This Image Disgusts Me To The Core.

this image disgusts me to the core.

you know call me Crazy but I think a man who’s been practicing archery since he was a child and who can hold on to the back of a wyvern off just the power of his legs and who can pull of a Parthian Shot consistently shouldn’t be a twink. let Claude have muscles

Unicorn Overlord goodies : an artbook with interviews from the devs, something like Jugdral's Treasure book !

Fodlan goodies : a teaset and a fork

So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.

I'm going to try it.

I actually thought of Lindsay in the pokemon world once.

In Red and Blue she would be the first gym leader you face and she would be a flying type specialist. Then in Gold and Silver she would be the 8th gym leader, she'll tell you you remind her of Red. She'll gift you a Togepi egg way before your battle with her, and she'll have a Togetic in her team.

Ruby and Sapphire (or Emerald) she's an elite 4 member, she'll comment about the travels she did after being inspired by two peculiar trainers.

Then finally Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, she's the Chanpion, and Togekiss is her ace.

Lindsay’s pokemon team is four caterpies❤️

There's something about Sacred Stones that, really, I feel was ahead of it's time. I feel like there was a definite focus on gender roles, especially when you look at how Ephraim's story diverges from Eirika's.

Ephraim does the typical manly-man thing, where he sets off to fight the invading empire. However, it's pointed out how by doing so he abandoned his people and at the end the people aren't cheering for his return. They're cheering because the war is seemingly over. Trying to solve things through violence and force doesn't make him a good or beloved leader, especially with the reveal that everything Grado has been doing is an attempt to prevent the suffering of it's people through upcoming natural disasters.

And adding onto that, there's both Innes and Lyon's feelings of inadequacy because of Ephraim. In the case of the latter, it leads to him attempting to prove himself through any means such as harnessing the power of the Demon King. This belief that men have to be manly like Ephraim, with an added serving of having to handle their own problems rather than appear weak thanks to Emperor Vigarde nearly lead to the world's destruction.

Then there's a bit about treating women solely as a love interest. Lyon feels he needs to be worthy of Eirika's hand, in part fuelling his downfall, while at the same time being upset that she can kick his ass in a sparring match. Carlyle betrays Jehanna because of his “love” for the queen, blaming her for being “too beautiful” and she calls him out on it. Meanwhile Orson betrays Renais to revive his dead wife, leaving her as a mindless living body. After turning his beloved into an object, he lets Renais rot while he does nothing but spend time with her. And then there's Valter lusting after Eirika... Treating women solely as objects of affection, putting them on a pedastal rather than treating them like living, breathing people with their own minds and personalities, Sacred Stones is subtly calling that out.

In addition, women aren't there to simply support men. Eirika may have been searching for her brother, but she was also helping those in need as she came across them. In addition, her handing over her country's sacred stone under the belief it might be able to save Lyon also contributes to the final boss regaining his strength in her route. But Eirika also, rather than taking a supportive role like a healer, learned how to fight and shows that she's not soft when people mess with those she cares about. And I feel like the whole thing with her wanting to help Lyon serves as a foil to Selena, whose loyalty to Vigarde can't be swayed even when she learns that he's just a reanimated corpse. On the other hand, the game also gives us L'Arachel who takes a proactive role in trying to deal with the monsters and is essential for defeating the Demon King and can go on to be the queen of her own country.

And really, this whole “women are supposed to support men” feels really good when I remember the interview for Echoes commented about Celica.

Kusakihara: They each come to represent masculinity and femininity in their own ways. Alm pursues a path of power while Celica walks a path of love –and aims to save Alm with it, leading to a type of self-sacrifice. The scenario is built upon this.

It really stands out to me that Sacred Stones does have masculinity and femininity represented in their own ways, much like Echoes. But whereas Sacred Stones basically had a message about how dangerous subscribing to such views on gender was, Echoes was more about how the men and women needed to support each other. Celica may have been the first female lord character, but her story is one where it's all to save Alm and in the end he needs to save her after her self-sacrificing nature leads to her being controlled by Duma, who is also supposed to represent masculinity except in a more extreme manner. Meanwhile, Eirika isn't motivated by romantic love, just compassion in general.

Eirika is your starting lord like Lyn, but rather than demoting her from main character after the “tutorial” stages end in favor of her brother, she can remain the lead throughout the entire story. And really, look at the female lords since barring Player characters. Ike is the only one who can kill the final boss at the end of the Tellius games despite it happening in Micaiah's game, Lucina can die in Awakening without a game over, and joining Edelgard is meant to be a path of sin since she's a villain. Meanwhile, Eirika was used to represent Sacred Stones in Engage, and the big final SR card in Cipher for the lord character of Sacred Stones was of her.

No female lord since has been treated like Eirika.

I feel like Sacred Stones should, I dunno, be held more by the fandom for this. Yeah, Eirika makes that mistake but it's meant to be a mistake. She feels bad about what she did and works to fix things. She's also proactive and will kick ass if needed despite her being the diplomatic twin. Really, it's Ephraim that needs to be more like her. But instead, we have a fandom that glorifies Ephraim for the very things the game calls problematic about him while deriding Eirika as “girly”. It feels like one of those cases where people missed the point, like the Josie and the Pussycats movie, Starship Troopers or Martian Successor Nadesico, and ended up believing it was supporting what it was calling out. Sacred Stones feels more like a deconstruction of typical RPG gender roles in retrospect and how harmful they actually are. But, as I said at the start of this, I feel like the game was ahead of it's time because of this stuff.

I'm playing TO: Reborn and I think it's a blast. I have high hopes for Triangle Strategy as well.

