What's a Paladin?

[DalekFlay]

Ignoring the most obvious, Ultima IX, what are some sequel moments that narratively betrayed previous games in the series?

And yes Chrome, I know that is not a word.

 

[Name]

Hitman: Absolution took the stone-cold killer Agent 47 and turned him into some sort of revenge-seeking lunatic who threw away his entire career for a woman, and a little girl. After killing thousands of people, a single individual was enough to make him realise he was wrong because she had boobs. Or something. Although the Hitman series was never super-serious in terms of tone, shit like the dominatrix/nun death squad out to get 47 was also beyond retarded.

Risen 2, as even though the story is okay on its own, it really has almost nothing in common with the original game. It's not outright bad in its own right, but the number of retcons to almost everything about the game world and story is ridiculous.

Oblivion, of course. Fucking Warp in the West, how does it work?

I thought Absolution is narratively consistent with the entire series.
In Codename 47 he found out his secret origin as a tool.
In Silent Assassin he spends the entire game to get back his friend, and in the process he found out that he could never be able to live as a normal person because of his origin.
In Blood Money his professional life is toppled as well, as in the end the Agency is destroyed and he is thought to be dead.
Finally in Absolution Diana offer him to help another tool from sharing his above fate.
It's the logical next step.
The point of the whole series is that Agent 47 is actually not a stone-cold killer despite being created so.
Don't know anything about boobs.

 

[DalekFlay]

Don't know anything about boobs.

I'm sorry for you.

 

[Name]

Don't know anything about boobs.

I'm sorry for you.

Yep.
And the problem of Absolution is that the focus of activities done by the character shifts too much from his previous portrayal, as he spent too much time on run and failed to assassinate a couple of times and even get captured couple of times, while these things are mostly ignored or skipped by previous installments to make him more badass and cool.

 

[DalekFlay]

I hate when games force your capture or failure. That shit should be outlawed.

 

[deuxhero]

Baten Kaitos: Origins, though it's intentional

Spoiler

One narrative gimmick of the first game was that the viewpoint character was YOU, the guy with the controller, and the main character was an independent person with his own thought process who you played Jimminy Cricket for while your aid makes him the chosen one (which is actually key for a nice plot twist there). In Origins, the big twist is that the player character is NOT the player, and thus the main character is not the chosen one, and he's just braindamaged, thanks to being used as a guinea pig, in a way that makes him think there was someone from another world talking to him his whole life.

It's one of the bigger reasons Eternal Wings should be played first (despite Origins being a prequel with no real spoilers for the original), as that loses a lot of its impact without playing the first game.

 

[DalekFlay]

I like how Sea's post disappeared and now nothing makes sense.

 

[DalekFlay]

To add my own:

Fallout 3.

The Enclave escaped the oil rig and went... across the entire country? The Brotherhood of Steel sent people all across the country, and those people never felt a need to help others until they got there? FEV was a nationwide Vault-tec thing? Ghouls are from pure radiation? *mind explodes*

 

[Malpercio]

Baten Kaitos: Origins, though it's intentional

Spoiler

One narrative gimmick of the first game was that the viewpoint character was YOU, the guy with the controller, and the main character was an independent person with his own thought process who you played Jimminy Cricket for while your aid makes him the chosen one (which is actually key for a nice plot twist there). In Origins, the big twist is that the player character is NOT the player, and thus the main character is not the chosen one, and he's just braindamaged, thanks to being used as a guinea pig, in a way that makes him think there was someone from another world talking to him his whole life.

It's one of the bigger reasons Eternal Wings should be played first (despite Origins being a prequel with no real spoilers for the original), as that loses a lot of its impact without playing the first game.

Spoiler

Well, Sagi is talking to someone though, the player is not a spirit but a being from that world that resides in his body.

No idea what this thread is about though.

 

[Turisas]

A paladin is what a blackguard was before he decided to become cool.

 

[DalekFlay]

No idea what this thread is about though.

Well I made the question one sentence long, so... even if you don't get the in-joke thread title, just read that sentence?

 

[Malpercio]

No idea what this thread is about though.

Well I made the question one sentence long, so... even if you don't get the in-joke thread title, just read that sentence?

Ah, I see.

Well, this thread could be renamed "Chrono Cross thread" then.

 

[DalekFlay]

Well, this thread could be renamed "Chrono Cross thread" then.

