Glory To The Walister! | Tactics Ogre Analysis (Ep.6) | State of the Arc Podcast
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 січ 2024
- We finished the game! We got the "sad" ending on the neutral route. The ending was quite good, in our opinion. Let's talk about it!
Time Codes:
1.
**We’re Now On Spotify**: open.spotify.com/show/4gIzzvT...
**Listen On Soundcloud**: / resonantarc
**Listen On iTunes**: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
**Listen On Pocket Cast**: pca.st/NJsJ
Patreon Page: / resonantarc
Subscribe Star: www.subscribestar.com/resonan...
Twitter: / resonantarc
Facebook: / resonantarc
Instagram: / resonantarc
TikTok: / resonantarc - Ігри
![Drowning in Desert Sands [Spoilers] | Spec Ops: The Line (Ep.2) | State of the Arc Podcast](/img/n.gif)
Bravo Ivan for being one hell of a guide for this!
There's an extra layer here I love, where despite what Hamilton says, he has one outcome in Ogre Battle where he will kill the main character to let his buddy ascend the throne at the end. He stabs you from behind despite all his talk. (You can also have him as a vampire at this point, which hilariously makes it seem like he just got hungry)
I mean, talking of mirrored characters, you could easily see that Tartaros is making an argument for MotBQ Tyrant Ending Hamilton to MotBQ Lord Ending Hamilton here, right? But not just that, you could also argue that Hamilton is making the argument that KoL B Route Tartaros might make.... to KoL A+ Route Tartaros.
Man, this channel really is a gem. I know sometimes people give you a hard time about how you choose to go about experiencing these works, but it's only because they love and care so much about them and they want you to experience all the best of it. But you guys engage with media on a real, human level. You don't just play through a game once and be done with it. You contemplate. Your engagement is not shallow, you think not only about how these stories apply to yourselves but also to the world at large. It's evident how much thought you give to these works and as a fan of these niche RPGs it's the biggest sign of respect in my opinion. I'm so happy I discovered this channel last year and I can't wait to see what you guys do this year.
This channel deserves more views and subs!!
The fate of the Holy Knight Lancelot really stuck with me after the credits. I didn't expect that kind of ending for the character, but I think it's really important because it truly shows us that no one is immune or safe from the cost of war. Even the greatest heroes from the previous war. Not many games from this era would convey a message like that. (And it's the same no matter which ending you get.)
Lancelot Hamilton probably left the biggest impression on me of any character, despite how little screen time his story gets overall. There's also some extra dialogue between Denam and the Xenobians regarding Lancelot Hamilton in the Princess ending, which is pretty interesting and sad. But I'll comment on that when they get to that.
I'm a hardcore Lanselot Tartaros fangirl, which perhaps puts me at odds with Hamilton. (The most interesting thing about him from the previous game was that everyone I knew always made him their vampire?) So I was surprised when my husband played Reborn for the first time, he was really attached to Hamilton, too. For as little screen time as he gets, you're right, he does make an impression.
Now I just need Knight of Lodis to get a remaster so I can lure my husband back over to the dark side of Lanses.
Brynhildr's history is a little more interesting than portrayed here. Three humans, the first three dragoons ever, stood with the gods against the ogres, and they were rewarded for their efforts, allowed to ascend to the sky islands just below the true heavens. Fenril wielded Brynhildr in battle, a blade to break all seals, but after the humans began fighting among themselves, the gods closed off the way to the sky islands and the heavens with the same seal used to lock away the ogres. The gods lost faith in mankind.
But Fenril believed that a day would come when humans needed the gods again, needed those three dragoons again. So she cast down Brynhildr from her sky island. When she did so, the gods forbade her from ascending to heaven until she retrieved the sword.
The main series villain doesn't need Brynhildr because he seduced an angel into opening the seals to the sky islands and netherworld for him. But if you gather the zodiac stones (hello, FFT) and Brynhildr, you can break open the way to the sky islands, where you find the dragoons enscrolled with evil magic. You free them, and if you do the A+ ending, you give Fenril back the sword so that she can finally ascend to heaven.
The fact that Xenobia has Brynhildr at all means that the A+ ending isn't canon. Xenobia betrayed Fenril and kept the sword, cursing her to never ascend. Matsuno has said that, canonically, what happens at the end of each game is a mix of all endings. But every time I see "The Saint King of Xenobia, Tristian," I remember that given the choice between obeying his promise to Fenril or keeping the holy sword for his own purposes.... he kept the sword, which is why Lanselot was able to steal it.
Xenobia codes as a good guy, but replaying the series made me realize that both Valeria and Palatinus are completely right to mistrust Xenobia. Not that I think Canopus is evil or anything, just that from a world politics perspective, all other kingdoms would know of Xenobia is that they claim to be righteous but they invaded Xytgenia and conquered it, and for all their faith, when given the choice between power and righteousness, they would not relinquish Brynhildr.
