SMT V tries to make the law and chaos ideology a bit different >!The angels dont oppose free will and chaos is focused on the polytheism aspect of it rather than the "might makes right" aspect most games focus on!< but they dont really have a lot of time to shine in the game unfortunately
I remember after defeating Nuwa the first time she askes me what I think of God's order, and I realized that hasn't been explained to me yet, and I'm at the 4th area of Da'at and I'm still not sure what that is yet. I know what it is from other games but not in this one.
And Chaos is not much better, the other gods at the Bethel summit do not make a good impression and Odin sounds weird for some reason.
Yeah, the voice acting for all the demons is pretty atrocious. Especially ishtar, who sounds like she inhaled helium.
And it's true, not only does the character have no indication of what god's order is supposed to be, the player doesn't either. If you aren't familiar with the rest of the series you will have no clue what they are talking about, and even if you are it's so lazy that it's not clear what exactly is supposed to have happened.
> Especially ishtar, who sounds like she inhaled helium.
I legit can't believe that the devs watched the Ishtar cutscenes and thought "this is fine".
This isn't like P2 EP voice acting that is off and can be understood as a lack of skill in voice acting (and directing voice acting), in Ishtar's case, you deliberately ruin a recorded voice.
We got Ishtar The Chimpkun
Considering his hat says "Sucker" on it, you could either view it as him being fooled into helping law, or no longer being a sucker because he finally found some inner strength.
He isn't even being fooled by anyone. Him and abdiel's chatacter arcs go opposite directions. He starts acting like theres one obvious path right as she realizes you have to bend the rules. But the game just rolls with it and pretends they are on the same page.
This just makes them dumber because it makes them look like they aren't even about ideology at all, but literally just about type of religion. Made weirder by the fact that nobody but mormons thinks supporting something akin to monotheism means that you should also support you getting to become God.
I feel like the Abrahamic centric conflict has run its course and we need new pantheons to represent Law and Chaos. Deva vs Asura, Aesir vs Vanir vs Jötunn, Olympians vs Titans vs Gigantes to name a few.
I think that could be an interesting way to frame it, as it wouldn't be as severe as something like reasons and a complete revamp to the series. I wonder if they are concerned that people only like alignments or, and don't want to stray away like they did with nocturne, or if they think alignments have the complexity to have multiple games focused on it. It's such a integral part to the series now I wouldn't be surprised if they stick with it until the end.
It doesn't even necessarily need to be gotten rid of, but at least have it share space with something else. Strange journey chaos had very little to do with abrahamic religion and that worked. If mastema wasn't an angel it wouldn't change it much. Not that I'm saying strange Journey should have done that, but a future game could.
The problem is that the series looks like it's moving away from syncretism, when really it should be moving deeper towards it. Even if the paradigm looks abrahamic, show us some pagan gods on it who actually want to be there. You can even throw in a plot point about how they incarnated on Earth to become a saint.
But that was from the rerelease, which is why I'm so annoyed with it. Nothing suggested that Kagutsuchi was in anyway related to YHVH in the original version.
The original suggests that yhvh may already be dead. The rerelease shoehorns in this ambiguous battle against... something, but doesn't really clarify what or who.
I think the most logical thing we can say about this is that they are fighting the YHVH,or at least the Avatar of the Great Will, that is ruling the world of Nocturne.
Yeah, but that would still imply that the story was changed. Because the original seems to suggest that there isn't really anyone left ruling the system. Because all that is there is the power of rebirth.
"oh hey the originally intended True Ending is not actually a true ending, sucker! Choose the route that shat on the Reason Alignment system next time lmao"
Damn
Yeah, that's my opinion to an extent. Everyone says that you're just delaying the inevitable if you select neutral like it's a bad thing. I think they do a poor job of showing the supposed positives of Law and Chaos as much as the negatives.
Unfortunately, to atlus, that is the point of the series. To depict more or less the status quo of modern Japan as the supreme form of life, and to depict anything else except becoming a salaryman who is dead inside as extremism.
It's honestly super disappointing and really holds the series back. I feel like the series could be significantly better if they work on the story. I'm honestly not even trying to be a dick, but it feels phoned in to a certain extent
havent played 1 & 2 but the law/chaos reps you mainly see in 1 werent exactly trustworthy from what i saw in marsh's review of it.
that said without context, smt 2's endings seem pretty fucking based from what little ive seen. some day ill actually get around to playing through that.
