality of theirs is that once this gang of world-saving adolescents has adopted you into their midst, you have access to the communal backpack forever.  You’re on the other side of town doing your own character quest?  The group gets separated into 3 different pairs inside a large dungeon?  You’ve been stranded on a different continent thanks to an incident involving a raft, a talking freshwater octopus, and a really dumb decision to apply martial arts to an underwater environment?  You’ve fallen into another time period altogether?  Did the protagonist get completely and thoroughly disintegrated, including all items on his person, one of which was the inventory bag itself?  Doesn’t fucking matter, the potion sack is still there and you and the rest of the party all still have simultaneous full access to it.

Realistic?  Not in the slightest.  But frankly, not having access to the cheeseburger backpack during Greg, Amethyst, and Pearl’s section of the temple in the second Steven Universe RPG was inconvenient, and truly, what purpose is served by injecting this bit of accessibility realism in?  Let every party member’s purse contain a portal to a shared storage warehouse, it ain’t bothering anyone.


I Need Corrective Lenses Because I’m Bird’s-Eye-View-Sighted: Let’s face it, Hide and Seek as a minigame wouldn’t exist in RPGs if protagonists could actually see the world in front of their faces.  Half the kids that play these games aren’t hiding so much as they are standing out in the open, but because our own perspective as the audience is that of a very nosy pigeon, the fact that some brat is standing 2 paces away directly in the protagonist’s path but behind a tree from our own perspective means that the hero’s gonna be frantically searching the whole town for 20 minutes and considering filing a missing persons report before he finally happens by chance to bump into the tile of space the kid’s occupying.  Man, the amount of stuff “hidden” in Dark Half alone just because it’s out of an aerial drone’s sight but should be clear and visible to the dude who’s supposedly leading the adventure is crazy.

Well, so be it!  I happen to LIKE the overhead view of an adventure.  First-person perspective’s fine and good, too, and certainly far more realistic, but seeing an adventure unfold from a bird’s-eye view is far tidier, and allows the audience to get a full understanding of all that’s happening onstage.  Frankly, I’m not so enamored with the north side of houses, bushes, and statues that I want to give up my seat in the theater in exchange for the realism of a boots-on-the-ground perspective.


This Is What Happens When You Don’t Provide A Good Vision Plan For Your Employees: Well, the heroes may have their ocular quirks, but they’re nothing compared to the guards and goons of these games, good guys and bad alike.  Whether it be a monster’s aggro range, a patrolling sentry who is being paid exactly enough per hour to repeatedly tread a specific 25-foot rectangle of space and no more, or an enemy lookout in a watchtower who somehow will come into your own view from the ground before you’ll come into his, everyone you might want to avoid in an RPG handily only seems to be able to see a fraction as far as you might expect.

Hylia help you if you happen to be inside the 5-foot radius of a monster’s perfect circle of vision, but until you violate social distancing etiquette, you may as well not exist to the average wolf, giant scorpion, or eldritch abomination, the latter of which may ironically be actually made out of eyes.  You may be shit out of luck if you happen to stumble into a guard’s line of sight, but even the conical field of vision on the fancier RPG sentries sure as hell ain’t the standard 120 degrees, so there’s no such thing as seeing-something-out-of-the-corner-of-their-eye.  They've got seeing-something-out-of-the-quadrant-of-their-eye at best.  These assholes would have to swivel their heads and crane their necks just to take in a single lane of traffic.  Hell, even main villains and final bosses can clearly only see as far as 1 screen’s length, because last-minute reinforcements are ALWAYS showing up to bail the heroes out of a jam from off-screen, and as often as not they’re coming from the very direction that the villain is currently facing.  I can see farther than all these schmucks without even wearing my glasses, and I’m relatively sure I’m legally blind.

But obviously, the devastating combination of tunnel-vision and nearsightedness in all RPG denizens is purely positive, and giving monsters and villains and guards real, actual eyesight would be a terrible move.  No one would ever be able to ride to the hero’s rescue again if the bad guy could see them coming up the Dramatic Final Boss Stairs and opted to move his timetable of finishing the protagonist off up a few seconds in response.  If someone had specifically written “with your eyes open” into the employee handbook for Hyrule’s guards, then The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time wouldn’t have needed a 7-year time skip, because Link would still be trying to sneak into the castle courtyard well into his 40s.  And do you have any earthly idea just how far some animals can see in real life?  The aggro range of a realistically-sighted falcon enemy would be so wide that the thing would be attacking you while you were still out on the world map.  I think it’s best we forego the realism on this and stick with the “Don’t aggro until you see the whites of his eyes” approach.



Alright, that’s it for today.  See you again for the next installment of this series in another 4 years or so!













* Protip: If you restrict your polling audience solely to yourself, then popular demand is actually super easy to achieve for just about everything you do.


** What really gets me about this is that this stab at realism is so often selective and arbitrary.  Why is every OTHER cavern in the Pokemon games fully lit despite being exactly as submerged and lacking light sources?  Why THIS room at the heart of a labyrinth in Startropics 1, and not the one next to it?  How come some levels of SMT Persona 5’s Mementos are just pitch dark at random, while the ones above and below them were illuminated?  What, did that level just happen to be the one formed out of the cognition of everyone in Tokyo who’d forgotten to pay their electric bill this month?


*** I accomplish neither of these things, if you’re wondering.  She’s a tough audience.


**** Which you’d think would defeat the point, but I’ve seen how the Secret of Mana kids open their treasure chests.  Clearly RPG heroes are fully capable and ready to just smash a treasure chest against the ground until it relinquishes its goodies 1 way or another, so if you value your investment into the chest itself, I guess it might just be better to make the thing as accessible as possible to whatever greedy yutz happens across it.


***** Full credit to Danny Sexbang for pointing out the ridiculous cost logistics of this particular scenario.  I mean, I’ve already talked about this matter of treasure chest contents to some degree before, so I’ll still count this as mostly my idea, but I can’t deny that his quipping brought the subject back to my mind.

Annual Summary 2023

Another year, another bunch of RPGs under my belt.  Although calling them a “bunch” might be overselling it a bit, because after last year’s showing of 13 completed RPGs, which I called, at the time, “pathetic”, with full-on italics, I’ve somehow managed to drop the number even further to an outright disgraceful 10.  Look at this embarrassing display:



Fire Emblem 15
Gamedec
Hades 1
Hololive CouncilRyS RPG
Omori
Octopath Traveler 1
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
Septerra Core
Shin Megami Tensei 5
Steven Universe: Save the Light



Ouch.  Can I even call myself The RPGenius at this point?  That’s fewer than 1 RPG a month.

In fairness, there’s at least some cause for this.  First of all, whereas last year my job was severely understaffed for half the year, this year it was severely understaffed for 5/6ths of the year, which just cuts into my ability to do pretty much anything enjoyable, both from the extra time involved in being at work, and the fact that I’m so drained afterwards that I can’t bring myself to even play a damned game half the time.  Also, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is freakin’ huge; time-wise it should count as like 2 and a half RPGs, really.  Also, I’ve spent a lot of the last few months playing SMT Persona 5, which is also very long, and I just haven’t quite gotten to the end of it yet, so while it’s not counted here, it’s taken up a lot of my RPG focus.  Finally, I did also play a full-sized RPG called A Dragon’s ReQuest that I haven’t included in this year’s list because it’s not officially released yet--it’s essentially complete, but its creator hasn’t actually put it up on a major platform for regular audience consumption, so that’ll be another RPG that’s gonna be on next year’s list rather than this one.  So you could view those paltry 10 RPGs as, like, 14 or 15, really.

Which is still too damn few anyway.  Oh, well.  At least it was a high-quality bunch of RPGs I played this year that were a lot of fun; very few flops in the mix to be found.  Hell, it’s probably better that A Dragon’s ReQuest and Persona 5 will be heading up next year’s list, because with them AND Pathfinder, Omori, Hades, and Octopath, it’d almost be too much high-quality stuff from which to choose winners for this year’s categories.

But before that, let’s indulge my need to show off all the other stuff I’ve done this year like an attention-starved 6-year-old demanding constant, unbroken focus and applause from a parent as he performs some menial act.  Or alternately, like your average Tiktok creator.  Here’s what I’ve been up to this year besides RPGs:


Anime: I recently watched the Megumin spin-off to Konosuba, which was pretty fun and amusing.  As expected, I suppose, given that Konosuba is already a funny anime, and this is basically just more Konosuba but with only the best 2 characters.  I also saw the second season of Pui Pui Molcar, which is a return to the absurdly, endearingly cute and silly form of the first season, if perhaps not quite as fun.  Lastly, I rewatched Steins;Gate as I showed it to my sister, because Steins;Gate is awesome.

