#a good rpg protagonist isn’t so blank slate that you have nothing to work with?

[deputyrook]

SPICY hot take but I’ll take a BioWare rpg over a Larian rpg any day of the week.

[lurafita]

Dragon Quest 11 - What’s your opinion on a silent protagonist?

To everyone that follows me, this is not the kind of content I usually post, as it has nothing to do with Peter Parker or Marvel in general. So feel free to skip this if it doesn’t interest you.

*Discussion is encouraged, but please keep things civil.*

Okay. Let me start this off by saying that I’m not a newbie when it comes to Dragon Quest games. (I haven’t played every part of the series, but I have played a few) So I know a silent and nameless protagonist is pretty much the modus operandi to these games, yet I still think it’s a shame that they stuck with this for DQ11.

Now the idea behind the nameless/silent protagonist in the Dragon Quest series has always been that you, as the player, ARE the hero. And I get that.

However, I don’t think that this kind of immersion and identifying with the character works, when the player is given an almost blank slate.

I’m not that far along in the game yet, storywise, that I would be able to point out every bit of scene that I think would have benefitted from a speaking character, but I will try to give some examples from what I have played through so far.

*Jade and Bodo/Rab have just joined my party*

*spoilers for everyone who isn’t just starting the game*

Okay, the very beginning of the game. The character, let’s call him Eleven from here on out, is told by the elders of his village that he is the luminary and is supposed to head out to report to the King of Heliodor. Okay, fine. Nothing unusual about this for a fantasy rpg. But Eleven is just like: “Okay, Imma do just that.” (Except of course, he doesn’t say anything.) There is no confusion in the character. He isn’t being sceptical at all about his apparent role/fate, he doesn’t question what happened at all. There is no real backstory about who or what the luminary is, or why he is needed. I mean, sure, you have this ‘There was a time when the Luminary rose to fight the evil in the land’ spiel, but playing the character in this moment, I didn’t feel exactly satisfied with it.

Then the talk with the King of Heliodor, who calls you the spawn of darness and throws you into the dungeon. (And let’s not forget the obvious threat spoken out to your hometown). Again, Eleven is just: “Yeah, Imma go to jail now.” There is no outrage or confusion or anger or devastation in his espression. He doesn’t struggle against the guards, he doesn’t try to argue with the king, doesn’t try to do anything to prevent a possible attack against his hometown.

At this point, I don’t feel like I’m the hero. I feel frustrated with him.

Let’s speed up a little to the time when Eleven and Erik make it to the hero’s hometown. Which has been destroyed. No sign of survivors anywhere. I will concede that the character displayed signs of shock. (perfectly underlined with Erik’s dialoge in this scene) But where was the pain, the grief, the loss? We got a few seconds of the character staring at the ruins of his home, expression unbelieving and shocked. And again, that was good. But then it’s over and it doesn’t matter anymore.

I’m supposed to experience this adventure through the hero, BE the hero, but I don’t feel represented by such a passiv character. The situation doesn’t touch me as much and deeply as it could (and should), because the character I’m playing doesn’t seem to be affected all that much.

Let’s go a little further down the road, still. Eleven and Jade have just fought Hendrik and escaped with their lives. They are wrapped up in blankets in the little hut and Jade tells him of the day his mother died protecting the two of them. About how she lost hold of him when falling into the river, and how she still hadn’t forgiven herself for that. Eleven just sits there, doing nothing.

Even a silent protagonist could lend some support by placing a hand on her shoulder.

His continued non-actions and reactions are further highlighted by how very expressive and emotive the rest of his group is.

Bodo/Rab’s tears of joy and sorrow when finding Eleven alive, and weeping at the grave of his daughter and son in law.

Rebacca’s constant attitude, Serena’s calming and cheerful, yet emphatic nature. Jade’s tough persona, that is balanced by her care for the hero. Erik’s trust and loyalty, that he wears the same way he does his street smarts and rough exterior. Rionaldo/Sylvano with, well, everything that makes up his person.

You have all these great, fleshed out characters, and then you have the hero, who is just... there.

I can’t help but draw parallels with another silent protagonist I played in the Tales game series. Tales of Xillia 2. Ludger van Kresnik. He hardly said a word through the entire game, but there was never a doubt about what he was feeling. He wasn’t a blank slate, but instead felt real to me.

And why is the idea behind the silent protagonis, that it makes it easier for the player to be them?

For me, personally, it is because I get to know and understand the character I’m playing, that I feel connected to them and their story.

I was the tough and self assured Yuri in Tales of Vesperia. I felt smug when I won over the knights, I felt tough when protecting others.

