My Long Rant/Analysis of Sea of Stars (SPOILERS INSIDE!)

[Professor Q]

This is a copy paste of a series of texts I sent to my friend outlining why I didn't think this game was great. I thought I would share it here, both for your consumption and as feedback to the devs.

For some background, I reviewed The Messenger as part of the Metroidvania Review project I ran for four years or so, and I gave it a 5 out of 5. Needless to say I was pretty excited to see what SoS had to offer going into it. I wanted to like this game. As I say at the beginning of this copy/paste, I don't consider this a professional "review", it's literally just a casual rant I texted to my friend. The copy paste starts now:


Alright, I'm not going to sit down and write a full review but I might as well get some discussion points.

Overall: Sea of Stars is a lot of good fun with only a bit of gore to worry about in terms of family friendliness. The production values are phenomenal, with amazing fully animated cutscenes and some really awesome music.

It doesn't live up to the classics it is aping but it's also not a complete waste of time.

Moving forward with reasons it does not live up to the classics, I'll start with the gameplay. Most of these comparisons will be between Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger, since that seems to be the foundational inspirations for what Sea of Stars is.

Sea of Stars is slightly more strategic and overall mechanically tighter than those two examples, but it also suffers from being incredibly shallow given how long its runtime is.

Both CT and Mario RPG contain some pretty big copouts. CT has its mega elixir stockpile and generally low difficulty, and Mario RPG has what may be the most OP character in RPG history - a character who has both the second highest attack power and the ability to cure the party to max HP and cure their ailments in one cheap move. You CAN play both those games with self imposed challenges, but by default they're not particularly deep specimens themselves.

Sea of Stars has its limited item system, but generally speaking if you can't plan out your moves at least a few in advance you're going to get spanked by the game's difficulty. This is especially true if you can't master the timing of the timed hits system.

Where Sea of Stars falls apart is variety.

While MRPG and CT both have pretty basic battle systems it makes up for it with almost every fight containing some kind of gimmick that alters how you need to approach the fight.

Magus changes his weaknesses constantly, arrow dude shoots buttons and restricts moves, Lavos's final form is actually the bit on the right rather than the body itself, Yaridovich makes copies of himself - just as a few examples.

These kinds of gimmicks aren't completely absent from Sea of Stars, but if you're playing optimally you might not be forced to see any of them, since almost all of them are the result of failing to break the enemy's spell in time.

This streamlining of strategic approach removes some of the narrative identity some of the battles COULD have had, and by the end of the game I kind of felt I was executing the same exact pattern ad nauseum rather than seeing new things from a mechanical standpoint

This variety issue is exacerbated by there being a strange lack of visual variety on top of that. In the end all three games in this comparison have the same goals of subtracting enemy HP while preventing your own HP from being subtracted, but Sea of Stars kind of proves that set dressing does hold some importance.

To demonstrate what I mean, I go back to Mario RPG. Mario has three different weapon types in that game - Shells, Fists, and Hammers. Other characters are basically the same. Mallow has Cymbols and sticks. Geno shoots his arms, bullets and stars. Peach has slap gloves, war fans, and frying pans. Bowser even throws Mario with one of his attacks.

This not only adds variety to the timed hits system, it's also entertaining to watch. Plus it really emphasizes how powerful you've become when you kick a comically large red shell at your enemies.

The weapons in Sea of Stars are all stat bonuses. Zale is going to have the same two hit scimitar combo at the beginning of the game as he will at the end.

Add this visual sameness to the fact that each character has functionally only three moves, and even though the bones of the combat are very strong, the combat as a whole starts to look a little emaciated as you move up from its admittedly strong legs.

[We then talked back and forth a bit before I sent this]

So short version of exploration in Sea of Stars - I appreciate some of it but it's hit or miss. I'd say more than half the time it just feels like busywork. Like you're playing a walking simulator, rather than it serving some kind of purpose other than slowing you down.