Good observation and I'll admit my memory of Ogre Battle isn't as good as it is with this game so I never caught this detail. Thank you.
@@orcbrand I benefited greatly from replaying MotBQ and OB64 recently, which helped me catch a lot of things I'd missed =] Honestly, I hope OB64 gets the Alexander O. Smith translation treatment. Tweaking the writing in that game could really elevate it, and there's a lot of moments that feel like maybe the American version is missing something. This last time through, I read all the little Hugo Report entries for people, and it turns out Aisha, the Roshofel/Xenobian priest who joins you, apparently has a long history with the Lodissian commanders who show up?
When you're in Southern Nirdam/Nildhame, too, if you revisit the coastal cities, they're all talking about the war raging in Valeria at that moment.
It's probably too much to hope for a full series remaster or remake, but who ever expected Tactics Ogre: Reborn to happen, right?
It’s tough to say, given that OB64/PoLC wasn’t worked on by Matsuno directly… yet it still fits in with his world, as does TO:KoL. So if he were to get involved (which he may need to be, as Alex O. Smith and him are close acquaintances if not friends)… well, who knows?
Would be nice to make a lot of this series more accessible and available to modern audiences, of course. Given most these days haven’t been exposed to others than the TO remakes and might find something even more appealing in MOTBQ or OB64. Among other things, of course.
@@borjankosarac3645 I do wonder how OB64 would have gone with Matsuno at the helm. On the one hand, I'd heard that it was completely unrelated to what he wanted. Then I got the A+ ending in MotBQ which is really just Destin/Debonair/Aisha/Saradin/Gilbert all being like "Let's go do [the plot of OB64." So in terms of staying true to the A+ ending, they were spot on.
On the other hand, I feel like they were almost the "let autocorrect finish your sentence" version of what Matsuno started. It's not enough to be true to what came before, you need to bring something new to the table. (America's Legendary Godzilla stays true to the history, Japan's Shin Godzilla goes into new territory kinda thing.)
That said, I'm not sure any Ogre Saga entry is quite as fun to just pick up and play as OB64. If they could keep that core gameplay with Matsuno remaking the plot and Alexander O. Smith handling the localization... I think it has a lot of potential to reach a wider audience than Reborn.
Also, fun note on the gates, but this was also set up back in Ogre Battle. Termites destroy castle walls, and Hawkmen will just fly over them. If you want to pick your fight, you fight outside in this universe 😂
Also, every octopus, dragon, gryphon, golem, or chicken is a stepstool that lets you bypass gates. And if those Xenobians had brought a single Xenobian gryphon with them, he could lift an entire army over the walls while holding a battleaxe in his beak.
"We could break through the walls, or we could have two gryphons fly us over."
"A Xenobian gryphon, or a Palatinean gryphon?"
"Well, a Xenobian gryphon, obviously. A Palatinean gryphon can't fly anything bigger than a faerie across a brook."
Great job Ivan!!
"Listen to me Denam. You must save Catiua! Do this...only this." I really love this line from Denam's father. It hits really hard when you realize he actually tells you how to get the only good ending in the game. You just have to save Catiua. Denam's hands and image are just to dirty for the throne. Even if he were to live Lodis can act like a "hero" by killing him with an army and "liberate" Valeria since his actions paint him as just another "warlord" in Valeria, just like how Lodis did for Bolmocca (similar not same exactly). If people dont unite they fold as Andoras already warned him.
Which is the significance of why the 30+ CF for all three clans gives you the “best” ending for Denam as king; no matter how much he can appeal to all three clans for general positivity, he’s still too controversial a figure to truly make Valeria “strong… like a rock”; there will be cracks in his armour, dissidence like with the Tigers of Burnham, and Lodis will strike at those cracks to shatter the shield and seize the isle for themselves. A lesser writer might have been tempted to put like, a 60+ or more (or heck, as much as 90+ ending that might even need Xenobian and Lodissian approval on some level if not the same), but even putting aside the way you could cheat to get it? Even with that, it would undermine the thematic point.
Regardless of how you feel with Catiua’s turn, if you might consider it too easy or quick a turn after all the negative character growth she had (as a TriStrat fan, I can relate with one aspect of the Golden Ending you can get there on THAT front?) Even despite all that, I admire how it emphasises Denam fully realising what Prancet tells him and puts his own biases aside for it; personally I think it works best on either the Neutral or Lawful routes, but it’s equally as valid for a well-done Chaotic… even if the Gilbald ending which they’ll go for, is made easier by getting Cressida as it boosts your Galgastani CF closer to the Walister one (and is Catiua is dead before you take Heim you can boost Bakram while dropping the other two, albeit not excessively if you have enough for them…)
It’s almost like Coffee Potato and his point about various permutations is quite valid, eh?
