Shin Megami Tensei IV Doesn't Do Much With Its Titular Character

Shin Megami Tensei IV is a dark, intense and atmospheric Japanese role-playing game set in two realms in a post-apocalyptic Japan (I won't spoil their names, just know that they are quite different). The occasionally fierce battles that can be waged with demons, and the tense exploration of ruined areas and surreal dungeons, reinforce the atmosphere expertly, along with the catchy yet sometimes disturbing background music.

However, the game's story fails to give the player a valid narrative reason to be doing what they are told to do in certain areas, by undermining the plot points and objectives it presents with a lack of characterization and by contradicting its earlier themes and messages.

MILD SPOILER WARNING: From here on in, this post contains opinions and information that may spoil the events of Shin Megami Tensei IV for new players or players that have not played certain routes.

Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe: Depictions of Suffering in Games

I am a "Wednesday's Child". I have endured depression for the better part of my life, and therefore I am drawn to depictions of suffering.

Depicting suffering that arises from misfortune or the deaths of loved ones is a common theme in videogames. In this article I will go into four games that I feel depict suffering in sensitive and deeply moving ways.

1. To The Moon - This game is about two doctors' attempts to fulfil the last wish of a dying old man. The gorgeous piano-heavy music and the simple but evocative visuals transform an already moving story into something transcendent. I delve deeper into the game's mechanics and themes in this article. You can buy To The Moon here.
2. Persona 3 Portable - One of my favourite Persona games of all time (link contains a fairly minor late-game spoiler), mostly due to its moody, ominous atmosphere and the in-depth tackling of themes like terminal illness, family matters, suicide and apathy. You can buy Persona 3 Portable here.
3. Unrest - An unusual indie game that explores what it means to be a young girl in a society where arranged marriages are the norm, and how trying to fight against that norm can often lead to suffering many forms, e.g. social ostracisation and sexual harassment. The game also explores political upheaval and questions of faith, sometimes a little heavy-handedly, but mostly intelligently. You can buy Unrest here.
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd - Last but not least, a game I recently reviewed, that covers  suffering so comprehensively that it sets a new bar for other games wishing to tackle it. I mean, what aspect of suffering ISN'T covered in this game? Let me count the ways: guilt, abandonment, sexual abuse, torture, implied child prostitution, military experimentation (even on minors!), trauma - the list goes on and on. However, none of these themes EVER feel forced - they all arise naturally from the characters' backstories and they are all explored with a deep, deep sense of compassion and humanity. I applaud Falcom for daring to tread where few others would dare to, and I applaud XSEED for their absolutely brilliant localisation of what will surely be viewed as a classic, must-play Japanese role-playing game. If you loved Trails in the Sky FC and SC, do yourself the favour of buying Trails in the Sky the 3rd here. You will NOT regret it.

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Common Mistakes in Video Game Storytelling

WARNING: this article has some (mostly minor) spoilers for various games.

We all know that games can offer great stories. Anyone who says otherwise is most likely ignorant or has an agenda against gaming. However, there are some commonly repeated mistakes in how games tell their stories. These mistakes hold back the medium as a whole, and often serve as barriers to newcomers, and unnecessary annoyances to veterans. I'll give a couple of them, along with games they appear in.

Too Much Exposition At One Time

This occurs when a game decides to dump exposition the player in a long, often unskippable, ream of text, voice acting, and/or cutscenes. It almost always destroys the pacing of the game, because of the unnatural and excessive method of clueing the player up on how the world works. I understand that sometimes exposition is necessary, but it should be spaced out evenly, and given at appropriate times in the story, via appropriate methods. For example, to inform the player of the game world's history, an in-game book would be far more appropriate than a character spouting off endless lines of historical facts, unless these facts are so crucial that they cannot be conveyed in any other way.

EXAMPLE: Super Paper Mario, in the form of TWENTY minutes of cutscenes and dialogue right at the start of the game (possibly the WORST time to have an exposition dump).