I was the angry and vengeful Velvet in Tales of Berseria. I hated Arthur as much as she did, I didn’t want to trust or care for anyone else (in the beginning)

I was the do-gooder, slightly too naive Asbel in Tales of Graces. I wanted to believe that I can save Richard, just as I wanted to believe that I can save Lambda.

I was the wise-cracking, web-slinging Peter Parker in Spiderman. It was me who was taunting the criminals while webbing them up, and it was me who broke down when Aunt May died.

I felt connected to all these characters, and immersed in their world, because I was able to get to know and understand them. And through that, feel what they felt.

That, to me, is what an immersive gaming experience is, not some meek, passiv, no-name, mute main character.

But why does this bother me so much now, when I didn’t really care about it in the previous games in this series? Perhaps because this story feels like so much more. The animation, the music, the way the story is told, the charismatic characters in my party and in the world around me. And of course, the fact that I have become used to games that are so much more than ‘jump over this rock’ and ‘attack this enemy’.

Despite all this, I like playing the game. I’m even already shipping some of the characters with each other (even though I get so irritated with Eleven in the game, he and Erik are just so...*chef kiss*).

I do, honestly, think that this is a good game.

But I also think that with a real, dubbed, expressive, emotion and personality possessing character, it would be fantastic.

[tiny-princess-catherine]

a tiny princess’ big list of favorite games

It’s been about three years since I sat down and considered my top 10 favorite games, and I was curious to see how my tastes had changed. I love making lists, and this was really  fun! I ended up writing a whole fuckload of words about them so I’ll put them beneath a read more; feel free to read over them if you like!

Doom II is, for my money, the greatest videogame ever made. No other game has captured the purity of gameplay and design that was managed back in 1994; it’s nearly perfect in every way. Monster and weapon design encourage you to be moving constantly, never hiding behind cover but weaving between attacks. Every monster is threatening in its own way -- the deadliest enemy is the shotgun guy, one of the earliest and weakest you’ll see. Every weapon has its use in various situations (except the pistol, unfortunately). The level design was, by and large, better than the previous game, but even if you don’t like those levels, the game is infinitely moddable and tens of thousands of maps have been released over the last twenty-four years. I’ve sunk thousands and thousands of hours into the game and it absolutely never gets old. Doom II is perfection.

Chrono Trigger is a game that needs no introduction or explanation; anyone who has played JRPGs has assuredly played Chrono Trigger, and it’s much-lauded for very good reason. The characters are varied and interesting, the battle mechanics utilizing combos and positioning are compelling and encourage you to swap around characters in your party to find out what all the double and triple techs are. The plot is a masterful swerve from ‘extremely standard’ to ‘what the fuck is happening’, the prime antagonists extremely memorable (Magus, Queen Zeal, and Lavos are all much more complex than they seem at first glance, and the game fleshes them all out phenomenally), and the soundtrack puts pretty much every other one to shame. The game goes from comedy to pathos with ease, and it’s exactly long enough to finish right when it’s about to wear out its welcome. It’s a real, real good game, y’all.

Nearly the pinnacle of JRPGs, Suikoden II possesses, in my experience, by far the single most compelling story in a video game, and I think it’s largely in part because it keeps itself relatively simple. A story of war, of friends and family torn apart, allegiances shifting and loss and friendship; it never reaches further than it should nor ruins immersion for even a moment. It has some of the worst, saddest, most heartwrenching bad ends I’ve ever seen, and it was those that lingered in my mind far more than the ‘good ends’. The gameplay is fluid and a solid refinement of turn-based RPGs of the era, the spritework is beyond compare for each and every one of its 108 recruitable characters and the background art is perfect. The only real flaws it has is a bit of filler -- did we really need the Neclord subplot in Tinto? -- but it’s so minor as to not detract at all from the overall package.

I was six years old when Myst came out in 1993: my grandfather bought a new computer and Myst was a brand-new pack-in with the CD-ROM drive. From the moment I loaded it up, I was utterly blown away with the most gorgeously rendered, fully realized world I had ever seen in a videogame; keep in mind I was playing shit like SMB3 at the time, so Myst was a whole new world. It showed me that games could be so much more than what the NES could produce, it could be true worlds for me to explore. It helped me to learn how to read, hours spent in the library poring over the books there; it taught me my adoration for exploring empty, lonely places, and ultimately it was Myst that inspired me to legally change my name. Few games have had such a powerful impact on me, and it’s for that reason that I've forever loved the game (and the series that followed!) I cried and cried in simple joy when I learned about the recent kickstarter to rerelease all of the games; few things have managed to worm their way into my heart the way this humble little game did.