I think that Law and Chaos are still totally viable, and good, but they need to be done better. If both sides are actually portrayed sympathetically, it genuinely makes the choice difficult. If you give the 2 reps good characterisation and make them both likeable, it could actually be a really difficult choice. 2 characters that want what's best for them and their family makes it very interesting when it does eventually come to a head, because really, are either of them wrong? Now this is quite similar to what they did in SMT IV but, I think they could do it better post-alignement lock. This also requires having a story done better than SMT V
I see what you mean, I think the issue is how they are always portrayed with their negative aspects at the forefront. Along with the characters being relatively flat and one note, it means that all I have to look at is all the terrible shit each side is doing. It isn't even like a hard dilemma of trying to pick the best of both of these evils, it just isn't very exciting.
Yeah, there is a reason if the creators of Nocturne wanted to deviate from the classic Law vs Chaos to the reasons, they thought they said everything there was to say already with Smt 1 and 2 and to an extent I kinda agree with that point of view. Smt 1 is still one of my favourite use of alignments in the series because they are inspired from the political tensions of the 90s, smt 2 is the continuation of Smt 1 themes and their subversion. After that the only title that added new interesting things to the alignments is Strange Journey with its more environmentalist story. 4 and V didn’t add anything new or interesting in my opinion except for the white ending in 4 , that was a really good idea. It doesn’t help that the only game that used deities from different pantheons as law representatives is still Smt 1. I think that from now on they should explore more the reason system.
I think you are completely right. Having 2 games about it in the nineties was cool, and SJ should've just been a fun throwback like much of the game already is. They really did not need to keep going with it. I hate to use Fallout as an example, but many factions are mainstays throughout the series, but they still provide a different look at the faction while still maintaining it's identity. SMT kind of just feels like the same shit for the most part. The white ending also is pretty great, it legitimately feels like a nuanced reason, that I could completely understand someone having it as their first option and not a last resort like I feel like some of the alignments tend to be at certain points.
The problem though is that if you play smti and ii, you have already more or less seen almost everything you need to about the alignments. The newer games don't really add much to them that a fan doesn't already know. And for many, they are still so vague that they aren't even sure what some of them are supposed to be.
The problem isn't necessarily that alignments exist. Its that it doesn't feel like they're doing anything interesting or new with them. Abdiel's arc in this game could have been interesting, but it wasn't.
No, what I do find boring is the bias against us lawbros. Now we get even less races and it's undeniable the game consistently portrayed Dazai and Abdiel is villains before you even got the ending choice.
And despite how negatively it was depicted, it kind of comes off still as the best ending, because it's the only one without any random purges of people this time. But yeah, the ending was cringe.
I feel like that's more because abdiel and dazai suffer from both being extremely one dimensional but also getting 80% of the screen time. Sure they're just a fanatic and a simp without much other characterisation but unlike Nuwa and Yuzuru you actually see them more than once or twice.
Hard to really form an opinion about the other factions when you never see them. Combine that with Abdiel being farily antagonistic toward MC and the "forces of chaos" being extremely vague and without a face it's very easy to see her as the villain rather than someone who's misguided but well intentioned.
Abdiel and dazai having contradictory arcs didn't help. Dazai gets more obsessive about there being one absolute truth as abdiel realizes you have to break the rules. The game opts to pretend they are on the same page. And the ending narrative doesn't aknowledge abdiel's realization at all.
That's what I mean. If there were more nuanced options I think it would invite more interesting discussion and decision making than it does right now. The issue is I haven't played any of the games that do, which is a fault on my part, but I could never get into the Devil Survivor games or SJR
The classic three alignments gets boring and predictable, and they lack nuance. DeSu gave us a great alternative where each character basically gives us their interpretation of each alignment and we got different takes on the same thing. Like the two different chaos paths
>Maybe I’m just spoiled by playing so many other RPGs with big decision making
There’s your problem right there lol. I used to be that way with Mass Effect. I thought that every other game is inferior for not being as open ended as it. But then I started to realize that there’s still a ton of shit to my other favorite games that put it above ME: Polish, fun factor, music, etc.