Books: Less free time at work means less time to sneak in a few pages on the sly, sadly, so my readership lessened this year, too.  Still, the important thing is, I read (and quite enjoyed) Into the Black, by Brian Work.  Even if you haven’t read so much as a recipe or game developer apology all the rest of the year, so long as you’ve read Into the Black, you can call it a successful literary year.

Although, I mean, I DID actually read some other stuff, too.  While Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 was a big pile of Meh, William Pene du Bois’s Squirrel Hotel was a cute and enjoyable little story (even if I was dissatisfied with its conclusion).  Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens was pretty good, too.  I guess.  Mostly.  It’s honestly not really my kind of story, but that’s more just personal taste.  Lastly, I read the Gold collection of Isaac Asimov’s writings, and really enjoyed it as a true finale to the works of the greatest science fiction writer yet to put ink to paper.

...But for real, Into the Black is cool and you should read it.  That the author is an old friend of mine is only somewhat relevant to this recommendation, I swear!

Non-RPG Video Games: I played A Street Cat’s Tale this year because I’d been misled into believing it was an RPG, but I don’t regret the gaff--it’s cute, and sweet, and incredibly depressing, which of course is right up my alley (cat).  Also, at a friend’s recommendation, I experienced the visual novel Slay the Princess, and it is a marvelously thoughtful, compelling work of interactive art that I can’t recommend enough.  Unless you are averse to Psychological Horror, and also some goddamn disturbing violent imagery.  But, uh, if you find Psychological Horror repellent, then you’re probably not gonna be thrilled with my favorite RPG of this year, either...

Streaming and the Like: I watched quite a lot of stuff this year, actually.  I found Amphibia to be alright, although, much like its distant cousin predecessor Gravity Falls, quite overrated (also, Amphibia’s ending flopped hard).  In fact, of the modern Disney cartoon semi-same-universe trifecta, only The Owl House really lived up to its hype.  Speaking of which, I also watched TOH’s final season, and in spite of being noticeably and tragically rushed due to the fucktards making decisions at Disney, Season 3 was great.  Really, that they managed to close out the series as well as they did in such an unreasonably brief period of episodes is a testament to the talent of the show’s creators.

Other cartoons I watched this year included Hilda’s first 2 seasons and movie, which are a nice, creative, endearing, and wholesome experience that I’m looking forward to continuing when Season 3 releases, and Cuphead, which is a marvelously fun and authentic homage to the old-timey classic cartoons of a century ago that significantly stands out as more than just an adaptation riding on the coattails of the game’s success, as I wrongly assumed it would be.  Speaking of old-timey cartoons, I also watched the full run of the 2013 Mickey Mouse shorts, and by God are they hilarious!  The series is a perfect translation of the best qualities of the classic Disney shorts of yesteryear to a modern perspective, with great visual and written gags, incredible energy, perfect pacing, an art style that is almost uncomfortably perfect for depicting the bizarre and occasionally amusingly gross ideas, catchy songs, and even a dedication to displaying and enjoying different cultures across the world, much as the original shorts did.  2013 Mickey Mouse is honestly a triumph and sits shoulder-to-shoulder with its classic Disney short and Looney Tune peers.

It’s still not as fantastic as Netflix’s Carmen Sandiego adaptation, of course, which I watched for a fourth time this year as I showed it to my sister.  But really, what can compete with the modern Carmen Sandiego?

Oh, yes, I also watched some live action shows, too.  This year finally marked the end of The Flash, and let’s be honest: it’s an end that was overdue, because at this point, I’d have to be at least a prolific arsonist for The Flash not to be the guiltiest pleasure in my life.  Still, it was a fun ride, and I had fun watching it.

But as you all know from the fact that I chose to play Project X-Zone 2 in spite of having inflicted the first game on myself, I never learn my goddamn lesson, ever.  So immediately after The Flash ended, I replaced it with DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, of which I’ve already finished the first season, and damn it all, I’m enjoying that one, too.  It’s like the dumber version of both Doctor Who and DC Comics, and considering that both DC Comics and Doctor Who are already the dumb versions of themselves, I’m gonna be guilting up my watching pleasure for seasons to come.

Less guilty a pleasure?  Galavant.  Hilarious and fun through and through.  It’s like The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and the songwriters for Animaniacs all got mushed together into 1 amazing show.  Seriously, I hate musicals, but Galavant had me grinning like an idiot from start to finish.

Lastly, I watched The G Word, which is as great and interesting as I’ve come to expect from television made by my second favorite member of Olde English, and the entirety of the show Superstore, which was really funny and a good time overall.  I’ll grant you, some of my enjoyment of Superstore may have some basis in working retail myself, but I’m pretty sure it’s still objectively a fun show.

Except for Mateo.  Mateo is the fucking worst.

Other Crap: As mentioned, I work a full time job.  I also have gotten a little more social in recent years?  Not much, but sometimes I go to people’s places for dinner now, and I’ve continued catching my friend Angel Adonis up on various bits and pieces of culture from before his time and/or outside his country of origin, like The Twilight Zone, A Quiet Place, Electric Dreams, The Animatrix, and other stuff.  Also took him through Chrono Trigger, and now we’re doing Grandia 2, because Go Best or Go Home.

Oh, and I’ve been doing a lot of cooking in the last few years?  Like, learning how to do it decently and trying different recipes out.  That’s fairly time-consuming.  But I’m not bad at it, sometimes!


Alright, enough of that crap.  Let’s get to the stuff you’re here for, if you’re here at all, which according my viewership metrics you mostly aren’t.  It’s RPG time!



RPG Moments of Interest in 2023

1. Y’know, Omori, of all the potential things for a surreal psychological drama about repression, loss, and guilt with significant horror elements and themes of suicide to reference, Kenan and Kel was probably one of the ones I’d have least expected.

2. Every RPG protagonist has more than their share of lucky vehicular near-misses and Curative Falls, but Septerra Core’s Maya finds and walks away from crash landings like she’s trying to beat some world record held by Launchpad McQuack.

3. So a major component of Amphibia’s finale is the introduction of a completely spontaneous, unnecessary cosmic entity, voiced by a child, who is an absolute worthless shithead and whose gross incompetence at his job is responsible for untold death and destruction.  This self-satisfied stupid lazy fuck then decides to shove an untold and utterly bizarre, ill-matched responsibility onto the protagonist in a scene which in no way meshes with the feel, style, or world of the entire rest of the series, and frankly cheapens the lore substantially.  And I’m watching this travesty, and all I can think is,

“Well, I guess now I know what the writers behind Mass Effect 3’s ending have been up to.”

4. Question for the Disco Elysium and Omori fans out there.  Which is the greater sin: refusing to high-five Kim, or Kel?

5. Dude the true final boss of Octopath Traveler 1 is fucking bullshit.  I know an unreasonably powerful final boss is the cherry on your SaGa sundae, but Jesus Christ.

6. Alright, so, I gotta go steal a giant bug monster’s egg, drill a hole in it, and stuff it full of knock-out drops.  Next, I need to walk a few counties over, find some giant leeches hanging out in a swamp, and throw a piece of meat at them.  That way, they’ll be distracted so that I can grab these three leeches the size and thickness of a child’s arm with my bare hands, and bring them a little ways over to the pond inhabited by a monster that appears to have a sun-roof built into its skull.  I toss the drugged egg at the monster, let it eat, and when it conks out, I drop my collective dozen pounds of leeches directly onto the monster’s exposed brain and hope they’ve got a taste for French cuisine.  Once the maggots have devoured so much of the monster’s brain that their item description literally changes to “Bloated”, I gather them up, and the monster awakens, 4 pounds of gray matter lighter and suddenly eager to follow Elon Musk on Twitter.  Now that I have a bundle of bugs bloated on brain blood, I can bring them to the local tattoo parlor, because I want the lady there to squeeze that guck out of the leeches, so she can inject this partially-digested swamp monster cranial blood goo directly into my body.  These sicknasty tats, you see, will allow me to get close to the local pirate warlord, because his idea of economic exchange has less to do with currency than it does slave girls, but his fetish is historical figures, specifically a tattooed angel from like a thousand years ago.

Is it just me, or are the things that happen in RPGs a bit odd, sometimes?