A much more recent addition, but no less important to me: Persona 5 was the first game in the series (including all of SMT) that I ever played, and the degree to which the fictionalized Tokyo is a world fully realized utterly blew me away. For dozens of hours, I lived with characters I came to love, I forged bonds and fought for justice, I agonized over which romantic overtures to accept (I went with Futaba my first time). The calendar and social link system is phenomenally cool to me, the battle system is fluid and intuitive, the Palaces had fun design (mostly; some exceptions exist). So deeply was I ensconced in that world that I ended up writing two hundred thousand words (so far) of fanfiction about it, as a result of one of the game’s few major flaws: for a game that seemed so willing to have the protagonist be such a blank slate and a cipher for the player, it saddened me immensely to be forced into one gender. Between that and a few other examples of somewhat socially regressive design (the gay panic scene, the treatment of Ann in some ways) I can’t say the game is perfect, but it’s awfully close to that for me.

I caught sight of the gigantic Earthbound box in a Blockbuster when I was a kid, and my curiosity demanded I rent it and see why it needed such a massive box - the answer, of course, was that it came with its own incredible strategy guide. Earthbound was my very first JRPG and welcomed me into a new kind of game I had never imagined. Fighting with numbers instead of jumping on an enemy's head! Equipment! Stats! A long, involved story that guided me through hugely diverse locations! Humor! Earthbound is a game that doesn't entirely hold up these days, gameplay-wise; there's way too much combat and there's not a lot to it, but its tone and writing remain absolutely top-notch, not to mention its soundtrack. Based on pure quality alone, Earthbound wouldn't be in my top 10, but its impact on my life is nearly more than any other game.

Guild Wars was a game before its time. It was perceived by many as a cheaper alternative to WoW, which had come out six months prior, but the comparisons between the games were never really fair. Guild Wars wasn't an MMO and didn't pretend to be one; it was a much cozier affair with many fewer people involved, the combat areas were all instanced to your party alone, and it had a massive emphasis on solo play with its NPC party member system. The story wasn't anything to write home about, the combat was effectively the same hotbar-based combat as WoW, and the level design was okay at best. All of that said, the character customization was incredible, forcing you to select only eight skills at any given time, so that along with the rest of your party, it was more like building a deck in a card game than standard class-based party composition. Its crossclassing was deep and helped to even further differentiate players from another, its mission system was memorable and fun, but what mostly makes Guild Wars stand out for me was the PvP content. Normally, PvP is something I have no love for, but the 8v8 guild battles were incredibly exciting, fast-paced, and frenetic like nothing else I've seen before or since. I fell in love with it right away and met a community of friends that lasted me for years, and ended up having another enormous impact on my life. I've spent four thousand hours in the game, enough to do literally every scrap of content offered, and still I go back every now and then to play through a mission; its systems just work so, so well. And this isn't even getting into a lot of the stuff that made it unique, like its super-customizable NPC party members, its incredible enemy AI, or the sheer uniqueness of the Mesmer class; there is a lot about the game that I just adore.

The RPG in which you don't have to kill anyone! Everyone knows about Undertale, so I'm sure I don't have to say too much about it. It took normal JRPG tropes and turned them on their head, its sense of humor and overall writing are absolutely outstanding, its characters memorable and varied, and the bullet hell gameplay a fun take on RPG combat. It marries its mechanics and plot more tightly than any other game I've ever played, its soundtrack is incredible, and its emotional moments took me all over the place; just thinking about the hug at the end of the game just makes me tear up. Past all the memes that spawned from it, Undertale is just an extremely solid game that more than lives up to the hype. Please play Undertale.

FFXIV, unlike Guild Wars, is a game that almost seems *after* its time. It came out in a post-WoW world where many MMOs had already played their hand and died, its combat isn't incredibly different from WoW and doesn't seem to have much to set it apart, especially considering it dares to ask a subscription. And yet, it has flourished to become one of the only subscription-based games remaining and has turned an incredible profit for its developers. This is all, I believe, because the game is a giant, well-crafted love letter to the whole series. Enemies, locations, plot mechanics are all deftly drawn from prior games and woven into a tapestry that clearly shows a great deal of love and affection for the previous entries. The story is phenomenal - not just for an MMO, but for games in general. The character animations, armor appearances, and glamour system make it one of the best dress up games available, and it helps that the combat is fun, the bosses true spectacle, and the developers remain wholly committed to the game, constantly releasing content every few months. It keeps a special place in my heart, again, for the people that I surrounded myself with while playing and the extremely fond memories I have of all of the things we did together ingame. FFXIV is incredible and more than just another MMO.