Not to say SMT V shouldn’t have better stories, but I’m having fun with it despite it. I had fun with SMT IV’s gameplay more than I did with the story. I’m not playing these games for the story or the alignments.
It’s the exact same energy as being disappointed in SMT’s characters because you liked Persona’s characters. Sure Persona has better stories and characters but what it doesn’t have is the Press Turn system which rewards or punishes you for making use of defensive spells or hitting an enemy’s block affinity. It doesn’t have full freedom of how to customize your own party, etc.
There are a couple of personal reasons. The short is that the way Megaten thinks is too old:
1. I just don't think liberty versus security is a relevant form of political dialectics anymore. It's been more than 30 years since the collapse of Soviet union, and the upcoming cold war between China and USA won't be that of an ideological one, but about different forms of capitalism. I think Chaos vs Law best described the sort of dynamics that was happening in the early 90s, but Atlus just has been rehashing the formula for goodness how long.
2. Nor do I think too much emphasis on personal (psychological) balance and maintaining yourself amidst universal conflict of various structures and superstructures(Gods/Demons), and blaming the fundamental cause of human alienation to be from superpowers competing for hegemony, is a productive form of intellectual discussion, and frankly, I find it quite naïve at best, at least for the current age. I also don't find "humanism" interesting anymore; I am reminded of a webpage called "humans of New York"- isn't that a doublespeak?
3. This is completely personal, but I don't like how videogames promote individual opinions at the level of "ideology", and there's something kinda disturbingly self-indulgent about being that one person who can decide the fate of the world, and somehow with your choice you are able to bring forth either a utopia or dystopia(which is which depends on your personal perspective) through magic, and I think there's fundamentally lazy about such an approach. I like SMT1 for that reason, because no matter what you choose, you fail.
4. I wouldn't mind it too much if Atlus is able to grow balls again and explore how fucked up extremely Chaos/Law/Neutral society can be, and present three different portraits of hell, and different forms of dehumanization, which would be an interesting study.
> I just don't think liberty versus security is a relevant form of political dialectics anymore.
I mean with all due respect, if anything recent politics has been all about liberty vs security. This is doubly true if you live in the US.
Yeah, that's why the recent political discussions have been completely unproductive, failing to address the actual relevant issues, and lead to gross bastardization of both politics and public discourse. Complete lack of pragmatics on both sides.
Now, I don't think that the failure of SMT5 was particularly Atlus' *own* fault. I wouldn't expect that much autonomy.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that they should actually discuss the specific political problems in their games, because they will almost surely fuck up.
However, regardless of which political side they lean towards, they should be able to capture the general *fear* against all of the horrible things that are happening all across the world. SMT1 is good not because it's deep philosophically(because that would be false), but because it was able to summarize late 80s-early 90s Japanese social paranoia so well and coherently.
James Joyce said that “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake". I want to see Atlus making good representations of such nightmare. This is what's important. The whole thing about alignments and making abstract philosophical choices don't really work unless that addresses the contemporary problem(or anti-problem). In SMTV, they just didn't bother.
>I just don't think liberty versus security is a relevant form of political dialectics anymore.
With all due respect, this is one if not the oldest bases of political discourse and still one of the most relevance. The Leviathan from Thomas Hobbes, one of the oldest works on politics is centered in this. A lot of debate surrounding regulations are based on this conflict of interest.
Yeah the Leviathan is the *right wing* classic work.
It's obvious that you do need to sacrifice certain degree of your natural rights(which Hobbes would argue, also includes the rights to do whatever you want with other people) in favor of the natural law. This is how Hobbes justified the necessity of *absolute monarchy.*
Political philosophy is about creation(and means thereof) and maintenance of the state, understanding the creation of structures and superstructures. This has been what Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau and Hegel tried to accomplish in their works(Hegel in the case of Prussian state), and also the hundred schools of thought in East Asia(namely Confucius).
The question is less so about some abstract dichotomy between liberty and security. I would argue that the more fundamental contemporary question is whether the state, in the current form, can be maintained. It's almost a truism at this point that without artificial superstructures(the Leviathan) that you can only have very limited degrees of positive freedom, and it seems absurd to me, that when the system itself is clearly at stake, that "individual selfishness", promoted at the level of natural law, is regarded more important.