I still haven't finished my first playthrough, I'm in the middle of a Chapter 3 Chaos battle (I'm seriously considering letting some of my generics die so I can advance lol) All I really know about the law route is that Vyce can live, as you say... and it got me thinking... is he worth that?

Without taking into account the explanation you've given and the true meaning of the route split, what is Denam thinking in the moment? I'm trying to save people from this concentration camp and it's going less than smoothly, and rather than giving you time to convince this broken of spirit people, you find out almost immediately that your lord deemed them a lost cause and fodder for his real plan. This is insane! You obviously will oppose! Catiua and Vyce will surely side with me! Wait... what is Vyce doing? What...? What is he saying? He's been harboring resentment towards me all this time? A hare? Where is any of this coming from? And then the game unfolds after that, every encounter with Vyce he grows more antagonist and hateful and all Denam wants to do is trying to reconcile, even if the person he's trying to reconcile with took part on a massacre (would it be appropriate to call it a genocide?)

But I understand that this take is ultimately a meta one.

Denam doesn't know what Vyce'll turn into in the chaos route. This is something that only we, as players, especially players who already played one of the routes and want to go for the other, know. This isn't about doing the right thing for Vyce. It's about running counter to whatever Denam chooses because he's grown resentful of him. He either participates in the massacre in Chaos or uses the situation to look like the righteous one in Law.

So it got me thinking... is he worth that? Is he worth soaking my hands with blood of ground beaten people so that he doesn't turn into a monster? Must I be the monster? Why was he becoming a monster in chaos? He just let himself go? Must I soak my hands in blood because this... manchild couldn't get pass his own petty issues?

As I wrote this, it's only now that I'm considering that maybe I just plain don't like the guy, and it all ties back to the circumstance in which he becomes an antagonist, which I'm not sure the Law route will change in a meaningful way, but who knows, I'm yet to play that route... I'm still trying to complete the Chaos one, even though I already know what will become of Vyce in this route.

Still, you're the first person I know who talked about this game, so this was as good time as any to bring my experience so far.

Hope it was worth the read.

I've been looking into Tactics Ogre again. I think... I think people have been misunderstanding the route split and the alignment system.

I was looking through the PS1 manual and there's a little blurb of worldbuilding about the alignments. Law is aligned with Ishtar (I know they use a different spelling officially now, but ignore), goddess of light and war. What she wants is to unify the people under law, and that got me thinking. It's the Law path that makes it so that childhood friend Vyce doesn't dive off the deep end fighting you and can live. There's other characters that would otherwise die if you went the other route, but can be recruited in Law, and it's characters from the Law route that unlock the post-game CODAs. The game is also called Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together.

The Law route is not about following orders, it's about prioritizing unifying the people. The false flag operation you allowed to happen was bad, and the game calls it out, but the purpose wasn't wrong.

Chaos is associated with the dark god Asmodeus, who seeks freedom and believes that through freedom chaos will come about. You go down this path by rejecting the orders. You put your own morality above the call for unity, and as a result your character goes on the run. Instead of allowing your countrymen to be killed, you instead kill your countrymen in the name of your own beliefs and ideals.

In a Confucian-influenced society, Chaos is a bad end and the result of people not doing their duties.

The game also has the Chaos Frame mechanic, where if you have a bad relationship with one of the ethnic groups when you become king, usually through killing enough of them, Denam'll be assassinated in the game's ending which would lead to further war and bloodshed. Likewise, if you can keep them on decent terms... your country is invaded after you take the throne. The former is a Chaos ending, while the latter is a more neutral one. But if you let your sister Catiua take her rightful spot as queen, Chaos Frame doesn't matter and the country lasts for a thousand years before being conquered or joining another group (depending on which version of the game). It's the Law ending.

These endings mirror the route split, with a Chapter 2 Law only moving into a Lawful Chapter 3, whereas Chaos Chapter 2 can either remain Chaos or go Neutral. Chaos is presented as the better option, much like how the Chaos endings give Denam the powerful Lord class, but it doesn't appear to be the right option. You won't be able to save Vyce from himself, as mirroring your selfishness he begins to think too highly of himself and uses his backstory as an excuse, and going Chaos at the endings leads to Catiua's death.

The game still tries to call you out on the Chaos routes, and originally the Terror Knight class was locked to that route. Chaos may mean freedom, but it also is tied to darkness. If you put your own morality above the orders, as shitty as those orders are, it will eventually lead to Vyce going nuts and dying simply because of his desire to beat you. But if you do your mission, you'll eventually fight against your boss when it's revealed that he doesn't really care about the people and is just using the war for his own selfish purposes. And this whole war started because when the king disappeared the country broke apart, not wanting to live together or be ruled by another ethnic group. The war happened because unity broke apart, the land fell to chaos.

In the Chaos routes, you're killing people not to win the war but simply to protect your own freedom. You're killing not because you were told to, but because it's your own call. Same thing with regular battles, which end not with killing every enemy but simply killing the commander. It's possible to only kill them, which would in turn keep your Chaos Frame down. Ishtar may be the goddess of war, but killing is tied more to chaos and in the chaos routes you feel a lot more justified in doing so. But that can lead to falling deeper into chaos, more killing because you believe you're the good guy. Yet the Law route calls out killing far more effectively, makes the player feel like shit but also rewards the player the most. And it's the route tied to light.

But this is based on a detail from the game's manual, and game's don't really have manuals nowadays.

In short, please bring back manuals with physical versions of games. I mean, there's still the tabs to hold them so why not give something to keep there?