There is a video game called Gods of War in which you guide your ultraviolent hero, Kratos, through a series of missions that lead to an assault on the Greek gods. You get to kill Zeus! There has been a whole series of these games, apparently, and Penny Arcade hints at a new direction they could take.
One has to wonder what the public response to such a game would be. Killing Zeus is reasonable and uncontroversial (except for generic concerns about violence), but I suspect a swordfight with Jesus would freak a few people out.
I’ve never played this game, but I admit…give me a shot at the Abrahamic gods, and I’d probably buy it.
Ahh… Penny Arcade. They’re hit and miss.
As for God of War, it’s a pretty good, albeit extremely violent game. The new God of War game gets pretty visceral and almost too realistic when it comes to the violence level.
I think it would be really hilarious to see Jesus v. Kratos in a deathmatch to the end. One has to wonder what kinds of abilities the Christian deity would bring to the table.
@ Kevin, #1:
Jesus would just let himself get killed, then fly into heaven a couple of days later and make Kratos feel guilty for a few thousand years.
The audience, no doubt, would go wild.
@DavidPJ (2):
Aw, poor Kratos.
I was thinking also like… magic cracker powers. To make people go crazy over a frakkin’ cracker.
Or if you want to set one god against another:
http://www.mediawatchwatch.org.uk/2009/04/27/faith-fighter-game-unites-religions-in-outrage/
There’s also a pretty good (and nicely blasphemous)internet story here, about the war that breaks out when Yahweh turns Earth over to the forces of Hell:
Various aspects of which are discussed here (BWA HA HA HA! Your productive time is doomed!)
Jesus is a pussy. KRATOS RULZ!!!
Well judging from the Robot Chicken skit Jesus and the Argonauts, Jesus has the power to instantly return from the dead. Allowing Kratos to kill him again and again and again …..
Not God of War, but Bible Fight is one of our favorite online games.
The game lets you fight as different biblical characters against other characters. Our favorite scenario is to fight as Eve and open up a big ol’ can of whoop-ass on Jesus.
#3 Kevin, Jesus’ power would clearly be to summon an endless horde of enraged minions.
I’d wonder what it would be like to play a game in which you kill Allah, but brilliantly, it already exists.
A feisty Jesus is a semi-regular character in Tatsuya Ishida’s Sinfest, although Satan and his minions are more prominently featured (because they’re usually more entertaining, I presume).
Strange. If Jesus can return from the dead then what are all those Christians waiting for? Surely Jesus wouldn’t be so cruel as to lead them on for ever and ever and ever…
No matter. It would be nice to be able to have a go at Jesus with a broadsword while he is nailed up helpless on the stake. If only he had been beheaded the first time. (Hrmm… crucifixion is a little too convenient for stories of his whole body resurrecting, isn’t it? Otherwise he’d resemble the Headless Horseman or Frankenstein’s Monster in the eyes of the delusional.)
I think they should pick up on the Jesus vs Santa theme. “There can be only one!”
Nerdy pedantry time: it’s actually God of War (III, in this case), not Gods of War.
There’s also a God of War rip-off (very loosely) based on Dante’s Inferno, which inevitably ends in a face-off against Lucifer. The ending hints that they intend to continue the series, so if they ever get to Paradiso you could get your wish.
I’ve never played this game, but I admit…give me a shot at the Abrahamic gods, and I’d probably buy it.
*Spoilers follow for Shin Megami Tensei games*
You may be interested to know that in the japanese RPG Shin Megami Tensei, you literally go up against YVHV. In one of the sequels, Nocturne, you can team up with Lucifer and become a full-fledged demon to go kill God as well.
Honestly, I’m surprised the game series never got any flak. It’s not like they’re only in Japan since Nocturne was released in America.
It would be pointless to try to kill the zombie Jeebus. He would just keep rising from the dead, never caring how terrible the smell is.
According to my Sweetie, the game Bayonetta that everyone’s talking about these days features a thinly veiled allegory for Yahweh as its main villain.
It would be pointless to try to kill the zombie Jeebus. He would just keep rising from the dead, never caring how terrible the smell is.
All that would lead to is a certain Monty Python sketch, but with more blasphemy! It’d be amazing!
