Is Falcom legitimately afraid of portraying death?

[erect2protect]

I've had this complaint festering in me for quite a while. Don't get me wrong, I've played all of the games and have thoroughly enjoyed them all. But I still can't understand why Falcom is so opposed to the idea of showing some of their beloved characters bite the dust. I think its ok for me to delve into spoilers since this is a forum on Reverie, which would assume you have played all the games before.

Cold Steel 3's ending would have had a bigger impact if everyone on the Couregeous would have indeed died. I honestly did think they were all dead but was both relieved and annoyed that they would cop out on what I thought at the time was a holy s*** moment. But now that as I finished the game in its entirety including the Coda episode, I can't help but feel like we missed out on some good storytelling because of cop outs. Like I personally would have loved to see how they would have overcome the Great Twilight without Olivier, Toval and the rest who were on the ship.

Reverie too had an obvious moment in the end where you think (MASSIVE SPOILER if you havent beat the game, this is your last chance) Rufus is gonna actually sacrifice himself but it turns out to be a calculation made by Elysium showing what was gonna happen. I'm not by any means saying he should have died cause I really liked his route but I think he should have died. Sure it would have been a sad way to go because he got everyone to hate him so that the tower would shoot the laser back at his location. But that would made a fine end to his story but Falcom once again shows that they are unable to commit to their actions and always cop out in the end. It makes me wonder if Kuro no Kiseki is gonna be like that too, (which I have a feeling it will be)

[RTSsence]

At this point, not giving any weight to actual deaths among any of the main casts is here to stay. You're in for somewhat of a salvation on Kuro attempting to actually go darker in how it handles death, can't say if you'll be happy on how its sequel handles it, tho.

[erect2protect]

Originally posted by RTSsence:

At this point, not giving any weight to actual deaths among any of the main casts is here to stay. You're in for somewhat of a salvation on Kuro attempting to actually go darker in how it handles death, can't say if you'll be happy on how its sequel handles it, tho.

ahh that's kinda disappointing to hear but I guess it really has become the norm. I'll still play these games because I've already invested too much time into it to give up now.

[RTSsence]

Originally posted by erect2protect:

Originally posted by RTSsence:

At this point, not giving any weight to actual deaths among any of the main casts is here to stay. You're in for somewhat of a salvation on Kuro attempting to actually go darker in how it handles death, can't say if you'll be happy on how its sequel handles it, tho.

ahh that's kinda disappointing to hear but I guess it really has become the norm. I'll still play these games because I've already invested too much time into it to give up now.

Some day, it's gonna come to bite them in the ass if they keep their always-low-stakes-while-exploring-heavy-themes act. It doesn't need to be Vandal Hearts-level of grimdark, but it sure as hell wouldn't kill them to try and kill off some major characters.

[Candyman2000]

Originally posted by RTSsence:

At this point, not giving any weight to actual deaths among any of the main casts is here to stay. You're in for somewhat of a salvation on Kuro attempting to actually go darker in how it handles death, can't say if you'll be happy on how its sequel handles it, tho.

cept thats not true because they use time travel as the next big cliche.... i swear to god this series is dead if they can't find a better writer to takeover i'm not expecting anything insanely good but the level this series is at is insanely low tier.

[RTSsence]

Originally posted by Candyman2000:

Originally posted by RTSsence:

At this point, not giving any weight to actual deaths among any of the main casts is here to stay. You're in for somewhat of a salvation on Kuro attempting to actually go darker in how it handles death, can't say if you'll be happy on how its sequel handles it, tho.

cept thats not true because they use time travel as the next big cliche.... i swear to god this series is dead if they can't find a better writer to takeover i'm not expecting anything insanely good but the level this series is at is insanely low tier.

Uhhh, gonna have to ask you to spoiler that, because this is the Reverie forums, after all.

[Candyman2000]

the big spoiler is the writing is still crap i guess i could put that in spoiler tags.

[RTSsence]

I'm referring to the plot reveal, I'm just asking you out of etiquette. Since this sure ain't the latest game's board.