The last spot on my list was hotly contested, but I ended up having little choice but to give it to this bizarre, unknown little rhythm game. Thumper is incredibly unlike any other rhythm game you've ever played, however; even after I beat it I couldn't remember a single song, because it wasn't really about the music, which consisted primarily of pounding drums, howling screeches, and relentless, rising dread. The developers refer to it as 'rhythm violence', and that's an extremely apropos genre; the game is dark, heavy, and endlessly captivating. There's really no describing it, but it's an experience unlike any other. It's apparently available on VR, but I couldn't imagine playing it there - I'd have a heart attack.

[sage-nebula]

starlightprincess17 replied to your post “AHH! Did you see the New video for V's route? The update has been...”

I feel like maybe the game will have you play as Rika and basically try and prevent all of the horrible things that she did. Like, The whole main game is the result of a Bad Ending.

See, the idea that V’s Route might have us play as Rika instead of MC is one that has been tossed around since V’s Route was first announced, and I admit that this opening video seems to lend that idea more credibility. However, I still think it’s incredibly unlikely.

If this were a normal RPG, then yes, I’d say it’s possible we could play as Rika. However, it isn’t. Mystic Messenger is a dating simulator (on top of being a visual novel), the entire point of which is meant to be a playable fantasy for young women (or they say also young men / young nonbinary folks, but they don’t exactly let you choose your gender and the MC portraits make it clear enough). The entire point of this game is not to make MC an actual character, but rather to let the player be MC. This is why every single detail about MC’s life, from her occupation to her age, is left vague. You’re supposed to project wholly onto her, to pretend that you’re the one chatting with the characters, versus playing through another character’s story. It’s why they made her look like a Generic Shoujo Protagonist in the CGs (which I still think it was a mistake, but whatever); they wanted her to look as generic and bland as possible so that the player could fully project on her. Of course, that doesn’t really work if the player looks nothing like a Generic Shoujo Protagonist (hence why I still think it was a mistake), but you can tell that’s their intent regardless, since most shoujo protagonists are feminine girls with long, brown hair.

But if they decided to have the player play as Rika, all of that goes out of the window. Rika is a character with not only a defined appearance, but a fleshed out backstory and personality. Yoosung is her cousin. V was her fiancé. Jumin used to have feelings for her (and she mocked him for them rather cruelly, from what I’ve heard). Seven looks to her as an angelic figure who helped save him, and so on and so forth. Rika is in no way a blank slate for the player to project onto. She’s her own character. And while it might be fine to have the MC out of focus in the Secret Endings, that doesn’t really work when you consider a full, eleven day route, particularly when Cheritz keeps promising that they want to bring “all of the MCs” happiness through this route. How could they bring happiness to the player if the player is not involved, but is playing as Rika instead? The player wouldn’t get a story then. MC wouldn’t have a story. It would be Rika’s story. So I really don’t think Cheritz will go that route (ha), because they recognize the medium they’re working in. I think it’s safe to say we won’t be playing as Rika.

However, I do still think there’s legitimate cause for concern about what this could mean about the prospects of romancing V. Obviously Rika is a huge part of his story, and so she can’t be pushed out entirely. It makes sense that she features prominently in the video. However, between the song being a duet love song between the two, as well as all of the imagery of the two of them together (including that shot of the framed photograph of the two smiling near the end), and the line about how “the sun is the mother of all” when they referred to each other as the sun multiple times throughout the main story . . . I’m growing concerned that this is going to be a situation where the Good End has you push V back together with Rika, thereby “saving” both of them (and, because Cheritz wants the player to be happy as well, you end up romancing the RFA character of your choosing). I’m not one of those who is particularly invested in the idea of dating V, and I won’t deny that I would be perfectly happy with having a unique story to romance Seven in, but I will say that this outcome of pushing V back together with Rika would really upset me. No matter which way you look at it, Rika is an abuser. She maliciously abused V, Saeran, Seven, and countless “followers” in Mint Eye via brainwashing and drug addiction. I realize that Rika has mental illness, but so do many other characters in this game---and even that aside, mental illness is not an excuse for abusive behavior. I don’t care how mentally ill she is; that’s not an excuse for what she did, and she is not someone that I see as worth saving. Not after what she did to V, not after what she did to the Choi twins. And I mean, I have several mental illnesses myself. I stand by that it’s absolutely no excuse for abusive behavior.

And regardless of whether Rika is “worth” saving or not (since that is subjective), the fact remains that pushing V back into a relationship with his abusive fiancée and acting like that’s a happy ending is disgusting. The idea that Rika could be “saved” to the point where “oh, well, she’s not abusive anymore, so this is okay!” is absolutely absurd. It’s pushing the narrative of, “your abuser can change, and you (or someone else) can change them!” and that’s an incredibly dangerous narrative to push. That’s a narrative that convinces people to stay in abusive relationships, sometimes to the point of their death. If the Good End of V’s Route ends with him being back together with Rika and the two of them being “happy” (a temporary happiness if anything), I’m going to be livid. Not because “omg I hate Rika and want to date V,” but because pushing a narrative where someone has a happy life with their abuser because their abuser decided to be nice for a little while (because trust me, problems and behaviors like Rika’s do not just go away forever) is abhorrent.