For that purpose, you might want to look at Bayonetta (same platform).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonetta
You kill angels.
While wearing high heels.
And summoning demons.
To the theme tune “Fly me to the Moon”.
In a stripperific outfit.
I can’t imagine a single game more calculated to make Christian heads explode.
(and it is even more fun than it sounds)
Sadly, you don’t get to kill Jesus, because the enemy descriptions
heavily suggeststraight out state that the Abrahamic religions came about from a misunderstanding of who the angels came from.I suspect that the creator Kamiya got fed up of people screaming blasphemy because the evil organisation in the last game he did for the Playstation looked a bit like the Catholic Church.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_May_Cry_4
Given that the
Popeleader of the Order of the Sword wants to release the demons of Hell onto Earth so that his God can come to save them, this is clearly slander.The bad guys are obviously Evangelicals.
You kill angels.
While wearing high heels.
And summoning demons.
To the theme tune “Fly me to the Moon”.
In a stripperific outfit.
With legs that would make giraffes envious.
Hell, if we’re on the discussion of games with Christian-styled villains, even Final Fantasy Tactics will do. You end up killing a Jesus figure and the religion in it is essentially Dark Ages Christianity to a tee.
Hmm Darkmatter2525 has some “God fighter game” videos at youtube.
Godfighter 1
Godfighter 2
One learns very fast the IPU is a “game breaker”.
God’s on a 84,999,998 kill combo already, though, PZ.
That’s what got South Park started.
Direct link to Faith Fighter on gamesheep.com:
http://www.gamesheep.com/game/faith-fighter/?act=PlayNow
And an earlier game by the same author, Operation Pedopriest:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/385299
@GravityIsJustATheory #4 bastard, I had stuff to do today
I like.
And it seems to me, what with this Yahweh guy’s apparent anger issues, the game mechanic for the boss battle really should be some Portal-style ‘get the baddie to flip its lid and nuke itself’ thing…
(/Yahweh/GLADOS: ‘That thing you burned up isn’t important to me. It’s the Mother Theresa unit. It said creepy things about suffering to people dying horribly and slowly in Calcutta and took money for the pestilential hellholes in which it housed them from third-world dictators. Nice job breaking it, hero.’)
Japanese games have a fairly long history of featuring evil churches and/or deities. There was one called Breath of Fire 2 some years back, where you fight a thinly veiled Catholic church with an evil mind contolling pope, and a monotheistic god who wants to devour everyone on the planet.
Then, a few years later, there was Grandia 2, where it turns out that the Pope (actually called such in the game no less) is aware that God is dead, having lost the apocalypse a few thousand years prior, but keeps the people ignorant while he attempts to destroy the world…
I’m a little surprised some of these games never drew as much outrage.
I’m a little surprised some of these games never drew as much outrage.
If I had to guess it’s because the games are obscure or require attention to actually get through. It’s not like Grand Theft Auto, which is rallied against constantly due to being mainstream.
I like SMT as the best JRPG example though. No thin veils here, you fucking fight YVHV (and Metatron, Beelzebub, Thor, all sorts of shit).
@eqlovelace: Well BoF2 was a grand game. I wasn’t outraged. I certainly liked kicking St. Evan’s sorry ass.
…Grandia 2 though, I took big offense. Not because of the religious story, but because…Well damn, Grandia 1 was SO AWESOME I was totally bummed when I realized Grandia 2 was SO BAD.
I sorta faintly remember there was outrage at Sephiroth’s one winged angel form though. Oh and something about Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time’s fire temple music using some muslim prayer.
Oh and something about Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time’s fire temple music using some muslim prayer.
Yes. There was chanting in the temple, really helped make it atmospheric. They had to remove it from all later remakes and versions, replaced with the Shadow Temple theme. Copies of the game with the ‘chanting’ theme are really rare.
Ah, but “Nowhere in the bible does Jesus have a swordfight”.
@Michelle R: I admit, i never actually played the first (or the third) Grandia, so i didn’t have any basis for comparison. I just remember being impressed at how bold they were about saying “There’s no god (anymore), the pope is evil, and he’s exploiting the world for his own personal gain”
There may be an awful lot to that, actually.