7. So it would seem that, if the legal resolution of the matter is accurate, the allegations made against Chris Avellone a couple years ago had all the authenticity of an official statement from Bethesda.  That is to say, it seems that the accusations of his being a sexual predator were a lie.

Which is good!  I mean, it’s really extremely shitty that Mr. Avellone had to go through it, costing him respect, credibility, and work, not to mention money with legal fees; it’s absolutely rotten that this was done to him.  But I suppose that if the choice is between Chris Avellone going through a lousy situation while being innocent, and Chris Avellone actually honestly being the creep he was accused to be, I’d much rather the former scenario.

At the same time, though, my feelings are complicated.  I feel guilty that I didn’t have better loyalty to a creator who I so respected.  Consequently, I almost feel like I’m not really worthy of speaking positively about the guy’s works any more, as though it’s pretending that the back I’m clapping isn’t also the one I sank a knife into.  Which in turn makes me feel absurdly pretentious; as if Chris Avellone has any idea of who I am or what my stance was on the issue!  Besides which, what am I torturing myself over?  I said 1 negative thing about him based on the only information known at the time, on a blog so obscure that most of my own family don’t pay it the slightest mind.  But when it’s a man’s reputation that’s at stake, doesn’t that mean that the belief and perspective of all others, whether prominent or unknown, is at the very heart of the matter?  My reaction was part of the collective whole; I don’t get to just dismiss having a share in having done him wrong.  Yet I don’t want to let that negative feeling change my instincts too much, because being willing to listen to and believe the claims of a victim without immediately and aggressively demanding receipts is also important--it’s an unfortunate reality that 1 of the biggest obstacles for victims, particularly abused/mistreated women, is that they are, even now, so frequently dismissed out of hand or even vilified for coming forward because the one who preyed on them can leverage far more resources and/or reputation.  Evidence is quite obviously vitally important, but the instinct to take a supposed victim’s claims seriously, especially when they’re against someone you personally view positively, is also very important.

So basically I’m extremely frustrated by the whole thing (and feeling annoyed with myself that I have the gall to feel this frustration because obviously this isn’t about me, RPGenius, you pretentious twat) and I think it would just be so super great if people could maybe stop undermining the process of real victims seeking justice by throwing around false accusations.

8. Speaking of complete and total lies, Pete Hines retired this year!  I guess that after all these years of hard work fabricating untruths on Bethesda’s behalf, Mr. Hines wants to kick back, relax, and spend some quality time lying to the people he loves.  I’m surprised Bethesda let him go, really; dishonesty is about the only part of the business that Bethesda remains competitive in these days, so losing their top liar is gonna be quite a blow to them.  Then again, knowing Ol’ Petey, Bethesda may not have known until he was out the door--guy probably told Todd Howard that he was just going out for cigarettes.

9. The sound effects used for doors opening and closing in Septerra Core are the exact same ones that AOL Instant Messenger used in the early 2000s for people coming online and going offline, and this fact is incredibly distracting to me.


Quote of the Year
Runners-Up
"Mrgrgr!"
  --Tressa, Octopath Traveler 1

"Thank you for the dung, my friend!"
  --Kindly Farmer NPC, Octopath Traveler 1

Winner
"Damn it, she’s right!  I’m a shitty excuse for a cultist!"
  --Random Henchman NPC, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous



Best Prequel/Sequel of 2023
Winner: Hololive CouncilRyS RPG
Okay.  So it’s an indulgent, silly fan creation full of in-jokes and references to a specific group of VTubers and their rabidly dedicated fanbase.  Be that as it may, the Hololive CouncilRyS RPG was clearly made with a lot of love for its subject matter and dedicated understanding of the idols’ lore, personalities, and followers.  It’s using the pre-existing material in a thoroughly knowledgeable manner, building a fun new story from that material which satisfies and entertains those who have enjoyed that which preceded it.  And really, isn’t that just what a great sequel’s supposed to do?  Extremely niche it may be, but Hololive CouncilRyS RPG has the heart and care in its making that I so wish more sequels and prequels could display.

Runners-Up: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous; Steven Universe: Save the Light
PWotR is really more its own adventure than anything, but it does have some light but pleasing ties to Pathfinder: Kingmaker that arise now and then.  It is, of course, also a game based around a major tabletop Pathfinder campaign’s material and premise, and in that regard, the game strikes a pleasing and elegant balance between the existing content, and the ideas and interpretations that Owlcat Games has for it.  It’s definitely a great adaptation and extension of the tabletop campaign, and really, it’s only the fact that an adaptation is slightly less like a “sequel” than whatever you’d call Hololive CouncilRyS RPG that keeps PWotR from top spot here.

Steven Universe: Save the Light is an adequate sequel to the first SU RPG.  Expands a bit on the nemesis from the first game, introduces new elements, utilizes the characters and events of the show itself well.  There’s nothing about it as a continuation that strongly stands out, but at the same time, it does a good job as such.


Biggest Disappointment of 2023
Loser: Shin Megami Tensei 5
I understand that not every SMT is a marvelous gem.  Sometimes an If or a Devil Survivor 2 happens.  Hell, I wasn’t even especially impressed with SMT4-1, and that’s one of the mainline titles of the series!  But all the same, Shin Megami Tensei’s long history has been one dominated by solid, thoughtful titles, interspersed with some of the best RPGs I’ve had the pleasure to experience...so the utter, amateur, slipshod disinterest with which Atlus conducted SMT5’s story and cast was outright shocking to me.  This is a title whose only priorities were gameplay and visuals, and that doesn’t cut it for an RPG, and it especially doesn’t cut it for a Shin Megami Tensei.  Conception 2 is unquestionably the far worse title objectively, but I daresay that Shin Megami Tensei 5 is nonetheless the darkest stain on Atlus’s record to me for the shame it brings to a respectable name.

Almost as Bad: Fire Emblem 15; Septerra Core; Steven Universe: Save the Light
Look, there’s nothing wrong with Steven Universe’s second RPG.  There’s just nothing that especially stands out.  I mean, SU is 1 of the most thoughtful, emotionally charged, well-constructed, poignant cartoons ever created, and it didn’t take a very long grace period for it to start getting real.  I guess I just thought that after the pretty basic and serviceable Steven Universe: Attack the Light had laid out the groundwork, the next game in the trilogy would have the space to start getting into the heavy stuff that the show was known and celebrated for, so another reasonably straightforward adventure that only very slightly touches on ideas of self-autonomy and unhealthy relationships is just less than I’d hoped for.  Well, with any luck, the third title will go harder.

While I do like Fire Emblem okay as a whole, I never do find myself holding high expectations for it.  All the same, people generally harbor positive sentiments for FE15, and it made a decent splash in the FE fanbase when it came out a few years ago, so I did kind of expect it to be...I dunno...good?  At least a little?  Better than Just Barely Okay By The Slimmest Margin, at least.  Also, it’s a bit disappointing in that it promotes itself as some joined story of dual protagonists, but really, all it turns out to be is the story of a single protagonist which also simply happens to point the camera at his supporting love interest a lot of the time.

Lastly, Septerra Core was the second game I ever bought on GOG, and its premise and style interested me.  Turns out, though, that it’s less a classic of its day, and more just a sample of why gaming moved on from that day to begin with.


Best Finale of 2023
Winner: Omori (but only the Good Ending)
It’s hope, it’s acceptance, it’s the courageous first step to finally living again and mending the terrible hurt that tore so many lives apart.  There’s no guarantee that all will be well...but at its worst it will still be better than what it’s been.  What a game and what a way to end it.

Runners-Up: Gamedec; Hades 1; Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
Gamedec starts to get really compelling in the last leg of its journey, and the existential, philosophical weight of its final moments is easily what I respect most about the game.  Hades 1’s ending (the final one, with the big get-together) is satisfying and feels like the perfect way to complete the game’s tale of the confusing nature of family.  And as for PWotR, as with the first game, the creators know exactly how to craft a hyped-up, epic finale to a long, grand campaign, and while it’s easily the most tricky and precise ending in RPG history to achieve, the true, secret Ascension ending to the game is extremely cool and rewarding, as well as a perfect realization of the game’s theme of overcoming your boundaries and becoming more than the sum of your parts.  To be frank, while I understand objectively why Omori has to be the winner for the beautiful artistry of its conclusion, I definitely best enjoyed and felt the most personal satisfaction from the conclusion to the tale of the Commander, her comrades, and Areelu Vorlesh.