All of that said, I feel like this route is definitely an AU. I’ve considered an idea where it is perhaps a past!AU, wherein MC changes things in the past so that the Mystic Messenger story as we know it never comes to pass. However, I see a few difficulties with that. The main one is that all of the characters looked older; for this to take place in the past far back enough for none of the nonsense to have happened, Seven and Yoosung at the least should look decently younger, considering they’d be teenagers at the time. Jaehee also probably shouldn’t be a part of the RFA yet, although she did join two years prior, so perhaps she’d still be there, just brand new. (But then again, I’m pretty sure Rika was already doing Mint Eye stuff then, so . . .) Well, regardless of whether it’s a “change the future!” AU or not, I do feel that this is an AU for certain. I guess we’ll just have to wait until September to see what kind of AU it is.

[robhainesauthor]

The World Ends With Youth

This is a reprint from Unwinnable Weekly #66 (22 October 2015), available to buy here.

You wake to the same music you heard yesterday, the same music you'll hear tomorrow. The bustle of the busy street is too loud. Who are those people rushing to work, to school, back-and-forth like shadows? You don't know, don't care. They're not important. Head down, 'phones on, don't make eye contact. You'll get by just fine without them.

What's the point of other people, anyway?

---

The World Ends With You’s protagonist Neku initially seems cut from the same antisocial amnesiac cloth as Final Fantasy's Cloud and Squall. Yet where those archetypal teenagers often felt teenage by design only - young men emotionally stunted for the purposes of plot and marketing - Neku is utterly defined by his adolescence. The epitome of teenage isolation, he's tried to understand other people, but his total lack of adult empathy makes them intrinsically unknowable, an unsolvable enigma. Faced with this failure, he cuts himself off from the rest of humanity with his iconic headphones; everyone else is just noise, unnecessary complication.

When Neku wakes up lost in the crush of Shibuya's iconic Scramble Crossing - his memories taken as entry fee for the Reapers' Game, an otherworldly contest for the recently-deceased to fight for a second chance at life - he's forced to reassess these preconceptions. Under attack by physical manifestations of the hated Noise, it isn't until he teams up with another Player, budding fashion designer Shiki, that he's able to fight back. If he can't learn to cooperate with his new ally, to make friends and forge alliances with the other teenagers trapped in the Reapers' Game, he faces erasure. Only by surviving seven days of increasingly challenging trials can Neku win his promised resurrection, and to do that he's going to have to trust his partner, leave behind self-centred introversion and take his first steps towards emotional maturity.

While adolescent protagonists are an overused default in JRPGs, adolescence is rarely anything but lazy shorthand. The stereotypical teenager is driven by a desire to shrug off parental influence, leaves home to forge a place in society, and in the process needs the workings of the adult world explained to them by those they meet along the way. Plot elements can be easily concealed by a teenager's lack of self-awareness and reticence to share secrets or show weakness, and any meagre character arc feels dramatic when it begins with a blank slate. Rarely does a narrative attempt to explore the realities of passing through adolescence, the confusion and conflicting expectations of growing up and being expected to navigate the complex rules and systems of adult life with little explanation.

By comparison, Neku's journey is a teen odyssey. Shibuya is presented as an adolescent playground, its disorienting web of streets and alleyways lined with all manner of music and clothes stores, ramen restaurants and fast food joints, concert venues and a hipster cafe run by an enigmatic graffiti artist who may or may not be ultimately responsible for the existence of the Game. Bands gather to argue in the street, while hyper-popular fashionista bloggers descend upon their chosen delicatessen du jour, driving their fans into a fury of consumerism. Collectible pin-badges are released by noted local designers, change hands for extortionate prices, then are smashed into each other in a playground game somewhere between marbles and conkers. Friends shop together, break up, make up, break up, make up, promise never to argue again. The latest tunes blare from mobile phone speakers while faceless businessmen scurry past like shadows on their way to whatever soul-crushing tedium consumes their days. If it wasn't for the threat of casual annihilation by passing Reapers - and the demonic-red countdown timer seared into the back of his hand - perhaps Neku could've eventually found some semblance of maturity wandering these streets within the protective aegis of his headphones.