A lot of the typical likely-to-froth believer, for all their apparently obsessive qualities, strike me as having strangely crippled attention spans in most things not obviously touching upon their obsession. I wonder if it has something to do with the way their faith necessarily conditions them not to notice certain obvious contradictions. They gotta take things in little chunks–putting too much together at once, that can lead to trouble…
Anyway, given that, the notion that they’re going to play a game in which it might take several days to plod through the story line and work out what’s going on clearly enough actually for them to get properly outraged about it, it just seems unlikely to me.
It’s disappointing. Mebbe they could put ‘blasphemy guide for the ADD-addled’-type stickers on the game packaging, help ’em along? ‘In this game, you make fun of Jesus’ teeny, tiny-little penis and moon the holy spirit…’
(/I figure the gaming companies might go for it. Frothing believers are generally good PR.)
In addition AJ Milne, JRPGs tend to have rules that you have to learn to get through them. An action game like GTA is pretty self-explanatory, but playing an RPG requires an understanding of some bizarre details that most fundies could not care less to learn.
That brings up another thing though – why the fuck do they care so much about D&D? Not even ubernerds understand everything about D&D!
While we’re mentioning games that allow you to fight religious entities, you can’t leave out Assassin’s Creed 2 where you get to sword fight the pope, literally. Too bad it’s in the Renaissance era.
Forget Jesus! I imagine a new version of Gods of War where you have to fight the Pope and his band of priests to stop them abusing children in Germany!
#24:
That was a triumph! I’m making a note here: huge success.
All right, I’ve been waiting for an excuse to share this with my fellow Pharyngulites…
Gaming After 40 Video Podcast: Why Do Christian Games Suck?
Jesus would wield a home made cat-o-9-tails (made by himself like he used back in the day, or made by abused children like his Catholic friends use), with poison razor blades on the whips.
He’d use his omnipresence to throw crackers on the ground and create copies of himself to help fight (kurakka bushin no jutsu!)
Enough copies will summon a giant cross and swing it as one giant cudgel, or a bunch of crosses will fly up out of the ground and form a cage, making it impossible to evade his acid breath (the healing oil in miracle statues is just a heavily diluted form of his killer acid breath..i think that’s in the bible somewhere.)
Jesus would use attacks like the “Pacifist Stomp” “Love and Peace Flying Kick of Death!” or “Love thy neighbor rushing barrage of flying shivs”
Or not, whatever.
I came up with a Christian game/anime idea in high school called One Pope. It was a tournament fighter where one had to sail to the Vatican and collect the 7 magical Pope Hats to become the One True Pope.
Jesus would OBVIOUSLY be a necromancer, he raised others from the dead. He’d definitely be throwing hoards of zombies at Kratos.
Yeah, but Christian zombies aren’t very impressive, because they’re scared of braaaains.
Final Fantasy 10 had a fairly anti-religous theme. The leaders of the church were actually dead “unsent” people and were helping to perpetuate a cycle of death and destruction. Good game.
Looks like Kratos could benefit from a downgrade to iron weapons (Judges 1:19). The Abrahamic lineup wouldn’t stand a chance.
My best friend was raised by fundies. Much of my high school life was devoted helping him smuggle RPGs and play them. The reason they don’t decry those games is because they’ve already written them off for using magic (which is the same reason they write off D&D). If you pretend to use magic, you’re actually using magic and making baby Jesus cry as you become some halloween vision of what witches look like.
I remember being dumbfounded by the lack of logic. So yeah, if it’s “evil” from the beginning then none of them are going to get deeper to find out it’s even more evil than they expected. They’re just going to compare it to the most mainstream evil of that form (D&D) and leave it there. And no one who’s big into RPGs is going to tell them more because they view any and all RPG players as Satan’s children, including their own children.
But yeah JRPGs get a lot of license to tell some really interesting stories, including religious ones. Probably why they’re my favorite genre. It’s like a novel series, with gameplay!
(Bows…)
Come to think of it, GLADOS really does have a bit of the passive-aggressive, whiny, completely insane, ‘now look what you made me do’ Jesus/Yahweh thing going on, doesn’t she?