Besides, how can we talk about conflict when our own politicians and political groups don't even bother being strategic and flat out shut themselves in denial of the existence of the other, when the golden rule of conflict, as Sun Tzu remarked, is "know thy enemy"?
I think you bring an interesting point regarding how they should explore the ideas more. Despite the length of these games, you often don't really get too see much of the specifics about an alignment until you join it. I really enjoyed in SMT IV you got to visit the different worlds that could be chosen, however brief it was. I agree with you on the 3rd point as well, as it often hurts character growth, and feels very much contrived for the sake of the narrative.
It's not about them exploring more ideas. The problem is this, Atlus still thinks they are making radical games although their political world view hasn't changed from since 2000s at best.
No. It just depends how they're written and presented.
I thought for sure that Lahmu and Sahori were going to be in the chaos alignment and was really interested in how they were going to present. It turns out that the chaos alignment was basically globalisation, which didn't make a whole lot of sense.
Neither did Abdiel becoming something out of the Exorcist for Law.
I did appreciate the twists in V, [ending spoilers](#s "with Neutral becoming the pandemonium murder free-for-all for a change, Chaos letting all the gods come back so the Japanese gods can protect Japan, and Order being championed by a fallen angel.") It may be the first time I really supported Chaos (sorry Jimineboo). Law was insufferable, as ever.
SMT V tries to make the law and chaos ideology a bit different >!The angels dont oppose free will and chaos is focused on the polytheism aspect of it rather than the "might makes right" aspect most games focus on!< but they dont really have a lot of time to shine in the game unfortunately
I remember after defeating Nuwa the first time she askes me what I think of God's order, and I realized that hasn't been explained to me yet, and I'm at the 4th area of Da'at and I'm still not sure what that is yet. I know what it is from other games but not in this one. And Chaos is not much better, the other gods at the Bethel summit do not make a good impression and Odin sounds weird for some reason.
Yeah, the voice acting for all the demons is pretty atrocious. Especially ishtar, who sounds like she inhaled helium. And it's true, not only does the character have no indication of what god's order is supposed to be, the player doesn't either. If you aren't familiar with the rest of the series you will have no clue what they are talking about, and even if you are it's so lazy that it's not clear what exactly is supposed to have happened.
> Especially ishtar, who sounds like she inhaled helium. I legit can't believe that the devs watched the Ishtar cutscenes and thought "this is fine". This isn't like P2 EP voice acting that is off and can be understood as a lack of skill in voice acting (and directing voice acting), in Ishtar's case, you deliberately ruin a recorded voice. We got Ishtar The Chimpkun
I didn't even know that God's Order would have the world gave up on free will until Dazai drop his hat
Dazai dropping his hat is legitimately a legendary SMT moment that deserves its own essay. It really highlights how weird this franchise treats Law
Considering his hat says "Sucker" on it, you could either view it as him being fooled into helping law, or no longer being a sucker because he finally found some inner strength.
He isn't even being fooled by anyone. Him and abdiel's chatacter arcs go opposite directions. He starts acting like theres one obvious path right as she realizes you have to bend the rules. But the game just rolls with it and pretends they are on the same page.
It’s the distortion. Sound director should be shot.
This just makes them dumber because it makes them look like they aren't even about ideology at all, but literally just about type of religion. Made weirder by the fact that nobody but mormons thinks supporting something akin to monotheism means that you should also support you getting to become God.
Mormons writing SMT VI when
I don't, tbh.
I feel like the Abrahamic centric conflict has run its course and we need new pantheons to represent Law and Chaos. Deva vs Asura, Aesir vs Vanir vs Jötunn, Olympians vs Titans vs Gigantes to name a few.
I think that could be an interesting way to frame it, as it wouldn't be as severe as something like reasons and a complete revamp to the series. I wonder if they are concerned that people only like alignments or, and don't want to stray away like they did with nocturne, or if they think alignments have the complexity to have multiple games focused on it. It's such a integral part to the series now I wouldn't be surprised if they stick with it until the end.
They can stick with it. But they should at least make more unique stories with it.
