[possible spoilers for any CRPG ever made] Killing God.

[David J Prokopetz]

You know how in many CRPGs, particularly Japanese CRPGs, it's a common theme that you end up killing some identifiable version of the Judeochristian God at the end?

Let's make a list, and see how far this theme really goes.

I'll start us off:

Star Ocean 3: It turns out that the entire universe is just a VR simulation created by a programmer with delusions of deityhood... and you kill him.

(This one gets bonus points for implicitly equating God with Satan, too.)

[Odie]

Off the top of my head:

In Final Fantasy X, you kill Yu Yevon, who's a 'god' (actually I think he's the soul of some uber-powerful sorceror who kind of just claimed godhoodD) with his own church -- who you've been branded as heretics by for a good portion of the game. This religion preaches the salvation of the world through a pilgrimage which is actually intended to ensure that the currect cataclysmic state of the world never ends.

-B

[Jeffwik]

Final Fantasy Legend: At the end of the game, "Creator" shows up an congratulates you for winning. Unsatisfied with this, you attack him, despite his protests that there's no reason for it.

Final Fantasy Tactics: St. Ajora, a clear Jesus analogue, is messing with your sister, so you go to the Underworld and smack him around.

[Topher]

Xenogears, of course.

God is an insane AI war machine, and the Church is a false front designed to keep the common people ignorant and malleable.

Topher

[Qusoor]

Silent Hill 3. In a very fucked up Silent Hill sort of way.

[Andy K]

Every Shin Megami Tensei game ever made. In a few of them the "Last Boss" is 'YWHW', who you kill. Sometiems to save the world. It's kinda too blatant, tho. :)

-Andy

[Thomas T]

Do you include the ones where you kill a guy who is trying to <i>become</i> god? Final fantasies 7 and 8 for example.

[J Arcane]

IIRC, one of the central plot threads in the Phantasy Star series on Genesis, was that the people were basically ruled by a supposedly benevolent supercomputer, that went insane and had to be destroyed.

[Q99]

Xenogears, of course.

God is an insane AI war machine, and the Church is a false front designed to keep the common people ignorant and malleable.

Topher


Arguably, several gods die or leave this universe in Xenogears.



Deus, of course, is destroyed.

Zohar as well, which can be argued as in addition or seperately from the wave existance.

And Krelian being the third.



The Church barely factors into it's godslayingness, IMO. I believe it is more about slaying god than any other Japanese RPG, which says a lot.


Also, Xenosaga, of course, has similar themes, although they have not, yet, killed any gods. There was a flash-forward to what possibly might be such an occasion, With KOS-MOS and U-DO



In Star Ocean 2, the Wisemen are basically gods.

[Almafeta]

Every Shin Megami Tensei game ever made. In a few of them the "Last Boss" is 'YWHW', who you kill. Sometiems to save the world. It's kinda too blatant, tho. :)

-Andy

Is that including the one where you play as the second coming of Christ?

Talk about your Oedipus complex... o_O

[David J Prokopetz]

Do you include the ones where you kill a guy who is trying to <i>become</i> god? Final fantasies 7 and 8 for example.Nope. I'd like to stick to ones where you actually kill a supreme being with identifiable Judeochristian overtones - angsty leatherboys with aspirations of dietyhood often fit the "Judeochristian overtones" part, but they fail the "supreme being" test.

(Ideally, the supreme being in question should actually have created the gameworld, or at least rule over it.)

[OldKentuckyShark]

Does Grandia 2 count?

Technically, God was already dead by the time you got there, but you do dance a merry jig on his corpse before killing the Pope.

And then you pick up God's sword, and fuck the devil up right proper.

[Bloodcat]

I really didn't think of myself killing god in Grandia 2, but its been a while since I played it, and my mind wasn't totally on the game due to college Databse class hell anyhow..

[SteveVo8a]

Well, you don't kill THE God, but in Breath of Fire you kill one of the goddesses of the world. Then in 2 you kill her demonic spawn. Then in three you kill her again.

I seem to be about one of about ten BoF fans in the world.

[adamsmith]

In Deus Ex you become God....

[Aida]

Am I the only one that thought Jenovah in FF VII was a funky transliteration of Jehovah?

...besides being Kefka's corpse. Or something.

~me

[some guy]

In Deus Ex you become God....

