This series of posts is meant to show future game developers how to not write a story for a game by pointing out some of the most offensive titles ever made, some of which have been very commercially successful and what we as artists can do to ensure that we don’t make the same mistakes that other developers have made in the past.
For those of you who have been regular readers of this blog, It’s obvious what I think of the Gears of War series and the ideology behind it. For thsoe that need a bit of catching up, it contains some very strong National Socialist themes that I found incredibly disturbing. So therefore, I need to find games that are even more repugnant than GoW 2 and bring them to light with the biggest elephant in the room being a game that I’m sure that many of you have adored. Final Fantasy Tactics.
The story of Final Fantasy Tactics revolves around a group of adventurers who realize that their church really worships demons. That’s not particularly offensive. But their chief religious figure is a man who performed miracles, was executed by an empire and was betrayed by one of his followers. Sound familiar? Oh, and he was a spy who sold information to the enemies of the empire and was possessed by a fallen angel.
Final Fantasy isn’t the first product of commercially available Japanese culture to propagate the idea that Christianity is really Satanic. There have been multiple anime series based upon the idea and the main villain of the Samurai Shodown series is Amakua Shiro, an actual historical figure who led a Christian peasant uprising on the Shimabara Peninsula during the 17th century, which eventually led to the persecution of Christians in the centuries to come. That still does not justify the extreme amount of blasphemy since Japan was never Christianized, their culture was never destroyed by the church and they never had to deal with control of their internal politics by the church, unlike all of Europe, making Japanese anti-Christian sentiment more similar to the practice of, “The Burning of the Jew” over in Mexico, Greece and Spain during Good Friday rather than any real attempt to protect Japanese culture.
Looking at another Japanese game, Xenosaga, that has prominent religious themes, in this case Jewish ones that happens to criticizes organize religion but never denigrates the spirituality of practitioners of religious faith. Yes, Xenogears had many of the same themes as FFT, but it’s spiritual successor came across as far more sensitive to the interests of its audience. (I could go on all day about how Xenosaga is a great series, in so many ways, but that’s a topic for another day.)
That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy Final Fantasy Tactics or that I’m one of those ultra-Liberal PC types that promotes censorship and stifles ideas, but if I were still a Christian then I’d probably have some serious issues with this game much as my brother did. And that brings us to the next issue, how to handle the topic of religion in a medieval setting.
It’s natural to dislike the medieval church. They were corrupt to the core, destroyed numerous indigenous religions (oftentimes by erasing all records of the faith of newly conquered territories), and launched multiple crusades and inquisitions to increase their own power at the cost of human life. These were all despicable actions and even the vast majority of Christians today object to these actions. There should be certain guidelines how to construct religion for fantasy settings:
1. Attack the church, not the faith. The average believer is not a bad person and the real issue is concentrated power, not the fact that people want to believe in a god/gods.
2. Make the church polytheistic. The fewer similarities between a corrupt medieval church and Christianity, the better.
3. Depict sympathetic members of the clergy. Maybe make the villain a bad seed within the church but show the institution as force for good if the right people run it. Maybe give the player the option to help a good clergyman usurp power.
4. Don’t glorify crusaders. Coming across as too sensitive to the church and creating sympathetic Templar and paladin classes is usually not a good idea since East Orthodox Christians as well as Jews, Pagans and Muslims won’t take kindly to the idea of warriors dressed like the crusaders of old fighting a holy war in the name of good. When you take into account the sheer amount of atrocities committed by the crusaders, the whole “noble paladin” archetype comes across as being as a very poor choice to use for a character. Don’t create a paladin. And if you do, don’t put them on the warpath.
5. This is not a place to “warn” or “educate” people. I don’t care how trendy it is to hate on spirituality today. Don’t go out of your way to tell people how fake you believe God to be. It will not only annoy the vast majority of your audience, but it’s preachier than a Hideo Kojima game based on Paths of Glory. The Fable series is notorious for this, and as much as I like those games, don’t go down that path since most gamers will take exception to it. You’re not enlightening them, you’re just irritating them.
Coming Next: BMX XXX and why you should never make a game like that.