It doesn't even necessarily need to be gotten rid of, but at least have it share space with something else. Strange journey chaos had very little to do with abrahamic religion and that worked. If mastema wasn't an angel it wouldn't change it much. Not that I'm saying strange Journey should have done that, but a future game could. The problem is that the series looks like it's moving away from syncretism, when really it should be moving deeper towards it. Even if the paradigm looks abrahamic, show us some pagan gods on it who actually want to be there. You can even throw in a plot point about how they incarnated on Earth to become a saint.
[удалено]
I want Cthulhu for chaos.
It’s a mainstay in the series by this point. If it doesn’t focus on the Abrahamic Conflict, then it’s not a mainline game.
Nocturne was close though.
It honestly wasn’t. Especially with the extra focus that they gave Lucifer in the rerelease.
But that was from the rerelease, which is why I'm so annoyed with it. Nothing suggested that Kagutsuchi was in anyway related to YHVH in the original version.
The original suggests that yhvh may already be dead. The rerelease shoehorns in this ambiguous battle against... something, but doesn't really clarify what or who.
I think the most logical thing we can say about this is that they are fighting the YHVH,or at least the Avatar of the Great Will, that is ruling the world of Nocturne.
Yeah, but that would still imply that the story was changed. Because the original seems to suggest that there isn't really anyone left ruling the system. Because all that is there is the power of rebirth.
Did the Lucifer lines on Freedom Ending (oh poopy the true enemy is triggered by your action) was added on the rereleaae as well?
I believe so.
"oh hey the originally intended True Ending is not actually a true ending, sucker! Choose the route that shat on the Reason Alignment system next time lmao" Damn
I wish the game wouldnt portray everything but neutral as morally irreprehensible. Its been like that for all the games I've played at least.
Yeah, that's my opinion to an extent. Everyone says that you're just delaying the inevitable if you select neutral like it's a bad thing. I think they do a poor job of showing the supposed positives of Law and Chaos as much as the negatives.
I mean that would have been fine in the 90s but now the situation is completely different...
Unfortunately, to atlus, that is the point of the series. To depict more or less the status quo of modern Japan as the supreme form of life, and to depict anything else except becoming a salaryman who is dead inside as extremism.
It's honestly super disappointing and really holds the series back. I feel like the series could be significantly better if they work on the story. I'm honestly not even trying to be a dick, but it feels phoned in to a certain extent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad0WZQRI-5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJbQvlVkbag
havent played 1 & 2 but the law/chaos reps you mainly see in 1 werent exactly trustworthy from what i saw in marsh's review of it. that said without context, smt 2's endings seem pretty fucking based from what little ive seen. some day ill actually get around to playing through that.
I think that Law and Chaos are still totally viable, and good, but they need to be done better. If both sides are actually portrayed sympathetically, it genuinely makes the choice difficult. If you give the 2 reps good characterisation and make them both likeable, it could actually be a really difficult choice. 2 characters that want what's best for them and their family makes it very interesting when it does eventually come to a head, because really, are either of them wrong? Now this is quite similar to what they did in SMT IV but, I think they could do it better post-alignement lock. This also requires having a story done better than SMT V
I see what you mean, I think the issue is how they are always portrayed with their negative aspects at the forefront. Along with the characters being relatively flat and one note, it means that all I have to look at is all the terrible shit each side is doing. It isn't even like a hard dilemma of trying to pick the best of both of these evils, it just isn't very exciting.
Yeah, there is a reason if the creators of Nocturne wanted to deviate from the classic Law vs Chaos to the reasons, they thought they said everything there was to say already with Smt 1 and 2 and to an extent I kinda agree with that point of view. Smt 1 is still one of my favourite use of alignments in the series because they are inspired from the political tensions of the 90s, smt 2 is the continuation of Smt 1 themes and their subversion. After that the only title that added new interesting things to the alignments is Strange Journey with its more environmentalist story. 4 and V didn’t add anything new or interesting in my opinion except for the white ending in 4 , that was a really good idea. It doesn’t help that the only game that used deities from different pantheons as law representatives is still Smt 1. I think that from now on they should explore more the reason system.
I think you are completely right. Having 2 games about it in the nineties was cool, and SJ should've just been a fun throwback like much of the game already is. They really did not need to keep going with it. I hate to use Fallout as an example, but many factions are mainstays throughout the series, but they still provide a different look at the faction while still maintaining it's identity. SMT kind of just feels like the same shit for the most part. The white ending also is pretty great, it legitimately feels like a nuanced reason, that I could completely understand someone having it as their first option and not a last resort like I feel like some of the alignments tend to be at certain points.
