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Too Much Preaching

Story (the superhero stuff) 4/5
I'll start out by talking about something I liked. The application of superhero tropes to a typical JRPG setting was a breath of fresh air in a genre that often feels stagnant, and created a rather unique and very enjoyable experience. From the first scene, our heroes confronting Andalu and Shroud complaining that the villains always teleport, I was hooked. I drew great enjoyment from the dynamic between the two main characters, especially when they're in superhero mode. I would love to play a game that was really about that and really explored that premise. However...

Story (the message) 0/5
As you can probably tell from the rating, something went horribly wrong for me. Specifically, the message. The story centers around the conflict between our heroes and a fictional store called "Equipment King" which is obviously a fictional stand in for Walmart.
This premise, on its own, could work. The problem is that the story violates one of the cardinal rules of fiction "Show Don't Tell". The writer clearly intends for the people behind "Equipment King" to be the villains, the problem with this is that, they spend the entire first arc, and a good portion of the second telling us that these people are villains, without allowing the player to see any of their villainy. We're told they're bad. We're given a large number of flimsy, and in some cases bizarre (like Cade's assumption that any person owning multiple stores must be evil) reasons why we shouldn't like them, but it takes a rather long time before we actually see them do anything wrong. It is true that in the first arc there is a rumor that they pay non-humans less than humans and women less then men, however, if a rumor was all it took for someone to be evil, then no one would be good.
It is true that the people behind "Equipment King" do turn out to be villains, but that is not the point. Instead of allowing the player to see what the villains are doing and form our own conclusions about them, we are repeatedly told, often for incredibly flimsy or even outright bigoted reasons (They're from Gallia, and fifty years ago, Gallia was involved in racial cleansing so they must be bad people. If you don't see the problem with that, try applying the same logic to dealing with Germans today) that they are evil and we should dislike them.
To reiterate, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the people behind "Equipment King" being the villains. There is nothing wrong the the people of Gallia not having let go of their racism (Fifty years isn't that long of a time) and for them simply to have been waiting for the opportunity to strike. The problem is that, because the only evidence that we are given to support these claims for quite a while is that repeated insistence of our heroes without seeing anything for ourselves, their behavior starts to look exactly like the kind of prejudice that they are supposed to oppose, making it difficult to sympathize with them, and making them seem almost insufferable.


Characters: 3/5

Much like the story, my opinion of the characters is rather split. On the one hand, when they are not preaching, and just interacting with each other, for example when they are pursuing the vampire, they are both very likable people and their interactions with each other are one of the high points of the game.
However, this, like the story, is harmed by the message. Whenever they are talking about a message, they suddenly become self-righteous jerks who feel the need to preach at anyone who does not share their opinion. At one point Stoic, one of the heroes, suggests burning down a decades old church because it was built by the Gallians while they were occupying territory that belonged to the elves. This is in spite of the fact that the church's existence harms no one, and we even see that many of the Gallians buried there are good people, many of whom even opposed the conquest. The existence of the building is harming no one anywhere, and destroying it would ultimately just be out of spite. In spite of this, Shroud says nothing to discourage this behavior in his partner. They don't end up actually burning the place, but they never even consider that doing so might be wrong. Our heroes ladies and gentlemen, seriously considering arson for no reason other than petty revenge.

Gameplay: 4/5

The gameplay is the only aspect of this game that I could see myself saying was purely good. It is rather simple, standard turn-based combat where your characters gain experience after each fight to gain levels, and sometimes when they level up they gain abilities. I usually prefer something a little more elaborate, but it is well polished, and managed to be consistently fun.
It is a sign of how good the gameplay is that, after deleting the game once because the preaching had become too much for me to bear, I downloaded it again and played it again because the gameplay had been so much fun. It is a further testament to the quality that I did not mind replaying the portions that I had already finished because I lost my save. The game is just that much fun.

Overview (2/5)

Ultimately, excellent gameplay and a good premise was not enough to make up for the issues that I had with the message, and I stopped playing, again. I will admit, I was only partially through the second arc when I reached the point where I honestly could not endure another second of the dialogue and just quit. I may be horribly misjudging the game, but I still cannot bring myself to play through another second of it. If it really does get better, and the heroes really are called out on how they have been acting (that is, by someone sympathetic, rather than an obvious straw man or woman), I would be willing to give this game another chance, but so far it seems like the author believes that our two "heroes" genuinely are correct in their bizarre vendetta.

Posts

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Sorry to hear it pissed you off so much. Regarding the last paragraph, Cade's character arc through the entire game is about him realizing he doesn't know everything, it's a big world out there, and he should focus his efforts if he really wants to do good instead of just being angry about things. For what it's worth, I didn't interpret the skepticism of EK's multiple branches as a sure sign of evil. He just found it suspicious because this is the first "chain business" in the history of Solest.