Hmm…
I’m not even angry
I’m being so sincere right now
Even though you mock my pain
And crucified me
And fed me to lions
Yeah that was you, not me, I swear
As I died it hurt because I was so happy for you
Now these chunks of bread taste like crap but it’s fine
And I’ll keep on whining if you step out of line
I’m so glad I got iced
Now I can be a bitchy Christ
To the rest of you all still aliiiive…
Yahweh–failed experiment. Arbitrary, insane, kills stuff at random then sings about it…
(/Best call now is probably just to erase all notes, start over, hope to fuck whoever’s funding this mess never hears about any of this…)
But yeah JRPGs get a lot of license to tell some really interesting stories, including religious ones. Probably why they’re my favorite genre. It’s like a novel series, with gameplay!
WRPGs can also have some fun stories. I’m going through Fallout 1 right now, it’s really amazing.
Sounds strangely familiar. Does it end with everyone getting hugged and turning into Tang? (-:
Now throw the “Fruit F*cker” into the game and I’m sold.
Oh man. Bayonetta. It reminds me I need to finish that game.
Curse my lack of timing and those STUPID SPEEDY CLAWED FIRE AND LIGHTNING ANGEL BITCHES.
…Sluttiest game ever and I LOVE IT.
Try the yellow lollies. They help a lot.
Man, Jesus’s character would suck at this game. You hit him and all he does is turn his check. God’s character wouldn’t be much better. If you hit him and all he would do is smote so random character for being gay.
Sasquatch Jesus or Cupid would win the war of gods.
Oh great, it’s one of those threads where everyone starts talking in abbreviations.
No mention of Xenogears? It’s heavily Gnostic, with a “church” that simply exists to collect/scavenge super weapons and experimenting on humans to make them “parts” to regenerate “God” (who like Demiurge is unknowingly usurping the real God’s place).
But yea, Shin Megami Tensei is really the standard-bearer here. Fundies would have no way of knowing it though, the franchise is rather Nintendo Hard, so you really need to want to beat them to get to any juicy parts. GTA they ain’t.
(Sorry for the TVTropes link, but other people have been doing it and I just want to fit in with the cool kids!)
Does it end with everyone getting hugged and turning into Tang? (-:
Or giant naked men and women (other than the lead, god damn those legs) screaming at you to end humanity?
No mention of Xenogears? It’s heavily Gnostic, with a “church” that simply exists to collect/scavenge super weapons and experimenting on humans to make them “parts” to regenerate “God” (who like Demiurge is unknowingly usurping the real God’s place).
Oh lord. I haven’t played that but Xenosaga is fine too (monsters that go around turning you into pillars of salt, villains quoting the bible, etc.).
But yea, Shin Megami Tensei is really the standard-bearer here. Fundies would have no way of knowing it though, the franchise is rather Nintendo Hard, so you really need to want to beat them to get to any juicy parts. GTA they ain’t.
To be fair, GTA can be damn hard too. Flying that seaplane in Vice City gave me nightmares!
Cannot say I’m much into computer games, but it does seem relevant here to point out the comic book series Preacher. There, God is up against the Saint of Killers. It’s a nice series with a beautifully romantic ending.
:-o
Awesome.
…must… steal… entire… month… out… of… nowhere… and… read… that… book…
The ‘banned’ game sounds extremely interesting. I don’t know anything about it, but I can imagine a game scenario where kids have to ‘perform special moves’ to avoid the Priest from performing same. Perhaps I’m off base with my speculation about his version of gameplay, but I could easily imagine one of you sharp young hooligan atheists cranking out a nice little flash ditty based on such a concept. It has the added bonus of being contemporaneously significant.
And you’d needn’t worry about it getting banned if you couched the launch as an educational tool just to help ‘protect the children’.
Enjoy.
It would actually be shorter to list the J-RPGs that DON’T involve killing god as the major plot point.
It’s a very short list.
Not all of these gods are overtly christian, of course, but many subvert the standard imagery (wings, halos, latin-chanting boss theme music, etc).