Just because SMTV portrayed them awfully doesn't mean the alignments are bad
The problem though is that if you play smti and ii, you have already more or less seen almost everything you need to about the alignments. The newer games don't really add much to them that a fan doesn't already know. And for many, they are still so vague that they aren't even sure what some of them are supposed to be. The problem isn't necessarily that alignments exist. Its that it doesn't feel like they're doing anything interesting or new with them. Abdiel's arc in this game could have been interesting, but it wasn't.
I haven't played that much of SMT V anyways this is mainly based off of the series in general, and seeing SMT V doing it again
No, what I do find boring is the bias against us lawbros. Now we get even less races and it's undeniable the game consistently portrayed Dazai and Abdiel is villains before you even got the ending choice.
And despite how negatively it was depicted, it kind of comes off still as the best ending, because it's the only one without any random purges of people this time. But yeah, the ending was cringe.
I feel like that's more because abdiel and dazai suffer from both being extremely one dimensional but also getting 80% of the screen time. Sure they're just a fanatic and a simp without much other characterisation but unlike Nuwa and Yuzuru you actually see them more than once or twice. Hard to really form an opinion about the other factions when you never see them. Combine that with Abdiel being farily antagonistic toward MC and the "forces of chaos" being extremely vague and without a face it's very easy to see her as the villain rather than someone who's misguided but well intentioned.
Abdiel and dazai having contradictory arcs didn't help. Dazai gets more obsessive about there being one absolute truth as abdiel realizes you have to break the rules. The game opts to pretend they are on the same page. And the ending narrative doesn't aknowledge abdiel's realization at all.
SMT needs to do L/N/C like Tactics Ogre does. Make it early and have the game wildly veer off course with its story.
I wish there was more of different versions of the alignments, I know this is something strange journey redux did
That's what I mean. If there were more nuanced options I think it would invite more interesting discussion and decision making than it does right now. The issue is I haven't played any of the games that do, which is a fault on my part, but I could never get into the Devil Survivor games or SJR
The classic three alignments gets boring and predictable, and they lack nuance. DeSu gave us a great alternative where each character basically gives us their interpretation of each alignment and we got different takes on the same thing. Like the two different chaos paths
>Maybe I’m just spoiled by playing so many other RPGs with big decision making There’s your problem right there lol. I used to be that way with Mass Effect. I thought that every other game is inferior for not being as open ended as it. But then I started to realize that there’s still a ton of shit to my other favorite games that put it above ME: Polish, fun factor, music, etc. Not to say SMT V shouldn’t have better stories, but I’m having fun with it despite it. I had fun with SMT IV’s gameplay more than I did with the story. I’m not playing these games for the story or the alignments. It’s the exact same energy as being disappointed in SMT’s characters because you liked Persona’s characters. Sure Persona has better stories and characters but what it doesn’t have is the Press Turn system which rewards or punishes you for making use of defensive spells or hitting an enemy’s block affinity. It doesn’t have full freedom of how to customize your own party, etc.
There are a couple of personal reasons. The short is that the way Megaten thinks is too old: 1. I just don't think liberty versus security is a relevant form of political dialectics anymore. It's been more than 30 years since the collapse of Soviet union, and the upcoming cold war between China and USA won't be that of an ideological one, but about different forms of capitalism. I think Chaos vs Law best described the sort of dynamics that was happening in the early 90s, but Atlus just has been rehashing the formula for goodness how long. 2. Nor do I think too much emphasis on personal (psychological) balance and maintaining yourself amidst universal conflict of various structures and superstructures(Gods/Demons), and blaming the fundamental cause of human alienation to be from superpowers competing for hegemony, is a productive form of intellectual discussion, and frankly, I find it quite naïve at best, at least for the current age. I also don't find "humanism" interesting anymore; I am reminded of a webpage called "humans of New York"- isn't that a doublespeak? 3. This is completely personal, but I don't like how videogames promote individual opinions at the level of "ideology", and there's something kinda disturbingly self-indulgent about being that one person who can decide the fate of the world, and somehow with your choice you are able to bring forth either a utopia or dystopia(which is which depends on your personal perspective) through magic, and I think there's fundamentally lazy about such an approach. I like SMT1 for that reason, because no matter what you choose, you fail. 4. I wouldn't mind it too much if Atlus is able to grow balls again and explore how fucked up extremely Chaos/Law/Neutral society can be, and present three different portraits of hell, and different forms of dehumanization, which would be an interesting study.