Worst RPG of 2023
Loser: Shin Megami Tensei 5
Oh gee what do you know the game for which I’ve spent the whole year loudly expressing my passionate disdain turns out to be the worst game I played, what a fucking twist.  Moving on.

Almost as Bad: Fire Emblem 15; Septerra Core
Honestly, the category title of “almost as bad” really isn’t accurate, because neither FE15 nor SC are even in the same league of lazy awfulness as SMT5.  Septerra Core is barely even bad, really.  Clunky as hell and a perfect representation of the Awkward Age of PC RPGs, sure, but if they’d just done a better job pacing out the characters’ interactions and the events that occur therein, and developed half their cast a little better, and made Maya seem more competent, and stopped relying on crash landings as the only means of moving the plot forward...actually, I’m reading all this as I write it, and yeah, maybe I’m right and Septerra Core really isn’t so hot.  Still nowhere near as poor a product as SMT5, though, of course.

As for Fire Emblem 15, it’s got some glaring fundamental flaws with the way it approaches telling its story, and all things considered, even fixing those major problems would still only leave you with a kinda forgettable plot overall, driven by a cast that doesn’t have a lot to them, for the purpose of a cliched and underdeveloped moral about unity and self-reliance.  Also--and I’m not joking here, this is an earnest speculation--I suspect some person(s) on the writing staff of FE15 has/have some serious and unhealthy issues with women.  It’s just not a good RPG.  While still being leaps and bounds better than SMT5, of course.

Okay look I promise that SMT5 will stop being the red flag being waved in my eyes come 2024.  Just bear with me as I finish working it out of my system here.


Most Creative of 2023
Winner: Omori
The subject matter, the purpose, the method and pace, the nature of the big revelations as they come...there’s few titles that can boast any strong resemblance to Omori; while it has peers in games like Undertale, Grimm’s Hollow, Mother 3, and, weirdly, Whisper of a Rose, Omori primarily stands out as a unique work.  And hell, even the simple matter of the dreamworld’s events and details represent an interesting example of thoughtful innovation--to pin such significant story beats to the idea that Sunny is a very creative individual, the game’s developers have to themselves be equal to the creativity they want to impress on the audience.

Runners-Up: Gamedec; Hades 1; Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
Admittedly, a lot of the creative qualities of PWotR were already set in place for the developers by the original campaign materials, but the ways in which they worked with the existing characters, the interesting qualities and stories of the ones they created, and the thematic purpose they weaved into this Pathfinder story are all more than enough to earn it recognition.  Hades is a wonderfully inventive use of Ancient Greece’s pantheon and canon of heroes and villains to tell a story about family that possesses as much fundamental relevance to the nature and condition of humanity as those classic myths do.  Supergiant Games’s scope of knowledge of these myths and legends is matched only by their innovative ways of adapting them to this tale of mending a feuding and dysfunctional family.  As for Gamedec, it’s an RPG that uses the nature and mechanics of video games as an example of layered reality to propose and explore existential questions.  And while that’s been done before in varying ways and to varying degrees with games like Undertale, Slay the Princess, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, Doki Doki Literature Club, Star Ocean 3, and especially Nier: Automata, there’s still plenty of room in the field for new and interesting takes on the idea and directions to bring it, and Gamedec does a good job in serving us the eternal existential plight of the self-aware--and the solutions we’ve found to it--in a fresh and interesting form.


Best Romance of 2023
Winner: Arueshalae x Commander (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous)
Arueshalae’s journey to change her nature for the better, and to finally determine what she dreams of, is a wonderful and natural companion to the sweet, authentic deepening of her feelings for the protagonist into tender love.  It’s a genuinely lovely romance that makes you feel warm and content to witness that’s so right for who Arueshalae is and wants to be that her character arc actually feels incomplete without it; Arueshale and the Commander are simply meant to be together.

Runners-Up: Anevia x Irabeth (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous); Commander x Daeran (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous); Thanatos x Zagreus (Hades 1)
Thanatos and Zagreus are such moody precious loverboys and they absolutely fit one another like gloves.  I mean, I like the dynamic that Zagreus and Megaera have, too, and I really like the fact that Hades proudly embraces the potential for Zagreus, Thanatos, and Megaera to form a polyamorous relationship--you remember how pleased I was by Pathfinder: Kingmaker’s taking such a romantic situation seriously.  And they definitely do work as a thruple!  But all the same, I definitely feel that the connection between Thanatos and Zagreus stands out significantly more strongly.  Again, I like what Megaera and Zagreus have got, but it’s not equal to Than and Zag’s romance to me, and the latter is great whether or not you choose to also involve Megaera.  The boys’ve got the best love in Hades.

Now, if Dusa were legitimately interested, it’d be a whole other story.

PWotR is no slouch when it comes to romances, and even if Arueshalae stands head and shoulders over her competition, there’s no denying that the story of selfish party animal Daeran falling in love with the Commander and letting down some of his walls is a sweet and touching tale.  The game even does a really nice job with the love story of side characters, too.  The trust, devotion, understanding, and deep and abiding affection between Irabeth and Anevia as a couple is far more convincing and emotive than most RPGs’ plot-centric love stories; they’re definitely a case of wholesome relationship goals if ever an RPG had one.


Best Voice Acting of 2023
Winner: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
All the vocal work in Wrath of the Righteous is good or better, and a lot of these characters are portrayed with a skill and flare that’s exemplary.  Hell, even actors for relatively small roles often provide shockingly great performances in this game--Minagho, for example, is a villainess that seems like a big deal at first but quickly becomes small potatoes as she’s outpaced by both the protagonist and the scope of the story, and yet she delivers her lines in what I have to assume is the greatest performance of Lindsay Sheppard’s career.  From Daeran to Regill to Arueshalae to Areelu to Nocticula to Nenio and so many more, the talents in PWotR bring their characters to life with impeccable flair.

Runners-Up: Hades 1; Octopath Traveler 1; Steven Universe: Save the Light
Whether it’s Cyrus’s scholarly affectations, the dramatically distant pain in Primrose’s tone, or H’aanit’s taciturn calm, OT1 is not too terribly far behind Pathfinder in its wealth of appealing performances that quickly become a signature element of their characters.  Likewise, Hades showcases Supergiant Games’s commitment to the high quality voice acting that’s become 1 of the company’s many defining features.  Lastly, SUStL...well, the amount of spoken lines are limited, but they’re done well by the actors that so strongly defined the personalities of these characters, and enjoyable to hear.  I mean, honestly, objectivity be damned, I’m a sucker for Peridot’s vocal antics; she’d score the game a place here even if all the rest weren’t up to par.


Funniest of 2023
Winner: Hololive CouncilRyS RPG
I mean, okay, a lot of the humor is of the inside-joke variety, but if you’re playing this game, it’s a pretty good bet that you’re part of the VTuber fanbase and more than familiar with the friendly, clever, tongue-in-cheek comical leanings of CouncilRyS and their audiences.

Runners-Up: NA
I really did want to get to Shadows of Loathing this year.  Ah, well, expect to see it absolutely dominate this category come 2024!


Best Villain of 2023
Winner: Sweetheart (Omori)
Sweetheart’s a great nemesis on multiple levels, and the true sinister nature of her role is very interesting.  But even if her true purpose as an obstacle is on a meta-level, she is also, in and of herself, a rather interesting and well-conceived villain, as I recently observed.  Detestable on her surface, layered and complex beneath, and thematically fascinating at her core, Sweetheart’s the best of the worst this year, for sure.

Runners-Up: Areelu Vorlesh (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous); Simeon (Octopath Traveler 1); Staunton Vayne (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous)
He may be over-the-top and a bit simplistic, but damn it all, you have to respect the dramatic wickedness of Simeon; the guy’s basically what you’d get if the Joker was an overachieving theater kid.  PWotR offers a whole bunch of appealing and interesting villains, but its primary antagonist Areelu is 1 of the best, a complicated, tragic, unrepentant yet somehow not irredeemable figure whose grandiose villainous actions are interestingly caught somewhere between sincere and selfless love for her child, and existential self-serving ambition.  She’s very much akin to a far craftier, less pathetic version of the Changing God from Torment: Tides of Numenera.*  Lastly, although his significance to the story is short (at least, in the relative sense; even a single chapter of PWotR takes a while to get through), Staunton makes for a solid tragic figure, guilty and accountable for his mistakes and choices, yet sympathetic for the circumstances in which he makes them.  Reminds me in some ways of MacBeth, too--weak and easy to tempt, yet once he’s committed to his selfish path, his determination to see that journey to its end far surpasses that of even she who manipulated him onto it.  Good stuff!


