Dynasty Warrior: Gundam 3

Dynasty Warrior: Gundam 3 is not really an RPG. But I figured I'd write about because it's fairly crazy. And hey, the game has upgradable stats and skills so close enough!

Dynasty Warrior Gundam is a very simple game. You choose a super powerful robot and then tear across a battlefield shredding hundreds of robots along the way. That is the entire game. The gimmick is that it takes the main characters and robots of every single Gundam anime (of which there are dozens) and makes them all playable. It would be insane and unnecessary to try and explain why so many different main characters and arch-villains are all hanging out together. But that didn't stop the creators of DW: Gundam 3 from recording half a million lines of dialogue.

The 'plot' is, of course, insane. Something about an inter-dimensional signal that sucked a bunch of Gundams into an artificial universe. The whole thing is everyone just milling around and, uh, befriending each other. It can actually be pretty funny sometimes as disparate characters bitch about and at each other. It helps that many protaganists from Gundam are brain damaged. Then there is the entire 'plotline' that revolves around a slimy politician assembling every single Gundam love interest into a super Charlies Angels group.

But my point is this: somebody wrote a novels worth of dialogue for a robot beat 'em up game with 80+ main characters. There was no one who wanted this, no one who needed it. But those crazy bastards included a plot anyways.

The Last Remnant

The Last Remnant is the poor man's Final Fantasy 12. It shaggily apes FF 12 in setting and style. But within Remnant's slip shod universe beats a quirky heart. It isn't half as bad a game as it has any right to be.

...but goddamn does Last Remnant botch the beginning.

The game opens on the protagonist, Rush, and his sister, Whatsherface receiving a message from their parents. The message comes in the form of a freaking holo-cube, that old stalwart of medieval fantasy settings. Whenever I see a holo-cube I always prepare myself for a tale of knights and castles, lords and princesses. That may sound sarcastic but I've played enough JRPGs that my statement up there is pretty accurate really. JRPGs never met a faux-historical setting that couldn't be improved with some laser swords and robots. Which is as things should be, honestly.

Er, anyways, the children listen to their holo-dad explain that they are very busy doing some extremely ominous research and thus won't be able to visit them anytime soon. This raises some questions, questions that will never  get answered. So Rush and his sister are just living alone I guess? On an island with no visible signs of civilization (although apparently a working postal system). None of this seems like good parenting. Were Rush and McGuffagirl really so annoying that their parents couldn't get any work done and had to maroon the terrible twosome on some lonely island? As we get to know Rush over the course of the game it is quickly clear he is terribly annoying. Still.

Unsurprisingly, leaving your teens unattended on a remote island for years backfires and Rush's sister is kidnapped by a Sephiroth knockoff.

This is what a Sephiroth looks like

So Rush rushes off to save his sister, despite the fact that she is being flown across the world by a creepy bug thing. When we next see him he is no longer on the island I guess and he stumbles upon a massive battle. Upon seeing this epic confrontation Rush loses his shit and runs down into the middle of it shouting his sister's name. At which point a glowing Gatling gun blows everything up. In the aftermath of this magical holocaust our hero falls down a hole.

That's how the game begins. It just keeps raising questions and is never interested enough in it's 'main' character to answer them. The whole thing plays out like a dream- locations shift, events and creatures pop up out of thin air, and while the whole thing seems to follow a kind of logic it all falls apart if you start thinking about it. It's actually kind of fun. But not an example of good writing.

Front Mission 3

Front Mission 3 is a mech tactics game. Mech refers to the fact the game is all about giant military robots that are piloted by emotionally unbalanced cliches. And the tactics part means the game plays sort of like Wizard's Chess from Harry Potter. Kind of.

Kind of like this.

Front Mish Tres starts by introducing us to giant robot test pilot Stanuel Besticle (my name for him, not the game's). Stanuel is delivering some robots to a military base when there is an explosion. It's not really clear what caused it. Everyone seems OK though, and that's the end of that... until Stan gets an email from his sister. Turns out she was just transferred to the military base that day! Stanuel is understandably concerned for his sister's safety and decides to join an enemy spy in invading the depths of his own country's military base in the off chance that he runs into her.

Let's pause for a moment and think about what Kantian ethics has to say about this. Kantian ethics is all about asking yourself what would happen if everyone made the same choice in a given situation and extrapolating from there. In this case everyone is concerned for a loved one in the military. They heard a bad thing happened!  Now they could wait a single anxious day waiting for more news. They could try and get ahold of their loved one, which Stan does at first. But consider if everyone chooses to attack the military base their beloved is stationed at... you know, just to make sure they are alright. If everyone overreacted the way Stanuel does in Front Mission 3 than society would crumble within a year. 

"How could anyone mistake us for invaders in these massive weapons of war!?"

The plot of Front M3ss3on has some other problems as well. Stan's best friend is a party animal horndog from an 80's slacker movie. His entire character is so detached from the serious setting that the guy comes off as pretty deranged. The guy tags along for the whole 'attack our military base' thing because the enemy spy who arranged it is hot. That's not a good reason, guy! Also Best Friend has a bunch of banter with Stan but it doesn't come off as two guys lightheartedly ragging on one another- it sounds more like a couple in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. 

Front Mission 3, you need to hire a better writer.

STATEMENT OF INTENT

LIKE THE WIND OF THE SOUL BURNING THE SHRUBBERY OF SPRING, this blog explorers the weirdness and inanity found in Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPG, natch). With any role playing game is that the gameplay is of secondary importance to the plot. Unless your RPG is named 'Mass Effect 3' anyways. You would think than that the plots to JRPGs would be compelling, enjoyable tales. And you would be right... sometimes.

The thing is... the thing is writing is hard. I should know, I've tried writing stuff. I'd write a lot more but its hard! You would be surprised how rare a person who can string together a coherent plot is. (Look at that sentence- its borderline gibberish) So when a dozen guys in the 90's are throwing together a vidja-game well, maybe they can't afford that precious gem, that competent writer. Maybe what these nerdy computer people can afford is... someone with good ideas, yes. Seems to have some compelling characters in mind, yes. Able to write proper sentences, sure. But good... well good writing is subjective right. Right?

So we end up with some absurd, shitty plotlines in JRPGs. Take my hand as we explore, explore the insane world of JRPGs.