True, but thankfully that wasn't a JCRPG, so the plot made sense. Of course, then there's Deus Ex 2's plotline [1]

Okay, that was bitchy of me, but I couldn't resist the urge to say it.

[1] Or so I hear. Never got round to playing it; the size of the maps in the demo turned me right off.

[Squid]

Well, you don't kill THE God, but in Breath of Fire you kill one of the goddesses of the world. Then in 2 you kill her demonic spawn. Then in three you kill her again.

I seem to be about one of about ten BoF fans in the world.


In Three, she doesn't really deserve it either.

In Four, you're half of God, and can either kill his Divine Emperorship's ass, or join with him and do in humanity.

Because, you know, They sort of broke their centuries old oaths to him, harried him across half the planet, and tortured the simple peasent woman who healed him and then fell in love with him in an ultimately doomed attempt to kill him. Hex cannon, my ass!

Fou Lu: Favorite 'villian' ever.

[SteveVo8a]

In Three, she doesn't really deserve it either.

In Four, you're half of God, and can either kill his Divine Emperorship's ass, or join with him and do in humanity.

Because, you know, They sort of broke their centuries old oaths to him, harried him across half the planet, and tortured the simple peasent woman who healed him and then fell in love with him in an ultimately doomed attempt to kill him. Hex cannon, my ass!

Fou Lu: Favorite 'villian' ever.

I dunno, she was still doing the whole Dark Dragon thing in three.

As for four, I didn't see them as real gods, just powerful beings who played at being god. Deis was a goddess, but not the others. That's how I see it at least.

[Pillsy]

Upon reading this thread, I came to the horrifying realization that "Preacher" is really a Japanese CRPG that has been cleverly disguised as a comic book.

[Lazarus]

How about Chrono Trigger with Lavos, there.

Laz

[Voidnaut]

How about Chrono Trigger with Lavos, there.

Laz

I'm not sure that really counts for the purposes of the thread, as awesome as it was.

On the other hand, Final Fantasy VII absolutely does. Sephiroth's dialogue makes it clear that he wants to become the kind of deity featured in (Japanese perceptions of) western monotheistic religion. He is spiritually opposed by Aeris, a kind of "Buddhist messiah" who wins by surrendering her ego, rather than imposing it on the world.

-Voidnaut

[Q99]

I'm not sure that really counts for the purposes of the thread, as awesome as it was.


Iirc, Lavos actually directed the evolution of human life. So he is, in a way, the creator god.

[Voidnaut]

Iirc, Lavos actually directed the evolution of human life. So he is, in a way, the creator god.

I'd forgotten about that.

-Voidnaut

[Stephenls]

How about Chrono Trigger with Lavos, there.

You could argue that he's something like the Demiurge, but he's not a monotheistic God in a meaningful sense.

OTOH, the Kingdom of Zeal did worship him, and he wiped them out in a flood. Well, kinda.

Actually the more I look at it the more parallels I see.

[Li of Orchid]

Upon reading this thread, I came to the horrifying realization that "Preacher" is really a Japanese CRPG that has been cleverly disguised as a comic book.

Bwahahaha!

Except of course, if it were a CRPG, there would only be one class, "ass-kicker," and variants of said class, such as "vampiric ass-kicker," "gun-toting ass-kicker," "holy ass-kicker," and "invicible psycho ass-kicker." :D

[David J Prokopetz]

On the other hand, Final Fantasy VII absolutely does. Sephiroth's dialogue makes it clear that he wants to become the kind of deity featured in (Japanese perceptions of) western monotheistic religion.Nope. As I said, he passes the "Judeochristian overtones" test, but fails to qualify on the "supreme being" part - he didn't actually create the world and/or humanity, nor does he rule over either for any meaningful span of time. ;)

[Voidnaut]

Nope. As I said, he passes the "Judeochristian overtones" test, but fails to qualify on the "supreme being" part - he didn't actually create the world and/or humanity, nor does he rule over either for any meaningful span of time. ;)

I think it passes all the important markers of "Japanese CRPGs like sticking it to monotheism" argument.

-Voidnaut

[Draco Light]

Nope. As I said, he passes the "Judeochristian overtones" test, but fails to qualify on the "supreme being" part - he didn't actually create the world and/or humanity, nor does he rule over either for any meaningful span of time. ;)

So Kefka actually makes the cut? He did have a full year of supreme dominance...