Plunged into the Reapers' Game, however, Neku is forced to rise to a challenge he doesn't understand, bound by arbitrary rules and restrictions, utterly reliant on other people with their own conflicting agendas. His natural inclination to withdraw is denied by the necessity of cooperation - it's made clear from the outset that a Player with no partner is defenseless against the Noise - and it's only through Shiki's quick thinking when she first encounters Neku that his aversion to teamwork doesn't immediately get them both erased. Depriving him of his childish escape from the real world is a vital step towards emotional adulthood, of learning to trust people's intentions rather than dismissing them as unknowable.

Easing his passage into this enlightened state is a distinctive skull graffito pinbadge that all Players receive upon entering the Game, granting them telepathic powers over the living world. As Neku hurries through the streets of Shibuya on his Reaper-assigned tasks, he can peer through the veil and listen in on the thoughts and aspirations of the bustling masses he's tried so hard to ignore. Sometimes the missions require him to interfere with the real world, incepting concepts to nudge someone onto a different path, but more often than not Neku is merely a voyeur, the pin giving him the opportunity to look past someone's public façade and see the person beneath. It's another pillar of revelation on which his maturity is built, a symbolic awakening of empathy for other human beings.

But the Player pin's powers are limited to the living. Other Players are immune to its effects, so Neku must somehow trust them without the crutch of knowing their innermost thoughts. If he can accept Shiki for who she is, accept help from Beat and Rhyme and the other Players not yet eliminated, perhaps they can all reach the end of the Game unscathed.

---

Just as in the real world, nothing in The World Ends With You is quite that simple. The black-winged Reapers controlling the Game are far from neutral arbiters; in the manner of Greek gods, they pick favourites, set impossible tasks and incite moral dilemmas, toying with their prey before snuffing them out with all the empathy of a magnifying glass-wielding toddler. Beyond the petty machinations of low-ranking Reapers, the Game itself reflects the power struggles at the top of Reaper hierarchy, and Neku soon discovers he's little more than a pawn in a much larger game with the fate of all humankind at stake.

Despite the illusion of structure and clearly defined conditions for victory, the adults in charge of the Game have absolute power over the ever-shifting rules. The Reaper grunts in red hoodies loitering on Shibuya's street corners block Neku's path on a whim, demanding petty appeasement akin to schoolyard hazing before they'll deign to let you pass, while their immediate superiors vie amongst themselves to erase Players to both boost their own lifespan and advance their careers. Invisible, impassable walls spring up to herd Players like running bulls through their designated missions, truly little more than busy-work: an arbitrary gauntlet to weed out the weak and uncooperative. Without understanding the true motives of the triumvirate of Reapers vying for power over the Game, Neku has no chance of winning his freedom; a truth only fully brought home when his triumph on the seventh day is annulled, propelling him into a second week of the Game - and then a third - without Shiki at his side.

The recurring seven-day structure is key; it implies not only that there are set rules to the Game, but that it's possible to become good enough to win within the boundaries of those rules. It's the same uncomfortable fallacy society promises all teenagers as they approach adulthood: join the System, play the Game by the Rules, and if you work hard and don't make a fuss you too can Win. The seven-day structure aligns our expectations to Neku's, and we share his confusion and betrayal each time his well-earned victory is snatched away on a technicality. He's once more plunged into the crucible to be tempered by other partners, the infuriating and secretive Joshua, and Beat, a Player-turned-Reaper.

---

Despite widespread acclaim, The World Ends With You was criticised on release for being unnecessarily obtuse, its systems interlocking in often counter-intuitive fashion. The combat is strikingly unorthodox, your party fighting simultaneous fast paced real-time battles on the Nintendo DS's two screens, torn apart but forced to work in sync. Neku and his partner share a health bar, as do their opponents - who exist in both fights simultaneously - yet the two screens play nothing alike. Neku's is an isometric touch-oriented brawl of sweeping stylus strokes, frantic tapping and split-second evasion as the suite of pinbadges which power your abilities recharge. Meanwhile, your partner combos through strings of D-pad mapped attacks, each chain matching cards to fuel screen-wiping superpowers. It's initially baffling, and beyond a static tutorial screen little effort is made to help you understand the intricacies of the combat.

It helps that you're given responsibility for the degree of challenge you wish to face, neatly sidestepping concerns of whether you'll grok the game's systems. If you're unable to cope with the rub-your-stomach-pat-your-head synchronicity of the combat, you can delegate your partner's actions to a mildly inefficient AI, while a generous difficulty slider is freely available to be tweaked at whim. Characters and pinbadges level up in typical RPG fashion - even when you're not playing the game - making grinding an option if you get stuck, but this is neatly balanced by a strong risk-reward incentive: by choosing to temporarily sacrifice character levels you boost the drop rate of ultra-rare pinbadges only available on harder difficulties, which can be further enhanced by stacking multiple fights together into a single overwhelming encounter.