Unskippable Cutscenes

This is one of the most IRRITATING mistakes a game can make, ESPECIALLY when replaying it, even for ten minutes. Christ, just let the player get on with the bloody game! I know you want players to experience your "masterpiece" of a story, but don't prioritise it over fun.

EXAMPLE: The Walking Dead - this game NEVER lets you skip a single cutscene, even when playing through it for the umpteenth time. This really discouraged me from playing to see different choices, simply because it's too damn tedious to do so. What's worse is that Telltale Games keep making the same idiotic mistake in ALL of their games! FFS.

Making Gameplay Worse Because Story

Okay, so this is a bit of a general one, but it basically means any time the actual gameplay is hindered in some way in order for the game to tell its story. What's sad about this one is that it is so easily AVOIDABLE! I love a good story as much as the next guy, but PLEASE don't make it so inconvenient for me to make progress in the game that I just want to give up!

EXAMPLE:  The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - as awesome as this game's story is, it makes this unforgivable goof: it disables all the airships in Chapter 8, AND all the orbments, forcing the player to walk everywhere on foot!

Poor (English) Voice Acting

This mistake is self-explanatory, and unfortunately occurs frequently in Japanese RPGs.

EXAMPLE: Final Fantasy Type-0 HD - one of the most egregious and most recent examples of shoddy voice acting. Most of the characters just sound WRONG. The rest of them speak like robots speaking English for the first time. This is pretty sad because the game actually has an interesting story.

A Lack of Diversity

Okay, so this point is a bit controversial, but screw it - it's important to me, mmkay? Far too many games have middle-aged, bearded white guys as the protagonist. It's really boring and lazy. Why not try a different protagonist? Variety is the spice of life, after all.

EXAMPLE: Prototype - a game with an extremely vanilla protagonist, about as generic as you could possibly get! Oh well, at least he has interesting superpowers.

Too Many Damn Power Fantasies

Too many games focus on making the player feel like an overpowered badass, instead of challenging them thematically and narratively. This is the easy way out for most developers, and it's been proven to sell a shit ton of games, BUT it's SO boring!! The irony is that the more power fantasy there is in the gameplay, the less choice there is in the story - the player basically has no option other than to become the saviour of the whole world/universe/human race.

EXAMPLE: Mass Effect 3 - as much as I LOVE the Mass Effect games, what I hated is that they dumbed down the narrative choices available to the player, to the extent that there is no "evil character" option - you can't choose to fuck over the galaxy or join the enemy; you can only choose between being a "nice guy" hero or a "douchecanoe" hero, i.e. Paragon and Renegade, respectively.

Feel free to comment or even give your favourite examples of mistakes in video game story telling!

Adventuring Through Consent With Hurt Me Plenty

There aren't many games brave enough to explore the issue of consent and rough-play, especially with partial nudity and sexual overtones involved.  Hurt Me Plenty is one of those games.

The game started me off by shaking the hand of a man with my mouse as a means of introduction.  It used the speed and frequency of my virtual handshake as factors in determining how hard I was allowed to spank this virtual guy's buttocks, as well as giving me a randomly-generated safeword which the guy would use when he'd had enough.

Once those things were out of the way, the actual action began.  I was required to spank by moving the mouse up and down.  Unfortunately, I did so rather too vigorously and ended up causing the guy to cry out in pain and shout the safeword multiple times.  Once the action halted, I felt strangely guilty because of how downcast and resentful this virtual being seemed, and the accusatory language he used whilst discussing what I put him through.  It really resonated with my prior life experiences regarding consent and consideration for others.  Consent is one of the most important factors in relationships and emotional and physical interactions with others, and it's great to see a video-game tackle the subject, even if it's in a rather surreal and perhaps clumsy way.  It may not have a set narrative per se, but it forms a convincing, if fairly succinct, narrative between the game, the player, and the guy who gets spanked, depending on the player's actions.