Contrast that with Mario RPG where every level feels like a Mario level, or Chrono Trigger where the dungeons are chock-full of hidden trinkets and gimmicks, and it's the same problem SoS has with its combat. It feels too cut from a pattern.

I was also pretty tired of the spoke and hub design a majority of dungeons had (aka you enter a room and have to go off in one of three side paths to collect a key of some themed flavor.)

[Another delay in texts, this was a three day conversation]

[Professor Q]

So my thoughts about Narrative are complex enough that I'll divide it into four parts.
1. General thoughts (and praise - with a few criticisms)
2. Prophecy and its effect on narrative.
3. Member Berries
4. The Biggest Problem



1. General Thoughts

With its writing, Sea of Stars accomplishes what I told a lot of Metroidvania devs they should do, and that's to give every important NPC some kind of quirk that makes them memorable, even if it's not brought up as part of the story (or my name isn't Keenan!)

This helps to keep the characters fun and endearing. Most importantly it keeps them entertaining (looking at you, fish with the bubble pipe.)

It can backfire sometimes. Teaks's hyperactive movements feel inappropriate at points, and Yolanda's breaking the fourth wall was a little cringe, but I remember both their names and I think that's great.

Where the criticism comes in is that only a few chosen ones really get this treatment and that's kind of a missed opportunity. Basically, it's anyone not sitting at the table in the feast scene, with very few exceptions. Now this isn't that much different than other JRPGs, but you still had the occasional memorable one-off character, like the old man with the Naga-ette bromide, or the toad that lost his wallet, or maybe a most important example, the kid pretending to be the chosen hero because he found Frog's hero badge (I'll be using this one again later.)

At times this emphasis on the chosen makes the world feel flat and gamey, when it really shouldn't. Brisk gets destroyed and practically gets restored overnight because "we can't have missables in a good JRPG." But even Mirth which should feel the most like home if any location has a reference to Jirard the Completionist and a smattering of functional NPCs who immediately relegate themselves to providing services to the player rather than adding personality.

Again, other JRPGs aren't phenomenal about this, but there also isn't as much of a reason to develop NPCs as SoS has. Even then, going back to Chrono Trigger, you still had quests centered on non-party NPCs, and the closest Sea of Stars comes to that is playing hide and seek with some fish children. It makes the Sea of Stars world feel just a bit smaller.

I do have to mention the Duke's little quest too, I thought that was great. The game needed more quests like that.

SoS does as much as a Metroidvania game should do with its NPCs, the problem is that it's a JRPG.

Speaking of Mirth, locking all the upgrades behind the rainbow conch quest was another huge missed opportunity. Each of those buildings should have been their own quest, not some out of place meta thing (why does that kid have all those building plans?)



2. Prophecy and Narrative

I could write a whole essay about how to use prophecy in fiction, but the short version rule of thumb is that it should be used in a way that adds meaning and flesh to a story.

Sea of Stars uses it as a mere contrivance.

First off, there are basically five different "Prophet" characters in the game - or at least characters that are functionally the same. Added to that is a sixth underlying "destiny" plot point where the two main characters are apparently reincarnations of important people we barely hear about in the game.

I'll go ahead and list the five Prophets just to demonstrate my point: Elder Mist, The Immortal Alchemist, The Fish Oracle (maybe the lamest one of all), The Neutral witch lady, and Serai's computer (who is the functional prophet. "Odds of Success, great!")

Prophesies work best when they're there to help a character learn something, or when it helps them have faith in a hard moment. In Sea of Stars prophecy basically just gives characters knowledge they couldn't have had otherwise, which is basically just Deus Ex Machina. And because of how often prophesies occur in the game it starts to feel like the characters don't actually have agency.