Throughout the whole game, you also get a sense of Stoic's temper. The reason Shroud didn't call him out on the church burning comment is because he knows him enough to know that there was no chance he would actually do it. In other scenes, he makes all sorts of colorful threats of violence, sometimes just because he heard a pun that annoyed him. It's just a part of his personality.

At any rate, I'm glad you enjoyed the gameplay and I hope you do wind up continuing your game at some point. Even as early as Arc III, you'll see there's more going on in the story than what's been revealed during Arc II. It's obvious that I don't care for the Wal-Mart model of business, but it's also a mistake to assume that the characters are simply a mouthpiece for me, the author. I may agree with them on general principle, but I don't endorse all of Cade's rants and I always saw them as part of his character development.
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
At first, I really wanted to express in many words how much I disagree with this review, how wrong its arguments are and how unjustified this score is.

Instead, let me just say this: You do have a few valid points - in theory. You took the "Show, Don't Tell" idea one step too far by
(mis)interpreting the main characters' dialogue as separate from their personality and the in-game world, thus, as only a "Tell" part. Which it isn't.

One of the things I found so fascinating about Master of the Wind is that it does not use strawmen and perfect heroes. It is true that some characters are obviously villainous, but they always come across as believable persons who can argue for their opinions. Similarly, the heroes are far from perfect themselves. In addition, I think the danger of losing their jobs plus the rumours about Equipment King's racism is enough justification for the main characters to be critical of the corporation and making that clear when talking to other in-game characters.

In short:
I may be horribly misjudging the game
Yes. You are. This is, in my opinion, the problem with reviews for games the author hasn't played to the end: They are limiting themselves to a small portion of the game, ignoring all potential twists and developments that could still be waiting. Especially since you seemed to enjoy the gameplay so much, I find the reasons behind writing this review hard to understand.
Let's assume that until/unless told otherwise, the reasons behind this review is that he downloaded the game thinking he would enjoy it, didn't enjoy it and then decided to give his opinions.

Anyway, I do agree with the sentiment that the reviewer is misunderstanding the game. When the characters are "preaching", they don't "turn" into jerks or anything else. Nor are they abandoning their character to speak the author's opinion. It's part of what they are. Cade also does eventually learn that he sometimes gets too talky-talky.
I found even when there character's do get a bit out of there personality, even for a few scenes, is what we see from real people all the time. Real people don't keep their personas under certain circumstances.

I really think you should give the game just a few more hours, the later game has longer dungeons so you can take longer breaks from the dialog. And Arc 3 is my favorite Arc.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Things I learned today:

Master of the Wind is about Walmart.

Color me intrigued.
Fairly new here - to the point I just now played Master of the Wind - and since this review almost convinced me not to play, I might as well point out how wrong it is ... at least, as it applies to the last 90% of the game. But for the 10% he went through, he IS accurate - Cade really *is* that annoying early on, Stoic's motives remain almost completely unexplained, the conclusion that Wal... Equipment King is behind everything is jumped to with literally zero evidence. Until we got to meet Dican, I was seriously starting to wonder if I was playing the villains of the game.

Of course, it's around that point that the story really starts moving, and it reveals more than enough to explain WHY everyone feels the way they do. For some minor spoilers, if the reviewer or anyone reading that's also influenced by him are listening: if we're going with the Germany analogy, well, most people are cool with the modern-day Gallians, though some who lived through WWII hold a bit of a grudge (hello Stoic). And the bulk of our major antagonists turn out to be essentially Neo-Nazis. Except influential, armed with magic, and a real chance of taking over the world. I guess what I'm saying is, if you quit near the start of arc2, you quit right before the story stopped being so infuriating.

If I were writing a review, it's also the point where the story, music, gameplay, etc all easily hit a 5/5 and stay there. Game is very, very easily a 5/5 as an interactive story.
author=Varn
if we're going with the Germany analogy, well, most people are cool with the modern-day Gallians, though some who lived through WWII hold a bit of a grudge (hello Stoic). And the bulk of our major antagonists turn out to be essentially Neo-Nazis.


Thanks for taking that analogy to its logical conclusion. I felt kinda bad when he said that thing about modern Germans. My wife is half-German and I'd like to visit there someday. I wasn't thinking of any part of history that specific with the game though, it was more about how whenever society makes progress, some really scary people come out of the woodwork to try and reverse it. You can still see that happening everywhere these days.

If we ever remade MotW (and who knows, that might happen someday), I would probably try to play up Cade's youth and inexperience more...and have more incriminating evidence for them to find in the mine so it looks like more than just a really good hunch. But I didn't expect people to believe that a guy who's barely an adult is an expert on everything, even if he thinks he is. Maybe it reminds people too much of people they actually know, I had a phase like this in my early 20s too, I think it's part of growing up. I would be curious to hear what the reviewer thought of everything said here, but I think this one was a hit and run and he's not coming back.
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