Best Character of 2023
Winner: Aivu (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous)
I love this candy-obsessed adorable little dragon with all my heart and you can’t make me give this award to anyone else.  YOU CAN’T MAKE M--

Actual Winner: Dusa (Hades 1)
Nice try, assholes, but objectivity can go suck it this year!  You won’t let me pick the cutest sweetest most fun dragon buddy of all time as the best?  Then I’m going with an equally precious cinnamon roll instead!  Dusa is the most charming, lovable little maid girl you’ll ever meet and this could not possibly be more accurate.  So there, I’m not backing dow--

Real, Actual Winner: Sunny (Omori)
...Oh fine whatever.  Have it your way.  Sunny is a masterfully crafted character whose psychological depths fabricate 1 of the most intelligent and emotional RPGs in history.  I basically can’t say a word more without the risk of spoiling stuff, but yeah, Sunny is a character written at the absolute highest level.

He’s still not a mischievous dragon with an out-of-control sweet tooth, though, so booooo, boring!  AIVU FOREVER!

Runners-Up: Arueshalae (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous; Daeran (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous); Primrose (Octopath Traveler 1)
While I have a great fondness for both Cyrus and H’aanit, and certainly they, Albert, Therion, and especially Olberic are all good characters, there’s really no question which of Octopath Traveler 1’s protagonists is the best written and most interesting.  Primrose’s tale of revenge and managing to avoid losing herself to her hatred is the defining story of OT1 to me.  As mentioned earlier, Arueshalae is a great character whose journey from evil to good is lovely to watch and aid, and she has interesting perspectives to share on the process that aren’t just your average bad-guy-being-redeemed material.  And while Arueshalae is definitely the best-written character in the game, Daeran’s not too far behind her, with his chaotic wit and candor that covers up but doesn’t exactly try to hide the depths of his mind and heart.  Hell, most of the PWotR cast are notably great, really, but if I have to narrow them down, the ones that shine most are Daeran and Arueshalae.

Still, none of them are a cute, easily-flustered floating gorgon head with a feather duster with boundless affection and enthusiasm, though, so bah, humbug, who cares about the lot of’em!  DUSA FOREVER!


Best RPG of 2023
Winner: Omori
Omori is an immensely moving, psychologically fascinating, lovingly-forged RPG that everyone should play.  And that is all I want to say about the damn thing because I don’t want even the barest of chances at spoiling anything, and hoo boy, is it easy to spoil.  All that really needs to be said, though, is that it’s truly awesome.

Runners-Up: Hades 1; Octopath Traveler 1; Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
Hades is 1 of the best RPGs I’ve encountered to tackle the nature of family and the complexity therein, and the decision to do so through the lens of Greek mythology--and it does magnificently--is just inspired.  I mean, Pyre is still way better, and I might even argue that Transistor edges ahead, but Hades is definitely well worthy and then some of its honorable pedigree as a Supergiant Games creation.  Octopath Traveler 1, meanwhile, is a classy, artful game that takes a lighter but no less worthy stab at the SaGa formula (sort of like how Persona is a lighter but no less excellent iteration of Shin Megami Tensei).  I definitely understand why it made a stir in the RPG community--particularly considering what a rare accident it is when SquareEnix actually does something right.

As for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, it’s an awesome translation of an epic tabletop campaign that manages to refine the already excellent methods of its predecessor into something even better, with a cool and pervasive theme, a strong cast that’s well-developed through character arcs and then perfectly fine-tuned through hundreds of little comments and interactions, and an entertaining plot that flows well and takes on new dimensions with its every passing chapter.  Omori is Omori and it’s meaningful, high-level art, but on a personal level, I absolutely loved playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous the most of all the games I experienced this year.


List Changes
Greatest Deaths: I’ve updated this one with [REDACTED] from Omori, because I can’t possibly avoid doing so, but I’m planning to do a minor overhaul of this list in the coming year, anyway, because there’s definitely a need to rethink its order and expand its number.  I mean, I never put anyone from Rakuen on there because I’d intended to do this a few years ago and forgot!  Definitely needs to be rectified soon.
Greatest Examples of Battle Systems: Hades 1 has been added as Greatest Action RPG; Kingdom Hearts 2 has been removed.  Sorry, you combat containing creatively choreographed cutscene commands.
Greatest RPGs: Omori has been added; Grandia 1 has been removed.  Sorry, you excellent experience about explorer’s enthusiasm.
Worst Endings: Fire Emblem 15 and Shin Megami Tensei 5 have been added; Fallout 3 and Final Fantasy 7 have been removed.  Congrats, you games whose endings were previously puzzlingly, poor, and adversely, anticlimactically ambiguous, respectively.
Worst Romances: Berkut x Rinea (Fire Emblem 15) have been added; Arnaud x Racquel (Wild Arms 4) have been removed.  Congrats, you duo who didn’t deliver the dame from death despite the dipshit dude’s determined declarations to do so.


Music Additions

Them’s Fightin’ Chords
Ara Fell Final Boss Battle
Hololive CouncilRyS RPG Cursed BaeRyS Battle
Hololive CouncilRyS RPG Cursed Mumei Battle
Hololive CouncilRyS RPG Cursed Fauna Battle
Omori Pluto Battle
Omori Pyrefly Forest Battle
Omori Space Ex-Boyfriend Battle
Shin Megami Tensei 5 Fionn Battle
Steven Universe: Save the Light Final Boss Battle

Hither, Thither, and Song
Ara Fell Cave
Ara Fell Hidden Ruins
Hololive CouncilRyS RPG Time and Space
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Enigma

Chime Really Feeling It!
Ara Fell Determination
Ara Fell Sad
Fire Emblem 15 Mila
Hololive CouncilRyS RPG Mystic

See You Bass Cowboy
Omori Mari
Shin Megami Tensei 5 Tao

All That and a Bag of Chiptunes
Hololive CouncilRyS RPG Battle Against Cursed Fauna Remix
Omori By Your Side Orchestral Remix



And that’s it for 2023.  Hoping for a more productive RPG year come 2024, but by this point, I’m resigned to the likelihood that it won’t happen.  We’ll see, though.  At least there was a lot of great quality with what I played this year, and given that I’m almost finished with SMT Persona 5, I’ll be starting next year off considerably better than I did this past one (as it began with SMT Just Normal 5).

As ever, I’d like to close us out with a heartfelt round of gratitude both to my sister, and to my friend Ecclesiastes, each of whom are vital for these rants’ existence as they patiently allow me to bounce ideas off them, proofread my rants (particularly my sister, who listens to every single one and helps make sure it’s to the highest standards possible of my low quality), and provide helpful suggestions.  They’re the only human beings on Earth whose time I waste more than my own, and I deeply thank them each for indulging me.

Additionally, thank you to my Patrons Ecclesiastes and Toasterdog.  As ever, your generosity is abundantly encouraging and it’s a pleasant shock that anyone likes my idiotic ravings enough to trade a portion of their hard-earned livelihood for them.

And of course, as ever, a thank you to all my readers.  I like to joke that no one reads my blog, and to be sure, I hold no delusions about the small scope of my audience, but I also know that I do have readers, even dedicated ones, and all joking aside, I am enormously thankful for you.  Whether 1 person or 1 billion, it’s a remarkable thing to know that there are those who hear and even care about my thoughts and opinions.  Thank you all, and happy holidays!













* Which may make it seem very odd that the Changing God is still on my Greatest Villains list while Areelu is not.  Well, while she’s definitely a great villain, her essentially being a personally better, smarter, and truer version may make Areelu more awesome, but it does make her a little less of a villainous figure than him, because a lot of what is so intriguing and evil about the Changing God isn’t his grand acts, but rather the petty and pitiful failings within him, his carelessness of what his legacy has done to the world and his having lost the nobility of his original goal to his Ra’s al Ghul fear of mortality.  Even as she pursues a way to cheat the boundaries of existence and ascend beyond death, Areelu doggedly remains dedicated to trying to resurrect her daughter, and in the end, when push comes to shove, her devotion to that cause is still her greatest priority.  And that makes Areelu a terrific character and a very cool villain!  Yet it nonetheless makes the scope and nature of her villainy a little less than that of the Changing God’s delusional hypocrisy, at least to me.

Shin Megami Tensei 5 Stray Thoughts

Even after picking apart this game off and on throughout 2023, somehow, I still have opinions to share on Shin Megami Tensei 5, and spoiler alert, they’re still not complimentary ones.  But I’ve made enough meals of my hate-boner for SMT5--more than enough, I’m sure you’ll agree.  At this point, it’s time for some hate-boner after-dinner mints.