They're used in a way that feels like narrative shortcutting - definitely not something that enhances the story overall. I don't know why they decided to go with this approach, unless the message is SUPPOSED to be "have blind faith in your destiny" - and if that's the case then in my opinion the message just sucks. I suspect these logical leaps bridged by prophecy are the result of either scope creep or an intentional skip for the sake of pacing, but the overuse is damaging to the narrative's value overall.

So where the game started coming apart for me was basically right when you met Re'shan. It's at that point that you start literally crossing time and space to accomplish the party's goals, which is honestly fine to an extent, but you're never really given a reason for the arbitrary rules Re'shan and The Fleshmancer apparently have to abide by, so the only assumption I can make is that they follow their rules "so the story can happen", which isn't a particularly good premise.

The most egregious use of the prophecy trope - or the "divine intervention" trope to me is when Garl gets shot. Not talking about how Re'shan freezes time to setup for Garl's later resurrection, I actually thought that was handled pretty well, but how the party races Garl over to the Elder Mist where he receives a vision of what his last deed should be.

Without the prophecy, there's basically no reason Garl should do any of what he did. There's basically no setup besides a short story from Teaks for why waking the sleeper would even be a desirable thing for Garl to do, and while baking bread is in fact a very Garl solution to the problem, he just sort of magically knows exactly what to do with so much "a wizard did it" energy that even though the game does a pretty good job at making the whole thing emotionally impactful, there was a constant nagging twinge as I was watching it that the whole affair crippled any narrative believability the story had. The "a wizard did it" energy carries so many events from that point forward too.

What could have made that better? Let's establish why the sleeper is "bad" a lot more. Moleville and Brisk are too peaceful, they seem pretty happy just letting the sleeper sleep. Let's make them oppressed, and let's make Garl notice. Maybe the moles are working themselves to the bone to keep the music playing. Maybe you can help feed some miners as they maintain the instrument and discover that they're basically slaves to keeping the sleeper where he's at.

Maybe Brisk is in charge of feeding the sleeper. Maybe they have to give 90% of the fish they catch to feed the beast and keep him from waking up from hunger. The town could be starving for themselves because of this burden. Maybe this is why so many of the people in Brisk wanted to leave after the Dweller destroyed Brisk. Maybe the duty to keep the sleeper sleeping is why anyone stayed there to rebuild at all. Maybe the arena could be built because of the extra wealth that came from not having to support the sleeper anymore.

As for how to make the bread, there needed to be more of a setup for those ingredients, but alas Garl just knows because "god" told him (who the heck is the Elder Mist anyway?)

The sleeper kind of just wakes up and disappears into the sky too, but that's a good segue into the next part...



3. "Remember the Messenger??"

The challenge with prequels is that you already know what's going to happen, and making an effective prequel is hard. Ideally you want to tell a story that enhances the now-sequel in some way, either by expanding the lore of the canonical universe, or by giving additional insights into events that occur in the original. A bad prequel essentially retcons things or actively sabotages what happened in the original. Then there's pointless prequels, which is basically what Sea of Stars is.

The whole thing with the sleeper was the first real groaner for me. I've already talked about how the whole thing was poorly setup within the context of the contained story, but in service of the Messenger the only thing the Sleeper event accomplishes is Garl gets to name the snake. Okay, so what?

Worst of all that's literally the only interaction you have with the sleeper for the entire game until the ending. The sleeper doesn't help you accomplish anything (he could have been your airship!) He just kind of wakes up and says "welp I'm off to be in the Messenger now!"

And that's basically how all the references to the Messenger feel to me.

Okay, so the Artificer is actually a hive mind of really old children who really likes to pose. "So what?" It's not like the hive mind thing comes up in the Messenger. In fact all the Artificer does in the Messenger is get really excited about doing "the thing." He didn't really need to be given an identity beyond that, at least, not from the Messenger's perspective.

So you go through the glacial peak from The Messenger. "So what?" This is literally just a place as far as the game is concerned, and you're even teleported there by Ra'shan just so you can eat up those member berries.