The plot variants I am aware of:
1. Big bad is a lunatic who aspires, and succeeds, in ascending to godhood. This not infrequently involves dying and resurrecting. The players’ job is to take him down. (FFIV, FFVI, FFVII)
2. God is a lie (or is dead) and the big bad controls a powerful church to perpetuate this lie. Not infrequently also has, or aspires to obtain, godlike powers. (Tales of Symphonia)
3. The big bad is a god-like figure who may or may not even have worshippers, but is more a satanic/eldritch abomination type. Occassionally a quasitechnological entity. (FFIII, FFV, Phantasy Star IV, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Lunar Eternal Blue)
Subverted in Lunar Silver Star Story where god (goddess!) wants to give up her powers and become mortal, and the big bad opposes this and tries to reverse it.
/Adopts Gendo pose.
Subverted in Lunar Silver Star Story where god (goddess!) wants to give up her powers and become mortal, and the big bad opposes this and tries to reverse it.
Double subverted in the PSP remake where you kill a God in the intro effortlessly.
“One has to wonder what kinds of abilities the Christian deity would bring to the table.”
Turning the other cheek…
Kratos: Shing! Snicket! Hack!
Jesus: Turn
Kratos: Shrug… Shing! Snicket! Hack!
Jesus has an infinite supply of loaves and fishes to use as weapons. That unleavened bread can pack a punch!
I should have known was I was young and played BoF2 for the first time I’d end up an atheist. I loved “stealing” from the church in the second town even before I knew they were the bad guys, though they did give me a bad feeling pretty early on.
Also on the Final Fantasy streak of anti-religion gaming, the latest installment (although I’m only 20 hours into it) is going towards a religious type government and the powers that be are willing to screw the world to get to their “god” kind of path.
One has to wonder what kinds of abilities the Christian deity would bring to the table.
Sending she-bears to do battle against belligerent boys. Striking dead fig trees that do not have fruit when out of season. An inability to battle iron chariots. Sending out the angels to slaughter the first born males of a given area. The ability to bet with it’s adversary.
I do not know much about such video games but I am sure this will be rather odd.
#17
Funny trivia: Hideki Kamiya’s surname written 神谷 in Japanese means “valley of god”.
I do not know much about such video games but I am sure this will be rather odd.
It sounds par for the course.
A game called Kakuto Chojin (for the Xbox) was yanked from distribution because it was offensive to Muslims.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakuto_Chojin
I get so tired of people being forced to pander to such stupidity.
I’m glad I’m in good company here. “Go suck a dick, Muhammed!”
:)
A game called Kakuto Chojin (for the Xbox) was yanked from distribution because it was offensive to Muslims.
LittleBigPlanet and Ocarina of Time also needed to be changed due to offending muslims. Odd how Christianity doesn’t seem to care about the vidya anymore, but Muslims complain about it.
You all have to check out Neal Adam’s Son o’ God comic done for National Lampoon.
http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/417/
It’s more that they made Left Behind: Eternal Forces and lost the ability to complain about portraying others in a bad light. The “bad guys” are the UN (thinly veiled), and you either convert or kill the unbelievers. Oh, and men can be priests/construction workers/soldiers while women get to be nurses. The good guys are white, and the bad guys are generally Arab or black.
Video game idea…
Jebus Pac Man, he is at last supper eating eucharist crackers and bottles of wine for power ups and being chased by Heb’s and Roman soldiers.
Jebus carrying the cross to the hill. (Frogger style)
See how many nails you can get into Jebus on the cross before he finally dies.
Jebus acsension Whack a Mole. Whenever he tries to ascend from a different grave you hit him with a hammer and knock him back down.
Recovered Catholic@69-
You left out Son-O’-God Meets Zimmerman.
Hey thanks daveau,
The entire series is there including that, if you keep on reading through. VERY funny stuff!
RC-
I didn’t see the continued, since I’m at work and absolutely not reading comic books online. ;-) Your link is much better quality anyhow. I was just looking for Zimmerman, I didn’t remember he meets Son-O’-God.
Um, YHWH’s already been killed in gaming. Repeatedly, really. Off the top of my head, Shin Megami Tensei games often place him as the final boss, and after he gets whacked, you find out he’s coming back as long as humanity is too weak to exist without asking for his help. It’s also stated that in one of the endings to the related spinoff Devil Survivor, you take the power of the god that preceded YHWH and use it to wage holy war on him.