- You gotta love how Atsuta’s dying words to the protagonist (on the Chaos route, where he’s your ally) are just that the responsibility of protecting Tokyo is yours now.  Nothing to the tune of, oh, I dunno, “Please protect my sister Miyazu.”  No “Tell Miyazu I love her,” or “Pass on my apologies for leaving my sister.”  Not even a “Remind Miyazu that the trash goes out on Wednesdays, a-and make sure she...hurrgh, cough cough...separates any fluorescent light bulbs from the rest of it, they count as hazardous waste and the town--oh shit my kidneys, oh fuck it hurts--the town won’t accept them, those have to be, HACKAKC COUGH HURRRKKKK, turned in separately during specific community recycling events that she’ll...oh fuck is that my blood how did I have so much blood everything’s going dark...that she’ll need to call ahead to secure an...appoint...ment...forrrrr......”

Nothing about Miyazu at all.  Just...this all-encompassing and undefined drive to protect Tokyo that is Atsuta’s 1 and only character trait is supposed to have originated from a desire to protect his sister, and yet 90% of the time it’s like the writers didn’t even remember the 2 were related to begin with.


- So, on the matter of Tao...what was the point in taking her goddess form away and resetting any levels, stat raises, etc., every time the game is restarted?  I mean, okay, she’s a story-central character whose resurrection as the goddess of Tokyo only happens in the last quarter of the game, but...Amanozako is a similarly important and unique story figure who you travel with, and the game never has any problem with you hauling the Amanozako you’ve developed in previous games along for the next run, even though the new one’s also hovering around as your guide.  And even with the insistence on having only 1 Tao at a time, it still wouldn’t have been that hard for the game to just store her party member data and give you the option to resume that Tao when she joins you on later runs of this game that expects at least 4 playthroughs.  But resetting her completely every time means that after the first playthrough, Tao falls completely behind all other demons in your stable, and you won’t even want to try to develop her as a fighter, because all your work will be undone the moment you choose to continue the game for the next run.  It’s a baffling decision on the part of the developers; they’ve basically guaranteed that the ONLY one of literal dozens of potential party members that you’ll never, ever want to seriously use is the one who’s the most plot-important, a potential love interest if you squint real hard, portrayed as very powerful, and literally the goddess that the franchise is named for!


- Look, I know this may not be rational, but I hate the fact that I’m supposed to believe that the ultimate, final, true god that takes the celestial throne and dictates what the philosophy of existence shall be, is someone who gets from 1 place to another by Naruto-running.


- Unexpected though it may be, I do want to take a moment and get in a rare word of praise for the game.  The scene during Chapter 2 in the classroom, where Sahori is confronting her bullies, is one that I genuinely think is well-done, at least for the brief period when it’s just Sahori and them, before Lahmu shows up.  The quiet, disgusted disbelief of Sahori as they beg for mercy from her is both well-written and well-acted here:

“Are you serious?  You’re really trying that with me, after it never worked when I said it to you?  While you were punching me, kicking me, destroying my stuff?  NOW you understand, “please don’t hurt me?””

That is a fucking great set of lines, and the quietly growing fury in her voice is surely the best moment of acting in the game.


- Look, I know this may not be rational, but I hate the fact that I’m supposed to believe that the ultimate, final, true god that takes the celestial throne and dictates what the philosophy of existence shall be, is someone who walks around in his civilian identity with what amounts to a sloppy version of the Moe Howard bowl-cut.


- Oh goody.  A sidequest wherein you look for creatures scattered throughout the landscape of the game.  200 of them.  Usually hidden, frequently annoying to reach.  My favorite.

I’m a pretty simple guy and I don’t ask for too many unreasonable things in my life, but I really, really hope that when the person(s) responsible for Gold Skulltulas die, I’m there to witness it.  And possibly instigate it.


- Is it just me, or are the set designs of this game really generic?  I’ve already talked about how little of Tokyo you see and how at odds that is with it being the citymon roll that everyone and their grandmother wants to protect at all costs, and that’s an out-of-character problem for the SMT series, which usually seems to delight in the streets, underground walkways, and general urban decor of Japan.  But just in a general sense, very little of this game’s scenery feels like it comes from a Shin Megami Tensei title.  The boring postapocalyptic expanses of the first 3 major chapters all feel generic, like they could have served in just about any given game of appropriate setting.  The demon castle and Empyrean only barely feel more authentic, still seeming like they’d have served equally well in just about any other RPG, and and the Temple of Eternity is so indistinct that it wouldn’t surprise me to be told that Atlus sourced its design out to Kemco.  The only major area in the game that really feels like it has any SMT flavor is Chapter 4’s Taito setting, and even then, something about it feels more like someone imitating the character of the franchise than a legitimate representation of it.


- I complained previously about how negative the endings of Shin Megami Tensei 5 are across the board and how they make the player feel dissatisfied because of it.  But y’know, I just recently played another RPG called Gamedec, and it’s remarkable how much of a difference presentation and thematic expectation can make in whether an idea works or doesn’t.  Because Gamedec, too, is an RPG that concludes with several ending choices, all of which are flawed, all of which are less about a happy, fulfilling ending than they are about coming to terms with the philosophical difficulties (and even horrors) of existence, and whatever choice you make will result in a higher being chiding you for it...and yet I respect Gamedec’s ending.  Gamedec actually does some set-up to frame the imperfection of the options and situation it presents, and is essentially grasping with the heavier issues of existence, mortality, and self-awareness that our species has always struggled and likely always will struggle with--questions which ultimately have no perfect resolutions, at least none that we’ve yet reasoned out.  If there perhaps isn’t satisfaction to be found in any of Gamedec’s endings, there is at least peace to be made with them, and the game did the legwork through its course to establish the mood and expectations within the player for the way it concludes.  

SMT5, on the other hand, won’t tell its own story, doesn’t want to actually tackle the complex issues it presents, pins itself to a hand-waving magic plot device that sets an expectation for a more satisfying conclusion than it can deliver, and can’t even be bothered, in 3 out of its 4 endings, to take the less-than-5 minutes Gamedec does to SHOW the player the limitations of his/her decision, instead only having the narrator TELL you why what you’ve decided is wrong and stupid and everyone hates you.  Oh, and on that note, Gamedec also has the courtesy not to let the nay-saying narrator have the last word--the protagonist of Gamedec is given the opportunity to respond to the sneering criticism levied at her/his final choice, and that retort is usually decisive, biting, and the stronger argument.  Being able to tell off the jerk who undercuts your decision goes a long way to making Gamedec’s ending far more palatable and worthwhile than Shin Megami Tensei 5’s, and highlighting what makes the latter's so shitty.



Christ this game sucks so much.  You know this is the tenth rant I’ve made about it?  Considering that I take June off, that’s almost 1 rant for every damn month of the year.  That’s basically a third of a year that I spent hating this turd.  10 is the number of rants I made which featured Xenosaga 3, easily 1 of the biggest out-of-control trashfires I’ve come across in my decades of RPG experience.  But even that meandering shitshow possessed far more laudable qualities than this lazy farce!

Seriously, just...shame on Atlus for Shin Megami Tensei 5.  Shame on it.  Real, actual shame.  Everyone involved in the decision-making process for this game, and the writers, should sincerely feel bad about what a flopping pile of nothing they created here.

Fire Emblem 15's Imbalanced Storytelling

Why was Fire Emblem 15 split in half between Alm and Celica?  They are clearly not equals from the narrative’s standpoint.  FE15 treats Alm as the protagonist it was designed to have, but Celica feels more like a secondary cast member who was promoted to a narrative position she wasn’t qualified for.  In terms of being the heroes of the story, Alm and Celica are grossly imbalanced.

First of all, look at the level of relevance Alm and Celica’s respective journeys have to the plot as a whole.  Once the prologue is over and done with, and the game has started properly, Alm is caught up in and spearheading the major, action-driven part of the plot in which a resistance-turned-invasion army turns back an enemy army, then marches straight into the heart of enemy territory.  The momentum of the plot carries Alm along from answering the call to serve as defender of his nation, to recapturing the capitol, to striking out into the hostile northern empire with the intent of ending the war once and for all, which takes him directly to the game’s finale.  While there are plenty of steps along the way that are minor ventures of liberating and/or capturing territory, it’s all clearly, logically part of a plot in motion that connects to and accomplishes the narrative of Alm’s attempt to achieve peace through force.