"Denan become a stone in our path to salvation"
Total foreshadow that you are not the MC after all, you are not fit to rule VALERIA just to help the rightful heir ascend.
This ending is one of the only times a video game has given me legit chills. It was so well executed and unexpected.
People give Neutral a hard time and to an extent that's true, however I would like to justify the use of the Nybeth plotline. Though it isn't directly related to the main plot, thematically it's still well connected.
The situation focuses on Denam allying with people who are also in a state of limbo between two things. For Denam it's Law and Chaos and what they imply and for Oelias it's Life and Death itself. They're stuck in a sort of broken state in a broken world made by the two forces clashing with eachother constantly.
Nybeth is a great arc villain because he is everything Neutral Denam has grown to hate the most about this war. Nybeth is the kind of person who carries such a lofty sense of purpose with no actual moral restraints to get to them. He speaks of his goals with such idealistic eyes yet is willing to go the darkest routes to get to it. For that reason Nybeth is comparable to the extremes inherent in both Law and Chaos.
Some of the best burns comes from Denam towards Nybeth in chapter 3 and it really shows that Neutral Denam is starting to get his groove down. People call him wishy-washy, but I always feel that while he makes compromises he shows resolve in being the only real person here willing to show self-restraint. Without it we get people like Nybeth.
Denam's lines when he faces Nybeth at the Palace of the Dead are really good. He basically calls him out for always running away and says no matter what history will remember him facing down the resistance here and losing, so its irrelevant whatever he says or does anyway. Great delivery by the VA here too.
He also plays into the themes of the game, of clinging together and being attached to others, and adds color and shading to what it means to lose someone you care about, what it means to die, and what you are willing to do to get them back, which puts all the other deaths in the game in relief. The dialogue between him and Oelias in the previous chapter is my favorite scene in the game for this reason. It's not directly tied to the plot, but it's on par with Catiua's final scenes when it comes to show what it means to care about others, and on the other hand, what it means when you lose them.
Something that's also easy to miss is that some scenes play out in a slightly different (but much more interesting way) in Neutral, too. I agree with you about Nybeth (and with @orcbrand about the PotD scene being a highlight, wtf moment). But only in Neutral do you get some extra lines both about how Xenobia is lying about their reason for being here (Canopus/Oz dialogue) but then in private, when Lanselot scolds Martym and Barbas, the Neutral version talks about how important it is that Lodis do nothing that might make Xenobia invade. It's not a ton of extra dialogue, but they'd been things I'd wondered about having done Chaos first, so they stood out to me. (And doing Law right after, I was watching to see if maybe that route also explained them, but it was only Neutral.)
@@orcbrand Much as I love LUCT, Nybeth's story really shines in Reborn thanks to those great voice actors, doesn't it?
I remember appreciating them using the idea of corruption at the top being the result of the common people allowing it to happen (the Solzhenitsyn mention was apt). That happens more often than we like to admit, whether it be in politics, business, or whatever, anywhere there's a hierarchy.
Of note, one-eyed Lans is Alphonse, the protagonist of a different Tactics Ogre game set in the same universe, TO: Knight of Lodis. That game serves as his backstory, and under some extreme conditions you can get a A+ ending that reveals the link between the two characters.
The final boss of that game also gives some weight about what Casen talks about with fallen angels at the end of this... definitely worth a look.
Getting the bad end in March of the Black Queen still stays with me where I got the tyrant end. If I never played that I probably would never get into this series
I really like the "bad" ending as well because it directly ties back to the start of chapter talks between the two Lanselot: "The quickest way to the throne is a knife to the King's ribs".
Guess a bullet works as well ;)
Brynhildr is the norse valkyrie that dies in a fire.
I'm so behind due to the holiday season but again thank you again for your hard work. It's really appreciated
Whoops, I didn't realize that Chapter 4 is basically the same across playthroughs. I skipped the Neutral route and am playing through the Chaos route. I'm not done with it, though, so going to have to revisit this once I'm through it. Glad to see that this is a long video though! Something to look forward to as I catch back up.
I’ve really appreciated Ivan’s insight and it helps to have a loremaster flesh out things that I missed from my initial play through. I do however think that in future podcasts, if you are to have a 3rd party join digitally, it would help for the conversation to be more structured. It isn’t that having a 3rd person makes things worse, but that two of you are communicating in person while the other isn’t. So we can see that the pacing of the conversation is difficult when the person over zoom/discord is trying to smoothly enter your existing dialogue or interject. This is different from when everyone is joining remotely, like the end of the FFXVI podcast which had more panelists, but was smoother because everyone was using the same medium.
I’m sure you both are already thinking about this so this isn’t anything new, I just want to share that I did find a third perspective very useful, refreshing and worth pursuing for future games, just in a more rigid/planned out way if they are remote. Having a guest panelist in person for select episodes would be incredible and would be a great form of collaboration IMO.
I wish anyone reading this comment to have a great day.