[erect2protect]

I saw the spoiler but I'll most likely forget about it considering how long these games take to get localized but damn, that sounds pretty silly. Silly as it may be, I think it still makes sense considering this game just had an AI that could predict the future and alternate dimensions within dimensions.

[Candyman2000]

Originally posted by erect2protect:

I saw the spoiler but I'll most likely forget about it considering how long these games take to get localized but damn, that sounds pretty silly. Silly as it may be, I think it still makes sense considering this game just had an AI that could predict the future and alternate dimensions within dimensions.

that's the problem is anything makes sense when you're literally just scraping the bottom of the barrel for any old cliche that hasn't already been done by the series what else is left at this point. an alternative evil reality full of evil versions of all the series favourites, super hero powers ala my hero academia, tie everything into the ys series i dunno this series is going to keep going but i'm out.

[Candyman2000]

go full on stupid bring in aliens then you could have something like demons vs aliens vs humans.

[erect2protect]

Originally posted by Candyman2000:

Originally posted by erect2protect:

I saw the spoiler but I'll most likely forget about it considering how long these games take to get localized but damn, that sounds pretty silly. Silly as it may be, I think it still makes sense considering this game just had an AI that could predict the future and alternate dimensions within dimensions.

that's the problem is anything makes sense when you're literally just scraping the bottom of the barrel for any old cliche that hasn't already been done by the series what else is left at this point. an alternative evil reality full of evil versions of all the series favourites, super hero powers ala my hero academia, tie everything into the ys series i dunno this series is going to keep going but i'm out.

lol i have jokingly said to my friend before that Ys is probably the original zemurian civilization due to how YS 6 had the Ark of Naphistim and seemingly modern tech with the robots on the final dungeon and ♥♥♥♥

[Stabbey]

If Falcom doesn't want to kill characters off, fine... but if that's the case, then they should stop jerking the audience around with fake-out, "these people are absolutely dead/doomed, for reals" moments.

I'm not even talking about "person falls off the cliff out of sight" things. At the end of CS 2, Crow was impaled through the chest, a very karmic moment with a cherry of redemption on top. He got a big long dying speech, died on-screen, in the main character's arms, with everyone going "there's nothing we can do". They brought him back, and he got to give two MORE, additional, big long dying speeches and he ended up living twice more.

Things like that just undercuts the emotional stakes. It's the boy crying wolf. Falcom has done this enough that these big manipulative "we're REALLY going to kill these people, no kidding, for real" attempts just fall flat. I felt nothing when the Courageous went down, because I didn't believe they were going to really do it, despite cutting to everyone on board going "well, we're screwed."

[JamesClawk]

Originally posted by Stabbey:

If Falcom doesn't want to kill characters off, fine... but if that's the case, then they should stop jerking the audience around with fake-out, "these people are absolutely dead/doomed, for reals" moments.

I'm not even talking about "person falls off the cliff out of sight" things. At the end of CS 2, Crow was impaled through the chest, a very karmic moment with a cherry of redemption on top. He got a big long dying speech, died on-screen, in the main character's arms, with everyone going "there's nothing we can do". They brought him back, and he got to give two MORE, additional, big long dying speeches and he ended up living twice more.

Things like that just undercuts the emotional stakes. It's the boy crying wolf. Falcom has done this enough that these big manipulative "we're REALLY going to kill these people, no kidding, for real" attempts just fall flat. I felt nothing when the Courageous went down, because I didn't believe they were going to really do it, despite cutting to everyone on board going "well, we're screwed."

I made a thread with a lot of similar points and it was genuinely shocking to me how many people just went "If you want a bloodbath, this series isn't for you!" as if that was at all the point.

[Experiment1]

Even if characters did died, they have ways of bringing them back to life. Look at Crow/Millium. Falcom is definitely a huge fan of Dragon Ball Z

[Ogami]

Yeah Kuro starts out stronger in that regard and then throws it all away in Kuro 2.
Sigh.