Saturday, June 8, 2013

Scenes from the Historia

Now it's just a matter of time. But, along the way there are still some really cool sidequests - especially since some of them fork off into completion and one of Radiant Historia's many bad endings. The most recent of these showed Marco's rage erupting after Stocke sent an old friend of his to her doom. The bundled mercenary kills everyone in your party, save for Stocke, but, since Eruca's dead, the desertification of the world continues unabated.

Awesome "Game Over" (or as the game prefers "Fin") scenes aside, there are some problems with its cutscenes.

In the scenes with Marco's old friend, for example, we're expected to assume that they're close based on their short burst of dialogue. Because Marco's usually played as a comic relief character, getting us to care about him and this character that's interacted with for less than a minute isn't easy to do. The game gets us to recognize their relationship, but it doesn't give it quite enough impact. I'd go so far to say that it's a handheld version of something a console game like Xenoblade Chronicles would probably make utterly expansive.

Just before the scene with Marco and his friend, we're treated to another. This one features Raynie explaining why Cygnus is important to her. As a character that we've seen develop from nearly the start of the game, it's a much more effective scene - even if it's an aspect of her character developed within the last 1/2 hour or so of gameplay.

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