You pass through the first village from The Messenger, "So what?". They literally did nothing with it, and it's just another level.

Garl makes sure that the glass in the temple is extra thick. Okay so now the glass being in tact in the sunken temple in the Messenger makes sense. "So what?" What a weird thing to reference. That's like making sure we know the origin of Han Solo's shoes.

Admittedly it's been a while since I've played The Messenger, but I can't think of anything established in Sea of Stars that is anything more significant than just random pointless details. That is, nothing except the origin of the demon race, which leads into the game's biggest problem.



4. The worst part of Sea of Stars's Narrative

This part is going to be long, because there's a lot to say.

The biggest problem Sea of Stars has is that it's Plot Heavy, but Story Light. Things be happening, sometimes really cool things, but the depth of lessons to be learned or philosophical implications to be had is extremely shallow. The main reason for this is because while the characters almost all have great quirks to make them memorable, they lack the kind of growth or impact to make them feel REAL, and relatable.

I can't number the ways that an effective JRPG story can be told because we haven't seen them all. We have seen the silent protagonist with Chrono Trigger, we've seen a single protagonist focused story with FFVII, and we've even seen a game that has no clear main protagonist with FFVI. I could write papers on why each of these work individually in their own way, but let's focus on what you can do when there is a main protagonist, because that's SORT OF what Sea of Stars does.

Main protagonist stories usually go one of two ways.

You can have a protagonist who starts out weak (either literally or figuratively), they have an arc, and at the end of the story they overcome their greatest obstacle. Classic examples of this are Luke Skywalker, and while FFVII does some subversions with this approach, it's effectively what that game does with Cloud.

The other common option is that there's basically nothing wrong with the Protagonist. They're either completely perfect, or they have an immutable personality trait that makes them wholly righteous from start to finish. There can be growth in other ways but there isn't really an "arc" in these kinds of protagonist stories. The most classic example of this protagonist is Super Man, but one of my favorite examples is Gon from Hunter X Hunter. While the plot in HxH follows Gon, the story is rarely about him. It's usually about Killua, Kurapica, and Leorio learning something from Gon's immutable will, or the villains learn something, or Gon just teaches the audience something. Ultimately Gon has a weakness that blows up in his face, and that COULD be considered an Arc, but that doesn't happen until really late in the story - basically at the end of the latest Anime adaptation.

A video game example of an unchanging protagonist would be Crono, although his role is more to be the decision maker. While Lucca and Marle are waffling in what should be done, Crono just does his fist pump and the matter is settled.

Back to Sea of Stars, they decided to have TWO main protagonists, neither of which have an arc or growth throughout the story, and then they added Garl, who is basically the game's Gon character.

Going this route creates a situation that, in order to have a story, they needed to have an extremely strong supporting cast that shows growth and progress throughout the ordeal.

They didn't do that. As I already mentioned, besides the chosen few NPCs, towns kind of exist in their own static bubbles. Garl basically always walks in and is immediately accepted, and immediately begins solving any problem the NPCs have with basically no resistance. The Solstice Warrior thing effectively works as a free pass for trust. Every community just lets Valere and Kale right in without question because they're consumately labeled as "The Good Guys."

The only characters that show a lack of faith in the systems that supposedly relieve suffering are the four Fleshmancer Cultists and the other two Solstice warriors. The older Solstice warrior betrayal feels forced and frankly pretty stupid because the game doesn't give you any reason to agree with them. The acolytes are just evil and that's that.

In my opinion, the best two characters in the game - potential wise - are Ra'shan and the Fleshmancer. The question of what to do when you obtain immortality and increasingly growing power is an interesting one. The Fleshmancer's decision to look down on other people and see them as play things actually could have some logic to it, but it seems like his motivation is just one of pure Cruelty, again because you're not given enough material to provide even a sliver of reason to agree with him.