Hurt Me Plenty can be downloaded (for free, or for a donation of your choice) at its page on itch.io.

Walking A Mile In Another's Shoes

It is rare that I come across a game that actually encourages me to examine my own beliefs and principles, and challenges me with multiple perspectives on situations that I would probably never experience in real life.  Unrest is one such game.

From the start, I was put into the shoes of someone in a difficult situation - a peasant girl whose parents had arranged a marriage for her.  There were various ways of dealing with the expectations and attitudes of her parents, relatives and friends - violent, accepting, defiant or even sometimes light-hearted.  No single choice or approach was ever really pushed over the others, although violence carried more risks than the other approaches.

One thing that kept sticking out in certain dialogues and situations was the difficulty of deciding which approach or choice was the most appropriate.  Was it better to defiantly assert her individual rights and risk alienating her friends and/or family in the process?  Or was it wiser to simply accept her lot in life and sacrifice some of her individual freedoms and happiness?

Other characters, with equally challenging circumstances, were presented:  a priest working at a local temple in the city to feed his family, a Naga (snake-like mythical creature) diplomat sent to negotiate on behalf of their empire, a princess whose parents are murdered in a brutal coup, a mercenary working for the perpetrators of the coup.

Questions of faith, loyalty, economic status and racism/speciesism are raised.  The priest is faced with the challenge of whether to keep working at the temple even as uncomfortable questions regarding his superiors and their activities arise.  The Naga must deal with near-constant racism/speciesism and xenophobia directed at their species and empire.  The princess is forced to flee for her life and must decide how she will deal with the people who murdered her parents, as well as how to take back power.  The mercenary has to grapple with the knowledge of what he supported and what his employers have perpetrated in order to gain power.

There was no "perfect", neat, happy ending.  No triumphant fanfare or celebrations.  Only more uncertainty and unrest.

You can get Unrest from GOG.com here.

To The Moon - Quality Over Quantity

So many games these days are expected to deliver dozens or even hundreds of hours of gameplay. It's expected, sometimes even demanded by many gamers, a lot of whom profess themselves to be "hardcore gamers". There's nothing necessarily wrong with a lengthy experience, as long as its filled with worthwhile content and it's well paced.

However, there's also space for much shorter, and perhaps more poignant, games. Games that deliver a hefty emotional payload and multiple memorable moments. To The Moon is one of those games.

The gentle, twinkling opening theme eased me into the opening minutes, and soon I got to acquaint myself with the two protagonists, Dr Eva Rosalene and Dr Neil Watts. Their near-constant barbs and jabs at each other helped leaven the sometimes heavy emotional atmosphere of the story, even if they sometimes acted outlandishly. Ultimately, they stick with each other because of their shared determination to help an old man fulfil his wish of going to the moon (sort of). They remain loyal to each other because of their work relationship and their friendship, despite fighting along the way to their end goal.

As for the main story, it basically requires guiding the two protagonists backwards through the memories of the old man, Johnny, in order to find a way of fulfilling his dying wish. The things they find in those memories are extremely personal, sometimes disturbing, and often very moving. They end up seeing things they wish they hadn't, and having to make compromises they would rather not.

It's all worth it in the end, though. The final scene left a warm glow inside me, along with the enchanting twinkling of the piano and soaring vibrations of the violin. Many hard truths about the characters and about life were revealed in the game: being different is lonely, being ordinary can feel stifling and boring, sometimes sacrifices must be made for the sake of the ones you love, or for the sake of your passions. But some beautiful revelations were also offered: the importance of having family near you, appreciating the people who make you who and what you are, exercising compassion and empathy for all living beings, especially those who are different or are struggling inside.

To fail to be moved by anything the game showed me would have required a cold, barren heart. But move me it did, and left me with bittersweet feelings of melancholy, nostalgia, and hope.

You can buy To The Moon here.