We hope you have a good day, too.
You too man.
You too!
And I wish them a thousand jezeboofs
Man... I thought you guys would take some days off. You legends 👏
Good luck on the bar Ivan! Great podcast as usual and can’t wait to see how you two feel about the other two routes!
To see the two Lancelots debate it's really something you don't know who is right, both ? none ?
To Casen's point about finding arguments interesting(not the best paraphrase, I know he didn't mean it in a "I like conflict" kind of way), but I do think it's good to remember that conflict and argument isn't inherently bad.
Competition, conflict, confrontation and so forth is fuel for development, progress and evolution. Harmony and peace often results in stagnation and conflict-aversion can be bad in its own right.
Like with most things, a healthy balance is important. Harmony is an ideal for tempering unnecessary conflict and maintaining what we want. Conflict is a tool for forging improvement and ridding ourselves of what we don't want.
Casen's comment was interesting because it's so different from how I view the world. Like, it was cast as an "everyone" statement, but it made me realize that... I probably would have made the exact opposite sweeping statement if put on the spot: that people will always search for friendship, harmony, and what they have in common first rather than defaulting to conflict and disagreement.
I imagine nobody is all one way or the other, not even Casen or I, but it's so rare that you hear someone make a statement that's exactly the opposite of how you believe every single human operates, and you need to reconsider.
@@ValeVin
As a person who thrives in competition, finds harmony boring and enjoys it when people are at each-other's throats, I'm always genuinly surprised when I find people who are legitimately pro-social and fairly conflict-avoidant. They're like precious flowers in the wild that requires protection and support =P
Honestly though, I think the truth is that the human condition as far as pro-social/anti-social tendencies are concerned, are disparately distributed based on particular circumstances relating to resources. I think people are pro-social when they can afford to(primary/secondary needs met, and mental reserves full) and then we grow more and more anti-social the further away from that we get.
@@hian It's funny, because I was thinking that people would be more competitive when their needs were met, because if they alienated friends/family/lovers/support, they'd be okay. Whereas when times are dire, we cling together like a Queen song to make sure we take care of each other.
Here's an example of how I work, though. An author friend wanted to write a million words that year, so we decided we'd challenge each other: first to a million words.
It didn't help us be any more productive. It made things worse, really. But the next year, we changed the challenge. Now, it was both of us trying to get to two million words before the year ended. Suddenly, the more I wrote, the more I might be covering for her getting sick and not being able to write for a few days. All of my extra productivity was making someone else's life less stressful, and whereas I might get like 3k written in a day, 5k if I stretched the previous year, now 8k was easier and I'd sometimes do 14,000 words in a single day knowing I was helping someone else.
The real answer to all this is probably that humanity thrives because the world contains challenges of all sorts, and if we're all programmed to work better under different circumstances, someone's always prepared to step up when a new challenge presents itself.
@@ValeVin
I don't think that perspective really maps onto reality. You seem to forget that your needs are met precisely because you aren't alienated by society and would likely cease to be met if you were. There's no such thing as a truly self-sufficient human individual, and the only reason you didn't die in childhood or aren't shanked by some opportunist psychopath looking to take your stuff when you sleep is because a society of pro-social agents contribute to a safe and easy-to-thrive-in ecosystem.
Some people are of course naturally more competitive than others, but when we're speaking of competitions that actually matter, they're something we're driven towards by scarcity and existential threat. This is why human history gets progressively more bloody and anti-social the further back in time you go.
There's a concept known as "moral luck" in psychology/philosophy, which refers to how a lot of our modern moral views, which are usually extensions of extremely pronounced pro-social concerns, are a product of material gains and welfare. Hence, people who are benefactors of such conditions are "morally lucky" in that they have arrived at what appears a forward-thinking moral compass on the basis of never having had to be forced into tight corners when and where "the right thing" and the thing that ensures your survival are at odds.
Meanwhile, people born unlucky in this regard, are conditioned into seeing principles as contingent and quicker to throw them aside at convenience.
This, I think, tracks well with the idea that competitiveness and anti-social behavior becomes more pronounced when material conditions are poor.
I like all the endings personally
That's why some groups don't allow discourse or sharing ideas with those they consider their opponent or enemy. They know once you do you expose yourself and possible weaknesses in those positions and can be open to changing your mind or see the flaws in the overall system their ideas come from even if they still hold to the same ideals. Primarily cults or groups that operate essentially akin to cults.
Excellent episode.
My only criticisms are that not all conflict should or can be avoided, some things are inevitable, and that we can not always forfeit our values for peace. There are lines that can be crossed.
Honestly, the fact that the opening narration of this game boils down to "Peace has come at last to the Valerian Isles..." but the cost of that peace is your people always stuck with me. So many games begin at war and ask the protagonist to bring peace. But Reborn begins with the cost of peace and you rekindling the war, while the main antagonist (Lanselot) is the one who is constantly prioritizing the peace of the isles (and even them having their rightful ruler).