And then look at Celica.  Where Alm is marching from 1 story goalpost to the next from Day 1, Celica spends a truly indefensible amount of time dicking around with pirates that are functionally irrelevant.  Seriously, it’s basically all she does in her whole half of the game’s first dual-act chapter.  Fire Emblem 15 clearly just doesn’t need Celica to really be doing anything for the majority of the first third of its tale.  Whereas the story of how Alm rose to military prominence, established himself a capable leader, defied the social system by (supposedly) being a peasant whose virtues outclass those of a noble, and took back his country’s freedom from the invaders is one which easily fills the span of the first chapter, all FE15 actually NEEDS from Celica is to display her kind nature and connect it to a determination to better the lives of all people, for her to be established as a competent crusader herself,* and for her to arrive at the capitol at roughly the same time as Alm so they can meet.

The problem is that that list doesn’t need a full chapter to accomplish.  A mere 2 detours against marauding pirates are ALL that you need to cement Celica’s nature inasmuch as has relevance to her position in the plot, and her fighting prowess (as well as establish the setting lore that conditions are bad all over the country by this point, which is a valuable secondary priority).  The pirates themselves don’t have any relevance to the game’s story, not the way squads of soldiers from Rigel do--the latter are a necessary gear in the machine of a story of Alm’s military conquests, but there’s no overarching part of the plot that the pirates actually relate to.  They’re just there to be tools of Celica’s character development, and once that’s done with, they’re no more than filler.  As such, Celica spends the majority of her first act wasting time.

Now, once the first chapter is done, both Alm and Celica each have a more competitive pace of moving toward their respective journeys’ goals, at least.  Although it does still feel like Alm is more steadily progressing forward in a sequence of story events, while Celica has spurts of starts and stops with it.  Still, her futzing around with pirates just for the hell of it is finally over.  But even once the pacing problem is fixed, Alm and Celica are still drastically mismatched as protagonists.

Once they’ve had their extremely forced parting of ways, Alm’s plan is to continue to fight for the safety of his homeland and end the war through force, while Celica's plan is to save everyone by getting the goddess to step in. Now obviously, trying to end things without extra bloodshed is the preferable option!  But in practice...Celica's plan turns out to be total bupkis, because Mila's not only unavailable via kidnap, but starting to go malevolently nuts anyway.  So even if she'd been around for Celica to petition, Mila wouldn't have been able to actually do anything useful.

So, Alm's approach succeeds, and continues to succeed fully as he marches straight into the enemy capitol and defeats the emperor...while Celica's approach achieves nothing beyond putting her in a necessary position for mucking about with self-sacrifice.**  And let me tell you, getting a magical plot girl into position for a weepy self-sacrifice is not exactly a difficult thing to accomplish in an RPG.  Fucking Kemco can do it without much effort.

And Celica’s penchant for being wrong is only further underscored with her decision to accept Jedah’s terms and be his sacrificial soul.  I mean, it’s an absurdly stupid, shortsighted decision to begin with, and it only gets worse as the game pads the closing to Celica’s story out by making it more and more clear how untrustworthy Jedah is by having him throw up obstacles to his own plan as he attempts to kill Celica’s allies in front of her.  While Alm is closing in on the emperor’s throne and forcefully uniting the 2 countries, Celica is hemming and hawing about selling her soul to an insane dark god, and moronically swallowing every lie an obvious villain is feeding her like she’s a prototype for Edelgard.

I mean, just, like, contrast the final climax of Alm and Celica’s respective journeys.  Alm defeats the emperor in battle, discovers the truth of his own origins, takes the Rigellian throne through both victory and birthright, and puts an end to the war between his nations.  Celica...willingly offers her soul to an insane god at the urging of a cult leader, mistakenly believing that it will get the dark god to calm his fucking tits for 2 seconds.  Alm is successful in his aim and achieves a demonstrable, significant positive result, while Celica’s entire journey has all been leading up to her voluntarily falling into the clutches of the game’s villain.  That’s what half of the game has been about!  Futzing around with pirates, doing a Twitter drama with Alm, fruitlessly trying to petition and then rescue Mila, following Jedah and trying to get him to concentrate on something other than random murder for long enough to make his sales pitch...ALL of it, to the end goal of having this “protagonist” get duped by the main bad guy.

I’m really supposed to buy that Celica is an equal partner in this game’s story?  Her major role in the course of Fire Emblem 15’s events is to be the idiot who donates her body to science a dark god, an action designed specifically for the purpose of allowing Alm to get the magic hero sword, do the magic hero things, and stab some basic fucking sense into her.  How exactly does FE15 expect me to look at Celica as a protagonist, when the entirety of her role as such is to be a mirror and vehicle for someone else’s heroics?

She doesn’t even work as a protagonist on a meta level.  Fire Emblem 15’s story is, in largest part, a message about the importance of we human beings relying upon ourselves to resolve our conflicts and govern our affairs, and that we can’t trust higher powers like gods to lead our species.  Alm’s story of a (supposed) peasant leading a resistance to forcibly unite warring nations, a human settling human matters without divine interference, is in perfect thematic alignment with this moral.  Celica’s entire story, on the other hand, is nothing but a series of follies that serve to underscore the idea that trusting in the gods rather than humanity is hopeless.  She is the goddamn Goofus to Alm’s Gallant.

Now, sure, it’s quite possible to have a very effective protagonist and successful story when the work’s message is made through a protagonist’s repeated failures rather than success--but that’s only gonna work when there’s 1 protagonist to work with.  When you’ve got 2 main characters, and 1 of them is always right as he proves the overall theme by successfully implementing its ideals, and 1 of them is always wrong as she proves the overall theme by acting against its ideals and consistently failing, then obviously the guy who actually embodies the story’s message is going to seem far more genuinely the protagonist of the game!

Hell, Celica’s side of the story isn’t even fun to play.  I mean, sure, it’s an RPG, so it’s not fun anyway, but there’s no denying that having to deal with poison terrain and mob spawns over and over in Celica’s story makes it far more of a slog than Alm’s.

Fire Emblem 15 presents itself as a joint story of multiple protagonists each journeying to save the world in their own way, but Treasure of the Rudras this ain’t.  Alm and Celica’s individual worth as protagonists is just completely lopsided.  The fact of the matter is that FE15 is just a regular RPG story of a hero and a supporting magical plot girl that he’s ultimately responsible for babysitting.













* And honestly, even this is kind of just unnecessary.  Since her goal is to find a non-violent means to end the war, first by appealing to a mother goddess and then by agreeing to a really, really stupid deal, Celica’s being a capable fighter and military leader isn’t actually important the way it is for Alm to be.


** Which, by the way, annoys me greatly from an ethical standpoint.  While I accept that there are times when a peaceful solution to international conflict is simply not possible, Fire Emblem 15 seems eager to make the case that attempting a diplomatic solution is invariably so ineffectual that it’s pointless to even try.  This is a game where crushing your enemies and annexing their territory is how peace is achieved, while attempting to involve greater powers as mediators and treating with your enemies only worsens the situation.  Yeah, very healthy perspective to have, Nintendo, thanks a bunch for the great insight.

Omori's and Whisper of a Rose's Similarities

Yeah, so, major spoilers for both Omori and Whisper of a Rose.  Like...don’t read this if you’re not fully familiar with whichever game(s) you have any intention to play in the future.



So, like...has anyone else noticed that Omori is uncannily similar to Whisper of a Rose?

The answer to that question seems to be no.  Which is surprising, considering that Omori has gotten an Undertale-esque level of attention, adulation, and intellectual interest since its debut 2 years ago (an earned response, I should note).  You wouldn’t think some random ass internet yutz like me would be able to notice something interesting that no one else has recognized about such a widely beloved and scrutinized title, so long after its release.  But it’s also not surprising at the same time, because Whisper of a Rose is a pretty damned obscure indie RPG whose lasting impact on its player base could be considered tepid at best, when it’s not simply outright forgotten (and frankly, that’s not exactly an unearned response, either).  For me, however, all RPGs entrap themselves within my mind in cages of relevance, so, as long as my memory still functions in any capacity, even obscure and frankly unremarkable titles stay fresh enough in my consciousness that they’re on hand and ready for purposes of comparison.