[David J Prokopetz]

So Kefka actually makes the cut? He did have a full year of supreme dominance...Sure, close enough. He gets bonus points for basically creating monotheism when he usurped the Goddesses and set himself up in their place, too. :D

(And Voidnaut, you're grossly oversimplifying. There's a clear thematic distinction between killing the guy who created the universe, and killing some schmuck who just wants to blow it up.)

[Argetlamh]

Technically Sefirot are just the emanations of God, so Jenova is Ein Sof.

[Mostlyjoe]

Going deeper into the Phantasy Star mode.

Dark Force (Dark Fasz) is basicaly the psionic incarnation of all the evil in the world. Sure it might have started out as a alien plague, but I think over the course of the series the various characters intergrate it into the world. Each time it 'dies' it slinks back into the mind of the people and recreates itself.

How similar to the Dragon of Champions Universe.

I think he would qualify as the devil. :D

As for Final Fantasy 7, Sephy (Sephiroth) is more like Lucifer. A fallen angel trying to tear open the gates of heaven and take its power for himself. God is a unthinking force that respondes to the will of the people. (Lifeforce) But to direct it you have to open yourself up to it to get it to respond. Cloud/Aeris.

[Odie]

Actually the more I look at it the more parallels I see.

No kidding. So what's the fact that Lavos engineered life on that planet as a snack supposed to signify?

-B

[Voidnaut]

(And Voidnaut, you're grossly oversimplifying. There's a clear thematic distinction between killing the guy who created the universe, and killing some schmuck who just wants to blow it up.)

The thematic distinction is as follows: one case allows the existence of such a God in order to destroy it, whereas the other does not allow the existence, but merely the conceit (ie, religion without the deity).

ParitySoul's point only strengthens the argument, really, since Lucifer is still a "Judeo-Christian" (just Christian, really) figure, whereas the Lifeforce is clearly not from the same tradition. Whether Sefiroth is Lucifer or God or the Son of God (Jenovah) is fairly immaterial to the discussion of anti-western-religion themes in Japanese CRPGs.

-Voidnaut

[Stephenls]

No kidding. So what's the fact that Lavos engineered life on that planet as a snack supposed to signify?

Japanese dis-trust of monotheism? I mean, as opposed to plain dislike.

I dunno. Lavos was a kickass villain.

[Emprint]

In Ultima VIII: Pagan, you not only kill gods, you take their stuff. On the other hand, they're definitely more, uh, pagan than Judeo-Christian. The central Captain Kirk theme of beings with godlike powers being untrustworthy is definitely there, though. And there's a typically Captain Kirk ambiguity there, too. You manage to wreck the shit out of the last human settlement on the planet in the process of freeing it and sending yourself home.

[Squid]

I dunno, she was still doing the whole Dark Dragon thing in three.

As for four, I didn't see them as real gods, just powerful beings who played at being god. Deis was a goddess, but not the others. That's how I see it at least.

She was, you know, holding back the desert that threatened to consume the world.

The gods in four where certainly not 'creator' level beings, but they had pretty godly abilities in a more polytheistic bent.

Fou Lu and Ryu, though, are pretty clearly some sort of supreme diety when they merge. Ryu forces all the other divine beings off the planet if he wins, while Fou does the whole 'screw you, humanity' bit if he does. Which brings me to my favorite point in the boss fight: After you beat his Tyrant form, he turns humanoid again and talks to the party. The music switches to the gentle village theme as the party tries to convince him of humanity's goodness and Fou seems to be listening...and then to the end theme as Fou reveals that the arguement would have swayed him before Miami was tortured to death, and transforms for the ACTUAL final boss fight, without a chance to heal. Damn dragon gods.

[Killfalcon]

Well, you don't kill THE God, but in Breath of Fire you kill one of the goddesses of the world. Then in 2 you kill her demonic spawn. Then in three you kill her again.

I seem to be about one of about ten BoF fans in the world.

For the record, I consider BoF 3&4 (ie, the ones I've played) to be the best CRPGs in existance. I like the plot, the style, the characters, the battle system, even the music.

[Squid]

I'd agree on most accounts if not for the fact that Three took waaay too long to get into the swing of things, and had a few MISERABLE minigame moments, when the only way to advance the plot was to do something pointlessly mundane.

I'm a dragon prince, damnit, backed by a guardian and a peice of the World Tree! Less food preperation, more...anything else!

