Awesome work. I really need to get around to the AC games — I think you're right that the genre in general and AC6 in particular are very well positioned to reflect our present-day maladies. And, of course, FromSoft definitely has a trustworthy pedigree when it comes to representing the bleakness of humanity's decline.
One of the things I most love about Psycho Patrol R (thanks for the shout-out, by the way!) is how it sarcastically downplays the visceral, documentary-friendly horrors of armed conflict to focus instead on the structural dysfunction that incentivizes it in the first place. God only knows when it'll get its full release, but I'll be glad to have this analysis to hand whenever it does.
This kind of narrative has been ringing less and less true for me due the Ukraine invasion honestly. We're seeing the horrors of war, but it's still obviously preferable to horrors of being invaded and occupied.
A totally valid perspective - of course, resistance is legitimate and aggression is not.
I read Gundam the way I do because Zeon is so heavily Nazi-coded ('Sieg Zeon' is their phrase, and their leader is a gruesome Hitler-quoting edgelord), which kind of leads me to read the opposing Federation as the US (vaguely sinister, presumed capitalist). Therefore, it's easy to see the Federation's subsequent trend in terms of Operation Paperclip, General Pinochet, etc. etc.
I'm an unrepentant weaboo, but it feels like the fact that this is from Japan, of all places, is an important bit of context here. It can easily be read by "focusing on generalized horrors of war to obscure quite why that war happened."
Similarly, discussion about Gulf War 1 in this context, because all the focus on disturbing imagery exists uneasily next to the fact that there really was not moral equivalence between the two sides.
Yeah, there's something to that, and it would not be unique. I recently saw Fullmetal Alchemist, which I did enjoy, though I was somewhat disturbed by the depiction of the character Scar, who is basically a Middle Eastern man (I would argue Palestinian, based on the description of his country as a 'holy land,' depiction of them relegated to refugee camps and kept under occupation, etc.) who survives a genocide by a Western-style army, and subsequently becomes a vigilante hunting down the perpetrators.
This kind of sits uneasily with the 'revenge is bad' storyline the author gives him: the vast majority of what he does is fully justified, and meanwhile the story spends a lot of time exploring how committing a genocide made the perpetrators feel sad, while demanding moral growth from the victim. It's hard not to see this as an uncomfortably Japanese perspective.
The first Gundam series I watched was Gundam 00, which I enjoyed hugely at the time and found a good entry point. It takes place in a separate timeline, so it's easy to get into, but with many of the same themes, tropes and archetypes that appear elsewhere (child soldiers, ace rivalries, tragic cyborgs...). It's also very pretty and nicely animated, and has some great characters.
Mobile Suit Gundam I found more interesting as an artifact than as entertainment, although it does have its moments, particularly towards the end. Zeta Gundam is... wildly bizarre in terms of writing, although I have to say I'm very fond of its visual style and designs.
Thunderbolt is also fantastic, with brilliant animations and music, very dark imagery and subject matter and well-written, it consists of two films and they're very gripping and easy to get into.
> Whereas every other Fromsoft game features recognisably humanoid characters
Well, except for all the previous AC games. I say it because if the topic of corporate-fueled destruction is the focus here, the two 4th generation games (which are arguably also the speediest ones) are worth checking out. Interestingly they are the only gen, if I remember right, where AI is not the main threat to humanity - a trope starting well in the very first entry.
Fair point, I was thinking of the more recent games but you're right. I might try them some day, I do have an old PS3 though the controller is fairly knackered.
Haha yeah, it's been a long run of (great) Souls games. I got hooked all the way back on the demo disc for PS1 with the AC1 demo, and I had given up on seeing another AC after 5th gen.
Anyway, I highly recommend 4th gen, do give it a try. The speed might be divisive, but it's narratively the most interesting. There's also an interesting comparison point in how the corporate dystopia was looking back in the 2010s and now in the 2020s, even if both are obvious Fromsoft works. The fears are very much of their time.
Fwiw I heard they also run well on emulators, although I never tested myself.
Thanks, I'll look into finding a good way to run them! It actually struck me that AC6 almost already feels slightly dated - there's an AI character who is written very much as a robot, and it occurred to me that actually, the technology we have today might already have surpassed that. Very strange times.
Great article, I think it would be worth exploring how the game views Coral Convergence as the only real “solution” to the universe's problems. Salvation is only available through a higher power, though at what cost?
Awesome work. I really need to get around to the AC games — I think you're right that the genre in general and AC6 in particular are very well positioned to reflect our present-day maladies. And, of course, FromSoft definitely has a trustworthy pedigree when it comes to representing the bleakness of humanity's decline.