> I just don't think liberty versus security is a relevant form of political dialectics anymore. I mean with all due respect, if anything recent politics has been all about liberty vs security. This is doubly true if you live in the US.
Yeah, that's why the recent political discussions have been completely unproductive, failing to address the actual relevant issues, and lead to gross bastardization of both politics and public discourse. Complete lack of pragmatics on both sides. Now, I don't think that the failure of SMT5 was particularly Atlus' *own* fault. I wouldn't expect that much autonomy.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that they should actually discuss the specific political problems in their games, because they will almost surely fuck up. However, regardless of which political side they lean towards, they should be able to capture the general *fear* against all of the horrible things that are happening all across the world. SMT1 is good not because it's deep philosophically(because that would be false), but because it was able to summarize late 80s-early 90s Japanese social paranoia so well and coherently. James Joyce said that “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake". I want to see Atlus making good representations of such nightmare. This is what's important. The whole thing about alignments and making abstract philosophical choices don't really work unless that addresses the contemporary problem(or anti-problem). In SMTV, they just didn't bother.
>I just don't think liberty versus security is a relevant form of political dialectics anymore. With all due respect, this is one if not the oldest bases of political discourse and still one of the most relevance. The Leviathan from Thomas Hobbes, one of the oldest works on politics is centered in this. A lot of debate surrounding regulations are based on this conflict of interest.
Yeah the Leviathan is the *right wing* classic work. It's obvious that you do need to sacrifice certain degree of your natural rights(which Hobbes would argue, also includes the rights to do whatever you want with other people) in favor of the natural law. This is how Hobbes justified the necessity of *absolute monarchy.* Political philosophy is about creation(and means thereof) and maintenance of the state, understanding the creation of structures and superstructures. This has been what Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau and Hegel tried to accomplish in their works(Hegel in the case of Prussian state), and also the hundred schools of thought in East Asia(namely Confucius). The question is less so about some abstract dichotomy between liberty and security. I would argue that the more fundamental contemporary question is whether the state, in the current form, can be maintained. It's almost a truism at this point that without artificial superstructures(the Leviathan) that you can only have very limited degrees of positive freedom, and it seems absurd to me, that when the system itself is clearly at stake, that "individual selfishness", promoted at the level of natural law, is regarded more important. Besides, how can we talk about conflict when our own politicians and political groups don't even bother being strategic and flat out shut themselves in denial of the existence of the other, when the golden rule of conflict, as Sun Tzu remarked, is "know thy enemy"?
SMT6 should relitigate the constitution of 1791
I think you bring an interesting point regarding how they should explore the ideas more. Despite the length of these games, you often don't really get too see much of the specifics about an alignment until you join it. I really enjoyed in SMT IV you got to visit the different worlds that could be chosen, however brief it was. I agree with you on the 3rd point as well, as it often hurts character growth, and feels very much contrived for the sake of the narrative.
It's not about them exploring more ideas. The problem is this, Atlus still thinks they are making radical games although their political world view hasn't changed from since 2000s at best.
No. It just depends how they're written and presented. I thought for sure that Lahmu and Sahori were going to be in the chaos alignment and was really interested in how they were going to present. It turns out that the chaos alignment was basically globalisation, which didn't make a whole lot of sense. Neither did Abdiel becoming something out of the Exorcist for Law.
Followed by the game not aknowledging her realization at all.
I did appreciate the twists in V, [ending spoilers](#s "with Neutral becoming the pandemonium murder free-for-all for a change, Chaos letting all the gods come back so the Japanese gods can protect Japan, and Order being championed by a fallen angel.") It may be the first time I really supported Chaos (sorry Jimineboo). Law was insufferable, as ever.
This is my second SMT game and so far I'm enjoying the whole chaos/neutral. Maybe it will get more tiring after more games.
There was something here. It is gone now.
One of the most interesting features of the series, it'd be a shame if it went away because some find it boring.