[VoiceOfIsaac]

I have to say that this is one thing that I didn't like about Final Fantasies 9 and 10 -- not the act of killing God, but that God wasn't given much of a character note. :)

Spolier warnings and all that...

in FF9, the last fight is against something called (I believe) Necros, who is either the Angel of Death or the embodiment of Entropy, and has decided to wipe your world from existence because of all the shit that got kicked up by the villain in his quest for power. He literally shows up out of nowhere, and there's not even a hint of his existence until that last fight. I would've liked for them to at least establish that he exists -- "Oh shit! The villain did the bad thing! Anti-God is here to kill us all, like the prophecy said!" Y'know, some sort of establishing plot point. :)

In FFX, we learn that Yu Yevon is a bastard sorcerer (or something) who created the whole Sin cycle -- but we don't learn anything about him beyond that. We learn a LOT about Jecht, but frankly Jecht was little more than an unwilling henchman to the true villain of Yu Yevon, and his role as Sin was not in any way an extension of his beliefs or actions -- he was simply transformed into an unwilling killing machine.

So I wanted to know more about Yu Yevon the person, so I could build up a proper hate for him as I beat him down in the final battle. :) That was one reason why the final fight against Sephiroth was so fun, after all!

- Isaac!

[SteveVo8a]

She was, you know, holding back the desert that threatened to consume the world.

Huh. It's been a while since I played through the endgame, but I don't recall that. I remember it as her being the one who had created the desert. I really don't know how it could be held back, considering that it pretty much covered all of the continent it was on as far as we saw. Plus there was the whole war against the dragons thing.

I've long wished that the games had more of a stable connection to one another as opposed to just overlapping elements. There could be such a cool mythos in there. But you know, it's Capcom.


in FF9, the last fight is against something called (I believe) Necros, who is either the Angel of Death or the embodiment of Entropy, and has decided to wipe your world from existence because of all the shit that got kicked up by the villain in his quest for power. He literally shows up out of nowhere, and there's not even a hint of his existence until that last fight. I would've liked for them to at least establish that he exists -- "Oh shit! The villain did the bad thing! Anti-God is here to kill us all, like the prophecy said!" Y'know, some sort of establishing plot point. :)

Yeah, in my opinion 9 pretty much has the ultimate "final boss out of nowehere" thing going on. As near as I can tell, there's no indication of him until he shows up. Not even any obscure hints, that I'm aware of. It's not like games never do things like that, but I've never seen it done so completely as in 9.

[VoiceOfIsaac]

For the record, I consider BoF 3&4 (ie, the ones I've played) to be the best CRPGs in existance. I like the plot, the style, the characters, the battle system, even the music.

I liked BoF 4, but I could never get REALLY into it like other games. I'd always get about halfway through or so, and then lose interest. I'm not really sure why, but I tried this about three times, and something else would always come along to distract me, and I wouldn't feel strongly enough about BoF 4 to stick with it or pick back up where I left off.

And unfortunately, I heard that "Dragon Quarter", which was essentially BoF5, wasn't very good.

- Isaac

[Voidnaut]

I think part of the idea in FFX was that Yu Yevon had essentially lost all personality and consciousness long ago - he wasn't, in other words, much of a Big Bad Sky Father. More like Tarbaby Tetsuo.

-Voidnaut

[David J Prokopetz]

ParitySoul's point only strengthens the argument, really, since Lucifer is still a "Judeo-Christian" (just Christian, really) figure, whereas the Lifeforce is clearly not from the same tradition. Whether Sefiroth is Lucifer or God or the Son of God (Jenovah) is fairly immaterial to the discussion of anti-western-religion themes in Japanese CRPGs.I'm sorry sorry to say this, but at this point, if you're honestly prepared to assert that killing a God-analogue is thematically equivalent to killing a Satan-analogue, I'm afraid you Just Don't Get It&trade;. It seems as though you have a political axe to grind with this "The Japanese hate Christians!" stuff, so I shan't attempt to argue with you any further - this is neither the time nor the place for sociopolitical debate. ^^;

[Voidnaut]

It seems as though you have a political axe to grind with this "The Japanese hate Christians!" stuff

Yeah, I'm real broken up about that. :rolleyes: I'm an anthropology nerd. Cross-cultural tensions are always interesting.