In these games, you also usually have the option to serve YHWH; Doing so tends to bring about horrid dictatorships where people are kept stupid and fearful, but think they’re happy, at least. God of War is NOT going to be anywhere near the first game where you specifically kill YHWH, if it happens in 4 :P
It’s because they figured out that they’re really just giving games publicity.
That game pisses me off. Not for the content, but because it had a neat gameplay idea that nobody’s since used or heard of because… well, nobody played Left Behind: Eternal Forces because it’s awful.
Oh, someone already mentioned some SMT.
Actually this is where they figured out they weren’t helping their cause. Nocturne got *Flipping Huge* amounts of flak at its release. Most reviews praised the devil summoning aspects, while most Christian Watchdog groups were all :E :E :E about consorting with often-friendly demons (Never you mind that most demons are not Christian Demons and several other things that undermine their stupid complaints, including Angels being Demons too), and for opposing the Almighty directly.
Then the almost completely unmarketted games actually became sort of popular. And they apparently learned not to do that again. Frankly, I still owe them a fruit basket for allowing SMT games to continue in Merika. ;)
I must have been living under a rock not to have noticed the backlash, but that shows just how much I pay attention to review-wise.
Frankly, I still owe them a fruit basket for allowing SMT games to continue in Merika. ;)
I think Persona 3 was a huge help in getting them to release more SMT games here, and 4 certainly helped matters. Speaking of which, I need to go pick up Strange Journey soon!
Playing with the standard tropes, we could have that uber-secret bonus all-powerful super spell (with the 10 minute FMV animation) that kills the final god boss in one blow be the summoning of an iron chariot.
Moggie (#59):
Once, while science-ing late at night in my office, I discovered that when the overhead lights were off, the glow from my laptop screen gave my reflection in the window perfect scary shiny Gendo glasses.
(It helped that I hadn’t shaved in a while, too.)
May as well keep it relevant:
But if Kratos were to kill Allah, one can just imagine what would happen.
But if Kratos were to kill Allah, one can just imagine what would happen.
Let’s take it even further. Have a battle royale with every single deity in existence (including pink unicorns and a flying spaghetti monster) and force Kratos to win.
If you can kill the titan Prometheus and keep him dead, then Jesus should be easy – he only resurrects every third day like the Phoenix. You have to wonder what sort of super attacks Jesus has when he’s with the rest of the Trinity though – nuclear blast maybe?
Yeah, I have to go get Strange Journey too. But for the record, I’m going to credit the SMT backlash, because almost immediately succeeding Nocturne was Digital Devil Saga. Persona didn’t do super awesome, but apparently turned enough of a profit to keep coming here, so I’m cool with its moderate success. Right Raiho Plushy?
Rutee, you are a good person and you should feel good. +1.
I never did get to try DDS yet, or Devil Survivor. It seems I’ll have to check into those. :)
(I never expected a thread on pharyngula could turn into vidya discussion, oh my).
Honestly, it makes more sense that Kratos did become the Abrahamic God… it would completely explain the old testament.
Going back to the OP…
Anyone have an old copy of one of the SMT games to send to fearless leader? Not sure you can find them in stores, generally, and as I recall the more recent games go a little easier on good old YWHW. At least those explicitly feature YWHW to kill, and don’t get all metaphorical like Kefka in FFVI.
Squeee!
Persona 3 surprised me. I never thought that a game that features repeated imagery of kids holding guns to their heads and pulling the trigger would ever be released in North America. Even more surprising is that it’s being remade for the third time, with a PSP version of the game due out this summer. I suppose I’ll have to buy that one, too.
Anyone have an old copy of one of the SMT games to send to fearless leader?
I could send him a ROM of the first game providing he actually has an interest in Super Nintendo games for some reason and ZSNES/SNES9x. >_>
Ohnoes, you’re killing game manufacturers!
PZ, once you get that emulator, you must kill god! Also, play Earthbound. You get to kill ants with a baseball bat! Also, there’s a cult and a cosmic horror (although sadly, not related to each other).