The story would have been much more interesting if you could agree with the Fleshmancer. Make the people in the various towns wicked in some depraved ways. Make them seem irredeemable sometimes, even. "They're not worth our time, and the world eaters are doing the universe a favor." This would make Garl's ability to turn the people around so much more meaningful, and it would send a message that redemption is always a possibility. "Rather than destroy, maybe we can just keep trying and make things better."

As it is the fact that Ra'shan shares any kind of ruleset with The Fleshmancer makes Ra'shan seem like a terrible person for accepting. The Fleshmancer is an irredeemable devil, who literally makes demons. Why did Ra'shan save him at the end? "So the story could happen?"

That's just bad.


The two main protagonist thing is a major problem too. I think they wanted you to be able to pick the sex of the main character, but also wanted the main character to be their own thing, so they designed a game with two protagonists to accommodate. I picked Valere because I thought being the Monk was more interesting than the sun blade, and I'll be darned if I couldn't remember Kale's name for most of the game because he really just doesn't do anything. I remembered Valere because she's who I was controlling and making decisions with, and Kale just got relegated to her shadow for some reason.

They SHOULD have had the story be completely different based on who you picked. Whoever you didn't pick should have had a crisis of faith, maybe even think about agreeing with the older Solstice warriors. There should have been clashes between them when things got hard - maybe especially after Garl died. At that point the other unpicked protagonist could have left the party and you would have to get them back, using the memory of Garl to inspire them back onto the Solstice warrior path. There could have been enough differences between playing either protagonist that two playthroughs could be different enough to merit playing on NG+ for reasons other than to obtain arbitrary achievements.

As is the game has two Crono characters, and I think it proves that you should probably just stick to one.

Anyway I think that pretty much covers it. That is why I give Sea of Stars a 3.5 out of 5. It comes close to being great, but it just sits at only "good" for me.


(My friend pointed out that it's Zale and not Kale, but I think that only proves my point)

[Seamus]

You know there's a review section, right?

[Professor Q]

I dunno if it's appropriate to put something so full of spoilers on the review page. Plus as I said, this is more of an analysis than a review.

Not to mention, it's too long to fit into a review.

[orangepoindexter]

The pirates came off like they were what the writers REALLY wanted to write a game about. They gave them 100x more personality then the "main characters". Plus that 4th wall breaking, to me, was god awful. It pissed me off.

The real icing on the crap sundae was the lack of moves/abilities AND the characters never visually changing. That got tiresome VERY quickly seeing the same 3-4 moves and the appearance of the members of your party never changing.

[Professor Q]

Originally posted by orangepoindexter:

the lack of moves/abilities AND the characters never visually changing. That got tiresome VERY quickly seeing the same 3-4 moves and the appearance of the members of your party never changing.

I know right?

How awesome would it have been if they copied Mario RPG and gave every single weapon its own identity? I mean I know that the Solstice Warriors choose their weapon as part of their training, but they could just... write that part out. And it's not like their training weapon was anything special - you replace it on a whim as you go throughout your journey.

Like I'm going to brainstorm super quick two more weapon types for each character.

Valere - a Twin Blade (slashing) shaped like the moon (maybe that spins a very small aoe on timed hits) and gloves (bashing) for a martial arts moveset.

Zale - a giant hammer (bashing) and a chakrum (ranged slashing) that looks like the sun.

Garl - Forks/Utensils (slashing) that he throws like Ninja Stars and of course the iconic giant frying pan cook characters often have

Serai - A katana and dual pistols. Like seriously she's a ninja and a pirate from the future why doesn't she have a guns option?

Ra'shan - you can literally do anything with this guy for weapons but off the top of my head a potion that bounces like a ball and a potion that just goes boom in a small area would be good - and they could literally be any of the four elements.

B'st - so you steal the mutable character concept from Emeralda from Xenogears, but for his basic attack you only have him whomp whomp? There should have been quests where he gets inspiration for some different attack forms. Again just pulling randomly off the top of my head you could have a tiger form (slashing) and a great eagle form (bashing? Maybe he goes and grabs a rock from somewhere.)

