ARGH'S PROFILE

I'm not sure if he was intentionally written as putting her on a pedestal too much, but either way, it was a little uncomfortable that the only woman in the story was... like that.

That's a good point, but I think that's negated a little bit by the fact that he didn't get to keep her. I think that's an acknowledgement that she wasn't perfect and women aren't obligated to be trapped in over-idealized relationships.

(Also, I thought the fact that he couldn't do any damage to her, while frustrating from a gameplay perspective, was really sweet, and goes a long way towards showing Suit does have hope of salvation. It's cool when story and gameplay reflect one another like that.)

Aw, that's a shame about How Far, especially given how much buildup it had. Maybe it is best for you to move on to bigger and better things though. TTL's apocalypse narrative sounds like it might be covering similar ground, which interests me.



@NeverSilent: Do millions of years really pass between episodes? I never got that impression. Not much time seems to pass between episodes 1, 2, and 3; the only time we're told that a major timeskip occurs is between 3 and 4, and there's payoff to the claim, as things are very different from how they were before.

they seemed to be exploring (not resolving, mind you) different philosophical concepts

That is exactly the problem. An episodic format would be acceptable if each episode was a truly self-contained story... but they aren't, because nothing is ever resolved. The story feels indecisive as to whether it wants to be a grand overarching epic or a series of disparate vignettes. I actually think each episode contains an interesting idea and I might even like them a great deal if they were expanded into full stories (and didn't lean so heavily on cliches)... but they're never allowed to reach their full potential. Each one contains setup, and action, but never resolution. They tap out just as I'm starting to get engaged. Episode 4 is the worst offender -- despite having the most action and stuff actually happening, it crams two plots into the same space, which obviously results in it not having enough time to do justice to either.

They also step on each others' toes far too much. It's not just the circumstances that change wildly between episodes, but the tone and narrative themes. A post-apocalyptic setting cannot coexist with the plots of episodes 2, 3, and 4, which revolve around very powerful organizations at their full strength acting on very high-minded goals. They're magically completely unaffected by the Shine due to plot fiat, which makes no sense, narratively. If the inciting event doesn't matter, you don't have a consistent story. And as I mention in the in-depth posts, Typelog and EROS, and their respective sins, come from two different worlds, so pitting them against each other and asking deep questions about which one is worse is just really confusing.

Simply bringing up philosophical topics isn't enough to carry a story, at least not one of this length. At some point something needs to happen; a point needs to be made. This happens in one episode, but it would have been better if it had happened in all of them, if they were really intended to be discussing completely different topics.

You've already seen what they did with it when they presumably had it

Ah, but that's just it -- we didn't. Show, don't tell. I honestly thought pre-Shine society sounded pretty nice, my first time through.

But -- that idea is itself a nihilistic cliche. I don't think it's inevitable that utopian societies will inevitably fall to decadence and ennui. And honestly, telling that to me, an (almost) engineer, is really dispiriting and hurtful. I worked myself up into a good rant here, but basically, it's not just the ending that bothered me, but a combination of things that made me read the ending in a worse light than I might have otherwise. Media (sci-fi in particular) as a whole is really, really anti-intellectual and anti-science, and this "technology will only make us unhappy so stop trying to make the world a better place" narrative is really tiring to me. I see myself in Neff, in Ral, and in the Progenitor -- but all the story does for them is to trample over their dreams, tell them they're wrong and/or evil for trying, and kill them. Stories that do that are just as much bullies as the people who beat us up and take our lunch money -- but worse, because they discourage adults who are in the position to make real change. There's wisdom in being Zen about things, but "nothing matters, stop trying and commit softcore or actual suicide" takes it way too far, in my opinion.

I think there's also a matter of expectations. When you label something as Pokemon, I do expect something in the vein of the original's tone unless you say otherwise, and as far as I recall there was nothing in the promotional media leading up to the release to imply the game would include this type of middle school humor. Being more up-front about the game, like explicitly saying "Do you like Pokemon but wish it was more SERIOUS and had REAL HUMOR you could relate to?!?!?" somewhere in the blurb, would be helpful here. Even in a freeware game, it's nice to give the audience an idea of what they're going to get in advance.

I wonder if it's possible to put an afro on a pokemon at all without cries of racism? It should be. Afros are cool. I want an afro pokemon pls.

Afros are cool, but unfortunately they are overwhelmingly associated with black culture and used as cultural shorthand for blackness in characters, so it would be pretty difficult to dissociate the two. I suppose that's why these sorts of conversations are useful!

author=Liberty
On the other hand, if it had been any other colour than brown, would people then be screaming white-washing and appropriation of culture? (Probably. People like to complain and make mountains out of molehills).

Maybe, maybe not. But I still think that opinions like that are worth considering, instead of being dismissed on the grounds they'd never be satisfied. Social issues are complicated and there may not be an answer that satisfies everyone, but it's still worth weighing the options.

author=Liberty
which, argh, was toned down a little from his original one which is on his site and is much more inflammatory and drama-inducing so yes, it was made for the sake of drama

...So she purposefully toned the review down from the version on her personal blog when publishing it for a larger audience? That seems like the opposite of drama-inducing. :p

They aren't always and can be positive in the at least the vaguest of a sense.

Perhaps, but that's not your call to make. As Solitayre said, it's important to get outside perspectives from the people actually affected by this. Even if you're not trying to be racist, it's still possible to be unintentionally hurtful. Someone hurt by ignorance rather than malice still has a perspective worth considering.