RPG characters, their jobs, and how it connects to the real world

Raise your hand if you've ever had so much trouble just finding a place to work. I often wonder about most blog writers and blog readers, since many of them have trouble just trying to get a living in life. You probably get bossed by parents to find a real job, one that if you get it, will end up doing tasks for the rest of your life just to keep a steady amount of cash. That cash, of course, is gonna be expended on expenses, think about actually living at any type of shelter, the food you eat, the electricity, the air conditioning. To often be denied that ability to live is a boon for people, since some workplaces decide to change their mind on things post-haste and think of "a better candidate" when we all know that there's no such thing as "a better candidate" in almost every case. I've been living that kind of life for almost seven years at this point.

It got me to wonder about many different RPG characters, protagonist or otherwise. In every RPG game there's obviously a currency to gain money with, and lots of money to gain, most of it through just defeating enemies in battle. Now, the real-world equivalent to that is poaching (in case of monsters) or robbing (in case of humans), both of which are illegal acts in the real world. Now look at the majority of protagonists. Their jobs are pretty much moot. Most are usual adventurers or the cliche "save the world" merry bandits with no daytime job, a number are amnesiacs who won't really be doing much else besides being heroes, others just so happen to be soldiers or descendants of soldier-y people (Cloud, Cless, etc). But they all function the same way, beat up enemies in order to get money all the way until you finally beat the big bad and save everything.

It just makes me wonder, if they had any real job, they're practically not relevant as heroes, since they're pretty much forced to do the mundane while the heroes are the only ones actually doing anything. And in the cases of those who actually have such mundane jobs (Taloon/Torneko in Dragon Quest 4, Bowman in Star Ocean 2, bonus points for these two since they both have families and are married) they end up quitting their job because they found some bigger fish to catch.* Almost every other character who has some kind of employment and is not connected to royalty of any kind is usually self-employed.

Just look at the majority of Suikoden's cast members. Barely any look like they have any sort of supervisor, and end up in your entourage basically doing the same thing they've always done. Shopkeeps, entertainers, blacksmiths, innkeepers, detectives, these guys all seem self-employed and remain that way. I'm then reminded of several scenes of characters with no debts to pay (Rikimaru, L.C.Chan, Annallee, Hoi), those too poor to apparently afford anything yet try to make the most out of usually unlawful actions that get them in some small trouble, probably because they ran out of decent options. There's even a hard-to-find scene where if your characters are too poor to pay 200 bits to an innkeeper in Suikoden I (the scene involves Vincent), your characters end up working in the kitchen then. Even the early game of Suikoden II, where Pohl forces you to do menial tasks for the mercenary bosses (both of whom are self-employed themselves). As menial as it is, the fact of the matter is that I definitely can connect with a number of characters in this game. Everyone's poor to some extent, but some not only are poor, but almost are never gonna end up where they want to go and possibly get screwed overall. It's bad if no employer wants to hire you, everyone's so concerned about the most nitpicky of skills that it completely voids all chances unless you really really impress someone.

By the way, I'm obviously referring to work that seems to be what people do in real life. No way am I referring to the "jobs" in Final Fantasy games. Those are just character classes. Do they get paid for what they do? I mean, besides killing monsters of course.

*A bit iffy in those two I described though, since despite the calling of adventure, they still practically are the ones who exemplify the characteristics of the jobs they were employed to. Torneko in particular sets off to be the best arms merchant, even if it involves adventure. Bowman's case depends partly on what ending you decide to get for him.

A look back at: Star Ocean: The Second Story

"Tear into pieces!" "Air Slash!" "Explosion Pills!" "Ten Thousand Volts!" "Healing Star!" "Mole!" "Hurricane Slash!"

My goodness this game had amazingly bad voice acting, something I don't bother to care about in reviews. Usually it doesn't matter that much, but hearing it over and over is obnoxious. Luckily for me, Star Ocean 2's gameplay is just like the previous game, loads of fun with techs and AI usage. And then the customization aspect rears in and there's just a TON to do. Imagine being able to break your game once you gain enough skill points to get better with skills, unlock talents, and use these specialties to do all sorts of things, pickpocketing, playing music, creating arts and crafts and machinery, getting discounts at markets, manipulating encounter rates, my god, there's so much to do. And the Private Actions only help sidetrack you from the main plot, and manipulate the endings. Of course, I just don't have the time to get all these endings, and I personally recommend playing the game simultaneously on both Claude and Rena's paths just once to see some scenes and all. Besides, not every party member can be recruited, Dias can only be recruited on Rena's path, and Leon on Claudes, while Bowman and Precis are mutually exclusive along with Ernest and Opera against Ashton.

I don't remember if I said this, but I hate the term "aged poorly", I can't make any sense of it other than "this game is old and not really as good as it used to be". I guess that's the term? Well I'd say that Star Ocean 2 aged poorly in that regard, as much as I'd hate to say it. Good customization and battle system, and a splendid amount of actually good bonus content for proper challenges, but its plot is mostly cliche and lackluster. There's not a lot of overall differences between Claude's path and Rena's path, and that's actually okay, because big differences would actually be more detrimental and perhaps bore players. But so many scenes are long and boring anyways, the cliches about Claude being the chosen one, Rena's pendant, "you are too late", etc. I can barely remember the whole middle section of the plot, because the beginning and ends are more interesting. They tried to make ten powerful adversaries in the Ten Wise Men, but only succeeded in one of them (Indalecio), as the rest are basically boss-rushed to death, while Indalecio can actually be made a LOT stronger with a private action.