One of the things I most love about Psycho Patrol R (thanks for the shout-out, by the way!) is how it sarcastically downplays the visceral, documentary-friendly horrors of armed conflict to focus instead on the structural dysfunction that incentivizes it in the first place. God only knows when it'll get its full release, but I'll be glad to have this analysis to hand whenever it does.
Thanks! I'm sure you'd have fun with AC6, it's a really interesting experience (also fairly short by Fromsoft standards, which I like).
I really want to play Psycho Patrol R, I've just bought Cruelty Squad on sale so I'll most likely play it first!
This kind of narrative has been ringing less and less true for me due the Ukraine invasion honestly. We're seeing the horrors of war, but it's still obviously preferable to horrors of being invaded and occupied.
A totally valid perspective - of course, resistance is legitimate and aggression is not.
I read Gundam the way I do because Zeon is so heavily Nazi-coded ('Sieg Zeon' is their phrase, and their leader is a gruesome Hitler-quoting edgelord), which kind of leads me to read the opposing Federation as the US (vaguely sinister, presumed capitalist). Therefore, it's easy to see the Federation's subsequent trend in terms of Operation Paperclip, General Pinochet, etc. etc.
I'm an unrepentant weaboo, but it feels like the fact that this is from Japan, of all places, is an important bit of context here. It can easily be read by "focusing on generalized horrors of war to obscure quite why that war happened."
Similarly, discussion about Gulf War 1 in this context, because all the focus on disturbing imagery exists uneasily next to the fact that there really was not moral equivalence between the two sides.
Yeah, there's something to that, and it would not be unique. I recently saw Fullmetal Alchemist, which I did enjoy, though I was somewhat disturbed by the depiction of the character Scar, who is basically a Middle Eastern man (I would argue Palestinian, based on the description of his country as a 'holy land,' depiction of them relegated to refugee camps and kept under occupation, etc.) who survives a genocide by a Western-style army, and subsequently becomes a vigilante hunting down the perpetrators.
This kind of sits uneasily with the 'revenge is bad' storyline the author gives him: the vast majority of what he does is fully justified, and meanwhile the story spends a lot of time exploring how committing a genocide made the perpetrators feel sad, while demanding moral growth from the victim. It's hard not to see this as an uncomfortably Japanese perspective.
I've never watched anything out of the Gundam franchise, but I've been looking to get into it for a while. Where would you recommend I start?
The first Gundam series I watched was Gundam 00, which I enjoyed hugely at the time and found a good entry point. It takes place in a separate timeline, so it's easy to get into, but with many of the same themes, tropes and archetypes that appear elsewhere (child soldiers, ace rivalries, tragic cyborgs...). It's also very pretty and nicely animated, and has some great characters.
Mobile Suit Gundam I found more interesting as an artifact than as entertainment, although it does have its moments, particularly towards the end. Zeta Gundam is... wildly bizarre in terms of writing, although I have to say I'm very fond of its visual style and designs.
Thunderbolt is also fantastic, with brilliant animations and music, very dark imagery and subject matter and well-written, it consists of two films and they're very gripping and easy to get into.
Thanks!
> Whereas every other Fromsoft game features recognisably humanoid characters
Well, except for all the previous AC games. I say it because if the topic of corporate-fueled destruction is the focus here, the two 4th generation games (which are arguably also the speediest ones) are worth checking out. Interestingly they are the only gen, if I remember right, where AI is not the main threat to humanity - a trope starting well in the very first entry.
Fair point, I was thinking of the more recent games but you're right. I might try them some day, I do have an old PS3 though the controller is fairly knackered.
Haha yeah, it's been a long run of (great) Souls games. I got hooked all the way back on the demo disc for PS1 with the AC1 demo, and I had given up on seeing another AC after 5th gen.
Anyway, I highly recommend 4th gen, do give it a try. The speed might be divisive, but it's narratively the most interesting. There's also an interesting comparison point in how the corporate dystopia was looking back in the 2010s and now in the 2020s, even if both are obvious Fromsoft works. The fears are very much of their time.
Fwiw I heard they also run well on emulators, although I never tested myself.
Thanks, I'll look into finding a good way to run them! It actually struck me that AC6 almost already feels slightly dated - there's an AI character who is written very much as a robot, and it occurred to me that actually, the technology we have today might already have surpassed that. Very strange times.
Werner Herzog cannot be a FromSoft NPC because Werner Herzog does not laugh.
TRUE.
Great article, I think it would be worth exploring how the game views Coral Convergence as the only real “solution” to the universe's problems. Salvation is only available through a higher power, though at what cost?