I only say great eagle should be a form because it only makes sense B'st would be inspired by Ra'shan.

[Professor Q]

Honestly, in general it would have been a lot better if they had weapons that changed up strategic options instead of the incredibly boring stat increases that they had.

Like the only thing the current weapon system justifies is the money system, and there's already plenty to spend your money on if they removed weapons from that economy.

It's actually kind of baffling to me that they went with such a streamlined approach, in a genre that has had robust customization starting from the first Final Fantasy game.

[TCSyd]

Sad to say it, but I agree with pretty much everything you wrote.

What bothered me the most was the overuse of prophecy. I was hoping for some kind of subversion at some point, but it never came. The whole sequence with Garl and The Sleeper was absolutely ridiculous.

[PozerWolf]

Originally posted by Professor Q:

Originally posted by orangepoindexter:

the lack of moves/abilities AND the characters never visually changing. That got tiresome VERY quickly seeing the same 3-4 moves and the appearance of the members of your party never changing.

I know right?

I understand this is an indie game, so resources are limited. But I kinda wish there was more utility to the current moveset. I feel one way to fix this issue is to have the Combo meter just not be available at all, and have dual skills tied to Mana so you can use it whenever.
So for example, instead of waiting for the Combo meter to fill to use a specific skill, I can just have both characters use their MP to achieve that same move. Of course, there would need to be some balance with the move itself and the amount of MP it'll consume, but this will create variations in fighting enemies going forward. I mean, this is how Chrono had it set (aside from both their TPs needed to be filled to do it as well).

[Professor Q]

Well the game has fully animated cutscenes and other pretty unique animations. I'm not really sure how many more resources it would really take to add more weapon types to the game, especially since those animations are highly repeated.

Even using the same animations they could have had more under-the-hood effects, like weapons that applied ailments for a damage loss, or more weapons like the silver ones that were good against specific creature types. They could also have added more effect animations, I mean the Crystal Sword in FFIV is literally just a stat upgrade mechanically but it made a really cool sound and a special slash animation when you used it.

There are budget ways they could have created variety, but again I'm not even sure for a few more battle animations that budget was necessarily the problem here.


Given how slow mana accumulation could be, I kind of liked the combo points as a separate resource. What I would change about them though is I'd accumulate them separately per character and only spend points from characters that actually participated in the combo. That would allow you to see more combo executions, and possibly more variety aside from a just spending the points on the AOE heal, Conflagrate, that stunning volley Ra'shan and Serai do, or Soonrang.

[ShardofTruth]

I really enjoyed the game and still agree with almost all of your points, yet I wouldn't call it "not a complete waste of time", especially when your major grievances are only with the combat and the story, there is so much more to it (as you told yourself in the beginning).

Anyway, I don't agree that the older solstice warriors' betrayal is forced or stupid. From their perspective it made perfect sense to flee the world that only had suffering in store for them. What didn't make sense is how this basically didn't effect Zala or Valere in any meaningful way or the outcome of their arc which was essentially another Messenger tie-in again.
Before the final confrontation in the Clockwork Castle the dweller of torment was defeated, one of the main reasons Brugaves and Erlina went on with their plan. So naturally I hoped this topic would be brought up between the four of them but no, it's ignored.

[Professor Q]

I saw that argument made in a different thread, and I think that's a fine perspective. I still think it's extremely underbaked though and as you say when Torment is dead there's still an opening wide open for redemption but Zale and Valere don't seem to want to talk at all.

[shtj94]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with all of your points. I finished the game just a while ago and I wanted to create a similar thread, too, but you already said everything I wanted to say.