It's an interesting starting point for any RPG.
@@ValeVin it's all nice and good to talk about the cost of war, but no one wants to talk about the cost of peace
Gonna have to save these for later since I recently picked up the game due to the first episode lol
"break the chains of the past", that's Denam's perspective in the Neutral path....hence why I personally prefer Denam's stance in the lawful route, as you'll see when you play it.
I’m glad you liked the assassination ending. That ending is probably my favourite ending in the game, and illustrates the theme of the cyclical nature of violence and conflict well. I’d be curious to know how you feel about the other endings now, especially the “final” one. The shock of the assassination ending compares very well to Final Fantasy Tactics’ post-credit scene with Delita.
My favourite insight from the two of you this episode has to be the predisposition of philosophers towards villainy. As an avid student of philosophy, my own two cents would be (1) the revolutionary nature of the philosophical enterprise, (2) its predisposition to abstract thought and (3) elitism.
Inherent within philosophy itself (“love of wisdom”) is a tendency to be against the status quo and groupthink. To use Nietzsche’s language, the genuine philosopher is the one who imagines a larger goal for humanity and is set against the common people or the last men, so habituated and inundated with the status quo that they are unable to imagine a better future from the present. Philosophers such as Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche are revolutionary for different reasons, insofar as they refuse to acknowledge that all is well with the way things are, and dare to imagine for themselves a brighter future by the premises of their worldview. Given the more conservative nature of a lot of the media we play, it is no wonder then that the heroes are on the side of the status quo or commonplace values and the villains are the renegades who refuse to abide by the way things are.
Furthermore, with the revolutionary nature of philosophy comes its abstractness. Part of the enterprise is the act of imagining a different future, and that imagination necessarily takes one away from concrete existence. It becomes easy for the philosopher to legitimise the slaughter of thousands of people for an imagined utopia, seeing that said imagination takes them further away from the human cost of their ideals.
Given the nature of human beings to discriminate between themselves and others, the philosophical “love of wisdom” can all too quickly become its opposite, the “hatred of stupidity”, and we can see that from thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger who have a vitriolic hatred of stupidity and commonplace thinking in the world.
Take all three factors together (the revolutionary enterprise, the givenness of philosophy to abstract thinking, and the elitism therein), and it becomes a recipe for villains who imagine the world differently, who have a strong philosophical dislike of the present (especially the indolence and the stupidity of the people), and who are willing to enforce their philosophy in scores of blood.
@@michs7451 As a great philosopher villain once said "You aren't the only one to grow up on the killing fields. War is a cruel parent, but an effective teacher. Its final lesson is carved deep in my psyche: that this world, and all of its people, are diseased. Free will is a myth. Religion is a joke. We are all pawns, controlled by something greater: Memes, the DNA of the soul"
The scene between the two Lanselots is my favorite scene in Tactics Ogre. It’s so well written. Also the VA for the intro of the PSP version is Simon Templeman his most notable role is Kain from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver so yeah he has far more gravitas as the narrator of the intro than in Reborn.
I feel it's flawed in that the Holy Knight doesn't raise any good points or flaws in the Dark Knight's argument. One is allowed to monologue and the other give weak rebuttals. Even if the Holy Knight felt some of it true, it was obvious the Dark Knight was as blind as Casen was pointing out. If the observer/player can see it right away, it shows bad writing if a character engaged in that seen can't make note of it as well.
@@blumiu2426 I felt like Holy Knight Lancelot did a good job pushing back. Maybe it just doesn't feel like it because Tartaros has a lot more dialogue in the scene?
Here are Hamilton's lines:
"Always binding people to your will, fettering them lest they show signs of free thought. Perhaps therein lies your problem?"
"They... ask? You're mad!"
"These people have the right to live out their own lives, not fill some part in a play of your design!"
"Man is not so slothful a creature as that. They... merely lack our strength."
"You are Mad. you call this 'rule'? This trampling underfoot of all who disagree with you?"
"No, as the body strives to mend itself, so does the heart. These people you so despise may one day astonish you with their valor!"
Seems like he did a good job to me. Especially considering he looks like he's been beaten and tortured for who knows how long.
Saving this for tomorrow when I go back to work but thank you legends! Happy new year!
The part about the Dark Knights being super dysfunctional is very true. Really does make you wonder if they got their positions by appointment or by merit (I know for many of them it's just nepotism).
It really makes you think, doesn’t it? My personal feeling is that for instance, while the Moh Glacius twins definitely had the edge in class, they also had the skill to back it up: Ozma is mostly level-headed and calculating so she’s respected by her troops, while Oz despite lesser discipline both appeals to his men’s baser traits AND willingness to fight with them without cowardice. Contrary is Martym, who is probably one of the weakest DK Commanders; his biggest edge is the sword Nifrit, but as we see with Gildas beating him back (my feeling is that he only dies on Neutral because ol’ Nybeth got to him before his allies could, so he still sent him running) he’s not exemplary; even Barbas at least has the raw power to back his gloating somewhat (and he only wasn’t executed because Tartaros saved his skin).