An appropriate adjective to describe Star Ocean 2 is apocalyptic, since the end of Disc 1 sees the planet Expel meet its demise. The end of Disc 2 has Expel returning, but Energy Nede disappears, with three characters being the last of the Nedian race. Also the Calnus getting destroyed was a major player punch here. Safe to say that there's some serious ramifications in story that really will punch player's guts. You'd almost think the game was over at Disc 1 since the whole party is still on Expel when it is destroyed. What makes this worse may just be how Expellians think that this "Sorcery Globe" just made a load of disasters and did not have any clue about the demise, while the Nedians in your party pretty much know that they'll be the last of their kind at the end of Disc 2. Talk about heart-wrenching, and this game sure delivers when it finally does deliver.

RPG characters: Does being rich and famous in the beginning matter?

Too much outside work as well as the urge to play numerous game mods and other RPGs have been clogging up quite a bit of time, but whatever the case may be, I'm not gonna retire this blog any time soon. Nor will I stop analyzing the cliches of console role-playing games. Continuing now with Poor Little Rich Hero, which states that "If the hero comes from a rich and powerful family, it will have fallen on hard times and be broke and destitute by the time the game actually starts."

This cliche is also known as the Meis rule, named after the protagonist from Thousand Arms, born into the wealthy and meaningfully named Triumph family, but having his hometown ransacked and him being practically broke. Oddly enough, just because he's the actual poster child for this cliche, doesn't really entail him as the prime example of this, and Meis is certainly an oddity among RPG protagonists on the account that his family was actually rich. There's actually very few who are like Meis, the other major example I can think of would be Tir McDohl from Suikoden I, who has the largest home in Gregminster and a powerful general for a father. Tir's probably the best example of this, especially considering where he ends up going when the plot really gets going. I guess Rhys from Phantasy Star 3 counts too? If you're the child of a powerful king and you're defiant, I guess that's an example of hard times, and that's literal in Rhys' case. Some of the SaGa Frontier protagonists might be good enough for this cliche too. Emelia had a house AND a boyfriend, but lost both and her clean criminal record. Asellus' family was probably rich but she ended up dying never basking in wealth, while Red's intro shows him and his dad in a car until the freak accident kills the father and ultimately separates Red from his family. Star Ocean 2's Claude might as well count too, considering who his father is.

Other protagonists, whether they be Crono, Serge, Vahn, Cornet, Ark, these are examples of more humble protagonists, since they follow the example of a simple villager who ends up going on an adventure without a whole lot of finances to even start with. So this cliche ends up being fairly uncommon and somehow more tied in with what kind of person the protagonist actually grew up from. If the protagonist came from a mighty and/or prominent kind of person, they'd naturally be that kind of person as they grow up until fate dictates them to rags at that point in time when the RPG wishes for them to be adventurers.

Cussing in RPGs

Well, there's not much I've been able to do as of late, so let's have a little rant on something. Cussing in RPGs! Oh no, get the parental advisory stickers and the ESRB ratings! Not once have I made my blog to showcase some actual cussing in any kind, so this will be a bit interesting.

There's nothing really important about cussing to be honest. The majority of games I play have it in spades without overdoing it, and that's completely fine. Some games are of course geared for younger audiences (Rhapsody, any Mario RPG) and get rid of it altogether while pulling off funny little alternatives to cuss words. The majority of games though are T-rated, offering off the occasional "damn" every time something awry happens, and it doesn't matter if it's hero or villain who says it. It just makes sense whenever its used.

Of course, some characters are more vulgar than others, and what better way to show that than to look at Final Fantasy VII's own Barret and Cid, two of the most foul-mouthed individuals, to the point where they're censored with symbols sometimes. Not all the time though, as the word "shit" is uncensored in a few scenes, surprising when you consider how often these two guys cuss. Another game that throws the word "shit" uncensored just so happens to be Soul Nomad & The World Eaters, with almost 40 sayings, almost all of them made by the incredibly hammy Gig. You ought to be surprised these games somehow hold on to a T-rating despite the excessive swearing. In other cases, the word "shit" ends up being shown uncensored exactly one-time, the kind of thing that PG-13 movies would allow if and only if it's used rarely. Some games that do this are Final Fantasy Tactics (after beating Dycedarg), Valkyrie Profile (Badrach's recruitment cutscene), and Thousand Arms (Bandiger, and this is a game that gives audible censor beeps when someone cusses too).

Now every game I mentioned so far has an international release, whether PAL or North American. For the Japanese-to-English-translated RPGs, it seems that the cuss words are a lot more common. Well, not a lot more, as it still is used sparingly, but it's a little more noticable. Dual Orb and Langrisser II have "shit" being used several times by characters throughout the game, of course at appropriate times, but you just can't help but notice it. Then there's the DeJap translations of both Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean:

Hooray, first time I put images on this blog, these I saved when I played these games. Note that the usage of cussing is a little more liberal in these two translations, especially in the second image as well as the Tales of Phantasia boat scene which is a little more than just the "fucks like a tiger" line Klarth puts up. Not to mention that last image, which also is from ToP, where a little kid NPC is the one to cuss. Yikes. Personally I'm more comfortable when you are fairly stagnant on the cussing, do it sparingly, do not overbear it, and definitely don't goof with the translation all that much. I get that edgy teenagers are okay with this, and I am too, and that's how it should be. Hey look everyone, this blog stopped being PG-rated! Oops.