And that’s why I’m in, as far as I’ve discovered in my searches online, the unique position of realizing that Omori is not the first RPG I’ve played which does all of the following:


- Showcases an adventure that takes place within a colorful and varied dream world.
- Intimately connects the characters and purpose of said dream world with the protagonist’s past emotional trauma.
- Incorporates significant counterparts of a number of the signature elements, items, and individuals of real-world childhood into the dream realm.
- Creates a plot-essential dichotomy between this dream world and the real world.
- Thematically features phobias as enemies or obstacles to be overcome.
- Involves a final battle against an unemotional entity of the dream world who aims to manifest himself in the real world.
- Tells a story about the necessity of confronting the source(s) of one’s trauma and pain.
- Contains an ending in which the protagonist has jumped off a skyscraper, and the credits roll as we watch them falling to their death.


I mean how does that last one happen twice?  Granted it’s at least not the 1 and only ending for Omori, but still.

So now, having established this bizarre level of similarity between Whisper of a Rose and Omori, I have reached the part of the rant where I usually would reveal that I had some sort of point for bringing this up.  Except...I’m kinda at a loss as to what to do with this information.

I mean, I’m not drawing these comparisons because I think Omori plagiarized Whisper of a Rose.  I genuinely think these parallels are coincidence--nothing about Omori’s actual approach to these similarities feels like that of Whisper of a Rose, I haven’t seen any indication that Omocat has ever mentioned the game as an influence or even ever played it before, and as I noted above, WoaR is so exceptionally obscure even by indie title standards that it doesn’t seem like anyone before me has noticed the resemblance.  Omori’s definitely a work quite proud to have been influenced by others that came before it,* but I would honestly be surprised to discover that Whisper of a Rose was 1 of them.

I guess I could go into a whole big, extensive rant about why it is that Omori succeeds so effectively while Whisper of a Rose never seems to bring it home on any of its points, but...I don’t wanna?  I mean, most of what that rant’s gonna come down to is just Omori having better writing, more varied and layered storytelling methods (which is really just “better writing” again), a more genuine and varied set of personalities and means for speaking in those personalities’ voices (which again really just falls under the “better writing” category), and a stronger purpose in communicating with its audience (“better writing” yet again).  If you ARE familiar with both games, nothing I’d say would be news to you; I’d only be noting the obvious.  And if you’re only familiar with 1 of them, odds are that such a rant would only be shitting on some game you don’t know anyway, so who cares?

Besides, while I don’t shy away from criticizing it, and while I don’t like it, I still do respect Whisper of a Rose for trying to do something meaningful and cerebral.  It doesn’t deserve to be dragged out into the spotlight to have its every failing re-examined just so I can hype up another game that’s already received its critical due anyway.  Hell, WoaR probably didn’t fully deserve it the last time I got my licks in on it.

So yeah, I guess that means that we’re kinda at the end of today’s rant.  I just thought it was interesting that I’ve played 2 unrelated Indie RPGs that shared so many significant and signature elements and directives, and wanted to say so.  Make of it what you will!  Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll be back to form with another 6+ page analytical treatise on something tiny that doesn’t matter in the slightest all too soon.















* Is it just me, or are all the best Mother-styled games not actually part of the Mother series?

Shin Megami Tensei 5's Protagonist's Inaction Against Lahmu

Goddamn is there ever a lot of Voyeuristic Paralysis Syndrome going on in Shin Megami Tensei 5’s second chapter.  I mean, standing around gawking uselessly while bad things go on around them that so easily could be prevented is an epidemic among RPG heroes all over, to be sure, but I haven’t seen levels of slack-jawed motionlessness this bad since Xenosaga 3!

Let’s count’em off, shall we?


Lahmu’s Initial Attack: Alright, so right off the bat with this namby-pamby demon dipshit who looks like something that’s been left in the back of the fridge for a few periods of “too long” stacked on top of each other, we get him arriving and stirring some shit.  Then, once his bad intentions have been made clear, Lahmu turns to gaze at the rest of the city, monologues (with no particular haste) about feeling the source of his true power out there, and then moseys off to pursue this power.  And what does our hero, the Nahobino, do while Lahmu waxes villainous about what he’s gonna be getting up to, and makes his exit?  Why, our boy stands and watches the whole time, of course!  Yeah, by all means, buddy, don’t prevent a new enemy from leaving after hearing him outright state he’s out to acquire greater power.  I’m sure that’s not gonna come back to bite us all in the ass.  I know it’s not exactly the easiest thing to take Lahmu seriously when he looks like a drain clog badly cosplaying as calamari, but come on.

Maybe our hero’s hoping for those little things in the credits that give special thanks to YOU, the viewer, and figures he’s gotta earn the title if he wants to feel special from it.  Anyway, that’s 1.


School Lobby: So upon arriving, the Nahobino discovers that Lahmu has grabbed Sahori, claiming that she’s his fated other half and the one that gives him his greatest strength and whatever other drivel he’s read on his favorite simp channels on Discord.  The Nahobino is given the choice of whether he wants his priority to be to save Sahori, or kill Lahmu...but apparently he must have thought the question was just a thought exercise, because whatever his answer may be, his next action is to just stand there and watch events unfold before him.  The lazy dumbass doesn’t even make a move when Lahmu actually drops Sahori!  She’s RIGHT THERE, like 10 feet in front of him, 2 steps and a slightly stooped back away from being fully and completely rescued...and the Nahobino does NOTHING but watch as she slowly, clumsily climbs back into what I really hope is Lahmu’s mouth.  Lahmu is then once more allowed to just wander off unimpeded, and Aogami actually has the shamelessness to remark that Lahmu needs to be put down quickly.

Maybe the protagonist has a deal with Atlus in which he gets to pocket whatever part of the game’s animation budget doesn’t get used.  At any rate, that’s 2.


Classroom: Upon arriving at the classroom at the end of the school mini-dungeon, the Nahobino witnesses a scene in which Sahori threatens her bullies, and delivers a short speech to them which makes it clear that she’s not going to grant them the mercy that they’re begging for.  And boy does he witness it.  He witnesses the hell out of this scene.  Keep your Schrodingerian cats far away if you value their ambiguity, because our hero is going on an observational rampage over here!

Now granted, the Nahobino actually does make an attempt to do something about this situation a minute later...but that’s only AFTER Lahmu has shown up and can thus adequately take steps to stop him.  For the full time that Sahori was talking, making it clear that she intended to kill the hostages before her, our protagonist had a clear, unimpeded shot at getting to and restraining her without any interference whatsoever.  There was every opportunity through Sahori’s entire speech to remove her and thus completely resolve this situation and save the lives of all involved.  The protagonist specifically waited to act until Lahmu was back on the scene and able to foil his efforts.

Maybe our guy just believes in fair play to an absolute fault.  Whatever the case, that’s 3.


Final Confrontation: After a prolonged, exceptionally boring slog through Chapter 2’s map involving constantly moving goalposts, hide-and-seek distractions, and fetch-quest delays, the protagonist finally comes upon Lahmu, whose attention is fixed entirely upon Sahori.  Aogami observes that, with Lahmu distracted, they may be able to take him off-guard, once again adding insult to injury as we all know goddamn well by this point that this chucklehead isn’t gonna do anything of the sort.  Once again, the main character is given a choice to either concentrate on saving Sahori, or on killing Lahmu, and once again, neither choice does anything to prevent him from standing there and doing absolutely nothing, as Sahori gets eaten by Lahmu, and Lahmu gets a huge power-up from it.

Maybe the Nahobino’s just got a vore fetish.  Regardless, that’s 4.

...Except, no, hold on.  This shouldn’t just count as only 1 point on our scale.  Because this dumbass isn’t JUST passively watching an anguished teenager get murdered before his eyes.  No, when Tao tries to intervene, our great hero actually reaches out and holds her back.  Yes, the Nahobino is so aggressively committed to inaction that he deliberately prevents others from being proactive and heroic.  Surely that’s worth a bonus half point there, yes?


So that’s 4.5.  An entire 4 separate instances of conflict with the same villain, all during the span of a single chapter, in which the hero of this game conspicuously just stands around and lets bad things happen in front of him, and an extra half point for the fact that he even forces his inertness upon others who might otherwise have made some kind of effort to save lives.  Even considering the puzzling inclination that RPG characters naturally have for listlessly watching the world go to shit around them, that’s the kind of poor writing that really stands out.

And remember: this idle, mindless watcher is the same guy that a resurrected Tao later decides to support for godhood, endorsing him on the grounds that he was "the only one who tried to help Sahori."  What an absolute goddamn joke.  Fuck you, Atlus, don’t piss on my franchise and tell me it’s raining.