Add how little we see of Balxephon and especially Volaq, and it’s quite intriguing in all…
The guest guy got so much better after the first episode, I liked his input now.
Adding to the bit where you talk about exploring other cultures:
There is a UA-cam channel called "Where the Hell is Matt?" where this dude does the same goofy dance in different places all over the world. If you have never heard of it, I highly recommend watching his videos. More specifically, by the 2nd or 3rd video, he starts incorporating local people into his dance. It's extremely wholesome. Watching the videos always gives me a little bit more faith in humanity (as I also have no patience for us on most days). It reminds me that we are all human, no matter where on earth.
If you choose to watch it, look for the videos with the years in the titles. I think his first video is in 2008.
This series has some of the most beautiful writing in games. Would love if you guys did this for Ogre Battle 64
Great series guys!
It's almost as if ideologically driven intellectuals are willing to dig graves for millions of people just see their ideas realized in the world. And of course, the worse things get, that harder you've got to try, because failure just means you didn't implement the plan well enough. There's good examples of this all through history.
That Nybeth fight in Chapter 3 slowed me down a bunch. I'm still in Chapter 3.
Great video as always! I went through the game a bit differently than you (Chaos route, Princess ending) for my playthrough of Chapter 4 so I never came across the totally crazy stuff with Nybeth and his wife's spirit inhabiting his daughter's body. (Perhaps because I also messed up and was unable to recruit an alternative Nybeth-related character in that route) Reminds me much of the HP Lovecraft story "The Thing on the Doorstep" where the protagonist's friend is married to a woman who keeps swapping bodies with him, but its eventually revealed that the wife herself had been body swapped with her father permanently before they were even married, making it all the more horrifying.
It only comes up on Neutral, anyway; Oelias and Dievold die on Chaotic and don’t feature on Lawful, so you wouldn’t see the dialogue revealing that she’s actually his wife’s soul inhabiting their daughter Amala’s body… Remember, Nybeth has at the minimum two wives who each bore him different children: Oelias mothered Dievold and Amala, while Cassandra had Moldova (the “necroprentice” from Chapter 1 you kill just before Qadriga) and younger daughter Cressida.
I loved having Ivan here and I don't believe a lot of the criticism he got was justified. Buuut... I will say that his timing could use some work 😆Like so often the guys would start speaking and Ivan would feel the need to interject, but a lot of the time the interjection wasn't directly relevant and just background info that was interesting to be made aware of. I feel like in situations like these it's best to put a pin in things and come back to it once the main conversation dies down. Keep some notes, ya know? Still, loved having him here and I look forward to seeing him again towards the end!
I am curious on why Mike is learning portuguese 😊
Awesome this is🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Hey guys. I don't mind seeing guests every now and then, but I realized through watching this that I enjoy your content more when it's just you two.
I tried to recruit Sherry 3 times (one in each playthrough but the scene in the rain never happened. Not sure what else I missed after checking several guides, but I ended up recruiting all characters but her. By the way, I am surprised about the very few comments about difficulty in this podcast series. Am I the only one that found some savage difficulty spikes? I remember having to recruit 2 dragons to beat the Oz & Ozma fight on chaos route, grind for levels frequently and things like that, and for some battles had to use the rewind option. I also beat the Palace of the Dead but as it is side content I understand it has to be more difficult.
Edit: Ivan if you're seeing this comment in the future, I hope you dunked on the bar test my man! good luck!
Y'know, you guys always showed up in my recommendations and I thought of giving a listen when I saw you were covering my favorite tactical JRPG, and now (which even tho this ain't the last episode, kinda feels like it) I walk out of this series with a really good new podcast to listen, I am totally gonna go back through you guy's things, this is great
I noticed you guys had a really nuanced and interesting view on Catiua and her behavior leading up to her potential death, but kind of skipped over her suicide scene and finalizing your thoughts on her character. I know you're going to have two more routes and see that scene two more times, so perhaps you're saving more discussion around her for then. I'm looking forward to your thoughts on Catiua getting some resolution from you guys since it's one of my favorite scenes in the game.
I hope they at least look at the dialogue she has if you kill her in combat too, because it tells you a LOT about how little she values herself without someone else cherishing her for herself - this is already in the suicide scenes but we can get more of it there, too.
I hope they use the World Tarot to go back to the chaos route.
This channel deserves more views and subs!!
1:51:25 can anyone post the video Ivan was talking about here for those of us not in the discord?