Badass intro music though.

 

[Gozma]

I hated all the shit they did in Fallout 2 once it had been years and I started caring about Fallout as a universe. And not just the overt lolz stuff. They made the prewar government a combination of Dr. Strangelove/a Bill Hicks version of the Reagan '80s. And did the "vaults were a cruelly insane experiment!!11" thing come from FO2 specifically or was it just dumb shit Avellone put in the FO bible?

Anyway FO1 left it much more ambiguous and was more fatalistic about conflict and war, and it was even partially satirizing what is normally sacralized '40s American "good patriotism". The core was very Walter Miller: humans gonna human.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Skyrim ''What are the Blades?'' Counts? Is this so hard to code the books read in game into dialogues trees?

 

[sea]

I hated all the shit they did in Fallout 2 once it had been years and I started caring about Fallout as a universe. And not just the overt lolz stuff. They made the prewar government a combination of Dr. Strangelove/a Bill Hicks version of the Reagan '80s. And did the "vaults were a cruelly insane experiment!!11" thing come from FO2 specifically or was it just dumb shit Avellone put in the FO bible?

I think it was always there in the Fallout Bible, but it wasn't really demonstrated in Fallout 1 at all. Like most things in Fallout 2 the dark humour went overboard and the Vaults turned into some sort of bizarre parody rather than a subtle commentary on American capitalism.

 

[DalekFlay]

Skyrim ''What are the Blades?'' Counts? Is this so hard to code the books read in game into dialogues trees?

Oblivion was the real fuck-up there. They went from the Emperor's spies to the Emperor's bodyguards? And why is the Legion suddenly a local band of guards instead of a foreign colonizing force?

 

[Commissar Draco]

In Morrowind Legion was both with Imperial Moths Forts and Imperial Guards acting as Police Force in Empire owned cities like Caldera, Pelegiad and Seyda Neyn. Skyrim on the other hand was neither conquered, It joined both Septims and Medes Empires voluntarily its Jarls seat in Imperial Elder Council and Nords were always backbone of Legions. Some people compared Stormderps to Kwan revolutionaries and Ulfric to Washington which is BS as Skyrim holds are not colonies of Cyrodil. Emperors were mainly Cyro-Nordic Colovians rather than Nords though and divinely ordained.

 

[Gozma]

I think it was always there in the Fallout Bible, but it wasn't really demonstrated in Fallout 1 at all. Like most things in Fallout 2 the dark humour went overboard and the Vaults turned into some sort of bizarre parody rather than a subtle commentary on American capitalism.

There is not a hint of it in FO1 and I strongly doubt it was intended at that point. The vaults at that point seemed more like they were about absurd Puritan/middle-class conscientiousness (think of the trope of the paranoid pater familias digging a fallout shelter in the '50s on a grand scale).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Baldur's Gate 2 Throne of Bhaal, one of the other Bhaalspawns is a Lawful Good Monk, and the only dialog option available is to fight him to the death.

That's the only thing I can think of right now. There are probably much better examples in BG2 alone.

 

[DraQ]

Oblivious, obviously.

 

[deuxhero]

Skyrim ''What are the Blades?'' Counts? Is this so hard to code the books read in game into dialogues trees?

They went from the Emperor's spies to the Emperor's bodyguards?

I thought MW mentioned that was their official job.

But yeah, fuck forcing characters to be ignorant of the world when there isn't a reason he should be (lived in a vault/isolated tribal village).

One thing I noticed with NV I NEVER see praised is that you are NEVER (or at least VERY rarely) forced to ask about major factions/leaders/locations to get quests, and all such dialog is just for flavor instead of flags. It is fully possible to play the Courier as someone who has been to the Mohave before (which actually fits nice in second playthroughs).

 

[ghostdog]

"What's a paladin" was about the betrayal of a game creator towards his own creation and its fans. (Ultima IX for those who don' t know spoony's review).

Metal Gear Solid 2 might fit in that category, but the MGS fanbase is so retarded they just begged for more betrayal.

 

[Hornawkawk]

KOTOR 2, but in a good way. It's just a big middle finger to the entire universe of Star Wars.

 

[Kattze]

Skyrim ''What are the Blades?'' Counts? Is this so hard to code the books read in game into dialogues trees?

This could have been a pretty neat feature.