Viewed as part of this confusion, the combat is thematically apt. It's a wake-up call, a declaration to the player that things aren't going to be comfortable and familiar, and just like Neku, you're going to have to try to keep up. Just like the transition to adulthood, the key is gaining enough competence to survive, and after that you can choose to either strive for mastery or settle for doing the absolute minimum.

Critically, The World Ends With You's opening hour is very clearly intended to be baffling, to unsettle the player and characters in equal measure. Neku is torn from his oblivious teenage existence and wakes up already fighting for his life, while the arbitrary nature of the Game's objectives, the opaque motivations of the Reapers and Neku's own struggles to remember who he is and how he died all contribute to the sense of being carried along by unfathomable tides, desperate to stay afloat. Outside the cocoon of childhood it's impossible to know everything; adults often have to figure things out as they go, and for the first time Neku is forced to engage with the adult world - abstracted into Reapers and Games – and discovers it to be more complex than he could possibly imagine. Like the rest of us, he can only push forward and hope he learns enough about how things work before his ignorance of everything else destroys him.

For the player, the chaos of battle accentuates this desperate sense of displacement: two screens full of tribal-tattooed kangaroos and missile-launching porcupines, demonic rhinos and concrete-dwelling landsharks, two different sets of evasions and attacks competing for your fine motor control as you dash between foes and unleash devastation with a fury of taps and flicks. Alternating combos between your characters boosts your damage further, synchronising their disparate actions into a single stream of discordant aggression. In mastering this unconventional combat, you're bringing Neku and his partners to a new understanding: teamwork isn't easy, but if you trust in your friends, learn their rhythms and support their weaknesses, you'll achieve things you never would have been capable of on your own.

Empathy isn't just an unintended side-effect of the Reapers' Game, but a prerequisite for the emotional maturity Neku must attain before he - and his newfound friends - can bring the Game to its necessary conclusion. The Game acts as both a literal and symbolic purgatory through which he must pass to enter adulthood, but as the Game begins to unravel around him he discovers its true purpose: to judge whether humankind deserves its continued existence. If the kid who wanted nothing to do with other people is now unable to prove their inherent worth to the godlike figures passing judgement upon them, there may be no adulthood for him to return to.

He can't save the world alone, but when the credits roll, it's not Shibuya that's changed. It's Neku, a child no longer, his eyes finally open to the world he's abjured for so long.

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[waddlesdpig]

DELTARUNE RUN THROUGH ( Or how quiet silence can speak volumes)

*The following is a opinionated writeup about Delta Rune, spoilers and bad jokes ahead.*

SO, October 31st, Toby Fox stealth dropped a follow up to the smash success that is Undertale. The reaction to this of course was hype of unparalleled levels, Goat Mom’s, Skelebro’s, Socially anxious lizard people, whatever this guy is, everyone was and still are going nuts about DeltaRune. ( Even Jerry! EVEN JERRY!) And what’s not to like? Ya got a brand new story, brand new cast of characters with a unique spin on the returning favorites, new and improved battle system and animation, of course that sweet sweet music, and they even added a run button! ( Video games? Saveeeed!) 

However as i played Delta Rune more and more, i found myself notably less charmed as a whole when compared to my time with Undertale. Don’t get me wrong here, i fully understand that in terms of production and story subject, these are two very different games. Undertale was a complete experience when it was released, while my judgements on Delta Rune so far are based on what is essentially a demo with the promise of a full game later on. 

However i would argue that both Undertale and Delta Rune share a common element which in one elevated the experience, and in the other detracted from the overall enjoyment.

This element being the Player Character ( which will be refereed to as “ PC” from now on cause i’m hella lazy). Given both game’s protagonists are silent, it might be laughable to suggest that UT/DR’s PC effectiveness could vary so much that one would serve as a hinderance in one title or as a boon in the other. However in terms of levels of engagement i feel though that this is just the case.

This is evident firstly in the character design of each game’s respective PC. On a purely surface level Frisk is a blank slate, pure and simple. Though Frisk sports the simpler and albeit rougher design of the two PC’s, his neutral expression goes a long way in allowing the player to imprint their desired personality onto Frisk without having too many mental hoops to jump through. 

Kris on the other hand, despite having the more interesting design and much cleaner sprite work, is harder for the player to grasp onto. His face being mostly covered by shadow, conveys a sense of aloofness and detachment, which plays into the early Delta Rune’s depiction of him as the odd man out in his class. But ( so far) fails to capitalize on turning him into a successfully likable character that can work on his own. In the same way Suzie’s change in appearance signaled a satisfying development in her character, i feel DR could have done something where Kris’s design evolved with his character. Instead it only serves to act a twist at the end of the game, letting us know that Kris is actually the embodiment of all that is evil. 

