What is the message of the game ?

[Gat]

The story of the game seems to be about giving in and letting go. The gameplay is about trying hard and never giving up.

This doesn't match up.


It's possible to make a very hard game, with a message about trying hard and do as much as you can; eg Celeste.

It's possible to make an easy game, with a message about letting thing go; eg outer Wild. Special mention if the story doesn't let the character just give up - allowing the character to let go becomes the goal of the game.

It's possible to do something in between; eg Another crab's treasure, where the message is that you should do stuff even if it doesn't seem to change anything.

But "try hard and don't give up while we write some banalities about giving in and letting go" ? It just doesn't work. It feels like someone in the marketing team said "games with some pseudo-philosophical message have more success", so they added some pseudo-philosophy, but no one in the whole game designers team cared about this philosophy stuff.

The only consistent message conveyed in the game seems to be "you shouldn't care about what people want, you know better what is good for them". That is the reproach Heng do to Yi, but even after remembering it, he still do the same with Shuanshuan and the game is quite clear that Yi is right. In the other hand, the gameplay is all about doing exactly what the game wants (parry when the game says so, dodge when the game says so, attack only when it's your turn) because the development team knows better what is fun to you.

... Is that really is good message to convey? Or did the scenarists fumble so much that they said exactly the contrary of what they wanted to say? This hypothesis is quite consistent with the hypothesis no one in the game designers team cared about the pseudo-philosophical message the marketing team wanted...

[Naberius]

The game's main philosophy is inspired by the principles of the Tao. With the main message of the game being inspired by it.
The Tao is a hard concept to understand, since it is supposed to be something you experience and learn through life. "following the flow of life" would be a decent way to put it in just a few words, but it is also a philoosophy about cycles and completing those cycles.

First, the two cycles :

Yi is following the path of Lear, the leader of the fangshi clan that created peace in Penglai through technology, only to see his closest friends betraying their ideals and using the powers they gained for themselves. Lear Killed them, then decided to hide technology, create a doctrine of passivity, then subsumed into the roots.

Yi, came out of the roots, worked with the most brilliant minds of his era in a pursuit of scientific achievements, was betrayed by his closest friends, killed them then returns to the Tao.

The gameplay functions actually in a way that closely ressembles the ideals of the Tao. It is all about seeing and following an unseen path. Learning to recognize the fighting patterns in your bones without thinking. Fighting in Nine Sols once you are good at the game isn't a struggle. It's an idea of "effortless action" leading to victory.

This is also reflected in the story : by using a lot of effort, going against the natural order, Eiong created the Tianhuo, Yi created the brain-harvesting factories. Both having terrible impact on the world around them.

Yi goes onto his revenge quest, but doing so only makes it harder for himself : Eiong wouldn't have been able to acquire the sols' keys without him. Yi tries to teach ShuanShuan about his own world, but ShuanShuan manages to glimpse a lot of truth that Yi had refused to see. ShuanShuan's childish observations seem wise next to Yi's cynical remarks.

The ending is Yi accepting to destroy his life's work, to allow every solarian to return to the Tao, mirroring Lear's actions and closing the loop of the cycle he had started.

---


> "you shouldn't care about what people want, you know better what is good for them".

I have no idea where you found that in the game. Clearly Yi and Eiong spent their entire life following that principle, both of them were clearly wrong. Yi is a mass-murderer that can only be redeemed through destroying his creation and setting the apemen free.

Through every interactions with ShuanShuan, Yi is shown to be growing and learning from the kid's viewpoint, out of the two of them, the one closest to be living a happy, fulfilling life is ShuanShuan.

[TurboTired]

The big reveal about the virus ruined the main theme of the game, IMO.

[Rowan Skye]

Originally posted by TurboTired:

The big reveal about the virus ruined the main theme of the game, IMO.

It all still boils down to "balance is better than extremism".

[Wraithlord]

Main message I got from the game is that cats are bastards.

[Ventus]

Balance. That's the message. That's the core of Taoism. Take control of your life, but don't try to grasp too tightly.
Lear is the perfect example of this. He tried to create a Utopia with technology, but quickly realized that the endless pursuit of technology was eventually going to lead his people to their own destruction, so he fought back against progress. Ultimately though, he could not do anything to stop future generations from continuing down that path. He accepted that there was only so much control he could have over the world. Eventually, you just gotta let go and allow things to take their course. Eigong was the antithesis of this. Her relentless pursuit of immortality lead to the destruction of her people. Meanwhile, Yi could have ended up just like her, but he was grounded by his sister, who was a traditionalist.

[Chronobyte]

The message I took from it is Goumang did nothing wrong