Except one thing, I guess, the level designs. SoS has one of the best level designs in any JRPG I've played, and I play a lot. Just the simple addition of jumping, climbing, walking on tightrope, the grappling hook, etc add so much to exploration. Makes the areas feel dynamic and not just a corridor to walk in. The levels are also absolutely beautiful. Coral Cascade, Glacier Peak, Songshroom Marsh blew me away when I first entered them. I'm playing Bravely Default 2 after finishing SoS and wow it's such a downgrade.

SoS does as much as a Metroidvania game should do with its NPCs, the problem is that it's a JRPG.

This seems like the biggest problem of nearly all aspects of the game, not just NPCs. The story beats, the worldbuilding, even some aspects of the gameplay feel like they're designed for Metroidvanias. The areas I mentioned above, even though I enjoy them very much, does feel like "just levels" rather than actual parts of a world. The Coral Cascade, for example, we don't know what it is, how it was formed, what's its significance to the residents of Brisk, we know nothing other than it's a beach/water-themed level. It could be easily fixed by having some Brisk NPCs talk about it.

The two main protagonist thing is a major problem too. I think they wanted you to be able to pick the sex of the main character, but also wanted the main character to be their own thing, so they designed a game with two protagonists to accommodate. I picked Valere because I thought being the Monk was more interesting than the sun blade, and I'll be darned if I couldn't remember Kale's name for most of the game because he really just doesn't do anything. I remembered Valere because she's who I was controlling and making decisions with, and Kale just got relegated to her shadow for some reason.

lol @Kale.
You can actually switch who the party leader is anytime you want. Which affects absolutely nothing, btw. I switch the leader every now and then just because.

But yeah I agree with this. They could smash Valere and Zale into a single protagonist and basically nothing important in the story would change (except for the Solstice Warriors Pair setting).

Actually, I think it would be better if they just had been a single, silent protagonist. The two MCs's problem is that they just don't do anything. It's always Garl, or an outside force, who took the initiative for the party to do ANYTHING. Valere and Zale always feel like they're just along for the ride. At least if they're silent it would make sense player expectation-wise. By making them talking characters, they're now half-assed, boring characters.

Back to Sea of Stars, they decided to have TWO main protagonists, neither of which have an arc or growth throughout the story, and then they added Garl, who is basically the game's Gon character.

Oh yeah, speaking of Garl...

GARL IS AN UNBEARABLE MARY SUE WHO NEEDS TO STOP HOGGING THE SPOTLIGHT FROM EVERYONE ELSE. SERAI'S WORLD IS THE BEST PART BECAUSE HE'S DEAD.

[Professor Q]

Lol at your last comment. I liked Garl but I could totally see that perspective.


I was chatting with my friend some more about it and it might have been amusing if Zale and Valere were BOTH silent protagonists, and they were forced to pantomime everything like Mario does in Mario RPG. I mean the game already has a silly slant to it, might as well.

[597]

I look at them as the Krishna type figure who are only boring because they are perfect. I don't think they hurt the story, which already uses many other messianic and creation myth conventions anyway. The story isn't about them. It's about how tortured and unbalanced people (Garl included) react to the incarnations of gods.

I disagree with people claiming they have no personality at all, or that they both have the exact same personality. You have to ignore some big chunks of the game to think either.

They're just not as theatrical and insane as the other 4 leads.

[Professor Q]

Originally posted by 597:

I look at them as the Krishna type figure who are only boring because they are perfect. I don't think they hurt the story, which already uses many other messianic and creation myth conventions anyway. The story isn't about them. It's about how tortured and unbalanced people (Garl included) react to the incarnations of gods.

I disagree with people claiming they have no personality at all, or that they both have the exact same personality. You have to ignore some big chunks of the game to think either.

They're just not as theatrical and insane as the other 4 leads.

I'm okay with them being bland. They just needed a better supporting cast if the story was going to accomplish anything meaningful.

They also needed to cut the first hour of the game and just go en media res if no component of the story was going to be about their personal growth. Yeah they grow in power, but they're rarely truly challenged, which is what people mean when they're complaining that Zale and Valere don't have any personality.