If the contrast between these two PC’s went only this far, i’d say more than likely i would have enjoyed my time DR at least marginally more than i already did. However the differences goes beyond that, permeating the depth of Delta Rune.  

Going back to Frisk, despite being a silent protagonist, throughout the game of Undertale we can see facets of him having a personality of his own. Frisk is curious about the world, has a sense of humor, ( in non-genocide runs) shows a determination to fight without harming others, and genuinely cares about those he comes across. He makes choices and those choices affect the world around him. Granted aside from Frisk’s merciful nature, ( which is a integral part of UT’s gameplay) most of what i just listed is all implied. Implied through his actions to be fair, but implied nonetheless. But there exists enough of these breadcrumbs of emotion that the player’s mind could fill in the blanks and create a version of Frisk that most appeals to them. 

Kris-py Kreme lacks these facets completely, in fact of all the things he lacks, the most distinct thing he lacks is choice. ( Yes i know surprise surprise, don’t need me to tell you that.) While i say this, that last statement isn’t technically true. In DR you have a variety of choices, you can choose to explore the environments, when engaging with NPC’s you can choose how to respond in conversations, you can choose to ignore NPC’s all together, and famously you can choose to fight or mercy your way through enemy encounters throughout the game.

So what i really mean is in most aspects, the choices Kris makes are never truly his own. This is mainly due to having an active party accompanying the PC. In UT Frisk was on his own for a majority of the journey, ( Shoutouts to Monster Kid) and as a result near every major turning point is affected by Frisk’s choices alone. Meanwhile Kris faces every decision is with a green Jiminy Cricket on his side encouraging him to be a gud boi and get dem brownie points.

I’d be amiss to suggest that Ralsei wasn’t likable in his own right, but his role in the group dynamic completely negates any presence Kris may have had. Serving neither as the aggressor nor the voice of reason, Kris’s silence unfortunately causes him to slip through the cracks when it comes to interactions with Suzie and or Lancer. 

Furthermore Ralsei’s cuddling extends to the choices the players themselves make. Booting up the game the first time i was fully prepared to play passively, it’s freakin Undertale 2 ( The pre-sequel-progressive-alternative-child-timeline-universe-and-knuckles-do-you-know-the-way-to-end-my-suffering) for crying out loud. Yet it’s not till Ralsei quite literally tells you that you don’t have to kill anyone, that you are presented with a non-scripted battle. Which immediately dampened my enjoyment to that point. To play a pacifist route was no longer a self determined course of action, it was a direction the player was pushed towards multiple times throughout the game. 

In UT solving fights by talking and sparing your enemies was encouraged in the beginning. Now i’m sure most approached combat in UT as a standard RPG, spam attack, get exp, level up, rinse and repeat. It was only later in the starting area that many understood that ACTing and mercy was a viable way to play the game. To act in this way was a CHOICE made all your own, a choice that was unfortunately robbed in DR as sparing is something heavily encouraged throughout the game.

As an example to illustrate my point, think back to the Pacifist Undyne fight. After a frantic escape and running sequence, you cross past the bridge into hotland and Undyne passes out due to the heat and conveniently next to you is a office water cooler. Now it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine many players would simply move on, unaware that saving Undyne was even a possibility. While on the flipside i’m sure it dawned on many what they could do and did so. Whatever the action, this something we had to decide on our own.

Conversely i’m confident that if this sequence had occurred in DR, Undyne would have fainted, with Ralsei immediately exclaiming that Kris needs to do something pls halp. Though the choice is still technically there, it is no longer your own. In fact i would go so far to say that if one were to take Kris out of DR completely, the story and character interactions play out without skipping a beat. Which is the last thing you want in a story-driven RPG.

In this way i feel that not all silent protagonists are born equal. UT was built knowing Frisk wouldn’t utter a word and as such was able to give him a sense of presence both in the story and the character interactions. While Kris ( for now) as failed to be nothing more than a blank slate with a sweet cape that takes up a character spot. 

EPILOUGE

As much as it might seem that i’m beating up on Delta Rune cause “ It’s not mah undertale!” I sincerely had a good time with it, and i’m excited for more. ( Pls no lynch) I do feel a bit guilty judging a character who hasn’t had a chance to finish his story yet. Also recognizing the high possibility that Kris is exactly how Toby Fox wanted him to be, i would not be surprise if this usage of the PC was his way of hammering in the theme of choices being a fallacy. More than anything the purpose of this writeup was to explain my feelings why in my opinion Frisk is the more well utilized character.

Thanks for reading.

TL:DR Frisk > Kris