I was so confused about what to do with Catiua since OrcB said to "not fight her" so im well into chapter 4 n she's alive and well. A quick google showed theres more than a few ways that could have gone. Also it may be worth noting that the pirate fight is easilly missable bc i just recruited Catuia (again the whole dont fight her thing made me feel like she should stay alive if were all to be on the same page) and Quadriga turned into the start of a new quest (templar?).😮
I get the confusion, even Mike and Casen were bemused; what Ivan was trying to say is they should choose the option of Denam saying he won’t fight her so that she can appear in the Barnicia fight (so they increase the chance to kill her), but that’s easily misunderstood… Heck, given how they ended up perceiving Denam (and that neither killed her anyway), I reckon he should have suggested they choose, “I will do what I must”; since the Lawful route benefits from having her to get a particular battle dialogue and they might try on Chaotic to also go there, I would think that too.
When you play the Game of Thrones, you win, or you die. There is no middle ground.
The one thing I don't like about some monologues is when it feels there is an obvious tilt in one direction. The antagonist gets his monologue and gatcha moments while the protagonist seems stunted or barely has much to say in rebuttal despite the player able to come up with them in response to obviously flawed logic. It happens a lot and little wonder people favor anti-heroes and antagonists when the protags seem to come down with a case of mush mouth or intelligence vacates the premises.
Tactics Ogre certainly has it's fair share of one-sided monologues, and I think the game handles them very well. For example, the dialogue between the two Lanselots. Hamilton has been tortured for an extended period of time, he's exhausted, he's in no position to do much thinking or talking. So that scene is essentially just Tartaros taking advantage of that to flex his opinions on Hamilton. Despite this, Hamilton does give decent rebuttals even though he can only communicate them in basic phrases.
Early in the game, Denam is unable to make good arguments against his enemies despite the fact that many of his enemies have flawed logic, or interpret the world in ways that justify what they are doing despite their conclusions not being as irrefutable as they think. Denam has little experience of the world at this point. He does not have access to the internet or as much education as we do. He has to learn all of his lessons the hard way.
By the end of the game he has learned a ton. During the battle with Brantyn, Denam and other characters with dialogue completely win the argument with him. They are able to communicate exactly why Brantyn is in the wrong and there's nothing he can really say at that point to defend himself and challenge Denam's convictions.
@@1calv If he were truly in such poor condition, he would not be even trying to debate the other Lancelot. That's a poor excuse when he is literally doing just that and making the condition he is in as if it is stunting his ability to think or speak. it would be noted in some fashion through either character or how the Holy Knight struggles through dialogue. He isn't.
You mistake having knowledge for wisdom. I'm not sure how you confused the two or think that Denam is dumb enough not to know anything about the position he is in or common sense, humanity when he is in a position for the player and in-world to convey a specific position. He does not fail to give his viewpoints other times. It's not as if every other characters is smarter than him or simply can't make a poor argument, we are discussing a writing convention that has existed for a time.
You give favor to certain arguments so that the point lingers more than the position of a protagonist, which is going to take some of the gravity away from a situation. If you want a game to seem ambiguous in morality, you either make every character lack morality or don't give a moral character a place or time to effectively counter other positions. You do not need a college degree or random knowledge on the internet to know when someone is full of crap or dodging accountability.
A prime example is how Game of Thrones wrote it's world and killed off any character that had morals or those that had them lost them because the writing required it for the moral relativity to hold. It's like how, say, an atheist will write all religion as the antagonist in a story when in reality, a church can be corrupt, but not every adherent. There is no Martin Luther or Waldenses as in reality, just ignorant followers and greedy priests.
One can still like a game and still acknowledge it has a bias in order to maintain a specific viewpoint or thematic angle. You literally have to write it that way and characters have to hold to those positions, meaning some characters will speak their piece and others won't be allowed to in order to hold to it. This is writing. You give ground to a hopeful theme, a dark one or morally relative one this way. You have to write with bias or present why one position is more logical than others if the goal, without it sounding like the author is not speaking through a character(s).
@@blumiu2426 I think you've changed my mind a bit on Denam. I implied I think Denam didn't have enough information and experience early on to make good arguments, but maybe it was just the game deciding to give more time to the enemies positions, rather than Denam not having good arguments. What I meant by "doesn't have access to the internet" isn't about him not knowing random facts. I meant it as him not be exposed to as much discorse on these types of topics as a modern person would, so an enemy who has more experience in the world would be better equipped to win an argument. But I could just not be remembering earlygame dialogue between Denam and his enemies very well.
I don't see the problem you have with what I said about the Lanselots. I just think it makes sense for the conversation to be mostly controlled by Tarataros because he's in a better position to speak at length. Hamiltons voice acting and portrait suggest he's exhausted.
I am playing through chaos route now, and wow, Denam is a different guy in that path. Vyce is almost comical in how much he doubles down on the whole cunning bad guy thing.
I’m sort of in the same shoes as Casen, I was losing interest in the game up until the ending, and wow, what an ending it was. Now I’m excited to play again.