-Voidnaut

[Stephenls]

I'm sorry sorry to say this, but at this point, if you're honestly prepared to assert that killing a God-analogue is thematically equivalent to killing a Satan-analogue, I'm afraid you Just Don't Get It&trade;. It seems as though you have a political axe to grind with this "The Japanese hate Christians!" stuff, so I shan't attempt to argue with you any further - this is neither the time nor the place for sociopolitical debate. ^^;

I always kinda view this sort of thing less like "The Japanese hate all Christians," and more like "In Japan, monotheism is sorta exotic the same way buddhism is here, so when writing games for a Japanese audience, the writers pull vaguely Christian-seeming imagery out of their asses the same way most 'occult' writers here pull vaguely foreign-seeming occult imagery out of theirs."

It's less about cultural tension and more about universal human dumbassery.

The end product is often pretty cool, though.

[AliasiSudonomo]

Yeah, in my opinion 9 pretty much has the ultimate "final boss out of nowehere" thing going on. As near as I can tell, there's no indication of him until he shows up. Not even any obscure hints, that I'm aware of. It's not like games never do things like that, but I've never seen it done so completely as in 9.

Of course, considering FF9 was designed as a sort of tribute to all the themes of the older Final Fantasies, you might say that was working as intended. ;)

[SteveVo8a]

Of course, considering FF9 was designed as a sort of tribute to all the themes of the older Final Fantasies, you might say that was working as intended. ;)

See, people say that, but I never saw it anywhere near as much with the earlier games as I did with 9.

[AliasiSudonomo]

See, people say that, but I never saw it anywhere near as much with the earlier games as I did with 9.

It wasn't quite as sudden, but it was there.

FF1? Chaos, who is basically just a generic big bad, no real development. FF4? Zeromus. FF5 developed Exdeath a fair bit, but you didn't really find out that he was a magic tree until the end. FF8 had Ultimecia, who benefited from some of the plot development but was still sort of a last-minute villain.

I never got around to beating FF 2 or 3. 6 and 7 had well-developed villains. So it's not a consistent every-game thing, but it's definitely present.

[Mr. Teapot]

You could argue that he's something like the Demiurge, but he's not a monotheistic God in a meaningful sense.

Several other cited examples would also qualify more as killing a demiurge than as killing God himself. Partly that has to do with the concept of god, and partly with trying to make killable villains and partly with it being a Japanese interpretation of Western civilization (it's unclear if that distinction would be meaningful to the game developers, so it's meaningfulness here is similarly unclear).

[Mr. Teapot]

No kidding. So what's the fact that Lavos engineered life on that planet as a snack supposed to signify?

"The Lord is my shepherd..."

And a shepherd only herds sheep for a couple of purposes, foremost of which are food and monetary gain, leastmost of which is concern for the wellbeing of the sheep. Since Lavos can't sell human byproducts off onto other giant lava tick things, he just settles with eating us all. Or something.

[SteveVo8a]

It wasn't quite as sudden, but it was there.

FF1? Chaos, who is basically just a generic big bad, no real development. FF4? Zeromus. FF5 developed Exdeath a fair bit, but you didn't really find out that he was a magic tree until the end. FF8 had Ultimecia, who benefited from some of the plot development but was still sort of a last-minute villain.

I never got around to beating FF 2 or 3. 6 and 7 had well-developed villains. So it's not a consistent every-game thing, but it's definitely present.

See, I disagree on the Zeromus thing, which is what people have used as an example before. Admittedly it's been a few years since I last played 4, but it just never struck me as being that way.

Can't comment on 2, 3, or 8, since I haven't played those.

[Topher]

Chaos = Garland, empowered by the temporal paradox of the four Fiends being killed in a time before they had sent him back into the past. No, really. No. Really.

FF2's villain was established in the first reel. Sure, he makes a surprise return from the dead at the end, but he was pretty much present throughout the game.

The Cloud of Darkness from FF3 was intricately entwined with the overall plot and the themes of balance between extremes. Gods I hope that game gets released here in English someday. =7

Topher

[Argetlamh]

The Cloud of Darkness from FF3 was intricately entwined with the overall plot and the themes of balance between extremes. Gods I hope that game gets released here in English someday. =7

TopherThere are quite a few fan translations out there, and IIRC Squenix intends to release it for the Nintendo DS. Now, if they'd only package it with Star Ocean and Seiken Densetsu III, I'd be set...