It wouldn’t do any good, as the ones where you specifically kill YHWH within the course of gameplay are in Japanese. The ending to Nocturne’s True Demon path makes it clear that you’re on your way to go kill him /next/, as Lucifer’s strongerest general in a war against a complete jackass, but he is after the (actual) final boss, Kagutsuchi.
However, if he were actually interested in playing a game where you unambiguously kill YHWH during the course of gameplay (He probably isn’t, since in fairness, SMT is *steeped* in mysticism. It’s just everyone’s mysticism.) he can find the ROM relatively trivially (Or just email me at Ruteekatreya@gmail.com and I can send it to him) and then patch the files from http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=smt2
There.
In fairness, he might like SMT2. While you can choose to work with Satan (As in, YHWH’s avenging Angel, from the old testament) or Lucifer (As in, the rebel against God) to defeat that monstrous jackass, you can also choose to slaughter both and ensure that ultimately, humans will prevail over all.
It is also worth mentioning that the series predominantly skips over the New Testament entirely. Probably because it’s all about Jesus, and Jesus is simply not an interesting character to include in a game series devoted to apocalypse. They’ve got the Four Horsemen in various places, as well as the Whore of Babylon, though. Probably because those are actually vaguely interesting. Ultimately, this may mean that nobody can get their Christianity bitchslaps out of the way, and I can empathize there. But on the other hand, YHWH is unambiguously the God of the Old Testament, and it’s very clear that he’s acting in-character.
Incidentally, SMT is literally part of why I’m an atheist. I’d never read the bible previously, so I took the time to just to see how inaccurate the portrayal was. I was horrified to realize that the only difference was that he didn’t do his own dirty work.
It is also worth mentioning that the series predominantly skips over the New Testament entirely.
They do actually have Messiah in the Persona series, though I see where you’re coming from.
(not to mention the Revelations references)
Just wanted to mention a couple of things:
* First, a phrase by Kratos from the second game, after being told by Zeus that he had the choice to obey him and he kept refusing:
“A choice by the gods is as useless as the gods themselves”.
That phrase still gets me when i remember it.
* Second: You guys may wanna read the Sandman spinoff comic book series Lucifer. Of course, starring Lucifer, who is not the evil bastard they make you believe in religion, he’s more like a pompous egomaniac asshole who’s obsessed with freedom (even freedom from Yahveh’s omniscience and predestination) and despises worship. I won’t give many spoilers (as i hate that), but one deserves to be told: At some point he gets his own freaking universe. And it seems like a nice place. Good series so far, i’m about halfway into it.
Second: You guys may wanna read the Sandman spinoff comic book series Lucifer.
I’ve already beat you to the punch on that. Lucifer is a perfect example of Magnificent Bastard (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard) and the series is excellent. It helps to have read certain parts of Sandman before as well though (such as Morpheus visiting Hell and Lucifer giving him the key).
Heh, he does fit extremely well as a Magnificent Bastard Anti-Hero (or maybe a Villain Protagonist? your choice!)
Heh, he does fit extremely well as a Magnificent Bastard Anti-Hero (or maybe a Villain Protagonist? your choice!)
He seems to go back and forth if anything, depending on the level of crazy he has to interact with.
The end boss in Final Fantasy Tactics is, for all intents and purposes, Jesus.
Final Fantasy X is almost as anti-religious.
The game Bible Adventures was a pro-christian game, but it was so awful that I believe you can credit it with converting countless nerds to atheism.
Extremely relevant:
http://screwattack.com/videos/AVGN-BIBLE-GAMES-2
Even better, it was Jesus as a woman!
Even better, it was Jesus as a woman!
Actually Ajora is male. He just happens to be reincarnating (or whatever) in a female body.
While FFT is a good example of killing a corrupt Christ-like figure, it may not be a good example against God. God in FFT actually affects the world (faith in him makes magical effects increase both on you and on enemies; I guess you could say he’s a sadist?) with things like bringing the dead back to life. It’s the Church of Glabados, the Lucavi, and Saint Ajora that are definitely corrupt; God himself is arguable.
Disclaimer: I’ve only played FFTA and FFT so forgive me if this is addressed in other Ivalice Alliance games.