I think Ivan was trying a bit too hard to micromanage the mreuva part. Explaining it doesn't have a large amount of thematic importance besides noting that Matsuno was pretty thorough about tripping you up, so all you end up with is spoiling 40% of it and going on a back and forth misunderstanding.
Neutral Denam is the most shortsighted version, trying to save whoever is immediately in front of him. And it doesn't end well, but it DOES save several characters who would otherwise be forgotten by history.
I agree on the Mrueva bit, but I won’t hear this Neutral Denam slander; clearly the most shortsighted is Chaotic (and Lawful of course is another matter overall)… JK, we all have different views there.
@@borjankosarac3645 I mean he doesn't realize he was booted off to be as far away from politics as possible.
I find the funniest part of Neutral Denam is that he can't stop trying to do good. He saw what was happening to the Liberation Front and went for his sword without a second thought. All of Ronwey's manipulations gone to nothing because Denam is "Head empty, save lives"
Reminds me of the ending to The Sopranos
Hey guys love your videos been watching for a long time now! I want to add something to help you understand why law route makes sense. It has nothing to do with his personality and everything to do with Chaos and Law. Chaos is not evil and Law is not good inherently which is why we have the 9 alignments such has Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil.
So here is the issue you both have. You are thinking about his personality and why he would agree to do something like slaughtering an entire village…but personality has nothing to do with Lawful tendencies. Knights, Samurai’s and even todays military follow orders. That is what being lawful is all about, following orders. Think of it this way….do you think the soldier wanted to push the button to launch the nuke on Hiroshima? No, but he had too. That is what Denam does….he follows orders…that is being lawful hence the name of the route. Chaos is about doing what you feel is right regardless of the consequences. Law and Chaos are both non-bias to good or evil. Neutral route is neutral because you do both…he followed his instincts on not killing innocents, but eventually comes back to follow the dukes orders. He shows both Chaos and Lawful tendencies. Lawful route seems evil because of the order…so yeah it’s hard to make that choice. But Soldiers today and people like knights in the past have to follow those types of orders regardless of personal feelings. I was active duty for 17 years so if you have a military background it naturally makes more sense to do the lawful route. Denam is a Knight of the Walister Army. Lawful route does not make him evil it makes him a law abiding Soldier of his country. You’ll see when you get to lawful….it is hands down the best route of all three.
I think when they’ve played through Chaotic to the Gilbald ending (and if they wanted to, they could also see how Princess looks there), and then gone into Lawful fully, they’ll understand better. It might help some things click further, as them finishing Neutral on the Assassination ending helped them more appreciate what Matsuno was going for. Heck, it might help them get the deal with Vyce, since Mike especially just fell into assuming he’d always been just a bad egg (when there’s a complexity to him that’s easily missed).
Mans went late tonight
I'm loving this series but I feel the need to grab Mike and Casen by the shoulders and yell "READ THE WARREN REPORT" and make them actually do it because they keep doing this thing where Ivan reveals a bunch of stuff to them from it and I think they are mistaking that for meaning "Ivan will tell us everything anyway so I don't need to read this" and they keep missing things that can't be seen and/or won't play out if you don't look in the warren report on a frequent basis.
Odd point to respond to, but do people have any good pointers as to what is the best way of learning another language? Chiefly for someone like myself who can mainly do it in their spare time and isn't exactly made of money.
Pimsleur for the beginning, then audiobooks and movie/show dubs. On repeat. All day. Harry Potter is in tons of languages. Follow along while listening. Lord of the Rings dub on repeat in your headphones (just audio). All day. Whatever book/movie you're most familiar with that has audio in the target language, listen to that stuff on repeat.
@@CasenSperry Thank you.
Fun thing, but your mileage may vary. After I met my GF (she's from LATAM), I decided to learn some Spanish. I tried Duolingo for fun and now I'm relatively fluent, can talk (pronunciation errors here and there) with her and read/watch movies/listen to music without many issues. I think it works well enough for the basics alongside other stuff
2:03:12
Can you imagine if this world had UA-cam? It’d be war eternal!
Makes me ponder that, although there’s a load of class act channels like this in which I’ve learned new things and made me reflect on stuff, on the whole UA-cam has been a net negative on the human race.
Populism is rife on this platform and I can’t see that changing anytime soon. Sucks man. A whole generation of dumbasses with beliefs born from bad faith influencers and UA-camrs.
Hope I’m wrong tho. ‘Cause unfortunately for me, I’m addicted to UA-cam. It’s like smoking knowing that it’s turning your lungs to ash. Self awareness can only save you so much.
Sorry, but I went in unarmed because I felt like it. It's too neato of a thing to pass up, and frankly I felt it was more consistent with Denam's character.
Lol Mike discovering American exceptionalism is a lie
Poucos estadunidenses chegam nisso, que é tão obvio. Momento bonito demais mesmo